Bitter Blood (47 page)

I love you, physics.

“Hey,” Shane said as she muscled another turn out of the makeshift device. “I probably should tell you that after thinking it over, I’m an ass. And I’m—sorry.”

“That must have been hard,” Claire said. It was getting really difficult to turn the thing. The edges of the headband were digging into her hand deeply. She gritted her teeth and turned it again.

“Let me,” he said, and took hold of the headband. For him, the next three turns were pretty effortless, and the bars bent slowly, steadily inward around the rope. “Damn, this really works. No wonder they don’t let you have shoelaces in jail.”

“This isn’t why.”

“I hurt you,” he said, in the same tone of voice, without looking at her. “I swore I’d never do that again, and I did. I fell right for Naomi’s easiest trick, turning us against each other. I should have trusted you, trusted him, and I didn’t. So I’m sorry. And you have every right not to—” He was still turning the headband as he talked, but just then he broke off with a hissing gasp, and Claire saw the flash of red in his hand. Blood soaked quickly through the white fabric of Amelie’s headband, but after a second’s pause, he turned it again. “Not to trust me, or forgive me. But I hope you do.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s just a cut, and if I let go, we’re dead,” he said. “It’s fine.” He kept turning the ever-tighter knot of cloth, and now Claire could hear the creaking of the bars. They were bowing strongly in the middle, and the gap was widening fast. Not only that, but she thought the welds at the top of one of the bars had weakened.
This can work,
she thought.
It’s going to work.

Then, with a sharp, snapping sound, the headband came apart in Shane’s hands as he tried to crank it again. “Damn,” he whispered, and looked at her. “Is it enough?”

“Let me see your hand.”

He held it out, and there was a deep cut across the palm, one that made her ache to see it. Claire grabbed the tail of her shirt
and pressed it against the cut, then fished around for the broken edge of the headband. The sheared metal in it was sharp, and she frayed enough of the cloth to rip a piece free to wrap around his hand. As she tied it in place, she looked up into his face.

“Do you forgive me?” he asked her. His eyes were warm and steady, and he had a little, tentative hint of a smile.

“No,” she said. It made her sick to have to hurt him like this…but it was also right. It was
necessary
. “I want to, I really do, but you didn’t trust me, Shane. You didn’t believe me when I needed it. And that hurt me, Shane. It really did. It’s going to take a little time and a lot of work for me to forgive you for that.”

The breath went out of him as if she’d punched him, and his eyes widened. He’d just assumed she’d forgive him, she realized; she’d done that so many times before without any thought or hesitation that she’d made him think it was automatic.

But it wasn’t. Not this time. Much as she wanted things to go back to normal, she needed him to understand that he’d hurt her.

From the look on his face, he did.

In the next second, he dropped his gaze and took a deep breath. “I know,” he said. “I deserve it. If we get out of here, I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Take the rope off the bars,” she said, and reached forward to tip his chin up and kiss him, very lightly. She wanted to fall into his arms, but it wasn’t the time, and it wasn’t the message she wanted to send him. “And be ready for anything.”

“Always.” The cocky grin he flashed her was
almost
right. Almost. But there was a scared, tentative look in his eyes, and she wondered if he was thinking, as she was,
We could die here, right now, and not be right with each other.

But she couldn’t help that. She needed him to understand what he’d done to her, and to himself.

It was the toughest thing in the world, but she turned away from him. Myrnin was still belting out an endless chorus of whatever obnoxious song he was performing; no one was paying attention, but it was annoying enough that they were likely not paying much attention to her and Shane. When she tapped him on the shoulder, he coughed and broke off to say, “Are the two of you quite done with your sweet nothings? Because I might vomit.”

“That would be perfect,” Claire said. “It’s been just a great day so far.” She reached up, grabbed his pointed chin, and turned it to show him the bent bars at the rear of the cage. His eyebrows went sharply up. “Maybe you should rest a minute.”

“Perhaps I should,” he agreed. “Your shirt is torn. And you’re wearing a lovely perfume, by the way.”

“It’s blood,” she said. “Thanks. That’s ever so comforting.”

Myrnin crawled to the back of the cage, coming close to Shane as he did so. The two of them exchanged a look that made the hair rise on the back of Claire’s neck; they were like two tigers sizing each other up, with Myrnin then leaning past her boyfriend to inspect the state of the bars. He made a soft
hmmm
sound and nodded, then—to Claire’s surprise—pulled Shane close and gave him an utterly unexpected kiss on the cheek.

“Hey!” Shane said, and tried to wriggle free, but then he paused, because Myrnin was whispering to him. Shane’s gaze darted for Claire’s, then quickly away, and when Myrnin finished, Shane nodded. When Myrnin let him go, Shane moved back—way back.

Claire mouthed,
What the hell?
But Shane just shook his head and looked away. Whatever Myrnin had just said to him, it was…disturbing.

Myrnin didn’t pause for questions. He crawled over to where Amelie was still lying very still, and pulled her into his lap as he
kneeled. “My poor, lovely lady,” he said, and gently eased her fallen white-gold hair back from her ivory face. “Would you rather die in fire, or in glory? Dead is dead, of course. But I feel you should choose,
now
.”

Amelie hadn’t moved at all. It was possible that something had gone wrong; maybe a splinter had broken off in her heart, freezing her in place, or something else had happened. A wooden stake wouldn’t kill her, but it would paralyze her. And they needed her, Claire thought. Too many vampires. Even if the trick worked to loosen the bars, even if they could break them free…

“Something’s happening out there,” Shane said. “Heads up.”

Naomi was moving forward at last, stilling the confused babble of the assembled vampires in the square. She was every bit a queen in her silver and black, and her voice was warm, sweet, and compelling; she didn’t need to bite people to convince them, Claire thought. She was persuasive enough without it. She’d only bothered to control the key players, and only for as long as she needed them. She was cold, but smart.

And now, she said, “My friends, I come before you in sorrow and pain to tell you that Amelie, our Founder, has lost the right to rule.”

No one doubted what was going on, Claire thought, but a number of vampires out in the crowd began to voice their objections. It wasn’t a lot of them, but it was enough to make it clear Naomi wasn’t a popular choice.

She held up a hand in a sharp, angry gesture. “Our laws are clear: the strongest rules. My sister was strong; the past is littered with those who stood against her, and lost. Her strength carried us here, to this town, to a place where we can finally begin to regain our rightful glory. But don’t be mistaken: she hesitated. She corrupted herself by compromising with humans,
with their laws and morals, until she forgot what it was to be a proper vampire.”

There were more shouts of protest, louder now. That might not have been what Naomi expected, Claire thought; there was a growing tension in her shoulders, and the hand she still held raised seemed to shiver, just a little. “There will be no debate on this! My sister became weak and foolish, and she was brought down by treachery. Not mine, but the treachery of a lover she trusted. She is not fit any longer to rule. Fear not; I will burn the traitor with her, and we will start newborn.”

This time, no one shouted. There was an eerie silence. Claire honestly couldn’t tell whether Naomi had won them over, or whether something else was happening—something that didn’t bode well for the would-be queen. Vampires weren’t that easy to read, especially not in large groups.

The humans in their pen had gone very quiet and still—even Monica. Frail little Gramma Day was standing very tall, hardly leaning on her cane at all. But there was someone new standing near them, almost invisible behind Monica’s tall, long-legged form…another human, not a vampire.

Jenna? What the hell was the ghost hunter doing
here
? Trying to get a story? Was she insane?

No. She was holding hands with someone else; a small, slight form that Claire spotted as Flora Ramos shifted to one side.

Jenna had hold of Miranda’s hand.

Miranda shouldn’t be solid.
But she was, very solid, though clinging to Jenna’s hand as if to a lifeline in a stormy ocean. Maybe Jenna’s psychic ability was feeding Miranda’s own power and holding her steady in her nighttime form outside the Glass House, but from the strained, scared looks on their faces, it wasn’t easy.

What the hell were they
doing
?

Naomi hadn’t seen them, or if she had, she didn’t care. She was busy trying to charm her new subjects.

“Tomorrow marks our new age, and I will lead you into it,” she continued. “You have been robbed of your rights for so long, my friends—subjected to indignities, to the constant complaints and restrictions of those who are rightfully our property. And that is
over
. As a token of this, I give you the first blood of Morganville. It is yours to take, as is your right as the rulers of not only this place, but all the world.” She extended her white hand to point at the people held off to the side—twenty people, including Monica.

The vampires looked in that direction. None of them moved, and then Jason sauntered out of the crowd, and said, “About damn time somebody did the right thing.”

He grabbed Monica and dragged her out of the fenced-in area.

She shrieked and hit him, hard enough to make him stagger back a bit, and Claire lunged forward and yanked the wooden crossbow bolt all the way out of Oliver’s chest. She threw it hard through the bars of the cage and yelled, “Monica, catch!”

Monica leaned over backward as Jason tried to drag her closer, and saw the bolt tumbling end over end through the air. In a move that was shockingly graceful—and probably couldn’t have been repeated if she’d really thought about it—Monica grabbed it and jammed it not into Jason’s heart, but between his teeth. “Bite that!” she yelled, and kicked her way free. Her shoes, Claire realized, had silver caps on the stiletto tips. She yanked them off and held them ready. “Anybody else want some?”

Jason spit the bolt out, looking furious and embarrassed, and when he tried to grab her, she planted the heel of her shoe into his hand. It burned.

“We have to move, right now,” Myrnin said. “She creates a nice distraction, but it won’t last.”

“It doesn’t need to,” Amelie said. She pulled the last inch of wood free from her chest and smiled up at him. “I find that I choose glory, my dear Myrnin.”

“Most excellent,” he said. “Claire has loosened the bars, and—”

Shane held up his bleeding hand.

“And Shane helped,” Myrnin amended grudgingly. “But I believe we should go
now
. Naomi is losing the respect of her peers. It will not go well for her. She will burn us out of sheer desperation.”

Amelie nodded and rolled to a crouch. She studied the bars at the back of the cage, made a fist, and hit with surgical precision at the point at the top of one of the bars where the weld was weakest.

It snapped.

Her hand was burned in a bright red stripe, but she ignored it, grabbed the loose metal, and bent it in toward them with shocking strength. It, too, snapped cleanly off at the base.

“Hannah!” Shane was yelling behind them.
“Hannah,
no!”

Claire glanced back and saw that Hannah—probably still following Naomi’s implanted instructions—was reaching for a button that almost certainly would turn the cage into a fry basket. Underneath them, the gas jets sputtered into pale blue flame.

“Out!” Claire screamed. “Get out
now
!”

Amelie had hit the second bar twice without breaking it, and Myrnin joined her, kicking it with his bare foot between her blows. About three seconds later, the whole thing bent and then snapped completely free.

It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was enough.

Amelie lunged out, and Myrnin after her. Shane went next and held out his hand for Claire.

But Oliver wasn’t moving.

“Leave him!” Shane yelled. Hannah’s hand was hovering over
the button, shaking, as if she were trying desperately to fight for their lives, and losing. “Claire, come on,
now
!”

She couldn’t, because Oliver opened his eyes and began to move.

Claire broke loose from Shane’s grasp and lunged for the vampire.

Oliver opened his eyes as she started dragging him, and he reached out to grab the bars and hold himself in place. “No,” he said. “I have to—I have to pay for what I did.”

“Not like this,” Claire said. “Come on!”

But he wouldn’t let go. The idiot wouldn’t
let go
….

She saw Naomi’s head turn; she saw her take in the fact that her prisoners were getting loose, and she glared sharply at Hannah—

Who lost the internal battle, and hit the button that turned on the gas burners.

“Let go!” Claire shrieked as the flames shot up. She rolled for the hole in the cage bars and felt Shane yank her free into his arms. Her shirt was burning. He slapped the flames out.

Amelie reached past them, grabbed Oliver’s burning form, and yanked him out with all her strength. The bar he’d been holding snapped in half, but he slid free.

Still on fire.

Amelie stared down at him for a bare second with true horror written on her face, then threw herself down on him, smothering the fire with her body and her hands. He was scorched and smoldering, but alive.

Oliver’s burned hands moved, caressing her shoulders, and he whispered, “Forgive me.”