Rachel Caine - Black Dawn

I picked up the gun one-handed, held on to Claire’s waist with the other, and walked her downstairs. The others were gone, except for Miranda, who smiled at Claire. Claire, after a shocked second, smiled back. “You’re—here.”

“Yes,” Miranda said. “I’m home. Right where I’m supposed to be. Don’t be sad. It only hurt a little.” She twirled a little, and vanished in a sparkling haze. I was pretty sure that when Michael had been a ghost, he hadn’t been able to vanish at will. Or, for that matter, sparkle.

She popped back in, just her face hanging in midair. “They’re in the parlor.” Poof. Gone.

“We are really going to have to tell her to stop doing that,” I said. “Because it’s upsetting.” I turned to Claire. “Are you okay? Really?” I couldn’t stop touching her, smoothing my hands over her skin, her hair, her face. She had red marks on her wrists, and a nasty bump on the head. They’d tied her up, and she’d struggled. None of that surprised me, although I was going to take it out of Myrnin’s hide.

“I’m fine,” she said, and I sensed that it was half a lie, but considering how much I’d faked it since the water treatment plant, I could cut her some slack for now. “Hannah. She was in the front room …”

I hadn’t seen Chief Moses anywhere, but then, I hadn’t gone in the parlor. According to Miranda that was where we’d find the others, too, so I led her that way.

Hannah was the first one I saw. She was lying on the floor with her head in Eve’s lap; she was alive, too, but just barely. She’d lost a lot of blood from a gash on her leg, and Michael was twisting a belt tourniquet around her thigh to slow the flow. He looked relieved to see us. “Hold this,” he said. “How are you at field sutures?”

“Lot of practice,” I said. Michael handed me a sewing kit—probably Eve’s, since it was in black patent leather with a death’s head sticker on the back—and went to wash his hands, or lick them clean, whichever. I tried not to think about it. I took his place at Hannah’s side. “Is she awake?”

Hannah’s eyes slowly opened, and she gave me a hard-edged smile. “Still here,” she said. “Lost more plasma than this in the last blood drive.”

“I think you’ve got a sliced vein,” I said. “I don’t know if I can fix it. Either way, it won’t be pretty.”

“Do your worst, kid.” She shut her eyes again. “Scars are the least of my problems.”

I gritted my teeth and pulled the wound open, and immediately saw the vein. It wasn’t far beneath the surface, and it hadn’t been sliced through, just nicked; if it had been an artery, though, she’d have expired already. I handed the sewing kit to Eve. “Fix me a needle,” I said, and grabbed the vein. Claire was still next to me, hovering. “Towel. Clean one. I need something to mop up the blood so I can see.” She dashed off.

Myrnin settled himself in the corner. He’d been to the kitchen, I saw, and come back with a blood pack, which he opened and chugged. I glared at him as Eve handed me back a threaded needle with a thick knot. “Thanks for your help,” I said, as sarcastically as I could. Which was pretty damn sarcastic.

“If I had come near her in my present condition, I wouldn’t have been able to swear to her safety,” Myrnin said, and took another drink. “It’s been a very long, trying day. Proceed.”

I did. The vein was tough to hold on to and stitch, but I managed—it wasn’t pretty, but it held when I let go. I started in on the cut itself, sewing the edges shut. “Hey, Hannah,” I said, “Eve gave me yellow thread. Sorry about that.”

Hannah dredged up a dry laugh. “Festive. I like it.”

Eve watched me anxiously, bottom lip between her teeth, as I finished off the stitches. Claire came back with a towel and I cleaned up the mess as best I could. It wasn’t leaking much now.

“Amelie and Oliver,” Claire said. “They’re upstairs. Someone should see—” She was staring at Eve, but looked away when Eve glanced her way. “See about Jason.”

“What happened to Jason?” Eve asked. She sounded almost resigned, though. As if she already knew.

“I’ll tell you later,” Claire said.

“They made him a vamp,” Eve said, and Claire looked up, fast. “I already knew he wanted it. It’s not a good thing. Not for us, anyway.”

“Definitely not,” Michael agreed, from the doorway. “I checked upstairs. Nobody’s there except a pile of rotting slime. Amelie doesn’t clean up after herself.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Claire said. “She’s the founder. The queen .” There was something about the way she said it that made me wonder what she’d seen. And what was coming.

Myrnin finished his blood pack and said, “They’ve gone to hunt.”

I closed my mouth on the question of Hunt what, exactly?

Because I figured I already knew.

The draug were finished. All of the vampires’ enemies, gone.

The rules of Morganville were changing, and I had the feeling that they wouldn’t be in our favor.

“You’re certain,” Father Joe said. He stood across from Michael and Eve, lit only by the candles burning in the holders on either side of the altar and the sunlight bleeding through the stained glass. “I haven’t seen any paperwork from Amelie allowing you to do this.” Father Joe, Morganville’s resident priest, looked exhausted. They all were exhausted, Claire thought. The lights still weren’t functioning reliably; most of Morganville was in the dark at night, and deserted, though the first buses were scheduled to return today to bring those who’d evacuated back to town. Water was on, and the pipes had been flushed, tested, and declared clean.

Not that Claire was taking any chances yet. Bottled water was a must.

“Amelie’s not the boss of me,” Eve said flatly. She was, Claire thought, very angry about her brother, though she hadn’t talked about it. At all. She looked at Michael. “Or him, either.”

Father Joe gave him a long, considering look. “If Amelie is against this, there’ll be trouble, Michael,” he said. “What you’re asking is binding not only for the church and by law, but in ways that I can’t explain among the vampires. You’ll be … elevating Eve to a new status. It could protect her, or it could make her even more of a target. You understand?”

Michael nodded. “I understand,” he said.

“And you don’t want to wait.”

“No.” Michael didn’t say anything else, but, Claire thought, he didn’t need to. He’d come ready for this. There weren’t any tuxedos, or gowns; Michael had pulled out a dark suit, a gleaming white shirt, and a nice tie. He’d forced Shane to wear one, too, somehow; there must have been some arm-twisting that Claire hadn’t been privy to, but then she’d been busy rooting through Eve’s closet with her, trying to come up with something wedding-appropriate at a moment’s notice.

Eve had her gown. It was red chiffon, and it fell in waves from a beaded bodice. Her arms were bare, and she hadn’t gone with a veil at all. The dress, Claire thought, made her look about six feet tall, and incredibly graceful, but it was shockingly not wedding wear.

Which was what Eve had wanted, of course.

Claire was wearing her best dress—one with buckles, one that Eve had bought for her—and high heels that were higher than anything she’d ever tried before. She felt awkward, until Shane looked at her, and then the feeling changed into something hot and proud.

“You promised,” she said to Father Joe. “You said that you’d do this if they wanted it. Well, they want it. We’re here. Official witnesses.”