This Side of the Grave

Sure, I’d spent years working for a covert branch of Homeland Security tracking paranormal homicides, but in those circumstances, the vampires had usually been the perpetrators. Not the victims.

. . . if I don’t pay the car payment, I’ll have enough money for the mortgage . . .

. . . 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.