Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

“You have to be kidding me!” the demon seethed. “After decades of planning, the same thing your species nearly warred over twice is right here, and you’re agreeing to walk away instead of fight?”

Grumblings from the ghouls agreed with his assessment. My good mood vanished. Maybe, despite Marie’s keeping her word, this wasn’t over yet after all.

“I’ve said it forever—if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself,” Trove went on in disgust. Then he approached the ghouls while his arm flung out in Katie’s direction.

“Even if your queen is too blind to see it, that child is your doom. Vampires already have more abilities than ghouls, but you’ve kept them from subjugating you because you’re harder to kill. She changes that power dynamic! Through her, vampires can create a new race. One loyal to them, with all your immunity to silver and all their fancy tricks! When that happens, how long do you think it will be before your people are in chains? One century? Two?”

“Bollocks.”

Bones’s voice rang out, covering the louder grumblings from the ghouls.

“This sod could give a rot about your kind. He’d like you to believe he’s being ever so helpful, but all he wants is for our races to kill each other, starting with the lot of us here.”

“Apollyon tried to warn you,” Trove stated darkly. “He said if she was allowed to live, ghouls would suffer. And what happened? The vampire council murdered him, yet here stands proof that he was right! Behold, her daughter, the first of many in a new line of your conquerors!”

From their hardening expressions, Trove was hitting a nerve. Apollyon might be dead, but the damage he’d done still lingered. Figures a politician would be an expert on using distorted rhetoric to his advantage, no matter how false or paranoid.

“Marie told you to stand down,” I reminded them. “Do you want to disobey your queen?”

“Oh, yes, obey,” Trove immediately mocked. “But who is it you’re really obeying, if you leave the child with them? Do you think it coincidence that your orders changed after she paid a visit to Majestic? Can’t you see? Your subjection to vampires has already begun!”

Oh, shit, I thought when several knives cleared their sheaths at that. Looked like Trove had succeeded in changing their minds.

“And here we go,” Ian muttered.

Three things happened at the same time: I whirled, shoving Katie into Tate’s arms with an urgent “Get her out of here!” plea. Bones’s power crashed around the ghouls, freezing them in place. Trove disappeared, reappearing an instant later behind Bones to wrap him in a crushing embrace.

I felt the power drain from Bones, as suddenly as if he’d been staked with silver. He hadn’t, though. Trove’s hands were empty, fingers splayed as they dug into Bones’s chest while the demon shuddered with what looked like rapture.

“You’re not a meal, you’re a banquet,” he moaned.

With a snap, the invisible net Bones had cast over the ghouls broke. They’d only been confined for seconds, yet that seemed to be enough to take them from angrily determined to murderously enraged.

“Kill the vampires!” Barnabus howled, raising his silver knife.

“Run,” I urged Tate, mentally cursing when Katie twisted out of his grip. At least she ran in the opposite direction of the ghouls, Tate following close behind her. Then I yanked one of my knives from my coat. I’d worn this duster in the heat of summer for a reason. Instead of charging at the ghouls like Ian did, I slashed my arm with a long, wide cut.

“Come!”

My call reverberated through the boiler room, echoing back to me with a new, eerie chorus. Ice shot through my veins, its bone-chilling effect welcome because of what it heralded. Right as Ian clashed knives with Barnabus, Remnants shot up from the floor and fell on the ghouls.

Their screams joined the howls that filled my mind as well as my ears. Unlike before, I didn’t have enough strength to fight off being swallowed up by the encompassing power. The part of me that could still think hated what was going on because Remnants were unbeatable. I was all for stopping people who wanted to kill me, but unleashing Remnants was akin to showing up at a knife fight with a nuclear bomb.

The rest of me was too attuned to the Remnants to care about fairness. With the door to the other side now wide open, their hunger consumed me. They were slivers of the most primal emotions people shed when they crossed over, sharpened by the passage of time and frenzied by endless denial. As they attacked the ghouls, lips and teeth that had turned to dust millennia ago finally got to feed again, and for brief, brilliant moments, their excruciating need was assuaged. Then, like addicts chasing their next high, the Remnants tore into the ghouls with more viciousness, seeking the shards of relief that their pain brought.

Ian wasn’t channeling grave power, yet he showed less concern than I for the unfairness of our advantage. While the ghouls were focused on the seething shadows that tore into them, he hacked off heads left and right. I wanted to tell him to stop, that I intended to call off the Remnants and give the ghouls another chance to reconsider, but I couldn’t speak. All that came out of my mouth was a long, keening wail that grew louder the stronger the Remnants became.

Then, with the suddenness of a door slamming shut, my connection to the grave was severed. The glorious iciness running through me turned to cold ashes, and the voices echoing in my head silenced. One by one, the Remnants disappeared. As the infinity loop of need inside me cleared, confusion rose.

What had happened?

“Release her,” someone snarled.

That’s when I realized I was held in a tight embrace from behind. Not by Bones, as a glance down showed thicker, hairy arms across my midsection instead of taut, pale ones. By Richard Trove.

The demon shuddered in way sickly reminiscent of release.

“That’s by far the best I’ve ever felt,” he murmured into my ear.

Disgust cleared away the last of the grave thrall. At some point, Trove had grabbed me and begun feeding from my power. Judging from how weak I felt and the last of the Remnants slithering back into the floor, he’d cleaned his plate.

Once again, three things seemed to happen at once: Bones lunged for Trove, his movements slow and clumsy. I bit my lip to call the Remnants back, but nothing happened except another rapturous shudder behind me. And the ghouls who still had their heads staggered to their feet, picked up their silver knives, and started toward us.

“Bugger,” Ian said with deep conviction.

Trove sidestepped Bones’s lunge, tripping him as he staggered past. Instead of recovering with his usual grace, Bones landed in a heap near the advancing ghouls. From the ragged feel of his aura, Trove had sucked out all of his power with his punishing embrace. Bones barely had enough left to move, let alone defend himself.

That alarmed me into struggling with everything I had, which turned out to be terrifyingly fruitless. The more effort I put into freeing myself, the more Trove vibrated while making happy noises. The demon was like an energy Remnant, growing stronger while I weakened under the pitiless assault of his hunger.

“No!” I screamed when a hulking ghoul easily restrained Bones and then raised his knife for a killing strike.

A blur barreled into them, snatching Bones up and torpedoing him away from that deadly blow. A second later, that blur returned, accompanied by a flash of silver that turned into an arc of red.

Ian landed hard enough to crack the ground. He whirled, holding up the head of the ghoul who had tried to kill Bones. Then he flung it at the remaining flesh eaters.