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Not even Mr. Bishop.
"What's going on?" Claire asked. "I thought . . . Where is he?"
"Sit down and shut up," her vampire backseat guardian snarled, and shoved her into a chair. Michael looked like he might have been tempted to come to her defense, but she shook her head. Not worth it. Not yet, anyway.
The office door opened, and Mr. Bishop came in, wearing what looked like the same black suit and white shirt he'd been wearing the day before. There was something savage in the look he threw Claire, but he didn't pause; he walked to his desk and sat down.
He never did that. She couldn't imagine it was a good sign.
"Come here," he said. Claire didn't want to, but she felt the power woven into the tattoo on her arm snap to life. It responded to Bishop's voice - only to his - and the harder she tried to resist it, the worse it was going to hurt. But Patience Goldman was right . . . it hurt a lot less than it had before. Maybe it really was fading.
Better not to fight it and tip him off, if that was the case. She took a deep breath and let it pull her closer, right in front of his desk. Bishop leaned forward, staring up at her with cold, empty eyes, elbows braced on the polished wood surface. "Did you know what Goldman was going to do?" he asked. "Did you put him up to it?"
"No," she said. She wasn't sure whether it would help Theo if she took the blame, anyway.
Bishop stared a hole into her, then sat back and let his eyes drift half closed. "It hardly matters," he said. "I knew those people could not be trusted for any length of time. I kept watch on them. And you - I know you can't be trusted, either, little girl. I tethered you, but I didn't tame you. You're harder than you look, like my daughter, Amelie. No wonder she took you under her Protection."
"What are you going to do to the Goldmans?"
Bishop slapped his palm down on the desk, hard enough to leave his imprint half an inch deep in the wood. "I am done with restraint. This town will learn I am not to be taunted, not to be toyed with, not to be mocked. You will learn."
Claire wanted to shoot back some smart-ass remark, but she could see the vicious anger in him, and knew it was just waiting to pounce. She stood there, silent, watching him, and then he slowly relaxed. When she started to back away, he said, "Stay there. I have something for you."
He snapped his fingers, and when the door opened, Shane walked in. She hadn't noticed it in the cell, but he was thinner than he'd been a few months ago - and he was also bruised and simmering with fury. When he saw Bishop, he lunged for him.
"No!" Claire yelled. "Shane, stop!"
He didn't, but he also didn't have to. Michael flashed across the room and got in his way, wrapping Shane in a bear hug and bringing him to a sudden halt.
"Let go!" Shane's voice was ragged, splitting and tearing under the strain of his anger. "Screw you, Michael; let go!"
He tried to break free. Michael didn't let him. He pushed him back, all the way to the wall, and held him there. Claire couldn't see Michael's face, but she could see part of Shane's, and she saw something change in it. Shane stopped fighting, as if he'd received some message she hadn't seen.
"I am a good master," Bishop said, as if none of that had happened. "You asked me for a birthday favor, Claire. I granted you a visit. Today, I have decided that it was a poor gift. I will give you what you want. Shane will be free to go."
Claire didn't dare to breathe, blink, move. She knew this was a trick, a cruel way to crush her hopes, and Shane's, too. "Why?" she finally said. Her lips felt numb. "Why now?"
"Because I intend to teach you both what it means to defy me, once and for all, and let you carry the tale for me," Bishop said. "Michael. Hold them, but make sure the two of them see everything. I won't have my students failing their lessons."
Bishop's control let go, and Claire stumbled backward into Michael. His arm went around her waist, and she felt the pressure of his lips close to her ear. "Stay still," he whispered. "No matter what happens, just stay still. Please. I'll protect you."
On Michael's other side, Shane was very, very quiet. He wasn't looking at Bishop. He was looking across at Claire, and he was scared - scared that something was going to happen to her, she realized. She tried for a smile, but wasn't sure how it came out.
Shane opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, a vampire guard came in, bringing a thin, scraggly man with a mess of graying, curling hair and a nasty scar down his face.
Shane's dad. He looked older, thinner, and even more vulnerable than he had back in his cell - nothing like the big, scary monster who'd terrified her when she'd first met him.
"Are you watching, Shane?" Bishop asked. "I want you to learn, so that you don't make the same mistakes again."
"Dad," Shane said. "Dad?"
Frank Collins put his hand out to stop Shane from trying to break free. "It's all right. Nothing he can do to me now." He faced Bishop straight on. "Been there, done that, not scared of anything you can bring to this party, bloodsucker. So just kill me and get it over with."
Bishop slowly rose from his chair, staying behind the desk.
"But, Mr. Collins, you mistake me. I'm not going to kill you. I'd never do such a thing. You're far too valuable to me."
His pale hands flashed out, grabbed Shane's dad, and jerked him forward over the desk. Claire shut her eyes as the fangs came out, and Bishop's eyes flashed red. She didn't see the actual biting, but she heard Shane screaming.
It was over in about thirty seconds. Shane never stopped fighting to get free of Michael's hold.
Claire didn't fight at all. She just couldn't.
She heard a thud as Mr. Collins's body hit the floor, and when she opened her eyes she realized that she'd been wrong about everything. Very wrong.
Bishop wasn't finished.
He gnawed at his wrist, pried open Frank Collins's mouth, and poured blood into it as he spread his other hand over the top of the man's head. Claire had seen this before - Amelie had done it to Michael - but Amelie had found it difficult and exhausting to make a new vampire.
For Bishop, it seemed easy.
"No," Shane said. "No, stop."
Right there, right in front of them, Frank Collins coughed, choked, and came back to life. It looked painful, and it seemed to take forever for the thrashing and screaming to stop.
When it did, he wasn't Frank Collins. Not anymore.
He opened his eyes, and they were red.
"You see?" Bishop said, and wiped excess blood from his wrist on his black jacket. "I am not cruel. You'll never lose your father, Shane. Never again."
Claire could hear Shane's breath coming fast and ragged - more sobbing than gasping - but she couldn't look at him. She knew him; she knew he wouldn't want her to see him like this. That's Shane. Always trying to protect me.
Michael let Claire go. After a quick glance at her, he turned to Shane. "Don't freak out on me," he said. "Don't. This isn't the time, and it isn't the place."
Shane wasn't even looking at him. He was looking at his dad.
Frank Collins, standing next to Bishop, kept staring back at his son, and Claire didn't think that look was concern.
More like hunger.
"I hope everyone learned something today," Mr. Bishop said. "First, I know everything that goes on in Morganville. Second, I don't tolerate foolish attempts at rebellion. Third . . . well. I am so kind and merciful that no one else will die for it today. No, not even the Goldmans, before you bleat the question at me. They have been confined somewhere safe, for now, until I decide on a fitting punishment." He flicked his fingers at Michael. "See your friends home, boy. It would be a dreadful irony if they should be drained along the way by some passing stranger. Or relative."
Emphasis on the dreadful, Claire thought. She grabbed Shane's cold, shaking hand and forced him to look at her.
"Let's go," she said. "We have to go, Shane. Right now."
She wasn't really sure he understood her, but Michael helped nudge him along when he slowed down.
It was a long ten seconds until they were on the other side of the closed door, being eyed by Bishop's vampire guards. Claire felt like the last sandwich on the lunch counter.
Shane broke out of his trance when they got into the elevator.
Unfortunately.
Michael was pushing the garage button on the elevator panel, and he didn't quite see it coming. Shane got in a lucky shot to his face, fast and vicious, as Michael turned. It was hard enough that Michael, even with vampire strength, felt it, and crashed back against the wall, denting it in an uneven outline of his shoulders.
