Kiss of Death

Superstition. Well, I’m standing in some kind of pseudo-Gothic castle thingy with a bunch of vampires fighting in the halls. Maybe superstition just makes sense.

“Did you see Jason?” Eve was asking Michael. “Was he okay?”

Michael acted as if he didn’t hear her. He came to join Claire at the window, although just to the dark side of the sunlight. “Anything?”

“Nothing yet,” she said. “Did you see him? Jason?”

“Not really.”

“That’s not really an answer, is it?”

Michael shot her a look. Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a thump from overhead—a hard one, followed by what sounded like scratching. Lots of scratching, like very sharp claws. Maybe knives.

Like something was digging down through the floor-boards from the second floor.

“Okay, that’s not a good sound,” Eve said. “Michael?”

He was standing very still, staring upward, his face marble white in the shadows.

Dust filtered down from the ceiling. Pieces of old plaster rained down in flakes, like snow. Claire backed away from the window, away from that sound—all the way back to the heavy desk blocking the door leading into the room.

Suddenly the door shoved against her, as someone outside the room hit the door with a shocking crash and howled. More scraping, this time at the wooden door. Michael lunged forward and slammed the desk back in place and held it there as the door shook under the force of the battering. “Dammit,” he hissed. “Where is he?”

Overhead, something snapped with a dry crack—boards, being broken and peeled away, ripped free, and tossed aside.

They were digging through.

Eve stood up, bracing herself on the wall, and kicked loose the leg of a rickety smaller table lying near her chair. It broke loose with a splintered end, not as sharp as a spear, but not as blunt as a club, either. She gripped it in both hands, dividing her attention between the ceiling, which was now snowing plaster like a blizzard, and Michael, who was struggling to hold the desk in place as a barricade at the door.

We’re going to die here, Claire thought. It came to her with terrifying clarity, as if she’d already seen the future through an open window in time. Eve would be lying there, her eyes wide and empty, and Michael would die trying to protect her. Her own body would be a small, broken mess near the window, where Shane would find it....

No.

The thought of Shane’s finding her, more than just the dying itself, made Claire refuse to accept it. He’d seen enough; suffered enough. Adding this on top of it—no. She wouldn’t do it to him.

“We have to live,” she said out loud. It sounded half crazy. Michael glanced at her, and Eve outright stared.

“Well, duh,” Eve said. “And I’m the one who got clocked today.”

The ceiling gave way with a low groan of wood and a flood of plaster and debris, and three bodies, covered in blood where they weren’t white with plaster dust, dropped through the opening. They looked like monsters, and as the taller one turned to Claire and she caught the glint of fangs, she screamed.

The scream lasted for about a heartbeat, and then recognition flooded in—and relief. “Oliver?” Great. She was relieved to see Oliver. The world was officially topsy-turvy, cats were living with dogs, and life as she knew it was probably over.

Oliver looked ... well, like a monster—like a monster who’d fought his way out of hell, inch by inch, actually, and, weirdly, loved every minute of it. He gri

“At ease, soldiers,” Oliver said, and it was almost a laugh. Next to him, Morley slapped white dust from his clothes, raising a choking cloud that made Claire’s eyes water as she coughed. “I think we’re still allies. At least for now.”

“Like Russia and England during the Second World War,” Morley agreed, then looked thoughtful. “Or was that the first? So difficult to remember these things. In any case, enemies with a common worse foe. We can kill each other later.”

The third person in the group was Jason, who looked just as bad as the other two, and not nearly as fine with it. He was shaking, visibly shaking, and there were rough bandages wrapped around his left wrist and hand that were soaked through with blood.

Eve finally, belatedly, recognized her brother, and reached out to grab him into a hug. Jason stayed frozen for a moment, then patted her on the back, awkwardly. “I’m okay,” he said. That was a lie, Claire thought, but a brave one. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

“Hit my head,” Eve said.

“Oh, so, no damage, then,” Jason said, which was such a brother thing to say that Claire smiled. “Seriously, that looks bad, Eve.”

“No broken bones. My head hurts, and I feel dizzy. I’ll live. What the hell happened to you?”

“Don’t ask,” Jason said, and stepped away. “Need some help, man?”

Michael had grabbed hold of the desk and shoved it back against the door again, and he was now struggling to keep it in place. “Sure,” he said. Not that Jason’s muscle power was going to work any miracles, Claire thought; he was stringy and strong, but not vamp-strong.

“Let them in,” Morley said, and finished redistributing dust from his clothes to the rest of them with a final slap. “It’s my people. Unless you don’t trust us?”

“Now, why wouldn’t we?” Eve said sweetly, and turned to Michael. “Don’t you dare!”

“You’d rather leave them out there to be torn apart?” Morley asked, without any particular emphasis, as though it didn’t really matter to him one way or the other. “I would have thought someone with so much compassion would be less judgmental.”

“Excuse me, but you tied us to seats. And put needles in our arms. And drank our blood. So no, I’m not really seeing any reason to get all trusty with you!”

Morley shrugged. “Then let them die. I’m sure you’ll have no problem listening to their screams.”

Someone was, in fact, shouting on the other side of the door now, not so much battering on it as knocking. “Michael! Michael, it’s Jacob Goldman! Open the door! They’re coming!”

Michael exchanged a quick look with Claire, then Eve, then Oliver. Oliver nodded briskly.

Michael grabbed the desk and pulled it backward, nearly knocking Jason to the ground in the process. “Hey!” Jason protested. “A little warning next time, man!”

“Shut up.” Michael shoved him back as the door pushed open from the outside, and vampires started flooding into the room.

Morley’s people. They, like Morley, hadn’t come through this unharmed; every one of them, including Jacob and Patience Goldman, looked as if they’d fought for their lives. A few were wounded, and Claire knew from experience that it took a lot to hurt a vampire, even temporarily.

Jacob was cradling his right arm, which was covered in blood. Patience was supporting him from the other side. Even Eve looked a little concerned at the sight of his ice white face and blind-looking eyes. He seemed to be in serious pain.

Patience settled him against the wall and crouched next to him as Morley and Oliver, with Michael’s help, engineered some kind of barrier for the door when the last of Morley’s people were crammed into the small room.

There weren’t nearly so many as before.

“What happened?” Claire asked Patience. The vampire girl looked up at her, and there was a shadow of fear in her face that turned Claire cold inside.

“They wouldn’t stop,” Patience said. “They came for our prisoners. They wouldn’t—we couldn’t make them stop. Even when we destroyed one, two came out of the shadows. It was—we couldn’t stop them.” She looked down at Jacob, who had closed his eyes. He looked dead—more dead than most vamps. “Jacob almost had his arm torn off trying to protect them. But we couldn’t help.”