by Rachel Caine
The room he’d taken over for his own was a big, carpeted office, with a small, fancy sofa and chairs at one end of it, and a desk at the other. Bishop never sat at the desk. He was always standing, and today was no different. Three other vampires sat in visitors’ chairs—Myrnin, Michael Glass, and a vamp Claire didn’t recognize . . . she wasn’t even sure whether it was a man or a woman, actually. The bone structure of the pale face looked female, but the haircut wasn’t, and the hands and arms looked too angular.
Claire focused on the stranger to avoid looking at Michael. Her friend—and he was still her friend; he couldn’t help being in this situation any more than she could—wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was angry and ashamed, and she wished she could help him. She wanted to tell him, It’s not your fault, but he wouldn’t believe that.
Still, it was true. Michael didn’t have a magic tattoo on his arm; instead, he had Bishop’s fang marks in his neck, which worked just as well for the life-challenged. She could still see the livid shadow of the scars on his pale skin.
Bishop’s bite was like a brand of ownership.
“Claire,” Bishop said. He didn’t sound pleased. “Did I summon you for some reason I’ve forgotten?”
Claire’s heart jumped as if he’d used a cattle prod. She willed herself not to flinch. “No, sir,” she said, and kept her voice low and respectful. “I came to ask a favor.”
Bishop—who was wearing a plain black suit today, with a white shirt that had seen brighter days—picked a piece of lint from his sleeve. “Then the answer is no, because I don’t grant favors. Anything else?”
Claire wet her lips and tried again. “It’s a small thing—I want to see Shane, sir. Just for a few—”
“I said no, as I have half a hundred times already,” Bishop said, and she felt his anger crackle through the room. Michael and the strange vamp both looked up at her, eyes luminously threatening—Michael against his will, she was sure. Myrnin—dressed in some ratty assortment of Goodwill-reject pants and a frock coat from a costume shop, plus several layers of cheap, tacky Mardi Gras beads—just seemed bored. He yawned, showing lethally sharp fangs.
Bishop glared at her. “I am very tired of you making this request, Claire.”
“Then maybe you should say yes and get it over with.”
He snapped his fingers. Michael got to his feet, pulled there like a puppet on a string. His eyes were desperate, but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. “Michael. Shane is your friend, as I recall.”
“Yes.”
“ ‘Yes, my lord Bishop.’ ”
Claire saw Michael’s throat bob as he swallowed what must have been a huge chunk of anger. “Yes,” he said. “My lord Bishop.”
“Good. Fetch him here. Oh, and bring some kind of covering for the floor. We’ll just remove this irritation once and for all.”
Claire blurted out, “No!” She took a step forward, and Bishop’s stare locked tight onto her, forcing her to stop. “Please! I didn’t mean . . . Don’t hurt him! You can’t hurt him! Michael, don’t! Don’t do this!”
“I can’t help it, Claire,” he said. “You know that.”
She did. Michael walked away toward the door. She could see it all happening, nightmarishly real—Michael bringing Shane back here, forcing him to his knees, and Bishop . . . Bishop . . .
“I’m sorry,” Claire said, and took a deep, trembling breath. “I won’t ask again. Ever. I swear.”
The old man raised his thick gray eyebrows. “Exactly my point. I remove the boy, and I remove any risk that you won’t keep your word to me.”
“Oh, don’t be so harsh, old man,” Myrnin said, and rolled his eyes. “She’s a teenager in love. Let the girl have her moment. It’ll hurt her more, in the end. Parting is such sweet sorrow, according to the bards. I wouldn’t know, myself. I never parted anyone.” He mimed ripping someone in half, then got an odd expression on his face. “Well. Just the one time, really. Doesn’t count.”
Claire forgot to breathe. She hadn’t expected Myrnin, of all of them, to speak up, even if his support had been more crazy than useful. But he’d given Bishop pause, and she kept very still, letting him think it over.
Bishop gestured, and Michael paused on his way to the door. “Wait, Michael,” Bishop said. “Claire. I have a task for you to do, if you want to keep the boy alive another day.”
Claire felt a trembling sickness take hold inside. This wasn’t the first time, but she always assumed—had to!—that it would be the last time. “What kind of task?”
“Delivery.” Bishop walked to the desk and flipped open a carved wooden box. Inside was a small pile of paper scrolls, all tied up with red ribbon and dribbled with wax seals. He picked one seemingly at random to give her.
“What is it?”
“You know what it is.”
She did. It was a death warrant; she’d seen way too many of them. “I can’t—”
“I can order you to take it. If I do, I won’t feel obliged to offer you any favors. This is the best deal you are going to get, little Claire: Shane’s life for the simple delivery of a message,” Bishop said. “And if you won’t do it, I will send someone else, Shane dies, and you have a most terrible day.”
She swallowed. “Why give me the chance at all? It’s not like you to bargain.”
Bishop showed his teeth, but not his fangs—those were kept out of sight, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. “Because I want you to understand your role in Morganville, Claire. You belong to me. I could order you to do it, with a simple application of will. Instead, I am allowing you to choose to do it.”
Claire turned the scroll in her fingers and looked down at it. There was a name on the outside of it, written in old-fashioned black calligraphy. Detective Joe Hess.
She looked up, startled. “You can’t—”
“Think very carefully about the next thing you say,” Bishop interrupted. “If it involves telling me what I can or can’t do in my own town, they will be your last words, I promise you.”
Claire shut her mouth. Bishop smiled.
“Better,” he said. “If you choose to do so, go deliver my message. When you come back, I’ll allow you to see the boy, just this once. See how well we can get along if we try?”
The scroll felt heavy in Claire’s hand, even though it was just paper and wax.
She finally nodded.
“Then go,” Bishop said. “Sooner started, sooner done, sooner in the arms of the one you love. There’s a good girl.”
Michael was looking at her. She didn’t dare meet his eyes; she was afraid that she’d see anger there, and betrayal, and disappointment. It was one thing to be forced to be the devil’s foot soldier.
It was another thing to choose to do it.
Claire walked quickly out of the room.
By the time she hit the marble steps and the warm sun, she was running.
3
Detective Joe Hess.
Claire turned the scroll over and over in sweaty fingers as she walked, wondering what would happen if she just tossed it down a storm drain. Well, obviously, Bishop would be pissed. And probably homicidal, not that he wasn’t mostly that all the time. Besides, what she was carrying might not be anything bad. Right? Maybe it just looked like a death warrant. Maybe it was a decree that Friday was ice cream day or something.
A car cruised past her, and she sensed the driver staring at her, then speeding up. Nothing to see here but a sad, stupid evil pawn, she thought bitterly. Move along.
The police station was in City Hall as well, and the entire building was being renovated, with work crews ripping out twisted metal and breaking down stone to put in new braces and bricks. The side that held the jail and the police headquarters area hadn’t been much damaged, and Claire headed for the big, high counter that was manned by the desk sergeant.
“Detective Joe Hess,” she said. “Please.”
The policeman barely glanced up at her. “Sign in; state your name and busin
ess.”
She reached for the clipboard and pen and carefully wrote her name. “Claire Danvers. I have a delivery from Mr. Bishop.”
There were other things going on in the main reception area—a couple of drunks handcuffed to a huge wooden bench, some lawyers getting a cup of coffee from a big silver pot near the back.
Everything stopped. Even the drunks.
The desk sergeant looked up, and she saw a weary anger in his eyes before he put on a blank, hard expression. “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll see if he’s here.”
He turned away and picked up a phone. Claire didn’t watch him make the call. She was too lost in her own misery. She stared down at the writing on the scroll and wished she knew what was inside—but then, it might make it worse if she did know. I’m only a messenger.
Yeah, that was going to make her sleep nights.
The desk sergeant spoke quietly and hung up, but he didn’t come back to the counter. Avoiding her, she assumed; she was getting used to that. The good people avoided her, the bad people sucked up to her. It was depressing.
Her tattoo itched. She rubbed the cloth of her shirt over it, and watched the reinforced door that led into the rest of the police station.
Detective Hess came out just about a minute later. He was smiling when he saw her, and that hurt. Badly. He’d been one of the first adults to really be helpful to her in Morganville—he and his partner, Detective Lowe, had gone out of their way for her not just once, but several times. And now she was doing this to him.
She felt sick as she rose to her feet.
“Claire. Always a pleasure,” he said, and it sounded like he actually meant it. “This way.”
The desk sergeant held out a badge as she passed. She clipped it on her shirt and followed Joe Hess into a big, plain open area. His desk was near the back of the room, next to a matching one that had his partner’s nameplate on the edge. Nothing fancy. Nobody had a lot of personal stuff on their desks. She supposed that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have breakables, if you interviewed angry people all day.
She settled into a chair next to his desk, and he took a seat, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. He had a kind face, and he wasn’t trying to intimidate her. In fact, she had the impression he was trying to make it easy on her.
“How are you holding up?” he asked her, which was the same thing Richard Morrell had said. She wondered if she looked that damaged. Probably.
Claire swallowed and looked down at her hands, and the scroll held in her right one. She slowly stretched it out toward him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sir, I’m . . . so sorry.” She wanted to explain to him, but there really didn’t seem to be much to excuse it at the moment. She was here. She was doing what Bishop wanted her to do.
This time, she’d chosen to do it.
No excuse for that.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Detective Hess said, and plucked the scroll from her fingers. “Claire, none of this is your fault. You understand that, right? You’re not to blame for Bishop, or anything else that’s screwed up around here. You did your best.”
“Wasn’t good enough, was it?”
He watched her for another long second, then shook his head and snapped the seals on the scroll. “If anybody failed, it was Amelie,” he said. “We just have to figure out how to survive now. We’re in uncharted territory.”
He unrolled the scroll. His hands were steady and his expression carefully still. He didn’t want to scare her, she realized. He didn’t want her to feel guilty.
Detective Hess read the contents of the paper, then let it roll up again into a loose curl. He set it on his desk, on top of a leaning tower of file folders.
She had to ask. “What is it?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said, which couldn’t have been true. “You did your job, Claire. Go on, now. And promise me . . .” He hesitated, then sat back in his chair and opened a file folder so he could look busy. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
She couldn’t promise that. She had the feeling she’d already been stupid three or four times since breakfast.
But she nodded, because it was really all she could do for him.
He gave her a distracted smile. “Sorry. Busy around here,” he said. That was a lie; there was almost nobody in the room. He tapped a pencil on the open file. “I’ve got court this morning. You go on now. I’ll see you soon.”
“Joe—”
“Go, Claire. Thank you.”
He was going to protect her; she could see that. Protect her from the consequences of what she’d done.
She couldn’t think how she would ever really pay him back for that.
As she walked out, she felt him watching her, but when she glanced back, he was concentrating on his folder again.
“Hey, Claire? Happy birthday.”
She would not cry.
“Thanks,” she whispered, and choked on the word as she opened the door and escaped from whatever awful thing she’d just brought to his desk.
It was nearly one o’clock when she made it back to Bishop’s office—not so much because it was a long trip as because she had to stop, sit, and cry out her distress in private, then make sure she’d scrubbed away any traces before she headed back. Ysandre would be all over it if she didn’t.
And Bishop.
Claire thought she did a good job of looking calm as Ysandre waved her back to the office. Bishop was just where he’d been, although the third vampire, the stranger, was gone.
Michael was still there.
Myrnin was trying to build an elaborate abstract structure out of paper clips and binder clips, which was one of his less crazy ways to pass the time.
“The prodigal child returns,” Bishop said. “And how did Detective Hess take the news?”
“Fine.” Claire wasn’t going to give him anything, but even that seemed to amuse him. He leaned on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms, staring at her with a faint, weird smile.
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“What a civilized place Morganville is.” Bishop made that into an insult. “Very well, you’ve done your duty. I suppose I’ll have to keep my half of the bargain.” He glanced at Myrnin. “She’s your pet. Clean up after her.”
Myrnin gave Bishop a lazy salute. “As my master commands.” He stood with that unconscious vampire grace that made Claire feel heavy, stupid, and slow, and his bright black eyes locked with hers for a long moment. If he was trying to tell her something, she had no idea what it was. “Out, girl. Master Bishop has important work to do here.”
What? she wondered. Working on his evil laugh? Interviewing backup minions?
Myrnin crossed the room and closed ice-cold fingers around her arm. She pulled in a breath for a gasp, but he didn’t give her time to react; she was yanked along with him down the hall, moving at a stumbling run.
She looked back at Michael mutely, but he couldn’t help her. He was just as trapped as she was.
Myrnin stopped only when there were two closed doors, and about a mile of hallway, between them and Mr. Bishop.
“Let go of me!” Claire spat, and tried to yank free. Myrnin looked down at her arm, where his pale fingers were still wrapped around it, and raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t quite figure out what his hand was doing. Claire yanked again. “Myrnin, let go!”
He did, and stepped back. She thought he looked disappointed for a flicker of a second, and then his loony smile was firmly in place. “Will you be a good little girl, then?” She glared at him. “Ah. Probably not. All right, then, on your head be it, Claire, and let’s do our best to keep your head attached to the rest of you. Come. I’ll take you to your boy, since evidently our mutual benefactor is in a giving sort of mood.”
He turned, and the skirts of his frock coat flared. He was wearing flip-flops again, and his feet were dirty, though he didn’t smell too bad in general. The layers of cheap meta
llic beads clicked and rattled as he walked, and the slap of his shoes made him just about the noisiest vampire Claire had ever heard.
“Are you taking your medicine?” she asked. Myrnin sent her a glance over his shoulder, and once again, she didn’t know what that look meant at all. “Is that a no?”
“I thought you hated me,” he said. “If you do, you shouldn’t really care, should you?”
He had a point. Claire shut up and hurried along as he walked down a long, curved hallway to a big wooden door. There was a vampire guard on the door, a man who’d probably been Asian in his regular life, but was now the color of old ivory. He wore his hair long, braided in the back, and he wasn’t much taller than Claire.
Myrnin exchanged some Chinese-sounding words with the other vampire—who, like Michael, sported Bishop’s fang marks in his neck—and the vampire unlocked the door and swung it open.
This was as far as Claire had ever been able to get before. She felt a wave of heat race through her, and then she shivered. Now that she was here, actually walking through the door, she felt faintly sick with anticipation. If they’ve hurt him . . . And it had been so long. What if he didn’t even want to see her at all?
Another locked door, another guard, and then they were inside a plain stone hallway with barred cells on the left side. No windows. No light except for blazing fluorescent fixtures far overhead. The first cell was empty. The second held two humans, but neither one was Shane. Claire tried not to look too closely. She was afraid she might know them.
The third cell had two small cots, one on each side of the tiny room, and a toilet and sink in the middle. Nothing else. It was almost painfully neat. There was an old man with straggly gray hair asleep on one of the beds, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that he was Frank Collins, Shane’s dad. She was used to seeing him awake, and it surprised her to see him so . . . fragile. So helpless and old.
Shane was sitting cross-legged on the other bed. He looked up from the book he was reading, and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.