Last Breath

SEVENTEEN CLAIRE

By the time they were halfway to Founder’s Square, Claire wished the shotgun seat actually came with a shotgun, because Monica was killing her slowly, with her incessant chatter. That was funny, because Monica normally wasn’t talkative, at least not to them, but it seemed like her shut-up circuit had fried.

“. . . I went to DeeDee’s to pick up my new dress, and it was closed. Not even a note in the window. I was so pissed off! I actually had to wear this thing. . . .” Monica plucked at the fabric of what she was nearly wearing in disgust. Claire didn’t see how that was really possible, since it fit like skin. “. . . Which all the guys have seen about a dozen times now, not to mention Janis Taylor was there and wearing her new dress, which was skanky, and I know she was talking about me recycling the look—”

Shane, from the back, said, “I’m really trying to swear off the random fighting, Monica, but I swear to God that if you don’t shut up, I’m going to go back to Step Zero on my twelve-step program. We don’t give a shit about your dress or your club or Janis Taylor. Michael’s in trouble.”

Monica sent him a hard look in the rearview mirror, and said, “And when is one of you losers not in trouble, anyway? Not that Michael is a total waste of genetics; I’ll give you that. So . . . what’s happening? You seem to always know.”

Claire said, “There’s something new in town, and it’s bad. It’s taking vampires and humans and—” What was it doing, exactly? She didn’t know, but whatever it was, there was no doubt it was pure evil. “Amelie’s scared enough to shut up the town and run.”

“Shut up the town?” Monica’s glossy lips pressed flat. “Are you kidding me? I put a lot of work into living here. I have roots.”

“Here I thought you stopped dyeing your hair,” Shane said. Monica flipped him off.

“Shouldn’t that be Eve’s line?” she shot back. “Or has Goth Princess finally learned to shut up?”

Eve leaned forward. As Claire looked back at her, she felt a little shocked at her friend’s set, serious expression. “I’ve learned a lot of things, Monica,” she said, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the wind and the music. “Michael is missing. He may be dying. I am not in the mood for your shallow bullshit right now. If you get in my way, I will cut you, because you are nothing but a speed bump on my way to saving him. Are we clear?”

Monica’s lips parted, and she stared straight ahead for a few silent seconds before she said, “Clear.” That was all. She shifted the car into a higher gear, and the engine growled hard. “I know you won’t believe this, but I do care. He’s not bad, your boyfriend. And we have a drastic shortage of hotties in this town. Can’t really afford to waste one.”

Eve eased back into her seat without another word. She stared off to the side, at the darkened streets, the empty stores and houses.

The Morganville that was.

Shane said, “It’s about to rain again. You should put the top up.”

“I have to slow down to do that,” Monica said. “You want that?”

“Good point. I don’t mind getting wet if you don’t.”

“Oh, I mind, hot pants; you think all this didn’t take work?” She indicated, well, all of herself.

“Hot pants?” Claire said, choking on a sudden and inappropriate laugh, because she just knew what Shane’s face would look like without having to turn around. “Do you have any survival instinct at all?”

Monica smiled, one of those cruel, evil smiles that had always heralded trouble. “What do you think?” she almost purred, and shook her long hair back over her shoulders, where it snapped like a flag in the wind. “I’m still alive. And I’m still fabulous. Unlike, well, everybody else in this car.” Her smile faded, and she downshifted. “Company.”

The convertible took a corner hard, tires squealing, and ahead Claire saw the glow of flashing police-car lights. They’d blocked off the street—and probably every approach to Founder’s Square.

“Look, I’ve done my bit, but I’m not running roadblocks for you,” Monica said, and slowed the convertible to an easy rumble.

“Try another route.”

“Don’t be stupid—they’re all blocked. If you want to get in, you’re going to have to get stealthy, and trust me, my shiny red four-wheeled baby is many things, but stealthy she is not.”

That was true, and Monica wasn’t exactly subtle, either. Claire nodded grudgingly. Monica pulled the convertible over to the curb, and the three of them unbuckled and got out.

“Here,” Monica said, and reached under her driver’s-side seat. She pulled out some kind of designer bag—Claire had no idea how to tell one from another—and opened it up, and pulled out . . .

. . . A handgun. Not an automatic, like the one Shane had held while sitting on her bedroom floor.... This was a classic revolver.

For a wild second, Claire thought that Monica might actually shoot her; she wouldn’t have been all that surprised, really. There was a lazy, cruel pleasure in Monica’s eyes as she held the gun, and one eyebrow went up. . . .

. . . And then she swung it around and held it butt out toward Claire.

Shane intercepted it, frowned, and said, “Okay, how come you’re carrying around a thirty-eight?”

“It’s Texas,” Monica said. “I have rights. Oh, and check the bullets.” She pressed a button on the dash with a slender, perfectly manicured finger, and checked her windblown hair as the black canvas top began to rise up with a whine. “Ciao, losers.”

She pulled a U-turn and hit the gas.

Shane broke open the cylinder on the gun and whistled. “Okay, interesting . . . hollow points, filled with silver. All the punch, none of the problems. My dad had some of these.”

“Did they work?” Eve asked.

He snapped the cylinder back in with a flick of his wrist, and put the small gun in the pocket of his coat. “Hell yeah, they work. But you’d better mean it, because it’ll kill what you’re shooting at, human or vamp.”

“Will it kill those . . . things?” Eve asked.

“It’s just a guess, but probably not. The caliber is a thirty-eight, which means it’s a lower-velocity round, but plenty enough to punch through one of those—sacks of skin—front to back without bouncing around inside. I’m not sure how much damage it’ll do to them, really. Your knife worked better. And your sword.” He tapped his pocket. “But if any vampire wants to take us on, it’ll be a pretty good deterrent.”

She nodded and shouldered the strap on the equipment bag. “Then let’s go.”

“Wait,” Claire said. “We need a plan. We can’t just walk straight up to the police line and say, Hello, let us in, please. We’re heavily armed and desperate!”

“Why not?” Claire really didn’t like the gleam in Eve’s eyes, or her stiff body language. “Amelie doesn’t mind dumping Michael and running away. She’s leaving him to die, right? Well, if she needs a reminder of why that’s a very bad idea, I’m happy to be her wake-up call.”

“Take a breath, Eve. Let’s do this smart, okay? There’s a lot of muscle standing between us and Amelie, and some of it’s human cops who don’t know what’s going on. We need to find a way that doesn’t involve grievous bodily harm.”

“All right,” Eve said. “We’ll try it your way. Once.” She looked over at Shane, and got a small, unwilling nod from him. “Then we do it our way. The Morganville way.”

Maybe her ears were supersensitive now, courtesy of either Myrnin’s blood exchange or the lingering fear of that high-pitched, seductive music, but Claire heard something in the distance. A rumble. It sounded like a whole lot of cars or trucks, and it was coming closer.

Voices, too. Shouts.

She turned, trying to find the direction, and realized it was coming from around the corner, the same way Monica had gone in her getaway.

It wasn’t Monica.

What came around the corner was a streetwide growling wall of pickups, cars, delivery vans . . . all kinds of vehicles. And behind them was a crowd of people, maybe a hundred or so.

“Ah,” Shane said, “maybe we should . . . ?”

Claire’s eyes fixed on a man who was standing up in the bed of one of the lead pickups. He was facing toward the cops. It took her a second, but she recognized him—the man from the camera store, the one with the stake tattoo.

“Crap,” Shane said. “Captain Obvious.”

“What? Captain Obvious is dead!” Eve said.

“Long live Captain Obvious. He’s the replacement. He’s the one who’s been getting people to sign on.”

“The tattoos,” Claire put in. “The resistance symbol. He’s leading the charge.”

“Yep. Don’t know if this is a good time, but he’s decided to go for it,” Shane said. “Like I said, maybe we should hang back, Claire. . . . Claire!”

He grabbed for her, but she still had at least some residue of vampire speed, and it was enough to leap off the curb, race at an angle toward the trucks, and leap up into the bed of the one holding Captain Obvious. Shane was running after her, and so was Eve, but her attention was fixed on the man in the truck, who was turning toward her like he intended to throw her back.

She held up her hand, palm out, and said, “Wait. I just want to talk.”

Captain Obvious, the new leader of the human resistance in Morganville, laughed. He had a knife. It was held at his side, but she saw the edge glittering in a passing streetlight. “Amelie’s little pet wants to talk? How stupid do you think we are?”

“I know you don’t believe me, but believe this: it isn’t the right time for fighting back. Even if you win, you lose. You’re not going to have a revolution. You’re not going to have a town. You’re not going to be alive!”

“I’m willing to die to set people free,” he said. “Are you?” He raised the knife. What was in his eyes was a little bit crazy, and very serious.

“Do you know what’s out there?” Claire asked, and pointed out toward the edge of town. Toward the nightmare. “Because it’s worse than Amelie. Way, way worse. I’ve seen it.”

“If it scares the vamps, I’m all for it,” he said.

“It’s taking humans, too,” Claire said. “And you need to help them, not waste your time with this. If you want to fight, fight what’s really going to kill this town.” She pointed again. “It’s out there, at the Morganville Civic Pool. Stock up on earplugs and silver-coated weapons, and if you hear the music, don’t give in. You’ll be dead if you do.”

“What in the hell are you trying to sell me, kid? You really think I’m believing any of this?”

She shook her head. “You’re wasting your time here. All you’re doing is getting your people hurt, for nothing. Turn around. If you want a fight, the pool is where you’ll find it!”

He hesitated, frowning, and for a second she thought he might actually believe her . . . and then he said flatly, “Get off or get hurt. Your choice.”

He wasn’t going to listen, not to her. No matter what she said. Claire stepped to the back of the open bed of the truck, and jumped down as he advanced, looking as if he very much wanted to bury that knife in her.

Shane caught her, grabbed her hand, and dragged her off to the side before the yelling crowd caught up and swept past them. “Well,” he said, “I think we’ve found our way in. We just wait until they’re duking it out, but trust me, these Humans First types don’t have a lot of staying power or they’d have been at the gym with me before. I doubt Grandma Kent there is going to do a lot of damage.” He pointed at a gray-haired, hunched lady in a shawl, carrying what looked like a gardening tool. “It’s like Plants Versus Zombies, and I’m not rooting for the zombies, weirdly enough.”

Eve came off the curb and joined them, hefting the heavy equipment bag. “So let’s go,” she said. “Enough with the talking.”

And that, from Eve, was a sign of just how serious this had gotten.

The mob attacked the police line, and it wasn’t—as Shane had guessed—much of a fight, really. The cops shot the engines out of the trucks, and when the crowd swarmed in, they were met with nonlethal Tasers and some kind of beanbag guns. It looked painful, but Claire didn’t pause to watch, because Shane led them to a weak spot in the police line, and they got down and crawled under one of the SUVs, coming out on the other side behind the lines.

Then it was just a matter of sprinting for the town square.

Avoiding vampires was easy, because there weren’t any. Not a one out on the streets, or, once they’d climbed the closed wrought-iron fence, out on the gracious sidewalks of Founder’s Square. All of the square’s businesses were shuttered and dark. Even the streetlights seemed faint, as if they were in a power-saving mode.

There were still lights on in the big main building, with its giant marble columns and sweeping steps, and they headed that way.

“Okay,” Claire said as they stopped in the shadows of the trees, staring up at it. “Let me do the talking, please. And try not to do any fighting unless we have to.”

“Who, me?” Shane said, with a bitter twist to his smile. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“I don’t think the two are exactly mutually exclusive as far as you’re concerned,” Claire said. “Promise?”

“I promise not to pound anybody who doesn’t need pounding,” Shane said. “That’s about the best you’re going to get out of me today. It’s been tough enough.”

Eve said quietly, “If somebody tells me we’re not going to get Michael out of this, then I’ll pound them. I mean it.”

“I know,” Claire said. “And I don’t mean to hold you back, but the less of that we do up front, the better. Amelie’s wired tight right now. Let’s not push too hard. We need her.”

“Need her for what?” said a cold, quiet voice from behind them.

Claire whipped around, and so did her friends, and there, standing in the shadows not five feet away, was Amelie.

She wasn’t sporting her usual entourage of guards, or hangers-on; she wasn’t even wearing one of her usual retro-sixties pale suits. She was dressed in a plain pair of blue jeans and a black shirt, and her soft golden hair was down and tied back in a ponytail.

She looked even younger than Claire.

“You were looking for me,” Amelie said. “Congratulations on your initiative; you’ve found me.”

“What are you doing out here?” Claire blurted; she hadn’t expected this, and wasn’t prepared. Shane was busy searching the darkness for approaching vampires; Amelie basically never went anywhere without some kind of überprotection, and this was . . . just strange.

Amelie wasn’t even listening to her, anyway. She was staring off into the distance. “Can you hear it?” she asked softly. “The singing. Always, they sing to us.” Shane and Claire exchanged glances, and he silently held out his earplugs toward Amelie. She snapped back into focus, and smiled. It was a bitter, sad thing. “That is neither sanitary nor useful, but I thank you for the gesture. We can’t resist the call, once it becomes loud enough; I have seen vampires pierce their eardrums to try to fight it, but it is only partly sound. The other part sings inside us, and we can’t rip that away so easily.”

“Amelie—we found them. We know where they are. Where they’re keeping the ones they take.” Claire expected that to spark . . . well, something. Some hint of actual interest.

But Amelie just went back to staring into the distance, with that calm, neutral expression on her face. “We can always find them, Claire. That isn’t the issue. When their numbers are great enough, they sing, and we are called. It always starts slowly, with only one or two, but they grow in numbers the more they feed. Soon, their call will be so strong no one can resist if they remain here. Not even the humans. They prefer us, because we last longer, but humans are food to them as well.”

“So that’s it?” Shane said, and stepped forward. Amelie’s attention snapped back to him, although she didn’t move. “You’re just giving up? Letting them have this town? Have us? What about Michael? What about Oliver and the others? You just . . . walk away?”

“No,” she said. “No, I run, boy, and if you have a brain in your thick head, you will run as well. Stay here, and they will have you. I’ve fought the draug before. The vampires fought them for centuries, and lost, and lost, as the draug spread like a disease. They live in the seas, the rivers, the streams, the lakes. Why do you think we moved here, where there is so little chance for them to survive?” Overhead, the thick clouds gave out a rumble of thunder, and Amelie looked up and laughed. It sounded wild and uncontrolled. “But now they have adapted, and found their own way to travel. They came with the rain. And where can we go now, that the rain doesn’t find us?”

Eve said, “If they’re everywhere, why don’t they prey on humans? Why haven’t we heard of them?”

“You have, in the stories of mermaids and sirens luring the unwary and drowning them,” Amelie said. She walked over to a nearby tree and put her back against it. “But human blood can’t sustain them completely. When their real prey disappears, the draug die off, you see, except for one, the master, who will go in search. Once he finds vampires to hunt, he will create others of his kind. They need water to breed, but that’s easily found. Even here, in this dry place.” She sat down, folded her knees up close to her chest, and leaned back against the sturdy, thick bark. “Living things need water. We prey on the living. And the draug in turn prey on us, all too well.” She paused, watching them with those cool gray eyes, still pale even in the dim light. “You think I’m a coward.”

“I think if you love something, you fight for it,” Shane said. “It’s always been my theory, anyway.”

“And you think I love Morganville.”

“You’ve put a lot of time into it,” Claire said. “And you care. I know you care, not just about the vampires but about the humans, too.” She took a deep breath and made a gamble. “And you care about Oliver.”

Those cool eyes narrowed, just a little. “Why should I? He’s been a thorn in my side for several hundred years, and a relentless critic of everything I do here.”

Claire shrugged. “I never said it made sense. But you care. I saw him, Amelie. I saw him down in that water. I saw Michael. . . .” Her voice shook, and she had to stop, because the memory was too awful, too personal. “I went into that place so I could come back and tell you that they’re still alive. That you can still save them.”

“You think too well of me.” The vampire Founder of Morganville stood up suddenly, the way vampires do. “You can destroy the draug easily enough; they have little strength on their own, until they capture your mind with theirs. But you can never defeat their master. He’s survived longer than vampire memory can stretch. And he always, always comes back. What would you have me do? All the vampires left in the world are in danger! Should I risk them to save a few?”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Because that’s how it works. You save the people you love, no matter what it costs you. If you don’t—” And at his pause, Claire knew he was thinking about his mom, his sister, his father. “If you don’t, you never forgive yourself. You said it yourself—the draug keep coming back. When are you going to throw it down and stop running?”

“When I can win,” Amelie said. “And that is not here, and it is not now. A good general knows when to avoid a battle as much as wage one.”

Claire gave her a long, steady look, and said, “Then never mind. I thought you were serious about saving people, but you’re not. You’re weak. And you’re a loser already. There’s no point in avoiding the battle because it’s already over.” She turned her back on Amelie and slapped Shane and Eve on the shoulders. “Come on. This is a total waste of time. At least the humans around here are spoiling for a fight. Let’s go talk to Captain Obvious.” She glanced back at Amelie, who hadn’t moved. It had been a last shot, and not too likely to work, but Claire still felt bad that she’d missed.

Amelie really wasn’t going to do anything to stop this.

The three of them made it almost ten feet before Amelie said, in a quietly resigned voice, “Maybe it is the time. Maybe there’s no point now in running. So few of us will make it, and the world—the world is much harder, today. Humans more powerful. We are hemmed in by enemies. Maybe it’s time to fight, after all.”

The relief was so intense that Claire almost stumbled. She got hold of herself and slowly turned around. Amelie was on her feet again, hands behind her back. Not exactly Action Figure Amelie, but at least she wasn’t just . . . sitting.

“You said the draug are feeding on those they take. I’m just guessing, but it isn’t like vampires, right? They don’t make their victims like themselves?” Please tell me Michael isn’t becoming one of . . . those things.

“Draug biology, if you can stretch science that far, works differently,” Amelie said. “They draw the blood and life from their victims, and it fuels their reproduction, which is more akin to bacteria than to what either of our kind do. A master draug splits himself into two, and then those two may do the same, given enough nourishment.”

“And the ones in the pool?” Shane asked. “They’re not dead, right?”

“No. Draug prefer their prey living. Water weighs us down, saps us of strength, and it is their stronghold. They will feed on a trapped vampire for weeks, if not months, before they discard him. Humans don’t last so long.” She was silent for a moment before she asked, “How many did you see in this place?”

“Vampires? Maybe twenty in the pool,” Shane said. “A few humans but—I don’t think they were alive down there.”

“Twenty vampires means that he has spawned at least a hundred of his own.”

“Well, if it helps, we killed—” Eve consulted with Shane, whispering fast, and then said, “Maybe ten?”

“A good start, but hardly enough.” Amelie suddenly smiled, and turned her head slightly to the right. “You may come out now, if you have anything useful to add.”

Claire hadn’t had any idea another vampire had been watching them, until Myrnin moved; he’d blended completely into the shadows, which was really odd, because he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with surfers on it, a pair of ragged blue jeans, and flip-flops.

And sunglasses. Shiny wraparound sunglasses.

“You’ve described the problem accurately enough,” Myrnin said.

“And did you bring what I asked?”

“I’m insane, not forgetful.” Myrnin took off the glasses and stuck them up on top of his head. “I thought you were leaving.”

“I don’t believe that I’m quite ready yet,” Amelie replied. She was looking at him very oddly. “What, pray, are you wearing?”

“I thought I might go to the pool,” he said. “And I thought I would wear something appropriate. What are you wearing?”

“You knew,” Claire said. “You already knew about the pool.”

“I suspected,” Myrnin said. “I measured their singing and found the largest likely source of water they could use at its center. It is excellent to have a confirmation before I proceeded.”

“You,” Amelie said. “You were going. Alone.”

“I would have asked you before I did,” Myrnin said. “But I’m done with running, Amelie. And I’m quite fond of my lab. I’m not willing to leave it. Besides, Bob’s still in his tank. I can’t just abandon him.”

“You were going to fight them.” Amelie couldn’t seem to wrap her head around it. “You.”

He shrugged. “It would be a logical thing to do; taking his food supply of those trapped will stop the reproductive cycle. It will slow him down, and we need to slow him down. He’s gotten much too powerful, too fast, for us to make a safe evacuation. That’s become all too clear.”

“You shame me,” Amelie said quietly. “You all do.”

Myrnin bowed to her, just slightly. “I’m ever at your service, dear lady. But from time to time, I think you value our lives a bit too much. It’s time to stand. I think you see it now.”

“Myrnin—Amelie said you couldn’t resist the call of the draug,” Claire said. “How do you plan on getting close to them?”

Myrnin reached back into the shadows and pulled out a backpack. It looked, Claire thought, familiar, like—“Wait!” she blurted. “Is that mine?”

“Don’t worry, I took your books out first,” Myrnin said. “Very useful, these backpacker things.”

“Backpacks.”

He shrugged. “In any case.” He smiled at her, a genuine expression of warmth, and said, “I’m very glad you’re all right, Claire.”

“Yeah,” Shane said coldly. “Thanks for helping us get her back. What’s in the pack?”

Myrnin pulled out a device, something small but, from the way he handled it, heavy; he flipped a switch, and Claire heard a distant howling rise up on the night air. “Oops, wrong setting,” he said, and quickly turned a dial. “There.”

Amelie took in a sudden, deep breath, and closed her eyes. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, that is good. So good. You’re certain it will work as we get closer?”

“It will work,” Myrnin said, “and I’m frankly offended you should ask such a thing, Amelie. Have I ever—” He thought better of asking that question, Claire saw. “Well. In any case, it will work. My word.”

“Your life,” she corrected him. “Words will not protect us. That must, at all costs.”

“Um . . . what is it?” Eve asked.

“Blessed silence,” Amelie said.

“Noise cancellation,” Myrnin said at the same time. “To block out their calls.”

“Awesome,” Claire said. “Weapons?”

For answer, Myrnin took out a pair of black leather gloves, which he put on, and tossed another to Amelie. She frowned at them, then pulled them on.

He tossed her a . . . “Shotgun?” Claire asked. “Okay, I’m not sure that will actually . . .”

“It’s a sawed-off shotgun, my dear, loaded with silver pellets,” Myrnin said, “and it took me most of the day to acquire the materials, cast them, and load the cartridges. It works best when you stand at least ten feet away to fire. Maximum spread.” He dug in his backpack and pulled out a black leather belt with loops. Each loop was filled with a red shotgun cartridge. He tossed it to Amelie, and she put the gun down and fastened it low on her hips, gunfighter-style. Myrnin tossed his over his shoulder, took out his own sawed-off, which he pumped with unsettling enthusiasm. “Let’s go hunting, shall we?”

Shane nudged Claire and said, under his breath, “Is this terrifying, or is it just me? Because it might just be me.”

“It’s not,” she whispered back. “God, we’re all going to die.”

“Well,” Myrnin said, just as if they’d said it out loud, “at least we’ll go out together, my friends.” He rested the shotgun on his shoulder and made an after you bow to Amelie. “I also secured us transportation. I hope you’ll like it.”

“Oh, this is good,” Eve said. “I’m putting down a bet that it’s a parade float.”

“Not taking that one,” Shane said. “Hey, do we get cool shotguns?”

“No,” Amelie said, and made a sharp, military gesture. “With me. And stay close.”