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Chapter 34

Ivy reared backwards, fangs flashing Larry screao off, felt the bullet hit her body It hit her in the shoulder, twisted her body, but she turned back to ers intome on top, with one of her hands leeched to the back of asped

"I&039;ll snap her spine unless you throw that toy away," she said

"She&039;ll kill me anyway Don&039;t do it"

"Anita"

"Now, or I&039;ll kill her while you watch"

"Shoot her!" But there wasn&039;t a clear shot He&039;d have to walk around me and fire point-blank Ivy could kill ot to us

Ivy forced round She&039;d have to break soet me down to her If she broke my neck, it&039;d be over; a broken arround, a dull, heavy thuun Damn

She pressed harder on the back of h to leave an i you to me Your choice: easy, or hard"

"Hard," I said between gritted teeth

She grabbed for my arm, and I had an idea I collapsed forward on top of her It caught her off guard I had a handful of seconds to pull the chain around h ainst her cheek, not hard, alhts from now you&039;ll like me, Anita You&039;ll worship me"

"I doubt that" The chain slid forward, the crucifix pooled against her throat There was a blinding flash of white, white light A rush of heat that singed my hair

Ivy screa from underneathin front of me The blue-white fla valowed like a captive star, and she backed away froun was, but the ainst the dark earth I wrapped ot to my feet Larry was behind th of its chain The white light with its core of blue was al her eyes All she had to do alk away But she was frozen, immobile in the face of the crosses, and two true believers

"Gun," I said to Larry

"Can&039;t find it"

Both guns were ht and et; now it made them invisible

We advanced on the vampire She threw both arms up before her face and screae of the circle If she ran, ouldn&039;t chase her, but she didn&039;t run Maybe she couldn&039;t

I shoved the machete up under her ribs Blood poured down the blade onto ave it that last little wrench to slice it up

Her arms fell away from her face slowly Her eyes ide, surprised She stared down at the blade in her sto there The flesh of her neck was black where the cross had burned her

She fell to her knees and I ith her, keeping rip on the machete She didn&039;t die I hadn&039;t really expected her to I jerked the blade out of her, doingsound, but stayed on her knees Her hands touched the blood flowing out of her chest and sto darkness as if she&039;d never seen blood before The blood floas already slowing; unless I killed her soon, the wound would close

I stood over her and brought theI had into that doing The blade bit into her neck, down to the spine, catching on the bone

Ivy stared up atback for another chop, and she watched et the blade out of the spine, and still she blinked up at me If I didn&039;t finish her, she&039;d heal even this

I brought the blade down one last tiive The blade came out the other side, and her head slid off her shoulders in a spray of blood like a black fountain That black blood poured over the circle and closed it

Power filled the circle until ere drowning in it Larry fell to his knees The light fro stars The vampire was dead, and the crosses couldn&039;t help us now

"What&039;s happening?"

I could feel the power like water on every side, choking close I was breathing it in, soaking it up through round I fell through layers of power, and the round I could feel the power belowon top of bones They twitched like soing into the earth I touched a long, thin arm bone, and it h the pressing air, and watched

Bones slid through the earth like water, coiant

Larry was on his feet now, too "What&039;s happening?"

"So bad," I said

I&039;d never seen the dead coalesce They always carave all in one piece I&039;d never realized it was like putting together a saw puzzle A skeleton foran to crawl over it, flow like clay,itself back to the bones

"Anita?"

I turned to Larry He was pointing at a skeleton at the far edge of the circle Half the bones were on the outside of the circle Flesh crawled over this side of the bones and pushed against the blood circle The earth gave one last heave, and the round I heard it pop inside my head like a release of pressure The air spread out, not so drowning-thick It poured over the hillside like invisible flame, and everywhere it touched the dead formed bodies

"Stop it, Anita Stop it"

"I can&039;t" The killing round had stolen the reins All I could do atch and feel the power spreading outward Enough power to ride forever Enough power to raise a thousand dead

I knehen Rawhead and Bloody Bones burst its prison I felt the power sag as the thing escaped Then the power lashed back into this bit of ground and drove us to our knees The dead struggled fro the with eelse to raise This I could stop The fairie was gone, out of the loop; he had what he wanted

I called the power back I drew it intoa snake by its tail out of a hole I flung it into the zo it into them and said, "Live"

The wrinkled flesh filled out The dead eyes glea, hanus&039;s startled eyes looked at me They all looked at me Twenty dead, all over two hundred years old, and they could have passed for human

"My God," Larry whispered

Even I was i&039;s voice renching, as if he shouldn&039;t have been there He was a different part of reality from the near-perfect zoood it would do any of us

"Which of you is a Bouvier?"

There was aFrench Nearly all of them were Bouviers The woman introduced herself as Anias Bouvier She looked very alive

"Looks like you&039;ll have to move your hotel," I said

"Oh, I don&039;t think so," Stirling said

I turned and looked at hiun out A nickel-plated 45 He held it like it was agun; you don&039;t hit much from a waist shot Or that&039;s the theory With it pointed at us, I wasn&039;t eager to try the theory

Bayard was pointing a 22 autouely in our direction It didn&039;t look like he&039;d held a gun before Maybe he forgot and left the safety on

Ms Harrison had a nickel-plated 38 pointed very steadily at s apart, balanced on her ridiculous high heels She held the gun in a two-handed grip like she knehat she was doing

I flashed on her face Her eyes in her thick makeup were a little wide, but she was rock steady Steadier than Bayard and a better stance than Stirling I hoped Stirling paid her well

"What&039;s going on, Stirling?" I asked My voice was even, but there was an edge of power to it I was still riding the power, enough power to put the zos

He sht "You&039;ve released the creature; noe shall kill you"

"Why the hell do you care if Bloody Bones is out?" I saw the guns and still didn&039;t knohy

"It came into my dreams, Ms Blake It promised me all the Bouvier land All of it"

"The fey breaking out won&039;t get you the land," I said

"It ith Bouvier dead The deed that got us this hillside will be found to include all the land, once there&039;s no one to fight it"

"Even with Magnus dead, you won&039;t get the land," I said, but my voice didn&039;t sound so sure

"Yousaid "She&039;ll die just as easily as Magnus"

My stoht "Her children?"

"Rawhead and Bloody Bones loves children best of all," he said

"You son of a bitch" It was Larry He took a step forward, and Ms Harrison&039;s gun swung to hirabbed his arm with my free hand I still had the un stayed on him I wasn&039;t sure that was an i down Larry&039;s arry, but never like this The power responded to that anger The zo eyes, so alive, aiting for us

"Move in front of us," I whispered The zo towards us The closest ones un-toting trio Here was hoping they&039;d lost sight of us

"Kill the said, loud, alround, still holding Larry&039;s arm He resisted Gunfire exploded around us and he kissed dirt, flat

With the side of his face pressed to the ground, he said, "What now?"

Bullets were hitting the zombies The bodies jerked and twitched Some of the very alive faces stared down, alarmed as holes appeared in their bodies But there was no pain The panic was reflex

So; it wasn&039;t us "Stop it, stop it We can&039;t do this We can&039;t just kill them"

It was Bayard

"It is late for an attack of conscience," Ms Harrison said It may have been the first time I&039;d heard her voice She sounded efficient

"Lionel, you are either with ainstto see as happening I pushed aside a billowing skirt just in tiave out a boo&039;s hand, but he held on Fro with a 45

Bayard collapsed to his knees, looking up at Stirling He was trying to say so took the gun from Bayard&039;s hand and put it in his own jacket pocket He turned his back on Bayard and walked out onto the hard, dry soil

Ms Harrison hesitated, but she followed her boss

Bayard fell onto his side with a dark flood draining out of hi hi and Ms Harrison were co the dead as if they were trees and he ading through The dead didn&039;t move for him They stood there like stubborn, fleshy barriers I hadn&039;t told them to move, so they wouldn&039;t

Ms Harrison had stopped trying to force her way through Moonlight glinted on her shiny gun as she used a zoht on us

"Kill her," I whispered

The zo post turned towards her She made an exasperated sound, and the dead closed on her

Larry looked at me "What did you tell thehtened shrieks She fired her gun again and again It clicked eer hands and mouths latched onto her body

"Stop therabbed my ar bits of flesh from Ms Harrison Teeth sank into her shoulder, tore that tender neck, and I knehen blood flowed into thatfor the ride "Oh, God, stop it!" He was on his knees pulling athadn&039;t fired a shot Where was he?

"Stop," I whispered

The dead froze like autoround in acaun pointed very steadily at us, out in a two-handed grip like it was supposed to be held He&039;d made his way behind us while the zo nearly on top of us It took a lot of nerve to coers dug intodown the barrel of a gun, Larry stuck to his morals Admirable

"If you say a word, Ms Blake, I will kill you"

I just stared up at him I was so close to hi The 45 was pointed very solidly at one

"Careless of you not to have the zoreed with him, but all I could do was stare up at hihten rip on it Not to draw attention to it

Imotion because he said, "Take your hand away from the knife, Ms Blake, slowly"