One Grave at a Time

"What’s up with the ID check on the roof?" I asked to steer things away from the staring contest between Madigan and Bones that the consultant would lose. No one could outstare a vampire.

Madigan shifted his attention to me, his natural scent souring ever so slightly underneath its preponderance of chemical enhancement.

"One of the oversights I noted when I arrived two days ago was that no one checked my identification when I landed. This facility is too important to be compromised by something as simple as sloppy security."

Tate bristled, hints of emerald appearing in his indigo eyes, but I just snorted.

"If you’re arriving by air, they kinda figure that after they’ve double-checked the identity of the aircraft, the crew, and the flight plan, whoever’s inside is who they’re supposed to be. Especially if you invited those people here. But if they weren’t, and they still pulled all the rest of that off, fake ID would be the easy part. Besides"-another snort-"if anyone got here by air that didn’t belong, you think they’d be able to get away with their aircraft in weapons range and several vampires able to track them by scent alone?"

Instead of being made defensive by my blunt analysis of how useless a roof ID check was, Madigan stared at me in a thoughtful way.

"I heard you had difficulty with authority and following orders. Seems that wasn’t exaggerated."

"Nope, that’s true," I replied with a cheery smile. "What else did you hear?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Too many things to list. Your former team raved about you so much I simply had to meet you."

"Yeah?" I didn’t buy that as the reason I was here, but I’d play along. "Well, whatever you do, ignore what my mom has to say about me."

Madigan didn’t even crack a smile. Uptight prick.

"What does an operations consultant do, I wonder?" Bones asked, as if he hadn’t been busy using his mind-reading skills to eavesdrop in Madigan’s mind from the moment we arrived.

"Ensures that the transfer of management in a highly sensitive Homeland Security department is as smooth as it needs to be for the sake of national security," Madigan said, that smugness back in his tone. "I’ll be reviewing all records over the next few weeks. Missions, personnel, budgets, everything. This department is too critical to only hope that Sergeant Bradley is up for the task of running it."

Tate didn’t so much as twitch a brawny muscle even though the implied insult had to burn. For all the issues I’d had with him in the past, his competence, dedication, and work ethic had never been among them.

"You won’t find anyone more qualified to run this operation now that Don’s gone," I said with quiet steel.

"That’s not why he’s here," Don hissed. He’d been quiet for the past several minutes, but now he sounded more agitated than I’d ever heard him. Did becoming a ghost give my normally urbane uncle less control over his emotions, or did he and Madigan have a nasty history together?

"He’s after something more important than auditing Tate’s job performance," Don went on.

"I’m particularly interested in getting caught up on your records," Madigan said to me, oblivious to the other conversation in the room.

I shrugged. "Knock yourself out. Hope you like stories about the bad guys-or girls-getting it in the end."

"My favorite kind," Madigan replied with a glint in his eye that I didn’t care for.

"Are Dave, Juan, Cooper, Geri, and my mom in the Wreck Room?" I asked, done with playing stupid word games. If I spent much more time with him, my temper might overcome my common sense, and that wouldn’t be good. The smartest thing would be to play docile and let Tate find out if Madigan was really sniffing around this operation for ulterior motives.

"Why do you want to know their location?" Madigan asked, as if I had nefarious intentions he needed to protect them from.

My smile hid the fact that I was gritting my teeth. "Because since I’m here, I want to say hi to my friends and family," I managed to reply, proud of myself for not ending the sentence with dickhead.

"Soldiers and trainees are too busy to drop what they’re doing just because a visitor wants to chat," Madigan stated crisply.

My fangs jumped out of their own accord, almost aching with my desire to tear the snotty expression right off Madigan’s lightly wrinkled face. Maybe some of that showed, because he followed that comment with, "I must warn you, any hostile actions toward me will be taken as an attack against the United States itself."

"Pompous prick," Don snapped, striding over to Madigan before stopping abruptly, as if remembering there wasn’t a single thing he could do to him in his current state.

A thread of warning edged into my furious emotions, Bones’s silent reminder for me to get control of myself. I did, forcing my fangs to retract and my eyes to return from sizzling green to their normal shade of medium gray.

"Whatever would give you the idea that I’d attack you?" I asked, making my voice as innocent and surprised as I could while mentally folding him into the shape of a pretzel.

"I might be new here, but I’ve extensively studied reports on your kind," Madigan said, dropping his patronizing G-man façade to show the naked hostility underneath. "All of them show that vampires’ eyes change color right before they attack."

Bones laughed, a caressing sound that was at odds with the dangerous energy starting to push at his walls. "Bollocks. Our eyes turn green for reasons that have nothing to do with intent to kill-and I’ve seen vampires rip throats out without the slightest change in iris color. Is that the only experience you’ve had with vampires? Reports?"

The last word was heavy with polite scorn. Madigan stiffened.

"I’ve had enough experience to know that some can read minds."

"Shouldn’t concern you. Men with nothing to hide have nothing to fear, right, mate?"

I waited to see if Madigan would nut up and accuse Bones of prying into his mind during this conversation, but he simply adjusted his wire-rim glasses as though their location on his nose was of prime importance.

"Your mom and the others will be done with training in an hour," Tate said, the first words he’d spoken since we’d come into his office. "You can wait here, if you’d like. Madigan was just leaving."

"Are you dismissing me?" Madigan asked with a touch of incredulity.

Tate’s expression was bland. "Didn’t you say right before Cat got here that you’d had enough of me for the day?"

Faint color rose in Madigan’s cheeks. Not embarrassment, from his scent spiking with hints of kerosene. Carefully controlled indignation.