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I didn't know where she was taking me, but I had the sinking feeling that it wasn't anyplace I wanted to go.
I had made a mental map of this place by this time, and it was basically a maze-four central hubs, each with spoke hallways filled with doors. Nothing was labeled, and there were no signs, but if you stare at identical things long enough, you can start to pick out little differences. The hub where we made our first turn was the one I'd nicknamed Scratchy, because in all the moving of furniture someone had nicked the far wall in three places, at about knee level. The hallway we took had a slightly lighter strip of paint at one corner, where some old damage had been repaired and not precisely color-matched. At the next hub there was a particularly memorable portrait of some crusty old dude in a curly wig who'd been painted with his fangs showing. Charming.
There were more guards here. Amelie's guards.
Naomi walked up to them and got blocked-bodies in the way, palms outstretched.
"I wish to see my sister," she said. "Surely you will allow me to pass." It was one step short of Don't you know who I am?-but not quite over the line.
"Sorry, my lady. Orders from Lord Oliver," he said. Oh, God, it was Lord Oliver now? Better and better. "I'll pass the information on to him, if you wish ...." His voice trailed off. He was looking at someone behind us who was approaching, I guessed, and when I turned my head I saw Theo Goldman coming down the hallway into the hub. He had his black leather bag in one hand, and he smiled and nodded politely when he saw us.
For a vampire, he was one of the nicest I'd ever met. Or at least, he had the best manners. I never had the feeling he looked at humans any differently from vamps; we were all just potential patients to him. "Hello," he said pleasantly, and then nodded again to the guards. "If you'll excuse me."
They stepped aside for him immediately.
Naomi quickly seized the opportunity. "Theo," she said, "may I visit my sister? I only wish to give her my love before-" She looked so sweet and pretty and vulnerable it made my stomach turn. "Please?"
He shook his head. "I think it would not be wise," he said. "She's not ... herself just now. It's dangerous enough for me .... And you, my dear, with your history together-no. I'm afraid that would be very dangerous to you."
He started to turn away, but Naomi put a hand on his shoulder, and Theo turned toward her. And something weirdly extraordinary happened. She leaned forward, put her lips close to his ear, standing on tiptoe to do it. I didn't hear what she whispered, but I saw the expression smooth out on Theo's face.
It turned ... oddly blank.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, perhaps you're right. It would be good for her to see family."
"Ah," Naomi said. "And may I bring Eve?"
Theo should not have said yes to that, of course; no way. But he just nodded as if it was the Best Idea Ever. He turned to the guards and said, in a warm and perfectly self-assured voice, "Yes, I think they should both come with me. My responsibility, gentlemen."
The guards looked doubtful, and they must have known something weird was up, but they didn't stop us. I guess Naomi really did outrank most vampires. We walked with Theo down the hall.
He opened the locked door to a room there, and we went inside, and my hand instinctively flew to cover my nose and mouth, because this place smelled. It looked fine, but ... it was a horrible, wet, nasty stench.
Theo didn't seem at all surprised.
"She's in the other room?" Naomi asked.
Theo turned to face her. "Naomi, perhaps now would be a good time to mention to you that I am quite immune to your powers of persuasion. You'd do well to not try that on someone less ... forgiving. Oliver would have crushed you if you'd tried it."
"Oh." Naomi was, I thought, honestly taken aback. "But you-"
"Allowed you to come with me? Yes. Because I want to talk to you without prying ears. That's why I didn't crush you myself. I can, you know. One doesn't survive as long as I have without knowing how to do these things, even if they don't come naturally." For a moment Theo actually looked dangerous. "What do you really intend here, Naomi?"
"I intend to save our lives," she said. "As I expect you secretly want, Theo. My sister cannot be saved, can she?" At a slow shake of his head, she sighed. "Then there's nothing for it. Oliver's a fool if he lets the transformation become complete. I know my sister. I know her powers. If she transforms into a master draug, as Magnus intends, she will be able to force any of us to her will; it's a power that only a few have, as you know, but my sister has it in full strength. Combined with the will and hunger of a draug ... she would end us all."
Theo, I realized, wasn't surprised. Just wary. "And you propose?"
"You know what I propose. You're no fool."
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then he said, "No. I don't accept defeat so easily, and you shouldn't either. We are vampire, whether we ever wanted it or not, and vampires survive. It is the core of what we are. We fought for life when life wasn't ours to keep. And she is still fighting. She has not lost the battle yet."
"We can't wait until she does!" Naomi hissed, and shoved herself away from him. She wrapped her arms around herself and paced like an agitated tiger. "What remains is not my sister. That thing is a virus grown inside her body, stealing her soul-"
"People have said the same of vampires, time out of mind," Theo said. "Are they right? Did you lose your soul when you lost your human life? I believe, I must believe, that I still cling to mine."
"The draug are different!"
I couldn't disagree with that, really. Everything that I'd seen about the draug made me think that Naomi had something there. None of the draug seemed to have the least bit of human feeling in them; they were monsters, predators, pure and simple. The vampires at least hung on to something-even the worst of them you could understand, even if you hated it, and them.
But there was nothing inside the draug to understand. It was like trying to reason with a hungry shark.
Theo sighed. "She's my patient," he said. "If the worst comes, then it's mine to do, not yours. And I won't do it without Oliver's consent. He is the leader now. Unless you plan to dispute that."
"Of course I plan to dispute it! He's nothing but a jumped-up pretender!"
"I am not involved in the politics of kings and queens," he said. "Or even those of pretenders. Go back, Naomi. Let me see to your sister."
She bowed her head and curtsied, just a little. "Of course, Doctor. Thank you. I'm sorry."
He turned his back on her to open the door. That was a mistake.
I didn't have time to react at all when she pulled a wooden stake from the side of her boot and stabbed him in the back with it-between the ribs, and angling up to his heart. Theo made a little gasping sound, hardly loud enough for me to hear, and then she caught him as he fell and eased him to the carpet. She reached past him to turn the dead bolt lock on the door. Then she snapped it off, leaving the metal tongue in place.
I wasn't getting out of there. Not easily.
"What are you doing?" I cried. "Guards! Get in here!"
"Yell all you like," Naomi said placidly. She opened up Theo's doctor bag and searched through it, calm as an ice sculpture. "Amelie is quite particular about her soundproofing. There's a hidden alarm, if you can find it, but I should not waste my time if I were you. Stay here until I return."
Theo was lying totally still, facedown on the floor. A wooden stake wouldn't kill him immediately, I knew; it would pin him down, paralyze him, leave him helpless for whatever might come next.
I let Naomi think I was paralyzed, too, with fear; it wasn't a tough job of acting. This was going too fast, and too crazy, and I had no idea what the right thing to do was, except that Theo had never hurt anyone, ever.
Naomi took something out of his bag, walked across to the other door, and closed it quietly behind her.
I dropped to my knees beside Theo, took hold of the stake, and yanked, hard. It was embedded between the ribs, and it took all my strength and three tries to pull it free.
He pulled in a tortured, gagging breath but didn't move. I rolled him over, and he blinked and slowly focused on my face. "Naomi," he whispered. "Of course." He held out his hand, and I stood and helped haul him up, too. It must have been very hard; he leaned on me, and I could feel his whole body trembling. "Must stop her." He pointed to his doctor bag, and I grabbed it and held it open while Theo sorted through with shaking hands. He finally pulled out a small aerosol can. "She's taken the knife."
