Rachel Caine: Lord of Misrule

Claire felt like throwing up. She couldn’t take her eyes away from that wiggling, fish-pale hand.

“It was necessary to come this way,” Amelie said. “Dangerous, but necessary.”

“Where are we?” Claire asked. Amelie gave her a look and ignored her as she took the lead, heading down the hall. Going through this didn’t give her any right to ask questions. Of course. “Hannah? Are you okay?”

Hannah waved her hand vaguely, which really wasn’t all that confidence-building. The vampire Gérard answered for her. “She’s fine.” Sure, he could talk, having one hand burned to the bone. He’d probably classify himself as fine, too. “Take her,” Gérard ordered, and pushed Hannah toward Claire as he moved to follow Amelie. The other bodyguard—what was his name?—moved with him, as if they were an old, practiced team.

Hannah was heavy, but she pulled herself back on her own center of gravity after a breath or two. “I’m fine,” she said, and gave Claire a reassuring grin. “Damn. That was not a walk in the park.”

“You should meet my boyfriend,” Claire said. “You two are both masters of understatement.”

She thought Hannah wanted to laugh, but instead, she just nodded and patted Claire on the shoulder. “Watch the sides,” she said. “We’re just starting on this thing.”

That was an easy job, because there was nothing to watch on the sides. They were, after all, in a tunnel. Hannah, it appeared, was the rear guard, and she seemed to take it very seriously, although it looked like Amelie had slammed the doorway behind them pretty hard, with prejudice. I hope we don’t have to go back that way, Claire thought, and shivered at the sight of that pale severed hand behind them. It had finally stopped moving. I really, really hope we don’t have to go back there.

At the mouth of the tunnel, Amelie seemed to pause for a moment, and then disappeared to the right, around the corner, with her two vampire bodyguards in flying formation behind her. Hannah and Claire hurried to keep up, and emerged into another hallway, this one square instead of arched, and paneled in rich, dark wood. There were paintings on the walls—old ones, Claire thought—of pale people lit by candlelight, dressed in about a thousand pounds of costume and rice white makeup and wigs.

She stopped and backed up, staring at one.

“What?” Hannah growled.

“That’s her. Amelie.” It definitely was, only instead of the Princess Grace-style clothes she wore now, in the picture she was wearing an elaborate sky blue satin dress, cut way low over her breasts. She was wearing a big white wig, and staring out of the canvas in an eerily familiar way.

“Art appreciation later, Claire. We need to go.”

That was true, beyond any argument, but Claire kept throwing glances at the paintings as they passed. One looked like it could have been Oliver, from about four hundred years ago. One more modern one looked almost like Myrnin. It’s the vampire museum, she realized. It’s their history. There were glass cases lining the hall ahead, filled with books and papers and jewelry, clothing, and musical instruments. All the fine and fabulous things gathered through their long, long lives.

Ahead, the three vampires came to a sudden, motionless halt, and Hannah grabbed Claire by the arm to pull her out of the way, against the wall. “What’s happening?” Claire whispered.

“Sorting credentials.”

Claire didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but when she risked moving out just a bit to see what was happening, she saw that there were lots of other vampires in here—about a hundred of them, some sitting down and obviously hurt. There were humans, too, mostly standing together and looking nervous, which seemed reasonable.

If these were Bishop’s people, their little rescue party was in serious trouble.

Amelie exchanged some quiet words with the vampire who seemed to be in charge, and Gérard and his partner visibly relaxed. That settled the friend-or-foe question, apparently; Amelie turned and nodded to Claire, and she and Hannah edged out from behind the glass cases to join them.

Amelie made a gesture, and immediately several vampires peeled off from the group and joined her in a distant corner.

“What’s going on?” Claire asked, and stared around her. Most of the vampires were still dressed in the costumes they’d worn to Bishop’s welcome feast, but a few were in more military dress—black, mostly, but some in camouflage.

“It’s a rally point,” Hannah said. “She’s talking strategy, probably. Those would be her captains. Notice there aren’t any humans with her?”

Claire did. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, the doubt that boiled up inside.

Whatever orders Amelie delivered, it didn’t take long. One by one, the vampires nodded and peeled off from the meeting, gathered up followers—including humans this time—and departed. By the time Amelie had dispatched the last group, there were only about ten people left Claire didn’t know, and they were all standing together.

Amelie came back to them, saw the group of humans and vamps, and nodded toward them.

“Claire, this is Theodosius Goldman,” Amelie said. “Theo, he prefers to be called. These are his family.”

Family? That was a shock, because there were so many of them. Theo seemed to be kind of middle-aged, with graying, curly hair and a face that, except for its vampiric pallor, seemed kind of . . . nice.

“May I present my wife, Patience?” he said with the kind of old manners Claire had only seen on Masterpiece Theater . “Our sons, Virgil and Clarence. Their wives, Ida and Minnie.” There were more vampires bowing, or in the case of the one guy down on the floor, with his head held in the lap of a female vamp, waving. “And their children.”

Evidently the grandkids didn’t merit individual introductions. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, all pale like their relatives. They seemed younger than Claire, at least physically; she guessed the littler girl was probably about twelve, the older boy around fifteen.

The older boy and girl glared at her, as if she were personally responsible for the mess they were in, but Claire was too busy imagining how a whole family—down to grandkids—could all be made vampires like this.

Theo, evidently, could see all that in her expression, because he said, “We were made eternal a long time ago, my girl, by”—he cast a quick look at Amelie, who nodded—“by her father, Bishop. It was a joke of his, you see, that we should all be together for all time.” He really did have a kind face, Claire thought, and his smile was kind of tragic. “The joke turned on him, though. We refused to let it destroy us. Amelie showed us we did not have to kill to survive, and so we were able to keep our faith as well as our lives.”

“Your faith?”

“It’s a very old faith,” Theo said. “And today is our Sabbath.”

Claire blinked. “Oh. You’re Jewish?”

He nodded, eyes fixed on her. “We found a refuge here, in Morganville. A place where we could live in peace, both with our nature and our God.”

Amelie said, softly, “But will you fight for it now, Theo? This place that gave you refuge?”

He held out his hand. His wife’s cool white fingers closed around it. She was a delicate china doll of a woman, with masses of sleek black hair piled on top of her head. “Not today.”

“I’m sure God would understand if you broke the Sabbath under these circumstances.”

“I’m sure he would. God is forgiving, or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think.” He shook his head again, very regretfully. “We cannot fight, Amelie. Not today. And I would prefer not to fight at all.”