Halfway to the Grave (21 page)

It was a screaming red Ferrari, and the woman who’d just parked it wasn’t human. I crouched lower. The shrubs provided adequate cover, and from the small hill we were on, I had a clear view of her. She had short black hair, and from her features, she was Asian. Her car, outfit, and even her purse were all high-end, big-ticket items. Everything about her shouted money.

She had gotten about a dozen feet from the entrance to
her building when Bones stepped into view. Apparently he’d been waiting out of sight inside the doors. She tried to run, but he pounced, cutting her flight to freedom short.

“Not so fast, Lola.”

The woman straightened and her chin came up. “How dare you touch me!”

“Dare?” Bones let out a laugh. It wasn’t his charming one. “There’s a fine word. It implies courage. Are you brave, Lola? We’ll soon find out.”

He drew out the last sentence with meaning. She looked around once before glaring at him.

“You’re making a big mistake.”

“Wouldn’t be my first.” He yanked her next to him. “Right, then, sweetness. You know what I want.”

“Hennessey and the others are going to kill you, it’s only a matter of time,” she spat.

Bones grasped her jaw and brought her face closer.

“Now, I don’t like abusing women, but I think you’ve earned the right to be an exception. It isn’t very private here, so I’m operating under a bit of a time crunch. You’re going to tell me who else is involved with Hennessey, and where to find them all right now, or I promise you you’ll endure every torment and humiliation you’ve helped to inflict on others. Fancy that? I’ve met some depraved, beastly blokes in my travels who would just love to give you a taste of your own poison. Tell you what—I’ll even sell you to them. Turnabout’s fair game, isn’t it? I’d say that was fair all the way ’round.”

Lola’s eyes widened. I could see that even from my vantage point. “I don’t know where Hennessey is, he hasn’t told me!”

Bones started dragging her back toward the parking lot. “You’ve just made Christmas come early for some happy deviants,” he stated crisply.

“Wait!” It was a plea. “I know where Switch is!”

He stopped, giving her a rough shake. “Who’s Switch?”

“Hennessey’s enforcer,” Lola said with a curl to her mouth. “You know how he hates to get his hands dirty. Switch handles the messy things, like silencing witnesses and hiding the bodies. He’s also recruiting for more help, since we don’t have Stephanie, Charlie, and Dean anymore. With Hennessey’s new protection, we don’t even have to worry about any pesky human interference.”

Something on the building’s roof caught my eye just as Bones asked, “What’s Switch’s real name, and who’s Hennessey’s new protection?”

Two forms dropped from the ten-story roof. Bones and Lola were directly below them. I jumped out from the bushes.

“Heads up!”

Two things happened at once. Lola pulled a blade from her purse as Bones looked up, and I, out of a mindless reaction, let fly the three silver knives in my hand.

Tony chose that moment to pounce. I’d let go of him to make that toss, and he came at me with fangs bared, knocking me to the ground. I held off his snapping jaws and twisted, ramming my knees into his chest to throw him back, and then plunged my other blade into his heart. He made an odd noise, almost like a pained giggle, and fell over on his side.

I leapt up in time to see Bones kneeling over Lola. She was on the cement, and silver protruded from her chest in a tight circle of three. Behind them were two bodies with two unattached heads. So much for the aerial attackers.

Bones rose from his kneeling position and swung his gaze to me.

“Lucifer’s bouncing balls, Kitten, not
again
!”

Uh-oh
. I squirmed, instinctively also trying to block Tony’s body from his view. As if that made him any less dead.

“She was going to stab you,” I said in my defense. “Look in her hand!”

He was looking at the ground near my feet instead. “Him, too?”

I nodded, sheepish. “He jumped me.”

Bones just stared. “You’re not a woman,” he said finally. “You’re the Grim Reaper with red hair!”

“That’s not fair—” I protested, but a shrill scream cut me off.

A woman dressed in a business suit dropped her purse and ran shrieking back into the building. Guess a bunch of dead bodies in the parking lot had spooked her. Not the usual thing you’d expect to find while you were leaving to go to work.

Bones sighed and yanked the blades out of Lola. “Come on, Kitten, let’s go. Before you murder someone else.”

“I don’t find that funny—”

“At least I got some information out of Lola first,” he went on conversationally, tugging me back toward the car. “Hennessey’s enforcer, Switch. We’ll start by trying to find out who he is.”

“She was going to
kill
you—”

“Did it ever occur to you to aim for something other than the heart?” We were walking at a good clip. More people came out of the building behind us. I could tell from the additional screams.

We had reached the car, and he suddenly gave me a quick, sound kiss.

“I love that you did it to protect me, but next time, try aiming to
wound
, hmm? You know, maybe throw the knives at someone’s head instead? Then they’re incapacitated momentarily, but not reduced to a pile of rotting remains. Just food for thought.”

E
VEN WITH BONES’S SPEEDING, I WOULDN’T
have time to shower before I went to class. I’d be lucky to make it if I only dashed in my apartment and changed clothes.

“I have to drop this off at Ted’s,” he was saying as I got out of the car. “Should be back in a few hours.”

“I’ll be asleep,” I muttered. “Do we have to—”

“Hi, Cathy!”

Timmie opened his door with a wide smile. He must have seen me through his window.

Bones gave Timmie a look that froze the smile on the younger man’s face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company,” Timmie apologized, almost tripping to hurry back into his apartment.

I shot Bones an equally hostile glare for rattling my already skittish neighbor. “It’s okay,” I said, smiling at Timmie. “He’s not really ‘company’ anyway.”

“Oh.” Timmie gave Bones a shy peek. “Are you Cathy’s brother?”

“Whatever would give you the idea that I’m her damn brother?” Bones snapped.

Timmie backed up so fast, he hit the back of his head against his doorframe. “Sorry!” he gasped, and banged into the door again before managing to scramble back inside.

I marched over to Bones and stuck my finger in his chest. He regarded me with what I would have called sullenness—if he hadn’t been over two hundred.

“You have a choice,” I said, biting off each word. “Either you make a very
sincere
apology to Timmie now, or you leave and slither back to your cave like the festering ball sack you just acted like. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but he’s a nice guy, and you probably just made him pee his pants. Your decision, Bones. One or the other.”

A dark brow arched at me. I tapped my foot. “One…two…”

He muttered something foul and then climbed the stairs, rapping twice on Timmie’s door.

“Right, then, mate, terribly sorry for my unspeakable rudeness, and I do beg your pardon,” he said with admirable humbleness when Timmie cracked it open. Only I could pick up the slight edge to his voice as he went on. “I can only say that it was caused by my natural affront to the notion of her as my sister. Since I’ll be shagging her tonight, you can imagine how I’d be distressed at the thought of rogering my sibling.”

“You schmuck!” I burst as Timmie’s jaw dropped. “The only thing you’ll be shagging tonight is yourself!”

“You wanted sincerity,” he countered. “Well, luv, I was sincere.”

“You can get right back in the car and I’ll see you later, if you’re not being such an ass!”

Timmie’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of us, his jaw still swinging open. Bones gave him a smile that was more just a baring of teeth.

“Nice to meet you, mate, and here’s some advice: Don’t even think about it. You try anything with her and I’ll neuter you with my bare hands.”

“
Leave!
” I stamped my foot for emphasis.

He swept past me and then swiveled, kissing me hard on the mouth before jumping back to avoid my right hook.

“I’ll see you later, Kitten.”

Timmie waited until Bones had driven out of sight before he dared to speak.

“That’s your boyfriend?”

I let out a grunt that I suppose was an affirmative.

“He really doesn’t like me,” he said, almost a whisper.

I gave one last look in the direction Bones disappeared to before shaking my head at his bewildering behavior.

“No, Timmie. I guess he doesn’t.”

I made it to class just as the professor was handing out the tests. My dirty, bruised, disheveled appearance caused a few looks and nudges that I pretended not to notice. Then, I was so tired, I didn’t even know what I scribbled down for answers. The rest of the classes were even worse. I nodded off in physics and had to be poked awake by the person next to me. When I got back to my apartment, I discovered my period had made its appearance.

It was official. My day sucked.

I used my last remaining energy to shower before flopping into bed. Five minutes later, there was a knock on my door.

“You’d better run,” I muttered, eyes closed.

The knock became louder. “Catherine!”

Oh shit. It was my mother.
What’s up, God? Wanted to see how much I could take?

“Coming!”

I answered the door, bleary-eyed, in my pajamas. My mother brushed past me with a disapproving frown.

“You’re not dressed. The movie’s in less than an hour.”

Double shit! Today was Monday and I’d promised her we’d see a movie together. With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten.

“Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. It was a really late night and I’m just now getting to bed—”

“Did you get one of those monsters?” she cut in, her frown magically erased.

“Is that all you care about?”

The sharp question surprised both of us. Instantly, guilt swarmed over me at the hurt look on her face.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. Jeez, I sounded like Timmie. “Um, in fact I did get two bad vampires last night.”

That was partly true. I’d just left a few details out she didn’t need to know about.

“Bad?” she asked with a gleam. “What do you mean by
bad
? They’re all bad!”

She can’t help it
, I told myself, fighting guilt of another kind now.
The only vampire she ever met raped her.

“Nothing. I’m just really tired. Can we do the movie another night? Please?”

She went into my kitchen, all four square feet of it, and opened my refrigerator. What she saw made her face draw even further together.

“It’s empty. You don’t have any food. Why don’t you have any food?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t been to the store yet. I forgot you were coming over.”

I’d eaten the last of the ramen noodles for lunch yesterday, and what I couldn’t tell her was that Bones usually took me out to eat. It was one of the few normal things we did together, albeit picking low-key places to avoid being spotted.

“You look very pale.”

Again, she said it as if it were an indictment. I yawned, hoping she’d take the hint.

“Nothing new there.”

“Catherine, you’re paler, there’s no food in here…have you started drinking blood?”

My mouth was still open from the yawn, and at that comment, it stayed that way.

“You’re serious?” I managed.

She backed away a step. Actually backed away. “Have you?”

“
No!
”

I stomped toward her, hurt and mad to see her cringe. “Here.” I grabbed her hand and pressed it to my throat. “Feel that? It’s a
pulse
. I don’t drink blood, I’m not turning into a vampire, and my fridge is empty because I haven’t been to the store! For God’s sake, Mom!”

Timmie picked that moment to poke his head into my apartment. “Your door was open…”

He stopped, startled at the thunderous expression on my face. My mother dropped her hand from my neck and straightened her shoulders.

“Who’s
he
, Catherine?”

Timmie quailed at her tone. Poor guy didn’t know it was her normal one. “Be nice!” I hissed. First Bones had scared him, now my mother would probably give him a heart attack.

“Is this your boyfriend?” she asked next in a stage whisper he could clearly hear.

An immediate denial sprang to my lips, and then something happened in me. Something crafty, calculating, and opportunistic. I looked at Timmie and saw exactly what my mother saw. A living, breathing young man. One who was a hundred percent
not
dead.

In my defense, I was probably crazed from lack of sleep, my period, and being accused of having a liquid diet.

“Yes!” It came out of me with reckless abandon. “Mom, meet my boyfriend, Timmie!”

I ran to him, hiding his dumbfounded expression from her line of sight, and gave him an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek.

“Please go with it,” I begged in his ear, hugging him while I said it.

“Ouch!” he squeaked.

Oops. Squeezed too hard. I let him go with a wide smile. “Isn’t he just adorable?”

She came toward us, looking him up and down. Timmie gawked at her before holding out a trembling hand.

“H-hello, Mrs….?”

“Ms.,” she corrected at once.

He blanched at her emphaticalness, having no idea of the many reasons why that was a touchy subject. To give him credit, however, he didn’t run out the door.

“Ms.,” he tried again. “Nice to meet you, Ms….?”

“You’ve slept with him and he doesn’t even know your last name?” my mother demanded, scowling.

I sent a glance heavenward before pinching Timmie when he started to back away.

“Don’t mind her,
honey
, sometimes she forgets her manners. Mom, do you want Timmie to call you Justina? Or Ms. Crawfield?”

She was still giving me that how-could-you glare, but her frostiness lessened. “Justina’s fine. It’s nice to finally meet you, Timmie. Catherine’s told me how you helped her kill those demons. I’m glad to know there’s someone else out there ridding the world of them.”

Timmie looked like he was about to faint. “Let’s get some coffee,” I said, practically shoving him before he started babbling out a denial. “You stay here, Mom. His place is next door, we’ll be right back!”

As soon as we were in Timmie’s apartment, I snatched
him close and lowered my voice. “My poor mother! She has her good days and her bad ones. The doctor’s supposed to adjust her medication, but you never can tell when one of these spells will hit. Don’t pay attention to that killing and demon talk. She’s real Pentecostal. Believes in slaying of the spirit and so on. Just nod your head and try not to say much.”

“But—but…” Timmie’s eyes couldn’t get any wider. “Why did you tell her
I’m
your boyfriend? Why doesn’t she know about your real one?”

That was a good question. I cast around for an answer. Any answer.

“He’s English!” I settled on desperately. “And Mom…Mom hates foreigners!”

She stayed an hour. By the time she left, I was a nervous wreck, and so was Timmie. He’d drunk so much coffee, he practically had the shakes even though he was sitting down. I’d attempted to steer the conversation to college, the orchard, my grandparents, or anything else that didn’t contain the word
vampire
. Every chance I got, I made pitying expressions behind her back, or twirled my finger near my temple in the universal gesture for insanity.

Timmie tried to be supportive during my mother’s “spell.” “That’s right, Justina!” he said more than once. “We’re going to knock those demons out and slay them with the power of Jesus. Hallelujah, can I get an amen?”

In fact, he affected such an overly zealous attitude that as I walked her to the door, she drew me aside and muttered that he was sweet—but possibly a fanatic.

When she was finally gone, I leaned against the door and closed my eyes in relief.

“Thank God,” I grumbled.

“Sure,” Timmie agreed. “Amen!”

“You can stop that,” I said, giving him a tired smile. “I owe you one, Timmie. Thanks.”

I had just put my arms around him in a hug of gratitude when the door opened behind me without a knock.

“Am I interrupting something?” a coolly pissed, accented voice asked.

This time, my glance heavenward was in silent challenge.
Is that how it is? Fine, then, bring it! Let’s see what You’ve got!

Timmie jumped like he’d been stabbed. “Ungh!”

I didn’t know what that meant, but the sight of him leaping away with a hand shielding his groin had me turning around in irritation.

“Dammit, tell him you’re not going to neuter him!”

Bones folded his arms and regarded Timmie without pity. “Why?”

I gave him an evil look. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to get really,
really
celibate.”

My glare told him I meant it. He made an acquiescing motion that nevertheless sent Timmie bolting in the opposite direction.

“Don’t fret, mate. You can leave with your stones intact, but remember, pretending to be her boyfriend was just that. Don’t let the fantasy go to your head.”

“You heard that?” Now I waved a frantic, mental white flag at the sky.
Okay, You win!

His mouth twisted. “Death to all demons, can I get an amen?”

Great. “Look, I’m sorry, but I went a little nuts when she accused me of—of drinking!”

“You do drink,” he countered, not getting it.

“No!” I tapped my neck. “I mean of
drinking
.”

Timmie looked thoroughly confused, but understanding dawned on Bones’s face.

“Bloody hell,” he said finally.

I nodded. “In a nutshell.”

Bones turned back to Timmie. “Private time, lad. Say goodbye.”

It wasn’t the nicest way he could have worded it, but from the set of his shoulders, it could have been worse.

“Timmie, thanks so much again, I’ll see you in the morning,” I said with another smile.

He looked glad to be on his way and made a beeline for the exit. Just as he was out the door, however, he stuck his head back in.

“I don’t mind foreigners. God save the queen!” he squeaked, and ran.

Bones arched a brow. I sighed.

“Didn’t hear that part? Never mind. Don’t ask.”