Halfway to the Grave

Page 34

Wow, did they have some theories. Guess it made sense if they were looking at it from a purely human angle. Why else would someone dig up and then rebury a long-dead body? Because the person wasn't really dead, of course.
"I'll tell you what I know." Anger and anxiety sharpened my voice. "I know I'm done listening to your crazy ideas about dead women and old bodies. You're grasping at straws and I won't be one of them."
With that, I turned on my heel and slammed the door. They made no move to stop me, but Mansfield called through the door.
"I suppose you don't know Danny Milton, then, either? How do you think we got your name? He's the one who saw you leave with Felicity's kidnapper at Club Galaxy six years ago. He remembers because he said the two of you got in a fight that night, and he didn't tell the police about it back then because he was concerned about disclosing his relationship with an underage girl. He told Detective Black all about it on the phone this morning, however, after Detective Black stumbled across Danny's police report stating your new boyfriend had crushed his hand by shaking it. Now, we don't know how Danny's hand got crippled. We know it couldn't have been from a mere handshake. Did you take him somewhere and demolish his hand? Maybe to prevent him from talking? We'll find out everything from him, believe me. And then we'll be back."
I waited until their footsteps faded before I sank to the ground by the door.
Having watched enough TV, at least I knew not to immediately pick up the phone and call Bones. The line could be tapped. They knew enough but still not enough. Their little scare tactic this morning had been staged to send me sobbing out a confession. Well, that wasn't going to happen. For starters, it would be a great way to get an extended vacation in a padded room. One where I could tell all the lovely doctors who were pumping me full of lithium about monsters.
Instead, I dressed in black spandex pants and a long-sleeved tight top of matching material, completed with sneakers and a ponytail. Let them think I was going for a run in the woods. The mouth of the cave was difficult to find unless you knew where to look, which they didn't. Besides, they couldn't keep up with me at a run through that uneven ground if they tried. Mansfield would probably have a heart attack on the spot. He smelled like a chain-smoker.
First, I had to look like I wasn't dashing right out to the scene of a crime. I went to the mall and shopped for an hour, my stomach churning inside. Then I left and started toward the cave.
When I parked the truck, I did it even farther away than its normal quarter-mile stop. Instead it was over four miles of wooded territory from the cave. In case I had an audience, I made a show of stretching and warming up as a normal jogger would. Then I sprinted away, going in large circles to confuse someone trying to pinpoint my direction.
After ten miles of sprinting, I darted into the cave. Bones was already walking toward me, a puzzled but pleased expression on his face.
"Kitten, didn't expect you so early-"
He stopped, seeing my face. I threw my arms around him and burst into tears.
"What is it?"
He picked me up, carrying me swiftly through the lower entrance and depositing me on the couch. I got hold of myself enough to explain.
"Danny. Danny Milton! Damn him, he managed to f**k me again, and this time he kept his clothes on! I just got a visit from two detectives. Thanks to that schmuck giving them my name and telling them I left a club with a murderer, guess who's their prime suspect in an unsolved crime involving a young woman and a strange mummified corpse? I think you're going to need to drink them and change their minds, or I'll never graduate college. God, they think I'm protecting an occult killer, you wouldn't believe some of their theories-"
Alarm flashed across his face and he got up from the couch.
"Kitten." There was deadly intensity in his voice. "Get on the phone and ring your mum. Right now. Tell her to get your grandparents and leave. Bring them here, all of them."
"Are you insane?" Now I stood also, eyes wide with incomprehension. "My mother would run shrieking out of this cave to begin with, she's afraid of the dark, and I can just see my grandparents bunkering down here. The police aren't worth-"
"I don't give a rot about the police." His words sliced through the air. "Hennessey's looking for anything he can find on me or, failing that, on someone close to me. You know he's got connections with the police, so if they have your name now as a suspect in a murder where there's a strange shriveled corpse, then he would also. You're not anonymous anymore. You've been linked to a dead vampire, and all he needs to do is take one look at a photo of you to know you're the same girl who almost got him killed, so get on the phone and get your family out of that house."
Sweet Jesus, I hadn't considered that! With trembling hands I took the phone he handed me and dialed. It rang, one time...two...three...four...five...six...Tears sprang to my eyes. They never let it ring that long. Oh no, no, please...ten...eleven...twelve...
"There's no answer. I spoke to her this morning, before the detectives came. She said someone was at the door..."
We sped off through the trees on his motorcycle. For once I was glad he had the damned unsafe thing. It was the only type of vehicle that could navigate through this territory at such speeds. If anyone tried to pull us over, I would look guilty as all hell of anything they accused me of. Over my tight black spandex from before, I now had on crisscrossed boots with stakes inside, silver throwing knives lashed to my upper arms and thighs, and two guns tucked in my belt filled with silver bullets. Not that we would have stopped for anyone. Somebody could just try to catch us.
I kept trying my family on the cell, cursing and praying when there was still no answer. If anything happened to them, it would be all my fault. If only I hadn't drunk that spiked gin and been unable to kill Hennessey...if only I'd never met Danny... A thousand different ways to scourge myself seared through my mind. Normally it took an hour and a half to get to the house from the cave. Bones made it there in less than thirty minutes.
We pulled right up to the front and I was the first one off, running up the steps of the porch and through the open door. Once there, my brain refused to translate what my eyes saw. The red liquid smeared on the ground caused me to slide forward and then fall to the floor with the momentum of my panicked strides. Bones stepped inside with more caution but just as swiftly, and he dragged me to my feet.
"Hennessey and his men could still be nearby. You're no use to anyone if you break now!"
His voice was harsh, but it penetrated through the paralyzed part of my mind, which went blank upon the sight of all that blood. The early shades of dusk darkened the sky. Pale amber beams of remaining light illuminated the sightless eyes of my grandfather sprawled on the kitchen floor. His throat had been torn out. It was his blood I'd slipped in.
Shaking Bones off, I unsheathed my knives and gripped them, ready to fling them at any undead thing that moved. There was a trail of blood leading up the steps, and crimson handprints left grisly signs for us to follow. Bones took a deep whiff of the air and pushed me back against the landing.
"Listen to me. I only smell them faintly, so I think Hennessey and whoever was with him aren't close. But you keep those knives ready, and you unleash them at anything that flinches. Stay here."
"No." I spoke through clenched teeth. "I'm going up there."
"Kitten, don't. Let me go instead. You keep watch."
Pity creased his face, but I ignored it. My grief I forced into a tiny hard lump inside me that I would unravel later. Much later, when every vampire or person with them who had done this was dead.
"Get out of my way."
My tone had never been more menacing and he stepped back but followed closely behind me. The door to my bedroom was kicked in. It hung by only a hinge. My grandmother was face down on the floor, her hands frozen into claws as if in death she still tried to escape what had chased her. There were two wounds on her neck, one shallow, one gaping. It looked as though she'd dragged herself while dying, up the steps to get to my room. Bones knelt beside her and did a strange thing. He inhaled near the gouges around her neck, and then picked up a bloody pillow from my bed and held it to his face.
"What are you doing?" God, he wasn't hungry, was he? The thought sent a vile tremor through me.
"I can smell them. There were four of them, including Hennessey. I smell your mum on this pillow. They took her. And there's not enough of her blood here for her to be dead."
Relief and fear caused me to nearly sag on my feet. She was still alive, at least possibly. Bones nosed around the room like a deadly blond canine, following the scent back down the stairs. I heard him back in the kitchen and knew he was giving Grandpa Joe a similar sniffing. It was too awful to contemplate. Gently I turned my grandmother over and her open eyes seemed to stare accusingly at me. This is all your fault! they silently railed. Choking back a sob, I closed them, and sent a prayer upward that she was at peace, because I never would be.
"Get down here, Kitten. Someone's coming."
Abruptly I darted back down the stairs, avoiding the slick blood that lined them. Bones had something crumpled in his hand and he propelled me out the front door as he shoved it inside his belt. A car screeched down the road about a mile away and I grabbed two extra knives until each hand held four.
"Is it them?" I hoped it was. There was nothing more I wanted than to tear into the animals who had done this.
Bones stood next to me with legs apart and narrowed his eyes.
"No, they're human. I can hear their heartbeats. Let's go."
"Wait!" I looked around despairingly, my clothes and hands streaked with my family's blood. "How will we find out where they've taken my mother? We're not leaving until we do find out, I don't care who's coming!"
He jumped onto the bike and spun it around, waving me over with a jerk of his head.
"They left a note. It was in your grandfather's shirt, I have it. Come on, Kitten, they're here."
Indeed they were. The car slammed on its breaks about a hundred feet away and out came Detective Mansfield and Detective Black with their guns drawn.
"Hold it right there! Don't you f**king move!"
Bones leapt off the motorcycle and stood in front of me before I could blink. He was shielding me from the bullets that could only injure him for a short time but would do far worse damage to me.
"Get on the bike, Kitten," he murmured too low for them to hear. "I'll get on behind you. We have to go. They would have called for backup."
"Hands in the air! Drop your weapons!" Mansfield approached with slow steps. Obligingly Bones stretched out his hands in compliance. He was buying time.
Something cold settled in me and spread, overriding the grief and the pain. Bones expected just to take two full clips in the back while we rode off. Or let them try to handcuff him and then slam them. Well, I had other ideas.
Both detectives advanced on him, seeing Bones as the primary threat. They foolishly ignored the old adage to never underestimate the power of a woman.
I stepped out from behind Bones with my hands in the air, palms facing me. When Mansfield took another step forward I flung the first knife. It skewered him straight through the wrist and his gun fell to the ground. Before Black could react I let loose the other knife, and he, too, collapsed screaming to the dirt, clutching his bleeding forearm. It made the next two knives easier to find their marks, and in a blink both of their hands were paralyzed with silver blades protruding from each wrist.
Bones arched a brow at me but said nothing, and climbed behind me on the bike as we sped off.
Their shouts behind us faded with the distance.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WE DROVE OVER UNPAVED ROADS AND through the trees to avoid being seen. In the distance, I occasionally heard sirens. Even though I was in front, Bones controlled the bike. He maneuvered it around trees at speeds that normally would have made me throw up from fright. Now I wanted him to go faster.
When we approached the highway, he stopped. It was dark now, shadows swallowing up the light. Bones laid the bike down on its side and covered it with a few branches he yanked off a nearby tree. The freeway was about a hundred yards away.
"Stay here. Won't be a moment," he promised cryptically.
Puzzled, I watched as he walked out toward the road. When he reached the shoulder he stopped. There was moderate traffic, it being after seven and most people already having arrived home from work. From where I stood I had a clear view of him, and his eyes began to glow that penetrating green.
A car approached and Bones fixed his glare on it. It swerved for a moment, and then began to slow. He stepped out into the middle of the road as the car headed straight toward him, and the light from his eyes blazed brighter. The car stopped only a foot shy of him, and he jerked his head toward the shoulder, where it obediently rolled.
Bones waited until it came to a full stop and then opened the driver's door. A man in his forties sat with a dazed expression on his face. Bones pulled him out and walked him over to where I stood.
In an instant his mouth clamped onto the man's neck, and the hapless stranger let out a small whimper. Bones released him after a few moments, wiping his sleeve across his lips.
"You're tired," he instructed him in that resonating voice. "You're going to lie down here and go to sleep. When you wake up you won't fret about your car. You left it at home, and you went for a walk. You want to walk home, but only after you've rested. And you are very, very weary."
Like a child the man curled in a semicircle on the ground and rested his head on his arms. He was asleep instantly.