Something moved on the roof. With Spade half on top of me, I couldn’t see what, or who, it was.
“Is that him?” I asked desperately.
Spade craned his neck. “I’m not-”
An explosion cut him off and lit the sky, as bright as if God himself flipped on a switch. I screamed, struggling even as Spade flipped me over with his body covering mine. My face was pressed in the grass while heavy thunks landed everywhere. It had to be pieces of the house raining down on the lawn like proverbial brimstone. The smoke was choking even with my face in the dirt.
Spade didn’t move for a few minutes, ignoring the threats I gasped out. Not until the sounds of falling objects ceased did he allow me to sit up, but he kept his rigid grip.
The vampires and ghouls milling around hadn’t screamed at the sight of the house exploding in the night. They looked discomfited, but not traumatized.
“Charles, give me a hand with these.”
Bones appeared above us in the swirling smoke. I was so relieved to see him, I almost cried. He was covered in soot, mostly unclothed from where his shirt and pants had been burned off, and his hair was in singed patches. He also had three vampires in his arms. When he landed, he dumped them to the ground.
“Hold those two. Bloody sods,” he grumbled, kick ing one. The third sat up and shook his head as if to clear it.
It was Tate. Thank God, he’d made it out alive as well. Spade released me as Bones knelt next to me, and I threw my arms around him.
“I’m so glad you’re okay…and don’t you ever tell your friends to hold me back again, dammit!”
Bones chuckled. “Can we fight about that later, Kitten? We still have business to sort out, after all.”
Then he set me back to look at me. “What happened to you? You look chewed.”
He took one of my knives and sliced his palm. I took his blood, feeling the pain in my head ebb.
“Are Juan and Cooper okay?” I asked, trying to spot them among the throngs of people.
“I can hear them,” Tate answered. “They’re all right.”
Bones gave Tate a sharp look. “How did you know what was about to happen?”
Green flashed in Tate’s eyes. “That scumbag Talisman approached me while you and Cat were off somewhere. He said he’d heard I was in love with Cat, and offered me a chance to get her all to myself. All I had to do was make sure you stayed inside the house after the bodies started to firecracker. Talisman guessed you’d want Cat as far away from any walking grenades as possible, so I was supposed to take her outside, then I just had to save my own ass in time. Presto, you dead, one Reaper looking for comfort. I gotta say, it was pretty tempting.”
“I would have known you’d never do that, Tate,” I said at once. “You’re too good a man.”
He laughed with more than a trace of irony. “Don’t be so sure. I’ll probably regret it later.”
Bones stared at Tate for a long moment. I didn’t say what else was obvious-that despite how much Bones didn’t care for him, either, he could have left Tate in that house to die. But he’d grabbed him and saved his life instead. Without Bones flying them away, Tate would have burned. Both of them were more alike in their honor than I thought either would ever acknowledge.
But as Bones had said, there was more pressing business at hand right now. Like the two very unhappy vampires fifteen feet away. My eyes narrowed as I glared at them. Try to blow up the man I loved, would they? We’d just see about that.
ELEVEN
WE WERE ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE LAWN OF the still-smoldering house. The fire department had come. So had the police, but this time, Juan and Tate didn’t even need to bother with their credentials. Not with so many vampires able to green-eye the emergency crews into putting out the flames first and asking questions…never.
Which was why no police had wandered over despite some very loud yelling by the six perpetrators of tonight’s bonfire. The other four had been rounded up when the original two outed them under extreme duress. None of the guests had been allowed to leave while this went on, for obvious reasons, despite some protests. After two hours of “questioning,” the main architect of the attack was finally revealed to be a vampire named Patra.
And wouldn’t you know it, this Patra was also Max’s mysterious benefactor, though I had no idea who she was, let alone why she’d wanted me dead.
As soon as Bones heard the name, his head whipped up and he stared at Mencheres. The Egyptian vampire closed his eyes with a look I might have called pain.
“Let me guess,” I said, noting their reactions with alarm. “We’re talking about a really old, powerful vampire?”
Bones turned his gaze back to me. “Yes. Over two thousand years old and a Master. Mencheres, you know what this means.”
The other vampire’s tunic wasn’t all sparkly white now, and that pretty gold dust on his skin had been replaced by ashes. Right about now, I was thinking it matched his expression.
His steel eyes opened, and whatever emotions he might have been feeling were slammed behind an impenetrable mask.
“Yes. It means war.”
“Those of you who are not of our lines,” Bones said in a clear voice, “make your choice now. Stay here and align yourself with us, or choose Patra and walk away. You get free passage tonight only. Should I ever see you or yours again without invitation, I’ll kill you.”
Mencheres glided over next to him. “Decide,” he said simply.
Some of those who walked over to us were a given. Spade had moved before the words finished being uttered. Rodney did, too, and several other notable members of the pulseless community. Vampires and ghouls I didn’t recognize were taking our side, either out of loyalty to Bones or Mencheres, or out of fear of them.
Then there were the holdouts.
Several glided off into the night, their absences wordless but pointed. Then there were the undecided ones, waiting to see how many stayed and how many left before they chose a side. The person who surprised me most by leading his people over with a curt nod to Bones was Ian. I’d been sure he’d take that long walk into the night, what with how he’d been upstaged by Bones twice in the last few months. I glanced at Bones and thought a single sentence:I don’t trust him.
A half shrug was his only response.
When it was finished, roughly seventy percent of the independent Masters had cast their lot with us. The other thirty were only an indication of the opposition. Who knew how many really meant it by standing at our side tonight? Only time would tell.
Pledges made, everyone left the ruins of the house. I hoped Mencheres had insurance, because he’d just lost a shitload of valuables in that detonation. Then again, I didn’t think “undead vendetta” would look like a plausible reason on his homeowner’s policy claim form.
Mencheres, Rattler, Tick Tock, and Zero accompanied Bones and me in our specially equipped SUV. It had bulletproof glass, among other things, and before we turned it on, Zero checked it over for any explosive devices. Fool us once and all that. Spade and Rodney were in charge of our four party spoilers. I was betting they were going to have a long day in front of them.
Once we’d driven off far enough that I wasn’t worried about other undead ears listening, I asked the questions I hadn’t wanted to utter before.
“How did this woman get those vampires to Krispy Kreme themselves? Obviously the humans had to be tranced into becoming walking bombs, but the vampires? It doesn’t seem like their style.”
Tick Tock was driving. Mencheres rode shotgun, and Bones and I were in the backseat. Good thing this vehicular monstrosity had a third row so that the other three vampires weren’t perched on our laps.
“Likely by holding whomever they love hostage and then threatening wretched torment on them if they refused,” Bones replied. “Not much else would make a vampire give up their own lives in that way, but we’ll find out for certain when we question the others more fully.”
