One Foot in the Grave

THIRTEEN

I WAS IN SUCH TURMOIL THAT I HAD TO DO something. Tomorrow night we were supposed to investigate the GiGi Club, a place where two girls had disappeared. Their bodies hadn’t been found, but something about the way the police dismissed any connection to the club smacked of vampire influence. Fortunately it was local. Only an hour away. Still in my bridesmaid gown, I strapped knives to my legs and drove straight there. Fuck backup. Tate and the boys could have tomorrow night off. I was going vampire hunting and I was doing it alone.

Fifty minutes later I got out of the car, still stomping pissed, and was halfway across the parking lot when a scream whipped my head around. There was a young man, blood on his neck, waving his arms and yelling for help near the entrance to the club. No one looked up. Everyone went right by him. It was only when someone went right through him that I understood.

“Hey buddy!” I yelled, striding forward. “Over here!”

Several heads turned. The bouncer gave me a very strange glance, no doubt wondering exactly how much booze I’d already consumed. The bloody guy got an immense look of relief on his face and whizzed toward me in a hazy streak.

“Thank God! No one’s listening to me, and my girlfriend is dying! I don’t know why everyone’s ignoring me…”

Damn. The only other sentient ghost I’d met had been very aware that he was dead. Most ghosts were just fragments of an image, replaying themselves over and over in a mindless repetition of some long-past event. Not scared and confused and having no idea why suddenly no one paid attention to them.

“Where is she?”

Maybe this was useless. His girlfriend could have died years ago, but he was dressed in contemporary clothes, complete with an eyebrow ring and a pierced tongue. Imagine taking that with you to eternity.

“In here!” He sped right through the door while I settled for pushing my way past the people in line.

“Looking for my boyfriend,” I said by way of explanation to several hostile glances. “I know he’s in here with that tramp I work with.”

That got the women on my side. They hustled me forward with a few “Go get him, honeys!” The bouncer didn’t even card me when I stepped through the doors. Guess I looked over twenty-one.

The dead guy led me to a door on the far side of the club by the bathrooms. It was locked, but I gave it a good yank and it broke open. It revealed a narrow unlit hall that I followed to another locked door. Ah, a private room complete with soundproofing. The pumping noise from the music was almost inaudible in here.

I didn’t see the ghost anymore. There was only a girl in a leather chair facing the doorway, and she clearly wasn’t in mortal danger, unless you count painting her toenails. Her eyes widened when she saw me.

“How did you get in here? This is a members-only area!”

I smiled and extended my badge, one of the many I carried. “Police, sugar. That makes me a member everywhere,” I responded, heading for the only other door behind her.

She shook her head and resumed painting her nails.

“You don’t want to go in there, but hey. Your funeral.”

With that questionable display of concern, she applied another pink coat to the toe in front of her while I opened the door.

The ghost of the young man was inside, and he gestured to an unconscious girl in a vampire’s arms. “Help her, please!”

There were about half a dozen vampires inside. None felt older than I was in undead years. On the floor were two bodies. One of them was my ghost’s, who hovered frantically near the equally young girl being snacked on. She was still alive, but not for long judging from her pulse. The vampire hadn’t even paused to look at the ghost, even though I knew the undead schmuck could see him. Me, I’d have felt awkward when the specter of someone I’d just killed was whizzing by me while I ate, but this creep seemed blasé about it. The other body was also of a young woman, and there was a third girl clinging to life on another vampire’s lap. Her eyes fluttered and then closed when I flicked my gaze to her.

“You should have listened to Brandy,” one of the vampires purred at me in a bad imitation of a sinister voice.

“Miss Pink Toenails?” I asked as I hitched up my dress.

They watched with interest as my hem climbed higher up my legs. My hiking it up wasn’t for distraction, although that was a secondary benefit. It was to access the knives I’d strapped to my legs. When they were revealed, the mood in the room shifted from hungry and lustful to wary.

“Now, you fuckers,” I said as I rolled my head around my shoulders and palmed some knives. “Let me introduce myself.”

“You forgot one.”

I was just about to fling more knives when his voice stopped me. Bones came in and cast a thorough look around at the carnage. Most of the vampires I’d dispatched with my blades, but the ones who’d killed the kids I’d torn apart with my bare hands. It was the least I could do.

“Who?”

His smile was pleasant. “The little bitch who was sneaking around for a gun, but she’s not doing that any longer.”

Must have been Brandy with the pink toenails. His benign expression didn’t fool me. Knowing him, she’d be wearing that shade in hell.

“Two of these girls are still alive. Give them blood. Yours will work faster than what I have to offer.”

Bones took the knife I handed him and sliced his palm, going to each girl and making them swallow his blood.

“Will she be okay?” the ghost asked, hovering over his girlfriend.

Gradually I heard her pulse return to a slow but steady rhythm as Bones’s blood went to work in her, offsetting her injuries. After a moment, I smiled. “Yeah. She will be now.”

He smiled back, showing that in life, he’d had dimples. God, he was so young! Then he frowned.

“They’re not all here. There were three more of those creatures. They said they’d be back.”

Probably went out to rustle up more dinner. Bastards. “I’ll get them,” I promised. “Don’t worry. It’s my job.”

He smiled again…and then started to fade at the edges, growing fainter, until there was nothing left of him.

I stared in silence. Then, “Is he gone?”

Bones knew what I meant. “I expect so. He accomplished what he wanted to, so he’s moved on. Sometimes a few stubborn people hang on long enough to do one last thing.”

And he’d trusted me to take care of that last thing for him. There might not be much I could say I was good for, but avenging people who’d had their lives stolen from them was definitely my specialty.

I headed for the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Bones asked.

“Grabbing Miss Pink Toenails and piling her in here with the rest of them,” I threw over my shoulder. “Then I’m going to wait until their friends come back, and kill the hell out of them.”

Bones came after me. “Sounds like fun.”

We were on the dance floor nearest to the bathrooms. Anyone looking to access that grisly private room would have to pass by us first. I’d objected to dancing with him, even though it was our best cover option, but Bones just dragged me onto the floor in much the same way he had on our first date.

“You are a professional killer, aren’t you?” he asked. “You can’t hover around that hallway with blood spattered on you and expect to look inconspicuous.”

My lavender dress did have red streaks on it. I’d washed the blood off my hands in the bathroom, but there was no fixing that. Bones was right-I’d stick out like a sore thumb loitering in the hallway, or even at the bar. Pressed against him on the dance floor, however, no one would see it.

Except that being pressed against Bones on the dance floor was playing hell on my self-control. The last time I’d held him this way had been the morning I left him. I remembered it like yesterday: me fighting back tears and reminding myself that leaving him was the only option.

Yeah, some things hadn’t changed.

I sought around for a distraction. Anything other than focusing on how much I’d missed being in his arms.

“Why are you here anyway? I thought you’d be busy with Felicity, what with how the two of you looked.”

His brow rose. “Did seeing me kiss her bother you? I can’t imagine why. Didn’t you tell me in your note to move on with my life?”

A low blow. I started to pull away, but he just tightened his grip. It was either stay put or cause a scene and possibly miss catching the killers.

Grimly I began to dance again, hating that I still cared so much when it seemed Bones only had anger left in him.

“They knew what I was, Bones. The men who came to the hospital that day, they knew everything from my pathology reports. And they knew about vampires. The one in charge-”

“Don?” he supplied.

Oh, so he’d done his homework. “Yes, Don. He said he’d been looking his whole life for someone strong enough to fight vampires who wasn’t one of them. He offered me a deal. He’d relocate us, and I’d lead his team. In return he promised to leave you alone. We couldn’t have all survived any other way. We would have been hunted like animals, and you know my mother would have rather died than gone with you. She’d also rather see me killed than changed into a vampire, and let’s face it, that’s what you would have eventually wanted me to do!”

Bones let out a bitter snort, twirling me a little too hard.

“Is that what this whole bleedin’ thing was about? You believing I’d turn you into a vampire? Bloody hell, Kitten, did it ever occur to you to talk to me instead of just running off?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You would have insisted on it eventually,” I replied stubbornly.

“You should have trusted me,” he muttered. “When did I ever lie to you?”

“When have you lied to me?” I pounced. “How about when you kidnapped and murdered Danny Milton? You swore to me you’d never touch Danny, but I don’t suppose he’s off in Mexico sipping margaritas, is he?”

“You made me swear not to kill, cripple, maim, dismember, blind, torture, bleed, or inflict any injury on Danny Milton. Or stand by while someone else did. You should save your concern for someone worthy; Danny gave you up like a bad habit straightaway. You know that brainwashing rot doesn’t hold up under a Master vampire’s eyes. At least the bugger was finally useful. He told me where you lived. Virginia. I had you narrowed down to three states, and Danny saved me some time. That’s why I told Rodney to kill him fast and painless-and I didn’t stay to watch.”

“You bastard,” I managed.

Bones shrugged. “Since the day I was born.”

We danced in silence for a few minutes. I kept looking around for any telltale crystal skin on the patrons, but so far Bones and I were the only nonhumans. Where are you, bloodsuckers? Here, fangy, fangy, fangy…

“So, how long have you been dating the pet vet?” Bones asked.

The derisiveness in his tone stiffened my spine. “None of your business.”

He gave a short laugh. “Indeed? You looked like you were about to ram a stake through Felicity’s heart earlier, yet you begrudge me a simple question?”

The music changed to something slower. I cursed it, Bones, and the killers who’d put me in this situation.

“I wanted to ram a stake through her heart because she’s a shallow bitch who pisses me off. It had nothing to do with you.”

Bones’s laugh became softer. “Liar.”

He moved closer, his body dipping into mine in time with the music. The feel of his muscles moving in sinuous ripples under his clothes made my hands clench. Now I was fighting back something other than tears as I reminded myself it could never work between us.

His nostrils flared. Inwardly I cursed. I could fake cool all I wanted, but Bones was a vampire. He’d be able to tell from one whiff how he was affecting me.

“Perhaps you did miss me after all,” he said low, flecks of green appearing in his eyes.

I pretended to be blasé. “Don’t get flattered; you’re just a good dancer. Felicity seemed to think so, too.”

“Seeing me with Felicity was the least you deserved after I had to watch that human teddy bear fawn all over you,” Bones replied curtly. “Really, Kitten, what were you thinking? Your mum has bigger balls than Noah.”

“His balls are fine!” I snapped, then flushed. Hell if I knew, and God, did I just say that?

Bones snorted and twirled me in a circle before yanking me close. “Right. No wonder you’re so hot around me. I reckon you’ve had a better time shagging yourself than him. Must be frustrating.”

His hips were brushing mine as he taunted me. Anger flared in me, covering my lust. No way was I going to admit that I hadn’t slept with Noah or, hell, anyone since Bones. Frustrating? That didn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling.

But two could play the taunting game. I hitched a leg up, curling it around Bones’s hip, and gave a hard circular twist against him that had his gaze turning flat green.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s frustrated, Mr. Optical Hard-on. Might want to tone your eyes down. People will notice.”

Bones closed his eyes, then he locked his hands around my waist and bent until his mouth touched my ear.

“Careful, luv. I might be angry with you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want you. So if you do that again, I’ll shag you right here, right now, and sod anyone who wants to watch.”

His sudden hardness below emphasized that he wasn’t making an idle threat. That scared me-and turned me on in ways I didn’t even want to contemplate.

Bones took in a long breath. I shivered, knowing since vampires didn’t need to breathe, he was inhaling the traitorous scent of my desire.

“Oh, Kitten…” His voice deepened. “Now you’re just daring me, aren’t you?”

I was saved from a reply-or worse-when the energy in the room shifted. Bones felt it, too, a lot clearer than I did. He tensed and his eyes snapped open, no longer green, but hard brown orbs.

“They’re here.”