This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(91)
Marie was now ahead of all the other ghouls, only a few dozen feet of headstones separating her from the line of Master vampires.
“And your plans for the others?”
I glanced behind her again, anticipating a seething mass of Remnants appearing at any second. We hadn’t had a chance to formally discuss among ourselves what we were doing with the surrendered ghouls, but I didn’t wait to consult anyone before I answered.
“We’re letting them go.”
“You have no authority to make those decisions,” Veritas snapped.
“What a shame.” Marie’s voice sliced across the air, that sweet Southern twang gone and filled with the echoing tenor of the dead instead. “If Cat were correct, then I would have no cause to attack you to protect my people. I want peace. Don’t force me to war.”
Veritas stared at Marie, her pretty, deceptively young-looking features hard. I only hoped she’d had run-ins with Marie in the past to know that the voodoo queen’s new spooky voice was a warning that she was about to unleash all kinds of pain. If not, I didn’t have time to convince Veritas about how ferocious Remnants were. I’d only have time to try to raise my own, or this would turn into a bloodbath with the casualties heavily on our side this time. Marie had her hands clasped in front of her in a deceptively casual gesture, but I knew that just meant the sharp point in her ring was pressed to her flesh.
Only Mencheres’s power could be fast enough to stop her from drawing her blood to summon the Remnants. Even though I saw him walk up out of the corner of my eye, relieved to see Denise and Kira were also with him, I didn’t dare look over at Mencheres for fear any gesture would antagonize Marie into acting. Plus, if Mencheres froze her, he’d better kill her, too. She’d never let such a thing slide, especially with witnesses. And if we wiped out Apollyon, his lieutenants, and Marie Laveau all in the same night, we’d start the war ourselves.
“Cat has no authority to make those decisions,” Veritas repeated. Beside me, Bones tensed even as I mentally braced to start counter defenses against a horde of diaphanous killers. “But she is correct nonetheless,” Veritas finished.
It took everything in me not to let out a loud whoop of relief. Some of the tension leaking off Bones into my emotions lessened as well, even though not a fraction of his posture eased.
“They’ll make us slaves,” one of the ghouls called out bitterly, to a chorus of grim sounds of agreement.
“No they won’t,” Marie said, managing to sound both strident and comforting at the same time. “Peace does not mean vampires will ever rule over us. They are not strong enough to do so. As long as I live, the ghoul nation will always be equal to vampires in strength.”
I didn’t see Marie’s fingers move, but I felt the snap of power in the air right before the Remnants appeared behind her, looking like a transparent version of hell’s army. Their numbers were staggering, their energy moving over me like icy waves along my skin. My bullet holes had long ago closed, so some part of me roared that I needed to draw my own blood, now, if I had any hope of holding them off. But Marie didn’t send the Remnants after anyone. She had them pile behind her instead, building up into a wall that rose higher than the trees and widened to reach the far side of the cemetery, easily five times the number I’d raised with Vlad.
If this was a dick-measuring contest, I found myself thinking numbly, then I was Pee Wee and she was John Holmes.
“Hail to our queen!” one of the ghouls called out, echoed almost at once by another cry of “Hail!” More ghouls repeated the salutation, until all of them practically trembled with their shouted allegiance.
Marie bowed her head at the acknowledgments, and then the wall of Remnants collapsed, disappearing into the ground. This time, I saw the flick of her finger that preceded her drawing the necessary blood to send the lethal apparitions back to their graves.
I quit looking at Marie to glance at Bones. He shook his head in a cynical way that mirrored my own thoughts. By getting rid of Apollyon and his top henchmen, we’d cleared the way for Marie to step in as queen of not just New Orleans, but the entire ghoul nation, judging from this reaction. If she’d taken on Apollyon herself, she might indeed have weakened their species through civil war as his supporters battled hers. But with him gone, she was now her people’s loyal savior and protector.
Hail, my ass.
I met her hazelnut gaze, noting the satisfaction in her eyes, before tapping the side of my mouth in silent warning. Marie might be the queen of the flesh-eaters now, but she and I shared a secret that could bring her down. Her people wouldn’t be cheering her so adoringly if they knew she’d shared her power with a vampire, giving me the tools necessary to bring down Apollyon. And if she tried to use her new position as a springboard for a war against the vampire world, she’d soon find herself fighting ghost for ghost against every spook I could rally using her borrowed abilities and the help of my friend Fabian.
But when Marie inclined her head at me in a polite way, not an antagonistic one, I felt a twinge of hope. Marie was many things, but rash and stupid weren’t among them, so she’d know all this. With the incredible powers that many Master vampires had, plus what I’d absorbed from Marie and now knew about ghosts and the vital role they could play in battle, the two species were pretty evenly matched again, even with Marie’s abilities.