At Grave's End (19 page)

M
ENCHERES MADE NO COMMENT WHEN
I
appeared later with Vlad at my side. If he’d guessed at any of the drama, he kept it to himself. My mother and Denise had arrived. I’d seen their plane circling overhead while I climbed off the cliff down to solid ground.

A scream picked my head up as we approached the house. Mencheres closed his eyes and gave a shake of his head. He’d been standing outside awaiting my return.

“They’ve just been informed of his death,” he said by way of explanation.

“You needed to speak with me?”

Mencheres blinked at my controlled tone. “I thought you wanted to see your mother first?”

“No, let’s talk now.”

Vlad gave a polite bow. “I’ll leave you to speak privately,” he said, and went inside.

Mencheres considered me with the same evaluat
ing stare I gave him. Neither of us moved. Finally he broke the silence.

“I’ve used my power to try and locate Bones’s body. For an instant, I saw him, shrinking into the state of true death, with a knife pierced through his chest.”

The image slammed into me with more force than a cannonball. It was all I could do not to succumb to hysterical shrieks, like I could hear Annette doing. My fingernails punctured my palms as I ruthlessly squelched down my grief.

“Do you know where he is?” At least then I could bring him home. If nothing else, I could do that.

“No. I lost the image right afterward. I think Patra’s using a blocking spell. She’s used them before to keep me from locating her. I will try again, of course.”

“Thank you.”

It was the first sincere, appreciative thing I’d said to him. Mencheres didn’t smile, but some of the tightness left his face.

“It is my duty and desire to give Bones the farewell he deserves.”

We didn’t say anything after that for a while. At last, Mencheres spoke again.

“By his order while he was yet alive, Bones bequeathed everything to you. You are now Master of his line and co-Master of mine. I swore by my blood to honor the union forged with him, so by my blood, I will swear to honor it with you, as was his wish.”

A lump barreled its way up my throat, and it, too, got thrown back down with all the other emotions I couldn’t allow myself to feel. Instead, I nodded.

“If that’s what he wanted from me, I’ll do it.”

Mencheres did smile then. “He’d be proud of you, Cat.”

A small, despairing smile stretched my mouth. “That’s all I have to keep me going.”

There was the sound of something smashing inside. I straightened. “Is there anything else? I have to see to Annette. She sounds like I feel.”

“The rest can wait until later. Go on. Tend to his people.”

Despite my jealousy, massive grudge for her trying to sabotage my relationship, and outright envy at the years she’d been with Bones, when I saw Annette, I wanted to comfort her. If there was anyone here who knew exactly how I felt, it was her.

“Come here, Annette.”

I peeled her out of Ian and Spade’s arms. Both of them had been holding her, either for comfort, or to prevent her from smashing something else. There were several broken objects around her. Pinkish tears ran in torrents from her eyes, making her look positively awful.

“Let me go,” she yelled at Spade. “Don’t you understand, I don’t want to go on without Crispin!”

Oh, how I seconded that. Still, Vlad was right. Bones deserved his retribution, and it was my job to see that he got it.

I grasped Annette’s head.

“You will go on, because you owe Bones that. Patra’s hoping his death means she’s off the hook, but we’re going to show her that she made the biggest mistake of her life. Come on, Annette. Make Bones glad he changed you into a vampire centuries ago—and his enemies terrified of it.”

Dark pink streaks continued to pour down Annette’s cheeks, but her mouth tightened into a hard line. I
watched as her features changed from the twisted disfigurement of sorrow to the steely, collected face of the female who’d tried her damnedest to ruin my relationship when we met.

She swiped at her cheeks and rose to her feet.

They’re going down
, my look promised her.

You bet they are
, hers replied.

Then she startled me by kneeling, her disarrayed head bowed. “Crispin told me he’d name you Master of his line if anything happened to him, so here and now, I pledge my loyalty.”

I wasn’t prepared for this. Then the other members of Bones’s line began to follow suit, until even Tate knelt.

Spade moved next to me, but he didn’t kneel, since he was Master of his own line. Instead, he lowered his head and kissed my engagement ring.

“I’ll stand by your side, Cat, for the sake of my friend who would have expected no less from me.”

I wanted to say something in the face of all this, but my throat closed off. Rodney murmured similar words and also kissed that glittering red stone. Ian surprised me by following suit. I dug my nails into my palms, fighting back the tears that tried to choke me.
Don’t you dare cry
, I reprimanded myself.
Don’t you dare
.

After all the vampires made their pledge, I cleared my throat.

“Thank you. I swear I’ll prove worthy of your trust. As Spade said, Bones would have expected no less. Mencheres?”

He tilted his head. “Yes?”

“What’s next?”

“We’ll hold an assembly in the near future for those
under Bones’s line to formally acknowledge you. After that, the focus is the same. We are at war.”

“Why in the near future? Is there a mandatory waiting period?”

Mencheres wrinkled his forehead. “No, but in light of this sudden, tragic event, you have time—”

“Bullshit. I’m not going to get any cheerier, so let’s get this out of the way. Bones’s people will be freaking out with him dead, and the longer they’re in limbo, the stronger Patra gets. What’s the soonest this thing can be arranged?”

Mencheres looked taken aback. I ignored that and tapped my foot for punctuation.

“Well?”

“Tomorrow night. I will notify the proper leaders.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

The question was, what in the name of God was I supposed to do with myself until then?

After several comments that I hadn’t slept, I went upstairs to one of the bedrooms just to shut everyone up. But as soon as I stretched out on the bed and felt the gaping emptiness next to me, I gave up and took a bath instead. For two hours I sat in the tub, staring at nothing.

Mencheres was in the doorway when I came out of the bathroom. “I have something for you,” he said, and held out a small square box of carved antique wood.

“What is it?”

“Bones gave this to me several months ago to hold for you, in case anything happened to him.”

“Set it on the bed.” My voice was a rasp. I was afraid to take it, because there was a trembling in my hands that hadn’t been there before. “And leave.”

He did as I asked, and I was alone in the room with the box. It took me over twenty minutes before I had the courage to open it, and then I bit back a cry.

Pressed into the lining of the box’s lid were pictures. The first was of the two of us last summer. Bones and I were on our swinging porch chair, his face in profile as he whispered something to me. Whatever it was, I was smiling.

The second photo was of me naked on a very tousled bed, clutching a pillow while lying on my side. My mouth was open, and I was sleeping with a sensual, lethargic expression on my face. One breast was visible while the other peeked out from the covers, as did the red curls between my legs. Somewhat embarrassed, of all things, I put it down and then noticed the writing on the back.

A strangled noise emerged from my throat at his familiar, elegant scrawl. I couldn’t do this. It hurt so much I started to breathe in ragged, irregular gasps.

There was a folded note lying on top of whatever other items were in this box, with the words
My Beloved Wife
written on it.

Instantly the letters blurred, because my eyes welled with tears that almost burned to get out.

Something in me knew if I read what was in that note, my delicate emotional control would disintegrate and I’d go insane. I shut the box and slid it under the bed. Busy, I had to keep busy. With warped resolve I dressed in the first pair of pants and top I found, not
even seeing if they matched, and nearly ran out of the room.

Doc picked his head up as I entered the basement. He’d been twirling his two six-shooter guns. Most vampires were into knives, swords, or other archaic weapons, but Doc had a fixation for guns. He was never without them.

“Reaper,” he acknowledged me.

“How old are you?”

If he was surprised by my sudden question, he didn’t show it. Although I’d been around Doc off and on for a week, we hadn’t spoken at length.

“A hundred and sixty, living years included.” He had a pleasant Southern drawl that made each word sound more polite. Briefly I wondered if his colors had been blue or gray.

He held out one of his guns. “Want to give her a whirl?”

I’d run as if chased about forty miles in the woods, done two hours of solitary swordplay and more thinking than could ever be good for me. Guns? Why not?

“Your guns are female?” Asked as I took the piece. It required cocking to load. Mine were semi-automatic or fully, depending on what the situation warranted.

“Because, Cat, it’s the feminine persuasion that’s always the deadliest.”

Dark humor. Under other circumstances, I could appreciate that. I twirled the gun on my fingers, cocking and aiming it in a blur of motion. Knives might be my favorite weapon, but that didn’t mean I was an amateur with firearms.

“Very good,” he noted. “That wall has only dirt on the other side of it. How’s your shooting?”

In reply I unloaded the barrel into the designated area in a succession of six shots that echoed like only one. Doc smiled at the triangle outlined in holes. I didn’t return it, not knowing if my face could form that expression anymore.

“Give me more bullets and I’ll write my name,” I said without real interest. “What about you?”

He took the gun and reloaded it. Then he spun both weapons in his hands with a speed my eyes couldn’t follow, bouncing them off the ground and catching them, clanging them together in midair, and whipping them around his back and through his legs. All the while they went off, making the spectacle more dramatic by the bursts of loud fire. He had them back in my hands before the noise from the shots faded away.

“How’s that?”

I looked at the wall thirty yards away and got the joke. Doc had taken my triangle and turned it into an A, following up with a C and T with his fresh holes. Considering he’d done it during that dazzling display of tricks, it was very impressive.

“You’d be a hit with my team,” I finally replied. “My guys would think that was the coolest thing ever.”

“The law and I have a long, tangled history,” he said with dry amusement. “So I’m happier far away from it.”

“How did Bones come about changing you?”

Doc’s features sobered. “He didn’t. He’s my grandsire. Annette changed me.”

Oh. Now I glanced at him in an objective feminine way, noting the leanness of his frame, his attractively drawn face, hazel eyes, and slicked-back brown hair. Yeah, he looked like Annette’s type.

“Figures.”

“It wasn’t what you’re imagining. Back in the eighteen hundreds, I came upon four men cornering a woman behind a saloon. I shot two of them and the other two ran off. I didn’t know I wasn’t protecting the woman—I’d just denied her a hearty meal. Still, Annette didn’t forget my misguided chivalry. When I was dying years later, she found me and offered me an alternative. So I took it.”

It was something so like what Bones would have done, I turned away, blinking.
Never forget a kindness.
Apparently Annette believed that as well.

“You’re not one of Bones’s and you’re a Master, so you’re not under Annette’s line anymore,” I reasoned out loud. “So, then why are you here?”

He gave me a solemn look out of pale brown eyes. “The same reason you are. Because I don’t forget my debts.”

I
T WAS
D
ECEMBER
27,
AND WE WERE ASSEMBLED
in an opera house, of all things. I was dressed all in black, which suited my mood. I would have been fine wearing a garbage bag, but vampires dressed up for occasions and I had a part to play. Black leather boots completed the effect. The only color on me was the thin silver chain around my waist where several daggers of the same metal dangled. It was an unspoken threat and promise of protection combined.

Mencheres and I were center stage. Even though everyone in the theater knew why they were there, for formality’s sake, he repeated the news of Bones’s death. I refused to let any emotion appear on my face as those devastating words were spoken again, slicing into me with the same pain I’d felt upon first hearing them.

“…and as was his decree, the Mastership of his line passes to his wife, Cat.” Mencheres held out his hand and I accepted it. “From this night forward, all
who belong to you are mine, as all of mine are yours. To seal this alliance, blood is required. Catherine, you who are also known as the Red Reaper, do you offer your blood as proof of your word?”

I repeated the required words I never thought would be crossing my lips. Then I drew a knife across my palm in a deep cut. Mencheres took the same blade and sliced his own palm, clasping his hand over mine.

“My blood is also proof of my word. If I betray our alliance, it will be my penalty.”

Our joined hands were raised for effect, mine tingling as it healed on contact with his blood, and then we let go. It was done.

Or not quite.

“I refuse to call the half-breed my leader, and I challenge for freedom from her line.”

“Thomas, you insolent sod!” Spade strode forward from his place at the perimeter of the stage. “If Crispin were here, he’d rip out your spine and flog you with it. But as his best friend, I’ll perform that task myself.”

In truth, I wasn’t surprised. At any formal gathering, a vampire could request or challenge for their independence. If the Master wanted to be benevolent or it had been agreed on beforehand, they would grant it without a fight. But if not…

“Don’t even think of it, Spade,” I said. “Bones would appreciate your intentions and so do I, but that man challenged me and I’ll answer it.”

“Cat.” Spade gripped my shoulders, lowering his voice. “You haven’t slept in days, you barely eat or drink, and all you do is train. If not me, let Mencheres answer this. He’ll make such an example of this sod that anyone else considering such a thing will find it markedly less appealing.”

“You’re right.” Spade relaxed, but Bones would have known better. “This creep does need to be made an example of, but by me. If I can’t do this, then this line will be torn apart from the inside out. Thomas!”

I pushed Spade back and went to the edge of the stage. “Your challenge is accepted. If you want your freedom…” I cracked my knuckles and rolled my head on my shoulders. “Come and get it.”

Thomas walked toward the stage, one clean jump taking him onto the elevated platform. The rest of the vampires cleared a path, Mencheres cutting Spade’s further protest short with a wave of his hands. I almost smiled as I watched. This was the closest thing to therapy I could do.

“How do you want to die?” I asked, boring my gaze into his. “Because you will, you know. So pick your poison. Swords, knives, mallets, or skin on skin.”

Thomas was my height, and he had blue eyes and curling, brownish-red hair. All this I noticed while measuring his aura. He had the resonating power of a strong vampire. This wasn’t a teenager in undead years.

“I will kill you swiftly out of respect for my sire,” he answered with an Irish accent.

I gave a sharp bark of amusement. Combined with his short height and round cheeks, Thomas reminded me of the leprechaun from the cereal I ate as a kid.
They’re after me Lucky Charms!
I wanted to chant at him. Too bad he wasn’t wearing green, that would have made it perfect.

“If you had any respect for Bones, you wouldn’t be challenging for your freedom in the middle of a war,” I hissed instead. “As he would say,
Very bad form
.”

“It was his misfortune to be enthralled by a witch
such as you,” he said as he selected a knife from the display of hastily arranged weapons. I didn’t bother to pick—I was wearing several on my belt. “You incited him to war based on an assault that never really happened!”

There was an eruption of curses from several of the vampires on the stage. Cold fury enveloped me. Trying to go for the low blows, was he? All right, then.

I let out a cry and hunched as if struck. Thomas sprinted forward in a flash of speed. When he was on me, his knife millimeters from a killing blow, I twisted to the side and jammed his own blade deep in his stomach. Soon more sharp silver found a home through his heart. It all happened in less than a second.

“You dumb fuck, guess you weren’t paying attention when Bones told you not to fall for a bluff.”

With my knife in his heart, Thomas froze like he’d been turned to ice. I leaned closer to almost whisper in his ear.

“Tell Bones hello for me,” I said, then twisted the blade in his heart. “And when he gets ahold of you, you’ll
really
be sorry.”

I gave Thomas’s slowly shriveling body a kick that sent him down into the seat where the orchestra would normally sit. Then I tucked my knife back into my belt, not even bothering to wipe the blood off.

There was commotion in the back. The sound of doors banging open. I glanced up just as Mencheres came forward and gripped my hand.

“Cat, I am very sorry, but I had no idea she would do this,” he grated. “You cannot attack her at a formal gathering, it’s against our laws. To do so would condemn us all.”

Those words chased away my momentary confusion over who the five vampires were who entered the theater.
Late arrivals
, had been my first thought. Then that fucking laugh told me otherwise even as Mencheres was still speaking. I knew that laugh. It branded me.

“Mencheres, my husband, aren’t you going to greet me?”

My fingers whitened on his, squeezing so hard, Mencheres’s bones fractured as fast as they could heal. Patra had spoken to him, but her eyes were all for me as she descended the aisle with serpentine grace.

Patra didn’t have the famous blunt Egyptian haircut so often shown in movies about her mother. No, she had threads of gold highlights in her long black hair. Her brows weren’t as thick as Hollywood suggested, either. Actually, they were slender. So was she. In fact, she was more athletic than voluptuous. Her skin was pale, but darker than mine. Almost honey-colored. Her nose was slightly longer than fashion favored, but there was no question about it, Patra was beautiful.

“Why?”

I spat the question to Mencheres while not taking my eyes from her. Everything in me was wound to the breaking point.
Kill
, was all my mind was capable of thinking.

“It’s our laws. As my wife, she can be present at any formal gathering, but she cannot attack us. Neither may we injure her, however. She seeks to provoke you to violence, but don’t give her such an easy victory.”

Oh, she’d provoked me to violence, all right. I wanted to rip her apart and wear her blood for clothing. My eyes flared, green rays of loathing shining on her.

“Hello, bitch.”

She laughed again in an insinuating, purring way. “So you’re the half-breed. Tell me.” A gleam appeared in her eyes. “Have you slept well recently?”

Some part of me was amazed I hadn’t combusted in rage. The other half heard me laugh in a bright, chipper tone that was so at odds with how I felt.

“That’s the best you can do? Oh, Patra. How boring.”

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. Hell, I was surprised at myself.

Patra didn’t like being laughed at. Her incensed expression was evidence of that.

“I’m not as stupid as you’re hoping,” I went on. “Now, either shut up or leave, because you’re interrupting things. There’s got to be a law about that as well.”

“I’ll go.” Her smile was contemptuous. “I’ve seen what I wanted. You’re nothing, and soon you’ll be less than that. But before I leave, I thought you should know why you’re in this war in the first place. I’m betting my husband hasn’t told you, has he?”

“Told me what?”

She laughed again, and I found myself thinking I hated her laugh more than any sound I’d heard before it.

“Haven’t you asked yourself why I turned against Mencheres in the first place? If I hadn’t, then there would be no war, and no reason to kill you or Bones.”

If she was waiting for me to encourage her to go on, all she got was silence. Patra sighed.

“Very well, I’ll explain. When Mencheres offered to make me a vampire, I told him I wouldn’t cross over
unless he changed my lover Intef as well. But after I woke up from my death, Mencheres told me Intef had been killed before his people could reach him.”

She paused to give Mencheres a look filled with loathing.

“Then one day Anubus, a former friend of Mencheres, broke his silence. Intef wasn’t killed by the Romans. Mencheres did it. You see, little half-breed, you’re in this war because I’m finally getting revenge on my lover’s murderer, so who’s
really
to blame for Bones’s death?”

I glanced at Mencheres, who closed his eyes briefly before meeting my stare. I saw it then. That what Patra had said was true, every word of it. For a moment, I was overwhelmed with the urge to stab both of them for their ruthlessness in getting what they wanted.

Then I turned back to Patra. “I get your motivation. But you should have just gone after Mencheres. Instead, you chose to kidnap people’s family members to force them to suicide bomb themselves. You chose to murder Bones, and for that, I’m going to kill you. You of all people should understand why.”

Patra smiled. “Because I understand your pain, I’m going to free you of it.” She raised her voice. “I offer amnesty to anyone who leaves her and joins me! Furthermore, to the man or woman who slays her, I offer a reward beyond your ability to fathom. You have the word of a god.”

I gave her a stare that was harder than the diamond on my hand. “You arrogant bitch, I’ll see you dead, and that’s the word of a half-breed.”

Patra gave me a last disparaging glance and turned her back. Her four escorts flanked her as she ascended the aisle in the same sweeping manner she’d arrived.

Only after the doors closed behind them did I let my breath out. I was so furious, I was shaking.

The silence was complete, absent of the typical human shuffling or nervous clearing of throats. I went over to the side of the stage where the weapons were and almost gently pulled out a sword. Better to deal with the repercussions of Patra’s offer now than to let the idea that I was too weak to lead simmer and grow.

“All right, whoever believes that bitch and thinks they can take me, here I am.”

The challenges came thick and fast, several different voices calling out. This time I didn’t offer the choice of weapons—I kept my sword. And one at a time, I hacked, stabbed, or decapitated each vampire who stepped onto the stage. All my pent-up fury and grief I put into my blows, thankful that for those brief moments, I could feel something aside from pain.

When I’d finished with the eighth vampire, running my sword through his heart so deeply half my arm followed, my outfit was sliced in dozens of places and gaping indecently in some. Ironically, my own injuries had healed with the continued contact of fresh vampire blood.

I turned toward the audience. “Who else thinks they can cut me down?”

No one else called out a challenge. I drove the sword into the center of the stage like it was Excalibur into the proverbial stone. Then I wiped some blood from my cheek with the ragged remains of my sleeve and turned to Mencheres.

“Now can we leave?”