Kiss of Death

“Why didn’t you just—,” Eve began to ask, but was interrupted as Mrs. Grant’s head came up sharply.

“Leave?” she snapped. “Don’t you think we tried? Phones were out, landlines and cells. Internet went down with the power the first day; they ripped the power station apart while they were still thinking. We sent everybody we could out of town on the school buses. They never made it. Some kind of trap on the road, blew out all the tires. Some made it back here. Most didn’t.”

It was like some horror movie come to life. Claire had thought Morganville was bad, but this—this was beyond bad.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But why stay here? Why don’t you just—try again?”

“You know how many people used to be in Blacke?” Mrs. Grant asked. “One hundred seventy-two. What you see here in this building is what’s left. What’s left still breathing, anyway. You think we can just walk away? These were our friends, our families. And if we leave, what happens? How far does this spread?” Mrs. Grant’s eyes hardened until they were like cold green ice. “It stops here. It has to stop here. Now, you explain to me how you’re traveling around with one of them.”

“What’s more important is that Oliver wasn’t—like those people you’re talking about. They’re sick. He’s not.”

Mrs. Grant let out a sharp laugh. “He’s dead. That’s as sick as it gets, Claire from nowhere.”

“Look,” Shane said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table, “I’m not saying the vampires aren’t the essence of freaky; they are. But they’re not like this. Not—normally. They can be —”

“And how do the four of you know anything at all about vampires?” Mrs. Grant asked. None of them answered, and her eyes narrowed. “There are more out there. More of them. Even if we finish here, there are more.”

“Not like these!” Claire said again, desperately. “You have to believe me; they’re not all—”

“Not all bad,” said Morley, who stepped out of the shadows of one of the racks of books, looking terrifying and bloody and as unreassuring as possible. “No, we’re not. Although some of us are no doubt better than others.”

And Oliver appeared on top of the bookcase, looking down. In his long black coat, he looked very tall, very strong, and even more intimidating than Morley. More came out of the shadows, too. Claire spotted Patience and Jacob, near the edges of the group.

And Michael, golden Michael, who smiled at Eve as though it would all be all right, somehow.

Mrs. Grant came out of her chair and lunged for the weapons.

Shane slammed his chair backward, throwing the two guards behind him off balance. That was all the time Oliver needed to jump from the bookcase to the table, then to the floor, and take the guns out of their hands.

He didn’t hurt them. He didn’t have to.

Morley did that way-too-fast vampire thing and was suddenly at the weapons rack ahead of Mrs. Grant, baring his fangs and grinning. He made a little finger-wagging gesture, and she skidded to a stop and backed off, breathing fast. Scared to death, of course, and Claire didn’t blame her.

Michael, meanwhile, was already at Eve’s side. She threw her arms around his neck. “How did you get out?” she asked, her voice muffled against his shirt. He rubbed her back gently and rested his chin against her hair.

“The building across the way casts a pretty big shadow,” he said. “We bailed as soon as we could. From there it wasn’t hard. They thought they had everybody they needed to worry about.”

“You didn’t—”

“No,” Michael said. “We didn’t hurt anybody. Patience made sure of that.”

The townspeople of Blacke—all twenty or thirty of them—were gathering together in a tight block now, with their kids safely in the center. They looked about to make their last stand. Not one of them, Claire realized, thought they were going to live through this.

“Hey,” she said to Mrs. Grant. “Please. Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Morley laughed. “We’re not?”

“No, we’re not,” Oliver said, and piled the weapons on the table. “Shane, get the silver.”

“Can I keep some?”

Oliver smiled grimly. “If it makes you happy.”

“You have no idea.”

“Distribute the chains to everyone else. Make sure they’re wearing silver at their necks and wrists. It’ll help protect them, should some of us, Morley, suffer a lapse of character.” He checked each shotgun for shells, and tossed them to specific individual vampires, who snatched them out of the air with lazy accuracy. “Right. I’m afraid Mrs. Grant is quite right; we can’t allow this infection—and it is an infection—to spread any farther than it has already. We must hunt down and dose everyone who’s contracted the disease, or destroy them. That’s as much for our kind as yours, you see.”

“Dose them?” Mrs. Grant blurted. “What are you—”

Patience Goldman opened up a small black satchel—her father’s doctor bag, Claire realized—and inside were dozens of vials of liquid, as well as some bottles of red crystals. Claire herself had helped develop those; the liquid contained a cure for the bloodborne disease that Bishop had spread here, or at least she hoped it did. The crystals would help restore people’s sanity, temporarily. It worked best doing the crystals, then giving the shot. It had for the far-gone vampires in Morganville.

“They can be saved,” Oliver said. “Your family and friends can be restored to sanity, we believe. But they can’t be restored to human. You understand? What’s done is done on that score. But you can have them back, if you can adjust to that small difference.”

“This is insane,” one of the guards said, a little wildly. His crossbow was now in the hands of one of Morley’s vampires, a little guy with a lined, twisted face and a limp. “We have to fight! Lillian—”

“We’re not here to fight you,” Oliver said. “And we’re not here to save you. I am here to stop the spread of this infection by any means necessary, which, as I see it, aligns with your goals. My other friends,” he said, putting some irony into that last word, “are just passing through your fine town. None of us have any reason to want to harm you.”

“You’re vampires,” Mrs. Grant said blankly.

“Well, obviously. Yes.” Oliver snapped another fully loaded shotgun closed and tossed it through the air.

To Mrs. Grant.

“Any questions?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked around. There were a lot of vampires—just about as many as there were humans. And none of them were making threatening moves. Shane walked around, handing out silver chairs to people, smiling his best I’m-a-nice-guy smile. Even Jason seemed to be doing his best to be non- threatening, which wasn’t exactly easy for him.

“Then let’s sit down,” Oliver said, and pulled out a chair at the table. “I, for one, have had a very hard day.”

12

Night fell as tensions gradually eased; the people of Blacke never quite got comfortable, but they loosened up enough to put on some stew in the library’s small kitchen, which had a miniature stove that ran on gas. Apparently, the gas was still flowing, even though the electricity was out. As the light faded outside the windows, Mrs. Grant and three of her burly cowboy-hatted guards—Claire guessed the cowboy hats were a kind of uniform—made the rounds to barricade the doors and windows.

Morley joined them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, Mrs. Grant decided to ignore his presence. The guards didn’t. Their knuckles were white on their weapons.

“May I assist?” he asked, and put his hands behind his back. “I promise not to eat anyone.”

“Very funny,” Mrs. Grant said. Morley gave her a grave look.

“I wasn’t joking, dear lady,” he said. “I do promise. And I never make a promise I don’t intend to keep. You