Fade Out

Then came Kim’s voice-over. “Morganville is ruled by a town council, but one not like any other. Nobody elects these people. That’s Amelie, Founder of Morganville. She’s more than a thousand years old, and she’s a ruthless killer. Oliver’s not much younger, and he’s even meaner. The mayor, Richard Morrell, he’s new, but his family has ruled the humans of Morganville for a hundred years. Richard’s the only human on the council. And he gets outvoted . . . constantly.”

She cut back to the sound as Richard was saying, “. . . want to revisit the decision we made earlier, about Jason Rosser.”

“What about him?” Oliver asked irritably. “We’ve heard your arguments. Let’s move on.”

“You can’t execute him. He gave himself up. He tried to save the girl.”

“He did not try to save Claire,” Amelie said. “He left her to die. Granted, he did turn himself in to the police and told us about his accomplice in these murders, but we must be clear: he is far from i

“He’s still a kid,” Richard said, “and you can’t just arbitrarily decide to execute him. Not without a trial.”

“With a majority vote, we can,” Oliver said. “Two for, one against. I believe that is a majority. It won’t be a public event. He’ll just quietly—disappear.”

Eve’s mouth dropped open. She leaned forward, frantically searching the screen for a clue. “When was this? Michael? When did she record this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought you should know. Your brother’s been sentenced to death.”

“Oliver—he didn’t even—he didn’t say anything.”

“Well,” Myrnin said, “I don’t suppose he felt it was necessary. I expect they were pla

Eve fell into the chair, and blindly reached out for Michael, who took her hand. “They can’t just kill him. Not like some—rat in a cage. Oh God, Michael . . .”

“I told you Detective Hess was here. He left right after we found that. He’s going straight to the jail to be sure Jason’s okay. He’ll put him in protective custody, okay? Don’t worry.”

She gave out a breathless, broken laugh.“Don’t worry? How do I not worry after you show me things like this?”

“Good point,” Shane said. “Michael, Kim bugged the council meeting. How could she possibly do that?”

“She couldn’t,” Myrnin said. “The human parts of town, yes, of course, but not the vampire parts. She has no excuse to be there, and she’d be caught if she’d gone anywhere near the official chambers. Or Amelie’s house.” He held up another black hard drive, which was clearly labeled in silver ink. “Or Oliver’s, for that matter.”

Claire caught her breath. “Your lab?”

“No. Oddly enough, nothing. But the evidence she has here is damning enough, I would say.”

“But nobody would believe it,” Eve said. “I mean, sure, she might get some off-brand cable station to air it, but everybody would think it was some kind of hoax.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Claire said. “Even if nobody does, tourists will come flocking to town, and how long do you think things will hold together once that happens?”

“I’d give it a week,” Myrnin said. He sounded quiet, and not at all amused. “This is our refuge, Claire. Our last safe place in this world. Don’t be fooled; we might be willing to compromise, but we are territorial. Kim has violated the deepest covenant of Morganville. She can’t survive this.”

“She didn’t do it alone; you said so yourself. It took a vampire to bug the council, let alone Amelie’s house.”

“And we will find them,” Myrnin said. “And we will destroy them. There are rules to Morganville, and Kim and this vampire have shattered them beyond all repair. Amelie must never know of this. I’m afraid what she would do.”

That seemed a strange left turn. “Why? We’re going to catch them, right? We’ve got the video.”

“Do we?” Myrnin looked at the array of hard drives. “You spoke of more than seventy cameras, but I see only sixty or so hard drives. What’s missing, Claire? You know Amelie. You know that her first concern is for her people. If she believes that we’ve been compromised here, she will cut our losses.”

“Losses being humans,” Shane said.

“She’d rather move us and destroy all evidence we were ever here. It’s always been her final option. You have no idea how many times she’s come close recently.”

Claire swallowed. “We can’t let her do that.”

“We ca

He crushed the hard drive he was holding into junk and dropped it to the floor, then moved on to the next, and the next.

Michael helped Eve out of the chair, picked it up, and smashed it into the editing station. He ripped out the hard drive from the video editing system and smashed it against the wall.

Claire and Eve backed up against the wall, holding hands, as the two vampires systematically destroyed every bit of data storage in the place. It took a while, but they were thorough, and when the last piece of equipment was broken into random parts, Shane said, “I thought that would feel better, somehow.”

“We’re not finished,” Myrnin said. “We need to find every camera and destroy those, as well. And we must find Kim and force her to tell us who helped her. This is not negotiable. A vampire traitor is far too dangerous to live.”

Kim had kept records—a hard copy printout stuffed in a cabinet drawer next to the wrecked editing machine. It listed a total of seventy-four cameras, all over Morganville. “She must have added a couple at the last minute. This is going to take hours,” Eve said. “We’ll have to split up, each take ten or so. Myrnin and Michael, you’ve got the Vamptown cameras. Claire, Shane, here you go. Knock yourselves out.”

“What about Kim?” Claire asked, taking the page of locations. “We still need to find her.”

“I will ask Ada to locate her,” Myrnin said.

“She can do that?” Claire asked, and then blinked. “Of course she can. Will she do that?”

“Possibly. If she’s in a good mood, which is never certain, as you know. But I assure you, Ada is no longer angry at you, so don’t be worried about that.” Myrnin checked a gleaming gold pocket watch he kept in his vest pocket, some complicated dragon-shaped thing. “We must meet back before sunrise. Where?”

“Someplace deserted,” Claire said. “Much as I hate it, how about German’s? I don’t want anybody overhearing us.”

“Paranoid much?” Eve asked. “Yeah, me too. I’m never taking my clothes off again, I swear.”

“German’s it is,” Myrnin said. “You know the portal frequency. Be there before sunrise, and do try to avoid getting yourself killed, if at all possible.”

He led them out of the studio, out into the night. Michael took his car, heading off with his list of camera locations. At German’s, Myrnin stepped through the dark clown-mouth doorway and was gone on his own errands, leaving Shane, Eve, and Claire standing there in the dark, in a fragile circle of flashlight.

“So?” Eve prodded. “Fire it up, Teleport Girl. I want this over with.”

Claire checked the list. “Right. The first twenty are easy—all in common areas. Eve, I’ll send you and Shane to the alley behind Common Grounds. I’ll take the university.”

“Hey,” Shane said. “Wait a minute. I don’t want you out there alone.”

“University,” Claire reminded him. “Protected ground. Besides, I’m the one with the bracelet.” She flashed the gold at him, and he didn’t look happy, but he did look resigned. “Also, we’ve got no time to argue. Go.”

Shane looked back at her before he stepped through the portal, and Claire felt a moment’s sick fear that she’d never see him again. Morganville was a dangerous place. Every good-bye could be the last.

We’ll get through this.