One Foot in the Grave

  It was a low blow, but one that was deliberate. They had to stop seeing all vampires as evil, and God knew that was a tough habit to break. After all, it had taken me years to be less narrow-minded, and I’d been in love with one.

  Don coughed, not liking the direction of the conversation. “No one forgets what you are. However, it doesn’t change what your mission is. You kill the undead. All of you do. This is a momentous task with great responsibility. What’s to stop your lover from doing his kind a favor by informing them where the elusive Red Reaper lives? After all, if you’re dead, then you can hardly threaten him.”

  “Juan, how many different women have you slept with in the past four years?” I abruptly asked.

  He scratched his chin. “Yo no se, querida, perhaps…about one a week?” he answered before Don gave him a censuring glare.

  “That’s not necessary!”

  “I think it is,” I said sharply. “One a week, give or take. That’s over two hundred different women in the past four years he’s worked here, and on a side note: Juan, you’re a slut. But how many of them were carefully screened to ensure they weren’t a Renfield, or some ghoul’s underling? You sexist bastards, I’m the only one called on the carpet for who I date! Well, I’ve had enough of this little chastity session. Don, it comes down to this. You either trust me or you don’t. I’ve never let you down, and I won’t walk away unless you make me. Period. Now, unless you have a real emergency, I’d like to get back to my vacation. And my corpse, thanks.”

  I marched to the door, but Tate didn’t move from in front of it.

  “Get out of my way,” I said with an undertone of menace.

  “Cat.” Don got up and lightly took my elbow. “If we have nothing to fear from your association with this vampire, then you won’t mind stopping by the lab for a blood sample. You haven’t been indiscriminately drinking blood, have you?”

  I snorted. “Not my beverage of choice, sorry. But if it’ll make you feel better to check my lab work, fine. Lead the way.”

  “I’ll be frank with you,” Don said as we walked to the second level, Tate and Juan following. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this. I have the team to consider. I’m not comfortable risking their lives on only your word that this creature isn’t dangerous.”

  “That’s where the trust part comes in. Besides, if he wanted to hurt the team, he could have done that last weekend at the GiGi Club. Don’t fuck up a good thing because of blind prejudice, Don. We both know you need me.”

  He regarded me as I stepped into the lab. “I want to believe you can’t be turned against us. But I don’t know if I can.”

  Later, after a spot processing proved I wasn’t hyped full of nosferatu juice, Tate walked me to my car. He hadn’t said a word since Don’s office, and I didn’t speak, either. They were letting me go, but I knew nothing had really been settled. That was okay—I had nothing to hide now. Well, almost nothing.

  Tate opened my door out of polite habit. I slid inside but didn’t shut it. His fingers tapped on my roof.

  “I bet you thought that was poetic justice, me not knowing about how much longer I could live. I told Don to tell you about your aging three years ago, when they were sure. He disagreed, and he’s the boss. Sometimes you just have to follow orders, even if you don’t want to.”

  “Sometimes.” I stared at him without blinking. “Not always. Not when it affects your friends, but we have different opinions about that.”

  “Yeah, well, we have different opinions about a lot of things.” Dark blue eyes met mine. “You really handed me my ass in there. First you casually admit to having a vampire boyfriend, then you tell everyone I tried to fuck you. What’s next? You going to whip out a dick and say you’re really a man?”

  His sour tone didn’t lend to humor, but I smiled slightly. “Back me into a corner and I come out clawing. You know that. I wish all of you would just have a little faith. I care about my team and the job I do. If I didn’t, why would I put up with this shit?”

  His mouth twisted. “You might have Don fooled, Cat, but not me. I saw your face tonight. You’ve never smiled at anyone the way you smiled at that vampire. That’s why I don’t trust you not to get in over your head. You already are.”

  TWENTY

  BONES SHOWED UP PROMPTLY AT SEVEN THE next night. We had plans to have an early dinner and then escape—until the following morning, anyway. As soon as I’d left the compound the previous evening, Don put round-the-clock surveillance on me. That had been a mood kill, to say the least. They probably had microphones pointed at my house, too, for maximum spying potential.

  It pissed me off no end. What did Don think, that if left unsupervised, I’d hold undead rallies to give every pulseless person within a hundred miles a blueprint of his compound? If Don didn’t have such a strong “greater good” agenda, I might have quit my job right then and there.

  I was still scowling over it all when I opened the door to let Bones in…and then I stopped and gawked at him.

  He wore tailored black pants and a dark blue shirt, his skin radiating against the deep-colored fabric. A black leather jacket was slung loosely over his shoulders and complemented his ensemble. It was the jacket itself that held my attention. It was long, trailing almost down to his calves.

  “Holy shit, is that what I think it is?” I blurted.

  Bones grinned and did a circle. “You like? After all, you kept your Christmas present”—he nodded to the Volvo in my driveway—“so it only seemed fair to retrieve mine, especially since you took my other jacket.”

  The jacket I’d bought him for Christmas years ago fit him perfectly. I’d never had the chance to give it to him, since Don had swooped me up before the holidays. Bones must have pried it out from its hiding place under the loose board of the kitchen cabinet in my old apartment. I’d told him where it was the day before I left him. The thought of Bones going back to get it made me almost burst into tears.

  Some of that must have shown on my face, because his expression softened.

  “Sorry, luv,” he said, pulling me into his arms. I could almost hear cameras snapping as Don’s spies zoomed in on us. “Didn’t think it would make you sad.”

  I put a rein on my emotions. “I’m fine,” I said briskly, giving the leather a light rub. “You look great in it. Just like I pictured you would—except your hair’s different, of course.”

  Bones shook his head, making his honey-brown curls sway. “This is my natural color. Didn’t really care about coloring it much lately, and the platinum did stand out more, don’t you agree? Why, which do you prefer?”

  I considered it. “Since I met you as a blond, that’s just what feels right to me. But don’t worry. I won’t break out the peroxide later.”

  He chuckled low. “Whatever turns you on.”

  His eyes roamed over me as he said it, making me feel warm everywhere he looked. I had on a simple, short black sheath that was sleeveless, with a front and back V-neck. Light makeup, no jewelry, definitely no perfume. Every vampire I knew hated that. With their sense of smell, it was always too heavy, no matter how sparingly applied.

  “Ready to go?” he asked softly.

  “Um hmm.” Somehow I couldn’t come up with a more articulate response. God, I’d wanted nothing more than to spend the night in his arms for literally years now, and very soon I’d get my wish. So why was I so nervous all of a sudden? You’d think I’d somehow morphed into a teenager on prom night.

  Bones climbed onto his bike, a snazzy new Ducati. He’d always liked motorcycles, even though they weren’t my favorite method of transportation. Still, the bike was the obvious choice for our plans to lose Don’s tail on us later. For one, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Don had ordered my car bugged while I met with him yesterday, and for another, nobody could catch a vampire on a motorcycle.

  Bones gave me an amused look as I put my helmet on and climbed onto the back of the bike.

  “I can hear them; they’re scurry
ing like rats now. Let’s see how well they can keep up. I’ll take it easy on them to start.”

  And he gunned the bike, shooting down the street with no regard for the speed limit.

  I tightened my arms around his waist. Yeah, this definitely reminded me of old times.

  The restaurant Bones took me to was called Skylines. It sat at the top of a twenty-story building overlooking the city. Glass made up the exterior walls for an unobstructed view, and our table was right up against the window. The red and white lights of the cars crawling along the street below us held my gaze, and idly I wondered which contained Don’s men. With all the noise of surrounding traffic and the building’s occupants, it was hard to tell. They were out there, though, I knew it. It was all I could do not to wave at them from my window perch.

  “Showing them we haven’t tried to escape?” I commented after the waiter took our wine and appetizer order.

  He gave me a smile. “Didn’t want them to come barreling up here and ruin our dinner. Come now, you haven’t even looked at the menu.”

  I scanned the food options in front of me, but kept returning my gaze to Bones. I wasn’t alone in admiring him. Bones’s perfectly etched features, matched with that prowling grace, had turned every female head when he walked in. His darker hair contrasted against the smooth brilliance of his skin, and I wondered how its longer length would feel in my hands. The top button was open on his shirt, giving me the faintest peek of his chest, which I knew was as hard as the table we were sitting at. I remembered how erotic it felt to slide my nails down his back and pull him closer. How his power pulsed against my skin when our flesh merged. How green his eyes were when he was inside me. And how his vampiric ability to control where the blood went in his body meant he could make love to me until I was beyond sated.

  No wonder I couldn’t concentrate on the menu. Food? Who needed it? All of a sudden, I wasn’t the least bit nervous about later. In fact, I wanted later to be a damn sight sooner.

  Bones must have picked up on that, because his eyes began to glint with green flecks.

  “Stop it, luv. You’re making it very difficult for me to behave.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said as I recrossed my legs, letting him hear the rub of skin on skin since I was sans hose.

  Our wine came. I sipped it while shifting in my seat and casually stroking my cleavage. After years of practice, one thing I’d honed to precision was how to make a vampire hot. It was practically my livelihood, only in this case, there would be no silver stake at the end. How refreshing.

  Bones leaned forward. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” There was a gravelly edge to his voice. “Absolutely ravishing. I’m going to spend hours reacquainting my mouth with every inch of your body, and I can barely wait to see if you taste as good as I remember.”

  The wine lingered in my mouth a moment before I swallowed. This was the part that wasn’t normal for me. My previous targets had never evoked such a heated response.

  “Do we really have to stay for the whole meal?” My eyes locked with his, and I stroked his hand with one finger. “Let’s just take it to go, hmm?”

  He opened his mouth to reply—and suddenly I was rolling underneath the neighboring tables with him on top of me. There was the sound of glass shattering and shrill screams. Tables crumpled and people were knocked from their chairs while I wondered what the hell had happened and why my forehead was burning.

  I must have instinctively shut my eyes, because when they snapped open, I cried out. Bones’s face was right next to mine, and a blood-smeared hole was staining his hair red before it began to close on itself.

  “You’ve been shot!” I gasped. “Someone tried to kill you!”

  It took a moment for the facts to register. We were on the floor. He’d rolled me away from our table, but I could still see where we’d been. Three holes punctured the glass, and none of them were by his seat.

  Bones pulled me to my feet with his back to the window, and the truth hit me even as he answered.

  “Not me, Kitten. You.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO DIGEST THE NEWS. “Hold on to my neck and don’t let go,” Bones said next with seething ferocity. “We’re getting the sod.”

  He wrapped both arms around me the same instant I clung to his neck, and then he vaulted himself backward straight through the windowed wall behind us.

  The thunderous noise of glass crashing outward drowned out my screams at suddenly free-falling from a twenty-story building. My legs flailed helplessly and my stomach lurched upward with a nauseating lift. Wind stung my eyes, which were fixed in horror at the rapidly approaching ground. The grip I had around his neck stiffened into the hold of the damned, and then an incredible thing happened. We started slowing down.

  Incredulous, I looked up to see if a parachute had miraculously appeared, but there was nothing beyond the lights of the building. Before I could even wrap my mind around that, however, I felt a whoosh, and then we weren’t falling anymore. We were sailing diagonally through the air toward a black van that had just sped into traffic. My screams died in my throat, choked off by astonishment.

  Cars screeched, either from the erratically driving van or the people who’d hit their brakes in disbelief at seeing a dark form streak above them. The van was speeding, but we were faster. Bones caught up to it in seconds and grasped the rear bumper, flipping the vehicle without even letting go of me with his other hand.

  It upended with a spectacular crash. Oncoming cars swerved and more brakes squealed. Bones flew upward in a single spurt that bore us clear of the traffic melee and set me down on the sidewalk with a short directive.

  “Stay here.”

  He streaked back toward the wrecked van before I could even croak out a reply. There was a crack of gunshots, more screams from onlookers, and then moments later he reappeared with a man flung over his shoulder.

  “Let’s go.”

  Bones grasped me firmly once more, and then the ground left our feet. My eyes bugged. Mother of God, we were going so fast. To keep my feet from swinging crazily, like my mind was doing, I tangled my legs in his and held on, almost afraid to look down to see how high up we were.

  Ten minutes later, Bones set us down in a warehouse alley as neatly as if he’d hopped off a curb. I was panting in amazement and staring at him like I’d never seen him before.

  “You can fly?” I gasped out the obvious.

  He glanced over at me while shaking the hapless assassin like a rag doll.

  “Told you I was more powerful than you were aware of.”

  I kept staring. Bones would have seemed nonchalant—if he wasn’t shaking the living hell out of the man in his hands.

  “But you can fly?” I finally repeated, struck into stupidity.

  “I’m a Master vampire. If a Master gets to be powerful enough and old enough, this is one of the perks. There are others, but we can get into those later,” Bones said as the man’s eyes fluttered open, focused on him, and then bulged. He was awake now, and he looked like I’d felt when Bones had catapulted us out of that window. Scared shitless.

  Bones dropped him to the ground and knelt in front of him. A flash of emerald spilled out of his eyes, and after a harsh command, the man quit struggling and sat still.

  “This woman,” Bones said, indicating me with a jerk of his head. “Why did you try to kill her?”

  “Business,” the man replied in a monotone, mesmerized by the glowing orbs fixated on him. “I was hired to.”

  Another hit man. Guess Bones hadn’t been wrong about that contract out on me.

  “Who hired you?” Bones asked immediately.

  “Don’t know. The contract came in, instructions were enclosed, and the money was to be wired on completion. Sometimes I get jobs through referrals, but not this time.”

  “Kitten.” Bones didn’t break eye contact. “Write this down.”

  He withdrew his wallet. A tiny pen was clipped to it. I used
the first piece of paper I found, which was money.

  “Name.”

  “Ellis Pierson.”

  Such a normal-sounding name, and it went with his appearance. Aside from his fresh bloody nose and bruises, he looked about as threatening as Mickey Mouse. Ellis had black hair neatly trimmed, a paunch, and round baby cheeks. The prick was obviously good with a rifle and a scope, though. I’d be missing several choice pieces of my brain now if it weren’t for Bones tackling me. How he’d known about the shots was still beyond me.

  “Alias, all of them.”

  There were several. I was going to need more money.

  One by one, Bones asked Ellis questions about the contract out on me, and he knew better than anyone which ones they were. Tricks of the trade, I thought sardonically as I wrote. It takes a hit man to interrogate one.

  My jaw clenched when Ellis outlined in a dull voice how he’d been given very special instructions regarding my dispatch. It was to be a head shot only, a minimum of three bullets, and at a range no closer than a hundred yards. No car bombs, poison, physical confrontation, or any contact near my car or residence. Ellis didn’t know what I was, but whoever had hired him must have had a frigging good idea. These stipulations were too specific to be coincidental.

  By the end, I’d written on over a dozen different bills, and my hand was cramped from the minuscule pen. Considering the alternative, however, I wasn’t going to complain. Finally Bones sat back on his haunches and asked if there was anything else Ellis hadn’t mentioned.

  “The client got anxious in the last e-mail and moved up the time frame. Said new circumstances mandated immediate results. My price was increased by twenty percent if the job was done tonight. I followed her from her house to the restaurant. Easier to escape in the confusion there.”