This Side of the Grave

God, I couldn't wait until the effect from Marie's blood was out of my system. If I never smelled garlic or weed again, it would be too soon. The only upside of our new decor was that it meant I could take the packets off, and not having dozens of little porous baggies under my clothes was a welcome relief.

"They're here, Kitten," Bones called out from downstairs.

I didn't hear anything yet, but I knew his connection to Mencheres was unusually acute because of their shared power, so I took him at his word. I wouldn't have time to put on makeup, but I didn't think anyone would notice. Or care. I was showered, in clean clothes, and my home was neat. Those were the three most important things when having visitors over.

Unless those visitors were hungry, of course.

"We don't have any blood," I said to Bones as I came down the stairs.

His gaze swept over me, pausing at certain points with appreciation. My dress was hardly sexy, being a plain black cotton number that hung to my feet and had three-quarter sleeves, but either it hugged the right places or Bones was showing the effects of a week of celibacy. To say I hadn't been in the mood since Don died was to put it mildly.

"I rather doubt they'd expect us to," he replied. "They know we just arrived." Right. Plus, this wasn't a social call. "He's probably coming over to tell me we need to put Plan Dave into action," I muttered. "We were supposed to think up another way to swipe a few of Apollyon's higher-ups without having Dave reveal that he was a plant, but that got pushed by the wayside."

Bones raised a brow in a way that said, Perhaps. He'd heard about that. Dave told Bones shortly after Don died, fueled by grief into wanting even more to strike a blow against Apollyon, but Bones talked him out of it. Still, I knew he thought the idea had merit.

I was even more opposed to it now than before, though. I'd just lost my uncle. I didn't want to lose a good friend next, and Dave was reeling from Don's death like the rest of us, which made him sloppier. That was the cold hard truth. I wondered if my uncle had any idea the profound effect he'd had on the people around him. Knowing Don, I doubted it. He wasn't much for grandstanding.

A car came up the winding driveway in the next few minutes, the sound almost loud compared to the relative quietness of the woods around us. The seclusion of having a cabin on fifteen acres of mountaintop property was what had drawn us to this place to begin with. Now that I could read minds, I appreciated the lack of close neighbors even more.

"Grandsire, Kira, welcome," Bones said once they were at the door.

I noted the elegant leather satchel Mencheres carried with a mental sigh. Of course they'd spend the night. He was coming all the way out here to deliver information; it would be beyond rude for us to hear him out, and then send them on their way. Plus, he probably wanted to strategize, and I couldn't blame him for that, either. No matter what upheaval might be going on in my personal life, there was still a war we had to prevent.

"Hi, guys," I said, giving both of them a hug to make up for my initial, selfish wish that they weren't staying.

"I'm so sorry about your uncle," Kira whispered, patting me when I let her go. "If there's anything we can do . . ."

"Thanks," I said, forcing a smile. "The flowers you sent were beautiful." All the arrangements had been, but I'd had them sent to a local hospital after the memorial. None of the burly team members were keen on the idea of taking them home, and I didn't have room for the dozens of floral sprays, bouquets, and wreaths.

"It was the least we could do," Mencheres replied with his usual reserved courtesy. "I regret to impose on you at this time of sorrow. However - "

"It's fine," I interrupted with another mechanical smile. "I know the bad guys don't call a time-out just because someone dies. I appreciate you handling things for the past few days, but it's time for Bones and me to get back in the mix."

I gestured for them to sit down, doing the polite hostess thing by asking if I could get them anything to drink. As Bones predicted, neither of them asked for an authentic version of a Bloody Mary, but just took water instead. That, at least, I had plenty of.

Mencheres waited until I was seated to dive into why they'd come. "I have found out what happened to Nadia Bissel," he stated.

I just stared at him blankly. "Who?"

Bones also cocked his head in puzzlement. Glad I wasn't the only one who felt lost.

"The human female you were seeking," Mencheres amended. At my continued confused look, he sighed. "The one who worked with the reporter you are friends with and who disappeared while investigating rumors of vampires?"

"Oh!" I said, the light bulb finally going off in my memory. I'd forgotten all about sending Nadia's picture and information to Mencheres so he could circulate it among his allies, looking for a clue as to what happened to her.

"She's dead?" I asked in resignation. Poor Timmie. He'd held out such hope that she was okay.

"No," Mencheres said, surprising me. "On the contrary, she's quite well, according to what I discovered."

"So why do you have that uh-oh tone to your voice?" I asked warily.

His lips curled. "My uh-oh tone is because you indicated your friend had more than a platonic interest in Nadia, and she is now the lover of a powerful vampire who has no intention of sharing her."

"Oh," I repeated, more thoughtfully this time. Then, "His willing lover?" Some vampires weren't up on the whole "no means no" concept.

"Her willing lover," Mencheres corrected.

Well. Timmie's chances with Nadia just went from slim to never gonna happen. I was glad she was alive and not being held against her will. Considering I'd thought Mencheres had come to bear more grim news about Apollyon, this was almost cause for popping the champagne, if I'd had any. Timmie's heart might be bruised, but there were far worse things that could have befallen Nadia. She'd gone looking for vampires and apparently found a whole lot more than just proof of their existence.

"Your sources are good? There's no doubt Nadia's with this vampire of her own free will and not just tranced into staying?"

"I know the vampire Nadia is with," Mencheres stated. "It would be very unlike Debra to force a human into staying with her, even one who'd discovered our race. Debra could have easily sent Nadia away with no memory of her discovery."

"Unless Nadia is like me," Kira said, with a slight smile. "Erasing my memory didn't work out so well for you when we met."

Mencheres let out a growl so edged with passion that I had an urge to glance away. "It worked out extraordinarily well in the end," he murmured to Kira.

Her soft laugh was also filled with things that were best left behind closed doors.

Technically, they weren't doing anything but sitting on the couch together, but with the newly charged air around them, I felt almost like a voyeur in my own home. I looked away to study my fingernails, as if struck by an urgent need to get a manicure.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Bones's slight grin. He knew how this would affect me, but the sudden heat coming off the two of them did nothing to discomfit him, of course.

Mencheres and Kira could start boinking like rabbits right in front of Bones, and he'd probably just warn them that the sectional they were on tended to flip over during such activity.

If Mencheres and Kira wanted to take this upstairs to a guest room, they were welcome to, but if they were staying down here, I was defusing the mood.

"Not nice for Nadia to disappear without telling her friends she was okay, though," I said, clearing my throat.

Mencheres rescinded the energy he'd been emitting until the room felt back to a PG - 13

level, instead of R heading into NC - 17. "Debra is what you would refer to as old school," he replied, pulling his gaze away from Kira to look at me. "She would not want Nadia contacting people from her former life, especially those who had an interest in exposing our race." Her former life. I almost let out a snort. That was the damn truth, because once a person became involved in the vampire world, nothing about their life would ever be the same again.

Then I glanced at Bones's profile, noting his curly hair, richly defined cheekbones, dark brows, and lips that were firm enough to be masculine and full enough to be sinful. Nothing about my life had ever been the same once I plunged into the vampire world, too, but looking at him, I wouldn't want it any other way. I hoped Nadia found half as much happiness in her undead relationship as I'd found in mine.

"I'll call Timmie, give him the news," I said, rising.

"Poor bloke can't catch a break when it comes to women," Bones noted.

I met his dark brown gaze with my first real smile in the past several days. "He just hasn't met the right one yet, but once he does, he'll forget everyone else." His smile became full of promise even as his power seemed to encompass me like a slow, sensual fog. "Indeed," he agreed, his tone now deep and silky. "The right woman is well worth waiting for."

Now it was Kira who cleared her throat at the decided shift in the atmosphere. I went upstairs to my room, still smiling in a lingering way, to call Timmie and give him the news that was both good and bad.

Chapter Thirty-three

I hung up half an hour later, blowingout a sigh. Timmie had taken the information about Nadia well enough, albeit needing to be talked out of seeing her in person so he'd know she was all right. I negotiated it down to a phone call. Timmie had no idea how strong vampire territorialism was. If he showed up reeking of lust and unrequited love for Nadia around the admittedly "old school" Debra, he'd be lucky to walk away without a permanent limp, if he walked away at all.

" . . . saw them myself several years ago, though Marie only used them to threaten me instead of having them attack me," Bones was saying.

That perked my ears up. I'd gone in my room and shut the door so my conversation wasn't distracting to everyone below. Talking Timmie out of doing something dangerously dumb had tuned me out to what they were saying, too. Had the conversation turned to Remnants?

Bones never told me he'd seen them before, let alone that Marie had threatened him with them.

I hurried downstairs just as he finished with, "Who's to say she doesn't use them often, and most people don't live long enough to tell the tale?"

"I imagine it takes quite a lot out of her to raise and control them, which would preclude Marie from making Remnants her most common weapon," Mencheres stated before raising an inquiring brow at me. "You were very tired afterward, as I recall." I sat next to Bones with an affirmative grunt. "At least Marie was right and their effect wasn't as overwhelming as it was the first time."

I'd still felt tired and cold everywhere for a few hours after raising them with Vlad, but I was able to keep control of myself the whole time. Nothing like when I first drank Marie's blood and then went nuts for two days.

Bones turned to stare at me. "The first time? You raised them again?" Oh crap. With everything that happened, I hadn't had a chance to tell Bones what I'd done in the graveyard that night with Vlad. Now he thought I'd been hiding it from him.

"I did a trial run of raising Remnants a little over a week ago," I said, raising my hand at the whiplash of disbelief I felt across my subconscious. "Before you get pissed, I didn't deliberately go behind your back. It just happened. And no, I didn't have a case of the sluts again."

"And you neglected to mention this to me why?" he asked, a hint of anger brushing my senses.

"Because the next time I saw you was when Don died," I replied steadily. "And it hadn't been the sort of thing I'd wanted to casually mention to you over the phone before that." Bones let out a breath in a slow hiss, that anger ebbing to something milder, like disapproval.

"You knew about this?" he asked Mencheres.

An oblique shrug. "Afterward."

I concealed my snort with the utmost difficulty. Sure, he'd had it confirmed afterward, but Mencheres knew damn well beforehand what Vlad and I would do, as he'd admitted once we got back. Still, Bones wouldn't be able to pick up the slightest hint of subterfuge in Mencheres's bland charcoal gaze. Note to self: He tap-dances around giving a straight answer with impressive skill.

"All right," Bones said at last, sounding resigned but no longer mad or disapproving.

"Well, what was it like this time, Kitten?"

"Still very freaky," I admitted with a shudder. "It took some trial and error, but we found out they're summoned and controlled by blood. After I sent them back, I felt tired, freezing, and hungry - for food," I added with a pointed glance at Mencheres, who merely blinked in an innocent way. "Still, nothing as bad as the first time." Even though I didn't want the memory to come, it did anyway. Cold all through me. Such incredible hunger. The smash of voices in my mind, intertwining into a roar of white noise . . .

Except for one voice, oddly enough. It tugged at the edge of my memory, honey-coated and Southern Creole, dancing amidst the chaos that night when I'd first been exposed to the true depths of Marie's hold over the dead. That's right, Marie had asked me a question I hadn't registered at the time because I'd felt like I was suffocating underneath the power I'd absorbed from her. Now, however, her question was as clear as though she were whispering in my ear this very moment.

Haven't you ever wondered how Gregor escaped Mencheres's prison?

Such an odd thing for her to ask. Mencheres snatched me away from Gregor, erasing the entire time from my mind and locking Gregor up as punishment. Yet somehow, Gregor had escaped a dozen years later and came after me, claiming I was his wife, not Bones's. At the time, finding out how Gregor had gotten out hadn't been first on anyone's list of priorities. Not with the trouble Gregor caused on the loose.