One Grave at a Time

tormenting the last woman he’d picked out. Elisabeth still hadn’t found her, and our research efforts hadn’t turned her up yet, either. I wasn’t alone, with no one believing me about the torment the ghost dished out, like she was. I could stand here and deal with him because it was all I could do for that woman until we found out who she was and brought her to Spade and Denise.

“You’re going to have a lonely Halloween this year, what with Francine and Lisa being out of reach,” I noted coolly. “And what will you do when we find the last woman—and we will, my snaggle- toothed friend. Then the only things you’ll be toasting with your temporarily fleshy paws are marshmallows.”

That got me the curses I’d expected earlier. Some of it was in English, some in German, but I was getting pretty well versed at recognizing certain words, so I got the gist of it.

“Blah blah blah, I’m a slutty witch, and the fires of hell await me, blah. You really need some new material. My mother can curse me out better than that.”

A porch board went sailing at me. I knocked it aside with one hand, the other still wrapped around the sage jar. Kramer wouldn’t dare to attempt one of those energy punches at me as long as I had that close by, and those punches hurt a lot more than random objects if he got lucky and the next one he threw landed on me.

“I’ve been thinking of what I’m going to wear this Halloween,” I said, as if a board being chucked at me wasn’t worth interrupting my train of thought. “I haven’t dressed up for it in ages, but you’ve inspired me. I think I’ll go as Elphaba from Wicked. She was a misunderstood witch who had a mob after her, but she tricked them and won in the end. Heartwarming, right?”

More curses, this time insulting not only me, but the womb that bore me and the dark lord who fathered me. That part, at least, Kramer got right. My father was a Class A asshole. He and Kramer had that in common. They’d have everything in common soon if I got my way. My dad was currently serving a life sentence consisting of truly cruel and unusual punishments, from what I’d heard.

“I just love our talks,” I went on, avoiding the three new boards that he hurtled at me. “I’m not really sure what you get out of them, but they’re good for me. Why, last night, I took some curtain scraps and a few slivers of board pieces and made a little Kramer doll. Then I ripped its arms and legs off before driving a nail up its ass. I mean, if you hadn’t come by yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought to do that—”

“You will die in flames!” Kramer roared, zooming up so close to me that the smoke from my jar of sage brushed him before he caught himself and pulled back. I didn’t move, not wanting to give Kramer the satisfaction of even a flinch. His gaze bored into mine with cruelty too deep to be madness, and when he bared those repellant teeth at me, I couldn’t help but think that when he was alive, his breath would’ve stunk enough for me to smell it from a dozen feet away.

“I don’t think so.”

My voice was steady, and I didn’t blink as I stared back at him. “I’m a vampire, so it’s possible for me to die by fire if it’s big enough, and I can’t get away, but I’m guessing I’ll die one day at the hands of some Master vampire who’s stronger, faster, and just plain luckier with a silver knife. You, on the other hand, won’t ever die, will you? You’ll stay stuck in that air cloud you call a body, watching the world pass you by while you can’t do anything except rage at it, and most of the time, no one in it can hear you. Me? I’d rather be dead than that.”

Kramer didn’t move, but I felt his fury in the coldness that rolled across my skin, as if the air had dipped ten degrees in the past few seconds. Then, a ripple flowed across his body like a rock skipped across a pond, making him hazy for the barest moment before he flared into full living color. His tunic wasn’t brown, it was gray with mud splatters all over it, and his eyes were deeper green than the pale color they’d looked before. He had pockmarks in his skin that the haziness and his stubbly white beard had concealed, and his silvery hair still held faint streaks of blond.

Without reaching out my hand, I knew he was now as solid as I was. Elisabeth had looked much more vivid when she’d been flesh, and so did her murderer.

“Is that mud from the old misguided idea that putrefied flesh equated to holiness, or from you landing in a big puddle when Elisabeth incited your horse to throw you and break your neck?” I asked softly. “I wonder how long you can hold on to that flesh before it’s gone. Two minutes, maybe three?”

As I asked the question, I silently dared him to make a move. Please, oh please, try to hit me. I so want to show you what I can do against an opponent who isn’t made of air!

Kramer smiled. Those teeth were more vivid, too, and that wasn’t a good thing.

“What you should wonder is how many more witches I must burn before I am powerful enough to wear flesh every day instead of merely one,” he drew out, each word falling like a drop of poison. “I think not many.”

“You think burning women alive will turn you back into a real boy?” God, was he a sick bastard!

That nauseating smile widened. “Fear strengthens me just as blood feeds your miserable kind. I drew strength from sighted mortals until I was able to appear to whomever I chose. It took centuries of that before I could wear flesh again, and it lasted only minutes. Yet after I burned my first trio of witches on Samhain, I was whole for an hour. Now each witch I send to the flames provides me with such a feast of terror that it strengthens me like nothing you could imagine. In time, I will not be limited to walking the earth only on Samhain but will reside in flesh whenever I choose.”

Even though I knew that Bones would chew me out for leaving the smoke-filled safety of the house behind me, I couldn’t resist lunging forward and whipping my fist across Kramer’s jaw as hard and fast as I could. It connected with a crunch that was so satisfying, I’d swung another one before I could think, breaking the sage jar across his face because I still had it gripped in my other hand.

Kramer disappeared before the glass shards fell to the porch. Pain blasted in my gut, though, letting me know he hadn’t gone far. I backed up, hitting the doorframe in my haste, grabbing a handful of the smoking sage before Kramer could go in for another blow. Or before the porch caught fire, which would be even worse.

“If you’re done playing with that sod, care to move away from the door? Or will you make me knock you over?” an English voice drawled.

I’d been so concentrated on Kramer, waiting for a glimpse of those telltale dark swirls or—even better— another chance to connect a blow to his temporarily solid flesh, that I’d let my other senses become lax. Ian strolled across the remains of the bean field, one hand grasped tight on my mother’s upper arm and the other holding a large wad of smoldering sage. He must’ve flown them both in. Good thing, because if he’d driven, Kramer would have another car to trash before the night was through.

“Kramer’s out here,” I warned them, glancing around but still not seeing where the ghost had gone off to.

Ian snorted. “That’s why I said you need to move.” Then he picked my mother up, flying toward the door like they’d been fired out of a gun. I moved out of the way just in time to avoid being barreled over.

“Take your hands off me,” my mother snapped once she was vertical instead of horizontal.

“Now that we’re here, I will,” Ian replied, letting her go. She stepped back several paces, but Ian just brushed off some lint from his clothes as if he couldn’t care less. Then he looked around at what used to be the family room but now looked more like a junkyard from the mattresses, boards, tree limbs, and car parts haphazardly littering the floor.

“I say, Reaper, this place looks almost as dreadful as the one I grew up in. Is all this from that pesky ghost?”

“The very same,” I said dryly. Kramer started up a whole new batch of curses at this interruption, revealing that he was still on the porch, but Ian and my mother weren’t here because they’d missed us, so something must be going on. “Let’s go into the cellar where the three of us can have a little more . . . privacy.”

The grin Ian flashed me made me relieved to see white, even teeth again, but I should’ve noticed that it was steeped in wickedness.

“I’ve had mothers and daughters at the same time before, but you’re Crispin’s wife, so I must regretfully decline.”

“You are such a pig!” my mother exclaimed, saving me the trouble of saying it.

Another spate of English and German came from the porch. Looked like Kramer thought Ian was a pig, too. In this one and only one thing, we were in agreement.

“Buh-bye, asshole,” I told the ghost. Then I shut the front door, Kramer still bitching on the other side of it, and swept out a hand to Ian. “Follow me. Once we’re downstairs, you can tell me and Bones the real reason you’re here, aside from amusing yourself with sleazy remarks.”