Ghost Town

“You’re okay now,” Claire whispered in her ear. “We came as fast as we could.”

Eve nodded and tried to smile. “Guess I can’t say you’re losers for at least a week, then.” Her voice sounded odd and muffled, but she blinked back the tears. “Thank you.” She kissed Claire’s cheek, then Shane’s. Shane stepped away, clearing his throat. “Oh, don’t go all boy on me.”

“Mikey!” Shane yelled. “You’d better finish it up! Your girlfriend’s trying to kiss—”

He didn’t finish, because all of a sudden the fight was over . . .

. . . and Michael lost.

It happened so fast Claire hardly had time to comprehend it, but one second, the two vamps were a blur of movement, and the next, Michael was down on the ground, crumpled like a broken toy.

The other vamp gri

Suddenly, there was a cold, still presence standing in front of them, and a white hand reaching up, grabbing the vamp in midair and slamming her down to the floor.

Amelie.

The Founder of Morganville had arrived, and she’d done it in force; as Claire looked behind her, she saw at least a dozen vampires, all looking very seriously dangerous, including Oliver and a number of others she knew by sight. They were all dressed in long black leather coats, like a kind of uniform, with the symbol of the Founder stamped into the leather on every one of them.

Amelie was wearing white. Pure ice white, almost shimmering in the dim light. Her hair was up in a woven crown, nearly as pale as her elegant silk suit.

“Do be quiet,” she told the fallen vampire. “You’re a worthless idiot, but I don’t want more blood tonight. Don’t make me kill you for what you’ve done.” Amelie’s voice was so cold that it seemed to drop the temperature in the overheated, stifling room by at least fiftydegrees.“Getup.”

The other vamp did, moving slowly. Claire didn’t see Oliver move, but suddenly he was right there, holding both the woman’s arms in a bone-shattering grip behind her. “No foolish moves, Patrice,” he said. “I don’t believe the Founder is joking.”

“Get her out of my sight,” Amelie said, and looked at the other fallen vampires. The one who’d been burned badly by Claire’s silver nitrate got up and limped over, looking thoroughly terrified. “This one, too. And release those others.” She waved a hand at the vampires Shane had nailed with the crossbow bolts. One of Oliver’s black-coated troopers glided over and pulled the arrows out. The two downed bloodsuckers, released from their paralysis, coughed and sputtered blood.

They’d live.

“Michael,” Claire whispered. Eve broke free and ran to him, throwing herself down on the floor and taking his head into her lap. He looked—oh, God—he looked . . . dead. His eyes were open, and he looked so pale, so still; there was a hole in the side of his throat, but not much blood. Claire skidded to a stop and put her hands to her mouth, trying to hold in a scream. She felt Shane’s hands close hard around her shoulders—that was probably his version of feeling the same rush of horror and denial.

Then Michael finally, slowly, blinked. Eve screamed. “Michael? Michael! Talk to me!”

“He can’t,” Amelie said. She had come up behind them, and was looking at Michael with a slight softening of her usual cool expression. Maybe, Claire thought, because Michael still reminded her of Sam, her lost love. Apart from the color of their hair, they’d looked a lot alike. “He’ll be all right once we get some nourishment into him. I’ll have my people take him directly to the blood bank.”

“I want to go with him!” Eve said.

“I’m not sure that’s wise. Drained and hungry vampires, even ones you know well, can be very unpredictable. I would hate for anything to happen that Michael might regret later.”

“What about what we might regret later?” Shane asked under his breath. “Oh, right. Humans don’t count.”

Amelie heard him, and her head swiveled smoothly as she focused her cool gray eyes on his face. “I only meant that you would likely not be around to regret anything, Mr. Collins. Ms. Rosser. Explain what happened here. Now.”

Eve was combing her fingers through Michael’s blond hair, but now she looked up, startled. That lasted only a second, though, and then her attitude snapped back in place. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe a vampire attack?” she snapped. “It was a party; then the frat idiots crashed and started boasting about how tough they were; then these freaks showed up to teach us all a lesson. That’s what they said. They wanted to put us in our place.”

“I see,” Amelie said. “And you did nothing to provoke them?”

“My friend—” Eve’s voice failed. Claire could see she was trying once again not to cry, and how much it hurt. “My friend Cory was just trying to have fun. That one, the redhead, she grabbed her and just . . . tore her up. Cory’s dead. I saw it happen.”

“Oh, man,” Shane whispered. Claire put her hand on top of his, where it lay on her shoulder. “Eve . . .” It sounded like he wanted to say something, but he had no idea what. She loved him for that.

Amelie waited a moment, and then said in a very low voice, “I am sorry for this experience, and for the loss of your friend. All who broke the law will be punished.”

Eve’s eyes grew brighter, but not with tears. With fury. “Punished ? What, like little kids going to bed without their blood supper? No TV for a week? Time-out?”

“I can assure you that the punishment will be severe.”

“Not enough!”

Now Amelie’s voice turned cool again. “It is enough for me, and that will be enough for you, Ms. Rosser. Enough for all of you. Do I make myself clear?” She didn’t wait for an answer; she turned to Oliver, who was standing nearby, hands folded behind him, watching as the vampire prisoners and humans were herded out. “Vampires are dead here. I will expect a full investigation.”

“Of course,” Oliver said without turning. “And I expect the appropriate punishments will be meted out, according to the law.”

“Sir,” called one of Oliver’s men, who was kneeling over the red-haired girl with Claire’s stake in her chest. “You should see this.”

Oliver walked over, frowned, and crouched down to examine the girl more closely. “Silver,” his man said, and Oliver nodded. Oliver tugged on a pair of leather gloves and grabbed the stake, which he pulled out and immediately dropped with a clatter to the floor.

The girl didn’t breathe, move, or react.

Claire gripped Shane’s arm tightly, and waited, but the vampire stayed still on the floor, unmoving. There was a burned patch where the stake had gone in that continued to slowly burn outward.

“She’s dead,” Oliver said. “Silver poisoning. She must have been unusually allergic.”

Claire had killed her.

And the appropriate punishment for a human killing a vampire was death.

FIVE

“But it was self-defense!” theguy seated next to Claire said. He’d been saying it a lot, and at a loud volume, and she thought his anger probably wasn’t helping any.

They were sitting in a quiet, wood-paneled room in the Elders’ Council building, a big faux-Greek temple that always felt to Claire like a funeral home. A really nice one. This particular room featured a long, highly polished table of dark wood, fancy chairs, and—of course—no windows. There were two doors, one at either end, but they were both guarded by Amelie’s personal security men. Claire knew them, slightly, but now they had their sunglasses hiding their eyes, and she knew they wouldn’t give her any breaks. They had their serious faces on.