Is this the widow?
TWENTY-ONE
I WAS SEATED NEXT TO SPADE, ANGUISH IN MY soul gouging me like a rabid monster trying to claw its way out.
But to Spade, I simply asked, “What happened?”
Pink tears streaked his face. “Cooper waited at the train station, and about ten minutes later, we saw Anubus sneaking up on him with several Master vampires. We wanted Anubus alive, so Ian and I secured him while Rodney and Crispin fought the rest of them. Then one of the sods managed to run off, so Crispin told Rodney to fall back with us while he went on to skewer the wretch. He was supposed to meet up with us here. We reckoned he’d beat us, since he didn’t have to take the long way with a hostile prisoner. I’m so sorry, angel. So damnably sorry…”
Mencheres strode into the room, and the rush of animosity that swept over me left a small, detached part of me curious. Why are you mad at him? This was all your fault.
“It’s not safe here,” he announced. “Patra may have learned our location from Bones, so we have to leave.”
“Could she have lied?” I was grasping at straws, but drowning hands reached for anything.
Mencheres cast a look at me that was no less sympathetic for its briefness. “I know her well enough to know when she’s lying. She was not.”
We cleared out in a hurry. Randy, Denise, Annette, and my mother were on their way here when a phone call from Spade had rerouted them. He didn’t say why, which I was grateful for. I could hardly bear to think the words, let alone hear them out loud again.
“…all of my people moved at once, we are taking no chances,” Mencheres snapped into his phone before throwing it to the ground and smashing it to pieces.
Another vampire hurried to hand him a fresh one. “The number is new,” the lackey said, bowing to him and then, oddly, to me. I didn’t acknowledge it. He could have shriveled at my feet and I wouldn’t have cared. For now, I was letting myself be hustled by the current of people around me.
We left by the same helicopter Ian, Spade, Cooper, and Rodney had flown in on. My eyes were dry, staring at nothing. That’s all I seemed to see no matter what I looked at. Nothing.
With a lurch we were airborne. Tate called Don and told him what happened, ending with a warning for him to evacuate. Whatever my uncle said in reply was drowned out by the sounds of the helicopter and my own apathy. What was there to care about anymore? My heart was in pieces.
“Cat,” Tate sighed when he hung up, putting his arm around me, “Don said—”
He stopped and stared almost stupidly at his chest. The knife I’d pulled from my coat and jammed into him was less than an inch from his heart. I smiled, feeling my face crack like pottery that dried too quickly.
“That was a warning. The next one won’t be. Did you think you could just slide into Bones’s place and I wouldn’t miss a beat? You lay your hands on me again and I’ll finish you, Tate.”
I meant every bitter word. If there was one person happier than Patra right now, it was Tate. He’d hated Bones from the moment he’d met him, and that wasn’t even counting when he shot him at first glance. I’d be damned if I was going to let Tate dishonor Bones’s memory by petting me like a lapdog. Whatever chance he thought he’d gained by Bones’s death, he was wrong.
Tate yanked the knife from his chest without a word. He wiped the silver clean on his pants and then handed it back to me.
“I’m here when you need me,” he murmured, and got up to move to the rear of the craft.
No one else spoke after that, the whole two hours north to Canada.
We landed in a frozen grass field a hundred yards from a house surrounded by thick trees. It was bitterly cold, or maybe it was just me. I couldn’t seem to remember what warm felt like.
“Cat, we must talk,” Mencheres stated, holding out a hand that I ignored as I hopped down from the helicopter.
“What time will Denise and my mother be here?”
He folded his arms, oblivious to the stiff wind. “Dawn. They were picking up supplies on their way.”
“Whatever it is you want to talk about, can it wait until later?”
My emotional armor was on with full reinforcements, but that wouldn’t last. I needed to be alone so I could break down, I didn’t want to do it with an audience.
Mencheres nodded.
“Afterward, of course. I shall get you settled until then.”
“Don’t bother. Dawn’s in less than two hours and I won’t sleep. I just want to be alone. I don’t have to tell you this has been the worst day of my life.”
I started walking toward the tree lines.
“Where are you going?” Mencheres called out.
“It’s hard to be alone with a passel of vampires scuttling around me. I assume you consider this place safe since you brought us here, so I’m taking a walk.”
There were mutterings of objections behind me from varying voices. As my response, I held up my middle finger and kept walking.
The pines were thick in places. Tracks in the snow showed many different species called this frigid area home, and at this hour, it was quiet.
As I walked, I let myself remember the first time I saw Bones, bent over a table at a club with the lights reflecting off his hair. How he’d called my bluff when I drove him to a lake under the pretense of seduction. Waking up chained inside a cave, hearing him mock me with a Tweety Bird impression. His face when he first saw my eyes glow and he realized I’d told him the truth about what I was. That smug grin he gave me after I challenged him to a fight to the death. Our first kiss. The first time we’d made love. And the smile he’d given me the first time I told him I loved him…
My rapid pace carried me miles away. When I saw the cliffs, I started climbing them without much thought as to why. Judging from the low-hanging moon, there was still about forty minutes until dawn. Soon after that, Denise and my mother would arrive. I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to see anyone.
I’d climbed for twenty minutes before I found a wide enough ledge to sit on. A blast of wind made me rub my hands together, and the red diamond caught my eye. My engagement ring for a wedding that would never happen.
I got up and stared out over the ledge. The rocks below seemed mesmerizing, the distance to them somehow not far or frightening. After a moment, my eyes closed, and I felt myself take a step forward. And then another one.
“It must be difficult for you.”
At the first syllable, my eyes snapped open. Vlad was seated on a ledge almost thirty feet below my perch, watching me.
“Yeah, it’s difficult that the man I loved is dead. How brilliant of you to notice.”
Vlad rose. “Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant it must be difficult for you to decide what you are. I never had to wrestle with that. When I changed into a vampire, I couldn’t revert back to my humanity under any circumstances. Yet you wake up every day trapped in yours. As I said, difficult.”
What the hell was he rambling on about? “I said I wanted to be alone, Vlad. Get out of here.”
“That’s not why you’re really here, Catherine.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said out of habit, then shook my head. Like it mattered now what he called me?
He gave me a contemptuous look. “Why not? Standing on that ledge is Catherine Crawfield, not Cat, the Red Reaper. Catherine has no obligations, no responsibilities, and she’s decided to follow her husband to the grave. In the end, it appears you’ve chosen your human side. How interesting.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I snapped, and then stilled.
Wasn’t it? I’d walked out in the freezing cold, climbed a cliff, and was teetering on the edge of it with my eyes closed. Falling at this height would likely knock my head off, so there would be no chance of anyone bringing me back, as a ghoul or anything else. Who was I kidding? I’d known just what I was doing as soon as I left that helicopter, even if I’d refused to acknowledge it until now.
You could do it, the thoug
ht teased me. Don will look after your mother, your team will be fine with two vamps and a ghoul to lead them, Denise has Randy…It’s not like before when you left Bones and had people depending on you. You can go to him. You’re ready.
“You’re ready, Catherine?” Vlad baited me, using that name again as he picked the thought from my mind.
“Fuck you, Dracula,” I snapped. “No wonder Bones didn’t like you. You’re pissing me off as well.”
“We didn’t care for each other, but we did respect one another. Would Bones want you to do this? Is this what he would have done, if you’d been killed?”
No.
The answer came to me without needing a moment to ponder it. I knew what Bones would do if the tables were turned. If Max had murdered me, Bones would’ve been as shattered as I was now, but as a vampire, he wouldn’t have allowed himself the option of suicide. No, not until he’d tracked down each player in my death and treated them to a horrible payback first. Only after he’d extracted his revenge would Bones have allowed himself to even think about his own death. That’s how vampires were.
But Vlad was right. I had an excuse. I was half human. I could wrap that humanity around myself and leap off this cliff into Bones’s arms on the other side. But vampires had no such luxury. If I were a vampire, I’d have no choice but to climb off this cliff and commit myself to a bloody retribution, broken heart or no. But if I was human, I could go ahead and jump.
Vlad gave me an assessing, unmerciful rake of the eyes as he listened to my internal struggle.
“So then, what are you?”
Since I was sixteen and my mother told me about my father, I’d wrestled with that same question. The sound of my heartbeat seemed to mock me. Each breath I took was a taunt. Yeah, I had many similarities to a human, and yes, I wanted the peace of that free fall to the other side where Bones waited for me. God, how I wanted it! But I wasn’t human. I hadn’t been since the day I was born, and I couldn’t let myself pretend to be human now.
“Well?” Vlad asked with more emphasis.
I gave one last regretful glance at the ravine’s rocky bottom before meeting Vlad’s eyes.
“I am a vampire,” I said, and backed away from the ledge.
TWENTY-TWO
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 evaluating 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.
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