Carpe Corpus

inside the apartment say, “Help.”

She froze, staring at Detective Hess. He’d heard it, too, and he gestured her even farther back as he pulled his gun from the holster under his jacket. “Willie Combs? You okay in there? It’s Joe Hess. Answer me, Willie!”

“Help,” the voice came again, weaker this time.

Hess tried the door, but it was locked. He took in a deep breath. “Claire, you stay right there. Do not come in. Hear me?”

She nodded. He whirled and kicked into the door, and the cheap hollow wood splintered and flew open on the second try, sending wood and metal flying.

Detective Hess disappeared inside. Claire saw curtains fluttering and blinds tenting as people looked out to see what was going on, but nobody came outside.

Not even in the middle of the day.

It seemed like a very long time until Detective Hess came out with someone held in his arms. It was a girl about Claire’s age, pretty, dressed in a Morganville High T-shirt and sweatpants, like she’d just dropped in from gym class.

She wasn’t moving, and he was holding a towel on her neck.

“Call an ambulance,” he ordered Claire. “Tell them it’s a rush, and bring the bite kit.”

“Is she—”

“She’s alive,” he said, and stretched her out on the concrete, still holding the towel in place. Hess looked up at her with fury shining in his eyes. “Her name is Theresa. Theresa Combs. She’s the oldest of the three kids.”

Claire went cold, and looked at the doorway of the apartment. “They’re not—”

“Let’s focus on the living,” he said. “Hold this on her throat, just like this.” She knelt beside him and pressed her small fingers where his larger ones were. It felt like she was pressing too hard, but he nodded. “Good. Keep doing that. I’m going to make one more sweep inside, just to be sure.”

As he stepped over the girl and back into the apartment, Theresa’s eyes fluttered, and she looked at Claire. Big, dark eyes. Desperate. “Help,” she whispered. “Help Jimmy. He’s only twelve.”

Claire took her hand. “Shhhh. Just rest.”

Theresa’s eyes filled up with tears. “I tried,” she said. “I really tried. Why is this happening to us? We didn’t do anything wrong. We followed all the rules.”

Claire couldn’t do anything to help her, except hold her hand and keep the towel over her throat, just like Detective Hess said. When he came back to the doorway, drawn by the distant howl of an approaching siren, she looked up at him in miserable hope.

He shook his head.

They didn’t speak at all until the paramedics took Theresa away. Claire stayed where she was, on her knees, staring at the blood speckling her trembling fingers. Detective Hess crouched down and handed her a moist wipe, with the attitude of somebody who’d done that sort of thing a lot. He patted her gently on the shoulder. “Deep breaths,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Good job taking care of Theresa. You probably saved her life.”

“Who did that to them?” Once she started wiping her hands, she really couldn’t stop. “Why?”

“It’s been happening all over town,” Hess said. “People whose Protectors went over to Bishop. People who lost their Protectors in the fight. People whose Protectors never cared enough in the first place. Half of this town is nothing but a mobile blood supply right now.” The look on his face, when she glanced up, was enough to make her shiver. “Maybe the crazies are right. Maybe we should kill all the vampires.”

“Yeah,” Claire said, very softly. “Because people never kill people, right?”

He had Eve’s death warrant in his pocket.

He didn’t argue about it.

They found another five people on Hannah’s list, all safe and alive—well, one of them was drunk off his butt at the Barfly, one of the scarier local watering holes, but he was still breathing and unfanged. One by one, they were put on the bus.

By four p.m., the last bus was motoring out of Morganville, heading for parts unknown (to Claire, at least), and she was left standing with those who were left. Richard Morrell. Hannah Moses. Shane and Eve, standing there together, whispering. Joe Hess, talking on the police car radio. There were other people around, but they stayed in the shadows, and Claire had the strong suspicion that they were vampires. Amelie’s vampires, getting organized for something big.

Without warning, Claire felt a burning sensation on her arm.

When she pulled back her sleeve, she saw the tattoo was swirling, like a pot of stirred ink under her skin. Bishop was trying to pull her in. She could feel the impulse to walk out of the warehouse and head for Founder’s Square, but she resisted.

When she was afraid she couldn’t hold back anymore, she told Shane. He put his arms around her. “I’m not letting you go anywhere,” he promised. “Not without me.”

The impulse felt like a string tied around her guts, pulling relentlessly. It was annoying at first. Then it hurt. Finally, she pulled free of Shane’s embrace and walked in circles around the open space of the warehouse they’d used for the bus staging area, making wider and wider arcs. He intercepted her when she came close to the door, and she looked at him in silent misery. “I hate this!” she blurted. “I want this thing out!” And she burst into tears, because it felt overwhelming to her, this feeling of despair and anguish, of not being where she was supposed to be. This time, even Shane’s presence couldn’t help. The misery just came in waves, crushing her underneath. She heard Shane yelling at Richard Morrell, and then Hannah was there, saying something about helping.

Claire felt a hot sting in her arm, and then calm spread like ice through her veins. It was a relief, but it didn’t touch the burning on her arm, or the anxiety boiling in her stomach. Her body still wasn’t her own.

“She’ll sleep for a while,” Hannah said, from a long way off. “Shane, I need you.”

Claire couldn’t open her eyes, or tell them that she wasn’t really asleep at all. She seemed to be—she got that—but she was desperately awake underneath. Painfully awake.

Shane kissed her, warm and gentle, and she felt his hand smooth her hair and trace down her cheek. Don’t leave me, she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t make herself move or speak.

Her heartbeat thudded, slow and calm, even though she felt the panic building inside her.

She felt herself carried somewhere, tucked into a warm bed and piled with blankets.

Then silence.

Her eyes opened, as if someone else was controlling them, and as she sat up, she saw someone standing in the corner of the darkened room where they’d left her.

Ada.

The ghost put a pale, flickering finger to her lips and motioned for Claire to sit up. She did, although she had no idea why.

Ada drifted closer. Once again, she wasn’t three-dimensional at all, just a flat projection on the air, like a TV character without the screen. She didn’t really look human; in fact, she looked more like a game character, all smoothness and manufactured detail.

Somewhere in the dark, a cell phone rang. Claire walked over to a pile of boxes labeled EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT and ripped away tape to retrieve a cell phone. Fully charged, from the battery icon on the display. She lifted it to her ear.

“Bishop is trying to pull you to him,” Ada’s tinny, artificial voice said. “But I need you elsewhere.”

“You need me.”

“Of course. With Myrnin deactivated, I require someone to assist me. Take the portal to reach me.”

“There’s a portal?” Claire felt slow and stupid, and she didn’t think it was the drugs that Hannah had given her. Ada’s ghostly representation gave her a scorching look of contempt.

“I have made a portal,” she said. “That’s what I do, you silly fool. Take it, now. Six steps forward, four to your right. Go!”

The connection died on Claire’s borrowed phone with a lost-signal beep. She folded the clamshell and slid it back in her pocket, and realized that someone—Shane, she guessed—had taken her shoes off for her. She put them on and walked six paces forward into the dark, then four steps to the right.