Jeaniene Frost - One Grave at a Time

When we arrived at their house, I didn’t even have to get out of the car to see that we weren’t the only visitors. If the flashy Maserati wasn’t enough to clue me in as to who else was here, the custom GR8BITR license plate was confirmation.

“Ah, Ian’s here,” Bones said with none of my dismay at the prospect.

“I see that,” I replied, not airing any of my opinion because Ian could hear me, and it would only amuse him. Some people took exception to being considered a pain in the ass. Ian didn’t only take it as a compliment, he reveled in it. If he wasn’t Bones’s sire, I might have “accidentally” staked Ian by now.

“Cat!” Denise exclaimed, flinging open the door. She almost ran to give me a hug, whispering, “Thank God you’re here. He’s driving me crazy!” during her welcoming squeeze.

I smothered a laugh, knowing she wasn’t talking about Spade. Good to see I wasn’t the only one who found Ian irritating. How Bones and Spade had put up with him these past centuries, I’d never know.

“Cat. Justina. Crispin,” Spade said from behind Denise, calling Bones by his human name. “How goes it?”

“Not as well as we’d hoped, Charles,” Bones replied, also addressing him by the name he’d been born with instead of the moniker of the tool Spade had been assigned as a New South Wales prisoner.

Tyler carried Dexter out of the car and set him down. The dog took one look at the open front door of the house and ran inside. My mother followed suit after exchanging a brief hello with Denise and Spade and getting directions to the nearest guest bedroom. It was almost dawn, and as a normal newer vampire, my mother was wilting on her feet. I wasn’t worried about Spade’s having enough room for all of us. He was a former eighteenth-century nobleman, and the spacious opulence of the several houses he owned reflected that.

Tyler sidled up next to me, eyeing Spade with open appreciation.

“Who’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious?”

“Her husband,” I replied, my lips twitching. “Tyler, this is Denise, and that’s Spade.”

Tyler let out a dramatic sigh as he shook Denise’s hand. “All the good ones are either straight or married, but I won’t hold it against you that he’s both.”

Denise laughed. “Great to meet you. Cat’s told me all about you.”

“And some of it’s probably true,” he teased.

Then his attention became fixed on someone behind Denise, his mouth dropping before his expression turned into an open, lascivious stare. Thoughts started to race through his mind that were so explicit, I wished I could take a bat to my head to block out my telekinetic abilities.

“Tyler, meet Ian,” I said without bothering to turn around.

“Daddy like ,” Tyler breathed.

He straightened his shoulders, fixing his most winning smile on his face as he all but pushed me out of the way. The jostling turned me enough to get a view of the other vampire. Ian leaned against the doorframe, his auburn hair rustling in the breeze and turquoise eyes watching everything with his usual devilishness.

“I thought Bones looked like a little slice of heaven, but you’re the whole cake, aren’t you, sugar?” Tyler said, holding out his hand.

Ian took the praise as his due, flashing Tyler a smile that had the medium almost tripping in his approach. When he shook Tyler’s hand, Tyler let out a sigh that would’ve done a wistful teenager proud.

That face, that body . . . and you know he’s packing, look at the angle of that dangle! I heard before screaming la-la-la over and over in my mind.

“The killer ghost is still on the loose,” I announced to try to distract myself from Tyler’s enraptured musings over Ian.

“The trap didn’t work?” Spade asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Killer ghost?” Ian perked up, gently batting Tyler aside with a “Yes, yes, I’m truly stunning, but this interests me,” remark.

“Let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you all about it.” I nodded at Fabian and Elisabeth, who hung back almost shyly by our car. “You too, guys. We’re all in this together.”

One week had passed since the fiasco at the cave. On the plus side, we hadn’t been visited by Kramer during that time, probably because of the copious amounts of weed and garlic that Spade put in and around his house. It was so profuse that Elisabeth and Fabian chose to haunt his neighbor’s home instead of staying at Spade’s with us. The neighbors were human; they wouldn’t mind. They wouldn’t even know.

The bad news was it was now the eighth of October. Elisabeth rode the ley lines every day looking for Kramer, but she’d only caught quick glimpses of him once or twice before he vanished. So far, there were no indications that he’d fixated on any particular women, but if he hadn’t yet, he would soon. The clock was ticking, and we were behind on the scoreboard. Just building another trap wouldn’t work. Kramer had seen and overheard enough to know we were after him, so even if we did find a different, equally ideal cave, he’d be expecting us to try and ensnare him.

We were heading home tomorrow, so that Don would be able to reach us if he needed to. He didn’t know where Spade and Denise lived when they were in the States, but he’d know to try my house if something came up. I expected Madigan to keep a low profile while attempting to undo the damage he’d inflicted on himself with the cave incident, so we probably could’ve waited longer before going home; but Denise was starting to sneeze. Being branded with shapeshifting, demonic essence might have made her practically immortal, but apparently it couldn’t cure her allergies to cats.

“I’m getting a slice of cake. Tyler, you want any?” Denise asked, him being the only other person here who didn’t feed primarily from a liquid diet. The six of us had been relaxing in the living room after dinner, one of my first normal evenings in weeks.

Tyler gave her a droll look. “I’m begging you to tell me your secret. If I ate half as much as you, I’d lose these fierce hips in a week.”

Her smile held a hint of grimness. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

And if she didn’t, Spade would, I mentally finished. Shapeshifting, limitless healing ability, and a metabolism that burned off calories faster than Denise could consume them weren’t the only effects of the demon brands. Her blood was now a literal drug to vampires, and if word of that got out, every undead scumbag looking to make a buck selling it would come crawling out of their coffins after her.

“I’ll have a piece of cake,” I called out. I might be a vampire, but that didn’t mean I was about to let moist devil’s food cake go to waste.

“But, um, I’ll eat it in my room, if that’s okay,” I amended, getting an idea about that fudgy icing. “I’m heading to bed.”

Bones rose at those words, his eyes glinting as he met my gaze. Guess he’d figured out another use for that cake, too.

“Everyone, I’ll see you on the morrow,” he said. Then he went into the kitchen, took the plate Denise had just put a heaping slice of cake on, and started up the stairs.

“Retiring already, Crispin? Isn’t it quite early?” Ian asked with a wicked little grin.

“Piss off, mate,” Bones replied, sparing me the trouble of saying something similar.

We were halfway up the stairs when Dexter let out a sharp bark. I tensed, but then Elisabeth’s voice followed, letting me know which ghost had suddenly appeared in the house.

“I know where Kramer is!”

I turned toward the sound of her voice. Elisabeth stood in the foyer with Fabian at her side. Bones set the cake plate down on the steps with a sigh.