by Rachel Caine
But he’d been loved, too—by Amelie. By vampire standards, Amelie and Sam’s had been a whirlwind relationship; he’d been born in Morganville, hadn’t even been a hundred years old when he’d died, but from what Claire had seen, it had been an old-style, intense love affair, and one they’d tried to deny themselves more than once.
They found Amelie kneeling at his grave.
From a distance, she looked like one of the marble angels—pale, dressed in white, unmoving. But her long, pale blond hair was down, falling in waves around her face and down her back, and the icy wind lifted and fluttered it like a flag.
As cold as Claire felt, Amelie looked far colder. There was no grief in her expression. There was nothing—just . . . nothing. She didn’t seem to see them as the four stopped near her; she didn’t move, or speak, or react in any way.
“Hey,” Shane said. “Stop it, whatever you’re doing. You’re hurting Claire.”
“Am I?” Amelie’s voice came slowly, and it seemed somehow distant, too, as if she were miles away but speaking through the body in front of them. “Your pardon.”
She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything else. Shane and Michael exchanged looks, and Michael clearly got the message that if he didn’t do something, Shane would, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Michael reached out for Amelie, to help her up. And she turned on him, suddenly and completely alive and viciously enraged, eyes flaring bloodred in her stark white face, fangs snapping down in place in sharp, lethal angles. “Do not touch me, boy!”
He stepped off, holding up both hands in surrender. Amelie glared at him—at all of them—for another few seconds, and then returned her stare to the grave in front of her. The red swirled away, leaving her eyes pale gray and once again, distant.
Amelie’s surge of rage had burned through Claire like summer, driving off the chill for a moment. She squirmed in Shane’s arms, and he let her down. Claire shed blankets, except for the last one, and crouched down across from Amelie, facing her over the grave.
Amelie looked right through her, even when Claire lifted her wrist and showed her the bracelet. The gold was frosting over again, already, and Claire felt the insidious chill coming back.
“You’re a coward,” Claire said.
Amelie’s eyes snapped into focus on her. No other reaction, but that alone was enough to make Claire want to shut up and take it all back.
She didn’t. Instead, she took a deep breath and forged on. “You think Sam wants you to sit here and wish yourself to death? I mean, I get that you’re hurting. But it’s just so high school.”
Amelie frowned, very faintly—just a tiny wrinkle of her brow. “What happened to your face?”
Oh. The burns. “Forget about me. What’s going on with you? It feels—so cold.”
While she was talking, she realized there was something strange about Amelie’s hands. She was wearing gloves . . . dark ones. No, that wasn’t it. There were spots of white skin showing through the . . .
The blood. Her hands were covered with blood. And there were slashes on her wrists, deep ones. Those should have healed, Claire thought as her skin tightened all over her body, and she shivered in panic-shock. She had no idea why Amelie’s wounds stayed open, and kept on bleeding; vampires just didn’t do that.
But Amelie had found a way. And that meant she was trying to kill herself, for real. This wasn’t some melodramatic cry for help. She hadn’t expected help, or looked for it.
That was why she’d been angry.
Claire felt a burst of absolute terror. What do I do? What do I say? She looked up at Michael, but he was standing behind and away from Amelie—he couldn’t see what she saw.
Eve, though, did. And unlike Claire, she didn’t hesitate. She flopped down on her knees on the cold grass next to Amelie, grabbed the vampire’s left arm, and turned it so her wrist faced upward. There was something sticking out of the cut, and Claire might have gone a little faint when she realized that Amelie had stuck a silver coin into the wound to keep it from healing.
Eve pulled it out. Amelie shuddered, and in seconds, the cut sealed itself, and the blood stopped flowing.
“Idiot child!” she snarled, and shoved Eve back as she reached for the other arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Saving your life? No, I pretty much get the concept. Now behave. Bite me and I swear I’ll stake you.”
Amelie’s eyes swirled red, then went back to their normal, not-quite-human gray. “You have no stake.”
“Wow, you’re literal. Maybe I don’t have one now, but just wait. You bite me, and it is on, bitch. . . . I don’t mean you’re a bitch; it’s just an expression. You know?” Eve’s chatter was only meant to distract. While she was talking, she took Amelie’s right arm and pulled the silver coin out of that cut, too.
The flow of blood from Amelie’s hands into the dirt of the grave slowed to a drip, then stopped.
And Claire felt the chill inside her own body fade, too, as Amelie healed. Finally, she could feel her life again—the heat in her body, the beating of her heart. She wondered if that was how Amelie felt all the time—that icy winter silence inside.
If it was, she understood why Amelie was here.
The night rattled through the branches of the trees and swirled Amelie’s pale hair around her face, hiding her expression. Claire watched the wounds on the vampire’s arms fade from red slashes to pale lines, then to nothing.
“What the hell were you doing?” Michael asked.
Amelie shrugged. “It’s an old custom,” she said. “Offering blood to the lost. It takes will and ingenuity to do it properly.”
“Don’t forget stupidity,” Eve said. “That kind of thing would kill most people, never mind most vampires.”
Amelie slowly nodded. “It might have.” Michael, who’d been more appalled than any of them, from the look on his face, finally found something to say. “Why?” he asked. “Why would you do this? Because of Sam?”
That actually got a smile, or at least a suggestion of one, on her pale lips. “Your grandfather would be very angry with me if he thought he was the cause. He’d think me a helpless romantic.”
Eve snorted.“There’s romantic, then there’s dramatic, and then there’s moronic. Guess which this would be.”
Amelie’s smile faded, and some of the spark came back into her eyes. She lifted her chin, staring down her nose at Eve. “And you do not wake up daily and paint on your clown makeup, knowing it sets you apart from your fellows? What’s the phrase your generation uses? It takes one to know one?”
“I’m pretty sure that phrase was hot about fourteen generations back, but yeah, I get your point. And I may be into drama, but hey, at least I’m not a cutter.”
“A what?”
“A cutter.” Eve pointed to Amelie’s bloody wrists. “You know, bad poetry, emo music, I have to hurt myself to feel, because the world’s so awful?”
“That isn’t why—” Amelie fell silent a moment, then slowly nodded. “Perhaps. Perhaps that is how I feel, yes.”
“Well, too damn bad,” Eve said, and there was some freaky chill in her voice that made Claire blink. “You want to waste away by your lover’s grave, go for it. I’m Goth; I get it. But don’t you dare drag Claire along with you, or I’ll chase you down in hell and stake you there.”
Even Shane was staring at Eve now as if he’d never seen her before. Claire opened her mouth to say something, and couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it would be. The silence went on, and on, and finally Amelie turned her head toward Claire and said, “The bracelet. It warned you of my—situation.”
“Warned her? It almost killed her,” Shane said. “You were taking her with you. But you knew that, right?”
Amelie shook her head. “I did not.” She sighed, and she looked very young, and very human. And, Claire thought, very tired. “I had forgotten that such a thing could happen, though now I think on it, it is very possible. I must apologize to you, Clai
re. You are feeling better now?”
Claire was still cold, but figured that it had more to do with the icy wind and the cold ground than any magic. She nodded and tried not to show any shivers. “I’m fine. But you lost a lot of blood.”
Amelie shrugged, just a tiny roll of her shoulders, as if it didn’t matter. “I will recover.” She didn’t sound overly thrilled about it. “Leave me now. I have amends to make to Samuel.”
“You can bleed all over his grave some other time,” Eve said. “Come on, lady. Up. Let’s get you home.”
She reached out, and once again, Amelie let herself be touched. Odd, Claire thought; Michael was the vampire, but Amelie trusted Eve more right now. Michael was feeling that, too; there was a complicated look on his face, mostly worry.
“No biting,” Eve said, as she helped Amelie to her feet. The vampire gave her a withering look. “Hey, all my teachers said that repetition was the only way to learn. You got a car or something?”
“No.”
“Um . . . what about your people? Lurking in the shadows, preferably with a limo?”
Amelie raised a single white eyebrow. “If I had brought an entourage, surely they might have objected to my purpose here.”
“The dramatic death scene? Yeah, guess so. Okay, then, we’ll give you a ride. Blood bank first, right?”
“Unless you are offering a donation.”
“Ugh. No. And don’t even look at Claire, either.”
“Me neither,” Shane put in. “Homie don’t play that.”
“I wonder, sometimes, if your generation speaks English at all,” Amelie said. “But yes, if you would drive me to the blood bank, you may leave me there safely enough. My people”—she gave it just enough of an ironic edge to let them know she found it as funny to say as they did—“will find me there.”
They were walking away from Sam’s grave, moving slowly and in a tight group, when a shadow stepped out from behind the big marble mausoleum at the top of the hill. It was a vampire, but not the kind Claire was used to seeing around Morganville; this one looked like he lived rough, and without access to showers or personal-grooming equipment.
He also didn’t look quite sane.
“Amelie,” the man said—at least Claire thought it a man, but it was tough to be sure with the tangle of hair that hadn’t been combed since the last century, and the shapeless mass of dirty clothes, topped by a filthy raincoat. “Come to visit your peasants and distribute charity, like olden times?” He had a thick accent, English maybe—but rough, too, not like Oliver’s refined voice. “Oh, please, mistress, alms for the poor?” And he laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound, and it grew . . . until it came from all around them, from out of the darkness.
There were more of them out there.
Michael turned, staring into the night; maybe he could see something, but to Claire it was all just shadows and tombstones, and that laughter. Shane put his arm around her.
Amelie shook off the support of Eve’s arm and stepped out from their little group. “Morley,” she said. “I see you crawled out of your sewer.”
“And you’ve come down from your ivory tower, my lady,” he said. “And here we are, meeting in the midden where humans discard their trash. And you brought lunch. How kind.”
Ghostly chuckles came from the dark. Michael turned, tracking something Claire couldn’t see; his eyes were turning red, and she could see him shifting away from the Michael she knew into something else, something scarier—the Michael she didn’t know. Eve sensed it, too, and stepped back, closer to Shane. She looked calm, but her hands were balled into fists at her sides.
“Do something,” she said to Amelie. “Get us out of here.”
“And how do you imagine I will do that?”
“Think of something!”
“You really are a very trying child,” Amelie said, but her eyes stayed fixed on Morley, the scarecrow next to the marble tomb. “I don’t know why I bother.”
“I don’t know why you do, either,” Morley said. “Confidentially, your dear old da had the right idea. Kill them all, or pen them up for their blood; this living as equals is nonsense, and you know it. They’ll never be our equals, will they?”
“Right back atcha,” Eve said, and shot him the finger. Shane quickly grabbed her arm and forced it down. “What, you’re Mr. Discretion now? Is it Opposite Day?”
“Just shut up,” Shane whispered. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re outnumbered.”
“And? When are we not?”
Claire shrugged when Shane looked at her. “She does have a point. We usually are.”
“You’re not helping. Michael?” Shane asked. “What cha got, man?”
“Trouble,” Michael said. His voice sounded different, too—deeper than Claire was used to hearing it. Darker. “There are at least eight of them, all vampires. Stay with the girls.”
“I know you didn’t mean that how it came out. And you need me. Amelie’s weak, and you’re way outgunned, bro.”
“Am I?” Michael flashed them a disconcerting smile that showed fang. “Just stay with the girls, Shane.”
“I’d say you suck, but why state the obvious?” Shane’s words were banter, but his tone was dead serious, tense, and worried. “Go careful, man. Real careful.”
Amelie said, “We’re not fighting.”
At the top of the hill, with the big white mausoleum glowing like bone behind him, Morley cocked his head and crossed his arms. “No?”
“No,” she said. “You are going to walk away, and take your friends with you.”
“And why would I do that, when you have such delicious company with you? My people are hungry, Amelie. The occasional rat and drunken stranger really don’t make a well-balanced diet.”
“You and your pack of jackals can come to the blood bank like any other vampire,” she said, just as if she were in charge of the situation, even though Claire could see she was weak and exhausted. “All that’s stopping you is your own stubbornness.”
“I won’t bend my neck to the likes of you. I have my pride.”
“Then enjoy your rats,” Amelie said, and cast a commanding look at the rest of them. “We’re going.”
Morley laughed. “You really think so?”
“Oh yes.” Amelie smiled, and it felt like the temperature around them dropped by several degrees. “I really do. Because you may like your games and your displays, Morley, but you are hardly so stupid to think that crossing me comes without a price.”
This time, it wasn’t laughter coming from all around them; it was a low rumble of sound, picked up and carried all around the circle.
Growling.
“You’re threatening us,” the ragged vampire said, and leaned against the tomb behind him. “You, who reeks of your own blood and weakness. Who stands with a newborn vampire as your only ally, and three juicy snacks to defend. Truly? You’ve always been bold, my highborn lady, but there is a boundary between bold and foolhardy, and I think that if you look, you’ll find it’s just behind you.”
Amelie said nothing. She just stood there, silent and icy calm, and Morley finally straightened up.
“I’m not your vassal,” he said. “Turn over the prey, and I’ll let you and the boy walk away.”
Claire guessed, with a sick sensation, that the prey meant her, Eve, and Shane. Shane didn’t like it, either; she felt him tense at her side.
“Why would you think I’d do such a thing?” Amelie asked. She sounded only vaguely interested in the whole problem.
“You’re a chess master. You understand the sacrifice of pawns.” Morley smiled, revealing brown, crooked fangs that didn’t look any less lethal for never having seen a toothbrush. “It’s tactics, not strategy.”
“When I want to be lectured on strategy, I’ll consult someone who actually won battles,” Amelie said. “Not one who ran away from them.”
“Snap,” Eve said.
“You know what they’re talking about?” Shane asked.
“Don’t need to know to get that one. She smacked him so hard his momma felt it.”
Morley felt it, too; he took a step toward them, and this time when he bared his teeth, it wasn’t a smile. “Last chance,” he said. “Walk away, Amelie.”
“I can open a portal,” Claire whispered, trying to make it quiet enough that Morley, twenty feet away, couldn’t hear. Amelie shot her a look, one of those looks.
“If I simply leave in that fashion, even with all of you, he can claim to have driven me away in defeat,” she said. “It isn’t enough to simply escape.”
“Exactly,” Morley said, and clapped. The sound was shocking and loud as it echoed off the tombstones. A flock of birds took off from the trees, twittering in alarm. “You must show me the error of my ways. And that, my dear liege lady, will be difficult. You’re all hat and no cattle, as they like to say in this part of the world. Unless you count the three with you as cattle, of course. In which case you are short a hat.”
“I’m bored with this. Attack, or do nothing as you always do,” Amelie said. “We are leaving, regardless.” She turned to the rest of them and said, in exactly the same cool, calm voice, “Ignore him. Morley is a posturing coward, a degenerate, a liar. He skulks here because he is afraid that standing with the rest of us will only show him for the sad, lacking beggar that he—”
“Kill them all!” Morley shouted, and blurred into motion, heading for Amelie.
Michael hit him head-on, and the two of them tumbled over headstones. Claire whirled as shadows appeared out of the darkness, moving too fast to see clearly. Her pulse jumped wildly, and she tried to get ready to fight.
And then Amelie said, “Oliver, please demonstrate to Morley why he has been so badly mistaken.”
One of the shadows came forward into the moonlight, and it wasn’t a stranger at all. Oliver, Amelie’s second-in-command in Morganville, was in his kindly shopkeeper disguise—the tie-dyed shirt with the Common Grounds logo on the front, and a pair of blue jeans—and with his graying hair clubbed back in a ponytail, he looked like a typical coffeehouse radical.
Except for his expression, which looked like he was not pleased to be here at Amelie’s beck and call, and even less pleased to be dealing with Morley. The shapes coming out of the darkness behind him weren’t Morley’s people after all, but Oliver’s . . . neatly groomed, polished vampires with an edge of chill and distance that made Claire shiver. They were polite, but they were killers.