“Twice in one day, Jay?” the man asked. “Who you got back there?”
Isaac rolled down my window as well. The glass had been tinted. When the guard saw me, he gave a leer at my breasts and then laughed.
“Never mind. I guess it’s better if I don’t know. Good timing. The missus just left ’bout an hour ago.”
“That is good timing,” Isaac drawled, sounding much more confident. “See you later, Frankie.”
We went through the gates and pulled up the one-lane drive to the house. I was about to put my shirt back on when someone without a heartbeat stepped out of the front door to announce him.
“Help!” Isaac shouted-and ducked.
The vampire lunged at the car just as I pulled the trigger. If I’d have been merely human, Isaac would have made it, but I was half vampire topped off with two pints of Bones, and he didn’t stand a chance. Isaac’s head exploded. Blood splattered everywhere, coating the windows and me in a layer of gore.
My door was ripped off its frame in the next second, but that was long enough for me to aim again. In lightning succession I fired into the vampire’s open mouth, knocking him backward, pulling the trigger over and over until there was nothing but clicks, and then I jumped him.
His face was a mess. He was healing, but with pieces of his skull mimicking Isaac’s current state, it took him too long. I snatched a knife from his belt with relief, ramming it through his heart just in time to whirl and face the other two running vampires.
One went airborne. I ducked to let him sail over me. He landed on the car instead, giving me those needed moments to sprint forward and launch myself on his partner. Swipe, swipe, and he went down, an expression of disbelief on his face. Being underestimated was the greatest thing ever.
The other vampire regained his bearings and circled me, fangs gleaming. There were screams from inside the house and the guard station. I heard Frankie calling for backup, and then the sound of him running. Dammit. Soon this place would be swarming with cops. Or worse.
I backed away and pretended to trip. Fang Face bought it, springing forward. His momentum made the knife I flung sink that much deeper into his chest. He was still snarling when he landed on me, and I rolled backward in a somersault and kicked him through the front window, jumping up immediately to follow him. Better him getting cut up making a doorway than me.
Gunfire erupted from inside and outside the house as the human security guards tried to defend their employer. I grabbed the dying vampire and threw him at two of the closest shooters, knocking them over. Then I ran through the dining room, past the stone fireplace with the lovely exposed-beam ceiling, and up the stairs. Behind me there was chaos as they scrambled to chase.
I didn’t focus on them. I heard Oliver on the phone, calling for help, and that was all I centered my concentration on. I made it down the hall, his accelerated heartbeat my beacon, and burst through the door that stood between me and my prey.
The bullet meant for my chest tore through my shoulder instead as I lurched, seeing the gun too late. Oliver fired again, hitting me in the leg. It knocked me over and I fell, momentarily stunned by the impact and cursing myself for stupidly rushing in like that.
Frankie and two more guards came huffing up the stairs. I didn’t turn around, but kept my glare on Oliver as he leveled his gun at me with a rock-steady hand.
“Isaac’s dead,” I said roughly, throbs of pain from the bullets almost paralyzing me. “There won’t be any explosion at the hospital.”
“Governor Oliver!” one of the men gasped. “Are you hurt?”
Oliver had sky-blue eyes. Very clear and bright, and that salt-and-chestnut hair was as perfectly coiffed as it had been in his campaign photos.
“Frankie, Stephen, John…get the fuck out of here,” he said cleanly.
“But sir!” they chorused.
“She’s down on her knees and I’ve got her at gunpoint, get the fuck out of here!” he roared. “Now!”
In the distance was the faint wail of sirens. Too far away for them to hear. The three men left, a jerk of Oliver’s head indicating they should close the door behind them. It was just me and the governor in the room.
“You’re the Crawfield girl?” he asked, not moving the barrel a centimeter.
I didn’t move, mentally evaluating my injuries and noticing with a fresh spurt of anger that the wallpaper in his room was a distinctive red and blue paisley and these were hardwood floors. Oliver had to be Emily’s masked rapist. She’d described his bedroom perfectly. “You can call me Cat.”
“Cat,” he repeated. “You don’t look so tough, bleeding all over my floor. Tell me, where’s your friend? The bounty hunter?”
The sirens were getting closer. There wasn’t much time. “Killing Hennessey’s pal Switch would be my guess. You’re finished, Oliver. They’re all dead. The permanent way.”
His hand didn’t waver. “Is that so?” Then he smiled. Icily. “Well, there’s plenty more where Hennessey came from. Won’t be too hard to find someone else looking to make the kind of money he was, and with meals thrown in, to boot! When I’m president, this country will have a major overhaul. I’ll save the taxpayers millions, and we’ll clean the scum right off the streets. Hell, I’m fixing to start on welfare recipients and nursing homes next. America will be stronger and more prosperous than ever. They’ll probably repeal the two-term limit after I’m in office.”
Cars screeched around the corner. Only seconds left now.
“It’s not going to happen.”
He smiled. “Not that you’ll see. I’m about to kill you in self-defense. I can just see the headlines now: ‘Governor Bravely Staves Off Murderer in Assassination Attempt.’ My numbers will rise twelve points tonight.”
“Ethan,” I said softly, hearing the thunder of feet coming toward the house. “Look at me.”
I let the shine out in my eyes. His own gaze widened, astonished, and in that split second of distraction I charged him, batting his gun aside to fire harmlessly into the wall.
“You’re bleeding…you have to be human, but your eyes…what are you?” he whispered.
That emerald light illuminated his face, and my hands tightened around his throat. “I’m the Grim Reaper,” I growled. Those footsteps were almost here… “Or as Bones would say, the Red one.”
I snapped his neck just before the door was flung open. When the half dozen police poured in, the glow had left my gaze, and I already had my hands up.
“I surrender.”
TWENTY-FIVE
T HERE WERE THREE GUARDS OUTSIDE MY hospital room, and I was on the eleventh floor. They’d even cleared this part of the wing-I knew this from the silence in the rooms next to me. Apparently they took killing the governor seriously.
Doctors had been coming in all morning to gasp and gape over me, but it wasn’t because of who I’d killed. It was because of how I’d healed. Within hours, my three bullet holes had disappeared. The knife wound, gone. Hennessey’s fang marks, missing. All of my scratches and bruises, vanished. I didn’t even have an IV in me-the needle kept spontaneously slipping out. Frankly, I wondered why I hadn’t been moved to a regular jail cell yet, but after Isaac, I wasn’t complaining about the lack of police transportation.
At noon, more footsteps approached my room. Someone said, “FBI.” There was a pause, and then my door opened.
A man entered. He was about fifty, of average height, with thinning charcoal hair overrun with gray. His eyes were the same medium gray as his hair, but they weren’t sedate like their shade. They were crackling with intelligence. His companion who closed the door after him was considerably younger, perhaps in his late twenties. He had short brown hair in a buzz cut, and something about the way he carried himself screamed military to me. His eyes were navy blue and fixed on me with steadfast intensity.
“FBI, huh? Well, aren’t I honored?” They didn’t need extrasensory perception to catch my sarcasm. The younger man shot me a dirty look.
Gray Hair smiled instead, and came forward with hand extended.
“You might not be, but I certainly am. My name is Donald Williams and this is Tate Bradley. I’m the head of a
