Daylighters (20 page)

“What?”
Eve turned on him, her mouth open, and in the next second, fury splashed color over her cheeks and she slapped him. Hard. All her fuzziness was gone. “You
son of a bitch
! You lied to me!”

“Yes,” he said. The mark of her handprint was red on his skin, but he hadn’t moved an inch. “It was necessary. Now, you get to choose. Michael’s made his choice; he could have stepped forward to take the cure, and join you again as your husband, but he’s rejected it, and he’s rejected you along with it. I’ll offer you now the opposite: reject
him
. Take off that ring and throw it away. Tell them all that you are proudly human and will stay human, and in return you’ll find a welcome home here in Morganville, with us.”

“Go to hell,” Eve said. Claire hadn’t expected to hear anything else, but the ring of loneliness under the anger surprised her. But of course Eve felt alone; she would. The humans of Morganville had turned against her completely after she’d married Michael, and none of the residents of the Glass House had ever been accepted, not really accepted, because they hadn’t fit into the framework in the first place.

The ground kept shifting around them, around their little island of misfits, and Claire couldn’t help but feel this terrible sense, again, that what she was doing in helping the vampires . . . might all be wrong. But what was right? Fallon? The Daylighters? She couldn’t believe that. She wouldn’t.

Fallon was shaking his head. “Refuse to accept the facts, cling to this fantasy of loving a creature that cannot love you in return. . . . Well, then you’ll end up in a cell, and we’ll have to treat you for this mental illness you suffer from until you’re cured of it.”

“Listen to yourself. You’re going to put me in an asylum?” Eve said. “For loving someone?”

“You don’t love Michael. Michael died. You love a thing that once was him, and loving a corpse has always been a thing of horror to anyone with a shred of decency in them. So, yes. Call it an asylum if you wish, but that’s what faces you if you won’t renounce him. I’m not unkind; I’m giving you a chance to avoid that fate. Take off the ring and throw it away. Show them that you stand with me. With humanity. Become a Daylighter, Eve.”

Eve took a step forward, right into his face, and looked him straight in the eyes to say, “Screw you, Fallon. If you want my wedding ring, I’ll mash it into your face deep enough to leave a permanent tattoo.”

Fallon didn’t flinch. He just . . . smiled.

“Take her,” he said, and one of the Daylighters grabbed Eve by the shoulder.

She spun into it, moving with limber grace, and slammed the heel of her right hand into his nose, jammed her shoulder into his chest, and knocked him right off his feet into a sprawl on the dirty tile. She still looked dazed and vulnerable, and she might have wavered a little on her feet, but Claire’s heart swelled to about twice its normal size, because in that moment she was so
proud
of Eve she wanted to let out a war cry. “Who’s next?” Eve yelled it for her, and pointed at another of the Daylighter guards. “You. Come on, sunshine, let’s do it!”

At Fallon’s nod, that guard stepped forward—but he wasn’t caught by surprise, and he was more than a match for Eve, who landed a couple of punches but ended up off balance, which was all the man needed to sweep her feet out from under her and send her crashing to the floor, facedown. In the next second he had his knee in the small of her back and was twisting her hands behind her.

Eve was screaming, but not in pain. That was pure rage boiling out of her, and now Claire tried to move forward to help—but Myrnin put a heavy, strong hand on her shoulder to keep her in place, and she couldn’t twist free.

“Get her ring off,” Fallon said to the guard, and the man nodded, wrenched Eve’s left hand up, and slid her wedding band off to hold it up for Fallon’s inspection. “Now throw it away.”

“No!” Eve screamed, but it was too late. The man pitched it through the air, and for a second it caught the diffused light from above and a red glint shone from the ruby in its center, and then it was heading for the shadows.

A pale hand caught it.

Michael Glass stepped out of the crowd and into the open space.

“No, you fool.” It was just a soft, angry whisper from Oliver, but Claire felt Myrnin’s fingers close tight on her skin, and she knew things had just shifted in a way she couldn’t really define.

Michael stood there, staring at Fallon with the ring in his hand, and said, “Let her go. It isn’t her you want. It’s me.”

“Amelie’s child,” Fallon agreed. “Yes. It’s you I need, Michael, because you’re a symbol. You’re Amelie’s weakness. And I know you need this girl just as much as she needs you. I can give her back to you—and you to her, in ways that neither of you have ever imagined possible. All you need do is agree to take the cure.”

The cure.
Of course. Fallon’s salvation hadn’t been some religious allegory; he’d been offering the vampires humanity
.
A change back to a regular, breathing, mortal life.
And isn’t that a good thing? Shouldn’t it be?

He’d needed a volunteer, and here was Michael, standing in front of him with Eve’s wedding ring clutched in his fist, looking at his wife with so much love and desperation that Claire felt a little faint from it. There was a kind of restless whisper that moved through the vampires . . . something beneath her hearing, beneath even her vision, but a sensation like nothing she’d ever felt before.

“No,” Oliver whispered again. There was anger in that word, and there was also fear. If there was ever a moment when events were turning, when something monumental was happening, this was it. She could feel it, and so could they.

From the look on Fallon’s face, he knew it, too. He was waiting for his triumph.

“I never wanted to be a vampire,” Michael said. “You know that, Eve. I never asked for it.”

The guard had let her get up to her knees now, but he held one wrist behind her back tight enough that it must have been painful. She didn’t make a sound. Her gaze was locked on Michael’s, breathlessly waiting.

“I love you,” he said. “I always did, even when I was an idiot too stupid to admit it. By the time I could, it was too late, and I was . . . something else. I never had the chance to be with you when I was human. And I’m sorry for that. You deserve better.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Eve said. Her voice was shaking, but she managed to smile. “It’s not like I’m Jane Normal in the first place. Love you, too, Mike. Always and forever, no matter what you are.”

Michael nodded to her, just a little, and his smile was heartbreakingly lovely. Something personal and private, just between the two of them. Then he turned to look directly at Fallon. Unafraid.

He opened his hand and let Eve’s ring fall from his fingers.

It tumbled through the air, wobbling and spinning, and hit the tile with a sound like breaking hearts. It rolled to a stop at Fallon’s feet.

“Do what you want,” Michael said. “But with or without the ring, with or without the law, Eve’s my wife, and there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it. I’m not volunteering. If you want to give me your cure, you’ll have to force me, just like the vampire who ripped my throat out in the first place.”

“That’s a grave mistake,” Fallon said. “It will greatly diminish your chances of survival if you fight the therapy. Take it willingly. Please.”

“You heard my wife. Go fuck yourself.”

Fallon’s face . . . changed. It went from a mask of calm friendliness to something so twisted with rage that it was very nearly demonic, and Claire felt terror bolt through her—not for herself but for her friends, so alone and vulnerable and brave.

Fallon rounded on the guard holding Eve. “Take this deviant to the hospital. Tell Dr. Anderson that I want her given a complete course of aversion therapy until she loathes the very sight of vampires. Don’t be gentle about it.”

Michael lunged, but Fallon was faster—he had the remote control to the collars, and it must have been turned up to bone-splitting levels of pain because it knocked Michael out of the air in a graceless heap, his back arched as he convulsed against the current.

And not just him.
All of them.
The vampires dropped like bags of cement, and Claire realized in that single clear instant that if she didn’t go with them, she’d be as obvious as a bug on a wedding cake—the only one left standing in the middle of the captives. Luckily, Myrnin helped with that, even if it was unintentional; his hand crushed down on her, shoving her toward the floor, and she let herself drop. His weight fell on top of her, hiding her almost completely from sight. She managed to squirm just a little and gain some air, and a sightline toward Fallon.

He turned down the intensity of the collars, but Claire could still feel the current running through Myrnin’s body—enough to make his whole body twitch uncontrollably in pain. She was lucky that it wasn’t transmitting through to her, except as a slight tingle.

Fallon obviously wanted his audience to see, but he also wanted them quiet.

Compliant.

Eve was pulled to her feet and hustled toward the door, screaming Michael’s name. Fallon put a toe of his shoe under Michael’s body and rolled him over on his back, then leaned down to stare at him. That horrible smile was still firmly in place.

“I did warn you. You’ll be cured, whether you want it or not. I’ll have you changed or I’ll have you dead. As for your girl’s unfortunately painful future, you brought that on her, Michael. I want you to remember that when the cure is coursing through your veins and everything you are is stripped away, never to return. I want you to remember who remade you in their image this time. Not Amelie.
Me.
”

There was nothing Claire could do. Nothing but watch, concealed by Myrnin’s body, as Michael was hauled away. But she had only one thought, one burning and utterly clear thought:
We’re going to take you down.
Not just because what he was doing was wrong, but because he’d just made it personal. She might be wrong in helping the vampires over the humans; she might be wrong in thinking that Fallon had no right to shove his cure down their throats. But that didn’t matter now.

This was about her friends.

Fallon was talking to the cop standing next to him. With a shock, Claire recognized the straight carriage, the blond hair. Officer Halling. “Valerie, pick twenty of them for the cure, please, and make sure Michael is among them. Have them shipped directly to the hospital and tell Dr. Anderson to start the treatment immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“One more thing,” Fallon said. “We’ll have to move up our timetable, since Amelie’s evaded us. I can’t take the risk that she’ll be able to form some kind of resistance. Find the hungriest, most amoral sons of bitches in this building, pick ten, and let them loose tonight.”

Even Halling seemed disturbed by that order. “Let them . . . loose? You mean free? We’re not supposed to shock them, or—”

“I want you to disable their collars before you let them out to hunt.”

“Sir, I don’t mean disrespect, but why—”

“Morganville’s forgotten its fear of the dark,” he said. “They need a reminder just why vampires need to be cured, or put down. Too many in town have started questioning me, complaining about the imprisonment of the vampires. We need to demonstrate there’s only one proper way to handle such wretched creatures:
our
way.”

Halling didn’t look happy, but she nodded and stepped back. She made sure Michael was securely bound and had him dragged out, and then she began counting off, pointing at bodies until she’d reached twenty. “Right, take those to the hospital,” she said. “These lucky bastards are getting the cure. They might be moving into their own homes in Morganville tomorrow, safe and sound.”

But Claire knew—maybe they all knew—that the odds of that were pretty slim. Four to one.

The chosen twenty—including Michael—were dragged still twitching from the room. Claire held her breath and stayed very still as one of them walked near her; Myrnin’s weight felt like bricks on top of her, and the pain in her arm was growing sharper and sharper with every second. She shut her eyes, concentrating on not reacting or moving, and the guard nudged Myrnin with his foot. His body rolled off of Claire and thumped limply to the tile floor.

“What the hell is up with this one?” the guard asked. “He’s wearing some kind of women’s bathrobe.”

Fallon glanced over, and then focused in on Myrnin. He took several steps toward them. “I’d been wondering where the old spider had been hiding. Careful—he’s dangerous even when he’s sane, and from the looks of him, this isn’t his best period of mental health.” The cop backed away, and Fallon closed in and leaned down. He smoothed dark hair away from Myrnin’s face. “Can you hear me, Spider?”

“Yes,” Myrnin whispered. “I hear you.”

“I’m not doing this for you,” Fallon said. “Despite what you did to me, killing me, dragging me through hell to make me a blood-drinking demon. I’m not doing this to hurt you, Myrnin. I’m doing it to
help.
” Maybe he believed it, but Claire could see his face through the gap, and what she saw in him was cruel. It was angry. And it was
personal.
“I’m saving you for last, dear blood-father. I’m going to make you the last living vampire in all the world, before I unmake you.”

“I saved you,” Myrnin said. “You know I did. You were dying.”

“I was in God’s arms, and you ripped me out of heaven. Did you think I’d ever forget? Or forgive?” Fallon pushed Myrnin, and next to him, Jesse tried to stir. He grabbed her red braid and forced her head up at a painful angle. “Who’s this? A friend of yours?”

“Leave her,” Myrnin said, and clumsily slapped toward Fallon. He fell short. “Please—”

“This one,” Fallon said, and dragged Jesse out onto the tile. “Take her for the cure.”

“No!” It was just a whisper from Myrnin, but it was full of anguish and horror, and Claire tried to think what she could do to stop it.
Maybe she’ll make it,
Claire thought.
Maybe Jesse could be—
What? Saved? Jesse liked who she was. She was a good person. She used her strength to help others.