Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires (43 page)

Watching with those terrible, monstrous eyes.

“What did you do?” she asked, and panic smothered her—not for herself but for
them
. For Shane. For her friends.

“They’re unimportant,” he said. “You have a power the others do not. You must not survive to lead them to me again.”

His whole body rippled in a sickening,
wrong
way, and she knew that she had seconds to live.
No. Not again.

She slapped frantically at the controls to the hidden door, and it popped open in the paneling. She charged in and slammed it shut. It was inky in the shadows down here, but at the top of the steps she saw the warm, colorful glow of the Tiffany lamps. Safe up there. It had always felt like another world. If there was anyplace Magnus couldn’t reach her, it would be here.

Deep down, Claire knew it wouldn’t be enough. But there was a portal up here, and maybe, just maybe, she could get through, get out that way …

She reached the top of the stairs and saw … Amelie. But not the Amelie she knew. This was only the shell of her, glossy and hard, and underneath was the same rot and writhing awful foulness that was inside Magnus.

Amelie was a draug, a
master draug
.

The creature—
like
Amelie, but
not
her—was holding Oliver by both wrists. He was on his knees in front of her, face upturned and marble white, and Claire could see the horror in his eyes.

The loss.

There was a silver knife on the carpet next to Amelie, and Claire, not even thinking now, threw herself at it, grabbed it, and plunged it to the hilt into Amelie’s back.

The shrieking knocked her backward into the wall, then into a shuddering, fetal ball with her hands over her ears.

Amelie let go of Oliver and turned toward Claire, just as the wooden panel opened below with a sudden cold rush of damp air.

The smell of dead things doubled.

Oliver toppled over heavily to the floor, facing away from Claire. She tried to get up, tried
hard
, but nothing was working in her body. It was like receiving a violent electrical shock. She couldn’t stop shaking.

Something wet slithered over her outstretched foot, and she pulled it in closer, whimpering. That touch felt like worms and mold, filthy water, dead flesh. She was grateful it lasted for only a second, and then was past her as Magnus flowed up into his human form, facing Amelie—or at least the draug that had once been Amelie.

She pulled the silver knife out of her back and stopped screaming, and for a second neither of them moved.

Magnus said, “Your transformation is almost complete. You will be a beautiful and terrifying thing, my queen.”

She said nothing. Her silvery, shimmering eyes looked empty as a moonlit lake.

Oliver made a raw sound, and it took Claire a moment to realize that he was laughing. “You’ve lost, Magnus,” he said. “Your thralls are dead.”

“You were passing clever in using human science. I will have to find a new defense to counter it.” Magnus didn’t seem overly concerned about it. “No matter. I will create a new generation. They will have resistance to your poisons. And after all of you are dead, they will learn to feed on lesser fare. I have heard there are seven billion humans on the earth now. Enough for us to feed for thousands of years.”

Oliver pushed himself up to a sitting position. He looked awful, but there was fire in his eyes, bright and furious. “No,” he said. “You won’t. Because you’re not leaving this place alive.”

“I am a master draug. You, fool, can’t kill me. But you’ll make
a fine addition to my blood gardens.” The draug reached down for him, and Oliver batted the hand—the misshapen thing that passed for one—away.

“You’re not the only master draug here,” he said.

“You mean my lovely creation?” Magnus laughed, a sound like saws rubbing together, and Claire flinched and fought the urge to cover her ears. “Your former queen? She has no thralls. No hive. She is no master draug yet. She will make her own kingdom, yes, but not here. This town is mine. You and the last of the vampires are my meat. She can feed her spawn on the thin blood of humans, far from here, when I allow her to go.”

The draug that had once been Amelie was watching him with blank concentration, and something eerily like hunger. She took a step toward him, and Magnus watched her without any sign of alarm.

“You forget something,” Oliver said. “Legend says a master draug cannot die by the hands of
vampires
. But it says nothing about dying at the hands of another
draug.
”

Amelie continued to advance with steady, relentless steps. And this time Magnus backed up. Just a little. “I am her maker,” he said. “And she must obey my commands.”

“Think you so?” Oliver sounded viciously amused. “Try.”

Claire pulled herself into a tighter ball.
This is bad,
she thought.
Really bad. I need to get out of here.
Being in the middle of this was like being caught in a swarm of hornets, but despite the panic tearing at her, she knew that if she tried to get up, tried to run, Magnus would kill her instantly.

Or Amelie would.

Magnus had forgotten all about her, his focus now on the new master draug before him. “Stop,” he said. “I am your maker. I command you to
stop
.”

Something happened, deep inside that
thing
… the inner dark
shadow seemed to thrash, come into focus, and then that was
Amelie
, looking out of the draug. The real Amelie.
Her
eyes.
Her
anger. She wasn’t gone after all. Not completely.

She said, “I am a queen. I take no
orders
.” She plunged the silver knife deep into Magnus, punching through the slimy shell. He gave a horrible metallic screech as Amelie dropped the knife and reached into his broken shell with her bare, pale hands.

“No one,” she said, almost in a whisper, “commands me in Morganville. I command
you
. I command you to
be still.
”

His mouth stayed open, but the sound just … stopped. He wasn’t fighting her. It was as if he couldn’t. This, Claire remembered, was Amelie’s terrifying gift. She could compel vampires.

And now she could compel draug.

In that awful ringing silence, Claire heard the queasy squishing sound of Amelie’s hands pulling out of Magnus’s body. Something thrashed in her hands, alive and covered in suckers, mouths, teeth, something horrible dragged up out of the depths of the ocean where monsters lived.

The real form of a master draug, stripped of all its defenses.

Amelie crushed it. It made a wet sound, like a sponge being wrung out, and then there was a sudden, glassy
snap
.

Magnus’s shell collapsed, and the thick, murky fluid that inhabited it flooded out in a sticky, stinking rush to the thick old carpets. Claire scrambled up to a sitting position and crawled away from the mess, retching.

Amelie turned to Oliver and gave him that awful draug smile, full of death. “Now,” she said, “now it is mine. All of Morganville. All of
you
.”

“Not quite,” he said. He sounded far too calm, Claire thought, for someone who was about to be horribly killed by something as beautiful and terrible as Amelie was now. “Your transformation
isn’t complete. You never made a thrall. Never made a hive. And now your maker is dead.” He smiled as she reached down for him. “And you will never be a master draug.”

She paused, and just for a flicker of a second Claire saw terror in her face. “I rule here.”

“You are wrong,” he said. “The woman inside you has never surrendered to you, never fully allowed the draug control.” He held out his hand, and in it was the leather-wrapped handle of a silver knife. “And never will. Remember who you are, Amelie. Reject this. You have the power to kill her. Do it now.”

She took the knife. And then she plunged it into her own body, and with her own hands tore out a small, weaker version of the creature that had existed within Magnus’s shell. It shrieked in high, thin tones that made Claire’s ears ring, and then Amelie’s cold white fingers closed around it and squeezed with remorseless strength.

It died.

Silence.

Amelie’s shell cracked like glass, and the liquid flooded out of her, too, in a black gush … and underneath lay her vampire body. Horribly shrunken, covered in black spots like mold, but still there. Unconsumed.

The real Amelie, the Founder of Morganville, looked a thousand years old, and she collapsed in a heap like a skeleton held together by nothing but string.

Oliver grabbed her, pulled her away from the blackening spot of the decaying draug, and held her in his arms as he sank down in the far corner of the room. Her eyes were open, but filmed and blind. He fumbled for the sleeve of his leather jacket and yanked it apart with one sharp move, baring a pale, muscular forearm covered with red marks that Claire recognized. Draug stings, in the shape of hands. Amelie had been feeding on him.

And now he was ripping open his wrist with his teeth and forcing her lips apart, giving it to her freely.

It seemed to take ages for her to move, but she finally did, raising her gray hands and taking hold of his arm. Claire had seen vampires feed when they were starving; they wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t.

But it wasn’t like that. Amelie’s touch stayed light on his arm, and after a moment she pushed his wrist away. She still looked awful, but the film was off her eyes, and there was a little more of her, as if the blood had inflated her dehydrated tissues. Still a mummy, but able to blink, move, and speak.

She said, “Let me die, Oliver.”

“No,” he said. There was no real emotion behind it, just a straightforward denial, as if she had asked to borrow a dollar. “You’ve won. You killed him before your transition was complete. You’ll heal.”

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I can’t. There is part of me—”

“You’ll heal,” he repeated. “I’ll hear no more of this. You are the Founder, you will heal, and everything else can be dealt with. Your subjects need you, my queen.”

“I have no subjects. I am no queen.”

Oliver smiled. It wasn’t a good thing. “You have been, and will be again. There’s nothing to fear. You’ve won, Amelie. Your enemies, at your feet.”

She smiled back a little. “You were my enemy once. I never laid you at my feet.”

“Not yet,” he agreed. “But for just now, there will be a truce. It’s a new age. A bright new age for vampires.”

Claire moved, and both of them immediately focused on her, and she wished she hadn’t. There was something shining and predatory about their eyes.

“Claire,” Amelie whispered, “come here.”

She backed away slowly. There wasn’t any real chance of her escaping, not from the two of them. She’d seen too much; she knew that. Heard too much they wanted to conceal.

And she’d served her purpose in luring Magnus there. They didn’t need her anymore.

“No way in hell,” she said, and broke for the stairs.

She didn’t quite make it there before Amelie had her in those ice-cold wrinkled hands. She bent Claire’s head to one side, brushed her hair aside with a calm, gentle gesture, and said, “You’ll have a rare honor, Claire. You will become one of us. Few deserve it more. It is the highest compliment I can give. And it will please Myrnin, as well.”

“No,” Claire whispered. “No, don’t—”

“No,” echoed another voice, and it was punctuated by the thick metallic sound of a shotgun being pumped for the next round. “Not her. No way in hell.”

She somehow thought she’d see Shane there, Shane defending her, but it wasn’t him at all.

Eve’s brother Jason was standing at the top of the stairs, a shotgun in his hands. He still looked pale and shaky, but determined. “No way in hell do you take her instead of me,” he said. “Naomi promised. She
promised
I’d be turned. You’re going to do it or I’ll kill you all.”

Oliver snarled, showing teeth, but Amelie held out a hand toward him. “No,” she said as Jason aimed the shotgun. “He’s quite serious. He will fire. He’s too close for it not to do significant damage to at least one of us.” She considered him for a moment, then gave him a slow, cool smile. “Very well.”

“Very well
what
?” Jason didn’t lower the shotgun. His eyes were wild behind it. “Swear. Swear as the Founder that you’ll turn me.”

“I swear as the Founder that you will be turned,” Amelie said. “I need the blood, and we have lost significant numbers of our ranks in this war. You will be … useful.”

Jason nodded, took a deep breath, and lowered his weapon. “Let Claire go first.”

Amelie opened both hands and spread them wide, stepping away from Claire. She stumbled forward, not quite daring to come near Jason, either. He gave her a disinterested glance, then moved away from the stairs.

He walked straight toward Amelie.

She came up in one smooth, vicious motion, and all the restraint she’d shown with Oliver was suddenly, awfully gone. Her eyes flared bloodred, and she buried her fangs in Jason’s neck. Claire couldn’t look away, somehow; that could have been her,
should
have been her.

It didn’t take long. Jason collapsed, and Amelie took his weight in her arms, drinking until finally she shuddered, pulled away, and let him fall limply to the carpet.

She looked at Oliver as she wiped the blood from her mouth. She seemed almost herself again. Almost. But there was something savage and bright in her eyes that Claire had never seen before.

“He’s yours to finish and raise,” she said to Oliver. “I’ll not have him as my get. He’s damaged.”

He nudged Jason with a foot. “I’ll find good use for him,” he said. “We need new, strong blood in Morganville.” Oliver’s shining, alien gaze came up to rest on Claire. “You should go now if you want to survive.”

For the first time in a long time, Claire turned and ran … from the Morganville vampires.

And straight into Shane’s arms, as he came charging up the stairs to her rescue.