One Grave at a Time (13 page)

Nineteen

I
picked up the chocolate cake on my way to the bedroom, but that was more because I didn’t want to leave it on the steps than a continued craving for it. My thoughts were more focused on justifiable homicide than cake eating, kinky or otherwise. I wasn’t the only one in a more somber mood. My mother muttered that she was going for a drive and left the house without any further comment. It could be nothing more than her leaving to find someone to drink from, but I didn’t think hunger was her sole motivator. I probably never wanted to know how much of Elisabeth’s treatment she herself had endured during the time she’d been kidnapped, murdered, and forcibly changed into a vampire, all because another vampire was trying to get back at me. Fabian and Elisabeth also left right after her, not needing a car to get away, of course.

Contemplating all the sickening things that Kramer and others like him had done made me feel like I was covered in an invisible layer of filth, causing me to go straight into the shower after entering the bedroom. I couldn’t wash away Kramer’s evil from the world—yet—but I could wash myself off before bed, at least.

When I came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, Bones was seated on the edge of the bed, absently petting my cat. His shoes were off, his shirt in a pile on the floor next to them, but he hadn’t undressed further than that. I paused in the middle of toweling my hair. Normally, Bones didn’t do anything halfway, but he just sat there, as if he’d run out of energy to take off his pants.

“Everything okay?” I asked, coming closer.

He smiled slightly, abandoning his attention to my cat in favor of reaching out to rest his hands on my waist. “I was just remembering when I said if I were any more relaxed about our circumstances, I’d need a smoke. Spoke too soon, as it turned out.”

I took another step until the thick fabric of my robe almost brushed his face. “Yeah, well. Fate has a dark sense of humor sometimes, right?”

“We need to discuss something, Kitten.”

He sounded so serious that nervousness wormed its way into my gut. “What?”

“Limits,” he said steadily. “I want to stop Kramer. His sort is the reason why I fell into contract killing in the first place, as I told you a long time ago. But, much as I admire her courage, I don’t want to see you turn into Elisabeth.”

I leaned back to look at him, brushing a dark curl behind his ear. “What do you mean by that?”

“She’ll never stop hunting him. She’s accepted it as her purpose in life, but there is a very real possibility that we won’t be able to trap him. We’ll bloody well try, but”—Bones flicked his fingers, blowing out a breath at the same time—“he’s air all but one night a year, so we’re literally chasing the wind. I’m not saying we’ll give up if we can’t catch him this Halloween, but I am saying that one day, even if Elisabeth doesn’t stop, we may have to.”

“But he can’t just keep getting
away
with this,” I argued at once. “How can we think about quitting? You heard what he does! And he’ll keep on doing it unless he’s stopped.”

Bones caught my hands, his dark gaze intense. “This is exactly what I meant about your turning into Elisabeth. She’s given every moment of the past five hundred years over to Kramer, in one way or another, and there’s been a price for that, hasn’t there? She shares her life with only her plans for vengeance, and she’s more than earned that vengeance, but I don’t want to see you go down the same path. Sometimes, people who deserve vengeance don’t get it, and people who are due punishment escape their comeuppance.”

He sighed and dropped my hands, a muscle ticking in his jaw before he spoke again.

“I’m not saying we try this Halloween and then stop if we fail. I’m willing to commit years to this because I want this sod locked in a box so he can forever know the helplessness and terror he’s inflicted on others, but I can accept that it might not happen. You need to accept that, too, because know this—I won’t let you sacrifice yourself in a never-ending quest to defeat someone who might not be able to be caught.”

My fists clenched. “You could do that? Turn your back on Elisabeth and all of Kramer’s future victims, knowing what will keep happening? You would let that murdering prick win—”

“This isn’t a game, Kitten,” he interrupted. “It’s life, and there will always be injustice no matter how frustrating that is to accept. We’ll give Kramer our best shot, but if we fail, we fail. And then we move on.”

I sucked in a breath to tell him what I thought of that quitter mentality, but under Bones’s hard, knowing stare, I expelled it not in a rant, but in a long sigh. Kramer was such a clear-cut case of evil prowling on the loose that it felt like a betrayal of everything those women had suffered to admit that Kramer could use his ghostly state to forever evade punishment. My knee-jerk response was to shout,
Screw that, I’ll catch you if it’s the last thing I ever do!

And that was how Elisabeth had let the pursuit of him fill her life until there was room for nothing else. Part of me still wanted to call Bones a coldhearted bastard for even considering giving up the hunt on Kramer one day, but that would just be my denial talking. I wouldn’t mean those ugly words, and they wouldn’t be true; nonetheless they’d been frothing close to the surface. The knowledge that I’d been about to attack the man I loved because he pointed out the very obvious fact that we lived in a world where sometimes, good
didn’t
defeat evil, and the good guys didn’t ride off into the sunset made me realize how far down Elisabeth’s road I’d already traveled.

I still admired her for her strength of will under repeated, devastating circumstances, but now, I also pitied her. Elisabeth lived for defeating Kramer, and nothing else. How much richer would the long years of her life have been if she’d still sought a way to stop Kramer, but chosen to
live
for something else, like friendship or love?

“You’re not going to lose me to this,” I finally said. “Defeating Kramer is my goal, and I’ll try like hell to accomplish it, but you, Bones . . . you’re my life, and you always will be.”

He stood, catching my hand in his. Slowly, he raised it to his lips, kissing the ring he’d first put on my finger two years ago. Then his mouth moved up my hand, dragging over my wrist before continuing on its path up my arm, his gaze never leaving mine. By the time he reached my shoulder, I was quivering with desire and other, deeper emotions. I wanted to cry for all the years I’d let circumstances keep us apart, and I wanted to tear away his pants so he could be inside me, bringing us as close together as two people could be.

A moan escaped me when his mouth caressed my neck, his lips and fangs teasing the sensitive skin. He caught my wrists when I tried to slide my hands over his back, holding them gently at my sides. Now my moan was one of mild frustration. Even though he was so close that his aura brushed over me like a warm, invisible cloud, our bodies weren’t touching. The only contact we had was his mouth on my neck and his hands clasped around my wrists, and that wasn’t enough. Yet when I moved forward, he took a step back, his soft chuckle muffled by my throat.

“Not yet.”

Yes,
yet.
I edged closer again, but Bones sidestepped me once more. I couldn’t even slide my robe off to tempt him with bare flesh because he still held my wrists in a gentle yet unyielding grip.

“Bones,” I whispered. “I want to touch you.”

His low growl rumbled against my throat. “And I want to touch you, Kitten. So hold still and let me try.”

What did he mean, try? I was right here, attempting to bring our bodies together, and he was the one thwarting me. All he had to do was let go of my wrists, and we’d be touching every inch of each other in about two seconds flat—

I gasped, surprise and ecstasy flaring in me at the sudden tug along the sensitive tips of my nipples. They hardened in expectation of another touch, and it came, leaving them aching with the need for more. But Bones’s hands hadn’t left my wrists, and his mouth was still pressed to my neck, tongue and fangs grazing over the areas that made me weakest with desire.

“How?” I managed, the question ending on a groan as both tips felt like they were being slowly, sensually pinched.

His hands tightened on my wrists. “Because I want to touch you so badly, yet I’m not allowing myself. So my mind is doing it for me. Feel where I want to be touching you right now . . .”

I didn’t have time to be amazed at this exercise of his new power before a long, intimate caress had me shuddering with rapture. My loins clenched, greedily demanding more. The thought that he must’ve been practicing his telekinetic ability on the sly in order to wield it so skillfully now flitted through my mind before another tantalizing stroke cleared out any more musings under a tide of need. Bones continued to kiss my neck, his tongue flicking out to lave away the scant drops of blood he drew when his fangs broke my skin. A sharper, rougher moan left my lips, my eyelids lowering with the erotic sensations, until my vision was narrowed to two heavy-lidded slits.

That was why it took me a second to notice the small object right behind him, but my instincts took over before my mind roused from its state of sensual bliss. I kicked Bones’s legs out from under him the instant before Helsing let out loud hiss, throwing myself forward to shield Bones from the arcing path of the knife.

Fire sliced a path from my cheek down the back of my neck. Bones spun in midair, knocking away the blade that continued to rip down my body. Through the veil of red hair that swung into my face, I saw a dark, diaphanous form start to take shape in the room.

“Kramer!” I shouted.

Twenty

B
ones lunged for the sage and lighters on our nightstand, but the ghost crashed it over before he could get to it. The lighter went flying across the room, the sage getting buried under the remains of the table. That knife surged toward me again, but before it landed, Bones had me in a bear hug, rolling us out of the way. Pain cresting through my subconscious told me he hadn’t rolled fast enough, but I couldn’t see where he’d been stabbed. I pushed at his chest, but he didn’t let me go, grimly keeping his body between me and the silver knife that kept slashing at us no matter how fast we moved.

Our door crashed open. Denise’s brown hair flew around her as she charged in holding a wad of sage and a lighter. Before she could connect the two, however, the bed launched across the room and slammed into her. She held on to the sage, but lighter was jolted from her hand at the impact of the frame crushing against her fingers. It skidded across the room not far from where Helsing huddled, his hair standing on end and yowling sounds coming from him.

Another crash of footsteps coming down the hall was met with the bed and all the other furniture in the room slamming over the doorway, effective blocking it. Over the booming at the blockaded door, I heard an even more chilling sound—the metallic clang of our weapons’ bag being ripped open. Before I could even shout out a warning, a slew of silver came torpedoing at us.

Bones must’ve heard it, too, because he whipped us to the left so violently that we crashed through the dividing wall into the bathroom. An ugly chuckle reached us over the slew of curses Spade emitted at the ghost.

“Don’t come in here, there’s a shitload of silver!” Denise yelled.

“She’s right, stay back,” Bones called out when a tremendous crash sounded like Spade used his body as a battering ram against the door and all its furniture impediments. If he was thinking clearly, he’d realize he could barrel through the dry wall in the next room a lot easier, but I didn’t want him in here, so I wasn’t about to point that out.

“Start burning sage outside the room,” Bones continued urgently. “Sod won’t be able to stand it soon enough.”

Then he grabbed the edge of the ornate countertop, ripping it off with enough savagery to send hunks careening around the room. “Keep this in front of you, Kitten,” he ordered, handing me the makeshift marble shield. Then he tore off a smaller hunk for himself, blood from the sharp edges painting his hands red.

“You will die, woman,” Kramer hissed. I thought he was talking to me, but I didn’t see his cloudy, disgusting form in either the crashed-in wall or the normal entrance to the bathroom. Then a thwacking sound coincided with Denise’s yelp.

“Denise!” Spade roared.

“Stay back, you know he can’t kill me!” she shouted, her voice more shrill from pain.

Bones and I burst back into the bedroom, holding up our hunks of countertops to ward off the volley of knives that immediately flew our way. Multiple explosions of pain blasted through me as the silver pierced my legs and arms, but I kept my heart protected, and everything else would heal.

Denise was on the opposite end of the room, crimson soaking her hair from a head wound and several smaller cuts darkening her clothes with blood. I hesitated, fighting my urge to run in front of her. If I did, I’d only be sending more knives her way, because Kramer was after me and Bones. Denise had just dared to interfere with his plans for us.

“Denise, try to get out,” I whispered.

“I’m the safest person in this room,” she countered.

Kramer spun to face us, giving Bones and me just a second to raise our marble barriers before more knives came hurtling at us.

“Stop it!” Denise yelled.

The ghost ignored her. “You try to defeat me?” Kramer hissed in our direction. “I will destroy you.”

Bones replied something in German. I didn’t know enough of the language to translate, but whatever he said made the ghost howl with outrage. More knives went flying, but only aimed at him this time.

“Hurry up with that sage,” I called out desperately. Spade had been kind enough to supply us with a lot of weapons for our trip home, but now that meant Kramer had more ammunition against us. Plus, he would reuse the knives, flinging them as fast as they could drop or bounce off our shields.

The ghost’s powers seemed even greater than before. Was it because of the closer proximity to Halloween, or because he was still really, really pissed over our attempt to trap him in the cave? We ducked under another barrage of silver, trying to make it to some sage lying on the far side of the demolished room. We couldn’t afford to let our attention wander from the knives that seemed to come at us from all sides. Or the ghost who could pop up anywhere around us in a blink, bashing our bodies with what felt like painful bursts of energy. Even with how fast we moved, we didn’t know which direction the next attack would come from. All Kramer needed was one lucky strike with a silver blade, and Bones or I would be shriveled.

“You need to get the fuck out of my house,” Denise snarled.

I hadn’t taken my attention off the hornet’s nest of silver knives around us or the ghost who could somehow amass enough energy to make me feel like I was going ten rounds with an undead Mike Tyson, but then something large and dark filled my peripheral vision. I glanced over where Denise had been—and stared.

Bones yanked me down just in time to avoid a silver knife headed right for my cheek. It landed in the wall behind us instead, but I still couldn’t quit glancing back at the other side of the room. Helsing let out a frightened hiss and tried harder to hide in the bed and furniture pile.

“Bones, she’s . . . she’s . . .”

I didn’t say more, but pointed. His gaze flicked over, and then widened as even his finely honed defensive instinct couldn’t cause him to look away from what was now an incredibly fast-growing mass. Almost absently, he held up his shield at the new influx of knives thrown his way.

Cracking sounds of the ceiling giving way alerted Kramer into turning around. When he did, the knives he’d levitated for imminent attack fell to the ground, and the ghost froze like he’d magically been welded to the spot.

“
Drache,
” he managed to croak.

The bottom half of a huge creature now took up the majority of the once-spacious room, part of its neck and all of its head disappeared into the hole it had made of the ceiling. Curved scales that looked tougher than crocodile skin formed a green-and-black design over the creature’s body, darkening in color as they reached its quad-runner-sized legs. A tail wider than my torso whipped out, knocking over the broken bits of furniture scattered about the room before settling in front of me and Bones like a living, flexible barricade. Two thick, horned humps unfurled from the creature’s back, revealing dark green wings that took up what was left of the room even though they were only half extended. Their spiked, clubbed ends stabbed holes in the carpet as the creature appeared to use them to balance its great body. Then more wood and plaster rained down, and a new, larger hole appeared, quickly being filled by a massive, elongated head punching through the ceiling. Its jaws were as big as the bed, saucer-sized crimson eyes glaring right at the transfixed ghost while scales like a headdress flared out behind it.

“Denise, you have out
done
yourself,” Bones murmured in astonishment.

I still couldn’t form words yet. Yes, I’d seen Denise shapeshift before, once into a cat and once into an exact replica of me when she acted as my decoy. But I had no idea that she could manifest something of this
magnitude.
Not ten feet in front of me was what could only be described as a large dragon. One that looked straight out of the movie
Reign of Fire
—only slightly smaller, because this dragon seemed to be only about two stories tall and I think the one from the film was double that size.

If she manages to breathe fire,
I thought in numbing awe,
I might actually pass out.

Kramer remained frozen where he stood, almost as if he thought staying still would render him invisible. He seemed to have forgotten that he had the ability to poof away, because from his expression, he didn’t want to be anywhere near the enormous dragon glaring down at him with rows of teeth gleaming from a snarling mouth. Yet, with the creature’s tremendous girth, Kramer was practically in the dragon’s lap.

Glass exploded outward as a piece of porch furniture hurtled through the bedroom window. It didn’t go far, bouncing off the dragon’s hind leg and almost flattening my cat, who huddled in terror behind the remains of the bed.

“Room service!” Ian sang out, appearing in the smashed-open window. He had lit sage overflowing both hands, but when he saw the dragon, he froze just like Kramer had, his fanged mouth dropping open.

“Bugger me blind and
bow
legged!”

“Don’t just stand there, throw the sage,” Bones ground out.

Ian shook his head as if to clear it, then he threw the sage at the ghost, who howled as he finally tried to whoosh out of the way.

More plaster and wood showered the room in the next instant. Then Spade appeared in the huge hole he’d made in the wall by the blocked-off bedroom door. I scrambled to protect my cat just in time, grabbing Helsing before the bed-and-furniture barricade collapsed on top of him. Spade, too, was packing sage, and between the huge snapping dragon that Kramer didn’t seem to want to poltergeist through, and the two vampires throwing lighted greenery his way, Kramer couldn’t dodge the flying plant missiles fast enough. With a spate of harsh-sounding German, he disappeared.

“What in the holy hell is
that
?”

Tyler peeked around Spade’s bulk, more smoldering sage in his hands, to gape in disbelief at the dragon. His thoughts careened from disbelief, to fear, to fascination as the dragon’s form wavered, began to shrink, then finally culminated in Denise wearing nothing but a few spatters of blood.

Ian appeared to have recovered from his surprise. He gave Spade an almost accusatory look.

“You’re shagging a woman who can turn into a
dragon
? Blast you, Charles, I am
sick
with envy!”

“Not now,” Spade muttered, pulling off his shirt and placing it over Denise. I tried to yank the blanket off the remains of the bed, but it was too tightly wedged in with the other furniture, and I only ended up tearing off a long piece.

“Kitten, this first,” Bones said. Then he began to pull the knives out of me where Kramer’s blades had found their mark. I winced at each sharp, efficient tug, the silver feeling like it tried to take hunks of my flesh along with it.

“Tyler, grab a blanket from the next room?” I suggested, turning my attention to the silver still embedded in Bones’s body. His mouth tightened as I began to pull multiples blades out of him, but he made no sound even though I knew it hurt him as much as what he did pained me.

Tyler went to get the blanket, mumbling under his breath that this was the craziest shit he’d ever seen. Spade cradled Denise, who looked a little woozier than normal after a shift. Maybe it was the blood loss from her wounds, though they’d already healed. Or maybe it was her body taking a minute to recover after briefly becoming a thousand-pound mythical creature that looked so intimidating, it had even scared the pants off a homicidal ghost.

Tyler coughed as he came back in and passed a blanket to Denise. Smoke filled the room from the many lit plants, combined with the carpet starting to smolder from the burning piles of sage thrown onto it.

“Fire,” I noted, brushing off Bones’s attempts to get the last of the silver out of me. I was already done desilvering him, he apparently being able to dodge the blades more efficiently than I. I ran into the bathroom, quickly soaked several towels under the shower, then threw them over the worst of the burning spots. Bones, Spade, Denise, and Ian were stamping out the smaller places. Soon all the fire was out, leaving only some sage burning on nonflammable surfaces, like twisted metal segments of the bed frame and the hunks of the bathroom countertop that had served as my and Bones’s temporary shields.

I looked around at the destroyed furniture, broken glass, holes in the ceiling, wall, and bathroom, multiple silver knives strewn about or embedded where they’d landed, and the charred carpet before shaking my head.

“Spade, you should never, ever let us stay with you again. This is twice now that we’ve ended up trashing one of your rooms.”

He shrugged, seeming more concerned with making sure we had enough sage burning in safe places than in the disrepair of his house.

I heard a car pull up in the driveway. Looked like my mother was back. Sure enough, a few seconds later she was standing in the large hole in the bedroom wall, her expression a mixture of shock and concern as she took in the damage.

“Catherine, what
happened
?”

“Is everyone all right?” Fabian called out from what sounded like the yard. I went over to the ruined window, seeing him and Elisabeth floating well outside the cloud of sage smoke drifting out.

“What happened?” Bones repeated, his voice hard as he joined me at the window. He stared at the ghosts, his eyes glinting emerald. “What happened is the two of you were followed.”