One Grave at a Time

by Jeaniene Frost

  “Don didn’t seem too fond of him, either.”

  I’d have to ask my uncle about their history the next time I saw him. Maybe it was as simple as rivalry over a woman; that had been enough to start the Trojan War, after all. Still, as long as Madigan kept his actions aboveboard, whatever had happened between him and Don in the past didn’t matter. Madigan thought my uncle was dead and gone. He didn’t know he was right on only one of those counts.

  “He also deeply distrusts vampires, as you had guessed yourself,” Bones added. “Aside from that, all I heard was enough repetitions of ‘how many chucks could a woodchuck chuck’ to make me want to stake myself.”

  I laughed. Maybe underneath Madigan’s pompousness and prejudice, there lurked a sense of humor. That gave me hope. Pride wasn’t the world’s worst flaw, and vampire prejudice could be overcome with time. But the lack of a sense of humor was an insurmountable defect, in my opinion.

  “Makes me grateful my mind-reading skills were on the fritz earlier.”

  Bones grunted. “Lucky you, pet.”

  Since I’d made Bones’s blood my regular diet, I had more days where I could read humans’ thoughts than not; but every once in a while, that ability blinked out. I chalked it up to mind reading being a power Bones had only recently inherited when his co-ruler, Mencheres, shared some of his formidable abilities through a blood bond. Too bad I didn’t also catch occasional breaks from my inner ghostly paging system, but then again, the spectral juju juice in Marie Laveau’s blood had had centuries to ferment.

  At last, we turned onto the final gravel road that led to our house. Since it was at the top of a small mountain, it still took a few more minutes until we pulled into our driveway. Numerous ghosts lounged on our porch and in the surrounding woods, their energy making my skin tingle with a faint pins-and-needles sensation. Every head turned my way when our car came to a stop, but at least they didn’t rush me when I got out. I’d had to explain several times that while I appreciated their enthusiasm, only my cat was allowed to twine around me when I came back from an outing.

  “Hello, everyone,” I said in greeting, turning in a circle to encompass the lot of them. Then I held out my hands, my signal that whoever wanted could do a fly-through on them. At once, a steady streak of silvery forms came at me, my hands almost burning from the multiple contacts the ghosts made with them.

  This still felt like a very odd version of giving a group high five, but I’d come to discover that ghosts craved contact even though they passed through whoever—and whatever—they touched. And at least my hands were a far more appropriate body part for them to poltergeist than other areas that some of them had “accidentally” flown through. Implementing an automatic eviction order on any ghost who did a flyby below the belt put a stop to those incidents.

  Bones gave a sardonic snort as he strode past me into the house. I knew I wasn’t the only ones counting down the days until the voodoo queen’s borrowed powers faded from my blood. Even though he understood the reasons behind it, Bones liked a bunch of different men and women zinging through my flesh about as much as I liked running into his countless former flings.

  Once I was done with my unique form of saying hello, I went into the house, dropping my jacket onto the nearest chair. Bones’s voice stopped me from flopping my body there next, his English accent sharper with annoyance.

  “Fabian du Brac, I trust you have a good reason for this?”

  Uh-oh. Bones didn’t use Fabian’s full name unless he was ticked, and there were only a few rules we’d set down when we agreed to let Fabian live with us. When I came into the living room, I saw which one of those rules Fabian had broken.

  “Um, hi,” I said to the female ghost floating by Fabian’s side. She wore a dark, rather shapeless dress that did its best to conceal what must have been a Marilyn-Monroe-like figure when she had skin, and her severe bun only highlighted how naturally beautiful her face was.

  Bones didn’t appear impressed by the new ghost’s lovely visage. He continued to give Fabian a quelling look, dark brow arched in challenge. Fabian knew that only he and my uncle were allowed to float inside our home. We’d had to set some ground rules to protect our privacy, after all. Otherwise, we’d have ghosts trailing us from room to room, even following Bones and me into the shower or running a stream of commentary about our bedroom activities. That whole traveling through walls thing made most ghosts forget about what was appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

  “I can explain,” Fabian began, throwing me a beseeching look over Bones’s shoulder.

  “Allow me,” the female ghost replied in an accent that might have been German. “First, let me introduce myself. My name is Elisabeth.”

  She dipped into a curtsy, first to Bones, then to me as she spoke, her voice even despite her obvious unease.

  Some of the tightness left Bones’s shoulders as he bowed in return while extending his leg in a manner that had gone out of style centuries before I was born.

  “Bones,” he replied, straightening. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  I hid a smile. Bones might be able to snub Madigan’s extended hand without a second thought, but he’d always had a soft spot for women. I settled for giving Elisabeth a smile and a welcoming nod while I told her my name. Hey, curtsying wasn’t something I’d ever done before, but I’d learn just to see Bones do that courtly bow again. He somehow managed to make even the formal gesture look sexy.

  “Fabian did not think it wise to reveal my presence to the others,” Elisabeth went on, yanking my attention away from my musings. “That is why he bade me to wait inside for your return.”

  She spoke mainly to me though her gaze flicked to Bones more than once in mild consternation. Guess word had traveled that Bones was less than thrilled with my new popularity among the living-impaired.

  “Why is it a big deal if the others know you’re here?” I wondered out loud. Sure, some of the ghosts might grumble about Elisabeth’s being inside when they’d been given strict orders not to breach the house’s walls, but it wasn’t every day that Fabian enticed a hot babe to come home with him—

  “I am considered an outcast by many of my kind.” The words were whispered so low, I almost wasn’t sure I heard her.

  “An outcast?” I repeated. I hadn’t even known ghosts had outcasts. Jeez, looked like no group could totally get along no matter what side of the dirt they were on. “Why?”

  Elisabeth squared her shoulders as she met my gaze. “Because I am trying to kill another ghost.”

  Both my brows went up while a dozen questions sprang into my mind. Bones let out a low whistle before turning to give me a slight, jaded smile.

  “Might as well be comfortable to hear the rest of this, so why don’t we have a seat?”

  Fabian nodded toward the curtained windows. “Perhaps you could arrange for more privacy first, Cat?”

  Right. The other ghosts might not be able to see our new, enigmatic visitor, but if they floated too close to the house, they might accidentally overhear the rest of our conversation with Elisabeth. I sighed.

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Once I’d politely insisted that all transparent persons vacate the premises for the next hour, I returned to the family room. Bones sat on the couch, a half-empty whiskey glass in his hand. Vampires were one of the few who could honestly claim to drink for the taste since alcohol had zero effect on us.

  Fabian and Elisabeth hovered in sitting positions above the couch opposite Bones. I sat next to my husband, tucking up my legs more for warmth than comfort. Predawn in the early fall at these altitudes meant chillier temperatures. If I hadn’t hoped to be in bed soon, I would’ve started a fire. Luckily for me, my cat, Helsing, took my seated position as a cue to jump from his window perch onto the couch next to me. His furry body was like a mini furnace as he settled himself across my legs.

  “So,” I said, drawing the word out while I gave Helsing a few scratches around his ears, �
��how do you two know each other?”

  “We met in New Orleans several decades ago,” Elisabeth murmured.

  “June, 1935,” Fabian supplied before giving one of his sideburns a self-conscious rub. “I remember because it was, ah, unusually hot that year.”

  I almost bit the sides of my cheeks to keep from laughing. Fabian had a crush on the lovely ghost! His lame explanation for remembering the exact month and year they had met when ghosts didn’t even feel temperatures was topped only by the cow-eyed look he darted her way before schooling his features to faux blandness.

  Yep, he had it bad, all right.

  “Okay, you two have been friends for a while, but you’re not here just for a social visit, so what brings you, Elisabeth?”

  I assumed it had something to do with the ghost she wanted to kill, but if so, she’d be shit out of luck. For one, I wasn’t a contract killer of any species, and Bones had long since retired from that business himself. For another, I couldn’t even help my uncle willingly find a way to the other side. So offing a phantom was way outside my abilities even if I did have a sudden urge to go ghostbusting, which I didn’t.

  She folded her hands in her lap, fingers twisting together. “Back in 1489, at the age of twenty-seven, I was burned at the stake for witchcraft,” she began softly.

  Even though that was over half a millennium ago, I winced. I’d been burned before, and both times had been excruciating experiences.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Elisabeth nodded, not looking away from her hands. “I wasn’t a witch,” she added, as if that made any difference in the horrific nature of her execution. “I was a midwife who challenged the local magistrate when he accused a mother of deliberately strangling her baby with its own cord. The fool knew nothing of the complications that birthing often wrought, and I told him so. Soon after, he sent for Heinrich Kramer.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A murdering bastard,” Bones replied before Elisabeth had a chance. “He wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches, a book responsible for several centuries’ worth of witch hunts. According to Kramer, anyone in a skirt was like as not to be a witch.”

  So Elisabeth had been killed by a homicidal zealot with a serious case of misogyny. I knew what it was like to be singled out by a zealot, and that made me even more sympathetic toward her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said with even more sincerity this time. “However Kramer bought it back then, I hope it was long and painful.”

  “It wasn’t,” she said, bitterness edging her tone. “He fell off his horse and broke his neck instantly instead of being stomped on and left to suffer.”

  “Not fair,” I agreed, while thinking that at least Kramer would’ve gotten a taste of his own fiery medicine in hell.

  Bones gave Elisabeth a long, speculative look. “Know quite a few details about his death, do you?”

  Elisabeth met his gaze. In her half-hazy state, her eyes were medium blue, making me wonder if they had been as dark an indigo as Tate’s when she was alive.

  “Yes, I’m the one who spooked his horse,” she replied defensively, oblivious to the pun in her words. “I wanted revenge for what he’d done to me, and to put a stop to the deaths of more women in the town he was traveling to.”

  “Good for you,” I said at once. If she’d expected judgment, she hadn’t heard much about me. Or Bones. “Wish I could shake your hand.”

  “Too right,” Bones said, raising his whiskey in salute.

  Elisabeth stared at both of us for several seconds. Then, very slowly, she rose and floated over, holding out her hand to me.

  I shifted self-consciously. Guess she didn’t know what a metaphorical statement was. Then I stuck out my hand, reminding myself that this was no different than all the other times I’d let ghosts pass through my flesh in greeting. But when her hand closed over mine, that usual tingling feeling followed by my fingers poking right through her didn’t happen. Unbelievably, an icy-cold grip squeezed back with the same firmness and consistency as my own flesh.

  “Son of a bitch!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet. My cat hissed and leapt to the side of the couch, miffed at being unseated.

  Elisabeth suddenly stood before me in vibrant color, like she’d been switched from being broadcast in a fuzzy channel to high def. Her hair, which I’d thought had been a nondescript brown, shone with rich auburn highlights, and her eyes were so deep blue that they looked like the ocean at midnight. Her cheeks even had a pink flush to them, highlighting a complexion that could only be described as peaches and cream.

  “Bloody hell,” Bones muttered, standing also. His hand shot out to grasp Elisabeth’s arm, his expression mirroring my shock as his fingers closed around solid flesh instead of passing through vaporous energy.

  “I told you some of my kind were stronger than others,” Fabian murmured from behind Elisabeth.

  You weren’t kidding, were you? I thought numbly, unable to stop myself from squeezing Elisabeth’s very cold, very firm fingers to verify once more that she was really solid.

  But soon after I did, I felt a pop of energy in the air, like an invisible balloon had burst. Pins and needles broke out across my skin while the hand I’d been clasping vanished. In the next instant, Elisabeth’s appearance dulled back into muted colors, and the arm Bones had been holding melted under his grip, leaving his fingers curled—like mine were—around nothing more than a transparent outline of flesh that was no longer there.

  “The longest I can merge into solid form is a few minutes, but it is very draining,” Elisabeth said, as if what she’d done wasn’t incredible enough. “Yet Kramer is stronger than I am.”

  I felt like my brain was still playing catch-up from everything I’d just witnessed. “Kramer? You said he died centuries ago.”

  “He did,” Elisabeth replied with frightening grimness. “Yet every All Hallows’ Eve, he walks.”

  Four

  If a pin had dropped in the room, it would have shattered the sudden silence with the same effect as a bomb. I had a good idea of what Elisabeth meant by “he walks” but because it was too far-fetched for me to conceive of, I had to make sure.

  “You’re saying that after the homicidal asshat died, Kramer became a ghost who could walk around in solid flesh every Halloween?”

  Elisabeth’s brow furrowed in confusion at asshat, but she addressed the rest of my query without hesitation.

  “As far as I know, it has only been the past few decades that Kramer has been able to manifest flesh for an entire evening.”

  “Why just Halloween night?” Sure, it was the time where many people celebrated the idea of ghosts, ghouls, vampires, or other creatures, but most of them didn’t believe such creatures existed.

  “It’s the time when the barrier between the worlds is the thinnest,” Bones replied. “The celebration of Samhain harkens back long before humans made a candy and costume holiday out of it.”

  Elisabeth’s mouth curled. “The irony that Kramer is strengthened by an evening dedicated to what he once considered heretic worship is lost on him. He still believes himself to be acting on God’s side, as if the Almighty hadn’t made it clear that He wants nothing to do with Kramer.”

  “And what does he do on Halloween?” I’d bet every drop of blood in my body that Kramer didn’t spend it trick-or-treating.

  “He extracts ‘confessions’ of witchcraft from three women whom he’s coerced a human accomplice into kidnapping, and then he burns them alive,” Elisabeth replied, a spasm of pain crossing her features.

  It was official. I now wanted to murder a ghost, a notion I’d discarded as unlikely only twenty minutes before. Problem was, killing vampires and ghouls was my specialty. Not people who were already dead dead.

  “How long beforehand does he get an accomplice to capture these women?” Bones asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Elisabeth replied. She glanced away as if ashamed. “Perhaps a week? I’ve followed Kramer as best I could the
se many centuries, trying to discover a way to end him, but he is wily. He evades me much of the time.”

  Yeah, that whole ability to disappear would make him hell to follow, even for another ghost. Tracking him would be like trying to put handcuffs on the wind.

  Which brought up another question. “You said a lot of other ghosts consider you an outcast for trying to kill one of your own kind, who obviously had to be Kramer. How did you, ah, attempt to do it?” A mental image of two transparent figures trying to throttle each other flashed in my head.

  “Over the centuries, I made contact with several mediums, convincing them of Kramer’s evil in the hopes that one could banish him. They tried many different ways, but each attempt failed. Once word of what I’d done spread, I was shunned by many of my kind . . . except those like Fabian.”

  The smile Elisabeth gave him as she finished that sentence was filled with such poignancy, I felt like I was intruding just watching. Maybe his interest in her wasn’t only one-sided.

  “Kramer’s a murdering sod. Why wouldn’t other ghosts want him dead as well?” Bones asked, sticking to the practicalities.

  “Think about it,” Fabian replied, dragging his gaze away from Elisabeth’s face. “Most humans can’t see us, vampires and ghouls ignore us, and we’ve been rejected by every god ever worshipped. All we have is each other. Most might sympathize with Elisabeth’s reasons, but trying to kill one of our own is considered abhorrent no matter the cause.”

  “But not to you,” I said, proud of him for being one of the rebels against that warped spectral version of diplomatic immunity.

  Fabian ducked his head. “Perhaps others like me cling to our lost humanity more than the rest of them.”

  No, I thought. Strongly principled people like you do the right thing regardless of whether you’re made of flesh or fog.