by Rachel Caine
Shane got in her way, and despite everything, all her best intentions, she looked up into his eyes, and the light in them took her breath away. His fingertips touched her face, and then he bent down and kissed her. “No,” he murmured into her mouth. “She doesn’t. You do.”
Before she could think of anything to say, he turned and left to grab the camera from the closet. In the other room, Claire saw Michael talking to Eve—well, Eve’s rigid back. He turned when he saw her and Shane coming.
Eve opened the front door and slammed it back, charging down the stairs and leaving them all far, far behind. By the time they caught up, she was already in the passenger seat up front, face turned toward the tinted window. If she was crying, Claire couldn’t tell. She’d put on a gigantic pair of mirrored sunglasses that she absolutely did not need inside a vampire’s car.
“Right,” Michael said, and climbed behind the wheel. “Where to?”
“Take me home,” Claire said. “I’ll work on the technical stuff.”
“Drop me off at Common Grounds,” Eve said. “I need to talk to some people.”
Michael cleared his throat. “Want company?”
“No.” Her voice was flat and cool, and Claire winced and looked at Shane. In the dimness, she could only see the broad strokes of his expression, but it looked like a yikes. “You’ve got things to do, right?”
She must have been right, because Michael didn’t exactly deny it.
Shane said, “So—I’ll stay home and watch TV. Critical job, too. Not everybody can do that under pressure.”
“You should come with me,” Eve said. “I could use some help.” Even though she’d just flatly turned down Michael’s offer. Ouch.
Shane must have thought that, too; he flashed a look at Michael, clearly apologizing, and Michael nodded slightly.
“Okay, sure,” Shane said. “Outstanding.” Shane held out a fist, and Eve tapped it. “Claire? You’ll be okay alone?”
“Sure,” she said, and hugged the laptop bag closer. “What could go wrong?”
Michael’s eyes flashed to meet hers in the rearview mirror.
“Besides everything, I mean,” she said.
11
At home—meaning, at the Glass House; the last thing she wanted to do was put her parents in the middle of all this—Claire unloaded Kim’s laptop, set up the webcam, and started trying to access the data stream. That wasn’t especially hard, because she knew the IP address of the camera; Kim had helpfully put the info right on a label. The problem was that the other end was on a randomizer, a special program that shifted the signal and rerouted it across the Internet every few minutes. It was right in Morganville; it had to be, because of the packet times, but Claire had no real idea where to start looking. She wasn’t especially computer savvy, although she knew her way around; Kim obviously had taken some precautions.
But Claire wasn’t giving up that easily, either. She didn’t like Kim, but there was a lot at stake here: the vampires’ lives, including Michael’s; Kim’s life; maybe everything they’d built here, at whatever cost.
Michael was right: they couldn’t just let Kim sacrifice it all for her own ambition. The truth might come out, but it shouldn’t come out like this, as some kind of horrible exercise in voyeurism.
She finally reran the video of Kim they’d watched at her loft. I can’t believe it; I finally got to put some in the last Founder House. Connections look good; stream is starting up.
Claire went in search of cameras in the Glass House.
She found the first one in an air vent in Shane’s room, and had to sit down, hard, on his bed with her head in her hands. It was focused right on his bed.
Oh my God. Oh no. At first she was sick with the thought of Kim combing through hours of video of Shane, invading his privacy, watching him get undressed . . . and then she remembered.
We were in here. Together. And she saw it.
Claire lifted her head and looked right up at the camera. She had no idea what was on her face, but if it was any match for the rage burning inside her, the feeling of total betrayal and exposure, she couldn’t imagine Kim was having any fun seeing it. “I hope there’s sound on these,” she said. “You bitch. I officially hope you rot in hell, and I swear, if you post any of this online, I will find you.”
Then Claire dragged a chair over, stood on the seat, and yanked the vent screen out of the wall. Behind it, the little webcam blinked its light and stared at her with a glass eye every bit as emotionless as Bob the spider’s.
Claire picked it up, carried it into her bedroom, and put it next to the first one they’d found in Kim’s apartment. Then she started searching the other rooms. She found two more—one hidden on top of a bookshelf, barely visible, in the living room, providing a bird’s-eye view of the whole space, and another in Michael’s room, focused on his bed.
“Pervert,” Claire muttered, grabbed it out of the fake plant on top of his dresser, and carried it back to set it with the others. The IP addresses were consistent. Claire tried entering them into the web browser, and the signal was there, but it just displayed as gibberish.
Encrypted, which went along with the randomizer program that Kim was using.
She was just starting to backtrace the signals when she felt that familiar tingle along the back of her neck, a feeling that the world had just shifted.
Portal.
Claire slid out of her chair and grabbed weapons, then waited. It had felt like the portal had opened upstairs, in the attic, and as she waited she heard faint creaks and pops from the old wood floor overhead. Not spiders, she thought. Spiders wouldn’t be that heavy.
God, she hoped spiders wouldn’t be that heavy. That was a terrifying thought. She was already entering B-movie horror territory . . . alone in the house! With a giant spider!
And a vampire, maybe.
Which could be worse.
Long minutes passed, and nothing came to eat her. Claire’s hand had gotten sweaty, and her muscles hurt from the strength of her grip on the silver knife in her hand. Come on, she thought. Just get it over with already. It could have been somebody with a lot of power—Myrnin, or Oliver, or Amelie. In which case she’d put the knife down and apologize.
But she thought it was probably Ada, making another run at her.
The creaks overhead paused, and she heard them retreat.
Then she felt the portal activate again, and slam closed. All her protections snapped back into place, as if they’d never been broken. If she hadn’t been here . . . she’d never have even known someone had been inside.
Claire edged out into the hall, staring at the hidden door up to the secret room. It was shut, and she heard nothing at all. She wouldn’t, of course, it being sound-proofed, but still . . . She felt as if she ought to be able to feel something . . . and the house usually conveyed a feeling of danger. When it didn’t, it was usually because Amelie . . .
Amelie.
Claire opened the hidden door and went up the stairs, and found the lights on at the top. The soft glow thrown through colored glass painted the walls, and on the couch, Amelie lay full length, one white hand pressed to her forehead.
She was wearing a flowing white dress, like a very fancy nightgown, and there were flecks of blood on it. Not as if she’d been hurt—more as if she’d been standing near someone else who had been. As Claire entered the room, Amelie’s eyes opened and focused on her, but the Founder didn’t move.
“We have a problem. Ada,” Amelie said. “You know, don’t you?”
“That she’s crazy? Yeah. I figured that.” Claire realized she was still holding the knife, and put it down. “Sorry.”
“A reasonable precaution in uncertain times,” Amelie said softly. Nothing else. Claire waited, but Amelie was as still as one of those marble angels on top of a tomb.
“What happened?” Claire finally asked.
“Nothing you would understand.” Amelie closed her eyes. “I’m tired, Claire.”
There wa
s a simple kind of resignation to the way she said it that made Claire shiver. “Should I—is there somebody I should call, or—”
“I will rest here for now. Thank you.” It was a dismissal, one Claire was a little relieved to get. Amelie just seemed—absent. Empty.
“Okay. But—I guess if you need something—”
Amelie’s eyes snapped open, and Claire felt it at the same time: a surge of power—the portal reopening.
Amelie’s will slammed it closed.
“Someone’s looking for you,” Claire said. “Who is it?”
“None of your affair.”
“It is if they’re coming here! Is someone after you?”
“It’s my guards,” Amelie said. “They’ll find me, sooner or later, but for now, I want to be here. Here, where Sam—” She stopped again, and silvery tears pooled in her eyes and ran down into her unbound pale hair. “Where Sam told me he would never leave me. But he did leave me, Claire. I knew he would, and he did. Everyone leaves. Everyone.”
This time, when the portal flared, Amelie didn’t try to keep it shut. In seconds, the attic door flew open, and it wasn’t the guards after all, in their black Secret Service suits.
It was Oliver, still wearing his bowling shirt, graying hair pulled tight into a ponytail. For a second, as his gaze fell on Amelie, he looked like a different person.
No, that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t really feel something for her. Could he?
“You,” he said to Claire. “Leave us. Now.”
“Stay,” Amelie said. There was an unmistakable thread of command in her voice. “You don’t order my servants in my house, Oliver. Not yet.”
“You’re hiding behind children?”
“I’m not hiding at all. Not even from you.” She slowly sat up, and in the multicolored glow of the lamps she looked young, and very tired. “We’ve played our games, haven’t we? The two of us, we’ve schemed and cheated and used each other all these centuries, for our own purposes. What did it bring us? Peace? There’s never peace for us. There can’t be.”
“I can’t talk of peace,” he said, and went to one knee, looking up into her face. “And neither can you. Morley tried to kill you out there in the graveyard the other evening, and still you wander alone, looking for your own destruction. You must stop.”
“Speaking as my second-in-command.”
“Speaking as your friend,” he said, and took her hand. “Amelie. We have our differences, you and I. We always will. But I would not see you suffer so. Morganville is too much for you right now—there are too many vampires here with too much ambition. Control must be maintained, and if you won’t do it, you must put it in stronger hands. My hands.”
“How kind of you, to keep the best interests of others so close to your heart,” she said. She didn’t try to remove her fingers from his, but her tone had taken on a remote kind of chill. “So what do you propose?”
“Until you can put aside your mourning, give me the town,” he said. “You know I can keep order here. I’ll act as your regent. When you are ready, I’ll give it back to you.”
“Liar.” She said it without particular emphasis, or blame, and Claire saw Oliver’s hand tighten on hers. Amelie smiled, just a little. “Liar, and bully. Do you really think such tactics could work, against the daughter of Bishop? You would have done well to pretend to a little more sympathy, or less. Half measures never work for you, Oliver.”
“You’re losing the town by inches now,” he said. “Morley’s only the first of the vampires to make a move against you—more will come. The humans, too; there are gangs of them attacking us in the night. I’ve already been approached to stop it.”
“So now it’s a plot. A plot to remove me from control. And you are my faithful servant, coming to warn me.” Her teeth flashed as she laughed softly. “Oh, Oliver. The only reason you didn’t betray me to my father when you had the chance was because the odds were even. Had he courted you for even a moment, you’d have yielded like a lovesick girl. You’d have planted the knife in my back yourself.”
“No,” he said, and pulled her off balance, down to her knees on the floor across from him. “I wouldn’t. You’re not a queen anymore, Amelie. Don’t presume to sit on your throne and judge me!”
She wrenched a hand free and slapped him hard across the face, and Claire backed up as the two vampires locked red stares. “I’ll judge as I see fit,” Amelie said. “And I’ll have none of your insolence. Scheme all you want, but it doesn’t matter. Morganville is mine, and it will never be yours. Never. I’m on my guard now. You may be assured that whatever plots exist against me will be uncovered and destroyed. Even yours.”
She shoved him back, and Oliver fell full length on the floor. In a flash, Amelie reached out for the silver knife that Claire had put on the table, and before Claire could blink, that knife was at Oliver’s throat. “Well?” she demanded. “What say you, my servant?”
He spread his hands wide in mute surrender.
Amelie stared down at him, then looked at Claire. “Summon my car,” she said. “I believe I will go for a drive in Morganville. It’s time my people see me, and know I’m not to be underestimated.”
She slammed the knife into the floor next to Oliver’s head, close enough that the edge left a bloody streak down his cheek, then rose to her feet and swept out of the room and down the stairs. Claire dug her cell phone out and called the number to Amelie’s security, and told them to meet her downstairs.
By the time she was done, Oliver was sitting on the sofa. He dabbed at the cut on his face, looking a lot less upset than Claire expected him to be.
“Wow, you planned that,” she said. “Right?”
He shrugged. “She loved Sam. She needs someone to fill the void inside her—either a lover, or an enemy.”
“And you’re the enemy.”
Oliver dusted himself off. “Through all the long, long years, it’s what we’ve always had between us. Anger, and respect.” He smiled a little. “And sometimes a glimmer of something else, not that we would ever admit it to each other. No, enemies are easier. She likes being my enemy. And I rather enjoy being hers.”
Claire really, really didn’t get it, but she didn’t think that either one of them would care.
“Hey,” she said. “You came through the portal. Did anything weird happen?”
“Weird?” He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean—never mind. I’m just kind of worried about the portals. I want to recalibrate the system.”
“I was planning to walk in any case. It’s just as important for the residents of Morganville to see me afoot as for them to see Amelie in her queen’s black coach.” Oliver straightened his shirt and stood up. “It gives us . . . balance.”
“Oliver?”
He stopped at the head of the stairs.
“What would happen if someone got word out about the town?”
“Out?”
“Out in the world. You know.”
“Oh, it’s happened before. But no one believes. No one ever believes.”
“What if—what if they had proof?”
“The only possible proof would be a genuine vampire, and that will never happen. Short of that, any proof can be denied easily enough.”
“What about—video?”
“Claire. You go to the cinema, don’t you? Do you imagine, in this age of digital trickery, that anyone would believe video of vampires?” He shook his head. “They would believe it now less than ever. The very popularity of vampires in your stories protects us.” He sent her a sharp glance. “Why?”
“Just wondering,” she said.
“Stop wondering. It’s not healthy.”
Then he was gone. Claire sat down on the couch and smoothed her palms over her jeans.
Oliver was right; people probably wouldn’t believe it. Most people didn’t believe all the ghost reality shows, either. The problem was that these days, reality didn’t have to be real to be a hit—and Mor
ganville couldn’t stand up to real scrutiny.
They had to stop Kim, before it all fell apart.
Plus, as a bonus, they had to really kick her ass about the cameras, because that was just wrong.
Eve and Shane got home first, while Claire was devouring a peanut butter sandwich. She didn’t tell them about the visit from Amelie and Oliver, and besides, they looked pretty grim. She was sure they wouldn’t really care.
“What?” she asked. Shane snagged half her sandwich from her plate as he passed. “Hey!”
“Worked up an appetite, watching Miss Bad Attitude’s back,” he said around a mouthful of bread. “She goes to the most interesting places. I mean interesting in terms of scary as hell.”
“Do not tell Claire about that club,” Eve said, and took off her metallic sunglasses. Behind them, her mascara was smeared, and her eyes were red—not vampire red, but more like an overdose of tears. “Besides, it’s not like I just randomly decided to go there. It’s where Kim liked to hang out.”
“What kind of club?” Claire whispered to Shane.
“Leather,” he whispered back. “She’s right; you really don’t want to know.”
“Kim hasn’t been there in a couple of days,” Eve said. “But we found a few vampires who did interviews with her recently, for her history project.”
From the expression on Shane’s face, there was more to the story. Claire said, doubtfully, “And they just told you? Just like that?”
“I had to make some deals to get the details.” Eve avoided making eye contact on that. She shed her black leather jacket, the one with all the buckles, and snagged a corner of Claire’s leftover half sandwich. “Hmm, this is good; did you put honey on it?”
“You did what?” Making any kind of deal with any kind of vampire in Morganville was crazy. Making deals with the kind of vampires hanging out in a leather bar was . . . suicidal. Claire rounded on Shane. “You let her do that?”
“Seriously, you can’t even think about blaming me when she gets like this. I’m the bodyguard. Unless you wanted me to tie her up and gag her . . .”
“They’d probably have gotten into it there,” Eve said. “Look, I can get out of the deals. Amelie’s our get-out-of-deals-free card. But I needed to find Kim, and to do that, we needed information. Unless you waved your magic techno-wand and . . . ?”
