"But what if they stake you on sight?" My gut twisted at the thought. "G.o.d, Bones, you can't risk it."

He threw me a jaded look. "Not Hennessey. He'll want to drag it out for weeks. I told you, he doesn't do quick mercy kills.

Especially on a chap who's already caused him a world of trouble. No, he'll want to hear me beg. There will be time."

The casual way he described his own potential torture and death stunned me, since I had rather strong feelings about those issues myself. Then again, he was just being practical. Either our plan would work or not, and if it didn't, there was no Plan B.

"Bones." I gripped his hand and my eyes screamed everything there wasn't time to say. He squeezed back and gave me a jaunty smile.

"Hold that thought, Kitten. I intend to collect on it."

We were almost there. He leaned in to whisper to me before we got too close. "Let them smell your fear, it will lull them. Don't be strong until you have to be."

Well, that was certainly one thing I could comply with. Even I could scent it coming from me with my new nose. It smelled sickly sweet, like rotten fruit. Give in to the fear for effect? One stink platter, coming right up.

Four large SUVs waited in the dark along the shoulder of the road, their lights off. Our car came to a halt, and instantly we were surrounded by six vampires. They seemed to materialize from nowhere, but with a sense of relief I realized their movements looked perceptibly slower to me. Viva la Bones blood, I thought wryly. Amen.

"So, you came after all."

One of them stood at the window and Bones lowered the gla.s.s and glanced at him.

"Hallo, Vincent. Fancy seeing you here."

There was a bored tone to his voice that made me blink. I could never fake that kind of cool.

Vincent smiled. "Call me Switch."

Son of a b.i.t.c.h! This was Hennessey's enforcer? The one who did all the dirty work Hennessey didn't like to bother with? Switch looked even younger than me, with boyish features and chestnut-colored hair. My G.o.d, he even had freckles! Dress him in a Boy Scout uniform and he wouldn't look out of place.

"You surprise me, bringing her with you," Switch continued.

"She insisted on coming. Wanted to see her mum, couldn't sway her from it." Again the blandness in his voice unnerved me.

Switch looked me over, and obligingly I let anxiety leak from my pores. His smiled widened, revealing fangs protruding from behind his lips.

"Nice family you have, Catherine. Sorry about your grandparents. I know it's rude to eat and run, but I was short on time."

With extraordinary difficulty I bit back my rage. Couldn't let them see my eyes glow and give away the surprise. Thank G.o.d I'd gotten to be an expert at controlling my gaze. That son of a b.i.t.c.h thought he was going to get away with taunting me about killing my grandparents? Right then and there I made up my mind that if I died, I was taking him with me.

"Where's my mother?" There was no nonchalant banter for me, only pure hatred. That much he would have expected.

"We have her." Another one approached Switch and informed him they hadn't observed anyone following us, and Switch turned back to Bones.

"Well, let's be on our way. I trust you won't lag behind?"

"Don't fret over me," Bones replied evenly.

Switch grunted and sauntered off to his vehicle."I'm afraid," I said as we pulled away, speaking the words we'd rehea.r.s.ed earlier. Even five car lengths away they could hear us.

"Just stay in the car and don't come out. When your mum gets in, you leave straightaway, remember?"

"Yes. I'll do it." When h.e.l.l snowed. My hands itched to tear them apart. On cue I began to cry, making little whimpering sounds while mentally counting down the moments. Soon, very soon, they would find out what one of their kind had sired. Paybacks were a b.i.t.c.h, and that also happened to be my specialty.

The drive lasted forty minutes until we pulled up to a ramshackle house ten miles off the interstate. It was nice and secluded, with a long driveway. The perfect place for a ma.s.sacre. Bones came to a stop and put the car in park, the engine still running. His eyes met mine for only an instant before his door was yanked open.

"End of the road. Hennessey says we'll send her out when you come in." Switch was at the door again, that same malicious smile wreathing his face.

Bones raised a dark brow at him.

"Don't think so, mate. Bring her to the door so I can see her and then I'll come. If not, you and I dance right now."

The mildness left his tone and his eyes bled to green. Even though the car was blocked from behind by the other vehicles and we were surrounded, Switch still looked uneasy.

"You can hear her heartbeat in there. She's alive," he defensively countered.

Bones gave a short humorless laugh.

"I hear seven heartbeats in there, and who's to say any of them are hers? What's to hide? Is this a bargain or not?"

Switch glared at him, then, with a jerk of his head, one of the other vamps scurried inside.

"Look now."

I gasped. In the window lit by low lighting, my mother's face was shoved into view. A hand was wrapped around her throat, holding her against the chest of her captor. Blood seeped from her head and her blouse was red from where more of it had stained.

"There. Your proof. Satisfied?"

Bones nodded once and stepped out of the car. Immediately he was encircled by the six vampires. I slid across into the driver's seat and locked the door.

Switch smirked at me through the gla.s.s.

"Wait there. We'll bring her out and then you can leave."

By his complete lack of concern over me, either my mother hadn't disclosed what I was or, as predicted, they didn't believe her.

Thank G.o.d for fools.

The front door closed behind Bones and I was left alone in the car, blocked on three sides by the SUVs. My mother was wrenched away from the window and out of sight, to my relief.

A voice boomed out from the house, sounding sinister and cheerful. I recognized it at once as Hennessey's.

"Well, look who's come to join the party! Be careful what you wish for, Bones. You've wanted to find out who was involved with me for years, so take a good look around. Except for one, here we all are." There they all were. The people who'd wrecked hundreds of lives, not just mine. I thought of all the families these sc.u.m had torn apart, and it gave me strength. With hands rock-steady, I picked up the cell phone and dialed the number on the card Detective Mansfield had given me, seemingly another lifetime ago. A woman's voice answered.

"Franklin County Sheriff 's Department, is this an emergency?"

"Yes," I breathed. "This is Catherine Crawfield. I'm off of Interstate 71 and 323, just a few miles from Bethel Road in a house at the end of a dead-end street. Earlier I speared Detectives Mansfield and Black with silver knives through the wrists. Come and get me."

I hung up as she started to sputter and put the car back in gear. The front door flew open and Switch stalked out, moving with inhuman speed. They'd heard me on the phone, as I knew they would, and were coming to silence me. Somehow in all their plotting they never once thought Bones would have me call the police. Always pride before a fall.

With a savage grin at Switch, I hit the gas. The SUVs had blocked me in from every side-except the front. Ready or not, boys, here I come!

The car shot forward, and Switch avoided being run over only by leaping onto the hood. Immediately he punched through the windshield and tried to grab me, but my hand was ready with a blade. I plunged it into his neck and twisted. It tore his throat open as I ducked down under the steering wheel while the car crashed into the house.

There was a spectacular explosion of wood and brick as the vehicle smashed through the front window. The screech of metal and shattering gla.s.s was deafening. Without hesitation I leapt through the shattered windshield and rolled off the hood, flinging silver knives at anything that moved toward me. Bones knew to duck, and shouts of pain accompanied the hiss of the steaming engine, which coughed and wheezed in its death throes.

Hennessey was in the remains of the front room along with approximately twenty-five other vampires. Mother of G.o.d, there were more of them than we'd antic.i.p.ated. My mother was shoved into a corner, hands and feet tied together. Her wide, disbelieving eyes were fixed on me. The red haze of fury I'd carefully controlled since first seeing my grandparents' lifeless forms erupted inside me and I let it consume me. A snarl of vengeance tore from my throat and my eyes blazed with emerald fire.

Bones took advantage of the distraction. Someone had been in the process of chaining him when I'd made a garage out of the house. The dangling irons from his wrists whipped out and wrapped around the neck of the nearest vampire. With a merciless jerk of the links the vampire's head snapped off and Bones whirled in a blur of speed to the next one.

Three vampires jumped me. Their teeth were murderously extended, but so were my knives. I darted away from their fangs while landing punishing blows with my legs, tripping one of them. At once I was on him, gouging his heart and shredding it in one slash before rolling over and repeating the process with the next two.

A black-haired vampire had the presence of mind to go for my mother. Launching myself airborne, I practically flew across the room to land on his back. Silver swished and buried into his heart just as his hands almost touched her. One cruel twirl of the knife finished him, and then I was knocked off my feet by a punishing blow and pitched forward. Instead of fighting it, I let my body curl under, and the attacker arced over my head instead of stumbling me. None of them were prepared for my speed. He was skewered to the wall behind him before he had time to pounce again, staring stupidly at the silver handle jutting from his chest.

With one of my throwing knives I slit the rope that bound my mother.

"Get outside now, go!"

I shoved her out of the way of another series of a.s.saults and sprang straight up into the air to come down behind two charging vampires. Unleashing my expanded strength, I slammed their heads together hard enough to splinter apart their skulls, and then stabbed both of them through the back with a blade in each fist. The force of my blows sent my hands all the way through them.

With a cruel growl, I turned and used their shriveling bodies as shields. Fangs that were meant for my neck tore into dead flesh instead. I smashed my b.l.o.o.d.y knife into the next fiend until my forearm was past the rib cage of the vampire still dangling from it. Before the next bunch of nosferatu descended, I threw the body on my other arm at them, slowing them enough to wrench free of the corpse and hurl more silver blades with h.e.l.lish accuracy. One stuck straight into the eye of an advancing vampire, and terrible shrieks came from his mouth before another landed between his fangs.

It seemed I was jerking silver out of bodies just to throw more again in a morbid juggling act. Failing that, even though it was more dangerous, full-body combat was in order. I experienced the furious ecstasy of twisting someone's head around so roughly it snapped off. Then I threw it like a bowling ball across the room to beam the back of a vamp closing in on Bones. There was still iron clamped around one wrist and he swung it so rapidly it was only a blur of gray.

A man tried to climb past the wreckage of the car to circle me, and without pause I threw a knife into his skull. Something about the sudden scream and then silence let me know I'd just killed a human. Vampires didn't go down that easy. Curiously I felt not the slightest twinge of guilt. If they were after me then they were evil, heartbeat or no heartbeat.

Sirens blared in the distance, coming closer. Obviously Mansfield had gotten the message. Through the crumbling wall of the home's exterior I saw the flash of red and blue lights, many of them. A small army was descending. The vampires left standing saw them also and began to scatter. This was what we'd hoped for. They were so much more convenient to kill when they faced away from us. More silver found flesh when they sprang through the remnants of the house.

Unholy exultation filled me, and a howl of victorious slaughter erupted from my throat. It shook the remains of the gla.s.s in the windows as I prowled swiftly through the bodies to find another one to destroy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bones, grinning evilly and tearing apart a vamp unlucky enough to be in front of him. An arm sailed across the carnage to land in the pile of body parts, followed by a head.

"Police! Drop your...!"

The voice on the bullhorn abruptly choked off when their spotlight lit upon the scene. Only about six vampires remained and three of them were pierced with multiple blades. Shots began to ring out from the officers' guns as they fired wildly at everything that moved, not knowing what in the world they were shooting at. This caused the surviving vamps to turn on the police. I stayed down, bullets being much more harmful to me. From this low vantage point I saw Hennessey and Switch, those slime bags, crawling around the ruins of the car. They were almost at the opening in the wall, and from there they could run for the nearby woods.

A seething hatred burst inside me, and I had only one distinct, crystallized thought. Over my dead body. They weren't going anywhere unless I was cold on the ground.

"Hennessey!" I snarled. "I'm coming for you!"

Hennessey turned his head with a look of disbelief. Switch didn't. He started to crawl faster. His throat had healed from my earlier run-in with him, and from the way he hustled, he didn't want a rematch.

I only had one knife left, but it was a big one. My hand closed around it with the grip of the d.a.m.ned. I crouched, channeling all my energy, and sprang at them with complete disregard for the raining bullets. Switch was smaller and he used that to his advantage, ducking under the twisted frame of the car. Hennessey was a large man. A perfect target, and I landed on him with all my rage propelling me. Both of us slammed into the side of the house.

More plaster came down. Hennessey went for my neck, but I shoved him back at the same time. His teeth landed in my collarbone instead. Pain sliced into me at his fangs tearing my flesh. Because we were wedged between the car and the crumbling wall, I couldn't throw him off. Hennessey shook his head like a shark, opening the wound wider, while one arm was uselessly trapped underneath me. I kicked him brutally, but he didn't let go. This was the worst position for me to be in with a vampire, which was why I'd trained so hard with my knives to kill at a distance. Oddly enough, Spade's words rang in my head. That beating pulse in your neck is your greatest weakness.... Hennessey and I both knew that all he had to do was hang on and I'd be finished. Each shake of his mouth brought him closer to my throat.

In a split second, I made my decision. I might go down, but I'm taking you with me. My free arm I'd been holding him back with I used to wrap around him instead. Hennessey lifted his head enough to grin, blood dripping from his jaws, and then he brought his mouth to my unprotected neck.

Even as his fangs pushed against my skin, I rammed the silver knife through his back. His whole body stiffened, but I didn't pause to see if it was enough. I kept twisting and digging the blade deeper into him, feeling him jerk spasmodically with each plunge, until he stopped moving altogether. The mouth at my throat lost its menace, became slack, and when I pushed him off, he was literally and figuratively dead weight.

There was no time to celebrate. Gunfire concentrated away from the house caused me to whip my head up just in time to see Switch disappearing into the trees. He'd gotten through the police line and was running for his freedom.

I jumped up to chase him, but a bullet whizzing too close for comfort made me duck back down again.

"Bones!" I shrieked. "Switch is getting away! He's going for the trees!"

Bones punched through the neck of the vampire closest to him, his hand proceeding out the other side. Four bullets landed on him in quick succession, but he barely glanced at the wounds. His face contorted with indecision. If he went for Switch he'd have to leave me behind, because the goal had been to exit before the full cavalry arrived. We hadn't antic.i.p.ated the numbers inside.

Failing that, Bones would've used his body as a shield as we ran. Neither of these options would work now, however. Not if he intended to catch Switch.

All I could think of was my grandmother staring in silent accusation and my grandfather slumped on the kitchen floor.

"Get him now, come back for me later. Get him!"

This last was a roar of unbridled vehemence. I wanted that creature dead. Truly, painfully dead. All else could wait.

Decision made, Bones dashed through the room at speeds a car couldn't manage. Bullets were too slow to land on him. In a blink he was gone.

One of the remaining vampires took the initiative and hurled one of my knives at me. The silver was buried high into my thigh, missing the artery by inches. Ignoring the pain, I yanked it from my leg and sent it unerringly into his heart, rewarded with a cut-off squeal of agony.

Suddenly a blast sounded in my ears and I was thrown sideways. When I'd sat up to aim my knife, someone else had aimed at me. Hot searing metal tore into my shoulder as the bullet struck home. Gasping, I felt around for the wound and heard voices nearly on top of me.

"Don't move! Don't move! Hands in the motherf.u.c.kin' air!"

A trembling cop stood over me flanked by three others, and their scared eyes swept the bloodbath that was the living room.

Slowly I raised my hands, wincing at the shards of pain seizing my shoulder.

"You're under arrest," a panicked officer wheezed, the whites of his eyes rolling in his head. The stench of his fear overwhelmed me.

"Thank G.o.d," I replied. All things considered, it was a better ending than I'd expected.

TWENTY-FOUR.

T HEY READ ME MY RIGHTS, SOMETHING I didn't pay much attention to, because I didn't need the Miranda warning to know that shutting the h.e.l.l up was in my best interest. Then, after half an hour of refusing to answer any questions while I was handcuffed to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, a tall, skinny cop muscled his way through the crowd.

"I'm taking her in with me, Kirkland." The officer who'd read me my rights, presumably Kirkland, balked. "Lieutenant Isaac? But-"

"Soon this place will be crawling with media helicopters and we need some answers, don't 'Lieutenant' me!" the man snapped.

"Hey, I'm shot here, guys. You know, bleeding and all that," I pointed out.

"Shut up," Isaac said curtly, and uncuffed me from the stretcher. The medical attendants gazed at him in disbelief. Isaac then yanked me by my cuffed hands to follow after him, sending fresh pain through my shoulder. Kirkland gaped, but he didn't say anything. He looked like he couldn't wait to get out of there.

Lieutenant Kirkland shoved me none too gently into the back of an unmarked police car. The only thing official about it was the red flashing light on the dashboard. I glanced around, surprised. Was this usual procedure?