“Back off!” I snarled through the instant spurt of blood.
Ice shot through my veins as though I’d been flash-frozen. At the same time, an unearthly roar filled my ears, drowning out the shrieks from the Remnants and Marie’s furious howl. It swelled as though trying to explode my mind with voices too numerous to count, but in spite of that, I smiled.
I knew what this was. When I spoke again, my voice echoed with countless others that had been consigned to the grave.
“Back. Off.”
The Remnants flung themselves away as though Bones and I had become poisonous. Then they slithered along the walls like sinuous, silvery shadows. Marie lunged, either to grab me or to run, but she didn’t make it an inch before she stopped with the suddenness of hitting a brick wall.
Slowly, painfully, I pushed her off, then threw her detached arm down the staircase. It bounced at the final step, landing with a thud a few feet from Bones.
“As I said before, Marie,” I ground out, “we need to talk.”
Thirty-one
Our conversation was put on hold because the cops showed up. One of Marie’s neighbors must have called the police about all the noise. No surprise, the officers who came to investigate were ghouls. Her address being flagged for a disturbance would have concerned more than the regular authorities.
Marie kicked her severed limb under the nearest chair and hid its growing replacement beneath a quilt before she went to the door. Sure, Bones had threatened to kill her unless she played it cool, but I think she did it for another reason. Signaling for help or showing how she’d been injured would have been tantamount to admitting that two vampires had gotten the drop on her in her own home—something the ghoul queen would never admit to. Still, Bones kept his power wrapped around her neck as she spoke to the officers. After a few minutes, she sent them away, then covered the entrance with the broken door.
“What do you want with me?” she demanded when she faced us again.
Bones arched a brow. “Before I answer, is anyone else here?”
The glance she shot him was filled with hostility. “No. When I’m home, I value my privacy.”
We hadn’t expected her to be a gracious loser, so I didn’t comment on the look. Or her venomous tone.
“We want you to leave the child be,” I said, shivering from my new connection to the grave. Death was cold, and as the Remnants evidenced, always hungry.
“That means no sending ghosts, ghouls, or minions to look for her. And, of course, your promise never to kill her. Same goes with us.”
Marie began to laugh, a low, mocking sound that still managed to contain shades of real amusement.
“If that is your demand, you came in vain. I’ve already given the order. My people search for her as we speak.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Majestic.”
Bones walked over to her, his aura crackling with barely controlled rage.
“When you sicced your ghostly little fiends on me the first time, I wanted to rip your head off. Doing it again tonight makes me really want to, but being forced to watch as they tore into my wife?”
He reached out, caressing her neck with a deceptively gentle touch.
“That makes me want to kill you so much, I can scarcely think of anything else,” he finished in a lethal whisper.
Then his hand closed around her throat, tightening until cracking noises were the only sound in the room. Marie’s hazelnut eyes began to fill with red, and the Remnants started to shift restlessly.
“Bones,” I said sharply. “Don’t.”
If we wanted to save Katie, we needed Marie. If we killed her, we were hastening a potential war with ghouls, and while we might manage to evade the Law Guardians, with Marie’s network of ghosts, anyone she wanted to find, she would, and sooner rather than later.
“We came to make you an offer,” I went on. “One that will be mutually beneficial.”
With Bones’s fist tightened so much that his fingers touched, she couldn’t laugh, but her mouth stretched in a pained smile.
“She can’t talk unless you let her go,” I said in a sterner voice.
He released her with obvious reluctance though his power remained coiled around her neck. Not tight; loose, like a snake deciding whether or not it was hungry.
Marie waited until her neck healed back to its normal shape before she spoke.
“What is your offer?”
“We’ll give you the people responsible for creating a cross-species child: Richard Trove and Jason Madigan. You can execute them to solidify your position as queen of the ghouls. In return, we want you to swear by your blood that you will call off your people and meet all our previous demands about the little girl and ourselves.”
Some of the hostility drained from her expression.
“I know she is your child, Reaper, but you must understand that nothing except her death will stop our races from warring.”