Lord of Misrule

But even worse, she didn’t have any medicine for him, other than the couple of small vials she had with her in her pockets.

In summary: so very screwed.

“Enough,” Amelie said, and turned to her bodyguard. “I know this isn’t easy, but if you would?”

He gave her a polite sort of nod, stepped forward, and took the lock in his hand.

His hand burst into flame.

“Oh my God!” Claire blurted, and clapped her hands over her mouth, because the vampire guy wasn’t letting go. His face was contorted with pain, but he held on, somehow, and jerked and twisted the silver-plated lock until, with a scream of metal, it ripped loose. The hasp came with it, right off the door.

He dropped it to the floor. His hand kept burning. Claire grabbed the first thing that came to hand—some kind of ratty old shirt Myrnin had left thrown on the floor—and patted out the fire. The smell of burned flesh made her dry heave, and so did the sight of what was left of his hand. He didn’t scream. She almost did it for him.

“A trap,” Amelie said. “From my father. Gérard, are you able to continue?”

He nodded as he wrapped the shirt around the ruin of his hand. He was sweating fine pink beads—blood, Claire realized, as a trickle of it ran down his pale face. She realized that as she was standing there right in front of him, frozen in place, and his eyes flashed red.

“Move,” he growled at her. “Stay behind us.” And then, after a brief pause, he said, “Thank you.”

Ha

Claire nodded. Amelie put her fingers in the hole left by the broken lock and pulled the door open . . . on darkness.

Ha

For a long moment, nothing happened, and then the darkness flickered. Shifted. Things came and went in the shadows, and Claire knew that Amelie was shuffling destinations, trying to find the one she wanted. It seemed to take a very long time, and then Amelie took a sudden step back. “Now,” she said, and her two bodyguards charged forward into what looked like complete darkness and were gone. Amelie glanced back at Ha

“Don’t leave my side,” she said. “This will be dangerous.”

3

Amelie grabbed Claire’s other arm, and before Claire could so much as grab a breath, she was being pulled through the portal. There was a brief wave of chill, and a feeling that was a little like being pushed from all sides, and then she was stumbling into utter, complete blackness. Her other senses went into overdrive. The air smelled stale and heavy, and felt cold and damp, like a cave. Amelie’s icy grip on one arm was going to leave bruises, and Ha

Claire could hear herself and Ha

The smells changed from time to time—a whiff of nasty, rotten something, then something else that smelled weirdly like grapes? Her imagination conjured up a dead man surrounded by broken bottles of wine, and Claire couldn’t stop it there; the dead man was moving, squirming toward her, and any second now he’d touch her and she’d scream. . . .

It’s just your imagination; stop it.

She swallowed and tried to tamp down the panic. It wasn’t helping. Shane wouldn’t panic. Shane would— whatever, Shane wouldn’t be caught dead roaming around in the dark with a bunch of vampires like this, and Claire knew it.

It seemed like they went on forever, and then Amelie pulled her to a stop and let go. Losing that support felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, and Claire was really, really grateful for Ha

And then Ha

Claire was floating in total darkness, disco

She whispered, “Ha

Cold hands slapped around her from behind, one pi

And then she went flying through the air into the darkness . . . and rolled to a stop facedown, on a cold stone floor. There was light here. Faint, but definite, painting the edges of things a pale gray, including the arched mouth of the tu

She had no idea where she was.

Claire got quickly to her feet and turned to look behind her. Amelie, pale as a pearl, stepped through the portal, and with her came the other two vampires. Gérard had Ha

Ha

Amelie whirled, something silver in one hand, and stabbed as something came at her from the dark. It screamed, a thin sound that echoed through the tu

The invisible portal slammed shut like an iris, and severed the arm just above the elbow.

Amelie plucked the still-grabbing hand from her shirt, dropped the hand to the ground, and kicked it to the side. When she turned back to the others, there was no expression on her face.

Claire felt like throwing up. She couldn’t take her eyes away from that wiggling, fish-pale hand.

“It was necessary to come this way,” Amelie said. “Dangerous, but necessary.”

“Where are we?” Claire asked. Amelie gave her a look and ignored her as she took the lead, heading down the hall. Going through this didn’t give her any right to ask questions. Of course. “Ha

Ha

Ha

“You should meet my boyfriend,” Claire said. “You two are both masters of understatement.”

She thought Ha

That was an easy job, because there was nothing to watch on the sides. They were, after all, in a tu