The fact that the tunnel tilted uphill was a good sign—it was basically an entrance ramp, which meant they’d come up to ground level soon enough. Then Claire could figure out where they were, how to find a working portal, and get back to the business at hand—find Kim, beat Kim like a taiko drum to find out who her vampire coconspirator was, and then hit Ada’s RESET button.
Simple.
Except, of course, it wasn’t.
Shane slowed, and Claire almost crashed into him. He dashed over to the side of the tunnel, hugging the wall, and Claire and Eve piled in next to him. “What?” Eve asked around breathless pants. She wasn’t much for running, either.
“Someone’s coming,” Shane said. “Shhhh.”
Eve choked and strangled on a cough, and muttered, “Got to cut down on the cigarettes.”
“You don’t smoke,” Claire whispered.
“Then I’m completely screwed.”
Shane whirled toward them and put hands over both their mouths. His face looked fierce. They nodded.
It was dark where they were, but not dark enough. A shape appeared ahead of them, coming down the tunnel . . . then another. Then more. Six—no, ten. Claire lost all will to snark, and she was pretty sure, from Eve’s wide-eyed look, that she felt the same. They’d done pretty well against the tunnel rats, but these were real vampires.
Hunters.
Morley stopped about twenty feet away, still facing straight ahead, and held up a hand to stop the group of vampires following him. Claire recognized some of them from earlier. Some of them were still healing from the burns left by her water gun.
“Look who’s come to visit,” he said, and turned his head in their direction at the side of the tunnel. “Claire and her friends. I wonder if they want to stay for dinner.”
Shane snapped the crossbow up and took aim on Morley. “Don’t even think about it.”
Morley stuck his hands in the pockets of his dirty raincoat. “I tremble in fear, boy. Obviously, in all my long life, no one has ever threatened me with a weapon before.” His tone changed, took on edges. “Put it down if you want to live.”
“Don’t,” Eve whispered.
Morley smiled. “The boy’s got two arrows left,” he said. “You have a handful of darts. Little Claire’s water weapon is almost empty. And by the way, I am aware of your strategic position. I hate to repeat myself, but I wilclass="underline" put down your weapons if you want to live.”
“No choice,” Shane said, and swallowed hard. He crouched down and put the crossbow on the concrete, then rose with his hands up.
I could get in one good spray, Claire thought, but she knew it was a terrible idea. She lifted the strap of the toy gun over her head and let it fall. It sounded empty.
“Shit,” Eve said, and threw down her darts. “All right. What now? You get all Nosferatu on our asses? If you make me a vampire, I’ll make you eat those fangs.”
Morley eyed her with a bit of a frown. “I believe you might,” he said. “But I’m not interested in converts. I’m much more interested in allies.”
“Allies,” Claire repeated. “You’ve tried to kill us a whole bunch.”
“That wasn’t about you,” he said. “The first time, you were simply with Amelie. The next, well, I was doing a favor for someone else. Another ally, as it happens.”
“What do you want?”
“We want freedom,” Morley said. “We want to live as God meant us to do. Is that such a terrible thing?”
There were a few vampires in his group that Claire recognized with a nasty jolt of surprise. “Jacob,” she said. “Jacob Goldman? Patience?” Two of Theo Goldman’s family—and Theo was the last vampire she’d expect to be in the middle of this. His kids, though . . . she really didn’t know them very well.
Jacob looked away. Patience, on the other hand, stared right back, and lifted her chin as if daring Claire to say anything else. From her last encounter with the Goldmans, Claire had been aware the younger generation was starting to hate the whole philosophy of their parents; it made sense that they’d found someone here in Morganville more like-minded.
“Amelie and Oliver are trying to make us into something we never were,” Patience said. “Tame tigers. Performing bears. Toothless lions. But we can’t be those things. Vampires are not caretakers of humanity. I’m sorry, but it will never be true, however much we wish it could be.”
“You’re not making much headway on this Let’s be friends argument,” Eve said. “I’m just saying.”
Morley let out an impatient sigh, and looked back at the other vampires. “Surely you want us out of your town,” he said. “As much as we’d like to go. But Amelie won’t allow us to leave. We have only two choices: destroy Morganville, or destroy her. Destroying Morganville seems easier, in many ways.”
The light dawned. “You were working with Kim. She suggested the cameras, didn’t she?”
“It seemed a way to achieve what she wanted, and what we wanted,” he agreed. “The end of Morganville. The beginning of her career. Granted, spying is an unseemly way to go about it, but it’s probably less objectionable than murder.”
“Until the camera’s on you,” Eve shot back.
“A valid point.” Morley bowed slightly in her direction.
“You’re the one who put the cameras in Vamptown for her.”
“Me?” His thick eyebrows climbed into his tangled hair. “No. I’m hardly welcome there, you know. Nor are any of my people. I know nothing about how she managed that.”
“Then let us go find out who did.”
“You know, I don’t have to bargain with you. I could just distribute you among my followers as a treat if you’d prefer that.”
“No,” Jacob Goldman said. He and Patience exchanged a look that was more like a silent argument, and then he stepped forward. “Not her. Morley, if you hurt her, we walk away.”
“Patience?”
She sighed and shook her head. “The girl helped, before,” she said. “Theo wouldn’t want us to hurt her.”
“The girl left you in a cell to die at Bishop’s hands!”
“That was my father’s mistake, not hers,” Jacob said. “I will do many things to get our freedom. I won’t do this.”
The tension was ramping up fast. Claire swallowed. “Then let’s make a deal,” Claire said. “We want Kim, and whatever video she turned over to you.”
Morley frowned at her. “In exchange for . . . ?”
“I’ll ask Amelie to let you all leave.”
“Asking is an easy task; there’s no commitment required. Doing is accomplishment. So you will get Amelie to let us leave. Here is my incentive: if you don’t manage to secure her permission, your two friends here sign lifetime contracts to me.” Morley turned to Jacob and Patience, who nodded. “You see? Even they agree with that.”
“Oh hell no,” Eve said.
“And you are in a position to bargain . . . how?” Shane held out a hand toward Eve, trying to restrain her a little. “No lifetime contracts,” he said. “One pint a month, blood bank only. Ten percent of our income.”
“Hmmmmmm.” Morley dragged the sound out, still staring through half-lidded eyes. “Tempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now.”
“You won’t,” Shane said. That made Morley’s eyes open wide.
“Why not? Jacob and Patience were quite specific—they’re concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy.”
“Because if you kill me and Eve, you’ll make her your enemy. This girl won’t stop until she sees you all pay.”
Claire had no idea whom he was talking about—she didn’t feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.
Then she understood. “I’d hunt you down,” she said quietly. “I’d use every resource I have to do it. And you know I’d win.”
Morley seemed impressed. “She is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test. Very well. Limited contract, one year, one pint per month at the blood bank, ten percent of your income payable to me, in cash. I will not hunt, bite, or trade your contracts. But I insist on standard punishment clauses.”