by Rachel Caine
Claire primed the Super Soaker. “It’s Ada,” she said. “This time, I’m not letting Myrnin talk me out of it.”
The vampires—well, vampirelike things, sort of like Myrnin’s experimental attempts to turn humans back in his crazy days—hurled themselves out of the darkness with high-pitched, batlike squeals. Claire resisted the urge to scream, and let loose with the water gun. A blast caught three of them in midleap, and they shrieked even louder, hit the ground, rolled, and kept rolling. She could see the ghostly blue flare of flames around them as the silver ate into their exposed skin—which was most of it, because these things were more like tunnel rats than anything approaching human. Giant undead tunnel rats.
Only in Morganville . . .
Shane aimed and fired, taking one of them out just as it was preparing to leap, and reloaded with an ease that told Claire he’d been practicing. Eve had a handful of what looked like darts—regulation darts, the kind you threw at a target in a bar. She was dead-on accurate with them, too, as soon as any tunnel rat came within ten feet of her.
By the time Claire was starting to worry about her water reservoir, and Shane was running low on crossbow bolts, the attacking forces were running. “Let’s go,” Eve said, tossing another dart that landed in the ass of a retreating vampire. “Ooooh, trip twenty!”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Shane said. “Darts? When did you come up with that?”
“I was playing with your electroplating thingy. After I did all my jewelry, I started in on pointy things.” Eve held out a dart for inspection. It had—of course—a skull on the fletching. “Sweet, right?”
“Cute. Time to run now.”
Claire slung the Super Soaker around her back and ran up the hill, chasing Shane, who was, as always, faster—the result of longer legs, not really dedicated practice. Shane only ran when someone chased him; he was more of a weights kind of guy.
The fact that the tunnel tilted uphill was a good sign—it was basically an entrance ramp, which meant they’d come up to ground level soon enough. Then Claire could figure out where they were, how to find a working portal, and get back to the business at hand—find Kim, beat Kim like a taiko drum to find out who her vampire coconspirator was, and then hit Ada’s RESET button.
Simple.
Except, of course, it wasn’t.
Shane slowed, and Claire almost crashed into him. He dashed over to the side of the tunnel, hugging the wall, and Claire and Eve piled in next to him. “What?” Eve asked around breathless pants. She wasn’t much for running, either.
“Someone’s coming,” Shane said. “Shhhh.”
Eve choked and strangled on a cough, and muttered, “Got to cut down on the cigarettes.”
“You don’t smoke,” Claire whispered.
“Then I’m completely screwed.”
Shane whirled toward them and put hands over both their mouths. His face looked fierce. They nodded.
It was dark where they were, but not dark enough. A shape appeared ahead of them, coming down the tunnel . . . then another. Then more. Six—no, ten. Claire lost all will to snark, and she was pretty sure, from Eve’s wide-eyed look, that she felt the same. They’d done pretty well against the tunnel rats, but these were real vampires.
Hunters.
Morley stopped about twenty feet away, still facing straight ahead, and held up a hand to stop the group of vampires following him. Claire recognized some of them from earlier. Some of them were still healing from the burns left by her water gun.
“Look who’s come to visit,” he said, and turned his head in their direction at the side of the tunnel. “Claire and her friends. I wonder if they want to stay for dinner.”
Shane snapped the crossbow up and took aim on Morley. “Don’t even think about it.”
Morley stuck his hands in the pockets of his dirty raincoat. “I tremble in fear, boy. Obviously, in all my long life, no one has ever threatened me with a weapon before.” His tone changed, took on edges. “Put it down if you want to live.”
“Don’t,” Eve whispered.
Morley smiled. “The boy’s got two arrows left,” he said. “You have a handful of darts. Little Claire’s water weapon is almost empty. And by the way, I am aware of your strategic position. I hate to repeat myself, but I will: put down your weapons if you want to live.”
“No choice,” Shane said, and swallowed hard. He crouched down and put the crossbow on the concrete, then rose with his hands up.
I could get in one good spray, Claire thought, but she knew it was a terrible idea. She lifted the strap of the toy gun over her head and let it fall. It sounded empty.
“Shit,” Eve said, and threw down her darts. “All right. What now? You get all Nosferatu on our asses? If you make me a vampire, I’ll make you eat those fangs.”
Morley eyed her with a bit of a frown. “I believe you might,” he said. “But I’m not interested in converts. I’m much more interested in allies.”
“Allies,” Claire repeated. “You’ve tried to kill us a whole bunch.”
“That wasn’t about you,” he said. “The first time, you were simply with Amelie. The next, well, I was doing a favor for someone else. Another ally, as it happens.”
“What do you want?”
“We want freedom,” Morley said. “We want to live as God meant us to do. Is that such a terrible thing?”
There were a few vampires in his group that Claire recognized with a nasty jolt of surprise. “Jacob,” she said. “Jacob Goldman? Patience?” Two of Theo Goldman’s family—and Theo was the last vampire she’d expect to be in the middle of this. His kids, though . . . she really didn’t know them very well.
Jacob looked away. Patience, on the other hand, stared right back, and lifted her chin as if daring Claire to say anything else. From her last encounter with the Goldmans, Claire had been aware the younger generation was starting to hate the whole philosophy of their parents; it made sense that they’d found someone here in Morganville more like-minded.
“Amelie and Oliver are trying to make us into something we never were,” Patience said. “Tame tigers. Performing bears. Toothless lions. But we can’t be those things. Vampires are not caretakers of humanity. I’m sorry, but it will never be true, however much we wish it could be.”
“You’re not making much headway on this Let’s be friends argument,” Eve said. “I’m just saying.”
Morley let out an impatient sigh, and looked back at the other vampires. “Surely you want us out of your town,” he said. “As much as we’d like to go. But Amelie won’t allow us to leave. We have only two choices: destroy Morganville, or destroy her. Destroying Morganville seems easier, in many ways.”
The light dawned. “You were working with Kim. She suggested the cameras, didn’t she?”
“It seemed a way to achieve what she wanted, and what we wanted,” he agreed. “The end of Morganville. The beginning of her career. Granted, spying is an unseemly way to go about it, but it’s probably less objectionable than murder.”
“Until the camera’s on you,” Eve shot back.
“A valid point.” Morley bowed slightly in her direction.
“You’re the one who put the cameras in Vamptown for her.”
“Me?” His thick eyebrows climbed into his tangled hair. “No. I’m hardly welcome there, you know. Nor are any of my people. I know nothing about how she managed that.”
“Then let us go find out who did.”
“You know, I don’t have to bargain with you. I could just distribute you among my followers as a treat if you’d prefer that.”
“No,” Jacob Goldman said. He and Patience exchanged a look that was more like a silent argument, and then he stepped forward. “Not her. Morley, if you hurt her, we walk away.”
“Patience?”
She sighed and shook her head. “The girl helped, before,” she said. “Theo wouldn’t want us to hurt her.”
“The girl left you in a cell to die at Bishop’s hands!”
“That was my father’s mistake, not hers,” Jacob said. “I will do many things to get our freedom. I won’t do this.”
The tension was ramping up fast. Claire swallowed. “Then let’s make a deal,” Claire said. “We want Kim, and whatever video she turned over to you.”
Morley frowned at her. “In exchange for . . . ?”
“I’ll ask Amelie to let you all leave.”
“Asking is an easy task; there’s no commitment required. Doing is accomplishment. So you will get Amelie to let us leave. Here is my incentive: if you don’t manage to secure her permission, your two friends here sign lifetime contracts to me.” Morley turned to Jacob and Patience, who nodded. “You see? Even they agree with that.”
“Oh hell no,” Eve said.
“And you are in a position to bargain . . . how?” Shane held out a hand toward Eve, trying to restrain her a little. “No lifetime contracts,” he said. “One pint a month, blood bank only. Ten percent of our income.”
“Hmmmmmm.” Morley dragged the sound out, still staring through half-lidded eyes. “Tempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now.”
“You won’t,” Shane said. That made Morley’s eyes open wide.
“Why not? Jacob and Patience were quite specific—they’re concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy.”
“Because if you kill me and Eve, you’ll make her your enemy. This girl won’t stop until she sees you all pay.”
Claire had no idea whom he was talking about—she didn’t feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.
Then she understood. “I’d hunt you down,” she said quietly. “I’d use every resource I have to do it. And you know I’d win.”
Morley seemed impressed. “She is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test. Very well. Limited contract, one year, one pint per month at the blood bank, ten percent of your income payable to me, in cash. I will not hunt, bite, or trade your contracts. But I insist on standard punishment clauses.”
“Hey,” Eve said. “Don’t I get a vote?”
“Absolutely,” Morley assured her. “Your thoughts?”
“I’d rather die,” she said flatly. Shane turned toward her, and from the look on his face, that was not at all what he’d expected her to say. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you, I’ll never sign a contract. Never. If Mor lock here wants to kill me, well, I can’t stop him. But I don’t have to die by inches, either, and that’s what this town does to us, Shane; it takes little pieces of us away until there’s nothing left and I won’t sign!” Eve’s eyes flooded with tears, but she wasn’t scared; she was angry. “So bite me, vampire. Get it over with. But it’s a one-time thrill.”
Morley shrugged. “And you, boy?”
Shane pulled in a deep breath. “No deals if Eve doesn’t buy in.”
Claire’s mouth tasted like ashes, and she was trying frantically to think of something, anything to do. She tried to build a portal behind them, but the system bounced her back, wouldn’t let her so much as begin the process.
Ada.
She took Shane’s hand in hers. “You’ll have to kill me, too,” she said. “And you can’t. Not without consequences.”
Morley looked positively unhappy now. “This is getting far too complicated. Fine, then we do it this way. I give you the video you’re looking for, and if you don’t manage to secure Amelie’s permission within, let’s say, a month, your friends’ lives are forfeit. Yes?” When she hesitated, he bared his stained teeth. “It’s not a question, really. And my patience is wearing thin. In fact, it’s positively threadbare.”
“Yes,” Claire said.
He spit on his palm and held it out. They all just looked at him. “Well?” he demanded.
“I’m not shaking that,” Shane said. “You just spit on it.”
“It’s the way deals are sealed—” Morley made a sound of frustration and wiped his palm against his filthy clothes. “Perhaps not anymore. Better?”
“Not really,” Shane said.
Claire stepped forward and shook Morley’s hand. She’d done worse.
He turned, dirty raincoat flapping, and the other vampires fell in behind him. Jacob Goldman held back, staring at Claire. He looked unhappy and tormented.
“I wouldn’t have let him do it,” he said. “Not to any of you. But you understand why I have to do this? For myself, and Patience?”
“I understand,” Claire said. She didn’t, really, but it seemed to make him feel better.
Claire, Eve, and Shane picked up their weapons and followed them into the dark.
Morley’s hideout was a series of what looked like limestone caves, hollowed out into actual rooms, with doors and windows—a city, underground. Not fancy, but it was definitely livable, if you were sunlight averse. There were more vamps here, living rough, hiding out. Claire figured a lot of those who’d decided not to take sides during the Amelie and Bishop fight had fled down here, taken up with Morley’s crew.
“I guess this means you aren’t really homeless,” she said. Morley looked back at her as he opened up the ancient, cracked door of one of the rooms. “I’d still look into running water.” Because the place stank, bad. So did the vampires.
“We grew up in ages when running water meant streams and rivers,” he said. “We’ve never been overly comfortable with modern luxuries.”
“Like baths?”
“Oh, we had baths in the old days. We called them stews, and they caused diseases.” He shoved open the door and lit a row of candles set into a kind of shelf along the side of the room, which gave off just enough light to make Claire feel she could turn her own portable lamp off. “What you’re looking for is here, in the box.”
The box was a rickety-looking crate with rope handles. Inside were more hard drives—the ones that had been missing from the radio station—and some DVDs. One was labeled, in black Sharpie, MICHAEL & EVE. Claire choked a little at the sight of it. She frantically combed through the others, but there was nothing marked SHANE & CLAIRE.
“Don’t worry,” Shane said. “The lighting was terrible on ours, anyway.”
“Not funny.”
“I know.” He put his arm around her. “I know. Speaking of not funny, where’s Kim? I’d like to tell her just how much I appreciate all she did to make us stars.”
Morley nodded. “Follow me.”
Three doors down was a much smaller cave—more like a cell—and Morley combed through an ancient ring of ancient keys until he found one to fit the huge rusty lock. “I keep her here for her own safety,” he said. “You’ll see.”
He opened the door, and Kim cowered back from the wash of the flashlights—but not Kim. The face was the same, but all the Goth had been scrubbed off except the dyed hair. She was dirty, dressed in filthy clothes, and there was zero bad attitude left.
Claire had been prepared to let loose a flood of anger, but this was just . . . pathetic. “Kim?” No response. “Kim! What did you do to her?”
“Nothing. She doesn’t respond to her name,” Morley said. “It seems she’s lost her mind.”
“Bullshit,” Eve snapped. “She’s an actress.”
“I’ve seen rehearsals,” Morley responded. “She’s not that good.”
Eve shoved past him to crouch down next to Kim, who covered her face and tried to curl into a ball. “Hey!” Eve said, and shook her, hard. “Kim, snap out of it! It’s Eve! Look at me!”
Kim screamed, and Claire caught her breath at the sound of it; there was real terror in it, and pain, and horror. Eve let her hand fall away, and she leaned back against the nearest wall, frowning.
“What happened to her?” Shane asked. Morley shrugged.
“Something bad,” he said. “Something permanent, as far as I can tell. She crossed someone who didn’t take well to her initiative.”
“You said you keep her locked up for protection.”
He flashed Claire a dark smile. “Consider it locking up the wine cellar. The girl’s still a good vintage, if not a brilliant conversationalist.”
Ugh. “I need her,” Claire said. “I need to take her with me.”
Morley’s vampire followers didn’t seem especially happy about her act of kindness. “She’s got no family,” Patience said. “No one is going to miss her. No one was even looking for her.”
“We were.”
“To punish her! We will do that for you.”
Even Shane looked a little sick at that. “We’ll do our own punishing, thanks,” he said. “Humans, I mean. Not me, personally.”
Morley’s eyes narrowed, but he shrugged as if he didn’t really care. “Take her,” he said. “Take the black boxes she thought were so important. Take it all, and remember your promise, Claire: you have one month to secure Amelie’s permission for us to leave Morganville. If you don’t get it, I’ll be paying your friends a visit.”
Kim was too scared to fight, but Shane took some strips of cloth and wrapped her wrists and ankles tight before slinging her over his shoulder. Eve took the box with the hard drives and DVDs.
Morley and his vampires stood in their way.
“One month,” he said. “Remember what I said.”
Then they parted ranks, and the three of them, carrying Kim, walked uphill toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
Ada was standing right at the very edge of the darkness, hands clasped before her, eyes like burned paper holes.
“I see you found her,” Ada said. “Good. I want her.”
“Why? Why did you bring us here?”
“Morley was supposed to kill you. I suppose one must do everything one’s self these days.”
Claire felt a sick wave of understanding flood over her. “You,” she said. “You would have known all about the cameras. You probably found out the first time Kim placed one.”
Ada smiled.
“You let her do it.”
“Oh no,” Ada said. “I helped her do it. The girl told me she would use the video she’d collected to rid me of Amelie and Oliver, and I gave her access. I helped her place her cameras. But she was a liar. A cheat. A thief.” Ada’s image contorted, taking on a monster’s shape for a flicker, then smoothed back to her Victorian disguise. “She was going to cheat me out of my revenge and destroy Morganville altogether. I won’t have that. Unlike Morley and his rabble, I can’t simply leave. I am Morganville. I must survive.”
