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His strong, cool hand closed around her upper arm in a firm, but not harsh grip, and he guided her through blind darkness, zigzagging around (she assumed) tables and chairs. When he let go, she heard a door close behind them, and Theo said, "Shield your eyes. Lights coming on."
She closed her eyes, and a flare of brightness reddened the inside of her lids. When she looked, Theo was stepping away from the light switch and moving toward the group of people sitting at the far end of the room. His dark-haired wife rose from her chair, smiling; except for her generally pale skin, she didn't look much like a vampire, really. Theo's kids and grandkids - some physically older than Claire, some younger - sat in a group playing cards. In the dark, because all the ones playing were vampires. The humans weren't here at all.
"Claire," Patience Goldman said, and extended her hand. "Thank you for coming inside."
"Um . . . no problem," she said. "Is everything okay?" It hadn't been for a while. Bishop had been thinking of killing all the Goldmans, or making them leave Morganville. Something about their being Jews. Claire didn't really understand all the dynamics of it, but she knew it was an old anger, and a very old feud.
"Yes, we are fine," Theo said. "But I wanted to tell you that we will be leaving Morganville tonight."
"You . . . what? I thought Bishop said you could stay - "
"Oh, he did," Theo said, and his kindly face took on a harder look. "Promises were made. None that I believe, of course. It's no sin for a man like him to break a promise to a man like me; after all, I am hardly better than a human to him." His wife made a sound of protest, and Theo blinked. "I did not mean that to slight you, Claire. You understand what I mean."
"Yeah." Bishop had carried over some prejudices from his human days, and a big one had to do with a dislike of Jewish people, so maybe he didn't look at Jewish vampires as being any different - any better - than mere humans, who weren't real to Bishop, anyway. "But . . . why tell me? You can't trust me, you know." She rubbed her arm under the long-sleeved T-shirt, feeling ashamed all over again. "I can't help it. If he asks me, I have to tell him about you."
Theo and his wife exchanged a look. "Actually," Patience said, "you don't. I thought you knew."
"Knew what?"
"That the influence of the charm he used on you is fading." Patience stepped forward. "May I?"
Claire had no idea what she was asking for, but since Patience was holding out her cool white hands, Claire hesitantly extended hers. Mrs. Goldman pushed the shirt sleeve up to expose the tattoo, turning it this way and that, studying it.
"Well?" Theo asked. "Can you tell?"
"It's definitely significantly weakened," his wife said. "How much, it's hard to tell, but I don't think he can compel her without a large effort. Not anymore."
That was news to Claire. Good news, actually. "Does he know what I'm thinking?"
"He never did, my dear," Patience said, and patted her hand before releasing it. "Mr. Bishop's skills are hardly all-powerful. He simply uses our fear to make them seem so." She nodded to her husband. "I think I can safely mask her from him, if he should look for her."
"Wait, what?" Claire asked.
Their eldest son, Virgil, threw down a handful of cards in annoyance and crossed his arms. "Oh, just tell her," he said. "They want to take you with us."
"What?"
"It's for the best," Theo said quickly. "We can escort you safely out of town. If you stay, he'll kill you, or turn you vampire so he can control you better. You simply have no options here, my dear. We only want to help you, but it has to be now. Tonight. We can't risk waiting any longer."
"That's . . . kind of sweet," Claire said carefully, and measured the distance between where she stood and the door. Not that she could outrun one vampire, much less six. "But I'm okay here. Besides, I really can't leave now. Shane - "
"Ah." Theo snapped his fingers, and his smile took on a wicked sort of tilt around the edges. "Yes, of course. The boy. As it happens, I did not forget young Mr. Collins; Clarence and Minnie have gone to fetch him. Once they arrive here, we will make sure you both are safely away."
Claire's eyes widened, and suddenly she couldn't get a breath. Her heart started to pound, first from anticipation, then from outright fear. "You . . . you decided to break Shane out of jail?"
"Call it our last good act of charity," Theo said. "Or our revenge on Mr. Bishop, if you like. Either way, it's of benefit to you, I think."
"Does Amelie know what you're doing?"
Theo's expression smoothed out into a frighteningly blank mask. "Amelie finds it better to skulk in the shadows, while people die for her lack of courage. No, she does not know. If she did, she'd no doubt have a dozen reasons why this was a mistake."
It was a mistake. Claire couldn't say why, but she knew it, deep down. "She promised me she'd take care of him," Claire said. "She's got a plan, Theo. You shouldn't have interfered."
"Amelie's plans are subject to her own needs, and she never bothered to include me," Theo said. "I am offering you and your boy a way out of Morganville. Now. Tonight. And you need never return here again."
It wasn't that simple. "My parents."
"We can take them with us as well."
"But . . . Bishop can find us," Claire said. "Vampires found Shane's family when they left town before. They killed his mother."
"Shane and his father blame vampires for what was only a very natural human despair. Shane's mother took her own life. You see that, don't you? Claire?" Theo seemed to want her to agree, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe he doubted it himself. When she didn't, he looked disappointed. "Well, it's too late now, in any case. We can discuss this once we're safely away. We will help you find a place well beyond Bishop's - and Amelie's - reach before we move on ourselves."
One of the grandsons - the middle one, Claire couldn't remember his name - made a rude sound and threw down his cards. "Grandpapa, we don't want to leave." The other children tried to shush him, but he stood up. "We don't! None of us do! We have lives here. We stopped running. It was safe for us. Now you want us to go out there again, start over again - "
"Jacob!" Theo's wife seemed shocked. "Don't talk to your grandfather so!"
"You never ask us. You want us all to pretend that we're still children. We're not, Grandmother. I know you and Grandpapa can't accept that; I know you don't want to let us go, but we can make our own decisions."
Mrs. Goldman seemed not to know what to say. Theo looked very thoughtful, and then nodded. "All right. I'm listening. What decision have you made?"
"To stay here," Jacob said. "We're staying here." He looked down at his brothers and sisters, who all nodded - some reluctantly, though. "You can go if you want, but we're not letting Bishop drive us out. And no matter what you say, that's what you're doing. You're just saving him the trouble of exiling us."
"If exile was what I was worried about, I would agree with you. It isn't."
"You think he'll try to kill us?" Jacob shook his head. "No. It's not the old days, Grandpapa. Nobody's hunting us here."
"If I have learned anything in my long life, it is that someone is always hunting us," Theo's wife said. "Now sit down, Jacob. The rest of you, sit down. We'll have no more of this. You're being rude in front of our friend."
Claire wanted to apologize, somehow; Jacob shot her a borderline-angry look, but he dropped back in his place on the floor, shoulders slumped. She'd never thought about it, but she supposed for a lot of vampires Morganville was about as good as it could get - no looking over your shoulder, waiting to be discovered. No worrying about putting down roots, making friends, having some kind of a life.
"Theo," Mrs. Goldman said, and nodded toward the door where they'd come in. "I hear someone coming."
"She has better ears than I do," Theo confessed to Claire. "Stay here. I will let them in."
"But - "
"Stay here. There's nothing to fear. You'll be with your young man soon."
He left, shutting the door behind him. Mrs. Goldman drifted quietly over to speak to her children and grand-children in a low, urgent voice - the way moms always talked to kids who were throwing tantrums in front of company - and Claire was left not quite knowing what she ought to do. If they had managed to bust Shane out of jail, well, that was good, wasn't it? Maybe not according to Amelie's plan, but that didn't make it a bad thing. Not automatically.
