Jeaniene Frost - This Side of the Grave

“Visitor,” I announced, my new way for giving Vlad and Mencheres a heads-up to stop saying anything possibly incriminating. To my knowledge, my order for silence to other ghosts had worked before, but no need to tempt fate by blathering about which bar we were headed to tonight.

Not that it probably mattered. We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any zealot ghouls since the night at the drive-in. Maybe having some of their group go missing spooked the other ghouls into avoiding popular hangouts. Or maybe the reason we hadn’t seen any of them lately was much simpler. All of Apollyon’s minions were being supplied with food, so they didn’t need to go out hunting for it. Still, we kept going out night after night. Dave said Scythe and the pack of ghouls who drew him into their group were still here. They had to pop up sometime.

A shadowy form passed through the door moments later, still too hazy for me to make out any specific features. Then that outline of fogginess settled into a slim man with brown hair and early twentieth-century sideburns.

“Fabian!” I said, my initial happiness replaced by fear when I saw the grimness in his expression. “Is Dave okay?” I asked immediately.

“For the moment,” the ghost almost sighed. “But he’s thinking of doing something very foolish.”

I stood up, my cat hissing at being jostled from my lap. “What?”

“Letting himself get caught spying,” Fabian replied.

Mencheres and Vlad came downstairs. I shot them a bleak look, already starting to pull on my boots. “We need to go get Dave, now,” I told them.

“Is he intending to do this in the next hour?” Mencheres asked, putting a calming hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t believe so.” Fabian gave me a helpless look. “Dave doesn’t know I’m telling you. He made me promise not to, until he was caught. But I swore to you that I’d protect him, and I couldn’t betray that vow, even though I’m now betraying him by telling you.”

“You’re not betraying him, you’re saving him,” I replied with all the emphasis of countless past bad decisions. “Sometimes, people think there’s no other option aside from sacrificing themselves, but that doesn’t mean they’re right. Now, why does Dave all of a sudden think he needs to jump on a grenade for us? What happened?”

“He was taken to an unscheduled rally last night where Scythe told everyone he was leaving Memphis because his work here was done. He urged his followers to remain here, staying true to their beliefs, because soon, their movement would spread enough that they could openly act against vampires.”

“Fuck,” I moaned, to Vlad’s grumbled agreement. With every new city these ghouls went to, they continued to infect others with their hatred. Scythe might be higher up in Apollyon’s organization, but he wasn’t alone in his efforts to spread his leader’s paranoia. Worse, we didn’t know which area these groups picked to settle in next until vampire bodies piling up pointed the way, and by then, it was already too late. The old saying that the best offense was a good defense didn’t do much to soothe me when it came to a game with stakes this high.

I didn’t know what Scythe’s definition of “soon” was as far as an open uprising. To the undead, “soon” could be weeks, or a few years to a decade. But whatever the time frame, I couldn’t allow him and Apollyon to meet that goal. Dave knew how dangerous that would be, too, which was why he was considering something as risky as deliberately getting caught.

“Dave’s banking on being brought to an interrogator who might know where Apollyon is. So when you tell me, Mencheres, and Vlad where he is, we arrive in time to save him and nab the bad guys, right?” I asked.

The ghost nodded miserably. “Yes.”

Vlad’s brows drew together in contemplation even as I snapped, “No way.”

“It’s an acceptable risk,” he insisted quietly.

“No, it’s not, because they’d probably just cut off Dave’s head and run before asking him even one thing,” I shot back. “Apollyon’s people don’t need answers from Dave. What don’t they already know? They know we’re after them, they think they know where Bones and I are . . . they have no reason to keep Dave alive long enough for us to rescue him. If Dave weren’t being so idiotically noble, he’d realize that.”

Vlad shrugged. “Then Fabian should return and tell Dave to start his confession with the fact that it’s not really you with Bones in Ohio. That should pique their interest enough to want to know more.”

“It’s still too dangerous,” I gritted out.

Vlad’s gaze turned hard. “One life risked to save thousands is not too dangerous. If you’re too weak to see that, then you have no business being responsible for any of the lives beneath you in Bones and Mencheres’s line.”

“Really?” I swept out my hand, indicating the room at large. “Then why aren’t you with those ghouls who wanted to blow my head off as a preemptive strike to end the war before it started? I’m only one life, after all. Wouldn’t my death take a lot of steam out of Apollyon’s war machine?”

Vlad strode forward, green light spilling from his eyes as he grabbed me. “You are my friend,” he said through clenched teeth. “I haven’t many of those, yet don’t presume for a moment that I wouldn’t sacrifice you if I truly felt it was the best way to stop this war from happening.”

He let me go just as abruptly, my shoulders still stinging from his biting grip. “But I believe Apollyon would move forward regardless,” he went on, spinning around to walk away from me. “He’d only claim you weren’t really dead, that it was a trick. And besides, now you’re of far more use to the vampire nation alive with your latest . . . ability.”

I stared at Vlad. His back was to me, long dark hair still rustling from his rapid movements. It wasn’t his stated coldness about my life, or Dave’s, that made me sad as I looked at him. It was because, even hundreds of years after the loss of one life had admittedly devastated him, Vlad still couldn’t bring himself to admit that sacrificing a life should always be the last resort. Not the first, easiest option.

“If there was no other way, I’d agree this thing with Dave was worth the risk. But we haven’t looked at all our options yet, so I say no. And if you still can’t see the value of a life, then maybe you should rethink being responsible for all the lives underneath you in your line,” I replied, calmly but with an undercurrent of steel.

Vlad turned around, nailing me with a stare that should have backed me up several steps. It didn’t. I met his gaze with an equally hard one of my own. Hell no would I flinch or apologize when I knew I was right.

“You will understand sacrifice much better when you’re older” was what Vlad muttered after several loaded moments of silence.

“It’s not sacrifice if it doesn’t mean something, and if one friend’s life isn’t precious to you, then there’s no loss involved in offering it up,” I countered.

His gaze flicked to my right, where Mencheres watched the two of us with a hooded expression. If I judged him by past actions, I knew Mencheres was ruthless enough to agree with Vlad that the risk to Dave was acceptable without bothering to look at other options first. Hell, if he wanted to, Mencheres could force me to stay right here, waiting helplessly while Dave took that irrevocable step. One snap of his telekinetic power, and I’d be unable to move, let alone leave the house to get my friend.

Of course, one snap of my new, borrowed power and I could give Mencheres a whole new topic to ponder. I locked eyes with the Master vampire, seeing from the faint narrowing of his gaze that he knew what I was thinking. The scant space between us seemed to lengthen into a long, ominous road as we stared at each other across the room.