At Grave s End

by Jeaniene Frost

  Why couldn’t I just learn to keep my trap shut? With resignation, I followed her as she marched to the front door, grabbing a coat.

  “Mom, be sensible. It’s about six degrees outside, you’ll freeze to death. Where do you think you’re going, anyway?”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” she spat. “Go here, do that, stay still, silly little mortal, tricks are for kids! Well, I am through being carted around for guilt’s sake.”

  During her tirade, she had pushed past me and marched straight out onto the lawn. I didn’t stop her, partly because I didn’t want to have to get physical and also so our grievances could be aired in semi-private. The living room was hardly the place for this kind of family circus.

  “You’re wrong, Mom,” I said, trying to ignore the biting wind. I hadn’t bothered to don a coat, and the chill cut straight through my sweater and pants. “Can you be a pain in the ass? Yeah. Do I wish you weren’t in my life? Of course not. Now, really, let’s get back inside, it’s freezing out—”

  “I’ll walk to the nearest house, street, town, whatever,” she snapped, not mollified in the least.

  We reached the trees, the fallen snow silvery in the moonlight. My breath came in plumes of smoke. “There’s nothing around for at least twenty miles,” I pointed out in a calm tone. “Believe me, I know. Mencheres picked this place for a reason. You can’t walk it, you’d be overcome by hypothermia inside of five. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, trust me, there’s nothing around…”

  And then I stopped, frozen to the spot and not from the temperature. My sudden unyielding grip on her prevented her from going another step. She rounded on me angrily before ceasing at my expression.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Shhh.”

  It was barely audible to her, but sounded way too loud for my comfort. Then again, our bitching over the past fifty yards hadn’t been quiet. Neither were the heavy footfalls in the distance, disturbing the night with how noisy they were.

  I narrowed my eyes, focusing all my energy toward those sounds. No heartbeat, no breathing, but also no feeling of encroaching power. They were moving slowly. A whole hell of a lot of them. Why didn’t I feel anything? Every vampire or ghoul gave off an aura of power, but there was nothing. What the fuck were they?

  Without waiting to find out, I snatched her up and ran for the house. Zero and Tick Tock were already at the door, sensing trouble from my rapid pace.

  “Get everybody downstairs now,” I barked, shoving my mother in that direction for emphasis. “Something’s coming.”

  “What?” Denise began, rising from her chair.

  Randy was quicker on the draw and went to her, pulling her up. Zero gestured to the stairs, ever respectful but urgent.

  “Please, this way.”

  When my mother didn’t move, I shot her a single glare. “Awake or unconscious, you’re going with them.”

  She muttered something but went after them, her shoulders stiff.

  “Tick Tock,” I breathed, still straining to listen to those figures. “Get Bones and the others.”

  Two minutes later Bones came, Spade and Rodney close behind him. I ignored the stains on him and pointed to the window.

  “Do you hear them? I can’t feel anything, but there are a lot of them. Headed right this way.”

  Bones narrowed his gaze, staring into the darkness with green pinpoints in his eyes. After a few seconds he let out a grunt.

  “Can’t feel anything, either, Kitten, but they’re stomping around like a herd of elephants. Whatever they are, they aren’t human. Charles?”

  “I have no idea, Crispin. That curls my stones in my sack.”

  Rodney gave Spade a grimly supportive glance. “I’m right there with you.”

  “All right.” Bones cracked his knuckles, his eyes all green. “Let’s get ready to greet them. We’ll need knives, swords, crossbows, guns…quickly. A few of them sound like they’re ahead of the pack. We’ll be finding out soon what’s come to call.”

  “Why don’t we just leave?” I asked on the way to the armory.

  “Because there’s not enough choppers to get everyone off, and if we take cars, it could be an ambush. We’ll make a stand, luv. Find out what we’re up against. Now, we’ll have the chopper ready just in case. If need be, you can fly your mum, Denise, and Randy to safety.”

  “I won’t leave you,” I said. “No matter what.”

  Bones made a soothing noise even as he began to strap on about forty pounds of silver. “Now Kitten, they’re human and therefore easiest to kill. The rest of us are capable of—”

  “Not a motherfucking chance.” In the same reasonable tone he used. “Juan knows how to fly and I’m stronger than he is, so he’d be the best choice if their evacuation became necessary. And if you even think of pulling a fast one, like knocking me out and loading me onto that chopper, I’ll return to work full-time taking on assignments that’ll make your hair even whiter than it is now.”

  Bones gave me a quick, fierce kiss.

  “Bloody woman. Learned a few mind-reading tricks of your own, have you? Right then, suit up and change clothes. Your sweater’s too bulky, it’ll restrain your movements.”

  I just pulled it off, left in my bra, sweatpants, and sneakers. There was no time to go upstairs and find a more flexible shirt. I began to strap on silver knives, lashing them to my legs, waist, and arms with the enhanced speed of long practice.

  “Just not going to listen to a word I say, are you?” Bones asked as he handed me a sword. “Keep one of these, we don’t know what we’re trying to kill and silver might not work. You’re going to freeze like that, Kitten.”

  “Isn’t that the least of our concerns?” With a laugh that was more strained than amused. “Now I’ve got full range of motion, and that’s what’s most important.”

  “Right you are.” Bones drew off his own sweater and threw it to the ground next to mine. Most of the vampires and ghouls followed suit. Bare chests gleamed in the reflection of the light of the chandelier as everyone strapped on weapons. Even as we did so, those footsteps outside came closer.

  Mencheres came downstairs. I hadn’t seen him before this, but he’d obviously heard what was going on, because he had more weapons covering him than skin.

  “To the lawn, we’ll start with an exterior perimeter and fall back inside if necessary,” Bones said. “Zero, you gather the humans and put them in the holding cells below, since they’re the most reinforced. Feel free to use physical means to make any reluctant ones obey, especially her mother.”

  I would have replied with something rude, but this wasn’t the time. We filed outdoors in a precise manner, setting up formation around the house. Hand signals were used once we were outside, the vampires and ghouls moving with a speed any military leader would love to command. Of course, they predated most military leaders. Practice did make perfect.

  The frigid wind made me shiver. Yes, it was extremely cold, but it wouldn’t kill me and hypothermia was something I didn’t have to worry about. I was half vampire, after all, so my blood wouldn’t know how to freeze. It didn’t stop me from wishing I could be as impervious to it as my companions, though. Vampires and ghouls might not like the cold, but I was the only one whose teeth were chattering.

  “All right, luv?”

  Bones asked it while not taking his gaze off the trees in front of him. We were dead center in front of the house, and hopefully that wasn’t prophetic.

  I gritted my jaw to still it. “It’ll go away when the action starts.”

  There was movement at my side. Tate slid next to me without a word, shouldering Spade aside.

  “Leave him,” Bones interjected when Spade was about to shove him back. “It’s what he’s good for.”

  Tate might have replied with something, I won’t ever know. His mouth opened…but then the first of the mysterious figures cleared the trees and stopped his rejoinder. Bones stiffened, turning as cold and hard as any of the icicles on
the roof. Spade let out a low hiss, and someone muttered something that sounded like a prayer.

  “Sweet Christ,” I whispered, a new freeze settling in me. “What is that?”

  It was Mencheres who answered, coming up behind us and raising his voice to be heard above the thing’s sudden snarl as it began to run, its mouth snapping obscenely from half-rotted lips.

  “That,” he replied, “is the grave.”

  THIRTY

  I N OLDER MOVIES, ZOMBIES LOOKED ALMOST comical. The newer films pegged them better—the insanity of eyes bulging out and flesh hanging in rancid layers over a frame hunched from hunger. Some were more decomposed than others, bones visible in places as they staggered forward. But all of them had one thing in common; they were ravenous, and we were food.

  When the first one was visible, Mencheres appeared as stunned as the rest of us were. After his cryptic statement, however, he began to curse in a manner so unlike him that it broke my attention from the oncoming horde.

  “Never in all my foulest imaginings did I believe she would do such a thing,” he finished with. “There will be payback for this, perhaps not by me or anyone here, but one day she will account for such a deed.”

  That didn’t sound good. In fact, it sounded like an epitaph.

  Bones shook Mencheres’s shoulder with a hard tug. “We don’t have time to ponder Patra’s capacity for evil. These things”—a short nod to the ones only about two dozen yards away. “Can they be killed?”

  Mencheres lost his glazed expression and his features hardened. He placed his hand over Bones’s.

  “No.”

  The single word was delivered without emotion. Mencheres seemed to steel himself even as he squeezed Bones’s hand before dropping his own.

  “They cannot be killed,” he continued, unsheathing his sword with a slicing noise. “Nor do they feel any pain or even need eyes to see us. They are drawn to us by her will alone.”

  He strode forward with a command for everyone else to stay back. The things were only a few feet from him, moving at a loping run now. They seemed to grow more crazed by his nearness. Horrible grunts came from them.

  “They have been pulled from the ground,” Mencheres continued, sidestepping one with a speed it didn’t have, “and they will not return to it until the spell is broken. We cannot run. Every grave within a hundred miles would empty as the dead came after us, and they would kill anything in their path.”

  His sword moved so fast I couldn’t follow it with my gaze. In disbelief I saw the things leap at him with almost equal speed. Where the fuck did their shuffling go? Oh, shit!

  Mencheres hacked in that same blur. Pieces of them started to fly in all directions as his blade outraced their sudden, incredible tempo. “We must hold them off and find what object she used for this spell,” he went on in that same level tone. “It would have to be something of hers, perhaps carried by one of the prisoners, or planted by Rattler. If we find it and destroy it, they will die. Until then, no matter how much damage they sustain, they cannot rest.”

  What he meant was sickeningly illustrated as he spoke. Mother of God, even the limbs he’d severed crawled in our direction. A headless body stumbled closer, and the unattached cranium chewed with demonic intentness at Mencheres’s foot until he kicked it away. Now that was scary. Still, when they were dismembered, the creatures were certainly less dangerous. Maybe there was a chance.

  “Send three people back in the house to search,” Mencheres called out, whirling to intercept more of the forms as they approached. “It will probably be something small, easy to disregard. Destroy it with any means possible.

  “Tick Tock, Annette, Zero, go,” Bones ordered with a jerk of his head, pulling out his own sword.

  They darted back into the house without pause, except for Annette. I saw her stop and stare at Bones before she disappeared into the house. I stared at him as well, for the same reason. Thinking this was the last time I’d see him.

  “If I thought for a moment you’d listen, it would be you going inside,” he almost sighed. “Yet I know better. I love you, Kitten. There’s nothing on this earth or under it that can change that.”

  I didn’t have time to reply, but it wasn’t necessary. Every fiber of me shouted it back at him even as he raised his voice and addressed the four dozen people also drawing out their swords.

  “Patra unleashed death on us, mates. Let us return the gesture with our compliments!”

  Bones strode forward with measured, lethal steps to meet the new wave of ghastly invaders. Four dozen against untold hundreds? I knew the odds of our survival. So did everyone who gripped a blade and advanced with him, myself included.

  “We are not helpless.” Bones’s voice was never more controlled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was chipper. “Many times in our lives we’ve been powerless, but not this night. Right now we have the power to choose the manner in which we die. If you have been a master of nothing else in all your days, you are now a master of this moment. And I for one am going to give such an answer to this insult that others will dearly regret not being by my side to see it!”

  Bones finished with a roar that was taken up by every throat. We trembled in the pre-midnight air with the rage of retaliation, and suddenly I didn’t feel cold. Or afraid. I’d faced death before, hell, even sought it. Now by Bones’s side, I had the chance to rewrite every bad decision, each instance of cowardice, and all the years of regret. Nothing else mattered but right now. This instant, I’d become the person I’d always wanted to be. Strong. Fearless. Loyal. Someone even I could be proud of.

  The first creature leapt at me and my sword flashed out to answer, my hair flying as I dodged and hacked. A green glow landed on its malformed face and I laughed, bright and savagely happy.

  “See that? It’s the light in my eyes, and I’m going to show you what else I’ve got…”

  My first fight to the death was when I was sixteen. All I’d had was a silver cross with a thin dagger attachment, and I didn’t even know if it would kill a vampire. It did, obviously, and I’ve been killing ever since. I’d been in hundreds of battles since that initial one, but none of them, none of them, had ever been like this.

  Thank God it was dark out. The glowing green of a vampire’s eyes made them distinguishable from the zombies, who continued to pour out of the woods in all directions. Ghouls were a little tougher to filter, but then there were only about ten of them here. You just didn’t realize how interchangeable one figure could appear from the next when your gaze was continually splattered with blood, flesh, or flying pieces of rotted limbs. And the limbs were everywhere; disgusting parts crawling on the ground, unattached fingers squirming like leeches on your body, or whole and still adorning the monsters that kept coming from the woods.

  I was in the mindless frenzy of killing, slashing out at anything that came near me. A mental numbness had set in, making me oblivious to my own injuries. My arms, shoulders, legs—every part of me had been chewed on. I wasn’t even sure if I was still clothed; all I saw was red from both the rage and the blood in my eyes. That’s why the matching emerald lights from my comrades was so helpful. At least when I saw them, I knew I wasn’t alone. I certainly felt alone, with nothing but maddened zombies surrounding me, screams blending into a continuous white noise, and the ceaseless cleaving of my sword into the inviolable force of walking dead.

  Vlad had an advantage. With enough time, he could grab hold of a zombie and burn them to pieces. They ran around like macabre torches, what was left of them, anyway. Still, it seemed he needed a solid minute of holding them to burn them into a less harmful state, which meant it wasn’t the most productive method of dealing with them.

  Every now and then, though, I’d catch an orange glow from the corner of my eye, hear indescribable screams, and know Vlad was still alive. Even more important was that periodically, I’d hear an English accent cresting over the sounds of death and pain, urging everyone on, taunting the creatures with gleeful
scorn. Bones was still alive, too. Aside from that, I had no idea who was around me.

  “Fall back, fall back!” the shout came. The thing in front of me was suddenly cleaved straight down the center into two halves. Between the falling forms there was Bones, almost unrecognizable in appearance, and I stopped my sword in midarc to avoid slashing his head off.

  “Come with me,” he growled. He tugged on my arm and then dropped it with a savage curse.

  “Bloody fucking hell, why didn’t you call for help?”

  I didn’t know what he meant, and arguing wasn’t an option, since he yanked me to his chest with one arm and began a deranged hacking at anything near us with the other. My feet barely brushed the ground, swinging with his gait while I began to feel nauseous. Some of the haze lifted from my vision and when we entered the house and went at once down the stairs, I could see with clarity again.

  Every item in the house had been smashed. I was confused, because the main fight was outside, but then it made sense. Not knowing what the mysterious object was, Annette, Tick Tock and Zero had been obliterating anything they could. There wasn’t even a solid stick of furniture left, and the remaining vampires and ghouls streaked through the wreckage while holding off the hideous intruders that kept coming. This house had three underground levels and just two entrances to them. That was on the plus side. In the negative column, it also meant we had no way out.

  Bones deposited me into the arms of Tate, who appeared out of the spattered forms. “Take her to the lowest level,” he barked and turned away. “I have to cover our retreat.”

  “Bones, no!” I protested, ignored by both of them as Tate whirled and ran down the stairs. He shoved past people, muttering something that sounded like, “Your arm, your arm,” as he went.

  We went through a door where inside, several frightened faces stared at us. The kids, I realized. They’re scared. Maybe this wasn’t outlined in the Be a Vampire Snack brochure.

  “Clear some space,” he snapped to them, and fear from either his appearance or his tone made them quick to respond. They huddled together as Tate lowered me to the floor and withdrew a knife.