Lord of Misrule

But no, I don’t see anything.”

Michael was being let out of his cell when they arrived, and there were hugs and handshakes. The other vampires didn’t have anyone to help them, and looked a little confused about what they were supposed to do.

Not Sam.

“Sam, wait!” Michael grabbed his arm on the way past, dragging his grandfather to a stop. Looking at them standing together, Claire was struck again by how alike they were. And always would be, she supposed, given that neither one of them was going to age any more. “You can’t go charging off by yourself. You don’t even know where she is. Running around town on your white horse will get you really, truly killed.”

“Doing nothing will get her killed. I can’t have that, Michael. None of this means anything to me if she dies.” Sam shook Michael’s hand away. “I’m not asking you to come with me. I’m just telling you not to get in my way.”

“Grandpa—”

“Exactly. Do as you’re told.” Sam could move vampire-quick when he wanted to, and he was gone almost before the words hit Claire’s ears—a blur, heading for the exit.

“So much for trying to figure out where she is from where he goes,” Shane said. “Unless you’ve got light speed under the hood of that car, Eve.”

Michael looked after him with a strange expression on his face—anger, regret, sorrow. Then he hugged Eve closer and kissed the top of her head.

“Well, I guess my family’s no more screwed up than anybody else’s,” he said.

Eve nodded. “Let’s recap. My dad was an abusive jerk—”

“Mine, too.” Shane raised his hand.

“Thank you. My brother’s a psycho backstabber—”

Shane said, “You don’t even want to talk about my dad.”

“Point. So, in short, Michael, your family is awesome by comparison . Bloodsucking, maybe. But kind of awesome.”

Michael sighed. “Doesn’t really feel like it at the moment.”

“It will.” Eve was suddenly very serious. “But Shane and I don’t have that to look forward to, you know. You’re our only real family now.”

“I know,” Michael said. “Let’s go home.”

11

Home was theirs again. The refugees were all out now, leaving a house that badly needed picking up and cleaning—not that anybody had gone out of their way to trash the place, but with that many people coming and going, things happened. Claire grabbed a trash bag and began clearing away paper plates, old Styrofoam cups half full of stale coffee, crumpled wrappers, and papers. Shane fired up the video game, apparently back in the mood to kill zombies. Michael took his guitar out of its case and tuned it, but he kept getting up to stare out the windows, restless and worried.

“What?” Eve asked. She’d heated up leftover spaghetti out of the refrigerator, and tried to hand Michael a plate first. “Do you see something?”

“Nothing,” he said, and gave her a quick, strained smile as he waved away the food. “Not really hungry, though. Sorry.”

“More for me,” Shane said, and grabbed the plate. He propped it on his lap and forked spaghetti into his mouth. “Seriously. You all right? Because you never turn down food.”

Michael didn’t answer. He stared out into the dark.

“You’re worried,” Eve said. “About Sam?”

“Sam and everybody else. This is nuts. What’s going on here—” Michael checked the locks on the window, but as a kind of automatic motion, as though his mind wasn’t really on it. “Why hasn’t Bishop taken over? What’s he doing out there? Why aren’t we seeing the fight?”

“Maybe Amelie’s kicking his ass out there in the shadows somewhere.” Shane shoveled in more spaghetti.

“No. She’s not. I can feel that. I think—I think she’s in hiding. With the rest of her followers, the vampires, anyway.”

Shane stopped chewing. “You know where they are?”

“Not really. I just feel—” Michael shook his head. “It’s gone. Sorry. But I feel like things are changing. Coming to a head.”

Claire had just taken a plate of warm pasta when they all heard the thump of footsteps overhead. They looked up, and then at each other, in silence. Michael pointed to himself and the stairs, and they all nodded. Eve opened a drawer in the end table and took out three sharpened stakes; she tossed one to Shane, one to Claire, and kept one in a white-knuckled grip.

Michael ascended the stairs without a sound, and disappeared.

He didn’t come back down. Instead, there was a swirl of black coat and stained white balloon pants tucked into black boots; then Myrnin leaned over the railing to say, “Upstairs, all of you. I need you.”

“Um . . .” Eve looked at Shane. Shane looked at Claire.

Claire followed Myrnin. “Trust me,” she said. “It won’t do any good to say no.”

Michael was waiting in the hallway, next to the open, secret door. He led the way up.

Whatever Claire had been expecting to see, it wasn’t a crowd, but that was what was waiting upstairs in the hidden room on the third floor. She stared in confusion at the room full of people, then moved out of the way for Shane and Eve to join her and Michael.

Myrnin came last. “Claire, I believe you know Theo Goldman and his family.”

The faces came into focus. She had met them—in that museum thing, when they’d been on the way to rescue Myrnin. Theo Goldman had spoken to Amelie. He’d said they wouldn’t fight.

But it looked to Claire like they’d been in a fight anyway. Vampires didn’t bruise, exactly, but she could see torn clothes and smears of blood, and they all looked exhausted and somehow—hollow. Theo was worst of all. His kind face seemed made of nothing but lines and wrinkles now, as if he’d aged a hundred years in a couple of days.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we had no other place to go. Amelie—I hoped that she was here, that she would give us refuge. We’ve been everywhere else.”

Claire remembered there being more of them, somehow—yes, there were at least two people missing. One human, one vampire. “What happened? I thought you were safe where you were!”

“We were,” Theo said. “Then we weren’t. That’s what wars are like. The safe places don’t stay safe. Someone knew where we were, or suspected. Around dawn yesterday, a mob broke in the doors looking for us. Jochen—” He looked at his wife, and she bowed her head. “Our son Jochen, he gave his life to delay them. So did our human friend William. We’ve been hiding, moving from place to place, trying not to be driven out in the sun.”

“How did you get here?” Michael asked. He seemed wary. Claire didn’t blame him.

“I brought them,” Myrnin said. “I’ve been trying to find those who are left.” He crouched down next to one of the young vampire girls and stroked her hair. She smiled at him, but it was a fragile, frightened smile. “They can stay here for now. This room isn’t common knowledge. I’ve left open the portal in the attic in case they have to flee, but it’s one way only, leading out. It’s a last resort.”

“Are there others? Out there?” Claire asked.

“Very few on their own. Most are either with Bishop, with Amelie, or”—Myrnin spread his hands —“gone.”

“What are they doing? Amelie and Bishop?”

“Moving their forces. They’re trying to find an advantage, pick the most favorable ground. It won’t last.” Myrnin shrugged. “Sooner or later, sometime tonight, they’ll clash, and then they’ll fight. Someone will win, and someone will lose. And in the morning, Morganville will know its fate.”