Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(106)

And then she bit me before I could yell for help.

Her fangs slid into my throat, and it felt like being stabbed with ice; all the warmth began to flood away from me, into her, and in its place I felt a terrible dark influence sliding through my veins. Naomi, like Bishop, her vampire father, had the power to subvert other vampires—and now, she had me. Just as she’d taken control of Hannah, and through Hannah, the entire human resistance.

We were all just puppets now.

It didn’t take long, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to fight it. When she let me go, I collapsed to my hands and knees on the tile, mouth open, fangs extended, and Naomi walked calmly back to take her seat again at the table. She looked at Hannah. “Then that’s finished,” she said, and tapped her fingers on the wood of the table in a complex, musical rhythm. “Michael. Stand.”

I did. I wanted to lunge at her, kill her, rip her apart, but I knew that none of it was showing on my face or in my body language. Just as nothing showed in Hannah’s. The reason it hadn’t fit for Hannah to have put Eve at such deadly risk was that it hadn’t been her choice. It was Naomi’s decision—all of it, tracing back to Naomi. And it was way too late for me to do anything about it. I couldn’t even try to warn people.

“This is what you will do, Michael,” Naomi said. “You will go back to see your lovely wife and tell her you’ve had second thoughts. You’ll do whatever is necessary to destroy all trust between you. And then you will pack your things and come back here, to me. You’ll make an excellent soldier. Best of all, no one will suspect you. Amelie’s bloodchild? You are a perfect little assassin.”

“Yes,” I said. No, no, no, I was screaming, but I couldn’t do anything at all to stop myself. “What should I do about Shane? And Claire?”

“Shane’s of no consequence, and neither is the girl, except as a tool to be used. I’ve taken Myrnin out of play; without the protection of her black knight, she is no more than a pawn. But…” She tapped pale fingers to her lips, looking momentarily thoughtful. “You make a good point. What of Claire? Even a pawn may take a queen, if played properly….”

She rose to her feet and paced for a moment, arms folded, head down. Hannah and I stared at each other. Her heart was hammering, and I recognized now that it wasn’t fear she felt but rage. She was just as trapped as I was. If Myrnin’s black knight was off the table, Hannah was Naomi’s white castle, hiding secrets. And what was I?

“Ah,” Naomi said, and turned back toward me, eyes shining in unholy delight. “I know how to play Claire. So, this is what you will do, and what you will tell her….”

I listened. I hated her with every fiber of my being and every tiny bit of my soul.

But I knew I’d do what she said, even though it was going to destroy every good thing in my life.

Because I didn’t have a choice.





SEVENTEEN





CLAIRE




Michael looked like the walking dead when he arrived back in the waiting room, where Claire was getting coffee for the eleven-millionth time from the machine; it ate her quarters, again, but she’d learned from one of the nurses—not the one who’d threatened Eve, thank God—how to kick the side of the dispenser in just the right spot to get the container to drop and produce about a half cup of oily, disgusting swill that kind of tasted like coffee.

It was better than nothing. But not much better.

She almost dropped the cup when she saw the boys arrive. Shane had a guarded, solemn expression, but Michael looked as though he’d been to the gates of hell and back and returned without the souvenir T-shirt.

“She’s sleeping,” Claire said, before either of them could speak. “Hey, are you all right? Michael?”

“Fine,” he said. His blue eyes looked oddly stark and empty, and there were dark smudges under them, as if he’d been robbed of a week’s sleep in just the past few hours. “I need to see her.”

“Just be careful not to wake her,” Claire said. “She’s pretty woozy, and in some pain. The doctor said she’ll probably be better in the morning. They’re going to let her go then, so we can take her home. She just can’t do much for a while.”

“Good,” he said. He hardly even glanced her way, but he took the coffee cup out of her hand and tossed back the near-boiling contents in a single gulp, crushed the paper, and dropped it on the floor as he stalked off, heading for Eve’s room. Claire bent and picked up the trash.

“Wow,” she said, looking after him. “What the hell, Shane?”

“Wish I knew,” he said. “That was the weirdest couple of hours I’ve ever had. Roy—that was okay, fine, I get it. But then we went to see Cap—” By which she understood Captain Obvious, without it being spelled out. “They made me wait outside toward the end. Whatever they said in there, it was bad. He’s looked like that ever since. Like somebody cut his guts out and made him swallow them.”

“So you know who it is? Cap, I mean?” She kept it in a bare whisper, glancing around at the empty waiting room. Shane nodded. “Who?”

“Better you don’t know,” he said. “Trust me, I wish I didn’t. I’m starting to wish I didn’t know a lot of things.”