This Side of the Grave

"One of the oversights I noted when I arrived two days ago was that no one checked my identification when I landed. This facility is too important to be compromised by something as simple as sloppy security."

Tate bristled, hints of emerald appearing in his indigo eyes, but I just snorted.

"There are three security checkpoints on the ground, but if you're arriving by air, they would have double-checked the identity of the aircraft, the crew, and the flight plan, so whoever's inside is who they're supposed to be. Besides" - another snort - "if anyone got here by air that didn't belong, you think they'd be able to get away with their aircraft in missile range and several vampires able to track them by scent alone?" Instead of being offended by my blunt analysis of how useless a roof ID check was, Madigan just stared at me in a thoughtful way.

"I heard you had difficulty with authority and following orders. Seems that wasn't exaggerated."

"Nope, that's true," I replied with a cheery smile. "What else did you hear?" He waved a hand dismissively. "Too many things to list. Your former team raved about you so much I simply had to meet you."

"Yeah?" I didn't buy that as the reason I was here, but I'd play along. "Well, whatever you do, ignore what my mom has to say about me."

Madigan didn't even crack a smile. Uptight prick.

"What does an operations consultant do, I wonder?" Bones asked, as if he hadn't been busy using his mindreading skills to filch on Madigan from the moment we arrived. I'd have done the same thing myself, but my mental snooping abilities weren't active at the moment.

"Ensures that the transfer of management in a highly sensitized Homeland Security Department is as smooth as it needs to be," Madigan said, that smugness back in his tone. "I'll be reviewing all records over the next few weeks. Missions, personnel, budgets, everything. This department is too critical to only hope that Sergeant Bradley is up to the task of running it." Tate didn't so much as twitch a brawny muscle, even though the implied insult had to burn. For all the issues I'd had with him in the past, Tate's competence, dedication, and work ethic had never been among them.

"You won't find anyone more qualified to run this operation now that Don's gone," I said with quiet steel.

"That's not why he's here," Don hissed. He'd been quiet for the past several minutes, but now he sounded more agitated than I'd ever heard him. Did becoming a ghost give my normally urbane uncle less control over his emotions, or did he and Madigan have a nasty history together?

"He's the head of a really covert branch of the CIA, so if he's here, he's after something more important than auditing Tate's job performance," Don went on.

"I'm particularly interested in getting caught up on your records," Madigan said to me, oblivious to the other conversation in the room.

I shrugged. "Knock yourself out. Hope you like stories about the bad guys - or girls - getting it in the end."

"My favorite kind," Madigan replied with a glint in his eye that I didn't care for.

"Are Dave, Juan, Cooper, and my mom in the Wreck Room?" I asked, done with playing these stupid subtext word games. Seeing them would distract from the urge I had to check Madigan's ass for a large bug. If I spent much more time with him, my temper might overcome my common sense, and that wouldn't be good. The smartest thing would be to play docile and let Tate find out if Madigan was really sniffing around this operation for ulterior motives.

"Why do you want to know their location?" Madigan asked coolly, as if I had nefarious intentions he needed to protect them from.

My smile hid the fact that I was gritting my teeth. "Because since I'm here, I want to say hi to my friends and family," I managed to reply, proud of myself for not ending the sentence with dickhead.

"Soldiers and trainees are too busy to drop what they're doing just because a visitor wants to chat," Madigan stated crisply.

My fangs jumped out of their own accord, almost aching with my desire to tear the snotty expression right off Madigan's lightly wrinkled face. Maybe some of that showed in my face, because he followed that comment with, "I must warn you, any hostile actions toward me will be taken as an attack against the United States itself."

"Pompous prick," Don snapped, striding over to Madigan before stopping abruptly, as if remembering there wasn't a single thing he could do to him in his current state.

A thread of warning edged into my furious emotions, Bones's silent reminder for me to get control of myself. I did, forcing my fangs to retract and my eyes to change from sizzling green to their normal shade of medium gray.

"Whatever would give you the idea that I'd attack you?" I asked, making my voice as innocent and surprised as I could, while mentally folding him into the shape of a pretzel.

"I might be new here, but I've extensively studied reports on your kind," Madigan said, dropping his patronizing G-man fa?ade for an instant to show the na**d hostility underneath.

"All of them show that vampires' eyes change color right before they attack." Bones laughed, a caressing sound that was at odds with the dangerous energy starting to push at his walls. "Bollocks. Our eyes turn green for reasons that have nothing to do with intent to kill - and I've seen vampires rip throats out without the slightest change in iris color. Is that the only experience you've had with vampires? Reports?" The last word was heavy with polite scorn. Madigan visibly stiffened.

"I've had enough experience to know that some can read minds." Bones's smile widened.

"Shouldn't concern you. Men with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. Right, mate?" I waited to see if Madigan would nut up and outright accuse Bones of prying into his mind during this conversation, but he simply adjusted his wire-rim glasses as though their location on his nose was of prime importance.

Wasn't going to cut the crap, then. Fine. I suppose it was naive of me to hope that he'd be a straight shooter. Life wasn't that easy.

"Your mom and the others will be done with training in an hour," Tate said, the first words he'd spoken since we'd come into his office. "You can wait here, if you'd like. Madigan was just leaving."

"Are you dismissing me?" Madigan asked with a touch of incredulity.

Tate's expression was bland. "Didn't you say right before Cat got here that you'd had enough of me for the day?"

Faint color rose in Madigan's cheeks. Not embarrassment, from his scent spiking with hints of kerosene. Carefully controlled indignation.

"I did," he replied shortly. "You'll have those reports for me in the morning? I assume staying up the rest of the night should be no hardship for someone like you." Oh, what an a**hole. My fangs did that let me at him! thing again, but this time, I kept them in my gums, while also stifling the nosferatu green from leaping into my gaze.

Then Madigan turned back to us. "Cat. Bones." He said our names like we should apologize for them, but I just grinned as though I hadn't already eviscerated him in my fantasies several times by now.

"So great to meet you," I said, holding out my hand again only because I knew he didn't want to touch it.

He took it with the same faint pause he'd shown last time. I didn't squeeze once I had him in my grip, but oh, it was tempting.

As soon as I let him go, Madigan swept out of Tate's office, trailing a cloud of aftershave and irritation behind him.

"I'm following him," my uncle said flatly. "And I'm not coming back with you later, Cat."

I glanced at Tate, who gave me a barely perceptible nod. In truth, I was relieved that he didn't attempt to argue. Don could snoop on Madigan a hell of a lot more effectively than Tate or anyone else. Maybe Madigan was here because Uncle Sam was just being paranoid at a vampire in charge of an operation that hunted and concealed evidence of the undead. If so, Madigan would waste a lot of taxpayer dollars by scrutinizing this operation only to come to the conclusion that Tate was an outstanding replacement for Don. His record was spotless, so I had no fear of Madigan unearthing any skeletons in Tate's closet - real or metaphorical.

But that wasn't why I was glad my uncle was focusing more on Madigan than on finding his way to the eternal doorway of the other side. If Madigan had a more sinister reason for being here, Don could alert us faster than anyone else. I had faith in Tate, Dave, and Juan being able to get themselves out of here if Madigan's dislike of the undead took a more menacing turn, but my mother, for all her bravado, just wasn't as tough as they were.

And this wasn't a regular building that she could just bust through a wall to escape from.

The fourth sublevel was built to contain vampires against their will. I should know. I designed it back when I was capturing vampires so Don's scientists could make a synthetic wonder drug called Brams. That drug, derived from the healing compound in undead blood, had kept several members of our team alive after they'd sustained grievous injury. Then Bones joined the operation, and Don got over his fear that raw vampire blood - far more effective in healing than Brams - would turn anyone evil who drank it. Bones donated enough of his blood for Don to parse out to injured team members as needed, and the vampire cells on the fourth sublevel had remained empty for years as a result.

But that didn't mean they couldn't be put back into use, if Don was right and Madigan was here for other reasons than a routine evaluation . . .

Or maybe I'd had so much shit happen lately that I assumed the worst about everyone now, whether I had valid reason to or not. I gave my head a shake to clear it. For all that Madigan pissed me off, it wasn't too long ago that Don had had the same prejudice about vampires. Hell, it was less than eight years ago that I'd thought the only good bloodsucker was a dead bloodsucker, too! Yes, Madigan's attitude screamed Suspicious Bureaucratic Bastard, but hopefully spending some time with Tate, Juan, Dave, and my mother would make him realize there was more to supernaturals than what he'd read in the pages of classified murder reports.

"So what do you think of him?" Tate drawled, that former tightness now gone from his tone.

"That he and I won't be BFFs," was all I said. No need to say more when the room could be bugged.

Tate grunted. "I'm getting that vibe, too. Maybe it's a good thing that . . . circumstances are what they are."

By Tate's careful allusion to Don's condition, it was obvious that he also was taking no chances over our words being played back to Madigan later.

I gave a concurring shrug. "I suppose everything does happen for a reason."