This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(72)

Vlad let out a chuckle. “You sly dog, you set me up! Here I thought I was pulling one over on you, but in reality, you were playing me like a chess piece.”

Mencheres flashed him a grin that was full of mischief. I stared, never having seen the normally reserved mega-Master vampire with such a wicked, teasing expression.

“You forget, Vlad, I’m the one who trained you in deviousness. Maybe in a few more centuries, you’ll be able to outwit me, but not yet.”

Then he focused his attention on me and his expression returned to its normal seriousness. “You were obviously injured trying, but did it work?”

I glanced at Vlad before speaking, noting the curl of his lip that said he’d rather not dwell on how well it had worked.

“Oh yeah. Blood is the key. I should have known, right? It’s always blood with the undead. Vampires need it to feed, and it’s instrumental with ghouls, because a transplanted ghoul heart might be step two in making them, but it’s vampire blood before and after death that’s step one and three.”

And blood was how Marie had gotten her powers in the first place, as a Mambo whose powers became permanent when she was turned into a ghoul. Looking back, it seems obvious that blood should have been the first thing I tried.

Then again, my logic pointed out, Vlad hadn’t thought of it, either, and he has quite a lot more experience with blood than you. Maybe I should quit giving myself a hard time and just accept that only hindsight was twenty-twenty, not foresight.

“We now know I can do it, but I feel like hell,” I went on. “I’m so cold my teeth would chatter if they still could. And I’m hungry enough that both of you are starting to look really, really good.”

Vlad’s lips curled. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to remind you that this is just the leftover power talking and you don’t really want to cheat on Bones?”

“Not that kind of hungry!” I gasped, eyes bulging that Vlad thought I’d just casually thrown out that I wanted him and Mencheres to double-team me. “I meant hungry like drinking you guys’ blood. Not hungry for . . . you know.”

Without thought, my gaze flew to the areas in question before skipping away once I realized what I was doing. Then my cheeks actually tingled with mortification as Vlad let out a long, hearty laugh. Mencheres, more courteous, pretended to suddenly find something fascinating in the door frame, but I saw his lips twitch.

“My dear Reaper,” Vlad said, still laughing. “Did you just check out our—”

“No!” I interrupted at once, almost lunging toward the staircase. “I’m tired and still dazed from the Remnants and . . . f*ck it, I’m taking a shower. I mean, not a cold shower, because I don’t need that”—oh Jesus, I was only making this worse—“because I am cold already, and I need to get hot. I mean, warmer. Oh, just shut up!”

This as Vlad continued to laugh the whole time I went up the stairs. At least he seemed in a better mood after his near-death experience, even if his new cheer was at my expense. Arrogant Romanian. But considering I’d been responsible for Vlad’s recent brush with death, maybe he was owed a little masculine mockery. All things considered, his teasing was the least I could bear to make it up to him.

As for Mencheres, well, here’s hoping he chalked that up to equality. He’d seen me in less than my underwear before, so if all things were fair, I was owed that glance.

Besides, it had to be nothing more than a manifestation of the “future twinges” from her power that Marie had warned Bones about. In my right mind, I would never check out Vlad or—God help me!—Mencheres’s packages.

And neither of them was wearing tight pants, so it’s not like I could discern anything specific, anyway.

Once I was in my room, however, I didn’t jump right in to the shower. I pulled out my cell phone, pinpricks of conscience still needling me.

“Bones,” I said as soon as he answered. “I know I just saw you this morning, but wow, do I miss you!”

Three days later, I was on the couch, scratching my cat in his favorite spot behind the ears, when a faint tingle in the air made me look up. I’d gotten better at recognizing the telltale signs that said a ghost who was strong enough to get through my stinky force field of weed and garlic was about to pop up nearby.

“Visitor,” I announced, my new way for giving Vlad and Mencheres a heads-up to stop saying anything possibly incriminating. To my knowledge, my order for silence to other ghosts had worked before, but no need to tempt fate by blathering about which bar we were headed to tonight.

Not that it probably mattered. We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any zealot ghouls since the night at the drive-in. Maybe having some of their group go missing spooked the other ghouls into avoiding popular hangouts. Or maybe the reason we hadn’t seen any of them lately was much simpler. All of Apollyon’s minions were being supplied with food, so they didn’t need to go out hunting for it. Still, we kept going out night after night. Dave said Scythe and the pack of ghouls who drew him into their group were still here. They had to pop up sometime.

A shadowy form passed through the door moments later, still too hazy for me to make out any specific features. Then that outline of fogginess settled into a slim man with brown hair and early twentieth-century sideburns.

“Fabian!” I said, my initial happiness replaced by fear when I saw the grimness in his expression. “Is Dave okay?” I asked immediately.