Halfway to the Grave (20 page)

He made an exasperated noise that sounded very familiar. “Come on, this is ridiculous—”

“Shut up.” I didn’t want his chatter distracting me from hearing when—or if—Bones arrived. “Lie there and play dead, or you will be.”

Twenty cramped minutes later, my heart leapt when I heard steady footfalls coming toward the cave. Then a feeling of power I recognized filled up the space as those footsteps came closer.

Bones rounded the corner and stopped short. A single dark brow arched even as I leaned back, letting go of the vampire’s head at last.

“Charles,” Bones said distinctly. “You’d better have a splendid explanation for her being on top of you.”

T
HE BLACK-HAIRED VAMPIRE ROSE TO HIS FEET
as soon as I jumped off, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

“Believe me, mate, I’ve never enjoyed a woman astride me less. I came out to say hallo, and this she-devil blinded me by flinging rocks in my eyes. Then she vigorously attempted to split my skull before threatening to impale me with silver if I so much as even twitched! It’s been a few years since I’ve been to America, but I daresay the method of greeting a person has changed dramatically!”

Bones rolled his eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still upright, Charles, and the only reason you are is because she didn’t
have
any silver. She’d have staked you right and proper otherwise. She has a tendency to shrivel someone first and then introduce herself afterwards.”

“That’s uncalled for!” I said, insulted at the suggestion that I was homicidal.

“Right.” Bones let that go. “Kitten, this is my best mate,
Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I’ve been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I’ve said is…an understatement.”

From his tone, that didn’t sound altogether complimentary, but I felt a tad bit guilty about what I’d done to the lanky vampire eying me, so I didn’t comment and just held out my hand.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Spade repeated, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Well, hallo to you, too, darling! I’m very pleased to meet you now that you’re not flogging me unmercifully.”

He had tiger-colored eyes, and they gave me a thorough once-over while he shook my hand. I did the same to him. Fair was fair. Next to Bones, Spade looked two inches taller, which made him about six-four. He had lean attractive features, a straight nose, and inky hair that spiked up from his crown before hanging past his shoulders.

“Spade. You’re white. Isn’t that kind of…politically incorrect?”

He laughed again, but this time it was with less humor. “Oh, I didn’t choose that as a racial slur. It was how the overseer in South Wales used to address me. A spade is a shovel, and I was a digger. He never called anyone by their names, only their assigned tool. He didn’t feel the convicts were worthy of more.”

Oh, so he was
that
Charles. Now I remembered the name from when Bones had told me about his past imprisonment.
There were three men I became mates with—Timothy, Charles, and Ian.

“Sounds pretty demeaning. Why’d you keep it?”

Spade’s smile didn’t slip, but those striking features hardened. “So I’d never forget.”

Okay.
A change of subject was in order. Bones beat me to it.

“Charles has some information on a flunky of Hennessey’s who might prove useful.”

“Great,” I said. “Should I grab my slut clothes and pile on the makeup?”

“You should stay out of it,” Spade replied in a serious tone.

That made me want to fling more rocks at him. “My God, is it a vampire thing to be a chauvinist? Or just an eighteenth century one? Keep the girl in the kitchen where she won’t get hurt, right? Wake up and smell the twenty-first century,
Spade
! Women are good for more than cringing and waiting for men to rescue them!”

“And if Crispin felt differently for you, I’d bid you good luck and tell you to have at it,” Spade responded at once. “Yet I happen to know firsthand how devastating it is when someone you love is murdered. There’s nothing worse, and I don’t want him going through that.”

A part of me was inwardly pleased that Bones had told his friend he had feelings for me. I still didn’t believe he loved me, but it was nice to know I wasn’t just another warm body to him.

“Look, I’m sorry vampires killed someone close to you, truly I am. But—”

“Vampires didn’t kill her,” he interrupted me. “A group of French deserters cut her throat.”

I opened my mouth, paused, and shut it. That told me a few things right there, aside from the fact that I’d been wrong about what race killed her. She’d been human, whoever she was.

“I’m not like everyone else,” was what I ended up saying, giving Bones a questioning look to see if he’d told him that as well.

“So I’ve heard,” Spade said. “And you certainly caught me off guard earlier, but whatever your extraordinary abilities…you’re easy to kill. That beating pulse in your
neck is your greatest weakness, and if I’d had a mind to before, I could have flipped you over and torn it out.”

I smiled. “You’re pretty cocky. So am I, when it comes to certain things. We’ll get along just fine. Wait right here.”

“Kitten…” Bones called after me, no doubt guessing where I was headed.

“Oh, this’ll be fun!”

“Where’s she off to?” I heard Spade ask.

Bones made a noise that was almost pitying. “To hand you your arse, and for the record, if I thought I had a chance of keeping her out of this, I would. Woman’s stubborn beyond reason.”

“Stubbornness won’t keep her alive. I’m astounded you’d allow her to—”

Spade stopped talking when he saw me, probably because of what was in my hands.

“Okay, you’re a big bad vampire who’s gonna rip my throat out, right? You see I’m armed—with steel, by the way, since this is a demonstration and I don’t want you to end up smelly—and you don’t care because you’re all that and I’m just an artery in a dress. If you get a mouth on my throat, you win, but if I plug your heart first, I do.”

Spade’s eyes slid to Bones. “Is she joking?”

Bones cracked his knuckles and stepped aside. “Not at all.”

“Dinner’s getting cold,” I taunted him. “Come and get me, bloodsucker.”

Spade laughed—and then feinted right before leaping at me with blurring speed. He was a breath away when he looked down in surprise.

“Well, strike me pink!” he said, pulling himself up in midtackle.

“I don’t know what that means, but okay.”

Two steel blades were in his chest. He stared at them before ripping them out and turning to Bones in amazement.

“I don’t believe it.”

“That’s just what I said, mate,” Bones replied dryly. “She has a real talent with knives. It’s a damn good thing she hadn’t practiced throwing them before we met, or I might not be here.”

“Indeed.” Spade was still shaking his head when he looked my way next. “All right, Cat. You’ve made an excellent point that you’re far deadlier than you look. I see I can’t sway you to leave this business with Hennessey alone, and Crispin clearly has confidence in you, so I bow in defeat.”

He actually did give me a bow, his long dark hair brushing the cave floor with the graceful motion of it. It was such a courtly, refined gesture that I laughed.

“What were you before they sent you to prison, a duke?”

Spade straightened and smiled. “Baron Charles DeMortimer. At your service.”

The streetlight above me was broken. Farther down the alley, a cat snarled at some unknown threat. On the opposite corner, the sandy-haired vampire bounced on the balls of his feet, almost hopping in place. He was clearly excited.

I wasn’t. It was two a.m. and most people were in bed, which sounded good to me. Thanks to the hyper vampire I was walking toward, however, that wasn’t in the cards.

“Hey, man.”

I twitched as I approached, flicking my gaze in several directions and hunching my shoulders. With my fresh bruises, scratches, and dingy clothes, I looked like the poster child for drug addiction. It wasn’t hard to pull off. I’d just refrained from taking blood after Bones roughed me up for authenticity.

“You got some horse, man?” I continued, rubbing my arms as if fantasizing about a needle.

He let out a high-pitched giggle. “Not here, chickie. But I can get some. Come with me.”

“You’re not a cop, are you?” I backed up as if wary.

Another giggle. “Not that.”

Had a sense of humor, did he? Well, wait until he heard
my
punch line. “I don’t have time for you to call someone, I’m hurtin’ here—”

“It’s in my car,” he cut me off. “Right down this way.”

He almost skipped down the alley. At the other end of it was an even more derelict street.

“This way,” he sang out as I followed more slowly, looking around to see if there were any more dead men walking near him. “Right here, chickie.”

The vampire held open his car door and beamed at me. Obligingly, I crouched down to look inside.

The blow was expected, but it still hurt. I fell forward into the passenger seat as a normal person would, letting my limbs go limp. The vampire giggled and swung my legs inside, slamming the door. Another tee-hee-hee later and we were off.

I was slumped next to him. He didn’t pay any attention to me, but kept snickering as he drove. It was annoying. I had PMS and a test this morning. Boy, had he picked the wrong girl.

Without warning, his car was rammed from behind. The sharp impact provided the perfect distraction for me to pull my silver out of my boot. He let out a loud squeal as I plunged it into his chest, missing his heart deliberately, but close enough to get his attention.

“Shut up, chirpy!” I snapped. “Pull over, or you’ll get rear-ended again. And if
that
happens, you can guess where this blade will end up.”

The shock on his face was almost comical. Then his eyes flared.

“Take your hands off me!”

“Don’t waste that glow on me, buddy, it won’t work. You’ve got about three more seconds to pull over, or it’s nighty-night for you.”

Behind us, Bones revved his engine for emphasis. Another collision would send the silver straight through his heart, and he knew it.

I didn’t glance away as we came to a stop and Bones opened the driver’s door.

“Well, Tony, how goes it?”

The vampire wasn’t laughing anymore. “I don’t know where Hennessey is!” he shouted.

“Right, mate, and I believe you. Kitten, if you’ll drive? He and I are going to have a talk.”

Bones maneuvered Tony into the backseat. I got behind the wheel and adjusted the mirror so I could see them.

“Where to?”

“Just around, until our mate Tony here tells us otherwise.”

We left the bashed-up other car on the side of the road. It was one of Ted’s that he didn’t have a use for. A chop-shop owner was turning out to be a pretty handy friend.

“I don’t know anything, I’m just trying to make a buck,” Tony tried again.

“Liar.” Pleasantly, from Bones. “You’re one of Hennessey’s, and don’t tell me you don’t know how to contact him. All vampires know how to reach their sire. Just for your miserable existence, I should kill you. Pretending to sell drugs to addicts and then green-eying them into thinking they’ve gotten what they paid for—you’re pathetic.”

“Asshole,” I agreed.

“He’ll kill me.” It was a whimper.

“Not if he’s dead, he won’t, and you’re as good as that now yourself. What do you think Hennessey will do if he finds out you let yourself get captured? Think he’ll look kindly on how you were peddling your wares for me to
find you? He’ll forgive you because he’s such a good bloke, right? He’ll rip your bloody head off and you know it. I’m your only hope, mate.”

Tony looked to me as if for help. I held up my middle finger. Well, what did he expect?

He turned back to Bones. “Promise me you won’t kill me and I’ll tell you everything.”

“I won’t kill you unless you refuse to talk,” Bones answered brusquely. “And if you lie to me, I
really
won’t kill you, but you’ll want me to. Count on it.”

There was a coldness to his tone that reminded me of when I’d been in Tony’s shoes. Yeah, Bones could be pretty scary.

Tony began to talk. Fast. “Hennessey’s been real secretive about his location lately, but if I need something, I’m supposed to go to Lola. I have her address—she’s in Lansing. She and Hennessey are pretty tight. If she doesn’t know where he is, she’ll know who does.”

“Give me her address.”

Tony rattled off the information. Bones didn’t bother to write it down, but maybe that was because he still held the dagger in Tony’s chest.

“Kitten, get on the I–69 and head north. We’re going to Lansing.”

It was a three-hour drive. Bones got exact directions from MapQuest on his cell phone, remarking how he loved modern technology. We walked the last half mile, parking Tony’s car in a nearby grocery store lot and taking him with us. Bones held the knife next to him with a malevolent smirk, commenting that if he even squeaked, he’d end him. As we approached, I saw Lola lived in an apartment complex also, albeit much snazzier than mine or Charlie’s. It was five a.m., and where was I? Skulking around another apartment building. I hoped we’d be done in time for
me to take that exam. I could just imagine my excuse to the professor if I missed it.
But honestly, I had to find a bad vampire!
Somehow I didn’t think it would fly.

“Her car’s not here,” Tony whispered, taking Bones’s threat seriously and keeping his voice down.

“You can tell from one glance, aye?” With heavy skepticism.

“When you see it, you’ll understand,” Tony replied.

Bones put a finger to his lips as we got within a hundred feet of the place, indicating with hand signals that Tony and I were to stay put while he checked the building. I resisted the urge to give him the same fingered version of my opinion I’d relayed to Tony earlier, but consoled myself with the knowledge that watching the perimeter was important. And if I heard any subsequent brawling, I was close enough to jump in on it.

Bones slinked around the far side of the building and then disappeared. Minutes ticked by, stretching into an hour. Bones still hadn’t come back, but I didn’t hear any sounds of fighting, so I assumed he was perched somewhere also. The sun would be up soon, and my crouched position, holding Tony at knife point, was getting uncomfortable. A kink started in my back, and irritably I realized I’d never make that exam.

I was about to find a softer part on the ground to sit on when I noticed the car pulling up. Well, score one for Tony. He was right. You
would
notice that one, even at a glace.