Rachel Caine - Fade Out

“I don’t know why you do, either,” Morley said. “Confidentially, your dear old da had the right idea. Kill them all, or pen them up for their blood; this living as equals is nonsense, and you know it. They’ll never be our equals, will they?”

“Right back atcha,” Eve said, and shot him the finger. Shane quickly grabbed her arm and forced it down. “What, you’re Mr. Discretion now? Is it Opposite Day?”

“Just shut up,” Shane whispered. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re outnumbered.”

“And? When are we not?”

Claire shrugged when Shane looked at her. “She does have a point. We usually are.”

“You’re not helping. Michael?” Shane asked. “What cha got, man?”

“Trouble,” Michael said. His voice sounded different, too—deeper than Claire was used to hearing it. Darker. “There are at least eight of them, all vampires. Stay with the girls.”

“I know you didn’t mean that how it came out. And you need me. Amelie’s weak, and you’re way outgunned, bro.”

“Am I?” Michael flashed them a disconcerting smile that showed fang. “Just stay with the girls, Shane.”

“I’d say you suck, but why state the obvious?” Shane’s words were banter, but his tone was dead serious, tense, and worried. “Go careful, man. Real careful.”

Amelie said, “We’re not fighting.”

At the top of the hill, with the big white mausoleum glowing like bone behind him, Morley cocked his head and crossed his arms. “No?”

“No,” she said. “You are going to walk away, and take your friends with you.”

“And why would I do that, when you have such delicious company with you? My people are hungry, Amelie. The occasional rat and drunken stranger really don’t make a well-balanced diet.”

“You and your pack of jackals can come to the blood bank like any other vampire,” she said, just as if she were in charge of the situation, even though Claire could see she was weak and exhausted. “All that’s stopping you is your own stubbornness.”

“I won’t bend my neck to the likes of you. I have my pride.”

“Then enjoy your rats,” Amelie said, and cast a commanding look at the rest of them. “We’re going.”

Morley laughed. “You really think so?”

“Oh yes.” Amelie smiled, and it felt like the temperature around them dropped by several degrees. “I really do. Because you may like your games and your displays, Morley, but you are hardly so stupid to think that crossing me comes without a price.”

This time, it wasn’t laughter coming from all around them; it was a low rumble of sound, picked up and carried all around the circle.

Growling.

“You’re threatening us,” the ragged vampire said, and leaned against the tomb behind him. “You, who reeks of your own blood and weakness. Who stands with a newborn vampire as your only ally, and three juicy snacks to defend. Truly? You’ve always been bold, my highborn lady, but there is a boundary between bold and foolhardy, and I think that if you look, you’ll find it’s just behind you.”

Amelie said nothing. She just stood there, silent and icy calm, and Morley finally straightened up.

“I’m not your vassal,” he said. “Turn over the prey, and I’ll let you and the boy walk away.”

Claire guessed, with a sick sensation, that the prey meant her, Eve, and Shane. Shane didn’t like it, either; she felt him tense at her side.

“Why would you think I’d do such a thing?” Amelie asked. She sounded only vaguely interested in the whole problem.

“You’re a chess master. You understand the sacrifice of pawns.” Morley smiled, revealing brown, crooked fangs that didn’t look any less lethal for never having seen a toothbrush. “It’s tactics, not strategy.”

“When I want to be lectured on strategy, I’ll consult someone who actually won battles,” Amelie said. “Not one who ran away from them.”

“Snap,” Eve said.

“You know what they’re talking about?” Shane asked.

“Don’t need to know to get that one. She smacked him so hard his momma felt it.”

Morley felt it, too; he took a step toward them, and this time when he bared his teeth, it wasn’t a smile. “Last chance,” he said. “Walk away, Amelie.”

“I can open a portal,” Claire whispered, trying to make it quiet enough that Morley, twenty feet away, couldn’t hear. Amelie shot her a look, one of those looks.

“If I simply leave in that fashion, even with all of you, he can claim to have driven me away in defeat,” she said. “It isn’t enough to simply escape.”

“Exactly,” Morley said, and clapped. The sound was shocking and loud as it echoed off the tombstones. A flock of birds took off from the trees, twittering in alarm. “You must show me the error of my ways. And that, my dear liege lady, will be difficult. You’re all hat and no cattle, as they like to say in this part of the world. Unless you count the three with you as cattle, of course. In which case you are short a hat.”

“I’m bored with this. Attack, or do nothing as you always do,” Amelie said. “We are leaving, regardless.” She turned to the rest of them and said, in exactly the same cool, calm voice, “Ignore him. Morley is a posturing coward, a degenerate, a liar. He skulks here because he is afraid that standing with the rest of us will only show him for the sad, lacking beggar that he—”

“Kill them all!” Morley shouted, and blurred into motion, heading for Amelie.

Michael hit him head-on, and the two of them tumbled over headstones. Claire whirled as shadows appeared out of the darkness, moving too fast to see clearly. Her pulse jumped wildly, and she tried to get ready to fight.

And then Amelie said, “Oliver, please demonstrate to Morley why he has been so badly mistaken.”

One of the shadows came forward into the moonlight, and it wasn’t a stranger at all. Oliver, Amelie’s second-in-command in Morganville, was in his kindly shopkeeper disguise—the tie-dyed shirt with the Common Grounds logo on the front, and a pair of blue jeans—and with his graying hair clubbed back in a ponytail, he looked like a typical coffeehouse radical.

Except for his expression, which looked like he was not pleased to be here at Amelie’s beck and call, and even less pleased to be dealing with Morley. The shapes coming out of the darkness behind him weren’t Morley’s people after all, but Oliver’s . . . neatly groomed, polished vampires with an edge of chill and distance that made Claire shiver. They were polite, but they were killers.

“Michael,” Oliver said. “Let that fool go.” Michael seemed just as surprised as Morley—or as Claire felt—but he let go of the other vampire and backed off. Morley lunged to his feet, then paused as he took in the sight of Oliver and all his backup. “Your followers —if one can dignify a starving pack of dogs by such a name—have been persuaded to leave. You’re alone, Morley.”

“Checkmate,” Amelie said softly. “Strategy, not tactics. I trust you see the point.”

Morley did. He hesitated a moment, then darted between the cover of tombstones and shadows, and then he was just . . . gone.

Crisis over.

“Well,” Eve said. “That was disappointing. Usually in the movies there’s kickboxing.”

Oliver turned his head slightly, looking at Amelie in a fast, comprehensive glance that fixed on the blood on her hands. His mouth tightened in what looked like disgust. “Are you finished here?” he asked.

“I believe so,” Amelie said.

“Then may I offer you an escort home?”

Her smile turned cynical. “Are you worried for me, my friend? How kind.”

“Not at all. I am so gratified that I could be of use to defend your honor.”