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It was a door, too far for her to reach--way too far.
"I thought he'd never leave," Ysandre said, and put her cold, cold lips on Claire's neck, then yelled in shock and pulled away, covering her mouth with one pale hand. "You bitch!"
Ysandre hadn't seen the silver chain Claire was wearing in the dim light, as whisperthin as it was. Now there were welts forming on the vampire's full lips--forming, breaking, and bleeding.
Fury sparked in Ysandre's eyes. Playtime was over.
As Claire squirmed away, the vampire followed at a lazy stroll. She wiped her burned lips and looked at the thin, leaking blood in distaste. "Tastes like silver. Disgusting. You've just ruined my good mood, little girl."
As she rolled, Claire felt something sharp dig into her leg. The knife. They'd found the stake, but she guessed their search hadn't exactly been thorough; Jason was too crazy, and Ysandre too careless and arrogant.
But the knife wasn't going to do her any good at all where it was, unless . . .
Ysandre lunged for her, a blur of white in the darkness, and Claire twisted and jammed her hip down at an awkward angle.
The knife slipped and tore through the fabric of her jeans--not much of it, just a couple of inches, but enough to slice open Ysandre's hand and arm as it reached for her, all the way to the bone.
Ysandre shrieked in real pain, and spun away. She didn't look so pretty now, and when she turned toward Claire again, from a respectful distance this time, she hissed at her with full cobra fangs extended. Her eyes were wild and bloodred, glowing like rubies.
Claire twisted, nearly yanking her elbow out of its joint, and managed to get the ropes around her wrist against the knife. She didn't have long; the shock wouldn't keep Ysandre at bay for more than a few seconds.
But getting a silver knife to cut through synthetic rope? That was going to take a while--a while she didn't have. Claire sawed desperately, and got a little bit of give on the bonds--enough to almost get her hand into her pocket.
But not.
Ysandre grabbed her by the hair. "I'm going to destroy you for that."
The pain in her head was blinding. It felt like her scalp was being ripped off, and on top of that, the massive headache roared back to a new, sickening pulse.
Claire loosened the rope enough to plunge her aching hand into her pocket and grab the handle of the knife. She yanked it out of the tangle of fabric and held it at a trembling, handicapped en garde--still tied up, but whatever, she wasn't going to stop fighting, not ever.
Ysandre shrieked and let her go, which made no sense to Claire's confused, painshocked mind. I didn't stab her yet. Did I? Not that she wanted to stab anybody, even Ysandre. She just wanted--
What was going on?
Ysandre's body slammed down hard on the wooden floor, and Claire gasped and flinched away . . . but the vampire had fallen facedown, limp, and weirdly broken.
A small woman dressed in gray, her pale hair falling wild around her shoulders, dropped silently from overhead and put one impeccably lovely gray pump in the center of Ysandre's back, holding her down as she tried to move.
"Claire?" The woman's face turned toward her, and Claire blinked twice before she realized whom she was looking at.
Amelie. But not Amelie. Not the cool, remote Founder--this woman had a wild, furious energy to her that Claire had never seen before. And she looked young.
"I'm okay," she said faintly, and tried to decide whether this version of Amelie was really here, or a function of her smackedaround brain. She decided it would be a good idea to get her hands and feet untied before figuring anything else out.
That took long minutes, during which Amelie (really?) dragged Ysandre, whimpering, into the corner and fastened her wrists to a massive crossbeam with chains. The chains, Claire registered, had been there all along. Lovely. This was some kind of vamp playpen/storage locker--probably Oliver's. And she felt sick again, thinking about it. Claire sawed grimly at the ropes binding her and finally parted one complete twist around her hands. As she struggled out of the loops of rope, she saw deep white imprints in her skin, and realized that her hands were red and swollen. She could still feel them, at least, and the burn of circulation returning felt as if she were holding them over an open flame.
She focused on slicing the increasingly dulled knife through the rope on her feet, but it was no use.
"Here," Amelie said, and bent down to snap the rope with one twist of her fingers. It was so frustrating, after all that hard work, to see just how easy it was for her. Claire stripped the ties away and sat for a moment breathing hard, starting to feel every cut, bump, and bruise on her body.
Amelie's cool fingers cupped Claire's chin and forced her head up, and the vampire's gray eyes searched hers. "You have a head injury," Amelie said. "I don't think it's too serious. A headache and some dizziness, perhaps." She let go. "I expected to find you. I did not expect to find you here, I confess."
Amelie looked fine. Not a prisoner. Not a scratch on her, in fact. Claire had lots more damage, and she hadn't been dragged off as Bishop's prisoner. . . .
Wait. "You--we thought Bishop might have gotten you. But he didn't, did he?" Amelie cocked an eyebrow at her. "Apparently not."
"Then where did you go?" Claire felt a completely useless urge to lash out at her, crack that extreme cool. "Why did you do this? You left us alone! And you called the vampires out of hiding--" Her voice failed her for a second as she thought about Officer O'Malley, and the others she'd heard about. "You got some of them killed."
Amelie didn't respond to that. She simply stared back, as calm as an ice sculpture--calmer, because she wasn't melting.
"Tell me why," Claire said. "Tell me why you did that."
"Because plans change," Amelie replied. "As Bishop changes his moves, I must change mine. The stakes are too high now, Claire. I've lost half the vampires of Morganville to him. He's taking away my advantage, and I needed to draw them to me, for their own safety."
"You got vampires killed, not just humans. I know humans don't mean anything to you. But I thought the whole point of this was to save your people!"
"And so it is," Amelie said. "As many as can be saved. As for the call, there is a thing in chess known as a blitz attack, you see--a distraction, to cover the movement of more important pieces. You retrieved Myrnin and set him in play again; this was most important. I need my most powerful pieces on the board."
"Like Oliver?" Claire rubbed her hands together, trying to get the annoying tingle out of them. "He's hurt, you know. Maybe dying."
