by Rachel Caine
Shane was sitting cross-legged on the other bed. He looked up from the book he was reading, and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.
He dropped the book, surged to his feet, and was at the bars in about one second flat. His hands curled around the iron, and his eyes glittered wildly until he squeezed them shut.
When he opened them again, he’d gotten himself under control. Mostly.
“Hey,” Shane said, as calmly as if they’d just run into each other in the hallway at the Glass House, their strange little minifraternity. As if whole months hadn’t gone by since they’d been parted. “Imagine seeing you around here. Happy birthday to you, and all.”
Claire felt tears burn in her eyes, but she blinked them back and put on a brave smile. “Thanks,” she said. “What’d you get me?”
“Um . . . a shiny diamond.” Shane looked around and shrugged. “Must have left it somewhere. You know how it is, out all night partying, you get baked and forget where you left your stuff. . . .”
She stepped forward and wrapped her hands around his. She felt tremors race through him, and Shane sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against the bars. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Shutting up now. Good idea.”
She pressed her forehead against his, and then her lips, and it was hot and sweet and desperate, and the feelings that exploded inside her made her shake in reaction. Shane let go of the bars and reached through to run his fingers through her soft, short hair, and the kiss deepened, darkened, took on a touch of yearning that made Claire’s heart pound.
When their lips finally parted, they didn’t pull away from each other. Claire threaded her arms through the bars and around his neck, and his hands moved down to her waist.
“I hate kissing you through prison bars,” Shane said. “I’m all for restraint, but self-restraint is so much more fun.”
Claire had almost forgotten that Myrnin was still there, so his soft chuckle made her flinch. “There speaks a young man with little practical experience,” he said, yawned, and draped himself over a bench on the far side of the wall. He propped his chin up on the heel of one hand. “Enjoy that innocence while you can.”
Shane held on to her, and his dark eyes stared into hers. Ignore him, they seemed to say. Stay with me.
She did.
“I’m trying to get you out,” she whispered. “I really am.”
“Yeah, well . . . it’s no big deal, Claire. Don’t get yourself in trouble. Wait, I forgot who I’m talking to. What kind of trouble are you in today, anyway?”
“I’m not. Don’t worry.”
“I’ve got nothing to do but worry, mostly about you.” Shane was looking very serious now, and he tilted her head up to force her to meet his eyes again. “Claire. What’s he got you doing?”
“You’re worried about me?” She laughed, just a little, and it sounded panicked. “You’re the one in a cage.”
“Kind of used to that, you know. Claire, tell me. Please.”
“I . . . I can’t.” That wasn’t true. She could. She just desperately didn’t want to. She didn’t want Shane to know any of it. “How’s your father holding up?”
Shane’s eyebrows rose just a little. “Dad? Yeah, well. He’s okay. He’s just . . . you know.”
And that, Claire realized, was what she was afraid of—that Shane had forgiven his father for all his crazy stunts. That the Collins boys were together again, united in their hatred of Morganville in general.
That Shane was back in the vampire-slayer fold. If that happened Bishop would never let him out of his cell.
Shane read it in her face. “Not like that,” he said, and shook his head. “It’s pretty close quarters in here. We have to get along, or we’d kill each other. We decided to get along, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” said a deep, scratchy voice from the other bunk. “It’s been one big, sloppy bucket of joy, getting to know my son. I’m all teary-eyed and sentimental.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Frank.”
“That any way to talk to your old man?” Frank rolled over, and Claire saw the hard gleam of his eyes. “What’s your collaborator girl doing here? Still running errands for the vampires?”
“Dad, Christ, will you shut up?”
“This is the two of you getting along?” Claire whispered.
“You see any broken bones?”
“Good point.” This was not how she’d imagined this moment going, except for the kissing. Then again, the kissing was better than she’d dared believe was possible. “Shane—”
“Shhhh,” he whispered, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “How’s Michael?” She didn’t want to talk about Michael, so she just shook her head. Shane swallowed hard. “He’s not . . . dead?”
“Define dead around here,” Claire said. “No, he’s okay. He’s just . . . you know. Not himself.”
“Bishop’s?” She nodded. He closed his eyes in pain. “What about Eve?”
“She’s working. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.” Eve, like everyone else in Morganville, treated Claire like a traitor these days, and Claire honestly couldn’t blame her. “She’s really busted up about Michael. And you, of course.”
“No doubt,” Shane said softly. He seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat. “Have you heard anything about me and my dad? What Bishop has planned for us?”
Claire shook her head. Even if she knew—and she didn’t, in detail—she wouldn’t have told him. “Let’s not talk about it. Shane—I’ve missed you so much—”
He kissed her again, and the world melted into a wonderful spinning blend of heat and bells, and it was only when she finally, regretfully pulled back that she heard Myrnin’s mocking, steady clapping.
“Love conquers all,” he said. “How quaint.”
Claire turned on him, feeling fury erupt like a volcano in her guts. “Shut up!”
He didn’t even bother to glance at her, just leaned back against the wall and smiled. “You want to know what he’s got planned for you, Shane? Do you really?”
“Myrnin, don’t!”
Shane reached through the bars and grabbed Claire’s shoulders, turning her back to face him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “This matters, right now. Claire, we’re going to get out of this. We’re going to live through it. Both of us. Say it with me.”
“Both of us,” she repeated. “We’re going to live.”
Myrnin’s cold hand closed around her wrist, and he dragged her away from the bars. The last thing she let go of was Shane’s hand.
“Hey!” Shane yelled, as Claire fought, lost, and was pulled through the door. “Claire! We’ve going to live! Say it! We’re going to live!”
Myrnin slammed the door. “Theatrical, isn’t he? Come on, girl. We have work to do.”
She tried to shake him off. “I’m not going anywhere with you, you traitor!”
Myrnin didn’t give her a choice; he half dragged, half marched her away from the first vampire guard, then the second, and then pulled her into an empty, quiet room off the long hallway. He shut the door with a wicked boom and whirled to face her.
Claire grabbed the first thing that came to hand—it happened to be a heavy candlestick—and swung it at his head. He ducked, rushed in, and effortlessly took it away from her. “Girl. Claire!” He shook her into stillness. His eyes were wide and very dark. Not at all crazy. “If you want the boy to live, you’ll stop fighting me. It’s not productive.”
“What, I should just stand here and let you bite me? Not happening!” She tried to pull away, but he was as solid as a granite statue. Her bones would break before his grip did.
“Why on earth would I bite you?” Myrnin asked, very reasonably. “I don’t work for Bishop, Claire. I never have. I thought you certainly had enough brains to understand that.”
Claire blinked again. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re still on our sid
e?”
“Define our, my dear.”
“The side of . . .” Well, he was right. It was a little tough to define. “You know. Us!”
Myrnin actually laughed, let go, and stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of his frock coat. “Us, indeed. I understand you might be skeptical. You have reason. Perhaps I should allow someone else to convince you—Ah. Right on time.”
She wouldn’t have believed him, not for a second, except that a section of the wall opened, there was a flash of white-hot light, and a woman stepped through, followed by a long line of people.
The woman was Amelie, vampire queen of Morganville—though she didn’t look anything like the perfect pale princess that Claire had always seen. Amelie had on black pants, a black zip-up hoodie, and running shoes.
So wrong.
And behind her was the frickin’ vampire army, led by Oliver, all in black, looking scarier than Claire could remember ever seeing him—he usually at least tried to look nondangerous, but today, he obviously didn’t care. He wore his graying hair tied back in a ponytail, and it pulled his face into an unsmiling mask.
He crossed his arms and looked at Myrnin and Claire like they were something slimy he’d found on his coffee shop floor.
“Myrnin,” Amelie said, and nodded graciously. He nodded back, like they were passing on the street. Like it was just a normal day. “Why did you involve the girl?”
“Oh, I had to. She’s been quite difficult,” he said. “Which helped convince Bishop that I am, indeed, his creature. But I think it’s best if you leave her behind for now, and me as well. We have more work to do here, work that can’t be done in hiding.”
Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without thinking of a single coherent question to ask. Oliver dismissed both of them with a shake of his head and signaled his vampire shock troops to fan out around the room on either side of the door to the hallway.
Amelie lingered, a trace of a frown on her face. “Will you protect her, Myrnin? I was loath to let you lead her this far into the maze; I should hate to think you’d abandon her on a whim. I do owe her Protection.” Her pale gray eyes bored into his, colder than steel in winter. “Be careful what you say. I will hold you to your answer.”
“I’ll defend the girl with my last breath,” he promised, and clasped his hand dramatically to the chest of his ragged frock coat. “Oh, wait. That doesn’t mean much, does it, since I gasped that last breath before the Magna Carta was dry on the page? I mean, of course I’ll look after her, with whatever is left of my life.”
“I’m not joking, jester.”
He suddenly looked completely sober. “And I’m not laughing, my lady. I’ll protect her. You have my word on it.”
Claire’s head was spinning. She looked from Myrnin to Amelie to Oliver, and finally thought of a decent question to ask. “Why are you here?”
“They’re here to rescue your boyfriend,” Myrnin said. “Happy birthday, my dear.”
Amelie sent him a sharp, imperious look. “Don’t lie to the girl, Myrnin. It’s not seemly.”
Myrnin sobered and bowed his head very slightly. Claire could still see a manic smile trembling on his lips.
Amelie transferred her steady gray gaze to Claire. “Myrnin has been helping us gain entry to the building. There are things we are doing to retake Morganville, but it is a process that will take some time. Do you understand?”
It hit Claire a little late. “You’re . . . you’re not here to rescue Shane?”
“Of course not,” Oliver said scornfully. “Don’t be stupid. What possible strategic value does your boyfriend hold for us?”
Claire bit her lip on an instinctive argument and forced herself to think. It wasn’t easy; all she wanted to do was scream at him. “All right,” she finally said. “I’m going to make him strategically valuable to you. How’s that?”
Myrnin slowly raised his head. He had a warning look on his face, which she ignored completely.
“If you don’t rescue Shane and his father, I’m not going to help keep Myrnin on track, and I’ll destroy the maintenance drugs and the serum we were working on. I’m guessing you still want to avoid getting on the crazy train, right?” Because that was where all the vampires were headed, even Oliver and Amelie.
When she’d first come to Morganville, she’d thought they were immortal and perfect, but in many ways, that was all just a front. The reason there were no other vampires out there in the world—or very few, anyway—was that over the years, their numbers had gradually declined, and their ability to make other vampires had slipped away. It was a kind of disease, something nasty and progressive, although they’d been in denial about it for a very long time.
Amelie had created Morganville to be their last, best hope of survival. But the disease hadn’t gotten better; it had gotten worse, and seemed to be affecting them faster and faster these days. Claire had learned to pick up the subtle signs by now, and they were already visible—tremors in the pale hands, sometimes up the arms. Soon, it’d be worse. They were all terrified of it. They had good reason to be.
Myrnin had developed a maintenance drug, but they needed a cure. Badly. And with Myrnin slipping fast, Claire was the key to getting that done.
There was a profound silence in the room, and for a second, Claire’s angry resolve faltered. Then she saw the look in Oliver’s eyes. Oh no you don’t, she thought. Don’t you look smug.
“We do this my way,” Claire said, “or I’ll destroy all the work and let you all die.”
“Claire,” Myrnin murmured. He sounded horrified. Good. She was glad. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do mean it. All your work, all your research. If you let Bishop kill Shane, none of it matters to me anyway.” She was scared to say this, but in a way, it was a relief. “It’s not all about you and your stupid ancient feuds. There are living people in this town. We have lives. We matter!” She’d let the lid off her simmering, terrified anger, and now it was boiling all over the place. She whirled on Myrnin. “You! You gave us to him! You turned on us when we needed you! And you”—Amelie, this time—“you didn’t even care. Where have you been? I thought you were different; I thought you wanted to help—but you’re just like the rest of them; you’re just—”
“Claire.” Just the one word, but from Amelie that was all it took to stop Claire in her tracks. “What else could I do? Bishop turned enough of my followers that any action I would take would have been against my own people. It would have been a fight to the death, and that fight would have destroyed everyone you or I love. I had to withdraw and allow him to think he had triumphed. Myrnin did what he could to protect you and all your friends, while we found another way.”
Claire snorted out a bitter little laugh. “Sure he did.”
“You’re all alive, I believe, unlike most who’ve crossed Bishop throughout his life. You might think on how unlikely that is, so long after he should have lost interest and torn you and my town apart.” Amelie’s face was as hard as carved marble. “My father has no interest in administering. Only in destroying. Myrnin has been persuading him to at least try to keep Morganville alive, and putting himself at constant risk to do so.”
Claire didn’t want to believe it, but when she actually thought about it, she remembered how often Bishop had ordered people killed, and how often Myrnin—or Myrnin and Michael!—had managed to distract him from carrying it out. “Michael,” Claire said slowly. “You turned Michael back, didn’t you? He’s not really Bishop’s anymore.”
Amelie and Oliver exchanged looks, and Oliver shrugged very slightly. “She is a quick study,” he said. “I never said otherwise. Unless the boy’s a bad actor.”
“If he were a bad actor, he’d be long dead by now,” Amelie said. “Claire—you must not treat Michael any differently. For his life’s sake, you must not. Now, I need you to go with Myrnin. The serum you’ve cultured from Bishop’s blood is of vital importance to us now; we need to treat all those we can reach, and we mu
st have enough of a supply to do the job. I rely upon you for that, Claire.”
“Why should I help you at all?” Claire asked, and felt a tremor of pure chill along the back of her neck when Amelie’s gray eyes sharpened their focus on her. “You haven’t promised me anything. I want you to swear you’ll get Shane and his father out of there alive.”
Oliver growled, and from her peripheral vision she saw the ivory flash of his fangs. “You’re going to permit this puppy to bark at you?”
“What I do is my affair, Oliver.” Amelie let a long, long moment pass before she said, “Very well, Claire, you have my word that we will retrieve Shane and his father before they are executed. What else?”
Claire hadn’t really been prepared to win that argument. She blinked, searched for another demand, and came up with nothing in particular.
Then she did. “I . . . want you to promise me that when this is over, you’re going to change things in Morganville.”
Amelie looked, for a moment, perplexed. “Change things? What sort of things?”
“No more hunting humans,” she said. “No more owning people. You’ll make everybody equal around here.”
“You’re speaking of things you don’t understand. These things are required for us to survive in relative security. I won’t put my people at further risk, nor leave them at the whims and mercies of yours. I’ve seen too many centuries of death and destruction.” Amelie shook her head. “No, if that is your price, then it’s too high for me to pay, Claire. Do as you will, but I won’t betray all we’ve built here to accommodate your sentimental idea of modern life.”
Claire had been raised to be kind, to agree, to help, and for just a second, locked in a stare with the Founder of Morganville, she wanted to give up.
The only thing that stopped her was imagining what Shane would have said, if he’d been standing in her place.
“No,” she said, and felt her heart flutter madly in panic. Her whole body was shaking, pleading for her to run, avoid the confrontation. “You hear what you’re saying, right? You want to save your people at the cost of human lives. I won’t agree to that; I can’t. Deal’s off. I’m not helping you anymore. And the first chance I get, I tell Bishop about Myrnin, too.”
