her mouth in shock.
“Help me! Pull me out!”
All three of them broke out of their momentary freeze at the same time. Michael scrambled over the back of the sofa and got to her first, grabbing her arm just as Pennyfeather yanked backward, and although Michael held on, they both slid toward the portal.
Claire couldn’t get her breath. “He’s got me; he’s got me; I can’t—!” she shrieked as Pennyfeather yanked hard on her leg, and she felt the strain in her muscles. He was still playing with her. She’d seen an angry vampire rip limbs off a person, and it was frighteningly possible just now.
Shane took hold of Claire and wrapped his arms around her in a grip so tight it felt as if she’d be crushed. “Go, Mike. I’ll hold her here! Get the bastard off her!”
“It’s the lab!” Claire blurted, “He’s in the lab!”
She wasn’t sure Michael could make it through at all—there wasn’t much room—but she twisted over to the side in hopes of making more space. At least Michael knew what he was doing. He paused for a moment, fixing the lab’s location in his mind, then nodded at her and plunged through in a rush.
Claire felt the disturbance of the thin membrane still holding her leg at the knee like a strange tidal wave, and Pennyfeather’s grip tightened. He started to yank her steadily backward, and all of Shane’s strength wasn’t enough to keep them from sliding forward. If anything, Pennyfeather just seemed to be more intent on taking her with him, not less.
Claire screamed and buried her face in Shane’s chest as she felt the strain on her leg increase, going from painful to intensely agonizing, and in one more second she knew she’d feel muscles tearing loose….
But then a second later, the crushing hold on her ankle released. Shane had braced himself and was pulling with all his strength to counterbalance, and when the pressure let go, they both went crashing to the wooden floor with her on top. She was breathless and frightened, but it was still nice to be body-to-body with him, and she saw the pleasure fire in his eyes, too, just for a moment. He brushed her hair back from her face and said, “Okay?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s do this again later,” he said, “but right now, Michael needs backup. Stay here.” He rolled her off him, got to his feet, grabbed the black canvas bag that Eve threw to him from the kitchen door, and dived into the dark.
Eve hurried to her side as Claire tried to bend her leg, and winced at the shooting pains that went through it. “Don’t,” Eve ordered, and dropped down next to her to run her hands over Claire’s knee. “Damn, I can’t believe Myrnin did that to you. I’ll stake his ass myself, if there’s anything left when the boys get done teaching him manners.”
“Myrnin?” Claire asked, and then realized what she’d done.
With a horrible sense of doom, she realized that she hadn’t told them it was Pennyfeather.
And neither of the boys was prepared for that.
ELEVEN
MYRNIN
It was so dark. Dark dark dark dark dark dark.
I gained control of my clattering, chattering mind with an effort that left me trembling. Had I been still human, still breathing—as I was sometimes in dreams—I thought I would have been drenched in the sweat of fear and gasping. I dreamed that sometimes, too, the sticky moisture on my skin, dripping and burning in my eyes, but in the dreams it wasn’t dark; it was bright, so bright, and I was running for my life, running from the monster behind….
But I couldn’t stop thinking. Ever. My mother had beaten me for fancies when I watched the stars and drew their patterns and forgot the sheep while wolves ate the lambs and my sisters with their cruel and petty wounds when no one saw and my father penned up like an animal as he howled all the
There was time enough to think where I was and to remember my present situation…not my past.
The prison was familiar to me, familiar not from Morganville but from ancient and heavily unpleasant years past…. My enemy was still a great fan of the classics, because he had dropped me into an oubliette—a round, narrow hole in stone that was deep enough, and smooth enough, to thwart a vampire’s attempts to jump or climb. In less civilized times, one would be dropped in to be forgotten entirely. Humans lasted only days, generally, before the confinement, darkness, hunger or thirst—or simple horror—took them. Vampires…well. We were hardy.
It’s a sad thing for a vampire to confess, but I have always hated the bitter, choking dark. It’s useful to us to hide and stalk, but only when there is a hint of light—a glimmer, something that will define the shadows and give them shape. A blood-hot body glows, and that, too, is a comfort and a convenience.
But here, there was no glimmer, no prey, nothing to relieve the inky and utter black. It reminded me of terrible, terrible things
When I came to myself, I was doubled over and retching, my hands flat against the wall. I was on my knees, which was even less pleasant than standing. I sagged back and found the cold, wet stone of the wall only a few inches behind me. I could sit, if I did not mind waist-high filthy water, and my knees to my chin. Well, it made for a change, at least.
It was my fault that I was here, entirely mine. Claire always chided me for my single-mindedness and she was right, right, always right, even Frank had told me to go but poor, surly Frank, starving for lack of nutrients no one to change out the tanks and care for him properly, and Bob, what to do about Bob, I couldn’t leave him behind all on his own how would he catch his flies and crickets and the occasional juicy beetle without assistance he was so very much my responsibility and Claire Claire Claire vulnerable now without Amelie without pity kindness mercy no no no I could not go should not…
Frank warned me warned me warned me…
I opened my eyes again, eventually, with my screams still ringing back at me from the stone walls. What a noisy chorus I was. It was still complete and utter darkness—the rock I leaned on, the water, my hand in front of my face, all bleak and black, not even a spark of light, life, color.
That was because I was blind. I remembered it with a sudden, guilty shock; it was odd that one would forget something that significant. But in my defense, one doesn’t tend to wish to remember such things (Pennyfeather’s awful pale grin, the flash of the knife, the pain, the fall).
