When he opened his eyes, Claire saw tears break free and run down his cheeks. “It’s the sun,” he said. “Eve, I’m standing in the sun. It’s so warm.”
She understood, and she hugged him. Claire didn’t get it for a second, until she realized how long it would have been since Michael had felt the touch of sunshine without the horrible scorching and scarring that came with it as a new vampire. It must have really hit him in that moment that he was genuinely human again.
Genuinely cured.
He hugged Eve close and said, “I hate that he’s the one who gave me back my life. You know that, right?”
“I know,” she said, and rubbed his back. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here, and that’s what counts.”
They held hands on the way down the steps, the sun gilding Michael’s golden hair into blazing glory. He looked even more like his grandfather Sam now, Claire thought; Sam had been frozen at an age not too much older than Michael when he’d been made a vampire. Apart from the fact that Sam’s hair had been more red than blond, they’d been very similar.
That thought made Claire wonder how Amelie really felt about Michael’s conversion back to human. Glad, or sad? She’d loved Sam so intensely that she’d shown public grief for him when he died; maybe she’d want to keep Michael preserved forever at the age where he resembled his grandfather.
Or maybe she’d be happy to let him go and live his life. It was never easy to tell with Amelie.
It made it all the more difficult, though, because Michael was now Fallon’s symbolic victory.
Hannah led them through the crowd to the stage, then went up the steps to whisper to Fallon. He nodded, and beckoned; Eve and Michael were brought onstage.
Shane and Claire were kept where they were, at the edge of the steps.
Everybody’s attention was on Fallon, and Eve, and Michael, so Claire risked flipping the blade on the nail clippers and working the tiny jaws up until they were gripping the plastic of the zip tie around her wrists. She’d have to cut it in stages; the ties were broad and thick, but when she squeezed the clippers, she felt them slice cleanly through the restraints. She adjusted it another quarter of an inch and pressed again. It was harder this time; the angle was more acute, and she couldn’t get leverage as easily. But it yielded.
The third and last time, though, as she tried to slide the clippers into position, her sweaty fingers slipped, and she dropped them.
Claire shifted position backward gradually until she could see the metallic shine of them on the grass. She tested the restraints. She’d cut through two-thirds of the band, but what was left was still pretty thick, and she didn’t have the strength necessary to rip the cuffs apart. I need to work out more, she thought, but that wasn’t going to help her much right now.
She needed to get the clippers.
She took a step, and faked stumbling and falling to one knee, then toppling over in a graceless loss of balance. That put her hands within grasping distance of the clippers, and she raked frantically at the grass until she touched them and pulled them into her fist.
Officer Sully grabbed her elbow and yanked her to her feet. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked, frowning.
“You try keeping these things on for hours,” she said. “It throws off your balance, okay?”
“Don’t try anything.”
“I won’t,” she said, and it was the truth. She wasn’t going to try.
Up on the stage, Fallon stepped to the microphone, and the whole crowd quieted. “Friends,” he said, “fellow residents, thank you for coming here to celebrate the dawn of a new day in Morganville, a day without fear of violence or suppression. As of today, you’re no longer slaves to monsters who murder to stay alive, who take your blood and your money and use it to fund their own endless, selfish existence. As of today, you don’t have to fear the dark. Your children can grow up knowing that they’re safe from harm. That’s the new Morganville. That’s Morganville in the daylight.”
He paused, and applause erupted. He held up his hands to quiet it. “As proof of this new day, I’m delighted to introduce to you one of our greatest successes . . . someone you all know and recognize, someone from one of the thirteen founding families of Morganville. He was the victim of the vampires twice over—once by Oliver, and then by Amelie, who made him one of her own. But now he stands with me in the light, alive and free of his curse. Michael Glass!”
Michael didn’t like it; Claire could see that. He didn’t want to step forward, but Fallon whispered something to him, and he complied, standing rigid and expressionless as the crowd erupted into cheers. They were cheering for him becoming human, but it still had a raw edge of bigotry to it. Some of those cheering right now would have been happy to stake him through the heart a day before, and he knew it. Of all of them, he knew what it meant to be labeled as less than human.
“Wow, this is a boring, bullshit propaganda show,” Shane said as Claire maneuvered the clippers into position and pressed hard, gritting her teeth as pain streaked up her arms from the stress and angle. “Hey, Sully, are you serving doughnuts and coffee, at least? Because I hear the KKK runs a great craft table.”
Claire’s bonds snapped, and the pressure on her shoulders eased from a red-hot burn to just a tingle. She caught Shane’s eye as Sully moved toward them, and gave him a sharp upward jerk of her head.
“You,” Sully said between gritted teeth. “Come here, you little asshole.”
“Hey, I’m not little,” Shane said. “So tell me, is your white sheet in the laundry, or did you just forget to pack it?”
Sully grabbed Shane’s arm and dragged him off balance and away from the stage. There was a backdrop set up, and he yanked Shane behind it.
Hannah sighed, shook her head, and pointed at Kentworth to go see what was happening. That left just her and Claire standing together.
Claire took a long step back toward where Shane had disappeared, careful to make her wrists seem like they were still pinned behind her.
Hannah was watching her.
Claire kept moving until she could put the barrier between her and anyone in the crowd who might be watching. Hannah followed.
As Hannah stepped into the shadow, Claire pulled her freed hands out from behind her back and grabbed for Hannah’s gun.
She wasn’t fast enough.
Hannah’s hand clamped down hard on the butt of the automatic pistol, holding it in the holster, and Claire realized with a sinking sense of bitter disappointment that she should have known a former Marine wouldn’t be taken that easily. Not by some inexperienced, untrained girl half her size.
“Nice work on the cuffs,” Hannah said. “Now take your hand off my gun, Claire.”
She did so, slowly, and stepped back. Shane was having a full-on bar brawl, still cuffed, with Sully. Kentworth was standing back, Taser in his hand, looking for an opening. He didn’t look especially happy about the whole thing.
Shane slammed his forehead into Sully’s face and grinned with bloodied teeth. “Amateur,” Shane said, as Sully cried out and went down hard, holding his gushing nose and whimpering. “That’s called an Irish handshake. Somebody named Sullivan ought to know that.”
Kentworth moved in with the Taser, and Shane arched his back and sidestepped the lunge, like a matador with a bull. But he wasn’t going to be able to get away, not with his hands still pinned behind him.
Claire looked wide-eyed at Hannah. Now or never, she silently thought. She couldn’t take the gun, not against Hannah’s well-trained reflexes.