His fist landed a solid whack to the top of my head. Amid the wash of sudden stars, I ducked under his arm and lurched forward, brought up short by his hold on my hair.
All at once, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Vlad pulled me back, my feet slid out from under me, and faintly, above all the other noise, I heard a vindictive, satisfied laugh.
I saw six of those things follow after him, they’ve broken in! Annette had said. And I heard him scream…
She’d been talking about Zero, who was on his way to Anubus’s cell. But while no one had seen or heard from Zero since, it was Anubus who was chuckling maliciously now. Anubus. Unharmed though he was chained to a wall with half a dozen ravenous creatures within chomping distance. How was that possible? Only one way I could think of.
“Vlad, do you have to be touching someone to burn them?”
The question startled him so much he quit manhandling me. “I have to have touched them before, and it takes longer, since it’s difficult to burn someone I’m not holding.”
“Difficult,” I breathed. “But not impossible?”
“No, not impossible, why?”
“It’s Anubus.” I raised my voice because the adrenaline began to surge. “Patra’s object isn’t an object at all. Don’t you get it? He’s the ultimate Trojan horse, and Bones nearly got killed delivering him! She meant to finish Bones off in the ambush—and then the rest of us later, since we carted Anubus back home with us. Patra knew we wouldn’t kill him, who offs their most valuable hostage?”
Vlad started to smile. He released me and spread out his hands, holding them over his head. All around us chaos reigned.
“He’s too far away for me to reach him before I’d be cut down, but let’s see if I can save the day.”
“Go on,” I replied, whirling to clear the area around him. “Impress me.”
His hands began to glow, not red, but blue. They lit the hall with an eerie navy-violet light. Sparks flew off his hands, showering my hair as I continued to slash at the oncoming zombies.
Someone screamed, high-pitched and agonizing. I threw a heartless grin at Vlad as I recognized the voice.
“You’ve got his attention, Drac.”
“He’s strong,” Vlad replied in a strained tone. His hands were now completely engulfed in flames. “And must I remind you once more what my name is?”
“You arrogant…” thrust though the stomach of a snapping zombie, twisting and using all my strength to cleave him in half “…overpublicized…” wasn’t going to work, it clawed at the blade, and my God, these things were tough, “…showy old bat…” Crack! There went my head into the wall. If I didn’t have a split skull, I’d be amazed. “What are you waiting for? Aren’t you the king of all bogeymen? The legend children fear will devour them if they don’t behave?”
Two more zombies slipped past Bones and Mencheres, who were now almost back-to-back trying to stave them off.
“Come on, Vlad, live up to your reputation! If you can’t burn to death one Egyptian vampire chained to a wall, how did you ever drive the Turks from Romania?”
There was a loud reverberating snap, like an electric transformer had blown, and then in midleap, the charging zombies fell to the floor. Out of the suddenly still forms, dirt began to appear, covering them, eroding over the creature’s bodies, until nothing but piles of earth remained. Out of the ground they were called, I thought, and back they went.
“You did it,” I panted, dropping my sword and running not in his direction, but the opposite one.
“Of course,” I heard him reply as strong arms lifted me up and crushed me against a chest covered with gore. “I’m Vlad Tepesh, what did you expect?”
THIRTY-ONE
F OR ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS I HELD BONES, feeling his mouth pressed to my hair, his hands gripping my back, and I was truly happy. Then there was the sound, a muffled moan, one I heard even above the other vampires’ cries of exultation. One that seemed to come from my very cells, which made sense, in a weird way.
“Mom.”
I dashed straight down the hall toward the back like I was being pulled by a string. Bones was close behind, but not as fast as I was, not this time. I fell to my knees when I saw her, draped across Denise’s lap, my friend’s hands compressing her stomach. Next to them lay a zombie, now only a pile of dirt, and my mother was as still and pale as death.
“No!”
It tore out of me even as I acted without thinking, taking one of my knives and slashing it across my wrist, tilting her head up, forcing my blood in her mouth. The blade cut right through to the bone and red liquid overflowed her lips.
She gagged once and weakly swallowed, bubbles trailing out of her mouth. I worked her jaw, forcing her to swallow again.