One Grave at a Time

Thirteen

Madigan glared at me as I walked into what used to be my uncle’s office. I glared right back, willpower alone keeping my gaze from glowing green and fangs from jutting out of my teeth. Not only had Madigan ignored my previous remarks about the uselessness of an ID check on the roof; he’d also installed a full-body scanner that broadcast such explicit imagery of my body onto a screen, TSA officials everywhere would weep with envy. I’d then had every bit of metal on me confiscated except my wedding ring, and had to argue for ten minutes before the new guards would let me bring in my packet of sage. As it was, they’d taken my box of matches, because of course those were potentially deadly weapons.

Idiots. I was a vampire, as they well knew. I could kill someone ten times quicker with my teeth or my hands. It was a good thing Bones hadn’t come with me, or he might’ve slaughtered one of the guards just to prove a point about the whole stupid, insulting process. Finding out that Madigan had also commandeered Don’s office, plus hearing his repeated mental renditions of the same car insurance jingle, had been the cherry on the sundae wreckage of my formerly good mood.

From my uncle’s deep frown as he floated behind Madigan, he was in a foul mood, too.

“So sorry there wasn’t a body cavity search,” I said in lieu of a hello. “My ego might never recover.”

Madigan’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “Lax security might have been acceptable during my predecessor’s term, but it’s not under mine.”

“You mean Tate’s predecessor’s term,” I corrected at once, not responding to the slap against Don because I was trying to cool my temper instead of inflame it. My uncle already knew the many reasons why Madigan’s new security measures were pointless when it came to vampires. All Madigan was doing with his fancy new scanner was wasting taxpayer money in an attempt to look competent to unknowing government superiors.

My uncle tugged his eyebrow, muttering, “You’re not going to believe this,” even as Madigan smiled.

“Effective immediately, the head of Homeland Security upgraded my position from operations consultant to acting supervisor of this operation.”

Shock froze me in the process of taking a seat. “Bullshit,” I breathed. “They can’t yank Tate’s job out from under him without even giving him a chance to succeed at it!”

Oh yes they can, Madigan thought, interrupting his repeated mental mantra of the damned slogan that had blocked out the rest of his thoughts. He didn’t answer out loud, though, continuing to stare at me with that triumphant little smile. Fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent. Fifteen minutes . . .

It was Don who said, in a very heavy voice, “They did exactly that, Cat.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched by a sledgehammer. It wasn’t shocking that the few, top-ranking government officials who knew about this department could make such a stupid decision; I’d seen government stupidity in action before. But I was stunned that they’d do it in such a short amount of time. That’s completely unfair! rang through my mind, and though it might sound childish, it was still true.

“Congratulations,” was what I bit out, acid penetrating each syllable. “Does Tate still work here, or did you fire him in your first official act as boss?”

Some part of me hoped that Madigan had fired every nonhuman on the team. That would make Cooper and the other veteran human team members quit in disgust. Then all of us could all sit back and count down the days until the Powers That Be learned the folly of trying to fight the undead with only regular soldiers. When the human casualties piled up, the same witless politicians that promoted him would throw Madigan out on his well-dressed ass, begging Tate, Juan, Dave, and the others to come back. Hell, they’d beg my mother to come back, and she hadn’t even been out on her first mission yet, but she was still tougher than ninety-nine percent of their best human soldiers.

“Tate’s been demoted to junior officer,” Don replied, beating out Madigan’s intentionally vague response of, “Of course he’s still employed here.”

Junior officer. My nails dug into my palms until the scent of blood made me stop. Despite my promise to Bones not to let Madigan rile me, it was all I could do not to start screaming at him. After all the times Tate had risked his life for this operation, not to mention all the lives he’d saved during his tenure, he did not deserve a demotion just because Madigan was a power-hungry schmuck who had issues with the undead.

“Cat,” Don began.

“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.”