Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

I still flinched at the noise it made, that creaking sounding like two pots banging together with my frazzled nerves. Once inside, it only took a glance at the deteriorated metal staircase to make me mime a “we’re flying” directive.

Bones grabbed Tate, holding him with an ease that belied the other vampire’s heavier build. Soundlessly, we streaked down the stairwell, following Fabian, who weaved in and out of the narrow space until he disappeared through another door.

This one wasn’t boarded up. It was cracked open, letting in a putrid whiff of the smell beyond. I pushed myself through with as little sound as possible, my gaze widening at the room beyond.

The scent of old smoke was almost overpowered by the odor of rotting paper, urine, death, and desperation. Books, magazines, and manuals lined the floor a foot deep in places, the ink almost unreadable from time and exposure to water. Small creatures had made nests in the literary rubble, some of them still there, though in varying states of decomposition.

From the smell, they weren’t the only bodies in this room, but as Fabian beckoned me onward, I didn’t pause at the shoe sticking out from a pile of ruined parchment. That person was long past my ability to help, anyway.

The scent of fresh smoke teased my nose the closer I got to the end of the room. Fabian paused, hovering near the ceiling, and pointed down.

Candlelight cast a faint amber glow amidst a pile of books stacked up like a partial igloo. At my angle, I couldn’t see over it, so I went higher, brushing the decaying ceiling in my eagerness.

I caught a glimpse of a little girl crouched over a half-rotted book when plaster crumbling from my nearness jerked her head up. Our eyes locked, and as I watched, hers began to turn bright, glowing green. My dormant heart began to beat in an erratic, staccato rhythm from the excitement that gripped me.

She was alive, well, and—once we got her out of here—safe.

“Katie,” I breathed, flying faster toward her.

Her hand snapped up as if she were waving at me. Then something burned in my chest. Bones dropped Tate and grabbed me, spinning me around. That made the burning sensation worse, but I still strained to see Katie before the intensity of the pain finally made me look down.

A knife jutted out from between my breasts. The handle was some strange combination of paper and old leather, but from the fire that spread through my body, the blade was silver.

I’d forgotten how much it hurt to be stabbed in the heart with silver. Most vampires only felt that once; lucky me, this was my third time. As awful as the pain was, it didn’t frighten me as much as the weakness that made every muscle limp with instant paralysis. Then came the blurred vision and blunted hearing that caused everything to seem very far away. Only the pain was near, burying the rest of my senses under a merciless cascade of agony.

That grew with unbearable ferocity as the knife in my chest moved. Someone screamed, a shrill, anguished sound. I would have fled in any direction to escape the terrible pain, except my limbs didn’t work. Worse, a great, oppressive weight bore down on me, crushing me.

Maybe the building had collapsed, a still-functioning part of my mind reasoned. That would explain the crushing sensation and feeling like the knife jerked with brutal, scissoring motions. If so, I should be dead already, so why did it still hurt so much—

Another scream tore out of me, and I convulsed as nerve endings surged with sudden, spastic motion. Then I saw the glint of moonlight on a red-smeared blade before it crumpled as though being smashed by an invisible fist.

“Kitten?”

Pain faded with his voice, leaving me dizzy with relief. Weakness was slower to release its grip, though, so it took me two tries to sit up.

“Where’s Katie?” were my first words.

A muscle flexed in Bones’s jaw.

“Don’t know. She ran after she threw the knives.”

I jumped up and promptly started to fall because my legs refused to hold me. Bones caught me before I landed in the pile of books he’d laid me on.

“Why didn’t you stop her?” I moaned. “You could have frozen her in place with your power!”

His grip tightened, the light from his gaze brightening until it shaded everything around us green.

“That blade landed directly in your heart,” he replied through gritted teeth. “I concentrated all of my power on immobilizing it and the tissues around it so you wouldn’t die right in front of me.”

His aura cracked as he spoke, blasting my emotions with a geyser of rage, relief, and fear. Maybe it was good that he hadn’t used his power on Katie. If he’d touched her with it while he was this upset, he might have accidentally killed her.

I gripped his jacket, both to steady myself and to pull him closer.

“She doesn’t know any better, Bones. It’s up to us to teach her.”

“Not if she keeps trying to kill you,” was his instant reply.

Our first parenting fight. Figures it would be over something life-threatening instead of how late she could stay up to watch TV.

“I should have known better than to zoom up to her when she didn’t know who I was or if I was there to hurt her. It won’t happen again.”

Then I rested my head against his chest, letting out a snort.

“As if we didn’t already know, this proves she’s my daughter. I used to stab vampires first and introduce myself afterward, too.”

A dark sound escaped him, but some of the rage eased from his aura.

“I recall it well, Kitten.”

Crashing noises below had me spinning out of his arms. I only made it a few feet before it felt like I had run right into an invisible wall.

“You just promised to be more careful,” Bones said in an exasperated voice. “Dashing off with a barely healed tear in your heart is the opposite of careful, Kitten!”

Right. It might take days for me to be back to full strength, and Katie was faster and more skilled than I’d realized. If only the logical part of my brain weren’t three steps behind my newly awakened maternal instincts, I’d act with much more prudence.

“You go first,” I said. See? Very cautious.

Bones gave me a short, fierce kiss, then stalked past me, cracking his knuckles as if in anticipation.

“Remember, no punishment for what she did,” I warned him. “She’s just a little girl.”

His predatory smile didn’t ease my concern.

“ You only learned the hard way, luv. If she’s demonstrating your tendencies, then there’s only one way to handle her.”

The crashing noise had come from the basement, where one of many rickety spiral staircases led to the building’s dank underbelly. I followed Bones’s lead and jumped down since they didn’t look like they could hold Katie’s weight, let alone an adult’s. This part of the old depository had more dirt than books, and if the commotion ahead didn’t point the way, several sets of new footprints did.

“She’s heading for the tunnels!” I heard Fabian say.

My pace quickened, but my legs still felt wobbly. Damn lingering effects of my heart being punctured with silver. I hadn’t been this weakened after having my whole body pumped full of it.

“You said this building connects to the train station beneath the street?”

Bones nodded, slowing down to drape a hard arm around me, supporting me. He must have caught my slight wobble.

“The train station will have even more tunnels,” I said in growing concern. “We could lose her in the underground labyrinth, which must be why she’s running there.”

Smart girl, I thought, and felt a surge of pride even as I shook Bones’s arm off.