Night Huntress - One Foot In The Grave Part 18

He flashed green into his eyes, and their light hit Don's face. He looked away.

"The spellbinding eyes of the nosferatu. Many days I'd wished I had the ability to glare the truth out of people, but without all the other consequences."

"Yes, well, there's a price for power and it always gets paid. Shall I let you go, Kitten, so you can bash his head in?"

Bones didn't sound troubled at the notion. I stared at Don. We had the same eyes, I realized. How had I never noticed that before?

"I should kill you for what you did to me, but I won't. I happen to understand wanting vengeance better than most people.

It can make you do rash things, like sending your niece out to get killed so one day you can try to trap your brother. Besides"-a shrug-"aside from my mother, you're the only real family I have left. You can come with us or stay, I don't care, but if you come, don't interfere. Think you can handle that?"

Don rose. "I can handle it."

Tate and Juan still stood outside the door.

"Are we good, Cat?" Tate inquired. He glanced at Bones, who was appraising the openmouthed employees with a practiced eye.

"For now. Tate, you and Don can help. Let's start with the obvious. Where's the team? They know both what I am and where I live. After this room, they're our first stop."

"We called in all thirty of them, they're in the training room, but they're armed in there, Cat. We'll have to bring them out in groups so they don't stake Mr. Pointy Teeth on sight." Tate threw a disparaging look at Bones, who had vamped out to the horror of the staff and was sniffing each of them.

"Think I'd fret over a room full of humans?" Bones retorted. "Let them keep their toys; it'll teach them a valuable lesson.

No matter how well she's trained them, they're not her."

Juan blinked. "He can take on all of them when they have silver?"

As much as I wanted to dispute it, since I'd worked hard on training them, the simple truth was, they'd never come across a vampire as strong as Bones before. Especially one in a closed s.p.a.ce, football-sized or no.

"Yeah. Is that necessary, though, Bones? Time-wise? And you don't get to kill any of them; they're my men."

"Time-wise it's more efficient. All in one place is faster than group by group. Your culprit will be the one trying hardest to kill me. Or wetting himself, whichever. This room is clear-none of these people are your turncoat. Don't fret about your merry men, Robin Hood; they'll live to die another day."

"I want to be there." Don looked professionally intrigued. "I don't get to see a Master vampire in action. I only see their messy end results."

"That's where you're wrong again," Bones stated. "You've seen her fight for years, so you've seen a Master vampire in action. She just also has a heartbeat."

Our training room was more than a gym. It was an extravaganza of an obstacle course complete with swinging ropes, falling debris, shifting ground, water hazards, and lots of room to run. The dim emergency lights in there served to Bones 's advantage, providing only subtle illumination. Bones had insisted we wait in Don's box overlooking the area. He didn't want me to get stabbed or shot in the melee.

It was something to watch, all right. There were shouts when his pale face became visible in the intermittent lights, and then a frenzy of motion even I couldn't fully follow.

"Christos," Juan breathed in awe. "Look at him fly."

Bones was surging around in gravity-defying bounds as he picked apart the careful formation I'd taught the men, bowling into them with his body and scattering them like pins. Tate shook his head in disgust.

"Years of work, right down the f.u.c.king drain. Makes me want to beat them myself."

"Cooper's trying to rally them," I observed. "Oops, down he goes. G.o.dd.a.m.n, Bones can really hit like a sonofab.i.t.c.h. I'll need a pint of his blood after this to heal them all."

"What makes you think he'll do that?" Don asked skeptically.

"Because I'll ask him to, that's why. You really are thick. He climbed into our h.e.l.l capsule for me earlier, yet you think he'll refuse to donate a little blood to make me happy? Dumb a.s.s."

My boss-or should I say uncle-didn't respond.

"All right, Kitten," Bones called out. "They're clean. Not a bad bunch of blokes."

Almost offhandedly, he kicked one of the fallen forms, eliciting a groan in return. I shook my head at Tate's expression.

"I told you he taught me everything I know. Kick 'em when they're down. That was his favorite rule. You're familiar with the rest of them."

"G.o.ddammit, Cat, he's been in there less than ten minutes. How can he tell that none of them are involved? Most of them aren't even conscious now!"

"I trust him," I answered simply. "Bones wouldn't say it unless he was sure, and that's enough for me."

Juan had a dazed look on his face as he studied the remains of our team. Then a smile tugged his lips.

"That," he said emphatically, "was cool!"

It wasn't until we approached the pathology floor that Bones quickened his step. His eyes went green as soon as the elevator doors opened, and he gave me a quick, hard kiss before shoving me back inside it.

"Stay here," he said briskly. "I smell something."

Bones walked away with Juan and Don following. Tate hung back with me.

"This is a wild f.u.c.king goose chase," he muttered. "Smells something? What can he smell-"

"Shh!" I said, honing my ears to pick up every nuance of sound in the next room. There was a scrambling noise that was very short-lived, a squawk, and then a mocking deadly sneer.

"Well, now, what do we have here? No, you're not turning away, look right here at me..."

"He's got someone," I said for Tate's benefit, and brushed by him.

In the lab, Bones had our pathologist's a.s.sistant, Brad Parker, pinned to the wall by one pale hand. The glow from his gaze lit the room with an eerie green luminance.

"Right then, where were we? Tell me all about what you've been up to, and be specific. You can start with any partners." "One," Brad mumbled. "He looks just like her."

I froze. Don's gaze met mine as a chill went through me. There was no doubt who Brad had to be referring to.

Bones glanced at me once and then turned his attention back to the man in front of him.

"Indeed? Now, tell me everything else..."

This time, Juan and Tate took dictation and I merely listened for the second time in as many days as a plot to kill me was outlined. Brad called him by a different name, but the perpetrator was clearly my father. Apparently after Ian pieced together the family resemblance between the Red Reaper he'd tangled with and his own lackey Max, my father had decided he didn't want to be a dad. He traced me by tracking Don, knowing he had to be the one backing me. Find one and the other wasn 't far, he'd a.s.sumed correctly. With his inside knowledge of both the Bureau and his brother, Max had progressed with remarkable swiftness.

Then he found what he was looking for in Brad Parker, a man whose loyalty could be bought and who knew enough to make it worth the payment.

It had almost worked. If not for my being on a date with a vampire, my head would have been blown off.

When Bones was finished, he arched a brow at Don. "You have any more questions for him?"

Don looked stunned. "No, I can safely say you covered it. Tate? Juan? Anything else?"

Mutely they shook their heads. Tate was more grudging in his silent response, his lips thinned to a straight line, but Juan looked at Bones with a flash of admiration. A start.

"Fancy locking him up?"

The question was again addressed to Don. I appreciated the gesture behind it. Bones was deferring Brad's fate. To my surprise, Don waved a hand.

"You know we're not letting him live, not with what he knows. Just don't make a mess."

Tate was incensed. "For Christ's sake, we can take him below and shoot him!"

"Don't be childish, Tate," Don snapped. "Bullet or bite, the end's the same, and it's his right. He found him; we didn't. Cat would be dead soon if he hadn't, and despite what she thinks of me, I don't want that to happen."

Don looked straight at me when he said that last part, and understanding dawned as to what this was. He was giving a peace offering in the form of Brad Parker's jugular. It wasn't pretty, but again, it was a start.

"Make it fast," I said to Bones. "I know you want to take your time, but don't. He's not worth it."

I didn't leave the room, but Tate did, in a huff. Juan shuffled but stayed, and Don remained where he was.

Bones didn't mind the audience. He bit into Brad's neck with his fangs fully extended, swallowing deeply and repeatedly.

No one except me heard the inevitable sound of death as it occurred, and true to my request, it was fast.

"There you are, old chap," Bones said a minute later as he let Brad fall limply to the tile. "Not a drop spilled."

I went to him, stepping over Brad, who was sprawled by his feet. Bones kissed my forehead with warm lips. Two kills in two days; he was probably stuffed. Then again, his dinner last night had drained into the capsule.

"You know I'm going after him, Don." There was no need to say the name, and somehow, I didn't want to.

"Yes, I know." He appraised the two of us together and tugged his eyebrow. "I want to speak in private with you, Cat.

There are some things we need to discuss."

"We can speak, but Bones is coming. Really, even if he couldn't hear us, which he can, I'd just tell him later."

Bones gave Don a smug smile. Well, he'd earned a little gloating.

Don coughed. "If you insist. Juan, would you remove...?" He gestured vaguely at Brad's body as we followed him back to his office.

TWENTY-FIVE.

ARE YOU LEAVING US?" DON BEGAN WITHOUT preamble when I shut the door.

It was a good question, since I now knew what he'd hidden from me these past years.

I looked around Don's office and then back at the man himself. Don and I didn 't have similar features, but he was my blood, as surely as my mother was. After several quiet moments, I realized I didn 't hate him for his lies, both outright and of omission. Who was I to judge him so harshly for his mistakes? After all, I'd made an exceptional number of my own.

"No."

Don let out a sigh that might have been relieved, but Bones ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. You just won't take the easy road."

"I need to do this."

Bones stared at me for a long moment, then turned to Don.

"The only way you're keeping her is if I'm with her. Consider it a two-for-one deal. I won't stop her from doing what she considers her job, but I will not see her die for it. None of those men are strong enough to back her up, but I am. You want her?

Then you'll get me also."

This I hadn't expected. Clearly neither had Don. He gaped.

"You can't expect me to allow a vampire inside an operation designed to kill vampires! That's not even lunacy-it's suicide!"

Bones smiled a very patient smile and sat down, tapping his fingers on Don's desk.

"Look, mate, I could give a rot about your operation, but do happen to care a great deal about her life, so I 'm going to make you an offer, and you're going to accept it."

Don blinked at the baldness of the statement. I was curious myself to hear what this offer was, because it was news to me, too.

"Why does the success of your missions hinge on her?" Bones went on. "Because she's your strongest fighter. Without her, you have a group of men who might do jolly well in a regular war, but against ghouls and vampires, they 're roadkill. You know it, too. That's why you got your knickers in a twist when you discovered how lethal she was at twenty -two. And don't think I've forgotten that it was your manipulating that kept me alone the past several years. Just for that, I'd fancy peeling your skin off like an orange while you were alive and screaming, but that's off topic."

"Quite," I said edgily.

Bones continued as if I hadn't spoken. "But since she insists on still working here, we have to come to an arrangement. As skilled as she is in battle, no one is infallible. If she went down in a fight right now, your operation would be finished, since you have no one strong enough to replace her. This is the first part of what I 'm offering. You will never have to fret about her coming back from a job, because unless I'm shriveled on the ground, she will."

"You want to work for me?" Don asked in astonishment.

Bones laughed. "Not for you, old chap. For her. She's the only one I'd listen to, anyway."

My expression must have been as astonished as Don's, because Bones paused and took my hand.

"I'm not fretting over control with you. You can have all of the command you desire as long as we're together. I'll just save my demands for the bedroom."