Jeaniene Frost - One Foot in the Grave

My three guys had exactly one silver knife apiece, which had been hidden in the soles of their shoes. They were all that stood between the vampires and their own cache of weapons. Right now, watching the vampires charge them as if time had shifted to slow motion, I knew I couldn’t intervene. Not unless I killed the two vampires I was wrestling with.

I straddled Hatchet, holding him down, while roughly cutting the other vampire’s throat deep enough that it nearly hacked his head off. That kept him occupied for a moment. Long enough for me to seize one of my blades, ignoring the pain as Hatchet landed a brutal blow to my stomach, and ram it into his chest.

He froze. The knife had gone clean through his heart. I leaned over until my hair brushed his face.

“Don’t move, and I won’t twist this blade. I don’t want you dead. I just want you docile.”

He stared up at me and spoke one word. “Reaper.”

I knew my gaze must have been lit up, which was typical under the circumstance. I nodded.

“That’s right. Now, don’t fucking move.”

I jumped off him, catching the blur of motion to my right as Juan, Tate, and Cooper were involved in the fight of their lives. Cooper already had two wide slashes on his collarbone, but he was holding his own and countering each lightning-fast move. Tate had blood running from his mouth, but he, too, seemed relatively unhurt, and Juan…where the hell was Juan?

The vamp beside me was getting up, his throat almost completely healed. I slammed his head into the hard ground, stunning him, and dragged him off several feet away from Hatchet. Then I jumped to avoid his leg from swiping my feet out from under me and skewered him in the chest.

“You want to live?” I asked, giving the blade a tiny flick. “Then don’t dare so much as twitch.”

Annette had Francois on the ground. Neither one of them had weapons, so it looked like they were trying to chew each other to death. I glanced at her, and then my guys. Juan still wasn’t in sight. He must be on the other side of the van. I paused, then flung a blade as I caught Hatchet’s hand beginning to creep toward the knife in his chest. It landed square in his forehead.

“Next one finishes you,” I snarled. “Don’t test me again.”

Juan went flying over the top of the van. He had gouges all over him, but his heart rate was steady. Elevated as hell, but steady, and I leapt up to catch him before he barreled into the ground.

“Watch where you’re going,” I said with a quick grin, setting him on his feet and then jumping onto the top of the van. From this higher vantage point, I could see the blond vampire Juan had been battling almost reaching the pile of weapons. I didn’t hesitate, but pushed off the side of the van like it was a diving board and hurled myself at him. He went down, hard, with me grabbing his back.

“Juan, make sure those two vamps don’t pull out their silver!” I managed to shout before an elbow to my face cut me off. Ow ow oww! My nose broke and I tasted blood. That didn’t stop me from returning the favor and slamming the vampire’s face into the ground, however, which produced a satisfying crunch.

“Now we’re even,” I panted, then flicked a knife from my boots and sent it home through his back. “And now I’m ahead.”

“Cat, watch out!” Cooper yelled.

My head snapped up to see another vampire flying toward me. I reached in my boots again-and found nothing. I was out of knives, and out of time to get away.

Then suddenly the vampire was knocked to the side. Tate’s head appeared in the jumble of flying limbs. He must have barreled into the vamp at the last second. I scrambled forward to the silver knives, scraping the hell out of my knees on the concrete, but came up with several lovely, gleaming blades.

“Heads up!” I called out. My guys ducked immediately, and those blades landed in undead flesh, garnering fresh howls. Tate jumped back on the vampire who’d tried to ambush me, and I tossed him a blade that he caught one-handed before driving it into the vamp’s back.

“Don’t twist, don’t twist!” I reminded him, joining in Cooper’s fight.

Five minutes later, it was done. Francois was the last vampire to be taken down, and when I pulled him off Annette, lodging a knife firmly in his back, he was still cursing her.

“Why?” he demanded at last, his accent making the word almost incoherent.

Annette had blood all over her, some of it hers, some of it Francois’s. With her unmarked skin and that red gore coating her, she could have passed for a curvy Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie .

“You see who she is?” she asked Francois curtly, jerking her head toward me. “Your sire wants her. My sire loves her. I’m sorry, Francois, but my loyalty is to Crispin, not Ian.”

I maneuvered Francois over to the van, where Annette began wrapping duct tape around his wrists. It wouldn’t be enough to hold a vampire normally, but too much jiggling would drive that knife farther into Francois’s heart, and he’d know it.

“You may as well kill me,” Francois said bitterly. “For that is what Ian will do once he discovers we were duped and failed him.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Or I’ll tell everyone that Ian fell for the same trick back in February. See, I had him in the same position you’re in, Francois, and Ian seems the arrogant type who wouldn’t want that to become public knowledge. If you guys behave, you’ll live to bite another day, I promise.”

Tate came over. He took off his shirt and handed it to me.

“Your nose is still bleeding, Cat.”

Yeah, I knew that. I could taste it, since it was running in a slow drip into my mouth. I swiped at my face with Tate’s shirt. Annette finished with Francois’s wrists and then sliced her palm, holding it an inch from me.

I met her eyes…and then brought her hand to my mouth. Her cut had been deep, and though the wound healed almost instantly, the blood it drew remained. I sucked on it for a second, noting with detachment that she tasted different from Bones, and felt my nose tingle as it healed.

“Thanks,” I said, dropping her hand.

A slight smile curved her mouth. “Wouldn’t want to have your lovely face marred, now, would we? After all, you have another party to go to.”

AN HOUR LATER, ONE WOULD NEVER GUESSI’d done anything more strenuous today than paint my toenails or shop at the mall. I was relaxing in the steam room, with an attendant rubbing my feet, of all things. I’d tried to politely refuse such pampering, but I was told it was part of my prearranged treatment. And truthfully, it felt so wonderful, my protest was halfhearted at best.

After that, there was the sauna, exfoliating, and an herbal bath with exotic oils and mints. If there was any trace of Bones’s scent on me after this, it’d be a frigging miracle. Even my teeth were treated to a bleaching solution that nearly burned my gums off.

When I was done being put through a high-end version of a car wash, the attendant came in and handed me a box.

“Here you go, miss. This is for you.”

Inside was a dress, a cell phone, a set of car keys with a vehicle description, and a pair of high-heeled shoes. As soon as I took them out, I smiled. The guys wouldn’t be the only ones with dangerous footwear. The heels on these were solid silver, covered with only a layer of black paint.

I got dressed quickly, checking the clock on the wall. Then I looked at my reflection and paused. The dress had Bones written all over it, since it was more like a teddy than evening wear. It had a halter that plunged to my waist in a style that would have made even Jennifer Lopez pause. Double-sided tape held the two black strips of material to my breasts in vertical swaths. The bottom was attached, cut high on the legs front and back, and the only thing that saved the outfit from being obscene were the translucent bits of fabric that ranged from hip to mid-thigh length and swayed when I moved.