Dead Girls' Dance

Eve spun around and slapped Oliver. An open-hand, hard smack that echoed like a gunshot off of all the marble in the room. There was a collective intake of breath. “You son of a bitch!’” she spit. “Let Shane go! He has nothing to do with this!’”

“Really.’” A flat word, not even really a question. Unlike a human’s, Oliver’s face didn’t show any sign of a handprint from the slap, and it had definitely been hard enough. He barely looked as if he’d felt it at all. “Sit down, Eve, while I tell you the facts of your rather pathetic life.’”

She didn’t. Oliver put his hand flat on her chest, right at the notch of her collarbone, and shoved. Eve sprawled in a chair, glaring at him.

“Detective Hess,’” Oliver said. “I suggest you explain to my dear ex-employee exactly what she risks the next time she touches me in anger. Or, come to think of it, touches me at all.’”

Hess was already moving, sitting in the chair beside Eve and leaning toward her. He whispered to her, urgent words that Claire couldn’t catch. Eve shook her head violently. A trickle of sweat ran from her messy hair down the side of her face, making a flesh-colored track through the white makeup.

“Now,’” Oliver continued once Hess stopped, and Eve was sitting still. “We’re not technological idiots, Eve. And we do own the telephone providers in this area, particularly the cell phone providers. Shane placed a call from your home to a number that, much to our surprise, we found to be assigned to a device we located on his friend Mr. Wallace.’” Oliver pointed to the biker. “GPS is a marvelous invention, by the way. We’re quite grateful for all the hard work humanity has put into keeping track of itself. It makes finding people so much easier than it used to be in the old days.’”

“Shane didn’t do anything,’” Claire said. “Please. You have to let him go.’”

“Shane was found at the crime scene,’” Oliver said. “With Brandon’s body. And I hardly think we can say he wasn’t involved, if he was friendly enough with Mr. Wallace to be exchanging telephone calls.’”

“No, he didn’t—!’”

Oliver slapped her. She never saw it coming, just felt the impact and saw red for a second. Her whole body shook with the force of how much she wanted to hit him back, and she felt the stinging imprint of his hand on her cheek like a brand.

“You see, Eve?’” Oliver asked. “An eye for an eye. Of course, my interpretation is a bit free of the Scriptures.’”

Shane was screaming around his gag, and now he was fighting, but the vampires were holding him down on his knees without breaking a sweat. Eve’s eyes were huge and dark, and Hess was holding her down in the chair as she struggled to come after Oliver.

Don’t, Claire thought wildly. Because her friends had just told Oliver exactly what he wanted to know: that hurting her would get something out of them.

“Oliver,’” Amelie said. Her voice was soft and very gentle. “Is there a question you are posing to the children? Or are you merely indulging yourself? You say you already know the boy called this man. What more information do you need?’”

“I want to know where his father has gone,’” Oliver said. “One of them knows.’”

“The girls?’” Amelie shook her head. “It seems unlikely that someone like Mr. Collins would trust in either of them.’”

“The boy knows, then.’”

“Possibly.’” She tapped her lips with one pale finger. “Yet somehow, I doubt he will tell you. And there is no need for any cruelty to discover the truth, I believe.’”

“Meaning?’” Oliver turned fully toward her, crossing his arms.

“Meaning that he will come to us, Oliver, as you very well know. In order to save the boy from the consequences of his actions.’”

“So you withdraw your Protection from the boy?’”

Amelie looked at the body lying on the slab. After a moment of silence, she rose gracefully and walked to what was left of Brandon, trailed ghost white fingers over his distorted face, and said, “He was born before King John, did you know that? Born a prince. All those years, ending. I grieve for the loss of all that he saw that we will never know. All the memories that can never enrich us.’”

“Amelie.’” Oliver sounded impatient. “We can’t allow his killers to run free. You know that.’”

“He was yours, Oliver. You might spare a moment for his loss before you run baying after blood.’”

Amelie’s back was to him, so she couldn’t have seen it, but Claire did: there was hate in Oliver’s eyes, hate twisting his face. He got it under control before Amelie turned toward him.

“Brandon had his flaws,’” Oliver said. “Of all of us, he was the one who enjoyed the hunt the most. I don’t think he ever came to terms with the rules of Morganville. But it’s those rules we have to observe now. By sentencing these criminals.’”

Sentencing? What about a trial? Claire started to ask, but a cold hand clapped over her mouth from behind, and she looked up to see Gretchen bending over her, fangs out, holding a hushing finger to her own mouth. Eve was likewise gagged by Hans. Next to them, Detective Hess folded his arms and looked deeply troubled, but he didn’t speak.

Amelie looked at Oliver, then past him, at Shane.

“I warned you,’” she said quietly. “My Protection can only extend to you so far. You betrayed my trust, Shane. For the sake of kindness, I will not break faith with your friends; they remain under my Protection.’” She shifted her pale gaze to Oliver, and gave him a slow, regal incline of her head. “He is yours. I withdraw Protection.’”

Claire screamed out a protest, but it was lost against the gag of Gretchen’s hand. Amelie bent over and placed a kiss on Brandon’s waxy forehead.

“Good-bye, child,’” she said. “Flawed as you were, you were still one of the eternal. We won’t forget.’”

Claire heard someone yell outside the room, and Amelie whipped around so quickly that she was a blur, then moved…and something hit the marble pillar next to where she’d been and exploded with a sharp popping sound.

A bottle. Claire smelled gas, and then heard a thick, whooshing sound.

And then the curtains exploded into flame.

Amelie snarled, bone white and utterly not people, all of a sudden, and then she was dragged out of the way and down, with a moving bunker of bodyguards crowding around her. Gunfire exploded in the room, and somebody—Detective Hess?—shoved Claire forward to the carpet and covered her, too. Eve was down, too, curled into a protective ball, her black-fingernailed hands covering her head.

And then, there was fighting—grunts and smacks and wood being thrown against walls and smashed during struggles. Claire couldn’t get any sense of what was going on, except that it was brutal and it was over fast, and when the choking fog of smoke began to clear, Hess finally backed off and let her sit up.

There were two men dead in the entrance of the room. Big guys, in leather. There was one still moving.

Amelie pushed aside her bodyguards and stalked past Claire as if she didn’t exist. She glided down the aisle and to the one biker still feebly trying to crawl away. He was trailing a dark streak on the maroon carpet. Claire got slowly to her feet, grateful for Detective Hess’s arm around her, and exchanged a look of sheer horror with Eve, on his other side.

Amelie never got to the biker. Oliver was there ahead of her, dragging the wounded man up and, before Claire could blink, snapping his neck with a dry sound.

The body dropped to the carpet with a limp thump. Claire turned and hid her face against Hess’s jacket, trying to control a surge of nausea.

When she looked back, Amelie was staring at Oliver. He was staring right back. “No point in taking chances,’” he said, and gave her a slow, full smile. “He might have killed you, Amelie.’”

“Yes,’” she said softly. “And that wouldn’t have been in anyone’s best interests, would it, Oliver? How fortunate I am that you were here to…save me.’”