Carpe Corpus

hesitantly extended hers. Mrs. Goldman pushed the shirt sleeve up to expose the tattoo, turning it this way and that, studying it.

“Well?” Theo asked. “Can you tell?”

“It’s definitely significantly weakened,” his wife said. “How much, it’s hard to tell, but I don’t think he can compel her without a large effort. Not anymore.”

That was news to Claire. Good news, actually. “Does he know what I’m thinking?”

“He never did, my dear,” Patience said, and patted her hand before releasing it. “Mr. Bishop’s skills are hardly all-powerful. He simply uses our fear to make them seem so.” She nodded to her husband. “I think I can safely mask her from him, if he should look for her.”

“Wait, what?” Claire asked.

Their eldest son, Virgil, threw down a handful of cards in annoyance and crossed his arms. “Oh, just tell her,” he said. “They want to take you with us.”

“What?”

“It’s for the best,” Theo said quickly. “We can escort you safely out of town. If you stay, he’ll kill you, or turn you vampire so he can control you better. You simply have no options here, my dear. We only want to help you, but it has to be now. Tonight. We can’t risk waiting any longer.”

“That’s . . . kind of sweet,” Claire said carefully, and measured the distance between where she stood and the door. Not that she could outrun one vampire, much less six. “But I’m okay here. Besides, I really can’t leave now. Shane—”

“Ah.” Theo snapped his fingers, and his smile took on a wicked sort of tilt around the edges. “Yes, of course. The boy. As it happens, I did not forget young Mr. Collins; Clarence and Minnie have gone to fetch him. Once they arrive here, we will make sure you both are safely away.”

Claire’s eyes widened, and suddenly she couldn’t get a breath. Her heart started to pound, first from anticipation, then from outright fear. “You . . . you decided to break Shane out of jail?”

“Call it our last good act of charity,” Theo said. “Or our revenge on Mr. Bishop, if you like. Either way, it’s of benefit to you, I think.”

“Does Amelie know what you’re doing?”

Theo’s expression smoothed out into a frighteningly blank mask. “Amelie finds it better to skulk in the shadows, while people die for her lack of courage. No, she does not know. If she did, she’d no doubt have a dozen reasons why this was a mistake.”

It was a mistake. Claire couldn’t say why, but she knew it, deep down. “She promised me she’d take care of him,” Claire said. “She’s got a plan, Theo. You shouldn’t have interfered.”

“Amelie’s plans are subject to her own needs, and she never bothered to include me,” Theo said. “I am offering you and your boy a way out of Morganville. Now. Tonight. And you need never return here again.”

It wasn’t that simple. “My parents.”

“We can take them with us as well.”

“But . . . Bishop can find us,” Claire said. “Vampires found Shane’s family when they left town before. They killed his mother.”

“Shane and his father blame vampires for what was only a very natural human despair. Shane’s mother took her own life. You see that, don’t you? Claire?” Theo seemed to want her to agree, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe he doubted it himself. When she didn’t, he looked disappointed. “Well, it’s too late now, in any case. We can discuss this once we’re safely away. We will help you find a place well beyond Bishop’s—and Amelie’s—reach before we move on ourselves.”

One of the grandsons—the middle one, Claire couldn’t remember his name—made a rude sound and threw down his cards. “Grandpapa, we don’t want to leave.” The other children tried to shush him, but he stood up. “We don’t! None of us do! We have lives here. We stopped running. It was safe for us. Now you want us to go out there again, start over again—”

“Jacob!” Theo’s wife seemed shocked. “Don’t talk to your grandfather so!”

“You never ask us. You want us all to pretend that we’re still children. We’re not, Grandmother. I know you and Grandpapa can’t accept that; I know you don’t want to let us go, but we can make our own decisions.”

Mrs. Goldman seemed not to know what to say. Theo looked very thoughtful, and then nodded. “All right. I’m listening. What decision have you made?”

“To stay here,” Jacob said. “We’re staying here.” He looked down at his brothers and sisters, who all nodded—some reluctantly, though. “You can go if you want, but we’re not letting Bishop drive us out. And no matter what you say, that’s what you’re doing. You’re just saving him the trouble of exiling us.”

“If exile was what I was worried about, I would agree with you. It isn’t.”

“You think he’ll try to kill us?” Jacob shook his head. “No. It’s not the old days, Grandpapa. Nobody’s hunting us here.”

“If I have learned anything in my long life, it is that someone is always hunting us,” Theo’s wife said. “Now sit down, Jacob. The rest of you, sit down. We’ll have no more of this. You’re being rude in front of our friend.”

Claire wanted to apologize, somehow; Jacob shot her a borderline-angry look, but he dropped back in his place on the floor, shoulders slumped. She’d never thought about it, but she supposed for a lot of vampires Morganville was about as good as it could get—no looking over your shoulder, waiting to be discovered. No worrying about putting down roots, making friends, having some kind of a life.

“Theo,” Mrs. Goldman said, and nodded toward the door where they’d come in. “I hear someone coming.”

“She has better ears than I do,” Theo confessed to Claire. “Stay here. I will let them in.”

“But—”

“Stay here. There’s nothing to fear. You’ll be with your young man soon.”

He left, shutting the door behind him. Mrs. Goldman drifted quietly over to speak to her children and grand- children in a low, urgent voice—the way moms always talked to kids who were throwing tantrums in front of company—and Claire was left not quite knowing what she ought to do. If they had managed to bust Shane out of jail, well, that was good, wasn’t it? Maybe not according to Amelie’s plan, but that didn’t make it a bad thing. Not automatically.

Claire took her cell phone out and speed-dialed the Glass House. No answer, at least not on the first three rings.

On the fourth ring, she thought she heard someone pick up, but it was drowned out by a warning cry from Mrs. Goldman from behind her.

The door smashed open, and Theo came flying through, crashing into Claire and sending her to the floor. The phone skittered out of her hands and underneath the shadowy bottom of an old, upholstered chair. She couldn’t breathe; Theo’s shoulder had hit her in the stomach, and as she struggled to get her muscles working again, she saw black spots swimming at the edge of her vision. Her whole body felt liquid and hot, and she wasn’t sure what had just happened, except that it was bad. . . .

Mrs. Goldman vaulted over Claire’s body and grabbed Theo, who was feebly trying to right himself. She pulled him back into the corner, with the children, and fearlessly stood in front of all of them, fangs flashing white as she faced their enemies.

“Now, don’t be doing that,” said a honey-dark voice from the doorway’s shadows. “There’s no need for violence, is there?” The light caught on the vampire’s face, and Claire felt sick. Ysandre, Bishop’s icky little pet slut. She was dressed for business just now, in black leather pants and a long-sleeved heavy jacket with a hood. She could have been drawn in black and white, except for the slash of red that was her mouth. “Got something for you, missus.”

She reached back, grabbed two people by the hair, and propelled them both inside. It was the Goldmans’ other son and daughter, Clarence and Minnie. Vampires didn’t often look beaten up, but these two did, and Claire felt a little sick at the sight of the fear on Mrs. Goldman’s face.

“Let them go,” she said. “Children! Come here!”

“Not so fast,” Ysandre said, and yanked on the hair she was holding. “Let’s talk about this first. Mr. Bishop is not too pleased with your family breaking its word to him. He allowed you to stay here, alive and free, and in return