Jeaniene Frost - This Side of the Grave

“I’ll be sure to thwart any jock-jumping attempts you might make on me or anyone else,” he replied at last, his lips still twitching.

I sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out, trying to center myself before I made a leap into the other side, metaphorically speaking. I had no idea how to raise the Remnants, but I assumed I’d start with trying to tap into the connection I felt to ghosts and work my way up from there.

“You sure you want to be close by when I do this?” I asked, shooting a worried look at Vlad. “At best, you’ll get hurt. At worst, I won’t be able to stop them from killing you.”

His expression was a mix of utter ruthlessness and reckless challenge, making me wonder if he’d looked that way when charging on horseback into battle all those centuries ago.

“I’ve lived on the razor’s edge of death most of my life. Save your coddling for children, Cat; it’s wasted on me.”

Damn arrogant Romanian price. I hoped those weren’t his last words.

“All right.” I began to pull out all the packets of garlic and pot that I had stuffed inside my clothes. “Let’s try this.”

Crickets chirped in a continual cadencearound us, most of them hidden in the grass. Mosquitoes, though I could see them buzzing nearby, left me and Vlad alone. Guess they didn’t like undead blood, which was probably a good thing. The world had problems enough without hordes of immortal mosquitoes being added to the mayhem.

Vlad lounged on a headstone, watching me silently. I’d chosen to go to the older section of the cemetery, not just because it was farthest from the road and any random passersby. It was also because, quite irrelevantly, I thought it was prettier. The simple upside-down U-shaped headstones and crosses reminded me of the cemeteries around where I grew up. They were the first place I tried when hunting for vampires as a teenager, but I never found any in them. It didn’t take long for me to realize that vampires tended to hang out in places where the living gathered, instead of surrounding themselves with the inedible dead.

No other vampires or ghouls might be here except us, but we weren’t the only supernatural beings lurking in the dark. I felt the tingles in the air, hanging like an invisible fog, marking the presence of residual energy from nonsentient ghosts. Every once in a while, a stronger pulse would ride the air, and I’d glance toward its source just in time to glimpse a faint silhouette before it disappeared. This cemetery had more than just residual ghosts, but I’d worry about them later. After I found out if I could do what I came out here to do.

“While I’m young . . .” Vlad drew out.

“You haven’t been young since the fourteen hundreds, a few more minutes aren’t going to make any difference,” I muttered, but then tried to focus on that buzz of energy in the air. Maybe that was the door that led to wherever the Remnants slumbered, when they weren’t being yanked into this reality. I tried to drop all my emotional shields, leaving myself open to the magic that I knew still resided in my blood from Marie.

Flashes of silver zoomed right for me from all sides, so fast I wouldn’t have had time to draw my knife even if that would have done any good. In the next instant, I was staring at five ghosts, two of them male, the other three female, one of whom was a child. All looked back at me expectantly.

“Yes?” the ghost with the old-style bushy mustache asked, as if growing impatient that I hadn’t said anything.

“Ah, sorry to disturb you,” I began, feeling very weirded out by the ghostly little girl. She had on a cap with strings and a hazy gown that hung to her feet. A nightgown, I realized, one whose style hadn’t been common for a hundred years or more. I’d never seen a child phantom before, and it made me unsure how to respond. It seemed wrong to order a little kid away without an explanation, especially when I’d probably woken her up.

Behind the spectral figures, Vlad whisked his wrist in the universal gesture for hurry it up .

“I didn’t mean to call you,” I went on, before he said anything rude to them. “I’m, uh, here for something else. Sorry I bothered you. Please, go back to whatever you were doing, and don’t mention we were here tonight.”

Without a word, the ghosts dispersed, the little girl vanishing just as quickly as the others. I fought the urge to call them back and ask if anyone took care of her. We were on a timetable, and Vlad might set my clothes on fire if I started questioning whether the little girl floated out here alone, or under appropriate ghostly guardianship.

But after a solid ten minutes of standing there with my eyes closed, leaving myself open to the unearthly energy in the air and trying to will the Remnants into being, I opened them with a sigh.

“It’s not working. We need to try something else.”

Vlad arched a brow. “We? I can’t help you with this, Cat.”

“Yes you can,” I replied, coming toward him. “Nerves, anger, or fighting seem to flare up my borrowed powers. I’m nervous about this, but clearly not nervous enough. So hit me. Hard. See if that gets me mad enough to do the trick.”

Bones had kicked my flying abilities into gear by throwing me off a bridge—but there weren’t any bridges here. If Vlad and I had a fair sparring session, that might prove counterproductive because I’d probably enjoy testing myself against the Master vampire. But not defending myself while getting pummeled would go against all my instincts as a fighter, and I was betting pain would instinctively trigger my anger even if I knew the logic behind it.

I’d been on my feet when I made the pronouncement, but was on my ass in the next second, my chest burning from a punch that felt like it crushed all my ribs. Looked like Vlad didn’t need me to cajole him into doffing his chivalry long enough to comply!

“That’s a good one,” I managed, grimacing at the pain of my bones reknitting themselves together. “Do it again.”

Vlad’s brown hair fell across his shoulders as he leaned down to pull me to my feet. “As you wish.”

This time, I was braced, but all that meant was I stayed on my feet instead of landing on my ass when Vlad unleashed another sledgehammer, this one into the softer area of my stomach. Technically, body shots were easier to recover from than a blow to the head, so he was being courteous in that regard, but technicalities faded into insignificance at the pain blasting through me. At least it wasn’t followed by the sound of my ribs snapping like the last time.

“Goddamn, that hurts,” I muttered, bending over in reflex.

A snort ruffled the top of my hair. “I assumed you weren’t looking for something that would tickle.”

So saying, Vlad let fly another blow, this one to my side. I staggered back, anger flaring.

“You can’t even give me a second to recover in between? It’s a wonder you’re still single, Tepesh!”

“Getting pissed now, though, aren’t you?” he replied, without the slightest hint of remorse. “Quit bellyaching, Reaper. I’ve seen you in battle. You can take far worse than this.”

Yeah, well, in battle it was kill or be killed, so adrenaline kicked in, acting like morphine for the pain. This, on the other hand, just hurt seven ways from Sunday. But he was right. The pain and frustration over not letting myself fight back was making me angry. In the past, that was a good sign when it came to accessing my borrowed powers.

“If this is the best you can manage, I suppose it’ll have to do,” I said, to egg him on. I’d need a rougher attack than this to get me good and steamed. “Just thought you should know, though—Bones hits so much harder than you do.”