She didn’t answer. Myrnin waited, then nodded, as if she’d done exactly what he expected. “I see,” he said, and his voice was unexpectedly gentle. “I am well aware how being under such control feels, my dear. All will be well.”
“How?” Hannah asked. She sounded indifferent, but Claire thought she heard something new in her voice: pain.
He shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “But I’m quite certain that it’s unfolding even now.”
It was the emphasis he put on the last two words that made Claire realize that by lunging forward, and drawing Hannah’s full attention, he’d left Amelie partially obscured. Shane was the closest to the fallen vampire. Claire frantically gestured to the wooden stake in her heart, and Shane didn’t hesitate. He pulled it out—but not all the way out. Just enough, Claire thought, to clear her heart.
Amelie didn’t move. At this point, she probably couldn’t.
If he’d done it right, though, maybe she would, when she was ready.
Founder’s Square was as busy as a mall at Christmas. The big braziers surrounding the center of the square were being lit, bringing a barbaric splendor to the deep night; vampires were gathering, some looking sleepy and confused, some excited, some outright worried. There were humans, too—a group of them, herded together nearby. Claire recognized several of them, including the new mayor, Flora Ramos, and—incredibly—Gramma Day. One of them was complaining loudly. It was Monica Morrell. She certainly hadn’t been rousted out of bed like the others; she was dressed to party…. Well, that might not be true. Claire wasn’t sure she didn’t wear tube dresses to bed.
Myrnin sank back from the bars and crossed his arms, glancing at Shane. “Well done,” he said in an undertone. “Clever boy, taking it out only part of the way. I take back at least one bad thing I’ve ever said about you.”
“What’s happening?” Claire asked.
“Naomi prepares to declare her primacy,” he said. “She’ll have herself crowned, and then she’ll spill blood—”
“Ours,” Shane said.
“Oh no, not at all. It’s a very old custom, one even Bishop respected. She’ll kill the most influential residents of Morganville…Founder families, important business leaders, politicians…. I suppose Monica’s there to represent her family; more’s the pity for their memories.”
“It’s about more than ceremony,” Shane said. “Most of those guys are on Captain Obvious’s war council. I saw them. And Gramma Day is related to Hannah.”
“Really?” Myrnin raised his eyebrows. “Interesting indeed. She’s honoring the old customs and ensuring her own long-term survival. Masterful. Worthy of her father, in his better days.”
“Could you maybe not admire the evil enemy quite so much, and focus more on how we’re going to get out of this?” Claire asked. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re going to die, too.”
“Oh yes. But you and I are merely collateral damage; this is a pyre for Amelie. And I see they’ve made improvements. See the grates underneath us? Natural gas. It’s all very fuel efficient, not like the old days with all the logs….”
“Myrnin!”
He went suddenly very cool and sensible. “Bite marks,” he said. “Michael’s got one on his neck. So does Hannah Moses. So, in fact, does Oliver. All a very distinctive bite distance. It takes a delicate mouth to make such marks, such as, say—” He pointed a finger, and Claire followed the line of it to Naomi, who was standing draped in silver and white a few feet away. “She’s got the gift, you see. Not every vampire can compel like that. Amelie can, though she never does, and Naomi can—both of them inherited that trait from their vampire father, Bishop. So whatever’s been done, you can rightly assume she’s the one pulling the strings, and that no one had any choice in what’s been done.”
“Oh,” Shane said, in a very different sort of tone. “Oh, crap. Michael—I left him alone with Naomi and Hannah. Hannah’s Captain Obvious. I thought Naomi was just working with her, trying to get at Amelie. But its more than that. She was controlling the whole thing. And Michael.”
Which, Claire realized with a sweet surge of relief, was why Michael had turned on them—and why he’d been so cruel to Eve, and to her, and to Shane. He’d had no choice. Thank you. She felt like kissing Shane in pure gratitude for having confirmed her suspicions, but Shane didn’t look especially relieved himself; he looked disturbed. Maybe he’d just realized that he’d spent a whole day hating the guts of a friend who’d been innocent after all.
“She was controlling Oliver, too, though likely that wasn’t quite so difficult,” Myrnin said. “Oliver’s influence on Amelie was a dark thing even without Naomi bending it to her uses. Once she had, though, she used Oliver to corrupt Amelie, agitate the town against her, create chaos and dissension…and then used you, Claire, to unmask him, giving her the chance to act directly while Amelie was distracted. My, if I didn’t loathe her so much, I’d admire her.”
“So how are we going to stop her?” Claire asked.
“We can’t. Perhaps I failed to mention that we’re locked in a cage and about to be burned alive…?”
“Does this cage have a lock?”
“A very good one,” Myrnin said. “Right there, on the other side of the bars. I’m reasonably certain that neither of us is a certified locksmith, however.”
“Well, we can try.”
“It’s silver,” Myrnin said. “I won’t be able to break it.”
“If the lock’s pure silver instead of just plated, it’s soft,” Shane said. “We could use one of these stakes as a lever, maybe.”
“And that will sacrifice our element of surprise,” Myrnin pointed out. “You always seem to have something secreted about your person of a dangerous nature…. Have you nothing to contribute?”
“They took it,” Shane said, “including everything out of my pockets and my belt. Just like jail.”
“Not like jail,” Claire said thoughtfully. “They left you your shoes.”
“And? I’m pretty sure a battered-up pair of kicks isn’t going to get us anywhere….” Shane’s voice faded at the look on her face. “What?”
“Laces,” she said, and bent forward to untie her own shoes and began to pull the cords out. “Give them to me.”
“I hardly think we should consider hanging ourselves, Claire,” Myrnin said, looking a little worried. “And it wouldn’t kill me, you know.”
Claire grabbed the laces from Shane as he held them out, tied them end to end, and began quickly braiding them together with those from her own shoes in a rough twisted rope, which she wrapped around the center of the bars at the back. “Cover me,” she said to Myrnin. He watched her for a few long seconds, then nodded and moved toward the front of the cage, shoving the limp body of Oliver out of the way, and began to loudly sing something in French. It sounded rude.
Claire began twisting the rope as fast as she could, rapidly getting it to the tension point. “I need something to use as a fulcrum,” she said to Shane. “Something that won’t break easily.”
“Only thing in here is one of the stakes,” he said. “Once we pull those, I’m guessing Hannah’s got orders not to wait around for the official barbecue.”
God, all she needed was a stick.…Claire cast her eyes about, frantic to find something, anything she could adapt to the purpose, and her gaze fell on, of all things, the headband that Amelie was wearing to keep her long, loose hair back from her face. It was a nice, wide one, not made of plastic but covered in fabric.
Maybe.
Claire edged over, leaving the rope in Shane’s hand, and pulled the headband from the vampire’s head. She thought Amelie’s eyes flickered, just a little, but the Founder didn’t move. She looked…dead.
Claire flexed the headband in her grip. It had a metal core that bent side to side, but not back to front. And best of all, it didn’t break.