“Not he, Kitten. She.”
Denise managed to nod, while her eyes rolled back in her head. “Sarah,” she mumbled right before passing out. “Sarah shot me.”
Thirty-three
I didn’t want to believe it, but even with pieces of her head not fully regenerated yet, I didn’t doubt Denise’s statement. The woman we thought we were protecting from Kramer’s evil intentions must actually have been his accomplice instead.
“I’ll kill the bitch,” Spade snarled, emerald blazing from his eyes and fangs flashing out from his upper teeth.
From the roiling fury leaking out of Bones’s aura, Spade would have to take a number and get in line.
“Get Denise cleaned up, Charles,” Bones said. “She’s been through enough without waking up covered in her own blood and brains again.”
Spade scooped Denise up, carrying her out of the room while still muttering under his breath about all the different ways he was going to kill Sarah. I was too shell-shocked to begin plotting her death, but I knew my own murderous rage would come soon.
“Kramer hates women, why would he partner up with one?” I wondered, trying to sort through this bombshell.
“Easy. He knows what he intends to do with her once she’s fulfilled her usefulness,” Bones replied shortly.
She’d been useful indeed, getting her enemies to lead her right to Lisa and Francine. No wonder Kramer had been so smug the last time I’d seen him. Guilt burned its way over my emotions. We’d promised Lisa and Francine that we’d protect them. Instead, we’d helped the co-conspirator in their murders to orchestrate the worst sort of betrayal right under our noses.
“Where’d she get the gun?” Ian asked.
“We kept three of them here in anticipation of the accomplice’s accompanying Kramer in his attack,” Spade replied from another room in the house. “Showed each of the women where they were, how to use them . . . though Sarah already knew how to shoot, bloody slag.”
She must have forced Lisa and Francine to go with her at gunpoint. After what they would’ve seen her do to Denise, I had no doubt the women would have been too frightened to refuse.
Bones gave me another of those unreadable looks before he spoke. “She didn’t leave with Lisa and Francine on foot. Did you have another car here?”
“Yes.” The bitterness in Spade’s voice was clear despite the sounds of a shower turning on. “I left it for Denise in case of an emergency.”
Sarah used it to cart away Francine and Lisa instead, probably stuffing them in the trunk after binding and gagging them. If she really wanted to ensure a smooth ride, she’d have bashed them in the head and knocked them out for the trip. Just thinking about it made me want to bash my own head in frustration. From the looks of Denise, they’d been gone for hours, long enough to be far away by now. Sarah probably put her plan into action shortly after Spade left to meet us at the facility.
Maybe she left something that would give us a clue as to where she was taking them. I doubted it, but just standing around was making me crazy. I left the ruined bedroom and went downstairs, looking for trash cans. Please let Sarah be stupid enough to have jotted down incriminating information on something, then thrown it away.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear any of her plans from her thoughts, Crispin,” I heard Ian say.
“They were scattered, unstable, and frequently incoherent. I thought it was because of Kramer’s abuse, not malicious intentions,” was Bones’s measured reply. “Believe me, I wish I’d paid closer attention.”
Me too, but the brief time we’d spent with Sarah had been mostly while we were flying. That made her scream mentally and verbally—not much coherency there. Then while we waited for Spade, she’d only shown a fear of vampires—understandable ninety-nine percent of the time with people who had just found out about their existence—and a desire to meet Lisa and Francine.
Boy, had we been wrong about her motivations behind that. The other sickening part of this whole situation was the knowledge that if Sarah was Kramer’s accomplice, not his third intended victim, that woman was still out there. As if in pitiless reminder of how time was running out, I passed a clock on my way to the kitchen. Five minutes after three in the morning, making it officially October 31. Halloween was upon us, and we’d been the ones tricked all over the place.
“One of us should fly over the area to see if we can spot the car while the others stay here and search for clues,” I stated, heading for the trash can in the corner. “Someone should go by Elisabeth’s apartment, too. Kramer might have damaged her phone after she sent that last text, and there’s still a third victim to be found. Maybe Elisabeth’s noticed another woman who Kramer’s been hanging around—”
“I know who the third woman is,” Bones stated.
That stopped me in the process of pulling out wadded-up bits of food, paper, and packages from the kitchen trash can. He came down the stairs, his expression frozen into beautifully sculpted, unyielding planes.
“You do? How? Who is she?”
That dark brown gaze didn’t waver despite the babble of questions I lobbed at him. “It’s you, Kitten.”
“Me?” I blurted in disbelief. All activity upstairs ground to a halt from the sudden silence. “It’s not me. Why would you even think—”
“You’re the only one who fits,” he cut me off. “Who else has Kramer fixated on these past several weeks? You. He followed you around even before he knew we were setting a trap for him, always attacking you first except the one time I was kissing you, and he tried to kill me for it. The time frame of when he picks his victims fits because he met you right when Francine and Lisa said he started tormenting them. You’ve suffered recent tragedies like they have. You’ve been staying in the Sioux City area. He even had Sarah try to hang your cat! Why would he do that unless he considered Helsing to be your familiar as he did with Lisa’s and Francine’s cats?”
“He knows animals can sense him,” I whispered, reeling at all the points Bones brought up.
“Sarah didn’t do a thing to Dexter, did she?” he noted. “You fit Kramer’s profile perfectly save for one thing—you’re not single. But he has a plan to separate you from me, and I’m telling you now, I won’t allow it to happen.”
I scoffed to cover the realization snaking through me that everything Bones said made sense. What was the first thing I’d done when I met Kramer? Told him I had witchcraft in my veins and sicced a bunch of Remnants on him. He’d called me a witch from that day on, among other choice names, and talked about how I would burn, but I’d brushed that off as meaningless ranting. Too late, I realized that nothing Kramer did was meaningless.
I’d been so sure I’d beat him because he’d vastly underestimated me. Looked like I’d been the one to vastly underestimate him.
“Kramer knows he can’t separate us,” I began, then the final realization hit me, making my jaw clench shut.
Not unless I thought by going to him alone, I could save Francine and Lisa.
Bones’s smile was more a twisting of his lips. “That’s right, luv, which is why I expect it won’t be long until you’re visited by a ghost.”
Ian left the house to do a flyover of the surrounding areas on the off chance that Sarah was dumb enough to park Spade’s car where it could be seen. Spade stayed upstairs with Denise, cleaning her up and accelerating her healing by giving her some of his blood. From what I could hear, she was sleeping almost normally now, her pulse no longer weak or thready. Bones was on Spade’s laptop, hacking into every account of Sarah’s he could find to see if she owned or rented any other properties where she might have taken Francine and Lisa. We could hope she’d been that dumb, but if she was directed by Kramer, I doubted it. The ghost had proven to be more than clever, and there were so many empty, abandoned places they could use that wouldn’t leave a trail leading back to Sarah, it would be a miracle if we found anything that way.
I found Helsing hiding underneath the family room couch, flatte
ned out to fit in the narrow space. I had to lift it for him to crawl out, then spent several minutes coaxing him onto my lap. He hissed if my hand brushed his neck when I petted him, either out of bad memories or bruising. Or both. Dexter stayed by my feet, seeking the reassurance of closeness but not daring to jump on the couch where he’d be in range of Helsing’s swatting paws.
Tyler and my mother were on their way over. No need for them to wait until later anymore. Bones fitted the broken front door back over the space, using nails to hold it in place since the hinges were damaged beyond repair. Anyone coming or going would have to use the back door. Sage burned softly in every room, preventing any type of spectral commuting. Even so, Kramer’s presence seemed to loom in the house, mocking us from the scent of blood permeating through the closed bedroom door where Denise had been shot to the jars of sage that we had to keep refilling and relighting. When I heard rustling outside that wasn’t caused by the wind or the natural sounds of wildlife, I wasn’t surprised. I eased my kitty off my lap, careful not to jostle him since he had to be sore from Sarah’s rough treatment, and stood.
Bones remained on the couch, laptop in front of him, tightly coiled energy flaring past his shields for a moment.
“See if you can glean any useful information,” he said, nailing me with a hard stare, “but you are not leaving with him.”
That last part was said with an undercurrent of steel. I nodded, not arguing because I had no intention of going anywhere with the Inquisitor. At least, not yet.
I went out the back door of the house, heading toward the vacant barn where I’d heard those rustling sounds. I hadn’t brought any burning sage with me, but I didn’t expect that Kramer would have come here to attack me. No, my money was on his being here for two reasons: to gloat, and to make me an offer he didn’t think I could refuse.
Sure enough, a tunic-clad figure hovered about a foot off the ground near the open doors of the barn. I held out my hands to show that they were empty of sage and stopped about twenty yards from him.
“You touch me even once, and this conversation is over,” were my first words.
From the way his eyes gleamed, that statement pleased the Inquisitor. “You finally fear me, Hexe?”
“I’m low on patience,” I replied. “So playing our usual games is last on my list of things I want to do.”
He came near enough that if he stretched out his arm, he would touch me, but I didn’t back away. I wasn’t kidding about my warning. If he laid even one energy-filled finger on me, our conversation was over, and he could rage at me while I was back inside the sage-filled house.
“My servant brought the others to me,” he said, clearly relishing each word.
Though not a muscle on me twitched, the confirmation hit me like a punch to the gut. Francine, Lisa, I am so sorry.
“You came all the way to tell me something we figured out after seeing my friend’s brains decorating the wall?” My single laugh was filled with scorn. “Come on, Kramer. Even you aren’t that arrogant.”
“You no longer care about their lives?” he asked, narrowing that green gaze at me.
I shrugged as if I hadn’t guessed what was coming. “Nothing more I can do for them now, is there?”
The same breeze that lifted my hair around my shoulders did nothing to the ghost across from me. Not an inch of Kramer’s mud-splattered tunic rustled, and his white hair continued to frame that wrinkled, angular face like bleached straw around old leather.
“You could yet save them . . . if you defeated me in battle tonight.”
And there it was. Kramer knew I had to go to him willingly. He couldn’t send his human accomplice to kidnap me, not with the way Sarah would get her throat torn out on sight.
I’d promised Bones that I wouldn’t sacrifice my life, but neither could I turn my back because the stakes had been raised. I wasn’t about to make it easy on the prick who was responsible for all this, however. My chin lifted.
“What makes you think I’d be crazy enough to leave the safety of all the sage I can surround myself with to meet you anywhere tonight?”
Kramer smiled, slow and confident. “Because, Hexe, you still believe you can defeat me.”
Damn right I can! I wanted to snap back at him. Then I wanted to slap that arrogant smile off his face and stomp those remaining brownish teeth right down his fucking throat. But I could do none of those things because in his formless state, he had every advantage, and I had none.
But once the sun set tonight, he’d be flesh, and the rules would change.
“Even if I did think that,” I said coolly, “my husband might not want me to try it. He’s the protective type, as I’m sure you’ve realized.”
It sounded like Kramer snorted. “You do not recognize any man’s authority over you. Even if he did object, you would defy him.”
The words “man’s authority” annoyed my feminism, as he doubtless intended. But I’d learned the hard way—twice—what a mistake it was to turn my back on Bones with the mistaken idea that some challenges could only be overcome if they were faced alone versus together.
Kramer couldn’t understand that because such logic was rooted in love and mutual respect, things entirely foreign to the hate-filled man floating across from me. So I’d let him believe he was right.
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I do what needs to be done, and if someone doesn’t like that, no matter who they are, that’s too bad for them.”
Satisfaction flitted across the ghost’s face, and when he spoke, his voice was equally low. “Sarah will meet you at the entrance of Grandview Park in Sioux City. She will have instructions to take you to me, but she will not know where the other women are, so your mind manipulations will be useless on her.”
I smiled slightly. “Aren’t you forgetting to tell me to come alone and unarmed?”
His gaze raked over me with utter contempt. “Bring any weapon you choose, but you already know if you don’t come alone, you will never get your chance to discover if you can defeat me.”
“Don’t touch those women until you see me again,” I told him with a contemptuous rake of my own gaze. “I don’t want you too exhausted to put up much of a fight before I stomp you into the other side of eternity.”
His mouth curled in cruel anticipation. “If you don’t come at dusk, know that those women will suffer more than all before them.”
Then he vanished without waiting to see if I had a reply to that. I didn’t. Pleading with him to be merciful to Francine and Lisa would only ensure that he meted out even harsher torture. All I had was my hope that Kramer would try to save up his energy for me—and that he didn’t trust me enough to really be gone. I couldn’t see him anymore, but that didn’t mean the ghost wasn’t still close by. He might be hanging around to make sure I didn’t run inside and tell Bones when and where I was supposed to meet Sarah. He might wonder if Bones would physically try to prevent me from leaving.
Curiosity killed the cat; I hoped it would make a ghost stick around. If he was here, then he wasn’t brutalizing Francine and Lisa. I turned around and began to walk back toward the house. Now all I needed to do was talk my husband into setting aside his every protective instinct plus his innate sense of vampire territoriality. Not an easy task, but if I couldn’t come up with enough logical reasons why this was the right decision, then maybe I shouldn’t go to Kramer tonight after all.
Thirty-four
“No,” Bones said, as soon as I walked in the door. He wasn’t on the couch anymore but pacing by the entrance, his eyes flashing green.
The tiniest smile tugged at my mouth. Guess Bones decided on a preemptive strike. “No what?”
“No, you’re not trading yourself for them,” he replied, striding up to me. “I know you too well, and while I loathe the thought of leaving Francine and Lisa to die, if it’s a choice between you or them, it’s you.”
I didn’t say anything to that, just went around the house and began to draw the drapes. Bones had
his emotions locked behind an iron wall, but from the sizzle of power in the air, he was ready to fight me tooth and nail.
That was fine. I didn’t expect anything less from the man I’d fallen in love with. Once all the drapes were closed against any ghostly prying eyes, I grabbed a pen from the kitchen and began writing on the nearest piece of paper I found, which was a grocery receipt.
Kramer’s probably listening, keep arguing.
His laugh was short and humorless. “No trouble there, luv, because it’s not happening.”
“This is so like you to try and tell me what to do,” I said while writing Kramer doesn’t want a trade, he’s daring me to come out and fight him alone tonight.
“You think I’d let you anywhere near that ghost when he’ll have the flesh he needs for his stated intention of raping you, then burning you alive?” He snorted. “Even if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t allow that to happen.”
I didn’t have more room on the grocery receipt, so I found a paperback book someone had left on the island in the kitchen and tore off a few of the emptier beginning and end pages.
With me, his flesh will be his weakness, not his strength.
“I can take care of myself,” I said loudly, just like Kramer would expect me to. “And you don’t get to order me around.”
“Are you so foolish you’d rather die than listen to reason?”
Anger and frustration flowed around me from his aura, but though his words were cold, he read the page I handed to him. If he truly meant what he said, he wouldn’t bother.
Go to Elisabeth’s apartment. Tell her Sarah will meet me at the entrance of Grandview Park in Sioux City at dusk. She can follow us from there, then tell you where Kramer and I will be. I’ll hold him off long enough for you to get there. Then we’ll take him to the trap. Same plan as before, only I’ll lead you to him instead of the women leading him to us.
Kramer thought I’d fall victim to my pride and thus agree to facing him alone, but with two other innocent lives at risk, I wanted backup. He wouldn’t fight fair, and I had no intention of being the only one playing by the rules.