Outtakes From the Grave

  The force of that action emptied it into her. I watched with harsh satisfaction as she dropped. Her heart had stopped before she even hit the floor.

  “Well now, Detective.” My grip tightened to prevent him from screaming. After all, a guard was stationed outside my room. “Looks like you brought me a female Dr. Kevorkian. My, my, that stuff must have been potent. She’s as dead as Hennessey, or didn’t you know that? Vampires all do look the same when they’re shriveled.”

  “…ddnnt knww att alking outtt…”

  It came in garbles. I relaxed my hold only a trifle.

  “You speak above a whisper and you’re getting the rest of what’s in that bottle,” I hissed, kicking the fallen glass container for emphasis. “Nice disguise with those bandages on your wrists. I bet you don’t even have a scratch under them. Somebody pumped you full of vampire blood—you stink of it. Who sent you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  At least he said it softly. I smiled. “Fuck me? Are you in the mood? Let’s find out.”

  And I reached down and squeezed his nuts like they were stress-relieving orbs. Knowing how he’d react, I clapped a hand over his mouth at the same time. All that came out through my fingers was a frantic, tormented wheeze. The cop outside didn’t even budge.

  “Ooohh, squishy,” I said pitilessly. “Now, I’m going to ask you again, and don’t disappoint me. Who sent you?”

  “Oliver,” came the pained reply. “It was Oliver!”

  That wasn’t the mayor’s name. In fact, it wasn’t anyone on our list of human or vampire suspects.

  “You’d better make me a believer. Oliver who?”

  I hadn’t let go of his parts. That’s probably why his voice was about three octaves higher when he answered me.

  “Ethan Oliver!”

  I froze, stunned.

  Black let out a gasping snicker. “You didn’t know? Hennessey was sure Francesca told Bones. He wondered why he hadn’t moved on him yet. We didn’t know what he was planning, and we were scrambling for any edge we could get. When I found Danny’s police report, I knew a vampire did it. And when Danny described him and his ex-girlfriend, we knew we had Bones at last.”

  “Ethan Oliver,” I whispered. “Governor Ethan Oliver? My God, I voted for him! He’s Hennessey’s shadow partner? Why?”

  “Let go of my balls!” Black rasped.

  I got a firmer grip on them instead. “I’ll let go when you make sense, and the clock’s ticking. Every minute that goes by, I squeeze harder. You won’t have any left inside of five.”

  “He wants to run for president, and he’s using Ohio as his podium,” Black rushed out in one breath. “He stumbled across Hennessey a few years ago. Think it was when he was buying pussy on the side. Hennessey came up with this idea to harvest people for feedings, like he did in Mexico, and Oliver loved it. Problem is, it’s only the pretty young girls who sell the most, but things get messy when a bunch of them go missing. So they made a deal. Hennessey cleans the streets of the homeless, drug dealers, prostitutes, and degenerates as his end of the bargain, and Oliver makes sure the paperwork disappears on any of the high-end tail that Hennessey needs to keep his clients happy. But that got to be a lot of work, so Hennessey began getting the girls’ addresses and stopping the reports before they started. Made my job easier. Crime rate goes down, economy goes up, voters are happy, Oliver looks like Ohio’s savior… and Hennessey makes a bundle.”

  I was shaking my head in disbelief at the sheer callousness of it all. Frankly I didn’t know who was worse—Hennessey for doing it, or Oliver for making himself out as a hero on the bones of hundreds of victims.

  “And this afternoon? Oliver sent you to kill me, obviously. What about my mother and the other girls? What were you going to do with them, and I dare you to lie to me.”

  My new clench got a squeak out of him, but it also made my point. What he told me next was no candy-coated fabrication.

  “I was planting a bomb on the second floor,” he croaked. “In the back wing where they all are. Then Oliver was going to pin it on Muslim extremists. Leave a hate note, et cetera. He saw how Bush’s numbers spiked right after 9-11. He thought it would push him over the top as the next presidential candidate.”

  “You fucker,” I growled. “Where’s the bomb?”

  “In the morgue. Shelly hid it there. We were getting it later, after someone found you. No one goes in there. No one who talks, anyway.”

  I thought rapidly. Oliver would be expecting a kaboom within the next couple of hours, and when it didn’t come, he’d send someone else to finish the job. A man like that didn’t leave loose ends.

  “Black,” I said in a perfectly pleasant tone, “you’re coming with me. I’m revoking my vote.”

  His eyes slid to mine and then to the door. “You’ll never make it.”

  I laughed nastily. “You’re right. Not that way we won’t. Pick up your girl, what’s her name? Shelly?” I pointed at the nurse.

  His mouth curled in distaste. “Ew. She’s dead.”

  That made me laugh even more viciously. “Want to join her? If I have to tell you again, you will.”

  He bent down in slow, wounded movements since I still had his balls. When he had her hefted in his arms, I changed my grip to hug him from behind.

  “Ever been bungee jumping?”

  His head turned. “What?”

  “Me neither,” I went on. “Who needs the bungee cord, anyway? I say it’s for pussies.” And I shoved him toward the vertical window, picking up speed as he started to scream. The door opened behind us right as Shelly, Black, and I crashed through the window, free-falling three stories to the grass below.

  We landed on Shelly. Or at least Black did. I landed on him, to be specific, rolling us immediately to limit the impact. Glass was all around us, and more than a few bystanders began to scream louder than Black was.

  “You crazy bitch! You lunatic—”

  It came out in noisy wheezes. His ribs were probably broken. I couldn’t seem to care.

  “You die as soon as you lose your usefulness, so I suggest you get us to your car right now.”

  “Around… around the fountain! Ohh, my leg. My leg!”

  In the interest of time, I swung him over my shoulder, leaving Shelly where she was. My hospital gown gave the shocked onlookers something else to see as I dashed off in the direction of the fountain, Black bobbing with every step. We made it to his car in less than a minute, and it was his good luck that his left leg was broken instead of his right, because I made him drive.

  Chapter Nine

  The Short Story That Never Was

  Author’s note: This is the original short story I’d started writing for the Weddings from Hell anthology, but when I was about twenty-five percent into it, I realized it was all wrong for the theme of the anthology. So I wrote Happily Never After, the story with Chance and Isa instead. The timeline for this story takes place after Halfway to the Grave and before One Foot in the Grave. Since it was originally supposed to be a new anthology story, there will be some backstory with world building and explaining prior events from Halfway to the Grave. You’ll also get to see the first time that Cat met Denise, as well as what happened to Juan when he made the mistake of calling Cat “Kitten.”

  The vampire sat next to me at the bar. I was drinking a gin and tonic, light on the tonic. It was my fourth since Mr. Right walked in twenty minutes ago. I’d lost count of how many I’d had in the previous two hours waiting for him.

  “Buy you another drink?” he asked, his eyes sweeping over my short, tight dress.

  I could say yes. Make small talk with him, ask him to dance, or flirt for a while before getting him alone. But why waste time?

  “I have a better idea.” My voice was low and seductive. “How about I pour what’s in this glass on your skin and lick it off. You pick which part.”

  He tossed some money on the counter for my tab without even counting it. “Let’s go.”

  Vampi
res. If horniness was a crime, they’d all be under arrest.

  Of course, I wasn’t going to arrest him, and horniness wasn’t his crime. Neither was being a vampire, in my opinion. But according to the data my boss, Don, gathered, the man now leading me out to the parking lot had killed five people in the past month.

  That I wasn’t going to stand for. Vampires didn’t need to kill to eat, so this schmuck was doing it just for fun. Well, I had my own definition of fun, and it involved the silver knives concealed in my thigh-high boots.

  “From the moment I saw you, I knew I had to have you,” he said, taking me in his arms.

  We were at the far end of the parking lot. The darkest part. Two of the bodies had been found in the Dumpster not fifty feet from here.

  I smiled. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Then I slid to my knees, giving him a knowing look as I set my drink down and reached for the front of his pants. He groaned and closed his eyes, but not before I saw the flash of green in them. If his mouth hadn’t been closed, I knew I’d also see fangs where before there had been square, normal teeth. Lust or feeding caused vampires to shed their human disguise. I was one of the few people with a heartbeat who could spot them without that. Their creamy crystal skin was a dead giveaway to me, pun intended, plus I could feel their power in the air.

  Being half-dead had its advantages.

  The vampire was getting impatient. His hands curled in my hair, bringing my head closer. I stifled an annoyed grunt and pretended to fumble with his zipper while my other hand slid into my boot. I had a treat for him all right, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. Still, this was an effective ruse to distract him. I’d yet to meet a vampire who’d turn down a potential blow job, even if he did intend to murder me afterward. It was probably his motto that one good suck deserved another.

  I was just about to clear my dagger from my boot when a loud voice shattered the quiet.

  “Freeze!”

  “What the hell?” the vampire and I asked in unison.

  About twenty feet away, a man stepped out from behind one of the cars. He looked to be in his midforties with a respectable gut and gray hair hugging his temples. What held my main attention, however, was the gun he pointed at us. Or rather, pointed above my head at the vampire behind me.

  “Police officer, don’t move!” he said, raising his voice.

  My fingers tightened on my concealed knife. There went my plans for a private game of stake and shake.

  The vampire recovered from his surprise enough to laugh. “Ah, Detective Morrows. Have you been staking out this bar again? Maybe I’ll let you watch me this time, not that you’ll remember afterward.”

  This could still be handled quietly, I thought. If I could get fang-boy to mesmerize the cop into placid immobility, I’d plug his heart with silver and cart away his body before the cop even snapped out of his trance. Nice, quick, and clean.

  It wasn’t to be. A dozen men dressed in black and wearing thickly visored helmets fanned out around the parking lot, automatic weapons pointed at the three of us.

  “Drop the gun, cop,” one of them said, a Spanish accent marking his words.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I spat, coming to my feet. “Are you kidding me?”

  The vampire looked around with an expression of amazement but no fear. “You brought a SWAT team, Morrows?” he asked the cop.

  Morrows gaped as he shook his head. “I don’t know who these guys are.”

  “Oh.” The vampire shrugged, then a burst of green spilled out of his eyes. “Well, don’t just stand there. Shoot them!”

  Morrows, instantly mesmerized by the power in that glowing emerald gaze, took aim at the men. They abandoned formation and jumped behind various cars as Morrows squeezed off shots with robotic obedience.

  I’d had enough. My dagger cleared my boot and I whirled, ramming it into the vampire’s chest. He grabbed me, fangs snapping near my throat, but the strength in his grip—and the light in his eyes—faded as I twisted the blade several times. Silver in the heart was a vampire’s kryptonite.

  He dropped at my feet just as the doors to the bar flung open. Onlookers goggled at the cop still shooting at the dark figures who took cover behind the cars. I gave the cop an irritated glance and pulled more knives from my boots, far smaller than the eight-inch dagger I’d skewered fang-boy with. These were smooth, curved silver blades, no handles, perfectly balanced. I flung them at Morrows, burying them in the brachial nerve in his arm. The gun clattered from his hand as he screamed. Before he had a chance to pick the gun up with his other hand, I sprang at him and punched him in the side of his head. He went limp.

  Then I marched up to the man who’d come out from behind a nearby car. He took his helmet off, revealing shoulder-length black hair tied back in a ponytail.

  “What have I told you about keeping the perimeter clear, Juan?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  He swallowed. “But… you looked like you were in danger, querida.”

  My fists clenched. It wasn’t because of the endearment; Juan was forever calling me one of those, but he usually did it while following orders. Not while taking matters into his own hands in an idiotic, misguided chivalrous way that almost got people killed.

  “Cat.” Another of the black-clad men came forward, also taking off his helmet. “Your eyes.”

  Right. I took a breath, forcing down the surge of adrenalin that had kicked in my nonhuman traits. By the time I blinked, I knew the green glow had left my gaze and my eyes were their normal gray color again. Years of practice made perfect when it came to controlling the vampire parts of me.

  Most people were happily unaware that vampires existed. It was my job to keep it that way while protecting them from the more unruly members of undead society. I hadn’t asked for this job—it was forced on me because of the heritage I also hadn’t asked for. Thanks, Dad, I thought with bitterness. One day I’ll find you. And then I’ll kill you for raping my mother.

  You could say I had family issues.

  “Let’s get those people back inside and contain this area,” my second-in-command, Tate, ordered. More helmets came off as the rest of the team obeyed. The helmets had specially-designed infrared filters that blocked ninety percent of a vampire’s hypnotic glowing gaze. The rest of the helmet’s purpose? Well, it had saved more than a few skulls from getting cracked after some impromptu flight time. Vampires were strong enough to hurl cars if they wanted to. Humans? They could be thrown so much farther.

  While Tate made sure the bystanders were hustled back inside, other members of the team went about carting the vampire’s body away. I returned my attention to Juan.

  “This was your first time commanding a tactical operation, and what did you do? You allowed a police officer into the containment area where the vampire and I were. Then you brought the team out of hiding to confront said cop. And then you didn’t attempt to neutralize the cop when he started shooting up the place. My God, Juan, the only thing you left out was setting off flares while calling the media!”

  “You were right behind the cop, querida. I didn’t want to risk shooting you,” Juan said, defending himself. His Spanish accent was thicker than normal, a sure sign he knew he was in for it.

  “Really?” I scoffed. “You’ve been with the team three months now, and you still think I couldn’t move in time?”

  “Por favor. You’re fast, but you’re not that fast.”

  “Juan.” I didn’t shake him, but I was tempted. “I didn’t get to be leader of this team because I sweet-talked the right secret government official. I got it because of my high undead body count. Now, don’t ever disobey orders again, or I’ll throw your ass off this team. Clear?”

  He smiled. “Crystal clear, Kitten…”

  At that one word, all the emotions I’d buried over the past fifteen months came roaring to the surface. In a surge of grief, I shoved Juan backward. Too hard; I’d forgotten to check up my strength. He dented the car he landed on. Then hi
s head smacked the concrete when he hit the ground.

  Tate swung around to give me an incredulous look. So did the other team members who were still outside.

  I cringed in guilt, resisting the urge to run over to Juan and check on him. He’d be okay—I’d give him some of the vampire’s blood later to ensure that. But as for now… better the guys think I was a heartless witch than show weakness and spur their concerns that I wasn’t tough enough to lead them.

  “I hate that nickname,” was all I said. “Now maybe Juan will remember that.”

  ***

  I walked through the graveyard, not needing the bright moonlight to lessen the darkness for me. There were crumbling headstones with fading inscriptions etched on them around me. A large evergreen towered in the middle of the cemetery. Several yards away, a scarred tree extended over a cliff like a wraith leaning over the edge of eternity.

  I looked around with deliberate casualness, sensing I was no longer alone. A waft of charged air seemed to caress my back, announcing the approach of a vampire. Come closer, I thought, tightening my grip on the knife in my pocket.

  The vampire came up behind me as silent as a shadow. I waited until I could almost feel the brush of his hand on my skin before I whirled, my knife raised to strike. Then I saw his face… and my weapon fell to the ground.

  “Bones.”

  His hair seemed almost white under the glow of the moonlight, and those deep brown eyes locked with mine.

  “You left me,” he whispered, but the accusation in his voice might as well have been a scream.

  I dropped my gaze. “I… I had to.”

  He laughed, low and bitter. “Did you?”

  I reached out to him, a stab of pain going through me when he pulled away. “The law was chasing me, other vampires were chasing both of us, and then the FBI’s version of the Spook Squad found out I wasn’t totally human. You would have been in too much danger trying to hide me and my mother. I couldn’t let you die, Bones.”