This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress 5)

Scratch passed the blood-smeared knife back to Bones once he was finished swearing his fealty. I resisted a sudden urge to lick the blade and concentrated on the road, making a mental rundown of ways I could get blood. Juan, a member of my old team, was undead just a year, so he was a possibility. Maybe I could get him to ship some of his blood to me, though Juan would wonder why I wanted it. None of them knew about my odd diet yet.

Bones's best friend, Spade, knew what I fed off of and I'd had his blood before, but I didn't want to make it a habit. Spade was a Master vampire, so that meant he was too strong.

Most of Bones's friends were too strong, in fact.

Dammit. Not drinking from Bones without starving would be more difficult than I'd imagined.

"For now, don't tell anyone of our association," Bones said to Ed and Scratch, centering my attention back on the present situation. "Go about your business as if we'd never met. Here's a number where you can reach me. At the first sight of those ghouls, you ring me straightaway, but do not confront them. Understood?"

"Got it" and "Sure" were the responses. I wondered if they did understand. I did, and wasn't thrilled.

I dropped the vampires off close to the Easton fountain where we'd met them, waiting until I'd driven a couple miles away before I slanted a glance at Bones.

"You're using them as bait."

Bones met my gaze, his dark brown stare concealing nothing. "Yes."

"God," I muttered. "You're not letting them tell anyone that they've just been upgraded from being Masterless to belonging to a powerful vampire so those ghouls will still consider them easy meat. That's deliberately putting them in danger."

"No more than they were before, as they said themselves. But now if they're harmed, I'll have rights under our laws to investigate," he replied with annoying logic. "Believe me, pet, I'm hoping nothing happens to them and their usefulness comes from pointing me in those ghouls'

direction. But if Apollyon is behind these attacks, we need a way to get to him without looking like we're being mindlessly antagonistic. Otherwise . . ." Bones didn't have to finish the sentence. Otherwise, Apollyon will have more fuel for the rumors that I'm seeking to be some sort of vampiric Stalin, I mentally finished. Right, because that's what I put on my To Do list every morning. Brush teeth. Wash hair. Rule undead world with an iron fist.

"I don't know why ghouls would listen to Apollyon about me being a threat anyway," I muttered. "I might have a wacky diet as a vampire, but Apollyon can't tell people that I'll combine ghoul and vampire powers anymore. Changing over took care of that paranoid rant from him."

Bones's stare was sympathetic, but unyielding. "Kitten, you've been a vampire for less than a year. During that time, you've blown the head off a Master vampire through pyrokinesis and frozen dozens of vampires into a stupor through telekinesis. Your abilities, plus your occasional heartbeat, are bound to frighten some people."

"But they're not my abilities!" I burst. "Okay, the intermittent heartbeat is mine, but all the rest were borrowed powers. I don't even have them anymore, and if I hadn't drunk from Vlad and Mencheres, I never would have gotten them in the first place."

"No one knows how you got them, or that you lose them after a while," Bones noted.

"Maybe we should tell them." But even as I said it, I knew better.

He let out what might have been a sigh. "If Apollyon knew the source of your abilities, he could argue that you could manifest any power you wanted merely by drinking from a vampire who had it. Better he just thinks you're extraordinarily gifted based on your own merits."

In other words, no matter how we tried to dress it up, I still came across as a dangerous freak. I took in a deep breath in the hopes that the familiar gesture would calm me. It didn't. All it did was bring the scent of blood into my lungs, clenching my stomach in an almost painful way.

"Too bad your co-ruler's visions still aren't back to full strength. That would take the guesswork out of whether or not this is Apollyon's doing." Bones gave a shrug in concurrence. "Mencheres has had a few more glimpses into the future, but nothing relating to this, and he still can't command his visions at will yet. With luck, his full powers will return soon."

But until then, we were on our own. "So we stick to not telling anyone how I absorb power from blood, and to using Ed and Scratch to lead us to these ghouls to see if Apollyon is behind them."

"That's right, luv."

I closed my eyes. I might not like the plan, but at the moment, it was our best option.

"That just leaves one more thing," I said, opening my eyes to give Bones a wan smile.

"Finding someone other than you for me to feed from."

Chapter Four

I didn't recognize the guards who ranonto the helicopter pad to escort me and Bones into the compound run by my former boss and uncle, Don Williams. Then again, I hadn't been back here since last year. Maybe I should've called first. Announcing myself to the control tower once I was inside their air space wasn't really giving notice, but Don needed to know about the trouble brewing. That sort of information merited a face-to-face update, in my opinion. Plus Juan was here, and I hoped he was open to the idea of letting me take some of his blood.

Of course, if I were being entirely truthful, I'd admit the impromptu helicopter trip to eastern Tennessee was about more than information or even eating. Business had made Don cancel our last few attempts at getting together, so it had been months since I'd seen my uncle.

We might have had a rocky start to our relationship, but I'd missed him. This trip was a chance to kill three birds with one stone, which Don should appreciate. He was all about multitasking.

We had reached the double doors of the roof when Bones stopped walking so abruptly, one of the guards collided into him.

"Bloody hell," Bones muttered.

My head whipped around, but nothing unusual was going on except the guard looking embarrassed about plowing into Bones's back. Then pity and resolve skittered across my subconscious. I tensed. Those weren't my emotions.

"What?" I asked Bones.

His expression became so controlled that fear flared in me. The guards next to us exchanged baffled glances, but if they knew what the problem was, I couldn't tell. I couldn't hear anyone's thoughts but my own at the moment.

Bones took my hand. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, the roof doors swung outward and a muscular vampire with short brown hair strode toward us.

"Cat, what are you doing here?" Tate demanded.

I ignored the question from my former first officer, keeping my attention on Bones.

"What? " I asked a second time.

His hand tightened on mine. "Your uncle is very sick, Kitten." Something cold slid up my spine. I glanced at Tate. From the grim set of his shoulders, Bones was right.

"Where is he? And why wasn't I called?"

Tate's mouth twisted. "Don's here, in Medical, and you weren't called because he didn't want you to know."

Tate didn't sound like he approved of that decision, but anger flared in me.

"So the plan was not to tell me unless there was a funeral to attend? Nice, Tate!" I shoved by him, pulling my hand out of Bones's grip to dash into the building. Medical was on the second sub-level, one floor above the training facility and two floors above where we used to house captive vampires. I stabbed at the down button on the elevator, tapping my foot in impatience. A few startled looks were thrown my way from the guards, but I didn't care that my eyes were glowing or that fangs pressed against my lips. If those guards didn't know about vampires before, Tate could deal with altering their memories so they wouldn't remember later.

"How the hell'd you know about Don?" I heard Tate demand of Bones.

"From the scurry of activity going on to make him presentable for her" was Bones's short reply. "Mind reading, remember?"

The elevator doors opened and I went inside, not caring to listen to anything else.

Normally I'd be worried about leaving Bones alone with Tate since the two of them mixed like oill and water. But now, all my thoughts were on my uncle. What was wrong with him? And why would he forbid anyone to tell me about it?

I almost ran out of the elevator when it opened on the second floor, dashing down the hallway and through the doors marked MEDICAL. I ignored the staff I passed along the way, not needing them to tell me where my uncle was. Don's coughing and muttering to someone in the last room on the right told me that.

I slowed when I reached the door, not wanting to burst in if my normally debonair uncle wasn't dressed.

"Don?" I called out, feeling hesitant now that only a few feet separated us.

"Give me a moment, Cat" was his response, sounding hoarse but not like he was in imminent danger of dying. Relief swept through me. Maybe Don had caught swine flu or something equally nasty, but now he was recovering.

A nurse I didn't recognize came out of his room, giving me a look that required no mind-reading skills to interpret.

"He's getting dressed," she said in a crisp tone while the ammonialike scent of annoyance drifted from her.

"I take it he's not supposed to be up doing that?" I asked her.

"No, but that's not stopping him," she replied bluntly.

"I can hear you, Anne," my uncle snapped.

She gave me another pointed look before lowering her voice to a whisper. "Don't let him overexert himself."

A round of coughing prefaced my uncle muttering, "I can still hear you." My brows rose.

Whatever was wrong with Don's health, his ears were sharp as ever.

After another series of fumbling sounds, my uncle opened the door. He had on a slightly wrinkled pullover shirt paired with gray pants that matched the color of his eyes. For a second, I just blinked, realizing this was the first time I'd seen Don with his hair mussed and wearing something other than a suit and tie.

"Cat. I'm afraid you've caught me a bit by surprise."

The irony in his voice was familiar, even if his appearance wasn't. In the months since I'd seen my uncle, he seemed to have aged ten years. The lines around his mouth and eyes were pronounced, his gray hair was nearly white, and his impeccable posture was slightly stooped. I swallowed the lump that worked its way into my throat.

"You know me," I managed. "Always a pain in the ass."

Don reached out to squeeze my shoulder. "No you're not. Not even when you're trying to be."

The way he said that, combined with the sadness that flitted across his expression, almost made me lose it. Right then I knew that his condition was terminal. Otherwise, Don would've told me with sardonic affection that yes, I was a colossal pain in the ass and always would be.

Not held on to my shoulder with a grip that trembled even as he managed to flash me a smile.

All the things I'd dismissed before came back in sharp focus. Don's recurring cough the past several times I'd spoken to him, brushed off as "just a cold." The plans canceled at the last minute, rescheduled just to be canceled again . . .

I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the weight loss that his clothes concealed, taking in a deep breath that filled my lungs with the scent of antiseptics, sweat, and sickness. More tears burned my eyes that I blinked back. Whatever's wrong with him, vampire blood will cure it, I reminded myself, trying to get a grip on my emotions. Don was probably just being stubborn and refusing to drink any, even though he of all people knew the amazing healing powers of undead blood.

Well, I'd get him to rethink that stupid decision.

"So, I hear you didn't want me to know you were sick," I said, managing to sound mildly chiding instead of hysterically worried. Point for me.

"You've had enough to deal with lately," Don replied.

I let go of him and swept my gaze around the room. His bed was one of those adjustable ones where the head and foot could be raised, but it lacked the normal hospital rails on either side of it. An open laptop was perched on a rolling tray nearby, alongside several stacked folders, his cell phone, pagers, and an in-house office phone.

"How typical of you not to stop working even though you looked like death warmed over," I said in a half-joking, half-censuring way.

My uncle gave me a baleful look. "I might look like death warmed over, but now you are death warmed over, remember?"

I would've smiled at his quip, but I was too worried by the grayish tone to his skin and the slow, painful way he moved as he took a step away from me. My uncle always had a commanding presence no matter the circumstances, but now, he seemed frail. That scared me more than facing enemy forces while unarmed.

"What's wrong that's got you here?" I asked, again controlling the fear that made my voice higher than normal.

"I have a bad flu," Don replied, his words roughened by a cough.

"Don't lie to her."

Bones's voice flowed into the room, and a few booted strides later, so did he. His dark brown gaze focused on Don, who visibly stiffened.

"Your abilities don't give you the right to - "

"My bloodline does," I interrupted Don, clenching my hands into fists. "You're my family. That means I have a right to know." And if you don't tell me, I'll just green-eye your nurse until she does, I mentally added.

Don was silent for a long moment, looking between me and Bones. Finally, his shoulder lifted in a faint shrug.

"I have lung cancer." His smile was strained, but his trademark dry wit still rose to the occasion. "Appears those warnings on cigarette packages are correct." Everything in me tensed as soon as he said the C word. "But I've never seen you smoke," I blurted, stunned into denial.