One Grave at a Time nh-6

by Jeaniene Frost

  Or maybe he wasn’t tracking me at all. Maybe Madigan hadn’t given me a second thought since I’d been thrown out of the compound. Don still hadn’t revealed anything significant about their past to explain why he was so convinced that Madigan was up to no good, and despite my intense dislike of him, Madigan hadn’t given me anything concrete to focus on, either. He seemed very interested in finding out if there were sentient ghosts, but any former CIA agent would fixate on the idea of invisible, undetectable spies. Yes, Madigan was a prejudiced prick who’d royally screwed Tate over, but if being intolerant and screwing someone out of a well-earned promotion was a crime, this country would need to build a lot more jails.

  “I hear them, they’re almost here,” Bones said from the cavern ahead. We only had one more slanted, rocky ledge to traverse before we reached the part of the cave where the trap was located. Tyler picked his way carefully, muttering about me owing him a new pair of pants when a piece of fabric tore on a protruding limestone edge.

  “Serves you right. Who wears Dolce & Gabanna to go underground?” I pointed out.

  “If I’m checking out today, I’m doing it while looking good,” was his reply.

  I wanted to reassure him that he absolutely would not die, but the words stuck in my throat. I’d do my damnedest to protect Tyler, as he knew, but we were dealing with a strong, vicious spectre and a trap that might or might not work. It had successfully held Fabian, then Elisabeth, when we tested it yesterday, but to tell Tyler he wasn’t risking his life summoning Kramer would be a flat-out lie, and I wasn’t about to lie to someone I now counted as a friend.

  “Here we are,” I said, when the cavern widened to a thirty-foot ceiling and a small, bubbling stream along the far wall. Bones stood in the middle of it next to the oblong limestone, quartz, and moissanite structure. Dexter and Helsing were in pet carriers on the sandy bank, Fabian and Elisabeth floating beside them. After all she’d been through, it was only fitting that Elisabeth was here to witness this. Fabian wasn’t about to stay behind even though entering the cave was harder for him now with his lesser power level and the abundance of limestone, quartz, and moissanite.

  My gaze locked with Bones’s. If he was worried, nothing in his expression or vibe gave it away. Instead, confidence exuded from his aura, and his dark eyes glittered with anticipation. With his tight long-sleeved shirt and matching ebony pants, he almost blended into the background except for the exquisite pale contrast of his face and hands. Good thing he mostly blended, too, since Kramer wasn’t supposed to see him until it was too late.

  “Ready, luv?” he asked.

  “Almost, sugar,” Tyler replied with a cheeky wink.

  I rolled my eyes. Between Bones’s self-assurance and Tyler’s irrepressible flirting, my lingering nervousness changed into optimism. We could do this. No, scratch that—we would do this.

  I grabbed some sage that we’d stacked by the edge of the stream and stuffed it into my backpack, Tyler following suit. I already had lighters in each pants pockets and so did he. All that was left was to break out the Ouija board, and Tyler was already pulling it out of his backpack.

  Bring it on, Inquisitor. We’ve got a surprise waiting for you.

  “Ready.”

  Tyler and I stood on either side of the stone-and-quartz pedestal, the Ouija board lying flat between us. This time, the planchette didn’t jump when I placed my fingers on it, as if I needed reminding that my borrowed powers from Marie had faded.

  Tyler’s brows went up, noticing that as well. “Something you want to tell me, Cat?”

  “Nope,” I said, and it was the unvarnished truth. Tyler didn’t know that one of the fragile cogs in the peace wheel between vampires and ghouls loosely rested on certain people still believing that I had special connections to the dead. Luckily, no one but Bones knew the average shelf life of my borrowed powers, so I should be able to stretch out the illusion that I could raise Remnants quite a while longer.

  What would happen after that jig was up, I’d worry about later. One perilous problem at a time, thank you.

  “All right,” Tyler said, after it became clear that was all I’d ante up on the subject. He cleared his throat, darkly musing that he’d probably get something sharp lodged in it again with what he was about to do, then placed his fingers on the planchette.

  “Heinrich Kramer, we summon you into our presence.”

  Tyler’s voice echoed throughout the cave as he spoke, his voice strong and commanding even though he inwardly cursed himself for not taking a piss before starting this.

  “Heed our call, Heinrich Kramer, and come to us. We summon your spirit through the veil into our presence . . .”

  The planchette began to jerk around the board in crazy, ragged circles. Tyler sucked in his breath. I strained my senses, but I’d felt chilly, tingling vibrations along my skin this whole time due to Fabian and Elisabeth’s close proximity, so that wasn’t any help.

  Suddenly, Bones plummeted down from his hiding place in one of the ceilings many crevasses. He’d been up there so he could slam the lid down on the trap if Kramer appeared, but nothing hazy or swirly interrupted the Ouija board’s smooth surface. Did he see something I didn’t? Couldn’t be; he set the huge, multimineral cylinder next to the trap instead of over it.

  “What?” I asked, gaze darting around.

  “Stop the summoning,” Bones ordered Tyler. His eyes were sizzling green as he looked at me.

  “People are coming, I can hear them. A lot of people.”

  “Shit,” I sighed.

  We’d left every one of our silver weapons in the RV, not wanting Kramer to have any means to permanently harm us if the trap didn’t work, and he started hurling nearby objects at us. Now, with potential enemies between us and the only weapons we could utilize aside from sticks and stones, what we’d done as a safety measure had turned out to be a huge liability.

  Bones cracked his knuckles, that lethal aura increasing until it prickled my skin with its energy. I strained my senses but couldn’t pick up on anything aside from Tyler’s concern and the sounds in the cave. Bones was older and stronger, so I didn’t doubt that he was right. This couldn’t be a hiking expedition stumbling across the cave by accident, either—we were in the middle of nowhere. It had to be an ambush, but how the hell had anyone found us?

  Then I heard it. The murmur of voices in my head, too low for me to make out specific words, too many to be Chris’s thoughts.

  “Fabian, Elisabeth,” Bones said low. “Find out what’s out there.”

  They disappeared in a flash. Tyler glanced around before mumbling some words, then shutting the Ouija board with a bang.

  “I turned it off. No one can come through now.”

  “See that shadow off to the right?” Bones asked him without turning in that direction. “It leads to a small enclosure. Wait there, and try to stay quiet.”

  Knew this day would end badly, Tyler thought in resignation as he did what Bones said.

  The seconds ticked by as we waited for the ghosts. My hands felt horribly empty without weapons, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d been in fights before against undead baddies without any silver. If we were lucky, and most of the hostiles approaching were human, bare hands would be more than sufficient.

  But if someone had gone to all this trouble of finding us, I bet he or she wouldn’t be dumb enough to show up with an army of only humans. There might be a lot of them, from the increased volume in my head that indicated the entrance to the cave was being surrounded, but these had to be the pawns. The question was, who was the chess player?

  A hazy outline zoomed up so fast; it took me a second to determine whether it was Fabian or Elisabeth.

  “Soldiers!” Fabian exclaimed. “But they are all human. Could these be members of your old team, perhaps here because they need your help?”

  My instant surge of relief at hearing they were human changed to suspicion. Bones and I exchanged a look, the tension in his aura
saying loud and clear that he thought something was still off.

  “Well,” I said at last. “Let’s see who they are and what they want.”

  The words barely left my lips before Bones muttered, “Bloody hell.” For a split second, I was confused. But then above the collage of voices in my mind, I heard a new one, chanting a single line over and over.

  Fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent . . .

  Madigan was out there, too.

  Sixteen

  I walked out of the cave with Bones at my side. Tyler brought up the rear, holding both pet carriers. The sight that greeted us was over a dozen automatic weapons pointed in our direction, Chris on his knees off to the far right side, a helmeted soldier pressing a gun to his cheek.

  And I told him it would be too dangerous to wait in the cave, I thought irreverently.

  After that initial glance, I didn’t look at the ring of soldiers anymore. My gaze was all for the stony-faced “operations consultant,” who had the agitated form of my uncle flying over him.

  “Madigan found the cave by reading one of your old reports back when Dave died,” Don said. “I tried to warn you that he was coming, but the cave felt like it was blocked, and something burned me whenever I tried to fly near the RV where Justina was!”

  I didn’t let any of my inner groan escape my lips. Of course. The RVs had sage lit in them, Chris couldn’t see Don to pass the message along, and my uncle was too new a ghost to withstand all the combined ingredients from the trap. I’d told him where I was in case of an emergency, but what I was doing prevented him from getting to me.

  “What a nice surprise,” I said to the group at large, fixing a false smile on my face. “Don’t tell me—I forgot someone’s birthday, and this is the party police come to correct my oversight, right?”

  Madigan came forward, but not close enough to stand in his soldier’s line of fire, I noted. Contempt curled around the fury in Bones’s emotions, but I fought against a snort. For all his talk about reading extensive reports on the undead, didn’t he know that many Master vampires could fly? Bones and I had endless miles of open space above our heads now that we were outside of the cave. Aside from looking showy, the guns pointed at us were as much of a threat as harsh language.

  “Crawfield,” Madigan began.

  “Russell,” I interrupted him, smiling sweetly. “I know you’re a stickler for facts, so I wanted to remind you of that one before you got it wrong in your future report.”

  His features darkened with anger, but I didn’t care. He was the one who’d arranged to have a barrage of weapons pointed at us for no reason whatsoever, so politeness had already gone out the window. If not for my mother and the two RVs full of people with way too much information on what we’d been doing here, I wouldn’t even wait around to hear why Dickhead had come. Bones could carry Chris and Tyler. I could grab my mother, and we could fly out of here. Madigan would never know what we were doing here because it was like a maze in the cave. Even after two weeks, Chris and the others still needed Bones or me to guide them to the trap, or they’d get lost.

  But we did have two RVs full of people, and I could tell from the guards’ thoughts that they were staring down a line of automatic weapons right now just like we were. Flying away while carrying Chris, Dexter, Tyler, the pet carriers, and two of those? Bones could probably handle it, but that was a bit beyond my skill level.

  “What’s in the cave, Russell?” Madigan asked with heavy sarcasm.

  I shrugged. “Rocks. Lots of ’em.”

  “Don’t patronize me.” His voice lowered to a hiss. “What else is in the cave?”

  I looked him straight in the eye and spoke one word.

  “Mud.”

  Madigan’s thoughts erupted into a slew of curses before he regained control and barricaded them behind the car insurance jingle that had to be what hell played for elevator music.

  “You don’t want to do that, mate,” Bones said. His tone was soft, but each word was edged in ice. “She cares about protecting everyone your toy soldiers are holding hostage enough to ignore those insults. I don’t. Think anything like that at her again, and I’ll kill you here and now.”

  Madigan’s scoff was uneasy. “Any attack on me—”

  “Is the same as an attack on the United States itself,” Bones finished, still in that deadly calm manner. “Heard you the first time—and didn’t give a shite then, either.”

  Madigan eyed Bones for another tense, extended moment before turning his attention back to me.

  “We know you’re up to something in the cave, and we know it has to do with ghosts. It’ll be easier on everyone if you tell me what it is, but even if you don’t, I’ll find out.”

  Not if I can help it. “I told you the last time I saw you; I’m doing a favor for a friend’s paranoid client. She thinks this cave is haunted by old Indian spirits or something. I told her I’d have professionals check it out, so here we are.”

  “Swears Tecumseh, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo are holed up in there. Bitch is crazy, but her checks clear,” Tyler added.

  Madigan looked over at Chris, who had sweat dripping down his face even though it was chilly with the early-evening breeze.

  “Is that what you were doing in there?”

  Chris didn’t look at me or Bones, but he knew we were watching him. His thoughts raced, wondering who he should be more afraid of: the man commanding the soldier who had a gun pressed to his head or the two vampires fifty feet away.

  “We were looking for ghosts, just like they said,” he rasped, being vague.

  Madigan moved closer to him. “And did you find any?”

  This time, Chris’s gaze skidded in our direction before he spoke. “Had some interesting EMF readings and found some cold spots, but nothing like what the client described.”

  “Ah.” Madigan took his glasses off and cleaned them almost leisurely on his jacket. “So we’re back to the ‘there’s no such thing as intelligent ghosts’ claim, hmm? What’s with all the marijuana and garlic everywhere in your old house, Cat?”

  I gave him a breezy smile. “Love to get my weed on, and garlic is great for the blood.”

  “Do you even know how to tell the truth?” Madigan asked sharply.

  “You’re one to talk,” Don muttered.

  I said nothing. Madigan continued to stare at me, his guards holding their position even though a few of them were beginning to think that if they weren’t going to shoot us anytime soon, they’d like to lower their heavy guns. I didn’t think it was an accident that all these men were strangers to me. For this occasion, Madigan had left all my friends from the team behind.

  “Donovan,” Madigan called out, with a victorious little smirk. “Take Proctor and Hamilton and sniff out the spectre trap that the folks at the RV were talking about. Then we’ll see about there being no such thing as sentient ghosts.”

  Fuck! If the trap was successful, we’d intended to erase the team’s memories to prevent them from revealing any incriminating information like this, but too late now. Still, we might be able to brazen it out. It would take these guys weeks to find the trap if they succeeded at all.

  My relief at that lasted only long enough for the three soldiers to take their helmets off and come toward Bones and me, sniffing deeply. They were human, why would they do such a thing?

  The reason hit me even before Madigan’s smug words.

  “These men have had their senses heightened by vampire blood. Now that they have your scent, they can follow its trail right to that big stone device we’re told is in there.”

  Double fuck! Imbibing enough vampire blood would indeed give them the ability to sniff out our path to the trap, plus make them immune to mind control. By finding the cave from old mission reports and showing up with supernaturally enhanced soldiers, Madigan had proven smarter than I’d given him credit for.

  Bones folded his arms, his gaze like a laser beam as he stared at Madigan.

  “Whose blood are t
hey on? Every vampire on your team owes their fealty to me, and I did not give them permission to turn over their blood for such purposes.”

  Madigan’s smile was cold. “Don’t worry. I didn’t get it from them.”

  My eyes widened before I could control myself, but this news stunned me. If Madigan hadn’t tapped Tate’s or Juan’s veins in order to juice up his select guard, then what other vampire—or vampires?—was he in collusion with?

  Then I met my uncle’s gaze, and another realization bolted through me. Don didn’t look the least bit surprised. With all his slurs about Madigan, he hadn’t once mentioned a connection to vampires. How could he have left something that important out?

  Bones’s eyes turned green, and power crackled through the air—icy, lethal, and expanding so rapidly it soon surrounded everyone in the vicinity. I tensed for what felt like an imminent explosion. Tyler must’ve also sensed that a switch had been flipped. He moved away, thinking, That guy done fucked up now.

  Madigan must’ve sensed that, too. He took a step back, his smile faltering. “See those visors my men are wearing? Not only do they block out the effect from your eyes, they also contain recorders streaming live images to a secure location. Even if you manage to kill all of us, others in the government will know who did it. You’ll be hunted for the rest of your lives.”

  For a second, I wondered if Bones cared. Madigan had no idea that one did not taunt a Master vampire with the notion that he was using other vampires against him. But while the thought of Bones’s killing Madigan didn’t bother me, killing his guards for no reason other than they would feel duty-bound to strike back was repellent. Plus, then our claims that vampire prejudice was unfounded would be pretty hollow if we massacred an elite government operative like Madigan and some of his protective guard on video.