Carpe Corpus

He gestured, and the curtain at the back opened.

Amelie was dragged out, bound in silver chains. She was still wearing her perfect pink suit, but it wasn’t so perfect now—filthy, ripped, bloody. Her pale crown of hair had come down in straggles all around her face.

She had a silver leash around her neck, and Oliver was holding it.

Oliver.

Claire felt hot, then cold, then very still inside. She’d come to believe he wasn’t as bad as she’d thought; she’d actually started to think he really was almost . . . trustworthy.

Obviously, Amelie had thought so, too. And Michael, because he went for Oliver in a big way, and was brought down by Pennywell and two others.

Worse, though, was the next prisoner, also wrapped in silver chains, and suffering a lot worse than Amelie from the touch of the poisonous metal. His skin smoked and blackened where it touched him, because he was younger and more fragile than she was.

Sam Glass.

Amelie cried out when she saw him, and closed her eyes. She’d lost her careful detachment, and now Claire could see in her how much she cared. How much she wanted Sam.

How much she loved him.

Bishop smiled, and in that smile, Claire saw everything. He didn’t want to just destroy Morganville; he wanted to destroy life, and hope, and reasons for living at all. He could win only if he was the last vampire standing, no matter how many people that meant he had to kill along the way.

“You couldn’t have won, Amelie,” he said, and the tattoo on Claire’s arm flared back into view, weaving its way up from a single spot of indigo on her wrist until it covered her arm. Then her chest. She felt it spreading like poison through her whole body, burning, and then it flared out like a brush fire. Gone for real, this time. “There, you can have your little pet back now. I no longer have need for her. She helped me learn everything I needed to know.”

“I doubt that,” Amelie said. Her voice was ragged with emotion, but she held her father’s stare. “I was careful to keep things from her.”

“Not so careful to keep them from Oliver, though. And that was a mistake.” He tipped her chin up to meet her eyes. “Morganville is mine. You are mine. Again.”

“Then take what’s yours,” Amelie said. She seemed weak now. Defeated. “Kill, if you wish. Burn. Destroy. When it’s over, what do you have, Father? Nothing. Exactly what you’ve always had. We came here to build. To live. It’s not something you would ever understand.”

“Oh, I do understand. I just despise it. And here,” Bishop said, “is where you die.”

He yanked Amelie’s head to the side, and for a horrible second Claire thought she was going to see him kill her, right there, but then he laughed and kissed her on the throat.

“Though, of course, not at my hands,” he said. “It wouldn’t be moral, after all. We must set a good example, or so you like to tell me, child. I’ll let your humans kill you, eventually. Once you’ve begged for the privilege.”

He shoved Amelie aside, into Pennywell’s hands, and instead, he grabbed Sam Glass.

“No!” Michael shouted, and leaped to his feet to stop it.

He couldn’t. Claire caught sight of Sam’s pale, set face, of a determination she couldn’t understand, and of Michael being brought down ten feet away, as Bishop exposed Sam’s throat and bit him.

Amelie’s scream tore through the air. Myrnin—still shaking and weak—crawled toward her. Ysandre kicked him aside, laughing.

Oliver just stood there, like an ice sculpture. Only his eyes were alive, and even they didn’t show Claire anything she understood.

Michael wasn’t there to hold Claire down anymore. She scrambled to her feet, clutched the silver knife, and plunged it into Ysandre’s back as deeply as she could. It dug into bone.

“Oh,” Ysandre said, annoyed. She tried to get at the knife, but it was out of her reach. She turned on Claire with a snarl, then staggered. Shock blanked her pretty face, and then worry.

Then fear, as the burning started.

She fell, screaming for help. Claire vaulted over her to kneel next to Myrnin. He was fighting his way back through the pain, panting, and his eyes were bright crimson from the stress, and probably hunger.

He wasn’t out of control, though. Not anymore. “Get me up,” he demanded. “Do it now! ”

She offered him a hand, and he used it to haul himself to his feet—unsteady, but stronger than she’d ever seen him. This was a different Myrnin . . . sleek, glossy, dark, and dangerous, with his glowing, angry eyes fixed on Bishop.

“Stop him!” Claire yelled at Myrnin, as he just stood there. Sam was dying. Myrnin was letting it happen. “It’s Sam! You have to stop him!”

Instead, Myrnin turned and attacked Pennywell.

“No! Myrnin, no! Sam!”

Oliver still wasn’t moving. He was staring at Bishop. Waiting.

They were all waiting.

Down in the crowd, screaming had started, and as Claire looked out she saw that people were trying to run. There were vampires moving through the crowd—hunters, taking victims. The Morganville humans were fighting for their lives. A lot of people had shown up armed to their own funerals, including Shane and Eve; Claire caught glimpses of them down there, and all she could do was pray they’d be okay. They had each other for protection, at least.

She had to help Michael. Claire didn’t dare grab the knife from Ysandre’s back—it was the only thing keeping her out of the fight—but she couldn’t just stand there, either.

Luckily, she didn’t have to. Hannah Moses shouted her name, and as Claire turned, she saw Hannah throwing something at her. She instinctively reached up to catch it.

It was a sharp wooden stake. Hannah didn’t wait to see what she was going to do with it; she was already heading for François, who was trying to get hold of Richard Morrell. Hannah leaped on the nasty little vampire, pinned him with an expert shift of her weight, and plunged her own wooden stake through his heart. It wouldn’t kill him, probably, but he was out of the struggle until somebody removed it.

Michael had already won his fight by the time Claire got there; he was bloodied and a little unsteady, but he grabbed her arm and yelled, “Get out of here!”

“We have to save Sam!” she protested.

But it was too late for that.

Bishop dropped Sam limply to the carpeted floor, and Claire could see that if Sam was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long. The holes in his throat were barely leaking at all, and he wasn’t moving.

Fury whited out her good sense.

Claire ran at Bishop as he turned, and rammed the stake at his chest, right on target for where his heart would be, if he had one at all.

He caught her wrist.

“No,” he said gently, like someone with a pet who’d piddled on the good furniture. “I’ll not be taken by the likes of you, little girl.”

She tried to get away, but she knew it was over; there was just no way she was getting out of this. Michael had gotten into a fight along the way to reach Sam. Amelie was down on her knees, still bound by all the silver chains. Hannah and Richard were back-to-back, defending themselves against three vampire guards.

Myrnin was fighting Pennywell, and destroying half the stage along the way. There was some old hate there. History.

Oliver had drifted closer to Amelie, although Claire couldn’t see any change in him at all. He still wasn’t fighting, for or against, and he certainly wasn’t making any heroic effort to save her.

“Claire!”

Shane. She heard him scream her name, but he was too far away—twenty feet down, at the foot of the stage, looking up.

He had a knife in his hand. As she looked down to meet his eyes, he flipped it, grabbed it by the blade, and threw it.