Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

I waited until Dr. Obvious finished with her latest extraction and had disappeared to the other side of the room before I started on the smallest strap. The one that restrained my head. I didn’t move a single muscle in my attempt to budge it, but instead, focused all my concentration on imagining the strap snapping open.

Nothing.

All right, so I didn’t get it on the first try. When had anything important been that easy? I closed my eyes and concentrated again, trying to force the strap open with the strength of my thoughts. A little more, little more, okay, one more should do it . . .

Still nothing.

I let out a frustrated sigh. The ability had to be in me. My mind-reading skills came from Bones’s blood, though granted, Bones had mastered that fully, and he was still exploring his fledgling telekinesis. That’s why we’d assumed I hadn’t manifested it before, but it still had to be there even if it hadn’t spontaneously shown up yet—

Did the metal strap vibrate a little? I couldn’t be sure, but I told myself that yes, it did. Then I concentrated harder, willing those vibrations to increase until it snapped off.

They didn’t. I felt no snap, no vibrations, nothing except the cool metal against my forehead and my growing anger at the fact that Madigan might have won after all.

Dammit, I might not deserve to beat him, but he deserved to lose! And Bones deserved something, too. He’d been on that pier because he was trying to protect me, so the last thing he’d want was me stuck on this table as Madigan’s latest lab rat. He’d want me up and unleashing hell on everyone who’d helped imprison his people, who’d shot him to death, and who’d hustled me into this twisted underground lab—especially the asshole who’d orchestrated it all. If Bones were here, he’d demand that I stop trying to pop my restraint open and make that thing fly across the fucking room to beam Dr. Obvious right between the—

Click.

With that single, glorious sound, the pressure on my forehead vanished. Dr. Obvious didn’t hear it, though. When I turned my unfettered head all the way to the side, she was staring at her computer, mentally running comparisons on the percentage of similarities in my genomes versus the percentage in human and normal vampire cells.

She wouldn’t get a chance to finish her findings. Anger had always been the catalyst for my abilities, but in my near-crippling state of grief, I’d forgotten that. How fitting that Bones’s memory had reminded me. Now all I had to do was let my rage flow forth, and considering everything that had happened, that part was easy.

With a fury-fueled push from my mind, the other six straps snapped open with multiple clicking sounds. That got Dr. Obvious’s attention, but before her hand could finish flying to her mouth in disbelief, I was across the room and yanking her up by the lapels of her lab coat.

“We were never properly introduced,” I said in a vicious purr. “I’m the Red Reaper, and you’re dead.”

After I crushed her larynx, I stripped the late Dr. Obvious’s lab coat from her and put it on. Not because I thought I’d fool anyone into thinking I worked here, but there was something unsettling about walking around stark naked while on a murder spree. Then I searched the room for weapons, keenly aware that I only had moments. Like every other place in this facility, there were security cameras. Sure enough, soon the whoop of an alarm went off. I’d only managed to find two semi-automatic pistols and two extra clips, which wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

Then I burst through the doors right before they shut and thick bars slid into the doorframe in some sort of automated lockdown. Once in the hallway, I ran toward the cluster of thoughts approaching me instead of away. As soon as the soldiers rounded the corner, I flung myself forward, belly-flopping onto the tile with enough force to break my ribs. The pain was fierce and immediate, but their shots went over my head. I kept my arms straight out as momentum and the polished tile carried me forward while I fired until both guns were empty.

The guards dropped with multiple thumps. They’d been outfitted with Kevlar vests and mesh steel collars around their throats, but while their tinted visors were proof against mind control, they weren’t bulletproof.

I dropped my handguns into my pockets along with the extra clips. Then I snatched up as many of their assault rifles as I could carry.

Now this was more like it.

Not a moment too soon, either. In the hallway ahead, another stampede of booted strides sounded. I glanced around, decided being out in the open was too risky even with my new arsenal, and propelled myself upward hard enough to blast through the ceiling. It left my head ringing with more than the sounds of gunfire as the next set of soldiers found their buddies and began shooting at the hole I’d made, but I was long gone from it by then. The outer shell around this facility was too reinforced to blast my way to daylight, yet like most hospitals and laboratories, it had interstitial spaces between its floors.

And this one, at least, wasn’t guarded or equipped with automated lockdown doors.

I jumped over pipes and other equipment as I ran toward what I guessed was the vampire cell section, based on the thoughts of the employees plus the fact that it had a solid wall of steel going all the way up into the next floor. Before I could attempt to shoot my way through the base, though, I had to duck a barrage of bullets. The soldiers had found their way into the space between the floors, too.

“We have Specimen A1 cornered above Section 9!” someone barked.

That was followed by a reply I didn’t catch when I had to dodge another hail of gunfire. I took cover behind one of the steel buttresses, keeping low as I fired back. With the distance and smoke from all the gunfire, I didn’t have nearly the same success rate. Only a third of the guards dropped with their visors shattered, and I heard more reinforcements coming.

I began firing at the soldiers with one gun while shooting into the floor with another. Glancing back and forth between the two and needing to change position to keep from getting shot made my accuracy nosedive even more. The split in my attention also resulted in getting grazed by more than a few bullets. To my surprise, they were firing regular rounds, not silver. Still, if one struck me between the eyes, I’d be helpless while my brains knit back together enough for me to think.

Then a grenade was lobbed into my corner. I kicked it away a mere fraction of a second before it exploded. It wasn’t an amped-up concussion grenade like they’d used on the pier, but it contained silver shrapnel. They must be getting impatient. I spent a tense few minutes firing blind while my eyes healed, and when my vision was restored, to my dismay I saw that the steel barriers above my friends’ cells were still intact despite my emptying two full magazines into the floor.

Another silver-filled grenade exploded nearby, forcing me away from the protection of the bullet-resistant buttresses. I couldn’t risk one detonating near my heart.

Frustration made me almost oblivious to the pain as I was shot several times despite keeping low to the floor. The steel barriers above the vampire cells were too thick—I couldn’t get to Tate and the others this way. Very soon, I’d have to propel myself through this ceiling or risk getting blown up where I crouched, and that was only if I beat the soldiers who were already on their way to the sublevel above me. From the thoughts I overheard, not to mention their communicating on their wireless devices, Madigan had ordered them to attack me from the upper level, too. He might want more of my blood for testing purposes, but he wouldn’t risk my escaping to get it.