One Foot in the Grave

“What did you expect? You shouldn’t have let her walk in front of me, amigo, if you didn’t want me looking.”

“You’re all here, so obviously the operation was a success.” It was straight to business as always for Don. “Cat, you gave instructions to have Noah Rose transferred directly to a hospital? And to have his car wrecked and police reports of a hit-and-run accident filed?”

“That’s right. Bones just might put your brainwashers out of a job, Don. Noah has no idea what he saw tonight. All he’ll remember is that he was in a car wreck and he has to call his insurance company in the morning. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“You know, that brings up a very good point.” Tate gave Bones a hostile glance. “How do we know he hasn’t been fucking with our minds this whole time? Your decision to make him part of this team could have been planted, Don!”

Bones answered the accusation for him. “He knows it wasn’t. For one, this office is being recorded by a battery-powered camera stuck up in the ceiling. I can hear it, old chap,” he supplied at Don’s flabbergasted expression. “Of course, I could have just made you think you watched what occurred when you hadn’t, but you went on alert as soon as you heard your niece was shagging a vampire. You’ve been tipping the bottle, as it were. Drinking vampire blood to immune yourself to mind control. I can smell it on you.”

Don’s face confirmed it all. I shook my head.

“You will just never trust me, will you? Look, I’m tired, so let’s make this brief. Ian and Max are still alive, but they won’t mess with either of us anymore. It’s been settled. Under nosferatu laws, Bones kind of…um, married me.”

Don tugged madly at his eyebrow. “What?”

I explained briefly about the laws of binding, and then shrugged.

“Humanly speaking, I’m still single. As far as anyone undead is concerned, however, I’m married to Bones lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. Sorry I couldn’t give Max your best, Don, but I’ll get him one day. I promise.”

Those same steel-gray eyes stared at me. At last, Don smiled faintly.

“I did give Max my best. I sent him you.”

A lump rocketed its way up in my throat, and I had to blink.

“There is another matter we need to discuss,” Bones said, surprising me.

“Okay, but make it fast. I’m about to fall asleep on my feet.”

“Yesterday Tate told me your friend drank vampire blood as he died. That’s a rather significant detail.”

I frowned wearily. “How so? It couldn’t have made him a vampire. He only had a few swallows at most. We buried him three days later, and believe me, he was dead.”

“Quite so, as far as being a vampire or a human is concerned. But there is another species, isn’t there?”

We all looked blankly at him. Bones made a noise of concession.

“Vampires and ghouls are sister races, as I’ve told you. You know a vampire is born after a human is bled to the point of death and then drinks deeply of vampire blood. Making a ghoul isn’t that dissimilar. You first mortally wound a human, then have him drink vampire blood, but not enough for him to live. After he dies, a ghoul takes the human’s heart and switches it with his own. Ghouls can survive having their heart ripped out, which is why the only way to kill them is decapitation. After the hearts are switched, you pour vampire blood over the transplanted heart. It activates it, for lack of a better term, and then you have the birth of a new ghoul.”

His meaning penetrated. Rodney’s face flashed in my mind last night when he had glanced at Bones and said, “Tricky.” He hadn’t been referring to Dave’s murder. He’d been alluding to his possible rebirth.

“Dave’s been dead for months, Bones. Planted in the ground after being pumped full of formaldehyde. You’re telling me it’s possible? Of course you are; why else would you bring this up? Oh God. Oh God.”

“It’s possible, but do you want that? He’d still be your friend, with all of his memories and personality traits except one: what he eats. Now, ghouls mainly eat just raw meat, but every so often, they have to vary their diet, and you know what I’m taking about.”

“Jesus,” Tate muttered. I seconded that. There went my appetite.

“Get past your instinctive aversion for a moment,” Bones went on. “Now, normally I wouldn’t even consider participating in changing a person without their consent, but as he’s unavailable for comment, I’m asking all of you. You were his friends; what do you think he would choose? To remain dead in the ground…or to come out of it?”

The opportunity to have Dave back-walking, talking, cracking jokes, and actually being here, was real. Suddenly I wasn’t a bit tired.

“Do we have to decide now?” Don asked.

Bones nodded. “Normally rejuvenation is done at the time of death, for obvious reasons. Each day he lingers in the ground, the chance of rousing him diminishes. As it stands, it will take a great deal of power to accomplish it. Rodney has offered to sire him, Kitten, but he wants to leave town because of this business with Ian. He’s of his own line, therefore not under my protection, and he reckons Ian might try to take retribution on those he can get away with. He leaves tomorrow, so if it’s to be done, it would have to be tonight.”

“If your friend is leaving, what would happen with Dave, if we do this?” Don asked practically. “Would he leave with him?”

Bones waved away the concern. “Not necessary. I could handle him. Vampires have been foster parents to ghouls for mille

“What if we say yes, you do this, and Dave decides he’d rather be dead than undead? What then?” Tate looked tormented by the thought. The same one had occurred to me.

“Then he gets his wish,” Bones said softly. “He’s dead as it is, and if he chooses to return to that, he would. That’s why we’ll have a sword at the grave. It would be quick, and he would be as he was.”

I wanted to throw up at the mental image. The feeling looked mutual on everyone there. Bones tightened his hand over mine.

“If none of you can accept him as a ghoul, then don’t expect him to accept himself. He would have to have your unprejudiced support or this conversation ends now. Being a ghoul wouldn’t change him as a person; it would only change his abilities. He would be stronger, faster, and with new senses, but still be the same man. Is that man worth more to all of you than your squeamishness over what he’d eat?”

“Yes.”

It was Juan who spoke. His eyes were bright with unshed tears. “We wake him up and let him choose. I miss my friend. I don’t care what he eats.”

That lump was back, with reinforcements. Nearby Cooper shrugged. “I didn’t know him very well, so my opinion should count the least. However, if Cat can handle being half of a freak, couldn’t Dave handle being a whole one? It would seem easier to me.”

Tate stared at Bones in a measured, calculating way. “You don’t give a shit what the rest of us think. You’re only offering to do this for her.”

“Absolutely,” Bones said at once. “Better for the rest of you as well? That’s just your luck.”

“Yeah, well, I say go for it, but I think you’re full of shit and you can’t pull him out from under that headstone. But I’ll be sure to apologize if I’m wrong.”

Don and I were the only ones not to ante up, and it was betting time. There was almost no hair left at the end of my uncle’s eyebrow as he stared at Bones.

“We have a saying in the military: Leave no man behind. We haven’t done that on any of our missions yet, and I’m not about to start. Bring him up.”

That only left me. I thought of Dave, and the fear of trying to get him back and failing. Or even worse, him coming back and then being repelled into suicide by what he was. Finally I thought of Dave’s last garbled comment as he bled to death in my arms: ’on’t…let me…’ie…