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“To the lawn, we’ll start with an exterior perimeter and fall back inside if necessary,” Bones said. “Zero, you gather the humans and put them in the holding cells below, since they’re the most reinforced. Feel free to use physical means to make any reluctant ones obey, especially her mother.”
I would have replied with something rude, but this wasn’t the time. We filed outdoors in a precise ma
The frigid wind made me shiver. Yes, it was extremely cold, but it wouldn’t kill me and hypothermia was something I didn’t have to worry about. I was half vampire, after all, so my blood wouldn’t know how to freeze. It didn’t stop me from wishing I could be as impervious to it as my companions, though. Vampires and ghouls might not like the cold, but I was the only one whose teeth were chattering.
“All right, luv?”
Bones asked it while not taking his gaze off the trees in front of him. We were dead center in front of the house, and hopefully that wasn’t prophetic.
I gritted my jaw to still it. “It’ll go away when the action starts.”
There was movement at my side. Tate slid next to me without a word, shouldering Spade aside.
“Leave him,” Bones interjected when Spade was about to shove him back. “It’s what he’s good for.”
Tate might have replied with something, I won’t ever know. His mouth opened…but then the first of the mysterious figures cleared the trees and stopped his rejoinder. Bones stiffened, turning as cold and hard as any of the icicles on the roof. Spade let out a low hiss, and someone muttered something that sounded like a prayer.
“Sweet Christ,” I whispered, a new freeze settling in me. “What is that?”
It was Mencheres who answered, coming up behind us and raising his voice to be heard above the thing’s sudden snarl as it began to run, its mouth snapping obscenely from half-rotted lips.
“That,” he replied, “is the grave.”
THIRTY
IN OLDER MOVIES, ZOMBIES LOOKED ALMOST comical. The newer films pegged them better-the insanity of eyes bulging out and flesh hanging in rancid layers over a frame hunched from hunger. Some were more decomposed than others, bones visible in places as they staggered forward. But all of them had one thing in common; they were ravenous, and we were food.
When the first one was visible, Mencheres appeared as stu
“Never in all my foulest imaginings did I believe she would do such a thing,” he finished with. “There will be payback for this, perhaps not by me or anyone here, but one day she will account for such a deed.”
That didn’t sound good. In fact, it sounded like an epitaph.
Bones shook Mencheres’s shoulder with a hard tug. “We don’t have time to ponder Patra’s capacity for evil. These things”-a short nod to the ones only about two dozen yards away. “Can they be killed?”
Mencheres lost his glazed expression and his features hardened. He placed his hand over Bones’s.
“No.”
The single word was delivered without emotion. Mencheres seemed to steel himself even as he squeezed Bones’s hand before dropping his own.
“They ca
He strode forward with a command for everyone else to stay back. The things were only a few feet from him, moving at a loping run now. They seemed to grow more crazed by his nearness. Horrible grunts came from them.
“They have been pulled from the ground,” Mencheres continued, sidestepping one with a speed it didn’t have, “and they will not return to it until the spell is broken. We ca
His sword moved so fast I couldn’t follow it with my gaze. In disbelief I saw the things leap at him with almost equal speed. Where the fuck did their shuffling go? Oh,shit!
Mencheres hacked in that same blur. Pieces of them started to fly in all directions as his blade outraced their sudden, incredible tempo. “We must hold them off and find what object she used for this spell,” he went on in that same level tone. “It would have to be something of hers, perhaps carried by one of the prisoners, or planted by Rattler. If we find it and destroy it, they will die. Until then, no matter how much damage they sustain, they ca
What he meant was sickeningly illustrated as he spoke. Mother of God, even the limbs he’d severed crawled in our direction. A headless body stumbled closer, and the unattached cranium chewed with demonic intentness at Mencheres’s foot until he kicked it away. Now that was scary. Still, when they were dismembered, the creatures were certainly less dangerous. Maybe there was a chance.
“Send three people back in the house to search,” Mencheres called out, whirling to intercept more of the forms as they approached. “It will probably be something small, easy to disregard. Destroy it with any means possible.
“Tick Tock, A
They darted back into the house without pause, except for A
“If I thought for a moment you’d listen, it would be you going inside,” he almost sighed. “Yet I know better. I love you, Kitten. There’s nothing on this earth or under it that can change that.”
I didn’t have time to reply, but it wasn’t necessary. Every fiber of me shouted it back at him even as he raised his voice and addressed the four dozen people also drawing out their swords.
“Patra unleashed death on us, mates. Let us return the gesture with our compliments!”
Bones strode forward with measured, lethal steps to meet the new wave of ghastly invaders. Four dozen against untold hundreds? I knew the odds of our survival. So did everyone who gripped a blade and advanced with him, myself included.
“We are not helpless.” Bones’s voice was never more controlled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was chipper. “Many times in our lives we’ve been powerless, but not this night. Right now we have the power to choose the ma
Bones finished with a roar that was taken up by every throat. We trembled in the pre-midnight air with the rage of retaliation, and suddenly I didn’t feel cold. Or afraid. I’d faced death before, hell, even sought it. Now by Bones’s side, I had the chance to rewrite every bad decision, each instance of cowardice, and all the years of regret. Nothing else mattered but right now. This instant, I’d become the person I’d always wanted to be. Strong. Fearless. Loyal. Someone even I could be proud of.
The first creature leapt at me and my sword flashed out to answer, my hair flying as I dodged and hacked. A green glow landed on its malformed face and I laughed, bright and savagely happy.
“See that? It’s the light in my eyes, and I’m going to show you what else I’ve got…”
My first fight to the death was when I was sixteen. All I’d had was a silver cross with a thin dagger attachment, and I didn’t even know if it would kill a vampire. It did, obviously, and I’ve been killing ever since. I’d been in hundreds of battles since that initial one, but none of them, none of them, had ever been like this.