“You know we can’t abide you, so why pretend this is a social call?”
Either Madigan remembered Bones’s trademark bluntness or he didn’t care about the insult. I couldn’t tell which, since I couldn’t hear his thoughts behind the Barry Manilow song he kept repeating in his head. I hated Madigan, but I had to give it to him for the defense he’d developed against vampire mind reading. No one could push past the annoying mantras he chose. Then, with a glint in his eyes that looked too satisfied for my liking, he waved at the chairs opposite his desk.
“I told you I’d have you arrested if you ever came back, but as it happens, we have some business to discuss.”
He had business with me? Curiosity kept me from demanding to know where Tate and the others were. I’d see what Madigan had up his sleeve first. Bones stayed where he was, but I sat and stretched my legs out almost leisurely as I regarded the thin, bespectacled man across from me.
“Shoot.”
A slight smile stretched Madigan’s mouth, as if he were contemplating the other possibility behind that directive.
“The last time you were in my office, you told me to read up on your personnel file. I took your advice.”
I vaguely remembered telling him to do that so he’d realize my uncle had once been as mistrusting of vampires as Madigan was. Don got over his prejudice, but Madigan would never change his hostile view of my kind, not that I cared anymore.
“Uh huh,” I said with a noncommittal grunt.
“When I did, I found something interesting,” he went on before taking his glasses off as if to examine them for lint.
“What?” I asked, not bothering to hide the boredom in my voice.
He glanced up and his blue gaze gleamed. “You left before your term of service was over.”
Now I snorted in amusement. “You should’ve read those files more carefully. Don agreed to shorten my term of service if Bones made vampires out of the soldiers he selected. We held up our end when Bones turned Tate and Juan. Dave being brought back as a ghoul was a bonus.”
“That was the deal Don requested from his superiors, but his request was denied.”
Madigan gave me a brief, smug smile as he put his glasses back on. “According to the US government, you still have five years left of active duty to complete, and unlike your late uncle, I’m not going to falsify records to let you out of it.”
I was too shocked to respond, but Bones’s laughter broke the silence.
“You must be taking a piss on me.”
“Am I expected to know what that means?” Madigan asked coolly.
Bones leaned forward, all traces of laughter gone. “Allow me to be clearer: If you think you’re forcing my wife to work for you, you don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
Whether he meant himself or me, I didn’t know, and I finally found my voice.
“You get props for telling the best joke I’ve heard all year, but I’m not in the mood to play games. We came to find out where Tate, Juan, Dave, and Cooper are. From what I hear, they haven’t been home in weeks.”
“That’s because they’re dead.”
My mind immediately rejected the flatly spoken words, which is why I didn’t leap forward and tear Madigan’s throat out on the spot.
“Two jokes. You’re on a roll, but I’m out of patience. Where are they?”
“Dead.”
Madigan enunciated the word with something close to satisfaction this time. I was on my feet, fangs poised to tear flesh, when Bones hauled me back with a grip so strong I couldn’t break it even in my rage-induced state.
“How?” Bones asked calmly.
Madigan gave a cagey look at the hold Bones had on me before replying. “They were killed while trying to take down a vampire nest.”
“Must have been quite the nest.”
Madigan all but shrugged. “As it turned out, yes.”
“I want their bodies.”
Madigan showed more surprise than he had when I lunged at him. “What?”
“Their bodies,” Bones repeated, his tone hardening. “Now.”
“Why? You didn’t even like Tate,” Madigan muttered.
My murderous haze cleared. He was stalling, which meant in all likelihood he was lying about their deaths. I tapped Bones’s arm. He released me, but one hand remained on my waist.
“My feelings are irrelevant,” Bones answered. “I sired them so they’re mine, and if they’re dead, then you have no further use for them.”
“What possible use would you have?” Madigan demanded.
A dark brow rose. “Not your concern. I’m waiting.”
“Then it’s a good thing you don’t age,” Madigan snapped as he rose from his chair. “Their bodies were cremated and their ashes disposed of, so there’s nothing left to give you.”
If Madigan wanted us to believe they were dead, then they must be in serious trouble. Even if Madigan wasn’t behind it, he clearly intended to leave them to their fates.
I wasn’t about to.
Something in my stare must have alarmed him because he glanced left and right before flinging a hand in Bones’s direction.
“If you’re not intending to let her complete her term of service, then both of you can get out before I have her jailed for dereliction of duty, desertion, and trying to attack me.”
I expected Bones to tell him where to go, which was why I was stunned when he merely nodded.
“Until next time.”
“What?” I burst out. “We’re not leaving without more answers!”
His hand tightened on my waist.
“We are, Kitten. There’s nothing for us here.”
I glared at Bones before turning my attention to the thin older man. Madigan’s face had paled, but underneath the heavy scent of cologne, he didn’t smell like fear. Instead, his blue gaze was defiant. Almost . . . daring.
Once more, Bones’s grip tightened. Something else was going on. I didn’t know what, but I trusted Bones enough not to grab Madigan and start biting the truth out of him like I wanted to. Instead, I smiled enough to bare my fangs.
“Sorry, but I don’t think you and I would have a healthy working relationship, so I’ll have to decline the job offer.”
Multiple footsteps sounded in the hall. Moments later, heavily armed, helmeted guards appeared in the doorway. At some point, Madigan must have pushed a silent alarm—an upgrade he’d installed since my previous visit to his office.
“Get out,” Madigan repeated.
I didn’t bother with any threats, but the single look I gave him said that this wasn’t over.
WE WERE FOLLOWED from the compound all the way back to the tree where Bones left his cell phone. Once he retrieved it, we launched ourselves into the air. It took an hour of streaking across the sky before we lost the helicopter. Bones could have crashed it, but I didn’t have anything against the pilot aside from annoyance over his maneuverability skills. Once assured that we’d lost our tail, I plummeted down into a nearby field, landing with a skidding thud.
Bones dropped to the ground next to me without so much as a bent stem of grass to show for it. One day I’d master landing that gracefully. For now, I did well not to leave a small crater in my wake.
“Why did we let Madigan go so easily?” were my first words.
Bones dusted some dirt off that I’d kicked up with my impact. “My telekinesis isn’t strong enough to have stopped all the guns.”
My laugh was more disbelieving than amused. “You thought the guards would be faster than you?”
“Not them,” Bones said steadily. “The automated machine guns in the walls on either side of us.”
“What?” I gasped.
Then I remembered how Madigan had glanced to our right and our left when I was about to charge him. I’d thought he was looking about
in alarm. Obviously not. No wonder he hadn’t smelled like fear.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“The room smelled of silver and gunpowder though none could be seen, plus the texture of the walls across from his desk had changed. His glancing at them when he felt threatened only confirmed it.”
Here I’d thought the silent alarm had been Madigan’s only addition to his office. Note to self: Pay more attention to surroundings.
“Why didn’t he use them? He’s always considered us a threat and now that we know he’s lying about the guys, he’s right.”
Bones’s expression was coldly contemplative. “Perhaps he wasn’t sure those guns would be enough, but more telling was how he tried to compel you to work for him. He wants you for something, Kitten, which means he needs you alive. The new security measures were only if he had no other choice.”
I was silent as I digested this. Since we first met several months ago, Madigan had exhibited an unusual interest in me, and it wasn’t the flattering kind. Whatever he wanted, it would end in my death, of that I had no doubt. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was what he hoped to accomplish before that.
He wouldn’t get a chance to find out. Once I discovered what had happened to my friends, I’d kill Madigan.
“Now what?” I asked, mentally gearing up for the road ahead.
Bones gave me a measured look. “Now we track down your uncle and force him to tell us the secret he’s tried so hard to keep.”
About the Author
JEANIENE FROST is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the Night Huntress series and the Night Huntress World novels. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to nineteen different countries. Jeaniene lives in North Carolina with her husband, Matthew, who long ago accepted that she rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking, and traveling—by car. Airplanes, children, and cookbooks frighten her.
To know more about Jeaniene, please visit her website at www.jeanienefrost.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Also by Jeaniene Frost
Twice Tempted
Once Burned
One Grave at a Time
This Side of the Grave
Eternal Kiss of Darkness
First Drop of Crimson
Destined for an Early Grave
At Grave’s End
One Foot in the Grave
Halfway to the Grave
Coming Soon
Up From the Grave
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Home for the Holidays” was originally published in the anthology The Bite Before Christmas in 2011 and 2012 by William Morrow and Avon Books, respectively, Imprints of HarperCollins Publishers
Excerpt from Up From the Grave copyright © 2014 by Jeaniene Frost.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Copyright © 2011 by Jeaniene Frost. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062322043
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Jeaniene Frost, Home for the Holidays
(Series: Night Huntress # 6.50)
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