Fall of Night (The Morganville Vampires)
Page 31
‘You turned on us,’ Eve said. ‘You made Shane turn on us, too, didn’t you?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Claire whispered. ‘But it was all out of control, Eve. I didn’t know how else to do it.’
Eve stared at her for another long, painful moment, and then reached her hand back. Claire didn’t know what to do for a second, then she grabbed hold. ‘Don’t ever do it again,’ Eve said. ‘I don’t like feeling that way, okay? It’s the four of us, always. Promise.’
‘I promise,’ Claire said. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she cried a little, holding Eve’s hand. ‘I promise.’
Shane wasn’t asleep after all, because he sat up, put his arm around Claire, and said, ‘We promise.’
‘You’d better, jerkface,’ Eve said. ‘How’s the head?’
‘Taped,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. Chicks dig scars. Wait, did you just call me jerkface? Are we back in grade school?’
‘I love you,’ Eve said.
He closed his mouth, fast, because obviously that was not what he’d expected. ‘I, uh, okay. Love you too. Can we stop that? It’s uncomfortable.’
‘Jerkface.’
‘Much better.’
In the morning, Shane became the designated driver of one of the trucks, and Jesse took command of the other. They got as far as they could, and then Oliver booked them hotel rooms that night. He, Myrnin and Jesse each got their own accommodations; Michael and Eve, of course, shared theirs.
Oliver handed Shane and Claire each key cards. ‘I have no knowledge of, nor interest in, your current relationship,’ he said. ‘Use both, use one, use neither, or sleep in the van. Whatever you choose that involves me the least.’ Like Jesse and Myrnin, Oliver was looking absolutely exhausted. He kept Irene Anderson with him, but Myrnin had – in Shane’s terms – whammied her into submission. She stayed passive, and Oliver didn’t even need to tie her up.
Claire didn’t want to know what Oliver intended to do with her. She still couldn’t quite bring herself to care.
She paused with her suitcase at the door of her room, and looked down the hall. Shane was puzzling out his own key card, finding out which way the arrow went into the lock; he sensed her looking, and sent her a nod.
Claire nodded back, walked into her room, and set the suitcase on the bed. She stripped her clothes off – clothes she never intended to wear again – and got into the shower. The hotel’s shampoo and conditioner smelt like honey and ginger, and the soap smelt like lime; she decided that she would end up smelling like someone’s kitchen pantry, but at least it was better than how she’d been smelling, like sewers and blood and fear.
She put on a clean pair of jeans, a plain blue top, and walked down to Shane’s room. She knocked.
He answered. He’d been in the shower, too … his hair was still damp, and he was wearing the hotel bathrobe.
‘Hi,’ she said, and came in. She closed the door behind her. ‘I don’t want to spend another night alone, if that’s okay with you.’
‘You seriously think I might object to that.’
‘No,’ she said, and stepped in closer to take hold of the tie of his robe. ‘But how about this? Any objections?’ She untied one loop of the knot, and hesitated. He was watching her with a strangely vulnerable intensity. ‘Shane?’
‘I love you,’ he said. It came out in a rush, as if he couldn’t wait to get it out. ‘I love you and Jesus, you scare me. Having to give you up was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Claire; I can’t do it again. Please tell me – please tell me that you’re coming back for good. Or at least, if you leave, let me go with you.’
‘You came with me this time.’
‘I followed you. I didn’t come with you.’ It seemed to be important to him that she understand the difference. And she did, she really did.
‘I needed to be away from Morganville,’ she told him then, ‘and I needed to be sure what it was I really wanted. Do I want what I had back there, for a little while? That normal life? It was nice, Shane, but … but it’s not me. Not any more. It’s too late for me to live that life. But not too late for us to live our life together. If you still want—’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I want. If you don’t believe me, untie the rest of the knot.’
She laughed a little, and moved into his arms. The kiss started soft, turned urgent and sweet and damp, and then he walked her back to the feathery hotel bed and stretched her out on the duvet. Everything seemed warm, and in its comfort, in his comfort, she floated.
No. In his comfort, in his warmth, in his passion, she flew.
And when she floated back to earth, he was still there, warm and safe, holding her.
Before she drifted off to sleep, he kissed her hand. No, the ring that he’d given her, that promise of a someday-life together.
After all the grief, all the guilt, all the horror of the night and the day … he was the one thing that held it back.
He was the thing that would always give her that safe, warm space that made it possible to breathe.
In the morning, they started for Morganville.
It took another two solid days of driving, day and night, with brief stops at motels for showers and naps, but finally, they rolled past the familiar, antique faded glory of the WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE billboard. And they were greeted by the flashing lights of a police car, coming toward them at high speed.
Shane pulled over, and Jesse nosed her SUV in behind him on the side of the road. Shane stretched and yawned and said, ‘Damn, I never actually thought I’d be happy to see this place again, but I am seriously missing my bed.’ Michael, behind them, leant over the seat to slap Shane on the shoulder.
‘Me too, man,’ he said. ‘If I have to spend another day in this car wearing hats and tarps to keep the sun off, I think I’m going to need some kind of tranquilliser.’
‘Hey, we had fun,’ Eve said, and pinched his earlobe. ‘In the sense of next to none at all, I mean. Next time, can we at least stop at a mall? Maybe see a movie? Avoid the mass murders of our enemies, maybe?’
‘Promise,’ Michael agreed, but it was an absent kind of comment, and he leant forward to peer out through the dark windows. ‘Is that Sheriff Moses?’
‘Looks like,’ Shane said. He opened the SUV’s door and stepped out as Hannah Moses approached. She wasn’t alone, Claire realised; there were two other men with her, dressed in Morganville PD uniforms. And more police cars coming, lights flashing.
Too many for comfort.
Somehow, Claire wasn’t too surprised when Hannah drew her gun. Shane slowly raised his hands.
‘I’m sorry about this, Shane,’ she said. ‘But laws are laws, and I don’t want you doing anything stupid. You too, Claire, Michael, Eve – all of you, out of the car. Now.’
All the good feelings were gone, Claire thought, and she climbed down from the truck’s cab to stand next to Shane, leaning against the fender. Michael and Eve got out, too. Wind shivered over the desert, and drew icy fingers down Claire’s face. The other police car parked behind the second SUV, and more cops arrived, all pointing guns.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Oliver demanded, as he got out of the second vehicle. Myrnin stepped down with him, dark eyes flashing around in restless motion, cataloguing everyone and everything. Jesse joined them, and she held Irene Anderson still as the professor tried to pull away. ‘There’s surely no question of our right to entry!’
‘Not at all,’ Hannah said. ‘But we have something we have to take care of first.’ She stepped up, fastened handcuffs around Shane’s wrists, then Claire’s, then Eve’s. ‘I’ll need that lady over there, too. Paul, put some cuffs on her and bring her over here. Michael, if you would, please stand over there.’ She pointed at Irene Anderson, who was escorted over and handcuffed. Michael went to stand next to the other van.
It was weird and confusing, but there was no reason not to trust her; Hannah seemed the same as she always had. Competent, calm, professional.
It was only as th
ey did it that Claire realised that Hannah had just separated the humans … from the vampires.
And then the cops stepped back, and two others stepped forward with double-loaded crossbows. It happened fast, so fast. Four quick shots, deadly accurate to the heart, and the vampires went down. Jesse first, then Myrnin, then Oliver and Michael almost in the same instant.
Eve screamed. Claire didn’t. It’s wood, she told herself. They’re staked with wood. They’re not dead. But she didn’t know why this was happening, and worse, she didn’t know why Hannah was doing it.
‘Hannah?’ Her voice sounded small and confused, and the police chief looked at her with sympathy, and no small amount of pity.
‘They’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘But they’ll be taken to a safe place. I’m sorry, Claire. I’m sorry for everything. But it’s for the best.’
‘Amelie’s going to—’
‘Amelie’s not in charge,’ Hannah interrupted. ‘We are. For the first time, the humans have taken complete control of Morganville, with the help of the Daylight Foundation. And the vampires are being quarantined for their own protection.’
‘What are you doing to them?’ Eve cried. She was fighting to get free, to get to Michael, but that wasn’t going to happen.
‘We’re going to help them,’ Hannah said. She sounded utterly sure of what she was saying. ‘We’re going to help them get better.’
All this sounded like what Shane and Captain Obvious and so many others had been wanting for years, Claire thought. A Morganville run by humans, not by vampires.
Then why did it feel so wrong?
‘We’ll be okay,’ Shane said to her. It sounded like a prayer. ‘It’s all going to be okay.’
Somehow … Claire didn’t think so.
TRACK LIST
Music gives me the road map for the story, and I hope you’ll take a musical journey with me and explore these songs and artists. Please pay the musicians for their great work, too. They need your support.
‘Too Close’ Alex Clare
‘Let Her Go’ Passenger
‘You Spin Me Round’ Dope
‘The Departure’ Signs of Betrayal
‘Girls in the Back’ White Rose Movement
‘(I’m The One That’s) Cool’ The Guild
‘DLZ’ TV on the Radio
‘Stronger (Piano Mix)’ Fallzone
‘Animal’ Ellie Goulding
‘The Way It Ends’ Landon Pigg
‘Save Yourself’ June Halo
‘’Til The Casket Drops’ ZZ Ward
‘Soulgate (feat. Lilith)’ The Wolf Meyer Orchestra
‘Old Man’ Redlight King
‘The Riddle’ Random Rab
‘Unstoppable’ Pop Evil
‘Top Drawer’ Man Man
‘Bedroom Hymns’ Florence + The Machine
‘Devils’ Say Hi
‘Love Bites (So Do I)’ Halestorm
‘Meyrin Fields’ Broken Bells
‘Fool Notion’ The Black Sorrows
‘Never Let Me Go’ Florence + The Machine
‘Violet Hill’ Coldplay
‘Soil to the Sun’ Cage the Elephant
‘Undisclosed Desires’ Muse
‘Be Somebody’ Thousand Foot Krutch
‘Short Skirt/Long Jacket’ Cake
‘Bang Bang Bang Bang’ Sohodolls
‘Propane Nightmares’ Pendulum
‘Feel Again’ OneRepublic
‘Brictom’ Eluveitie
‘A Sorta Fairytale’ Tori Amos
‘The Bomb (Original Version)’ The New Young Pony Club
‘Sticks and Stones’ The Pierces
‘Watchman, What is Left of the Night?’ Greycoats
‘Palaistinalied’ Qntal
‘You Make the Rain Fall’ Kevin Rudolf & Flo Rida
‘Jager Yoga’ CSS
‘Stardog’ Adler’s Appetite
‘The Ghost Who Walks’ Karen Elson
‘Hopelessly Stoned’ Hugo
‘Sleep Alone’ Bat for Lashes
‘Old Spur Line’ Legendary Shack Shakers
‘I Drive Alone’ Esthero
‘Trinity’ Paper Tongues
‘Take Her From You’ Dev
‘Try’ Pink
‘Make Me Like the Moon’ Greycoats
‘The Stations’ The Gutter Twins
‘Idle Hands’ The Gutter Twins
‘Beautiful Killer’ Madonna
‘Meant’ Elizaveta
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About the Author
RACHEL CAINE is the author of over thirty novels, including the bestselling Morganville Vampires series. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, an insurance investigator and a professional musician, and has played with such musical legends as Henry Mancini, Peter Nero and John Williams. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguana Pop-eye, a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley, and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).
www.rachelcaine.com
Available from
ALLISON & BUSBY
The Morganville Vampires series
Glass Houses • The Dead Girls’ Dance
Midnight Alley • Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule • Carpe Corpus
Fade Out • Kiss of Death
Ghost Town • Bite Club
Last Breath • Black Dawn
Bitter Blood •Fall of Night
Daylighters
The Morganville Vampires Omnibus:
Glass Houses, The Dead Girls’ Dance, Midnight Alley
The Morganville Vampires Omnibus:
Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus
The Weather Warden series
Ill Wind • Heat Stroke
Chill Factor • Windfall
Firestorm • Thin Air
Gale Force • Cape Storm
Total Eclipse
The Revivalist series
Working Stiff •Two Weeks’ Notice
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2013.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2013.
Copyright © 2013 by ROXANNE LONGSTREET CONRAD
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1358–5
The Morganville Vampires series so far…
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