Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

“I warned you, Reaper,” she growled over the shrieks her creatures made. “You should have left when you had the chance.”

If I had any doubt that she intended to kill me, that erased it. Despair raked me as Bones’s face flashed in my mind. We’d gambled that I’d be able to call the Remnants off if I drank Marie’s blood in order to absorb her power. I’d manifested her abilities immediately last time, but if I had them now, her control over them was too strong.

The Remnants increased their assault, growing stronger as they fed from my pain. Katie’s face streaked across my mind next, her features hazy because the only time I’d seen her face-to-face I hadn’t been interested enough to memorize them. A fresh wave of agony coursed through me, but this had nothing to do with the Remnants’ ripping me apart from the inside out.

Now I’d never be able to tell her how sorry I was that I’d missed the first seven years of her life. Or let her know that Madigan couldn’t hurt her anymore, and that there was more—so much more!—to this world than the ugliness she’d been shown. Or tell her that while she might be alone now, she had not been abandoned, and though she was different from everybody else, in my eyes, she was perfect in every way . . .

That all-encompassing pain stopped. Its absence cleared my mind enough to see shattered glass at the bottom of the staircase. For a second, I was confused. I’d broken in through the door, not the window—

Bones.

I felt his pain before I saw him rolling on the floor covered by the same Remnants that had been tearing into me. With a snarl, I tried to fling Marie off, but a new batch of Remnants appeared, ravaging me with a fresh assault.

“No!” I tried to scream, though with Marie’s arm still wedged in my mouth, only a gurgle came out.

Suddenly, Marie’s movements became sluggish, as though she’d been encased in cement and was trying to break through. Realization dawned, and with it, hope. Bones was using his power on her. Despite the pain that threatened to break my mind as well as my body, I seized the opportunity, flinging myself away from the ghoul queen.

Marie’s arm ripped from my mouth, leaving hunks between my fangs that I spat out. Before I could bite down on my own flesh, however, she shoved her other arm between my teeth, moving so fast that she must have shaken off Bones’s power.

“Kill him,” she roared, her free arm still bleeding from my fangs.

The Remnants began tearing into Bones with greater fervor, increasing in number until I couldn’t see him anymore. I couldn’t hear him, either. The howls they emitted were too loud.

Determination rose so forcefully that it numbed me to the pain. I would not fail my daughter, and I would not— would not!—watch Bones die again.

I didn’t try to throw Marie off this time. Instead, I grabbed the arm she’d shoved between my fangs and pulled with all of my strength.

It tore free, hitting the staircase with enough force to coat it in red. I didn’t pause to savor her scream, but bit my lip hard enough to tear it open.

“Back off!” I snarled through the instant spurt of blood.

Ice shot through my veins as though I’d been flash-frozen. At the same time, an unearthly roar filled my ears, drowning out the shrieks from the Remnants and Marie’s furious howl. It swelled as though trying to explode my mind with voices too numerous to count, but in spite of that, I smiled.

I knew what this was. When I spoke again, my voice echoed with countless others that had been consigned to the grave.

“ Back. Off. ”

The Remnants flung themselves away as though Bones and I had become poisonous. Then they slithered along the walls like sinuous, silvery shadows. Marie lunged, either to grab me or to run, but she didn’t make it an inch before she stopped with the suddenness of hitting a brick wall.

Slowly, painfully, I pushed her off, then threw her detached arm down the staircase. It bounced at the final step, landing with a thud a few feet from Bones.

“As I said before, Marie,” I ground out, “we need to talk.”

Our conversation was put on hold because the cops showed up. One of Marie’s neighbors must have called the police about all the noise. No surprise, the officers who came to investigate were ghouls. Her address being flagged for a disturbance would have concerned more than the regular authorities.

Marie kicked her severed limb under the nearest chair and hid its growing replacement beneath a quilt before she went to the door. Sure, Bones had threatened to kill her unless she played it cool, but I think she did it for another reason. Signaling for help or showing how she’d been injured would have been tantamount to admitting that two vampires had gotten the drop on her in her own home—something the ghoul queen would never admit to. Still, Bones kept his power wrapped around her neck as she spoke to the officers. After a few minutes, she sent them away, then covered the entrance with the broken door.

“What do you want with me?” she demanded when she faced us again.

Bones arched a brow. “Before I answer, is anyone else here?”

The glance she shot him was filled with hostility. “No. When I’m home, I value my privacy.”

We hadn’t expected her to be a gracious loser, so I didn’t comment on the look. Or her venomous tone.

“We want you to leave the child be,” I said, shivering from my new connection to the grave. Death was cold, and as the Remnants evidenced, always hungry.

“That means no sending ghosts, ghouls, or minions to look for her. And, of course, your promise never to kill her. Same goes with us.”

Marie began to laugh, a low, mocking sound that still managed to contain shades of real amusement.

“If that is your demand, you came in vain. I’ve already given the order. My people search for her as we speak.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Majestic.”

Bones walked over to her, his aura crackling with barely controlled rage.

“When you sicced your ghostly little fiends on me the first time, I wanted to rip your head off. Doing it again tonight makes me really want to, but being forced to watch as they tore into my wife?”

He reached out, caressing her neck with a deceptively gentle touch.

“That makes me want to kill you so much, I can scarcely think of anything else,” he finished in a lethal whisper.

Then his hand closed around her throat, tightening until cracking noises were the only sound in the room. Marie’s hazelnut eyes began to fill with red, and the Remnants started to shift restlessly.

“Bones,” I said sharply. “Don’t.”

If we wanted to save Katie, we needed Marie. If we killed her, we were hastening a potential war with ghouls, and while we might manage to evade the Law Guardians, with Marie’s network of ghosts, anyone she wanted to find, she would, and sooner rather than later.

“We came to make you an offer,” I went on. “One that will be mutually beneficial.”

With Bones’s fist tightened so much that his fingers touched, she couldn’t laugh, but her mouth stretched in a pained smile.

“She can’t talk unless you let her go,” I said in a sterner voice.

He released her with obvious reluctance though his power remained coiled around her neck. Not tight; loose, like a snake deciding whether or not it was hungry.

Marie waited until her neck healed back to its normal shape before she spoke.

“What is your offer?”

“We’ll give you the people responsible for creating a cross-species child: Richard Trove and Jason Madigan. You can execute them to solidify your position as queen of the ghouls. In return, we want you to swear by your blood that you will call off your people and meet all our previous demands about the little girl and ourselves.”