by Rachel Caine
Oliver braced his elbows on his thighs and hid his pale face in his hands. When she started to speak, he said, softly, “Leave me.”
It didn’t seem a good idea to argue. Claire backed off and returned to where Myrnin was, on the couch.
He blinked, still staring at the ceiling. He folded his hands slowly across his stomach, but didn’t otherwise move.
“Myrnin?”
“Present,” he said, from what seemed like a very great distance away. He chuckled very softly, then winced. “Hurts when I laugh.”
“Yeah, um—I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” A very slight frown worked its way between Myrnin’s eyebrows, made a slow V, and then went on its way. “Ah. Staked me.”
“I . . . uh . . . yeah.” She knew what Oliver’s reaction would have been, if she’d done that kind of thing to him, and the outcome wouldn’t have been pretty. She wasn’t sure what Myrnin might do. Just to be sure, she stayed out of easy-grabbing distance.
Myrnin simply closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. He looked old now, exhausted, like Oliver. “I’m sure it was for the best,” he said. “Perhaps you should have left the wood in place. Better for everyone, in the end. I would have just—faded away. It’s not very painful, not comparatively.”
“No!” She took a step closer, then another. He just looked so—defeated. “Myrnin, don’t. We need you.”
He didn’t open his eyes, but there was a tiny, tired smile curving his lips. “I’m sure you think you do, but you have what you need now. I found the cure for you, Claire. Bishop’s blood. It’s time to let me go. It’s too late for me to get better.”
“I don’t believe that.”
This time, his great dark eyes opened and studied her with cool intensity. “I see you don’t,” he said. “Whether or not that assumption is reasonable, that’s another question entirely. Where is she?”
He was asking about Amelie. Claire glanced at Oliver, still hunched over, clearly in pain. No help. She bent closer to Myrnin. No way she wouldn’t be overheard by the other vampires, though, she knew that. “She’s—I don’t know. We got separated. The last I saw, she and Bishop were fighting it out.”
Myrnin sat up. It wasn’t the kind of smooth, controlled motion vampires usually had, as though they’d been practicing it for three or four human lifetimes; he had to pull himself up, slowly and painfully, and it hurt Claire to watch. She put her hand against his shoulder blade to brace him. His skin still felt marble-cold, but not dead. It was hard to figure out what the difference was—maybe it was the muscles, underneath, tensed and alive again.
“We have to find her,” he said. “Bishop will stop at nothing to get her, if he hasn’t already. Once you were safely away, she’d have retreated. Amelie is a guerrilla fighter. It’s not like her to fight in the open, not against her father.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Oliver said, without taking his head out of his hands. “And neither are you, Myrnin.”
“You owe her your fealty.”
“I owe nothing to the dead,” Oliver said. “And until I see proof of her survival, I will not sacrifice my life, or anyone else’s, in a futile attempt at rescue.”
Myrnin’s face twisted in contempt. “You haven’t changed,” he said.
“Neither have you, fool,” Oliver murmured. “Now shut up. My head aches.”
Eve was pulling shots behind the counter, wearing a formal black apron that went below her knees. Claire slid wearily onto a barstool on the other side. “Wow,” she said. “Flashback to the good times, huh?”
Eve made a sour face as she thumped a mocha down in front of her friend. “Yeah, don’t remind me,” she said. “Although I have to say, I missed the Monster.”
“The Monster?”
Eve patted the giant, shiny espresso machine beside her affectionately. “Monster, meet Claire. Claire, meet the Monster. He’s a sweetie, really, but you have to know his moods.”
Claire reached out and patted the machine, too. “Nice to meet you, Monster.”
“Hey.” Eve caught her wrist when she tried to pull back. “Bruises? What gives?”
Amelie’s grip on her really had raised a crop of faint blue smudges on her upper arm, like a primitive tattoo. “Don’t freak. I don’t have any bite marks or anything.”
“I’ll freak if I wanna. As long as Michael isn’t here, I’m kind of—”
“What, my mom?” Claire snapped, and was instantly sorry. And guilty, for an entirely different reason. “I didn’t mean—”
Eve waved it away. “Hey, if you can’t spark a ’tude on a day like this, when can you? Your mother’s okay, by the way, because I know that’s your next question. So far, Bishop’s freaks haven’t managed to shut down the cell network, so I’ve been keeping in touch, since nothing’s happening here except for some serious caffeine production. Landlines are dead, though. So is the Internet. Radio and TV are both off the air, too.”
Claire looked at the clock. Five a.m. Two hours until dawn, more or less—probably less. It felt like an eternity.
“What are we going to do in the morning?” she asked.
“Good question.” Eve wiped down the counter. Claire sipped the sweet, chocolatey comfort of the mocha. “When you think of something, let us know, because right now, I don’t think anybody’s got a clue.”
“You’d be wrong, thankfully,” Oliver said. He seemed to come out of nowhere—God, didn’t Claire hate that!—as he settled on the stool next to her. He seemed almost back to normal now, but very tired. There was a shadow in his eyes that Claire didn’t remember seeing before. “There is a plan in place. Amelie’s removal from the field of battle is a blow, but not a defeat. We continue as she would want.”
“Yeah? You want to tell us?” Eve asked. That earned her a cool stare. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Vampires really aren’t all about the sharing, unless it benefits them first.”
“I will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it,” Oliver said. “Get me one of the bags from the walk-in refrigerator.”
Eve looked down at the top of her apron. “Oh, I’m sorry, where does it say servant on here? Because I’m so very not.”
For a second, Claire held her breath, because the expression on Oliver’s face was murderous, and she saw a red light, like the embers of a banked fire, glowing in the back of his eyes.
Then he blinked and said, simply, “Please, Eve.”
Eve hadn’t been expecting that. She blinked, stared back at him for a second, then silently nodded and walked away, behind a curtained doorway.
“You’re wondering if that hurt,” Oliver said, not looking at Claire at all, but staring after Eve. “It did, most assuredly.”
“Good,” she said. “I hear suffering’s good for the soul, or something.”
“Then we shall all be right with our God by morning.” Oliver swiveled on the stool to look her full in the face. “I should kill you for what you did.”
“Staking Myrnin?” She sighed. “I know. I didn’t think I had a choice. He’d have bitten my hand off if I’d tried to give him the medicine, and by the time it took effect, me and Hannah would have been dog food, anyway. It seemed like the quickest, quietest way to get him out.”
“Even so,” Oliver said, his voice low in his throat, “as an Elder, I have the power to sentence you, right now, to death, for attempted murder of a vampire. You do understand?”
Claire held up her hand and pointed to the gold bracelet on her wrist—the symbol of the Founder. Amelie’s symbol. “What about this?”
“I would pay reparations,” he said. “I imagine I could afford it. Amelie would be tolerably upset with me, for a while, always assuming she is still alive. We’d reach an accommodation. We always do.”
Claire didn’t say anything else in her defense, just waited. And after a moment, he nodded. “All right,” he said. “You were right to take the action you did. You have been right about a good deal that I was unwilling to admit, including the
fact that some of us are”—he cast a quick look around, and dropped his voice so low she could make out the word only from the shape his lips gave it—“unwell.”
Unwell. Yeah, that was one way to put it. She resisted an urge to roll her eyes. How about dying? Ever heard the word pandemic?
Oliver continued without waiting for her response. “Myrnin’s mind was . . . very disordered,” he said. “I didn’t think I could get him back. I wouldn’t have, without that dose of medication.”
“Does that mean you believe us now?” She meant, about the vampire disease, but she couldn’t say that out loud. Even the roundabout way they were speaking was dangerous; too many vampire ears with too little to do, and once they knew about the sickness, there was no predicting what they might do. Run, probably. Go off to rampage through the human world, sicken, and die alone, very slowly. It’d take years, maybe decades, but eventually, they’d all fall, one by one. Oliver’s case was less advanced than many of the others, but age seemed to slow down the disease’s progress; he might last for a long time, losing himself slowly.
Becoming nothing more than a hungry shell.
Oliver said, “It means what it means,” and he said it with an impatient edge to it, but Claire wondered if he really did know. “I am talking about Myrnin. Your drugs may not be enough to hold him for long, and that means we will need to take precautions.”
Eve emerged from the curtain carrying a plastic blood bag, filled with dark cherry syrup. That was what Claire told herself, anyway. Dark cherry syrup. Eve looked shaken, and she dumped the bag on the counter in front of Oliver like a dead rat. “You’ve been planning this,” she said. “Planning for a siege.”
Oliver smiled slowly. “Have I?”
“You’ve got enough blood in there to feed half the vampires in town for a month, and enough of those heat-and-eat meals campers use to feed the rest of us even longer. Medicines, too. Pretty much anything we’d need to hold out here, including generators, batteries, bottled water. . . .”
“Let’s say I am cautious,” he said. “It’s a trait many of us have picked up during our travels.” He took the blood bag and motioned for a cup; when Eve set it in front of him, he punctured the bag with a fingernail, very neatly, and squeezed part of the contents into the cup. “Save the rest,” he said, and handed it back to Eve, who looked even queasier than before. “Don’t look so disgusted. Blood in bags means none taken unwillingly from your veins, after all.”
Eve held it at arm’s length, opened the smaller refrigerator behind the bar, and put it in an empty spot on the door rack inside. “Ugh,” she said. “Why am I behind the bar again?”
“Because you put on the apron.”
“Oh, you’re just loving this, aren’t you?”
“Guys,” Claire said, drawing both of their stares. “Myrnin. Where are we going to put him?”
Before Oliver could answer, Myrnin pushed through the crowd in the table-and-chairs area of Common Grounds and walked toward them. He seemed normal again, or as normal as Myrnin ever got, anyway. He’d begged, borrowed, or outright stolen a long, black velvet coat, and under it he was still wearing the poofy white Pierrot pants from his costume, dark boots, and no shirt. Long, black, glossy hair and decadently shining eyes.
Oliver took in the outfit, and raised a brow. “You look like you escaped from a Victorian brothel,” he said. “One that . . . specialized.”
In answer, Myrnin skinned up the sleeves of the coat. The wound in his back might have healed—or might be healing, anyway—but the burns on his wrists and hands were still livid red, with an unhealthy silver tint to them. “Not the sort of brothel I’d normally frequent, by choice,” he said, “though of course you might be more adventurous, Oliver.” Their gazes locked, and Claire resisted the urge to take a step back. She thought, just for a second, that they were going to bare fangs at each other . . . and then Myrnin smiled. “I suppose I should say thank you.”
“It would be customary,” Oliver agreed.
Myrnin turned to Claire. “Thank you.”
Somehow, she guessed that wasn’t what Oliver had expected; she certainly hadn’t. It was the kind of snub that got most people hurt in Morganville, but then again, she guessed Myrnin wasn’t most people, even to Oliver.
Oliver didn’t react. If there was a small red glow in the depths of his eyes, it could have been a reflection from the lights.
“Um—for what?” Claire asked.
“I remember what you did.” Myrnin shrugged. “It was the right choice at the moment. I couldn’t control myself. The pain . . . the pain was extremely difficult to contain.”
She cast a nervous glance at his wrists. “How is it now?”
“Tolerable.” His tone dismissed any further discussion. “We need to get to a portal and locate Amelie. The closest is at the university. We will need a car, I suppose, and a driver. Some sturdy escorts wouldn’t go amiss.” Myrnin sounded casual, but utterly certain that his slightest wish would be obeyed, and again, she felt that flare of tension between him and Oliver.
“Perhaps you’ve missed the announcement,” Oliver said. “You’re no longer a king, or a prince, or whatever you were before you disappeared into your filthy hole. You’re Amelie’s exotic pet alchemist, and you don’t give me orders. Not in my town.”
“Your town,” Myrnin repeated, staring at him intently. His face had set into pleasant, rigid lines, but those eyes—not pleasant at all. Claire moved herself prudently out of the way. “What a surprise! I thought it was the Founder’s town.”
Oliver looked around. “Oddly, she seems unavailable, and that makes it my town, little man. So go and sit down. You’re not going anywhere. If she’s in trouble—which I do not yet believe—and if there’s rescuing to be done, we will consider all the risks.”
“And the benefits of not acting at all?” Myrnin asked. His voice was wound as tight as a clock spring. “Tell me, Old Ironsides, how you plan to win this campaign. I do hope you don’t plan to reenact Drogheda.”
Claire had no idea what that meant, but it meant something to Oliver, something bitter and deep, and his whole face twisted for a moment.
“We’re not fighting the Irish campaigns, and whatever errors I made once, I’ll not be making them again,” Oliver said. “And I don’t need advice from a blue-faced hedge witch.”
“There’s the old Puritan spirit!”
Eve slapped the bar hard. “Hey! Whatever musty old prejudices the two of you have rattling around in your heads, stop. We’re here, twenty-first century, USA, and we’ve got problems that don’t include your ancient history!”
Myrnin blinked, looked at Eve, and smiled. It was his seductive smile, and it came with a lowering of his thick eyelashes. “Sweet lady,” he said, “could you get me one of those delicious drinks you prepared for my friend, here?” He gracefully indicated Oliver, who remembered the cup of blood still sitting in front of him, and angrily choked it down. “Perhaps warm the bag a bit in hot water first? It’s a bit disgusting, cold.”
“Yeah, sure,” Eve sighed. “Want a shot of espresso with that?”
Myrnin seemed to be honestly considering it. Claire urgently shook her head no. The last thing she—any of them—needed just now was Myrnin on caffeine.
As Eve walked away to prepare Myrnin’s drink, Oliver shook himself out of his anger with a physical twitch, took a deep breath, and said, “It’s less than two hours to dawn. Even if something has happened to Amelie—which again, I dispute—it’s too risky to launch a search just now. If Bishop has Amelie, he’ll have her some place that’ll hold against an assault in any case. Two hours isn’t enough time, and I won’t risk our people in the dawn.”
Myrnin flicked a glance toward Claire. “Some of those here aren’t affected by the dawn.”
“Some of them are also highly vulnerable,” Oliver said. “I wouldn’t send a human out after Bishop. I wouldn’t send a human army out after Bishop, unless you’re planning to deduce his location from th
e corpses he leaves behind.”
For a horrified second, Myrnin actually mulled that over, and then he shook his head. “He’d hide the bodies,” he said regretfully. “A useful suggestion, though.”
Claire couldn’t tell if he was mocking Oliver, or if he really meant it. Oliver couldn’t tell, either, from the long, considering look he gave him.
Oliver turned his attention to her. “Tell me everything.”
6
In an hour, the blush of dawn was already on the horizon, bringing an eerie blue glow to the night world. Somewhere out there, vampires all over town would be getting ready for it, finding secure places to stay the day—whatever side they were fighting on.
The ones in Common Grounds seemed content to stay on, which made sense; it was kind of a secured location anyway, from what Oliver and Amelie had said before—one of the key places in town to hold if they intended to keep control of Morganville.
But Claire wasn’t entirely happy with the way some of those vampires—strangers, mostly, though all from Morganville, according to Eve—seemed to be whispering in the corners. “How do we know they’re on our side?” she asked Eve, in a whisper she hoped would escape vampire notice.
No such luck. “You don’t,” Oliver said, from several feet away. “Nor is that your concern, but I will reassure you in any case. They are all loyal to me, and through me, to Amelie. If any of them ‘turn coats,’ you may be assured that they’ll regret it.” He said it in a normal tone of voice, to carry to all parts of the room.
The vampires stopped whispering.
“All right,” Oliver said to Claire and Eve. The light of dawn was creeping up like a warning outside the windows. “You understand what I want you to do?”
Eve nodded and gave him a sloppy, insolent kind of salute. “Sir, yes sir, General sir!”
“Eve.” His patience, what little there was, was worn to the bone. “Repeat my instructions.”
