Midnight Alley

Think! Myrnin had said she had to focus, visualize where she wanted to go. Of course, he'd also said that she probably wouldn't be able to do it. No, don't think about that. If you want out of here, you have to focus. Hard!

Nothing. Nothing at all.

She closed her eyes, even though it was terrifying to do it here, in this place, and slowed her breathing. She thought about the lab, about the confusion of clutter, the books, the bottles, the new and the old. She smelled it, like a breath of home, and when she opened her eyes she could see it on the other side of the door.

Claire took a deep breath, stepped over the threshold through a slight tug of resistance, and turned to close the door as soon as she was through.

When she turned back, Amelie was waiting.

She stood in the center of the room, hands folded. Her ancient, smooth face was untroubled by any kind of expression, but there was something bitter in her eyes.

"He's gone," Amelie said. "Where is he?"

"I — the prison."

"You took him below." Amelie frowned slightly. "You took him below."

"I think he wanted to go there. He — put himself in a cage." Claire struggled to keep her voice steady. "How — how can you leave them like that?"

"I have no choice." It would never occur to Amelie to explain, of course, and it would probably get Claire nowhere to demand it. "If he is truly lost, then it's over. The experiment is ended, and there is no cure. No way to save my people." She sat down in one of the threadbare armchairs, shoving books out of the way as she did. It was the first ungraceful thing Claire had ever seen her do. "I thought — I never thought we would fail."

Claire came a step or two closer. "I have the notebooks," she said. "And — Myrnin must have left more stuff here I can read. You haven't failed yet."

Amelie shook her head, and a wisp of hair broke free from the coronet. It made her look young and very fragile. "I must have someone trusted to maintain the machines, or it will all fail anyway. And only Myrnin could do that. I had hoped that you — but he told me only a vampire could. And there is no one else."

"Sam?"

"Not old enough, and nowhere near powerful enough. It would have to be someone near my own age, and that would mean — " Amelie looked at her sharply. "I can't give such power to my enemy."

Claire didn't like the thought either. "What else can you do?"

"End it." Amelie's voice was so soft Claire barely understood the words. "Let it all go. Destroy it."

"You mean — let everybody go?"

Amelie's gaze locked with hers, and held. "No," she said. "That is not what I mean at all."

Claire shuddered. "Then — why not let Oliver in? You've been fighting so hard to keep him out. Why not try this first? What do you really have to lose?"

Amelie's pale eyebrows slowly rose. "Nothing. And everything, of course. But you should fear that we would succeed, Claire. Because if we do, if the vampire race is not doomed to die, where does that leave you? An interesting question, for another day, perhaps." She nodded at the notebooks in Claire's hands. "If you intend to save the Morrell girl, you should hurry," she said. "Use the portal. I will send you directly to the hospital."

There was a portal to the hospital? Claire blinked and looked back at the closed and locked door. "Um — are you sure it won't open to —"

"To below?" Amelie shook her head. "I have no intention it should. If you do not, then it will do as we say. Myrnin could only make the doorway work to below, never back here. So only you and I have such abilities, for now."

Claire thought about something, with a sickening wrench. "Are you sure?"

"What do you mean?" Amelie looked up, slowly, her eyes fierce and bright.

A rush of images flitted through Claire's mind: Oliver, grabbing her in her own house. The dead girl in the basement. Jason appearing and disappearing from Monica's party, and reappearing near Common Grounds.

Oh no.

"Can you tell?" Claire asked. "If somebody's using the portal?"

"Myrnin could, I suspect, but I ca

"I think you've got a traitor," Claire said. "Somebody showed Oliver, and Oliver showed Jason. And Captain Obvious and his friends probably knew, too. Jason must have shown them — "

"Impossible," Amelie interrupted with a flash of impatience. "My people are beyond suspicion."

"Then how did Jason bring a dead girl into Michael's house without permission? Because you said he'd have to be invited in. And he wasn't."

Amelie froze, and her eyes went cold and flat. "I see," she said, and then whirled toward the small door that led into the narrow, overstuffed library, and the door that Claire had once used to come in from the university. "Someone's coming in. Go, take the doorway. Hurry."

Claire rummaged in the chaotic jumble of junk on the lab table, and heard the metallic jingle of keys. She jammed the big iron one into the lock and turned it, just as the door opened across the room, near Amelie.

Claire took off the lock and opened the door. Beyond it, air rippled, and shifted ... her living room. A stranger's house. A quiet white room with a stained glass window.

"Now!" Amelie said sharply. "That's the hospital."

Claire stepped through. As she looked back, she saw Oliver walk into Myrnin's lab, look around, and focus on Amelie. Jason was right behind him, gri

"Interesting," Oliver said, and then turned his head to look at the open doorway, and Claire. "And unexpected."

She slammed the door between them, heart pounding, and it vanished on her side. That didn't mean it couldn't reappear, but at least she was safe for the moment. She didn't think Amelie would let Oliver follow her.

She hoped.

She flipped pages in the notebooks. Myrnin had clawed them, but only the last one, and only at the back. The rest were intact.

She left the white room and found that she was standing in the hospital's nondenominational chapel — more of a meditation room than anything else. It was empty, except for one person kneeling near the front.

Je

"Saving your friend," Claire said. "I hope."

###

It took three days for the lab to work out a counteragent, but once they did, Monica came off the ventilator within hours. Or so Claire heard from Richard Morrell, who dropped by on Wednesday night, as the four of them — Shane being finally released from the hospital — were sitting down to di

"I'm glad she's going to be okay," Claire said. "Richard — I'm sorry. If I'd known — "

"You're lucky that stuff didn't fry you too," he said, but without any real heat. "Look, my sister isn't the best person I've ever met, but I love her. Thanks for helping."

Claire nodded. Michael was nearby, seeming to be just lounging but, she knew, ready to step in if Richard went postal. Not that Richard would. So far, he was the best-adjusted Morrell she'd met.