AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Maybe Amelie's kicking his ass out there in the shadows somewhere." Shane shoveled in more spaghetti.
"No. She's not. I can feel that. I think--I think she's in hiding. With the rest of her followers, the vampires, anyway."
Shane stopped chewing. "You know where they are?"
"Not really. I just feel--" Michael shook his head. "It's gone. Sorry. But I feel like things are changing. Coming to a head."
Claire had just taken a plate of warm pasta when they all heard the thump of footsteps overhead. They looked up, and then at each other, in silence. Michael pointed to himself and the stairs, and they all nodded. Eve opened a drawer in the end table and took out three sharpened stakes; she tossed one to Shane, one to Claire, and kept one in a whiteknuckled grip.
Michael ascended the stairs without a sound, and disappeared.
He didn't come back down. Instead, there was a swirl of black coat and stained white balloon pants tucked into black boots; then Myrnin leaned over the railing to say, "Upstairs, all of you. I need you."
"Um . . ." Eve looked at Shane. Shane looked at Claire.
Claire followed Myrnin. "Trust me," she said. "It won't do any good to say no."
Michael was waiting in the hallway, next to the open, secret door. He led the way up.
Whatever Claire had been expecting to see, it wasn't a crowd, but that was what was waiting upstairs in the hidden room on the third floor. She stared in confusion at the room full of people, then moved out of the way for Shane and Eve to join her and Michael.
Myrnin came last. "Claire, I believe you know Theo Goldman and his family."
The faces came into focus. She had met them--in that museum thing, when they'd been on the way to rescue Myrnin. Theo Goldman had spoken to Amelie. He'd said they wouldn't fight.
But it looked to Claire like they'd been in a fight anyway. Vampires didn't bruise, exactly, but she could see torn clothes and smears of blood, and they all looked exhausted and somehow--hollow. Theo was worst of all. His kind face seemed made of nothing but lines and wrinkles now, as if he'd aged a hundred years in a couple of days.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but we had no other place to go. Amelie--I hoped that she was here, that she would give us refuge. We've been everywhere else."
Claire remembered there being more of them, somehow--yes, there were at least two people missing. One human, one vampire. "What happened? I thought you were safe where you were!"
"We were," Theo said. "Then we weren't. That's what wars are like. The safe places don't stay safe. Someone knew where we were, or suspected. Around dawn yesterday, a mob broke in the doors looking for us. Jochen--" He looked at his wife, and she bowed her head. "Our son Jochen, he gave his life to delay them. So did our human friend William. We've been hiding, moving from place to place, trying not to be driven out in the sun."
"How did you get here?" Michael asked. He seemed wary. Claire didn't blame him.
"I brought them," Myrnin said. "I've been trying to find those who are left." He crouched down next to one of the young vampire girls and stroked her hair. She smiled at him, but it was a fragile, frightened smile. "They can stay here for now. This room isn't common knowledge. I've left open the portal in the attic in case they have to flee, but it's one way only, leading out. It's a last resort."
"Are there others? Out there?" Claire asked. "Very few on their own. Most are either with Bishop, with Amelie, or"--Myrnin spread his hands--"gone."
"What are they doing? Amelie and Bishop?"
"Moving their forces. They're trying to find an advantage, pick the most favorable ground. It won't last." Myrnin shrugged. "Sooner or later, sometime tonight, they'll clash, and then they'll fight. Someone will win, and someone will lose. And in the morning, Morganville will know its fate."
That was creepy. Really creepy. Claire shivered and looked at the others, but nobody seemed to have anything to say.
"Claire. Attend me," Myrnin said, and walked with her to one corner of the room. "Have you spoken with your doctor friend?"
"I tried. I couldn't get through to him. Myrnin, are you . . . okay?"
"Not for much longer," he said, in that clinical way he had right before the drugs wore off. "I won't be safe to be around without another dose of some sort. Can you get it for me?"
"There's none in your lab--"
"I've been there. Bishop got there first. I shall need a good bit of glassware, and a completely new library." He said it lightly, but Claire could see the tension in his face and the shadow in his dark, gleaming eyes. "He tried to destroy the portals, cut off Amelie's movements. I managed to patch things together, but I shall need to instruct you in how it's done. Soon. In case--"
He didn't need to finish. Claire nodded slowly. "You should go," she said. "Is the prison safe? The one where you keep the sickest ones?"
"Bishop finds nothing to interest him there, so yes. He will ignore it awhile longer. I'll lock myself in for a while, until you come with the drug." Myrnin bent over her, suddenly very focused and very intent. "We must refine the serum, Claire. We must distribute it. The stress, the fighting--it's accelerating the disease. I've seen signs of it in Theo, even in Sam. If we don't act soon, I'm afraid we may begin to lose more to confusion and fear. They won't even be able to defend themselves."
Claire swallowed. "I'll get on it."
He took her hand and kissed it lightly. His lips felt dry as dust, but it still left a tingle in her fingers. "I know you will, my girl. Now, let's rejoin your friends."
"How long do they need to be here?" Eve asked, as they moved closer. She asked not unkindly, but she seemed nervous, too. There were, Claire thought, an awful lot of nearstranger vampire guests. "I mean, we don't have a lot of blood in the house. . . ."
Theo smiled. Claire remembered, with a sharp feeling of alarm, what he'd said to Amelie back at the museum, and she didn't like that smile at all, not even when he said, "We won't require much. We can provide for ourselves."
"He means, they can munch on their human friends, like takeout," Claire said. "No. Not in our house."
Myrnin frowned. "This is hardly the time to be--"
"This is exactly the time, and you know it. Did anybody ask them if they wanted to be snack packs?" The two remaining humans, both women, looked horrified. "I didn't think so."
