Jeaniene Frost - Up From the Grave

An exact replica of Katie’s head rested against the tiny, slender body. Small, pale arms folded over it, almost making it look like the headless doppelganger was hugging it to her chest.

As disturbing as the sight was, I was more upset that there wasn’t a hint of regeneration in the exposed tissues. Denise wasn’t healing from the horrific injury.

Bones had the same concern.

“Nathanial,” he said tightly, “why hasn’t she grown a new head yet?”

Nathanial. Now I remembered; the gangly redhead was Denise’s much-older relative. He’d once been branded by demonic essence, too, which is why he hadn’t aged in the century since then.

“How long’s it been since this happened?” Nathanial asked, sounding more quizzical than concerned.

“Nearly two hours,” Bones said.

Logically, I knew he was right, but it felt like only minutes since we’d left the book depository. Emotions acted as their own sort of time machine, slowing it down or cranking it into fast-forward, depending on the circumstances.

“Why does that look like me?” Katie asked in a very calm tone.

I stifled my groan. I’d been so anxious about Denise that I hadn’t thought to shield her gaze. One day on the job and I was already a terrible mother, letting my child stare at a decapitated body.

“Um, I think we should go in the other room,” I began.

“She’s a shapeshifter,” Bones interrupted, answering the question instead of bothering about what Katie saw. Maybe it was because he was still drunk off demon blood.

When Katie continued to stare, Bones elaborated.

“Shapeshifters can transform into anything they see or imagine. Since people were after you, this one chose your form. That allowed Gorgon to take you away without their knowing that you’d left.”

“Why did this one help me?” she wondered.

I answered that, my voice resonant with emotion.

“Because she’s my friend, and she knew I didn’t want you to die.”

For the briefest moment, Katie’s facial mask cracked in a way I’d never seen before. Her mouth slowly curved into a tentative smile.

“Your deception was brilliant,” she said in her too-formal vernacular.

Terrible Mother Moment Number Two: I couldn’t bring myself to tell Katie that I hadn’t known about Denise’s switcheroo until the last few seconds before Thonos’s sword swung. Not only would I be admitting that I’d been unable to fulfill my promise to keep her safe only minutes after making it, but Katie had smiled at me. I’d lie my ass off to get another one of those.

“Thank you,” I said, fighting another urge to hug her.

All too quickly, her smile faded. “But now that it’s dead, you should take it away before it starts to smell.”

I winced, both at the cold reasoning and the fear that she might be right. Dear God, please let Denise come back from this! What she’d done went beyond friendship—and beyond bravery. I couldn’t stand that she might be gone forever from her selfless act. Even the thought made me want to weep over her remains until there was nothing left in me.

“Not ‘it,’ ” I said huskily. “She, Katie. She.”

We had a steep uphill battle to deprogram all of Madigan’s conscienceless training. Katie was seven, and her body count might be in the dozens, but somewhere inside that prematurely aged militant shell was a little girl. I just had to peel away the layers to find her.

“And Denise isn’t dead,” I added with a swift, mental prayer that I was right. “She’s coming back from this.”

Katie expressed her doubt with a slow, solemn blink.

“She is coming back, kiddo,” Nathanial agreed, his confident tone a balm to my fears. “I had the same thing happen to me once, and here I am, all in one piece. She’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

Ian cast a sardonic glance at the cross above us.

“Better hope someone’s listening, mate, or once Charles arrives, we’re all fu—”

“Fully aware,” I interrupted, glaring at him. “Fully aware of how awful her loss would be.”

Ian snorted. “My language is the least of your concerns, Reaper.”

True, but . . . “Everyone has to start somewhere, Ian.”

“Quiet. I sense something.”

Mencheres’s voice cut through the church, drawing all eyes to him. At his grave expression, I tensed. Had one of the council members or Law Guardians followed us here?

Then a crackling noise snapped my gaze back to the pew, and I sucked in a horrified breath. Not-Katie’s decapitated head shrank, the skin and tissue evaporating with the same speed Trove’s had when I stabbed him a second time in the eye. That crown of dirty auburn hair changed too, curling up into nothingness as though being burned by invisible flames. Within seconds, only a bare skull was left. A cry escaped me when, with a pop, it imploded into itself, dissipating until all that remained was a small pile of dust.

“No,” I whispered. Oh, Denise, no!

Something rippled over the headless remains, grayish in color and so fast it reminded me of Remnants during a killing frenzy. Then it changed, becoming palest pink instead of ashen, exploding over that small, lifeless form like wave after wave of pounding surf. Instead of shrinking, not-Katie’s body swelled, increasing until clothes that had sagged from excess material now stretched and tightened.

I don’t remember moving toward her, but somehow I was standing over the pew, looking down in disbelief as mahogany-colored satin seemed to spill from the gaping hole in her neck. A pale globe followed, expanding like a balloon under a freely running faucet. Another blur of motion, and features became distinguishable amidst the canvas of new skin. Right as the top button popped off her bloodstained shirt from her body filling out to its normal, curvy proportions, dark eyelashes fluttered open, revealing hazel eyes blinking up at me.

“Cat,” Denise rasped. “Did . . . it work?”

I sank to my knees, a happy sob bursting out of me. It was the only response I was capable of.

The large craft bobbed up and down in the choppy waves of the Atlantic, held in place by the anchor we’d dropped an hour ago. REAPER used to be emblazoned in red across the hull, but now it said RESPITE in letters of seafoam green.

I liked the new name better. It signified the changing direction in my life. The Red Reaper was, for all intents and purposes, no more. At least for a good, long while. Vampire and ghoul society believed Bones and I had disappeared because I was overwrought with grief, and he was royally pissed at his co-ruler. Only a handful of people knew that neither scenario was correct.

Most of those people were gathered on the rocky Nova Scotia shoreline about a quarter mile from where our boat was anchored. We hadn’t had a chance to say a proper goodbye before, especially with some of them being halfway around the world while events were going down in Detroit and Chicago. It worked out that it had been a couple weeks since then. Now, Spade no longer tried to beat Mencheres and Bones on sight.

He did still glare at them, though, and his arm looked to be permanently welded to Denise’s side. He didn’t even let her go when she hugged me after Bones and I climbed out of our dinghy.

“For the thousandth time, I’m fine,” Denise chided him, squeezing his hand. Then she gave me a lopsided smile. “Though I never want to do that again. It wasn’t really painful, but do you know I could still see for a few seconds before I passed out? If I’d have had a stomach attached, I would’ve puked for sure. ”

I’d always be grateful—and amazed—by what she’d done. That she could joke about it now showed how deep her bravery ran.