Текст книги "Bite Club"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: Rachel Caine
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

With Shane.

Shane looked over as she pounded up the risers and flew like a bird into his arms. It felt like the best thing she’d ever done, putting her arms around him, feeling his warm, damp skin pressed against her.

He let out a long, wordless breath and collapsed against her, hugging her like the world was ending, like he never wanted to let her go again. “I’m a fool,” he said. “And an asshole. You ought to run as far away from me as you can. I am so sorry.”

“If I run, you run with me,” she said. “Are you all right?”

He held up his right hand. It looked red and a little swollen. “Broken bone,” he said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

She took his hand in both of hers, cradling it, and put it gent ly to her cheek. He was staring at her with a hungry expression, one that seemed to her to be more about hope than anything else.

“Just like that,” he said. “Just like that, you’re going to let it go. All the things I did. What I said. God, Claire…”

“Uh, no, idiot,” Claire said. “You’re going to have to work for forgiveness. But this…this you get for free. Because I love you.”

He smiled a little and then he kissed her, and for a few long, sweet, breathless seconds, it was all okay again.

And then Claire heard the sirens.

“The hell?” Shane said, because it wasn’t just asiren. It was a chorus of them, wailing over each other in waves. Every siren in town, it sounded like, all heading toward them.

Claire felt a sick surge of understanding, which became even more clear when Myrnin came up the stairs to join them inside the cage, took her by the upper arm, and said, “And nowwe are going. No arguments. Amelie and Oliver are coming, and they’re bringing as much overwhelming force as is available to them. If you want to maintain your body, soul, and freedom, stop dwithering and come.No one in this room will be safe once they arrive. They’re very much in a shoot-first, ask-questions-never mood.”

“Dwithering?” Claire repeated blankly. “What is—?”

“Must we argue word choice? Now?”

“Nope,” Shane said. “We’re with you. And we’re going.”

And they would have been, except that as Myrnin turned and headed for the open iron gate, someone else came up the steps and blocked the opening.

Bishop. Impossibly, he looked even youngerthan he had on the video, like he was aging in reverse. There was fresh blood on his mouth and smeared on the collar of his shirt. His eyes were ancient and vicious and pretty much crazy, Claire thought, as he smiled with his fangs out and said, “Let them come. My daughter thought she could starve me, wall me up, make an example of me. I’ll make such an example of this roomful of people—no, this entire town—that no one will ever say its name again without shuddering. The nightmare is coming now. Wake up and enjoy it.”

Myrnin stared at Bishop in outright horror and backed up fast. He let go of Claire. In fact, he put her and Shane in the way.

“What’s the matter, my old friend?” Bishop asked. He calmly reached back, grabbed the door, and slammed it closed behind him with a rattle and boom of metal. Then he bent the frame so that it wouldn’t open—more effective than a lock. “No clever plans? No silly games? Because you know I haven’t forgotten what you did when you betrayed me. You know I’ll take you apart one piece at a time…fingers and toes first, then working my way in. And your little humans here, they’re only a moment’s work. By the time Amelie and her court reach us, I’ll be drinking their blood out of your skull.”

“You could still run,” Claire said. She couldn’t believe she had enough strength to talk, but she did. She was scared, but not thatscared. Somehow, after everything she’d seen, Bishop wasn’t the worst anymore. “You could break out of a wall and disappear in the confusion. You know if Amelie catches you, she’ll kill you.”

“Indeed, I think Oliver’s quite convinced her that making an example of me is bad strategy,” Bishop said. He paced side to side, but every turn closed the distance between them. “I expect she’ll execute me instantly. Or try. But I’m better at this than they are, either of them or all of them. I am the best killer who ever lived.”

“Yeah, you don’t seem too worried,” Shane said.

“I had a great deal of time to consider my place in this world, while she had me sealed up in that tiny, airless hell. Nothing to eat. Nothing to hear or feel or touch. Just endless, dark eternity. Do you know what I decided?”

Shane shook his head. Claire realized she was still holding the small, silver-coated knife, and now she nudged the black bag closer to Shane, who glanced down at it.

“I realized that if I can survive that, survive being starved down to bones, I can survive Amelie’s worst,” Bishop said. “I don’t need Vassily and Gloriana. I thought I needed an army to take this town, and they were making me one—humans like you, Shane, who’d take out vampires without flinching. But I don’t need them. Or you. Any of you.” His eyes flared blood red. “Except as fuel.”

Shane crouched down and reached inside the bag, pulling out a crossbow, but it wasn’t set. It would take seconds to cock and load, and Bishop wasn’t going to give it to them.

Bishop smashed the crossbow into splinters with one blow, and threw Shane headfirst into the bars.

Claire screamed, because it should have killed him…and probably would have, if he hadn’t been dosed up with that drugged sports drink Vassily had given the fighters. Instead, it only stunned him. Shane collapsed to the floor, moaning, and tried to get up. Bishop kicked him twice: once in the stomach, once in the head.

Claire didn’t think. She threw herself at him, and when his strong, pale hands reached for her to rip her open, she slashed with the silver knife she held. She didn’t know what she cut off, but Bishop howled and backed away from her. Then he came for her.

Shane couldn’t get up, but he couldroll, and he did, right in front of Bishop’s feet as he moved. Bishop fell, twisted, and grabbed Shane’s head in his mangled hands.

Claire tried to stop him, but couldn’t get close enough. She slashed with the knife and delayed him from snapping Shane’s neck, but it was useless; she couldn’t get to him, not without getting killed, too.

That was what Bishop wanted. To kill one of them while the other watched.

“Hey!” Eve shouted, just on the other side of the bars. She had something in her hand, something long and thin and sharp. “Heads up, CB!” It came flying at her, and Claire grabbed it.

It was a sword. One of those things Eve had used against Oliver. She’d gotten a touch on him with it.

This one had a point, not a button, and the edges were sharp on all three sides of the triangular blade.

Claire grabbed the handle and threw herself into a lunge. It probably wasn’t a good lunge, probably wasn’t steady, but it was fast.

And she stuck the point straight into Bishop’s throat.

He let go of Shane and clawed at the sword. Claire dropped it and grabbed Shane’s ankle, and dragged him back to the other side of the cage. She raced forward, but Bishop got the blade before she did. Shane tried to get up, but failed.

Claire was the only one still standing up.

Myrnin.What the hell was he doing? He was down on the floor, rummaging around in his bag, ignoring her, ignoring their mortal danger. Stupid, cowardly idiot……

Claire couldn’t even look at him—she didn’t have time, because Bishop swished the blade through the air with a noise like tearing silk, and he gave Claire a long, slow smile.

“This will take approximately ten seconds,” he said. “I’d like to make it last, but, alas, my daughter awaits. I have a whole town to destroy. I can’t take as much time with you as I’d prefer.”

He took a step toward her.

“Claire,” Myrnin said from behind her. He sounded preoccupied and actually quite calm. “Please fall down now, if you don’t mind.”

She had absolutely no reason to trust him, but she did. She just…did.

She hit the canvas and looked up. Myrnin stood over both her and Shane, straight and tall, and there was a wild-looking shotgun kind of thing in his hands, and his Nike bag lay on its side at his feet. He was pointing the gun directly at Bishop.

“Now,” he said, “you appear to have brought the wrong weapon, Bishop. Surrender?”

Bishop buried the sword in Myrnin’s chest in a move so incredibly fast, Claire didn’t even see it happen.

Myrnin didn’t flinch. He pulled both triggers.

The heavy boomrattled the bars of the cage around them, and for a second Claire thought that something had gone wrong, very wrong, because the air was thick with smoke and glitter and Bishop was still there.

He fell, clawed fingers tearing long furrows in the canvas only an inch or so from Shane’s face. He was burning, burning fast, all over. It looked like he’d been hit with napalm, and he screamed and rolled and kept on burning while Myrnin calmly reached down, pulled the sword out of his chest, and reloaded the shotgun.

“That hurt,” he said. “But not, I imagine, as much as this will.” He aimed and then stopped himself. He looked at Claire. “Perhaps it would be best if you took your boyfriend outside for this.”

Claire swallowed. “It’s locked.”

Myrnin walked over and slammed his booted foot into the cage door. The hinges bent and cracked. His second kick sent it flying off the hinges to crash down five feet away, with a sound like tin cans dropping off a roof.

“Out,” he said, and stepped aside as Claire grabbed Shane and the two of them jumped over Bishop’s convulsing body.

Outside, Claire turned to look. Myrnin went back to Bishop and aimed at the center of the downed vampire’s chest.

Bishop bared his bloody teeth. He was disintegrating, pieces of him melting off in a horrible mess. The pain must have been extreme.

“You don’t have the courage,” he spat, and then coughed up rivers of too-pale blood. “You never have, shadow hugger. Get the little girl to do your work for you. She’s braver than you ever were.”

Myrnin raised his eyebrows and stared down at him, then flipped the shotgun up and rested it against his shoulder. “Oh, I think that’s probably true,” he said. “And I think I’d like to tell Amelie you went slowly and in pain. Die on your own, you evil old animal.”

It took a long, agonizing minute. Bishop never screamed. He left behind a skeleton that slowly collapsed into ash in the middle of the cage.

Myrnin sagged and leaned against the bars, head down. Claire came back up the steps and reached through to touch his shoulder. “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

For answer, Myrnin aimed the gun at Bishop’s disintegrating bones and fired both barrels.

Nothing happened. Just a dry, empty click.

“I realized that I never loaded the pellets into the cartridges,” he said. “Those should have been round, silver buckshot.”

“But you knew that firstthing would work.”

“Actually,” Myrnin said in a low, confidential voice, “I thought I’d forgotten to load those shells, too. See how it all worked out?”

There was a massive banging on the outer doors, sending the people running around into a freak-out panic. Myrnin sighed, pushed away from the bars, and followed Claire down the stairs. She grabbed hold of Shane’s unbroken hand and held tight, and the three of them found Eve and Michael, still sitting next to Glory’s badly burned body. Only her golden hair was left, and even that was flecked with ash and slowly crisping.

“Follow me,” Myrnin said. “And do stay together. And by the way, this is the lasttime I go anywhere with you people. You are all insane.”

He picked up an iron bar and slammed it into the wall about half a dozen times in the space of seconds, and the bricks flew out in a haze of dust and splinters.

Claire and Shane stepped through the hole together, and froze as guns turned toward them. A whole lot of cops were yelling for them to freeze, and they did, putting up their hands and leaning up against the wall to be searched and handcuffed.

Claire looked back. Amelie and Oliver were in the next row, behind the cops, along with ranks and ranks of vampires. Amelie was staring straight ahead with a blank, empty expression; Oliver, on the other hand, was smiling.He was giving orders, sending one set of vamps that way, one up top, one around the side…the general deploying his troops, while the queen waited in icy isolation for victory.

Myrnin stepped out of the hole in the wall, glared balefully at the police, and waved to Amelie with demented excitement. “Hello! Your dear father is unfortunately very dead,” he called. “And you said my dispersal system would never work!”

Amelie blinked and focused on him. “What did you say?” she called.

“Dead,” he said, clearly and distinctly. “Your esteemed forebear is no more. He is dust and angel tears, though I shouldn’t think any of us will be mourning him for long. You may see for yourself, but I will swear to you that it is, indeed, your unlamented Mr. Bishop. Now could you please ask these idiots to stop pointing their bullets at me? It’s terribly wasteful.”

Claire tried to keep from laughing, but it turned into a choking cough, and then Shane started laughing, too, and suddenly it was all right.

Amelie swept past them, making for the hole they’d come out of; Oliver hurried to dart in front of her, holding what looked like an actual old-fashioned broadsword. Claire supposed that in the world of vampire wars, a sword could be pretty useful, especially with a silver edge. Beheading always worked.

Michael and Eve came out after a few more seconds, and Eve looked around and saw Shane and Claire in their almost-arrested poses. She snorted. “Leave it to you two,” she said. “What is it with you and cages, Shane?” It must have occurred to Eve a second later that maybe that might not have been cool to say at the moment. But Shane just shrugged.

“If Amelie wants to throw me back in jail, it’s okay. I did sign on for the fighting. I did beat a couple of vamps pretty bad. And I could have hurt Michael.”

Michael leaned against the wall next to him, arms folded. He was wearing the stupid hat—now at least fifty percent stupider, thanks to being crushed by running feet—and the ratty trench coat, but under the shade, his smile was full-on smug. “Sorry. What did you say? You could have hurtme?”

“Dude, I was kicking your ass.” It occurred to Shane, Claire guessed, that maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so proud of it. “Which is why I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t even trying, Shane.”

“Yeah, I know. But…” Shane fell silent.

Now Michael stopped smiling and looked at him for a long few seconds. He nodded and stepped away. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “And, yeah, you willbe sorry. You know that.”

“Oh, I know,” Shane said. “You have no idea how sorry I already am.”

But Claire did. She saw the look in his eyes and the shine of tears.

And the shame.

She hugged him and whispered, “We’ll get through this. We will.”

He took in a deep, shaking breath, and relaxed against her.

SIXTEEN

In the end, the score was seventeen vampires captured; Vassily was one of them, which surprised Claire, until she heard that Frank had locked down his funds transfers, and Vassily had spent way too much time trying to get his money. He’d always been about the profits. By the time he’d finally given up, it had been too late for him to avoid the roadblocks set up at the exits out of Morganville. He ended up on his knees in front of Amelie, while Oliver stood there with the sword in his hands. Vassily begged and generally excused himself, but Amelie wasn’t amused. At all.

Claire got to leave before any actual beheadings started. Later, she heard that of the seventeen, four were judged most guilty, including Vassily. Nobody said what had been done to them, but really, nobody had to. She just assumed.

Shane got a special hearing in front of Amelie and Oliver in closed session, with Mayor Richard Morrell as an official council member. Claire wasn’t allowed in. Neither was Myrnin, not that Myrnin would have bothered to show up, anyway. Claire sat in the waiting room with Eve and Michael and Amelie’s assistant, Bizzie O’Meara, waiting for some word.

The doors finally opened, and Amelie and Oliver came out and walked straight past them, ignoring the waiting trio. Richard followed, looking like he had a headache and the town had just run out of aspirin, but he didn’t look angry or upset. That was good.

Shane followed him. He wasn’t in handcuffs, at least, and when he spotted Claire, he said, “Don’t look so worried. I’m on probation.”

“What kind of probation?” She held out her hand, and he took it with his left; his right was still bandaged tightly, and it must have hurt, because he didn’t move it much.

“The kind where you don’t do anything stupid or bad things happen,” Shane said. “Everybody agrees that Glory screwed with my head. Not everybody agrees that it’s all better now. So I have to prove that I’m not going to go pick fights with vampires anymore.”

“Jeez, Shane. You’ve done that since you were twelve,” Eve said. “That’s going to be a tough habit to break.”

“You know what I mean.” Shane’s dark eyes met Claire’s for a second. “They’re right about it. I still feel…you know, angry. Uncomfortable. I guess it’ll take some time.”

Michael stood up. “You’re okay with me?”

“As okay as I ever am. I wish you weren’t…what you are. But you’re always my bro.” He took a deep, unsteady breath. “Gloriana couldn’t have made me do what I did, you know. Not without it being part of me, all twisted up with who I am, how I was raised, what my dad was like. I’ve always hated vampires. Blamed them. It’s hard for me to look at you and not think about all that. I’m trying. That’s all I can do.”

Michael held out his hand, his left, and Shane took it, then hugged him.

“That’s all you can do,” Michael agreed. “You’re my brother.”

“Some brother.”

“Brothers fight.” Michael shrugged and let go. “Just remember, I could have taken you if I’d wanted to.”

“Dream on, fang boy. Dream on.”

While they were talking—if taunting was a conversation—Claire spotted Amelie loitering in the hallway, speaking with Oliver in low tones. She headed that way. “Ma’am?” she said. “Could I ask you something?”

“I trust it’s not a favor. I am not feeling very generous just now.” Amelie looked tired and peeved and—like Richard—in need of a very big aspirin. “Well? Declare it.”

“I…got a call from a recruiter. At MIT.”

“MIT,” Amelie repeated. “What is this MIT?”

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s…the fantastic school I wanted to attend. They’ve accepted me. It’s very important, and they…said they’d take me.”

Amelie’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “When?”

“At the beginning of next year.”

Silence. Claire held her tongue, waiting; Amelie was thinking, but she was also testing her. Wanting her to babble nervously. Well, she wasn’t going to. She wasn’t going to show any weakness. Instead, she mimicked Amelie’s stillness, her direct stare.

Amelie smiled. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it definitely happened. She nodded slightly and said, “And the question is, do youwant to go to this MIT?”

“It’s what I’ve wanted my whole life,” Claire said. “It’s always been my dream.”

Amelie didn’t fail to notice the past tense in her verbs. “Wanted,” she repeated. “Been.”

“I shouldgo. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And if I don’t go now, they won’t take me; they’ve got way too many people, good people, trying to get in.”

“So,” Amelie said. “What do you think you should do?”

“Ask you for permission to leave Morganville,” Claire said. “Permanently, maybe.”

Amelie considered that for a few seconds. “And do you believe that you, of all people, need my permission to leave? You know Morganville’s secrets. You can leave more easily than anyone, except possibly Myrnin. I’m quite sure you’ve identified many ways to slip away undetected.”

She had, of course, and Amelie knew it; Claire didn’t confirm or deny any of that. She just waited. Funny,she thought. A year ago, I would have been shaking.Now she didn’t feel afraid at all. Amelie could kill her if she wanted. She’d always had that power. There was no point in fearing it.

Claire suddenly remembered Miranda facing Gina, knowing she was going to get hit, but also knowing that sometimes a little pain and blood was better than the alternative.

“I won’t order you to do anything, Claire,” Amelie said then. “It would be a useless exercise. You will do as you wish, and I will do as I must. Let’s hope that our wishes don’t conflict too badly. Shall we?”

She walked away. She didn’t even ask the question.

What are you going to do?

But Claire already knew. She turned back to her friends, and Shane gravitated toward her without even consciously heading in her direction.

“Can we go home?” she asked.

“Seems like a decent plan,” Shane said. “I’m on community service four nights a week. But not tonight. I guess she wanted to give me a break.” He held up his right hand. “Already got one, though.”

Eve groaned and kicked him. “You are solucky I’m too tired to murder you right now. I am notputting up with your humor.”

“I am,” Claire said. She smiled. It felt like something had actually been lifted right off her shoulders. She was going to go home and make a call that was going to change her life, maybe forever. But not for the worse.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked her.

“I’m not going to MIT,” she said, and kissed him. He was surprised, but he kissed her back sweetly, then warmly.

“Of course you are,” he told her. “As soon as Amelie lets you, you’re going. You promised me you would.”

She looked up at him and her euphoria faded a little. She hadpromised him that. But now the moment was here, and she didn’t want it.

Her cell phone rang, shattering the moment, and Claire gritted her teeth and looked at the caller ID. Of course it was Myrnin, at exactly the wrong time.

She hit the button and said, “Hello, Myrnin.” Shane took a step back and looked away. So that hadn’t gone away, either, that feeling of jealousy. Of betrayal, even though she hadn’t betrayed him at all. This was going to take time. Could she pick a worse time to run off to MIT? No. No, she couldn’t do it—that was final.

Myrnin sounded agitated. Not a real surprise. “They’ve forgotten my delivery again,” he said. “I’m completely out of O positive. Stop in and get my cooler, please.”

“Now? I’m on my way—”

“Now, or I won’t answer for my unpleasant behavior later.” Myrnin hung up on her without waiting for a reply. Not that there was anything she could say other than Yes, of course I’ll pick up your blood before you go eat someone.

“Side trip?” Shane asked.

“I can go on my own. You guys go home.”

“Nope. I’m going with you,” Shane said, and hesitated. “I ought to apologize to him, too. I mean, what I said—”

“You didn’t say it to him.”

“Kind of still need to tell him I’m sorry. He did save our lives.”

She wasn’t happy with that; Myrnin didn’t like Shane dropping in, and then there was the Frank problem. But Frank would have to be crazy to manifest himself with Shane there. Right?

So Shane walked with her to the blood bank, picked up the cooler, and carried it all the way back to the alley and down the steps, into Myrnin’s lab.

Same old crazy place. Myrnin was standing stiffly in one place, hands behind him, just behind one of the lab tables. He was wearing that white coat over his Hawaiian shirt, looking like the world’s least reliable scientist ever.

“Hey,” Claire said. “We brought it.” Myrnin didn’t move and didn’t speak. She frowned. “Are you feeling all right?”

He twitched slightly, blinked, and said, in a flat voice, “Hungry. Just leave it there.”

“Here?” Shane asked, and when Myrnin didn’t reply, shrugged and dropped it. “Okay. There’s your fast-food delivery. We’re going now.”

“I thought you wanted to apologize,” Claire whispered. Shane’s jaw looked tight and set, and he sent her a quick, unreadable look.

“I did,” he said. “But now I don’t. It’s just about maxed me out, not punching him. So let’s go, okay? I don’t want to feel like this. Not anymore.”

“Wait,” said a new voice. Female. Myrnin snapped his head around toward it, and Claire blinked as she saw Kim– Kim?—step out of the shadows and walk toward them. “I knew you’d come with her. Hi, Shane.”

Shane blinked, clearly as confused as Claire felt. “Uh, hi?” He looked at Claire. “Where did she come from?”

Oh. She hadn’t had a chance to explain—Kim, the escape, all that. She’d figured Kim would have run for the borders of town, not come here.Why would she?

“Myrnin, what’s she doing here?” Claire asked. She knew she sounded a little on edge, but it was very weird of him to have guests. Especially guests that Amelie wanted to arrest.

“She’s doing exactly as she pleases,” Myrnin said, and turned slightly so they could see the silver chains wrapped around his arms, from elbows down to wrists. Some of it was covered up by cloth, but not all. Where it touched his flesh, it was burning him. “I’d very much prefer it if you’d take these off.”

“How did she—?”

“She posed as my delivery person,” he said. “I was focused on signing for the blood. Really not my fault, Claire.”

Kim was still coming toward them—no, toward Shane. Her eyes were focused on him with weird fascination. “You don’t look so good,” she said. “I heard Bishop almost killed you.”

“One of us is still standing,” Shane said, and held out a hand to fend her off when she got too close. “Hang on. We are not hugging.”

“Oh, we will,” Kim said. “You and me, Shane. It’s always been the two of us. All we need to do is get rid of the interference.”

Shane’s eyes widened, and he looked from Kim to Claire. “No—”

An arrowhissed across the room, a blur of wood and metal, and Shane shoved Claire out of the way. The arrow plunged into his shoulder, and she felt the warm spatter of Shane’s blood across her face.

He spun away from her and fell.

Who was shooting? Claire tried to get to shelter, but another shot came her way, ricocheting off the wall, and brought her to a quick, skidding halt.

Kim was smiling, and now it had turned bitter and cruel. “I don’t come without friends,” she said. “Boys?”

There had been two men in the jeep that had rescued her in the desert, Claire realized, and now she saw them, dressed in camouflage, blending into the shadows. Both had crossbows.

“Friends,” Claire said. “You don’t have friends, Kim. You stab your friends in the back—”

“Just shoot her,” Kim said. One of the men aimed and fired again, but Claire managed to duck. The arrow tugged at her hair. She hid behind one of the lab tables.

Kim rolled her eyes. “Wow, you guys are terrible. You can’t shoot her?”

They had all pretty much forgotten about Myrnin, but suddenly, there was a sound of metal snapping. Kim looked over at him, startled. “Weak link,” he said. “How appropriate.” He ignored Kim and flashed across the lab in a zigzag pattern, then veered into one corner. The camouflaged man there cried out, then went quiet. The other one tried to shoot at Myrnin, but it didn’t go so well, either.

Myrnin was heading for Kim when she picked up a crossbow lying on a table nearby and shot him point-blank in the chest.

He staggered backward, muttered, “Not again,” and then went down, wood through his heart. Not enough to kill him. Just enough to immobilize him.

Kim dropped the crossbow.

“Stop,” Shane said. His voice sounded ragged and anguished, and as Claire looked, she saw him getting to his feet. “Just stop.What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry you got hurt. They weren’t aiming for you,” Kim said. “I don’t want to kill you, Shane. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. How to get it right.”

Kim sounded earnest and very crazy. Claire didn’t know who she was more afraid for—Shane, wounded, with blood running down his fingers to pool around his feet, or the vampire lying completely still nearby.

“You arecrazy,” Shane said, and meant it. “If you’re expecting me to love you—”

“You do love me.” Kim sounded utterly sure of it. “It’s just that she’s in the way.”

“Trust me, that’s not it.”

“So you’re saying you don’t want me?”

“Pretty much.”

Kim pulled a gunout of her pants pocket, and she aimed it right at Shane. He didn’t flinch. Maybe he was just too tired.

“How about now?” she asked. “Do you want me now?”

Shane sighed. “About as much as cancer. So shoot me already.”

She was going to—Claire could see it in her eyes—but then Frank Collins flickered into view just a foot away from Kim’s face.

She shrieked in terror. Even crazy people could do that when a ghost with the vicious face of Shane’s father showed up in their moment of triumph.

“Not my son,” Frank said. “You’re not hurting my son.”

Shane’s eyes snapped open. “Dad?” He sounded dazed and disbelieving, but he could see it, too—the flat, black-and-white image of his father, translucent and standing between Shane and his would-be killer.

Kim fired, but the shot went wild, missing Shane by at least a foot. Claire gasped and ran as fast as she could through the maze of books, discarded clothing, and glass beakers. She vaulted over a chair and landed next to an open cabinet where Myrnin kept all kinds of things that were too dangerous to handle.

Including a set of silver stakes that Eve had made for Claire, and that Myrnin had confiscated and put in the cabinet for safekeeping.

Claire grabbed one and threw it desperately, just as Kim tried to aim again. It didn’t kill her, but it did hit her solidly in the head, snapping her skull sideways, and she staggered and went down to one knee.

Frank Collins turned to Claire and yelled, “Handcuffs, second shelf! Hurry up, dammit!”

She found them. They were silver, but they’d work just fine. She got to Kim just as the girl was climbing to her knees, and knocked her down to put the restraints on her. Kim yelled and kicked and cursed, but Claire held her down. She wanted to bang Kim’s stupid head into the floor, but didn’t dare, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop. She was shaking all over with rage.

She looked up and saw Shane staring at them with an empty, horrified expression on his face. She couldn’t think why for a second—it couldn’t be Myrnin; he didn’t care about that. He wasn’t worried about Kim, surely……