Night Huntress 07 - This Side of the Grave (35 page)

I sat next to Bones with an affirmative grunt. “At least Marie was right and their effect wasn’t as overwhelming as it was the first time.”

I’d still felt tired and cold everywhere for a few hours after raising them with Vlad, but I was able to keep control of myself the whole time. Nothing like when I first drank Marie’s blood and then went nuts for two days.

Bones turned to stare at me.
“The first time?
You raised them
again
?”

Oh crap. With everything that happened, I hadn’t had a chance to tell Bones what I’d done in the graveyard that night with Vlad. Now he thought I’d been hiding it from him.

“I did a trial run of raising Remnants a little over a week ago,” I said, raising my hand at the whiplash of disbelief I felt across my subconscious. “Before you get pissed, I didn’t deliberately go behind your back. It just happened. And no, I didn’t have a case of the sluts again.”

“And you neglected to mention this to me why?” he asked, a hint of anger brushing my senses.

“Because the next time I saw you
was
when Don died,” I replied steadily. “And it hadn’t been the sort of thing I’d wanted to casually mention to you over the phone before that.”

Bones let out a breath in a slow hiss, that anger ebbing to something milder, like disapproval.

“You knew about this?” he asked Mencheres.

An oblique shrug.
“Afterward.”

I concealed my snort with the utmost difficulty. Sure, he’d had it
confirmed
afterward, but Mencheres knew damn well beforehand what Vlad and I would do, as he’d admitted once we got back. Still, Bones wouldn’t be able to pick up the slightest hint of subterfuge in Mencheres’s bland charcoal gaze.
Note to self: He tap-dances around giving a straight answer with impressive skill
.

“All right,” Bones said at last, sounding resigned but no longer mad or disapproving. “Well, what was it like this time, Kitten?”

“Still very freaky,” I admitted with a shudder. “It took some trial and error, but we found out they’re summoned and controlled by blood. After I sent them back, I felt tired, freezing, and hungry—for food,” I added with a pointed glance at Mencheres, who merely blinked in an innocent way.
“Still, nothing as bad as the first time.”

Even though I didn’t want the memory to come, it did anyway.
Cold all through me.
Such incredible hunger.
The smash of voices in my mind, intertwining into a roar of white noise…

Except for one voice, oddly enough.
It tugged at the edge of my memory, honey-coated and Southern Creole, dancing amidst the chaos that night when I’d first been exposed to the true depths of Marie’s hold over the dead. That’s right, Marie had asked me a question I hadn’t registered at the time because I’d felt like I was suffocating underneath the power I’d absorbed from her. Now, however, her question was as clear as though she were whispering in my ear this very moment.

Haven’t you ever wondered how
Gregor
escaped Mencheres’s prison?

Such an odd thing for her to ask.
Mencheres snatched me away from
Gregor
, erasing the entire time from my mind and locking
Gregor
up as punishment. Yet somehow,
Gregor
had escaped a dozen years later and came after me, claiming I was his wife, not
Bones’s
. At the time, finding out how
Gregor
had gotten out hadn’t been first on anyone’s list of priorities. Not with the trouble
Gregor
caused on the loose.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought about
Gregor
much since I blew his head off with the pyrokinesis power I’d temporarily absorbed from Vlad. Why, of all things, would Marie ask me if I knew how
Gregor
got out? She knew I didn’t know how he’d slipped Mencheres’s prison. No one knew, not even Mencheres. Plus, that was the last thing I’d care about, being crazed from the connection to the dead that I’d absorbed from her…

“Holy shit!”
I burst out, shooting upward so fast that the couch flipped over from my momentum.

Bones was on his feet, gaze darting around and a knife already in his grip. I waved that away with an almost feverish swipe of my hand, stomping over hard enough that I should have left dents in the floor.

“
Gregor
.”
I seized Bones by the shoulders, barely noticing that his eyebrows shot up at that name. “He escaped from Mencheres’s prison, something no one should’ve been able to do with how smart and powerful granddaddy pharaoh is, right? But
Gregor
got away, leaving no sign how he did it. Don’t you see? We thought he must’ve hatched a clever getaway plan himself, but the fucker didn’t do a
thing
!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mencheres and Kira exchange a concerned glance with Bones.

“Kitten,” he said, in the same tone I’d heard Bones use on trauma victims when he thought they were only a harsh syllable away from a complete mental breakdown. “You’re upset over everything that’s happened recently. It’s natural to fixate on something from the past when the present feels overwhelming—”

That made me laugh
with a maniacal sort of amusement, causing his brow to furrow even more.

“
Luv
, perhaps—” he tried again.

“No one can hide from death,” I cut him off, deep satisfaction filling me as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Marie said that, but I hadn’t pondered it as promised. For the past several days, I’d been too numb with grief to think about anything but losing Don. Before that, I was busy chasing my tail trying to find leads on
Apollyon
, plus also trying to mute my new connection with ghosts—and still being so pissed at Marie for what she’d done.

No one, not even our kind
, she’d stressed.
Death travels the world and passes through even the thickest walls we protect ourselves with… When you truly understand what it means, you’ll know how to defeat
Apollyon
…
God, she’d given me all the pieces. I just hadn’t put them together.

“Marie said that before she sicced those Remnants on you and blackmailed me into drinking her blood,” I went on, my voice rising. “I thought she was just threatening me in a cryptic way—you know how she loves to be all freaky and mysterious—but she was trying to help us.”

Gregor
hadn’t gotten himself out of Mencheres’s prison.
Marie
had found him by using the one thing that no one could hide from: ghosts. She probably used Remnants to break him out; not even Mencheres’s guards could have protected themselves against those. Marie might have hated
Gregor
, but her loyalty wouldn’t allow her to abandon her sire.

It fit with her ruthless practicality as well. Marie had wanted to be free from
Gregor
. That wouldn’t happen as long as he was imprisoned, and Marie had admitted she knew why Mencheres locked him up. So with letting
Gregor
out—and him coming straight for me—Marie knew Bones would try to kill him. He hadn’t, but I’d done it, accomplishing her objective for her, all without her being in direct violation of her oath to her sire.

The devil’s in the details
, I’d told that ghoul at the drive-in. Yes it was, and the clever voodoo queen appeared to be a master at details. The same loyalty that wouldn’t let Marie kill
Gregor
herself also wouldn’t let her ally herself against her fellow ghouls in a brewing war, but yet again, Marie had found a way around that. She’d forced me to drink her blood, giving me the same power she had. Helping us against
Apollyon
in a way that couldn’t be traced back to her, considering how we’d been sure to keep quiet about what occurred between Marie and me in the cemetery.

“God, that woman’s a
hell
of a lot more devious than I gave her credit for!” I exclaimed.

Bones glanced behind me, with just the barest inclination of his head. I walked away from him, muttering,
“Don’t
worry. You don’t need to have Mencheres break out the invisible straitjacket again. I haven’t gone crazy. I just didn’t understand until now.”

He still looked like he was debating having Mencheres lay the power whammy on me, so I sat down by Kira in a very deliberate manner, folding my hands in my lap. There. Didn’t I look calm and sane?

“
Apollyon
is as good as caught,” I said, meeting his concerned brown gaze with a purpose that felt like it radiated through me. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“
All the garlic and weed’s gone?” I
asked Bones as he came in the front door. Aside from the garlic, it occurred to me that I sounded like a teen trying to clean up from a big party before her parents got home.

“Far away,” Bones replied. “Took it flying and then dropped it in a lake. It’ll sink, or some lucky sod will have
a grand
day fishing.”

I’d already scrubbed myself enough to take off a layer of skin, let alone all remaining stench from the herbs, and thrown out my clothes that had touched them. I was as ready as I was going to get.

“All right,” I said, looking at Bones, Mencheres, and Kira.
“Time to raise the dead.”

I went onto our wraparound front porch, staring up at the sky to try and clear my head. The stars really were much brighter out in the country as compared to the city. Still, I wasn’t here to admire the pretty twinkling lights. I was here to put a big
ol
’ supernatural WELCOME sign above my head, summoning the very beings I’d tried to repel for the past several weeks. Even though I was in a sparsely populated area, I knew the dead were close by. The lack of human voices bombarding my mind made it easier to focus on the hum I felt in the air that had nothing to do with the three vampires joining me on the porch. This was something else, coming from the ground up.

I closed my eyes, trying to picture the trails of spectral light I’d seen when the other side of the grave first opened to me back in New Orleans. Something that felt like gooseflesh danced across my skin, but it wasn’t cold out, and I wasn’t afraid. I was calm, because I
knew
they were close.
Come
, I thought, seeking them with the power that resided in my veins.
Come
.

Behind me, Kira let out a hiss even as Bones said quietly, “Four of them just showed up,
luv
.” I kept my eyes closed, smiling so those who came would know they were welcomed, and continued to pull on the power inside me. Before, I’d had to be angry, or afraid, or in pain to activate the power I’d borrowed from Vlad and Mencheres, but this was something different. Stillness was what called to the residents of the grave, not seething emotions.

“Five more,” Bones
said,
a question in his voice I didn’t answer out loud. No, I wasn’t done. More were close by. I could feel them.

A chill blew through the warm summer air. Not frigid.
Pleasant, like the kiss of frost on a fevered brow.
I invited it to come nearer, and it accepted, the coolness settling over me with a slow, sweet lethargy. It grew inside me, urging me to release myself to it. I didn’t fight it, but surrendered, letting it settle all the way through me.

“Eight more,” Bones said, almost a growl.

I heard him, but still didn’t respond, falling into the white emptiness that attached itself to the center of me. The more I let my fear, grief, and stress slide away from me, the bigger that inner sphere grew, replacing those emotions with cool, blissful nothingness. It was such a relief to let my burdens fall to the ground, swallowed up by the soothing white emptiness. How had I ever lasted so longer under the weight of the pain? Now with it finally gone, I felt like I could fly.

Bones said something else, but I didn’t hear what this time. Wave after wave of peace crested over me, insulating me from everything except the cool, restful silence inside me. This was bliss. This was freedom. I reveled in it, never wanting it to end.

A thread reached down into my consciousness, tugging me back.
Bones’s
voice, sounding harsh in worry.
It chased away some of that beautiful nothingness, replacing it with concern. It was so calm and peaceful where I was… but I didn’t like hearing him that way.

His voice came again, more urgent this time. Sandbags of distress seemed to form on top of me, holding me down from that floating, freeing emptiness. They formed a path that I followed, each step piling on every painful emotion I’d let go of before, but I didn’t turn around. Bones was at the end of this road. That was more important than all the blissful barrenness behind me.

All of a sudden, I had more than his voice. His face was only inches away, dark brows drawn together as he said my name, louder,
strong
hands shaking my shoulders.

“I’m right here, no
need
to yell,” I murmured.

Bones closed his eyes briefly before speaking again. “You turned white as chalk and then crumpled to the floor. I’ve been calling your name trying to rouse you these past ten minutes.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my face against his. “Sorry.”

At the feel of wetness, I touched my cheek and then looked at the pink glistening drops on my fingers.