Dave had kept up a stream of steady chatter as we circled over the air base before landing.

"No, I haven't been back since my grandparents died. I only had one friend"-and I was definitely not referring to a certain h.o.r.n.y, alcoholic ghost-"and he graduated from college and moved to Santa Monica years ago."

That had been Timmie, my old neighbor. Last I checked, he was a reporter for one of those "the truth is out there"

independent magazines. You know, the kind that every once in a while hit on an incredible, factual story and then made Don's life h.e.l.l while he tried to find ways to discredit it. Timmie believed I had been killed in a shootout with the police after murdering my grandparents, some police officers, and the governor. What a way to be thought of. Don hadn't spared my reputation in making me disappear. I even had a headstone and fake autopsy reports.

"Besides..." I shook off the past like a wet raincoat. "With my hair shorter and brown, I look very different. No one would recognize me now."

Except Bones. He'd know me a mile away by scent alone. The thought of seeing him again, even under such murderous circ.u.mstances, made my heart pound. How low I'd fallen.

"You're sure about bringing Cooper?" Dave nudged me and glanced toward the back of the plane. We had our own little area up front. Weren't we the special ones?

"I know it's only been two months since we brought Cooper on, but he 's smart, fast, and ruthless. His years as an undercover narcotics officer probably helped there. He's performed well in training operations, so it's time to see how he does in the field."

Dave frowned. "He doesn't like you, Cat. He thinks you'll turn on us one day because you're a half-breed. I think he should be put under the juice and have the last two months wiped from his mind."

"Put under the juice" referred to the brainwashing techniques Don had perfected over the last years. Our in-house vampires had their fangs milked like snakes. The hallucinogenic drops they produced were then refined and harvested. When combined with the usual mind-f.u.c.k method the military used, it left the partic.i.p.ant happily unaware of any details regarding our operation. That was how we weeded through the recruits and didn't worry about one blabbing about a chick with superhuman powers. All they remembered was a day of hard training.

"Cooper doesn't have to like me-he only has to follow orders. If he can't do that, then he's out. Or dead, if he gets himself killed first. He's the least of our concerns now."

The plane touched down with a jar. Dave smiled at me.

"Welcome home, Cat."

FIVE.

THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN WAS ON A CHERRY orchard that looked like it hadn't been harvested in years.

Maybe not since my grandparents were murdered. Licking Falls, Ohio, was a place I hadn't thought I'd see again, and the scary thing was that it seemed like time had stood still in this small town. G.o.d, this house would get a sick sort of notoriety. Four people had been killed inside these walls. Two supposedly by their own granddaughter, who'd then gone on a senseless murder spree, and now this couple.

It was ironic that the last time I'd walked up to my front porch, it had also been to a double murder. Pain blasted through me at the mental image of my grandfather slumped on the kitchen floor and my grandmother 's red handprints staining the stairs where she'd tried to crawl away.

Dave and I circled around the kitchen, careful not to disturb anything more than necessary.

"Were the bodies checked? Was anything found?"

Tate coughed. "The bodies are still here, Cat. Don ordered they not be moved until you looked at them. Nothing has been confiscated."

Great. Don was too smart for his own good. "Have they been photographed? Doc.u.mented? We can rip through them to look?"

Juan winced at my choice of words, but Tate nodded. The house was surrounded by exterior troops in case this was a trap. It was just before noon, so we were somewhat safer. Vampires hated to be up early. No, I had been brought here specifically, and I was betting whoever did this was getting their beauty rest.

"Okay then. Let's get started."

An hour later, Cooper was at his breaking point.

"I'm going to be sick."

I glanced past the remains of what used to be a happy couple. Yep, Cooper's mocha face was positively green.

"You throw up and you'll eat it off the floor, soldier."

He cursed, and I returned to examining the torso in front of me. Occasionally I heard his stomach heave, but he swallowed back the bile and kept working. I held out hope for his abilities yet.

My hand struck something odd in the chest cavity of the female. Something hard that wasn't bone. Carefully I pulled it out, ignoring the squishy suction sounds it made as I drew it free.

Tate and Juan leaned over me intently. "Looks like a rock of some kind," Tate noted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Juan wondered.

I felt as hard as the stone in my hand. Silently I screamed inside.

"It's not a rock. It's a piece of limestone. From a cave."

"Stay back five miles from all sides. Any closer and they'll hear your heartbeats. No overhead air support, no radio. Hand signals only; we don't want to give away our numbers. I'll enter the cave from the mouth, and you will give me exactly thirty minutes. If I don't come out, you use the rockets and blast it, then contain the perimeter and watch your backs. Anything comes out of that cave except me, you shoot it until you're sure it's really dead. And then you shoot it some more."

Tate angrily rounded on me. "This is a bulls.h.i.t plan! That missile would only kill you, but the vampires would just dig themselves out later. If you don't come out, we're coming in after you. Period."

"Tate is right. We're not blowing you up before I get a chance to show you my sausage." Even Juan sounded worried. His innuendo was halfhearted at best.

"No way, Cat," Dave agreed. "You've saved my a.s.s too many times for me to flip that switch."

"This isn't a democracy." Ice edged my words. "I make the decisions. You follow them. Don't you get it? If I'm not out in thirty minutes, then I'm dead."

We spoke while flying in the chopper to thwart any undead eavesdroppers. I was paranoid to a fantastic degree after finding that rock. I hated to believe it, but I couldn't imagine who else could have left it except Bones. That memento from the cave was too personal for it to have been Ian. Bones was the only one who knew about the cave, and everything else. The thought of him tearing apart those people sickened me. What could have happened in four years to change him so much, that he'd do such a gruesome thing? That's why I needed only thirty minutes. Either I would kill him or he 'd kill me, but it would be fast regardless.

Bones always did get straight down to business, and he wouldn't expect a romantic reunion. Not when he just sent me a bouquet of body parts.

The helicopter landed twenty miles away. We would drive the next fifteen and I would walk the last five. The three of them argued with me the entire time, but I ignored them. My mind was numb. I'd wanted desperately to see Bones again, but never had I imagined it would be like this. Why? I wondered again. Why would Bones do something so horrible, so extreme, after all this time?

"Don't do it, Cat."

Tate tried one last time as I wrapped my jacket around me. It was lined with silver weapons, useful for much more than warmth. Winter was slow to release its grip this year. Tate gripped my arm, but I yanked free.

"If I go down, lead the team. Keep them alive. That's your job. This is mine."

Before he could say anything more, I broke into a run.

The last mile I slowed to a walk, dreading the confrontation. My ears were p.r.i.c.ked for the slightest sound, but that was why the cave had been such a great hideout. The depths and heights played tricks with noise. I couldn't pinpoint any exact sounds.

Surprisingly, I thought I heard a heartbeat as I drew nearer, but maybe it was just my own pounding. When I touched the outer entrance of the cave, I felt the energy inside. Vampire power, vibrating the air. Oh G.o.d.

Right before I ducked under the threshold, I pressed a b.u.t.ton on my watch. Countdown, thirty minutes exactly, had just begun.

Both my hands held wicked-looking silver daggers in them, and I was weighted down with my throwing knives. I 'd even brought a gun and tucked it inside my pants, the clip filled with silver bullets. Being prepared to kill cost a small fortune.

My eyes adjusted to the almost nonexistent lighting. From tiny openings in the rock, the cave wasn't completely black. So far the initial entryway was clear. There were noises deeper inside, and the question I'd refused to consider now loomed in front of me. Could I kill Bones? Would I be able to look in his brown eyes, or his green ones, and wield that blow? I didn't know, hence my backup plans of the missile. If I faltered, they wouldn't. They'd be strong should I prove to be weak. Or prove to be dead, whichever came first.

"Come closer," a voice beckoned.

It reverberated with echoes. Was that an English accent? I couldn't be sure. My pulse sped up, and I went farther inside the cave.

There had been some changes since I'd last seen it. The area that once doubled as a living room was trashed. The sofa was in sections, and it hadn't been a sectional. Stuffing from the cushions settled like snow on the floor, the television was smashed in, and the lamps had long since seen their last light. The dressing screen that had guarded my short -lived modesty was in pieces throughout the area. Someone had obviously torn the place apart in a fit of rage. Frankly I was afraid to look in the bedroom, but I peeked inside anyway, and my heart constricted.

The bed was reduced to bits of foam. Wood and springs littered the s.p.a.ce and stood inches deep on the ground. Stones in the wall were chipped here and there from a fist or other hard object pummeling them. Anguish welled up in me. This was my doing, as surely as if I'd used my own hands.

A cool current parted the atmosphere behind me. I whirled around with knives at the ready. Staring at me with glowing green eyes was a vampire. Behind him were six more. Their energy thickened the air in the close s.p.a.ce, but they were evenly distributed, if you could call it that. Only one of them crackled with an abundance of power, but his face was entirely foreign to me.

"Who in the f.u.c.k are you guys?"

"You came. Your old boyfriend wasn't lying. We weren't sure whether to believe him."

This statement was from the vamp in front, the one with the curling brown hair. He looked to be about twenty -five, in human years. From the clout oozing off his body, I judged him to be roughly five hundred or a young Master. Out of the seven, he was the most dangerous, and his previous sentence scared the s.h.i.t out of me. Your old boyfriend. That was how they knew about me. Mother of G.o.d, it wasn't Bones who killed those people, but these vampires instead! What they would have done to him to make him talk both sickened and infuriated me.

"Where is he?"

The only question that mattered. If they'd killed Bones, I was going to turn them all into exact replicas of the mattress behind me. Indistinguishable from one particle to the next.

"He's here. Alive still. If you want him to remain that way, you'll do what I tell you."

The other minions began to fan out, trapping me with the bedroom as my only exit. Since it was a closed area, there was no help there.

"Let me see him."

Curly Hair smiled smugly. "No demands, girl. Do you think those knives will really protect you?"

When my grandparents were murdered and I'd rammed a car through a house to rescue my mother, I thought I couldn't get any angrier. How wrong I was. The unadulterated bloodl.u.s.t pouring through me made me tremble. They took my shaking for fear, and their smiles broadened. Curly stepped forward.

Two of the daggers flew out of my hand before I even articulated the order to my brain. They buried past their hilts in the heart of a vamp to my left, who had been licking his lips. He pitched forward before his tongue finished its insinuating path. More knives replaced those, and once again both my hands were full.

"Now I'm going to ask again, and don't p.i.s.s me off. I have spent the morning up to my a.s.s in guts and I am low on patience. The next one's aimed for you, Brownielocks, unless you show me what I want to see. Your boys might get me in a rush, but you'll be too dead to care."

My eyes bored into his, and I let him see that I meant every single word. Unless they showed me Bones, I was going to a.s.sume the worst and go down in flames, and by G.o.d, I'd see they went with me.

There must have been something in my gaze he took seriously. He jerked his head at two of his stunned lieutenants. They took a last look at their friend, who was slowly beginning to shrivel, before trotting off. One untwisted knife wouldn't have killed the vamp. But two had done the necessary damage to his heart. In the background, I heard the clanking of irons, and then I knew where they had Bones. h.e.l.l, once I'd been chained there myself. Now I was sure I could hear a heartbeat. Did they have a human guard on him?

The leader studied me dispa.s.sionately.

"You are the one who's been murdering our kind the last several years. A human with the strength of an immortal, the one they call the Red Reaper. Do you know how much money you're worth?"

Holy s.h.i.t, now that was ironic. He was a bounty hunter, and I was his mark. Well, it was only a matter of time, I supposed.

You can't off a hundred creatures and expect no one to get cranky.

"A lot, I hope. Hate to be on clearance."

He frowned. "You mock me. I am Lazarus, and you should quake before me. Remember, I hold the life of your love.

Which means more to you-his fate, or yours?"

Did I love Bones enough to die for him? Absolutely. Relief that he wasn't behind this made me almost cheerful about my impending death. Any day of the week I'd rather die than suspect him of such cruelty again.

Sobbing brought my attention back to the situation. What was going on? A glance at my watch showed fifteen minutes before bomb time. Bones would have to get out fast before that missile hit. Lazarus wouldn't be around to collect any cash. Maybe I'd tell him that before the timer ran out.

Something human and weeping was thrown to the surface near my feet. I gave it a disparaging look before turning to Lazarus.

"Quit stalling. I don't need to see one of your chew toys to believe you're all bada.s.ses. Really, I'm quaking. Where's Bones?"

"Bones?" Lazarus said, his eyes darting around. "Where?"

Two things occurred to me at nearly the same instant. One, from Lazarus's expression, he had no idea where Bones was.

Two, the tear-streaked face turning up at me belonged to the lying little s.h.i.t who'd seduced and dumped me when I was sixteen.

SIX.

DANNY?" I SAID IN DISBELIEF. "DANNY MILTON? You're the reason I had to drag my a.s.s all the way from Virginia?"

Danny also wasn't happy to see me. "You ruined my life!" he wailed. "First your freak boyfriend crippled my hand, then you're not dead, and now these creatures kidnapped me! I hate the day I met you!"

I snorted. "Right back at you, a.s.shole!"

Lazarus regarded me suspiciously. "He said you used to be in love with him. You're just pretending not to care now so I won't kill him."

"You want to kill him?" Perhaps I was crazed with the knowledge that less than fifteen minutes remained, or maybe I was just fed up. "Go ahead! Here, I'll help!"

I pulled the gun from the back of my pants and shot Danny at point -blank range. Lazarus and the other vampires were momentarily stunned at this turn of events, and I took advantage. The next rounds landed full in Lazarus's face. I didn't bother firing into his heart, because I wanted him alive. He had information for me, if I lived, and I emptied the clip into him while my free hand flung knives at the remaining five.