This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

Oh fuck no, I thought, keeping myself from bolting out of my chair with every last bit of willpower in me.
Her gaze drilled into mine as dark purplish liquid began to fill the glass.
“Reaper,” she said coolly. “Won’t you have something to drink?”
Chapter Sixteen
Once more, I couldn’t even risk glancing at Bones to see if he looked as appalled as I felt. Play it cool, she could be bluffing, I chanted to myself,
managing not to flinch when she held out that half-full glass to me.
“What an unusual offer, but you know I prefer gin and tonic,” I said, praying my heart didn’t start beating out of sheer panic. If she did know about
my twisted feeding habits, who would have told her? And did that person somehow screw it up and report back that I drank ghoul blood for
nourishment instead of vampire?
“Over a dozen years ago, Gregor told me of his vision about a young half-breed who would one day wield the power of pyrokinesis,” Marie said.
“After his sire, Tenoch, perished, only one other vampire existed who could manifest fire and bend it to his will, and as you know, Vlad Tepesh was
no ally of Gregor’s. Gregor assumed you’d come into this power about a century after you’d been changed into a vampire, and he intended to have
you under his control long before that. Yet you killed him using fire within a month of your turning.”
I didn’t move, afraid that my slightest gesture would betray me. “Everyone knows that,” I said as calmly as I could. “Beginner’s luck.”
A sharp laugh came from her. “Then, curiously, you weren’t reported to use fire again, even when you were in dire circumstances. You were
reported to have used telekinesis against a group of vampires in Monaco a few months ago. So that’s two incredible powers, all manifested less
than a year after your changing. More beginner’s luck?”
“I’m a lucky girl,” I said, thinking if I were still part human, I’d be puking from stress right now.
Marie glanced at the glass of blood in her hand before meeting my gaze. “Let’s find out,” she said, her Southern accent changing until it sounded
like hundreds of voices suddenly spoke through her, and none of them friendly.
Bones moved at the same time I did, but an icy blast of power knocked me back into my seat hard enough to topple me over. I came up with
knives in both hands, only to have them ripped from my grasp by what felt like razor-sharp claws. In disbelief I saw Bones suspended in midair,
shadows swirling around him, his mouth open in a roar that still didn’t drown out the horrible keening noises that filled the room.
Marie hadn’t moved from her position, that glass of blood still resting on the side of her chair. I started toward her again, only to be met by a wall
of ghosts that shot up from the ground, their features indistinct due to their sheer numbers. When I tried to push past them, it felt like they slashed my
body with thousands of razors, but worse than that, my energy drained away as abruptly as it had at dawn when I was first changed. Pain radiated in
me from my boots to my eyebrows. I looked down, expecting to be covered in blood, but only a faint smudge of dirt marred my front even though I
felt like I’d pass out.
“Stop,” I gasped to Marie.
She shrugged. “Make me. Call forth fire, or knock this drink from my hand with your mind, and I will.”
Bitch! Rage filled me as Bones was flung against the wall by those malevolent shadows. He wasn’t shouting anymore. He looked, frighteningly,
like he was trying to speak but couldn’t. His features twisted as he struggled, more searing pain flashing through me, but not mine this time. How
could these ghosts be able to inflict so much damage? Fabian couldn’t even poltergeist up a limp version of a handshake!
My gaze narrowed as I looked at Marie. It had to be her power enabling the ghosts to do this, what with how her voice sounded like a microphone
to the grave and the icy, vibrating waves pouring off her. Even though I hadn’t manifested as much as a spark recently, I still tried to turn my anger
into flames, picturing Marie, that fluffy chair, and even the package of chicken by her feet bursting into a fiery inferno. Burn. Burn.
Nothing. Not even a hint of smoke leaked out of my hands, let alone any fire. I tried focusing on the wineglass next, picturing it shattering and
splashing her blood all over her. More hard thwacks came from my left, audible even above that awful high-pitched moaning the ghosts made. A
glance revealed they had Bones’s arms and legs extended straight out, those shadows appearing and then disappearing from his flesh. Fragments
of agony sliced across my consciousness, made more intense by the brief periods of blankness between them. Dammit, Bones was trying to shield
me from his pain, even in the midst of being pureed from the inside out by those spectral freaks.
I looked away, tears spilling out my eyes, to concentrate back on that blood-filled glass. It hadn’t been too many months since I’d drank
Mencheres’s blood. Some of his power still had to be left in me! Break, glass, break! Or just fall from her hand, at least.
More of those lightning-quick flashes of pain flitted across my emotions, the periods between them growing shorter. I couldn’t stop myself from
glancing at Bones again. His back was arched, eyes closed, muscles contorting every time one of those shadows dove into him. The agony leaking
through to me from him was nothing compared to the searing pain that ripped through my heart seeing him that way.
I tore my gaze away and glared at the glass with enough loathing that it should have exploded into sand. It didn’t. Not even a shiver of movement
disturbed it. Maybe it was because I hadn’t drunk nearly as much of Mencheres’s blood as I did with Vlad that one time. Maybe because I’d
stopped drinking Bones’s blood, I was now weaker and less able to summon any residual telekinesis power left in me. Ultimately, the reason didn’t