Lord of Misrule

“Get me out,” Sam said, and lunged for the door. He rattled the cage with unexpected violence. Claire fell back, openmouthed. “Open the door and get me out, Claire! Now!”

“Don’t listen to him,” Michael said. He was standing at the bars of his own cell, leaning against them, and he looked tired. “Hey, guys. Did you bring me a lockpick in a cupcake or something?”

“I had the cupcake, but I ate it. Hard times, man.” Shane extended his hand. Michael reached through the bars and took it, shook solemnly, and then Eve threw herself against the metal to try to hug him. It was awkward, but Claire saw the relief spread over Michael, no matter how odd it was with the bars between the two of them. He kissed Eve, and Claire had to look away from that, because it seemed like such a private kind of moment.

Sam rattled his cage again. “Claire, open the door! I need to get to Amelie!”

The policeman who’d escorted them down to the cells pushed off from the wall and said, “Calm down, Mr. Glass. You’re not going anywhere; you know that.” He shifted his attention to Shane and Claire. “He’s been like that since the begi

No, Sam definitely hadn’t calmed down. As Claire watched, he tensed his muscles and tried to force the lock, but subsided in panting frustration and stumbled back to his bunk. “I have to go,” he muttered. “Please, I need to go. She needs me. Amelie—”

Claire looked at Michael, who didn’t seem to be nearly as distressed. “Um . . . sorry to ask, but . . . are you feeling like that? Like Sam?”

“No,” Michael said. His eyes were still closed. “For a while there was this . . . call, but it stopped about three hours ago.”

“Then why is Sam—”

“It’s not the call,” Michael said. “It’s Sam. It’s killing him, knowing she’s out there in trouble and he can’t help her.”

Sam put his head in his hands, the picture of misery. Claire exchanged a look with Shane. “Sam,” she said. “What’s happening? Do you know?”

“People are dying, that’s what’s happening,” he said. “Amelie’s in trouble. I need to go to her. I can’t just sit here!”

He threw himself at the bars again, kicking hard enough to make the metal ring like a bell.

“Well, that’s where you’re going to stay,” the policeman said, not exactly unsympathetically. “The way you’re acting, you’d go ru

“I could have gone hours ago before sunrise,” Sam snapped. “Hours ago.”

“And now you have to wait for dark.”

That earned the policeman a full-out vicious snarl, and Sam’s eyes flared into bright crimson. Everybody stayed back, and when Sam subsided this time, it seemed to be for good. He withdrew to his bunk, lay down, and turned his back to them.

“Man,” Shane breathed softly. “He’s a little intense, huh?”

From what the policeman told them—and Richard, when he rejoined them—all the captured vampires had been at about the same level of violence, at first. Now it was just Sam, and as Michael said, it didn’t seem to be Amelie’s summons that was driving him. . . . It was fear for Amelie herself.

It was love.

“Step back, please,” the policeman said to Eve. She looked over her shoulder at him, then at Michael. He kissed her, and let go.

She did take a step back, but it was a tiny one. “So—are you okay? Really?”

“Sure. It’s not exactly the Ritz, but it’s not bad. They’re not keeping us here to hurt us, I know that.” Michael stretched out a finger and touched her lips. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Better be,” Eve said. She mock-bit at his finger. “I could totally date somebody else, you know.”

“And I could rent out your room.”

“And I could put your game console on eBay.”

“Hey,” Shane protested. “Now you’re just being mean.”

“See what I mean? You need to come home, or it’s total chaos. Dogs and cats, living together.” Eve’s voice dropped, but not quite to a whisper. “And I miss you. I miss seeing you. I miss you all the time.”

“I miss you, too,” Michael murmured, then blinked and looked at Claire and Shane. “I mean, I miss all of you.”

“Sure you do,” Shane agreed. “But not in that way, I hope.”

“Shut up, dude. Don’t make me come out there.”

Shane turned to the policeman. “See? He’s fine.”

“I was more worried about you guys,” Michael confessed. “Everything okay at the house?”

“I have to burn a blouse Monica borrowed,” Claire said. “Otherwise, we’re good.”

They tried to talk a while longer, but somehow, Sam’s silent, rigid back turned toward them made conversation seem more desperate than fun. He was really hurting, and Claire didn’t know—short of letting him go for a jog in the noontime sun—how to make it any better. She didn’t know where Amelie was, and with the portals shut, she doubted she could even know where to start looking.

Amelie had gathered up an army—whatever Bishop hadn’t grabbed first—but what she was doing with it was anybody’s guess. Claire didn’t have a clue.

So in the end, she hugged Michael and told Sam it would all be okay, and they left.

“If they stay calm through the day, I’ll let them out tonight,” Richard said. “But I’m worried about letting them roam around on their own. What happened to Charles and the others could keep on happening. Captain Obvious used to be our biggest threat, but now we don’t know who’s out there, or what they’re pla

“My dad would say that it’s about time the tables turned,” Shane said.

Richard fixed him with a long stare. “Is that what you say, too?”

Shane looked at Michael, and at Sam. “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

The day went on quietly. Claire got out her books and spent part of the day trying to study, but she couldn’t get her brain to stop spi

Except keep moving forward. Like Shane had said, they couldn’t stay still. The world kept on turning.

Eve drove Claire to her parents’ house in the afternoon, where she had cake and iced tea and listened to her mother’s frantic flow of good cheer. Her dad looked sallow and unwell, and she worried about his heart, as always. But he seemed okay when he told her he loved her, and that he worried, and that he wanted her to move back home.

Just when she thought they’d gotten past that . . .

Claire exchanged a quick look with Eve. “Maybe we should talk about that when things get back to normal?” As if they ever were normal in Morganville. “Next week?”

Dad nodded. “Fine, but I’m not going to change my mind, Claire. You’re better off here, at home.” Whatever spell Mr. Bishop had cast over her father, it was still working great; he was single-minded about wanting her out of the Glass House. And maybe it hadn’t been a spell at all; maybe it was just normal parental instinct.

Claire crammed her mouth with cake and pretended not to hear, and asked her mom about the new curtains. That filled another twenty minutes, and then Eve was able to make excuses about needing to get home, and then they were in the car.

“Wow,” Eve said, and started the engine. “So. Are you going to do it? Move in with them?”

Claire shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re going to get through the day! It’s kind of hard to make plans.” She wasn’t going to say anything, truly, she wasn’t, but the words had been boiling and bubbling inside her all day, and as Eve put the car in drive, Claire said, “Shane said he loved me.”

Eve hit the brakes, hard enough to make their seat belts click in place. “Shane what? Said what?”