This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(68)
Vlad held up his hand. Flames covered it, indigo and orange intertwining across his skin without singeing a single hair.
“The power I have is only valuable because I can and will use it. Apollyon’s right; Marie’s new lack of allegiance to vampires is a game changer, but we now have the ability to counter the ghoul nation’s most devastating weapon through you, but not if you refuse to wield that power.”
I remembered the icy, ravenous feel of the Remnants, the mental maelstrom of their voices in my head, and shuddered. “I’ll wield it, or try to, only as a last resort. You don’t know how strong the Remnants are. I could raise them, lose control of them, and then end up watching them eat allies and enemies alike. Only a fool throws a risky Hail Mary pass in the first quarter of the game.”
Vlad’s brow arched insolently. “No, only a fool would attempt to see if their best weapon works during a battle instead of before it.”
“There are days when you really push my buttons, Tepesh,” I snapped.
“And there are days when I wonder how you’ve survived as long as you have,” he countered. “You won’t get a better chance to test your abilities than right now. Bones isn’t here, so your biggest concern is gone, and you can risk my life because I accept the danger, and because friends might be rare, but they’re not irreplaceable. Now, let’s get in the graveyard and get started. Before Mencheres calls and then lectures us into an early grave about how imprudent this idea is.”
Vlad’s face had been granite-hard during the first half of his speech, but then his lip curled almost impishly at that last sentence. I was torn by anger at his disdainful comment about my survival skills, dismay at how casually he assumed I’d react to his death, and amusement at how an over six-hundred-year-old Master vampire could still sound like a naughty kid planning to outwit his babysitter.
“You have got to be one of the most unusual people I have ever met, and considering all the strange ones I know, that’s saying a lot,” I managed, shaking my head.
His grin was shameless. “If you’re just now realizing what an original I am, Catherine, you’re even later to the game than I imagined.”
“Your arrogance deserves its own zip code, Drac,” I said, laughing despite myself.
“And you’re stalling. Get out and let’s get started.”
My flash of good humor vanished under an onslaught of nervousness. “Maybe we should wait for Mencheres. With that power of his, he might be able to help if things get out of hand—”
“Not when it comes to anything from the ground,” Vlad cut me off. “Grave magic is immune to Mencheres’s telekinesis. That’s why he couldn’t do anything to the zombies that New Year’s Eve except grab a sword and start hacking away at them like the rest of us.”
Good point. I hadn’t ever wondered why Mencheres hadn’t tried to stop that attack with his power. Probably because I was too busy thinking, Holy shit, we’re all gonna die!
And some of my friends had died. Nothing good ever came out of being close to magically raised creatures from the grave, in my experience. That brought up another concern, a less deadly but far more embarrassing one. I cleared my throat, glancing away from Vlad.
“You know, Marie said it wouldn’t happen that bad again, but just in case . . . if I do this and safely put the Remnants back, then all of a sudden start coming on to you, I don’t mean it. It’s just the aftereffects of being connected to the hungers of the dead. Not me suddenly having a crazed desire to jump on your jock.”
Vlad threw back his head and roared with laughter. Pink tears gleamed from his eyes before he reined himself in to just a few lingering chuckles.
“I’ll be sure to thwart any jock-jumping attempts you might make on me or anyone else,” he replied at last, his lips still twitching.
I sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out, trying to center myself before I made a leap into the other side, metaphorically speaking. I had no idea how to raise the Remnants, but I assumed I’d start with trying to tap into the connection I felt to ghosts and work my way up from there.
“You sure you want to be close by when I do this?” I asked, shooting a worried look at Vlad. “At best, you’ll get hurt. At worst, I won’t be able to stop them from killing you.”
His expression was a mix of utter ruthlessness and reckless challenge, making me wonder if he’d looked that way when charging on horseback into battle all those centuries ago.
“I’ve lived on the razor’s edge of death most of my life. Save your coddling for children, Cat; it’s wasted on me.”
Damn arrogant Romanian price. I hoped those weren’t his last words.
“All right.” I began to pull out all the packets of garlic and pot that I had stuffed inside my clothes. “Let’s try this.”
Chapter Twenty--eight
Crickets chirped in a continual cadence around us, most of them hidden in the grass. Mosquitoes, though I could see them buzzing nearby, left me and Vlad alone. Guess they didn’t like undead blood, which was probably a good thing. The world had problems enough without hordes of immortal mosquitoes being added to the mayhem.
Vlad lounged on a headstone, watching me silently. I’d chosen to go to the older section of the cemetery, not just because it was farthest from the road and any random passersby. It was also because, quite irrelevantly, I thought it was prettier. The simple upside-down U-shaped headstones and crosses reminded me of the cemeteries around where I grew up. They were the first place I tried when hunting for vampires as a teenager, but I never found any in them. It didn’t take long for me to realize that vampires tended to hang out in places where the living gathered, instead of surrounding themselves with the inedible dead.