One Grave at a Time

Then something hazy zoomed out of the cave, too fast for me to make out what it was. Icy needles scraped along my skin, and Dexter's bark was swallowed up by Tyler's muttered, "This isn't good."

"You try to trap me, Hexe?" a familiar voice hissed.

Kramer. From his accusation, the f**ker must've figured out what the large mineral cylinder was for. Tyler had sealed the Ouija board, but not before the ghost managed to slip through.

I reached for the sage in my pants only to have a dozen weapons level in my direction.

"Don't move another inch!" someone barked.

My hands froze. I didn't want to get riddled with silver bullets because I'd have to be in good shape to protect these idiots.

"Madigan," I said. "Get your men out of here. Now."

He bristled. "I'll remind you that you're in no position to give me orders."

Bones let out a harsh snort. "I won't have to kill them, Kitten. The fools are dooming themselves."

"What do you mean by that?" Madigan snapped, oblivious to the dark swirls materializing to the left of one of his soldiers.

"You'll see," Bones replied.

In the next instant, with screams splitting the air as Kramer attacked, he did see.

Chapter Seventeen

The last of the wounded were carted off by Medevac, leaving behind only the few uninjured and the bodies in the forest. Even the soldiers and occupants from the RVs were clustered around us, Madigan wanting as many people around him as possible until his transport came. Sage burned in pots in the perimeter surrounding us, but that wasn't the only smell in the air. The scent of blood and death was also heavy, clinging to the clothes of the survivors as well as emanating from the lost.

"How could this happen?" Madigan muttered, looking around at the carnage.

I'd been standing next to my mother, but Madigan's comment had me leaving her side to march over to where he stood. Even though the fallen men were strangers who'd threatened to shoot me, they didn't deserve to die the way they had. The fact that their deaths had been preventable only angered me more.

"How could this happen? Because you didn't listen when someone told you to get your men out of here."

Madigan's heart rate hadn't decreased much since Kramer began slaughtering everyone he could get his noncorporeal hands on. Sadly, that list didn't include Madigan, which was due in no small part to his being a coward. When Kramer tore through the guards, who fired so wildly at their unseen attacker that I'd taken a few stray bullets just protecting Tyler, Madigan crawled behind the barricade of our crouched bodies. Bones had draped himself over Chris and my mother joined the protective huddle to offer further buffer against the ghost and the bullets. Because of that, Madigan only had a bloody furrow in the side of his leg, more's the pity.

"This is all your fault," he stated, pointing a trembling finger at me. "You said ghosts were only faint, residual imprints of leftover energy, no more interactive than a house plant. You compromised my security and the security of-"

"Oh come on," I interrupted. "I guessed you were too stupid to be trusted with this information, and I was right! You don't have to be a weatherman to figure out which way the wind blows with you, Madigan. Lying to you was in the best interests of everyone's security, and I wish there wasn't a pile of dead bodies around me to prove it."

His face became mottled, and I could almost hear his blood pressure shooting up.

"How dare you? You'll be lucky if you're not both found to be accessories in those men's deaths!"

Bones ignored him, grasping one of the fallen soldiers by the shoulders and staring directly into his helmet.

"You, on the other side of this video feed. You authorized the replacement of a decently intelligent bloke with quite possibly the world's biggest arsehole-and in my day, I've met more than a few arseholes, so I'm speaking from a point of authority."

Madigan all but roared, "Get away from him!"

"He's dead, he no longer cares who's touching him," Bones replied shortly. "Pity you were more interested in garnering ammunition against her than in valuing his life while he still had it. You blundered into a situation that was far over your head, then ignored warnings to leave. Today, two vampires did more to protect your men than the human leader who was responsible for them. What will your superiors on the other end of this video think of that, I wonder?"

Madigan opened his mouth, his face reddening even more, when all at once, he stopped. Then I heard his thoughts snaking through the wall of rage and slogans. He's right. Must fix this.

"This has been a terrible tragedy," Madigan said, sounding mournful instead of about to blow a gasket like he had before. "Anytime life is lost, responsibility ultimately rests on the person in charge, and that person is me. I'll request that every aspect of today's events be evaluated so something like this never happens again, even if I'm reprimanded as a result."

"You're only trying to cover your ass seven ways from Sunday," Don said in disgust. Then he turned to me. "You see why I don't trust him?"

Oh yeah. I hadn't heard so much bullshit since the last time I drove past a used car lot and caught snatches of the salesmen's conversations. Madigan even ambled closer to the dead man as he spoke, dragging his leg far more than the shallow wound merited. He leaned down as if to brush some dirt off the fallen solider. What it did was allow the camera to pick up every nuance of his newly somber expression and the tear that somehow found its way onto his cheek. You coldhearted, manipulating PRICK, I thought in disbelief.

Bones let out a snort. "Right piece of work, you are."

Madigan's lips thinned, but he quickly recovered, straightening as much as he could while balancing most of his weight on one leg.

"I understand you're both still upset. I did allow my anger to color my judgment when I didn't listen to your warning. That was a mistake."

"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**ker 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.