Halfway to the Grave

  Gunfire erupted from inside and outside the house as the human security guards tried to defend their employer. I grabbed the dying vampire and threw him at two of the closest shooters, knocking them over. Then I ran through the dining room, past the stone fireplace with the lovely exposed-beam ceiling, and up the stairs. Behind me there was chaos as they scrambled to chase.

  I didn’t focus on them. I heard Oliver on the phone, calling for help, and that was all I centered my concentration on. I made it down the hall, his accelerated heartbeat my beacon, and burst through the door that stood between me and my prey.

  The bullet meant for my chest tore through my shoulder instead as I lurched, seeing the gun too late. Oliver fired again, hitting me in the leg. It knocked me over and I fell, momentarily stunned by the impact and cursing myself for stupidly rushing in like that.

  Frankie and two more guards came huffing up the stairs. I didn’t turn around, but kept my glare on Oliver as he leveled his gun at me with a rock-steady hand.

  “Isaac’s dead,” I said roughly, throbs of pain from the bullets almost paralyzing me. “There won’t be any explosion at the hospital.”

  “Governor Oliver!” one of the men gasped. “Are you hurt?”

  Oliver had sky-blue eyes. Very clear and bright, and that salt-and-chestnut hair was as perfectly coiffed as it had been in his campaign photos.

  “Frankie, Stephen, John…get the fuck out of here,” he said cleanly.

  “But sir!” they chorused.

  “She’s down on her knees and I’ve got her at gunpoint, get the fuck out of here!” he roared. “Now!”

  In the distance was the faint wail of sirens. Too far away for them to hear. The three men left, a jerk of Oliver’s head indicating they should close the door behind them. It was just me and the governor in the room.

  “You’re the Crawfield girl?” he asked, not moving the barrel a centimeter.

  I didn’t move, mentally evaluating my injuries and noticing with a fresh spurt of anger that the wallpaper in his room was a distinctive red and blue paisley and these were hardwood floors. Oliver had to be Emily’s masked rapist. She’d described his bedroom perfectly. “You can call me Cat.”

  “Cat,” he repeated. “You don’t look so tough, bleeding all over my floor. Tell me, where’s your friend? The bounty hunter?”

  The sirens were getting closer. There wasn’t much time. “Killing Hennessey’s pal Switch would be my guess. You’re finished, Oliver. They’re all dead. The permanent way.”

  His hand didn’t waver. “Is that so?” Then he smiled. Icily. “Well, there’s plenty more where Hennessey came from. Won’t be too hard to find someone else looking to make the kind of money he was, and with meals thrown in, to boot! When I’m president, this country will have a major overhaul. I’ll save the taxpayers millions, and we’ll clean the scum right off the streets. Hell, I’m fixing to start on welfare recipients and nursing homes next. America will be stronger and more prosperous than ever. They’ll probably repeal the two-term limit after I’m in office.”

  Cars screeched around the corner. Only seconds left now.

  “It’s not going to happen.”

  He smiled. “Not that you’ll see. I’m about to kill you in self-defense. I can just see the headlines now: ‘Governor Bravely Staves Off Murderer in Assassination Attempt.’ My numbers will rise twelve points tonight.”

  “Ethan,” I said softly, hearing the thunder of feet coming toward the house. “Look at me.”

  I let the shine out in my eyes. His own gaze widened, astonished, and in that split second of distraction I charged him, batting his gun aside to fire harmlessly into the wall.

  “You’re bleeding…you have to be human, but your eyes…what are you?” he whispered.

  That emerald light illuminated his face, and my hands tightened around his throat. “I’m the Grim Reaper,” I growled. Those footsteps were almost here…. “Or as Bones would say, the Red one.”

  I snapped his neck just before the door was flung open. When the half dozen police poured in, the glow had left my gaze, and I already had my hands up.

  “I surrender.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THERE WERE THREE GUARDS OUTSIDE MY hospital room, and I was on the eleventh floor. They’d even cleared this part of the wing—I knew this from the silence in the rooms next to me. Apparently they took killing the governor seriously.

  Doctors had been coming in all morning to gasp and gape over me, but it wasn’t because of who I’d killed. It was because of how I’d healed. Within hours, my three bullet holes had disappeared. The knife wound, gone. Hennessey’s fang marks, missing. All of my scratches and bruises, vanished. I didn’t even have an IV in me—the needle kept spontaneously slipping out. Frankly, I wondered why I hadn’t been moved to a regular jail cell yet, but after Isaac, I wasn’t complaining about the lack of police transportation.

  At noon, more footsteps approached my room. Someone said, “FBI.” There was a pause, and then my door opened.

  A man entered. He was about fifty, of average height, with thinning charcoal hair overrun with gray. His eyes were the same medium gray as his hair, but they weren’t sedate like their shade. They were crackling with intelligence. His companion who closed the door after him was considerably younger, perhaps in his late twenties. He had short brown hair in a buzz cut, and something about the way he carried himself screamed military to me. His eyes were navy blue and fixed on me with steadfast intensity.

  “FBI, huh? Well, aren’t I honored?” They didn’t need extrasensory perception to catch my sarcasm. The younger man shot me a dirty look.

  Gray Hair smiled instead, and came forward with hand extended.

  “You might not be, but I certainly am. My name is Donald Williams and this is Tate Bradley. I’m the head of a unit in the FBI called the Paranormal Behavior Division.”

  Grudgingly I shook his hand, years of manners making it impossible to refuse. With a jerk of my head I indicated Tate Bradley.

  “What about him? He’s not Bureau…no cellulite or spare tire.”

  Williams laughed, showing teeth slightly discolored from too much coffee or cigarettes.

  “That’s correct. Tate is a sergeant in the Special Forces, a very select unit of them. He is my bodyguard today.”

  “Why would you need a bodyguard, Agent Williams? As you can see, I’m handcuffed to the bed.” For effect, I rattled my cuffs at him.

  He smiled benevolently. “Call me Don, and I’m a cautious man. That’s why Tate is carrying a Colt 45.”

  The younger man flashed me the handle of his gun strapped in its shoulder harness. I smiled thinly at him and he returned it with an unfriendly baring of teeth.

  “Okay, I’m shivering. Properly cowed. Now, what do you want?”

  Not that I couldn’t guess. They probably wanted a confession that I’d killed the governor, a motive, etc., but I intended to clam up and then get the hell out of Dodge. Bones would be coming soon, I had no doubt, and along with my mother, we’d go into hiding. There were still two vampires who’d gotten away, and it would be too dangerous for my mother to remain in public in case there was retribution after the bloodbath Bones and I had unleashed. Both vampire and political.

  “You’re a college student, getting excellent grades as well, from what we saw. Do you like literary quotes?”

  Okay, an intelligence quiz. Not what I’d expected, but I would play along. “Depends.”

  Don pulled up a chair without invitation and sat next to my bedside. Bradley remained standing, his hand fingering the butt of his gun pointedly.

  “How about this one from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  A warning shiver went through me. These two weren’t giving off dangerous vibes, so I didn’t think they were more of Oliver’s or Hennessey’s goons, but they obviously weren’t to be taken lightly, either.

&n
bsp; “What about it?”

  “Catherine, I’m head of a division that investigates the unnatural occurrences of homicides. Now, most people think that every homicide is unnatural in nature, but you and I know they can go even deeper than humanity’s wrath against humanity, don’t we?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Don ignored that. “Our division isn’t publicly recognized by the Bureau. In fact, we’re a combination of CIA, FBI, and the armed forces. One of the few times those groups work in harmony. That’s why I selected Mr. Bradley as my backup and not some rookie fresh out of basic. He’s been training to head up a new unit of soldiers to fight a very special kind of battle. One that has been waged under our noses on our own soil for centuries. You know of what I speak, Catherine, and you know it better than anyone else. Let’s quit being coy. I’m talking about vampires.”

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, he’d just said the V-word. Now I was more than wary—I was stricken.

  “Aren’t you a little old to believe in vampires, Don?” Perhaps I could brazen it out. Maybe he was just fishing with a very big piece of bait.

  Don didn’t smile now. His expression was granite. “I’ve examined many strange bodies over the course of my career. Bodies that were dated to be anywhere from a hundred years old to a thousand, and yet were dressed in modern clothes. Now, that could be explained away, but their pathology can’t. Their DNA contained a mutation never before documented in human or animal history. Every so often, we’d run across one of these unusual corpses, and the mystery behind them deepened. That house last night was littered with those abnormal bodies, and so was the governor’s. It was the largest cache of such bodies we’ve ever come across, but do you know what our greatest find was? You.”

  Don’s tone lowered. “I’ve spent the last six hours reading every scrap of material I could find about you. Your mother reported a date rape a little more than twenty-two years ago and told of an implausible attacker who drank her blood. She was considered to be overwrought and the details were ignored. Then you were born five months later. And they never caught the perpetrator of that crime.”

  “What of it? My mother was hysterical from the trauma of being raped.”

  “I disagree. Your mother told the exact truth, except no one would ever believe her. Certain details she described were too specific. The sudden glowing of eyes to green, fangs protruding, incredible strength and speed, things she never could have heard anywhere else. Where her story differs from all others is that she gave birth to you. You, who according to Pathology have the same strain of mutation in your blood as our mysterious corpses. Less potency but no difference in the genetic structure. You see, Catherine, I’m honored to meet you because I’ve been looking for someone like you my entire career. You’re one of them and yet not one of them, the offspring of a human and a vampire. That makes you the most valuable find in centuries.”

  Motherfucker. I should have run for it at the governor’s house, bullets be damned.

  “That’s quite a story, but many people have rare blood types and psychotic mothers. I assure you, I am no different than any other girl my age. Furthermore, there is no such thing as vampires.”

  Even my voice sounded steady. Bones would be so proud.

  “Is that so?” Don stood and nodded to Tate Bradley. “Sergeant, I’m about to give you a direct order. Carry it out at once. Shoot Miss Crawfield in the head, right between the eyes.”

  Whoa. I sprang off the bed and tore the metal bed rail from its welded perch, swinging it at the hand that raised the gun at me. There was a crack of broken bones. In the same smooth motion, I kneecapped Don while ripping the gun out of Bradley’s hand and holding it firmly to his head.

  “I am so sick of being shot, and someone should tell you guys to have a little more respect for hospitals!”

  Don, face first on the floor, pushed slowly over to look up at me. The expression on his face was pure satisfaction.

  “You’re just a normal girl and there’s no such thing as vampires, right? That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. You were only a blur. Tate didn’t even have time to aim.”

  Tate Bradley’s heart pumped at an accelerated rhythm and the beginnings of fear leaked out of his pores. Somehow I knew being afraid wasn’t a normal condition for him.

  “What do you want, Don?” So this was his little test, and I’d passed with flying colors.

  “Will you please release Tate? You can keep the gun, not that you need it. Clearly you’re stronger without it than he was with it. Consider it a sign of goodwill.”

  “What’s to stop me from making my own sign of goodwill through his brains?” Maliciously. “Or yours?”

  “Because I have an offer you’ll want to hear. If I’m dead, it’s harder for me to talk.”

  Well, score one for him for keeping calm in a crisis. Abruptly I released Bradley and shoved him across the room. He slipped and slid on the floor next to Don.

  There was a knock at the door. “Sir, is everything all right in there?” The guard sounded worried, but he didn’t peer inside.

  “Just fine. Keep your post, no visitors. Don’t open that door until you’re told.” Don’s voice was confident and strong, belying the flash of pain in his eyes from his knees.

  “What if you’d been wrong? If GI Joe here had plugged a hole in my head? That would’ve been hard to explain.”

  Don gave me an appraising look. “It was worth the risk. Ever believe in something enough to kill for it?”

  It would be hypocritical for me to say no. “What’s your offer?”

  Don sat up, wincing at his bent knees. “We want you, of course. You just ripped off a welded metal bar and disarmed a highly trained soldier while handcuffed to a bed, all in about a second. There’s no one alive who has that kind of speed, but there are many dead things that do. After seeing your work, it seems to me you aren’t averse to killing those things. Lots of them, in fact, but more will be looking for you now. Your anonymity is ruined. I can fix that. Oh, I knew Oliver was dirty, a lot of people did, but we couldn’t prove anything because every agent we sent to check him out never came back. You’re different. We’d be sending these creatures someone their own size to pick on, and all of these charges won’t matter because Catherine Crawfield will die, and you’ll be reborn into your new life. Given backing and troops. You’ll become one of the most prized weapons the U. S. government has to protect its citizens against dangers they can’t even imagine. Isn’t that what you were meant to do? Haven’t you always known it?”

  Wow, he was good, and if Timmie were here, he’d feel absolutely vindicated. There really were men in black, and I’d just been offered a chance to join their ranks. I thought of the opportunity and the advantages, the exhilaration of starting a new life without fear of police or burying bodies or hiding my nature from those around me. Just six months ago, I would have tripped over myself to accept it.

  “No.”

  The single word hung in the room. Don blinked.

  “Would you like to see your mother?”

  He’d taken my refusal too easy. Something was up. Slowly, I nodded. “She’s here?”

  “Yes, but we’ll bring her to you. They’ll never let you walk the hall swinging that bedrail. Tate, instruct the guard to have Ms. Crawfield wheeled down here. And ask for another wheelchair as well. My arthritis seems to be acting up.” With a glance of pained amusement, he looked down at his knees.

  A slight twinge of guilt shot through me.

  “You deserved it.”

  “It was worth it, Catherine, to be proven right. Some things are worth the cost of their consequences.”

  Thinking of Bones, I couldn’t agree more.

  The look on the guard’s face was priceless when he opened the door and saw Tate Bradley holding his broken arm at an odd angle and Don sprawled on the floor. My bed rail was held in place by my hand and I lay innocently on the bed.

  “I tripped and my companion tri
ed to help me up and fell on me,” Don offered when it was obvious something had occurred. The guard gulped and nodded smartly. Don was helped out and soon my mother was wheeled in. For a second, I thought of smashing through the window again and making a run for it with her, but then one look at her face told me it wouldn’t work.

  “How could you?” she demanded as soon as the door closed, staring at me with a look of heartrending betrayal.

  “Are you all right, Mom? I’m so sorry about Grandpa and Grandma. I loved them both.” Tears trapped inside me burst forth at last and I sat up and reached for her hand.

  She jerked back as if I were foul.

  “How can you say you’re sorry? How can you say any of that when I saw you with that vampire?”

  Her voice rose to a shout and I looked nervously at the door. The guard would probably faint. Suddenly there was pleading in her face.

  “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me they lied to me, those animals that killed my parents and took me with them. Tell me that you are not fucking a vampire!”

  She had never used that word with me before, and it fell with ugliness from her lips. All of my worst fears were realized when I saw her expression. Just as I’d dreaded, she despised me for what I’d done.

  “Mom, I was going to tell you about him. He’s not like the others. He’s the one that’s really been helping me kill them, not Timmie. He’d been after Hennessey and his group for years.”

  “For money?” Her words were whips. “Oh, I heard a good deal about that while they had me. They kept talking about the vampire that killed for money. And they laughed when they talked about you, said it was always women when it came to him. Is that what you’ve become, Catherine, a whore for the undead?”

  A sob escaped me. How profane she made my relationship sound.

  “You’re wrong about him. He risked his life going to that house to save you!”

  “How could he risk his life when he is dead? Dead, and he brought death with him! It’s because of him those murderers came to our home, and it’s your fault for involving yourself with him! If you wouldn’t have been sleeping with a vampire, my parents would still be alive!”