One Grave at a Time by Jeaniene Frost Page A

How I’d fight a ghost while clutching a panicked cat was anyone’s guess, but I, too, wasn’t going to risk leaving him alone in the room if Kramer came back looking for round two.
    “Come on, kitty,” I murmured. “We’re outta here.”
    I dropped my suitcase inside the small bedroom that had been mine from birth to age twenty-two. A fine layer of dust covered the windowsills and furniture, but I didn’t have time to start cleaning. First things first, and that was prepping the house for way more guests than there was room for.
    “Set up the EMF meters in the kitchen and family room,” I heard Chris direct. “Then I want infrared and RK2s in place in the other rooms. Nothing spectral comes through these walls without our knowing it, people.”
    “You do that. I’m sticking close to Dexter. He’ll know if a ghost is coming before any of your machines do,” Tyler muttered, coming up the stairs.
    Given the dog’s track record, I tended to agree. Even Helsing had proven that he could sense Kramer’s approach, but if the equipment Chris set up could provide an additional warning, who was I to scorn helpful technology? Dexter and Helsing had to sleep sometimes.
    The good news was no one else had been visited by Kramer at the hotel. The bad news was that it wouldn’t take Kramer long to correct that oversight if we stayed, so we’d needed a new place that was still within reasonable driving distance of the cave. Plus, the fewer innocent bystanders near us, the better if Kramer did find us again. He hadn’t proven to be considerate of others.
    That made my former childhood home our best option for the next few days until the trap was completed. My mother had sold it after my grandparents died and we relocated with my new secret government job, but I’d bought it back after a nice couple had been murdered here by vampires trying to draw me out. Since then, most people thought the place was empty. Normally, it was. I kept the electric and water on, since Bones and I occasionally stayed here when we visited Ohio. The orchard surrounding this house hadn’t been harvested in years. My frugal grandfather must be turning over in his grave at the waste of so many perfectly good cherry trees. Still, the acres of overgrown orchard acted as a natural privacy barrier, hiding any lights or activity in the house from our closest neighbors.
    Bones came into the bedroom, lining the windows and furniture tops with a heavy layer of minced garlic and marijuana. The former had been procured after a quick stop at an all-night grocery store, but the latter required green-eyeing a local drug dealer into giving up his entire stock. I wish I could say it had been hard to find someone peddling weed in my hometown, but it had only taken a few minutes driving through a derelict neighborhood to detect the distinctive smell and follow it to its source.
    Now I could add robbing a drug dealer to my list of crimes, but what was I supposed to do? Reimburse him? That somehow seemed equally wrong, not to mention going against the “crime doesn’t pay” message, but I had to admit I still felt guilty stealing the weed even though what I was doing with it was arguably more noble. Burning sage might work as a sort of supernatural flamethrower against Kramer, but the real goal was to not let him find us again. Not until we had that trap ready, anyway.
    I pulled some extra blankets out of the closet and handed them to Tyler, who came in as Bones was leaving to spread more of the stinky mixture around the house.
    “Pass these out downstairs,” I told Tyler. “I’ll get more from the other room.”
    There might not be enough for everyone to get their own blanket, but thank God the heater worked, and I could get more blankets tomorrow. And air mattresses. The house only had two bedrooms, and there were eight of us, but safety concerns had to overrule comforts and conveniences.
    Tyler took the blankets and I foraged through the guest room for more,