Page 56 of Death Dance

With a frown, my husband got out his phone, pressed a button, and held it to his ear. “Charlie, sorry to bother you again, but do you know where we might be able to source some bone stakes? Pepper had an idea, and I think it might be a sound one. Might bone stakes for a necromantic vampire be something worth sending off with each group? Okay, good. I’ll let Pepper know. When can you go get them? Great. Thanks.”

I raised a brow. “Well?”

“Your father is going to fly to shore and fetch a stash of them. Unbeknownst to me, he has carved many a bone stake, and they have been waiting for something. For what, he hadn’t guessed—but now he thinks he knows. Good thought. It never would have occurred to me we might not be able to use wooden stakes on a vampire with necromantic abilities.”

I scowled, wishing I could just strangle Breckenan and be done with him. “It’s just a guess, but he can walk under the sun with that magic.”

“It’s not unreasonable to think he might be able to resist wood stakes. At this point, I want anyone coming close to him to be armed with every weapon possible. I’ll even have our hunters stab him with all stake types if it gets the job done. They might be annoyed with me for the unnecessary exercise, but at this stage? Let them be annoyed.” My husband scowled. “Right now, we both need to drink some blood and get some rest. Once we get up, we’ll check on the girls and make a plan.”

Sleep would help in more ways than one, and if my husband wanted to run away from our problems for a few hours, I wouldn’t argue.

Tomorrow would bring us one day closer to the end of Jeremy Breckenan, and that was all that mattered.

Thirty minutes after sunset the next night, Anne and Darcy woke as vampires, and to keep them from waking the predators within them, their uncle offered them mashed potato volcanoes loaded with blood-infused gravy. It worked, and in the hours that followed, change swept throughout the ship. While everyone had boarded the ship determined, the violence against the twins had roused the beast of vengeance.

Any other day, any other situation, I may have cared more about mercy and justice. Until the bastard behind everything was vanquished, such pleasantries would need to wait.

There was no room for hesitancy, and the crimes against the twins would prove to be Breckenan’s fatal mistake.

Even good people fighting for good causes could bloody their hands and engage in acts of pure evil when provoked. If the vile miscreant had intended to gain an upper hand through his willingness to perform atrocities while we wouldn’t, he would learn of his folly soon enough.

Good and evil were the opposite faces of the same coin, and we’d all made the decision to light matches and watch Breckenan’s world burn.

Much like the soulless divine entity that had birthed the Originals and my father, we would sweep into Europe and get the job done without faltering.

Of us all, I feared my father would be the one to be feared.

Only the brightest light could bring forth the deepest darkness—and only the deepest darkness could allow for the brightest light to shine.

One coin, two faces.

My father gathered everyone except for Robert and his nieces in the largest of the ballrooms, and he came armed with enough stakes I questioned what sort of monstrous avian form he could assume to have been able to fly them all over in the matter of a single day.

Not a single one of them had been aboard at our departure, or so he claimed.

“My daughter and her husband brought up an excellent point for our consideration,” my father announced, and his voice carried over the still and quiet gathering. “Our traditional stakes might not suffice for laying Breckenan and his brood to their final rest, so I have gathered what stockpiles I could of our other weaponry. From bone stakes to holy relics, if you thought it was myth or legend, it is probable it is now here and ready to be taken up against our prey. If you are looking for justice, you will not find it here. There is nothing just in what we are about to do. Jeremy Breckenan will not receive a trial, there will be no jury. We are the judges of his fate, and he has been condemned to the final dark for what he has wrought. In a way, there is some justice; he will never again be able to repeat his vile deeds against others. We will have to make that be enough.”

Everyone waited, the soft sound of breathing the only noise in the spacious chamber. I eyed the pile.

My father had taken great care to raise me to be skeptical, and I struggled with the idea there was a fine line between what each person believed and that belief having the power to become a reality. The stakes made sense to me. My personal experiences promised the stakes were worthy of respect.

Considering I wore a cross often, as Emerick liked how it looked around my throat, I wondered just how effective the rest might be.

Then again, maybe the objects weren’t useful against vampires but other preternatural beings.

Like necromancers.

My father picked up a sun-bleached bone, which had been carved into the shape of a stake. To my astonishment, the tip was fashioned of blue and white opal. “This is the first new weapon in our arsenal. These bone stakes were carved from a mix of mammoth tusk, bone, and other animals, some of which have been extinct for longer than any of us have been alive. Bone stakes come in a variety of types. Opal stakes, like this one, are saved as a last resort. They are among the more powerful of bone stakes, but they take the longest to recharge and require a great deal of care. We have enough opal stakes for everyone to have one, so they will be distributed afterwards. Pepper, you will take this one. I carved it myself a very long time ago.”

Doting parent. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, stepped around the pile of weapons, and took the stake from my father.

It sang in a whisper, promising peace. “How did you get all of this here so quickly?”

“I abused my uncles. We also made use of a helicopter or three. The Europeans are gathering more tools for the battle. By the time we are done, Breckenan will feel like he is expected to fight against swords with a toothpick.”

Good. “I would rather use a machine gun against his toothpick. What do you have for me that’s the equivalent of a machine gun in his toothpick fight?”

My father made a thoughtful sound, considered the pile of eclectic objects, and picked up a small wooden bowl, which had more than a few cracks and worn edges around the rim. After turning it over in his hands a few times, he offered it to me.