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“You say that like we know where she is.”
“I think we do. She’s someplace where she can rest undisturbed. Someplace nobody would be surprised to see her, if she were found. Think about it, Lucas.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Okay, I might’ve spent pretty much my whole life surrounded by dead people, including my own parents, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find the morgue a bit creepy. I wasn’t panicking or anything, but there’s something incredibly sad about the place: all those lives and emotions and hopes reduced to scrawled labels on small steel doors. Lucas and I stood in the doorway for a few seconds, just taking it in.
On three long tables, spread the length of the morgue, were three body bags. I walked toward them slowly. The first was way too big; the person inside must be heavy. The last looked too short. So the one in the middle was our best bet.
Hesitantly, I reached for the zipper. The tab was heavier than I expected, and cold to the touch—they kept the morgue chilly. Lucas took his place beside me, his broad knife at the ready. I tugged the zipper down, feeling each separating tooth like a jolt through my wrist.
Her hand shot out of the bag and grabbed mine, hard. I shrieked; I couldn’t help it. Lucas lunged forward, but I threw out my arm to hold him back.
The vampire sat upright, staring at us. She looked less pale than before, and the port-wine mark on her throat was less pronounced; feeding had rejuvenated her. She’d loosened her fair hair for her nap, and the mussed curls framed her face. Her wide eyes remained fixed on Lucas, but it was me she spoke to: “Why did you bring him here?”
“He’s with me. We just wanted to find you.”
“To kill me.”
I shook my head. “We’re here to make sure you’re safe.”
“Safe?” She cocked her head in confusion, as if I’d started speaking in another language. “You’re in danger.”
“Lucas would never hurt me.”
“In more danger than you know,” she insisted. “More than you know either, boy.”
“You ate here at the blood bank,” I said, more for Lucas’s benefit. “I can tell you’ve eaten. It changes our coloring, and makes us stronger.”
“I’m stronger now,” the vampire girl agreed. She kept glaring at Lucas, her eyes shining with hatred. I had to defuse the situation, and fast.
“Lucas is a friend. He’s not here to hurt you.”
“I can tell,” she said, looking at Lucas’s knife.
His motions awkward and unwilling, Lucas tucked his knife back into his belt. When he spoke, his words were clipped. “The family back in Albion—you didn’t actually have anything to do with that? We thought you did.”
“People make such foolish mistakes.” The vampire’s voice sounded strangely dreamy. Slowly she kicked the body bag away from her feet, looking for all the world like a little kid wriggling out of a sleeping bag.
“I need to know who did that,” he said. “Something deadly is out there, doing a lot of harm. If you know who’s been on the prowl in Albion, if you’re connected with that gang at all, just tell me. I can get it taken care of, and you can—well, you can go do what you do.”
Instead of answering Lucas, she turned her wide, dark eyes on me. “Does he know what you are?”
“He knows everything. Tell us what we need to know, and we can make sure you’re safe.”
Her fingers slowly relaxed as she let my hand go. The light fixture hanging from the ceiling was almost directly behind her, turning her corn silk hair into a kind of halo. I thought how young she must have been when she died, maybe only fourteen.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the morgue door slammed open. We all jumped, and my heart plunged as I saw Dana and Kate standing in the doorway. Dana had her crossbow ready, and Kate held a stake. “Y’all get back!” Dana yelled. “Reinforcements have arrived.”
The vampire shrieked, an unearthly sound like a hawk diving for a kill. She leaped past us into the corner behind the autopsy table. “A trap,” she whispered. “Always a trap.”
I wanted to say that we hadn’t meant to do this, but Lucas clutched both my arms as a warning to be silent. He started backing away, pulling me out of range.
Neither Kate nor Dana spoke to the vampire. Kate remained in the doorway as Dana edged forward, her face no longer sweet. I sensed Dana was a good person, but she was about to do a horrible thing, and I had to stop her.
Blindingly fast, the vampire flung one hand forward, and I saw a whirling glitter of metal in the split second before Dana cried out and slumped against the wall. Even as Dana fell, the vampire sprang forward with superhuman strength, tackling Kate and knocking them both sprawling into the corridor.
