After three hours of side-by-side scrubbing, it didn't look any better, in fact. But at least now I wouldn't worry about bugs.

At eight p.m., my mother kissed me goodbye, throwing her arms around me and hugging me so hard it almost hurt.

"Call me if you need anything, promise me. Be careful, Catherine."

"I promise, Mom. I will."

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...What I was going to do next was far, far from careful, but I was doing it anyway. A soon as she left, I picked up the phone and dialed.

While I was waiting, I took a shower and put on new clothes. Not night clothes, because that seemed too obvious, but regular clothing. The time apart this week had been rough, and for more than just the scary fact that I missed him. My mother made her usual comments about how all vampires deserved to die and for me to keep hunting them, in between admonitions to study diligently. I'd cringed with guilt every time I had to nod and agree with her so she didn't get suspicious.

My hair was still wet from washing it when I heard him rap twice. I opened the door...and the last few days fell away. Bones stepped through the entrance and locked it behind him while pulling me into his arms in one motion. G.o.d, but he was beautiful, with those chiseled cheekbones and pale skin, his body hard and seeking. His mouth covered mine before I could get a breath in, and then I didn't need to breathe because I was too busy kissing him. My hands trembled when they reached up to grasp his shoulders and then clenched when he reached under my waistband to feel inside.

"I can't breathe," I gasped, wrenching my head away. His mouth went to my throat, lips and tongue moving over the sensitive skin as he bent my spine until only his arms held me upright.

"I missed you," he growled, restlessly pulling off my clothes. He swept me up in his arms and asked a single question. "Where?"

I jerked my head in the vicinity of my bedroom, too busy feasting on his skin to answer. He carried me into the small room and nearly flung me on the bed.

A tentative knock at my door the next morning made me groan as I rolled over. The clock showed nine-thirty. Bones had left right before dawn with a whispered promise to meet me here later. He said my apartment had too much exposure for him to sleep.

Whatever that meant.

I stumbled into my robe, fastening my attention to the doorway where the knock had come from. Heartbeat, whoever it was, and only one. That made me leave my knives in the bedroom. Opening the door armed might set a bad tone if it was my landlord.

The sound of footsteps retreating had me s.n.a.t.c.h the door open in time to see a young man about to disappear into the unit next to mine.

"Hey!" I said, a little sharper than I'd intended.

He stopped almost guiltily, and it was then that I noticed the small basket near my feet. A quick glance showed it contained ramen noodles, Tylenol, and pizza coupons.

"College survival kit," he said, coming toward me with a hesitant smile. "I guessed from seeing you unload your books last night that you're attending school, too. I'm your neighbor, Timmie. Uh, Tim. I mean Tim."

The obvious cover-up of a nickname had me smiling. Childhood baggage was hard to overcome. In my case, I'd never get past mine.

"I'm Cathy," I replied, using my school name again. "Thanks for the goodies, and I didn't mean to bark at you. I'm just grouchy when I wake up."

He was instantly apologetic. "I'm sorry! I just a.s.sumed you'd be awake. Jeez, am I dumb. Go back to sleep, please."

He turned to go into his apartment, and something about his hunched shoulders and awkward demeanor reminded me of...me.

That was how I felt on the inside most of the time. Unless I was killing someone.

"It's okay," I said quickly. "Er, I had to get up anyway, and the alarm clock must not have gone off, so...do you have any coffee?"

I didn't even really like coffee, but he'd made a nice gesture and I didn't want him feeling bad. Seeing the relief that washed over him made me glad for the small lie.

"Coffee," he repeated with another shy smile. "Yeah. Come on in."

I wasn't wearing anything under the robe. "Give me a second."

After throwing on sweatpants and a T-shirt, I padded over in slippers to Timmie's place. He'd left the door open, and the aroma of Folgers filled the air. It was the same brand my grandparents had brewed all my life. In a way, it was comforting to smell it.

"Here." He handed me a mug and I sat on the stool by his counter. The layouts of our apartments were identical, except of course Timmie's place had furniture. "Cream and sugar?" "Sure."

I studied him as he went about the small kitchen. Timmie was only a few inches taller than me, not quite six feet, and had sandy- colored hair and taupe eyes. He wore gla.s.ses and had the type of frame that looked like it had only filled out from the skinniness of adolescence recently. My internal suspicious radar so far hadn't picked up anything threatening about him. Still, it seemed every time someone was nice to me, he or she had ulterior motives. Danny? One-night stand. Ralphie and Martin? Attempted date rape.

Stephanie? White slavery. I had a reason to be paranoid. If I felt even the slightest bit woozy after drinking this coffee, Timmie was going down for the count.

"So, uh, Cathy, are you from Ohio?" he asked, fumbling with his own cup.

"Born and bred," I replied. "You?"

He nodded, spilling some coffee onto the counter and then jumping back with a surrept.i.tious glance at me, as if afraid I'd reprimand him. "Sorry. I'm a klutz. Oh, um, yeah, I'm from here, too. Powell. My mom's a bank manager there, and I got a kid sister who's starting high school who still lives with her. It's been just the three of us since my dad died. Car accident. I don't even remember him. Not that you wanted to know all that. Sorry. I babble sometimes."

He also had a habit of apologizing every other sentence. Hearing about his fatherless state made me feel another bond of kinship with him. Deliberately I took a swig of coffee...and let a little bit dribble out of the side of my mouth.

"Oops!" I said with feigned embarra.s.sment. "Excuse me. I drool sometimes when I drink."

Another lie, but Timmie smiled, handing me a napkin while the nervousness eased off him. There was nothing like having someone be a bigger goof to boost one's own self-confidence.

"That's better than being a klutz. I'm sure a lot of people do that."

"Oh yeah, there's a club of us," I quipped. "Droolers Anonymous. I'm on Step One in my membership. Admitting that I'm powerless over my s...o...b..ring and my life has become unmanageable."

Timmie was in the process of taking another sip when he started to laugh. Coffee came out of his nose as a result, and then his eyes bulged, aghast.

"I'm sorry!" he choked, making it worse by trying to talk. More coffee emerged, spraying me in the face. His eyes bugged in horror, but I laughed so hard at seeing him leak like a thermos with holes that I started to hiccup.

"It's contagious!" I managed to get out. "There's no escape from the drool disease once you catch it!"

He laughed again, compounding his problem. I hiccuped, Timmie gasped and sputtered, and both of us looked like mental patients to anyone who would have happened by the still-open door. I ended up handing him the same napkin he'd given me, trying to control my giggles while instinctively knowing I'd found a friend.

I headed over to the cave Monday afternoon after my cla.s.ses. A couple miles before I made my turn onto the gravel road that ended at the edge of the woods, I pa.s.sed a Corvette parked to the side with its hazard lights on. No one was inside. I almost huffed to myself in superiority. Whose old Chevy was tooling past a broken-down, sixty-thousand-dollar sports car? So there!

I was whistling the little tune Darryl Hannah made famous in Kill Bill when I entered the cave. That's when I felt the change in the air. The disturbance. Someone was lurking about fifty yards ahead, and whoever it was didn't have a heartbeat. What I also instinctively knew was that it wasn't Bones.

I kept whistling, not letting my heart rate accelerate or my cadence falter. I wasn't armed. My knives and wood-coated stakes were back at the apartment, and my second set was in the dressing area behind this unknown person. Weaponless, I was at a distinct disadvantage, but there was no way I was turning around. Bones must be in trouble, or worse, since I didn't sense him here. Someone had found his hideout, and empty-handed or not, I wasn't going anywhere but forward.

I progressed as casually as possible, my mind racing. What could I use as a weapon? My options were dismal. This was a cave, there was nothing around but dirt and...

I reached down while ducking under one of the lower slopes in the ceiling of the cave, the action concealing what I scooped up.

The person was coming toward me now, moving soundlessly. My fingers tightened around what I held as I rounded the next bend, bringing the intruder into view.

A tall man with longish spiky black hair was about twenty feet from me. He smiled as he approached, confident in his presumed superiority.

"You, my beauteous redhead, must be Cat."

The name I'd given Hennessey. This must be one of his goons and somehow he'd found Bones. I prayed I wasn't too late and he hadn't killed him.

I smiled back coldly. "Like what you see? How about now?"

And I flung the rocks I'd gathered straight into his eyes. I put all my force behind it, knowing it wouldn't be lethal but hoping to temporarily incapacitate him. His head snapped back and I sprang at him, seizing my chance while he was blinded. My momentum knocked him off his feet and both of us went down. Immediately I grasped his head, smashing him face-first into the stone ground, wedging the rocks deeper into his eyes. I straddled his back when his thrashing almost threw me off, using my weight and squeezing him with my thighs as hard as I could. All the while I bashed his head, I was cursing at his strength. A Master vampire without a doubt. Well, what did I expect? If he was a weakling, Bones would have greeted me, not him.

"Stop it! Stop!" he howled.

I put more effort into it instead. "Where's Bones? Where is he?"

"Christ, he said he was on his way!"

He had an English accent. I hadn't noticed that before, being so wrapped up in my concern. I stopped banging his head, but kept it ground into the stony floor.

"You're one of Hennessey's men. Why would you let him know you're waiting for him?"

"Because I'm Crispin's b.l.o.o.d.y best friend, not one of that scoundrel's dingos!" he said indignantly.

That answer I wasn't expecting. He'd also called Bones by his real name, and I didn't know if that was common knowledge. I had a split second to debate with myself, then I grabbed another rock, using one hand to keep his head where it was. With the pointy end of the stone, I jabbed him in the back.

"Feel that? It's silver. You move and I ram it right through your heart. Maybe you're Bones's friend and maybe you're not. Since I'm not the trusting sort, we'll wait for him. If he's not here soon like you said, I'll know you were lying, and then it'll be curtains for you."

I almost held my breath, waiting to see if he called my bluff. Since I hadn't pierced his skin, he shouldn't be able to feel that this wasn't silver. I hoped vampires didn't have a sixth sense about their kryptonite. My big plan, if he wasn't a friend, was to jam it through his heart anyway and then run like h.e.l.l for my silver. If I got to it in time.

"If you'd refrain from slamming my face any more into this dirty rock floor, I'll do whatever you like," was his even reply. "Fancy letting my head go?" "Sure," I said with an unpleasant snicker, not relinquishing an ounce of pressure. "How about I let you floss with my jugular as well? I don't think so."

He made an exasperated noise that sounded very familiar. "Come on, this is ridiculous-"

"Shut up." I didn't want his chatter distracting me from hearing when-or if-Bones arrived. "Lie there and play dead, or you will be."

Twenty cramped minutes later, my heart leapt when I heard steady footfalls coming toward the cave. Then a feeling of power I recognized filled up the s.p.a.ce as those footsteps came closer.

Bones rounded the corner and stopped short. A single dark brow arched even as I leaned back, letting go of the vampire's head at last.

"Charles," Bones said distinctly. "You'd better have a splendid explanation for her being on top of you."

SIXTEEN.

T HE BLACK-HAIRED VAMPIRE ROSE TO HIS FEET as soon as I jumped off, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

"Believe me, mate, I've never enjoyed a woman astride me less. I came out to say hallo, and this she-devil blinded me by flinging rocks in my eyes. Then she vigorously attempted to split my skull before threatening to impale me with silver if I so much as even twitched! It's been a few years since I've been to America, but I daresay the method of greeting a person has changed dramatically!"

Bones rolled his eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're still upright, Charles, and the only reason you are is because she didn't have any silver. She'd have staked you right and proper otherwise. She has a tendency to shrivel someone first and then introduce herself afterwards."

"That's uncalled for!" I said, insulted at the suggestion that I was homicidal.

"Right." Bones let that go. "Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I've been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I've said is...an understatement."

From his tone, that didn't sound altogether complimentary, but I felt a tad bit guilty about what I'd done to the lanky vampire eying me, so I didn't comment and just held out my hand.

"Hi."

"Hi," Spade repeated, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Well, hallo to you, too, darling! I'm very pleased to meet you now that you're not flogging me unmercifully."

He had tiger-colored eyes, and they gave me a thorough once-over while he shook my hand. I did the same to him. Fair was fair.

Next to Bones, Spade looked two inches taller, which made him about six-four. He had lean attractive features, a straight nose, and inky hair that spiked up from his crown before hanging past his shoulders.

"Spade. You're white. Isn't that kind of...politically incorrect?"

He laughed again, but this time it was with less humor. "Oh, I didn't choose that as a racial slur. It was how the overseer in South Wales used to address me. A spade is a shovel, and I was a digger. He never called anyone by their names, only their a.s.signed tool. He didn't feel the convicts were worthy of more."

Oh, so he was that Charles. Now I remembered the name from when Bones had told me about his past imprisonment. There were three men I became mates with-Timothy, Charles, and Ian. "Sounds pretty demeaning. Why'd you keep it?"

Spade's smile didn't slip, but those striking features hardened. "So I'd never forget."

Okay. A change of subject was in order. Bones beat me to it.

"Charles has some information on a flunky of Hennessey's who might prove useful."

"Great," I said. "Should I grab my s.l.u.t clothes and pile on the makeup?"

"You should stay out of it," Spade replied in a serious tone.

That made me want to fling more rocks at him. "My G.o.d, is it a vampire thing to be a chauvinist? Or just an eighteenth century one? Keep the girl in the kitchen where she won't get hurt, right? Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Spade! Women are good for more than cringing and waiting for men to rescue them!"

"And if Crispin felt differently for you, I'd bid you good luck and tell you to have at it," Spade responded at once. "Yet I happen to know firsthand how devastating it is when someone you love is murdered. There's nothing worse, and I don't want him going through that."

A part of me was inwardly pleased that Bones had told his friend he had feelings for me. I still didn't believe he loved me, but it was nice to know I wasn't just another warm body to him.

"Look, I'm sorry vampires killed someone close to you, truly I am. But-"

"Vampires didn't kill her," he interrupted me. "A group of French deserters cut her throat."

I opened my mouth, paused, and shut it. That told me a few things right there, aside from the fact that I'd been wrong about what race killed her. She'd been human, whoever she was.

"I'm not like everyone else," was what I ended up saying, giving Bones a questioning look to see if he'd told him that as well.

"So I've heard," Spade said. "And you certainly caught me off guard earlier, but whatever your extraordinary abilities...you're easy to kill. That beating pulse in your neck is your greatest weakness, and if I'd had a mind to before, I could have flipped you over and torn it out."