Bitter Blood

Myrnin to death. “A wise ruler never leaves a rival at her back. Though I might consider a merciful exile, if you beg hard enough on her behalf. Would you, Oliver? Beg?”

He said nothing. He stood with his hands locked behind his back, and from what Claire could see of him, his face was hard as stone and his eyes flaring red.

“Obviously not,” Naomi said. “Your personal dignity was always more important to you than mere emotion, wasn’t it? Very well.” She leaned over the grate. “Myrnin? I leave you to your gods.” She put her fingers to her mouth and blew him a delicate little kiss, and then she and Oliver turned away, drifting soundlessly through the deserted graveyard, then up and onto the wall.

Then Naomi turned and looked right at Claire’s hiding place, and smiled. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see that ridiculous car, or sense your presence? Since your friend Eve is indisposed, I assumed it would be you rushing to the rescue,” she said. “I think our little friend has outlived her usefulness after all, though it would have been a nice finishing move to use her to plant a dagger in Amelie’s back. Michael. Take her off the board.”

Claire gasped, because Michael jumped up on the wall next to Naomi, scanned the graveyard, and fixed his gaze right where she was.

Naomi nodded. “Adieu, Claire. It’s too bad there will be no place for you in the Morganville we are to create.”

She left.

And then Michael jumped down and came at her.

Claire ran.

Michael wasn’t even trying hard, Claire thought; there was no real reason he couldn’t catch her within ten feet. He was very, very fast, and she wasn’t; the heavy leather coat she’d decided to wear was weighing her down, and so was the weapons bag. She wanted to leave it, but she didn’t dare.

Are you really going to try to kill him? she asked herself, and didn’t have any idea of the answer. She tripped over a fallen, tilted grave marker and went flying, rolled, and the canvas bag ripped open on a jagged piece of broken marble. The fabric was tough, but it had weakened along the zipper, and things spilled out through the gap…. The first one she laid hands on was a plastic Baggie full of random silver chain links, scavenged from old jewelry Eve had bought through the Internet. It made a nice, heavy handful as Claire opened it, and as she stumbled to her feet, she twisted and threw it at Michael.

The silver hit him, and where it struck skin, she saw sparks; it was more surprising than painful, but it slowed him down, giving her a moment to sort through her other available choices. She passed over the silver nitrate; she didn’t want to hurt him—she really didn’t.

Her hands closed on Shane’s silver-tipped baseball bat, which was the biggest thing in the canvas bag, and she yanked it out.

She didn’t even have time to prepare a decent swing as Michael lunged forward, but she did manage to get the coated end of the wood into place so that his momentum took him chest-first into it; the silver scorched him hard, and he veered off with a cry of pain.

Then it was a temporary standoff as Claire set her feet and took up a batter’s stance, ready and watching as he paced beyond her reach.

“Michael?”

He didn’t answer. His face looked as immobile and frozen as that of the marble angel behind him.

“Michael, please don’t do this. I know this isn’t your fault; Naomi’s using you. I don’t want to hurt you. I swear….”

“Good,” he said. “That makes it easy.”

“But I will!” she finished, and took a swing at his knees as he came into reach. He jumped over the bat, landed lightly, and sprang for her with hands outstretched.

Something hit him in the neck with a soft, coughing hiss, and Michael landed off-balance, staggered, and shook his head in confusion. There was something sticking out of his neck.

A dart.

He pulled it out, looked at it in confusion, and turned away from Claire, toward the wall…and sitting on top of it, with a heavy rifle in his hands, was Shane Collins.

“Sorry, man,” Shane said. He kicked free and dropped off the wall, flexing his knees and loading another dart into the tranquilizer gun. He aimed as he walked toward them. “You’re going to feel real damn bad for a while. Don’t make me hit you again. I’m not sure it won’t kill you.”

Michael growled something, but he was already losing his ability to function; he went down to one knee, then pitched forward to his hands, and then slowly sank down on his side. His back arched in a silent scream.

Claire dropped the bat and tried to go to him, but Shane caught her by the waist and lifted her up to stop her. She kicked and twisted, but he held her. “You get close to him, he could finish the job,” he said. He slung her around and sent her stumbling well away from Michael, and from himself. “You came to get Myrnin. Go get him. I’ll cover you.”

There was still no hint of forgiveness in him, either for Claire or—as he looked at his fallen, suffering friend— for Michael. He was here to fulfill a duty as he saw it, and that was all.

But it was more than she’d ever expected. It was something.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Shane nodded, not meeting her eyes, and racked the second tranquilizer dart into place as he watched Michael writhe painfully on the ground.

Claire raced over the uneven graves toward the white tree; even uncovered, the silver grate, circular with bars that formed a simple cross, was almost invisible until she nearly stepped onto it. That would have probably broken her ankle. The grate was locked in place with an old, rusted lock, and Claire whaled at it frantically with the silver-tipped bat until it broke in two.

She threw back the cold, tarnished metal and tried to see into the dark. Nothing. Not even a hint of life.

“Myrnin?” She shouted it down. She had to cover her nose from the smell that rose up from the narrow little hole—rot, sewage, mold, a toxic brew of the worst things she could imagine. “Myrnin! Can you hear me?”

Something thumped down on the ground next to her, and Claire looked up to see that Shane had tossed over a coil of nylon rope he’d retrieved from the weapons bag. She nodded and unwrapped it, tied off one end around the dead tree, and dropped the other down into the hole. “If you can hear me, grab the rope, Myrnin! Climb!”

She wasn’t sure for long moments whether he was there, or even whether he could get out. Maybe it was too late. Maybe he was already gone.

But then she felt the rope suddenly pull taut, and in seconds, she saw something pale appear in the dark below, gradually becoming clearer as it moved up toward her.

Myrnin climbed as if he’d learned how from his pet spider, swarming up with frantic speed. He had burns on his face and hands and lower legs, silver burns, but that didn’t slow him down, and when he reached the top of the hole, Claire grabbed his forearms and dragged him out on the side that wasn’t blocked by the raised silver grate.

He collapsed on his back, foul water bleeding out of his soaked and ruined clothes, out of his matted black hair, and after a second of silence he whispered, “I knew you’d come, Claire. I knew you would. Dear God, you took your time.”

She took his hand, and sat down next to him.

Shane was standing fifty feet away, beside Michael, but he looked up and jerked his chin in a silent question. Is he okay? She nodded.

It wasn’t much, she thought. It wasn’t anything to build any kind of hope upon, just that he was willing to show up here, willing to fire a rifle, throw her a rope.

But she’d take it. It was horrifying to her how pitifully grateful she was just for that smallest hint of a smile he gave her, before he turned his back.

“You’re very sad,” Myrnin said. He sounded faint and distant, as if he’d been a long way off in more ways than one. “You smell like tears. Did he break your heart?”

“No,” Claire said, in a very soft whisper that she hoped Shane couldn’t hear from where he stood. “I broke his.”

“Ah,” Myrnin said. “Good for you.” He sat up, and suddenly leaned over to throw up a horrifying amount of