by Rachel Caine
Amelie said, “Claire, sit down. You wanted five minutes. You have them. I suggest you use them well.”
She hadn’t wanted it like this, with the two of them surrounded by staring, listening witnesses. Claire was suddenly very glad she’d spilled the beans to Amelie in the limo, because having this conversation while trying to hold all that inside would have been very difficult. Probably impossible.
Kim didn’t look up even when Claire sat down. She looked cold. “Kim?” No response. “Kim, you remember me, right?”
Kim looked up then, and her eyes were hot and angry. “Of course I do. Who forgets you? How’s Shane, by the way? Getting tired of schoolyard crushes yet?”
The sudden flare of rage made Claire flinch, but after a glance at the man standing behind Kim’s chair, she wet her lips and continued. “Shane’s in trouble,” Claire said.
“Good.” Kim sat back in her chair, as far as the cuffs would allow. “Hope it’s fatal for both of you this time.”
That was harsh, even for Kim. Claire was surprised. She could understand Kim’s anger toward her, but why Shane? He’d always been the focus of her stalkerish obsession. “You don’t mean that,” Claire said.
“Oh, I completely do. I’ve had therapy, you know. I’m in touch with my feelings and crap.” Kim raked untidy hair back from her face with her left hand and laughed. It sounded raw and aggressive. “He never cared about me; I know that now. So screw him. And you. Thanks for dropping in.” She glanced backward, at her guard. “I’m ready to go back now, sir.”
“Kim,” he said, still smiling. He had dimples, even. “Her five minutes aren’t up yet. Be nice.”
Kim faced Claire again, once again back to that thousand-yard stare and closed-down expression.
“There’s a Web site that’s operating,” Claire said. “Running encrypted video. Do you know anything about it?”
“Because I did the whole encryption thing first?” Kim shrugged. “Why would I? They haven’t given me a computer to play with, you know. Said I had to earn one. Screw that. I’m not playing the games to get what I want.”
“You were working with someone outside Morganville, though. You were planning to make a deal for a TV show. That was what all the streaming video was for. I think whoever it was found another…source. And another program.”
“Good for them.” Dismissive words, but Kim was eyeing her with a little more interest. “What kind of show are they running?”
“Pay-per-view,” Claire said. “Extreme fighting.”
“With vampires?” Kim actually laughed. “Dude, that’s brilliant. I should have thought of that. Would have been a lots-better show than you sickeningly cute couples playing house and getting your wild thing on.”
Claire wanted to smack her—badly. But she took a deep breath and said, with unnatural calm, “I need to know how to break the encryption and figure out how to trace it to the source. I figured you’d know.”
“Sure, I know, if it’s the same encryption I put together,” Kim said, and leaned back in her chair. “But why should I tell you?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?”
Kim rolled her eyes. “Wow, you actually are an idiot. Do you think the vamps are going to do the right thing once you point the finger at whoever’s behind it? You think this is all going to end with somebody getting a slap on the wrist and a fine? I was lucky, you know. Lucky to still be breathing. People are going to die. You need to get that through your head. It isn’t about the right thing. It’s about the thing that gets you something. If you think the world works any other way, you’re just as stupid as you look.”
Claire said, “You know, you’ve got something wrong.”
“What is that? I swear, you’re more clueless than a Care Bear.”
“You think that because I want to do what’s right, because I want to make things better, I’m weak,” Claire said. “Or that I’m stupid. But I’m not. It takes a lot more strength to know how bad the world is and not want to be part of that, give in to it. And I do know, Kim. Believe me.”
Kim’s sneer faded as Claire stared at her very steadily. Then she looked away. “You should say that after you spend a few months in this hellhole.”
For the first time, Amelie stirred from where she stood at the back of the room. She advanced to the table, leaned forward, and rested her palms on the flat surface. Her gray eyes were intent and level on Kim, and again Kim couldn’t hold her stare.
“You might bear in mind that in earlier times, young lady, your crimes would have meant you died in a particularly horrible way, with your screams ringing in the ears of decent folk,” Amelie said. “You’re kept in a clean cell, with decent if unremarkable food. You receive reading material and have television. In what way is that a hellhole? What can someone of your age possibly know of surviving hell?” There was a keen edge to her voice that Claire had rarely heard. “The man guarding you today knows of hell, very well. He can tell you what it was like to survive in a prison camp with nothing to eat but crawling insects and rotten bread, for years, until one night his life was taken—”
“Saved,” the guard in the knit shirt said.
“Saved, by one of us,” Amelie finished softly. “Ask him about the kindness of your treatment, and then speak to me or him of hellholes.” She let that sink in for a moment before she said, in a brisk and businesslike tone, “Now, you wanted to know what helping us means for you. That entirely depends on what you can do for us. Can you reverse the encryption and tell us the location where these…people are staging and broadcasting their fights?”
“Yeah,” Kim said. She picked at a rough spot on the table with a short, well-chewed fingernail. “I could do that. But not for free.”
Amelie didn’t seem too surprised. “Your price?”
“I want out of here.”
“That will not happen. And you know it will not happen.”
Kim smiled down at her lap—a secret, cynical kind of expression that made Claire feel a little tingle of alarm. “Oh, I don’t know. You want to keep Morganville’s big secret, right? How are you going to do that with millions of people watching vampires flashing fangs at each other on pay-per-view? Maybe most don’t believe it, but maybe some do; maybe somebody decides to come check it out, like a news crew. Then where do you run?”
“Farther and faster than you can, Kim. You’d do well to remember that.”
Kim said nothing. Amelie, after exchanging a look with Claire, shook her head. “Take her back to her cell, please. We’re getting nowhere.”
“Wait!” Kim said as the vampire behind her stepped forward. “Wait. You want these people, right? I can find them. I’m probably the only one in Morganville who has the skills!”
“I doubt that, but you are the one I have readily available.”
“Then come on. What do I get for it?”
Amelie’s eyes turned red—a muddy, rippling crimson that sent prickles of warning across Claire’s skin, like the feeling before lightning strikes. “You get to survive this meeting with me, little girl. And I warn you, that possibility is fading with every unpleasant word you utter. Be careful.”
“You wouldn’t do it. You’re like her.” A flick of Kim’s eyes included Claire in her scorn. “Full of talk, short on action.”
Amelie smiled, very slowly. It was one of the most unsettling things Claire had ever seen her do…as if a mask had been pulled away and something terrible looked out of her eyes. Kim saw it, too. Her handcuffs clicked as she tried instinctively to draw away. “Oh, child,” Amelie said. “I have worked very diligently to achieve that image, because a ruler should be seen as just and fair and merciful. But you would not like to see me take action. I am, after all, my father’s daughter. Now. You will give me the help I require to trace this signal that Claire has found, and you will be grateful that I choose to allow you to continue in your presently comfortable state. Once you have demonstrated results, we may discuss an improvement in your conditions.”
But mostly it was directed at Kim, who crumbled like a sugar cookie. “Okay,” she said, after about a second’s delay of false bravado. “But I can’t do it in here. I need access to the Internet.”
“We can arrange that.”
“And I need to get out of here. Just for a little while.” Kim looked up, and Claire saw that, incredibly, she was still trying to bargain. Maybe she wasn’t quite the sugar cookie, after all. “A day. Just a day. I need—I need to see the sun.”
Amelie didn’t move, and the dark atmosphere didn’t let up, but finally she gave a regal nod and stepped back. It felt like a storm had passed without breaking, and Claire instinctively took in a deep breath, and heard Kim do the same. “A day,” Amelie said. “First, you locate the source of this transmission for us. Then you will be supervised closely on your furlough. Mr. Martin will go with you—” Mr. Martin, the vampire standing behind Kim, inclined his head. “And Claire.”
“Wait,” Claire said, at the same time as Kim. They both had identical tones of alarm. Claire kept talking. “You’re making me stay with her?”
“You don’t like her,” Amelie said. “And therefore you won’t give her any…breaks, I think you call them. At the first sign that Kim is misbehaving, tell Mr. Martin, if he doesn’t know already, and she will be immediately returned to custody.”
“But I—”
“No arguments,” Amelie said. “The deal is done. Mr. Martin, arrange for the girl to have her Internet access, but I want it to be closely monitored. You are not to leave her for a moment. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Founder.” Mr. Martin inclined his head. “What if she’s unable to complete the task?”
“She has an hour,” Amelie said. “If she can’t solve the problem within that time frame, I no longer need her.”
Kim, tough-chick ’tude or not, flinched at that pronouncement. There was no mistaking what it meant. “An hour’s not enough time!”
“I sincerely hope you’re wrong,” Amelie said. “Let’s call it…motivation.”
Claire felt an unexpected sense of sympathy for Kim’s stricken expression…. She’d been there not long ago. She’d been under threat of death, or having her friends and family suffer, if she wasn’t able to live up to Amelie’s expectations. It wasn’t a comfortable place, especially if you weren’t sure you could get it done.
But she just couldn’t sympathize much in the end. Kim was a cold-blooded sociopath, at least as far as Claire was concerned, and she’d never shown any sign of remorse. No point in empathizing with someone who’d turn around and stick a knife in your back, with a smile.
Claire felt the minutes ticking away as the details were dealt with…the computer located, the Internet access enabled and hooked up, the security protocols negotiated. Then, finally, Mr. Martin moved out of the way and Kim sat down in front of the keyboard.
She drew in a breath, put her fingers on the keys, and said, “Okay, what’s the URL?”
“ImmortalBattles-dot-com.”
Kim typed it in, then flipped to a view of the code, then started up a new coding window.
“What are you doing?” Amelie asked.
“Running a trace route.”
“And that is how you will find them.”
Kim laughed. “No way in hell. A six-year-old could figure out a way around that. But it’ll give me a starting point, and I can work from that.”
Amelie settled back in her chair. Mr. Martin leaned over Kim’s shoulder, watching the screen intently. If he didn’t know what he was looking at, he gave a good imitation of it. Kim cast him doubting looks from time to time, and once he asked her to stop and explain what she was doing. She did it in quiet, calm tones, apparently creeped out by having him hovering so closely.
Claire sipped a cold drink that had been delivered by one of Amelie’s guards and waited. She checked her watch from time to time, feeling useless and increasingly worried; every minute they sat here was another minute that something bad might be happening to Shane or to Michael.
She was also aware, though she didn’t particularly want to be, that the minutes were counting down for Kim, who was looking paler with every tick of the second hand. Her fingers worked fast, blurring motion, then stopped and hovered indecisively as she leaned closer to the screen.
Thirty minutes. Forty. Forty-five. Claire drained her glass and felt the tension growing in the room. Mr. Martin, hanging over Kim’s shoulder, glanced up at Amelie, who gave him some imperceptible signal Claire couldn’t read. It probably wasn’t good, at least for Kim.
Although Amelie never so much as glanced at a watch, it was exactly sixty minutes by Claire’s timepiece when the Founder said, in precise and soft tones, “Your time is up, Kim.”
Kim froze, then looked up with glittering eyes through the tangled hair that had fallen over her face. She shoved it back, and for the moment, at least, she looked defiant and unafraid. “Yeah? Well, good thing I’m done, then.”
“Get up.”
Kim did, and Mr. Martin moved her away from the computer and fastened handcuffs on her again, looping them through a solid ring set in the concrete wall. He studied the screen of the computer and said, “I have an address here. And a map.”
“It had better be accurate,” Amelie said. “I won’t look kindly on misdirection.”
“Do I get my day outside?” Kim said.
“Indeed, though you may not enjoy it,” Amelie said. “You’re coming with us. Mr. Martin, you’re in charge of her. Claire, you also have responsibility. Are we clear on this?”
“Yes,” Claire said. Mr. Martin nodded.
“Then put her in less…attention-getting clothing,” Amelie said. “I have calls to make.”
“Now, this is more like it,” Kim said, once they were all inside the limousine again. It was a tight fit, with Mr. Martin and Kim added to Amelie, Claire, and the two other guards, but Amelie managed to arrange for her own personal space. It was the rest of them who were crowded. Kim was in the middle, but she didn’t seem to care; she was busy running her hands over the plain black hoodie she’d been given to put on and the blue jeans. The Skechers had to be hers, from before; they looked ragged, well-worn, and had tribal patterns of black thorns and roses all over them, hand-painted. She’d tied her hair back in a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band. No fancy hair things available, Claire guessed, or at least none Kim wanted to wear. All in all, she made it look reasonably her again. “I wish we could see out.”
“Nothing much to see,” Claire said. “It’s Morganville. Rusty buildings, flat desert, dusty, tumbleweeds. You know the drill.”
“You’d be surprised how good that sounds when all you’ve seen for months are gray walls. So, how’s Eve?”
“She’s fine.” Oh, she so didn’t want to talk about her friends with Kim, of all people. “And she doesn’t want to see you.”
“Call her and see.”
“No.” The last thing Claire wanted was for Eve to get sucked back into the black hole of Kim. That hadn’t turned out well for anyone last time.
Kim laughed dryly. “She still dating that vamp hottie Michael?”
“Would you please, please, please shut up now?”
“I guess that’s a yes. He’s going to dump her, you know. Sooner or later.”
Claire felt stung, mostly because she’d wondered about that herself, guiltily, from time to time. “No, he’s not! They’re—they’re getting married.” She blurted it out, and Amelie’s head turned toward her with eerie, machinelike precision.
“Are they.” It didn’t sound like a question. It also didn’t sound like Amelie was pleased with that particular news. “I’ll have to have a chat with Michael. He’s failed to inform me of his plans.”
Kim smirked. Claire fought the urge to
hurt her, but mainly because there wasn’t any room to get in a good punch. Maybe, she thought, Shane is rubbing off on me with this prone-to-violence thing. Dammit! She should have thought before she said anything about that; she should have known better. Michael and Eve weren’t exactly the most popular couple among the vampire side of town, much less the human side; it made sense that Amelie wouldn’t be completely happy about the idea—and that Michael wouldn’t have come right out with it to the head vampire, either.
Kim had goaded her into saying it, just as Kim manipulated everyone around her and always had. Claire made herself breathe slowly, through her nose, trying to calm down. She had to think clearly and go slowly. Otherwise, Kim would drive her into saying other things, worse things. There were all kinds of secrets Kim didn’t need to be part of, starting with…well, everything.
Amelie ignored the two of them and held out her hand to the guard seated next to her. Without a word, he took a cell phone out of his pocket and handed it over. She dialed, waited, and said, “We are on our way. You have the address, yes? I will expect you there. And, Oliver? Come prepared for a fight. We’re going to wipe out this nest of vipers. There can be no delay. Things have gone far enough.”
But what about Shane? Claire reached out toward Amelie but didn’t touch her; she didn’t dare try. As it was, a guard grabbed her wrist and held it there in midair, frozen. He didn’t hurt her, but there was no doubt that he could have. “Stop,” he told her. “Think what you’re doing.”
“Amelie,” Claire said. “I told you, Shane’s not part of this. Please don’t—”
She didn’t take the phone away from her mouth. She looked directly at Claire with no expression in her iron gray eyes and said, “Detain everyone. We will determine guilt or innocence on-site.” She handed the phone back to her flunky, who turned it off and put it away. “Why do you have your hand out toward me, Claire? Do you believe that I would harm your…friend, without proof?”
Actually, Claire did believe that. She’d seen Amelie go full contact before, and she knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to sentence Shane if there was even a suspicion that he was willingly part of all this stuff.