Up From the Grave

Thirty-one

Our conversation was put on hold because the cops showed up. One of Marie’s neighbors must have called the police about all the noise. No surprise, the officers who came to investigate were ghouls. Her address being flagged for a disturbance would have concerned more than the regular authorities.

Marie kicked her severed limb under the nearest chair and hid its growing replacement beneath a quilt before she went to the door. Sure, Bones had threatened to kill her unless she played it cool, but I think she did it for another reason. Signaling for help or showing how she’d been injured would have been tantamount to admitting that two vampires had gotten the drop on her in her own home—something the ghoul queen would never admit to. Still, Bones kept his power wrapped around her neck as she spoke to the officers. After a few minutes, she sent them away, then covered the entrance with the broken door.

“What do you want with me?” she demanded when she faced us again.

Bones arched a brow. “Before I answer, is anyone else here?”

The glance she shot him was filled with hostility. “No. When I’m home, I value my privacy.”

We hadn’t expected her to be a gracious loser, so I didn’t comment on the look. Or her venomous tone.

“We want you to leave the child be,” I said, shivering from my new connection to the grave. Death was cold, and as the Remnants evidenced, always hungry.

“That means no sending ghosts, ghouls, or minions to look for her. And, of course, your promise never to kill her. Same goes with us.”

Marie began to laugh, a low, mocking sound that still managed to contain shades of real amusement.

“If that is your demand, you came in vain. I’ve already given the order. My people search for her as we speak.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Majestic.”

Bones walked over to her, his aura crackling with barely controlled rage.

“When you sicced your ghostly little fiends on me the first time, I wanted to rip your head off. Doing it again tonight makes me really want to, but being forced to watch as they tore into my wife?”

He reached out, caressing her neck with a deceptively gentle touch.

“That makes me want to kill you so much, I can scarcely think of anything else,” he finished in a lethal whisper.

Then his hand closed around her throat, tightening until cracking noises were the only sound in the room. Marie’s hazelnut eyes began to fill with red, and the Remnants started to shift restlessly.

“Bones,” I said sharply. “Don’t.”

If we wanted to save Katie, we needed Marie. If we killed her, we were hastening a potential war with ghouls, and while we might manage to evade the Law Guardians, with Marie’s network of ghosts, anyone she wanted to find, she would, and sooner rather than later.

“We came to make you an offer,” I went on. “One that will be mutually beneficial.”

With Bones’s fist tightened so much that his fingers touched, she couldn’t laugh, but her mouth stretched in a pained smile.

“She can’t talk unless you let her go,” I said in a sterner voice.

He released her with obvious reluctance though his power remained coiled around her neck. Not tight; loose, like a snake deciding whether or not it was hungry.

Marie waited until her neck healed back to its normal shape before she spoke.

“What is your offer?”

“We’ll give you the people responsible for creating a cross-species child: Richard Trove and Jason Madigan. You can execute them to solidify your position as queen of the ghouls. In return, we want you to swear by your blood that you will call off your people and meet all our previous demands about the little girl and ourselves.”

Some of the hostility drained from her expression.

“I know she is your child, Reaper, but you must understand that nothing except her death will stop our races from warring.”

The words weren’t a surprise; the emotions they stirred were. Fangs that had receded jumped out as I fought a strong urge to rip her throat open for daring to say such a thing.

“That’s why you’re going to tell everyone that you already killed her,” I responded in a voice far calmer than I felt.

Disbelief creased her smooth, café latte skin.

“If the truth were discovered, my people would tear me apart!”

Bones’s smile was a mixture of ice and steel.

“Hence your motivation to keep your word should your honor prove vulnerable.”

Marie glowered at him for a moment. Then she let out a deep sigh.

“Even if I wished to, what you ask is impossible.”

Her neck dented as Bones’s power flexed in an instant vise. “If that’s true, then you’re no use to us.”

I gripped his arm, urging him not to increase that punishing hold. That’s when I noticed how warm he felt. He must have fed right before crashing through her window.

“Give it another chance,” I said, so low she wouldn’t be able to hear me. Then I stared at Marie.

“Your people spent hundreds of years in captivity because of their race. Even after all this time, the memory of it must still burn.”

Marie’s head jerked as Bones released her to answer. The connection we now shared let me feel her anger as it pulsated through the air.

“Don’t,” she snapped. “You have no right, white girl.”

“I don’t, but Katie does. Until she ran away, captivity was all she knew, too, and now she’s been marked for death because of her race.” My voice roughened. “Either you believe that’s wrong, or you don’t.”

Marie continued to glare at me, but she didn’t say anything.

All at once, it felt like the temperature dropped sixty degrees. At the same time, hunger rose with an ache that reminded me of waking up as a brand-new vampire. The Remnants began to sway as though listening to music no one else could hear. They were being reactivated.

“Stop it,” I said curtly. “If you try using them on us again, Bones will take your head off.”

Marie gave me an irritated look.

“I’m not the one channeling them. You are.”

“Kitten.” Bones’s voice was soft but urgent. “Look at me.”

He grasped my shoulders, and I almost jerked away. His fingers felt like they were scalding. It was only when his grip tightened, holding me steady, that I realized I’d been swaying like the Remnants.

Marie was right. Although I wasn’t having the same crazed response as the first time I drank her blood, I was being pulled into the icy, ravenous embrace of the grave. I forced it back, trying to forget about how good the cold was starting to feel. Then I shook my head to clear the whispers that didn’t come from the nearby neighbors’ thoughts. If I lost myself to this, it might take me days to recover, and we didn’t have that kind of time.

Snap out of it! I ordered myself. Focus on Bones. He’s what’s real, not that cold, hungry power, and—

“Why are you here?” I suddenly blurted. “We agreed that you’d come only after I called and gave you the all clear. That way, if things went south, you’d still be alive to help Katie.”

A sardonic smile curled his lips.

“I smelled your fear when Veritas asked if we wanted to change our statements. You’re never afraid for yourself, so I knew it was fear for me.”

Then he drew me close, his lips brushing my forehead while his hands ran down my back in a way that was both soothing and possessive.

“That’s why I didn’t stick to our agreement, Kitten. If you couldn’t best Marie to save yourself, I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”

What a reckless, arrogant assumption, and how humbling that he’d been right. What he didn’t know was the other reason I’d fought harder than I knew I could in order to live.

Katie. I couldn’t let her die, either.

Thinking of her, out there all alone, gave me the strength to smother the siren call of the grave. Ready or not, I was a mother now, and my daughter needed me. I couldn’t let her down. Too many other people already had. I wasn’t about to add my name to that list.

Buoyed by that knowledge, I grasped Bones’s hands, glad they no longer felt like they were burning me. The voices were gone, too, and while I was still hungry, the bottomless hole inside me had eased. Satisfied I wasn’t about to lose it, I turned my attention to Marie.

“If you don’t want to do this for the right reasons, do it for selfish ones. We need you to have as much of a stake in this as we do, so either you call your people off and tell everyone that you killed Katie, or we’ll kill you.”

She let out a sigh that seemed to hold the weariness of the world, and when her dark gaze met mine, it was with resignation.

“I do remember my people’s captivity, Reaper, which is why if it were as simple as saying the child was dead, I would do it. Not merely to save my own life, but because I’m better than those who once enslaved my race.”

Then her voice became brittle with bitterness.

“But unless there is a public execution, they will keep hunting for her. Even if I swore that I killed her, they would not be satisfied, and our races would eventually war. I cannot allow that, so do what you must.”

At that, I expected Bones to tear her head off. A big part of me wanted him to. What she outlined was a future with nothing but death for Katie, and I couldn’t accept that.

From the grim look on Marie’s face, she expected that Bones would kill her, too. That’s why both of us were shocked when all he did was tap his chin in a thoughtful way.

“Public execution, hmm? If we promise you that, will you agree to the rest of our terms?”

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, horrified.

“Will you or no?” he pressed, ignoring that.

Suspicion creased Marie’s brows into a single dark line.

“You came here to bargain for the child’s life. Now you’re willing to execute her?”

Bones’s teeth flashed in a feral grin. “Publicly.”

“The hell we are,” I snarled, hitting him hard enough to rock him backward.

His power flashed out, encompassing me in the equivalent of a supernatural straitjacket.

“Kitten,” he said very low. “Trust me.”

Marie stared at us with the same degree of wariness, but curiosity tinged her gaze, too.

“Agreed,” she said. Then she accepted the knife Bones extended, cutting her hand with a single hard slice. “I swear it by my blood.”

His invisible grip dropped from her neck.

“Then call your people off,” Bones stated, giving my hand a slight squeeze. “We’ll do the rest.”