Jeaniene Frost - At Grave’s End

Bones watched Juan disappear down the hall, nuzzling the blonde’s neck in a manner that didn’t speak only of hunger. “He’s a fine bloke. He’ll learn.”

“Learn what?”At least he can’t get or pass diseases anymore, I thought. That’s one advantage turning Juan into a vampire did for womankind.

Bones put an arm around me as we headed toward the exit of this flesh feast. “He’ll learn that many women can satisfy for a short period of time, but when he falls in love, only one will sustain him forever.”

I cast him a sideways glance “Are you trying to seduce me?”

His lips curled with promise. “Absolutely.”

My fingers laced in his. Yes, there was so much wrong with our situation. Someone we trusted wanted him dead, and that was just the start of our problems. Still, life was wasted on those who didn’t live in the time they had, be they human, vampire, or ghoul. Or a freaky mixture of the two, like me.

“Good.”

THE WAITING WAS GETTING TO ME. UNDER other circumstances, I would have considered spending most of my time with Bones behind closed doors as a vacation. But suspiciously eyeing the people around me whenever we left the bedroom was not my idea of relaxing. It was worse for Bones, I knew. At least I didn’t have emotional attachments to whoever the traitor was.

This morning at breakfast, Bones upped the ante. As I munched French toast, he casually mentioned to Zero that Reno should be a pleasant change in temperature compared to here in Whistler, British Columbia. All of our suspects were close enough to have overheard. Here I thought I’d outgrown Clue.Will it be Zero in the kitchen with a cell phone, or Doc in the drawing room with a pistol?

Speaking of Doc, he’d been acting strangely. Several times, we saw him lingering near the hallway where Tate was being held, wearing his guns, chewing on an unlit cigarette and watching everything around him with a surgeon’s attention. He seemed to appear behind me whenever Bones wasn’t there, soundless as a shadow. When Bones would appear, he’d exit in a polite but deliberate way, still staying in close proximity.

It creeped me out.

Bones didn’t care for it, either, but out of necessity didn’t confront Doc or show that it bothered him. Instead, he would smile and say things like, “Oh, there you are, mate,” in such a breezy, unaffected tone it was all I could do not to applaud. Maybe in another couple centuries, if I lived that long, I’d have such good acting abilities as well.

Tick Tock and Rattler, the other two suspects, went about their business in such a blithe manner I mentally placed them lower on the totem pole. If anything, they seemed to sense my discomfort around Doc and tried to lead him off the few times Bones wasn’t glued to my hip. I took to wearing knives under my clothes, though they didn’t provide much comfort. With how blazing fast Doc was with those guns, I’d be pumped full of bullets before even getting a chance to fling one.

Soon after the Reno announcement, Bones went for his morning drink. I wandered outside on the porch. Vampires traditionally hated the freezing cold, having no internal heating system as a human did. Mencheres didn’t choose to hide out in the Canadian mountains in December on a whim. He knew it was a place the undead usually avoided. At this time of year, Florida was full of pulseless visitors. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a nonbeating heart.

It was with mild trepidation therefore that I glimpsed a lone figure in the trees just to the left of where I was on the wraparound porch. I knew that form by now. Tall, lean, and deadly. Something glinted, and the sudden chill I felt made the outside air seem balmy in comparison. It was the reflection of sun off metal.

Without obvious rush, I turned and headed toward the door, concentrating all my willpower on not letting my pulse race. Such a sound might as well be a scream of fright to a vampire. As I walked, I wondered if I could dodge the bullets fast enough to avoid any vital organs. But it made sense that Doc would aim for my head. Why would he target anything else?

The door opened before I reached it, Vlad at my side, right in the way of any oncoming gunfire. I couldn’t remember when I’d been so glad to see him.

Thank you, I sent to him without giving a last look over my shoulder like I wanted to.

“It’s freezing out here,” he said with a sardonic twist of his mouth. “You’ll catch your death.”

“Stay away from Doc, Kitten,” Bones began as soon as we were in our room and I told him what happened.

“You should just grab him and find out what he knows,” I muttered, irritated with myself for presenting such an open target.

“Yes, well, it would take longer to torture it out of him than to be patient and wait for him to get caught spilling it,” Bones said with calculated menace. “Believe me, if it were a matter of preference, you know mine.”

Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. If imagination failed me, I was sure he could arrange for a demonstration to jog my memory. Whenever we left this room, his mask of cheerful obliviousness was on with full force. Once inside, it fell from Bones like scales. He rubbed the side of his temple almost impatiently. However rough it was on me, it was certainly worse for him.

“You must go crazy wishing for a few minutes of real peace and quiet,” I said. “I mean, it’s never quiet for you, is it? Either you’ve got noise from people around you or the crap rattling off in my head.”

He smiled with a trace of bitterness.

“Don’t fret, luv, I had a bit of real silence not too long ago. It’s highly overrated, if you ask me.”

He sat on the high-backed chair near the bed. Red velvet, mahogany wood, gold threading, maybe a real Louis the Eighteenth. Bones looked compatible with it, just as beautiful and finely molded.

I sat down and rested my head on his legs. “This isn’t your fault,” I said, softly but out loud, so he could hear it both ways.

He sighed. “Then whose is it, Kitten?”

Whatever I might have replied cleared right out of my head. Bones yanked me down on the carpet and covered me before my heart even finished its beat. No, it wasn’t from being overwhelmed by passion. It was because of the sudden eruption of gunfire.

He dragged me to the bathroom before snapping, “Stay here,” and disappearing in a blur. His quickness actually made me shake myself for a second before I ignored his directive and vaulted after him. No way was I sitting it out by the tub and hoping for the best. Doc only used silver bullets. It would be just as dangerous for Bones as it was for me.

Without bothering with the stairs, I jumped the three floors down and followed the direction of the other streaking bodies, not to mention the noise. There was another succession of bullets, too fast for me to count, and an accompanying shout that picked my feet off the ground and had me diving forward. The commotion was coming from the dungeon below, and the voice yelling out was Tate’s.

I blasted past the other vampires racing down the narrow hallway and made it through the ruined door, hurtling straight at the man who raised the knife even as I crashed into him. The force of my velocity bashed both of us through the wall in an expulsion of concrete. Before I allowed myself to think, I jammed one of my silver knives into the form scrambling away. I didn’t have time to wonder what part of him I’d pierced, or why the hell it wasn’t Doc, because he was yanked out. Just as swiftly my legs were tugged on next, and I was plunked out of the new hole in the wall.

Above Tate’s panicked cries of “Cat! Cat!” I heard Vlad’s cool voice.

“You’re holding the wrong man, Bones, and you owe Cat your life.”