Free Bitten in Two by Jennifer Rardin

new to tel me. Except that she wanted to put Jack on the phone.
    “Cassandra, I’m not talking to a dog on the—”
    “Here he is!”
    I heard panting. Echoes of my conversation with E.J., only Jack had enough control of his slobbers that Cassandra
    wouldn’t
    need
    to
    decontaminate
    her
    mouthpiece when we hung up.
    “Uh, hel o, Jack. This would be Jaz. Talking to you on the phone.” I dropped my forehead into my hands, knowing Cassandra could blackmail me until the end of time now.
    Because I would pay, yes, raid my savings regularly to make sure nobody ever heard about this. Even so, I said, “I don’t know how you dogs deal with disembodied voices.
    My guess? You’re wondering why I haven’t walked out of Cassandra’s bathroom by now. Anyway, be a gentleman and do your business outside, okay, buddy? See you soon.”
    Cassandra said, “He’s smiling. Huh. I wonder why he’s checking out the toilet?”
    “No idea. So we’re stil stuck on what happened to Vayl?”
    “I’m sorry, Jaz. I haven’t found any mention of this kind o f memory loss in the Enkyklios or my books so far, so I don’t think it’s a natural occurrence for vampires.”

    “Yeah, Astral hasn’t come up with anything either.” Which sucked. Cassandra could research hundreds of supernatural sources. Astral, the wundercat Bergman had invented for me, also contained an Enkyklios, along with every government database I cared to access. Problem was, only a smal number of vamps had ever made it into the records. Most of them lived highly secretive lives, and of those who’d shared info, none had experienced Vayl’s current malady.
    I took a deep breath. “Al right, then. I’m bringing in Sterling.”
    Silence.
    “Cassandra?”
    “I’ve heard of him.”
    “Who hasn’t?”
    “Do you think—that is—maybe someone else would do just as wel ?”
    “We’ve worked together before.”
    “And how did that turn out?”
    I cleared my throat. “I believe the city was going to have that house torn down anyway—”
    “Jaz—”
    “He’s the best. Nobody else wil do.”
    “Okay.”
    “So, uh, could you cal him?”
    I didn’t actual y hear her gulp. But the long pause led me to believe she went through a hard swal ow or two before she said, “Me?”
    “Yeah. Wel .” I pul ed my poker chips out of my pocket.
    Set them down on the bench and began to shuffle them.
    When I’d calmed down enough to talk again I said, “The last time I saw him, he told me that if I ever spoke to him again he was going to turn my hair purple and put a permanent knot in my tongue. He’s good enough to pul that off, you know.”

    “What did you do ?”
    I sighed. If she was going to be my emissary, maybe she should have some background. “It was about three months before I started working with Vayl. I was chasing down a mage who’d been hired by some lobbying group to give the first lady a disease. I can’t even remember the name of it now. But it was rare enough that the government wasn’t providing any research funding. They figured if the president’s wife came down with it, the money would come pouring in. I’d cornered the mage once, but when he nearly dropped a bank sign on me, Pete decided I needed some hocus-pocus in my back pocket.”
    “So he sent in Sterling.”
    “Who is, I kid you not, the most annoying man on earth.
    We’re only on the case for two weeks, but the entire time he never stops bitching about al the gigs he’s missing and how his band is probably just fal ing apart having to play with this dude from St. Louis. Like they’ve never heard of jazz in Missouri.”
    I shook my head, realized Cassandra couldn’t see me, and went on. “So we’re searching through this abandoned house in the worst neighborhood in D.C., where we’ve heard the mage has holed up. There’s trash everywhere. It stinks like rotten potatoes and I’m pretty sure rats are living inside the furniture, so at least Sterling’s wearing shoes