One Grave at a Time (24 page)

Thirty-six

M
y head throbbed like someone had shoved firecrackers into my brain and set them off. That was the first thing I became aware of. The second was the burning in my chest, so intense it sent throbs of pain throughout the rest of my body. The third was that my hands and feet were bound to something tall and hard behind me. The fourth was the most disquieting realization of all: I was wet, and it wasn’t from water. The harsh scent of gasoline filled my nostrils without my needing to take in a breath.

“Burn her. Burn her now, before she wakes up!” a familiar voice urged.

Sarah. I should’ve killed her when I had the chance. Hindsight always was twenty-twenty.

I opened my eyes. Kramer stood a few feet away in the middle of a triangular clearing amidst the tall cornstalks. Sarah was off to the side, but Lisa and Francine made up the other two corners of the triangle. They were chained like I was to tall metal poles dug into the ground, gags in their mouths, eyes wide with horror as they looked at me. Unlike me, though, neither of them had a large silver knife stuck into her chest. The blade seemed to emit a steady stream of acid, scalding my nerve endings and sapping my strength. But though it was close to the center of my chest, it wasn’t in my heart. Either Kramer had deliberately missed because he didn’t want to risk giving me an easy death, or his aim wasn’t as good as he’d intended.

Kramer pulled out a large, leather-bound book from the folds of his new hooded black robe. Guess he’d gotten sick of that old muddy tunic he was stuck with when he was in vaporous form. His gaze seemed to gleam with malicious triumph as he opened the book and began to read aloud.

“I, Henricus Kramer Institoris, Judge named on behalf of the faith, declare and pronounce sentence that you standing here are impenitent heretics, and as such are to be delivered to justice,” he intoned, and though the original version of the
Hammer of Witches
had been in Latin, he made sure to speak English so we would understand it.

I didn’t have a gag, probably because Kramer knew I wouldn’t bother screaming for help, but that didn’t mean I was going to stay silent.

“I read that, you know. Your prose was boring and repetitive, and your overuse of capitalization for dramatic emphasis was juvenile at best. Oh hell, I’ll just say it—it sucked out loud. No wonder you had to forge your endorsements.”

Now his gaze gleamed with outrage. He shut the book with a bang, stalking over to me. Writers were so sensitive when it came to criticism.

“Do you wish to die now,
Hexe
?” he hissed at me. Then he bent over, picking something up out of my line of sight. When he straightened, he had a hurricane lantern in his hand, the golden orange flame caressing the glass surrounding it as if begging to be freed.

I looked over his shoulder at Sarah, who was practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of his setting me on fire.

“She might not know what your routine is, but I do,” I said softly. “So put the lantern down. You’re not burning me yet, and we both know it.”

“What’s she saying?” Sarah demanded, hobbling over.

His white brows drew together, and I allowed a little smile to play on my lips. “Awfully bossy with you, isn’t she? Then again, it makes sense. She’s got the pants on, and you’re the one in the dress.”

His fist flashed out, but the blow didn’t land on me. It struck Sarah right as she leaned on Kramer to steady herself. She fell back, crimson spurting from her nose. Now that she’d fulfilled her usefulness, he wasn’t hiding his intentions toward her anymore.

“Why?” she gasped.

Her hurt and confusion were clear on her face, but it belatedly occurred to me that I couldn’t hear it in her thoughts. Same with Lisa and Francine. They had to be screaming with panic in their minds, but all I heard from them was their pounding heartbeats and short, quick gasps through their gags.

The silver bullet Kramer fired into my head hadn’t only knocked me out long enough for him to truss me up and wet me down with gasoline. It had also short-circuited my mind-reading abilities. Another round or two, and I’d be all the way dead, but of course, Kramer didn’t want me dead yet. To look at the bright side, I could concentrate better without hearing everyone’s frantic thoughts.

“Do not speak another word,
hure
,” Kramer snarled at Sarah.

“That means whore,” I supplied. “It’s how he sees all women. Get used to hearing it for the rest of your short life.”

That earned me a backhanded crack across the jaw, but compared to being stabbed and shot, it was a love tap. “Easy on the jostling, you don’t want that silver shredding my heart and ending your fun too soon,” I taunted him.

He looked at the knife in my chest and lowered his clenched fist. I didn’t move a muscle, but inwardly my brows rose. My bluff had worked.
So you
don’t
know it’s right outside my heart instead of pierced through it. Good.

Tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks, either from the pain in her broken nose or the realization that Kramer was everything I’d cautioned her about. I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for her. She’d shot my best friend so many times she’d had to believe Denise was dead. Except for Denise’s one-in-a-billion supernatural status, she
would
have been dead. Then Sarah had kidnapped Francine and Lisa and brought them as a present to this monster, fully expecting to watch them burn to death.

No, I didn’t feel sorry that she was all teary-eyed to discover that she would also be on the receiving end of Kramer’s brutality. When he landed a kick into Sarah’s midsection next, doubling her over and causing her to let out an anguished cry, I still didn’t pity her. That hurt a thousand times less than being burned, I knew from experience, and, considering her crimes, she had it coming.

He ground his booted foot into her broken ankle next. With her new, gasping scream and the constant crackling from the cornstalks around us, I didn’t hear the bones shatter, but they probably did. She curled into the fetal position, sobbing and pleading for mercy that she’d never find from the Inquisitor. After a final kick to her rib cage, Kramer turned his attention back to me, leaving her writhing in pain on the ground.

I didn’t say anything as he approached. In addition to the book, he had a satchel near the middle of the clearing, and I could imagine the various torture implements it must contain. Since Kramer left it there, he had other plans for me right now, and it didn’t take mind reading to guess what those were.

“Do you confess your pact with the Devil,
Hexe
?” The words were softly spoken, almost wheedling in tone. “If you do, I may yet spare your life.”

That made me snort. “Even if I didn’t know better from Elisabeth, did you miss the part where I
read your book
? That includes the section where you rationalize lying to prisoners about letting them live as part of being a good Inquisitor.”

His fist smashed across my jaw, making my lip bleed before it healed. “Confess and renounce your allegiance to the Great Deceiver!”

“Judging from how surprised Sarah was when you turned on her, I’d say that label fits you to a tee, also,” I noted.

His brows drew together, and he advanced until that reeking breath made me thrilled that I didn’t need to breathe anymore. “You incite me as if you wish me to continue.”

I shrugged as much as my bound hands would allow. I had a plan, but I wasn’t about to let him in on it. Besides, as long as his attention was on me instead of Francine and Lisa, I’d take all the abuse he could dish out.

Well, within limits,
I amended to myself as he grasped the center of my shirt and carefully pulled the material away from the hilt of the knife. He’d already taken my jacket off and done something with it, leaving me in my simple black button-down blouse and jeans. Once my blouse was free of the blade, he pulled it open in opposite directions with his unnaturally strong grip. The lantern cast flickering light over his face as he stared at my breasts. Impatiently, he tugged at the front of my bra where the clasp was.

I’d bet my red diamond wedding ring that a pig like him had only been able to get it up when he was human if the women had been helpless and terrified. Now that he was a ghost clad in flesh, he probably didn’t have that issue; but with the look he gave me when he opened my bra, he wanted me to cringe away in shame. I didn’t; only my skin was bare, but it was his soul that was exposed with these actions. I wasn’t ashamed when Kramer roughly handled my breasts, avoiding the knife jutting between them. I was furious. I wanted to rip him to pieces, then burn each of them into ashes, but rage wasn’t what I needed right now. In order to send out my supernatural LoJack signal, I needed something else.

It wasn’t hard to tap into enough guilt and regret to make my throat tighten and moisture leap to my eyes. All I needed to do was remember a day several years ago when I’d kissed Bones, told him I loved him . . . and then betrayed him by leaving without a trace. At the time, I thought leaving him was the only way to protect him, and Don did a good job by keeping me hidden for over four long years. But all it did was make both of us miserable until Bones finally found me.

Four years.
We’d been apart longer than we’d been together, and that was because I turned my back when I should have stood my ground. Bones might have forgiven me for that, but I’d never forgive myself. The memory of the one mistake I wished I could undo more than any other made that moisture leave my eyes and spill down my cheeks. The tears flowed faster, dripping down to land on his hands. Kramer stopped squeezing my flesh to look at the pink wetness with cruel satisfaction.

“Cry more of your bloody tears,
Hexe.
They only prove your tie to Satan.”

“What they prove is that vampires don’t have as much water in their bodies as humans, idiot,” I said, relishing the ringing slap he gave me because it drew more of that needed moisture from my gaze.

Then he ran his rancid mouth over my skin, careful of the knife, his few brownish teeth leaving grooves in my flesh. Disgust rippled over me, but I fought to ignore him, turning my thoughts from revulsion and regret to the quiet, white nothingness I’d felt the last time I tapped into the power of the grave. It wasn’t right beneath surface like it had been before. I had to search. Pain from the blade and Kramer’s groping lower down my body took away from my concentration, but I strained to push those things aside. I needed to find that faint spark inside. Most of my power was gone, but not all of it. It had to be within me somewhere . . .

Cool, soothing stillness seemed to brush over the throbbing from the silver and the anguish of my regrets, lessening both of them with that single caress. Despite the tears still leaking from my eyes, I smiled.
That’s right.
Accessing this power meant letting go, not hanging on to emotional or physical anguish. I concentrated on the blissful emptiness that fleeting caress hinted at, and finally found the remaining ember I’d been looking for. It was only a tiny speck compared to what it had been months ago, but even still, it resonated. God, I’d forgotten how wonderful that quiet abyss was! It felt like coming home. Now the tears that fell from my cheeks were full of the most indescribable peace. If the power stemmed from brushing the edges of eternity, death truly was nothing to be afraid of.

Kramer drew back, looking at me with a mixture of degeneracy and confusion.

“Why don’t you beg me to stop? Why are you so silent?”

I pulled myself away from the alluring embrace of the grave enough to hold on to the power, but still focus on him.

“You’d only like it if I begged you, and you’ve pegged me all wrong if you think I’d do anything you like. Know what else you’re wrong about? The reason behind these tears.”

That inner speck felt like it was humming now, the whiteness eating away at the pain from the knife in my chest.

“You think they’re a sign of weakness. That I’ve given up, just like you think your flesh makes you stronger.
Wrong.
Your flesh makes you weak, and these tears are stronger than any weapon you can imagine.”

He leaned closer, the stinking breath from his words falling against my face. “You enjoy crying? I will see to it that you don’t stop.”

Then Kramer frowned, cocking his head to the side. He ran his hand over me again, but in wariness this time.

“You feel . . . strange,” he muttered.

“Do I vibrate?” I asked, my voice coming out as a throaty whisper. “Do you feel drawn like you did when you followed the line of energy that led you to me in Ohio, in St. Louis, in Sioux City, and the farmhouse? Do you know
why
you’re feeling it so strongly again now?”

He reached out to swipe his hand across my face, staring at the pink wetness clinging to it with growing concern instead of triumph.

“There’s something in these,” he drew out.

“That’s right,” I said, caressing each word. “Power.”

Thirty-seven

B
ack when I had the full force of Marie’s borrowed abilities in me, I could shed my blood and call forth Remnants. But if I wanted to summon
ghosts,
I had to shed tears with my inner rallying cry. I didn’t have enough of the voodoo queen’s power left in me for my tears to compel ghosts near and far to rush to my side. But ghosts who were concentrating on me with all their strength to try to find me, like Elisabeth and Fabian would be doing?

Yeah, I still had enough juice in me for that. The lantern Kramer had on the ground, the one he sought to terrify us with because of that flickering flame and its ominous portent, would only make it easier for us to be found by anyone flying overhead.

Kramer recoiled, wiping his hand on his tunic as though my tears were poisonous. “I will burn them from you,
Hexe
!”

I trusted that my message had been sent, and now, it was time to quit playing possum and kick some evil ass.

“I’d like to see you try that.”

He grabbed the lantern, the look in his eyes telling me he wasn’t bluffing this time. What he felt in my tears must have warned him that it wasn’t worth the risk to rape and torture me first. But because he’d been off by a centimeter or so when he stabbed the silver knife into my chest, I didn’t hesitate to wrench my arms down, breaking the metal cuffs restraining me. It jostled the knife, but not enough to shred my heart, and before Kramer could correct that error, I yanked the blade out. Two hard jerks were my feet ripping free of the restraints, leaving nothing but the dried cornhusks at the bottom of the empty pole to catch fire when Kramer threw the lantern at me.

They went up with a whoosh, the gasoline Kramer doused me with having soaked them, too. I’d leapt back far enough to avoid any fumes on me igniting, but he’d spilled gasoline on Lisa and Francine, too. And the cornstalks around us, dried and crackling from the lateness of the season, were like tall, skinny matchsticks.

Kramer howled in frustration at missing me with the lantern. Sarah took one look at the flames and started to crawl away from the clearing as fast as she could. I ran to Francine, knocking her pole over with a linebacker tackle and ripping the metal off her wrists and ankles. She gasped in pain behind her gag, but Kramer hadn’t given up on his grisly intentions so easily. He snatched at the burning husks on the ground and threw one at us.

The spot where her pole had been flared with the contact from those greedy orange and yellow tongues, but I yanked her away in time.

“Run!” I yelled, giving her a shove for emphasis. Lisa’s muffled screams told me what I already knew—that Kramer was now focused on her. He grinned as he threw a burning husk at her, not even seeming to notice that the bottom of his robe dragged in the flames.

I didn’t have time to knock her out of the way. It had taken precious seconds to free Francine and get her safely out of the sodden, flammable circle at her feet. That glowing bundle arced toward Lisa and I knew, with crystal clarity, the only thing I could do to save her. Instead of aiming for the screaming woman helplessly chained to the pole, I threw myself at the burning missile, snatching it and taking it with me as I landed outside the triangular clearing.

Flames raced up my arms, blazing into an avalanche of fire once they reached my gasoline-soaked clothes. Pain so intense it robbed me of thought scalded over me, spreading to cover my body in an instant. In the brief moments it took them to reach my face, I realized I’d vaulted myself straight up into the sky, doing the worst thing possible by flying and fanning the flames. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision—all my primal mind knew was that it wanted away from this torture. With the willpower I had left in me, screaming as pain exploded in every nerve ending, I forced myself down into the fields and began to roll as fast as I could away from Kramer and the others.

You’ll heal, you’ll heal, you’ll heal.
I clung to that litany while my mind exploded with the agony of my flesh being eaten away by those merciless flames. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, but I could feel everything, including the excruciating inner searing when I screamed again, and it drew flames into my mouth. Every instinct urged me stop rolling over what felt like razors ripping away at what was left of my flesh. To run from the overwhelming suffering that spared no inch of me, but with the last vestiges of my sanity, I ignored those urges and kept rolling.

After what felt like a thousand years, I realized I could see again. I was tucked into the fetal position, still rolling blindly across the fields. I used my blurry vision to spot the few remaining patches of fire on my feet where my boots had melted around them, then slapped at them. The movement sent riptides of anguish on top of what was already more pain than I could ever remember feeling, but I kept swatting at the flames until they were out and all the shoe remains were off my feet.

For a dazed moment as I looked down at myself, I thought I was somehow still wearing my black jeans and blouse. But then I realized the dark tatters hanging over me weren’t clothes—it was my own charred skin. In the midst of the searing pain, I wanted to vomit and scream out of sheer horror, but Francine and Lisa were still fighting for their lives against a maniac determined to murder them. No matter what I looked like or how much it hurt, I didn’t have the option of panicking over the fire’s ravages or waiting until I finished healing to move. I had to act now, or burning myself to crisp by running into that fiery projectile had been for nothing.

I got up, unable to stuff back my gasp at what moving did to my blackened and cracking skin.
You’ll heal,
I repeated ruthlessly, then tried to force myself into the air. At the first attempt, I flopped back down immediately, cornhusks tearing into my still-partially-charred skin when I crashed. With another pained gasp, I got back up and tried again, flinging myself forward.

This time, I made it about thirty yards before I crashed, but it was enough for me to pinpoint where the deadly amber glow was. I ran in that direction, giving up on flying, the pain slowly starting to ease. Normally vampire injuries healed almost instantly, but with the extent of the damage the flames had caused both to skin and muscle, the healing was taking several minutes. Or it hurt so badly that it felt that way.

I burst into the triangular clearing right as flames licked the dry vegetation at the base of Lisa’s pole. Without slowing down, I barreled into her and lifted upward at the same time. The pole stayed in the ground, but the impact ripped Lisa free of the metal bindings. When the gasoline ignited and shot up the pole, she was already several feet above it, safely free of the flames.

That didn’t make her muffled screams decrease. Right before we crashed down, I saw that she stared at me with abject terror. Then I flipped so I’d take the bulk of the landing, stuffing back a shout as the impact reverberated through me, and the husks felt like they ripped all the new skin off my back.

Lisa expressed her gratitude for me sheltering her against the worst of the crash by punching and kicking me as soon as we skidded to a halt. The rough fall had knocked her gag loose, so she screamed between huge gasps of breath. Normally a human smacking and kicking me would have laughably little effect, but I fought the urge to crawl back into the fetal position and concentrated on catching her hands instead.

“Don’t hit me, that really hurts right now!”

My voice was hoarse to the point of being unrecognizable. Breathing in a lungful of fire will do that to a person, even if that person is a vampire. Lisa stopped fighting me, but she still had fear reeking from her pores even over the stench of gasoline.

“Cat?” she managed, sounding like she didn’t believe it.

“Who the hell else would it be?”

To make up for my sharp words, I tried to smile, but then stopped when that made her recoil. A glance at my arm showed I had a layer of soot over mostly healed skin, but there were still some grisly patches of charred flesh. Okay, so I looked like a crispy demon fresh from the pit, but it
was
still me.

A fresh river of tears spilled onto her cheeks. “B-but I saw you burn.”

“As Bones would say,
right you are,
” I told her with a shudder of remembrance. “I healed. Mostly.”

She still looked too shocked to believe me. “But . . . but . . .”

“No time for chatting, we need to get you out of here, and I have to find Francine,” I muttered, grasping her again. This time, she didn’t try to fight me off, but she did yelp when I lifted her and ran toward where my last aerial glimpse showed me the nearest stretch of road was. She’d be safer in the street, away from the fire that might start to spread even more if it wasn’t put out soon.

As soon as I saw pavement, I let her go, dashing back into the cornfield. The pain was almost gone now, to my vast relief. That allowed me to run faster, trying to listen for any sounds that would lead me to Francine. But just like when I walked in here with Sarah, the natural sounds of the drying husks rubbing together combined with the crackles from the nearby fire and the confusion in the other section of the fields as people started to notice the orange lights, my senses were effectively blanketed.

I was about to propel myself over the field and try flying again when a sharp crack rang out, and the stalk next to me exploded. I whirled in time to avoid the next bullet aimed at me, charging toward Kramer with vicious intentness. He’d landed those shots before because I was walking very slowly with Sarah bracing herself on my shoulder, but he wouldn’t get that lucky again.

I wrenched the gun away from him, taking ruthless pleasure in sending it sailing off as far as I could throw it. Silver bullets wouldn’t hurt him, so the gun was useless to me. He snarled as he tried to force me to the ground, but I used his wide stance against him by ramming my knee into his groin with enough force to pulverize his parts.

“Who’s crying
now
, motherfucker?” I spat, using that same knee to blast into his face when he doubled over. Those impacts hurt me, but not as much as they did him, and knowing that made my pain sweet. I sent another brutal hammer into his side, then another one, and another one.

Kramer fell back, unable to protect himself against the blows that came faster than he could react. The ghost had spent centuries dishing out punishment, but from his ineffective counterattacks, he hadn’t spent enough time learning how to defend against it. Battle lust surged through my veins, fueled by the rage I’d held back while Kramer was pawing at me and the knowledge of all the people who’d been unable to fight back due to the superstition and unfairness of the age they lived in. My blows rained down harder and quicker, every nasty, effective trick Bones taught me bearing glorious fruit in the hoarse grunts of pain coming from Kramer as he tried to shield himself.

No, you don’t get away!
I thought, increasing my attack when he attempted to crawl out of range of my fists and feet.
Especially not tonight.

Just when I was at the height of the euphoric high from delivering a well-deserved beat down, calamity struck.

. . .
light over there . . . that’s fire! . . . got to get out of here . . . where are the kids? . . . oh my God, the crops! . . . help, someone help me!

A hundred different voices assailed my mind at the same instant, as debilitating as a karate kick to the face. I clutched my head before I could stop myself, backing away from Kramer in a blind attempt to run before he noticed that I’d stopped beating the shit out of him. But that merciless cascade of voices chased me as I went, growing in volume as if fueled by my agitation.

Kramer launched himself at me with the same single-minded determination I’d showed with him. This time, it was me who couldn’t field the blows fast enough as those voices hammered away in my mind, taking my focus away during the critical split seconds between ducking a kick or punch and having one land with devastating effect. His tackle brought me to my knees, and then a sharp crack to my back had me bent over with pain shooting up my spine. Kramer drew back his foot to kick me again—and his leg was yanked upward. He fell back and was pounced upon by a beautiful brunette who, at the moment, was as solid as he was.

“Run, Cat!” Elisabeth urged me, pounding away at her murderer.

I didn’t run. I waited with overflowing gratitude while Elisabeth gave me the precious moments needed to force the voices down to levels where they didn’t cripple me with distraction. By the time Kramer had regained the upper hand, throwing her to the ground and landing punishing blows to her midsection, I was on my feet, a fresh surge of determination cascading through me. If Elisabeth was here, then Bones couldn’t be far behind.

I launched myself onto the Inquisitor, ripping my fangs through the back of his neck hard enough to sever every tendon. The foulest taste filled my mouth—not blood, but something damp and moldy like it had come from the ground. I spat it out but kept ripping at his neck because it made him scream with pain and stop punching Elisabeth. She vanished underneath in the next moment, appearing beside me in her usual vaporous, hazy state.

“I can’t help you any more!” she said in anguish. “I don’t have the strength to remain solid.”