He glanced at the path my knife had traced. “Is that supposed to frighten me?”
I pretended to consider the question. “Well, I’ve cut a bloody swath through the undead world ever since I was sixteen. Even earned myself the nickname of the Red Reaper, so if I’ve got a knife next to your heart, then yes, you should be afraid.”
His expression was still amused. “Right nasty wench you sound like, but I wager I could get free and have you on your back before you could stop me.”
Cocky bastard. “Talk is cheap. Prove it.”
His legs flashed out, knocking me off-balance. I sprang forward at once, but a hard, cool body flattened me to the cave floor in the next instant. An iron grip closed around my wrist, preventing me from raising the knife.
“Always pride before a fall,” he murmured in satisfaction.
ONE GRAVE AT A TIME
Cat’s “gift” from New Orleans’s voodoo queen just keeps on giving, and now a personal favor has led to doing battle against a villainous spirit. But how do you send a killer to the grave when he’s already dead?
“Every time I think I know all there is to know about Cat and Bones, Ms. Frost creates new layers of depth. . . . Prepare yourself for blood and gore galore, interspersed with tons of dark, witty humor, fierce fighting, and one-of-a-kind romance.”
Joyfully Reviewed
We summon you into our presence. Heed our call, Heinrich Kramer. Come to us now. We summon through the veil the spirit of Heinrich Kramer—”
Dexter let out a sharp noise that was part whine, part bark. Tyler quit speaking. I tensed, feeling the grate of invisible icicles across my skin again. Bones’s gaze narrowed at a point over my right shoulder. Slowly, I turned my head in that direction.
All I saw was a swirl of darkness before the Ouija board flew across the room—and the point of the little wooden planchette buried in Tyler’s throat.
I sprang up and tried to grab Tyler, only to be knocked backward like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer. Stunned, it took me a second to register that I was pinned to the wall by the desk, that dark cloud on the other side of it.
The ghost had successfully managed to use the desk as a weapon against me. If it hadn’t been still jabbed in my stomach, I wouldn’t even have believed it.
Bones threw the desk aside before I could, flinging it so hard that it split down the center when it hit the other wall. Dexter barked and jumped around, trying to bite the charcoal-colored cloud that was forming into the shape of a tall man. Tyler made a horrible gurgling noise, clutching his throat. Blood leaked out between his fingers.
“Bones, fix him. I’ll deal with this asshole.”
Dexter’s barks drowned out the sounds Tyler made as Bones slashed his palm with his fangs, then slapped it over Tyler’s mouth, ripping out the planchette at the same time.
Pieces of the desk suddenly became missiles that pelted the three of us. Bones spun around to take their brunt, shielding Tyler, while I jumped to cover the dog. A pained yelp let me know at least one had nailed Dexter before I got to him. Tyler’s gurgles became wrenching coughs.
“Boy, did you make a colossal fucking mistake,” I snarled, grabbing a piece of the ruined desk. Then I stood up, still blocking the dog from any more objects the ghost could lob at him. He’d materialized enough for me to see white hair swirling around a craggy, wrinkled face. The ghost hadn’t been young when he died, but the shoulders underneath his dark tunic weren’t bowed from age. They were squared in arrogance, and the green eyes boring into mine held nothing but contempt.
“Hure,” the ghost muttered before thrusting his hand into my neck and squeezing like he was about to choke me. I felt a stronger than normal pins-and-needles sensation but didn’t flinch. If this schmuck thought to terrify me with a cheap parlor trick like that, wait until he saw my first abracadabra.
“Heinrich Kramer?” I asked almost as an afterthought. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t him, he would regret what he did, but I wanted to know whose ass I was about to kick.
About the Author
JEANIENE FROST is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of the Night Huntress series and the Night Huntress World novels. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to nineteen different countries. Jeaniene lives in North Carolina with her husband, Matthew, who long ago accepted that she rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking, and traveling—by car. Airplanes, children, and cookbooks frighten her.
To know more about Jeaniene, please visit her website at www.jeanienefrost.com.
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By Jeaniene Frost
UP FROM THE GRAVE
TWICE TEMPTED
ONCE BURNED
ONE GRAVE AT A TIME
THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE
ETERNAL KISS OF DARKNESS
FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON
DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE
AT GRAVE’S END
ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE
HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpts from Halfway to the Grave; One Foot in the Grave; At Grave’s End; Destined for an Early Grave; This Side of the Grave; One Grave at a Time copyright © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 by Jeaniene Frost.
UP FROM THE GRAVE. Copyright © 2014 by Jeaniene Frost. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780062075840
Print Edition ISBN 9780062076113
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Jeaniene Frost, Up From the Grave
(Series: Night Huntress # 7)
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