Daylighters

TWELVE

Mrs. Grant opened up Blacke’s little bed-and-breakfast for them. Basically, it was a four-bedroom house with doors that locked and a self-serve kitchen, located just about a block from the library. Claire’s exhaustion was starting to make the world seem too bright, and when she found herself standing in the kitchen of a strange house, sipping spiced hot chocolate, it seemed a heavenly, strangely unreal experience. Which, she thought as she leaned against the counter, somehow seemed appropriate.

Eve raised her eyebrows as she drained the last of her cocoa. “What?”

“I’m just thinking,” Claire said. “Thinking that maybe Shane—”

“Might relapse or something? Oh, honey, don’t borrow trouble. We’ve got enough here and the interest rates will kill you. Shane’s tough. He’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Claire said softly. “Eve, about what Morley said back there, about the cure . . .”

Eve turned away and rinsed her cup in the sink, but it was more about avoiding eye contact than anything else. “You think there could be side effects? I don’t believe that. I can’t. I got him back, and that’s all I can think about right now, Claire. I’ve got Michael back, the real one, the one I crushed on from the time I was fourteen, the one I fell in love with so hard when I was eighteen. Anything else . . . anything else is something for tomorrow.”

Claire nodded. She understood that, the need to just block everything out and be still. Feel as if there was still hope in the world, and love, and a future.

“Go on,” she said, and finished her own drink. The cocoa was having its usual effect, and on top of the general exhaustion she felt almost as warm and fuzzy as if she’d had a shot of Shane’s happy juice. “I know you’re dying to tell him that.”

Eve’s smile lit up the room. The world. “Oh, he knows, if he’s got a brain in his head,” she said. “But I’m definitely looking forward to saying it, anyway.” She grabbed Claire into a hard, firm hug. “Love you, Claire Bear. See you in a few hours.”

“Love you, too,” Claire said. It felt so good, being together again. “Go on. Michael’s waiting.”

Eve’s smile was still warmer than the sun, and the warmth lingered even after she’d left the room.

Claire rinsed her own mug and put it in the dishwasher, then went to the small central bathroom. There were guest soaps and disposable toothbrushes, and she cleaned up as best she could, then took a deep breath and walked down the hall to the room where they’d put Shane.

She was afraid that he’d be worse somehow, but instead, he was lying curled on his side in the center of the king-sized bed, with blankets piled on top, and he was sound asleep. She pulled off her shoes, pants, and hoodie and climbed into bed next to him. He was warm, but not feverishly hot, and as she snuggled close to him he made a pleased noise in the back of his throat and put his arms around her. He didn’t quite wake up, which was good; she was so tired that she wanted to weep, and the feeling of him, the dreamy gentle warmth—that meant more to her just now than anything else in the world.

She curled against him, pulled up the covers, and was asleep in under a minute.

Claire woke up slowly—not in a panic, for a change, not convinced that there were monsters lunging for her from the shadows. Shane had kept all that at bay. The light creeping through the lace curtains wasn’t yet exactly announcing morning, but it was enough to start her lazy climb up toward it. She was still in the same position in which she’d fallen asleep, she realized, except that Shane’s warmth wasn’t next to her anymore.

She rolled over, and saw that the bed was empty.

That drove the lazy good morning feelings away. She sat up, fast. “Shane?”

The door to the room opened, and Shane came in carrying two coffee mugs. He looked pale and tired, but he definitely wasn’t flying high anymore. He sat on the bed cross-legged next to her and passed her a cup—steady enough to not spill a drop of it.

He’d remembered how she liked it, too. “You’re up early,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Hungover,” he said, and took a deep swallow of his coffee. His eyes shut in pleasure. “Oh, thank God. I was about a million percent caffeine-deficient. Did I say anything embarrassing?”

“You went all hellhound and attacked Amelie in the library.”

“No, really, did I say anything embarrassing?”

“You said I was pretty,” she said, and smiled.

“Well, you are, even with your hair sticking up funny.” He put his cup down and reached over to smooth it down. She looked at his forearm. The bite was now a faded scar, not red at all. “Yeah, I know what happened. I remember biting Mikey. He’s okay, right?”

“He’s okay.”

“It felt—it felt like I was burning up inside. That was his blood, right?”

“The best I can tell, the cure was still in his bloodstream, and it attacked what Fallon had put into you to make you—change. So they kind of canceled each other out.”

“For now,” he said. He picked at a loose thread on the blanket.

“Shane, you’re okay. Really.”

“Sorry. You’re right. Not enough coffee.” He reached for his cup again and took a long gulp, then set it on the bedside table. “How’s yours?”

“The coffee? It’s great.” She kissed him lightly. “Thank you for bringing it.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and kissed her back. Oh, that was nice. Really nice. Claire broke free long enough to put her cup down, before the coffee ended up all over her chest, and leaned into the kiss as if she’d never left it.

“Well,” Shane murmured against her lips, and brushed hair back from her face with warm, lingering touches, “this is nice. I could almost forget we’re about to go to war. Again.”

“Let’s not think about it right now.”

“Okay.” He leaned forward, and she let herself fall back to the soft comfort of the pillows. “Let’s think about something else, like . . . letting the coffee get cold.”

“It’s good coffee.”

“I’ll make more.”

It was a lovely warm hour, sweet and slow and breathtaking, and Claire thought that maybe it was weird how they knew each other so well now, so that every touch was in the right place, the right pressure. It was exciting, but it was also comfortable in ways she could never have imagined, as comfortable as she could have ever been with anyone. No secrets. No shame. Nothing but complete, sweet trust.

Right up until the knock came at the bedroom door.

They were lying in each other’s arms, pleasantly drowsy, but Claire’s eyes flew open at the sound, and so did Shane’s. They hesitated for only a second before they rolled in opposite directions to fish clothes off the floor and start dressing. “Just a sec!” Claire said, and yanked up her pants, then threw on the hoodie over her T-shirt. The TPU VIPERS logo on it seemed appropriate this morning. She jammed her feet into her shoes, but as fast as she was, Shane was even faster. He was sitting on the bed calmly sipping coffee when the door banged open.

“Good morning,” he said to Morley, who looked full-on Vampire Western again in his duster, boots, scarf, and hat. “Kind of rude to come in when the lady asks you to wait, isn’t it?”

“My sincere apology,” Morley said, and did a straight-legged bow, whipping off his hat with a flourish. “But we’re about to go retake the town of Morganville, and manners are not my greatest concern. Might you want to join us, or are you, ah, occupied?”

“Is that a choice? Because if so . . .”

“We’re coming,” Claire said. She downed the rest of her coffee—cold, now—and walked over to Morley. “Come on, Shane. Do you really intend to sit this one out?”

“You’re right. There’s a fight, and I’m not in it? That seems wrong.” Shane made sure to finish his coffee. “Okay, let’s do this thing. Wait, what exactly are we doing?”

“I have no idea what you’re doing,” Morley said, “but Mrs. Grant is killing Amelie.”

Claire thought it was a flippant, weird thing to say until she saw Amelie lying on the table in the library, not moving, with a silver-coated stake in her heart.

“What are you doing?” she blurted, and pushed forward. Michael and Eve were already there, standing together. “What happened?”

“Don’t touch her,” Mrs. Grant warned. “Trust me, we’ve calculated this very carefully.”

“Stabbing her? With silver?” Because even Amelie couldn’t resist that poison for long, not in her heart. She had more of a resistance than most of the other vampires Claire had ever seen, but this . . . this was extreme. And extremely dangerous.

Then she saw the symbol on the side of the stake—an etched-in sunrise.

“You’re a Daylighter,” Claire said flatly, and looked around for a weapon. She didn’t see one handy, so she grabbed a chair. It was heavy, but she raised it anyway. “Step away from her.”

“Put that down,” said Oliver, and took the chair from her with one hand. He placed it back at the table, handling it as easily as if it was made out of matchsticks. “It’s an illusion. A carefully crafted one. The stake is silver, stolen from the Daylighters; their weapons come loaded with silver nitrate.” She knew that, because she’d seen one buried in Michael’s chest, back in Cambridge. They were designed to deliver a fatal dose of silver when anyone tried to remove them. “We’ve removed the nitrate from this one, and coated the stake with plastic. It’s not toxic to her, but it’s no doubt ridiculously painful. She’s most convincing in her death.”

Amelie opened her eyes. “I can hear you, you know.”

“Yes, I’m well aware,” he said, and however much he liked Amelie—which, Claire thought, was a lot—he also couldn’t resist taking a little bit of pleasure in her discomfort. “Stay quiet. You’re dead.”

“We could always bury this stake in your chest, you wretch.”

“I wouldn’t look half so lovely wearing it.”

Morley shook his head impatiently. “Can we please just get on with it? Mrs. Grant and our humans will take Amelie into town and convince Fallon that they will trade her for some righteous revenge upon the vampires he has penned up in that mall. He’ll believe it; the story is more than convincing, considering the havoc Amelie’s blood-father wreaked upon this town. In the wake of last night’s vampire attacks, who better to swell the ranks of the true believers than the residents of a town already savaged by the monsters?” He looked very pleased with himself. Disgustingly so.

“I’m so glad you think so, Morley,” Mrs. Grant said. “Because we had a discussion, and we decided to alter the plan a little bit. As an actor, you understand that we need to really sell the concept.” She nodded, and from the shadows behind the bookcases, two men stepped out, both armed with crossbows.

Morley snarled and snapped to the side, and the bolt meant for his heart missed him. Oliver was slower—probably the result of all the terrible things heaped on him for the past few months—and the silver-tipped arrow sliced right into his chest and dropped him where he stood.

But Morley wasn’t going down without a fight. He rounded on Mrs. Grant, roaring in fury, and she calmly brought up the small crossbow she’d held under the table. As he raced toward her, she sighted and fired.

Morley slumped against the table, eyes and mouth wide, and finally collapsed.

I was right, Claire thought with a jolt of real fear. They are Daylighters. But Amelie wasn’t reacting, even though she could have; the fact that she’d been able to talk proved that well enough.

Which meant that it was Amelie’s plan, and had been from the beginning. She just hadn’t told Oliver and Morley how far it would go.

Shane, Eve, and Michael hadn’t moved to protest, probably all for different reasons: Shane because he wasn’t inclined to protest vampires getting shot ever, Eve because she was conflicted about Oliver and had never liked Morley, and Michael because . . . well, probably because he’d figured it out the way Claire had.

Mrs. Grant looked at the four of them. “Don’t just stand there, get them on the tables,” she said. She hadn’t liked shooting Morley, Claire could see that. “They’re old, but that wasn’t a bug bite. We need to get the coated stakes into them quickly.”

That was a more clinical process than Claire was strictly comfortable with; she helped pull the arrows out, but pushing the stakes in was a lot more quease-inducing, and she let Michael and Shane handle that part. Not that they seemed to take much pleasure in it, either.

Eve just turned her back entirely. “Are we sure this is a good plan?” she asked anxiously. “Because I’m starting to worry. It seems scary.”

“That’s because it is,” Mrs. Grant said. She walked over to the four of them as Michael and Shane rejoined them. “I’ll have to keep an eye on my two gentlemen here to be sure they don’t do something silly like remove the stakes, but I expect this will appeal to Morley’s acting instincts, and Oliver can surely see the advantages. Now, as to the four of you: I’ll need you to put on a show as well.”

“Wh-what kind of show?” Eve asked. She sounded even more doubtful.

“Nothing too difficult, I promise,” Mrs. Grant said. “You simply have to be our prisoners.” She nodded, and more of her Blacke townsfolk moved up, armed not with crossbows this time but with zip ties. “Sorry about this, but we’ll cut you loose when the time comes. Fallon seems to want you all back—especially you, Michael. He seems to think you’re his new poster child for conversion.”

“He’s not wrong,” Michael said. “Feels pretty good, having a heartbeat again. I was resigned to being a vampire, but I’m not going to lie . . . it was a gift I’m not turning down.”

“Me neither,” Eve said. “You don’t have to put us in cuffs. Really. We’ll go along.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Grant said. “I’m going to trust the two of you. Don’t let me down.”

But, Claire noticed, that didn’t seem to include her, or Shane, because the next thing she knew, her wrists were being pulled together and zip ties efficiently applied. She exchanged a glance with Shane, but he shrugged. “Got to admit, Fallon wouldn’t buy either one of us as having a change of heart, especially when he realizes I’m not on Team Hellhound anymore. Makes sense. We haven’t exactly made ourselves potential allies of his, have we?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not really. But—you’re going to cut us loose?”

Mrs. Grant didn’t waste words. She just passed a small set of nail clippers to Eve, who winked and stuck them in the pocket of her hoodie.

“Got you covered, girlfriend,” said Eve. “And if I lose these and have to gnaw through the plastic to get you loose, I will. Virtual high five!” She raised her right shoulder. Claire raised hers. They bumped.

“That,” Shane said, “is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen the two of you do, and that’s saying something.”

“This from a man who has Blade action figures.”

“Hey, those are classic! And collectible.”

Mrs. Grant sighed. “Let’s get everyone loaded. Remember: Fallon may be in Morganville, but the Daylight Foundation has branches all over the world. They will come for us if we don’t come for them first. We might not be able to take them out, but we can at least remove the man who turned a search for a cure into a crusade. Let’s ensure he doesn’t do any more damage.”

As battle speeches went, it wasn’t great, but obviously the folks from Blacke—mostly everyday folks, the kind of people you’d see in a bigger town at a Walmart or eating at the Dairy Queen—were already on board. Blacke wasn’t Morganville; by the time Morley and the rest of his vampire refugees from Amelie’s rule had arrived here, the town had already been ripped in half by an uncontrollable infection that had taken half the residents and reduced them to mindless, blood-craving monsters. Amelie’s father, Bishop, had done that, and then moved on, probably amused by all the mayhem he’d left behind him. That was why Blacke wouldn’t go with the Daylighters’ agenda; it meant subjecting their own families to a cure that was bound to kill most of them. In Morganville, the lines between humans and vampires were generally pretty well drawn.

In Blacke, there were no lines. Only heartaches.

In a fine display of symmetry, the townspeople piled into the same battered bus that Morley had commandeered from Morganville; it still had most of the body damage, but it was at least running, and it was relatively light-proofed. Amelie, Oliver, and Morley were loaded in last, lying stretched across seats. Amelie maintained her calm illusion of death—maybe it was easier for her that way. But Morley complained bitterly, and Oliver seemed uncomfortable even though he didn’t do more than glare at those around him.

“Hey, man, don’t look at me,” Shane told him. “I’m back in handcuffs. Do you have any idea how many times this makes?”

“Do you have a stake in your heart?” Oliver said. His voice sounded strained and faint, as if he was using all his willpower to suppress a scream. “At least if it was wooden, I’d be unconscious. This is hideous.”

“I’m sure you can cope just fine,” Mrs. Grant said. She didn’t seem sympathetic. “Is everyone in?” She looked around at the rows of people—men and women, a few teens, even some elderly citizens. They all looked hard, tough, and ready for action. “Let’s go, then.”

The driver looked as if he might have actually once driven a school bus, back in the dark ages; he was ancient, and Claire was a little afraid that he was so old he might nod off at the wheel. But his arthritic old hands seemed competent enough as he steered them away from the curb and picked up speed. They made the turn and went past the shuttered courthouse. The smug statue of Hiram Blacke stared after them.

There were vampires in Blacke standing in the shadows, or in the windows, watching them go. This time Claire didn’t feel so creeped out by that. It was more as if they were wishing them luck.

She really hoped it worked.

It was a long, bumpy ride, worse by far for the three staked vampires, but they bore it in relative silence—even Morley, after a while, when he realized nobody was going to respond to his outbursts. Claire decided not to complain about the chafing of the bands around her wrists. Seemed like the least she could do was bear it with the same stoic silence as the others.

When the bus finally started to slow down and the brakes engaged, Claire looked up through the front window to see that they were approaching the Morganville billboard. It brought a flood of emotions—relief that the ride was nearly over, and the very real fear that what they were doing would go wrong. Badly. But she didn’t know what else they could do, except walk away . . . turn their backs on Morganville and just let it all happen without them. But how would that make them any different from the other Morganville residents who were willing to let horrible things happen to the vampires so long as it happened out of their particular view?

The feeling came back again, sick and dark. I’m bringing trouble to Morganville. They’ve finally got their peace, what they always wanted, and I’m coming back to rip it apart.

I’m the villain.

All she knew was that she couldn’t run, not from this. She knew Shane wouldn’t do that, or Michael, or Eve. They’d grown up here. They had roots. And she had to confess it: she did, too. Her parents might live somewhere else, might not remember anything about Morganville except a vague sense of unease, but if her family history came from here, she didn’t think she could have run, either.

Face it, the sensible part of her said. You can’t run because you don’t run. You’re stubborn. That’s always been your biggest problem. If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d have run away from this town the day Monica Morrell and her Monickettes pushed you down the stairs at the dorm.

And if she’d done the reasonable thing and run home to Mommy and Daddy, what would she have missed?

Everything. Including Shane.

Mrs. Grant stood up and stepped into the aisle, facing back toward the rest of the people in the bus. “All right,” she said. “Remember: we’re not fighting for Morganville, we’re fighting for our own families. No matter what happens, you keep them in mind. Things are going to get ugly.”

There were solemn nods from everyone from Blacke. From where he lay on the front seat, Morley said, “And if you lack for motivation, remember that you hate vampires for what they’ve done to you.”

“Well,” Mrs. Grant said, very reasonably, “we do, so that isn’t much of a stretch, Morley.”

“You wound me, sweet lady.”

“You annoy me, troublemaker.”

It had the well-worn feel of familiarity, and Claire wondered just how close Mrs. Grant (a widow, she remembered) and Morley had actually gotten. Not that it was any of her business, but it was more fun to speculate on that than on what Fallon was going to do next.

“Speak of the devil,” Mrs. Grant said, turning to look out the windshield. The billboard of Morganville was looming, but so were the flashing lights of two police cars. There were also three solid black SUVs—new-looking SUVs (unusual for Morganville)—with the rising sun logo on the doors. At least ten armed men and women were braced for a fight out there.

“Showtime,” Morley said.

“Shut up,” she told him. “You’re dead, remember?”

“Will you miss me when I’m gone?”

“No.”

“Liar.” Morley’s dry chuckle faded into silence, and the driver of the bus brought them to a rolling stop several feet from the roadblock.

Claire heard an amplified voice—Hannah Moses’s voice, she was sure—ring even through the closed windows of the bus. “Out of the bus,” she said. “Do it slowly, hands raised, one at a time. When you come out, form a line and get down on your knees, hands on top of your head. You have ten seconds to comply.”

Mrs. Grant nodded to the driver, who turned off the engine and opened the bus’s doors. “One at a time,” she told the rest of them. “The vampires and the prisoners stay in here. Michael, Eve, you’re getting off with me.” She was the first off the bus, and demonstrated the perfect technique of moving away, kneeling down, and putting her hands on top of her head.

Michael and Eve got up from the seat in front of Claire and Shane. Eve looked anguished. Michael was hiding it, but he was feeling terrible about it, too.

“Go.” Shane nodded to them. “You’re our aces in the hole. Don’t let us down.”

“Never,” Eve said, and leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she gave Claire one, too. “Love you guys.”

“Love you, too,” Claire said, and managed a smile. “Both of you. Be careful.”

Michael nodded and ruffled Claire’s hair, like a big brother, then led his wife off the bus.

The rest followed in a slow, methodical procession, disembarking and kneeling. Claire heard Mrs. Grant explaining things to Hannah. Hannah was no fool; she would probably get the subtexts. She knew the history of Blacke well, and she wasn’t going to believe the story as much as newcomers to town like the Daylighters would.

Claire’s instincts were that Hannah didn’t want to help Fallon, but she was forced to, and they were proven right as Hannah heard Mrs. Grant out, and said, “You’ve done the right thing turning them over, and Mr. Fallon will thank you for that. But I have to ask, why did you bring so many with you?”

“These are the humans from Blacke,” Mrs. Grant said. “I figure when you’re done ridding Morganville of the vampires, you can take care of the nest in our town, too. Until then, it’s safer for them here, with you. They’re eager to learn about the Daylight Foundation. Bring a little light into our lives, too.” Her tone turned dark. “And we deserve a chance to kick some vampire ass for a change. They destroyed us. Tore our town apart.”

It sounded good, especially the angry way Mrs. Grant referred to the vampires. Claire had no doubt that she was being honest about that. Bishop’s nasty, gratuitous feeding in that town had brought disaster down on it, divided families and killed friends. Of course she hated the vampires, on some level, even if none of that was their own fault. Who wouldn’t?

What if this is all just a scam to get us to go along with it? What if those Daylighter silver stakes are loaded with liquid silver? She got them to agree to be staked. How genius would that be? It was just plausible enough that Claire caught her breath in real alarm, but it was too late, way too late, and Hannah Moses was now mounting the steps into the bus and surveying the situation. It wasn’t much of one, by this point. Just her and Shane, zip-tied, and the three staked vampires.

Hannah knew that it was some kind of trick; Claire read that in the way she looked over the bodies. But instead of raising the alarm, she nodded slightly and stepped aside as Fallon’s Daylighters moved in behind her. “Take them all to Fallon,” she said. “He’ll want to see this.”

She meant Fallon would want to enjoy it . . . enjoy the sight of Amelie dead at his feet.

Claire sincerely hoped that Mrs. Grant hadn’t brilliantly played them all.

Morganville was having some kind of celebration today; there were new, bright red-white-and-blue banners hung across the streets that flapped in the wind, and Daylight Foundation flags on the lawns of most of the houses, and in the windows of the shops and businesses.

The banners read, WELCOME TO THE NEW MORGANVILLE! YOU’LL NEVER NEED TO LEAVE!

Right sentiment, wrong reasons. Claire shuddered, because it was a play on the town’s original motto: You’ll never want to leave.

And it was a lie. She knew Fallon now. He might have started out with good intentions a long time ago; he might have sincerely wanted to protect humans from vampires and save the vampires from themselves. But he’d gone wrong somewhere, probably when he’d decided it was okay to kill a lot to save a few. What was the old saying her mom used to love? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Now, all these years later, Fallon saw anybody who didn’t agree with him as a traitor to humanity, worthy of punishment and death. And she knew that she and Shane, by their actions, had definitely earned that label. They’d helped vampires over humans. He wouldn’t forget, or forgive.

“What do we do with them?” one of the men asked Hannah, and nodded toward Claire and Shane as the three silent, limp vampires were carried out. The self-control required for them to look that dead was beyond Claire’s comprehension, but none of them—not even Morley—so much as flickered an eyelid at the jostling, even when they were carelessly knocked against metal rails or bounced off of steps.

Hannah raised her eyebrows for a second, considering, and then said, “I think they go with the vampires. They’ve obviously thrown in their lot with Amelie. They should stay with her. Fallon will want to show everyone they’ve been caught and the situation is under control.”

“How many people died last night when he let the vampires out, Hannah?” Claire asked. She kept her voice quiet, but she knew the question would cut. “How many?”

“Two,” Hannah replied. “And six vampires. The rest were recaptured and confined. They’re awaiting trial.”

“You know he engineered that attack. He wanted it to happen. He’s probably disappointed that his body count was so low.”

“Shut up,” the Daylighter next to her said, and he sounded angry. “You don’t know anything about Mr. Fallon. He saved this town, and everybody in it. We don’t have to live in fear anymore. Not now that we’re getting rid of the vampires.”

Shane raised his head for the first time. “Getting rid of, how?”

“The only way to be sure. We’ve tried to be kind and give them a place to live in peace. They couldn’t follow the rules. They never could. You should know that, Collins. The rules of Morganville, the rules they made up to control us . . . they never applied to them.” The man wasn’t actually all that old, Claire realized; maybe the age of Monica’s deceased brother, Richard Morrell, mid- to late twenties. He knew Shane, clearly.

Just as clearly, Shane knew him. “You’ve always been a cowardly little whiner, Sully. I didn’t see you or your family stepping up to defend people. You just kept your heads down like good little citizens. Hell, you didn’t even have the guts to stand up with Captain Obvious when you had the chance.”

He’d struck gold with that one, Claire saw from the red flush that spread across Sully’s broad face. “Collaborator,” Sully spat back. “Traitor. You’ll get what’s coming to you, and I’m going to enjoy seeing it.” He literally spat the words out; Claire got flecks of saliva on her face. Ugh. She felt filthier than ever, which was saying something, considering she was wearing someone else’s underwear.

“Sully,” Hannah said, with the snap of command in her voice. “As long as you’re working with me, you’ll treat my prisoners with respect and keep quiet. Shane’s no danger to you, and all he can do is needle you. Don’t let him score points.”

“Did I?” Shane asked, and smiled the most casually bitter smile Claire had ever seen on his face. “Score points?”

“Quiet,” Hannah said, but Claire caught a quick gleam of humor in her expression before she locked it down to her professional mask again. “Time’s wasting. Get them out of here.”

Sully took personal charge of Shane, which was weirdly comforting; Claire knew Shane could get to him, and that was a kind of control that they both needed just now. Her own guard was one of Hannah’s cops—a familiar one. “Officer Kentworth,” she said. He was one of the two who’d searched their house with Halling: the polite one. He touched his fingers to his cap.

“Miss,” he said. “Let’s be businesslike about this, okay? No funny business.”

“You know you’re taking us to be killed, right?”

He flinched, but controlled that quickly, and gave her a flinty stare. “You’re just being transported, miss. Let’s not make this any more complicated,” he said.

Shane was led to yet another car by Sully, and Claire could almost imagine how much fun that ride was going to be. She hoped Shane didn’t push him so far that Sully really snapped. With his hands pinned, Shane couldn’t fight back very well . . . and Eve was the one who still had the nail clippers to snip their zip-tied bonds. Eve and Michael, she noticed, were also being separated out from the folks from Blacke and loaded into a car.

Claire hoped they would all end up in the same place, because she had the feeling they’d really need those nail clippers before too long, regardless of what kind of positive spin Officer Kentworth tried to put on things.

Claire expected to be driven to the Daylight Foundation’s building, but instead, the little parade—complete with flashing lights, though no sirens—wound its way through Morganville’s main streets toward Founder’s Square. That seemed odd. Founder’s Square was vampire territory; it was where they’d lived and worked and had their own late-night businesses. It was where Amelie had her offices, and where they kept the records of their long, long lives.

It was also where they’d executed people, from time to time, for infractions of the Morganville rules. Where they’d threatened to execute Shane, when Amelie had thought him guilty of a vampire’s murder.

It was, Claire thought with a sinking feeling, exactly where Fallon would choose to make his new headquarters.

The parade turned and took the ramp underground, into the parking garage Claire remembered so well. It was full of cars, mostly black-tinted vampmobiles that had probably been confiscated when their owners had gone into “protective custody” at the mall. What had Fallon called it? The enclave, like it was some fancy, exclusive members-only apartment complex instead of an eighties nightmare of a building stripped down to dust and concrete.

And now Fallon lived in Amelie’s palace.

The other cars parked in the lot alongside her own transportation, and one by one, they were brought out—Shane, still sniping at red-faced Officer Sully, and then Michael and Eve, not in handcuffs but obviously being escorted along by their own guards.

She, Shane, Eve, and Michael, plus their minders, all crowded into one elevator for the trip upstairs. They were taken to the first floor, the entry level. It looked just like Claire remembered it—lush carpets, expensive chandeliers, the faint, oppressive smell of roses, and gloomy, brooding paintings hanging on the walls. Anything that displayed someone who was recognizably a vampire had been taken down, and there was a stack of canvases in the corner of the central atrium.

“This way,” said Hannah, meeting them in that space. Claire didn’t know how she’d arrived before they did, but somehow, she had. Maybe she’d been at the front of the parade. She led them down the hall and out to the big fancy entryway, with its vast, vaulted ceiling . . . and then out onto the porch, where the morning sun was dazzling the marble.

Once her eyes adjusted to the glare, Claire saw that Founder’s Square had been kept looking perfect—the hedges and lawns were neatly trimmed, the flower beds exploded with fresh, live color. It all looked as clean and graceful as anything you could find in a picture of Paris, complete with the marble-columned buildings ringing the park.

Except for the banners, which were red, white, and blue, snapping and lifting in the breeze that swirled through the courtyard.

A Morganville-sized crowd, maybe three hundred people strong, had gathered on the lawn. They were conducting some kind of ceremony in connection with the sunrise. Claire spotted a raised stage at the other end, where the vampires had once kept a cage where those who broke their laws were displayed . . . and sometimes held executions, too. The cage was gone, and that was a good thing, but she had a sudden nasty flashback to a photograph she’d seen in history class—a fancy square with dignified grand buildings, long red banners, a stage. A passionate, fiery speaker delivering his speech to a sea of rapt people.

History, repeating.

Fallon must have been delighted, thinking his timing couldn’t have been better. The bodies of Morley, Oliver, and Amelie were being carried through the aisle in the center of the crowd, and there was total silence until the procession was halfway to the stage . . . and then someone started to clap.

Then it was an avalanche of applause, and cheering.

They were cheering dead bodies.

Claire looked over at Shane, and saw that he was watching with a stony expression on his face. He was probably thinking how he might have been in that crowd, cheering, at some point in his life. Maybe he’d have even been the first to clap.

“Makes you proud to be human, doesn’t it?” he said to no one in particular.

Eve moved up beside them. “So proud,” she said. “They’ll probably open a souvenir shop later. Vampire-bones keychains and stake earrings. Maybe they’ll even put the town name on them.”

Claire felt something cool and metallic brush her fingers, and flinched, but then she realized that it was the nail clippers, and it was Eve’s hand pressing them into her palm. She clenched her fist around them.

“Time to go,” Hannah said, and walked their group down the steps toward the ceremony. The cheering had mostly died down by the time they got there, and the three vampires were being laid on the stage, in the sun. They’d be burning—slowly, because they were so old, but still. Definitely painful.

Michael paused on the steps, and Eve stopped with him and anxiously asked, “Honey? What’s wrong?” His eyes were shut, and he looked very strange. “Are you feeling okay?”

When he opened his eyes, Claire saw tears break free and run down his cheeks. “It’s the sun,” he said. “Eve, I’m standing in the sun. It’s so warm.”

She understood, and she hugged him. Claire didn’t get it for a second, until she realized how long it would have been since Michael had felt the touch of sunshine without the horrible scorching and scarring that came with it as a new vampire. It must have really hit him in that moment that he was genuinely human again.

Genuinely cured.

He hugged Eve close and said, “I hate that he’s the one who gave me back my life. You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said, and rubbed his back. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here, and that’s what counts.”

They held hands on the way down the steps, the sun gilding Michael’s golden hair into blazing glory. He looked even more like his grandfather Sam now, Claire thought; Sam had been frozen at an age not too much older than Michael when he’d been made a vampire. Apart from the fact that Sam’s hair had been more red than blond, they’d been very similar.

That thought made Claire wonder how Amelie really felt about Michael’s conversion back to human. Glad, or sad? She’d loved Sam so intensely that she’d shown public grief for him when he died; maybe she’d want to keep Michael preserved forever at the age where he resembled his grandfather.

Or maybe she’d be happy to let him go and live his life. It was never easy to tell with Amelie.

It made it all the more difficult, though, because Michael was now Fallon’s symbolic victory.

Hannah led them through the crowd to the stage, then went up the steps to whisper to Fallon. He nodded, and beckoned; Eve and Michael were brought onstage.

Shane and Claire were kept where they were, at the edge of the steps.

Everybody’s attention was on Fallon, and Eve, and Michael, so Claire risked flipping the blade on the nail clippers and working the tiny jaws up until they were gripping the plastic of the zip tie around her wrists. She’d have to cut it in stages; the ties were broad and thick, but when she squeezed the clippers, she felt them slice cleanly through the restraints. She adjusted it another quarter of an inch and pressed again. It was harder this time; the angle was more acute, and she couldn’t get leverage as easily. But it yielded.

The third and last time, though, as she tried to slide the clippers into position, her sweaty fingers slipped, and she dropped them.

Claire shifted position backward gradually until she could see the metallic shine of them on the grass. She tested the restraints. She’d cut through two-thirds of the band, but what was left was still pretty thick, and she didn’t have the strength necessary to rip the cuffs apart. I need to work out more, she thought, but that wasn’t going to help her much right now.

She needed to get the clippers.

She took a step, and faked stumbling and falling to one knee, then toppling over in a graceless loss of balance. That put her hands within grasping distance of the clippers, and she raked frantically at the grass until she touched them and pulled them into her fist.

Officer Sully grabbed her elbow and yanked her to her feet. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked, frowning.

“You try keeping these things on for hours,” she said. “It throws off your balance, okay?”

“Don’t try anything.”

“I won’t,” she said, and it was the truth. She wasn’t going to try.

Up on the stage, Fallon stepped to the microphone, and the whole crowd quieted. “Friends,” he said, “fellow residents, thank you for coming here to celebrate the dawn of a new day in Morganville, a day without fear of violence or suppression. As of today, you’re no longer slaves to monsters who murder to stay alive, who take your blood and your money and use it to fund their own endless, selfish existence. As of today, you don’t have to fear the dark. Your children can grow up knowing that they’re safe from harm. That’s the new Morganville. That’s Morganville in the daylight.”

He paused, and applause erupted. He held up his hands to quiet it. “As proof of this new day, I’m delighted to introduce to you one of our greatest successes . . . someone you all know and recognize, someone from one of the thirteen founding families of Morganville. He was the victim of the vampires twice over—once by Oliver, and then by Amelie, who made him one of her own. But now he stands with me in the light, alive and free of his curse. Michael Glass!”

Michael didn’t like it; Claire could see that. He didn’t want to step forward, but Fallon whispered something to him, and he complied, standing rigid and expressionless as the crowd erupted into cheers. They were cheering for him becoming human, but it still had a raw edge of bigotry to it. Some of those cheering right now would have been happy to stake him through the heart a day before, and he knew it. Of all of them, he knew what it meant to be labeled as less than human.

“Wow, this is a boring, bullshit propaganda show,” Shane said as Claire maneuvered the clippers into position and pressed hard, gritting her teeth as pain streaked up her arms from the stress and angle. “Hey, Sully, are you serving doughnuts and coffee, at least? Because I hear the KKK runs a great craft table.”

Claire’s bonds snapped, and the pressure on her shoulders eased from a red-hot burn to just a tingle. She caught Shane’s eye as Sully moved toward them, and gave him a sharp upward jerk of her head.

“You,” Sully said between gritted teeth. “Come here, you little asshole.”

“Hey, I’m not little,” Shane said. “So tell me, is your white sheet in the laundry, or did you just forget to pack it?”

Sully grabbed Shane’s arm and dragged him off balance and away from the stage. There was a backdrop set up, and he yanked Shane behind it.

Hannah sighed, shook her head, and pointed at Kentworth to go see what was happening. That left just her and Claire standing together.

Claire took a long step back toward where Shane had disappeared, careful to make her wrists seem like they were still pinned behind her.

Hannah was watching her.

Claire kept moving until she could put the barrier between her and anyone in the crowd who might be watching. Hannah followed.

As Hannah stepped into the shadow, Claire pulled her freed hands out from behind her back and grabbed for Hannah’s gun.

She wasn’t fast enough.

Hannah’s hand clamped down hard on the butt of the automatic pistol, holding it in the holster, and Claire realized with a sinking sense of bitter disappointment that she should have known a former Marine wouldn’t be taken that easily. Not by some inexperienced, untrained girl half her size.

“Nice work on the cuffs,” Hannah said. “Now take your hand off my gun, Claire.”

She did so, slowly, and stepped back. Shane was having a full-on bar brawl, still cuffed, with Sully. Kentworth was standing back, Taser in his hand, looking for an opening. He didn’t look especially happy about the whole thing.

Shane slammed his forehead into Sully’s face and grinned with bloodied teeth. “Amateur,” Shane said, as Sully cried out and went down hard, holding his gushing nose and whimpering. “That’s called an Irish handshake. Somebody named Sullivan ought to know that.”

Kentworth moved in with the Taser, and Shane arched his back and sidestepped the lunge, like a matador with a bull. But he wasn’t going to be able to get away, not with his hands still pinned behind him.

Claire looked wide-eyed at Hannah. Now or never, she silently thought. She couldn’t take the gun, not against Hannah’s well-trained reflexes.

But Hannah could give it up voluntarily.

Chief Moses nodded slightly and moved her hand away from the holster.

Claire lunged forward and grabbed the weapon; she checked the safety, which had been ingrained in her by weapons training with Shane, and clicked it off. “Call him off,” she said. She didn’t aim the gun at Hannah. She didn’t think she had to.

Hannah said, “Kentworth. Back off. Now.”

He stepped away, leaving Shane wobbling a little, bloodied but still standing. He had a red bruise forming on his forehead, and he spat blood from a cut lip, but she’d seen him worse. A lot worse.

Sullivan was still on the ground, cradling his nose. He yelled something, but it was incomprehensible.

“Knife,” she said to Hannah. Hannah unsnapped a holster on her other side and pulled out a military-style blade with a black grip, which she handed over. Claire took it and backed toward Shane. She kept the weapon raised this time, and focused on Kentworth, who was casting doubtful looks at Hannah, clearly not sure what he was supposed to do about this.

She sawed carefully through one side of Shane’s flex cuffs, and as his hand came loose, she pressed the handle into his palm.

“You give me the best presents,” he said, then freed his other wrist with a practiced slice. The flex cuffs dropped to the grass. “We’re going now. Keys.”

“What?” Kentworth asked.

“Car keys. Toss ’em.”

Kentworth was clearly considering going for his weapon, not his keys; whatever doubts he had about the Daylight Foundation—if he had any at all—were back-burnered by the fact that two of his prisoners had somehow managed to escape their restraints and gain weapons. When he twitched slightly, though, Hannah said flatly, “Give them the keys. That’s an order.”

“I can take her, ma’am.”

“And you’ll have to wake up tomorrow knowing you shot a teenage girl dead when you didn’t need to,” Hannah said. “Toss the keys, Charlie. They’re not going anywhere.”

Kentworth looked doubtful, but Hannah’s firm, calm tone made the difference. He unclipped the keys from his belt loop and tossed them at Shane’s feet. “It’s a long way to the car, son,” he said. “You might want to think about the danger you’re putting your girlfriend in out there.”

Shane twirled the keys around his finger for a second, then tossed them. Claire thought for a second that his aim was off, but it wasn’t, because he wasn’t throwing them toward her at all.

He was throwing them toward Hannah, who effortlessly fielded them. “Sorry about this,” she told Kentworth, and before Claire could really understand what exactly had just happened, Hannah walked past Kentworth to Sullivan. She rolled the protesting man over and used her handcuffs to pin his hands behind his back. When Sully gave a gargling yell of protest, she leaned an elbow into his back. “Sully, I could do a hell of a lot worse to you than just handcuff you. If I have to gag you, you’ll choke on your blood from that broken nose. So stay quiet, or I’ll make you quiet.”

Sully shut up. He took Hannah seriously, no question about that. She stood up and looked at Kentworth, who slowly raised both hands in the air. He reached up, took the Daylighter pin from his collar, and dropped it on the ground.

“Happy to help, ma’am,” he said. “Never really liked any of this from the beginning. I only joined them because you did.”

“That was my mistake,” Hannah said. She looked at Claire and Shane. “Amelie’s not really dead, is she?”

“Nope,” Shane said, and held out his hand to her. She shook it and nodded gravely. “Nice to have you back, Hannah.”

“Nice to stop pretending that I’m a true believer,” she said. “Fair warning—I’m not sure I can stay on your side for long, if Fallon sets me to hunting vampires. Can’t control that much at all.”

“The good news is that Fallon’s vampire cure seems to work for whatever we are, too. But word of advice—try biting somebody who survived it. Not Michael, though. He’s been through enough.”

For the first time in a long time, Hannah actually smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Tactical question—what’s Amelie waiting for? Why isn’t she taking Fallon down right now?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure she’d love to, but she wants to be sure that her people are free before she does it. No more hostages. That’s how he got her in the first place—hostages and threats, right?”

“No,” Hannah said. “Not threats. His task force took ten vampires hostage, all right, but his first act when he got Amelie to show up to rescue them was to stake half of them with those booby-trapped stakes. They died when she tried to help them. She gave herself up to stop him from killing the rest the same way.” She hesitated, then continued, “They were all her bloodline. Siblings, and vampires she created. Family, as vampires count these things.”

Amelie had never seemed all that easy to manipulate, but Claire knew how she felt about her people—she’d created Morganville specifically to protect them against all the threats that surrounded them. She would fight and die for them. And when it came to actual family . . . “That’s horrible.”

“Yes,” Hannah said. “But I don’t think Fallon recognizes it anymore.”

Shane exchanged a look with Claire and said, “We need to get Michael and Eve out of the middle of this. Michael isn’t used to being human. He’s going to make a mistake, get himself killed trying to react like a vampire.”

“We can’t,” Claire said. “They’re on the stage. We have to leave them there for now.” She saw the expression that crossed his face, and she sympathized; she didn’t like it, either. But he knew she was right.

“Then we have to hurry,” Hannah said. “Kentworth, you’re in charge of Sully. Keep him quiet.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

Turned out there was no easier way to leave Founder’s Square than in the custody of the Morganville chief of police.