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Green blazed from Mencheres's eyes, and so much power crackled off hi me?"

Bones didn't even twitch "I' 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 roo 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, ill 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 varound behind himand the bones lined up on the white linen, this looked like hell's version of the Last Supper

None of us kneas about to happen Afterthat 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 , but Bones seemed satisfied that Mencheres would keep to his promise, and here he was

Earlier I ht 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 ly 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 hi all-out with a blackfro from the sky Don had cause to freak, sure Me, I had other concerns aside fro 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 sorenades

"I don't want any of you to speak," Mencheres said in the first words he spoke hi down in front of the bones "Not until I am finished"

And how are we supposed to know that?I thoughtWhen you take a bow? When the ground opens up and things crawl out fro creatures flashed in ain, it would be too soon

So yptian va his expression, but through gaps in the black strands I saw his eyes were glowing green Next to lance at him He seemed fixated by Mencheres I took his hand-and almost dropped it from the electric sizzle that , it was also affecting Bones Apparently that exchange of power between the two of them still had a thread of connection left That disturbed h I couldn't say why

All at once, the bones of the people who'd been killed last night rose fro 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, uish any of their pieces except the skulls, grinningin the tornadolike wind Mencheres's hair blew all around him, and my flesh craith a sensation of aoff hirees, until I wouldn't have been surprised to see lightning strike where he sat

With a crack, the whirling bones i 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 reht 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 froht into his heart

I did gasp then, in openmouthed incredulity as he twisted the bladeMust be steel, not silver, I found rainy rerayish snow

Dark blood poured fro as steadily as if his heart still beat It covered the knife, his hands, and his clothes with aat that, however I was staring with growing incomprehension as the red-smeared powdery substance that was the bones of the an to separate, expandand then forures

"Madre de Dios," I heard JuanMencheres's edict of silence

My own thought was less religiously charitable:What the hell is going on?

BeforeMencheres He was in to recognize, and those hazy forrew until they looked like shadows coh theht Three-diures of opaque, nad roanRandy, I thought in shockThat's Randy!

More of them formed from the bone dust that coated Mencheres He kept the knife in his chest, the wound continuing to bleed, until I wondered how he still had any juice left in hiures looked, until I could pick out every wraithlike person There was Tick Tock, just a little to the side of Zero, oh God, Randy

Only when all twenty-three people who'd been killed the night before stood around him did Mencheres pull the knife out and speak

"These are not our friends They don't recognize any of you, and they have no e that lingers in the ree froiven it forle-e All we have to do once I release theht to Patra no matter where she hides"

I'd barely wrapped my mind around that before Mencheres said an unknoord and the wraiths shot up into the night like they'd been fired frohostly cannons Woere they fast Hoe supposed to follow them?

Mencheres stood, raising his arround enty feet awaythirtyfiftymore

"We need to hurry," I heard hion the laas now airborne and being hurtled through the night as if by invisible jet streams "They will find her soon"