Dead Girls' Dance

Gretchen hustled the girls forward.

“What’s going on?’” Eve asked. Neither of the vampires answered. Claire turned her head and saw that Hess was behind them, but somehow, that didn’t give her all that much comfort. Gretchen frog-marched them around the corner of a blank-faced brick building, and into…

A park.

Claire blinked, surprised, because this was actually very…nice. Green grass, big shady trees rustling in the darkness. There were lights, too, strung through the tree branches and shining on flowers and bushes and walking paths.

The area that bordered the park was more alive than anything she’d seen yet in Morganville. Where the stores bordering the campus were run-down and dingy, the ones facing the square were shining, polished, beautifully maintained. Beautiful in an old-world kind of way, all stone and marble and pillars. There were gargoyles, too, built onto the roofs as drain spouts.

It looked like pictures Claire had seen of old European towns, only…nicer.

Every business facing the square was open. Two outdoor restaurants were serving, and the smell of roasting meats and fresh bread made Claire’s mouth water. All she’d really had for the day was coffee, and that was long gone.

And then she remembered what Eve had said. If downtown at night was vamptown, why the restaurants?

She knew when they passed close to one of them. There were groups dining, mixed vampire and human; the vampires had plates of food and were eating just as enthusiastically as the humans. “You eat!’” Claire blurted, astonished. Gretchen glanced at her with those cold, alien eyes.

“Of course,’” she said. “It provides us no nutrition, but the taste is still attractive. Why? You’ll find that poisons will do you no good, if you’re searching for a way to kill us.’”

Claire hadn’t even thought that far, actually. She was just…weirdly intrigued.

The stores they passed were incredible. Jewelers, with displays of gems and gold. Book dealers carrying ancient volumes as well as new best sellers. Clothing stores, lots of them, with tasteful and expensive styles. It was like a rich neighborhood from a major city, like Dallas or Houston or Austin, had been transplanted directly in.

Weird.

And all the shoppers were vampires. In fact, there were lots of them around, more than Claire had ever imagined lived in Morganville; the more she saw, the more scared she felt. They were staring at her and Eve like the girls were cows on the way to the slaughterhouse, and she felt horribly alone. I want to go home. I swear, if you let me get out of this, I’ll move back with Mom and Dad. I’ll never leave again….

Gretchen steered them toward a black marble building with gold lettering at the top. ELDERS’ COUNCIL, it said.

“It’s okay,’” Hess said quietly from behind them. “You’ll be okay, girls. Just cooperate. If they ask questions, tell the truth.’”

Claire barely felt her feet on the polished black marble steps. It was a little like moving in a dream, helpless and numb, but Gretchen’s grip on her arm was all too real. And painful. Ouch. Bruises later.

Hans opened the big polished door, and they went inside.

Of all the things Claire expected to see, she somehow hadn’t expected a television set, but there one was, tuned to a twenty-four-hour news cha

“Some things never change,’” he said, staring at the television. “People continue to kill over the stupidest possible excuses. And they call us monsters.’”

On the last word, his gaze snapped to Claire, and she shivered. Oliver had nice eyes, but somehow, they scared her even more than Gretchen’s ice-cold ones. Maybe it was because she still wanted to like him, no matter what he’d done. He killed Michael! she reminded herself. Well, he’d mostly killed him, anyway.

“Hello,’” Oliver said to her, and nodded. He moved his stare to Eve. “Eve. We’ve missed you at the shop.’”

“B—’” Eve swallowed what she’d been about to say, which Claire was ninety-nine percent sure was Bite me. “Thanks.’” Which for Eve was amazingly cautious. If anybody had been shocked and angry about Oliver turning out vampire, it had been Eve.

Oliver nodded and walked across the large, empty room—empty except for the silently playing television and thick plush maroon carpet—and opened a set of double doors. He wasn’t the doorman; he walked on through and into the next room. Gretchen pushed Claire and Eve forward. The carpet was squishy soft under Claire’s feet, and she caught the scent of fading flowers. Roses. Lots of roses.

It hit her full force when they entered the next room, which was a big circular place with burgundy velvet curtains all around, with pillars in between. A low-key chandelier cast a medium-bright glow. Same carpet, but this room had furniture—chairs laid out in neat rows, in three sections with aisles between.

It took Claire a second to realize that she was walking into a funeral parlor. When she did, she stopped, and stumbled as Gretchen continued to drag her relentlessly onward, past the rows of empty folding chairs, all the way to the front, where Oliver was standing near another velvet curtain.

“Sir,’” Joe Hess said, coming out from behind Claire and Eve. “I’m Detective Hess.’”

Oliver nodded. “I know you.’”

“Shouldn’t there be others present here for this?’” The tension in Hess’s voice, and his body, warned Claire that Oliver’s interrogating them on his own was a very bad thing.

“There are others present, Detective Hess,’” said a light, cool voice from the far corner of the room, which Claire could have sworn was empty one second before. She gasped and looked, and there was Amelie, standing there as if she’d been carved in stone before the building came up around her. And her bodyguards—or servants—were standing in a group near her. She’d brought four of them. Claire wondered if that was a signal of how much trouble she and Eve were in.

“There is a third coming,’” Amelie said, and settled herself in a chair as if it were a golden throne. She was wearing black, like Oliver, but her attire was a long elegant suede skirt suit, with a severe white shirt under the tailored jacket. She crossed her legs, which were pale and perfect, and folded her hands in her lap.

Oliver wasn’t looking happy. “Who are we waiting for?’” he asked.

“You know the laws, Oliver, even if you choose to find ways to cheat them,’” Amelie said. “We are waiting for Mr. Morrell.’”

They didn’t have to wait long; in a matter of less than a minute, Claire heard voices coming from the anteroom outside, and a jingle of keys. She’d never seen the man who walked in, flanked by two uniformed cops, but she knew one of the cops: Richard Morrell, Monica’s brother. So the portly, balding man with the smug expression was probably her dad.

The mayor of Morganville.

He was dressed in a suit, too—blue, pin-striped, with wide lapels. Kind of pimpish, really, and the pants were a little too long. He had too many rings on his fingers, all in gold, and he was smiling.

“Oliver,’” he said cheerfully. The smile vanished fast when he spotted Amelie sitting so quietly off to the side, with her entourage. His face composed itself into something a whole lot more…respectful. “Founder.’”

“Mayor.’” She nodded to him. “Good. We can begin.’”

Gretchen let go of Claire’s arm. She winced at the returning flow of blood to her tingling hand, and rubbed at the place where Gretchen had been gripping her. Yeah, that was going to be a bruise. Definitely. She risked a look at Eve, who was doing the same thing. Eve looked dead scared.