Jeaniene Frost - This Side of the Grave

“We both know if I had any of those abilities left in me, I’d be decorating the walls with your bloody, smoldering remains right now,” I said, wishing I had the stamina to sound more threatening. “I only picked up those powers for a short time when I drank from Vlad and Mencheres.”

Satisfaction flitted across her features before they became smooth again. “Like a Mambo,” she said, drawing out the unfamiliar word. “In my sect of voodoo, select Mambos drank from blood sprinkled with Zombi’s essence to absorb the god’s powers over the dead—temporarily. When I was changed into a ghoul, those powers became permanent, and increased more than anyone could imagine.”

“Get those things off Bones and you can tell me all about it,” I gritted out. Marie had confirmation of her suspicions about my power source, but we were still alive, so she must want something from us. I didn’t need a Magic 8 Ball to know if she wanted us dead, we’d be nothing but shriveling heaps in this dingy room by now.

Her hazelnut gaze met mine, no mercy in their depths as she held out the glass filled with her blood. “Drink this or he dies.”

I looked into her eyes and knew, down to my soul, that she wasn’t bluffing. No matter that I feared what would happen when I drank from that glass, I’d drain it dry to save Bones.

A swipe of my hand indicated the wall of Remnants between us. “Let me through.”

Her brow ticked up, and then a path appeared amidst the mass of transparent bodies. I went through that chasm, refusing to look at Bones in case by gesture or mime he’d try to tell me not to do what I was about to. It won’t affect you, won’t affect you , I repeated like a litany as I took the glass from Marie’s outstretched hand and then tipped it to my mouth, swallowing deeply.

Relief swept through me at the bitter, cloying taste, so different from vampire blood. If I didn’t like it, then it couldn’t have the same effect as vampire blood did, because that tasted like ambrosia to me. I let the glass drop from my hand once it was empty, feeling small, petty satisfaction to see it shatter upon impact. I was pissed enough at Marie to want to see her in tiny pieces on the floor, too, but right now, I’d settle for imagining the glittering shards of crystal were bits of her corpse.

“You got what you wanted. Now get them off him,” I said, feeling stronger by the moment. The draining effect from my contact with the Remnants must be wearing off. Good. That meant Bones wouldn’t suffer any lingering damage, either. I didn’t know if spectral abuse could somehow screw with a vampire’s natural ability to heal, but that must not be the case, so Bones should be fine as soon as those energy-munchers got the hell away.

I swung my head around to glare at the shadows still funneling through his body. They’d better pray once I finally bit the dust, I stayed all the way dead, or I’d come back and kick their asses for this—

Those shadows fell from Bones so abruptly that he dropped to the floor before catching himself, crumpling into a heap. I ran over to him, cradling him, biting my lip so hard I drew blood from my rage at how slowly he pushed himself upright. Then I lasered a glare at Marie. She watched us with the oddest look on her face, the Remnants who’d so recently tormented Bones now appearing around her.

“You can send your little friends back to their graves, or you can play with them all night. I don’t care, but we’re leaving,” I told her curtly, noticing Bones looking between me and Marie with a sort of angry incredulity. The wall of Remnants surged toward Marie, until she was surrounded above, below, and on all sides by the twisting, diaphanous horde. Still showing off her power , I noted in contempt, as if we hadn’t gotten the message before.

“I ordered them back to their graves the same time I had them release him,” Marie said, each word holding only the sugary flavors of her accent instead of the echoing timbres of the grave.

“Bullshit,” I snapped, feeling another wave of anger rip through me, followed by an almost overwhelming hunger. “They’re still here, aren’t they?”

“Kitten, your voice . . .” Bones said with disbelief.

Something slammed into me so hard that my vision went black. I braced for pain, but strangely, it didn’t come. Sounds became muffled, disorganized. I thought I heard Bones shouting, but couldn’t focus on what he was saying or even where he was anymore. Air rushed by me in ever greater whooshes, reminding me of how it felt when I’d fallen from the bridge, but I couldn’t be falling. I was still in the room beneath the cemetery, wasn’t I?

Flashes filled my vision; streaks of silver and white going by so fast, they were almost indistinguishable. I could see through them dimly, but it was as if I was watching things from a long way off. A groan came out of my mouth, part of me registering that it sounded like it was filled with the voices of people who’d died decades, centuries, even millennia ago. As if in a dream, I watched Bones gently lower me to the concrete floor and then punch Marie so hard that she smashed against the far corner of the room.

“I’ll grant you that one strike,” she said, the words seeming to echo in my mind, “but only one. Now, will you listen to what you must do to help her, or will you make me kill you and leave her at the mercy of the grave?”

I could hear Bones reply and Marie answer, but somehow their words were lost to me amidst the keen of countless others, so much louder than when I’d picked up on humans’ thoughts. His touch wasn’t lost, though, when he knelt next to me and scooped me up in his arms. The feel of his skin on mine was an anchor I tried to focus on amidst the whirling chaos that had overtaken me.

I was so cold. So empty. So HUNGRY.

As he carried me out of the room, Marie stopped him, pressing her mouth to my ear. She murmured something, but it was only one voice among thousands, her words snatched away by the roar in my mind before I could fully register her question. Bones yanked me away, but I could still feel the burn of her lips against my skin. His long strides took me into the blackness of the tunnel, brushing by Jacques as though the ghoul wasn’t even there. My fingers dragged along the damp walls as we passed, faintly bemused by the trails of light they seemed to leave. That light increased, pulling itself from the walls to reach toward me with seeking tentacles, but I wasn’t afraid. I was sad. There were so many of them, poor things, and they were so hungry . . .

Grinding metal sounded ahead, then a thicker ray of silvery light shone at the end of the tunnel. Bones increased his pace, jumping straight up into it when we were bathed in its glow, and then everything around me exploded. The voices became deafening, the cold mind-numbing, the hunger insatiable. Those sensations increased, until it felt like I was struggling in the midst of a huge silken web to get away, but all the while my efforts only tightened the cage around me.

The first thing that registered was thescent of smoke, curling around my nostrils as if begging to be inhaled. The next realization was that my arms felt stiff and my wrists were sore. I opened my eyes, the bland grayness of a concrete ceiling above me, Bones’s pale, naked flesh to my right.

“What?” I began, trying to sit up, only to have something pull on my arms. I tilted my head backward, shocked to see that I was manacled to a wall even as another glance revealed that Bones and I were on a narrow bed. My gaze flew to him once more, noting the cigarette he set down even as he exhaled a long plume of white.

“Why are you lying there smoking while I’m chained to a wall?” I demanded.