“Us?” The vampire wasn’t buying that one. “You, maybe. The others stay here. They’re not on the list.”
“There’s a list? And I’m not on it?” Eve said. “I’m deeply hurt. I’m always on the list.”
“It’s not a club,” Michael said.
“Still.”
Claire backed away, down the hall, mouthed, Sorry, to Shane, and hurried on. From the look on his face, she knew they’d be having a serious conversation about this later, but she couldn’t wait to try to talk it out now.
Myrnin was in trouble. She could just feel it.
Inside the room, Claire shut the heavy door but didn’t lock it behind her; the anteroom was a sitting area, hushed and airless. It reeked of the damp and sickness, and it also seemed a little like a museum … as if someone had created it for show, not for use. This is how vampires lived in the twenty-first century, the exhibit card would read. Pretending that everything was normal.
Claire took in a slow, calm breath and opened the bedroom door. She half expected to find it empty, but Myrnin was there, standing stock-still a few feet from the bed.
Looking at Amelie.
She looked like her own statue—immobile and white, lying exactly in the center of the bed with her hands folded over her stomach. The sheets were drawn up and folded back just below her arms. It looked as if she was wearing some kind of thick white nightgown, with incredibly delicate lace at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was loose, and it spilled over the pillow in a pale silk fan.
There was a thick bandage on her throat, but it was soaked through with dark, wet blood.
Seeing her like this was … strange. She looked very young, and vulnerable, and somehow very sad. Claire remembered seeing pictures of the tombs of queens, of the marble images carved to top them that were replicas of the bodies below. Amelie looked just like that … an eternal monument to her own mortality.
Myrnin raised his head and saw Claire standing there, and his expression turned from blank to tormented. “Get out,” he said. “Get out now, while you still can!”
He sounded absolutely serious, and Claire took a step backward, intending to follow his instructions.
And then Amelie opened her eyes.
It was sudden, a flash of movement that made Claire’s heart skip a beat. Amelie’s eyes were a paler gray than they’d always been, more like dirty ice.
“Someone’s here,” she whispered. “Someone …”
“Claire, get out,” Myrnin said, and took a step closer to the bed. “I’m here, Amelie. Myrnin. Right here.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. Her voice was thin as silk, and just as soft. “Where is Oliver?”
“Gone, for the moment,” Myrnin said. “Oh, my dearest. You are far too pale. Let me get something for you to eat.” He meant blood, Claire thought. Amelie had no color under her skin. She looked almost translucent.
“Don’t you mean someone?” Amelie asked. It was nearly a joke, but it wasn’t funny. “I asked Oliver to end my suffering. I didn’t mean to make him so angry, but he really must face facts, soon. Will you do it for me, Myrnin? As my friend?”
“Not yet,” he said, and took her hand in his. “I am not quite ready to let you go. None of us are.”
“All things die, even vampires.” That same distant tone, as if none of it mattered any longer. “If it was only death I faced, I would go gladly. But I can feel it now, inside me. The pull of the sea. The tides. The hunger.” Amelie’s eyes focused on Myrnin again, and there was a strangely luminous glow to them. “The seas came first. All life flowed from them and must in the end return there. As I’m returning. As you will. I was a fool to believe the draug could be defeated. They are the tide. The sea. The beginning and end of us.” The glow intensified, and Claire found herself oddly … calmed by it. Amelie seemed so peaceful, lying there. And being around her seemed so safe. Myrnin must have felt the same; he sank to a sitting position on the edge of her bed. “There’s no escaping the tides, don’t you see? Not for me, or you, or Morganville. Because the tide always comes.”
Myrnin pulled in a sharp gasp, and looked down at his hand, held in hers. He tried to pull free, but couldn’t. “Stop,” he said, in a voice only half as strong as it should have been. “Amelie, stop. You must not do this.”
“I’m not,” she said, sounding very sad. “There’s so much inside that isn’t me any longer. You shouldn’t have come. Either of you.”
Her ice-pale gaze captured Claire’s, and Claire knew she was walking forward, drawn by forces she didn’t understand and couldn’t control. She couldn’t stop herself. Didn’t really want to stop herself.
And then she stretched out her hand and Amelie’s pale, strong fingers locked over hers.
She felt the tingle, and then the burning, like a million needles piercing her skin.
She watched the bitter cold of Amelie’s skin change, take on warmth.
Blood.
Blood drawn out of Claire. By a touch.
The same was happening to Myrnin, Claire realized. He was panting now, mumbling frantic pleas, trying to pry her hand free from his but failing.
Amelie no longer needed fangs to feed. Like the draug, she fed at a touch.
And it was happening so fast. Claire felt light-headed, pleasantly tired, even though somewhere deep inside she was shrieking in protest.
Just close your eyes, Amelie’s voice was saying gently, far away. Just close your eyes and sleep now.
And then something hit her and knocked her away, halfway across the room and into a heavy wooden table with a gigantic bowl of dried flowers. It all crashed to the carpet, spilling shattered glass and broken petals, and Claire was lying on her side, staring up at the wall. There was a painting there, something famous, with dark paint and bright bursts of color all done in furious layers and peaks. She blinked slowly, not quite comprehending what had just happened, and saw a bright spot of red closer to her than the painting.
Blood. Blood on her hand—no, on her fingers, welling out as if she’d been stabbed with a hundred pins.
It hurt in a sudden, blazing ignition of feeling, and she realized what had just happened. It crashed in on her fast and hard, and she felt terror rip through her. She squirmed back and up, sitting against the corner, holding her injured hand close to her chest.
Oliver was helping Myrnin unwrap Amelie’s fingers from his wrist. As soon as it was done, Myrnin fell to the floor and half crawled, half slid into another corner, cradling his wrist just as Claire was holding her own injured fingers. He looked … appalled. And scared.
Oliver was standing between the two of them and the bed. Amelie hadn’t moved. Not at all. Oliver looked as furious as Claire had ever seen him, face as sharp and pale as bone, eyes like coals smoldering red beneath the black. “You idiots,” he snapped, and came toward Claire. When she flinched, he looked even angrier. “I’m not set to hurt you, stupid girl. Let me see your hand.”
She was all too aware of the red pooling in her palm, but he didn’t wait for her consent; he snatched her arm, vamp fast, and stretched it out to inspect the wound. If the blood itself affected him at all, he showed no signs of it. He took a moment, then let her go, strode away, and came back with a small white towel, which he pitched into her lap. “Clean yourself,” he said. “I told you very clearly you were not to enter this room. I never took you for this much of a fool. And you, Myrnin. What the devil were you thinking?”
“We need the key,” Claire said. Her teeth were inexplicably chattering, and she felt ice-cold inside, as if she’d lost a lot of blood, not just a little. Maybe it was shock. “The k-k-key to the armored truck, downstairs. W-we need to use it to g-get to the water plant. Myrnin said she had it.”