One Grave at a Time
Page 24

I stared at the page displayed, wondering why Tyler was showing it to me. He must be starting his Christmas list early because this item had nothing to do with the supernatural. Then I looked at it more closely, thought it through . . . and started to smile.
"I love it," I said, careful in my reply because I knew Kramer was listening. "I want ten. No, make that two dozen. Bones has his credit card numbers memorized, get them from him later. We'll ship them to where Spade's staying."
Tyler grinned. "Sure will. Say hi to ol' Michael Myers for me."
"Huh? Oh, because Kramer's a Halloween serial killer, I get it. Sure, but you make sure to stay in here and don't come out."
He rolled his eyes. "Girlfriend, you might be dead, but I don't want to be yet. Bet your ass I'm staying in here."
Another crash sounded near the front of the house, louder than the other ones. My cue that Kramer was getting impatient. I'd love to leave him out there stewing in his own ectoplasm, but we had to keep the house standing for the next week, so we could finish the trap. Getting it out of here without the ghost seeing was going to be tricky enough. We didn't need to add to that trouble by having to move the trap to a new location just to finish it.
I left the pantry, passing through the kitchen with its bare, open cabinets-those doors made for great window coverings-and the family room where mattresses were the only furniture. When I got to the main entrance of the house, I picked up one of the glass jars filled with burning sage and ducked out of habit as soon as I opened the door.
Sure enough, a hunk of tree branch went whistling over me, followed immediately by two side mirrors from the car. They clanged into the family room, one landing on the mattresses, the others resting by the rest of the items Kramer had chucked at Bones earlier. I made a mental note to carry them out later and reappeared in the doorway.
"Guten Tag," I said, hefting the sage jar in salute. "Stay where I can see you, or I go back inside."
I knew he'd comply because, for some twisted reason, Kramer liked to do his cursing and threats to our faces. Grumbles in German came from the side of the porch that had the worst damage to it. If Kramer kept ripping out porch boards and flinging them at the house, there wouldn't be any more of it left in the next couple days. But the sage that had Tyler continually coughing kept Kramer from entering the house. All he could do was poltergeist things at it while cursing us in a mixture of German and English, with possibly some Latin thrown in for good measure.
Dark swirls appeared next to the porch, then the familiar white hair sticking out like a stack of bleached hay topped the ghost's tall, thin frame. I waited, not saying anything, tapping the side of the glass in mute warning.
"Hexe," Kramer hissed once he was fully manifested.
"Uh-huh," I replied, recognizing the German word for witch and wondering how long he would ramble on this time. "I'm a woman, so that's how you see me. Watching the feminist movement these past several decades must've really burned your toast."
The Inquisitor didn't respond with a slew of curses like normal. He just smiled wide enough to reveal teeth that were best kept unseen. Eww didn't begin to cover my revulsion at those scraggly brown stumps.
"Toast? No, that is not what I burn," he replied, his expression showing that he savored each word.
If I hadn't known that Bones was in the cellar working on this murdering prick's trap as we spoke, I'd have turned around and gone right back inside. But that would only mean more damage to the house that we'd have to take time away from the trap to repair; plus it would let Kramer know that he'd gotten to me. My biggest motivator for staying, however, was simple: Every second that Kramer was out here pissing me off meant he wasn't tormenting the last woman he'd picked out. Elisabeth still hadn't found her, and our research efforts hadn't turned her up yet, either. I wasn't alone, with no one believing me about the torment the ghost dished out, like she was. I could stand here and deal with him because it was all I could do for that woman until we found out who she was and brought her to Spade and Denise.
"You're going to have a lonely Halloween this year, what with Francine and Lisa being out of reach," I noted coolly. "And what will you do when we find the last woman-and we will, my snaggle-toothed friend. Then the only things you'll be toasting with your temporarily fleshy paws are marshmallows."
That got me the curses I'd expected earlier. Some of it was in English, some in German, but I was getting pretty well versed at recognizing certain words, so I got the gist of it.
"Blah blah blah, I'm a slutty witch, and the fires of hell await me, blah. You really need some new material. My mother can curse me out better than that."
A porch board went sailing at me. I knocked it aside with one hand, the other still wrapped around the sage jar. Kramer wouldn't dare to attempt one of those energy punches at me as long as I had that close by, and those punches hurt a lot more than random objects if he got lucky and the next one he threw landed on me.
"I've been thinking of what I'm going to wear this Halloween," I said, as if a board being chucked at me wasn't worth interrupting my train of thought. "I haven't dressed up for it in ages, but you've inspired me. I think I'll go as Elphaba from Wicked. She was a misunderstood witch who had a mob after her, but she tricked them and won in the end. Heartwarming, right?"
More curses, this time insulting not only me, but the womb that bore me and the dark lord who fathered me. That part, at least, Kramer got right. My father was a Class A asshole. He and Kramer had that in common. They'd have everything in common soon if I got my way. My dad was currently serving a life sentence consisting of truly cruel and unusual punishments, from what I'd heard.
"I just love our talks," I went on, avoiding the three new boards that he hurtled at me. "I'm not really sure what you get out of them, but they're good for me. Why, last night, I took some curtain scraps and a few slivers of board pieces and made a little Kramer doll. Then I ripped its arms and legs off before driving a nail up its ass. I mean, if you hadn't come by yesterday, I wouldn't have thought to do that-"
"You will die in flames!" Kramer roared, zooming up so close to me that the smoke from my jar of sage brushed him before he caught himself and pulled back. I didn't move, not wanting to give Kramer the satisfaction of even a flinch. His gaze bored into mine with cruelty too deep to be madness, and when he bared those repellant teeth at me, I couldn't help but think that when he was alive, his breath would've stunk enough for me to smell it from a dozen feet away.
"I don't think so."
My voice was steady, and I didn't blink as I stared back at him. "I'm a vampire, so it's possible for me to die by fire if it's big enough, and I can't get away, but I'm guessing I'll die one day at the hands of some Master vampire who's stronger, faster, and just plain luckier with a silver knife. You, on the other hand, won't ever die, will you? You'll stay stuck in that air cloud you call a body, watching the world pass you by while you can't do anything except rage at it, and most of the time, no one in it can hear you. Me? I'd rather be dead than that."
Kramer didn't move, but I felt his fury in the coldness that rolled across my skin, as if the air had dipped ten degrees in the past few seconds. Then, a ripple flowed across his body like a rock skipped across a pond, making him hazy for the barest moment before he flared into full living color. His tunic wasn't brown, it was gray with mud splatters all over it, and his eyes were deeper green than the pale color they'd looked before. He had pockmarks in his skin that the haziness and his stubbly white beard had concealed, and his silvery hair still held faint streaks of blond.
Without reaching out my hand, I knew he was now as solid as I was. Elisabeth had looked much more vivid when she'd been flesh, and so did her murderer.
"Is that mud from the old misguided idea that putrefied flesh equated to holiness, or from you landing in a big puddle when Elisabeth incited your horse to throw you and break your neck?" I asked softly. "I wonder how long you can hold on to that flesh before it's gone. Two minutes, maybe three?"
As I asked the question, I silently dared him to make a move. Please, oh please, try to hit me. I so want to show you what I can do against an opponent who isn't made of air!
Kramer smiled. Those teeth were more vivid, too, and that wasn't a good thing.
"What you should wonder is how many more witches I must burn before I am powerful enough to wear flesh every day instead of merely one," he drew out, each word falling like a drop of poison. "I think not many."
"You think burning women alive will turn you back into a real boy?" God, was he a sick bastard!
That nauseating smile widened. "Fear strengthens me just as blood feeds your miserable kind. I drew strength from sighted mortals until I was able to appear to whomever I chose. It took centuries of that before I could wear flesh again, and it lasted only minutes. Yet after I burned my first trio of witches on Samhain, I was whole for an hour. Now each witch I send to the flames provides me with such a feast of terror that it strengthens me like nothing you could imagine. In time, I will not be limited to walking the earth only on Samhain but will reside in flesh whenever I choose."
Even though I knew that Bones would chew me out for leaving the smoke-filled safety of the house behind me, I couldn't resist lunging forward and whipping my fist across Kramer's jaw as hard and fast as I could. It connected with a crunch that was so satisfying, I'd swung another one before I could think, breaking the sage jar across his face because I still had it gripped in my other hand.
Kramer disappeared before the glass shards fell to the porch. Pain blasted in my gut, though, letting me know he hadn't gone far. I backed up, hitting the doorframe in my haste, grabbing a handful of the smoking sage before Kramer could go in for another blow. Or before the porch caught fire, which would be even worse.
"If you're done playing with that sod, care to move away from the door? Or will you make me knock you over?" an English voice drawled.
I'd been so concentrated on Kramer, waiting for a glimpse of those telltale dark swirls or-even better-another chance to connect a blow to his temporarily solid flesh, that I'd let my other senses become lax. Ian strolled across the remains of the bean field, one hand grasped tight on my mother's upper arm and the other holding a large wad of smoldering sage. He must've flown them both in. Good thing, because if he'd driven, Kramer would have another car to trash before the night was through.
"Kramer's out here," I warned them, glancing around but still not seeing where the ghost had gone off to.
Ian snorted. "That's why I said you need to move." Then he picked my mother up, flying toward the door like they'd been fired out of a gun. I moved out of the way just in time to avoid being barreled over.
"Take your hands off me," my mother snapped once she was vertical instead of horizontal.
"Now that we're here, I will," Ian replied, letting her go. She stepped back several paces, but Ian just brushed off some lint from his clothes as if he couldn't care less. Then he looked around at what used to be the family room but now looked more like a junkyard from the mattresses, boards, tree limbs, and car parts haphazardly littering the floor.
"I say, Reaper, this place looks almost as dreadful as the one I grew up in. Is all this from that pesky ghost?"
"The very same," I said dryly. Kramer started up a whole new batch of curses at this interruption, revealing that he was still on the porch, but Ian and my mother weren't here because they'd missed us, so something must be going on. "Let's go into the cellar where the three of us can have a little more . . . privacy."
The grin Ian flashed me made me relieved to see white, even teeth again, but I should've noticed that it was steeped in wickedness.
"I've had mothers and daughters at the same time before, but you're Crispin's wife, so I must regretfully decline."
"You are such a pig!" my mother exclaimed, saving me the trouble of saying it.
Another spate of English and German came from the porch. Looked like Kramer thought Ian was a pig, too. In this one and only one thing, we were in agreement.
"Buh-bye, asshole," I told the ghost. Then I shut the front door, Kramer still bitching on the other side of it, and swept out a hand to Ian. "Follow me. Once we're downstairs, you can tell me and Bones the real reason you're here, aside from amusing yourself with sleazy remarks."
"Oh, I'll tell you right now," he replied smoothly. "Your dear mum tried to eat one of the women you're attempting to save."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The cellar seemed much smaller with the four of us in it. Tyler sat at the top of the stairs, the door cracked so he could get enough clean air to breathe, but not open all the way because we didn't want a certain nosy ghost to overhear our conversation.
I didn't need to ask my mother if Ian was correct. The instant guilt that flashed across her face when he made his unbelievable statement was answer enough for me. What I waited to ask until all of us were underground was one simple question.
"What the hell happened, Mom?"
"It was an accident," she muttered, looking at the plain wooden wall instead of me. "It wouldn't happen again."
"Yes it would, and if you bit Denise the next time, Charles would kill you no matter whose mother you were," Ian stated.
I rubbed my forehead against the mental image Ian described. If my mother bit Denise and tasted her demonically-altered, drugging blood, Spade would kill her. He'd do it even though it would cause a huge rift between him and Bones because of me, not to mention how it would horrify Denise. But the lengths a vampire would go to in order to protect his spouse superseded all other bonds.