Jeaniene Frost - This Side of the Grave

“This is who you were following?” Vlad asked the other ghouls, voicing my own inner scorn. “I’d kill myself in shame if I were you.”

Veritas looked at Apollyon, her ridiculously youthful features hardened into an expression of pure contempt.

“You think to find mercy from me?”

She snatched at Apollyon’s single long piece of hair, ripping it away from his bald spot and using it as a lever to tug his head back. I almost lost it right there, because damn, that was cold .

“You repeatedly seek to destroy my people, and you think I will grant you asylum?” she all but growled.

“You must,” Apollyon said, his voice cracking at the last word.

Veritas straightened to her full five feet six inches, but with her sizzling power and imperial presence, she might as well have been nine feet tall.

“Malcolme Untare, you who have renamed yourself Apollyon, for inciting others in your species to murder and insurrection, you are hereby sentenced to death.”

He let out a shriek that Veritas ignored. She leaned in until her mouth brushed his ear, and only my close proximity let me hear what she whispered.

“You miserable worm. Jeanne d’Arc was my friend.”

Then she kicked him, avoiding his grasping hands to stride away with a “Die on your knees or take the fight she offered you. I care not which,” thrown over her shoulder.

My mouth gaped at this tidbit about my famous half-breed predecessor, but I snapped it shut. Note to self: Don’t get on Veritas’s bad side. She holds a grudge for centuries.

Then I looked down at the ghoul, feeling my former hatred ebb. For all the lives he’d been responsible for ending and his blind, centuries-long quest for power, in the end, Apollyon proved to be too pathetic to hate. He wasn’t even worth killing, but if I let him live, my current and future enemies wouldn’t see it as mercy. They’d see it as a weakness they could exploit. With a clarity I’d lacked before, I understood why Bones did what he did with my father, and why Vlad let his ruthlessness be seen more readily than his finer qualities. It wasn’t out of sadistic enjoyment or to pick fights. It was to prevent them.

“Pick up that sword,” I said to Apollyon, enunciating each word. “Or I’ll kill you where you kneel.”

I wouldn’t take any enjoyment out of it, but I’d do it because it had to be done. Veritas had already sentenced him to death on behalf of the vampire ruling body. If I walked away, it wouldn’t save his life. She or someone else would just kill him.

“No,” Apollyon said, almost a whimper. Then he scrambled forward and tried to run.

I caught him before he’d made it even a dozen feet, letting him hit me with all the power in his stocky body. He only had his hands, and I still had a really long blade.

“Apollyon had all of you getting your hate on because of a lie that I’d become a half vampire, half ghoul,” I called out to the ghouls who watched us with grim enthrallment. “Because if someone’s unusual, then you should be afraid of them, right?”

Apollyon tried to tackle me to the ground, but for all the years he had on me, he obviously hadn’t spent them learning how to fight—and I’d had one hell of a teacher. Despite the pain still arcing down my side, I swiveled at the last moment, leaping onto his back when his momentum still had him charging forward. Then I brought my sword against his neck.

“You all want to know why I have abilities other new vampires don’t?” I said, digging that blade in. “Because I don’t feed from humans; I drink vampire blood.”

And then I yanked it toward my body, cutting my hand to grip the naked edge for maximum balance, feeling more satisfaction from that public admission than I did seeing Apollyon’s head separate from his neck. All my life, I’d had to hide what I was. First as a child when I didn’t even know why other kids weren’t like me, then when I hunted vampires in my late teens and mid-twenties, and finally, my oddities this past year as a full vampire. Well, I was done hiding, hating, or apologizing for the parts of me I hadn’t chosen and couldn’t change. If some people had a problem with my differences, that was just too fucking bad for them.

“That’s right, I eat vampires ,” I said again, louder this time. I pushed his body away and stood, shaking the blood off my sword as I faced the remaining group of ghouls.

“World’s freakiest bloodsucker, right here,” I went on. “And you know what? If that makes some of you uncomfortable, too bad. If it makes some of you so uncomfortable you want to start shit with me about it, step right up and see if I don’t eat the hell out of you next!”

I’d meant that last part as a threat, but somewhere in my impassioned declaration of independence from hiding what I was, I’d neglected to think through my phrasing. I saw Bones raise a brow, a muffled snicker broke out from Ian, and then Vlad laughed loud and hearty.

“With that sort of invitation, Reaper, you might want to suggest the line form to your right.”

“That’s not . . . I meant eat them in a bad way,” I sputtered.

“I think you made your point, luv,” Bones responded, his face carefully blank even thought I caught a faint twitch to his mouth. Then his expression hardened as he looked at Veritas, who’d turned around to watch me behead Apollyon. “And I second it,” he said, all traces of humor gone from his voice.

The Law Guardian stared at me. I didn’t regret a moment of my public declaration—aside from perhaps my wording—but I knew her response carried more weight than my vampire audience or the score of surrendered ghouls. She also spoke for the highest ruling body over vampires.

At last, Veritas shrugged. “That does make you the world’s freakiest bloodsucker, but there’s no law against a vampire feeding from other vampires.” And then she turned away.

I let out a laugh that died in my throat as movement at the back of the gate caught my eye.

Marie Laveau walked slowly into the cemetery.

I didn’t blink as I stared at Marie. Toanyone who didn’t know better, the sight of one lone ghoul strolling up shouldn’t have looked frightening at all. But I knew that Marie could summon a wall of Remnants to fight for her before I could even whisper, “Oh shit.” Could I raise my own army of them fast enough to counter such an attack from her? Or should I focus my energy on trying to control the ones she raised, if it came to that? I’d assumed Marie gave me her power so that, in a roundabout way, she could help me defeat Apollyon, but had she been on his side all along? Had everything I thought about her been wrong?

“Why have you come here?” Veritas hissed at her.

I held up my hand, ignoring the incredulous look the Law Guardian gave me as I shushed her.

“Majestic, so nice of you to come by,” I said, sounding a lot calmer than I felt. “I hope you found the place because of your ghost friends telling you about what was going down. Not because you’re just showing up late to the hate rally.”

Her deep brown eyes met mine, face absolutely expressionless. She walked forward, gaze flitting around the cemetery to look at the fallen bodies of the ghouls around her. Those still living who’d crouched back in fear minutes before now began to edge toward her.

“Apollyon is dead?” Marie asked, no hint of what she was thinking in her buttery smooth voice.

“Very,” I replied before Veritas could speak. “Most of his top lieutenants are dead, too.”

Marie was now ahead of all the other ghouls, only a few dozen feet of headstones separating her from the line of Master vampires.