This Side of the Grave

"What’s wrong that’s got you here?" I asked, again controlling the fear that made my voice higher than normal.

"I have a bad flu," Don replied, his words roughened by a cough.

"Don’t lie to her."

Bones’s voice flowed into the room, and a few booted strides later, so did he. His dark brown gaze focused on Don, who visibly stiffened.

"Your abilities don’t give you the right to – "

"My bloodline does," I interrupted Don, clenching my hands into fists. "You’re my family. That means I have a right to know." And if you don’t tell me, I’ll just green-eye your nurse until she does, I mentally added.

Don was silent for a long moment, looking between me and Bones. Finally, his shoulder lifted in a faint shrug.

"I have lung cancer." His smile was strained, but his trademark dry wit still rose to the occasion. "Appears those warnings on cigarette packages are correct." Everything in me tensed as soon as he said the C word. "But I’ve never seen you smoke," I blurted, stunned into denial.

"I quit before we met, but for thirty years before that, I had a pack-a-day habit." Lung cancer. Advanced, too, for him to look this way and allow himself to stay in the compound’s medical facility. To say Don was a workaholic was to put it mildly. In all the time I’d known him, my uncle hadn’t taken time off for vacations, holidays, or birthdays, let alone sick days. Then amidst my stunned absorption of this news, a businesslike mentality swept over me, mercifully blocking out the grief that made me feel like I’d just been shot in the gut.

"I assume your doctors are going to operate? Or do chemo? Both? What treatment plan have they given you?"

He sighed. "It’s too advanced for surgery or chemo, Cat. My treatment plan is to make the most of the time I have left."

No. The word resounded in my head as loudly as those unwelcome conversations had earlier. Then I uncurled my hands from the tight fists I had clenched at my sides, trying to make my voice very composed. Weeping and panic wouldn’t help, but calm logic would.

"Maybe your condition is past what traditional medicine can treat, but you have other options. Vampire blood will heal your lungs from sustaining further damage, maybe even put the cancer into remission – "

"No," Don interrupted.

"Dammit!" I exclaimed. So much for the calm, rational approach. "You’re letting bigotry get in the way of your common sense. Your brother was an ass**le before he became a vampire, Don. Changing into one didn’t make me evil, and drinking vampire blood to help your condition won’t make you evil."

"I know," he said, surprising me. "I began drinking vampire blood shortly after I was first diagnosed seven years ago. You made that possible with the captive vampires you brought back from missions when you were working for me. You’re right, it did put the cancer in remission, but time catches up with everyone, and it has, at last, caught up with me." Seven years! My mind reeled. "You hid this the whole time we’ve known each other?

Why? "

Don’s sigh rattled in his throat. "I didn’t trust you when you first joined the team, as you remember. Then, I didn’t want to distract you from your job. After you discovered you were my niece . . . well. Things happened. You’ve had a lot to deal with the past couple years, more than most people have had in their entire lives. I was going to tell you about it, but I wanted to give myself time to sort some things out first."

I knew my mouth hung open, but I couldn’t seem to summon the willpower to close it.

Bones came to me and took my hand, wordlessly squeezing it.

"You must have had an important reason for coming here without calling," Don said.

"What’s going on?"

I couldn’t believe he expected me to just change the subject, as if the topic of his impending death wasn’t worth further discussion.

"Chemo, surgery, and vampire blood might not be able to help you, but I still can." The words spilled out recklessly. "I’m a vampire now and I can make you one, too. You won’t owe me any of that normal fealty crap, and changing over will cure everything – "

"No."

The single word was soft but emphatic. My instant, sputtering argument faded as Don was seized with a wracking cough.

"But you can’t . . . you can’t just die," I whispered.

He straightened, controlling his cough. The same fierce will that had ordered Tate to shoot me the day we met was still in his gray eyes.

"Yes I can. It’s called being human."

I swallowed hard. The same argument I’d once used with Bones to rationalize why a relationship between us couldn’t work had just been flung back in my face. Now I knew the frustration Bones must’ve felt at that time, because I had a sudden urge to shake Don until the blind stubbornness rattled right out of his head.

But since I couldn’t do that, I’d try another tactic. "You’re indispensable to this operation. If you were gone, I wouldn’t be the only one who would suffer. Think of the team – "

"They have Tate," Don interrupted me. "He’s taken over this department for the past three months and he’s doing an excellent job."

"Tate’s needed out in the field, not for management," I argued even as I reeled at this new bit of information. "You only have one other vampire and a ghoul on the team aside from Tate. That’s not enough when going after the undead. Plus, some serious shit is brewing with ghouls right now."

A cough made Don pause before replying. "We may have another vampire on the team soon."

Must be Cooper. He was the next in line to lose his pulse. Seems a lot of changes had happened. Even if I wasn’t a member of the team anymore, I’d thought being a friend and family meant some one would keep me in the loop. Boy, was I wrong.

"Christ Almighty," Bones muttered.

Don shot him a look. "We’ll talk about that later. Now, tell me what trouble is brewing with the ghouls, Cat."

My uncle’s expression said that continuing to discuss the obvious reasons why he should save his life would only be pointless right now. I tried to pull myself together enough to focus on why we’d come, but I felt like the floor had just opened up underneath me.

"You remember last year that a ghoul leader, Apollyon, was all worked up about me possibly changing into a vampire-ghoul hybrid? Well, he hasn’t calmed down . . ." Several minutes later, I’d given Don all the details as we knew them. He tugged on his eyebrow as he listened. When I was finished, he let out a heavy sigh.

"Those vampires reporting back to you are a good start, but I don’t think it’s enough. If hostilities increase between vampires and ghouls, humans will bear the brunt of the fallout. We need someone to infiltrate Apollyon’s group. Find out everything we’re only guessing at now." I let out a grunt. "That would be great, but there’s a problem. Any ghouls we’d trust enough to spy would be known associates of Bones and would be killed on the spot. Finding someone tough and reliable that Apollyon wouldn’t recognize will be hard . . ." My voice trailed off even as Bones raised a brow. Don gave me a short nod.