One Grave at a Time

by Jeaniene Frost

  “Kramer’s only been killing for decades, yet you’ve attempted to destroy him for hundreds of years?”

  Bones’s tone was mild, but his gaze had narrowed.

  “Oh, he killed long before he acquired the ability to burn people again,” Elisabeth said flatly. “He would torment those who had the ability to see him, driving them to insanity or death. Then once he was able to manifest himself, he singled out the most vulnerable: children, the elderly, or the sick, driving them to the same bitter resolution. And no one believed them. Just like no one believed me when I was denounced as a witch and sentenced to burn.”

  Chills ran up my spine at the bleak resonance in the ghost’s voice. If Elisabeth had watched this same brutal pattern play out all these years, unable to do a thing to stop it, I was amazed she was still sane. I couldn’t always get the bad guys, but one of the things I clung to was the hope that one day, they’d get their just deserts whether it was in this life or the next. Yet Kramer had managed to escape punishment on every side of the grave. Even though I had enough to deal with from my unwanted powers from Marie, my uncle’s quest to cross over, and the suspicions over the new operations consultant, the injustice of Kramer’s wandering free to torture and murder more innocent people was too much for me.

  Yet it wasn’t just my anger that made up my mind. It was the way Fabian stared at Elisabeth. Then he turned his gaze to me, and the pleading in that single glance confirmed my decision.

  “I’ll help you,” I said to Elisabeth, holding up my hand in anticipation of Bones’s protest. Fabian had come through for me many times in the past, but the only way I’d been able to show my appreciation was a mere thank-you. Well, here was my chance to let Fabian know he was as dear to me as any of my other friends, even if he was the only one of them without flesh. Helping Elisabeth wasn’t only the right thing to do; it was also important to Fabian. Really, what other choice did I have?

  Cool fingers curled around my hand, squeezing once. I looked away from Fabian to meet Bones’s steady gaze.

  “You’re not the only one who feels indebted to him,” Bones said quietly. Then his mouth curled as he focused on Fabian. “Though you could’ve set an easier task before us.”

  “I’ll do whatever you need to assist you,” Fabian vowed, his expression brightening with such hope that my heart twisted. I might feel confident in our abilities to deal with Kramer’s accomplice if we found out who the newest acolyte was in time, but I didn’t even know if it was possible to kill a ghost. Bones had threatened exorcism on a couple of them before; but according to Elisabeth, that probably wouldn’t work. Seeing Fabian’s obvious faith made me afraid for more reasons than the idea of a murderer going free. I was afraid I’d let him down after all he’d done for me.

  “We know you will, mate. You’ve already proven that,” Bones replied.

  “Thank you,” Elisabeth said, her voice very soft. Something shone in her eyes that I’d swear were tears on any other person. “I came here with little hope. Your kind usually doesn’t bother with mine no matter the circumstances.”

  “Yeah?” My smile was wry. “Just call me an equal opportunity ass-kicker, because Kramer and his assistant deserve to be taken out no matter what species they are.”

  “Perhaps it’s best if you stay in Fabian’s room while we determine our first course of action,” Bones suggested, giving Fabian a slanted look before returning his attention to Elisabeth. “Safer if energy’s emitting from a room in the house that other ghosts are used to its coming from.”

  “Of course,” Elisabeth replied, smoothing her long skirt as she floated into a standing position. “I will be very discreet.”

  “Fabian can also fill you in on the house rules. We’ll talk more once my wife and I have rested for the day.”

  Both ghosts took the hint, vanishing with more murmured thanks. I waited until I felt the energy in the room dissipate before turning to Bones.

  “You sly matchmaker, you.”

  His grin held more than a hint of wickedness. “If I didn’t give the bloke an edge, he’d likely spend the next century working up the courage to pay her a compliment.”

  “Shameless,” I teased him, being sure to keep my voice low since I didn’t know how far Fabian and Elisabeth had spoofed off to.

  Bones’s laugh flowed over me, dark and promising. “Indeed, as I intend to prove once we’re in bed.”

  Tired I might have been, with too many things on my mind and on my plate, but only an idiot passed up that kind of invitation.

  “Race you there,” I whispered, and dashed up the stairs.

  Five

  I snapped the cover over my iPad, not crumpling up the device in a fit of anger only because it was too damn expensive.

  “What a sick, crazed asshole!” I spat.

  Bones glanced over at me before returning his attention to the road. “Told you not to start reading that book.”

  Yeah, well, it was a long drive to Washington, D.C., the book was available to buy online, and studying my target was my first step when I began a hunt. I knew the Malleus Maleficarum would be filled with superstitious bull crap, but I had underestimated the depths of its viciousness. I didn’t know what disgusted me more: the precepts set forth by Kramer, or the knowledge that hundreds of years and countless deaths occurred before the average person stopped believing that he was correct.

  “The accused had no chance,” I continued to fume. “Evidence was something none of them cared about. All someone needed to do was get a ‘feeling’ that a person was a witch, and boom, an Inquisitor could take her. Confessions were extracted by torture—described in sickening detail, I might add—and even if the poor woman confessed before being tortured, she’d be tortured anyway just for ‘confirmation.’ And if any of the accused managed not to confess no matter what horrific things were done to them, they were burned to death anyway because then they were considered to be unrepentant. Jesus!”

  A grunt. “Don’t think He had anything to do with it, luv.”

  “Bet your ass,” I muttered. Religion might have been the excuse, but power and depravity were the real culprits. “Do you know Kramer considered women responsible for everything from impotence to failed crops—and that’s not getting started on his obsession with their inherently evil, insatiable slutty natures, of course.”

  Bones’s mouth curled. “Want to kill him a great deal now, do you?”

  “Oh, so much.” My hands itched with the urge to do violence to Kramer, but since he’d only be solid when he was burning new victims alive on Halloween, that would be too late. I’d have to settle for finding a way to dispatch him while he was still in vaporous form, and that—sadly—wouldn’t involve dismemberment, I’d bet.

  The look Bones threw my way said he could guess my thoughts. Or maybe he noticed me clenching my hands into fists.

  “Chin up, Kitten. Perhaps the chap we’re meeting will find a particularly brutal way to banish the sod for good.”

  “You seem pretty relaxed about this whole situation,” I said with mild exasperation, noting the nonchalance in his tone and vibe.

  Bones all but rolled his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be? For the first time in years, our relationship is solid, no one’s actively trying to murder us, and our closest mates are happy. Blimey, Kitten, if I were any more relaxed, I’d need a smoke.”

  I was about to point out that things were hardly rosy considering my uncle’s stuck-in-between state, the potentially troublesome Madigan, and a murderous ghost on the loose, but then I paused. Wouldn’t there always be something stressful going on in our lives? If I didn’t learn how to savor the positives—and everything Bones pointed out was a big positive—then I would march through life with a permanent case of Glass Half-Empty syndrome.

  “You’re right,” I said, reaching out to squeeze his thigh. “Things have never been better.”

  Bones caught my hand and raised it to his mouth, lips brushing over my knuckles in a whisper of a kiss.

&nb
sp; We’d always have challenges, but like everyone else, we would tackle them one at a time. Right now, Kramer was first on the list, and for all the problems the spectral schmuck represented, there were also positives. He might be able to terrorize and harm humans, but once I had Kramer in my sights, he’d be picking on someone his own size. I didn’t scare easily, and a ghost could never beat a vampire in a fight. He couldn’t even throw a punch until Halloween, and we’d lay the smackdown on him well before that. My mood improved even further.

  “I bet this medium is going to give us great news,” I added, voice throatier from Bones’s tongue flicking between my fingers with the barest of touches.

  Elisabeth had said mediums couldn’t get the job done before, but she’d only been able to get a few to try, and the last attempt had been over fifty years ago. Bones’s best friend, Spade, knew some noted demonologists who’d recommended the medium we were on our way to see, and if we were lucky, he’d prove more efficient than the others. If he didn’t pan out, we still had a few other tricks up our sleeves. Good thing, too, because October wasn’t far away.

  At least we had an ace in the hole. As a ghost, Elisabeth was limited to traveling long distances by either physically hitching a ride on a car or using a ley line, which was a supernatural version of a speed train. Ley lines usually led to various supernatural hot spots, so then she’d have to pit stop at each one during her attempts to locate Kramer, but put me within a hundred mile radius of him, and I could use the borrowed power in my blood to lure Kramer to me. Then, once he was there, I could command him not to leave until we were done exorcising him. I’d detested that one of the side effects of drinking the voodoo queen’s blood—in addition to becoming catnip for spirits—was the ability to strip ghosts of their free will, but that ability would come in handy in this situation. I didn’t feel comfortable using that power on the ghosts who found their way to me, but on a prick like Kramer, I’d wield it with a smile. And a distinctly witchy cackle.

  As for the accomplice, well, a human would be so easy to dispatch, it took the fun out of contemplating it.

  “We’re here,” Bones said, letting go of my hand to pull into a strip mall parking lot.

  I glanced around, looking for any afterlife-themed names in the businesses lining the front of the L-shaped complex. The closest thing I found was Deena’s Heavenly Cheesecake, but I doubted that was the place.

  “Are you sure this is it?”

  Bones pointed. “Helen of Troy’s Garden is right over there.”

  “But that’s a florist,” I said, as if the obvious had escaped him.

  He answered me as he parked the car. “Maybe he fancies communing with flowers as well as ghosts.”

  It shouldn’t surprise me that a medium would have a regular day job, but it did. Then I gave a mental shrug. Several years ago, I’d gone to college during the day and hunted vampires at night. Just because people were connected to the paranormal in one way didn’t mean they had to be involved with it in all parts of their lives.

  When I got out of the car, a smash of voices assaulted my mind, as abrupt as a switch being flipped. My hand flew to my head in an instinctive yet totally useless gesture of defense against the sudden deluge of chatter.

  “Aw, crap,” I muttered. “Give me a second.”

  Bones came over to me without asking what was wrong. He’d seen this response enough before to know. His gaze flitted between me and the rest of the parking lot while coiled, dangerous energy leaked from his aura—a warning to anyone without a pulse that approaching us would be a bad idea. I was at my most vulnerable in those first few moments, when I used all of my concentration to turn down the roar of voices in my mind, courtesy of my mind-reading abilities suddenly kicking in.

  Once I was able to dim the carousel of conversations to a level similar to annoying background music, I gave Bones a thumbs-up.

  “What’s my time?”

  “Seventy-two seconds,” he replied.

  Bones didn’t have a stopwatch, but I knew his quote was accurate. I blew out a sigh. On the plus side, that was my fastest recovery time to date. In the negative column, if we’d been under attack during those seventy-two seconds, I could’ve been killed several times over. Not by another human, sure, but a midlevel vampire or ghoul could clean my clock while my attention was so dangerously divided.

  “You were right. The voices are easier to control when I’m used to them being there. Wish this on-again, off-again garbage would stop already.”

  He ran his hands down my arms in a slow, firm caress, his touch conveying both strength and resolve.

  “It’s happening less, and you’re rebounding faster. Soon you’ll master it completely, just like you’ve done with every other challenge that’s been thrown at you.”

  I wish I had half his confidence in my abilities, but there wasn’t time for me to wallow in uncertainties. For now, I’d follow the sage mantra of fake it ’til you make it. I smiled and changed the subject.

  “There’s a man inside the florist’s shop thinking you’re way too hot to be straight. Think he’s our medium?”

  Bones’s mouth curled, but he didn’t bother looking over my shoulder at the shop behind me. No doubt he’d picked up on those same thoughts himself, but was too polite to admit it.

  “Let’s find out.”

  The plethora of scents inside Helen of Troy’s Garden had me breathing almost as often as I had before I became a full vampire. Fresh floral fragrances washed away the acridness of oil, exhaust, and chemicals from my occasional breaths on the drive over, making me feel like my lungs had just gone through a quick cleaning. For practicality’s sake, it also gave me a chance to scent out any potential dangers. Undead Masters might be able to cloak their auras, but no one could fully erase their scent. A couple sniffs told me that no other vampires were in the store but me and Bones, and I didn’t catch the earthy scent of any ghouls, either. Sure, we were here on Spade’s referral, but waltzing in without our guard up was akin to asking Fate to send us an unpleasant surprise, in my opinion.

  Once I established that the only danger the florist shop represented would be to someone with allergies, I turned my attention to the chicly dressed, smiling African-American man who continued to check Bones out as if he was an orgasm for the eyes.

  In fairness, he was, but it still raised my instinctive vampire territorialism even though Bones was faithful, not to mention he didn’t swing that way.

  “You Tyler?” Bones asked at the same time that I loudly cleared my throat. Both served to cut off the beginnings of a mental fantasy the man was having about Bones that would take days to scrub from my mind.

  “That’s me,” Tyler replied with a quick, engaging grin.

  “We have an appointment,” I said, fighting my urge to grip Bones’s arm while hissing and flashing fang. “I’m Cat, and this is my husband, Bones.”

  Amusement wafted over my subconscious, but Bones’s expression didn’t change from its mask of cool inscrutability as he regarded Tyler.

  “Just my luck you couldn’t be a brother and sister shopping for some flowers for Mom,” Tyler said in a disappointed tone. Then he winked at me. “That’s right, honey, state your claim on Mr. Yummy Pants. I’d do the same if I were you.”

  A grin ticked at my mouth. I swept my gaze over the muscled roundness of Bones’s ass, which his black jeans only highlighted. Then I gazed at the snug fit of the front that had nothing to do with the cut of the denim. Finally, I met Tyler’s chocolate-colored eyes and winked back.

  He laughed.

  “Nice shop,” I said to change the subject. “Everything’s so fresh and beautiful.”

  Tyler waved a hand. “Being a medium might sound glamorous, but creditors are only impressed with one thing, sweetness. Payments. Besides”—he shuddered dramatically—“when they find out about my other job, they always want proof that I’m not faking, and telling someone their dead Aunt Tilly hates their skanky new girlfriend just leads to your power ge
tting shut off.”

  I couldn’t stop my laugh at that. Bones’s mouth quirked. “Indeed. Now, mate, you know why we’ve come. Shall we chat here, or elsewhere?”

  “Here. Just let me close up.”

  Tyler bustled over to the entrance, flipping the sign from OPEN to SORRY WE MISSED YOU! before locking the door. On his way back, he gave another open leer at Bones’s ass before meeting my gaze and fanning himself.

  “Rawr!” he stage-whispered.

  My initial spurt of territorialism had changed to humor. Tyler reminded me of another affable pervert—my friend, Juan. If it was female, Juan was attracted to it. Aside from a switch in gender, Tyler seemed to be the same way. From his thoughts, I knew he had no serious interest in hitting on Bones now that he knew he was married. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. Tyler’s thoughts bounced around between wondering what sort of ghost was giving us trouble, to pondering whether we were human, to guessing that Bones tasted like vanilla frosting.

  Two out of the three musings weren’t slutty, at least.

  “All set now. Follow me,” Tyler said.

  We headed toward the back room of the shop. Another heartbeat came from there, making me wonder if Tyler had a partner. I wasn’t worried that he hadn’t mentioned anyone else being here, though. If one human proved too much for Bones and me to handle, we didn’t deserve to have fangs. More plants and boxes were stacked along the short, narrow hallway, as well as bags of fertilizer and other greenery accessories. As predicated, this clutter ended in a small office with no windows and walls that had seen better days. It was also empty of anyone that I could see, but from the rapid heartbeat—and some nasally grunting—an animal was in here.

  Bones and I sat in the two folding chairs opposite a desk that had duct tape wrapped around one corner. Tyler pulled a comfier-looking chair out from behind the desk to sit closer to us.

  “Sorry for the surroundings,” he said, still in that same cheery way. “Have to make it pretty in front for customers, but that means skimping back here where it’s just me and Dexter.”