Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

Bones went into the silo we’d made love in. His clothes were still in pieces on the ground, but he seemed oblivious to them as he began to pace in short strides. If his nudity discomfited Dave, the other man gave no sign when he followed us in and shut the door.

“Something’s not right,” Dave said in a flat tone.

Bones glanced up, frustration stamped all over his features.

“No, it isn’t.”

I blew out a sigh. So I wasn’t just being a sucker. Then, amidst the direness of realizing what that meant, I found myself hoping that Mencheres had had the foresight to bring an extra set of clothes. Preferably two. Bones would attract too much attention naked, and I was so done wearing this blood-spattered lab coat.

“Has something like this happened before?” I asked, giving myself a mental shake. “And if so, did it go away after a while?”

The glance Bones shot me was grim.

“It’s happened before, usually under similar circumstances where the person wasn’t given enough blood beforehand. They just came back . . . wrong. And no, it doesn’t go away.”

I let that settle over me. The fact that it didn’t incite seething rage let me know how tired I must be. Our enemy had successfully beaten us, leaving no breadcrumbs to follow to mitigate the damage he’d left behind. That was the reality, yet all I felt was a wave of bitterness that the Madigan we’d wanted to bring back was forever gone.

Of course, it also begged the question, what were we going to do with the one we had? I didn’t want to keep Mindless Madigan, but it also seemed cruel to execute him for crimes that he—strictly speaking—hadn’t committed.

Bones ran a hand through his hair. For a brief moment, his shields slipped, and a fog of exhaustion whooshed into my emotions. If I’d still been human, I’d have passed out, it was so strong. Whatever energy reserves he’d had, he’d burned through them delivering that beat down.

“You’re tired,” I said in what was probably the understatement of the week. “If Madigan’s somehow fooling us, we’ll find out before long. If he’s not, nothing will change if all of us get some sleep.”

As soon as I said that, I heard a helicopter closing in on our location. My first reaction was to grab for a gun before remembering we hadn’t brought any, and my second was profound relief when Bones said, “It’s Mencheres.”

I couldn’t sense who was in the chopper, but I trusted Bones. Years ago, Mencheres had shared his astonishing power with him, forging a bond that went even deeper than the connection between a vampire and their sire. Cain’s legacy, it was called, a gift of power that traced all the way back to the first vampire: Cain, whom God cursed to forever drink blood as penance for spilling his brother Abel’s.

The same night Bones received that power legacy, he developed mind-reading skills. Later, he manifested the ability to degenerate and to move things with his mind. Frankly, I hoped nothing new was on the horizon. Some things no one should be able to do.

Besides, if Bones ever manifested the ability to control fire, Vlad would insist on a flame-off between them. He was competitive like that.

The three of us left the silo. Once outside, we saw that Spade hadn’t put Madigan away yet. When the former CIA operative saw Bones, he latched onto Spade’s leg as though it were a lifeline. Spade tried to shake him off, but Madigan held on like a deranged monkey, pressing his face into Spade’s thigh to avoid looking at Bones.

“No, please, no, please,” he began to chant in a ragged voice.

I didn’t need more time to make up my mind about his condition. The Madigan I knew would rather be flayed alive than abase himself this way, especially with a vampire audience. No, he’d died when he chomped on that cyanide pill, and all we’d raised was a broken shell.

Maybe the kinder thing was to kill him. In his state, Madigan couldn’t survive in the undead world, and as a ghoul, the human one couldn’t handle him, either. With his new, supernatural hunger, it wouldn’t be too long before he tried to eat the nearest person he saw.

The helicopter landed, distracting me from that depressing line of thought. Mencheres sat in front, with Kira at the controls. He must have taught her how to fly his snazzy new Eurocopter.

“Told you the extra clothes would come in handy,” I heard her say above the churn of rotors.

That made me smile. Kira was like me—still human enough in her thinking to be concerned about things like that.

Spade climbed in first, a bit awkwardly since Madigan was still glued to his leg. Denise followed after him, shaking her head at the sight. Dave went in next, popping back out to hand me a pile of folded clothes. Gratefully, I pulled on a pair of pants under my lab coat, then took that off for an oversized tee shirt. I didn’t leave the bloodied coat on the ground, however. It had too much DNA evidence. So did Bones’s ruined clothes, which is why I went back into the silo and grabbed them, too. Then I took the whole pile into the helicopter, stuffing them into the farthest corner.

Bones, carrying Cooper’s prone form, was last to board. He rolled his eyes at the pants I deliberately left dangling on the chopper door, but set Cooper down and donned them.

“Where is Ian?” Mencheres asked.

“Searching for someone with Tate,” Bones stated.

Mencheres looked about to question that, but as soon as Bones took a seat in the helicopter, Madigan’s whimpers turned into outright sobs.

“No, he stay away!” he cried, scrabbling up Spade’s leg and onto his lap.

“Get off me,” Spade snapped.

Madigan ignored that, clinging to him with all of his new strength. Denise moved to the seats on the other side to avoid being hit as Spade shoved Madigan back, only to have the gray-haired ghoul return faster than static cling. Spade gave a frustrated look around the tight interior, no doubt realizing that if he flung Madigan away hard enough to be effective, he’d damage the aircraft. Finally, his gaze settled on Bones.

“A little help?” he ground out.

Power crackled through the air, lifting Madigan off Spade to sit in the seat next to him with his hands folded primly in his lap. But it didn’t come from Bones. It came from the former Egyptian pharaoh.

“He’s depleted too much of his strength,” Mencheres said, with a concerned glance at Bones. “Using more could be dangerous.”

From the brief flash I’d caught of Bones’s exhaustion, I agreed. Thankfully, Mencheres was strong enough to handle Madigan and Cooper, if he awoke during the flight. Hell, the engine could cut out, and Mencheres could still fly all of us safely to wherever we were going. So much still lay ahead, but for now, I’d allow myself to relax.

After Bones buckled Cooper into the seat opposite him, I leaned my head against his shoulder. His arm went around me, and it felt like he sagged back in his chair. By the time the helicopter left the grain silos behind, he was asleep.

Hot breath puffed in my face before my cheek was coated in a long, wet lick. That startled me into a sitting position, which was when I realized that (a) I’d been lying in a bed, and (b) that bed must be in Mencheres’s house. Only he had two-hundred-pound English mastiffs roaming around as though they owned the place.

“I don’t want another lick,” I told my fawn-colored visitor, patting his huge head. He ignored that, tail wagging as he cleaned my hand next. I looked around, recognizing the amber-and-crème room from the last time Bones and I had stayed here. He was gone, but from the indentation next to where I’d been lying, he hadn’t been gone long.