Bitter Blood (46 page)

“Enough!” Amelie said. There was pale color high in her cheeks, and a furious red glitter in her eyes. “I’ve had
enough
of your foolish chatter and your betrayals. You come here unasked; you threaten my consort. I am
done
with you all. I’ve coddled you too long. I’ll start with you, Collins.”

She grabbed Shane by the shirt when he tried to dart out of her way, and pulled back her other hand, claws sharp and extended. In one more second, she’d do it. She’d kill him.

“No!” Claire shouted through her agonizingly sore throat. “He’s working with Naomi; Oliver’s going to kill you!”

The Founder froze, and for a second her eyes went entirely
back to gray as she stared into Claire’s face, reading what Claire hoped was utterly the truth as she knew it.

And then Amelie let go of Shane and started to turn toward Oliver.

Oliver grabbed the bat out of Myrnin’s hands and swung it at the Founder’s head with deadly, blurring speed; even for a vampire, that blow would have been fatal if it had connected…but Amelie moved like water, flowing out of the way and taking Oliver’s arm as it passed, then twisting until the bat flew out of his grip. It shattered the windows beyond in an earsplitting crash, sending glass flying out into the night. The baseball bat whipped end over end to land almost a hundred feet away on the grass of the park below.

Amelie shoved Oliver face-first into the wall, pinned his arm behind him, and said, “Tell me why.
Why?
” She didn’t doubt it; Claire saw that. Oliver’s attempt to kill her had been clear enough. He cried out, and she twisted harder, though it was obvious from the expression on her face that she was hurting herself by hurting him. “Oliver,
why do you betray me?
”

He laughed. It was an awful, empty sound. “I don’t,” he said. “I was never loyal to you, you foolish woman. I’ve made a lifetime of toppling rulers. You’re only the latest, and the most rewarding.”

Amelie turned her head toward Claire and Myrnin. “He cannot be working with Naomi,” she said. “She’s dead.”

“Sadly, and convincingly, not,” Myrnin said. “I saw her with my own eyes. I am fairly certain Claire has her facts straight.”

“And where in God’s name have you been, then?”

“At the bottom of a pit,” he said. “Which accounts for my current state of dress. Although Shane assures me it is not so odd.”

Shane hadn’t made a sound, and he hadn’t moved; he’d probably judged, very rightly, that it was time to make himself a smaller
target. From the way his lips tightened, he wished Myrnin hadn’t mentioned him at all.

But Amelie didn’t seem to care. She bent, picked up a silver-coated stake, and pressed it against the skin of Oliver’s neck, just above the spine—just enough to tint the skin and start it burning. “So go traitors,” she said. “In the old days, your head would have ended up as a decoration for a spike. I suppose I will have to settle for something less…satisfying.” There were tears in her eyes, then tears coursing down her pale, still face. “I trusted you, you traitor. I suppose I should have known better. I’ve never been lucky in love.”

“I never loved you,” he said. “Kill me. It changes nothing.”

“It changes
everything
,” she hissed. “You’ll not die yet. Not until you help me find my wayward sister.
Then
I will allow you to die. But not yet. Not yet.”

“Why wait?” said a low, sweet voice from the doorway, and they all turned—even Oliver—to see Naomi standing there, with Michael behind her. And Hannah Moses, carrying a crossbow with a heavy wooden bolt already in place. And more, behind her—humans and vampires alike. “Thank you, Claire. Sometimes a pawn is the very thing to use as a sacrifice to lure the queen from hiding.”

At Naomi’s regal nod, Hannah raised the crossbow and fired the bolt straight at Amelie.

It was impossible that it would miss, and it didn’t, but…something happened, a blur of movement Claire couldn’t understand until it was over, and Oliver was standing in Amelie’s place, swaying. The wooden bolt was in his heart.

He dropped to his knees, then collapsed.

Amelie was a blur, heading for the broken windows. Hannah had a second bolt in the bow, and Naomi grabbed the crossbow, aimed, and fired just as Amelie leaped out into the night air.

It hit her cleanly in the chest. Claire gasped and watched her tumble gracelessly down to crumple on the grass below.

“Satisfactory,” Naomi said. “Though I have no notion why Oliver chose to put himself in the way. Take them all to the cage. Now.”

Not even Shane tried to fight, this time.

“Great,” Shane said. Claire sensed he would have been pacing, if there had been room, but the steel cage in Founder’s Square was just big enough to hold her, Myrnin, and the limp bodies of Oliver and Amelie without any room left over. “Just great. I’m still going to die in this cage, after everything that’s happened. That’s just perfect.”

“Well,” Myrnin said, and shoved Oliver’s limp body over to stretch out his long, dirty legs, “at least we’re dying in royal company. That’s something.” He reached out to pull the stake out of Amelie’s chest, but as he did, a thin silver blade poked through the bars and cut his hand. He yelped and pulled back.

Hannah was standing outside the bars, watching them with calm concentration. “Don’t try it,” she said. “No use. You leave the stakes where they are.”

“Worried?” Myrnin sucked at the cut on his hand, and spat flecks of silver that burned on the floor. “You should be, Hannah. If you think supporting Naomi will win your people freedom, you’re a fool. She’s worse than Oliver ever thought of being, because I think she honestly believes that what she is doing is for the best—well, for
her
best, in any case.” He cocked his head, staring at her, and then suddenly lunged at the bags, wrapping his hands around them. She didn’t flinch, though she took a tighter grip on the knife she held. “She’s Bishop’s daughter. His
spiritual
child as
well as his bloodline, with all his gifts. She believes humans are her property, and the world is her larder. Don’t be a fool. You can’t believe that Claire and Shane should be in here with us, even if you hate vampires so desperately. What has either of them done to deserve it?”

She didn’t answer. Myrnin waited, then nodded, as if she’d done exactly what he expected. “I see,” he said, and his voice was unexpectedly gentle. “I am well aware how being under such control feels, my dear. All will be well.”

“How?” Hannah asked. She sounded indifferent, but Claire thought she heard something new in her voice: pain.

He shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “But I’m quite certain that it’s unfolding
even now
.”

It was the emphasis he put on the last two words that made Claire realize that by lunging forward, and drawing Hannah’s full attention, he’d left Amelie partially obscured. Shane was the closest to the fallen vampire. Claire frantically gestured to the wooden stake in her heart, and Shane didn’t hesitate. He pulled it out—but not all the way out. Just enough, Claire thought, to clear her heart.

Amelie didn’t move. At this point, she probably couldn’t.

If he’d done it right, though, maybe she
would
, when she was ready.

Founder’s Square was as busy as a mall at Christmas. The big braziers surrounding the center of the square were being lit, bringing a barbaric splendor to the deep night; vampires were gathering, some looking sleepy and confused, some excited, some outright worried. There were humans, too—a group of them, herded together nearby. Claire recognized several of them, including the new mayor, Flora Ramos, and—incredibly—Gramma Day. One of them was complaining loudly. It was Monica Morrell. She
certainly hadn’t been rousted out of bed like the others; she was dressed to party…. Well, that might not be true. Claire wasn’t sure she
didn’t
wear tube dresses to bed.

Myrnin sank back from the bars and crossed his arms, glancing at Shane. “Well done,” he said in an undertone. “Clever boy, taking it out only part of the way. I take back at least one bad thing I’ve ever said about you.”

“What’s happening?” Claire asked.

“Naomi prepares to declare her primacy,” he said. “She’ll have herself crowned, and then she’ll spill blood—”

“Ours,” Shane said.

“Oh no, not at all. It’s a very old custom, one even Bishop respected. She’ll kill the most influential residents of Morganville…Founder families, important business leaders, politicians…. I suppose Monica’s there to represent her family; more’s the pity for their memories.”

“It’s about more than ceremony,” Shane said. “Most of those guys are on Captain Obvious’s war council. I saw them. And Gramma Day is related to Hannah.”

“Really?” Myrnin raised his eyebrows. “Interesting indeed. She’s honoring the old customs
and
ensuring her own long-term survival. Masterful. Worthy of her father, in his better days.”

“Could you maybe not admire the evil enemy quite so much, and focus more on how we’re going to get out of this?” Claire asked. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re going to die, too.”

“Oh yes. But you and I are merely collateral damage; this is a pyre for Amelie. And I see they’ve made improvements. See the grates underneath us? Natural gas. It’s all very fuel efficient, not like the old days with all the logs….”

“Myrnin!”

He went suddenly very cool and sensible. “Bite marks,” he said.
“Michael’s got one on his neck. So does Hannah Moses. So, in fact, does Oliver. All a very distinctive bite distance. It takes a delicate mouth to make such marks, such as, say—” He pointed a finger, and Claire followed the line of it to Naomi, who was standing draped in silver and white a few feet away. “She’s got the gift, you see. Not every vampire can compel like that. Amelie can, though she never does, and Naomi can—both of them inherited that trait from their vampire father, Bishop. So whatever’s been done, you can rightly assume she’s the one pulling the strings, and that no one had any choice in what’s been done.”

“Oh,” Shane said, in a very different sort of tone. “Oh,
crap.
Michael—I left him alone with Naomi and Hannah. Hannah’s Captain Obvious. I thought Naomi was just working with her, trying to get at Amelie. But its more than that. She was controlling the whole thing. And Michael.”

Which, Claire realized with a sweet surge of relief, was why Michael had turned on them—and why he’d been so cruel to Eve, and to her, and to Shane. He’d had no choice.
Thank you.
She felt like kissing Shane in pure gratitude for having confirmed her suspicions, but Shane didn’t look especially relieved himself; he looked disturbed. Maybe he’d just realized that he’d spent a whole day hating the guts of a friend who’d been innocent after all.

“She was controlling Oliver, too, though likely that wasn’t quite so difficult,” Myrnin said. “Oliver’s influence on Amelie was a dark thing even without Naomi bending it to her uses. Once she had, though, she used Oliver to corrupt Amelie, agitate the town against her, create chaos and dissension…and then used you, Claire, to unmask him, giving her the chance to act directly while Amelie was distracted. My, if I didn’t loathe her so much, I’d admire her.”

“So how are we going to stop her?” Claire asked.

“We can’t. Perhaps I failed to mention that we’re locked in a cage and about to be burned alive…?”

“Does this cage have a
lock
?”

“A very good one,” Myrnin said. “Right there, on the other side of the bars. I’m reasonably certain that neither of us is a certified locksmith, however.”

“Well, we can
try.
”

“It’s silver,” Myrnin said. “I won’t be able to break it.”

“If the lock’s pure silver instead of just plated, it’s soft,” Shane said. “We could use one of these stakes as a lever, maybe.”

“And that will sacrifice our element of surprise,” Myrnin pointed out. “You always seem to have something secreted about your person of a dangerous nature…. Have you nothing to contribute?”

“They took it,” Shane said, “including everything out of my pockets and my belt. Just like jail.”

“Not like jail,” Claire said thoughtfully. “They left you your shoes.”

“And? I’m pretty sure a battered-up pair of kicks isn’t going to get us anywhere….” Shane’s voice faded at the look on her face. “What?”

“Laces,” she said, and bent forward to untie her own shoes and began to pull the cords out. “Give them to me.”

“I hardly think we should consider hanging ourselves, Claire,” Myrnin said, looking a little worried. “And it wouldn’t kill me, you know.”

Claire grabbed the laces from Shane as he held them out, tied them end to end, and began quickly braiding them together with those from her own shoes in a rough twisted rope, which she wrapped around the center of the bars at the back. “Cover me,” she said to Myrnin. He watched her for a few long seconds, then
nodded and moved toward the front of the cage, shoving the limp body of Oliver out of the way, and began to loudly sing something in French. It sounded rude.

Claire began twisting the rope as fast as she could, rapidly getting it to the tension point. “I need something to use as a fulcrum,” she said to Shane. “Something that won’t break easily.”

“Only thing in here is one of the stakes,” he said. “Once we pull those, I’m guessing Hannah’s got orders not to wait around for the official barbecue.”

God, all she needed was a
stick.
…Claire cast her eyes about, frantic to find something, anything she could adapt to the purpose, and her gaze fell on, of all things, the headband that Amelie was wearing to keep her long, loose hair back from her face. It was a nice, wide one, not made of plastic but covered in fabric.

Maybe.

Claire edged over, leaving the rope in Shane’s hand, and pulled the headband from the vampire’s head. She thought Amelie’s eyes flickered, just a little, but the Founder didn’t move. She looked…dead.

Claire flexed the headband in her grip. It had a metal core that bent side to side, but not back to front. And best of all, it didn’t break.

She scooted back, slipped it into the rope, and began using it to twist the strands tighter and tighter around the bars. By the fifth round, she felt the tension; by the tenth, she saw the bars actually starting to bend in the middle, yielding to the slow but inevitable force.