Lord of Misrule

voice failed her for a second as she thought about Officer O’Malley, and the others she’d heard about. “You got some of them killed.”

Amelie didn’t respond to that. She simply stared back, as calm as an ice sculpture—calmer, because she wasn’t melting.

“Tell me why,” Claire said. “Tell me why you did that.”

“Because plans change,” Amelie replied. “As Bishop changes his moves, I must change mine. The stakes are too high now, Claire. I’ve lost half the vampires of Morganville to him. He’s taking away my advantage, and I needed to draw them to me, for their own safety.”

“You got vampires killed, not just humans. I know humans don’t mean anything to you. But I thought the whole point of this was to save your people!”

“And so it is,” Amelie said. “As many as can be saved. As for the call, there is a thing in chess known as a blitz attack, you see—a distraction, to cover the movement of more important pieces. You retrieved Myrnin and set him in play again; this was most important. I need my most powerful pieces on the board.”

“Like Oliver?” Claire rubbed her hands together, trying to get the annoying tingle out of them. “He’s hurt, you know. Maybe dying.”

“He’s served his purpose.” Amelie turned her attention toward Ysandre, who was starting to stir. “It’s time to take Bishop’s rook, I believe.”

Claire clutched the silver knife hard in her fist. “Is that all I am, too? Some kind of sacrifice pawn?”

That got Amelie’s attention again. “No,” she said in surprise. “Not entirely. I do care, Claire. But in war, you can’t care too much. It paralyzes your ability to act.” Those luminous eyes turned toward Ysandre again. “It’s time for you to go, because I doubt you would enjoy seeing this. You won’t be able to return here. I’m closing down nodes on the network. When I’m finished, there will be only two destinations: to me, or to Bishop.”

“Where is he?”

“You don’t know?” Amelie raised her eyebrows again. “He is where it is most secure, of course. At City Hall. And at nightfall, I will come against him. That’s why I came looking for you, Claire. I need you to tell Richard. Tell him to get all those who can’t fight for me out of the building.”

“But—he can’t. It’s a storm shelter. There are supposed to be tornadoes coming.”

“Claire,” Amelie said. “Listen to me. If innocents take refuge in that building, they will be killed, because I can’t protect them anymore. We’re at endgame now. There’s no room for mercy.” She looked again at Ysandre, who had gone very still, listening.

“Y’all wouldn’t be saying this in front of me if I was going to walk out of here, would you?” Ysandre asked. She sounded calm now. Very still.

“No,” Amelie said. “Very perceptive. I wouldn’t.” She took Claire by the arm and helped her to her feet. “I am relying on you, Claire. Go now. Tell Richard these are my orders.”

Before Claire could utter another word, she felt the air shimmer in front of her, in the middle of the big warehouse room, and she fell . . . out over the dusty trunk in the Glass House attic, where Oliver had been. She sprawled ungracefully on top of it, then rolled off and got to her feet with a thump.

When she waved her hand through the air, looking for that strange heat shimmer of an open portal, she felt nothing at all.

I’m closing the portals, Amelie had said.

She’d closed this one, for sure.

“Claire?” Shane’s voice came from the far end of the attic. He shoved aside boxes and jumped over jumbled furniture to reach her. “What happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I’ll tell you later,” she said, and realized she was still holding the bloody silver knife. She carefully put it back in her pocket, in the makeshift holster against her leg. It was so dull she didn’t think it would cut anything again, but it made her feel better. “Oliver?”

“Bad.” Shane put his hands around her head and tilted it up, looking her over. “Is everything okay?”

“Define everything. No, define okay.” She shook her head in frustration. “I need to get the radio. I have to talk to Richard.”

Richard wasn’t on the radio. “He’s meeting with the mayor,” said the man who answered. Sullivan, Claire thought his name was, but she hadn’t really paid attention. “You got a problem there?”

“No, Officer, you’ve got a problem there,” she said. “I need to talk to Richard. It’s really important!”

“Everybody needs to talk to Richard,” Sullivan said. “He’ll get back to you. He’s busy right now. If it’s not an emergency response—”

“Yes, okay! It’s an emergency!”

“Then I’ll send units out to you. Glass House, right?”

“No, it’s not—” Claire wanted to slam the radio down in frustration. “It’s not an emergency here. Look, just tell Richard that he needs to clear everybody out of City Hall, as soon as possible.”

“Can’t do that,” Sullivan said. “It’s our center of operations. It’s the main storm shelter, and we’ve got one heck of a storm coming tonight. You’re going to have to give me a reason, miss.”

“All right, it’s because—”

Michael took the radio away from her and shut it off. Claire gaped, stuttered, and finally demanded, “Why?”

“Because if Amelie says Bishop’s got himself installed in City Hall, somebody there has to know. We don’t know who’s on his team,” Michael said. “I don’t know Sullivan that well, but I know he never was happy with the way things ran in town. I wouldn’t put it past him to be buying Bishop’s crap about giving the city back to the people, home rule, all that stuff. Same goes for anybody else there, except maybe Joe Hess and Travis Lowe. We have to know who we’re talking to before we say anything else.”

Shane nodded. “I’m thinking that Sullivan’s keeping Richard out of the loop for a reason.”

They were downstairs, the four of them. Eve, Shane, and Claire were at the kitchen table, and Michael was pacing the floor and casting looks at the couch, where Oliver was. The older vampire was asleep, Claire guessed, or unconscious; they’d done what they could, washed him off and wrapped him in clean blankets. He was healing, according to Michael, but he wasn’t doing it very fast.

When he’d woken up, he’d seemed distant. Confused.

Afraid.

Claire had given him one of the doses she’d gotten from Dr. Mills, and so far, it seemed to be helping, but if Oliver was sick, Myrnin’s fears were becoming real.

Soon, it’d be Amelie, too. And then where would they be?

“So what do we do?” Claire asked. “Amelie said we have to tell Richard. We have to get noncombatants out of City Hall, as soon as possible.”

“Problem is, you heard him giving instructions to the Civil Defense guys earlier—they’re out telling everybody in town to go to City Hall if they can’t make it to another shelter. Radio and TV, too. Hell, half the town is probably there already.”

“Maybe she won’t do it,” Eve said. “I mean, she wouldn’t kill everybody in there, would she? Not even if she thinks they’re working for Bishop.”

“I think it’s gone past that,” Claire said. “I don’t know if she has any choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not in chess,” Claire replied. “Unless your choice is to lie down and die.”

In the end, the only way to be sure they got to the right person was to get in the car and drive there. Claire was a little shocked at the color of the sky outside—a solid gray, with clouds moving so fast it was like time-lapse on the Weather Channel. The edges looked faintly green, and in this part of the country, that was never a good sign.

The only good thing about it was that Michael didn’t have to worry about getting scorched by sunlight. He brought a hoodie and a blanket to throw over his head, just in case, but it was dark outside, and getting darker fast. Premature sunset.

Drops of rain were smacking the sidewalk, the size of half-dollars. Where they hit Claire’s skin, they felt like