Up From the Grave

Nineteen

Bones redefined the term “fast food” as we ran through the labyrinth of hallways and tunnels in this massive facility. Every hundred feet or so, he’d snatch up a body, squeeze it since no pulse equaled no natural pump of blood, suck hard, and then throw it away for a new one. He had an abundance to choose from given the mind-boggling slaughter he must have engaged in before reaching me.

I kept my eyes peeled since side hallways could contain soldiers waiting to ambush us, but I also couldn’t stop staring at Bones. With each body he drank from, his frame filled out, and new skin grew back to cover him. Soon, all of the awful gaps closed and muscles bulged where there had been dried, sunken tissue. It was like watching a vampire wither in reverse as youthfulness and vitality overcame all vestiges of his wasted appearance. If not for his thick, curly hair still being white, he looked exactly as he had before.

That wasn’t the only remarkable change. As his body regenerated, so did his aura, until the air around him became charged with pulsating waves. Feeling his connection to me again was almost as big a relief as seeing his body restored.

“If you could regenerate this fast, why didn’t you drink blood sooner?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Didn’t have the time.”

It was his voice again, that English accent smooth as ever though his tone was edged with something I couldn’t name.

“You’ve drained over a dozen bodies while hardly slowing down a step,” I pointed out.

He slanted a look my way, his dark brown gaze conveying both tenderness and frustration.

“I was in a state of hibernation until Denise killed a bloke and dripped his blood into my mouth. Then I drained him and the next two sods I came across, which gave me enough mental strength to go after you. As to why I didn’t drink more along the way, you were being shot at. Any time spent feeding was too long to waste with you in danger.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was still fuming over his pulling the cruelest deception possible, but underneath that, I was so happy he was alive that I wanted to hug him and never let go. Maybe the urge to throttle him with one hand while cradling him with the other was how I’d made Bones feel all of these years. If so, one could argue that I’d had this coming.

Suddenly, Bones snatched me up, coming to a full stop without a single skid. The abrupt change in velocity snapped my head back hard enough to break my neck, but before the pain even registered, I saw it. Networks of lasers hung like a spiderweb in front of us, the same light blue color of the walls and so close that if I reached out, I’d lose my fingers.

“Motherfucker,” I breathed. Three more steps, and Madigan would have been scooping up our remains with a shovel.

Then Bones flung me to the floor and flattened himself on top of me. Now I had a broken jaw and rib cage, too, but when a hail of bullets sailed over our heads instead of into them, I didn’t mind.

“Bloody sods,” I heard him snarl over the gunfire. “Let’s see how they enjoy their own trap.”

I couldn’t move with a furious Master vampire holding me down, but I could still see as the guards who’d come out of hiding to shoot us abruptly became airborne and hurtled toward the laser net. They screamed, high-pitched and panicked as they tried to fight the unseen force yanking on them. Then their screams were cut off, followed by sickening thumps around and on top of us.

When that stopped, Bones pulled me to my feet.

“All right, Kitten?”

I made sure not to look around. Sure, I was no stranger to the ugliness of death. Today alone, I’d killed lots of people and intended to add to that tally, but this was . . . gross.

“Fine,” I said, keeping my gaze on him. “Can you take down that laser net, or do we need to find a way around it?”

Bones closed his eyes, his brows drawing together in concentration. The lasers disappeared moments later.

I shook my head, torn between awe and irritation. He hadn’t graduated to mega-Master abilities overnight, which meant only one thing. He’d been hiding his increasing power from me.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” I muttered.

His mouth claimed mine in a quick kiss. “I know,” he said, stroking my face when he pulled away. “But later.”

Right. We had someone to find, and from the thoughts I caught, he was close.

We continued down the hallway, Madigan’s thoughts pointing the way. This time, however, we went slower and kept our weapons stretched out in front of us. We’d been lucky that Bones had spotted the laser net in time before. No need to push that luck by charging forward recklessly now.

As we came nearer to the central hub of the underground complex, more bodies littered the hallway. Not Bones’s handiwork; the walls were black from soot, and the bodies were either burnt or strafed with flying debris. The Dante machine must have been located nearby for the damage to be this extensive. Then, at the end of the hallway to our right, I glimpsed the facility’s epicenter.

We started toward it. Amidst the moans from injured personnel and the frenzied thoughts of those trying to hide, I caught a cluster of static-like noise. At first I thought it came from the compound’s damaged electrical system; then I realized it sounded familiar. Where had I heard this before . . . ?

I hauled Bones back before he could take another step. Guards, I mouthed, pointing at the ceiling about a dozen yards ahead.

His lips curled. Then he fisted his hands and dropped them down. Helmeted guards exploded through the ceiling to slam onto the floor. Those who survived the violent impact were shot as Bones’s power yanked their weapons out of their hands and swiveled them around to open fire into their visors.

So much for the thought-blocking gadgets Madigan had installed in their headgear.

We jumped over the guards’ bodies and continued into the main hub. The huge room that had seemed so impressive when I was wheeled through it now resembled a defunct call center. No guards patrolled the perimeter, and all of the workstations were empty. The computers that monitored the McClintic Wildlife area and the interior of the compound showed static instead of impressive 3-D graphics, and red emergency lights bathed the once-brightly-lit area with an eerie glow.

Die, monsters!

I turned toward the direction of the thought in time to feel something whiz by my face. It didn’t take mind reading to figure out what it was, and I ducked before the next shot was fired.

Two things happened at the same time. The gun flew out of the employee’s hand, and his neck snapped with an audible crack. He crumpled without another thought, but my mind was far from quiet. The shooter was the only person visible, yet the room wasn’t empty.

“The next person that shoots at my wife gets his gun shoved up his arse,” Bones snapped. Then he waved his hand at a large file cabinet against the wall.

“Come out.”

Sobs sounded as the file cabinet was pushed aside, revealing an interior hiding space. Several wounded were propped up against the walls, and my heartstrings jerked when I saw a woman crouch protectively over an unconscious, bloody man. From their casual clothes, they were employees, not guards or doctors, and their thoughts revealed that all were convinced they were about to die at the hands—and fangs—of two merciless monsters.

Once, not too long ago, I’d felt the same way about vampires. Despite the fact that each of them would murder me given the chance, I went over to Bones and touched his arm.

“Don’t,” I said very softly.

His mouth twisted, not the cruel smile he’d flashed when he took out the guards in the ceiling, but something wry.

“As if you needed to say it, Kitten.”

Then his gaze flashed bright green as he turned his attention to the terrified onlookers.

“Unlike the bastards you work for, I don’t murder innocents, so if you weren’t directly involved in kidnapping or experimenting on my people, you won’t be harmed. Until then, don’t move or speak. Kitten?”

I went over to them, glad to hear their heart rates return to a normal rhythm as his power convinced them they wouldn’t be murdered on the spot. Then I searched through the standing and the wounded. The man we sought wasn’t among them, but he was here. I could hear his thoughts, not to mention his heavy breathing.

“There,” I said, pointing at the closed entrance to the elevation platform.

Bones shut his eyes. Moments later, the steel door swished open, revealing the stained circular pad that, a mile or so up, led to the concrete igloo and freedom.

Thanks to Bones’s power, the platform wasn’t operational at the moment. No human could climb those slick steel walls, either, so I wasn’t surprised to see Madigan pressed as far away from the door as he could manage, trying to hide but unable to escape.

What I didn’t expect was the Desert Eagle handgun he had pressed to his temple.

“Come one step closer, and I’ll shoot,” he warned.

Caught off guard, I laughed. I’d imagined him saying lots of things when we found him, but that hadn’t been anywhere on my list.

“Is that supposed to be a threat? Did you miss the part where we wanted you dead?”

Madigan’s lips stretched in something too ugly to be called a smile. “Yes, but you want information more. Let me go, and you have a chance of getting it one day. Move another inch, and I’ll splatter what I know all over this wall instead.”

For once, he didn’t sing anything in his mind, so I heard him loud and clear when he thought, Try me and see, Crawfield.

He’d never get my last name right.

I stared into his light blue eyes and knew he wasn’t bluffing. If we so much as twitched, he’d pull the trigger, and the power of that handgun would blow his skull to kingdom come. Did he know anything that I couldn’t find out by hacking into the computers here? Maybe, and that wouldn’t do.

“Oh, Bones,” I said sweetly.

Madigan’s eyes bugged as Bones said, “Already done, Kitten.”

Then Bones walked forward with deliberate, taunting slowness. Madigan’s hand lowered from his head even though his thoughts screamed in protest. His frustration was a symphony to listen to as he realized he didn’t have control of his own body. I came forward, too. Smiling.

Without a single advance thought to warn us, his jaw snapped. Bones lunged, digging his fingers inside Madigan’s mouth, but it was too late. Foam bubbled past Madigan’s lips, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then his whole body began to convulse.

“No!” I gasped, recognizing the signs of cyanide poisoning. Seeing the half-dissolved capsule encased in a fake tooth that Bones swept out of his mouth was almost redundant. It must have contained a massive dose—Madigan’s pulse skyrocketed, then abruptly stopped.

“No you don’t,” Bones snarled.

He slashed his wrist with a fang and held it to Madigan’s mouth, working the other man’s throat to force him to swallow. Then he pounded on Madigan’s chest, trying to manually circulate the healing powers of his blood through him.

It wasn’t enough. Crimson bubbled past Madigan’s lips, and his eyes became fixed and dilated. It happened so fast, he didn’t have time for a final thought. If he had, it would have probably been Fuck You.

And he had fucked us. Frustration and denied rage frothed up in me. After all he’d done, Madigan had managed to escape even when we had him trapped and cornered. Anything about his backers and the results of his twisted experiments that weren’t saved in the computers were now out of reach forever.

“Damn you,” I said in a voice choked from fury.

Bones dropped Madigan and leaned back, giving the dead man a coldly calculated look.

“He thinks he’s escaped us, but perhaps not.”