Bitter Blood

EIGHT AMELIE

I knew of no one, vampire or human, who could detour Myrnin from a course once he had decided on it, whether it was mad, manic, destructive, or simply single-minded. So when the guards informed me that he had refused to stop at the checkpoint to the hallway of my office, I did not bother to order them to try to detain him. It might have been possible for a few moments, an hour, a day, but Myrnin wouldn’t forget. He would simply start again, and sooner or later, he’d succeed.

I pressed the button on my phone—still such an awkward and common device, to my mind, nothing attractive about it—and informed my assistant that upon his arrival she should not stand in his way. Poor thing, she had taken enough abuse lately, from humans as well as from vampires.

Only I could handle Myrnin with any measure of success.

He exploded through my doorway with the force of a tropical storm, and indeed the riot of colors about his person reminded me of that…so many shades, and none of them complementary. I did not bother to catalog all the offenses, but they began with the jacket he had chosen. I had no name for that particular hue of orange, other than unfortunate.

“This is my last attempt at making you see sense,” he said. Shouted, actually. “Damn you, how long have we worked, how many sacrifices have we made? To see you throw that all away for him… ”

I had already decided, well before his grand entrance, what my first move would be, and with an economy of motion, I slapped him full across the face. The force of it would have felled a strong mortal; it certainly made Myrnin pause, with the mark of the blow blushing a very faint pink in the shape of my fingers.

He blinked.

“You may save your well-rehearsed speech,” I said. “I’ll hear none of it. This ill-advised intrusion is at an end.”

“Amelie, we have been friends for—”

“Don’t presume to tell me how many years. I can count as well as you, or possibly better on the days when you’re insane,” I snapped back. “Sit down.”

He did, looking oddly watchful. I paced. I’d been doing that more frequently than was my normal habit, but I put it down to raw nerves. Morganville lately had seemed exasperating, a broken toy that would never be put right no matter how much time and love I lavished on the repairs.

Myrnin said, “You even move like he does now.”

“Silence!” I whirled on him, snarling, and knew my eyes had gone deep crimson.

“No,” he said, with an eerie sort of calm. Myrnin was many things, but he was rarely calm, and when he was, it was time to worry. “There are some people who may say this is a good match for you, that you needed a strong right arm to calm the fears of the vampires and subdue the human population. I am not one. Sam gentled you, Amelie. He made you feel more a part of the world you rule. Oliver will never do that. He feels no responsibility for those he crushes, and—”

“Foul his name again and we’re finished,” I interrupted. I meant it, and it dripped from every syllable I spoke.

Myrnin sat still for a moment, staring into my eyes, and then he nodded. “Then we are indeed,” he said. “I just had to be certain that you were beyond my hope, and my help. But if he has you tied this close, he will have you do as he wishes. Whomever it hurts.”

“Do you think I am so—so stupid? So utterly weak that I would allow any man to—”

“Not just a man,” Myrnin said. “He swayed a nation to kill its king, once. He persuades. He influences. Perhaps he doesn’t even intend to do so, but it’s in his nature. And while you are more powerful than he by far, once he has your trust, there is no saying what he might be able to accomplish, through you.”

His words left me cold inside, a chill I’d not felt since the moment I’d finally acknowledged the aching need for Oliver’s regard, for his loyalty, for his attention. I had been alone for so long; Michael’s grandfather Sam Glass and I had loved, but save for a few precious times, always carefully, and from afar. Oliver had come at me like a storm, and the fury of it was…cleansing.

But was Myrnin right? Could I be falling victim, as so many had, to Oliver’s deadly charm? Was what I was doing here right, or simply convenient to his ambitions?

I slowly sat down in a chair across from my oldest living friend, the one who—in the end—I trusted more than any still walking the earth, and said, “I know my own mind, Myrnin. I am Amelie. I am the Founder of Morganville, and what I do here, I do for the good of all. You may trust that. You must.”

He had a sadness in his eyes that I could not understand, but then, who ever had understood Myrnin fully? I couldn’t make that claim, and neither could Claire, the girl he trusted so much. And then he stood, and with the ease of thousands of years of experience, he made a graceful, ages-old bow, took my hand in his, and kissed it with the greatest of love and respect.

“Farewell,” he said.

And then he was gone.

I slowly drew my hand back to my chest, frowning, and became aware that I was cradling it, rubbing the spot where his lips had pressed as if they had burned me. Farewell. He’d thrown tantrums many times, threatened to leave, but this—this seemed different.

It was a calm, ordered, and above all sad departure.

“Myrnin?” I said softly into the silence, but it was too late.

Far too late.

NINE CLAIRE

Shane preceded Claire into the house by a couple of steps as she shut and locked the door behind them; apparently that was a lucky thing, because as she was turning the dead bolt, she heard him say, “Oh, crap,” in a voice that was choked with laughter, and then a startled yelp from Eve, followed by the sound of scrambling and flailing. Shane backed up next to Claire and held her back when she would have moved forward.

“Trust me,” he said. “Wait a second.”

Michael and Eve were in the parlor, the front living area that was so rarely used, except for dropping coats and bags and miscellaneous stuff, and from the hasty whispers and rustles of clothes, Claire quickly figured out exactly why Shane was holding her back.

Oh.

“I guess I should have said, Put your pants on,” Shane said, loudly enough that they could hear. “Alert, there’s a barely legal girl out here.”

“Hey!” Claire swiped a hand at him, which he easily avoided. “What were they doing?”

“What do you think?”

Pink-faced, Eve leaned around the frame of the doorway and said, “Um…hi. You’re early.”

“Nope,” Shane said with merciless good cheer. “It’s sundown. Not a bit early. You got clothes on?”

“Yes!” Eve said. Her cheeks burned brighter. “Of course! And you didn’t see anything anyway.” There was a bit of worry to her voice, though, and Shane made it worse with a big, utterly unsympathetic smile.

“Married people,” he said to Claire. “They’re a menace.”

Eve eased out of the door, zipping up her blouse—it was one of those with a front zip—and cleared her throat. “Right,” she said. “We really need to talk, you guys.”

“You know, my dad sucked at most things, but he did give me the birds and bees Q&A when I was ten, so I’m good,” Shane said. Man, he was enjoying this way too much. “Claire?”

She nodded soberly. “I think I understand the basics.”

Eve, still blushing, rolled her eyes. “I’m serious!”