At Grave's End

I pushed Spade back and went to the edge of the stage. "Your challenge is accepted. If you want your freedom..." I cracked my knuckles and rolled my head on my shoulders. "Come and get it."

Thomas walked toward the stage, one clean jump taking him onto the elevated platform. The rest of the vampires cleared a path, Mencheres cutting Spade's further protest short with a wave of his hands. I almost smiled as I watched. This was the closest thing to therapy I could do.

"How do you want to die?" I asked, boring my gaze into his. "Because you will, you know. So pick your poison. Swords, knives, mallets, or skin on skin."

Thomas was my height, and he had blue eyes and curling, brownish-red hair. All this I noticed while measuring his aura. He had the resonating power of a strong vampire. This wasn't a teenager in undead years.

"I will kill you swiftly out of respect for my sire," he answered with an Irish accent.

I gave a sharp bark of amusement. Combined with his short height and round cheeks, Thomas reminded me of the leprechaun from the cereal I ate as a kid.They're after me Lucky Charms! I wanted to chant at him. Too bad he wasn't wearing green, that would have made it perfect.

"If you had any respect for Bones, you wouldn't be challenging for your freedom in the middle of a war," I hissed instead. "As he would say,Very bad form."

"It was his misfortune to be enthralled by a witch such as you," he said as he selected a knife from the display of hastily arranged weapons. I didn't bother to pick-I was wearing several on my belt. "You incited him to war based on an assault that never really happened!"

There was an eruption of curses from several of the vampires on the stage. Cold fury enveloped me. Trying to go for the low blows, was he? All right, then.

I let out a cry and hunched as if struck. Thomas sprinted forward in a flash of speed. When he was on me, his knife millimeters from a killing blow, I twisted to the side and jammed his own blade deep in his stomach. Soon more sharp silver found a home through his heart. It all happened in less than a second.

"You dumb fuck, guess you weren't paying attention when Bones told you not to fall for a bluff."

With my knife in his heart, Thomas froze like he'd been turned to ice. I leaned closer to almost whisper in his ear.

"Tell Bones hello for me," I said, then twisted the blade in his heart. "And when he gets ahold of you, you'llreally be sorry."

I gave Thomas's slowly shriveling body a kick that sent him down into the seat where the orchestra would normally sit. Then I tucked my knife back into my belt, not even bothering to wipe the blood off.

There was commotion in the back. The sound of doors banging open. I glanced up just as Mencheres came forward and gripped my hand.

"Cat, I am very sorry, but I had no idea she would do this," he grated. "You cannot attack her at a formal gathering, it's against our laws. To do so would condemn us all."

Those words chased away my momentary confusion over who the five vampires were who entered the theater.Late arrivals, had been my first thought. Then that f**king laugh told me otherwise even as Mencheres was still speaking. I knew that laugh. It branded me.

"Mencheres, my husband, aren't you going to greet me?"

My fingers whitened on his, squeezing so hard, Mencheres's bones fractured as fast as they could heal. Patra had spoken to him, but her eyes were all for me as she descended the aisle with serpentine grace.

Patra didn't have the famous blunt Egyptian haircut so often shown in movies about her mother. No, she had threads of gold highlights in her long black hair. Her brows weren't as thick as Hollywood suggested, either. Actually, they were slender. So was she. In fact, she was more athletic than voluptuous. Her skin was pale, but darker than mine. Almost honey-colored. Her nose was slightly longer than fashion favored, but there was no question about it, Patra was beautiful.

"Why?"

I spat the question to Mencheres while not taking my eyes from her. Everything in me was wound to the breaking point.Kill, was all my mind was capable of thinking.

"It's our laws. As my wife, she can be present at any formal gathering, but she cannot attack us. Neither may we injure her, however. She seeks to provoke you to violence, but don't give her such an easy victory."

Oh, she'd provoked me to violence, all right. I wanted to rip her apart and wear her blood for clothing. My eyes flared, green rays of loathing shining on her.

"Hello, bitch."

She laughed again in an insinuating, purring way. "So you're the half-breed. Tell me." A gleam appeared in her eyes. "Have you slept well recently?"

Some part of me was amazed I hadn't combusted in rage. The other half heard me laugh in a bright, chipper tone that was so at odds with how I felt.

"That's the best you can do? Oh, Patra. How boring."

Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. Hell, I was surprised at myself.

Patra didn't like being laughed at. Her incensed expression was evidence of that.

"I'm not as stupid as you're hoping," I went on. "Now, either shut up or leave, because you're interrupting things. There's got to be a law about that as well."

"I'll go." Her smile was contemptuous. "I've seen what I wanted. You're nothing, and soon you'll be less than that. But before I leave, I thought you should know why you're in this war in the first place. I'm betting my husband hasn't told you, has he?"

"Told me what?"

She laughed again, and I found myself thinking I hated her laugh more than any sound I'd heard before it.

"Haven't you asked yourself why I turned against Mencheres in the first place? If I hadn't, then there would be no war, and no reason to kill you or Bones."

If she was waiting for me to encourage her to go on, all she got was silence. Patra sighed.

"Very well, I'll explain. When Mencheres offered to make me a vampire, I told him I wouldn't cross over unless he changed my lover Intef as well. But after I woke up from my death, Mencheres told me Intef had been killed before his people could reach him."

She paused to give Mencheres a look filled with loathing.

"Then one day Anubus, a former friend of Mencheres, broke his silence. Intef wasn't killed by the Romans. Mencheres did it. You see, little half-breed, you're in this war because I'm finally getting revenge on my lover's murderer, so who'sreally to blame for Bones's death?"

I glanced at Mencheres, who closed his eyes briefly before meeting my stare. I saw it then. That what Patra had said was true, every word of it. For a moment, I was overwhelmed with the urge to stab both of them for their ruthlessness in getting what they wanted.

Then I turned back to Patra. "I get your motivation. But you should have just gone after Mencheres. Instead, you chose to kidnap people's family members to force them to suicide bomb themselves. You chose to murder Bones, and for that, I'm going to kill you. You of all people should understand why."

Patra smiled. "Because I understand your pain, I'm going to free you of it." She raised her voice. "I offer amnesty to anyone who leaves her and joins me! Furthermore, to the man or woman who slays her, I offer a reward beyond your ability to fathom. You have the word of a god."

I gave her a stare that was harder than the diamond on my hand. "You arrogant bitch, I'll see you dead, and that's the word of a half-breed."

Patra gave me a last disparaging glance and turned her back. Her four escorts flanked her as she ascended the aisle in the same sweeping manner she'd arrived.

Only after the doors closed behind them did I let my breath out. I was so furious, I was shaking.

The silence was complete, absent of the typical human shuffling or nervous clearing of throats. I went over to the side of the stage where the weapons were and almost gently pulled out a sword. Better to deal with the repercussions of Patra's offer now than to let the idea that I was too weak to lead simmer and grow.

"All right, whoever believes that bitch and thinks they can take me, here I am."

The challenges came thick and fast, several different voices calling out. This time I didn't offer the choice of weapons-I kept my sword. And one at a time, I hacked, stabbed, or decapitated each vampire who stepped onto the stage. All my pent-up fury and grief I put into my blows, thankful that for those brief moments, I could feel something aside from pain.

When I'd finished with the eighth vampire, running my sword through his heart so deeply half my arm followed, my outfit was sliced in dozens of places and gaping indecently in some. Ironically, my own injuries had healed with the continued contact of fresh vampire blood.

I turned toward the audience. "Who else thinks they can cut me down?"

No one else called out a challenge. I drove the sword into the center of the stage like it was Excalibur into the proverbial stone. Then I wiped some blood from my cheek with the ragged remains of my sleeve and turned to Mencheres.

"Now can we leave?"

Chapter Twenty-Four

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE, THE BED'S yawning emptiness taunted me.See, it mocked,my sheets are straight.There's no dip in my mattress where a long pale form lay waiting. Bones is gone. He's never coming back.

With impotent wrath I flipped the bed, smashing it into the wall. All it did was expose the antique box with the letter inside I couldn't stand to read and destroyed a perfectly good bed. A waste, like all my plans for a future.

I dressed in sweats and a T-shirt and went downstairs, the box wrapped in a blanket I'd yanked from the wreckage of the frame. The clock had just chimed two a.m., and no one was asleep.

Spade and Rodney were in the drawing room with Ian. Mencheres wasn't, and it didn't disappoint me. Seeing Patra had upset him, it was clear. Some part of me felt sorry for him. When he'd married Patra, he'd loved her. Not a wise judge of character on his part, but then no one was perfect. Even thousands of years later, that mistake was still haunting him.

"You did well tonight, Cat," Ian said. "Though you look like shit."

Normally I would have responded with something sarcastic, but it took too much effort. Instead I settled myself on the couch, tucking the box on the floor next to me. "Whatever."

"You need to sleep," Spade said for the hundredth time.

"If I could fall asleep, then I wouldn't be sitting here listening to you guys bitch at me. Has Anubus divulged anything interesting yet?"

Ian had been the one spending most of the time with him. Well, Ian and a few sadistic friends. Anubus no doubt wished they'd just kill him. They wouldn't, of course. No matter how much he might ask for that.

"Blasted little, as it were." Ian grunted in exasperation. "The sod doesn't even know how Crispin was taken or who else was at that train station besides the vampires we saw. It doesn't make sense why he wouldn't know more, but he's maintaining that he doesn't."

"We'll just have to try harder," Rodney grimly said. "Be more inventive."

"Even so," Spade agreed.

My fingers rubbed my temples to try and stem the migraine that had grown worse.

"Ian's right, you know," Spade said briskly. "You're in terrible shape, and you won't last much longer without rest. Shall I-?"

"You can't help her. I can."

Spade glowered at Tate as he entered the room. Ian and Rodney followed suit. If it bothered him, he gave no sign of it, and sat on the couch next to me.

"Tate," I sighed. "Maybe you should leave. They're all mentally playing catch with your skull."

He ignored that and handed me a prescription bottle. "I called Don. This is measured for your bloodline, Cat, and it'll make you sleep. That's why I've been gone for hours-I walked to the pharmacy so no one could trace a car or get plates if someone was watching."

The three other men in the room were as astonished as I was. I took the bottle.

"Thank you." The anticipation of the brief nothingness sleep would bring me made it even more sincere. For a few hours, maybe, I'd be released from grief.

He held out a glass of water. "You're welcome."

I swallowed the required dose and then lay back into the couch. The wooden box was still beside me, those words locked away inside it the closest substitute I had for Bones. After a few minutes, I felt the tension lessen in my body. The pills were strong and I had a fast metabolism.

"Well done, lad," Spade said as I started to drift off. "Perhaps you'll be of use after all."

"Bones and I agreed that we wanted what was best for her," was Tate's hushed response. "We just differed in what we thought that was."

Bones...

His name echoed in my mind as I slipped into the waiting unconsciousness.

Maybe I'll dream of you.

Noise woke me. Somewhere in the house, there was a scream. Then the running of footsteps. Those sounds intruded inside the restless sleep the narcotics held me in.

"What the hell-?" I heard Spade say, his voice rising in pitch.

"Bugger me dead!"

Was that Ian? Couldn't they keep it down?

There was a shriek that sounded like Annette, and in such a high octave, I pulled the pillow over my head. Even that small effort exhausted me. If I could have, I would have bitched about the commotion. They wanted me to sleep, but then they made this kind of racket? Hypocrites.

There were the unmistakable bawls of Annette in loud, unintelligible bursts. Nearby, I heard something crash to the floor. My hazy mind thought it might have been Tate. He'd been balanced on the back of his chair legs when I passed out. Maybe he'd nodded off as well and lost his equilibrium. Still, that didn't explain his mumbled sentence.