Santos looked toward her curiously.
“The last thing we need is The Summoner coming into your city to kill your people. He plays with his offspring, but he destroys all other vampires with impunity. You know this,” she said. Her voice was thick with emotion.
“He'll fuck you up,” Amaliya's voice said from above them as she roused and opened her eyes.
Santos frowned up at her.
Cian nodded in agreement. “You know what he is like. You remember what he did to Etzli. ”
Looking down at the pool of Amaliya's blood that was slowly snaking its way across the room along the grooves in the tile, Santos looked very thoughtful. “But if she can do what you say, I may be able to use her against him. ”
“To do what?” Her voice was full of pain.
“Control the dead, Amaliya,” Cian said to her.
She laughed and twisted a little. Her body was doing a steady little loop as the chandelier swung about and her blood streamed over the leather sofa.
“I have no idea how to do that. What am I supposed to do? Go, arise ye dead fucks to torment the ones who killed you?” As soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes flashed with light and turned utterly white.
At first, Cian wasn't sure what was happening, but then the floor under him buckled. Startled, he stepped back. The tiles under his feet sunk downward and he moved again.
Santos looked stunned as the floor of the room kept heaving and buckling.
“Shit!” Etzli exclaimed. “It's all the bodies you buried under the house!”
“Whoa,” Amaliya said in awe as the first dead bodies appeared, struggling to escape their graves.
Cian stared in amazement as the mummified corpse of a woman struggled out of the ground at his feet. He sidestepped her as she stumbled forward and another corpse rose up behind her.
Etzli screamed as several lurched toward her. But most of the dead struggling out of the ground under the house were moving toward Santos. A few beat against the door to the patio trying to escape and get to the vampires partying outside. They were in various degrees of decay and some were nothing more than bone.
Santos recovered his shock and dove for a decorative sword on the wall. As the dead moved toward him with their hands raised to grab hold of him and pull him down into their grave with them, he began to slash at them.
Cian quickly leaped upward and landed on the ceiling. Crawling quickly over to the shocked Amaliya, he began to work on the rope binding her to the chandelier. She slowly looked up at him, her eyes glowing white.
“Wow,” she whispered, staring at him as he moved about on the ceiling.
He held onto her as the knot came free and swung her up next to him. He held her close as he pulled out a switchblade and began to cut through her bindings.
Santos was now sliding up the wall, slashing downward as the dead drew blood from his flesh, trying to tear him limb from limb. They were eerily silent as they reached for him.
Somewhere outside, several men and women began to scream as the dead attacked them, seeking vengeance.
Cian finally got the plastic cuffs off Amaliya and pulled her along behind him. None of the dead seemed interested in them. The corpses filled the room below them with their rotting flesh. Etzli continued to scream and leaped up onto the chandelier where Amaliya had hung.
The two vampires fro
m Austin slithered along the tops of the walls and made their way out of the house as it filled with the dead. As they crawled upside down, they saw a few of Santos' women curled up in the corners of the ceiling, trying to evade their resurrected victims below them.
Though Cian knew the vampires could probably tear the corpses apart with their bare hands, there was something inherently terrifying about the raised dead. Even he felt it. A vampire felt pain and could be stopped. These things seemed immune to pain and even as some of them were ripped apart by the struggling vampires trying to escape them, the dead continued their assault with silent determination.
The front door was open and Cian pulled his body through, then reached back to help Amaliya out. Together, they leaped to the ground and ran to Cian's car. The dead did not even acknowledge their presence.
“Why aren't they attacking us?”
“It was your curse. You told them to attack the ones who killed them,” Cian answered, unlocking the car.
“Oh,” Amaliya seemed unaware of her glowing white eyes. “Oh, yeah. I said that. ”