“Good morning,” he said to Morley, who looked full- on Vam- pire Western again in his duster, boots, scarf, and hat. “Kind of rude to come in when the lady asks you to wait, isn’t it?”
“My sincere apology,” Morley said, and did a straight- legged bow, whipping off his hat with a flourish. “But we’re about to go retake the town of Morganville, and manners are not my greatest concern. Might you want to join us, or are you, ah, occupied?”
“Is that a choice? Because if so . . .”
“We’re coming,” Claire said. She downed the rest of her coffee— cold, now— and walked over to Morley. “Come on, Shane. Do you really intend to sit this one out?”
“You’re right. There’s a fight, and I’m not in it? That seems wrong.” Shane made sure to finish his coffee. “Okay, let’s do this thing. Wait, what exactly are we doing?”
“I have no idea what you’re doing,” Morley said, “but Mrs.
Grant is killing Amelie.”
Claire thought it was a flippant, weird thing to say until she saw Amelie lying on the table in the library, not moving, with a silvercoated stake in her heart.
“What are you doing?” she blurted, and pushed forward. Michael and Eve were already there, standing together. “What happened?”
“Don’t touch her,” Mrs. Grant warned. “Trust me, we’ve calcu- lated this very carefully.”
“Stabbing her? With silver?” Because even Amelie couldn’t resist that poison for long, not in her heart. She had more of a resistance than most of the other vampires Claire had ever seen, but this . . .
this was extreme. And extremely dangerous.
Then she saw the symbol on the side of the stake— an etched- in sunrise.
“You’re a Daylighter,” Claire said flatly, and looked around for a weapon. She didn’t see one handy, so she grabbed a chair. It was heavy, but she raised it anyway. “Step away from her.”
“Put that down,” said Oliver, and took the chair from her with one hand. He placed it back at the table, handling it as easily as if it was made out of matchsticks. “It’s an illusion. A carefully crafted one. The stake is silver, stolen from the Daylighters; their weapons come loaded with silver nitrate.” She knew that, because she’d seen one buried in Michael’s chest, back in Cambridge. They were designed to deliver a fatal dose of silver when anyone tried to remove them. “We’ve removed the nitrate from this one, and coated the stake with plastic. It’s not toxic to her, but it’s no doubt ridiculously painful. She’s most convincing in her death.”
Amelie opened her eyes. “I can hear you, you know.”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” he said, and however much he liked Amelie— which, Claire thought, was a lot— he also couldn’t resist taking a little bit of pleasure in her discomfort. “Stay quiet. You’re dead.”
“We could always bury this stake in your chest, you wretch.”
“I wouldn’t look half so lovely wearing it.”
Morley shook his head impatiently. “Can we please just get on with it? Mrs. Grant and our humans will take Amelie into town and convince Fallon that they will trade her for some righteous re- venge upon the vampires he has penned up in that mall. He’ll be- lieve it; the story is more than convincing, considering the havoc Amelie’s blood- father wreaked upon this town. In the wake of last night’s vampire attacks, who better to swell the ranks of the true believers than the residents of a town already savaged by the mon- sters?” He looked very pleased with himself. Disgustingly so.
“I’m so glad you think so, Morley,” Mrs. Grant said. “Because we had a discussion, and we decided to alter the plan a little bit. As an actor, you understand that we need to really sell the concept.”
She nodded, and from the shadows behind the bookcases, two men stepped out, both armed with crossbows.
Morley snarled and snapped to the side, and the bolt meant for his heart missed him. Oliver was slower— probably the result of all the terrible things heaped on him for the past few months— and the silver- tipped arrow sliced right into his chest and dropped him where he stood.
But Morley wasn’t going down without a fight. He rounded on Mrs. Grant, roaring in fury, and she calmly brought up the small crossbow she’d held under the table. As he raced toward her, she sighted and fired.
Morley slumped against the table, eyes and mouth wide, and fi- nally collapsed.
I was right, Claire thought with a jolt of real fear. They are Daylighters. But Amelie wasn’t reacting, even though she could have; the fact that she’d been able to talk proved that well enough.
Which meant that it was Amelie’s plan, and had been from the beginning. She just hadn’t told Oliver and Morley how far it would go.
Shane, Eve, and Michael hadn’t moved to protest, probably all for different reasons: Shane because he wasn’t inclined to protest vampires getting shot ever, Eve because she was conflicted about Oliver and had never liked Morley, and Michael because . . . well, probably because he’d figured it out the way Claire had.
Mrs. Grant looked at the four of them. “Don’t just stand there, get them on the tables,” she said. She hadn’t liked shooting Morley, Claire could see that. “They’re old, but that wasn’t a bug bite. We need to get the coated stakes into them quickly.”
That was a more clinical process than Claire was strictly com- fortable with; she helped pull the arrows out, but pushing the stakes in was a lot more quease- inducing, and she let Michael and Shane handle that part. Not that they seemed to take much plea- sure in it, either.
Eve just turned her back entirely. “Are we sure this is a good plan?” she asked anxiously. “Because I’m starting to worry. It seems scary.”
“That’s because it is,” Mrs. Grant said. She walked over to the four of them as Michael and Shane rejoined them. “I’ll have to keep an eye on my two gentlemen here to be sure they don’t do something silly like remove the stakes, but I expect this will appeal to Morley’s acting instincts, and Oliver can surely see the advantages. Now, as to the four of you: I’ll need you to put on a show as well.”
“Wh- what kind of show?” Eve asked. She sounded even more doubtful.
“Nothing too difficult, I promise,” Mrs. Grant said. “You sim- ply have to be our prisoners.” She nodded, and more of her Blacke townsfolk moved up, armed not with crossbows this time but with zip ties. “Sorry about this, but we’ll cut you loose when the time comes. Fallon seems to want you all back— especially you, Michael.
He seems to think you’re his new poster child for conversion.”
“He’s not wrong,” Michael said. “Feels pretty good, having a heartbeat again. I was resigned to being a vampire, but I’m not go- ing to lie . . . it was a gift I’m not turning down.”
“Me neither,” Eve said. “You don’t have to put us in cuffs. Re- ally. We’ll go along.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Grant said. “I’m going to trust the two of you.
Don’t let me down.”
But, Claire noticed, that didn’t seem to include her, or Shane, because the next thing she knew, her wrists were being pulled together and zip ties efficiently applied. She exchanged a glance with Shane, but he shrugged. “Got to admit, Fallon wouldn’t buy either one of us as having a change of heart, especially when he realizes I’m not on Team Hellhound anymore. Makes sense. We haven’t exactly made ourselves potential allies of his, have we?”
“No,” she admitted. “Not really. But— you’re going to cut us loose?”
Mrs. Grant didn’t waste words. She just passed a small set of nail clippers to Eve, who winked and stuck them in the pocket of her hoodie.
“Got you covered, girlfriend,” said Eve. “And if I lose these and have to gnaw through the plastic to get you loose, I will. Virtual high five!” She raised her right shoulder. Claire raised hers. They bumped.
“That,” Shane said, “is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen the two of you do, and that’s saying something.”
“This from a man who has Blade action figures.”