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arms, I stopped thinking about anything else.

Chapter Seven

    This could be the beginning of a bad joke, I thought as we bypassed the line and strode into Bite. Three vampires and a human walk into a bar...
    If a rogue undead hitman was after Tammy, we were hoping he took the bait and followed us home, because we had a hell of a surprise waiting for him. And here was also hoping that Poppy, the vampire Bones chatted up last weekend, had repeated Bones's tale about the snotty rich human he was guarding. And how he'd be back tonight with her.
    My mother refused to dance. She sat at the bar, shutting down every man who approached her, human or otherwise. She really cared for Rodney , I thought, my heart squeezing at the memory of the murdered friend my mother had briefly dated. I hope she finds someone special again.
    We went through the motions of having a good time, dancing, drinking - no alcohol for Tammy, even though she begged - and then dancing again while Bones renewed his acquaintance with Poppy. It didn't escape my notice that Verses stared at us. From his expression, he sensed something was up and didn't want it at his club. Well, neither did we. That's why we had booby traps waiting back at our house. Come on over, would-be killer. We have treats ready.
    After two a.m., we headed out to the parking lot. Out of habit, I had my hand near my sleeves, where several throwing knives lined my arms. We were three rows away from our Hummer when the air became electrified. Bones and I whirled at the same time, each of us pulling out a knife. My mother grabbed Tammy. Several vampires dropped from the sky to land in a wide circle around us.
    Oh fuck , was my thought. We'd left Bite only a few seconds ago. Not nearly enough time to coordinate this kind of attack. I counted, noting the vibe wafting off each of them. Twelve vampires, several of them Masters . Too many of them to be just about killing a human heiress. This wasn't about Tammy.
    Bones knew it, too. He gave an almost languid look around, but I could feel his tenseness grating across my subconscious. "X, what an unpleasant surprise. This clearly isn't coincidence, so tell me, who betrayed me?"
    The black haired vampire addressed as X stepped forward. "A human hires a hitman to kill his cousin for money, boring. That same hitman botches the job twice, funny. Then the desperate hitman sends a ghoul after the girl to finish things up, my curiosity's piqued. That same ghoul ends up with his head cut off by a mysterious redhead...ah. Now I'm interested."
    "Who's your friend, honey?" I asked Bones, not taking my eyes off of X.
    "Former coworker, you could say. An overly competitive one who got brassed off when I killed several of his best clients."
    Former coworker . X must not have been a small-time hit man for Bones to refer to him that way, which meant the vampires with him had to be badasses, too. Our chances just got downgraded from slim to screwed.
    "Could my old friend Bones be involved, I wondered?" X went on. "The young heiress has government connections, it turns out, and so does the Reaper. And the Reaper's supposed to be such a bleeding heart when it comes to humans. When another rumor spread that the human heiress would be here tonight, I took precautions in case I was right about who was protecting her. And lucky me, I was."
    Precautions? That was one way to describe the dozen vampires surrounding us, all of whom were armed to the teeth. I glanced back at the nightclub. Would anyone come to our aid? Or would they stick to the whole "no violence on the premises thing" and stay the hell away?
    "You're here for me, leave her out of it," Bones said, with a barely perceptible nod at Tammy. "Let her go back inside, and we'll settle this ourselves."
    "She may not be why I'm here, but I'll be sure to kill her, too, so I don't risk war."
    Clever bastard . If X killed us while we were defending Tammy, he could call it business. Tammy had a contact out on her; otherwise,