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The phone clicked off, and under Claire's fingers, the surface turned cold and still, like glass.
Blocked. Quantum stasis, she thought, fascinated, and wondered how that worked, for about the millionth time. She wanted to take Ada apart and figure it out. Yeah, if you live long enough. It had taken Myrnin three hundred years to put Ada together; it might take her that long just to figure out the basic principles he'd used.
Michael came back into the living room, leading two other vampires - Ysandre, that smug little witch, and her occasional partner Fran?ois, an equally nasty reject from some Eurotrash vampire melodrama.
They were walking cliches, but they were also deadly. Claire couldn't even look at Fran?ois without remembering how he'd ripped the cross off of her neck and bitten her. She still had the scars - faint, but they'd always be there. And she couldn't forget how that had felt, either.
A hot flood of emotion came over her when she saw him smirking at her - hate, fear, loathing, and fury. She knew he could feel it coming off of her in sick waves.
She also knew he enjoyed it.
Fran?ois gave her an elaborate bow and blew her a kiss. "Cherie," he said. "The exquisite taste of you still lingers in my mouth."
Shane's hands closed into fists. Fran?ois saw that, too. Claire touched Shane's arm; his muscles were tensed and hard. "Don't let him bait you," she whispered. "I was a snack. Not a date."
Fran?ois closed his eyes and made a point of sniffing the air. "Ah, but you smell so different now," he said, with elaborate disappointment. "Rich and complex, not simple and pure anymore. Still, I was the first to taste your blood, wasn't I, little Claire? And you never forget your first."
"Don't!" she hissed to Shane, and dug her fingernails in as deep as she could. It was all she could do. If Shane decided to go for him, she knew how it would end.
Luckily, so did Shane. He slowly relaxed, and Claire saw Michael's tension ease as well. "We talking, or are we walking?" Shane asked. "I thought we had someplace to be."
Claire felt a sunburst of pride in him, and a longing that came with it - she wanted all of this to just stop; she wanted to go back to the night, the silence, the touch of his skin and the sound of his whispers. That was real. That was important.
It was a reason to live through all this.
She took Shane's hand and squeezed it. He sent her a look. "What?"
She whispered, "You're just full of awesome; did you know that?"
Fran?ois made a face. "Full of something. In the car, fools."
Founder's Square at twilight was full of people - rock-concert full. Claire didn't even know this many people lived in Morganville. "Did they grab the students, too?" she asked Michael.
"Bishop's not quite that stupid. It's residents only. University gates were closed. The place is under lock-down."
"What, again? Even the stoners are going to figure out something's going on." Claire certainly would have, and she knew most of the students weren't that gullible. Then again, knowing and wanting to push the status quo were two very different things. "You think they'll stay on campus?"
"I think if they don't, the problem's going to solve itself," Michael said somberly. "Amelie will try to protect them, but we've got a much bigger issue tonight."
Technically, that challenge was saving Morganville, and everybody in it.
There were no chairs down on the grassy area, but Bishop's vampires were out and about, and they were separating people at the entrances to the park and sending them to special holding areas. Or, Claire, thought, pens. Like sorting cattle. "What are they doing?"
"Dividing people according to their Protectors," Fran?ois said. "What else?"
Bishop had kept the Protection system, then - or at least, he hadn't bothered to really dismantle it. People were being questioned at the gate. If they didn't name a Protector, they got slapped with a big yellow sticker and herded into a big open area in the middle. "What if their Protector is one of Amelie's rebels?" She knew the answer to that one. "Then they're no longer Protected. They go in the middle, too?"
Michael looked pallid - not just vampire-pale, really stressed and upset, as if he knew what was coming before she did. Claire didn't get it until Fran?ois said, "Just like your friends," and he grabbed Shane. Ysandre took hold of Eve. They both fought and cursed and tried to get free, but it was no use - they were shoved apart from Michael and Claire.
They were both dragged away to the big cordoned- off area in the center of the square. Claire tried to follow them, but Michael held her back. "Don't," he said. "Bishop may not know you're out of his control yet. Tell him you were drugged by Hannah to keep you out of the way. It's the truth; he'll probably sense that."
"What about Shane? Eve? God, how can you just stand there?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I know I have to. Claire, don't screw this up. You won't help them, and you'll only get yourself killed." He gave her a grim smile. "And me, because I'd have to get in the middle."
Claire stopped fighting him, but she still couldn't accept it. She saw why Richard had wanted people out of town who were at the highest risk; Bishop intended this to be a public spectacle.
His final act to make himself the undisputed ruler of Morganville. In the bad old days, that meant executing lots of people.
Fran?ois took Claire's arm and marched her up to the front, past angry, scared men and women she knew by sight, and some she'd never seen before. That section had a symbol taped to the barrier that surrounded it - she vaguely recognized it as the symbol for a vampire named Valerie, who'd joined Bishop in the first round of fighting. And yes, there was Valerie, standing inside the barricade with her humans, but looking very much as if she wished she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Past Valerie's barricades was a big raised stage, at least twenty feet off the ground, with steps leading up to it. There were plush chairs, and carpet, and a red velvet backdrop behind it. Spotlights turned the sunset pale in contrast. The stage was empty, but there was a knot of people standing at the foot of the steps.
Richard Morrell was there, dressed in a spotless dark blue suit, with a sky blue tie. He looked like he was running for office, not about to fight for his life; apparently, he and Amelie had the same philosophy on looking good for the Apocalypse. Next to him, Hannah still wore her police uniform, but no belt - and no gun, handcuffs, baton, stakes, or pepper spray. They'd taken away the human cops' weapons. There were other people, too - mostly vampires, but Claire recognized Dean Wallace, the head of TPU, and a few of the other prominent humans in town, including Mr. Janes, who was the CEO of the biggest bank in town. Mr. Janes had decided to stay. She'd seen his name on Richard's evac list, and she'd seen him driving away from the warehouse instead of getting on the bus.
She wondered how Mr. Janes was feeling about that decision right now. Not too good, she was guessing. He kept looking out at the crowd, probably trying to find friends and family.
She knew how he felt.
Richard Morrell nodded to her. "You okay?"
Why did everybody always ask that? "Sure," she lied. "What's going to happen?"
"Wish I knew," Richard said. "Stay close to Michael, whatever happens."
She was going to do that regardless, but she appreciated that he cared. He patted her on the back, and under cover of shaking her hand, he pressed something into her hand.
It was a silver knife, no bigger than her finger. Razor-sharp, too. She tried not to cut herself - the last thing she wanted was for the vamps around her to smell blood - and managed to get it in the pocket of her hoodie without stabbing herself. From Richard's warning look, she got that it was a weapon of last resort.
She nodded to let him know she understood.
A cordon of vampires closed in around them, including the tall, thin, sexless dude whom she'd last seen with the Goldmans. What was his name? Pennywell. Ugh. He had a thin smile, like he knew what was going to happen, and it wasn't going to be pretty.
"Up," he said, and jerked his chin to indicate that they were supposed to climb the steps. Richard went first - trying to set a good example, Claire supposed - and she followed, along with Hannah and Michael. It seemed like a long climb, and it reminded her of nothing else than those old stories about people getting hanged, or walking the last mile to the electric chair.
