Night Huntress: Up From The Grave Part 18

"You mean Crawfield's?" Don replied in a carefully neutral tone.

"Hers, too." Madigan sounded churlish. "But after seven years, nothing! Can't have all my eggs in one basket . . . heh. Eggs. Have to wait years for more of those . . ."

Despite Don trying to steer him back on topic, Madigan veered from eggs to being hungry again, and once that happened, nothing else mattered. Then when he was done eating, he fell asleep. For all I knew, he now slept while sucking his thumb. I couldn't tell because I never entered his lockdown room. I'd become synonymous with Bones in his shattered mind, and Bones incited sobbing, incoherent terror.

Don, however, seemed to soothe Madigan, sometimes by the other man remembering past cruelties.

"I stole your job after you died," Madigan said yesterday in a gleeful whisper. "Stole your soldiers, too. They'll be dead soon."

Before Don could respond to that, Madigan was playing I Spy. That shouldn't have taken long since his room was windowless concrete, but Madigan stretched it out for hours. If Don was solid, he might have banged his head against the wall just to block out the endless chatter. I wanted to, and that was only after twenty minutes.

The reality was, I didn't have much else to do. Tate, Ian, and Fabian hadn't found Katie yet. How a child with no money and no experience in the normal world could evade two vampires and a ghost, I had no idea, but she'd done it. Mencheres's people were still coming up empty on the fried hard drives, so no leads to chase down there, either. Bones could barely stand to be under the same roof as Don, let alone listen to him and Madigan talk nonsense for hours, so I couldn't ask him to spell me. Plus, the few rational bits Madigan did say would probably cause Bones to beat him again.

After six days of learning nothing more than what we already knew, I was fed up. Madigan appeared to be a dead lead for gleaning information on his shadowy backer, but perhaps there was something else we could do to locate Katie. I knew someone who was very good at tracking paranormal activity, and as a bonus, he wasn't a member of any undead line.

That's how Bones and I ended up at Comic Con in San Diego.

I'd seen a lot of unusual things in my life, but this science fiction and fantasy extravaganza still managed to surprise me. Let's face it; corpses raised by magic into unkillable a.s.sa.s.sins paled next to rubbing shoulders with Wolverine, Xena, Chewbacca, The Joker, Wonder Woman, and an iron-bikini-clad Princess Leia-and that was just waiting in line to get our badges.

Once inside the ma.s.sive, multilevel complex, we worked our way through thousands more people dressed as their favorite character from a movie, television show, video game, or comic book. Some costumes were simple, such as body painting, and some were so elaborate, they had working robotic accessories.

"I'm vamping out," I told Bones, the thundering background noise causing me to yell even with his hearing. "No one will notice."

"Likely not," I thought he replied, but couldn't be sure. The nearby booth started blasting an exclusive movie trailer. If that wasn't enough, the instant cheers and applause drowned out everything else.

I might not have the dedication to spend hours applying makeup and prosthetics to resemble my favorite fictional character, but the idea of leaving my cares behind by dressing up as someone else for an afternoon held definite appeal. Doing it with over a hundred thousand like-minded people must have contributed to the energy in the room being almost palpable. My senses went into overdrive from the carnival of sights, smells, sounds, and continuous contact as people brushed by us on their way to the panels, booths, signings, or exhibits. From the hum starting to generate beneath my skin, I'd almost swear this place was a supernatural hot spot.

Unfortunately, we weren't here to get a contact high from all the frenetic energy. We had to find a reporter, and according to his text, he was in the video games section.

Easy enough, except we had the equivalent of eight football fields filled with fans and exhibitors between us. We either had to out ourselves as vampires by flying over everyone, or push through people as slowly and politely as we could.

We chose the latter, although here, flying could be brushed off as a mildly entertaining gimmick. It took over thirty minutes to reach the video game area, then we had to search through the throngs of people there. Finally, toward the back wall, I saw a slim, sandy-haired man, the stubble on his face adding a rougher edge to his naturally boyish looks. Thank G.o.d he hadn't disguised himself by wearing a costume; there was no way to track people by scent in this olfactory smorgasbord.

"Timmie!" I yelled.

My neighbor from my college days didn't look up. After all, I was only one raised voice among thousands. A few more minutes of polite pushing later, and we reached him at last.

"Why the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l didn't you meet us outside?" were Bones's first words.

Timmie flinched at his hard tone. Then he glanced at me and squared his shoulders, as if remembering that I'd never let Bones harm him.

"I'm on the clock here. Besides, I thought you'd like this. There's a True Blood panel starting soon."

"Really?" I blurted.

Bones's raised brow had me reluctantly adding, "We're not here for fun. We came to ask if you'd help us find someone."

A grin tugged Timmie's lips. "Not that I don't enjoy seeing you, Cathy, but you could've texted me that."

"We're not putting any of this in writing," I said a trifle grimly. "Or trusting it over the phone."

"Ah, paranormal-related." Timmie snapped a photo of someone walking by, then let his camera hang from the strap around his neck. "Is it safe to talk in public?"

"In this place? Yes. Anyone overhearing won't believe a word," Bones replied dismissively.

True, plus so far, I'd only seen humans here. Shame. The undead were missing a good time.

"If I help you find this person, am I allowed to report on any of it?" Timmie asked in a hopeful voice.

"Not just no, but h.e.l.l no," I said firmly.

He heaved a sigh. "You suck, Cathy."

"You actually went there?" I asked, grinning.

Timmie grinned back. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget you're . . . you know."

"We need you to find a girl 'round ten years old," Bones stated, getting down to business. "Start with rumors of a child with glowing green eyes, or bodies of people with snapped necks who were last seen with a little girl."

Timmie's mouth fell open. Then he goggled at us. "You lost a little vampire?" Why would you need MY help to find her? flashed across his mind.

"We can't ask our normal allies because we don't want people in our world to know about her." I gripped his arm, my smile fading. "I can't explain why, but they'd kill her, Timmie. Or use her to make really horrible things happen."

From his thoughts, he was intrigued, yet hesitant. He needed to find another freelance photography gig to make rent this month. Plus, it kinda sucked investigating something he couldn't tell anyone about- "We'll give you twenty-five thousand dollars as a retainer," Bones said, freezing Timmie's thoughts into a single chorus of YES! "And another twenty-five if your information leads us to the little girl."

"W-when do I start?" Timmie managed, stunned into stuttering.

Bones broke the strap around Timmie's neck with a casual swipe, sending the camera crashing to the floor.

"Now, so you won't be needing that anymore."

We knew Timmie was good. He'd given Don, then Tate headaches when he kept exposing paranormal secrets to the public through his investigative e-zine. He was also trustworthy, as he'd proven over a year ago when we enlisted his help tracking rogue ghouls. When we left California, I had high hopes that he could sniff out Katie's trail eventually.

What I didn't expect was the text only two days later: "Check for your package on the east side in Detroit."

"Wow, Timmie thinks he has a lead, and it's nowhere near where Ian and Tate have been looking," I told Bones.

He glanced at the text. "Detroit's east side is one of the most crime-ridden places in America."

Oddly enough, he sounded approving, and tinges of admiration threaded through my emotions.

"You're glad a little girl is on her own in that area why?"

"She's safer there," Bones replied, arching a brow. "She has her pick of thousands of abandoned buildings in an area where people don't pry into each other's business, and where the occasional body of someone who attempts to trifle with her won't raise a public outcry."

Such a coldly logical a.n.a.lysis. Bones had had hundreds of years fighting for his life to think that way. Katie was only a decade old, yet she was demonstrating the same mentality if she'd picked Detroit for those reasons instead of ending up there by accident.

"If it was deliberate, it also shows restraint on her part," Bones went on. Something icy brushed against my emotions this time. "That's good. Less chance that she'll need to be killed if she's amenable to staying hidden."

For several seconds, I couldn't speak, my mind rejecting that he'd actually said such a thing.

"Need to be killed?" I finally repeated. "Are you insane?"

The look he gave me was so chilling, I was reminded that Bones had been a hit man for almost two centuries before we met.

"The danger of war hasn't diminished because of her age. It's the reason I'm willing to let Katie live if she allows us to hide her for the rest of her life. Otherwise, by our hand or someone else's, she'll have to die."

My expression must have conveyed my flat refusal because he grasped my shoulders and all but shook me.

"It sickens me, but you know I'm right! You turned into a full vampire because the mere possibility that you could add ghoul attributes to your half-vampire nature nearly caused a war. Katie is that addition, and if that ever becomes general knowledge, she'll start the war we all fear. Or be killed to stop it."

"But she doesn't have to stay hidden forever," I whispered, still reeling over the bleak future Bones had laid out for the child. "When she's old enough, she could choose to become one species or the other-"

"It's too late," Bones said in a far gentler tone. "Katie's already a combination of vampire and ghoul. Losing her humanity won't negate that; it will only increase it."

I had no words to refute that. Too well, I remembered the hundreds that had died when ghouls started taking out Masterless vampires in the early stirrings of a species uprising. Then the hundreds more, on both sides, that died quelling that conflict. Bones was right; only my changing over had stopped those hundreds from turning into millions since ten percent of the world's population was undead. That, and our uneasy truce with the new ghoul queen, Marie Laveau, who'd already stated that if we didn't shut down this new threat, she would.

I took in a ragged breath, more for the familiarity of the act than any hope that it would soothe me.

"You're right." d.a.m.n you, Madigan! "The best Katie can hope for is a life hidden away. Maybe it won't be too awful. Due to her demonically enhanced blood being a drug for vampires, Denise has to hide, too."

Bones let me go, only his gaze gripping mine as he spoke.

"And if she proves impossible to hide, we won't be able to protect her from what will happen next."

I let out my breath on a bitter sigh. "No. I suppose we won't."

Katie was one life against millions. Multiple millions, adding in the fact that humans would be collateral damage if vampires and ghouls ever engaged in an all-out war. We wouldn't only be fighting our enemies trying to keep her alive. We'd be fighting our allies, too. I'd do everything in my power to prevent a young girl from being sacrificed for the greater good, but as my long list of past regrets proved, sometimes, my best wasn't good enough.

Please, G.o.d, let it be good enough this time.

Mencheres took that moment to enter the room. With his bat ears, he would've overheard everything we'd said, but he made no argument, and that was akin to his full agreement.

"We've recovered some data," he stated. "Come and see."

Twenty-seven.

When Mencheres had said his "people" were working on the drives we'd brought back from Madigan's compound, I'd a.s.sumed he meant vampires. When we followed him to the room he'd converted into a tech lover's paradise, however, the black-haired boy beaming at his computer was human. And he looked about seventeen years old.

"I am the shee-it," the adolescent said in a singsong voice. Then he swung around, smirking at the nearly five-thousand-year-old Egyptian vampire.

"Who's your daddy, M?"

Far from being offended, Mencheres went over and flawlessly executed a street-style handshake complete with finger slaps, fist b.u.mps, and a high-low finale.

"You are the s.h.i.t," he solemnly agreed.

I couldn't stay silent anymore.

"You used a teenager to salvage information sensitive enough to cause a worldwide war?"

Mencheres gave me a tolerant look. "Most vampires are slower to embrace technology than the average senior citizen. Tai is loyal, and he has been writing code since before you learned how to text."

The boy grinned at me.

"Don't worry, sugar, I know how to keep quiet. Besides, M is one of my mains."

Bones raised a brow at the "sugar" comment, but I waved it off.

"Okay, Tai, show us what you've got."

Like a switch had been flipped, the teenager became all business.

"I had to piece this together because the drives were so torched, the files were fragmented. Then I weeded through what M said you didn't need, like genome findings and experiment logs. Lots of those-"

"Intact?" I interrupted. They might not help us find Madigan's backer, but they could be useful for insight on Katie.

A grunt.

"Are now. Anyway, to the good stuff. They must've had cameras rigged all over the room she fought in, because this file"-his fingers flew across the keyboard-"has the best images of your tiny G.o.dzilla in action."

The computer screen filled with a distorted image, as though the video had been run through a shredder, then taped back together. Still, Katie was easy to spot. She was the child with the shoulder-length reddish brown hair facing a grown man who pointed a gun at her.

". . . dn't . . . mk . . . me . . ." came through in unintelligible staggers.

"Sound quality blows, but if you read his lips, he's saying he doesn't want to shoot her," Tai said.

More sound gurgled from the video, then a blur of action. If I hadn't been a vampire, I would have needed slow motion to see Katie lunge forward, ducking the bullet the man fired, before sweeping his legs out from under him and slamming her elbow onto his throat.

"That was her being told to neutralize him," Tai supplied darkly.

I knew she'd killed people, but knowing and seeing were two different things. She hadn't hesitated for a second, and nothing changed in the little girl's expression when she leapt up and stood at attention, impervious to the body convulsing in its death throes by her feet. That a child would display such detachment while snuffing out a life chilled me to my soul. She seemed to have no concept of what she'd done.

Then again, how could she? All she received in response was a few curt words of praise from Madigan for her swiftness. He was in the video, too, watching Katie from behind a gla.s.s wall. It was all I could do not to punch the screen when the distortion cleared enough to see his smugly pleased expression.

Was it possible for Katie to unlearn every violent, conscienceless behavior Madigan had taught her? Even if it was, might she be too hardwired toward using her abilities to stifle them by always pretending to be human, as she'd need to do if we were to keep her safely hidden? After all, unless she was locked in a cell her whole life, Katie would be out in public at some point. One display of superhuman strength or speed in front of the wrong person, and the gig would be up.

On-screen, Madigan dismissed Katie. A hidden door swooshed open, and the little girl disappeared through it. She didn't spare so much as a backward glance at the body behind her, either. I was so overwhelmed by the odds against reconditioning Katie into a somewhat normal little girl that it took a second for Tai's, "This old guy might be who you're looking for" comment to sink in.

Someone else appeared behind the gla.s.s wall where Madigan had been watching Katie. At first, all I could make out was a fiftyish man-guess that was old to a teenager-with salt-and-pepper hair who was the same height as Madigan though built stockier. Bones let out a hiss when the blurry imagery cleared and his face became distinct. I gasped, recognizing him, too. Tai smirked.