by Rachel Caine
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 the 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.”
Eve didn’t like taking orders under the best of circumstances, which these weren’t. Claire quickly said, “We take these walkie-talkies to each of the Founder Houses, to the university, and to anybody else on the list. We tell them all strategic orders come through these, not through cell phone or police band.”
“Be sure to give them the code,” he said. Each one of the tiny little radios had a keypad, like a cell phone, but the difference was that you had to enter the code into it to access the emergency communication channel he’d established. Pretty high tech, but then, Oliver didn’t really seem the type to lag much behind on the latest cool stuff. “All right. I’m sending Hannah with you as your escort. I’d send one of my own, but—”
“Dawn, yeah, I know,” Eve said. She offered a high five to Hannah, who took it. “Damn, girl, love the Rambo look.”
“Rambo was a Green Beret,” Hannah said. “Please. We eat those army boys for breakfast.”
Which was maybe not such a comfortable thing to say in a room full of maybe-hungry vampires. Claire cleared her throat. “We should—”
Hannah nodded, picked up the backpack (Claire’s, now filled with handheld radios instead of books), and handed it to her. “I need both hands free,” she said. “Eve’s driving. You’re the supply master. There’s a check-list inside, so you can mark off deliveries as we go.”
Myrnin was sitting off to the side, ominously quiet. His eyes still looked sane, but Claire had warned Oliver in the strongest possible terms that he couldn’t trust him. Not really.
As if I would, Oliver had said with a snort. I’ve known the man for many human lifetimes, and I’ve never trusted him yet.
The vampires in the coffee shop had mostly retreated out of the big, front area, into the better-protected, light-proofed interior. Outside of the plate glass windows, there was little to be seen. The fires had gone out, or been extinguished. They’d seen some cars speeding about, mostly official police or fire, but the few figures they’d spotted had been quick and kept to the shadows.
“What are they doing?” Claire asked as she hitched her backpack to a more comfortable position on her shoulder. She didn’t really expect Oliver to reply; he wasn’t much on the sharing.
He surprised her. “They’re consolidating positions,” he said. “This is not a war that will be fought in daylight, Claire. Or in the open. We have our positions; they have theirs. They may send patrols of humans they’ve recruited, but they won’t come themselves. Not after dawn.”
“Recruited,” Hannah repeated. “Don’t you mean strong-armed? Most folks just want to be left alone.”
“Not necessarily. Morganville is full of humans who don’t love us, or the system under which they labor,” Oliver replied. “Some will believe Bishop is the answer. Some will act out of fear, to protect their loved ones. He will know how to appeal to them, and how to pressure. He’ll find his human cannon fodder.”
“Like you’ve found yours,” Hannah said.
They locked stares for a few seconds, and then Oliver inclined his head just a bit. “If you like.”
“I don’t,” she said, “but I’m used to the front lines. You got to know, others won’t be.”
Claire couldn’t tell anything from Oliver’s expression. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But for now, we can count on our enemies regrouping. We should do the same.”
Hannah nodded. “I’m out first, then you, Eve. Have your keys in your hand. Don’t hesitate, run like hell for the car, and get it unlocked. I’ll get Claire to the passenger side.”
Eve nodded, clearly jittery. She took the car keys out of her pocket and held them in her hand, sorting through until she had the right key pointing out.
“One more thing,” Hannah said. “You got a flashlight?”
Eve fumbled in her other pocket and came up with a tiny little penlight. When she twisted it, it gave a surprisingly bright glow.
“Good.” Hannah nodded. “Before you get in the car, you shine that in the front and backseats. Make sure you can see all the way down to the carpet. I’ll cover you from the door.”
The three of them moved to the exit, and Hannah put her left hand on the knob.
“Be careful,” Oliver said from the back of the room, whi
ch was kind of warmly surprising. He spoiled it by continuing, “We need those radios delivered.”
Should have known it wasn’t personal. Claire resisted the urge to flip him off.
Eve didn’t bother to resist hers.
Then Hannah was swinging open the door and stepping outside. She didn’t do it like in the movies; no drama, she just stepped right out, turned in a slow half circle as she scanned the street with the paintball gun held at rest. She finally motioned for Eve. Eve darted out and headed around the hood of the big, black car. Claire saw the glow of her penlight as she checked the inside, and then Eve was in the driver’s seat and the car growled to a start, and Hannah pushed her toward the passenger door.
Behind them, the Common Grounds door slammed shut and locked. When she looked back, Claire saw that they were pulling down some kind of steel shutters inside the glass.
Locking up for dawn.
Claire and Hannah made it to the car without any problems. Even so, Claire was breathing hard, her heart racing.
“You okay?” Eve asked her. Claire nodded, still gasping. “Yeah, I know. Terror Aerobics. Just wait until they get it at the gym. It’ll be bigger than Pilates.”
Claire choked on her fear, laughed, and felt better.
“That’s my girl. Locks,” Eve said. “Also, seat belts, please. We may be making some sudden stops along the way. Don’t want anybody saying hello to Mr. Windshield at speed.”
The drive through predawn Morganville was eerie. It was very . . . quiet. They’d mapped out a route, planning to avoid the most dangerous areas, but they almost had to divert immediately, because of a couple of cars parked in the middle of the street.
The doors were hanging open, interior lights were still shining.
Eve slowed down and crawled past on the right side, two wheels up on the curb. “See anything?” she asked anxiously. “Any bodies or anything?”
The cars were completely empty. They were still running, and the keys were in the ignition. One strange thing nagged at Claire, but she couldn’t think what it was. . . .
