Daylighters

SEVEN

She was halfway to the stairs when the creature burst out of the door, still giving that eerie, wailing howl, and Claire plunged the rest of the way at a dead run. She couldn’t let it catch her. It was following the scent of Amelie’s blood on her, and it would treat her like a vampire—it would rip her to shreds, assuming that she would heal.

But she wouldn’t, of course. If it caught her, it was all over. Her calculated risk would have failed. She’d thought that if Amelie had only one of these things to deal with, she might be able to fight her way free. That was Claire’s theory, anyway. She hoped she hadn’t just sacrificed herself for nothing.

“Shane!” Claire yelled as she reached the stairs and began racing down them. She didn’t feel the scrapes and bruises and muscle strains she was sure she’d earned with that first tumble down the hidden room’s steps. She’d pay for it later, but for now her panic was overriding all the normal responses. Nothing was broken, at least; she could still put her weight equally on both legs. That was all that mattered.

Shane was at the bottom of the stairs, standing there with the heavy duffel bag of weapons, staring up at her. He wasn’t moving. He looked . . . odd.

“Shane!” she called again, and looked back over her shoulder. She saw the monster coming into view, all yellow eyes and gleaming claws and the remains of that ridiculous sundress. “Shane, I need a weapon!” She didn’t even care what it was, not yet. There wasn’t time to be scientific just now.

But Shane wasn’t moving. No. Now he was, to drop the duffel with a crash to the wood floor.

Something was happening to him. His eyes . . .

He was changing.

No. She’d forgotten in the crush of events, forgotten what the effect could be if he came face-to-face with a vampire . . .

...or someone who smelled like one.

He closed his eyes and when they opened, they gleamed acid yellow, with pupils that shrank into vertical slits.

Claws burst bloodily out of his fingertips, like some nightmare version of a superhero, but what he was becoming was something else, something far worse, and the howl that came out of his throat was nothing but rage and animal fury.

Claire screamed back, a full-throated cry of heartbreak and rage and fury and fear, and did the only thing she could—she rushed down, trying to get past him before he was fully changed. They’d gotten Shane. What was even worse was that he was close, he was fast, and she had only the tiniest chance of evading him. The only thing in her favor was that the change had just started on him, and he was still confused and in pain.

She had no choice but to try to get by him.

“Please,” she whispered. There were tears of sheer terror in her eyes, and heartache, because even now she couldn’t help but feel horror at what was happening to him, at the pain he was feeling. “Please, Shane, it’s me. It’s Claire.”

He was changing fast, and there was nothing of Shane left in his eyes, just pure instinct and rage. His clothing hampered his shift, but that wasn’t going to last long; his claws were even now ripping at the tough cloth of his jeans to shred them.

Claire took in a deep breath, grabbed the railing with both hands, and vaulted over it, the way she’d seen Shane do a million times. She landed on the bounce of Michael’s armchair and launched half a dozen feet into the air, to come to an awkward, stumbling landing still on her feet in front of the darkened TV.

Shane howled behind her, and when she looked back she saw he was almost completely hellhound now, muscles bunching and shifting and driving him to all fours. His body didn’t look human anymore.

She saw all that in a rush because then he was on her, leaping the distance to slam into her chest.

She somehow got her hands between them, pressing against skin—no, not skin anymore, fur, stiff and harsh against her fingers—and Shane’s mouth—muzzle—was opening and the teeth, the teeth were sharp and endless, and she knew she was about to die.

And she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see it coming.

He made a sound that resonated inside her—a high-pitched whine of pain and anguish. She felt the raw heat of his breath on her neck and forced herself to open her eyes again and stare right into his.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “Shane. It’s me.”

He snarled, but it turned into a whine again, and then his body tensed and she thought, This is it, it’s the end. She’d risked her life, and this time, finally, she’d lost it on the gamble. She wasn’t afraid exactly—shock had already taken over to protect her from that. But she was sad. Sad that it was going to be Shane, of all people. Sad that this would be another thing he’d have to live with after all the losses he’d suffered in his life.

She felt his body move, and it took her a second to realize that he wasn’t lunging down toward her, but away.

Away, to collide with the second hellhound leaping for her from the stairs.

They tangled up in a snarling, slashing heap on the floor beside the couch.

She didn’t wait to see who won; against all his instincts, all the programming that was running through his veins, Shane had given her a chance, and that was all she could ask. She had to keep moving, no matter what, and draw them away from Amelie if she could.

The house really was on her side, because as she darted through the kitchen door, a spray of water jetted out from the sink as if a pipe had ruptured, and hit her squarely in the face and chest, drenching her and rinsing away most of Amelie’s blood. She paused for a second to scrub frantically at her skin, and then as the water cut off, she grabbed for one of Shane’s beloved extinguisher grenades. She armed it just as the kitchen door smashed open, and Shane and the other hound broke through. She tossed it straight at them as she opened the back door, and it hit the ground right in front of Shane’s feet, then exploded into a choking cloud of white powder that shimmered and billowed in the air.

It made a great distraction, and she took full advantage of it to run, fast, out of the backyard and onto the street.

The pole lights were all on, gleaming golden, and she considered running to a neighbor’s house for help—but she didn’t know which, if any, of her neighbors could be trusted anymore. (Not that they’d been all that trustworthy in the first place, honestly.) Shane’s muscle car must have been stashed somewhere back at Jenna’s house, but she hadn’t asked him where to find it, and she didn’t have time to play hide-and-seek, not tonight. The police were looking for her, and now she had—what were they? hellhounds? werewolves?—on her trail.

Although they hadn’t followed her out here. Not yet. The quick-rinse solution seemed to have done its job, along with the powder bomb; it must have confused them, and maybe destroyed their sense of smell temporarily.

Claire just picked a direction, ultimately, and began to run. She stayed at the edges of the streetlights, watched her back, and kept an eye out for police cruisers, but it seemed quiet enough. Too quiet, maybe.

The quiet shattered in a rising wail of police sirens, and she took a welcome breather hiding behind a hedge as three cars streaked by, red and blue flashers painting the world in primary colors before it sank back into shades of gray. They were headed toward the Glass House, she thought. She doubted Amelie had dialed 911, but maybe one of the neighbors had gotten too alarmed to ignore all the strangeness. Morganville was, after all, a law-abiding town now.

Or maybe someone had just spotted her and recognized her as Morganville’s Most Wanted. That wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Claire eased out from the bushes again. She was shivering now, since the water she’d been drenched with was slowly drying in the cold desert air, and despite the run she was getting chilled out here, quickly. Normally she’d have run to Myrnin’s lab, but going there would only expose her to more danger. Still, she craved the comfort of someplace familiar, even if it was unwise. Or creepy. The known was always better than the unknown.

Stop it, she told herself sternly. You’re a scientist, right? Stop being afraid of the unknown. That steadied her. Science had helped her think of tainting herself with Amelie’s blood to draw off the attackers, and science had helped her remember the extinguisher grenades. The unknown wasn’t full of terrors, it was full of undiscovered advantages. Better to run toward something than run from something.

The Glass House was in mortal danger now; if Amelie managed to take advantage of the confusion and get out of there, escape to the little town of Blacke, there was no way Fallon was going to allow the Founder Houses to be left standing. He would destroy Amelie’s last refuges, and their home.

Claire knew she couldn’t defend it just by staying and fighting for it; that was defensive, and she needed offense now. She needed to get to Fallon.

She needed to stop this—for Shane, for Michael, for the safety of the Glass House. Besides, she wasn’t alone if she ran toward the center of the danger . . .

Because Eve was already there.

Claire kept to the shadows on the way to the edge of town. She remembered the way, at least, and if nothing else the constant walking she’d done at MIT over the past few weeks had prepared her for the relatively short distances of hiking Morganville. There was no problem with lurking in the darkness these days, no vampires ready to strike at least. Though she had no idea where Myrnin was now, or if Amelie had actually managed to fight her way free of the Glass House. If she had, then Shane would be . . .

Would be hunting Amelie.

That thought crushed her heart. Shane had always, deep inside, loathed the vampires; he’d willingly signed up to find a way to deliver Morganville from their clutches when he’d been with his dad’s crew. But Claire thought that he’d come to accept them, a little—particularly Michael. Having your best friend grow fangs was guaranteed to cause a serious reevaluation of your prejudices.

But it seemed as if the hate had always been thrust upon him, that it wasn’t something he’d chosen for himself—and this was no different. She didn’t want to see Shane like that, lost to bloodlust and rage and violence. He was better than that.

They were all better than that.

Claire stopped at a small, neglected water fountain in one of the few parks along the way, and washed off again, trying to get any trace of Amelie’s blood off of her. She wasn’t sure how good Shane’s senses would be outside, but she suspected that when Fallon created hunting dogs, he did an expert job of it. And as much as she wanted to be with Shane, she never wanted to see him like that again.

The cold, cutting wind felt much worse once she’d dampened her clothes, and she thought grimly that she was bound to come down sick after this—if she survived.

The worst she endured on the way to the Daylight Foundation, though, was the chill, and an attack of a couple of wandering tumbleweeds that—as tumbleweeds did—blew straight for her even when she tried to avoid them. The tiny burrs on the rounded plants made them hard to pry out of her jeans and left itchy places on her fingers where they pierced skin. The tumbleweeds also had a tendency to come blowing across in packs, so she had to play dodge-the-weeds more frequently than she liked . . . and then she saw the glow of a neon sign ahead as she turned the corner. This part of town was still mostly under construction, though the sites lay silent now, workers all gone home and tools left abandoned for the night. The smells of new wood and dust mingled, and made her suppress a sneeze as she paused at the intersection. To her left, a neon sign two stories in the air glowed orange and bright yellow.

The stylized image of the sunrise, worn by the Daylighters as a pin.

Claire moved carefully, but she saw no one, again. There were a few cars still in the parking lot, and as she got closer she spotted Eve’s distinctive black hearse with its elaborate chrome. At first, Claire felt a surge of relief, because it meant that Eve was still here, somewhere, . . . but then she realized that if Fallon had decided to dump her in with the vampires at the mall, he’d hardly have troubled to move her car yet. So the presence of the hearse really didn’t mean anything at all, except that Eve had parked it there. It wasn’t an indicator of where she was.

Claire needed to get inside to find her, and to find a way to get to Fallon.

Doubts had settled in on the walk, and she was trying to ignore them. Eve had come here with the exact same mission—to stop Fallon. How far had she gotten? How can I be sure I can do any better?

She wished that Myrnin hadn’t gone off with Jenna. She needed him now, more than ever.

The first step—the only step—was to try to find out what was happening inside the Daylight Foundation. If Eve was still there, she had an ally. If she wasn’t, that was one more incentive for Claire to find Fallon and end this, once and for all.

She heard a howl in the distance, long and eerie, and that decided her.

Sometimes the safest place to be was right in the heart of the enemy.

The front door was impossible; there were still lights on in the lobby, and as she positioned herself at the right angle, she could see that a jacketed security guard was sitting behind the desk where the receptionist had been earlier. No sign of Eve, or Fallon, for that matter. Claire went around the building to the side and found windows—all locked. The offices were darkened, though. She wondered about alarms, and went all the way around the perimeter, just in case.

Good thing she did, because she found that one of the windows at the back had been left open. Not much, just a crack, but enough to reassure her that it wasn’t alarmed. She found a rusty piece of rebar on the ground nearby and used it to lever the window up. It must have been stuck, which was why it hadn’t been closed in the first place, and she was afraid she’d shatter it, but it finally came loose and slid upward.

Even fully open, it wasn’t a big opening, and she had to shimmy through carefully. Her hips barely scraped through, and she tumbled head over heels into a dimly lit storage area full of racks of books and bottles. It all looked boringly normal, actually. There was nothing sinister about toilet paper and cleaning sprays, and even the books were all about how to make yourself a better person. This was the public face of the Daylight Foundation. The private face was, of course, that dismal mall and those vampires in their so-called enclave, waiting for—for what?

Extinction.

Claire tried the supply closet door. It opened from the inside—a safety precaution against getting locked in, she supposed—but when she tried the outer handle it didn’t move, so she found a piece of tape and secured the lock so it didn’t engage. She and Eve might need a fast way out. Hopefully not, but smart people planned for contingencies along the way.

The hallways were silent, just as normal and boring as the supply closet had been—carpeted, blank, peppered with wooden doors and nameplates. It still smelled of fresh paint. Hannah Moses had her own office, and Claire felt a tingle of alarm when she saw it, but luckily it was after hours; the door was locked, and no lights showed beneath. How did that work, exactly? Did the chief of police have to actually split her time between working for the city and working for Fallon, or was it—at least on paper—more of a volunteer kind of thing? Hannah didn’t have a choice, no more than Shane had, but Claire supposed Fallon would want to make it look aboveboard. At least for now.

She was halfway to the lobby when she heard the sound of voices. At the intersection of another hallway she turned right, following the sound, because one of the voices was Eve’s. She recognized the tones easily, but the words were smeared and indistinct.

There was only one door on that hallway, and it was at the end.

Fallon’s office.

Claire moved closer, trying to hear what they were saying, but she caught only random words. Michael’s name was mentioned—not a surprise—but what worried her was the way Eve was talking. It sounded . . . relaxed. Calm. Almost drowsy. Had he done something to her? Drugged her?

She was about three steps from the door when she heard Fallon’s voice very clearly. He’d moved closer on the other side, and he said, “I know it seems strange to you, but I do admire you, you know. I admire your audacity in coming here. I admire the strength of your conviction that there’s something of the young man you loved left buried inside the monster. Maybe there is, because he’s so very young. I hope so, for your sake.”

“You have to let him go,” Eve said. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.” The words were fierce, but not the voice. She sounded almost on the verge of the giggles. “You drugged me. You drugged my water. That was mean.”

“I didn’t want to harm you, Eve,” he said. “You’re what I’m fighting for—humanity. You simply can’t accept the truth. That’s not your fault, but it is dangerous, both to you and to me. You and your friend Claire, you’re not like the rest. You see vampires as humans with a problem—but that’s wrong, very wrong. There’s nothing human left in them.”

“Michael’s still Michael.”

“You’re wrong about that. I see that I have no choice but to prove it to you, Eve. You’re a remarkable young lady, you know—I’ve never seen anyone stand quite so firm on a relationship with a vampire before. It makes me sad. It also gives me hope.”

There was the sharp, musical sound of a desk phone ringing then, and Fallon answered it. He didn’t say much, but what he did say sounded razor-edged and angry. “How? Whose incompetence allowed that to happen? Yes, I’ll want to talk to them. Keep them there. I’m on my way.” He slammed the phone down and cursed in some liquid, fluid language Claire didn’t recognize, but she was sure it was cursing; it had that tone.

“What’s happening?” Eve asked. It sounded like she was trying to stand up, but not managing the job very well. “Michael? Is Michael safe?”

“Let’s go and see him,” Fallon said grimly. “I’ll have some questions for him, and all the rest.”

There was something in those words that warned Claire to get out of the way, and she turned and ran quickly down the corridor to the intersection, whipped to the right, and pressed herself against the wall. She made it with only a second to spare before she heard Fallon’s door click open and heard Eve say, in that lazy, almost dreamlike voice, “Where are we going?”

“To visit young Michael, remember?” Fallon said. “And show you that he isn’t worthy of your love. Come on, my dear, let’s have your arm—there you go. How are you feeling?”

“Dizzy,” Eve said. She didn’t sound good. “Did I drink? I really should get home now. It’s late. Claire’s going to worry. She’s a worrier, you know. Claire. She thinks too much. Thinks all the time. I wish she’d just let go sometimes and be . . . you know. Just be.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Fallon said, and Claire gritted her teeth. What a liar he was—he’d have known exactly what had happened to her at the house, known all about the dead guard, too. He’d know she’d been arrested and taken to the police station. He probably even knew she’d been broken out, and that there were hellhounds on her trail.

The thing was, no matter how many date-rape drugs Fallon gave Eve, she wasn’t going to get over loving Michael—which meant that she was going to be in even more danger once he realized that.

Claire heard footsteps and wondered if she ought to move, but there really wasn’t any place to hide; the door behind her was locked, and running to the storage closet would be noticed. So she stayed very still, held her breath, and listened as Fallon and Eve made their way past her to the corner and then turned left, toward the lobby. Away from her.

Eve was walking on her own, but only just barely; she seemed unsteady in her combat boots, and was holding on to Fallon for support. He seemed happy with that. Claire’s eyes narrowed when she saw that he’d put his other arm around Eve’s shoulders, as if he had the right to do that.

No doubt about it, Fallon intended to do something to Michael; he wanted Eve to have her heart crushed, her love destroyed. And Claire couldn’t let that happen—but she had no idea how to stop it, either. As Fallon and Eve reached the lobby, she realized that one thing Eve didn’t have on her was her purse, a black coffin-shaped thing with silver studs. Eve loved that purse. She’d never leave it behind, unless she’d been drugged enough to forget it.

Claire backed up and ran as quietly as she could down the hall to Fallon’s office. He hadn’t locked the door—confident of him—and she quickly scanned the room. It was big, which she’d expected; a golden sunrise plaque decorated the wall behind Fallon’s large wooden desk. The whole room was done up in golds and oranges and browns, tasteful and soothing.

Eve’s black coffin purse lay discarded on the floor next to the visitor’s chair across from the desk. Claire picked it up, checked inside, and found Eve’s car keys. There was a small container of pepper spray clipped on them, for emergencies. No sign of the giant backpack she’d brought, unfortunately; Claire really could have used an arsenal right now, but Fallon must have confiscated it and locked it away. She slung Eve’s purse over her shoulder and went around to the other side of the desk, sat in Fallon’s still-warm chair, and began pulling open drawers. Boring stuff. Office supplies. A few folders, but mostly they were concerned with civic planning and nothing to do with vampires.

There was, however, a locked drawer. Locked drawers were always interesting.

Claire opened the office supply drawer and found a long steel letter opener. She slipped it between the cracks at the top of the locked drawer and tried to pry it open; she managed to get it separated a bit, but the letter opener was too springy to really work.

A pair of sharp, long-bladed scissors worked much better as a lever.

The lock broke free with a snap, and the drawer slid smoothly open, revealing a whole collection of neatly ranked files. They all had printed labels, and Claire recognized every single name in there.

Every one was a vampire.

She grabbed Amelie’s, Myrnin’s, Oliver’s, and Michael’s and spread them out on the desktop. Amelie’s was thicker than the others, and she quickly flipped through it, looking for clues. What she found instead was history—in-depth history that she’d never seen before, about Amelie’s birth, her death, her resurrection. Her parentage, both human and vampire. A list of all those she’d made vampire in the years after—a long list, but the intervals between making new ones got longer and longer in the most recent hundred years, until there was only Sam Glass, and then his grandson Michael.

In strangely loopy, antique handwriting, someone—probably Fallon—had left a note beneath Michael’s name that said, end of line. That seemed ominous.

At the back of the file was a page, all handwritten, with Fallon’s observations about Amelie—strengths and weaknesses. Claire scanned it quickly and felt a real chill crawl over her, because her own name was in it. Under both columns.

Under strengths she was listed as Strong human advocate and ally. That wasn’t how Claire would have described her relationship with Amelie. But under weaknesses, he’d written Amelie shows a great fondness for the girl, and threats to her may be successful in weakening A.’s resolve.

Claire really doubted that, but she also thought it was a very bad thing for her that he might try it.

Michael was in there, too, under weaknesses. Fallon had written, Threats to Michael Glass may prove effective, as he is the only relative of Samuel Glass left in Morganville, and her attachment to Samuel is well known.

Definitely ominous.

Myrnin’s folder would have been interesting reading, in the historical section, but she skipped it and went straight for the strengths and weaknesses section. She was in it again, but she’d expected that. Apparently Fallon thought threatening her would get Myrnin in line.

He was probably right on that. Probably.

She didn’t even appear on Oliver’s lists. The only one who did was Amelie . . . as a weakness. Under strengths there wasn’t a person’s name at all. Only one word.

Ruthless.

Michael’s folder had a red stamp on the front page that said CURE.

Claire stared at it, frowning. The stamp had the Daylighters symbol beneath it, and she didn’t entirely understand what it meant, but it didn’t look good, she thought.

She wanted to take all of the folders, but there were too many, and they were too heavy. She just ripped out Fallon’s notes on each person and made a sheaf of paper that she stuck into Eve’s coffin purse. Then she slammed the drawer shut and started to get up.

Something caught her eye as she did . . . another folder, lying in the tray on top of the desk. This one also had a CURE stamp on the outside. She pulled it over and found that it belonged to a vampire she knew a little: Mr. Ransom. Ransom was an old, ghostly man who ran the local funeral home.

There were, she realized, little boxes under the CURE stamp. She hadn’t noticed them before. One said VOLUNTARY. The other said INVOLUNTARY.

The INVOLUNTARY box was checked on Ransom’s.

She opened it, and found the history again, and the strengths and weaknesses analysis page . . . in Ransom’s case, not very informative. He was too much of a loner, hardly interacting with even other vampires, much less humans.

But there was another page, a new one. There was a photo of Mr. Ransom.

He looked . . . dead.

It was a very clinical kind of picture, taken from above; Ransom’s body was lying on a steel table mostly covered by a thin white sheet. No wounds. He looked old and withered and pathetic, and she couldn’t imagine anything that would have kept a vampire lying there like that, being photographed, except a stake in the heart . . . but there was no stake in Ransom’s heart. No wound at all.

He just looked dead.

She flipped the page. It was a medical report, tersely worded.

Subject Ransom received the Cure in the appropriately measured dose as established in Protocol H, as determined by age, height, and weight. After a brief period of lucidity, his mental state rapidly declined, and he lapsed into a comatose state. He roused from this upon three occasions and indicated significant pain and distress. Recordings were made of his vocalizations, but the language was not familiar to any of the observers.

After the third period of partial lucidity, Subject Ransom experienced a rapid mental and physical decline, as has been previously documented in the trials; this decline fell within the boundaries of the approximately 73% failure rate. He evidenced a brief period of reversion to True Human before experiencing a fatal ischemic event. Time of death: 1348 hours.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Mr. Ransom was dead. Because of their so-called cure.

It couldn’t be called a cure if there was a seventy-three percent failure rate, could it?

She opened the drawer and checked Michael’s file again. The box was marked for an involuntary cure.

What had happened to Mr. Ransom— they meant to do it to Michael, too.

Claire ripped the information out of Ransom’s folder and added it to her stash, then quickly made her way back to the storage closet and out through the window. No sign of Fallon and Eve, but she saw a car’s taillights disappearing around the corner.

Claire ran for Eve’s hearse, digging the keys out of the purse.

She’d rarely driven the thing, but it couldn’t be much tougher than Shane’s beast of a muscle car; this was more of an ocean liner, with all the problems of maneuvering it around corners. Claire started the engine and did a super-wide turn in the nearly empty parking lot, heading for the street. She was just pausing to check directions when a voice way too close to her ear said, “So where are we going, then?”

Myrnin. She got a grip on herself after the first, uncontrollable flail of shock, and turned to glare at him. He was leaning over her seat, cheek almost pressing hers, and his eyes reflected red in the dashboard lights.

“Would you please sit back?” she said, once she had control of her voice again—though it stayed up in the higher registers. “You just scared ten years off of me.”

“Only ten? I’m losing my touch.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“Hiding,” he said. “You might have noticed that Fallon’s got his very own vampire-hunting pack of human hounds. Unfortunately, they had my scent for a while. I think I’ve thrown them off, but I thought it wise to go to ground for a while. You know that I’m clever as a fox.”

“Crazy like one, too,” she said. “Where’s Jenna?”

“Gone home,” he said. “She took me to my laboratory, but I found it in less than salutary condition. I got what I need, however.” He patted lumps under his shirt absently. “I do hope you’re going my way.”

“I’m following Fallon. I think he’s taking Eve to the mall.”

“Ah. Perfect, then. That will be fine. Proceed.” He sat back, as if she were his private limo driver, which made her grit her teeth, but she concentrated on driving for a minute, until she had Fallon’s taillights in sight again. He was, indeed, heading for Bitter Creek Mall, it seemed.

She said, “Fallon thinks he has some kind of a cure for vampirism. Did you know?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I know all about Fallon and his misguided quest to become our once and future savior. It’s never worked. It’s never going to work.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Yes. I plan to kill Fallon and destroy everything he’s built.”

“I think Shane would say that’s a goal, not an actual plan. How exactly are you going to do that?”

“Fangs in his throat,” Myrnin said. “To be specific. I am going to take a great deal of pleasure in draining that man to the very last drop. Again.”

“Again?” Claire hit the brakes and held them, staring at Myrnin in the rearview mirror. “What are you talking about?”

Myrnin clambered over the seat and dropped into the front next to her. He fussed with his clothes—still mismatched, of course—and finally said, “Fallon, of course. I killed him once. I brought him over as a vampire some, oh, two hundred years ago or more—it’s difficult to be exact about these things. I didn’t much care for him even then. He was a bit of a morose and morbid sort, but—well, circumstances were different. Let’s just leave it there.”

“He’s not a vampire!”

“Well, not now, obviously. But he most certainly was once. Didn’t love the life I’d given him, Fallon. Thought he was so much better than the rest who did.” Myrnin shrugged. “He might have been right about that, of course. But the point is that he devoted all the time I’d given him to finding a way to reverse the process and make himself human again.”

“He found one,” Claire said. “He cured himself. That’s what this cure is he wants to give Michael . . . the same one.”

“I wouldn’t call it a cure,” Myrnin said. “He’s simply no longer dependent on blood.”

“What is he dependent on, then?”

“What are any of you? Air, water, food, the kindness of random strangers.” Myrnin shuddered, and it looked genuine. “I’d much rather be dependent on blood. Much simpler and easier to obtain in times of chaos. Never rationed, blood. And very often freely donated.”

“But he’s—he’s human.”

“Well, yes. Heartbeat and all.”

“Is he still immortal?”

“No one is immortal.” Myrnin sounded quite serious when he said that, and he looked away, out the window. “Certainly no vampire. We are as vulnerable as humans to the right forces. Only gods and demons are immortal, and we are neither of those things, though we’ve been called one or the other.”

“I mean—does he age now?”

“Yes. The instant he gave up his vampire nature, he began the slow march to death again. I expect after all that time with his heart stilled in him, he thinks of each beat as a tick off his mortal clock. I certainly would.”

“How did he do it?”

“I don’t know,” Myrnin said. He sounded sober and thoughtful, and rested his head on one hand as he continued to stare out at the night. “I really have no earthly idea. He was desperate to find some kind of cure when I lost track of him. He’d employed physicians, scientists, even sorcerers, to try to break what he saw as his curse. Until I saw him again here, I’d have sworn that such a thing was completely impossible. There is still much to learn in the world, as it turns out. The problem is that some lessons are very, very unpleasant, Claire. I hope this isn’t one of them, but I very much fear it will be.”

She thought of the stamp on Michael’s folder. INVOLUNTARY. “Mr. Ransom is dead,” she said. “According to the notes in the file in Fallon’s desk, this cure of his—it’s only about twenty-five percent successful.”

“Unsurprising. The Daylight Foundation—which Fallon created, of course—has from the very beginning been intent on stopping vampires, eradicating them through whatever means necessary. He’d see a cure as a humane way to do it, wouldn’t he? Even if three-quarters of those were put through such agony that they perished of it.” He let out a sigh. “A humane process, after the word human. But in my experience, humans are capable of such spectacularly awful things.”

She didn’t like the sound of that, not at all, nor the thought of Fallon, with his calm, gentle manner and his fanatic’s eyes, having control of Eve, and Michael, and all of the vampires imprisoned back at the mall. “How did he get Amelie to surrender?” she asked. Myrnin didn’t answer. “He threatened someone, didn’t he?”

“He threatened the people she least wanted to lose,” he replied. “One of them was Michael, of course, but before our little party arrived back in town, Fallon had Oliver, and he used him against her.”

“He used you, too, didn’t he?” Nothing. She took that as confirmation. “Myrnin, he’s got Eve now. And from what I saw written on Michael’s file, Fallon’s going to use her to make Michael take his cure or something.”

“Well, that would be a problem,” he said. “I quite like the boy. And Fallon’s cure is certainly horrifyingly painful, even if one survives it, and as you know, the odds are against it. I’ve no idea what kind of damage it might leave in its wake on a vampire as young as Michael. Nor does Fallon, I suspect. Not that it would stop him.”

Claire could see the mall ahead, its bulk lit up outside with harsh industrial lamps that made it look ever more like a prison, if prisons had abundant parking. “We have to do something.”

“Oh, I fully intend to, and I will need you to make it happen. You are my assistant, after all. I pay you.”

“Amelie pays me. I don’t think you have the slightest idea of how to work a bank account.”

“True,” he said cheerfully. “It was much easier in the days when you could pay someone in food and a roof over his head, and the richness of knowledge. All this moneygrubbing is simply annoying. Do you still use gold? I think I have some of that.”

“Let’s not get off track,” Claire said, although she was thinking, You’ve got gold? Where do you keep it? “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I need a second pair of hands—human hands, as it turns out, and quite clever ones—to help me sabotage those damnable collars. Dr. Anderson is no fool, and although I’ve worked out how to do it, it does require nerve and someone with a pulse; two vampires simply can’t manage it. Speaking of our dear, traitorous Irene, she’ll be working around the clock to mass-produce your anti-vampire weapons, and once that happens, they will have absolutely everything they need to control, corral, and herd us to our destruction. We can’t allow that to happen, Claire. So I need you to go into the prison with me and help me disable the collars.”

“I’m not sure—”

“They’re killing us when we fight back,” Myrnin said. “They already know how to do it, of course. Very effectively, I might add, and quite painfully. The methods they use last long enough to be a very instructive lesson to others, and I might admire their ruthlessness if it didn’t come at the cost of my old friends. This is a situation that cannot hold for long, and we must, absolutely must, free the vampires before it’s too late.” He eyed her sideways, then said, “I don’t think you’ll be in too much danger. Oliver and Lady Grey and I can ensure your safety. Almost certainly.”

That didn’t sound quite as positive as Claire would have preferred, really, but she couldn’t expect much better. “How do we get inside?”

“Same way I got out,” Myrnin said. “Through the waste chute. Come on, then. Park this ridiculous thing and let’s make all haste. I do hope those aren’t your best clothes.”

She should have known it would be something horrible.

Getting in by the waste chute was even worse than Claire had expected. When the mall had been abandoned, the chute—leading from the second floor through a claustrophobic metal tube that angled down at a ridiculous slope straight into a long-neglected, rusted-out trash bin—the chute had apparently never been cleaned. The layers of ancestral rotten food, decay, and generally horrible filth were enough to make her seriously reconsider going at all, but Eve was inside, and she needed help. “I can’t,” Claire said. She wasn’t talking about the slime, though. “I’m only human, Myrnin. I can’t climb up that!”

“You won’t need to,” he said, and offered her a cool, strong hand. “Up you go. I’ll push.”

He shoved her up into the tiny, tinny opening without giving her time to get ready, and she felt a moment of utter panic and nausea that almost made her scream—and then his palm landed solidly on her butt as she started to slide backward. “Hey!” she whispered shakily, but he was already pushing her steadily forward, up the angle. One thing about all the awful slime, it did make her progress faster. She tried not to think about what she might be sliding through. Really, really tried. The smell was indescribable. “Watch the hands!”

“It’s entirely propulsional,” he whispered back. “Quiet, now. Sound carries.” She had no idea how he was managing to climb, or to push her ahead of him, but she thought that he sank his nails deep into the ooze and anchored them in the metal to do it—like climbing spikes. Each push drove her steadily on. She gave up futilely trying to feel for handholds and instead focused on keeping her hands outstretched ahead, to shove utterly unknown and very disturbing blockages out of the way before she met them face-first. It was both the shortest and longest minute of her life, and she had to hang on tight to all of her self-control to keep herself from caving in under the stress and giving away their position with helpless, girlie shrieks of revulsion.

And then it was over, and she slid at an angle out of the metal pipe, and a pair of strong, pale hands grabbed her flailing wrists to pull her up and onto her feet. Claire blinked and in the dim light made out the glossy red hair and razor-sharp smile of her friend from Cambridge, Jesse. Lady Grey, as Myrnin called her. She’d been a bartender when Claire had met her, but that was before Claire had realized she was a vampire. She’d probably been a lot of things during her long, long life, and nearly all of them interesting.

“Well,” Jesse said, raising her eyebrows to a skeptical height. “I admit I didn’t really expect this.” She let Claire go, and turned toward the pipe again to offer a helping hand to Myrnin, who was clambering out under his own power. Claire was sorry to lose the support, because her legs were still shaking, and she grabbed for a handy plastic chair to collapse into. What did I just crawl through? She supposed it really was better that she didn’t know, but she desperately needed a shower, a scrub brush, and some bleach. And new clothes, because no matter how hard she washed these, she would never, ever wear them again.

Jesse was talking as Myrnin came sliding the rest of the way out of the pipe. “You brought her here? I have to ask, did you just crave a snack, or do you have some clever plan to save her life? Because you know the mood in here.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I also know her life wasn’t worth a dried fig out there in Morganville. Better here where her allies might be able to protect her than out there, dodging enemies all alone.”

“As if she doesn’t have any enemies here?”

He shrugged. “None that matter. Oliver is not unfond of the girl, and there are many who have some graceful experience of her. She might have a few who’d be happy to feast, but not so many we can’t stop them.”

“We?” Jesse crossed her arms and stared at him, her head cocked. “Assuming a lot, aren’t we, dear madman?”

“A fair amount,” he admitted. “But needs must, from time to time, assume things. And I believe that I can count on you, my lady.” He gave her a very elegant bow that was only a little spoiled by the slime that covered him. Jesse, for her part, didn’t laugh. Much. She responded with a curtsy only a little spoiled by the fact that she was wearing blue jeans and a tight T-shirt instead of fancy court clothes.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll play along and help keep fangs out of our little friend. Bad news: Fallon’s here. He blew in like a bad wind a few moments ago. I think he’s discovered that Amelie made it out alive.”

“Then he’s not pleased.”

“Oh, no,” Jesse said, with a broad, tight smile. “We’ve all been summoned to the bottom floor for questioning. You’ll need to clean yourself off before they discover how it is you’re getting out, though I think you’ve ruined all the extra clothes by now.”

He shrugged that off with magnificent indifference. “I’ll find something.”

“I’m quite sure you will,” she agreed. “Let me scrounge something for you. I might do a better job of matching colors, at least.”

He gave her a wry slice of a smile, and between one blink and the next, Jesse was just . . . gone. It was her and Myrnin, alone in a room that was, Claire realized, sort of a bedroom. There were two camp beds in it, at least, each with a neatly folded thin blanket on it. Nothing else in the room, though—no personal effects of any kind. It could have been anybody’s room, or no one’s.

“Jesse will be back in a moment,” Myrnin said. “She’s right. If they’ve ordered us below, then I need to clean up quickly. If anyone comes to bite you while I’m gone—well, try not to attract attention. Die quietly.”

“I can defend myself, you know.”

“With your bare hands, against hungry, bored, angry vampires? Claire. You know I think well of you, but that is really not your best problem-solving work.” He shook his head as if very disappointed with her lack of vision. “At least the offal you’re covered in will disguise the scent of your blood for now. Just stay quiet and still, and you ought to be fine. Besides, I doubt anyone’s hungry enough to bite you while you’re quite so . . . filthy.”

She was pretty sure there was something insulting in there, but it was also comforting.

Myrnin disappeared, just as Jesse had, and Claire was left standing alone in the dim, quiet room. She hadn’t seen him do it, but Myrnin had replaced the grate over the pipe they’d used to enter; she went over and tested it, but it didn’t budge, and she realized that he’d bent it into place. Nobody would realize it was anything but solid, not even on close inspection. It would take vampire strength to even begin to pry it loose.

Was that how Amelie had gotten out? Through the slime? Somehow Claire couldn’t imagine Her Immaculateness sliding through the ooze on her way out, or making her way across Morganville looking like a refugee from the Nickelodeon Awards. One thing vampires were big on was dignity.

She was deep in contemplation of the vent and its implications when she realized that she had a visitor. It wasn’t Myrnin. It wasn’t even Jesse.

It was Michael.

She flinched, because he was just right there, no warning, no sound. He wasn’t usually like that, so . . . vampiric. In the house, Michael always took special care to make sure they heard him coming, and she’d never bothered to wonder before if that took a lot of extra effort for him—if he felt as if he was forced to be embarrassingly clumsy around them, just to avoid scaring the crap out of them in the kitchen or the hallway.

Then in the next split second she realized that he certainly hadn’t bothered this time, and there was something in the way he was watching her—the utter stillness of his body and face—that made her feel deeply uneasy.

“Michael?” She almost blurted out you scared me, but that was blindingly obvious from the way she’d jumped and from the no doubt deafening sound of her racing heartbeat. Her pulse should have been slowing down after the first instant of alarm/recognition, but instead it continued drumming right on, as if her body knew something her mind didn’t.

She didn’t move. That took a lot of effort, actually, because those same instincts insisting to her that she was scared were also wanting her to take at least a couple of steps back. Large steps, at that.

Michael said, “I lied to Eve.”

As totally confusing openings went, that was a new one—both unexpected and ominous. “Um . . . okay. About what?”

“I said they were feeding us, but they like us weak. The weaker, the better. They do give us blood, but it’s soured, somehow. Drugged. It doesn’t really help,” Michael said. His soft, measured voice sounded oddly soothing to her, and she felt her heartbeat slowing down, finally. He was her friend, after all. One of her very best and sweetest friends. “I heard your voice. I knew you were here.”

“It’s good to see you,” she said. Her own voice sounded strange now, oddly calm and flat. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. “He brought Eve. He’s going to use her against me. I’m very hungry. And you shouldn’t be here, Claire. I don’t want you to be here, because . . .” A twitch of a smile, like a spasm of pain, came across his lips and then was immediately gone again. “You smell terrible, you know.”

“Sorry. It’s the slime.”

“But I still want you.”

She opened her mouth and realized she had nothing to say to that. Nothing at all. Because it was shocking and wrong and so very wrong and this was Michael saying it, and despite the fact that everything seemed weirdly okay, as if she was soaking in a soothing bath and everything was a dream . . . she understood two things: he didn’t mean it as sexually as it sounded, and also, it was so not okay.

He was closer to her now, and she didn’t see him move. He was just . . . closer. Watching her. She didn’t like that. Inside the calm cocoon, something in her twisted and pushed and tried to break free of the sticky, syrupy layers of calm she’d become wrapped in.

Please don’t do this.

He was too close now. She could have reached out and put her hand on his chest, and what was her hand doing rising like that, as if she had no real control over it, and why were his eyes turning so red . . .

“Michael.”

The voice was low and cold, and Claire felt the tone stab straight through that cocoon that wrapped her so tightly and rip it open. The air suddenly felt heavy on her skin, and too thick, and she couldn’t get her breath. Her pulse kick-started faster again, and she stumbled backward until her shoulders touched a wall.

Jesse was in the doorway. She looked wild and dangerous and angry, and when Michael took another step in Claire’s direction Jesse came at him, wrapped a fist in the fabric of his T-shirt, and threw the younger vampire ten feet toward the exit. When he tried to lunge for Claire again, Jesse caught him, steadied him, and held on when he tried to pull free. “Nope,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “You’re going to thank me later when you have a chance to think about it. Not your fault, kid. Believe me. But you’d take it hard if this went badly.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her,” he growled, and Claire saw his fangs then, down and sharp and glittering. “She’s my friend. I know what I’m doing. I’d only take a little.”

“Just a sip. Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t work. At times like these, the only thing to do is just say no.”

He didn’t like it, but he let Jesse turn him around and lead him away. She shut the door behind him as she pushed him.

Jesse looked frustrated and angry, and there was a flash of red in her eyes, like distant lightning on the edge of a storm. She began stalking the room with long, restless strides. As she walked, she gathered up her long red hair and twisted it into a rope at the back of her head, then ripped a piece of her shirt off to tie it in place. It wasn’t in the best repair, her shirt. Claire wondered how many times she’d cannibalized it for hair ties already.

“They’re dosing our blood,” Jesse told her. “I’m not certain what they’re using, but it seems to cut the effectiveness of our meals to almost nothing. We eat, but it doesn’t nourish, and the hunger . . . the hunger won’t stop. I’m not sure why they’re doing it, and it worries me. Why would they want ravenous vampires?”

It was a very good—and scary—question. “I don’t know.”

“Why in the world did you decide to throw yourself in the middle of all this?”

“Well,” Claire said, and tried a smile, “it was this or jail.”

“Were they actively trying to eat you in jail?”

“Myrnin has a job for me, and he seemed to think you could keep me safe,” she said. “Can you?”

Jesse let out an entirely humorless dry chuckle. “Depends on the circumstances,” she said. “But against most of my fellow vampires I have a better than average chance, yes. The only ones able to shut me down would be Amelie and Oliver, and neither one of them seem likely to come against me. Amelie’s vanished, and Oliver . . .”

“Fallon’s got him,” Claire guessed. “Downstairs. What is he doing to him?”

“Nothing Oliver can’t endure,” Jesse said. “He’s been through worse—I can almost guarantee it.”

“What about Eve? Fallon has Eve. He brought her—”

“I saw her through the door,” Jesse said. “Outside, still locked in his car. She seems . . . impaired?”

“Drugged,” Claire shot back, angry on Eve’s behalf. “She’s okay?”

“So far.” Jesse was grasping her hands behind her back as if she felt the need to be restrained, and Claire wondered just how hungry she actually was. Probably quite very hungry. Myrnin would have fed outside, but Jesse hadn’t had a chance, and that meant she was just as hungry as Michael—maybe even more. Oliver wouldn’t have fed, either—even if he’d had the chance, he’d have made sure others went first, because he was the ruler, even if a temporary one, of this very sad little kingdom. “It’s lucky that you have so little blood in you to go around, you know. That helps make you less . . . attractive.”

Finally, a use for being smaller than normal. “I thought you needed me. Myrnin said he needed human hands to help him disable your shock collars.”

“He’s dreaming,” Jesse said, and shook her head. “They’re fitted with sensors from those monitors modern courts force felons to wear under house arrest, but significantly modified. If you so much as try to open the case, it’ll stun a vampire into submission—and probably flash-fry a human brain.”

“Myrnin said he could handle the shocks.”

That made Jesse smile, but it was a sad sort of expression. “That’s because he’s mad as a hatter.”

“I never understood that. Hatters, I mean.”

“In the old days, people who made hats used mercury to produce felt,” Jesse said. “They often went mad. And Myrnin’s just as crazy if he thinks you can help us get these things off. At best, he’d electrocute you. At worst, he’d blow his head and your hands right off.” She came closer as she circled the room, and an expression of disgust twisted her face as she retreated. “Right, we need to get you washed off. You smell like what a sewer would vomit up as too disgusting.”

That was a tremendously colorful image, and Claire was glad her nose had gone too numb to notice anything. “Myrnin told me to wait here,” she said.

“Myrnin did indeed, and you obeyed,” Myrnin told her, just as he walked through the doorway. He was wearing some kind of threadbare floral silk robe held together by a leather belt—with studs—along with an untied pair of oversized rain boots. But he was clean. Just . . . ridiculous. “Go on, then, girl. She’s right about the stench. Jesse will stand guard for you. You’ll come to no harm. Shoo.” He let out an exasperated sigh when she hesitated, then took her firmly by the shoulders and steered her to the door, where Jesse waited with her arms crossed. “Out,” he said.

“Myrnin,” Jesse said, “that wasn’t too bright, was it? Now you’ve got slime all over your hands again.”

“Oh,” Myrnin said, staring crestfallen at his palms. “Damn.”

Jesse grinned, but it looked more feral than friendly right at this moment. “Come on, Claire, before he tries to wipe it on me and I have to remove his limbs.”

Outside the little room—which turned out to be what must have been some kind of staff room for a store, Claire guessed—there were more cots. Some were messy, some were neat, and a few were occupied . . . but the vampires lying there didn’t so much as stir as they passed. Jesse was, Claire noticed, keeping an eye on them anyway. Maybe, she was afraid that they, like Michael, could smell the fresh blood under the stench of slime and decay.

What am I going to do when I’m clean? she wondered, and it was a valid question, but the truth was she wanted to be clean so badly that it really didn’t matter what came after. She just had to trust that somehow Myrnin and Jesse could protect her.

And what about Oliver? What is Fallon doing to him?

The washroom was just that—a toilet with multiple sinks and stalls, not showers. There were stacks of faded old towels in the corner, all colors and sizes as if they’d come from some Goodwill bag, and she grabbed a couple and began to strip off the sticky layers of her clothing. Jesse held out a plastic bag at arm’s length as Claire put in shirt, pants, and then underwear, face turned away as if she couldn’t even stand the sight of the mess, much less the smell. “Well,” Jesse said, “I feel like I hardly know you, Claire, but would you like me to pick you out some clothes while you wash?”

“Thanks,” Claire said. She felt icy cold now, and incredibly vulnerable. She watched Jesse tie the plastic bag, and move away to a bin where—evidently—old clothes were kept. Claire took a ragged washcloth and wet it in the water—cold, of course—then scraped it over the old soap in the dish until it was brimming with suds. Cleaning off the slime wasn’t so bad, but washing her hair was awful; it meant bending over the sink naked and scrubbing soap through it, all the while terrified that a vampire, any vampire, might be silently drifting up behind her to take a bite.

None did, though. Claire finished wringing out her hair, flipped it back with a wet slap against her neck, and grabbed a towel to dry herself off.

Jesse was sitting in a folding camp chair, blocking the doorway in case anyone else tried to intrude. “Clothes are on the second sink,” Jesse said. “Sorry, the choices weren’t great.” They really weren’t. The panties were too big, the bra threadbare and stretched, and the shirt looked like something even a grandmother might have thought too boring. At least the pants fit, even if they were several inches too long; Claire pegged the hems, shoved her feet into old, frayed, once-blue Keds that lacked any kind of laces, and said, “I guess I’m done.”

Jesse put aside the book she was reading and looked over her shoulder. Her eyebrows rose just enough to make Claire think she was struggling not to laugh. “Good look for you, kid. Kind of a homeless hipster thing going on.”

“Are you really some kind of—lady?” Claire asked her. “Because no offense, but you don’t sound like one.”

“I was once. I was a queen, too,” Jesse said. “Don’t take that too seriously; it didn’t last long. But I spent my entire life talking as everyone thought I should, dressing to everyone else’s standards, never having an opinion or a thought of my own. It was exhausting, being everyone’s dress-up doll, and once I got the chance to be my own person, I never looked back. Myrnin likes the thought that I used to be a lady, but don’t let it fool you. I’m not one. Not anymore. And in truth, I think that’s what he likes about me the most—the change.”

Probably, Claire thought. He’d been in love with a vampire named Ada who—according to everyone who’d known her in life—had lived to defy the expectations of those around her, even while looking prim and proper. And I might fit that definition, too, she thought. From time to time, Myrnin had looked at her with something that might actually be longing . . . but he’d been pretty definite from the beginning that his fascination was with her mind, not her body.

And Myrnin did take loving a girl for her brain a little too literally. Look what had happened to Ada: he’d saved her by putting her brain in a jar, plugging her into a computer that ran on blood, and pretending it was some kind of genuine life.

She couldn’t imagine Jesse letting him do anything like that. And maybe that was just what he needed: someone to set limits for him. Limits that Claire, as a human, couldn’t set and keep.

“Jesse—Michael looked bad. Is he going to be all right?”

Jesse cocked her head, and the heavy braid of red hair slid over one shoulder. “I think so. We’re latecomers, so we’re lucky; most of the poor bastards in here have been on the Daylighters formula for more than two weeks, which means that they’re hungry enough to drink cockroach juice and pretend it’s B positive. Michael’s just not as used to being deprived.”

“Why would the Daylight Foundation do a thing like that? Make vampires more hungry? Doesn’t it put their own people in danger?”

“Of course it does,” Jesse replied. “And the most effective way to demonize your enemy is to make them monsters. Most wars just do it through propaganda, but the Daylighters seem to feel it’s more effective if they actually reduce us to fangs and rage. It doesn’t take much to convince the average citizen of Morganville that we’re parasites that need killing. We’ve certainly acted that part often enough.” She looked sad and a little angry as she said it. “It’s why I left this place. Because Amelie was too much in the past, too steeped in tradition, and convinced of the superiority of the vampire. I warned her that things needed to change, but it’s never comfortable between us; we’ve both been rulers, once upon a time, and trust me, two queens can’t ever really be friends. It may be harsh, but in some ways, she’s reaping what she sowed.”

Jesse had left Morganville long before Claire had arrived, and Claire could well imagine that Jesse wouldn’t have been shy about her opinions. Amelie could be open-minded, but she didn’t like direct challenges . . . and probably especially not from a vampire who’d been a queen once, even for a brief time.

“So they plan to let vampires out on a rampage? Then catch them and prove once and for all the vamps are a threat that has to be eliminated? Why not just do it without all the bloodshed? It’s not like there’s anybody much objecting that I can tell.”

“Because Fallon doesn’t like to be the villain,” Jesse said. “He never has, as far as I can tell, and I think he needs the justification. In his eyes, he’s on the side of right, and there are few out there who’d dispute it, but to be a hero, he needs villains.” The weight of Jesse’s gaze felt oddly intense now, and Claire wondered what she was thinking . . . and if she was being judged for some shortcoming as simple as breathing and having a heartbeat. “I have a question, Claire.”

“What?”

“What makes you so well disposed toward vampires? I’ve lived here; I know what a pack of hyenas we can be, with very little warning. There’s little about us that ought to compel your pity, not to mention your loyalty.”

“You don’t think much of your own people, do you?”

“Not much,” Jesse agreed with an offhand shrug. “We’re a sad lot, in general, clinging to the past and to our own survival, no matter the cost to the lives of others. If I was in your shoes, I’m not sure I’d stand in the way of our more or less inevitable ugly fate. My question stands: why do you?”

Claire opened her mouth to tell her why and then . . . couldn’t, at least not at first. All the logical arguments she would have made seemed fake and cheap as old tinsel. She took a breath and composed her words more carefully. “Because no matter what any of you have done, you haven’t all done it. Because it’s not right to judge a class of people by the actions of one, or a few. That’s not justice. It’s prejudice, and I don’t like it. Justice means judging each person individually.”

Jesse’s lips slowly curled into a smile, and her eyes warmed as well. “High-minded,” she said. “I’m not sure you’ll find a lot of people living up to your standard.”

Claire shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if they do or not. It’s my opinion; I’m not trying to make anybody else agree. But I don’t want them forcing their opinions on me.”

“And thus begins the war,” said Lady Grey, who’d once been queen. It sounded as though she knew exactly what she was talking about.

The certainty in her voice, and the sadness, made Claire shiver.