One Grave at a Time

“Not now,” I said, my attention so focused on the injustice of it all that I answered him out loud. Oops! “Uh, not later, but now you want to tell me why I’m here?” I stammered to cover my slip.

Fortunately, Madigan didn’t seem to pick up on it. He clicked a small device, and a flat screen dropped down from a slot in the ceiling. Really love your little gadgets, don’t you? I thought sardonically.

The screen flashed a serial number and the word “confidential” before it focused in on an image of Chris, of all people, broadcasting in what looked like night vision. His eyes shone unnaturally bright.

“Who are you talking to?” he was asking, looking around a basement that I recognized with a sinking feeling. My own voice flowed out in reply.

“One of Waverly’s former residents. Can you do me a favor, Herbert? Fly through the bearded man’s left arm . . .”

I said nothing as the entire exchange played out, complete with several close-ups of my face as I directed an unseen ghost to dive bomb Chris’s body. Son of a bitch! A member of N.I.P.D. must have rigged a camera down there during their setup period, but how had Madigan gotten ahold of the footage? It was barely more than a week old!

Madigan paused the video once we’d walked away from the camera’s view. “Do you know where this was? On the Northeastern Investigative Paranormal Division’s Web site, where anyone with a computer could see a former top secret operative blabbering on about how the supernatural really exists!”

I wanted to thump my head against the desk but didn’t because it would only give Madigan the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d scored a hit—though to do it, he’d revealed an important bit of information. If Madigan had indeed found this only because N.I.P.D. put the clip on their Web site, then he had my picture plugged into a specialized facial recognition database that was normally used for the world’s most wanted terrorists and criminals. Why was he so fixated on me?

“You see a former operative humoring a gullible investigator in order to get him to agree to take a job for a friend’s paranoid client. I had no idea it was being filmed,” I improvised, praying that my conversation about Kramer had taken place where no cameras were stationed.

“Really?” Madigan’s gaze was blue steel. “So you weren’t, in actuality, communicating with ghosts and directing their actions?”

I forced myself not to glance at Don, who hovered behind Madigan’s chair close enough to be a barber about to give him a haircut. I hadn’t mentioned ghosts in any of my reports while I worked here. Back then, my experience with them had been very limited, so there was no need. If Madigan learned that some ghosts were as intelligent as any other person and could infiltrate places most covert operatives couldn’t, plus could be controlled by certain people . . . I suppressed a shudder imagining how he’d exploit such information.

“To my knowledge, ghosts are incapable of communication. All the ones I’ve seen are just vague impressions of leftover energy, no more sentient or able to interact than a house plant.”

“There goes your Christmas present,” Don murmured with a flash of humor.

“Really?” Madigan slid his glasses down an inch on his nose to give me the full effect of that drill sergeant stare, but I didn’t flinch. Either he was toying with me because he’d seen footage of me talking about Kramer to Chris, or he didn’t know I was lying, and I could hope to brazen this out. If it was the former, I was already so screwed that getting busted lying wouldn’t make much difference.

“I’ve had experts go over this video, and they see faint hazy distortions in the same places where you stated that a ghost had initiated contact with the subject.” Madigan leaned forward. “Explain that.”

“They also said the distortions could’ve been faked,” Don supplied rapidly. “Without the original film, it’s impossible to tell.”

I’d have Chris make sure that original film was destroyed tonight. I sat down for the first time, flouncing a little as if exasperated.

“Come on, Madigan. If you’re running a paranormal investigation company, are you going to put any footage on your Web site that hasn’t been doctored first? Who’s going to hire ghost hunters who don’t have any images of ghosts on their business page? They might be believers, but they are still trying to make a buck.”

His smile was thin. “Plausible. But even if someone added those distortions to the video later, how did you know exactly where the subject felt the ghostly interactions at the time that they happened?”

He had me there. As if to punctuate his checkmate, the word “gotcha” drifted out between Madigan’s endless blockade of mental repetitions.

And just like that, it occurred to me how I could thwart him. Thank you, Madigan, for being the arrogant prick you are.

“How did I know that?” I pretended to study my fingernails for a moment. “The same way I know that fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent on car insurance.”

Fourteen

Silence met my pronouncement, stretching until the room filled with a tension that was almost palpable. I had to give Madigan credit where credit was due, because whatever he was thinking remained secluded behind a now blaring rendition of the same catchphrase. Don’s brows drew together in confusion.

“What does that have to do with anything?” my uncle wondered.

I spoke the next part for his benefit. “That’s right, I can read minds. Handy little unexpected perk; not many vampires have the ability.”

Don looked stunned. Oh, right, I hadn’t told him of my ability before. It wasn’t like I’d been hiding it from him, it just hadn’t come up. Madigan already suspected Bones was telepathic and had been treating me with the same caution, so volunteering the information was a necessary sacrifice in order to keep him from discovering the real bombshell about ghosts.

Finally, Madigan spoke. “I could charge you with an unauthorized breach of security for attempting to glean classified information from my thoughts.”

I snorted. “I’m not trying anything. The ability’s there whether I want it or not. If someone told you unauthorized classified information, would you be guilty of a security breach for not willing yourself to go deaf so you couldn’t hear it?”

Bitch, he thought, and I was sure it was no accident that this came through loud and clear over the fifteen minutes mantra.

I just shrugged. “Sticks and stones.”

“Is that what this is to you?” he asked sharply. “A game? Is national security just something that amuses you now that you’re no longer a member of the human race? Oh, I forgot.” His voice vibrated with barely concealed venom. “You never really were a member of the human race, were you, half- breed?”

I was across the desk in a blink, my face so close to his that our noses would’ve touched if I moved a fraction more. “How much of your own blood have you shed for humanity or national security? Because I’ve lost gallons of mine trying to protect lives, or, failing that, making sure that murderers and threats to humanity got what was coming to them.” I sat back in disgust. “I bet the only blood you’ve ever shed was after a paper cut, so don’t lecture me about national security and protecting humanity unless you’ve even once put your life on the line for either of them.”

Two new, bright spots of color on his cheeks highlighted how Madigan had paled when I first lunged at him. His scent radiated the distinct, rotten fruit smell of fear over the stench of way too much cologne, and stray thoughts leaked out between his now-deafening roar of what fifteen minutes could save on insurance.

Dangerous . . . can’t let her see . . . too much at stake . . .

“Get out,” he said curtly.

I strained my mind to hear past the commercial jingle that I now hated with the fire of a thousand suns.