Daylighters

ELEVEN

The drive to Blacke wasn’t comfortable, but it was less crowded in the backseat, since Oliver had settled himself in and put the limp, still form of Ayesha in his lap. He sat very straight, eyes closed against the rushing wind.

“Eve,” Michael finally said, “why do you have a bandage on your neck? Did someone bite—”

“Can we talk about it later?” she asked.

“What happened to you?”

Eve didn’t seem willing to say, but Claire was still simmering over it, and she thought Michael needed to know. “They started her—what did Fallon call it?—aversion therapy. Which involved a vampire.”

“It’s fine, it’s nothing.” Eve took Michael’s hand in hers. “Look, I don’t even feel sick anymore. It’s just a bite. I’ll live.”

He put the back of her hand to his cheek. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze sought out Claire’s in the rearview mirror, and she knew he would have some questions later. She didn’t blame him. She knew Eve wouldn’t feel like talking about it, and he’d need to know.

Night had fallen, and the air coming in was cold enough to chill Claire to the bone. Michael had rustled up a discarded jacket from the trunk of the car, but by common agreement they’d given it to Eve, who was freezing and shivering in her light hospital clothes. Not that Michael had on much more.

“Mike,” Shane said, and pointed. “Pull in up there.” Up there turned out to be a light shimmering in the distance, off the small farm-to-market road they were following—a single square house out in the middle of nowhere with a porch light glowing yellow, security lights on a barn out back, and the homey glow of lamps behind curtains.

“We’re not going to do anything to those people,” Claire said. “We’re not.”

“Of course we’re not,” Shane said. “Trust me, okay?” He bailed out when Michael stopped the car, and then—inexplicably—took off his jeans. “Keep the lights off. I’ll be right back.”

They all watched him jog away in his Joe Boxers. Claire felt a little dizzy, actually.

“I don’t like this,” Eve said. “What the hell is he doing? What if they just, you know, shoot on sight?”

“He said to trust him,” Claire said. “I do.”

And she was right to do it, because after about ten minutes, he came back with a whole plastic bag full of clothes. “Here,” he said, and began digging out baggy sweatpants, hoodies, jackets, and shirts. “Sorry, ladies, they’re all men’s sizes, but I’m sure you’ll still look awesome.”

“How?” Michael asked. He grabbed a pair of the sweats and ducked out of the car to pull them on, then added a zip-up hoodie. The logo on the faded cotton was—ironically—that of Texas Prairie University. Morganville’s school. Claire’s alma mater, sort of. “How the hell did you get these?”

“Well, I said I was pledging a frat at TPU with a car full of other guys, and we got driven out here and left naked by the side of the road, and the old bastard cackled and thought it was funny as hell. Then he gave me clothes.” Shane put on a hoodie from the bag—another TPU legacy—and snagged his blue jeans from the floor. “Here, put on another layer.” He handed Eve more clothes, and she bundled up gratefully. Claire was doing the same, taking both a T-shirt and a hoodie to add to what she was wearing, and for the first time, she felt something like warm again. “Oliver?” Shane held out something to the vampire, and got a dismissive stare in return. “No? Sticking with the toga look? Well, I always said you were an ice-cold killer.”

That almost woke a smile from Oliver. Almost.

Once they’d donned all the donated layers, they headed out again. “You know, we probably should have jacked that cop car,” Eve said. “At least it had more windshield.”

“Except for where Oliver punched through it, and we couldn’t see to drive?”

“Oh, right. Except for that.”

They passed a deserted, falling-down old diner that had served its last crappy sandwich at least twenty years back, and right on cue, Claire’s stomach rumbled. Loudly.

“Are you hungry?” Michael asked. “Because I’m starving.” He laughed then, as pure and free a sound as Claire had ever heard from him when he wasn’t singing. He sounded . . . whole. “You know, as a vampire I was never really hungry for solid food, even though I could eat it. I didn’t know how much I missed that. I could really kill for a burger right now. And fries. With salt.”

“Stop it, man, you’re killing me,” Shane groaned. “Maybe they’ve got an all-night diner in Blacke.”

Mention of the town—of their destination—brought them back to reality with a crash. This wasn’t some larky road trip. It was a mission.

“You should know something,” Claire said, and swallowed hard when they all turned to look at her. Even Oliver. “I heard Fallon give an order to release some of the vampires tonight from the mall. The hungriest and meanest ones.”

“Of course,” Oliver said. “Fallon does so need his righteous justifications. Once he whips the people of Morganville into a frenzy of fear, he’ll be free to do whatever he likes with us, and no one will stand in his way. He can burn us all on pyres in Founder’s Square if he likes. And he might find that a just punishment.”

“As somebody you once sentenced to that kind of execution, maybe the shoe fits,” Shane said.

“Shane!” Claire said.

He shrugged. “Sorry, but there are plenty of regular people who’ve been hurt in Morganville. Who’ve lost family. That flapping sound? It’s the chickens coming home to roost.”

“He’s right,” Oliver said, which was a little unexpected—even to Shane, as evidenced by the startled look he threw back toward Claire. “The problem with ruling by fear is that eventually, when the fear fades, fury replaces it. That’s a lesson I should have learned in my breathing years, perhaps.”

“Damn straight,” Shane said, but his outrage had lost its force. “So . . . is there anything we can do to stop Fallon tonight? If it’s not too late already?”

“No,” Oliver said. He had turned his head, and was staring out at the desert whipping by beyond the window. “But it’s possible, just possible, that Fallon’s plan might backfire. Most of us older vampires have vast experience in managing our hunger; the poison he put in our blood supplies made us restless and peckish, to be sure, but not uncontrollably so. It’s the younger fledglings who have . . . difficulty. He might have lost enough touch with his vampire roots to think he can drive us so easily into marauding.”

“I thought you were all just waiting for the chance,” Shane said.

“Did you?” Oliver shrugged. “I’m not saying a hunt isn’t something we crave, but to a man, we hate to be manipulated. And this is our town, as much as any human’s. Our home, and our neighbors and perhaps even our friends. You fall into the trap of thinking as Fallon does, that there are only heroes and villains, monsters and victims, and nothing between. We all stand in that space, crossing the line to one side, then the other. Even you.”

That was unusually chatty for Oliver, and strangely lyrical, too. They all sat in silence for a while, until Michael cleared his throat and said, “I’m making the turn up ahead. Should take us straight to Blacke.”

“Hope that diner’s open,” Shane said. “Because now you made me think about French fries.”

Claire’s stomach rumbled again, right on cue, but she was watching Oliver. Watching the calm strength with which he cradled Ayesha, still locked in her coma. He hadn’t asked for blood for her, or more for himself, though she could see from the color of his skin and the shine in his eyes that he needed it.

He was teaching them all something about vampires, simply by being who he was. Maybe bad things, maybe good. But that had been his point.

That nothing, absolutely nothing, was all that straightforward.

Blacke kept its town purposefully dark; it didn’t want casual travelers looking for gas stations, or all-night diners. In fact, if Claire hadn’t known that the town had a population of at least five hundred, she’d have been fooled into thinking it was a ghost town. Only a few cars in sight; and the lights were off inside businesses locked up tight for the evening. It was a tiny little one-stoplight place anyway.

The hulking courthouse was just as Claire remembered it, though the damage to the iron fence had been fixed and the statue of Mr. Blacke, the town’s most eminent (or at least richest dead) citizen, had been restored, except it still leaned a little bit. They’d knocked him down with the school bus, hadn’t they? It seemed like such a long time ago. She swore that Morganville years were worse than dog years. The people of Blacke had boarded up the courthouse windows, though, and a faded red CONDEMNED sign creaked in the night wind. The only light in the place came from the glow from the clock tower, permanently frozen at three a.m. Claire checked her watch to be sure, but her instincts were right; the time was just past midnight.

The witching hour.

“We’re being watched,” Oliver said as Michael eased the car to a halt. “Although I expect it is thoroughly unnecessary to say it. Even a breather ought to be able to feel it.”

“Is that some bigoted term you guys use for us?” Shane asked.

“In the same way you use bloodsucker, leech, parasite? Yes. Although considerably more flattering.”

“He’s right,” Eve said, and Claire saw her shoulders bunch together as she shivered, even though she was warmly wrapped up now. “They’re watching us.”

Oliver stepped out and raised his voice. “Enough of this, Morley. You’ve had your gawk. There is serious work ahead.”

“Is there?”

Claire heard the lazy voice drifting down from far above. From the clock tower. She tilted her head back and spotted the shadow then, standing just under the glare of the light on the dials of the clock. Morley himself. He walked to the roof’s edge and stepped off, as if the four-story drop were nothing—and it might have been, for vampires. He hardly even flexed his knees on landing, and as he rose, Claire saw he’d managed to find clothes that suited him in Blacke—a dramatic full-length leather duster in faded brown, a long red scarf that trailed in the wind, a flat-brimmed hat. His eyes gleamed crimson in the darkness.

“Do tell me all about your crisis, Oliver. You built yourself a kingdom of cats and now the rats have gotten the upper hand—is that right? They’ve put all you sleek little mousers in a cage and fed you on scraps. Soon they’ll put you down and celebrate and then it will be the kingdom of the rats. Rats and cats, cheese and please may I have a bite.” Morley paused, leaned an elbow on the hood of the car, and gave Oliver a long scan from head to toe. “I knew you were old, dear boy, but really, the Romans?”

“It’s been a long day. I’m not in the mood for your idiocy.”

“And yet you’re in the mood for my assistance. Interesting. Well, then, come along. Mrs. Grant is waiting.”

Morley didn’t wait for any of them to agree; he simply set off down the street. The snap of his coat in the wind was the only sound he made as he walked down the deserted road and took the sidewalk to the right.

They all exchanged a look. Oliver shook his head in disgust, reached in, and picked up the limp body of Ayesha. He held her as easily as a pillow. “Well?” he barked. “Morley may be a theatrical posturer, but he’s a decent grasp of tactics. And I might point out that we’re standing targets here for his followers. They have a kill shot on each of us.”

Eve blinked. “Um . . . how do you know that?”

“Tactics,” Oliver said, and walked away down the road in the direction Morley had gone.

Claire shrugged when Shane raised his eyebrows at her. “Right,” he said. “Guess we’re going, then.”

Michael looked up at the silent, dark windows around them and yelled, “You can keep the car!”

Then he linked his arm with Eve’s and led the way in Oliver’s wake.

“Oh, no, not the old library,” Shane said, in a pretty good approximation of Oliver’s voice and phrasing. “How very tiresome of him to take us there.”

Claire elbowed him. “You must be feeling better.”

“Seems like it, doesn’t it?”

That, she thought with a sudden rush of disquiet, was not an answer. It was an evasion. “Are you feeling better?”

“If by better you mean much more aware than I ought to be of the fact that there are freaking vampires all over the place, then yes, much better. But I’m dealing with it.”

“If you can’t, will you let me know?”

“Sure thing. I’ll let out a howl.”

“Not funny.”

“Well, in my defense, it wasn’t really meant to be. I mean, I might literally howl.”

“Shane.” She pulled him to a stop, and when their eyes met, he dropped some of his smart-ass shield. “We’re going to get through this. I promise you that.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips—warm, sweet, gentle, all the things she loved about him. All the things she knew were inside him, buried sometimes by the tough-guy attitude and smack talk. “I think you can get through anything,” he said. “Hey, I’m happy sticking with you. As long as you don’t cover yourself in Queen Vampire blood again—I may be a freak, but there are limits.”

“Be serious.”

“I’m trying. It’s not what I do best.”

He was making her laugh, and that wasn’t what she wanted right now. Not what she needed. “Shane, when we get out of this—and we will get out of it—I want you to know that I’m . . . I’m ready.”

He raised his eyebrows, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Of course. “That’s good, because I’m a guy, Claire. I’m pretty much always—”

She put a hand over his mouth. “You asked me to marry you. Were you serious?”

She took her hand away. He didn’t say anything. His lips formed what would have been the start of a word, maybe a sentence, but he didn’t actually speak.

She’d scared the words right out of him.

“Uh . . . that came out of nowhere,” he said.

“Is that a no? Were you just saying it before because you thought you had to say it?”

“No! I mean, not no to the original question, obviously, no to that last—” He took a deep breath. “Let me start over. Claire . . . look, you just startled me, that’s all.” He took her hands, both hands, and twined their fingers together. Then he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. “Of course I mean it. I always meant it. I will always mean it. I just thought . . . I thought you wanted to wait.”

“I did,” she said. “But if these past years in Morganville have taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you have to just . . . jump. It’s not safe. It’s never safe. But sometimes you have to live dangerously.”

He laughed a little. “You’re talking my language now.”

“You said I wanted to wait. You didn’t?”

“We should probably go back to that earlier thing about me being a guy, right?”

“I got that part.” She kissed him, just a tingling brush of lips, their foreheads still touching. “You waited anyway.”

“Well, yeah. Because you’re worth waiting for.” He said it as if it was simple and self-evident, but it made her shiver. It was such a strong, sexy thing to say, and she knew he meant it. He would always mean it. “If you want to get married now, tonight, then let’s find whoever passes for a justice of the peace in Blacke.”

“Wouldn’t that be a story to tell the kids,” she said, and then she held her breath, because she’d said it without really thinking, and she was waiting for him to get weird about it, to pull back, to say something like whoa, girl, hit the brakes.

But instead he just smiled and said, “I’m pretty sure we’ll have lots of stories to tell the kids. Almost none of them are going to be appropriate.”

“Good.”

“Excellent.”

“So. Justice of the peace?”

“No,” she said. “How about we do it in Morganville, once this is over? Do it right. For real.”

“You mean, gown and tuxedo? Because I was getting used to the idea of saying I do in sweatpants I borrowed from some toothless old country coot. It’s different.”

“It’s different in an utterly bad way.”

“Would that be the eighties definition of bad, as in great, or . . .”

“Shouldn’t we catch up?” she asked. Because the others had disappeared inside the darkened library building ahead, and she had that feeling again, of people watching from the shadows. Vamps, most likely. She supposed they were listening, too.

“In a second,” he said, and pulled her close, body to body, fitting in all the right places to start a breathtaking fire inside her. “You know they’re watching us, right?”

She nodded.

“Let’s give them something to watch.”

And then he kissed her, all passion and intensity and heat and dark chocolate sweetness melting on her tongue, but not just sweet because there was spice in it, too, bursts of searing pepper, and he made her hungry, so incredibly hungry to feel his skin on hers that it almost drove her crazy.

Almost.

“Good effort at making me want to rip your clothes off,” she said when he let her breathe again.

“Didn’t work?”

“Oh, it worked. I’m just better without an audience.”

He kissed her gently on the nose. “I’ll hold you to that later.”

When they opened the door of the library, they found themselves catapulted back into the past. The windows had been blacked out to hide the lights, but apart from the fact that the electricity was on, the Blacke Public Library hadn’t changed very much. The same battered wooden tables, the same sturdy chairs, the same scarred linoleum floors and doubtful carpet. It was neater, though. And it wasn’t full of Blacke citizens standing around with weapons.

Instead, people were standing around in groups of two and three, whispering, and not displaying visible armament. They were mostly watching Morley, who had leaped up onto one of the study tables and was pacing around, hands behind his back, with the duster swirling around him. Claire half expected him to have jingling spurs. He certainly had the cowboy boots, and they looked old enough to have survived the Civil War and been on the march ever since.

Shane must have been thinking the same thing, because he said to Morley, “Nice outfit. Whose smelly old corpse did you steal it off of?”

It was hard to read Morley’s expression, since he wore his hair long and wild and it concealed his face pretty well. “I could ask the same about your ill-fitting rags, boy. Though I doubt you killed anyone. Perhaps mugged. I doubt you have the stomach for it.”

“Oh,” Shane said, with a grin that was at least half wolf, “you might be surprised.”

“Do tell,” Morley invited. “By all means. Oliver, where do you pick up these . . . feral children?”

“You remember Shane,” Oliver said. He’d stripped off his blanket toga, and Claire quickly turned her back as she saw the white flash of skin. With no hesitation at all, he was stripping and putting on clothes that had been laid out for him. She heard cloth rustling and zippers fastening, and finally risked a look over her shoulder. Yes, he was dressed, in a pair of jeans that actually fit him and a plain dark shirt that he somehow made look edgy. “And Claire. And, of course, Michael and Eve.”

“Charmed yet again, I’m sure,” Morley said. He didn’t sound charmed; he sounded utterly impatient. “Weren’t some of you vampires before? Oh, never mind. Boring. To the point, then. You brought Ayesha to us, and I thank you for that, but I notice you’ve not rescued anyone else. Thoughts?”

“Several. None that don’t involve you screaming.”

“Don’t be so limiting, I’m sure you can imagine several that involve me begging as well. Did you run away, Oliver? Leave your pride of caged cats behind?”

“Fallon’s got them,” Oliver said.

“Ah.”

Silence fell. Morley jumped down from the table and leaned against it, eye to eye with Oliver for a change. He pulled off his hat and dropped it on the table and ran both hands through his wildly messy hair. “Well?” he finally said. “He was never my problem, nor yours, nor even Amelie’s or even her dead father’s. He was your madman’s doing.”

“Myrnin,” Oliver said. “Yes.”

“Wait,” Claire said. “What do you mean, it’s Myrnin’s problem? He had nothing to do with it!”

“Oh, he did, girl, he most certainly did,” Morley said. He sat down on the table and gave her an amused stare. “He’s never told you the story? Ah, well, probably because it isn’t to his credit, I imagine. So poor, sad, unstable Myrnin was all alone after his vampire maker was killed. And he became friends with a clergyman, a very learned one, who was also a secret student of alchemy.”

“That was Fallon,” Oliver said. “In case you might miss the obvious.”

“Quiet, it’s my story. Yes, it was our dear friend Fallon, who most earnestly wanted to cure Myrnin of his madness . . . and his curse. He found, most horribly, that he only made things worse, and next thing you know, Myrnin’s drained Fallon like a cask of wine. As ever, he immediately regretted it, and decided to resurrect him, within the doors of Fallon’s own church, no less. A thing Fallon most assuredly did not want to do, resurrect—at least not as a vampire. But our dear madman dragged him kicking and shrieking back to life. Broke him most sincerely, I’m afraid . . . and then left him to fend for himself.”

Claire wasn’t sure what was worse, hearing that Myrnin had killed a priest, or that he’d made him a vampire against his will, or that he’d abandoned him like some unwanted pet.

“He was not himself then,” Oliver said. “Myrnin isn’t solely responsible for Fallon’s . . . excesses. Or his equally excessive self-loathing, which led to his crusade against us.”

“Nonsense. In short,” Morley said, “all this is Myrnin’s fault, and it’s his mess, and why I should have to sweep it up is not at all clear.”

“I agree that Myrnin should be the one to eliminate Fallon for us,” Oliver said. “Sadly, he seems more curious than outraged at the moment. Something about the progress that Fallon’s made on his cure. You know how the fool can get when you dangle a shiny bit of science in front of him.”

“I heard a rumor,” Morley said. “Scarcely credited it, frankly. Is it true Fallon thinks he can cure us back to human?”

“It’s true he thinks it. It’s also true he can do it, at least in a few cases.” Oliver pointed a finger to where Michael and Eve sat at one of the study tables together. “You mentioned it earlier. Remember the boy?”

Morley gave Michael a long look, and his eyes slowly narrowed. “Ah. Well, that seems a pity,” he said. “Hardly had time to get the taste for it, did he? And now he’s dumped back on the long human road to dust. Still. Not much of a loss to the rest of us, it would seem.”

“You miss my point, mummer. Fallon can do as he says. Not all the time, not with any great certainty, but he has a cure. How many do you think would reach for it if the prize was before them?”

Fallon shrugged. “Not so many as all that. You watch enough friends march to their graves, you lose the taste for ashes. Blood has a flavor so much more compelling.”

“You and I share a faith, if not the particular details of it. What if he can restore us to a state of grace?”

“I knew that in the end it would come down to religion for you,” Morley said, and rolled his eyes. “Do you feel damned and outcast from God’s love, poor dove? I don’t. I feel quite blessed to be able to wake every day knowing that I’ll see yet another, free of weakness and sickness and pain.”

Michael stood up. His chair screeched loudly on the floor, and both of the vampires looked toward him with identical frowning expressions. “We’re not here to debate how many angels are on the head of a pin, or whatever it is you’re about to get into. Fallon intends to turn vampires loose on humans in Morganville, then use the killing to justify giving them his cure until there’s nobody left. And when he’s done with Morganville, he’ll come here, Morley. He’ll come for you. All of you. He has to.”

A quiet, slender, middle-aged lady sitting nearby in an armchair said, “He’s right. We knew this couldn’t last if Morganville fell. The draug almost took everything, and now this Fallon’s coming to finish the job. I’m not letting him finish us. We’ve fought too hard.”

That was Mrs. Grant, the librarian—and, along with Morley, the one who ran the town of Blacke. She might look sweet and friendly, but Claire had seen her fighting off vampires and knew that she was nobody to mess with. Even Morley knew that.

He bowed his head slightly in her direction. “We can always run. I only ended up in this hick-town Eden through the misfortune that has always dogged my steps. What if we load our vampires into a light-proof truck and simply drive away?”

“Those vampires have family here. They’re our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers. They didn’t ask for any of this, and you can’t just make them leave. Most of them will want this cure you’re talking about, you know.”

“’Tis exactly what worries me,” he said. “You heard dear Oliver. Most won’t survive. And we have no real surety that those who do won’t have their lives cut short by his potion, do we? What if his humanity cure lets you live only a few days, or weeks, or a year? What value does it have then?”

Claire hadn’t thought of that—hadn’t even considered it. And now it struck her with terrible force. Fallon wasn’t really concerned with making sure his “cured” vamps lived long and productive lives, was he? He just wanted them not to be vampires anymore. He’d probably consider a week of life without drinking blood worth the trade-off.

What if Michael had survived only to get sick and die? It would break Eve. It would just break her in half.

“We’re not running,” Mrs. Grant said.

“But dearie—,” Morley began.

“Don’t you ‘dearie’ me, you wretch. I’m not your wife and I’m not your mother. I’m the head of the human part of this town and you will pay attention to me. Agreed?”

“Yes,” Morley said. There was a little smile on his lips and a crinkle of amusement around his eyes. “Of course. Very well, then, how do you think we should proceed in our grand quest to liberate Morganville? Descend upon them in a furious horde of fangs? It has a certain theatrical appeal, but—”

“They’d be ready,” Oliver said. “They were ready before they came here. They ignored the vampires at first; they brought good works to the human community, won their trust, fanned the flames of anger. And Amelie was slow to act when there was no threat in sight. If she’d known what we who’d met them before did, she would have taken steps. But she hesitated. If I’d been here, by her side . . .”

“But you weren’t,” Morley said. “Because you had already failed her.”

Oliver’s body went tense, and his head lowered with unmistakable menace.

“Luckily,” Morley continued with that strange trace of a smile, “I did not, and neither did your human companions. She’s escaped from Fallon. What, did no one tell you? That chit of a girl with you, the one who looks so inoffensive—she covered herself in Amelie’s blood to distract the hellhounds from her. And that boy, the one who looks so incapable of self-control—despite Fallon’s infection in his blood, he held off from killing both his lady and yours.”

Oliver’s face twisted into a frown, and he cast a sharp look at Claire and Shane, but before he could ask anything at all, a woman dressed in blue jeans and a buttoned shirt stepped out from between the bookshelves. Her white-blond hair fell in a wavy rush across her shoulders and halfway down her back, and her ice gray eyes looked weary. “It’s true,” Amelie said. “Morley exaggerates, but he rarely lies outright. If not for these children, I’d be in Fallon’s hands now, and this . . . this would be over for the vampires of Morganville.”

Shane’s hand crushed Claire’s, a sudden and convulsive reaction that made her wince and look at him in alarm. He’d turned pale, and his whole body had gone tense, as if he were fighting an internal battle of epic proportions.

A battle he lost, as it happened.

His eyes took on an eerie golden shine, and he let go of her hand to lunge forward. There was a table in the way, but he vaulted it, heading straight for Amelie, and Claire saw bloody claws pushing out of his fingers.

“No!” she screamed. “Shane, no!”

Michael got in his way. Maybe, in that moment, he was thinking that he was still a vampire, capable of speed and strength; it must have been hard to shake that off after years of being used to it. But he didn’t have those things, and Shane hit him like a freight train, slamming him backward.

Michael raised his left arm to protect his throat as Shane lunged for it, and Shane’s teeth bit into his flesh in a violent blur.

Oliver was already in motion. He took a standing leap from halfway across the room, landed on the table, and launched himself like an arrow straight for Shane. He ripped him away from Michael, spun him, and slammed him down. Then he held him there, flat on the floor, as Shane shredded the linoleum with his claws.

“As ever,” Oliver said, “I am at your service, Founder.”

“I know.” There was a shadow of a smile in Amelie’s eyes, and no trace of fear. “Michael?”

“I’m okay,” he said, but it was just an automatic response, not true at all. His arm was bloody, and Eve was already beside him and helping to brace him as he staggered. She grabbed a chair and got him safely into it, and quickly stripped off her hoodie to wrap it around his bitten arm.

On the floor a few feet away, Shane was still changing, triggered by Amelie’s presence. “He’ll need to be locked away,” Amelie said.

“No, you can’t—,” Claire blurted, and even as she said it she knew Amelie was right. Still, it felt wrong. Sick. Horrible. But Shane was dangerous, obviously; he’d hurt Michael, and Michael wasn’t a vampire anymore; he’d just been in the way. He’d have done the same to anyone.

“I don’t think you’d want me to reconsider,” Amelie said, “since the alternative would be to put the boy down, and neither of us wants that.”

“Speak for yourself,” Oliver grumbled, and had to put a quelling hand flat on Shane’s shoulder blades to keep him from pushing up. He was, Claire realized, still changing, his body contorting into a new, horrific shape. “Down, boy. Stay down.”

“Don’t hurt him!”

“Then I need something to tame him,” Oliver said, ignoring her completely. “Quickly, please. He’s strong.”

Mrs. Grant was walking toward them, unsnapping an old-fashioned doctor’s bag—Theo Goldman’s, Claire was surprised to see. She remembered that bag. It even had the vampire doctor’s initials on it in faded gold. “Wait, what are you doing?” Claire said. She didn’t remember moving, but she was clutching the edge of a table now. “Shane, don’t fight! Please!” Mrs. Grant set the bag down and took out an ancient-looking syringe with a hideously long needle.

She caught her breath as Mrs. Grant, with a decisive thrust, stuck the needle into Shane’s back. He let out a howl—an actual howl, pure and shivery—and Amelie herself bent a knee to help hold Shane down as Mrs. Grant depressed the plunger, emptying the contents of the syringe into him.

“Get back,” Oliver snapped. The librarian capped the syringe and put it in Theo’s bag before she retreated, leaving the two vampires to handle Shane as he continued to thrash and struggle for freedom. He was growling now, a low and vicious sound that made Claire feel short of breath.

And then his growling turned to a pained, puzzled whimper, and faded into panting.

Claire gasped and lunged to where Amelie and Oliver were still holding Shane—what Shane had become—down. He didn’t look human at all now. He looked more like a black dog, massive and terrifying, with those eerie inhuman eyes staring blearily up at her.

“Muscle relaxer,” Mrs. Grant said. “It should hold him for a bit, but in my experience, with vampires at least, it doesn’t last long. So we’d better find out what we’re dealing with. From the looks of him, there’s no place we can lock him up here that he won’t break through.”

“Oh, I’ve seen something like this before,” Morley said. He was still sitting on the edge of a table, looking mildly surprised but not alarmed. “Ages ago. An alchemist turned someone into a wolf, one of those elaborate demonstrations so popular back in the day.”

“Did he turn him back?” Claire asked.

“Wolves weren’t terribly popular back then. He didn’t have the chance.” He stared at Shane thoughtfully for a moment, then moved his gaze to Michael as Mrs. Grant moved toward him with the doctor bag and unwrapped his wounded arm. She had him wiggle his fingers, and seemed satisfied when he was able to do so without much pain. “But it would seem to me that it’s a similar thing to what’s happened to him.”

Claire had no idea what he meant, and she couldn’t take it all in; it was too much, too fast, from the warm, romantic moment outside to . . . this. “Michael was healed. Whatever this is—it isn’t being healed!”

“Well, it’s an essential change of state. Vampire to human is just as great a change as what’s happened to your dog boy; perhaps whatever cure Fallon forced down young Michael’s throat might work just as well to change your hound back to his proper form, yes?”

That was . . . crazy. Unscientific. It was the kind of thing Myrnin would think of—but what Claire couldn’t shake was how often Myrnin was right in these situations. “But we don’t have any of the cure,” she said. “And even if we did—it kills most of those who get it.”

“Didn’t kill him,” Morley said, nodding toward Michael. “His blood still smells rank with whatever he was dosed with. And young Shane has just consumed a mouthful of it.”

It struck Claire, finally, what he was saying, just as it also struck Michael, who met her gaze, looking horrified. “No,” he said. “It can’t work that way.”

“Tell that to him,” Morley said, and pointed at Shane . . . who was changing.

It didn’t happen as quickly as the shift he’d experienced in Amelie’s presence, and Claire recognized, with a sick horror, the silvery glow that played on his skin underneath the matted coat of fur. She’d seen that before, in the vampires who’d been given the cure.

She’d seen it kill them.

“Get off him!” she screamed to Oliver, and when he didn’t immediately move, she shoved at him. It was about as effective as shoving at a building, but after an eyebrows-raised glance at Amelie, he rose and let her kneel next to Shane’s quivering body.

She wasn’t afraid of Shane, even though she supposed she ought to be; he wasn’t himself—the fact that he’d attacked Michael was proof enough of that. But she couldn’t think about that, couldn’t worry about that.

She was so afraid for him.

Within another minute his body had begun to warp back toward human shape. She watched the claws that had pushed out of his fingers turn glassy and brittle, then break off. The fur that had covered him grayed and fell away, leaving silvery, pulsing skin.

He was whimpering under his breath. She shifted him into her lap. He felt hot and clammy, and she could feel his bones moving and shifting under his skin at utterly wrong, sickening angles . . . until they were right again.

He opened his eyes, took in a slow, deep breath, and said, in a rough but recognizable voice, “Claire?” His eyes were brown again. Human. “Sorry.” He swallowed hard, and she saw that the silvery glow was fading from his skin. “Sorry.” His eyes drifted shut again, as if he was too tired to keep them open.

“No,” she said, and shook him. “No, stay awake! Shane, stay awake!”

His eyes opened again, and he blinked and focused on her face. “Tired,” he said. “Hey, did somebody drug me? I feel drugged.” He sounded out of it, too, but peaceful. She checked his pulse. It was slow and steady. His skin had taken on its more usual color, an even, smooth tan. “Did I hurt somebody?”

She involuntarily looked to where Michael was having his arm looked at by Mrs. Grant; he was pale, but he gave her a thumbs-up. “No,” she lied. “No, everything’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Did I turn into a hellhound again? Damn. That’s embarrassing.”

“Just rest.” She kissed his forehead gently. “Rest.” She was afraid to see his eyes close, but he was too high on muscle relaxers to stay awake. His temperature felt . . . normal. And his pulse strong.

“What the hell was in that shot?” He sounded blurred and sleepy now. “Wow. Party drugs. Got any more? Ow.” He raised his arm and looked at it; the bite mark was almost gone, reduced to twisted scar tissue. “That still hurts. Feels like I burned it. You’re pretty, did you know that?” He gave Claire a sweet, sloppy smile.

“What was in that shot?” Eve asked. “Because you are high as the space shuttle, dude.” She crouched down next to Shane on the other side and helped Claire get him up to his feet. He felt . . . boneless. “Okay, he’s going to be pretty much useless for a while.”

“We’ve got a place you can all rest for the night,” Mrs. Grant said.

“Any idea how long—this—will last?” Claire waved helplessly at Shane, who was staring at his fingers and wiggling them. He looked fascinated.

“A few hours, most likely. Let me get the keys to the guesthouse,” Mrs. Grant said, and disappeared into an office.

“I have to ask,” Michael said. “Did my blood just . . . cure him?”

“Looks like it,” Claire said. “Morley said he could smell the medicine in you. Maybe it counteracted whatever Shane’s infection was.”

“Let’s be clear about this,” Eve said. “My ex-vampire husband just cured your boyfriend of werewolfism with his blood.”

“Seems about right,” Claire said, and almost laughed. “Typical Morganville, right?”

Eve offered her an upraised fist. “Typical Morganville.” They bumped.

Across the room, Oliver ignored them. He sank to one knee and bent his head to Amelie, the same way some ancient nobleman might have bowed to his queen. She silently offered her hand, and he pressed it to his forehead, then his lips. All weirdly formal.

“I’ve twice failed you,” he said.

“You just stopped the boy.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, Oliver. You count too many things as failures when they are merely setbacks.” She beckoned him up, and he stood, still intimately close to her. She didn’t seem bothered. “I feel safer with my old enemy beside me.”

“Then you have a plan?”

“We have one,” she said, and cut her gaze toward Morley, who gave a theatrical, fussy little bow that was somehow even more antique than the one Oliver had pulled out. “I trust you’ll help.”

“In any way you deem necessary.”

She nodded, stepped even closer, and put her pale hand on his cheek. “Then eat, and rest until morning,” she said. “In the morning, we are taking back our town.”