I headed over to the cave Monday afternoon after my classes. A couple miles before I made my turn onto the gravel road that ended at the edge of the woods, I passed a Corvette parked to the side with its hazard lights on. No one was inside. I almost huffed to myself in superiority. Whose old Chevy was tooling past a broken-down, sixty-thousand-dollar sports car? So there!
I was whistling the little tune Darryl Hannah made famous in Kill Bill when I entered the cave. That’s when I felt the change in the air. The disturbance. Someone was lurking about fifty yards ahead, and whoever it was didn’t have a heartbeat. What I also instinctively knew was that it wasn’t Bones.
I kept whistling, not letting my heart rate accelerate or my cadence falter. I wasn’t armed. My knives and wood-coated stakes were back at the apartment, and my second set was in the dressing area behind this unknown person. Weaponless, I was at a distinct disadvantage, but there was no way I was turning around. Bones must be in trouble, or worse, since I didn’t sense him here. Someone had found his hideout, and empty-handed or not, I wasn’t going anywhere but forward.
I progressed as casually as possible, my mind racing. What could I use as a weapon? My options were dismal. This was a cave, there was nothing around but dirt and…
I reached down while ducking under one of the lower slopes in the ceiling of the cave, the action concealing what I scooped up. The person was coming toward me now, moving soundlessly. My fingers tightened around what I held as I rounded the next bend, bringing the intruder into view.
A tall man with longish spiky black hair was about twenty feet from me. He smiled as he approached, confident in his presumed superiority.
“You, my beauteous redhead, must be Cat.”
The name I’d given Hennessey. This must be one of his goons and somehow he’d found Bones. I prayed I wasn’t too late and he hadn’t killed him.
I smiled back coldly. “Like what you see? How about now?”
And I flung the rocks I’d gathered straight into his eyes. I put all my force behind it, knowing it wouldn’t be lethal but hoping to temporarily incapacitate him. His head snapped back and I sprang at him, seizing my chance while he was blinded. My momentum knocked him off his feet and both of us went down. Immediately I grasped his head, smashing him face-first into the stone ground, wedging the rocks deeper into his eyes. I straddled his back when his thrashing almost threw me off, using my weight and squeezing him with my thighs as hard as I could. All the while I bashed his head, I was cursing at his strength. A Master vampire without a doubt. Well, what did I expect? If he was a weakling, Bones would have greeted me, not him.
“Stop it! Stop!” he howled.
I put more effort into it instead. “Where’s Bones? Where is he?”
“Christ, he said he was on his way!”
He had an English accent. I hadn’t noticed that before, being so wrapped up in my concern. I stopped banging his head, but kept it ground into the stony floor.
“You’re one of Hennessey’s men. Why would you let him know you’re waiting for him?”
“Because I’m Crispin’s bloody best friend, not one of that scoundrel’s dingos!” he said indignantly.
That answer I wasn’t expecting. He’d also called Bones by his real name, and I didn’t know if that was common knowledge. I had a split second to debate with myself, then I grabbed another rock, using one hand to keep his head where it was. With the pointy end of the stone, I jabbed him in the back.
“Feel that? It’s silver. You move and I ram it right through your heart. Maybe you’re Bones’s friend and maybe you’re not. Since I’m not the trusting sort, we’ll wait for him. If he’s not here soon like you said, I’ll know you were lying, and then it’ll be curtains for you.”
I almost held my breath, waiting to see if he called my bluff. Since I hadn’t pierced his skin, he shouldn’t be able to feel that this wasn’t silver. I hoped vampires didn’t have a sixth sense about their kryptonite. My big plan, if he wasn’t a friend, was to jam it through his heart anyway and then run like hell for my silver. If I got to it in time.
“If you’d refrain from slamming my face any more into this dirty rock floor, I’ll do whatever you like,” was his even reply. “Fancy letting my head go?”
“Sure,” I said with an unpleasant snicker, not relinquishing an ounce of pressure. “How about I let you floss with my jugular as well? I don’t think so.”
He made an exasperated noise that sounded very familiar. “Come on, this is ridiculous—”
“Shut up.” I didn’t want his chatter distracting me from hearing when—or if—Bones arrived. “Lie there and play dead, or you will be.”