Jeaniene Frost - One Grave at a Time

“Good thing you’re here. That’s far too practical to have occurred to me,” I added wryly.

He stilled my hand as I was about to knock on the door labeled “B.”

“Don’t berate yourself. I did the same thing when I first acquired this power, but I’ve had it much longer, so my response to it has changed. You’re not used to it yet, but you will be, then accessing it will be second nature to you also.”

Maybe, but it wasn’t even my power to begin with. If I stopped drinking from him, that mind-reading ability, like every other borrowed power, would soon be gone. Bleakness briefly threaded through me. In many ways, I was an imposter, my significant strength and skills just the product of a supernatural dietary quirk. Without the capacity to siphon powers through feeding, I probably wouldn’t be any more bad-ass than my mother. Would the real Red Reaper please stand up?

Then I pushed those thoughts aside and rapped on the door. I could have my personal identity crisis later, when someone else’s life wasn’t on the line. If anyone deserved a pity party, it was the woman we were here to collect, and from the muffled sob on the other side of this door, it seemed I was about to meet her.

“Who is it?” a strained voice called out. Can’t handle dealing with anyone right now followed on the heels of that, discernible even through my mental barrier.

“We just moved in,” I said, trying to sound friendly. “I found this cat wandering around, and I was wondering if you’d recognize who his owner is.”

Seemed more plausible than my other ideas considering I was standing here with a cat carrier. The door cracked open, security chain still engaged. Cautious, good for her, but no dead bolt or chain could keep out what was after her. I caught a glimpse of matted blond hair framing a tear-stained face before I held up the carrier, showing her a glimpse of my kitty.

“Wait a second,” she mumbled. The door’s closing coincided with the slide of the chain being removed. She opened it more fully this time, peering at Helsing.

“Haven’t seen him here before,” she began.

Emerald blazed forth from Bones’s eyes, bright as a traffic light. As quick as she could gasp, she was caught in their depths, mutely stepping back when Bones told her to let us inside.

I closed the door behind us, wincing when I saw the destruction in her apartment. Her couch was overturned, lamps and tables smashed, kitchen cabinets half-torn from their hinges, and multiple pieces of broken dishes littered the floor. Either this was Kramer’s work, or she had real issues with her temper.

“Who did this?” Bones asked, still holding her gaze.

Anguish skipped across her expression. “I don’t know his name. I can’t even see him unless he wants me to.”

That was enough confirmation for me, but Bones asked her one more question. “How long has he been coming to you?”

“Over three weeks,” she whispered.

I exchanged a grim glance with Bones. That was earlier than we’d expected. If Kramer had started terrorizing his intended victims at the end of September, it made sense that he’d already picked out his accomplice. It only stood to benefit Kramer if his dirty little helper was familiar with where he’d be kidnapping the women from, after all. And if Kramer was covering his tracks well enough that it had taken Elisabeth over five weeks to find the first of the three women, would she be able to find the other two in just seventeen days?

“Don’t be afraid, but you need to come with us,” I told her.

A single tear slipped down her cheek, but she made no protest when I started leading her toward the door. Bones stopped me, gesturing toward what I assumed was her bedroom.

“Let her collect a few things, and make sure she takes what’s most precious to her. Those will help her feel more comfortable later. I’ll get some sage burning just in case.”

Leave it to Bones to know how to make a girl feel better, even under the most stressful circumstances.

“Come on, we’re going to pack real quick,” I told her, making sure I said it with the brights on in my gaze. “Don’t forget to take whatever has the most sentimental value to you.”

“I can’t,” she said, another tear trickling down her cheek.

“Sure you can,” I murmured encouragingly. Then, after another glance at the carpet, I picked her up. Otherwise, her bare feet would be shredded with all the broken glass. From the coppery scent wafting off her, she had some cuts on her feet from letting us in. Why hadn’t she put on shoes before answering the door?

Once we were in her bedroom, which was as trashed as the rest of the apartment, I had my answer.

“Bastard,” I whispered with a fresh surge of loathing.

From the looks of her closet, Kramer had destroyed all her clothing. Suits, dresses, blouses, pants . . . you couldn’t tell them apart from the piles of shredded fabric. Dresser drawers were overturned, more haphazard pieces of fabric spilled out of them. He’d even split apart her shoes.

“I don’t have anything left that matters to me. He broke it all,” she said, the words more heartrending because of the acceptance in her tone.

Anger made my hands tremble. Since he died, Kramer no longer had the ability to rip women from their homes, taking them away to a pitiless prison. So to make up for that, he turned their homes into their prisons. This woman—and I still didn’t know her name—wouldn’t even be able to leave her apartment unless she wore that robe as an outfit.

“Don’t worry, we’re taking you to a safe place,” I promised her, picking her up again.

I’d cleared the bedroom door when Helsing let out an extended snarl.

Bones was in front of me in a blink, holding two fistfuls of burning sage. I held the woman with one arm and tried to reach for my own sage stash with the other, but then something heavy slammed into the back of my head hard enough to make me lose my balance. Bones whirled, grabbing us both and backing us into the wall, his body and that barrier a protective shield from any additional attacks.

“Door,” I muttered, seeing over his shoulder what I’d been brained with this time. “Fucker hit me with the bedroom door!”

“Get out,” an enraged voice hissed.

Blood wet my hair before the wound closed on itself, but that initial flash of dizziness was gone, leaving me good and mad. That only increased when all the broken dishes became airborne and thudded into Bones’s body like glass knives.

The woman didn’t scream, but she made a horrible keening noise, squeezing her eyes shut. “No, no, no,” she began to chant.

I managed to free my arms from the tight wedge Bones had us in enough to pull out some sage and light it. In the time it took me to do that, Kramer had blasted the couch into Bones. I felt his pain flaring along my subconscious as the impact drove those glass shards farther into his back, but Bones just braced himself, absorbing the blow without shifting his weight even an inch. Then he shot the unseen ghost a feral grin.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

Kramer howled in fury, outing his position even though he hadn’t manifested in appearance yet. I took aim and threw, using enough force that the sage went all the way across the room. Another howl sounded, pained this time, making me smile with vicious satisfaction. I pelted another handful in that direction, but Kramer must have moved, because the only sounds that followed were rattling from the cabinet doors he ripped off and began to chuck at us. One of them hit Helsing’s carrier, making my cat screech, but it was made of sturdy material and protected him from the impact.