This Side of the Grave

Except our arms stayed in their same vertical position. Nitro’s biceps bulged almost as much as his gaze when his efforts didn’t move my arm so much as an inch. I flashed him a smile as I held my position, mentally counting to ten before I began to edge his arm in a slow, steady arc downward. After all, I didn’t want to embarrass him by slamming his hand on the table before he’d even realized what happened. It wasn’t Nitro’s fault he had no idea I’d been born with unusual strength, or that I still had some of Bones’s power in me from drinking his blood.

Poor burly vampire didn’t stand a chance.

Murmurs rose from the crowd, drowning out even the music as Nitro’s arm inched closer to the table. Lines formed in his face and a harsh grunt escaped him as he put more effort into holding me off. I let him raise his arm up a few inches – the male ego was such a fragile thing, after all – before sending it down onto the table with a thunk hard enough to crack the Formica.

We’ll have to pay for that before we leave, I thought amidst the burst of surprised exclamations from the watchers around us.

Nitro stared at his arm in disbelief. Then his gaze swung back up to me even as I disentangled my grip and shook the temporary numbness out of my hand. He’d really gone all out those last few seconds.

"How the hell did you get to be so strong?" he demanded. "You can’t be more’n a year undead!"

"Good guess," I remarked. "It’ll be a year this fall, actually, but I’ll tell you a secret – I had vampire strength long before that."

His brows drew together in a frown. Then comprehension dawned and Nitro laughed.

"Red hair, beautiful, and badass. You must be the Reaper." I grinned. "Call me Cat."

He glanced at Bones next, drawing the obvious connection as to who he had to be. Bones didn’t notice; he was too busy collecting his winnings. Comments like "Ah, that’s splendid," and

"Better luck next time, lads" came from him. By the time he sauntered over, he had a thick stack of bills in his hands. Most vampires were slow on catching what they considered the "new" credit card trend and still carried cash.

"Leave it to you to find a way to make a profit off this," I noted in amusement.

His mouth curled. "Fortune favors the bold."

Nitro shook his head as he looked back at us. "Guess it’s time for me to pay up, too." Then he walked over to where his friends stood, pulling the reporter out from behind the wall of vampires. He gave him a light shove that nevertheless had him landing in an ungainly heap near my feet.

"All yours, Reaper," he drawled.

I ticked my hand off my brow in a jaunty salute. "Pleasure doing business with you, Nitro."

That earned me a laugh. "Next time, I’ll know better than to fall for your innocent little female act."

"Don’t feel bad, mate," Bones replied. "She fooled me with the same thing the first time we met, right up until I saw her kill a vampire seven times her age." Then Bones went over to the nearest bar and slapped his bundle of cash onto it. "Drinks are on me until this runs out," he announced, to a rousing round of applause. I caught his wink to Verses next and the ghoul’s wry shake of his head. It probably didn’t come close to making up for the damage we’d caused the last time we were here, but it was a start.

With another chuckle, Nitro and his group walked away to place their drink orders.

Around us, the onlookers faded as people went back to dancing, drinking, or whatever it was they’d been doing before this all started. I looked down at the man who was slowly getting up from the floor, sandy-brown hair mussed from his earlier struggles.

Yep, this was who we’d come here for.

"Hi, Timmie," I said in a low voice.

His head whipped up, revealing a face with five o’clock shadow on his jaw and faint lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked different from the gangly boy who’d been my neighbor seven years ago when I was a college student by day and a vampire hunter by night. In addition to the stubble on his face, the laugh lines, and his hair being longer, his frame had also filled out to a stockier, more muscular physique. Getting older looks good on him, I mused.

"How do you . . . ?" he began. Then his voice died away while his eyes widened.

"Cathy?" he managed. He looked me up and down, his shocked expression changing into a smile that wreathed his face. "Cathy! I knew you weren’t dead!"

Chapter Nine

Timmie continued to stare at me witha mixture of glee and disbelief. I smiled back, happy to see hints of the boy I’d been friends with amidst the differences in the man in front of me. When Tate told me Timmie was the troublesome reporter we needed to collect tonight, I’d been stunned, but pleased at the thought of seeing him again.

"I can’t believe it," Timmie marveled. "You look exactly the same, except, uh, you didn’t use to dress like that before," he added as goggled at my outfit. Then he made as if to hug me, but stopped when he noticed the man striding up to my side.

"You!" Timmy burst out, losing the smile while he blanched. "God, Cathy, you’re still with him?"

I smothered a laugh at the incredulity in his tone. "Yep. Married him, too." Bones gave Timmie a grin that managed to be predatory even though he didn’t flash any fang. "She does indeed look very fetching, but if you continue with that particular line of thought, I’ll neuter you for real this time."

Timmie’s cheeks reddened. "I – I didn’t . . . I mean, I wouldn’t . . ." Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. You don’t look any different, either, except your hair’s dark now. Neither of you look a day older than the last time I saw you." Fear wafted from him as he looked back and forth between me and Bones, putting it all together with what he’d learned about this club. I watched him closely as I waited. The Timmie I’d known had been open-minded and kind, albeit ignorant about the undead like everyone else.

How much of who he used to be was still left in the person in front of me? Had the years changed not just his appearance, but his tolerance as well?

"I’m right about all of it, aren’t I?" he asked at last, very softly. "Some of these people

. . . they’re not human."

"No, they’re not," I answered in a steady tone.

His face paled even more as he looked around at the people by the nearest bar. On the surface, nothing about them looked different from patrons gathered around any other bar, especially since Timmie couldn’t see the handful of ghosts circling over the last seat on the left.

But every so often, emerald would glint from a person’s gaze. Or someone would move with a quickness that Timmie’s subconscious would register even if his eyes couldn’t follow.