Halfway to the Grave

  “I’m going to throw up,” I warned, and it wasn’t an empty threat. My stomach heaved dangerously. Gagging, I leaned toward him.

  The car screeched to a halt so fast the air bags should have deployed. “Not in the car!” he gasped, leaning over me and opening my door.

  At once I spilled out onto the ground, retching as promised. Some of it splattered my dress and I heaved until my stomach felt stripped of its contents. Above me, I could hear Hennessey make a sound of disgust.

  “You’ve gotten it all over yourself! Now I can’t let you back in the car. You’d ruin the seats!”

  This pleased me, but only a little, since I couldn’t remember where I was or why I didn’t want to go back into the car.

  Suddenly I was moving, and painfully. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me off the road into the trees as I tried to struggle. This was bad, it was very bad. My legs felt like boulders. Too heavy to move. My arms weren’t much better, but I futilely slapped at him with no strength. He finally came to a stop and reached behind my neck to unfasten my halter. The dress dropped to my waist, leaving only the strapless bra covering my chest.

  “Beautiful,” he sighed, and undid the strap to bare my breasts.

  “Don’t.”

  I tried to scoot away, but my legs wouldn’t work. Hennessey knelt over me, careful not to get dirty, and pushed my hair aside. At once his face transformed into glowing eyes and fangs. One hand cupped my breast, squeezing roughly, while the other held my head. Slow tears leaked out of my eyes as I sat trapped, unable to move or think. There was something that could help me, something…if I could only remember what it was.

  A sharp pain in my neck made me gasp. Oh God, he bit me! He was drinking me! My legs kicked weakly, and my watch tangled in his hair as I tried to push him away. A dim flicker of memory remained, fading fast with every hurtful pull of his mouth. There was something about my watch….

  My vision blackened, but before darkness claimed me, I pushed a button.

  Chapter Ten

  SOMETHING WAS PRESSED AGAINST MY MOUTH. Liquid spilled into it and rushed down my throat so fast I choked, coughing. From far off I heard someone speaking to me, shaking me, and the fluid pitilessly continued to pour. I swallowed to prevent drowning in it, then the voice became clearer and I could see again.

  Bones was behind me, clutching me to his chest. We were sprawled on the ground. One arm held me to him and his other wrist was shoved against my mouth. It was his blood overflowing into me.

  “Stop that, you know I hate that.” Spitting out the remaining mouthful, I tried to push away, but he tightened his grip, twisting around so he could see me.

  “Bloody hell, you’re all right. Your heart slowed for a minute. Scared the wits out of me.”

  As my vision slowly cleared, I could see a dead vampire in front of me. His head was twisted mostly off, and one eye hung out of its socket. The flesh shriveled back against the bones in the traditional way after true death, but the face wasn’t Hennessey’s. It was someone I’d never seen before.

  “Where’s Hennessey?” My voice was only a murmur. Although my eyes and ears worked, my mind still rotated.

  Bones gave a snort of disgust behind me.

  “Blasted sod ran off. I was already on my way to you when I got your page. I pulled Hennessey off you, and we started to go at it when the bloody boot opens and this fellow pops out. He’d been hiding there as Hennessey’s bleedin’ bodyguard. Bloke jumped me and Hennessey took off. The bugger put up a hell of a fight, too. When I finished with him, I checked on you. That’s when I saw that you were barely breathing and opened a vein. You really should have more, you’re still pale as death.”

  “No.” My response was soft but firm. Already I was afraid I’d had too much, remembering all the swallowing. Ugh.

  “What happened back there? I thought you were just pretending and taking it far to goad me. Worked as well, that’s why I was almost on him when your page went off. Did he catch you off guard?”

  Although he no longer fed me, he still had his arms around me. A part of me protested, especially since I was naked from the waist up, but I was too exhausted to mention it. Forcing my mind to work, I thought back over the events. It was like cotton had replaced my brain.

  “Um, I don’t know. We got in his car and I started feeling sick…. No, that’s wrong. I felt sick before, at the club. It started when we were dancing. Somehow I felt drunk. Everything was blurry and the lights seemed far off…. After a while it got under control, but when I left, it came back three times as bad. I couldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t work and my mind…I couldn’t think. I even forgot about the watch until it got caught in his hair. Do you think he drugged me? Could he have known what we were up to?”

  Bones pulled me back enough to look into my eyes. What he saw made him curse.

  “Your pupils are dilated enough to belong on a corpse. You’ve been drugged, all right. You say you felt it before he showed up, when we were dancing? That doesn’t make sense….”

  His voice trailed off and like a brick, the truth hit me. Once again I saw the guileless smiles of Ralphie and Martin while holding out a glass.

  “It wasn’t him.” Come see my Porsche, come on outside…. “It was those kids. Ralphie and Martin, the ones you told to scram when we first arrived. They handed me a drink then and later when Hennessey went to find you. Those little pricks, they tried to pull me out to their car, they looked surprised when I wouldn’t come….” Suddenly I was dizzy again, and my vision swam for a moment.

  “You need more blood.” It was a statement, and through the fog I waved him off.

  “No. No. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep.”

  The landscape tipped, and when I opened my eyes I was lying on the ground with a familiar jean jacket under my head. Bones was about a dozen yards away, digging a hole.

  The moonlight illuminated his skin, and there was a lot to illuminate. He’d taken his shirt off, and it reflected on the diamonds-and-cream flesh it seemed to caress. Without his shirt he looked even more chiseled. Long lines connected his collarbone, his shoulders appeared broader without clothing, and the hard line of his stomach was interrupted only by pants. Hollows and muscles rippled with his effort, and it was the loveliest sight I’d ever seen.

  “Where is your shirt?” Apparently I’d spoken aloud instead of just wondered it in my mind, because he turned and answered me.

  “You’re wearing it, luv.”

  Leaning over, he picked up the dead vampire with one hand and plunked him in the hole, piling dirt on top of him.

  “You’re absolutely stunning without it, you know that…?” My internal monologue was all off, since evidently I’d been audible again.

  He paused to grin at me, teeth flashing in the night.

  “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you only compliment me when you’re intoxicated. Makes you right more agreeable, it does.”

  He finished with a last slap of the shovel against the dirt and walked over to me. My vision still fluttered in and out.

  “You’re always gorgeous,” I whispered, reaching out a finger and trailing it down his cheek as he knelt over me. “Kiss me again….”

  Nothing felt real. Not the ground underneath me, or his mouth once again moving over mine. A noise of disappointment escaped me when he lifted his head, disentangling himself from my arms.

  “Why did you stop? Is it because I taste bad?” Some part of me remembered I’d thrown up recently.

  He smiled, brushing his lips across mine once more. “No. You taste like my blood, and I want you unbearably. But not like this. Let’s get you safely tucked in. Up you go.”

  He lifted me in his arms. “Bones,” I sighed. “Know something? I’m not afraid of you, but you scare me….” His outline blurred again.

  “You scare me, too, Kitten,” he might have replied, but I couldn’t be sure. It was all black again.

  My mother lay behind me with her arms wrapped around me, and I snuggl
ed into her embrace. She never held me, and it felt good. She mumbled something and her voice was low and deep. Her arms were firmly muscled, and her chest pressed alongside my back…was rock-hard.

  My eyes flew open, and for the second time in my life I woke up in bed with a vampire. This time was infinitely worse, because all I wore was a shirt and panties and he…

  A scream tore out of my throat. Bones leapt up, head swiveling around to spot the danger. Immediately I looked away, because I’d spotted the danger, all right. Color rose in my face and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “What’s wrong? Someone here?” His voice was insistent and deadly.

  Mutely I shook my head, wracking my brain as to how I’d ended up here. The last thing I remembered was lying on the ground and kissing him….

  “Bones.” My teeth ground, but I had to know. “Did you and I…did anything happen between us? I don’t remember. You have to tell me the truth.”

  He made an exasperated noise and I felt the bed give under his weight as he climbed back in. I scooted off at once and peeked at him through my lashes until I was sure the sheet covered him below the waist.

  He gave me a look of thinly veiled annoyance. “You think I’d shag you while you were passed out cold? Think I’m no better than those two buggers who doctored your drink? Your dress was half ripped off and covered in vomit, no less, so I put a shirt on you and brought you here. Then I went back to the club.”

  “Oh.” Now I felt foolish and wanted to defend my misassumption. “But then why are you naked?”

  “Because after I was finished with your little boys and looked around futilely for Hennessey, it was dawn. I was knackered and had blood on my clothes, so I stripped them off and fell into bed. You certainly weren’t doing anything but snoring and taking all the bloomin’ covers again. Didn’t really pause to think about it, sorry.” The sarcasm dripped off every word, but his earlier sentence chilled me.

  “How did you finish with the boys? What happened to Ralphie and Martin?”

  “Fretting about them, are you? So typically American, more concerned about the criminals than the victims. Didn’t ask if they found a new friend to play with, did you? Didn’t ask about what happened to her. No, you’re too anxious over their welfare.”

  “They drugged someone else? Is she all right?” If he meant to shame me, he’d succeeded.

  His eyes drilled into mine.

  “No, pet. She is not all right. Since you didn’t go down after two doses of their juice, they tripled the quantity. While you were off getting your neck munched on, they were merrily picking out another lass. It was their stupidity to drive her only a mile away from the club. When I went back, I came upon them in a van in the trees and smelled the filthy sods inside. One was shagging the poor girl while the other waited his turn. Course, they didn’t realize she was already dead from too much drugs. I tore the doors off and snapped the spine of the lad doing the rooting. This scared the other one right good, as you can guess. I spoke to him a bit first to make sure he’d nothing to do with Hennessey. He sang, said he and his pal made sport of slipping girls drugs and then shagging them before dumping them wherever. Liked to pick vampire clubs and such, because girls who frequented those places tended not to report any crimes. He got real upset when I told him the girl was dead. Cried and said they weren’t supposed to die, only lie there. Then I ripped his throat out and drank what was left. After that, I went to the club and reported them to the owner. They don’t take to activities like that around their place, it draws unwanted attention. Did those snits a favor by killing them quickly. The owner would have drawn it out for weeks as a warning to any other human stupid enough to try that trick.”

  Feeling ill, I sat on the edge of the bed and lowered my head. That poor girl, what a tragedy. Hearing how Bones had killed Ralphie and Martin still put a chill through me. Did they deserve it? Yes. Should Bones have done it? I didn’t have the answer.

  “What did you do with her?”

  “Drove the van away after dumping the lads’ bodies at the club and parked it off the highway. Someone will find it, see who it’s registered to, and make the assumption that after they’d raped her and she overdosed, they split. Well, one of them, as it were. There was blood inside the interior. Coppers will reckon the same bloke who killed them both ran off. It won’t be the first time something like this has happened.”

  “At least her parents will find out about her and not have to wonder for the rest of their lives.”

  I grieved for that unknown family who would get that terrible phone call. My head dropped to my hands, pounding with a headache. After all that happened, it was a small price to pay.

  “Hennessey. What do you think he’ll do? Do you think he’ll try something, or keep running?”

  Bones gave a humorless laugh.

  “Hennessey knows I’m after him now. He’s suspected it, but he’s finally got his proof. He’ll try something, all right. But when and where, I have no idea. He might lie low for a bit, or he might come after me straightaway. I don’t know, but it’s not over.”

  “It’s my fault Hennessey got away. God, I was so stupid not to notice that something was wrong until it was too late….”

  “It’s not your fault, Kitten.”

  Hands settled on my shoulders as he slid nearer, and belatedly, it occurred to me that one of the ways I’d acted oddly was to make out with him. Now here we were in bed, with him naked and me nearly so. Not smart.

  I got out of bed and turned my back to him, wanting to put more distance between us. It was the drugs that had made me kiss him, the drugs. Repeating it over and over made me feel better.

  “Bones, I—I have to thank you. You saved my life. I passed out right after pushing that button, and he would have bled me dry. But you know the only reason I…was so forward with you was because of the chemicals they slipped me. You know that, right? Of course, I don’t blame you for taking me up on it. I’m sure it meant nothing to you. I just wanted you to know it meant nothing to me as well.”

  My back was still to him, and I desperately wished for more clothes. It was too dangerous to be trapped with him without thirty layers of armor on.

  “Turn ’round.” His voice was filled with something I was afraid to decipher. Whatever it was, it wasn’t happy.

  “Um, can you move that stone so I can get out of here and just—”

  “Turn around.” Now I knew what was in his voice. Threat.

  Slowly I faced him.

  Without warning he was in front of me, only inches away, still totally nude. My face flamed, but I kept my eyes determinedly upward. That was almost as bad. The expression in his made me tremble.

  “I’m really not comfortable with you being naked,” I said, struggling for a normal tone and failing.

  His brow arched. “Why should it unsettle you, pet? After all, you just said I meant nothing to you beyond mere gratitude. And you’ve seen a man’s body before, so don’t pull that blushing act with me. What could be bothering you, then? I know what’s bothering me.” The smoothly bantering tone changed to a low, furious growl. “What’s bothering me is that you dare to stand there and tell me what I do and do not feel about last night. That kissing you and holding you meant nothing to me. Then, to top it all off, that you were only reacting to me because you were impaired! That’s rich. You know what those drugs did to you in the first dose, before the second one made you comatose? They killed the bug up your arse!”

  With that, he yanked the stone off its setting and opened the passageway. My mouth hung open in outrage, and he pointed an emphatic finger at the exit.

  “Out you go, before I lose my temper and we’ll see how much you don’t like to kiss me.”

  Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I left. Quickly.

  Chapter Eleven

  DID YOU GET THE NOTES FROM THE LECTURE today? I slept in and didn’t wake up until half an hour ago! Was it really boring like last time?”

  Stephanie
was in my physics class. At least, she was when she showed up. She had missed two days out of the past five, but whenever I got out of class, she’d be there waiting for me. She liked to hang around campus, it was my guess. Found socializing much more interesting than the actual courses.

  Stephanie was a petite brunette with an outgoing personality, and she’d spent the last five days pulling me out of my antisocial shell. College began on Monday. Today was Friday, and so far, she was the only person I’d spoken to on this huge, overwhelming campus.

  With my friendless track record, I’d been hesitant to engage in normal, amicable small talk. If it didn’t have to do with dead bodies, school, or the cherry orchard, I generally didn’t know what to say. Stephanie didn’t let that faze her. She was cheerful and ebullient enough for both of us, and for some reason, she seemed to take a liking to me right off.

  “Yeah, I have them. Do you need to make copies?”

  She grinned. “Nah. I probably won’t read them anyway. Studying is so boring. Besides, I’m never going to use this crap again, so who needs it?”

  Stephanie was a freshman, but in many ways, she was far more sophisticated than me. During our second conversation after class, she’d informed me that she had been dating since she was twelve, lost her virginity at fourteen, and considered men as entertaining and convenient as fast food.

  “Tell me why you registered for college?” I asked in amusement.

  She nodded pointedly at an attractive male who passed by us.

  “The boys. This place is crawling with them. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet!”

  She and Bones had something in common. He would find the campus an all-you-can-eat buffet, too, just not in nearly the same way.

  I had avoided him since waking up in bed with him Sunday morning. Wednesday, I was supposed to meet him at the cave, but I didn’t go. I was too confused. My feelings for him had undergone a drastic metamorphosis. Somewhere along the past seven weeks, I’d gone from hating his guts to being inexplicably drawn to him.