“That tickles in all the right places,” he purred in his good ol’ Texas boy drawl.
My jaw dropped. From the power seething off him, Bones wasn’t having performance issues. How was Trove still coming toward us? Bones must have been wondering the same thing. He doubled the dose he leveled at Trove.
The subsequent blast of energy was like a bomb going off. Humans in the room might not have felt it, but it rocked me backward with enough force to send me crashing into the waiter behind me. We landed in a pile of champagne and broken glass, and still, Trove kept coming.
How is he doing this? my mind screamed. Bones had used less power when he levitated a dozen guards through a laser net!
Trove was only a few feet away now. I grabbed a hunk of broken glass out of instinct to reach for any weapon available. Then I dropped it. He didn’t have a heartbeat, so he was a corporeal demon, not a demonic spirit who’d possessed a human. As such, only one thing could kill him—demon bone stabbed through his eyes. And we didn’t have any.
“You seem to have taken a nasty spill, young lady,” Trove said in a conversational tone. “Let me help you.”
The demon extended his hand, leaning down. Before his skin brushed mine, Bones hauled him back. For some unfathomable reason, his telekinesis didn’t seem to affect Trove, but his grip worked just fine.
“Don’t. Touch. Her.”
Each word hissed out with naked enmity. People around us started to whisper behind their hands. Muscular men with wires taped to their ears began to push through the crowd. Undercover Secret Service agents, no doubt. Trove flashed a smile at them, holding up his hands as much as Bones’s grip would allow.
“Everything’s all right, fellows. As I used to say when I was young, it’s not a party until something gets broken.”
Then lower, to Bones. “If you don’t want me to start killing innocent bystanders, you’ll let go of me.”
Bones smiled back but didn’t loosen the grip he had on Trove’s arms.
“A roomful of politicians? Have at it.”
“Bones.”
I got up, pulling the waiter with me without taking my eyes off the two men. “Don’t.”
Aside from not every politician deserving such a fate, their families were here, too. So were hotel staff, and besides that, reporters. If things took a lethal, supernatural turn, it would be all over the news before we could begin to contain it.
“I think I had too much champagne,” I said in an abashed way, twining my arm through Bones’s. “Darling, take me for some air?”
He was so tense, his flesh felt like steel beneath my touch. I tried to discreetly tug him, but he didn’t budge. The Secret Service agents, who’d started to walk away at Trove’s mollifying statement, turned around. From their thoughts, they were about to take action.
“Not here,” I whispered, when Bones still didn’t move.
Then louder, to Trove, “Won’t you accompany us?”
The demon smiled, showing off teeth so white, he must’ve had them professionally bleached.
“Of course.”
Then he glanced at the grip Bones still had on his arms, raising a single gray brow. At last, Bones released him, his answering flash of teeth too brief to be called a smile.
“After you, mate.”
We went up the stairs to the second level of the Grand Ballroom, where far fewer people were gathered. Trove impatiently waved away a Secret Service escort that tried to accompany him, making my wariness increase. Sure, he had no idea that we knew how to dispatch a demon, but why did he seem almost in a hurry to get us alone?
Only one reason I could think of: He intended to kill us. Ballsy of him to pick a public place to do it. He knew what we were, and vampires only died the messy way, not that I had any intention of dying tonight.
Once we were clear of most prying eyes, Trove’s mask of genial charm slipped, and I caught a glimpse of the real person beneath. To say it was like looking into the eyes of a beast was an insult to animals.
“Hit me with more of that delicious power, would you?” he said to Bones in a sinuous voice. “Felt so good, I almost came.”
“What kind of demon are you?” I asked over Bones’s snarl.
“An Ornias,” Trove replied, surprising me. I hadn’t really expected an answer.
Bones let out a harsh snort.
“That’s why my power doesn’t work on you. Your kind absorbs energy and feeds from it.”
I hadn’t known that power-absorbing demons existed, but then I’d only had experience with a few. The first had branded Denise, the second possessed and nearly killed Bones, and the third had tried to get me to pawn my soul in exchange for information. To say I disliked their kind was an understatement.
Trove shuddered in what looked like blissful remembrance.
“I have to drain the life force from over a dozen humans to absorb one-tenth of what you just doused me with. I want to feel that again, which is one of the reasons why you’re still alive.”
“Think you can kill me?” A dangerous little smile curled Bones’s mouth. “You’re welcome to try.”
Below us, the affluent and the powerful continued to mingle, unaware of how close to death they were. If Trove shed his human act and went for Bones, no one would be safe in the ensuing fight. We didn’t have any demon bone, and Bones’s powers only made the creature stronger, but I wasn’t about to let him harm my husband. From his words and the coiled rage leaking out from Bones’s shields, neither was he about to wave the white flag.
“Why did you back Madigan in his attempts to create tri-species supersoldiers? Normally, our kinds don’t mess in each other’s business.”
My voice was brisk. Either the demon would answer or he wouldn’t, but it cost me nothing to ask.
Trove took his amber gaze off Bones long enough to flick it over me in a way that made me expect a trail of slime where it landed.
“You know how much I hate vampires?” he asked in a conversational tone. “The only things more disgusting are flesh eaters, and though your races came close once or twice, you just won’t go the distance and destroy each other.”
I tried not to show my shock as understanding dawned. Madigan had had no idea what he was risking by blending vampire and ghoul DNA into a human to create a new subspecies. Trove, however, knew exactly what would happen. The resulting war had been his intention all along.
Bones let out a low, mocking laugh. “And you thought you’d found a way to solve our peace problem? Sorry to disappoint.”
“My people were here first.”
Trove’s voice lost its smooth Texan twang, revealing a guttural intonation and an accent I’d never heard before.
“Then your races came,” he spat. “Humans were easy to dominate, but not your kinds. And how you protected your precious food from us! You drove us nearly to extinction, forcing us to hide for millennia, until neither side could remember how close it had come for my people. The only reason I know what happened is because I was there.”
I wondered why he was telling us this. Demons didn’t care if we understood their motivations. What was he up to?
“Finally, in the fourteen hundreds, ghouls and vampires began rising against each other,” Trove went on. “Such a surprise to realize all it took was a half-breed French girl and the threat of change she posed. Pity Joan was sacrificed so quickly. She nearly caused your races to annihilate each other.”
“And over six hundred years later, another half-breed showed up,” I summarized. “You must’ve thought hell had been granted a Christmas.”
Trove smiled in a way that seemed genuinely amused.
“Along with the advances in science, I did. When I heard that Don had discovered another half-breed, I dropped everything for you, Catherine Crawfield. Poured money into the department your uncle founded and made sure that Madigan was still busy experimenting with your genetic material even after Don fired him. How else was I going to ensure my success if you, like Joan of Arc, die
d before its fruition?”
His revelations were starting to remind me of the classic movie villain trope: monologuing. From the suspicion edging Bones’s emotions, he was concerned by it, too. Trove had to have an ulterior reason for this. Was he stalling, waiting for demonic reinforcements to arrive?
That’s when I noticed that Bones had maneuvered us next to one of the tall windows with a cityscape view. Our way out if we needed it.
As if reading my thoughts, Trove glanced at the window, then swept out his hand.
“Be my guest, but as I said, I mean you no harm. Vampire or not, I want you alive, Catherine. Otherwise, I would’ve killed you long ago. Do you know how many times one of my people stood over your unconscious body after you came back from one of your uncle’s missions?”
At my narrowing gaze, he grinned, showing those prime-time-ready teeth again.
“Does the name Brad Parker ring a bell?”
It did, but I couldn’t remember who . . . wait!
“The lab assistant who worked for Don,” Bones supplied in a growl. “I killed him years ago, after he betrayed her to her father.”
Now I remembered who Brad was. The day Bones killed him had also been the day he’d met Don and revealed to me that my boss was really my uncle. After that, the death of one double-crossing lab assistant was almost incidental.
Trove shrugged.
“Parker’s greed got the better of him, but that’s common for his type. Besides, he’d already served his purpose.”
“Ferrying her blood to Madigan after Don fired him?” Scorn dripped from Bones’s tone. “You failed there, mate. None of his experiments worked save one, and she’s as good as dead once we find her.”
I flinched even though Bones didn’t truly intend to kill Katie. Trove didn’t seem to believe him, either. His smile widened.
“You’re not going to kill that little girl. She won’t let you.”
He was playing the weak female card? I squared my shoulders, making my expression and voice like flint.
“Ending one life in order to save millions? No contest. The girl dies.”
Trove tutted while red gleaned through his amber contacts.
“What is the world coming to when someone would kill her own daughter?”
At the word “daughter,” a roaring started in my ears. I forced it back, laughing as though he’d told a joke.
“I don’t think so. Unlike men, women kinda know if they’ve had children, what with that whole pregnancy-and-labor thing.”
“Oh, you were never pregnant,” Trove said dismissively, his eyes gleaming brighter. “But A80 is your daughter nonetheless.”
Twenty-nine
Bones had him by the throat before I could react, his pale hand tightening until the demon’s neck broke with an audible sound. All Trove did was wince.
“. . . ausing . . . scene . . .” he garbled.
Even though we were in the farthest corner of the most deserted part of the ballroom’s second level, at any second, it would be clear that more was going on than a private chat. And I was suddenly desperate to hear what the demon had to say even as I reminded myself that it couldn’t be possible.
“Let him go,” I ordered Bones.
“He’s tormenting you for his own amusement,” Bones growled.
I yanked on his arm. Hard.
“I said let him go.”
Bones dropped him. Trove staggered before a sharp sideways yank snapped his neck back into place.
“Touch me again, and I’ll do this,” he hissed.
The demon disappeared for the space of a few heartbeats before reappearing again in the same spot. The only evidence of his remarkable feat was an increased scent of sulfur.
I wasn’t in the mood to comment on his party trick.
“How can I be that girl’s mother if you admit that I was never pregnant?”
Trove flicked a hand through his thick hair, settling it back into place after Bones’s rough handling had mussed it.
“As I said, advances in science. With all the pathology Don ordered when you first started with him, it was nothing for Brad Parker to slip in fertility drugs. It was more difficult for him to extract eggs during the times you came back from a mission unconscious, but when he did, you never noticed the needle marks afterward. With all your other injuries, why would you? In total, Parker netted us over a hundred of your eggs. All were fertilized and implanted in surrogates, but only one survived to term.”
Then the demon leaned closer, smiling.
“Madigan grew impatient with the low success rate of your in vitro fertilization, so he petitioned your uncle to breed you. That got him fired, and Don monitored you more closely. Parker knew he couldn’t risk more extractions, so after a few years, he found another way to make money off you by betraying you to your father.”
“You’re lying.”
I forced the words out despite the emotional whirlwind that made it hard to stand, let alone speak. Then my spine stiffened, and I said them again.
“You’re lying. The little girl I saw had to be ten years old, at least. I started working for Don less than eight years ago.”
“A80 turned seven last month,” Trove replied. “Only took the surrogate five months to carry her, and growth hormones took care of the rest. Madigan wanted to see what his new toy could do, and once he added ghoul DNA to her genetic makeup, my, did A80 deliver.”
That tornado returned to raze my equilibrium. Five months. That was how long my mother had carried me, and I’d been fully developed at birth. If I’d been given growth hormones and an additional dose of undead DNA, I might have looked years older at age seven, too.
Bones gripped my arm when my knees began to buckle despite my resolve not to buy any of this. Demons lie, I reminded myself. Even if what Trove said was scientifically possible, that didn’t make any of it true.
“Madigan’s impatience also made him obsessed with you,” Trove went on cheerfully. “He didn’t want to wait for A80 to mature enough to produce her own eggs, and his attempts to synthetically replicate her tri-nature merely resulted in thousands of dead test subjects. I’m used to waiting, so a few more years meant nothing to me, but then you had to attack his compound and give the brat a chance to escape.”
He paused to give me a tolerant look.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To see if I know where she is? I don’t, but I won’t stop you from looking for her. In fact, I want you to find her. Once you do, please, run tests to verify that every word I’ve said is true.”
“If it is, why would you tell us this?” I choked out.
The demon only smiled, and with brutal clarity, I understood.
Now that Katie was out from under his reach, he needed me to know she was my daughter. It was his insurance that I would risk everything to keep her alive, and along with me, Bones and his allies. The demon wanted war, and he couldn’t have one if no one was willing to fight. Well, Trove had just given me something I’d kill and die for, as he was counting on. He’d probably been hoping we would show up tonight, so he could spill the beans. If we hadn’t, he might have sought us out, unaware that we had the means to kill him.
Pity we hadn’t brought the bone knife. Right now, I’d love nothing more than to shove it through his eyes for gloating over the horrible way he’d used, and still intended to use, a child who might be mine.
With how close he stood, I felt Bones’s cell phone when it vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it, and a few seconds later, mine went off in my tiny clutch bag.
Trove glanced down with a knowing smirk.
“You might want to answer those. It’s important.”
Before I could respond, he disappeared.
“How bad is it?” were Bones’s first words when he strode into his co-ruler’s house.
Mencheres glided up to the entrance, his expression grim as he held out an iPad.
“Very bad,” he said simply.
Bones took the tablet. One look at th
e screen explained Mencheres’s urgent summons. Despite our shock at Trove’s revelation, we’d flown until we were exhausted, then commandeered cars after that to get here. Now we knew that Trove hadn’t merely been hoping Bones and I would show up at the fund-raiser tonight. He’d been preparing for it.
VAMPIRES AMONG US! screamed the headline on the Web page. More damning, as Bones scrolled down, were the pages and pages of status reports on Madigan’s experiments, complete with video clips showing a glowing-eyed child murdering several fully grown opponents on command.
Since the hard drives had been fried, only one person would have had this information, though of course, the former White House chief of staff’s name wasn’t anywhere on the documents.
“Trove,” I hissed. “While he was droning on, we weren’t the only ones being filled in on the full scope of Madigan’s experiments. So was anyone with eyes and an Internet connection!”
“More sites are appearing as conspiracy theorists and cryptozoologists repost the information,” Mencheres said in somber agreement. “Tai is attempting to take them down to slow the progression of information, but . . . there are too many.”
To illustrate his point, Mencheres minimized that page and opened a new one.
WE ARE NOT ALONE, BUT IT ISN’T WHO YOU THINK, the new headline announced, followed by extensive pathology reports on Katie’s tri-species nature—and what had made that merging possible.
I was too devastated to even curse as Mencheres opened site upon site filled with even more information meant to inflame ghoul and vampire relations. He was right; it was too late to contain this. It had gone viral, just as Trove intended.
Granted, most people viewing these scanned documents wouldn’t know who Specimen A1 was, let alone believe that in vitro fertilization from a half-vampire egg would result in a quarter-vampire child who’d been able to absorb ghoul DNA into her genetics. I mean, I was Specimen A1, and I still had a hard time believing it. Throw in the fact that most humans didn’t know that vampires or ghouls existed, and the reaction, judging from the comments, was open derision.
Up From the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel Page 18