Free The Vampire's Betrayal by Raven Hart Page A

the underworld, she was going to be on the lookout for other ways to make sure my girlfriend wouldn’t kill either of the men who raised her. I couldn’t really blame Melaphia. How could I? But I also couldn’t let her succeed.
    There was only one person in Savannah I could think of who might be able to give me some advice, and it wasn’t a person at all. Not a live one, anyway. I had to talk to Sullivan. He had been Connie’s friend in life. Maybe he had seen her when she went to the underworld or learned something valuable since he’d been dead.
    As the sun was still setting I had hauled my coffin on my back through the garage to the carriage house. I made a quick call to Rennie to make arrangements to pick up the black box and take it to my unit at the mini-storage before hopping into my Corvette for the drive to William’s plantation where Sullivan was buried.
    I roared to a stop beside the little family cemetery and let myself in through the wrought-iron gate. A cold breeze blew off the marsh waters, swaying the Spanish moss in the branches of the live oaks overhead. I heard the murmurs of the dead rising from graves here and there—greetings, entreaties, warm wishes. I didn’t let any of the spirits engage me, not even the ones with sweet, enticing female voices, but made my way directly to Sullivan’s little plot of earth.
    Visiting people’s graves was always a little humbling. Charismatic people like Sullivan cut a wide swath of influence in life. In death, he was reduced to a three by six rectangle of dirt. I sighed. “Sullivan. Are you there?”
    “Is a bear buried in the woods?” he asked.
    I heaved a sigh of relief as I hadn’t been 100 percent sure I’d be able to reach him.
    “Say, didn’t you bring me any flowers?”
    “That sounds kind of gay, dude.”
    “Just kidding.”
    “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to talk to you,” I said absently. I was still thinking about that age-old question of where the soul resides. I remembered how upset the spirits in Colonial Cemetery got when William went on a tirade and disturbed their graves. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. My sire went on to kill a couple of innocent people in the tunnels in a fit of rage. I’d never known him to do that in all my existence. It shook me up, to tell you the truth.
    “I’m always here. And always in the underworld. It’s kind of like having a split personality. A little part of your spirit always stays with your body, just enough to communicate, I guess.”
    “That makes sense,” I said. “One time I was able to raise a bunch of dead people to guard the harbor. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself.”
    “I heard about that,” Sullivan said. “I don’t know if you know what a big deal that was. Getting the dead to walk again isn’t easy. If a ghost that is reanimated from the grave gets up and walks topside, then its spirit goes into suspension in the underworld. I’m not sure what happens when someone is raised from the dead directly from the underworld. I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that before.”
    His voice had an otherworldly quality. It was a little spooky, to tell you the truth. “Sounds like all hell could bust loose.”
    “Very funny,” he said. “But I’ve heard that one before.”
    I really wasn’t trying to make a joke. My own power to reanimate the dead had creeped me out. It was a handy skill to have, but I hoped nobody ever asked me to do it again. Things could backfire on you quick; my friend Huey, who was a nice guy but also a smelly zombie, was living—er—lurching proof of that. The law of unintended consequences could be a bitch when you had a power that was hard to control.
    “Listen, Sully, I’ve got to ask you something. It’s really important.”
    “Shoot,” he said. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
    I explained to him what had happened with Connie, going into as much detail as I could remember about the angels’ Slayer ceremony.
    “Dude, your