One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress 2)

That wasn't good. Not f**king good at all. The fact that this deliberate taunt was clearly addressed to me, and in the house I grew up in, showed two terrifying things. Someone knew my stage name-and my real one.

"Where's my mother?" She was my first thought. Perhaps they only knew about Catherine Crawfield, or maybe they knew about Cristine Russell, too.

Don held up a hand. "We've sent men to her house with instructions to bring her here. We're doing that as a precaution, because I think if they knew who and where you were now, they wouldn't have bothered with your birthplace."

Yes, that was true. I was so upset I wasn't thinking clearly. That had to stop, because there was no time to be stupid.

"Do you have any idea who this could be, Cat?"

"Of course not! Why would I?"

Don pondered that for a minute, pulling the hairs on his eyebrow.

"It's coincidental that you've been dating Noah Rose for a month now, and suddenly someone's found you out? Have you told him what you are? What you do?"

I gave Don a nasty glare. "You ran a full background check on Noah the minute you discovered I was dating him. Without my permission, I might add, and no, Noah doesn't know anything about vampires, what I do, or what I am. This better be the last time I have to assure you of that."

Don gave a concurring nod, then went on to speculate again. "Do you think this could be Liam Flannery? Did you tell him anything before that he could have used to trace you?"

A cold chill went through me. Ian had connections to my past, all right. Through Bones. Bones knew my family's old address, my real name, and he used to only call me Kitten. Could this be Bones? Would he have done something this extreme to draw me out of hiding? After over four years, did he still even think about me?

"No, I didn't tell Flannery anything. I don't see how he could be responsible."

The lie tripped off my tongue without pause. If it was Bones, directly or indirectly, I'd deal with him myself. Don and Tate thought his body was packed away on ice in the basement freezer. I wasn't about to change that.

Juan and Dave arrived. Both of them also looked like they'd been freshly woken. Briefly Don filled them in on the situation and its implication.

"Cat, I will leave you four to it," he concluded. "Pick your team and plug this leak. The planes will be ready when you are. And don't worry about bringing me back any stragglers this time. Just eliminate whoever knows about you."

Grimly I nodded, and prayed my suspicions were wrong.

"Have you been home since you started with this Death Squad from Hell? Think anyone will recognize you?"

Dave had kept up a stream of steady chatter as we circled over the air base before landing.

"No, I haven't been back since my grandparents died. I only had one friend"-and I was definitely not referring to a certain horny, alcoholic ghost-"and he graduated from college and moved to Santa Monica years ago."

That had been Timmie, my old neighbor. Last I checked, he was a reporter for one of those "the truth is out there" independent magazines. You know, the kind that every once in a while hit on an incredible, factual story and then made Don's life hell while he tried to find ways to discredit it. Timmie believed I had been killed in a shootout with the police after murdering my grandparents, some police officers, and the governor. What a way to be thought of. Don hadn't spared my reputation in making me disappear. I even had a headstone and fake autopsy reports.

"Besides..." I shook off the past like a wet raincoat. "With my hair shorter and brown, I look very different. No one would recognize me now."

Except Bones. He'd know me a mile away by scent alone. The thought of seeing him again, even under such murderous circumstances, made my heart pound. How low I'd fallen.

"You're sure about bringing Cooper?" Dave nudged me and glanced toward the back of the plane. We had our own little area up front. Weren't we the special ones?

"I know it's only been two months since we brought Cooper on, but he's smart, fast, and ruthless. His years as an undercover narcotics officer probably helped there. He's performed well in training operations, so it's time to see how he does in the field."

Dave frowned. "He doesn't like you, Cat. He thinks you'll turn on us one day because you're a half-breed. I think he should be put under the juice and have the last two months wiped from his mind."

"Put under the juice" referred to the brainwashing techniques Don had perfected over the last years. Our in-house vampires had their fangs milked like snakes. The hallucinogenic drops they produced were then refined and harvested. When combined with the usual mind-fuck method the military used, it left the participant happily unaware of any details regarding our operation. That was how we weeded through the recruits and didn't worry about one blabbing about a chick with superhuman powers. All they remembered was a day of hard training.

"Cooper doesn't have to like me-he only has to follow orders. If he can't do that, then he's out. Or dead, if he gets himself killed first. He's the least of our concerns now."

The plane touched down with a jar. Dave smiled at me.

"Welcome home, Cat."

Chapter Five

THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN WAS ON A CHERRY orchard that looked like it hadn't been harvested in years. Maybe not since my grandparents were murdered. Licking Falls, Ohio, was a place I hadn't thought I'd see again, and the scary thing was that it seemed like time had stood still in this small town. God, this house would get a sick sort of notoriety. Four people had been killed inside these walls. Two supposedly by their own granddaughter, who'd then gone on a senseless murder spree, and now this couple.

It was ironic that the last time I'd walked up to my front porch, it had also been to a double murder. Pain blasted through me at the mental image of my grandfather slumped on the kitchen floor and my grandmother's red handprints staining the stairs where she'd tried to crawl away.

Dave and I circled around the kitchen, careful not to disturb anything more than necessary.

"Were the bodies checked? Was anything found?"

Tate coughed. "The bodies are still here, Cat. Don ordered they not be moved until you looked at them. Nothing has been confiscated."

Great. Don was too smart for his own good. "Have they been photographed? Documented? We can rip through them to look?"

Juan winced at my choice of words, but Tate nodded. The house was surrounded by exterior troops in case this was a trap. It was just before noon, so we were somewhat safer. Vampires hated to be up early. No, I had been brought here specifically, and I was betting whoever did this was getting their beauty rest.

"Okay then. Let's get started."

An hour later, Cooper was at his breaking point.

"I'm going to be sick."

I glanced past the remains of what used to be a happy couple. Yep, Cooper's mocha face was positively green.

"You throw up and you'll eat it off the floor, soldier."

He cursed, and I returned to examining the torso in front of me. Occasionally I heard his stomach heave, but he swallowed back the bile and kept working. I held out hope for his abilities yet.

My hand struck something odd in the chest cavity of the female. Something hard that wasn't bone. Carefully I pulled it out, ignoring the squishy suction sounds it made as I drew it free.

Tate and Juan leaned over me intently. "Looks like a rock of some kind," Tate noted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Juan wondered.

I felt as hard as the stone in my hand. Silently I screamed inside.

"It's not a rock. It's a piece of limestone. From a cave."

"Stay back five miles from all sides. Any closer and they'll hear your heartbeats. No overhead air support, no radio. Hand signals only; we don't want to give away our numbers. I'll enter the cave from the mouth, and you will give me exactly thirty minutes. If I don't come out, you use the rockets and blast it, then contain the perimeter and watch your backs. Anything comes out of that cave except me, you shoot it until you're sure it's really dead. And then you shoot it some more."

Tate angrily rounded on me. "This is a bullshit plan! That missile would only kill you, but the vampires would just dig themselves out later. If you don't come out, we're coming in after you. Period."

"Tate is right. We're not blowing you up before I get a chance to show you my sausage." Even Juan sounded worried. His innuendo was halfhearted at best.

"No way, Cat," Dave agreed. "You've saved my ass too many times for me to flip that switch."

"This isn't a democracy." Ice edged my words. "I make the decisions. You follow them. Don't you get it? If I'm not out in thirty minutes, then I'm dead."

We spoke while flying in the chopper to thwart any undead eavesdroppers. I was paranoid to a fantastic degree after finding that rock. I hated to believe it, but I couldn't imagine who else could have left it except Bones. That memento from the cave was too personal for it to have been Ian. Bones was the only one who knew about the cave, and everything else. The thought of him tearing apart those people sickened me. What could have happened in four years to change him so much, that he'd do such a gruesome thing? That's why I needed only thirty minutes. Either I would kill him or he'd kill me, but it would be fast regardless. Bones always did get straight down to business, and he wouldn't expect a romantic reunion. Not when he just sent me a bouquet of body parts.

The helicopter landed twenty miles away. We would drive the next fifteen and I would walk the last five. The three of them argued with me the entire time, but I ignored them. My mind was numb. I'd wanted desperately to see Bones again, but never had I imagined it would be like this. Why? I wondered again. Why would Bones do something so horrible, so extreme, after all this time?

"Don't do it, Cat."

Tate tried one last time as I wrapped my jacket around me. It was lined with silver weapons, useful for much more than warmth. Winter was slow to release its grip this year. Tate gripped my arm, but I yanked free.

"If I go down, lead the team. Keep them alive. That's your job. This is mine."

Before he could say anything more, I broke into a run.

The last mile I slowed to a walk, dreading the confrontation. My ears were pricked for the slightest sound, but that was why the cave had been such a great hideout. The depths and heights played tricks with noise. I couldn't pinpoint any exact sounds. Surprisingly, I thought I heard a heartbeat as I drew nearer, but maybe it was just my own pounding. When I touched the outer entrance of the cave, I felt the energy inside. Vampire power, vibrating the air. Oh God.

Right before I ducked under the threshold, I pressed a button on my watch. Countdown, thirty minutes exactly, had just begun.

Both my hands held wicked-looking silver daggers in them, and I was weighted down with my throwing knives. I'd even brought a gun and tucked it inside my pants, the clip filled with silver bullets. Being prepared to kill cost a small fortune.

My eyes adjusted to the almost nonexistent lighting. From tiny openings in the rock, the cave wasn't completely black. So far the initial entryway was clear. There were noises deeper inside, and the question I'd refused to consider now loomed in front of me. Could I kill Bones? Would I be able to look in his brown eyes, or his green ones, and wield that blow? I didn't know, hence my backup plans of the missile. If I faltered, they wouldn't. They'd be strong should I prove to be weak. Or prove to be dead, whichever came first.

"Come closer," a voice beckoned.

It reverberated with echoes. Was that an English accent? I couldn't be sure. My pulse sped up, and I went farther inside the cave.

There had been some changes since I'd last seen it. The area that once doubled as a living room was trashed. The sofa was in sections, and it hadn't been a sectional. Stuffing from the cushions settled like snow on the floor, the television was smashed in, and the lamps had long since seen their last light. The dressing screen that had guarded my short-lived modesty was in pieces throughout the area. Someone had obviously torn the place apart in a fit of rage. Frankly I was afraid to look in the bedroom, but I peeked inside anyway, and my heart constricted.

The bed was reduced to bits of foam. Wood and springs littered the space and stood inches deep on the ground. Stones in the wall were chipped here and there from a fist or other hard object pummeling them. Anguish welled up in me. This was my doing, as surely as if I'd used my own hands.

A cool current parted the atmosphere behind me. I whirled around with knives at the ready. Staring at me with glowing green eyes was a vampire. Behind him were six more. Their energy thickened the air in the close space, but they were evenly distributed, if you could call it that. Only one of them crackled with an abundance of power, but his face was entirely foreign to me.

"Who in the f**k are you guys?"

"You came. Your old boyfriend wasn't lying. We weren't sure whether to believe him."

This statement was from the vamp in front, the one with the curling brown hair. He looked to be about twenty-five, in human years. From the clout oozing off his body, I judged him to be roughly five hundred or a young Master. Out of the seven, he was the most dangerous, and his previous sentence scared the shit out of me. Your old boyfriend. That was how they knew about me. Mother of God, it wasn't Bones who killed those people, but these vampires instead! What they would have done to him to make him talk both sickened and infuriated me.

"Where is he?"

The only question that mattered. If they'd killed Bones, I was going to turn them all into exact replicas of the mattress behind me. Indistinguishable from one particle to the next.