Destined for an Early Grave nh-4

by Jeaniene Frost

  And me, too. I was really looking forward to seeing Cannelle in person again.

  I couldn’t see the three of them anymore. They were off my satellite since they started walking. “Look around, Geri. Are you being followed?”

  “You don’t think anyone will catch us climbing up onto the roof, do you?” Geri asked, sounding coy.

  Bones kissed her. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. “Not at all.”

  Okay. It was clear. God, I wanted this to be over soon. Safely, and soon.

  “Ah, here’s the church. Now, my lovely, look at me for a moment. You don’t need to fret about my eyes or my teeth, right? You don’t notice anything unusual about them. You’re not afraid, because you know I won’t hurt you. Say it.”

  “You won’t hurt me,” Geri repeated. “I’m not afraid.”

  So, that’s how Bones got around the glowy gaze and pointy teeth when he fucked humans. I’d thought as much but never wanted to ask. I knew more about his past than I already cared to. This scene was for Cannelle’s benefit, I guessed, since Bones knew Geri was in on his secret. Just going through the usual motions.

  I thought I’d puke.

  “Cinnamon, shall we?”

  “If we must, chéri.”

  “We must.”

  After a few moments of noisy rustling sounds, Bones spoke again.

  “The roof at last. No rats, petite, quit cringing.”

  Vlad, get the chopper’s ETA.

  He complied with the mental directive and took my cell, hitting redial.

  “They’re on the roof,” he informed Don briefly. “How long?…Yes.” He set my cell back down. “Six minutes.”

  “You’ve got six minutes, Geri. Remember, Bones has to have both you and Cannelle when he jumps, and she won’t want to go.”

  “Come here, lovelies. That’s better.”

  Bones’s voice changed. Became the luxurious purr that used to melt me. Listening to it now only made me pissed. Worse, next there was breathiness and the soft chafing noises of kissing.

  Then Geri said, “Hey now, sugar. Ease up a bit.”

  “Why?” Cannelle’s voice was belligerent. “I am ready for you to please me.”

  I glanced at the time. “Two more minutes. Stall but be cool, Geri.”

  “Cinnamon, don’t be so greedy. I’ll sweeten her up for you. You’ll like it better for the wait.”

  I beat my fists against my legs but didn’t scream anything. Instead, I watched the seconds tick past and tried to listen with clinical detachment for signs of danger. Unfortunately, most of what I heard wasn’t the sounds of danger.

  Thirty seconds to go. Even if someone overheard, we couldn’t wait any longer. “Tell him the score, Geri,” I said.

  “Bones, a chopper’s going to do a pass over the church about two hundred yards up. He’ll have a chain ladder dangling. When you see him coming, you blast your ass up with both of us and grab it. As soon as we’re clear of the city, you’ll leapfrog onto the back of another plane. Spade will be on it.”

  “What is this?” Cannelle hissed.

  “Ten seconds,” I rasped. “Nine, eight, seven…”

  “Know something, Cinnamon?” Bones lost the seductive timbre to his voice, and it turned into cold steel. “I’m sick of your complaining.”

  “…one,” I yelled.

  Then there were only the sounds of the helicopter before I heard a clanging of metal, a thump, and the words I’d been waiting for from Geri.

  “We’re in!”

  The chopper had special silent blades, which reduced its normal noise. It made Cooper and the two copilots inaudible, however. Geri still wasn’t, of course.

  “Is she still breathing?” Geri asked. “You hit her pretty hard.”

  “She’s alive.”

  There was a sliding noise, then Geri said harshly, “Try to shove my head between your legs, huh? Who’s happy now, bitch?”

  “She can’t feel you kicking her,” Bones said, no criticism in his voice.

  “Yeah, well, I can feel it, and I’m enjoying it!”

  More thumping sounds ensued. I didn’t want to interrupt. Cannelle being kicked pleased me too much.

  “Where is she?” Bones asked.

  I froze. Geri let out a final “oof!” that sounded like a grunt from a coup de grâce kick and replied.

  “When you get on the plane, you’ll be flown to her.”

  Bones didn’t say anything, but his silence seemed to say it all. There’s no need to see him face-to-face, I thought bleakly. Everyone else has been your choice, Bones had said to Cannelle. Yeah, that was all I needed to hear to know it was over. Vampires might be able to forgive cheating as an acceptable form of revenge, but I must be too human for that. I’d put up with a lot from Bones and consider it justified payback, but not this.

  I waited until Bones had transferred to Spade’s plane as planned before unhooking my headpiece. Geri was probably delighted not to have my voice pumping into her eardrum anymore. Only Bones was doing the aerial jump; Geri and Cannelle were staying in the helicopter. Spade’s plane was supposed to rendezvous with me at one of Don’s locations, but that wasn’t necessary now.

  I called my uncle. “Change Bones’s flight plan,” I said. “Don’t tell me where to, but don’t fly him where I’ll be.”

  My uncle didn’t ask unnecessary questions. “All right, Cat.”

  I hung up. Vlad had been watching me the entire time. I managed to muster what would have been a terrible imitation of a smile.

  “That answers that.”

  “It’s not as if his prior habits were unfamiliar to you,” Vlad replied, no false sympathy in his voice.

  No, they weren’t. But I hadn’t expected to listen while Bones admitted to numerous affairs. Or had I? He might have told me the same thing to my face had I met with him. God, at least I could avoid that. I’d burst into tears and lose the very small shred of dignity I had left.

  Two hours later, we landed at the base, though I didn’t know where. From the outside, most military installations looked the same, anyway, not that I was looking. I had my eyes shut and my hand on Vlad’s arm as I got off the plane.

  “Hello, Commander,” a male voice said.

  I smiled still with my eyes closed. “Cooper, I’d say nice to see you, but give me a minute.”

  He grunted, which was his version of a belly laugh, and soon I was inside the facility.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Cooper said.

  His familiar face was the first thing I saw, dark-skinned and with hair even shorter than Tate’s. I gave him a brief hug, which seemed to surprise him, but he was smiling when I let go.

  “Missed you, freak,” he said, still with a smile.

  I laughed even though it was hoarse. “You too, Coop. What’s the news?”

  “Geri’s chopper arrived thirty minutes ago. The prisoner was secured and awake. Ian is here. He’s been questioning the prisoner.”

  That made me smile for real. I’d had Ian flown here because he was a cold-blooded bastard—and right now, I liked that about him.

  “You can stay here or come with me, it’s up to you,” I said to Vlad.

  “I’ll come,” he replied, giving Fabian, who’d just floated up, a cursory glance. The ghost hovered over the ground next to Cooper, who couldn’t see him because he was human.

  “Fabian, you’ve been incredible,” I said. “No matter what, I’ll take care of you. You’ll always have a place to stay.”

  “Thank you,” he said, brushing his hand through mine in his form of affection. “I’m sorry, Cat.”

  He didn’t need to say what for. That was obvious.

  My smile turned brittle. “Whoever said ignorance was bliss was shortsighted, if you ask me. But what’s done is done, and now I have an acquaintance to renew.”

  The ghost looked momentarily hopeful. “Bones?”

  “No. The little bitch inside, and you might not want to follow me for this one. It’s going to ge
t ugly.”

  I didn’t have to tell him twice. In a whirl, Fabian vanished. Neat trick. Sucked to have to be a phantom to do it.

  My uncle waited for me farther inside the hallway. He looked…bad.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked, instantly worried. Had Bones’s plane been tailed, or attacked, or worse?

  “No.” He coughed. “I just have a cold.”

  “Oh.” I gave him a hug hello. It surprised me when he squeezed back and held on. We weren’t a cuddly family.

  Vlad sniffed the air. “A cold?”

  Don let me go and gave him an annoyed look. “That’s right. Don’t concern yourself. I’m not contagious to your kind.”

  He said it harshly. Jeez, maybe Don really did feel like shit. My uncle wasn’t normally so surly, even though vampires weren’t his favorite group of people.

  Vlad looked him up and down and shrugged.

  Don went right to business. It was his defining characteristic. “I just came from the downstairs cell. The prisoner hasn’t been very forthcoming about her role in this.”

  “Then it’s time for me to see my old friend.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  CANNELLE DIDN’T APPEAR TO HAVE AGED A day in the twelve years since I’d seen her. In fact, only her reddish brown hair was different with its new, shorter length. I guessed it was where she got her name. Cannelle. French for cinnamon.

  She sat on a steel bench that took up an entire wall in the square, boxlike space. Cannelle wasn’t restrained, since Ian and Geri were in the room with her. Even if by some miracle she got past them, there were still three more guards outside the door. Her eye was black, and blood dripped from her mouth and temple, but she wasn’t cowed.

  When I walked in, she blinked, then laughed.

  “Bonjour, Catherine! It’s been a long time. You finally look like a woman. I am very surprised.”

  I felt a nasty grin pull my lips. “Bonjour yourself, Cannelle. Yep, I grew tits and ass and a whole lot more. What a difference a dozen years makes, huh?”

  She went right for the throat. “I must compliment you on your lover, Bones. Qu’un animal, non? In this instance, his reputation was…not gracious enough.”

  Bitch. I wanted to rip the smirk right off her face.

  “Too bad he didn’t seem bowled over by your bedroom skills. I mean, the fact that you couldn’t get him to leave the city for a ménage à cinq doesn’t speak well, does it?”

  Ian chuckled with malevolent humor. “Oh, you two ladies have a history, do you? You might want to start speaking now, poppet. I’ve been gentle with you, but Cat has a wicked temper. She’ll likely kill you before I can reason with her.”

  “Her?” Cannelle flicked her finger contemptuously at me. “She’s a child.”

  Boy, did she pick the wrong girl in the wrong mood.

  “Hand me that knife, Ian.”

  He passed it over, his turquoise eyes sparkling. Geri looked a little nervous. Cannelle didn’t even blink.

  “You won’t kill me, Catherine. You play the hard woman, but I still see a little girl before me.”

  Ian regarded Cannelle with amazement. “She’s unhinged.”

  “No, she’s just remembering who I used to be. Gregor made that mistake also, at first.”

  I smiled at Cannelle again while twirling the knife from one hand to the other. Her eyes followed the movement, and for the first time, she looked uncertain.

  “Remember that big bad bitch Gregor didn’t want me turning into? Well, it happened. Now, I’m in a hurry, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to slam this knife through your hand, and the only way you’ll stop me is by talking, so please. Please. Don’t talk.”

  She didn’t believe me. When Ian held Cannelle’s wrist to the bench, forcing her hand flat, she was still giving me that I-dare-you glare. When I held the knife over her hand, giving her one last chance to talk, she still thought I was bluffing. Only after I slammed the blade into her hand between her wrist and her fingers, jerking the blade in a twist, did she get the picture.

  And couldn’t stop screaming.

  “I know that hurts,” I remarked. “My father did that to my wrist last year, and damn, it was painful. Crippling, too. When I yanked the blade out, all my tendons were severed. I needed vampire blood to heal the damage. You will, too, Cannelle, or you’ll never use this hand again. So you can talk, and a dab of vampire blood’ll have you good as new. Or don’t talk, and I cripple your right hand next.”

  “Fix it! Fix it!”

  “You’ll tell us what we want to know?”

  “Oui!”

  I sighed and yanked the knife out. “Ian?”

  Cannelle was still screaming when Ian sliced his palm and cupped it over her mouth.

  “Quit wailing and swallow.”

  She gulped at his hand. In seconds, her bleeding stopped, and the wound in her hand disappeared.

  Geri couldn’t tear her eyes away from Cannelle’s mending hand. She shivered and rubbed her own hands together as if in reflex. I was more concerned with Cannelle’s face. Judging whether or not she’d go back on her word.

  “Since we’ve established that I’m in a really foul mood, let’s move on to the question-and-answer phase. Oh, and if you make me use this knife again…I’m not healing anything I cut. What was your purpose in the French Quarter with Bones?”

  Cannelle kept flexing her hand while staring at me in horror. “I was to fuck him, naturellement, and once assured that you heard of his infidelity, I was to take him to Gregor. Marie wouldn’t let Gregor’s people into the Quarter, though she did tell Gregor he could come.”

  That was news. I’d thought no one was allowed in.

  Ian was also interested. “If she’d granted him passage, then why didn’t Gregor meet Crispin inside the Quarter and fight him there if he wanted to kill him so badly?”

  Cannelle’s mouth dipped. “Gregor said Bones wasn’t worthy of a fair fight.”

  “Or Gregor was just chicken shit and wanted to stack the odds,” I muttered.

  “Gregor is stronger,” Cannelle hissed, “but why would he allow his opponent to die with honor, considering his crimes?”

  I wasn’t about to get into a character fight with Cannelle over Gregor. “So Gregor got Marie, the Queen of Orleans, to side with him. Interesting.”

  Cannelle shrugged. “Marie said Gregor could only ambush Bones outside her city, which was why she didn’t let Gregor come with forces into the Quarter. Marie didn’t want to participate in making Bones leave, either, but Gregor made her.”

  “He forced her?”

  “Non, you misunderstand. He made her. ‘Twas his blood that raised her as a ghoul, and Gregor killed Marie’s other sire the night he changed her, so her fealty was only to him. Gregor agreed to release Marie in exchange, and Marie’s wanted free of Gregor for over a hundred years.”

  “And Bones would trust Marie because she always guarantees safe passage in her meetings.” That clever, dirty schmuck.

  Cannelle actually smirked. “Oui.”

  My anger turned to ice. “Is that all, Cannelle?”

  “Oui.”

  I turned to Ian. “Think she’s got more?”

  He met my gaze with equal coldness. “No, poppet. I think that’s it.”

  I still had the knife in my hand, slick from Cannelle’s blood.

  “Cannelle,” I said in a steady, clear tone. “I’m going to kill you. I’m telling you this so you can take a moment to pray if you choose, or to reflect, whatever. You lured my husband around with the full intention of taking him to his slaughter, and that’s just not forgivable to me.”

  “Cat, no,” Geri said.

  I didn’t answer her. Cannelle gave me a look filled with malicious defiance. “But Bones isn’t your husband. Gregor is.”

  “Semantics. You’re wasting time. Get right with God. Fast.”

  “I am a human,” she hissed. “A living, breathing person. You may have it in you to wound me, but not to kill
me.”

  I ignored that, too. “Marie got her freedom for her role in this. What did Gregor promise? To change you into a vampire?”

  Another hostile glare. “Oui. It’s my payment for all the years I’ve served him.”

  “You backed the wrong horse,” I said. “You’re not going to be a vampire, Cannelle, but I’ll let you die like one.”

  She stood up. “You wouldn’t dare. Gregor would kill you.”

  Then she looked down. The silver knife was buried in her chest. It even vibrated for a few seconds with her last remaining heartbeats. Cannelle watched with astonishment the handle quiver before her eyes glazed and her knees buckled.

  I stood over her and felt more of that awful coldness.

  “Maybe Gregor will kill me for this, Cannelle. I’m willing to take that chance.”

  I went to see Don. He was busy with his own preparations for departure. I didn’t know where my former unit was stationed now, and that was good by me. I wouldn’t have put it past Gregor to use that information to his advantage. Don wouldn’t, either. That’s why everyone from our division was clearing out right after I did.

  Vlad was in Don’s office. As soon as I entered, they both quit speaking. My mouth curled.

  “How obvious are you two? Come on, boys, what’s the topic? ‘Will Cat have a breakdown?’ or ‘Ten easy steps to talk someone out of suicide’? Both of you can save it. I’m okay.”

  My uncle coughed. “Don’t be so dramatic. I was getting a way to contact you since you can’t exactly send me a postcard, and Vlad was informing me that you’ll be with him.”

  I gave Vlad a look that would have been challenging—if I hadn’t just spent umpteen hours flying overseas on an empty stomach, lack of sleep, and general hypertension.

  “For now.”

  Vlad smiled, disdainful and amused at the same time. “It’s your choice, Cat. I’m not forcing you.”

  Don looked back and forth between us, his gray eyes narrowing. They were the same smoky color as mine, and right now, they were glinting with suspicion.

  “Is there something going on with the two of you that I should be aware of?”