Halfway to the Grave (26 page)

Sweet Jesus, I hadn’t considered that! With trembling hands I took the phone he handed me and dialed. It rang, one time…two…three…four…five…six…Tears sprang to my eyes. They never let it ring that long.
Oh no, no, please…ten…eleven…twelve…

“There’s no answer. I spoke to her this morning, before the detectives came. She said someone was at the door….”

We sped off through the trees on his motorcycle. For once I was glad he had the damned unsafe thing. It was the only type of vehicle that could navigate through this territory at
such speeds. If anyone tried to pull us over, I would look guilty as all hell of anything they accused me of. Over my tight black spandex from before, I now had on crisscrossed boots with stakes inside, silver throwing knives lashed to my upper arms and thighs, and two guns tucked in my belt filled with silver bullets. Not that we would have stopped for anyone. Somebody could just try to catch us.

I kept trying my family on the cell, cursing and praying when there was still no answer. If anything happened to them, it would be all my fault. If only I hadn’t drunk that spiked gin and been unable to kill Hennessey…if only I’d never met Danny…. A thousand different ways to scourge myself seared through my mind. Normally it took an hour and a half to get to the house from the cave. Bones made it there in less than thirty minutes.

We pulled right up to the front and I was the first one off, running up the steps of the porch and through the open door. Once there, my brain refused to translate what my eyes saw. The red liquid smeared on the ground caused me to slide forward and then fall to the floor with the momentum of my panicked strides. Bones stepped inside with more caution but just as swiftly, and he dragged me to my feet.

“Hennessey and his men could still be nearby. You’re no use to anyone if you break now!”

His voice was harsh, but it penetrated through the paralyzed part of my mind, which went blank upon the sight of all that blood. The early shades of dusk darkened the sky. Pale amber beams of remaining light illuminated the sightless eyes of my grandfather sprawled on the kitchen floor. His throat had been torn out. It was his blood I’d slipped in.

Shaking Bones off, I unsheathed my knives and gripped them, ready to fling them at any undead thing that moved. There was a trail of blood leading up the steps, and crimson handprints left grisly signs for us to follow. Bones took
a deep whiff of the air and pushed me back against the landing.

“Listen to me. I only smell them faintly, so I think Hennessey and whoever was with him aren’t close. But you keep those knives ready, and you unleash them at anything that flinches. Stay here.”

“No.” I spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m going up there.”

“Kitten, don’t. Let me go instead. You keep watch.”

Pity creased his face, but I ignored it. My grief I forced into a tiny hard lump inside me that I would unravel later. Much later, when every vampire or person with them who had done this was dead.

“Get out of my way.”

My tone had never been more menacing and he stepped back but followed closely behind me. The door to my bedroom was kicked in. It hung by only a hinge. My grandmother was face down on the floor, her hands frozen into claws as if in death she still tried to escape what had chased her. There were two wounds on her neck, one shallow, one gaping. It looked as though she’d dragged herself while dying, up the steps to get to my room. Bones knelt beside her and did a strange thing. He inhaled near the gouges around her neck, and then picked up a bloody pillow from my bed and held it to his face.

“What are you doing?” God, he wasn’t hungry, was he? The thought sent a vile tremor through me.

“I can smell them. There were four of them, including Hennessey. I smell your mum on this pillow. They took her. And there’s not enough of her blood here for her to be dead.”

Relief and fear caused me to nearly sag on my feet. She was still alive, at least possibly. Bones nosed around the room like a deadly blond canine, following the scent back down the stairs. I heard him back in the kitchen and knew
he was giving Grandpa Joe a similar sniffing. It was too awful to contemplate. Gently I turned my grandmother over and her open eyes seemed to stare accusingly at me.
This is all your fault!
they silently railed. Choking back a sob, I closed them, and sent a prayer upward that she was at peace, because I never would be.

“Get down here, Kitten. Someone’s coming.”

Abruptly I darted back down the stairs, avoiding the slick blood that lined them. Bones had something crumpled in his hand and he propelled me out the front door as he shoved it inside his belt. A car screeched down the road about a mile away and I grabbed two extra knives until each hand held four.

“Is it them?” I hoped it was. There was nothing more I wanted than to tear into the animals who had done this.

Bones stood next to me with legs apart and narrowed his eyes.

“No, they’re human. I can hear their heartbeats. Let’s go.”

“Wait!” I looked around despairingly, my clothes and hands streaked with my family’s blood. “How will we find out where they’ve taken my mother? We’re not leaving until we do find out, I don’t care who’s coming!”

He jumped onto the bike and spun it around, waving me over with a jerk of his head.

“They left a note. It was in your grandfather’s shirt, I have it. Come on, Kitten, they’re here.”

Indeed they were. The car slammed on its breaks about a hundred feet away and out came Detective Mansfield and Detective Black with their guns drawn.

“Hold it right there! Don’t you fucking move!”

Bones leapt off the motorcycle and stood in front of me before I could blink. He was shielding me from the bullets that could only injure him for a short time but would do far worse damage to me.

“Get on the bike, Kitten,” he murmured too low for
them to hear. “I’ll get on behind you. We have to go. They would have called for backup.”

“Hands in the air! Drop your weapons!” Mansfield approached with slow steps. Obligingly Bones stretched out his hands in compliance. He was buying time.

Something cold settled in me and spread, overriding the grief and the pain. Bones expected just to take two full clips in the back while we rode off. Or let them try to handcuff him and then slam them. Well, I had other ideas.

Both detectives advanced on him, seeing Bones as the primary threat. They foolishly ignored the old adage to never underestimate the power of a woman.

I stepped out from behind Bones with my hands in the air, palms facing me. When Mansfield took another step forward I flung the first knife. It skewered him straight through the wrist and his gun fell to the ground. Before Black could react I let loose the other knife, and he, too, collapsed screaming to the dirt, clutching his bleeding forearm. It made the next two knives easier to find their marks, and in a blink both of their hands were paralyzed with silver blades protruding from each wrist.

Bones arched a brow at me but said nothing, and climbed behind me on the bike as we sped off.

Their shouts behind us faded with the distance.

W
E DROVE OVER UNPAVED ROADS AND
through the trees to avoid being seen. In the distance, I occasionally heard sirens. Even though I was in front, Bones controlled the bike. He maneuvered it around trees at speeds that normally would have made me throw up from fright. Now I wanted him to go faster.

When we approached the highway, he stopped. It was dark now, shadows swallowing up the light. Bones laid the bike down on its side and covered it with a few branches he yanked off a nearby tree. The freeway was about a hundred yards away.

“Stay here. Won’t be a moment,” he promised cryptically.

Puzzled, I watched as he walked out toward the road. When he reached the shoulder he stopped. There was moderate traffic, it being after seven and most people already having arrived home from work. From where I stood I had a clear view of him, and his eyes began to glow that penetrating green.

A car approached and Bones fixed his glare on it. It
swerved for a moment, and then began to slow. He stepped out into the middle of the road as the car headed straight toward him, and the light from his eyes blazed brighter. The car stopped only a foot shy of him, and he jerked his head toward the shoulder, where it obediently rolled.

Bones waited until it came to a full stop and then opened the driver’s door. A man in his forties sat with a dazed expression on his face. Bones pulled him out and walked him over to where I stood.

In an instant his mouth clamped onto the man’s neck, and the hapless stranger let out a small whimper. Bones released him after a few moments, wiping his sleeve across his lips.

“You’re tired,” he instructed him in that resonating voice. “You’re going to lie down here and go to sleep. When you wake up you won’t fret about your car. You left it at home, and you went for a walk. You want to walk home, but only after you’ve rested. And you are very, very weary.”

Like a child the man curled in a semicircle on the ground and rested his head on his arms. He was asleep instantly.

“We needed a car they weren’t looking for,” Bones said by way of explanation. I followed him to the new vehicle. When we were back on the highway, I turned to him.

“Show me the note.” Since we’d been riding on a motorcycle before, I hadn’t asked, fearing it would be lost in the hundred-plus-mile-per-hour wind from our speed.

Bones gave his head a little shake and pulled the note out of his belt.

“You won’t understand it. They knew I would.”

Carefully I uncrumpled the paper that held the only clue to my mother’s whereabouts:

Recompense. Twice past day’s death.

“Does it mean she’s still alive?”

“Oh, that’s what it’s supposed to mean. If you trust them.”

“Do you trust them in this? Is there some kind of…vampire code not to lie about hostages?”

He glanced over at me. The compassion on his face didn’t lend comfort.

“No, Kitten. But Hennessey might figure he has a use for her. Your mother is still a lovely woman, and you know what he does with lovely women.”

White-hot fury coursed in me at the picture he painted, but it was an honest one. Lies wouldn’t help me, but the truth might save her, if I could control my anger and be smart, for once.

“When are we supposed to meet them? I assume they’ve designated a time? What do they expect?” Questions were bubbling in my mind faster than I could ask them, and he held up a hand.

“Let me find a place to stop off first and then we’ll talk. Don’t want the police chasing us and making a bad situation worse.”

Mutely I nodded and folded my arms across my chest. Bones drove for another twenty minutes or so, and then got off an exit and pulled in to a Motel 6.

“Wait here for a moment,” he answered the puzzled look I threw him. After I waited for ten minutes in the car, he came out and pulled around to the back of the lodging. We weren’t in a very upscale neighborhood, and I glanced around at the predatory looks that flicked to us from some of the people loitering in the area.

“Come on, we’re this way.”

Ignoring everyone else around him, he took my hand when I exited the car and led me inside Room 326. The interior looked as uninviting as the exterior, yet it was hardly my main focus.

“Why are we here?” Obviously romance wasn’t the reason.

“We’re off the road for a bit, less attention to attract, and
we can talk without interruption. No one here will notice anything much beyond a drive-by shooting. Also, you can wash the blood off.”

With barely a glance at my red-caked hands, I looked back at him. “Do we have time for that?”

Bones gave a light nod. “We have hours. They want to meet at two. That’s what the ‘twice past day’s death’ part means. Midnight is the death of every day, and they chose two hours past it. Guess they were giving you plenty of time to hear about your grandparents and contact me.”

“How considerate.” My voice was thick with hatred. “Now tell me what they’re offering, if anything. Me for her? Does he want the bait who almost got him killed?”

Bones led me to the edge of the bed and sat me down on it. My whole body was stiff with rage and grief, and he squatted in front of me and took my bloodstained hands. We hadn’t turned the lamp on, but I didn’t need it to see him. His hair was nearly white in the moonlight and the contours of his face looked like marble brought to life.

“You know Hennessey doesn’t want you, Kitten—he wants me. He’s given no thought to you beyond how he could use you. You realize, luv, they would be making your mother spill any details on you they could. With luck, they won’t be asking the right questions. I didn’t believe you myself when you told me what you were, it was only seeing your eyes that convinced me. Even if your mum is coerced into telling them, chances are they’ll think she’s raving and pay it little heed. They would have no doubt broken in to your apartment by now looking for you. Those detectives probably saved your life by coming by this morning and scaring you into leaving. They’ll find your weapons, but they could easily assume they were mine and I kept them there for convenience. They want me, and I’ll go to them. But they won’t be expecting you. This is our only advantage.”

“Bones, you don’t have to do this. You can tell me where
she is and I’ll go. As you said, they won’t be expecting me.” She was my mother, so no matter what, I was going, but he didn’t have to get killed trying to save her when she might not even be alive.

He dropped his head onto my lap a moment before replying.

“How can you even suggest that? First of all, this is my fault for getting you into this, because I should have stuck to my instincts and never allowed it. Then, I should have just killed Danny that night like I intended to. At the very least if I would have stolen his mind about how his hand got injured, he wouldn’t have given your name to the police. But I was angry, and wanted him to know who did it and why. Of course I’m going. Even Hennessey, who hasn’t the slightest idea that I love you, knows I will. Doesn’t matter if she’s already dead and there’s nothing to be gained from it but vengeance, I’ll still go, and I swear to you, I shall rip off every hand that touched her or your grandparents. That much at least I can do for you. The only thing that frightens me is the thought that you’ll see me as a monster again, because it was vampires who did this.”

Bones stared at me and his eyes were tinged pink. Vampire tears. So absolutely foreign from the clear streaks of saline zigzagging down my cheeks. I slid down until I sat on the floor and held him. He was the only thing that was constant and solid. Everything else around me was crumbling.

“I will never stop loving you. No one can change that. No matter what happens later, I’ll still love you.”

My illusions about tonight only went so far. We would be walking right into a trap, and in all likelihood, we wouldn’t walk out. Right now my mother was terrified, if she was even still alive, and there was nothing I could do but wait until later. This could be the last time Bones and I held each other. Life was too short to waste even moments of it.

“Bones. Make love to me. I need to feel you inside me.”

He pulled back until he could look in my eyes as he stripped the shirt over his head. Mine followed suit and was thrown to the ground. He undid the belt around my waist, untied the knives and guns, and tugged off my boots with their stake accompaniments. The spandex around my legs was stiff from dried blood, but I pushed the image of my grandparents’ crumpled forms out of my mind. They wouldn’t go far. I would see them in my nightmares the rest of my life. If I ever lived to dream again.

“I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. This isn’t goodbye, Kitten. I didn’t survive over two hundred years to find you only to lose you within five months. I want you, but I’m not saying goodbye to you, because we
will
get through this.”

Bones traced his hands over me with such delicacy, I could have been made of glass threads and not shattered. His mouth followed everywhere his hands did, and I tried to absorb the feel of him beneath my fingers. Not for a minute did I believe that this wasn’t goodbye. Still, I had loved and been loved in return, and there was nothing greater than that. It far outweighed the alienation of all the previous years. Bones thought five months was too short; I was amazed I’d been granted joy for so long.

“I love you,” he moaned, or maybe I said it. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The lines had dissolved between us.

I refused to wash the blood off, wanting it to stain my skin. Later—if I lived—I would wash it off after it was covered by the blood of those who’d done this. Finally I understood why Bones’s long-dead Indian friend had painted his skin before going off to battle. It was a symbol for all to see of the depth of his resolve, and my family’s blood was mine. Before we were done tonight, many things on me would be painted. My mouth was one of them.

Bones raised the issue, and for once I accepted without
hesitation. His blood would make me stronger—temporarily, that was true—but then that’s all that was needed. On the extra plus side, it would also help heal any injuries I was no doubt going to incur. The quicker I healed, the quicker I could kill.

First he topped off like a car getting gas. In this neighborhood, it took only minutes for him to find someone spoiling for trouble. The unlucky victims were four men thinking they were going to score a wallet. They scored some iron deficiency instead. Not bothering to waste the power in his eyes, he simply knocked them out with a single swirling punch that connected with their jaws in one graceful blur of a semicircle. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have laughed at how they fell in a row without a blink among them. Maybe this would drive home that crime didn’t pay.

Bones took from each of them, and his face was positively flushed when he glided back to me on feet that didn’t touch the ground. With a shake of my head, I started back toward the hotel.

“You are going to wash your mouth out. If you kiss me, I don’t want a face full of hepatitis.”

My shield of sarcasm was on with full armor backup. Any emotions deeper than the surface would have to wait to crawl out of the cage I’d locked them in.

Obediently he swished water around his mouth when we were back in our room. Needless to say, none of us had packed toothpaste.

“Don’t fret, luv. With your lineage, you couldn’t catch it if you tried. No germs or viruses can survive in vampire blood. You’ve never been sick a day in your life, were you?”

“Actually…no. But germs aside, it’s gross.”

I marveled at the point he’d brought up. No one appreciates their health until they’re sick, so I’d never stopped to
wonder at the flawless record of mine. We’d see if I lived long enough to catch a cold.

“Come here.”

Bones was seated on the bed and he patted his lap. Like a child visiting Santa at the mall, I sat on it. Unlike a child, I curled my arms around him and prepared to drink his blood for all I was worth. “You’ll tell me when to stop?”

Anxiousness clouded my voice. This wouldn’t turn me, but it was taking a short trip down a road I’d never wanted to travel.

“Promise.”

The single word calmed me. He’d never lied to me.

“Tell me again why we aren’t doing your wrist?” That seemed somehow less…icky.

Bones tightened his arms around me.

“Because then I couldn’t hold you. Quit stalling. You know what to do.”

I pressed my mouth to his neck where his jugular would be. Since his heart didn’t beat, there wouldn’t be a rush of arterial spray. No, this would take suction.
You know what they say
, I thought darkly as I bit down hard enough for my square teeth to pierce his skin.
Life sucks and then you die.

The first warm splash made my stomach recoil, but I forced myself to swallow. A normal person can only drink a pint of blood before the body naturally regurgitated it. My normality had never been an issue before and it wasn’t now. I bit him again when the wound started to close, and Bones held the back of my head and pressed me closer.

“Harder.” The word was clipped, and he let out a small gasp. Pain or pleasure, I wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to ask.

“More.”

This when I attempted to pull away. The harsh copper taste of his blood curled in my mouth. In this volume, it
was miles away from the drops I’d taken over the last few months. I drank deeper, ignoring the urge to spit it out.

Something started to happen inside me. Strength grew, unfurling its tentacles and branching out to slither through me. Everything seemed at once sharper. His skin under me had a scent far stronger than I’d ever noticed. The room was perfumed with the earlier sweat from my body, and the bodies of those before us. Background noise of the people in the units around us increased in volume, as did the sounds from outside. My vision crystallized into a clarity it had never experienced. The darkness lightened shade by shade.

The feel of his skin splitting beneath my teeth became almost sensual. I bit him harder, suddenly enjoying the spill of his blood into my mouth. I yanked his head back, biting him again, and it felt
so good
. Like something I’d waited my whole life to do. I started to feel warm. My legs curled around his waist as I pressed against him, yanking his head back farther still, and all at once his blood tasted…delicious.