At Grave's End (25 page)

With renewed determination, I held out my sword. “You keep looking, Annette, no matter what. I’ll keep killing. If that bitch wants us, she can come and get us.”

“To the lower rooms, mates, move!” a shout ordered. Two dozen members of what was left of our forces began to fall back. I fought my way forward, seeing Bones and Mencheres at the end of the retreating line covering the exit. Both of them spun and slashed in a dizzying display of violence that made them seem like they’d been transformed into machines. I’d always guessed that Mencheres, once stripped of his polite manners, would be frighteningly lethal. I wasn’t wrong. He looked like a living nightmare.

Vlad grabbed me, forcing me backward. His hands felt hot, not cold like they should have from the freezing outside temperatures.

“Come along, they’ll join us soon,” he barked, propelling me with his body.

“No, I’m going up there!” I yelled, trying to wrest away.

“He’s the co-leader of his line so he’s where he should be,” was his reply. “But you’re coming with me.”

His fist landed a solid whack to the top of my head. Amid the wash of sudden stars, I ducked under his arm and lurched forward, brought up short by his hold on my hair.

All at once, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Vlad pulled me back, my feet slid out from under me, and faintly, above all the other noise, I heard a vindictive, satisfied laugh.

I saw six of those things follow after him, they’ve broken in!
Annette had said.
And I heard him scream…

She’d been talking about Zero, who was on his way to Anubus’s cell. But while no one had seen or heard from Zero since, it was Anubus who was chuckling maliciously now. Anubus. Unharmed though he was chained to a wall with half a dozen ravenous creatures within chomping distance. How was that possible? Only one way I could think of.

“Vlad, do you have to be touching someone to burn them?”

The question startled him so much he quit manhandling me. “I have to have touched them before, and it takes longer, since it’s difficult to burn someone I’m not holding.”

“Difficult,” I breathed. “But not impossible?”

“No, not impossible, why?”

“It’s Anubus.” I raised my voice because the adrenaline began to surge. “Patra’s object isn’t an object at all. Don’t you get it? He’s the ultimate Trojan horse, and Bones nearly got killed delivering him! She meant to finish Bones off in the ambush—and then the rest of us later, since we carted Anubus back home with
us. Patra knew we wouldn’t kill him, who offs their most valuable hostage?”

Vlad started to smile. He released me and spread out his hands, holding them over his head. All around us chaos reigned.

“He’s too far away for me to reach him before I’d be cut down, but let’s see if I can save the day.”

“Go on,” I replied, whirling to clear the area around him. “Impress me.”

His hands began to glow, not red, but blue. They lit the hall with an eerie navy-violet light. Sparks flew off his hands, showering my hair as I continued to slash at the oncoming zombies.

Someone screamed, high-pitched and agonizing. I threw a heartless grin at Vlad as I recognized the voice.

“You’ve got his attention, Drac.”

“He’s strong,” Vlad replied in a strained tone. His hands were now completely engulfed in flames. “And must I remind you once more what my name is?”

“You arrogant…” thrust though the stomach of a snapping zombie, twisting and using all my strength to cleave him in half “…overpublicized…” wasn’t going to work, it clawed at the blade, and my God, these things were tough, “…showy old bat…” Crack! There went my head into the wall. If I didn’t have a split skull, I’d be amazed. “What are you waiting for? Aren’t you the king of all bogeymen? The legend children fear will devour them if they don’t behave?”

Two more zombies slipped past Bones and Mencheres, who were now almost back-to-back trying to stave them off.

“Come on, Vlad, live up to your reputation! If you can’t burn to death
one
Egyptian vampire chained
to a wall, how did you ever drive the Turks from Romania?”

There was a loud reverberating snap, like an electric transformer had blown, and then in midleap, the charging zombies fell to the floor. Out of the suddenly still forms, dirt began to appear, covering them, eroding over the creature’s bodies, until nothing but piles of earth remained.
Out of the ground they were called
, I thought,
and back they went
.

“You did it,” I panted, dropping my sword and running not in his direction, but the opposite one.

“Of course,” I heard him reply as strong arms lifted me up and crushed me against a chest covered with gore. “I’m Vlad Tepesh, what did you expect?”

F
OR ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS
I
HELD BONES,
feeling his mouth pressed to my hair, his hands gripping my back, and I was truly happy. Then there was the sound, a muffled moan, one I heard even above the other vampires’ cries of exultation. One that seemed to come from my very cells, which made sense, in a weird way.

“Mom.”

I dashed straight down the hall toward the back like I was being pulled by a string. Bones was close behind, but not as fast as I was, not this time. I fell to my knees when I saw her, draped across Denise’s lap, my friend’s hands compressing her stomach. Next to them lay a zombie, now only a pile of dirt, and my mother was as still and pale as death.

“No!”

It tore out of me even as I acted without thinking, taking one of my knives and slashing it across my wrist, tilting her head up, forcing my blood in her
mouth. The blade cut right through to the bone and red liquid overflowed her lips.

She gagged once and weakly swallowed, bubbles trailing out of her mouth. I worked her jaw, forcing her to swallow again.

Denise was crying and praying at the same time. Bones pushed her to the side to crouch over my mother. He took the same knife I’d used and sliced his own wrist, holding it over her mouth, instructing me to begin chest compressions to force his blood through her body.

Blinded by tears I did, bearing down on her chest. Her heart had stopped beating right as Bones gave her his blood. Over and over I pressed on her chest while Bones blew into her mouth.

“That thing came in the room,” Denise choked, several injuries on her as well. “And it just jumped on her! I tried to pull it off, but it was so strong…Come on, Justina, don’t give up!”

Denise’s shout was so loud, it took me a second to hear the soft internal thumping below my hands. Then I sat back, tears flooding my eyes, as my mother coughed.

“Filthy…animal…get away…from me,” she rasped to Bones.

I laughed even as Bones snorted and sat back as well, pausing only to cut his palm and slap it over the slash in my wrist.

“Hallo, Justina. It appears we’re still stuck with each other.”

Denise laughed also, and then she wiped at her eyes and looked around.

“Where’s Randy? Isn’t he with you?”

My smile faded. Belatedly I realized that Randy
wasn’t in the room with everyone else. Seeing my mother bleeding to death had distracted me from noticing that before. I flicked a glance at Bones, who was frowning and getting to his feet.

“Why would he be with us?” he asked Denise in a sharp tone. “Randy was supposed to stay
here
.”

Denise got up now, too, her face pale. “He wanted to help find whatever it was Patra was using. He said he wouldn’t leave the house. He’s been gone about twenty minutes…”

Bones turned and strode out of the room. I went to Denise and took her hands. Even with all the blood loss I’d suffered, mine were warmer.

“You stay here,” I told her. “We’ll find him.”

Denise’s hazel eyes met mine, and the vehemence in them made me actually back up a step.

“No fucking way,” she said, and shoved me to the side.

I let her go, feeling a bit woozy now that the battle adrenaline was leaving me. My mother sat up, staring at the blood and torn clothes around her abdomen where that mortal wound had been.

“Mom,” I began.

“Don’t worry about me,” she cut me off. “Go after Denise.”

I gave her a grateful look and left, moving through the ruins of the house far slower than I had before. It wasn’t a minute later when I heard Denise scream, loud and piercing. That brought me to a run, despite the spots starting to dance in my vision.

Bones was kneeling on the floor of the kitchen with Denise in his arms. There was a pile of something red and dirty right next to them…

“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered.

“Fix him!” Denise screamed, pounding on Bones’s back. “Fix him, fix him,
FIX HIM!
”

But that was impossible. My mother had still been clinging to life when Bones and I gave her blood, so its healing properties had had a chance to work. Randy’s body lay in pieces, parts covered by the dirt that had once been the zombie, or zombies, who’d torn him apart.

“He’s gone, luv,” Bones said to Denise, forcing her away from the gruesome sight of her husband. “I’m so very sorry.”

I don’t think Denise even heard him. She kept screaming and sobbing while her fists pummeled Bones. I went to her, uselessly trying to comfort her, even though nothing I could do would ease her pain.

Spade came in the kitchen, grim-faced, and knelt down next to us.

“Crispin, I’ll take Denise out of here. You need to get Cat and the others to safety. We don’t have much time.”

Wordless, Bones nodded. Spade gently pried Denise from Bones’s arms and carried her out of the kitchen.

Everyone still left standing was in emergency mode, rounding up the dead and the living for a speedy exit. We all had to get as far away from here as possible, before Patra came to finish us off.

Bones picked me up, and I didn’t even bother to argue that I could walk. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I could. As he maneuvered through the broken items in the house, I was surprised to see one of the televisions were still on.

“…three…two…one…Happy New Year!” Dick Clark announced, followed by the usual noise
of partymakers, firecrackers, and the beginning of “Auld Lang Syne.” It seemed impossible that so much had happened in only two hours.

My vision began to get hazy, which might have been the blood loss catching up to me, because when I blinked next, we were out on the lawn. Strewn amid the odd-colored snow and heaps of dirt were bodies. What once had been vampires and ghouls were now shriveling remains. I felt a surge of gladness to see Tate milling around, and prayed that Juan and Dave had also made it.

Ian knelt on the ground, his chestnut hair making him easily distinguishable even from behind. His shoulders shook.

Bones set me down and then took rapid steps forward. Mencheres seized him, his face grim.

“How many?” Bones asked hoarsely.

Mencheres’s gaze slid to several of the piles of shriveling limbs.

“We don’t know yet.”

Bones knelt beside Ian. “Ian, mate, we must take them and go. None of them would care for us being slaughtered over their bodies because we didn’t have the strength to leave. Patra’s already taken too much tonight. We shan’t let her get another thing.”

Through rapidly graying vision, I saw the three of them begin to collect the remains of what used to be their friends.

D
AVE’S FACE WAS THE FIRST THING
I
SAW
when my eyes opened. He smiled.

“Hello, Cat. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“Thirsty,” I rasped, downing the water he handed me. “Where are we?”

He took the glass back. “We’re in South Dakota now, while everyone regroups.”

A glance to my left showed bright light peeking through the heavy drapes.

“My God, what time is it?”

“About three o’clock. You lost a shitload of blood and had to be given two transfusions. Then Bones didn’t want you to wake up and start to exhaust yourself, so he gave you some of those sleeping pills Don cooked up for you. You don’t remember arguing with him about it and trying to spit them out?”

Not at all. I sat up, noticing I was no longer bloody and I was also wearing a clean T-shirt.

“Don’s had a hell of a time these past several hours,”
Dave went on. “He’s been pulling every string he has to confiscate footage of empty graves and shuffling dead people, and overall calming the media circus this thing has generated. Thankfully, the Canadian government doesn’t want its people believing in zombies, either, so they’re cooperating.”

I groaned. I could just imagine how Don must be going nuts trying to cover this up.

“What’s his angle?”

“They’re using a cover story of a small earthquake and an avalanche that emptied some of the graves, but the tabloids are still going to have a field day. At least we were in a remote area—if this had happened in a big city, there’d be no lid Don could find that would be big enough to seal this nightmare up.”

“An earthquake and an avalanche?
That’s
what he’s saying?”

Dave shrugged. “It’s the best he could do on short notice, I guess. It explains the torn-up cemeteries somewhat. Then he’s also saying some of the ‘zombies’ were shell-shocked survivors wearing filthy clothes and wandering around in a daze. You know how it is. People don’t want to think what they saw was real. The average person goes through life much happier believing nothing supernatural exists.”

“Where’s Denise?” Poor Randy. He wouldn’t have been involved in any of this if not for me.

“She’s sleeping. Spade gave her a lesser version of your tranquilizer. Right now, sleep’s the best thing for her.”

“Dave…who else didn’t make it?”

His face clouded. “You know about Randy. Zero’s also gone, as well as Tick Tock…”

He went on, and every new name slammed into me. Some of them I knew, some of them I didn’t. Still, they were each an irreplaceable loss. By the time Dave was finished, more than eighteen vampires and ghouls had been listed, a staggering loss. Four more humans had also been killed, in addition to Randy. Bones must be devastated.

“Where’s Bones?” I asked, swinging my legs out of bed.

“Downstairs. But first, you might want to put on a pair of pants.”

I looked down, seeing what I hadn’t noticed while under the covers. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize…”

He smiled faintly. “You’re like my sister, don’t worry about it. And because I’m your friend, I don’t mind telling you…brush your teeth. Your breath is scary.”

Taking Dave’s advice, I’d brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on more clothes. My feet were bare, since I didn’t bother looking for shoes. Dave escorted me to the closed doors of the drawing room and then left.

Bones came to me and I held him for a long time. Saying “I’m sorry” was so useless a comfort that I didn’t even bother.

Ian was there, too. He hadn’t showered or changed clothes since the battle, and he was shirtless with dirt and other things smeared over him.

“Would have been good of you to figure out the puzzle earlier, Reaper,” he bitterly stated. “Not much help getting a bright idea after half our numbers are cut down.”

I blinked, unprepared for his hostility. Bones didn’t have any hesitation, and he had Ian by the throat before I could even formulate a response.

“Don’t you say another accusing word to her or I’ll lose the very thin hold I have on my temper,” he growled. “If not for her, we’d all be dead right now, or did you forget that?”

Ian’s turquoise gaze was blazing emerald.

“What I haven’t forgotten is why we were all dragged into this war in the first place. It was all because of her! Her injury was repairable, Crispin, but you can’t do anything about our friends lying in the other room, can you? How many more lives will be needed to avenge one woman’s injured pride—”

“Bones, no!”

Mencheres appeared out of nowhere, and not a moment too soon. There was a wrenching sound, a blur, and then Bones was thrown backward missing an arm. The scream I made drowned out Spade’s shout as he arrived just in time to witness it.

Ian stared with stupefied amazement at the hand still clutched to his throat, the limb beginning to wither. I went to Bones, but he sidestepped me and strode right to Mencheres.

“Did you have a reason for preventing me from silencing that insult, Grandsire?”

Now my whole body tensed. If Bones and Mencheres went at it, all hell would break loose.

“You were going to tear Ian’s head off,” Mencheres answered. “You would have regretted it afterward, for many reasons, and I think we have already given Patra enough cause to celebrate without further reducing our numbers.”

Ian appeared mildly dazed by recent events. He
shook his head as if to clear it, then stared at me and Bones with a look of vague disbelief.

“By Christ, Crispin, I don’t know what got into me,” he breathed. “I had no cause to rail at you like that. Forgive me, both of you.”

Bones started to run a hand through his hair, stopped when he saw his limb was only half grown back, and snorted incredulously.

“Two hundred and forty-seven years I’ve had that arm. Didn’t think to lose it while trying to rip your head off. Bugger, I have to pull myself together.”

“Now more than ever we all have to pull ourselves together,” Mencheres agreed.

“Yes,” Bones said, eyeing him in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Especially you, Grandsire, because this
must
end.”

Vlad entered the room. He looked around, saw the staring contest between Bones and Mencheres, and took a seat.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Mencheres said with bleakness. “And I tell you, I cannot do it.”

Bones was next to him in a flash. “The reality is that either you or she will be dead very soon. Whatever Patra meant to you, whatever secret dreams you’ve harbored of fate intervening at the last moment to make things right—you of all people know better. You told me never to doubt your visions, yet here you’ve lingered with the hope that you could be wrong. But you’re not, so you must end this, because that is the responsibility you have to the people under your line and now also under mine.”

I was confused. Mencheres didn’t have Patra stuffed in a back room, to my knowledge, so how could he have the power to end this, as Bones was implying?
Vlad leaned forward, picking up on my thought. “Don’t you see, Cat? When Patra had you trapped in a lethal nightmare, who knew how to break it? Last night when the zombies attacked, who knew the only way to destroy them was to destroy their homing beacon? Mencheres. So if he knows these spells well enough to know what counters them…then he also has the knowledge to cast one himself.”

One look at Mencheres’s ashen face confirmed it, and then I was right in front of him as well.

“You
have
to. She’s not going to stop! Do you want to see everyone around you dead? Because that’s what will happen if you don’t do something.”

“And could you?” Mencheres flung at me. “If this were Bones we were talking about, could you mete out death to him? Could you sentence him so easily to the grave?”

He stopped, showing more naked feeling than I’d ever seen from him, and it hit me.
He’s still in love with her, even after everything she’s done. Poor bastard.

I chose my words with care. “I don’t pretend to know how hard this is on you, Mencheres, and if this were Bones, it would rip me apart inside, too. But”—I paused to look straight at the man I loved—“if you ever went so far off the deep end that you’d try—and succeed—in killing those I loved, and you made it very clear through countless examples that you wouldn’t stop until I and everyone I cared about were dead, then yes. I’d kill you.”

Bones stared back at me and a small smile touched his mouth. “That’s my girl.”

Then he fixed his gaze back on Mencheres. “I can’t offer you any comfort in this but one, single thing: a
quick death for Patra. She doesn’t deserve it, and I’d promised to treat whoever plotted against my wife to a much more prolonged, gruesome experience, but for your sake I’ll amend that. If you do what you must now.”

Green blazed from Mencheres’s eyes, and so much power crackled off him that I flinched. “Are you threatening me?”

Bones didn’t even twitch. “I’m the co-ruler of your line and I’m stating my intentions toward an enemy who has butchered our people. You need to remember whose side you’re on. Can’t you see Patra has been betting her life on the notion that you’re incapable of that?”

Mencheres didn’t say anything. Every set of eyes in the room were trained on him. Then at last he stood, reining in that angry flash of power like a bird folding up its wings.

“So be it. Last night Patra unleashed the contents of the grave on us. Tonight, we will give her back its vengeance.”