I was confused. Mencheres didn't have Patra stuffed in a back room, to my knowledge, so how could he have the power to end this, as Bones was implying? Vlad leaned forward, picking up on my thought. "Don't you see, Cat? When Patra had you trapped in a lethal nightmare, who knew how to break it? Last night when the zombies attacked, who knew the only way to destroy them was to destroy their homing beacon? Mencheres. So if he knows these spells well enough to know what counters them...then he also has the knowledge to cast one himself."
One look at Mencheres's ashen face confirmed it, and then I was right in front of him as well.
"Youhave to. She's not going to stop! Do you want to see everyone around you dead? Because that's what will happen if you don't do something."
"And could you?" Mencheres flung at me. "If this were Bones we were talking about, could you mete out death to him? Could you sentence him so easily to the grave?"
He stopped, showing more naked feeling than I'd ever seen from him, and it hit me.He's still in love with her, even after everything she's done. Poor bastard.
I chose my words with care. "I don't pretend to know how hard this is on you, Mencheres, and if this were Bones, it would rip me apart inside, too. But"-I paused to look straight at the man I loved-"if you ever went so far off the deep end that you'd try-and succeed-in killing those I loved, and you made it very clear through countless examples that you wouldn't stop until I and everyone I cared about were dead, then yes. I'd kill you."
Bones stared back at me and a small smile touched his mouth. "That's my girl."
Then he fixed his gaze back on Mencheres. "I can't offer you any comfort in this but one, single thing: a quick death for Patra. She doesn't deserve it, and I'd promised to treat whoever plotted against my wife to a much more prolonged, gruesome experience, but for your sake I'll amend that. If you do what you must now."
Green blazed from Mencheres's eyes, and so much power crackled off him that I flinched. "Are you threatening me?"
Bones didn't even twitch. "I'm the co-ruler of your line and I'm stating my intentions toward an enemy who has butchered our people. You need to remember whose side you're on. Can't you see Patra has been betting her life on the notion that you're incapable of that?"
Mencheres didn't say anything. Every set of eyes in the room were trained on him. Then at last he stood, reining in that angry flash of power like a bird folding up its wings.
"So be it. Last night Patra unleashed the contents of the grave on us. Tonight, we will give her back its vengeance."
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE STARS WERE WINKING FROM THEIR NEW backdrop of ever-deepening navy. Mencheres was in the center of the lawn. We'd cleared the snow off the ground so the large tablecloth placed on it didn't get wet. Mencheres sat cross-legged in front of it, and I couldn't help but think that with his center positioning, the dozen or so vampires in the background behind him...and the bones lined up on the white linen, this looked like hell's version of the Last Supper.
None of us knew what was about to happen. After making that cryptic statement, Mencheres had simply said to be dressed for battle at sunset and then he went up to his room. I half wondered if he'd make a break for it via an upstairs window, but Bones seemed satisfied that Mencheres would keep to his promise, and here he was.
Earlier I made a call to Don to tell him something was going down tonight. Maybe with a heads-up, he'd be able to come up with a better cover story than avalanches and mini-earthquakes. Problem was, I couldn't tell him where this event would take place. Or what time. Or what it would consist of. Or any other helpful details that would allow him to minimize human interaction and prevent a full-scale media fallout, he scathingly told me.
Well, I didn't have those details, so I could only relay what I knew. Don's frustration was understandable. Here I'd warned him that for the second night in a row, the undead were going all-out with a black magic attack, but I didn't know if bodies would be crawling from their graves-or raining from the sky. Don had cause to freak, sure. Me, I had other concerns aside from keeping the existence of vampires a secret. I had to stay alive. So I was dressed for battle, wearing over my traditional black spandex various knives, a sword, several silver bullet-filled guns, and even some grenades.
"I don't want any of you to speak," Mencheres said in the first words he spoke himself since sitting down in front of the bones. "Not until I am finished."
And how are we supposed to know that?I thought.When you take a bow? When the ground opens up and things crawl out from it? A memory of those horrible rotting creatures flashed in my mind and I shuddered. Ugh, if I never saw one of them again, it would be too soon.
Something prickled in the air, centering my attention back on the Egyptian vampire. His head was bent, long hair hiding his expression, but through gaps in the black strands I saw his eyes were glowing green. Next to me, Bones shivered, and I darted a glance at him. He seemed fixated by Mencheres. I took his hand-and almost dropped it from the electric sizzle that met my flesh. Whatever Mencheres was doing, it was also affecting Bones. Apparently that exchange of power between the two of them still had a thread of connection left. That disturbed me, though I couldn't say why.
All at once, the bones of the people who'd been killed last night rose from the tablecloth. They hovered in the air, forming a circle around Mencheres, and the bones began swirling around him.
At first they rotated slowly, hanging as if by invisible strings, but then their speed began to pick up. They circled Mencheres, moving faster and faster, until soon it was hard to distinguish any of their pieces except the skulls, grinning morbidly with their jaws swinging in the tornadolike wind. Mencheres's hair blew all around him, and my flesh crawled with a sensation of a million invisible ants. The power pouring off him intensified to incredible degrees, until I wouldn't have been surprised to see lightning strike where he sat.
With a crack, the whirling bones imploded around him, showering Mencheres in a fine cloud of white. I gripped Bones's hand, not caring about the sear of voltage that seemed to shoot up my arm, and stared in disbelief at the powdery remains of his friends.Dust to dust, I thought numbly. Mencheres just blasted away all that was left of those brave men. Why? Why would he do that?
Without raising his head, Mencheres pulled a knife from his lap. Then he stabbed it straight into his heart.
I did gasp then, in openmouthed incredulity as he twisted the blade.Must be steel, not silver, I found myself thinking. Or he'd be as dead as the grainy remains of those men spackling him like grayish snow.