One Grave at a Time (12 page)

Seventeen

T
he last of the wounded were carted off by Medevac, leaving behind only the few uninjured and the bodies in the forest. Even the soldiers and occupants from the RVs were clustered around us, Madigan wanting as many people around him as possible until his transport came. Sage burned in pots in the perimeter surrounding us, but that wasn’t the only smell in the air. The scent of blood and death was also heavy, clinging to the clothes of the survivors as well as emanating from the lost.

“How could this happen?” Madigan muttered, looking around at the carnage.

I’d been standing next to my mother, but Madigan’s comment had me leaving her side to march over to where he stood. Even though the fallen men were strangers who’d threatened to shoot me, they didn’t deserve to die the way they had. The fact that their deaths had been preventable only angered me more.

“How could this happen? Because you didn’t listen when someone told you to
get your men out of here.
”

Madigan’s heart rate hadn’t decreased much since Kramer began slaughtering everyone he could get his noncorporeal hands on. Sadly, that list didn’t include Madigan, which was due in no small part to his being a coward. When Kramer tore through the guards, who fired so wildly at their unseen attacker that I’d taken a few stray bullets just protecting Tyler, Madigan crawled behind the barricade of our crouched bodies. Bones had draped himself over Chris and my mother joined the protective huddle to offer further buffer against the ghost and the bullets. Because of that, Madigan only had a bloody furrow in the side of his leg, more’s the pity.

“This is all your fault,” he stated, pointing a trembling finger at me. “You said ghosts were only faint, residual imprints of leftover energy, no more interactive than a house plant. You compromised my security and the security of—”

“Oh come on,” I interrupted. “I guessed you were too stupid to be trusted with this information, and I was right! You don’t have to be a weatherman to figure out which way the wind blows with you, Madigan. Lying to you was in the best interests of
everyone’s
security, and I wish there wasn’t a pile of dead bodies around me to prove it.”

His face became mottled, and I could almost hear his blood pressure shooting up.

“How dare you? You’ll be lucky if you’re not both found to be accessories in those men’s deaths!”

Bones ignored him, grasping one of the fallen soldiers by the shoulders and staring directly into his helmet.

“You, on the other side of this video feed. You authorized the replacement of a decently intelligent bloke with quite possibly the world’s biggest arsehole—and in my day, I’ve met more than a few arseholes, so I’m speaking from a point of authority.”

Madigan all but roared, “Get away from him!”

“He’s dead, he no longer cares who’s touching him,” Bones replied shortly. “Pity you were more interested in garnering ammunition against her than in valuing his life while he still had it. You blundered into a situation that was far over your head, then ignored warnings to leave. Today, two vampires did more to protect your men than the human leader who was responsible for them. What will your superiors on the other end of this video think of
that
, I wonder?”

Madigan opened his mouth, his face reddening even more, when all at once, he stopped. Then I heard his thoughts snaking through the wall of rage and slogans.
He’s right. Must fix this.

“This has been a terrible tragedy,” Madigan said, sounding mournful instead of about to blow a gasket like he had before. “Anytime life is lost, responsibility ultimately rests on the person in charge, and that person is me. I’ll request that every aspect of today’s events be evaluated so something like this never happens again, even if I’m reprimanded as a result.”

“You’re only trying to cover your ass seven ways from Sunday,” Don said in disgust. Then he turned to me. “You see why I don’t trust him?”

Oh yeah. I hadn’t heard so much bullshit since the last time I drove past a used car lot and caught snatches of the salesmen’s conversations. Madigan even ambled closer to the dead man as he spoke, dragging his leg far more than the shallow wound merited. He leaned down as if to brush some dirt off the fallen solider. What it did was allow the camera to pick up every nuance of his newly somber expression and the tear that somehow found its way onto his cheek.
You coldhearted, manipulating PRICK,
I thought in disbelief.

Bones let out a snort. “Right piece of work, you are.”

Madigan’s lips thinned, but he quickly recovered, straightening as much as he could while balancing most of his weight on one leg.

“I understand you’re both still upset. I did allow my anger to color my judgment when I didn’t listen to your warning. That was a mistake.”

“Is that your idea of an apology?” I asked, incredulous.

“I don’t owe you one,” Madigan snapped before assuming that calmer, controlled tone again. “Had you come to me about this ghost first, without any subterfuge, this tragedy would have been prevented.”

“We didn’t need to come to you because we had it
under control,
” I gritted out. “At least, we did until you had to track me down and interrupt us at gunpoint from trapping this fucker for all eternity, and now you want to blame this on me?”

God, if I stayed here any longer listening to his twisted version of events, I was going to beat him until he bled internally.

Bones must’ve had enough, too, because he took my arm. “Come on, Kitten, let’s go. We’re wasting our time with this sod.”

“You can’t leave yet,” Madigan said, that edge back in his voice.

A slow smile spread across Bones’s face. “Oh?”

We were in the air before Madigan could sputter out a demand for us to stay put. I could fly well enough to propel myself in the general direction I wanted to go, but I lacked the finesse Bones had while flying. So while I took off under my own power, I let him direct us to where Tyler, my mother, and the pet carriers were located. One quick snatch-and-grab later, and they were soaring far above the ground as well. Fabian and Elisabeth didn’t need to be told to follow; they whooshed after us, their forms streamlining into mere blurs.

Don stayed behind with Chris and his crew, who were unharmed thanks to the sage burning in the RVs. Even if Madigan questioned them again, they couldn’t tell any more damaging information about us than they already had. Plus, Madigan would make sure they didn’t repeat anything they’d seen to outside sources. Vampires weren’t the only ones who were experts at concealing incriminating information. The government had extensive practice when it came to that, too.

W
e went straight from Ohio to our best friends Spade and Denise’s home in St. Louis. No, we didn’t fly everyone the whole way. Since merging lines with a vampire several millennia old, Bones now had people accountable to him spread out all over the world. All it took was one call to his co-ruler, Mencheres, saying we needed a pickup for us to be whisked away within the hour. Good thing, too, since we couldn’t have rented a car. We’d left our credit cards and IDs back in one of the RVs. Silly us hadn’t figured on Madigan’s commandeering the RVs and greeting us at gunpoint outside the cave. If Madigan thought to trace us through those aliases or billing card addresses, he was mistaken. Bones had everything routed through so many false channels, Madigan would only end up chasing his tail. I hoped he tried it because the thought of frustrating him pleased me in a petty, vindictive way.

When we arrived at their house, I didn’t even have to get out of the car to see that we weren’t the only visitors. If the flashy Maserati wasn’t enough to clue me in as to who else was here, the custom GR8BITR license plate was confirmation.

“Ah, Ian’s here,” Bones said with none of my dismay at the prospect.

“I see that,” I replied, not airing any of my opinion because Ian could hear me, and it would only amuse him. Some people took exception to being considered a pain in the ass. Ian didn’t only take it as a compliment, he
reveled
in it. If he wasn’t Bones’s sire, I might have “accidentally” staked Ian by now.

“Cat!” Denise exclaimed, flinging open the door. She almost ran to give me a hug, whispering, “Thank God you’re here. He’s driving me crazy!” during her welcoming squeeze.

I smothered a laugh, knowing she wasn’t talking about Spade. Good to see I wasn’t the only one who found Ian irritating. How Bones and Spade had put up with him these past centuries, I’d never know.

“Cat. Justina. Crispin,” Spade said from behind Denise, calling Bones by his human name. “How goes it?”

“Not as well as we’d hoped, Charles,” Bones replied, also addressing him by the name he’d been born with instead of the moniker of the tool Spade had been assigned as a New South Wales prisoner.

Tyler carried Dexter out of the car and set him down. The dog took one look at the open front door of the house and ran inside. My mother followed suit after exchanging a brief hello with Denise and Spade and getting directions to the nearest guest bedroom. It was almost dawn, and as a normal newer vampire, my mother was wilting on her feet. I wasn’t worried about Spade’s having enough room for all of us. He was a former eighteenth-century nobleman, and the spacious opulence of the several houses he owned reflected that.

Tyler sidled up next to me, eyeing Spade with open appreciation.

“Who’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious?”

“Her husband,” I replied, my lips twitching. “Tyler, this is Denise, and that’s Spade.”

Tyler let out a dramatic sigh as he shook Denise’s hand. “All the good ones are either straight or married, but I won’t hold it against you that he’s both.”

Denise laughed. “Great to meet you. Cat’s told me all about you.”

“And some of it’s probably true,” he teased.

Then his attention became fixed on someone behind Denise, his mouth dropping before his expression turned into an open, lascivious stare. Thoughts started to race through his mind that were so explicit, I wished I could take a bat to my head to block out my telekinetic abilities.

“Tyler, meet Ian,” I said without bothering to turn around.

“Daddy
like
,” Tyler breathed.

He straightened his shoulders, fixing his most winning smile on his face as he all but pushed me out of the way. The jostling turned me enough to get a view of the other vampire. Ian leaned against the doorframe, his auburn hair rustling in the breeze and turquoise eyes watching everything with his usual devilishness.

“I thought Bones looked like a little slice of heaven, but you’re the whole cake, aren’t you, sugar?” Tyler said, holding out his hand.

Ian took the praise as his due, flashing Tyler a smile that had the medium almost tripping in his approach. When he shook Tyler’s hand, Tyler let out a sigh that would’ve done a wistful teenager proud.

That face, that body . . . and you
know
he’s packing, look at the angle of that dangle!
I heard before screaming
la-la-la
over and over in my mind.

“The killer ghost is still on the loose,” I announced to try to distract myself from Tyler’s enraptured musings over Ian.

“The trap didn’t work?” Spade asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Killer ghost?” Ian perked up, gently batting Tyler aside with a “Yes, yes, I’m truly stunning, but this interests me,” remark.

“Let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you all about it.” I nodded at Fabian and Elisabeth, who hung back almost shyly by our car. “You too, guys. We’re all in this together.”

Eighteen

O
ne week had passed since the fiasco at the cave. On the plus side, we hadn’t been visited by Kramer during that time, probably because of the copious amounts of weed and garlic that Spade put in and around his house. It was so profuse that Elisabeth and Fabian chose to haunt his neighbor’s home instead of staying at Spade’s with us. The neighbors were human; they wouldn’t mind. They wouldn’t even know.

The bad news was it was now the eighth of October. Elisabeth rode the ley lines every day looking for Kramer, but she’d only caught quick glimpses of him once or twice before he vanished. So far, there were no indications that he’d fixated on any particular women, but if he hadn’t yet, he would soon. The clock was ticking, and we were behind on the scoreboard. Just building another trap wouldn’t work. Kramer had seen and overheard enough to know we were after him, so even if we did find a different, equally ideal cave, he’d be expecting us to try and ensnare him.

We were heading home tomorrow, so that Don would be able to reach us if he needed to. He didn’t know where Spade and Denise lived when they were in the States, but he’d know to try my house if something came up. I expected Madigan to keep a low profile while attempting to undo the damage he’d inflicted on himself with the cave incident, so we probably could’ve waited longer before going home; but Denise was starting to sneeze. Being branded with shapeshifting, demonic essence might have made her practically immortal, but apparently it couldn’t cure her allergies to cats.

“I’m getting a slice of cake. Tyler, you want any?” Denise asked, him being the only other person here who didn’t feed primarily from a liquid diet. The six of us had been relaxing in the living room after dinner, one of my first normal evenings in weeks.

Tyler gave her a droll look. “I’m begging you to tell me your secret. If I ate half as much as you, I’d lose these fierce hips in a week.”

Her smile held a hint of grimness. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

And if she didn’t, Spade would,
I mentally finished. Shapeshifting, limitless healing ability, and a metabolism that burned off calories faster than Denise could consume them weren’t the only effects of the demon brands. Her blood was now a literal drug to vampires, and if word of that got out, every undead scumbag looking to make a buck selling it would come crawling out of their coffins after her.

“I’ll have a piece of cake,” I called out. I might be a vampire, but that didn’t mean I was about to let moist devil’s food cake go to waste.

“But, um, I’ll eat it in my room, if that’s okay,” I amended, getting an idea about that fudgy icing. “I’m heading to bed.”

Bones rose at those words, his eyes glinting as he met my gaze. Guess he’d figured out another use for that cake, too.

“Everyone, I’ll see you on the morrow,” he said. Then he went into the kitchen, took the plate Denise had just put a heaping slice of cake on, and started up the stairs.

“Retiring already, Crispin? Isn’t it quite early?” Ian asked with a wicked little grin.

“Piss off, mate,” Bones replied, sparing me the trouble of saying something similar.

We were halfway up the stairs when Dexter let out a sharp bark. I tensed, but then Elisabeth’s voice followed, letting me know which ghost had suddenly appeared in the house.

“I know where Kramer is!”

I turned toward the sound of her voice. Elisabeth stood in the foyer with Fabian at her side. Bones set the cake plate down on the steps with a sigh.

Ian laughed. “Wretched timing you have, poppet,” he told Elisabeth, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a small, selfish part of me also wished she’d poofed up with this good news a few hours later.

Some of her smile faded. “Is something amiss?”

“Nothing,” I told her while flashing Bones a rueful smile as I started back down the stairs. “Where is he?”

“Sioux City, Iowa,” she replied. “I’ve seen him there four times now. Far too many to be mere coincidence. This must be where he’ll select his victims.”

“He picks
all
of his victims from the same area? I thought you said Kramer made sure never to utilize the same place twice.”

“He chooses a new location every All Hallows’ Eve, very far from any of the places where the previous burnings occurred. Last year, he was in Hong Kong. Often he will hide the bodies to prevent the authorities from realizing the same type of murders occur every year. But the accomplice and the three victims are always chosen from same place.”

He hid the bodies? “Why would he care if the police were onto him? It’s not like they could put him in handcuffs.”

“Because of his accomplices,” Elisabeth replied. “If they learned the pattern of the previous murderers through periodicals or modern news, they would realize that once they’ve concluded their usefulness, Kramer will kill them, too.”

“He eliminates every tie to his crimes, even ones from whoever’s assisting him?” Ian whistled. “Starting to admire this bloke’s resourcefulness.”

“You would,” I countered.

Elisabeth said nothing, but a spasm crossed her face that I picked up on even with her being partially transparent. Fabian floated over to her, resting his hands on her shoulders.

“You must tell them.”

Bones’s brows went up. “Tell us what?” Denise asked, beating him or me to it.

Elisabeth closed her eyes, seeming to gather herself together. If she’d been solid, I’d have asked her to sit down, because she looked downright, well,
ghostly.

“Kramer does not kill his accomplices merely to eliminate ties to his crimes,” she said, her voice barely audible. “He always picks those who are fanatical in their belief that they are doing God’s work by assisting him in the elimination of witches. But many of them, when they see what he . . . does when he is flesh, realize it is all a lie.”

Bones’s expression became grim. Even Ian looked like he’d swallowed something distasteful. Denise seemed as clueless as I felt over Elisabeth’s oblique statement, but then her meaning hit me, and my stomach clenched in a way that made me think I was about to spew up my liquid dinner all over the coffee table.

“He rapes them,” I stated, a deep loathing spreading through me.

Elisabeth’s bowed head came up. She looked right at me as she spoke the next words.

“They weren’t the first.”

This time, I knew right away what she meant, and more of that same fury rose in me. It should come as no surprise that this wasn’t a new pattern for Kramer. I’d read enough of the
Malleus Maleficarum
to know that second only to his hatred of women was Kramer’s deviant obsession with female sexuality. Rape would be yet another tool he’d use in his quest to physically and emotionally destroy women before he had them killed, and in Elisabeth’s time, Inquisitors were given absolute power over the accused—and unsupervised access.

Elisabeth had endured this hellish nightmare, then watched Kramer continue on in the same despicable pattern as a ghost. Yet here she was—unbroken, uncowed, and unwilling to give up her quest for justice no matter which side of eternity she had to fight for it on.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” I said, awed by her strength.

That made her bow her head again. “No, but out of everyone Kramer murdered, I alone still exist. I owe it to the lost not to give up.”

Silence met her statement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother swipe at her face as if chasing away tears. It brought back an awful memory: her, covered in dirt and blood, begging me to kill her because she couldn’t live with what she’d done during her first few, blood-crazed days as a new vampire. All my arguments of how the vampire who’d thrown those humans in with her—
knowing
what would happen and doing it just to torment her—was the real murderer had fallen on deaf ears. Only Bones sternly telling my mother she wasn’t allowed to die because it would dishonor the sacrifice Rodney made when he gave his life during her rescue had reached her.

Sometimes, continuing on in honor of the lost was all a person had.

“Sioux City, Iowa.” Bones drew the words out. “We’ll go there tomorrow.”

I shook myself out of the sorrows of the past. To stop Kramer, I needed to be focused on the present. That was probably what had kept Elisabeth sane and on track all these years.

“Let’s get back to Kramer’s pattern. If he’s so concerned about covering his tracks, do you know why he picks his victims from the same city?”

Maybe his motive would be something we could use against him. Sticking to the same area was common enough if we were talking human, vampire, or ghoul serial killers, but as a ghost, Kramer could circle the entire globe in hours if he kept hopping on enough ley lines.

“Why would he limit himself that way?” I continued to wonder. “He knows you’ve been after him, Elisabeth, but he’s making himself easier to find by sticking to one area when he hunts for his victims.”

Bleakness tightened her features. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve proven to be no real threat to him over the years.”

“That’s not why,” Bones stated. “Kramer can flit in and out of cities in a blink, but his accomplice is flesh and blood. Much more limiting, so if the intended victims are all located within a small geographic area, they’re easier for the accomplice to collect when the time comes.”

Right, Kramer couldn’t kidnap those women himself unless he waited until he was solid, and that only happened for one night. Must not be enough time for the bastard to do every horrible thing on his wish list before he burned them alive. But while the accomplice was Kramer’s most valuable asset, he was also the Inquisitor’s Achilles’ heel. If we found the accomplice in time, Kramer would spend Halloween evening all fleshed up but with no one to torture or burn. The thought filled me with savage satisfaction.

“We need to kill the accomplice as soon as we find out who he is,” I stated.

“No.”

All heads swung toward Bones, mine included. He tapped his chin, his dark gaze measured and cold.

“If we find out who the accomplice is, we grab him. Mesmerize him into telling us exactly where Kramer intends to hold his nasty bonfire. Then on All Hallows’ Eve, we go there, saving the women while capturing both sods instead of only one. Kramer will be solid then, and he can’t escape as easily when he’s solid, can he?”

I stared at my husband’s profile, noting how his sculpted cheekbones, curving dark brows, and exquisite crystal skin only highlighted the ruthlessness of his expression.

“So we go to Sioux City and find the accomplice,” I said softly.

His mouth curved into a smile that was half predator, half dream lover.

“Indeed.”