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Knife. Oh, God. I looked at the bedroom door. We might already be too late.
The door was locked, but not with a dead bolt, just the standard kind; I braced myself and kicked just above the knob with my heavy combat boot, putting all my leg strength into it. Wow, I was getting an unexpected upper- and lower-body workout. Inappropriate cheery aerobics music wandered through my head, but was quickly whited out by the pain from my knee.
It worked, though. The door flew open, and Theo staggered past me into the room.
Naomi was standing over the figure lying prone on the bed, with a silver knife held in both hands. She was trying to bring it down, clearly putting all her strength into it, but the figure had hold of her wrists and was keeping them suspended in midstab.
That was Amelie she was trying to kill. But not Amelie at all. I recognized her, but it was the kind of horrified, shocked recognition that you'd expect from seeing a dead body, or someone severely injured ... and I knew something about both those things, big time. It was the same delayed jolt of adrenaline that hammered through my body-because Amelie wasn't Amelie anymore.
I wasn't sure what she was.
She looked ... wet. Covered in damp slime, gray strands of it over her skin like fungus, hair loose and matted with the same stuff. Her eyes had turned a different color of gray-not ice now, more like fog, grayish white and completely opaque. The bed around her was soaked with the same horrible damp stuff.
"Stop," Theo said sharply, and when Naomi didn't pay attention he lurched over, grabbed her from behind and levered her wrists and the knife upward, away from Amelie. It wasn't easy. Naomi didn't give up, and Amelie didn't let go, either ... it was as if she couldn't let go, really. I finally lunged over and pried her wet, slimy fingers off, one by one.
Where they'd fastened on Naomi's thin wrists, they left red welts that overflowed with blood, as if whole patches of skin had been melted away.
"Let me go," Naomi said, and twisted violently in Theo's hold. She almost got loose, but he held on with grim determination. "Let me go. You know this is the only way. We can't allow her to turn-we can't."
Theo took the knife from her hand, and shoved her away from Amelie's bedside. She screamed in sheer frustration, but she didn't try to steal it back. His expression was thoughtful, and his eyes were cool and distant.
He held that knife like someone who really knew how to wield it like an expert. That was what held her in place.
"You stabbed me in the back," Theo said. "I suppose I should be appropriately grateful that you thought enough of me to only use wood, and little enough of Eve to leave her behind to free me. But then, you never intended for her to leave here alive, did you? A silver knife, a human at the scene-conveniently dead, killed by you in outrage. You wished me to believe that Eve staked me, overpowered you somehow, and killed Amelie in some pro-human rampage. It won't wash, my dear. It simply won't wash."
I hadn't thought about it, but now that I could catch my breath, fury burned up inside me like acid. That bitch. She'd set me up. Even if she hadn't killed me, she could have blamed the whole thing on me, especially if she burned herself with a little silver. Me and my friends were well known to walk around armed with anti-vamp weaponry.
And the sentence for killing Amelie would, of course, be immediate, violent, and gruesome death.
"What are you going to do?" Naomi flung back at him. "Let her live? Let her become draug? A master draug, capable of destroying us all? Don't be a fool, Theo! You know what I was doing is necessary!"
"And Eve?"
She glanced at me, then back to him. "A human, determined to marry a vampire? How long do you expect she would last, in any case?"
I risked another look at Amelie. She was as still as a statue now, hands folded across her chest. But as I watched, I felt her attention ... shift. Toward me.
And I heard her, in my head. There was a clear, silvery sound to it, like bells and singing, sweet singing.
Go, Eve. Go and don't come back.
I didn't wait. My nerve just ... broke, and I ran into the other room. Theo must have known where the alarm button was, because a few seconds later I heard the thumping of violent but muffled blows on the door, and it crashed open to admit Amelie's two guards. I held up my hands. They disregarded me and ran into the other room.
And I got the hell out before anybody could ask me any questions. I didn't know what Theo was going to say, but if I hung around, there was no way I wouldn't end up somehow coming out of it badly.
I wished I'd never seen Amelie like that, because it was awful, and terrifying. If she was fighting, I couldn't see any sign of it; she looked like she was slowly drowning in that slime, and the awful gray color of her skin and eyes made her look like something washed up on a beach.
We were losing the Founder of Morganville, and once we lost her ...
... We lost everything.
I dashed down the hallway, blind with tears and anguish, and ran headlong into Michael. I stopped, trembling, and stared at him for a few long, horrible seconds. What I'd just seen ... what I'd just escaped ...
He didn't ask. He just opened his arms, and I fell into them, sobbing my heart out as he stroked my hair.
"It's okay," he whispered to me.
But it wasn't. It really, really wasn't.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SHANE
Michael had his arms around Eve, and that was going well for a change; Myrnin had already taken his goodies off to the lab, leaving the three of us behind. Hannah had ditched us, too, locked in her eerie calm. None of us had dared say anything to her.
Claire was looking at me with dull, tragic need, and I just couldn't ... I couldn't give her what she needed. Not yet. I couldn't feel it. But there was something I could feel, after all.
I said, "I need to tell Monica about her brother."
I heard Claire suck in a deep breath, as if she hadn't even thought that far ahead. "Oh," she said in a choked voice. "Should I go-?"
"No. Better if I do it alone." Because if I could feel anything real, it would be now, looking into Monica's eyes. It was karma. She deserved to hear about her brother from me; while my sister died, caught in our burning house, Monica had stood there and smiled and flicked a lighter. Mocking me. Mocking how helpless I was.
I'd always believed she'd set the fire, from that moment on; Richard had always insisted she hadn't, that she'd just been a troll and hadn't even known Alyssa was trapped inside. I didn't really believe him. Maybe he didn't even believe it himself.
I found Monica in what I guessed was some kind of vampire entertainment room. There was a TV, tuned now silently to static, and a leather couch. She was lying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and she was asleep.
I didn't think I'd ever seen Monica asleep, and the surprise was that when she wasn't actively being herself, she seemed ... normal. She looked tired, too; her hair was mussed, and she'd taken her makeup off. Without it, she looked her actual age, which was Michael's-no, she was still human. She was older than Michael now.
All of a sudden, real or not, the pain I was about to inflict didn't seem right-but she needed to know, and I'd volunteered.
Isn't it perfect, how you get to tell her about her brother? More wish fulfillment, Shane. You really think all this is the truth?
That damn stupid voice in my head wouldn't shut up. It was a constant, grinding monologue, a headache that wouldn't go away. And the worst thing was, I wasn't sure it was imagination. Wake up, Shane.
But I was awake. Wasn't I?
I crossed the room toward the couch. The lights had been turned down low, but on the coffee table there was a remote to turn them up, so I pressed the button. As the artificial sun came up, Monica moaned a little, mumbled, and tried to bury her face in the pillow.
Then, as I sat down on the edge of the table, staring at her, she suddenly sat bolt upright, and the fear that raced over her expression surprised me. I hadn't thought she was capable of that kind of vulnerability ... but then, she'd been born here, just as I'd been, and having strangers walk in on you asleep was rarely good.
Monica stared at me blankly, without recognition, for about two seconds, and then awareness overtook alarm, and she just looked annoyed. And angry. "Collins," she said, and ran her fingers through her hair, as if getting it settled was her first priority. "God, there's a new thing called knocking-look into it. If you're going to get all stalkery over me saving your life today, please don't. It wasn't my idea in the first place. Though if you want to dump your Playskool girlfriend, I might be persuaded to throw you a boner." She smiled at me, suddenly all inappropriate hormones and insanity.
