One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(3)

Bless Fabian. True friends came in all forms, even transparent ones.

Don wasn’t convinced. “I’ve been dead for over five weeks,” he replied shortly. “Did you know anyone who took that long to cross over?”

My cell rang, giving Fabian an excuse not to reply as I answered it. Good timing with the interruption, too, because from his expression, Don wouldn’t have liked Fabian’s answer.

“Cat.”

I didn’t need to glance at the numbers to recognize Tate, my former first officer, just from that one syllable. He was probably calling to talk to Don, but as a ghost’s voice didn’t travel well through technology, I’d have to act as relay.

“Hey, what’s up?” I said, waving Don over while mouthing, It’s Tate.

“Can you come to the compound tonight?” Tate’s voice sounded odd. Too formal. “The team’s operations consultant would like to meet you.”

Operations consultant? “Since when do we have one of those?” I asked, forgetting that I hadn’t been part of the team’s “we” in a while.

“Since now,” Tate replied flatly.

I glanced at Bones but didn’t wait for his acquiescing shrug before answering. We didn’t have important plans, and my curiosity was piqued. “All right. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

“Don’t come alone.”

Tate whispered the last part right before hanging up. My brows rose, more that he’d made the sentence inaudible to anyone without supernatural hearing than the words themselves.

Something else was clearly up. I knew he wasn’t asking me to bring Bones since Tate knew he always accompanied me on trips to my old workplace. Tate must mean someone else, and there was only person I could think of.

I turned to Don. “Feel like going on a field trip?”

From the air, the compound looked like a nondescript single-story building surrounded by a lot of wasted parking lot space. In reality, it was an old military nuclear fallout shelter that had four extensive sublevels underneath its deliberately plain exterior. Security was rigid here, as you’d expect for a secret government facility that policed the activities of the undead. Still, I was surprised when we had to hover for ten minutes before our chopper was given clearance to land. It was not like we were dropping in unexpectedly, for crying out loud.

Bones and I exited the chopper but were stopped by three helmeted guards when we attempted to go inside the roof’s double doors.

“ID,” the guard closest to us barked.

I laughed. “Good one, Cooper.”

The guards’ visors were so dark that I couldn’t see any of their features underneath, but they all had heartbeats, and Cooper was the only one of my old human friends who was smart-ass enough to attempt such a stunt.

“Identification,” the guard repeated, drawing the word out enough to determine that his voice was unfamiliar to me. Okay, not Cooper, and not a joke, either. The flanking guards tightened their grips ever so slightly on their automatic weapons.

“I don’t like this,” Don muttered, coming to float on my right. None of the guards even flinched in his direction, but of course, as humans, they couldn’t see him.

I didn’t like it, either, but it was obvious these guards were bent on seeing our ID before letting us enter. I began to dig through my pocket, having learned the hard way to always carry a wallet even if I didn’t think I’d need it, but Bones just smiled at the trio.

“Want my identification?” he asked silkily. “Here it is.” Then his eyes changed to glowing emerald green while fangs slid out from his upper teeth, extending to their full length like mini ivory daggers.

“Let us pass, or we’ll leave, and you can explain to your boss that the visitors he expected had better things to do than have their time wasted.”

The guard who’d demanded our ID hesitated for a loaded moment, then stepped aside without another word. The twin fangs gleaming from Bones’s teeth retracted, and his eyes bled back to their normal dark brown color.

I put my wallet back in my pants. Guess I wasn’t going to need my driver’s license after all.

“Wise choice,” Bones commented. I brushed past the guards, with him following behind me, my uncle still muttering that he didn’t like this. No shit, I thought, but didn’t say it for more reasons than not wanting to appear like I was talking to myself. This was Don’s first trip back to the building he’d run for years and ultimately died in. Now he was returning in a supernatural form that most of his colleagues couldn’t even see. That had to be discomfiting in more ways than I could imagine.

We went down the hallway toward the elevator, and I mentally catalogued the differences since the last time I’d been here. There used to be two busy offices in this section, but now the only sounds of activity were our steady footfalls on the linoleum floor.

When we got in the elevator, I pressed the button for the second sublevel, where the staff offices were located. A poignant sense of déjà vu washed over me as the shiny doors closed. The last time I’d ridden this elevator on the way down, I had been rushing to Don’s bedside to say goodbye. Now he stood next to me, the other side of the elevator hazily visible through his profile. Life certainly had some bends in the road that I never would have anticipated.

“Just so you know, if I see a bright light while I’m here, I’m running into it without waiting for you to say a damn word,” my uncle said, breaking the silence.