Jeaniene Frost - Halfway to the Grave

Tate Bradley stirred, moaning softly and sitting up while pressing a hand to his bleeding head. Guess I’d cracked his skull a bit. He stood, but swayed and gave me a very unpleasant look.

“You hit me again and I’ll-”

“What? Bleed more? Thanks, but I only drink gin and tonic. That’s one vampire attribute I’m without. No fangs, see?”

With a wide smile I bared my teeth at him and returned his nasty stare. If he hated me now, wait until I started to train him. Then he’d know hatred.

Don coughed. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find enough unsavory types to keep you sufficiently busy so we won’t have to hunt the ones you feel are harmless.” The edge to his words told me he thought nothing undead was harmless. But the potential for harm wasn’t limited to vampires. I knew that from experience now. “Then we are finished. I’ll arrange to have you and your mother transported out of here immediately. Tate will accompany you to the airport, and you two should get to know one another. Tate, meet your new team leader, Catherine.”

“My name is Cat.”

It flew out of my mouth. Everything in my life was about to change, but some things I was keeping.

Bradley held open the door and Don once again wheeled out. Bradley paused for a moment and shook his head at me.

“Can’t say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but I’ll see you soon. Try to let me stay conscious next time.”

My brow arched at him, shades of the vampire I loved. “We’ll see.”

T O GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT WAS DUE, DON WAS as good as his word in setting up my transportation. Within an hour, I was dressed and waiting in my mother’s room, sans handcuffs. I’d finally showered to wash off all of the blood, and while in there, I allowed myself to cry, since it mixed with the water and felt camouflaged. Yet looking down at my mother now, my eyes were dry as sand.

“Well?”

I’d just finished speaking to her about the offer and my subsequent acceptance of it. Some of the repugnance had left her face while I talked and at last she took my hand.

“You’re doing the right thing. The only thing to save yourself from a future of evil.”

Bitterness wafted from me and a small, selfish part of me hated her. If not for her, I could just disappear with Bones and live the rest of my life with the man I loved. Yet it was no more her fault for her unyielding hatred of vampires than it was my fault for being born. In this case, we were even.

“I don’t think it’s saving me from a future of evil, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Don’t be stupid, Catherine. Of course it is. How long could you have continued your relationship with that creature before he turned you into a vampire? If he cared for you as you claim he did, then he wouldn’t want to sit back and watch you age over time, would he? Moving closer to death each year, as all humans do. Why, when he could change you and extend your youth indefinitely? That’s what he’ll do to you if you stay with him, and if you weren’t being blind, you’d already know it.”

Much as I hated to admit it, she had brought up a very obvious point I’d let myself ignore. What would happen to our relationship in ten years? Twenty? More? God, she was right. Bones wouldn’t just sit back and watch me die of old age. He’d want me to change over, and I would never do it. Maybe we’d been doomed from the start, and my mother’s prejudice and Don’s offer were just proof of that. You fight the battles you can win, Bones had repeatedly said. Well, I couldn’t win this battle, but I could keep him safe. I could keep my mother safe, and then use what was in me to keep other people safe. Put in perspective, a broken heart wasn’t such a terrible price to pay. I might be looking at a future without him, but it was still a future. Considering all the girls Hennessey had taken who didn’t have that anymore, it would be an insult for me to squander my life when theirs had been robbed from them.

The door opened and Tate Bradley poked his head in. His arm was in a sling and there was a bandage near his temple.

“Time to go.”

Nodding shortly, I grasped my mother’s wheelchair and followed him down the hospital corridor. The hallway had been cleared and every patient door closed. Behind me were eight heavily armed men. It seemed Don was afraid I’d get cold feet.

There were about two hours left of daylight. We would be driven a short distance away to a helicopter pad and then flown via chopper to where a military plane waited. I piled into the backseat with my mother. Tate took the front passenger seat, being unable to drive with his broken arm. A man who introduced himself as Pete took the wheel. My other guards took flanking positions in three vehicles, one behind us, two on each side. Ironically, it was the same formation the vampires had used last night. We pulled away and I closed my eyes, thinking that I’d have to find a way to tell Bones goodbye. Maybe I’d leave a message with Tara. She’d know how to contact him. I couldn’t just leave with no word to him at all.

Tate broke the silence after several minutes. “Pete here will be one of the members of the unit, Cather-excuse me, Cat,” he corrected himself.

I didn’t open my eyes. “Not unless I say so, or were you asleep during that part? I pick the team. Pete’s in only if he passes my test, and that goes for you, too.”

“What’s the test?” Pete asked condescendingly.

My eyes slit open.

“To see how many times you’ll get back up after I beat you unconscious.”

Pete laughed. Tate didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as I’d first thought. The glance he threw me told me he believed every word.

“Look,”-Pete eyed me in the rearview mirror, skepticism etched on his face-“I know you’re supposed to be something special, but…what the fuck?”

Pete’s retort ended in a gasp when he spotted a man in the middle of the highway in our lane. My breath caught as well, and my mother screamed.

“That’s him! That’s-”

Tate had less hesitation. In the seconds before the car struck Bones, he pulled his gun and fired through the windshield at him.

It was like hitting a brick wall. The collision crushed the front of the car. Glass exploded out of the windows and the front and rear air bags deployed instantly. Jerked forward violently, I heard brakes screech behind us as our escort swerved to avoid slamming into our rear. The two cars on either side of us sailed past and then applied their brakes to try to rotate around. Traffic still came from behind us. Vehicles that had banked sharply to the left and right of us crashed into the turning agents’ cars. The sound of twisting steel on metal as the vehicles piled up in a ghastly domino effect was deafening.

Tate and Pete lolled in their seat belts, blood from the glass and contact with the dashboard streaming down their faces. There was a wrenching sound as Tate’s door was ripped off its frame. Through the smoke from the destroyed engine, I saw Bones grin as he chucked the piece of the car like a giant Frisbee at the car behind us. Back there, the other guards vainly tried to get a clear shot at him. They scattered as the door burst through their windshield. In a flash the other door followed suit, and my mother wailed in mortal fear when he next tore open mine.

“Hallo, Kitten!”

Despite my earlier resolution, I was thrilled to see him. He unclasped my seat belt and grabbed my mother when she tried to scoot out her side.

“Not so fast, Mum. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

A moan from the front seat made him casually swat Tate in the head.

“Don’t kill him, Bones! They weren’t going to hurt me!”

“Oh-right, then. Let’s just send them on their way nicely.”