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"Oh, yes," Myrnin said. He was walking around the truck, tapping a finger on his bottom lip. His expression was elated but thoughtful. "It's the Founder's personal security vehicle, for her protection in emergencies. Used for her personal evacuation only."
"Where are the keys?" Shane asked. He'd tried the driver's side door, but it was, of course, locked.
"No one but Amelie and her assistant would know, and her assistant was evacuated with the others, I'm afraid. Don't bother trying to force the lock, Michael. It's hardened against vampires as well as humans. Without the proper keys, we're not getting in. And yet ... it is a good idea. Very good indeed." Myrnin turned suddenly and focused directly on Claire. "I will go ask Amelie for the keys."
"Excuse me?" Claire blinked. "That's ... really not a good idea. Oliver wouldn't let me anywhere close to her. He said she was ..."
"Unpredictable," Myrnin said briskly. "Well, if anyone can handle unpredictable, I should think it would be me. Don't worry. Oh, all right, then do worry, if that pleases you, but we need the key, and Amelie's got it. There's no choice."
"Pickup truck," Shane said. "That's a choice."
"Not a good one where we're going," Myrnin said. He held out a finger toward Michael, then Shane, then Eve, and said, "Stay."
"Excuse me, we're not your pets," Eve said. "You don't get to order us around ..." But she was talking to empty air. Myrnin had already vanished, vampire-speed. The only one who might have caught him was Michael, but Michael wasn't moving.
When Claire started after him, Michael grabbed her by the shoulder. "No," he said. "He's right. Nobody's better qualified to handle unpredictable vampires than he is. Certainly not you. You are way too vulnerable."
"I'm not staying here," she said. "Are you coming or not? Because I don't think you want to have to tie me up to make me stay."
Shane heaved a sigh. "Nobody's tying her up," he said. "Sorry, Mike. It's not that I don't think you're right, it's that I know my girl. She's going. We can either watch her back or stay here. And I'm not staying here, mostly because I don't take orders from-what did you call him?"
"Chatty Batty," Eve said. "Hey, it fits."
"I like it."
Claire shook off Michael's hand. He let her. "Then let's go, before he gets himself killed."
Shane probably didn't mean it when he said, "Wait, that was an option? Because I could still stay."
Myrnin was already well ahead of them, of course, and they had the guards to deal with, but since Claire had already been admitted once today, with Theo, they let her in.
But only her.
"We're with the band," Shane said, and tried to push his way past. That got him an iron-hard vampire grip on his arm that made him wince and stopped him cold. "Claire, don't. Stay with me. He'll be okay."
But in her bones Claire didn't really think he would be. She looked at the guard holding Shane's arm and asked, "Is Oliver still in there, too?"
"He's gone to find the doctor," the guard said. "Myrnin just went in."
"So he's alone?" She felt a surge of anxiety. "Well, he wants us with him."
"Us?" The vampire wasn't buying that one. "You, maybe. The others stay here. They're not on the list."
"There's a list? And I'm not on it?" Eve said. "I'm deeply hurt. I'm always on the list."
"It's not a club," Michael said.
"Still."
Claire backed away, down the hall, mouthed, Sorry, to Shane, and hurried on. From the look on his face, she knew they'd be having a serious conversation about this later, but she couldn't wait to try to talk it out now.
Myrnin was in trouble. She could just feel it.
Inside the room, Claire shut the heavy door but didn't lock it behind her; the anteroom was a sitting area, hushed and airless. It reeked of the damp and sickness, and it also seemed a little like a museum ... as if someone had created it for show, not for use. This is how vampires lived in the twenty-first century, the exhibit card would read. Pretending that everything was normal.
Claire took in a slow, calm breath and opened the bedroom door. She half expected to find it empty, but Myrnin was there, standing stock-still a few feet from the bed.
Looking at Amelie.
She looked like her own statue-immobile and white, lying exactly in the center of the bed with her hands folded over her stomach. The sheets were drawn up and folded back just below her arms. It looked as if she was wearing some kind of thick white nightgown, with incredibly delicate lace at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was loose, and it spilled over the pillow in a pale silk fan.
There was a thick bandage on her throat, but it was soaked through with dark, wet blood.
Seeing her like this was ... strange. She looked very young, and vulnerable, and somehow very sad. Claire remembered seeing pictures of the tombs of queens, of the marble images carved to top them that were replicas of the bodies below. Amelie looked just like that ... an eternal monument to her own mortality.
Myrnin raised his head and saw Claire standing there, and his expression turned from blank to tormented. "Get out," he said. "Get out now, while you still can!"
He sounded absolutely serious, and Claire took a step backward, intending to follow his instructions.
And then Amelie opened her eyes.
It was sudden, a flash of movement that made Claire's heart skip a beat. Amelie's eyes were a paler gray than they'd always been, more like dirty ice.
"Someone's here," she whispered. "Someone ..."
"Claire, get out," Myrnin said, and took a step closer to the bed. "I'm here, Amelie. Myrnin. Right here."
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered. Her voice was thin as silk, and just as soft. "Where is Oliver?"
"Gone, for the moment," Myrnin said. "Oh, my dearest. You are far too pale. Let me get something for you to eat." He meant blood, Claire thought. Amelie had no color under her skin. She looked almost translucent.
"Don't you mean someone?" Amelie asked. It was nearly a joke, but it wasn't funny. "I asked Oliver to end my suffering. I didn't mean to make him so angry, but he really must face facts, soon. Will you do it for me, Myrnin? As my friend?"
"Not yet," he said, and took her hand in his. "I am not quite ready to let you go. None of us are."
"All things die, even vampires." That same distant tone, as if none of it mattered any longer. "If it was only death I faced, I would go gladly. But I can feel it now, inside me. The pull of the sea. The tides. The hunger." Amelie's eyes focused on Myrnin again, and there was a strangely luminous glow to them. "The seas came first. All life flowed from them and must in the end return there. As I'm returning. As you will. I was a fool to believe the draug could be defeated. They are the tide. The sea. The beginning and end of us." The glow intensified, and Claire found herself oddly ... calmed by it. Amelie seemed so peaceful, lying there. And being around her seemed so safe. Myrnin must have felt the same; he sank to a sitting position on the edge of her bed. "There's no escaping the tides, don't you see? Not for me, or you, or Morganville. Because the tide always comes."
Myrnin pulled in a sharp gasp, and looked down at his hand, held in hers. He tried to pull free, but couldn't. "Stop," he said, in a voice only half as strong as it should have been. "Amelie, stop. You must not do this."
"I'm not," she said, sounding very sad. "There's so much inside that isn't me any longer. You shouldn't have come. Either of you."
Her ice-pale gaze captured Claire's, and Claire knew she was walking forward, drawn by forces she didn't understand and couldn't control. She couldn't stop herself. Didn't really want to stop herself.
And then she stretched out her hand and Amelie's pale, strong fingers locked over hers.
She felt the tingle, and then the burning, like a million needles piercing her skin.
She watched the bitter cold of Amelie's skin change, take on warmth.
Blood.
Blood drawn out of Claire. By a touch.
The same was happening to Myrnin, Claire realized. He was panting now, mumbling frantic pleas, trying to pry her hand free from his but failing.
Amelie no longer needed fangs to feed. Like the draug, she fed at a touch.
And it was happening so fast. Claire felt light-headed, pleasantly tired, even though somewhere deep inside she was shrieking in protest.
