Up From the Grave

Sixteen

They took Tate away after I’d drunk about a quart from him, but then brought him back after Madigan drained close to that out of me for his first rounds of tests. From Dr. Obvious’s thoughts, they were very excited over the preliminary results because my blood appeared to be compatible with ghoul DNA.

I’d wondered about that. When I was a half-breed, everyone knew I could’ve been turned into a ghoul and thus retained abilities from both species. That’s why the two races had almost gone to war because of me. Even as a full vampire, my heart still beat when I was under extreme duress, and my diet was anything but ordinary—two facts we’d kept secret so the ghoul nation would no longer consider me a cross-species threat.

If these tests were right, maybe I still was.

Speaking of war, where was Denise? It had been almost a day since she’d scurried under that doorway. She needed to hurry her furry ass up before Madigan started transmitting my blood results to other interested parties. What was she waiting for?

Another, darker thought slid into my consciousness. She might not be waiting for anything. Maybe the rat I’d seen had been just that—a rat that had huddled inside Bones’s clothes to escape a barrage of gunfire, then run the first chance it got. Not my shapeshifting best friend in disguise.

If so, I wasn’t merely on my own. I was strapped naked to a table unable to free myself, let alone free Tate, Juan, Dave, and Cooper. Or make Madigan pay for what he’d done. Hell, I couldn’t even prevent Dr. Obvious from plunging another needle into my jugular so she could extract more blood.

“Screwed” didn’t begin to cover my situation.

Despair crept into my emotions, sinking them deeper into a pit of darkness. If only that was the worst that happened to me, but Bones was gone. Even if Denise magically appeared, and we managed to kill everyone here except for my friends, he would still be gone. Tears began to trickle from my eyes. All I had left of him was that body in the freezer and a tiny bit of his blood in me that hadn’t been drained out yet . . .

Blood.

Amidst the black mire of hopelessness came a crack of light. I still had some of Bones’s blood in me, which meant I had absorbed his abilities as I did with every vampire or ghoul I drank from. Drawing from his incredible strength hadn’t been able to budge the multiple titanium straps restraining me to this table, but that wasn’t Bones’s most impressive trick. His newest one was.

I waited until Dr. Obvious finished with her latest extraction and had disappeared to the other side of the room before I started on the smallest strap. The one that restrained my head. I didn’t move a single muscle in my attempt to budge it, but instead, focused all my concentration on imagining the strap snapping open.

Nothing.

All right, so I didn’t get it on the first try. When had anything important been that easy? I closed my eyes and concentrated again, trying to force the strap open with the strength of my thoughts. A little more, little more, okay, one more should do it . . .

Still nothing.

I let out a frustrated sigh. The ability had to be in me. My mind-reading skills came from Bones’s blood, though granted, Bones had mastered that fully, and he was still exploring his fledgling telekinesis. That’s why we’d assumed I hadn’t manifested it before, but it still had to be there even if it hadn’t spontaneously shown up yet—

Did the metal strap vibrate a little? I couldn’t be sure, but I told myself that yes, it did. Then I concentrated harder, willing those vibrations to increase until it snapped off.

They didn’t. I felt no snap, no vibrations, nothing except the cool metal against my forehead and my growing anger at the fact that Madigan might have won after all.

Dammit, I might not deserve to beat him, but he deserved to lose! And Bones deserved something, too. He’d been on that pier because he was trying to protect me, so the last thing he’d want was me stuck on this table as Madigan’s latest lab rat. He’d want me up and unleashing hell on everyone who’d helped imprison his people, who’d shot him to death, and who’d hustled me into this twisted underground lab—especially the asshole who’d orchestrated it all. If Bones were here, he’d demand that I stop trying to pop my restraint open and make that thing fly across the fucking room to beam Dr. Obvious right between the—

Click.

With that single, glorious sound, the pressure on my forehead vanished. Dr. Obvious didn’t hear it, though. When I turned my unfettered head all the way to the side, she was staring at her computer, mentally running comparisons on the percentage of similarities in my genomes versus the percentage in human and normal vampire cells.

She wouldn’t get a chance to finish her findings. Anger had always been the catalyst for my abilities, but in my near-crippling state of grief, I’d forgotten that. How fitting that Bones’s memory had reminded me. Now all I had to do was let my rage flow forth, and considering everything that had happened, that part was easy.

With a fury-fueled push from my mind, the other six straps snapped open with multiple clicking sounds. That got Dr. Obvious’s attention, but before her hand could finish flying to her mouth in disbelief, I was across the room and yanking her up by the lapels of her lab coat.

“We were never properly introduced,” I said in a vicious purr. “I’m the Red Reaper, and you’re dead.”