Rachel Caine: Lord of Misrule

Claire nodded numbly. I’m sixteen, she wanted to say. I’m not ready for this.

But she kind of had to be, now.

Amelie’s fierce, cold expression seemed to soften, just a touch. “I can’t entrust Myrnin to anyone else. When we find him, it will be your responsibility to manage him. He may be—” Amelie paused, as if searching for the right word. “Difficult.” That probably wasn’t it. “I don’t want you to fight, but I need you with us.”

Claire lifted the stake and the knife. “Then why did you give me these?”

“Because you might need to defend yourself, or him. If you do, I don’t want you to hesitate, child. Defend yourself and Myrnin at all costs. Some of those who come against us may be those you know. Don’t let that stop you. We are in this to survive now.”

Claire nodded numbly. She’d been pretending that all this was some kind of action/adventure video game, like the zombie-fighting one Shane enjoyed so much, but with every one of her friends leaving, she’d lost some of that distance. Now it was right here in front of her: reality. People were dying.

She might be one of them.

“I’ll stay close,” she said. Amelie’s cold fingers touched her chin, very lightly.

“Do that.” Amelie turned her attention to the others around them. “Watch for my father, but don’t be drawn off to face him. It’s what he wants. He will have his own reinforcements, and will be gathering more. Stay together, and watch each other closely. Protect me, and protect the child.”

“Um—could you stop calling me that?” Claire asked. Amelie’s icy eyes fixed on her in almost-human puzzlement. “Child, I mean? I’m not a child.”

It felt like time stopped for about a hundred years while Amelie stared at her. It probably had been at least a hundred years since the last time anybody had dared correct Amelie like that in public.

Amelie’s lips curved, very slightly. “No,” she agreed. “You are not a child, and in any case, by your age, I was a bride and ruled a kingdom. I should know better.”

Claire felt heat build in her face. Great, she was blushing, as everybody’s attention focused on her. Amelie’s smile widened.

“I stand corrected,” she said to the rest of them. “Protect this young woman. ”

She really didn’t feel like that, either, but Claire wasn’t going to push her luck on that one. The other vampires looked mostly annoyed with the distinction, and the humans looked nervous.

“Come,” Amelie said, and turned to face the blank far wall of the living room. It shimmered like an asphalt road in the summer, and Claire felt the connection snap open.

Amelie stepped through what looked like blank wall. After a second or two of surprise, the vampires started to follow her.

“Man, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” one of the policemen behind Claire whispered to the other.

“I can,” the other whispered back. “My kids are out there. What else is there to do?”

She gripped the wooden stake tight and stepped through the portal, following Amelie.

Myrnin’s lab wasn’t any more of a wreck than usual. Claire was kind of surprised by that; somehow she’d expected Mr. Bishop to tear through here with torches and clubs, but so far, he’d found better targets.

Or maybe—just maybe—he hadn’t been able to get in. Yet.

Claire anxiously surveyed the room, which was lit by just a few flickering lamps, both oil and electric. She’d tried cleaning it up a few times, but Myrnin had snapped at her that he liked things the way they were, so she’d left the stacks of leaning books, the piles of glassware on counters, the disordered piles of curling paper. There was a broken iron cage in the corner—broken because Myrnin had decided to escape from it once, and they’d never gotten around to having it repaired once he’d regained his senses.

The vampires were whispering to one another, in sibilant little hisses that didn’t carry even a hint of meaning to Claire’s ears. They were nervous, too.

Amelie, by contrast, seemed as casual and self-assured as ever. She snapped her fingers, and two of the vampires—big, strong, strapping men—stepped up, towering over her. She glanced up.

“You will guard the stairs,” she said. “You two.” She pointed to the uniformed policemen. “I want you here as well. Guard the interior doors. I doubt anything will come through them, but Mr. Bishop has already surprised us. I won’t have him surprising us again.”

That cut their forces in half. Claire swallowed hard and looked at the two vampires and one human who remained with her and Amelie—she knew the two vampires slightly. They were Amelie’s personal bodyguards, and one of them, at least, had treated her kind of decently before.

The remaining human was a tough-looking African American woman with a scar across her face, from her left temple across her nose, and down her right cheek. She saw Claire watching her, and gave her a smile. “Hey,” she said, and stuck out a big hand. “Hannah Moses. Moses Garage.”

“Hey,” Claire said, and shook hands awkwardly. The woman had muscles—not quite Shane-quality biceps, but definitely bigger than most women would have found useful. “You’re a mechanic?”

“I’m an everything,” Hannah said. “Mechanic included. But I used to be a marine.”

“Oh.” Claire blinked.

“The garage was my dad’s before he passed. I just got back from a couple of tours in Afghanistan—thought I’d take up the quiet life for a while.” She shrugged. “Guess trouble’s in my blood. Look, if this comes to a fight, stay with me, okay? I’ll watch your back.”

That was so much of a relief that Claire felt weak enough to melt. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You’re what, about fifteen?”

“Almost seventeen.” Claire thought she needed a T-shirt that said it for her; it would be a great time-saver—that, or some kind of button.

“Huh. So you’re about my kid brother’s age. His name’s Leo. I’ll have to introduce you sometime.”

Hannah, Claire realized, was talking without really thinking about what she was saying; her eyes were focused on Amelie, who had made her way around piles of books to the doorway on the far wall.

Hannah didn’t seem to miss anything.

“Claire,” Amelie said. Claire dodged piles of books and came to her side. “Did you lock this door when you left before?”

“No. I thought I’d be coming back this way.”

“Interesting. Because someone has locked it.”

“Myrnin?”

Amelie shook her head. “Bishop has him. He has not returned this way.”

Claire decided not to ask how she knew that. “Who else—” And then she knew. “Jason.” Eve’s brother had known about the doorways that led to different destinations in town—maybe not about how they worked (and Claire wasn’t sure she did, either), but he definitely had figured out how to use them. Apart from Claire, Myrnin, and Amelie, only Oliver had the knowledge, and she knew where he’d been since her encounter with Mr. Bishop.

“Yes,” Amelie agreed. “The boy is becoming a problem.”

“Kind of an understatement, considering he, you know . . .” Claire mimed stabbing with the stake, but not in Amelie’s direction—that would be like pointing a loaded gun at Superman. Somebody would get hurt, and it wouldn’t be Superman. “Um—I meant to ask, are you—?”

Amelie looked away from her, toward the door. “Am I what?”

“Okay?” Because she’d had a stake in her chest not all that long ago, and besides that, all the vampires in Morganville had a disadvantage, whether they knew it or not: they were sick—really sick—with something Claire could only think of as vampire Alzheimer’s.