This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(12)

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 someone 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.

“Dave.”

I closed my eyes, hating the thought of my friend in such a situation, but Don was right. Dave was smart, tough, experienced, and already dead. Bones had raised Dave as a ghoul over two years ago after Dave had been killed on a mission, but few people in the undead world had ever met Dave. He’d been too busy as a member of Don’s team to hang out at many fang or flesh-eater parties.

“We’ll ask him,” I settled on. “Let him decide if he wants to do it. Going undercover is always dangerous, but going undercover to infiltrate a group of murderous undead zealots is too dicey to make it an order.”

“Go get him,” Don said. “He’s in the Wreck Room.”

I met my uncle’s intractable gaze with an equally stubborn one of my own. “I’ll go get him and we’ll deal with the ghoul situation, but I’m not giving up on you. Think about my offer. About all the positive changes you can make in the world if you’re still alive.”

He gave me a faint smile. “I was always going to die, Cat. Whether in a few months or a few years, it’s inevitable. You should have already accepted that, but you haven’t. You’ve thought with the mind of a vampire since the day we met. Your fangs are new, but that’s the only difference I see since you changed over.”

I bit my lip, refusing to acknowledge that he might be right. “I’ll go get Dave.”





Chapter Five

I walked out of Don’s room with Bones following me, trying to concentrate on anything but my uncle’s sad, stubborn gaze. Click-click-click went my shoes on the tile. Lung cancer. Click-click-click, bringing me closer to the elevator. Past the point of surgery, chemotherapy, or vampire blood. Click-click-click. Known for seven years.

Once inside the elevator, however, my control cracked and tears blurred my vision. Aside from my mother, Don was the only real family I had left. My grandparents had been murdered several years ago and my father was serving a whole new definition of “hard time” for repeatedly trying to kill me. Even though our relationship was nowhere near normal, over the past few years, Don had become the closest thing to a father I’d ever had.

And soon he’d be gone. Forever.

Bones folded me into his arms. With his height, my face was pressed to his collarbone, his leather jacket cool against my cheek while his hand smoothed over my hair. I held on to him, sinking into the oasis of his embrace, feeling his strength not just in the muscled wall of his body, but also in the power that enveloped me like a thick cloud as he dropped the shields from his aura.

Then I pushed him away, clearing the pink from my vision with several blinks. If I let myself dwell on this now, I wouldn’t be able to handle the very important tasks ahead of us. I wasn’t giving up on Don, but I had to pull myself together and concentrate on what needed to be done. This wasn’t the time for me to fall all to pieces.

“I’m okay,” I said to Bones, holding out a hand when he would have spoken. “Let’s just get Dave. One crisis at a time, right?”