One Grave at a Time

my gut, knocking me back to my knees.

Someone screamed. I couldn’t see who because my vision was blurry and filled with red. I spat out blood, sickening crunching noises sounding with that slight movement of my jaw. My face burned like it had been set on fire, but I got up again, braced for the blow I knew would come. Get away from the people, away from the people, I repeated to myself. No matter what he did to me, I’d heal. They wouldn’t.

I made it a few feet, barely seeing where I was going because though I could feel my face mending, I still had blood in my eyes. Then I heard an ominous metallic boom and white-hot pain exploded all through my body. Lights flashed in my vision, and my ears rang with the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass. Now I really couldn’t see, but the smell of gasoline and the tremendous weight pressing on me let me diagnose what had just happened.

Motherfucking ghost upended a car on me!

I didn’t have time to be stunned at how much stronger the proximity to Halloween had made Kramer because the acrid scent warned me that I needed to move now. The ghost was probably busy trying to score a lighter or make lots of sparks to ignite all that flammable liquid contained in the fuel tank on top of me. I’d had a car explode next to me once before, and it had almost killed me. Being trapped underneath one if it went off? I’d be all the way dead, no doubt about it.

I tensed every muscle in my body, ignoring the flares of pain that were multiple broken bones trying to knit back together, and heaved up with all of my strength. Agony flashed through me, making me momentarily dizzy, but the weight moved off as far as my arms and legs could stretch. Another blisteringly painful heave, and I slithered out from under it, letting it fall back down with a crash once I was clear.

Several blinks later, and I could see enough to be dismayed at the cluster of people gathered nearby, each of them displaying varying degrees of shock. I didn’t see any phones held up capturing footage, though, so I had to be grateful for that. Then I caught sight of someone else staring at me. Kramer floated in the empty space along the road where the car had been parked, his green gaze locked onto me with unrelenting intensity.

I didn’t know why he wasn’t zooming in for another of those bone-cracking energy shots, but damned if I’d just stand here and pose for him until he got around to it. I whirled, pointing myself in the least-populated direction of the street, and started to run. More bones crunched, and my skin felt like I’d been staked on an anthill before I finished healing, but I didn’t stop running, waiting for the next blast of pain that would signal Kramer’s catching up with me.

I heard a whoosh, then something hard pressed into my gut. My instant defensive reaction stilled when I recognized the power flooding around me, crackling the air with hidden currents. The ground left my feet as I was yanked upward, one strong arm around my midsection, the other locked around someone screaming in a high- pitched, feminine voice.

That scream was the sweetest music I’d heard because it meant Bones had gotten to Kramer’s last intended victim in time to save her.

Thirty-one

Once we’d gone high and far enough away that we knew Kramer couldn’t have followed, Bones texted Spade and told him to meet us at War Eagle Park where I-29 was closest to the Missouri River. It had been over an hour since we left Kramer raging on the ground, but we still wouldn’t risk taking the woman directly to Spade’s and giving the ghost even the smallest chance to track her there through me.

Her name was Sarah, and she hadn’t settled down much since Bones took her away from her house, not that I blamed her. If that flight hadn’t been enough to scare her senseless, it only took five minutes talking to her to realize that Kramer had tormented Sarah to the very edge of sanity. With Francine and Lisa out of his reach, he’d clearly made up for lost time with her, just as I’d feared he would. Sarah’s thoughts were a mixture of white noise, terror, and repetitions of the same crap Kramer had spouted to me about not suffering witches to live and his being unstoppable. Bones and I told her she could trust us, making sure our eyes were lit up when we said it, but she seemed past the point of being calmed by our gazes.

Some people, for reasons of genetic anomaly, trauma, or staunch willpower, needed to be bitten before vampire mind control would work, but I couldn’t bring myself to bite her on top of everything else. She didn’t try to run, so maybe some of what we told her was getting through even though the poor woman jumped at every noise, gaze darting about as if expecting Kramer to pop up and continue his abuse. I could only hope that a few days of being around Francine and Lisa would help bring Sarah back from what seemed to be a near mental breakdown.

Of course, what would really help Sarah and the other women would be for us to manage to stuff their tormentor into that stone-and-mineral trap. Then they could take all the time they needed to heal from the emotional damage he’d inflicted on them. Anger burned through me. Most murderers I’d encountered, while still vile to the bone, only sought to destroy people’s bodies, but that wasn’t enough for Kramer. He had to crush their minds, hearts, and spirits, too.

Spade descended from the night’s canvass, and Sarah reared back, the scent of fear exploding out of her pores. Guess seeing another person drop out of the sky was too much for her right now. I held on to her, murmuring that he was a friend, and she’d be safe with him. Only when I told her that he’d take her to Francine and Lisa did she calm down enough to stop trying to pull away. I’d told her about the other two women Kramer had set his sights on, and how they were safe. Words were nice, but seeing them for herself would do more to prove to her badly wounded psyche that Kramer wasn’t the all-powerful punisher he’d made himself out to be than any reassurances I could give her.

Bones walked over to his friend with a last pitying glance her way, taking Spade off to the side to warn him about her fragile mental state, I assumed. After a minute of hushed conversation, they came back. The other vampire held out a bundle to her that I gratefully recognized was a coat. Bones and I left so fast to retrieve her, we hadn’t thought to grab our own coats, let alone bring an extra one for her.

“Sarah, this is my very good mate, Spade,” Bones said, calling him by his chosen name instead of the one he normally used. “He’ll take excellent care of you.”

She took the coat but then edged closer to me. “He? Aren’t you coming, too?”

Her dark topaz gaze was pleading, fragmented thoughts revealing that she didn’t want to go without me. It might be because I was another woman, and that made me feel safer to her, or because Spade looked rather imposing with his great height and black coat surrounding him. Our proximity to the river even had his shoulder- length hair blowing dramatically around his face, adding to the effect, but in addition to being trustworthy, Spade also had a deep chivalrous streak.

“I can’t come now, but I’ll see you soon,” I promised her, exchanging a glance with Bones. Real soon, considering we’d deliver the trap to Spade’s in the next couple days, then wait for my inner signal to lead Kramer right to us.

Wait until Sarah found that out. Then she’d be extra, extra nervous.

Or maybe we’d be lucky, and she’d know who the accomplice was. Two out of three women had fit the same pattern before Kramer started attacking them, and I was betting Sarah wouldn’t be the exception.

“Sarah, you had a cat recently, didn’t you?” I asked her. “One who died? Do you happen to know how it happened, or who did it?”

Her thoughts seized with that question, making it hard to pick out the coherent ones from their less stable, scattered counterparts. I caught words like “hung” and “break in,” though, confirming my belief. Francine’s and Lisa’s cats had been hung, too, their little bodies left on display. Step one in the beginning of Kramer’s reign of torment.

“Do you know who did it?” I pressed.

She shook her head, getting so visibly upset that Bones nudged me. “Let her get settled first, Kitten,” he murmured. “She’ll be better able to answer questions with Denise and the others.”

He was right. This was too soon, and it was a long shot that she’d know who killed her cat, anyway. I gave Sarah a quick hug goodbye, telling her again that this would all be over soon, and she’d be safe.

God, let that be true, I prayed.