Jeaniene Frost - One Grave at a Time

Ian laughed. “Wretched timing you have, poppet,” he told Elisabeth, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a small, selfish part of me also wished she’d poofed up with this good news a few hours later.

Some of her smile faded. “Is something amiss?”

“Nothing,” I told her while flashing Bones a rueful smile as I started back down the stairs. “Where is he?”

“Sioux City, Iowa,” she replied. “I’ve seen him there four times now. Far too many to be mere coincidence. This must be where he’ll select his victims.”

“He picks all of his victims from the same area? I thought you said Kramer made sure never to utilize the same place twice.”

“He chooses a new location every All Hallows’ Eve, very far from any of the places where the previous burnings occurred. Last year, he was in Hong Kong. Often he will hide the bodies to prevent the authorities from realizing the same type of murders occur every year. But the accomplice and the three victims are always chosen from same place.”

He hid the bodies? “Why would he care if the police were onto him? It’s not like they could put him in handcuffs.”

“Because of his accomplices,” Elisabeth replied. “If they learned the pattern of the previous murderers through periodicals or modern news, they would realize that once they’ve concluded their usefulness, Kramer will kill them, too.”

“He eliminates every tie to his crimes, even ones from whoever’s assisting him?” Ian whistled. “Starting to admire this bloke’s resourcefulness.”

“You would,” I countered.

Elisabeth said nothing, but a spasm crossed her face that I picked up on even with her being partially transparent. Fabian floated over to her, resting his hands on her shoulders.

“You must tell them.”

Bones’s brows went up. “Tell us what?” Denise asked, beating him or me to it.

Elisabeth closed her eyes, seeming to gather herself together. If she’d been solid, I’d have asked her to sit down, because she looked downright, well, ghostly.

“Kramer does not kill his accomplices merely to eliminate ties to his crimes,” she said, her voice barely audible. “He always picks those who are fanatical in their belief that they are doing God’s work by assisting him in the elimination of witches. But many of them, when they see what he . . . does when he is flesh, realize it is all a lie.”

Bones’s expression became grim. Even Ian looked like he’d swallowed something distasteful. Denise seemed as clueless as I felt over Elisabeth’s oblique statement, but then her meaning hit me, and my stomach clenched in a way that made me think I was about to spew up my liquid dinner all over the coffee table.

“He rapes them,” I stated, a deep loathing spreading through me.

Elisabeth’s bowed head came up. She looked right at me as she spoke the next words.

“They weren’t the first.”

This time, I knew right away what she meant, and more of that same fury rose in me. It should come as no surprise that this wasn’t a new pattern for Kramer. I’d read enough of the Malleus Maleficarum to know that second only to his hatred of women was Kramer’s deviant obsession with female sexuality. Rape would be yet another tool he’d use in his quest to physically and emotionally destroy women before he had them killed, and in Elisabeth’s time, Inquisitors were given absolute power over the accused—and unsupervised access.

Elisabeth had endured this hellish nightmare, then watched Kramer continue on in the same despicable pattern as a ghost. Yet here she was—unbroken, uncowed, and unwilling to give up her quest for justice no matter which side of eternity she had to fight for it on.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” I said, awed by her strength.

That made her bow her head again. “No, but out of everyone Kramer murdered, I alone still exist. I owe it to the lost not to give up.”

Silence met her statement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother swipe at her face as if chasing away tears. It brought back an awful memory: her, covered in dirt and blood, begging me to kill her because she couldn’t live with what she’d done during her first few, blood-crazed days as a new vampire. All my arguments of how the vampire who’d thrown those humans in with her— knowing what would happen and doing it just to torment her—was the real murderer had fallen on deaf ears. Only Bones sternly telling my mother she wasn’t allowed to die because it would dishonor the sacrifice Rodney made when he gave his life during her rescue had reached her.

Sometimes, continuing on in honor of the lost was all a person had.

“Sioux City, Iowa.” Bones drew the words out. “We’ll go there tomorrow.”

I shook myself out of the sorrows of the past. To stop Kramer, I needed to be focused on the present. That was probably what had kept Elisabeth sane and on track all these years.

“Let’s get back to Kramer’s pattern. If he’s so concerned about covering his tracks, do you know why he picks his victims from the same city?”

Maybe his motive would be something we could use against him. Sticking to the same area was common enough if we were talking human, vampire, or ghoul serial killers, but as a ghost, Kramer could circle the entire globe in hours if he kept hopping on enough ley lines.

“Why would he limit himself that way?” I continued to wonder. “He knows you’ve been after him, Elisabeth, but he’s making himself easier to find by sticking to one area when he hunts for his victims.”

Bleakness tightened her features. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve proven to be no real threat to him over the years.”

“That’s not why,” Bones stated. “Kramer can flit in and out of cities in a blink, but his accomplice is flesh and blood. Much more limiting, so if the intended victims are all located within a small geographic area, they’re easier for the accomplice to collect when the time comes.”

Right, Kramer couldn’t kidnap those women himself unless he waited until he was solid, and that only happened for one night. Must not be enough time for the bastard to do every horrible thing on his wish list before he burned them alive. But while the accomplice was Kramer’s most valuable asset, he was also the Inquisitor’s Achilles’ heel. If we found the accomplice in time, Kramer would spend Halloween evening all fleshed up but with no one to torture or burn. The thought filled me with savage satisfaction.

“We need to kill the accomplice as soon as we find out who he is,” I stated.

“No.”

All heads swung toward Bones, mine included. He tapped his chin, his dark gaze measured and cold.

“If we find out who the accomplice is, we grab him. Mesmerize him into telling us exactly where Kramer intends to hold his nasty bonfire. Then on All Hallows’ Eve, we go there, saving the women while capturing both sods instead of only one. Kramer will be solid then, and he can’t escape as easily when he’s solid, can he?”

I stared at my husband’s profile, noting how his sculpted cheekbones, curving dark brows, and exquisite crystal skin only highlighted the ruthlessness of his expression.

“So we go to Sioux City and find the accomplice,” I said softly.

His mouth curved into a smile that was half predator, half dream lover.

“Indeed.”

Ipicked up the chocolate cake on my way to the bedroom, but that was more because I didn’t want to leave it on the steps than a continued craving for it. My thoughts were more focused on justifiable homicide than cake eating, kinky or otherwise. I wasn’t the only one in a more somber mood. My mother muttered that she was going for a drive and left the house without any further comment. It could be nothing more than her leaving to find someone to drink from, but I didn’t think hunger was her sole motivator. I probably never wanted to know how much of Elisabeth’s treatment she herself had endured during the time she’d been kidnapped, murdered, and forcibly changed into a vampire, all because another vampire was trying to get back at me. Fabian and Elisabeth also left right after her, not needing a car to get away, of course.