by Rachel Caine
“Here,” Amelie said, and touched her temple. “And there.”
She pointed at Shane.
“What?” Claire and Eve both blurted, and Claire thought, Oh my God I kissed him and he was a vampire, but Shane was looking odd, too. Not lost, exactly.
Guilty.
“Yeah,” he said, and put his hand in the pocket of his blue jeans. He pulled out a small book. The cover—Claire could read it from where she sat—read Shakespeare Sonnets. “It was all I could think of.”
He tipped it sideways, and the pages slid out, away from the cover. Sliced neatly at both edges of the binding.
“Very clever,” Amelie said. “You gave them the cover, filled with words they did not want, and kept for yourself what was important. But what if I told you that it was the cover they were after, and not the contents?”
He looked shaken. “I had to play the odds.”
“Wise gamesmanship,” she said. “In fact, I told you that Oliver is unhappy, and so he is, because he has allowed that”—she nodded toward the pages—“to slip through his fingers. And so I find that I come to you for a favor.”
His eyes lit up, and he said, “A favor? Like a deal?”
“Yes, Shane. I shall make a deal for what you hold in your hand, and I promise you that it is the only deal that matters, as I am the only vampire that matters. I will take the book, and destroy the last written record of how vampires may be created, which will ensure my continued survival against my enemies, who will not dare to move against me for fear of losing what only I know.” She sat back against the puffed cushions, studying him very calmly. “And for this, you and all in this house will receive my Protection for as long as you should choose to have it. This will cancel any other, lesser contracts you might have made, such as the agreement you made with Oliver, through Brandon.”
“Oliver—is Brandon’s boss?” Claire asked.
“Boss?” Amelie considered that, and nodded. “Yes. Exactly. While I do not command Oliver, neither can he command me. Until he discovers the secrets I hold, he cannot unseat me in Morganville, and he cannot create his own followers to overwhelm mine. We are…evenly matched.”
Shane looked down at the book in his hand. “And this would have changed that.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “That book would have destroyed us all in the end. Vampires as well as humans. I owe you a debt for this, and I will pay it as well as circumstances will allow.”
Shane thought about it for an agonizing second, then looked at Eve. She nodded. Claire nodded when he checked for her approval, and then he held the book up. “Michael?” he asked. “Yes or no?” After another long second, he sighed. “Guess that’s a yes. Well, anything that pisses off Oliver is a good deed, so…” He held it out to Amelie.
She made no move to take it. “Understand,” she said, and her eyes were bitter cold, “that once this is done, it is done. Your Glass House will remain, but you are bound together. None may leave Morganville, after. I cannot risk your knowledge escaping my control.”
“Yeah, well, if we go now, we’re toast anyway, right?” Shane kept holding it out. “Take it. Oliver was right about one thing: it’s nothing to us but death.”
“Au contraire,” she said, and her pale white fingers took it from his. “It is, in fact, your salvation.”
She stood, looked around the room, and sighed a little. “I have missed this place,” she said. “And I believe it has also missed me. Someday I will come back.” She pressed the hidden catch on the arm of the settee, and without another word to them turned to leave.
“Hey, what about the cops?” Shane asked. “Not to mention all those people who tried to kill us today?”
“They answer to Oliver. I will make it known that you are not to be troubled. However, you must not further disturb the peace. If you do, and it is your fault, I will be forced to reconsider my decision. And that would be…unfortunate.” She gave him a full smile. With fangs. “Au revoir, children. Do take care of the house more carefully in the future.”
Her two vamp guards went with her. Smoke and silence. There was no sound on the stairs after. Claire swallowed. “Um…what did we just do?” she asked.
“Pretty much all we could,” Shane said. “I’m checking the street.”
They ended up going down together, in a group—Shane with the bat, Eve with the knife Jennifer had abandoned, and Claire armed with a broken chair leg sharp on one end.
The house was deserted. The front door was standing open, and out on the street, cop cars were pulling away from the curb around the big black Cadillac. A limousine was leaving, too. Its tinted windows cast back blinding reflections of the sun.
It was all over in seconds. No cars, no vampires, nobody hanging around. No Monica. No Richard. No Oliver.
“Crap,” Shane said. He was standing on the porch, looking at what was hanging next to the doorbell. It was a black lacquered plaque with a symbol on it. The same symbol that had been on the book cover he’d sent to Oliver. “Does that mean she wrote the damn book, too?”
“I’ll bet she did, for backup,” Eve said. “You know, the symbol’s also on the well in the center of town. It’s the Founder symbol.”
“She’s the Founder,” Shane said.
“Well, somebody had to be.”
“Yeah, but I figured it was a dead somebody.”
“Funny,” Claire said, “but I think it is a dead somebody.”
Which made Shane laugh, and Eve snort, and Shane slung his arm over her shoulders. “You still quitting school?” he asked.
“Not if I can’t leave town.” Claire smacked herself in the head. “Oh my God! I can’t leave town! I can’t ever leave town? What about school? Caltech? My parents?”
Shane kissed her on the forehead. “Tomorrow’s problems,” he said. “I’m going with let’s just be glad there’s a tomorrow, at this point.”
Eve closed the front door. It swung open again in the breeze. “I think we’re going to need a new door.”
“I think we’re going to need Home Depot.”
“Do they sell stakes at Home Depot here?” Claire asked. Shane and Eve looked blank. “Dumb question. Never mind.”
17
Cleanup took pretty much all day, what with the broken furniture, the shattered windows, the front and back doors, and hauling Claire’s damaged mattress out to the curb. They were just sitting down to dinner when the sun went behind the horizon, and Claire heard the sound of a body hitting the floor, followed by dry retching.
“Michael’s home,” Eve said, as if he’d just come back from school. “You guys dig in.”
It took a while before she came back with Michael. Holding hands. Shane got up, smiling, and held up his hand. Michael high-fived it.
“Not bad, brother,” Michael said. “The girls gave you enough time for the switch.”
“Even though they didn’t know. Yeah. Worked out,” Shane said, pleased. “See? My plans don’t all suck. Just most of them.”
“So long as we keep on being able to tell the difference.” Michael pulled up a chair. “What’s for—oh, you’re kidding me. Chili?”
“Nobody wanted to go to the store.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Michael closed his eyes. “I’m saying a prayer. Maybe you ought to, too. It’s going to take us a miracle to get through this.”
Whether he was serious or not, Claire sent the prayer up toward heaven, and she thought the others did, too. So it seemed kind of miraculous when the doorbell rang.
“At least they’re getting more polite when they try to kill us,” Shane said. Michael got up and went to the door. After a second’s hesitation, they all got up and followed.
Michael swung the new door open. Outside, in the glow of the porch light, stood a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and a huge scar down one side of his face, dressed in black motorcycle leather. Behind him were two more guys, not quite as old and a whole lot bigger and meaner-looking.
Bikers. Claire nearly cho
ked on her bite of chili.
The man nodded.
“Son,” he said, looking past Michael right at Shane. “Got your message. Cavalry’s here.” He walked right in, past the threshold, and ignored Michael like he wasn’t even there. “About time you got your ass in gear. Been waiting for you to call for six damn months. What kept you? Took you this long to find the head bloodsucker?”
They followed him into the living room. Michael turned to look at Shane, who was turning red. Not meeting anybody’s eyes, really. “Things have changed, Dad,” he mumbled.
“Nothing’s changed,” Shane’s dad said, and turned to face them, hands on hips. “We came to kick us some ass and kill us some vampires, just like we planned all along. Time to get some payback for Alyssa and your mother. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“Dad, things are different now, we can’t—”
Shane’s father grabbed him by the hair, quick as a snake. There were tattoos on his hand, ugly dark blue smudges, and he forced Shane’s head back. “Can’t? Can’t? We’re going to burn this town down, boy, just like we agreed. And you’re not changing your mind.”
“Hey!” Michael said sharply, and reached out for Shane’s dad. When he touched him, something happened, something like an electric shock that flared blue white in the room and raised the hair on Claire’s arms. Michael flew back and hit the wall, too stunned to do anything.
“No!” Shane yelled, and tried to pull free. He couldn’t. “Dad, no!”
Shane’s dad nodded to one of his biker buddies. “Yep. He’s one of them,” he said. “Take care of it.”
The biker guy nodded back, pulled a knife from his belt, and advanced on Michael.
“No!” Shane screamed it this time. Claire took a hesitant step forward, and stopped when Michael’s wide blue eyes locked on hers. Eve was screaming, and so was Shane.
Miranda saw this, she thought. Michael was even standing on the rug Miranda had pointed to when she’d said, And he died…right…there. It hadn’t been his first death.
It was his second.
“Guys, stay out of it!” Michael said sharply when Eve tried to lunge toward him and get between him and the biker. He was still backing away, and this time, he looked afraid. He hadn’t been afraid of the vampires and all their minions, but this time…
The biker moved faster than anybody Claire had ever seen, except vampires; she didn’t even see what happened, just heard the heavy thud as Michael hit the floor. The biker went down with him, holding him flat with one huge hand while the other one raised the knife.
“No, Dad, God, I’ll do whatever you want!”
“Shut up,” Shane’s dad said, and threw Shane toward the sofa. He sprawled there, and Claire ran over to him and put her arms around him. “You bet you will. You three are going to tell me which vamps to strike first. Because it’s us against them now, and don’t you forget it.”
“Three?” Eve said faintly. Her huge eyes were locked on Michael, and the biker, and the knife.
“Three,” said Shane’s dad, and nodded to the biker.
They all screamed as the knife came down.
Rachel Caine is the author of more than fifteen novels, including the Weather Warden series. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and still carries on a secret identity in the corporate world. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin, a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley, and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course). Visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com.
Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series
“You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.’”
—Jim Butcher
“The Weather Warden series is fun reading…more engaging than most TV.”
—Booklist
“A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.’”
—Romantic Times
“Hugely entertaining.’”
—SF Crowsnest
“A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.’”
—Locus
“An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.’”
—SF Site
“I dare you to put this book down.’”
—University City Review (Philadelphia)
“Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!’”
—Mary Jo Putney
“A spellbinding…thought-provoking, action-packed thriller.’”
—Midwest Book Review
THE DEAD GIRLS’ DANCE
THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES, BOOK TWO
RACHEL CAINE
NAL Jam
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 1-101-12866-6
Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2007
All rights reserved
NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For Ter, who helped lay the cornerstone of Morganville.
For Katy, who helped me through the plot jitters!
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Musical inspiration from Joe Bonama
ssa,
a genius at his art.
Editorial excellence from Liz Scheier,
truly a master.
And a special shout-out to my friends at
Mysterious Galaxy bookstore in San Diego!
1
It didn’t happen, Claire told herself. It’s a bad dream, just another bad dream. You’ll wake up and it’ll be gone like fog….
She had her eyes squeezed tight shut. Her mouth felt dry, shriveled-up, and she was pressed against Shane’s hot, solid side, curled up on the couch in the Glass House.
Terrified.
It’s just a bad dream.
But when she opened her eyes, her friend Michael was still dead on the floor in front of her.
“Shut those girls up, Shane, or I will,’” Shane’s father snapped. He was pacing the wooden floor, back and forth, hands clasped behind him. He wasn’t looking at Michael’s body, shrouded under a thick, dusty velvet curtain, but it was all Claire could see, now that she’d opened her eyes again. It was as big as the world, and it wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t going away. Shane’s dad was here, and he was terrifying, and Michael—
Michael was dead. Only Michael had already been dead, hadn’t he? Ghostly. Dead during the day…alive at night…
Claire realized she was crying only when Shane’s dad turned on her, staring with red-rimmed eyes. She hadn’t felt that scared when she’d stared into vampire eyes…well, maybe once or twice, because Morganville was a scary place, generally, and the vampires were pretty terrifying.
Shane’s father—Mr. Collins—was a tall, long-legged man, and his hair was wild and curly and going gray. Long enough to reach the collar of his leather jacket. He had dark eyes. Crazy eyes. A scruffy beard. And a huge scar running across his face, puckered and liver colored.
