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"Uh, I'd love to, but I'm not half superhero like you. And I left my Spider-Man costume at home."
Michael got serious. In one fluid move he was out of the van and leaping up on the roof like some big, dangerous cat.
He was staring up at me, and in a calm, clear voice, he said, "Jump."
"Dude, I am not jumping."
"I mean it."
"You mean you're going to catch me like some old-school damsel in distress? No way in hell, man."
He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We just looked at each other, and then I felt a damp breath of chill on the back of my neck, and I knew, knew the draug were there, they were rising up out of the puddles on the roof, dripping down out of the clouds, coming up in a liquid rush from the stairwell ....
Something was eating me. Part of my brain was screaming, but the thick wave of calm descended again, smothering it. It's all okay. Everything's okay. Jump.
I jumped.
It wasn't a hero kind of thing, I didn't do a swan dive or let out a warrior yell or anything. I probably looked stupid as hell, actually. It seemed to take forever, but I was sure Claire could have told me exactly how long it took me to fall, simple math and all that, and then something cushioned me and bounced me up on my feet again with a solid thump, so smooth and fast that it was like Michael hadn't actually caught me at all.
Which he had, of course, but we pretended really hard that it had never happened.
"Get in the back," he told me, and swung himself down into the truck's cab. I jumped from the top of the truck to the ground-ouch, even that small distance was tough on the knees-and opened the back door.
Claire was fighting with Myrnin, and by God, she looked like she might just win. Well, probably not, but from the expression on her face she was never going to give up, ever. I kind of froze for a second, because I had never seen her look like that, so focused and burning with rage and just ...
Beautiful.
And then she saw me, and the look changed, and it was something even more amazing. There's this word I always had trouble with in school: transcendent.
But that was it, right there.
Myrnin let her go without a word, and she flew into my arms so hard I almost tumbled out the back again. She was all soft skin and tensed, trembling muscle. I hugged her hard, just for a second, and then let go to slam the back door shut and lock it. "Go, Mikey!" I yelled, and then grabbed Claire again. I kissed her. I wanted to kiss her forever. No, that wasn't true-I wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but it wasn't going to happen in the back of an armored truck with a damn vampire leaning up against Amelie's velvet throne, watching us with an expression somewhere between distaste and longing.
Claire looked vague and dumbstruck for a second when I let go, but she grabbed a handhold-me-as the truck backed up. "Hey," she said, "what the heck are you wearing?"
"I went shopping," I said. "What do you think? Straight off the runway."
"Where, at the detention center?"
Banter was tiring, suddenly, so I resorted to the truth. "I had to ditch my clothes. They were full of draug."
She winced, and unsnapped the top of the jumpsuit to see the red marks on my skin. The bleeding had stopped, at least, though the worst bites had leaked into the paper, making it look either festive or horrific, depending on how your mood ran. Me, I was just happy to be alive and have my girl holding me. Today, that was one hell of a win. "Did you get hurt anywhere else?"
"We can explore that somewhere better than this, but I think I'm okay. Got away clean. I mean that like a metaphor, because I could really use a shower."
Then I felt the sting again, hot as acid rain. I got away clean .... No, I couldn't have. I didn't get away. Nobody gets away. Something is eating me. I know it. I feel it. ... No. No, I was okay. Everything was okay. Claire was right here, holding on to me. It was all fine.
"Did you close the valves?" Myrnin asked.
"One was stuck," I said. "All the others are closed. You don't think they can open them?"
"Unlikely. Magnus can manifest enough physical strength to manage it, but he is about to have much more to worry about," Myrnin said. "I flushed the lines with silver nitrate. They can't use the pipes with any safety. We've slowed them down considerably, at the very least."
The truck did a three-point turn and accelerated, which was a relief. I'd been afraid the draug were going to do some end run around us and trap us all. But from the roaring of the engine, Mikey wasn't going to let anything at all stop us now, and if the draug wanted to splash the windshield I supposed they were welcome to try.
Myrnin sat down on the cushy throne that was decorated with the Founder's symbol on the top, and heaved a big sigh. He was smiling. Not the usual look for him, either-this had a certain gleeful cruelty to it that made me glad he wasn't directing it at me.
"Can you hear that?" he asked us. He had his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the heavy velvet padding.
"Is it the draug?" Claire asked anxiously. "Are they singing? Is it getting to you or-"
"Not singing," he said, and the smile grew wider. "Screaming. They're screaming. And it is lovely."
There was something off about him, I thought with a weird, fleeting chill. The Myrnin I remembered was a crazy ass**le, but he wasn't some kind of sadist. Then again, I supposed they'd been afraid of the draug for so long that maybe a little gruesome victory dance might not be so strange.
He opened his eyes and looked at me, and for a moment there was something wrong in him. Something not Myrnin at all.
It hurts. It shouldn't still hurt. Something's wrong. I need to ... to wake up ....
No. There was no pain. I was fine. Everything was fine.
"We should definitely celebrate that we did not die," Myrnin said. "I believe you're all old enough for champagne, are you not?"
"Yes," I said, and heard Michael and Eve chorus from the front.
"No," Claire blurted, and her cheeks turned adorably pink. "Oh, come on, you already knew that. And by the way, none of us are legal drinkers yet."
"We're old enough to carry flamethrowers," I pointed out. "And shotguns."
"I know, and it's not that I would turn it down. I just wanted to be ... on the record. That we're not old enough for any of this."
I kissed her forehead, because that was just ... cute.
Something's eating me. Oh God, I can feel it .... The pain ...
But that was wrong, because I'd escaped. We'd all escaped.
It was all just ... fine.
By the time we reached Founder's Square, things were happening. We couldn't see them from the back of the truck, but Michael relayed a constant stream of information as he drove. Police cars were speeding out of the secured area instead of into it. Word there was that flushing nitrate through the lines had worked-worked lots better than we'd ever expected. The draug were trying to escape, but they'd been poisoned.
They were dying.
You're dying. Wake up. It felt like my own voice, screaming inside, but it made no sense, no sense at all. Everything was going perfectly.
We were taking back our town.
The next few hours were a confused blur. Oliver ignored us and ordered us back to the room where we'd slept, and that was okay, because after all the danger and adrenaline I was bone-tired, and I could tell Claire and Eve were asleep on their feet, too. I don't think any of us expected it to be quite that ... fast.
Claire and I zipped our sleeping bags together and fell asleep spooned together. I thought I'd sleep soundly; I had good reason to, but instead I kept feeling the sharp, digging stings, needles burrowing and probing inside me, and even though I knew it was a dream, just a dream, nothing, it kept me awake.
Whimpering.
Afraid.
Something's eating you, Shane.
No. I was fine. Everything was fine.
I finally dozed, and woke up to find Amelie standing in the doorway. I'm not big on impressing the vamps, but there was something a little unfair about facing the Queen Bee with bed-head and morning breath. I guess the most important thing, though, was that she was awake, and standing up, and actually seemed better. Oliver was with her, looking like a scowling black crow, but I think that was mostly because he was still spoiling for a fight.
Evidently, he wasn't going to get it.
"Magnus is injured," Amelie told us. She sat, gracefully, on a chair and made it look as if it was her own idea instead of something to prevent herself from collapsing in a heap. She had her hair down, which made her look almost our age, though there's nothing about the Founder's eyes that reminds me of youth. "He hides now, and his draug thralls are dying quickly. Your actions may have turned the tide. I will not forget that."
