One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress 6)

"I did," he replied shortly. "You'll have those reports for me in the morning? I assume staying up the rest of the night should be no hardship for someone like you."

Oh, what an ass**le. My fangs did that let me at him! thing again, but this time, I kept them in my gums while also stifling the nosferatu green from leaping into my gaze.

Then Madigan turned back to us. "Cat. Bones." He said our names like we should apologize for them, but I just smiled as though I hadn't already eviscerated him in my fantasies several times.

"So great to meet you," I said, holding out my hand again only because I knew he didn't want to touch it.

He took it with the same faint pause he'd shown last time. I didn't squeeze once I had him in my grip, but oh, it was tempting.

As soon as I let him go, Madigan swept out of Tate's office, trailing a cloud of aftershave and irritation behind him.

"I'm following him," my uncle said flatly. "And I'm not going back with you later, Cat."

I glanced at Tate, who gave me a barely perceptible nod. In truth, I was relieved that he didn't attempt to argue. Don could snoop on Madigan a hell of a lot more effectively than anyone else. Maybe Madigan was here because Uncle Sam was just being paranoid at having a vampire in charge of an operation that hunted and concealed evidence of the undead. If so, Madigan would waste a lot of taxpayer dollars by scrutinizing this operation only to come to the conclusion that Tate was an outstanding replacement for Don. His record was spotless, so I had no fear of Madigan's unearthing any skeletons in Tate's closet-real or metaphorical.

But that wasn't why I was glad my uncle was focusing more on Madigan than on finding his way to the eternal doorway for the other side. If Madigan had a more sinister reason for being here, Don could alert us faster than anyone else. I had faith in Tate, Dave, and Juan being able to get themselves out of here if Madigan's dislike of the undead took a more menacing turn; but my mother, for all her bravado, wasn't as tough as they were.

And this wasn't a regular building that she could just bust through a wall to escape from. The fourth sublevel was built to contain vampires against their will. I should know. I designed it back when I was capturing vampires so Don's scientists could make a synthetic wonder drug called Brams. That drug, derived from the healing compound in undead blood, had kept several members of our team alive after they'd sustained grievous injury. Then Bones joined the operation, and Don got over his fear that raw vampire blood-far more effective in healing than Brams-would turn anyone evil who drank it. Bones donated enough of his blood for Don to parcel out to injured team members as needed, and the vampire cells on the fourth sublevel had remained empty for years as a result.

But that didn't mean they couldn't be put back into use if Don was right and Madigan was here for other reasons than a routine evaluation.

Or maybe I'd had so much shit happen lately that I assumed the worst about everyone now, whether I had valid reason to or not. I gave my head a shake to clear it. For all that Madigan pissed me off, it wasn't too long ago that Don had had the same prejudice about vampires. Hell, it was just eight years ago that I'd thought the only good bloodsucker was a dead bloodsucker! Yes, Madigan's attitude screamed Suspicious Bureaucratic Bastard, but hopefully his spending some time with Tate, Juan, Dave, and my mother would make him realize there was more to supernaturals than what he'd read in the pages of classified murder reports.

"So, what do you think of him?" Tate drawled, the former tightness now gone from his tone.

"That he and I won't be BFFs," was all I said. No need to say more when this room could be bugged.

Tate grunted. "I'm getting that vibe, too. Maybe it's a good thing that . . . circumstances are what they are."

By Tate's careful allusion to Don's condition, it was obvious that he, too, was taking no chances over our words being played back to Madigan later.

I gave a concurring shrug. "I suppose everything does happen for a reason."

Chapter Three

By the time Bones and I got in our car on our last leg home, it was only an hour before dawn. We could've gotten back to our Blue Ridge house quicker if we'd flown the whole way, but it was less flashy to keep our helicopter at the local private airport. Even though our nearest neighbor was over two dozen acres away, a helicopter coming and going tended to attract a lot more notice than a car. The lower our profile in our home area, the better.

Once in our car, however, Bones and I could speak freely. The first item on my To Do list after I got some sleep was to have the helicopter swept for bugs, and I didn't mean of the insect variety. Madigan struck me as the type who'd consider it standard operational procedure to have listening and tracking devices planted on our chopper while Bones and I were at the compound. Hell, when I first started with the team and everyone worried that I'd turn to the dark side, Don had bugged my vehicle and had me followed twenty-four/seven. It took my uncle years to trust me enough to drop the surveillance and wire taps. Something told me Madigan would take even longer.

"So what's it like in his mind?" I asked.

Bones gave me a sideways glance as he navigated up the winding roads. "Murky. He clearly suspects my abilities and has fabricated a decent defense against them."

"Really?" Madigan hadn't struck me as having the exceptional mental fortitude necessary to prevent Bones's mind reading, but guess that meant I'd underestimated him.

"He repeats rhymes nonstop in his head, making that the majority of what I hear," Bones replied with grudging admiration. "Managed to pick up a few things past them, like how he believes dousing himself in cologne will negate a vampire's ability to scent his emotions and that he despised Don. The mere mention of your uncle's name caused a spate of insults to appear in his thoughts."

"Don didn't seem too fond of him, either."

I'd have to ask my uncle about their history the next time I saw him. Maybe it was as simple as rivalry over a woman; that had been enough to start the Trojan War, after all. Still, as long as Madigan kept his actions aboveboard, whatever had happened between him and Don in the past didn't matter. Madigan thought my uncle was dead and gone. He didn't know he was right on only one of those counts.

"He also deeply distrusts vampires, as you had guessed yourself," Bones added. "Aside from that, all I heard was enough repetitions of 'how many chucks could a woodchuck chuck' to make me want to stake myself."

I laughed. Maybe underneath Madigan's pompousness and prejudice, there lurked a sense of humor. That gave me hope. Pride wasn't the world's worst flaw, and vampire prejudice could be overcome with time. But the lack of a sense of humor was an insurmountable defect, in my opinion.