I stopped a vampire I knew slightly—Breana—and said, “No humans around?”
She gave me a look, as if I were mentally handicapped. “No,” she said. “Of course not. They’re confined to their homes until we’re gone.” She reached up and grabbed a metal accordion gate and pulled it down in a shriek of cranky metal. It banged in place on the pavement, shedding flakes of orange rust, and she secured it in place with a thick padlock. “Do you have your seat assignment? No? Go to Amelie’s office. Her assistant is giving out passes. You’ll need one for the evacuation.” Breana pocketed the keys and walked away carrying a metal case, probably containing all of the most valuable items from her jewelry store. Vampires tended to travel light, and invest in tangible wealth, something easily traded.
The lights in her store went out, but I could still read the sign she’d put up in the window.
CKLOSED PERMANENTKLY.
I headed for Amelie’s office. I’d told Shane I’d bring Myrnin back, but I knew this was going to be a test … a big one. A test of exactly where I stood in Morganville, and with Amelie, and it was going to take every ounce of inherited respect that I got from being the grandson of Samuel Glass, and the last child of one of the first human families in town, to even get her to open the door.
My chances of being able to actually bring Myrnin home with me? Small. So were my chances of being able to leave myself. But I had to try, for Shane, and for all of us. We needed Claire. I hadn’t realized how much she held us all together until I’d seen her lying there, still and pale … until she was gone, and I felt everything we had collapsing. Shane couldn’t make it, not without hope.
Claire was his hope. I guess in a way she was mine, too, and Eve’s; she was the one who was always quietly going about the business of getting things done, even when the rest of us thought the things were impossible.
And that got her killed,
some part of my brain insisted on telling me. I didn’t even know why someone had wanted her dead; Shane and Eve had pieces of the puzzle, but not enough.
I needed to know that even more than I needed to get Myrnin.
Getting in to see the Founder normally was no big deal for me; I had that Glass family season pass, after all. But today, I could see it wasn’t going to be easy, or fast. There were a
lot
of vampires in the hallway, all with fierce, tense body language that spoke more than snarls and bared teeth of the need to enforce their territorial boundaries. Jamming this many this close together was a bad idea.
There was no way I could force my way through. There were maybe thirty vampires filling the space, and every single one of them was at least a hundred years older than I was. They also weren’t nearly as inclined to patience, since they’d probably survived centuries by virtue of being rich and powerful and ruthless.
It took an hour for the line to move forward until I could actually see the open door of the Founder’s office. The hallway was a long one, with deep carpets and glossy portraits on the walls, but just now I swore I could smell desperation in the air.
Two vampires ahead of me in the line got into a shouting match over which of them had been closer to some forgotten throne or other. I didn’t care. I was imagining Eve and Shane back at the house, and what might happen if Claire’s killer came back for more.
I grabbed one of the two—the taller one, dressed in an antique business suit—and propelled him inside. “Sorry,” I said to the surprised shorter one. “This goes faster if you don’t measure your family trees. Just shut up.”
He gave me a classic
Don’t you know who I am?
stare, and was on the verge of opening his mouth to tell me—not that I cared at all—when all of a sudden the Founder herself was standing in the doorway facing the two of us.
Amelie didn’t look like the Founder I’d grown up with. She’d always seemed icy and perfect and royal, and although I’d seen her show emotion from time to time, I’d never thought of her as weak.
Now she looked … fragile. And tense enough to shatter. And she’d lost the careful edge of distance.
She gave the other vampire a look that utterly silenced him, and pointed at me. “Come with me,” she said, and vanished. I squeezed by Prince Whatever of Who Cares before he could protest how he’d been slighted, and saw the other, taller Prince Whatever taking a sheet of paper from the hands of Amelie’s assistant, Bizzie. It had a number bold-printed at the top.
“Now,” Bizzie was telling him, “this is your seat assignment and car number. You’ll carry only what you see on the sheet. Nothing else. You may not take pets, either animal or human. No personal snacks will be allowed… .”
I didn’t hear the rest, because Amelie had walked into her private office, and I had to follow quickly.
“Shut the door,” she said as I hesitated. I did, and heard a lock automatically engage. “Sit.”
“I came to get Myrnin,” I said. “I need him.”
She didn’t even glance my way as she walked to the windows and looked out on the evening. There were fewer lights than usual. Even the moon was dark, hidden behind the clouds. A few fitful drops of rain rattled the glass like machine gun bullets, driven by a gust of wind.
“You can’t have him,” she said. “I’ve put him to work on important things. Critical things.”
“Amelie—”
“Don’t,” she said, very quietly. “Don’t presume on my friendship toward your family, or my personal fondness for your grandfather, or even for you. Sentimentality has weighed us down here, made us complacent and stupid. No more.”
“Amelie,
what happened
? Just tell me. Explain.”
“I’m no longer explaining myself, Michael.” She turned, and there was something about her face, her eyes, her body language, that made me take a long step back. “I allowed you to see me so I could make this abundantly clear. You cannot choose to remain with the girl you love. You cannot choose to stay with your friends. That time is past, for all of us. You will take your evacuation instructions and wait downstairs, or I will order my guards to take you to a room and lock you up.”
I’d expected—well, a lot of things, but I’d never actually imagined she’d go this far.
“What killed Claire?” I asked. Not
who
killed her—I was already realizing that was irrelevant.
“The inevitable,” she said. “She knew too much, it appears, more than he could afford. And if he dared act so openly, then even the preparations I’ve made will not save all of us. Some will be lost. Some will be foolish, and make themselves ready victims. But not you, Michael. You’ve been foolish enough already, coming here alone.”
“I’m not going to leave Eve behind,” I said. “I love her. I’m not just going to—”
She turned away from me toward the outer door. I hadn’t heard anything, but she must have; she pressed a button on her desk, and the lock clicked over.
Myrnin walked in.
He looked … well, different. Sane, for one thing. The pupils of his eyes were wide and dilated, and I wondered if she’d drugged him, or he’d done it himself. Either could have been true. He closed the door without being asked and stood there, hands clasped behind his back, like a schoolboy reporting to the teacher. “It’s done,” he said. “Frank has been programmed with all the necessary sequences. He’ll initiate it and shut himself down once it’s confirmed. Then the countdown will start. It’s all set to begin at dusk tomorrow.”
Dusk tomorrow. I’d been told that all Morganville human residents had to be present in Founder’s Square. “Countdown for what?” I asked. If Myrnin had set Frank to some kind of suicide mode, it was dire.
Really
dire.
Amelie and Myrnin both ignored me. “I will need you to help me trace Oliver’s last movements,” she said. “I realize there is no way to track Magnus directly, but we know that Oliver vanished within a short window of time. Perhaps there are clues to be seen, even now.”
Myrnin frowned at her and rocked uncomfortably back and forth. “You mean to go after him? It’s—not wise.”
“I don’t intend to stage a rescue,” she said. “I can’t. Oliver’s lost, as are the rest. But if we know where the draug are gathering those they’ve taken, we can isolate it. Perhaps we can contain them and buy ourselves some time.”
“Unlikely. You know how easily they could—”
“I know,” she interrupted, and waved him off. “No more talk. Go.”
Myrnin put a hand to his chest and bowed, just a little. As he did, he shot a look at me. This one was knife sharp. Amelie turned her back toward the window, and as Myrnin straightened, he mouthed one word to me.
Follow.
I let him leave, and heard the click of the lock engage behind him. Amelie waited, as silent as the grave, until I said, “You say I don’t have a choice, but I do. I can either cooperate or get dragged along. Right?”
“Yes,” she said. “I regret that they are the only options I can offer. Leave the humans behind now, Michael; tomorrow it will only be harder. Do you understand?”
“You can really do it that easily. Just … end things.”
“Yes,” she said. She sounded tired now, and sad. “Unfortunately, I can. And I will. And so will you. So which is it? Go downstairs voluntarily, or under a guard, to a locked room? You can’t leave. That much is absolutely guaranteed.”
“Then I’ll go on my own,” I said. “But this isn’t over. Trust me.”
She didn’t bother to point out to me how useless that was to say. She just pressed the button on her desk, and waved me off. I had no doubt that she had people watching me, ready to pounce, but Myrnin had been definite.
And that meant Myrnin had a plan. A crazy plan, sure, but right now, I’d take anything at all.
I walked out of the outer office and into the hallway, then looked right. Nothing showing that direction. It was entirely blank and bland.
To the left was a solid block of vampires, all impatiently waiting their turns at Bizzie’s desk.
And beyond them, I saw Myrnin standing at the end of the hall. He waited until I’d caught sight of him, then took off in the opposite direction from the elevators.
I shoved past the waiting vamps, most of whom shot me poisonous looks or flashed fangs. I managed not to get bitten somehow. When I achieved relatively free space, I moved faster. Myrnin hadn’t been dawdling, and while I didn’t dare run, I couldn’t exactly stroll.
I looked back. Two of Amelie’s best and brightest goons had come out of a doorway only about fifteen feet behind me, and they were falling in on my trail. I turned the corner, heading the exact wrong way, and knew they’d be on me in seconds.
I ran, hard, and the walls blurred around me. I couldn’t see Myrnin ahead, just more endless hallway….
… And then something tripped me, and I was falling.
Only a hand grabbed me out of the air by the arm and yanked, and in the next microsecond a door slammed, and I was on the floor being held down with a cold hand pressed over my mouth.
Myrnin. I rolled my eyes to look around, and from what I could dimly see, I thought we were in some kind of janitorial closet. It was tiny, cramped, and stank of cleaning products.
He looked down at me after about five seconds, and said, “We have less than a minute until they find us. Is Claire alive?”
“I thought you said—”
“I was hopeful, but you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t seen proof,” he said. “And now we have forty-five seconds.”
“I need you,” I said. “She needs you. Come with me.”
“I can’t,” Myrnin said. “It’s impossible. She’ll never allow me to leave.” He dug in the pocket of his vest, dropped a handful of old movie tickets, a foil-wrapped stick of gum, and something that looked like an ancient piece of candy to the carpet. “Where is it—Oh, bother—Wait—” He slapped pockets. I thought about reminding him of his own countdown, but honestly, it wouldn’t do much good. Myrnin, Claire had always insisted, ran on Standard Crazy Time, not the regular clock.
He found a folded sheet of paper in his breast pocket, glanced at it, and handed it over to me. “Here,” he said. “I’ll need these things. Get them for me, before morning comes. Oh, and I’ll need her body.”
I was trying to read the list, but that stopped me cold. I looked up. “Her
what
?”
“Body,” he repeated. “Corpse. Remains. Mortal shell.
Her body
, lackwit, get it to the house, and now we’re out of time, for heaven’s sake—
go
!”
“Go where?” I wondered how Claire dealt with this, the crazy talk, the sudden insanity, the demands—and then Myrnin spun me around, put a hand in the center of my back, and shoved. Hard.
I stumbled forward and brought up my arms, because I was going to hit the blank wall …
… And then the wall vanished into a well of black, a confusion of color, and the rest of my fall went through a freezing void and then out again into a cold, whipping wind, pellets of rain on my face, and the hard, scraping impact of my hands on pavement.
I was outside a brick wall, in a part of town I didn’t recognize at first glance, until I found the distant lights of Founder’s Square and spotted the darkened sign for Marjo’s Diner, no longer open twenty-four/seven.
I was halfway to the edge of town, in the entirely wrong direction from home … but the right side of town for Morganville’s one and only mortuary, run by a strange, stiff vampire called Mr. Ransom.
I was close to a single, flickering streetlight, and I took the piece of paper and angled it to catch the glow. It was a list. A crazy list.
And the first thing on it was
CLAIRE—BODY
.
He’s nuts,
I told myself. We all knew it, even Claire; Myrnin was a few pints short of a gallon at his best, and I wasn’t exactly sure this was his best. He was medicated, for sure. That
might
be a good thing, of course. Amelie wouldn’t want him to be scattered, so she might have made sure he was ruthlessly focused. In which case, the nutty list I was holding might actually make sense, in whatever universe Myrnin and Claire inhabited that the rest of us didn’t.