Destined for an Early Grave

As if in a dream, I stopped running. Dropped my knives and watched Gregor come. I heard Bones’s shout, but it seemed to be from far away. A dull booming began in my chest that I recognized as my heart starting up again, but even that didn’t matter. All I could focus on was the unadulterated hatred pouring through my veins, surging in ever-increasing waves, until it felt like I’d explode where I stood.

Which was why it didn’t seem unusual to me when the grass around me burst into flames. Through the red haze that dropped over my vision, it made perfect sense. The grass shouldn’t exist to be able to soak up Rodney’s blood. The house Gregor had used to torture and kill my mother in shouldn’t exist, either. In fact, everything here needed to burn. Every. Last. Thing.

Orange-and-red flames raced up the short grass to lick up the sides of the house, tangling out to cover the roof in a writhing carpet of flame. Then the grass around Gregor became an arena of fire, shooting up his legs. Seeing Gregor’s legs on fire pleased me, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see Gregor’s skin crackle and split. See everything around him burned into smoldering ash. And I wanted it now.

The trees next to me exploded, but I didn’t glance away from Gregor. Burn. Burn. It was all my mind was capable of thinking. Nothing seemed real anymore. Not my mother crying over Rodney’s body in great, wracking sobs, or Gregor screaming as flames covered his entire body.

“Catherine, stop!” Gregor yelled.

A part of me was bemused. Why did Gregor think I was responsible for this lovely fire? Spade must have set some new explosives on his way in. Or Bones had. I should get my mother away from here, now that Gregor was occupied with being on fire. But I couldn’t make myself move. Those hot, glorious waves of rage pulsing through me had me rooted to the spot. Burn. Burn.

“Kitten!”

Bones’s voice broke my trance. I looked at him, surprised that he seemed to be colored red and blue. So was everything else. Bones ripped his blade through the vampire in front of him and threw him to the side. With nothing obstructing my view of him, I saw his face tighten with shock.

His gaze was fixed by my waist. I glanced down—and gasped. My arms were blue from the elbow down, covered in pulsating flames that I somehow couldn’t even feel. Orange and scarlet shot out of my hands, scorching everything in my path from my feet all the way to the roof of the house.

Bones ran to me, yanking me against him, ignoring the flames that continued to sprout from me.

“Charles, take Justina!” he shouted, then my feet abruptly left the ground. Through the red/blue haze of my vision, I watched Spade snatch my mother and shoot into the air. Gregor and the house still burned below us, but even now, I saw Gregor rolling on the nonburning part of the earth, dousing the old flames fast enough to keep the new ones from consuming him.

Murderer, I thought, that savageness rising in me again. Red smothered my gaze, and Gregor screamed, rolling faster as more flames erupted on him.

Clouds shifted, allowing a beam of sunlight to sear across my face. It hit me like a roundhouse kick to the head, clearing some of the red from my vision. And at the same instant, Bones sank his fangs into my neck, sucking hard.

The last thing I saw was the blazing colors of the dawn, looking like the flames still burning below us on the ground.

THIRTY-TWO

BARE CONCRETE WALLS MET MY VISION WHEN my eyes opened, then a dark head bent over mine.

“All right, Kitten?”

Bones’s face, streaked with soot. A heavy scent of smoke hung in the room, in fact. Immediately, I looked at my hands. They rested over my stomach, pale and innocent. Maybe I’d imagined what happened.

I sat up so fast, my head banged into Bones’s. Mencheres stood a few feet away in the small room that I recognized as a vampire holding cell.

“Easy, luv,” Bones said, smoothing his hands down my arms.

I hoped I’d passed out after setting off those detonations and everything after it had been a terrible dream. “My mother? Rodney?”

“She’s safe. He’s gone.” Bones’s voice was a rasp.

Rodney’s death had been real, which meant the fire was real, too. The fire. Coming from me.

I didn’t want to believe it, but I remembered—oh, I remembered!—the exhilaration of letting all my hate and anger surge out of me, then watching it somehow transform into the form of fire.

“I’m pyrokinetic.”

I said it out loud, watching Bones’s face, hoping somehow, he’d offer another explanation for what had happened. He didn’t.

“It seems so.”

“But how?” I asked, swinging my legs off the cot only to have them flop like limp rags. There went my idea of pacing. My whole body felt exhausted. “You told me a vampire’s individual powers don’t emerge for decades—and I thought they were directly related to their sire’s powers, too. But you’re not a pyro, Bones, unless you’ve been hiding something from me.”

“I haven’t been hiding anything from you, and even if your human years were added to the equation, I’ve never seen a vampire, Master or otherwise, manifest powers like you did so soon after changing.”

Bones sounded frustrated. I shot a glance over to Mencheres, meeting the other vampire’s cool, charcoal gaze. There was no surprise or confusion in Mencheres’s eyes—and all of a sudden, I knew why.

“You bastard,” I whispered.

At first Bones thought I’d been talking to him, but then he followed my gaze to the dark-haired vampire, who hadn’t spoken.

“He’s known all along.” My voice started to rise, as did my anger. “He knew Gregor didn’t see me in a vision and decide he had to have me because I was a half- breed, or because he was in love with me. He knew Gregor saw me as a vampire, lighting things up around me like a Roman candle. That’s why Gregor’s wanted me, so he could control the power through me. But that’s what Mencheres wanted, too. That’s the other reason why Mencheres took me from Gregor and locked him up all these years. He wanted my power on his side. That’s what all of this has been about!”

Bones didn’t ask Mencheres if it was true. His brown eyes turned green as he stared at the man he’d known for over 220 years.

“I should kill you for this.” It was almost a growl.

Nothing changed in Mencheres’s expression. Glass was more emotive. “Perhaps you will. My visions of the future only went up to this morning, so I assume I’ll be dead soon. Now that you’re co-ruler of my line, and Cat is as she’s meant to be, my people will be protected when I’m gone.”

His impenetrable mask dropped, leaving defiance and resolve flowing over Mencheres’s features.

“Yes, I took Cat from Gregor twelve years ago in order to have her power for my people instead of his. More than that, it was I who gave you the tip that sent you to that bar in Ohio the night you first met her, Bones. Do you find that too manipulative? I don’t. Thousands of people in my line rely on me to protect them, which has to mean more to me than your feeling of betrayal right now. If you survive as long as I have, you’ll learn that being cold and manipulative is necessary, even with those you love.”

Bones snorted in a manner as bitter as I felt. “You claim to love me? It’s obvious I am nothing more than a pawn to you.”

Mencheres’s dark gaze didn’t waver. “I’ve always loved you. Like a son, in fact.”

Bones walked over to Mencheres. He was still wearing the same outfit from earlier, making Bones covered in blood, soot, and dirt…and a few remaining silver knives.

Mencheres didn’t move or blink, nor did a hint of his tremendous power leak out, even when Bones pulled out a knife.

“Are you so certain of yourself?” Bones said, tracing the tip of the knife on Mencheres’s chest. “So convinced you could stop me, before I twisted this blade through your heart?”

I wanted to jump up and stand between them. Not out of concern for Mencheres, but because if Bones attacked and Mencheres decided to defend himself, that knife might end up in Bones’s heart. But my legs still wouldn’t work.

“I could stop you, but I won’t.” Mencheres’s voice was very weary. “If you must do this to avenge what I did, then do it. I’ve already lived more than long enough as it is.”

“Bones,” I whispered, not really knowing if I was urging him to drop the knife—or use it.

Bones’s hand tightened on the knife. Mencheres still didn’t move. I waited, feeling like I was holding my breath even though I didn’t breathe anymore.

His hand flashed and the knife buried back in its slot on his belt. “I deserved death from you once, Mencheres, yet you let me live. Now I’m letting you live, so we’re squared. But lie to me, or use me or her again, and that will change.”

Bones stepped back. I thought Mencheres sagged a little, in relief or in surprise, I wasn’t sure. Then Bones sat next to me, placing a hand on my still-useless leg.

“No more secrets. How does she have this power? She’s too young, and she didn’t inherit it from me, so how is it possible?”

Mencheres ran a hand through his long dark hair before answering. “Vampires drink human blood to absorb the life from mortals that vampires no longer have. She doesn’t drink mortal blood, however, because she isn’t really dead.”

My mouth dropped. Bones didn’t react. “Go on.”

“Her heart beats when her emotions run high,” Mencheres continued. “Proof that life still clings in her. Because of this life, her body rejects human blood, since she doesn’t need the life in it. But what her body does need to exist is power. Just as a dying human absorbs the power in vampire blood to change over, she, being perpetually near death, absorbs undead power every time she feeds from other vampires.”

But I’d only fed from Bones—no, wait. Vlad.

I’d fed from Vlad, and he was pyrokinetic. Was it truly possible I’d absorbed Vlad’s power over fire from drinking his blood? It had to be. Nothing else could explain the fireworks shooting from my hands, and I’d already noticed that every time I fed from Bones, I grew stronger. Far stronger than any new vampire should be.