“That’s great, Jo-Jo,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“You’ll have Jemina eating crow in no time,” Saber added. “Just don’t gamble away your paycheck.”
“That’s no problem. I don’t have the face to bluff.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “All right, Highness, let’s start with jumping levitation since we had to cut that short last night.”
Pandora hopped off the well and trotted around the park, stopping now and then to sniff the grass or the air. Was that just a cat thing, or was she detecting trouble?
I jumped and hovered, then practiced standing levitation. I didn’t get off the ground much in either exercise, and tripped over myself trying those walking takeoffs. I knew it was all in my head, but I kept hearing those phfft sounds of bullets whizzing by me the night before.
Forty-five minutes into the lesson, Saber’s cell phone rang, startling us all. He flipped the phone open, barked, “Saber,” then listened.
The last of my pitiful concentration was shot as soon as he asked, “How many of them are dead?”
TWELVE
015
Saber walked away from us, the cell phone vacuum-sealed to his ear.
Which didn’t mean I couldn’t turn on the vamp hearing and eavesdrop, but I didn’t.
“Should we sink a fang in it and call it done?”
When I must’ve looked blank, Jo-Jo added, “The flight lesson, Highness. We’re done, right?”
“Right. Is that a new line for your comedy act?”
“That depends. You like it?”
I wagged my hand in the so-so sign.
He glanced at Saber. “Same time, same place tomorrow?”
“Unless I call you, yes. And thanks, Jo-Jo.”
He gave me a little bow, turned, and executed a perfect walking takeoff. I didn’t care about hovering, but I sure would save a lot of gas money if I could do that kind of flying.
On the other hand, I couldn’t see me flying to the beach with my surfboard. That would just be weird. Yes, I was distracting myself from listening in on Saber, but I didn’t have to be good for long.
“Right, Candy,” Saber said as he walked toward me again. “I’ll call you back from Cesca’s as soon as we do a sweep.”
Saber flipped his phone shut, and Pandora loped to join us.
“Trouble?”
“Candy and Crusher went to see Vlad, but they were ambushed on the way out.”
My breath hitched. “Are they all right? I mean, I guess they are since Candy called you, but—”
“We’ll talk about it at home.” He looked down at Pandora. “This is a stretch for me, but I need you to ride back with us and sweep the neighborhood. Will you do that?”
Pandora chuffed and trotted toward the SUV.
Saber grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”
We drove up and down every block in my neighborhood so Pandora could alert us to any lurking danger. When she gave me the mental thumbs-up, Saber parked at the curb in front of Maggie’s and hustled me inside the cottage. He even asked Pandora into the house to scope my place for bugs. Listening devices, he’d clarified in case Pandora thought he meant stray water beetles. Saber brought his own bug-detecting equipment from his car. Pandora didn’t say a word—or rather think a thought—while she and Saber worked their way through my house. Within ten minutes, Saber declared the cottage clean. Then he went to the kitchen to get Candy on the phone.
Pandora insisted on leaving. I will patrol, she said in my head as she stood at the door. I let her out, and she grew to full panther size as she padded across the lawn. Five months ago, it had freaked me out to see her do that trick. Heck, five months ago, Pandora herself had freaked me. Had my perception of normal changed or what?
When I joined Saber in the kitchen, he not only had Candy on the line, he’d turned the phone on speaker. We huddled over the handset resting on my retro table.
“Candy, tell me everything now. I want Cesca to hear this from the beginning.”
“Cesca, this is Candy Crushman,” she said with a Southern drawl. “My husband Jim and I did a drop-in on Vlad and his nest tonight. Somehow they expected us.”
“So you didn’t arrange to see them?” I asked. My VPA handler always called me to schedule a visit. Then again, I went to see him most of the time, not the other way around.
“Did I make an appointment, you mean? No. The goal was to catch them off guard, but they weren’t surprised. And weren’t remotely cordial either.”
“What happened?” Saber asked.
“We observed a hell of a lot of tension in the nest, and, when we asked who was being punished, the tension amped. Vlad said two vamps were being restrained, and admitted one was this Marco dude you asked us to look for.”
“Did Vlad say why they were in lockdown or when they’d be released?”
“Nope, only that they were learnin’ not to defy him.”