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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

I tried to wrest the blade away for another strike, but Trove’s grip was too strong. He’d also grown two feet during our struggle, his form now dwarfing the vampire who held on to him with grim determination.

It wouldn’t be enough. We were both too weakened to hold Trove down long enough to slam the blade through his other eye. We needed to try something else. Anything else to gain an advantage.

For a brief moment, Bones’s dark brown eyes locked with mine as our faces aligned; him on Trove’s back, me in front engaged in a lethal game of tug-of-war. My gaze must have conveyed my desperation, because Bones did do something else. Something unthinkable.

His fangs slammed into Trove’s throat and he sucked so hard that the veins in his neck bulged. For a second, I was so horrified I froze. Bones knew demonically altered blood was akin to heroin for vampires! That’s why Denise had to keep her new nature a secret. Demonic blood used to be sold on the undead black market as a drug, and Law Guardians would execute her on the spot if they knew she was a source of it.

Trove let out another howl and tried to fling Bones off. He only succeeded in tearing open a larger feeding trough as Bones’s fangs sliced deeper from the jostling. Despite the demon’s frenetic efforts, Bones held on. Before my eyes, his movements became less sluggish and uncoordinated. Soon, he was gripping Trove with such ferocity that the demon had to let me go to keep Bones from chewing through his neck.

That’s when I understood. Depleted of all his usual power, with no human blood available to replenish it, Bones had turned to the only source available: Demon blood. With its narcotic properties for vampires, it gave Bones the same artificially inflated strength that a human on PCP experienced.

He probably didn’t feel it when Trove slammed them backward, crushing Bones against the floor with his new, larger frame. The concrete dented around them, and still Bones kept ripping at Trove’s neck, swallowing that crimson flow as fast as it appeared. Then his arms and legs wrapped around the demon, not releasing him even when Trove began smashing into everything in an attempt to get free.

This was my chance.

I leapt onto Trove, and for a few, mad moments, I was smashed and slammed right along with them. It felt like being stuck on the bottom of a concrete boulder that was rolling down a mountainside, but I couldn’t dwell on the pain as ribs snapped and bones crushed with the demon’s punishing movements. All I concentrated on was holding on to that knife, and when Trove propelled us into a corner, briefly wedging us between two intersecting networks of pipes, I struck.