One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(39)

“Is that your idea of an apology?” I asked, incredulous.

“I don’t owe you one,” Madigan snapped before assuming that calmer, controlled tone again. “Had you come to me about this ghost first, without any subterfuge, this tragedy would have been prevented.”

“We didn’t need to come to you because we had it under control,” I gritted out. “At least, we did until you had to track me down and interrupt us at gunpoint from trapping this f*cker for all eternity, and now you want to blame this on me?”

God, if I stayed here any longer listening to his twisted version of events, I was going to beat him until he bled internally.

Bones must’ve had enough, too, because he took my arm. “Come on, Kitten, let’s go. We’re wasting our time with this sod.”

“You can’t leave yet,” Madigan said, that edge back in his voice.

A slow smile spread across Bones’s face. “Oh?”

We were in the air before Madigan could sputter out a demand for us to stay put. I could fly well enough to propel myself in the general direction I wanted to go, but I lacked the finesse Bones had while flying. So while I took off under my own power, I let him direct us to where Tyler, my mother, and the pet carriers were located. One quick snatch-and-grab later, and they were soaring far above the ground as well. Fabian and Elisabeth didn’t need to be told to follow; they whooshed after us, their forms streamlining into mere blurs.

Don stayed behind with Chris and his crew, who were unharmed thanks to the sage burning in the RVs. Even if Madigan questioned them again, they couldn’t tell any more damaging information about us than they already had. Plus, Madigan would make sure they didn’t repeat anything they’d seen to outside sources. Vampires weren’t the only ones who were experts at concealing incriminating information. The government had extensive practice when it came to that, too.

We went straight from Ohio to our best friends Spade and Denise’s home in St. Louis. No, we didn’t fly everyone the whole way. Since merging lines with a vampire several millennia old, Bones now had people accountable to him spread out all over the world. All it took was one call to his co-ruler, Mencheres, saying we needed a pickup for us to be whisked away within the hour. Good thing, too, since we couldn’t have rented a car. We’d left our credit cards and IDs back in one of the RVs. Silly us hadn’t figured on Madigan’s commandeering the RVs and greeting us at gunpoint outside the cave. If Madigan thought to trace us through those aliases or billing card addresses, he was mistaken. Bones had everything routed through so many false channels, Madigan would only end up chasing his tail. I hoped he tried it because the thought of frustrating him pleased me in a petty, vindictive way.

When we arrived at their house, I didn’t even have to get out of the car to see that we weren’t the only visitors. If the flashy Maserati wasn’t enough to clue me in as to who else was here, the custom GR8BITR license plate was confirmation.

“Ah, Ian’s here,” Bones said with none of my dismay at the prospect.

“I see that,” I replied, not airing any of my opinion because Ian could hear me, and it would only amuse him. Some people took exception to being considered a pain in the ass. Ian didn’t only take it as a compliment, he reveled in it. If he wasn’t Bones’s sire, I might have “accidentally” staked Ian by now.

“Cat!” Denise exclaimed, flinging open the door. She almost ran to give me a hug, whispering, “Thank God you’re here. He’s driving me crazy!” during her welcoming squeeze.

I smothered a laugh, knowing she wasn’t talking about Spade. Good to see I wasn’t the only one who found Ian irritating. How Bones and Spade had put up with him these past centuries, I’d never know.

“Cat. Justina. Crispin,” Spade said from behind Denise, calling Bones by his human name. “How goes it?”

“Not as well as we’d hoped, Charles,” Bones replied, also addressing him by the name he’d been born with instead of the moniker of the tool Spade had been assigned as a New South Wales prisoner.

Tyler carried Dexter out of the car and set him down. The dog took one look at the open front door of the house and ran inside. My mother followed suit after exchanging a brief hello with Denise and Spade and getting directions to the nearest guest bedroom. It was almost dawn, and as a normal newer vampire, my mother was wilting on her feet. I wasn’t worried about Spade’s having enough room for all of us. He was a former eighteenth-century nobleman, and the spacious opulence of the several houses he owned reflected that.

Tyler sidled up next to me, eyeing Spade with open appreciation.

“Who’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious?”

“Her husband,” I replied, my lips twitching. “Tyler, this is Denise, and that’s Spade.”

Tyler let out a dramatic sigh as he shook Denise’s hand. “All the good ones are either straight or married, but I won’t hold it against you that he’s both.”

Denise laughed. “Great to meet you. Cat’s told me all about you.”

“And some of it’s probably true,” he teased.

Then his attention became fixed on someone behind Denise, his mouth dropping before his expression turned into an open, lascivious stare. Thoughts started to race through his mind that were so explicit, I wished I could take a bat to my head to block out my telekinetic abilities.