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Back Up From the Grave Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Dedication
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. An excerpt from Halfway to the Grave
  44. An excerpt from One Foot in the Grave
  45. An excerpt from At Grave’s End
  46. An excerpt from Destined for an Early Grave
  47. An excerpt from This Side of the Grave
  48. An excerpt from One Grave at a Time
  49. About the Author
  50. By Jeaniene Frost
  51. Copyright
  52. About the Publisher

Katie was one life against millions. Multiple millions, adding in the fact that humans would be collateral damage if vampires and ghouls ever engaged in an all-out war. We wouldn’t only be fighting our enemies trying to keep her alive. We’d be fighting our allies, too. I’d do everything in my power to prevent a young girl from being sacrificed for the greater good, but as my long list of past regrets proved, sometimes, my best wasn’t good enough.

Please, God, let it be good enough this time.

Mencheres took that moment to enter the room. With his bat ears, he would’ve overheard everything we’d said, but he made no argument, and that was akin to his full agreement.

“We’ve recovered some data,” he stated. “Come and see.”

Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven

When Mencheres had said his “people” were working on the drives we’d brought back from Madigan’s compound, I’d assumed he meant vampires. When we followed him to the room he’d converted into a tech lover’s paradise, however, the black-haired boy beaming at his computer was human. And he looked about seventeen years old.

“I am the shee-it,” the adolescent said in a singsong voice. Then he swung around, smirking at the nearly five-thousand-year-old Egyptian vampire.

“Who’s your daddy, M?”

Far from being offended, Mencheres went over and flawlessly executed a street-style handshake complete with finger slaps, fist bumps, and a high-low finale.

“You are the shit,” he solemnly agreed.

I couldn’t stay silent anymore.

“You used a teenager to salvage information sensitive enough to cause a worldwide war?”

Mencheres gave me a tolerant look. “Most vampires are slower to embrace technology than the average senior citizen. Tai is loyal, and he has been writing code since before you learned how to text.”

The boy grinned at me.

“Don’t worry, sugar, I know how to keep quiet. Besides, M is one of my mains.”

Bones raised a brow at the “sugar” comment, but I waved it off.

“Okay, Tai, show us what you’ve got.”

Like a switch had been flipped, the teenager became all business.

“I had to piece this together because the drives were so torched, the files were fragmented. Then I weeded through what M said you didn’t need, like genome findings and experiment logs. Lots of those—”

“Intact?” I interrupted. They might not help us find Madigan’s backer, but they could be useful for insight on Katie.

A grunt.

“Are now. Anyway, to the good stuff. They must’ve had cameras rigged all over the room she fought in, because this file”—his fingers flew across the keyboard—“has the best images of your tiny Godzilla in action.”