This Side of the Grave

. . . told that bastard I wouldn't put up with him being out all night again . . .

. . . so proud of her, she'll graduate with her class . . .

I rubbed my head once more as the voices got louder. This time, Bones saw it.

"Again?"

"I'm fine," I said, attempting a casual tone.

His stare turned pointed. "Bollocks."

"I've got it under control, it's nothing to worry about," I amended. That was true. Dead bodies took priority over the mental mutterings going off in my head.

From his expression, Bones wasn't buying my blase act, but the clock was ticking on this crime scene. We had bodies to remove, evidence to erase, and killers to find.

Bones raised his voice. "Ed, get up here."

The skinny vampire's face pinched when he came inside and saw the bodies. "Aw, f**k," he groaned.

"Are these Shayne and Harris?" Bones asked, in a gentler tone than before.

Ed bent down, sniffing at each body. Vampires might never look a day older than whatever age they were when they were changed, but all that ended upon death. After death, a vampire's body rapidly composed to their true age, meaning that most of the time, there was nothing left but mummified remains inside of whatever clothes they died in. These two bodies were no exception.

Ed sat back on his haunches next to the denim-clad body. "That's them," he said in a thicker voice. Then he snarled, "Fucking ghouls."

"Why don't you go back outside now?" I said, giving Ed's arm a pat. There was nothing more he could do, but Bones and I still had things to take care of.

Ed gave another long look at Harris's and Shayne's corpses before he got up and walked out. I sighed. This was bad for so many reasons, and Ed's grief was only part of it.

"Why do you think they left the bodies?" I asked Bones quietly. "Ed and Scratch hadn't heard of bodies being found from the other disappearances. Think the killers got interrupted?" Bones's gaze swept around the room. It didn't take long; the area only consisted of a tiny kitchen and a family room big enough for just one full-sized couch.

"No, luv," he said at last. "I think whoever did this had the time to take the bodies, but chose not to."

I swallowed. That could be the result of the same sort of arrogance I'd seen in the past from killers who left bodies behind because they thought they were too smart to get caught. But unfortunately, I didn't think that was the case. Instead, this looked like confirmation of a much bigger problem - killers who wanted us to know who they were. Only an idiot wouldn't label those ghouls as prime suspects after they'd beaten on Harris just the evening before he and Shayne were murdered. Those ghouls knew that by leaving the bodies here, they were practically signing their names on them.

Only one reason I could think of - whoever was behind this felt strong enough to come out from behind the curtain. This might as well be a public service announcement that the ghouls would start stepping up their attacks, and I didn't think it was a coincidence that they'd chosen to start displaying vampire bodies in the same area I grew up in. No, I took this as a statement of

"You can't stop us, Reaper," and damned if I'd let that stand. Vampires might be disappearing in other areas, too, but here was where the perpetrators were calling us out by leaving the bodies. If we didn't draw a line in the sand here, then we'd be almost inviting things to get worse elsewhere.

"But there's not much anyone else is going to do about it, is there?" I asked in a sudden rush of frustration. "My old team won't get involved because they only step in when the undead attack humans. The vampire community will just shrug because Shayne and Harris were Masterless. Ed and Scratch can't take on a bunch of ghouls by themselves, and if we go after the killers and their leader is who I think he is . . . we'll be playing right into that bastard's hands." Bones stared at me without blinking. "You know you're right about your old team, the vampire community, and how we can't openly go after those ghouls if Apollyon is involved." Apollyon. An image of the centuries-old ghoul with his squat body and almost laughable comb-over flashed across my mind. Appearance-wise, Apollyon might look to be on the ass end of average, but in the past year, he'd managed to incite a hell of a lot of trouble. Bones almost died after ghouls attacked us in Paris several months ago, plus ghouls provided support to another Master vampire in his attempts to force me to return to him. All courtesy of Apollyon's inflamed rhetoric. Even though I hoped I was wrong, I just knew he was the one behind these attacks, too.

Of course, that meant all these terrible things were happening because of me.

"We can't let him or the others get away with this," I growled.

Bones's mouth curled into a predatory smile. "Kitten . . . I said we can't openly go after them."

Chapter Three

A large shadow passed across the doorway, blocking out the sun as Tiny entered the apartment. The vampire's nickname was ironic, because he was massive in a way that would make even the mythical Conan feel insecure.

"Cops are coming," he said.

I'd heard the wail of sirens growing ever closer over the past couple minutes. Guess one of the neighbors had gotten jittery at the sight of several sinister-looking people milling around the driveway. They obviously hadn't heard the death struggle taking place several hours before or we wouldn't have been first on the scene.

"You keep nosing around here, I'll handle them," I said to Bones. If we were lucky, Bones might recognize the scent from one of the murderers. In his two hundred and twenty-plus years as a vampire, he'd come across a lot of undead people, and scent was as unique as a fingerprint.

Still, I didn't hold out much hope that we'd solve these murders that easily. Bones might know a lot of undead people, but vampires and ghouls made up roughly five percent of the world's population. Even with Bones's extensive history, there were too many for Bones to know each pulseless one personally.

Bones glanced at Tiny, who followed me outside. I didn't reach for my cell phone, but that had been my first instinct. Using my government connections to chase cops away from crime scenes was habit to me after the years at my old job. This next part, however, was still relatively new.

"Hey," I called down when the police officers arrived and got out of their squad car.

"Glad you're here, I was just about to call."

"Do you live here, ma'am? We received a report about suspicious persons loitering in the area," the blond cop said, eyeing Tiny in a wary manner. His partner's hand moved to his gun.

"Skin that piece again and I'll forget I'm not hungry," Tiny muttered, so low the cops couldn't hear him.

I stifled a laugh and addressed the police officers again. "I don't live here, but my friend's place was broken into. Can you check it out?"

The cops gave me a once-over as they came up the stairs to the second floor. I smiled in a harmless way and made sure my empty hands were well within eyesight. Of course, a thorough cop would wonder why I was wearing a long jacket during the warm summer afternoon.

When they were within a dozen feet of me, my gray eyes turned glowing green. I lasered that stare at them, letting the entrapping nosferatu power cloud their minds.

"There's nothing going on here," I said in a firm, pleasant voice. "Turn around and leave, the call was a false alarm."

"Nothing going on," the blond officer intoned.

"False alarm," his buddy repeated, his hand leaving his gun.

"That's right. Go on. Serve and protect somewhere else." They both turned around and got back into their car without another word, driving off.

Before I became a vampire, it would've taken twenty minutes and two phone calls to get the same result, unless Bones green-eyed the local cops into leaving. Vampire mind control sure made it easy to cut through the bureaucratic red tape when it came to crime scenes.

Bones appeared in the apartment doorway holding two slender, sheet-draped bundles. To any nosy neighbors, he might have been carrying wrapped horizontal blinds instead of what I knew they were - the remains of Shayne and Harris.

"Tiny, put these in your boot," Bones said.

Tiny glanced down at his feet in confusion. I snorted. "He means your trunk. British English can be so confusing at times."

"That's only because you Yanks keep renaming things," Bones replied with an arch look, handing off the corpses to Tiny. Then he leapt over the balcony, landing in the parking lot without a hitch in his stride as he walked over to Ed and Scratch. Both vampires regarded Bones gloomily.

"What're you doing with their bodies?" Ed asked.

"Burying them elsewhere," Bones replied.

Scratch ran a hand through his gray-streaked hair. "Suppose you'll be off now that you've learned what you wanted to know."

Scratch sounded resigned. I caught Bones's slight smile as I came down to the parking lot the normal way by taking the stairs.

"Get in the car, lads. We have some things to discuss." I got behind the wheel with Bones riding shotgun as Ed and Scratch warily climbed into our backseat. From my rearview mirror I saw Tiny stuff the remains of the two vampires into his trunk, then he and Band-Aid were ready to go.

"Back to the mall?" I asked, pulling out of the driveway.

"That's fine, Kitten," he replied. His arm rested across the back of his seat as he settled himself in a lounging way while staring at Ed and Scratch.

"Would you try to bring your mates' killers to justice if you had assistance?" Bones asked them.

A scoff came from Ed. "Of course. Shayne didn't deserve to go out like that. Didn't know Harris very well, but he probably didn't, either."

"Damn straight," Scratch muttered.

I cast a sideways glance at Bones, wondering where he was going with this and still unable to plug into his emotions to get a hint. He tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Would be dangerous, even with help."

Another scoff, this time from Scratch. "Living is dangerous when you're Masterless, unless you're one of the lucky strong ones, but I don't expect you'd know much about that." A smile ghosted across Bones's lips. "I know a thing or two about dangerous living, in fact, but as you seem not to fancy being Masterless, what say you to joining my line?" My gaze flew to Bones before flicking to the rearview mirror. Both Ed and Scratch looked stunned. So was I. What Bones was offering was akin to adopting them.

"Think before you answer," Bones went on. "Once sworn, you can't change your mind and get your freedom back unless you formally ask for it and I decide to grant that request." Ed let out a soft whistle. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"As death," Bones lightly replied.

"I heard you're a mean bastard," Scratch said after a long pause. "But I've also heard you're a fair one. I can deal with mean and fair. Beats being on my own trying to fight off every a**hole who thinks killing Masterless vampires is an easy way to make a name for himself." My brows went up at this blunt analysis, but Bones didn't look the least bit offended.

"What about you, Ed?"

"Why are you offering this?" Ed wondered, looking at Bones with narrowed eyes. "You know from our power levels that we'll never be Masters. You can't be hard up for our measly ten percent tithe, either, so what's in it for you?"

Bones matched Ed's stare. "For starters, I want to catch these ghouls, and you'd help me with that. You also must have heard that recent wars killed several members of my line. You were loyal to your mates even after your Master died and you had no obligation to them. Then you were smart enough not to walk into a potential trap without backup. I could use more smart blokes whose loyalty to me, my wife, and my co-ruler would be without exception." Ed met my gaze briefly in the rearview mirror before looking back at Bones. "All right," he said, each word measured. "I'm in."

Bones pulled out a silver knife. I snapped my attention back to the road before I caused a wreck with my frequent glances around the car. Besides, I knew Bones wasn't about to start stabbing Ed and Scratch. He was just making this official.

"By my blood," Bones said, scoring a line in his palm, "I declare you, Ed, and you, Scratch, to be members of my line. If I betray this oath, let my blood be my penalty." Then Bones passed the knife to Ed, his cut healing before the first drops of blood splashed against his dark pants. I didn't need to look back to know that Ed made a slice into his palm; the tantalizing new scent of blood told me that.

"By my blood, I acknowledge you, Bones, as my Master," Ed rasped. "If I betray this oath, let my blood be my penalty."

Scratch repeated the words to the accompaniment of another mouthwatering scent filling the car. Aside from my discomfort with the whole "master" aspect that came with vampire lineage, I now had the tightening in my stomach to think about. I hadn't fed since last night and my next meal might be tricky to get since I had to find someone aside from Bones to drink from.

Normal vampires had plenty of options when it came to feeding. The power in their gaze meant they could snack off humans without their donors remembering it had happened, or vampires exchanged room and board with specially selected humans in return for blood.

I didn't have those conveniences. Mind control didn't work on other vampires, and no undead households I knew of had a stable of vampires available to feed from. Plus, we were still trying to keep my strange diet - and its side effects - from becoming common knowledge. So I couldn't just ask the next vampire I saw if I could take a bite out of him or her.