Jeaniene Frost - One Grave at a Time

“Looking back, do you think Kramer might have been the actual culprit behind your cat’s death?” Bones asked, zeroing in on the same oddity that bothered me.

Francine rubbed her forehead wearily. “I don’t think so. The person broke the lock on my front door to get in. Did it while I was at work, and most people in my building are gone during the day, too, so no one saw it happen. Kramer never broke anything to get in. He just . . . showed up.” Watery smile. “And then broke everything inside, but never the locks.”

“Destruction of the witch’s familiar,” Bones murmured. His mouth twisted. “Animals as familiars were one of the precepts set forth in many witch trials, and cats were commonly associated as a familiar. This could be nothing more than coincidence . . . or perhaps it’s the accomplice’s first test of loyalty.”

Breaking and entering, plus murdering something innocent for no reason other than warped superstition? Yep, sounded like just the warm-up Kramer might use for his human apprentice. Furthermore, Kramer had to know that animals could sense his presence. He’d tried to kill Dexter the first time Tyler summoned him. Poor dog still had that cast on his back leg, and Helsing would have been in worse shape if not for some lucky breaks. Getting rid of any pets his targets owned meant those pets could never warn their owners of Kramer’s presence before he wanted it to be known.

Prick.

Francine blinked back tears. “So it’s because of me that my cat was killed?”

“You’re not responsible for any of this,” I told her firmly. “Kramer is. Him, and whoever the shit is that’s helping him.”

“But you’re going to stop them, right?”

I had to glance away from the poignant hope in Francine’s face before I promised all sorts of things I wasn’t sure I could deliver on.

“We’re sure going to try,” I said, meeting Bones’s steady dark gaze, “and you just gave us a new lead to start on.”

“This is the place,” I said, shielding my eyes from the morning sunlight.

I might have lost access to the Homeland Security’s database thanks to Madigan’s new position as boss, but a lot of the information that led us here was all a matter of public record if you were willing to pay a fee. A little hacking into the Sioux City Police Department database provided the rest. In the past two months, approximately 106 households in the Sioux City metro area had reported burglaries. That was a big number if we were doing door-to-door searches, but out of those, only thirty-eight were reported by women living alone. Filter that further by women between the ages of eighteen and forty-five living alone where the burglary resulted in the injury or death to a pet, and that number dropped to one.

If we were right about the connection between dead pets and Kramer, we’d found one of the remaining two women less than six hours after Francine told us her story. Maybe this new woman could give us information that could lead to Kramer’s final intended victim. Then we could start the really hard part: building another trap for Kramer that we could lure the ghost into. We had all the materials. We just needed a new place with a freshwater stream to set them up in.

But we had to do all this without Madigan finding us and screwing everything up again. On the principle that I’d vowed to stay optimistic, I wasn’t about to calculate our odds.

One thing was already in our favor: Someone with a heartbeat was in Lisa Velasquez’s home. I glanced at the clock in the car—10:17 A.M., miserably early for vampires but past the time most people had to be at work. Maybe Lisa had taken the day off. Maybe she worked second shift.

Or maybe she was being so tormented by a ghost that she’d gotten fired from her job for bizarre behavior and frequent absences, just like Francine had.

“We should’ve brought the cat,” Bones muttered, eyeing the one-story house where Lisa lived. If we were right, Kramer could be lurking in there, just waiting for us to cross the threshold.

“Helsing’s almost been killed a couple times. I’m not risking it, especially when we’re pretty sure those past attempts were deliberate, and we only get a two-second warning hiss before Kramer whales on me anyway.”

“His attacking you first the past three out of four times is what concerns me,” Bones replied, an edge to his tone.

“What can I say?” Wry smile. “I’m irresistible.”

Bones shot me a look that said my humor was wasted on this subject, handing me two glasses full of already smoldering sage. Then he took two more for himself, leaving the other two lit containers in the car. Both of us had more sage in our coats, plus the prerequisite lighters, but this time, we weren’t waiting to flame up. Sure, we’d look a little strange to whoever opened the door, but that was the least of our concerns.

“Hear anything interesting?” I murmured, as we walked to the door. I had my mental shields lowered as much as possible without the voices overwhelming me, but I wasn’t as good at filtering through unfamiliar ones yet, and Lisa lived in a subdivision bordering a busy business district.

He closed his eyes, his power flaring for an instant. “Whoever’s in there is asleep,” he stated.

That made this easier. I glanced around, didn’t notice any neighbors watching us, then marched up to the closest window, peering inside. No such luck, the drapes were drawn. I tried the next window. Same thing. Bones picked up on my intention and circled around the back of the house.

“Here,” he called out after a moment.

From his tone, he’d struck pay dirt. In the few seconds it took me to get to where he was, Bones had the sliding glass door open. Either he’d used his mind to unlock it or leaned in and pulled up at the right angle; either would’ve taken about the same amount of time.

I followed him inside, mouth tightening at the destruction inside that Lisa had tried to conceal with her tightly drawn drapes. Bones followed the steady sounds of a heartbeat to Lisa’s bedroom, which again looked so similar to what Kramer had done at Francine’s that we didn’t need to wake Lisa and question her to get our confirmation. Besides, speed was of the essence.

Bones put down the burning sage to place his hand over the sleeping woman’s mouth, stifling her instant scream as that jolted her into awareness. I felt guilty about the sudden frantic race of her pulse and the terror that spiked across her mind, but by the time Bones finished telling her we were taking her somewhere safe, and we wouldn’t hurt her, her heart rate had slowed to almost a normal rhythm, and her thoughts mirrored the suggestions he’d implanted with his gaze.

When he picked her up and the covers fell back, I saw she was wearing a nightgown that was so ripped, more flesh was revealed than covered. Bastard, I silently swore at Kramer, shrugging off my coat.

“No,” Bones said, voice low but sharp. “She can wear mine, but you’re keeping that sage close.”

Arguing with him would only take more time, and Kramer could show up at any moment. Bones doffed his coat, handing it to Lisa. She put it on, still mechanically obedient thanks to the power in his gaze. I hated the necessity of highjacking her will, but at that moment, her immediate compliance was in her very best interest.

I handed Bones a few extra packets of sage and a couple lighters that he put into his pants pockets before picking up the lit containers again.

“Straight to the car, Lisa,” he instructed her, gaze warily flicking around as we walked from her bedroom to the front door. I was braced the whole way, expecting one of the broken pieces of furniture or dishes suddenly to levitate and slam into us, but nothing happened.