One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(57)

“Looks like you’re leaving after all,” I noted to Tyler.

He grunted. “I hate flying with you guys, have I told you that?”

I cast a quick look outside, where it sounded like Kramer was now ripping up the lawn in his rage.

“Sorry. A lot of vampire tricks take getting used to.”





Twenty-six



Bones and I waited next to the Cathedral of the Epiphany, one of its tall steeples casting the shadow of a cross over where we stood. I told myself that was a good omen even though I couldn’t shake my tenseness. At eight in the evening, the area wasn’t as busy, but enough people were around that I worried about more than Tyler’s safety if Kramer showed up. Earlier today, we’d checked Dexter and Helsing into a kennel. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it was the best choice until Spade could arrange to pick them up. The pets, like Francine and Lisa, would be safer away from me.

Toward that end, we’d spent last night in an abandoned meatpacking facility in the Stockyards, keeping sage burning on the cold cement floor all evening. Even though it was miserable, and none of us slept, we couldn’t justify getting a hotel room and endangering anyone unlucky enough to be in the rooms next to ours. Bones made some calls, and tonight we’d be in a rented house without any close neighbors, but not until we spoke to my uncle. There were some important questions that only Don could answer. He better show up, I thought, glancing at the clock on my cell phone. I wouldn’t put it past my uncle to stand me up if an opportunity arose for him to follow Madigan without being detected.

My concerns were laid to rest when I spotted a ghostly figure floating over the park’s rolling hills, wearing a business suit instead of an old, mended tunic. I didn’t know what made certain clothes appear on ghosts—Don hadn’t died in a business suit, after all—but that wasn’t what I was burning to find out. He’d barely gotten within earshot before I started in on him.

“How long did it take from the time you started looking for me to when you popped up on our lawn yesterday?”

“Hello to you, too, Cat,” my uncle replied with a faint shake of his head. Tyler sidled over, squinting in the direction I faced. Must’ve figured out from my question that a ghost was here even though he couldn’t see him yet.

“Lives depend on your answer,” Bones told my uncle crisply.

Don gave his eyebrow a few thoughtful tugs. “It was around five in the morning, Tennessee time, when I began to concentrate on you like you told me to. What time was it when you saw me?”

“A little after two in the afternoon.” With the time change, that was about ten hours. Far, far longer than when I first had Marie’s blood and Fabian attempted to find me. That took him anywhere from minutes to less than an hour to zoom to my side, depending on how far away I was.

Bones gave Don a speculative look before turning his attention to me. “He’s not used to navigating by ley lines and he’s not nearly as powerful as Kramer. Best to assume it would take the Inquisitor half that time.”

Five hours. God, that wasn’t enough time to get anything significant done before the ghost found us.

“We were at the meatpacking plant longer than that last night,” I pointed out, hoping Bones was wrong.

“And he could’ve been there, waiting to see if Spade and the others joined up with us,” he replied.

Good point. Why would Kramer tip his hand if it wouldn’t net him anything he wanted? Bones and I weren’t his main targets; those women were. Kramer certainly hadn’t let on that he’d found the town house until Ian blasted away with Francine. No wonder nothing had happened when Bones and I took Lisa from her house. Kramer already knew where we were headed. The f*cker was probably laughing the whole time he watched us, thinking we were making it easier on him by keeping both women under the same roof.

Well, at least he wouldn’t be laughing now. If Kramer had been watching us all last night, he’d know the others hadn’t met up with us, and it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that they weren’t going to. When that happened, I expected him to express his displeasure in his usual way—trying to murder all of us.

“Oh, there he is,” Tyler remarked. “You’re the old guy from the cave in Ohio. Howya doin’?”

“I’m dead, how do you think I’m doing?” my uncle replied sourly before floating closer to me. “What happened yesterday, Cat?”

I let out a short laugh. “The same ghost from that day at the cave dropped by, and as you can tell, his mood was the same, too.”

The suspicious look Don gave me was one I remembered well from the early days when I worked for him, and I didn’t know about our family ties. “What did you do to make him so angry?”

“What did I do?” I sputtered, so outraged by the question that I couldn’t even begin to formulate an answer.

“I don’t have the patience for this today,” Bones growled, running a hand through his hair. “All you need to know, Williams, is that we’ll be surrounding ourselves with burning sage until we catch this sod again or you can’t locate her by concentrating, whichever comes first.”

Even if my reaction hadn’t been enough, the edge to Bones’s tone should’ve told Don to tread lightly because we were both on our last nerves, but my uncle seemed oblivious to the warning.