Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(120)
And now, she said, “My friends, I come before you in sorrow and pain to tell you that Amelie, our Founder, has lost the right to rule.”
No one doubted what was going on, Claire thought, but a number of vampires out in the crowd began to voice their objections. It wasn’t a lot of them, but it was enough to make it clear Naomi wasn’t a popular choice.
She held up a hand in a sharp, angry gesture. “Our laws are clear: the strongest rules. My sister was strong; the past is littered with those who stood against her, and lost. Her strength carried us here, to this town, to a place where we can finally begin to regain our rightful glory. But don’t be mistaken: she hesitated. She corrupted herself by compromising with humans, with their laws and morals, until she forgot what it was to be a proper vampire.”
There were more shouts of protest, louder now. That might not have been what Naomi expected, Claire thought; there was a growing tension in her shoulders, and the hand she still held raised seemed to shiver, just a little. “There will be no debate on this! My sister became weak and foolish, and she was brought down by treachery. Not mine, but the treachery of a lover she trusted. She is not fit any longer to rule. Fear not; I will burn the traitor with her, and we will start newborn.”
This time, no one shouted. There was an eerie silence. Claire honestly couldn’t tell whether Naomi had won them over, or whether something else was happening—something that didn’t bode well for the would-be queen. Vampires weren’t that easy to read, especially not in large groups.
The humans in their pen had gone very quiet and still—even Monica. Frail little Gramma Day was standing very tall, hardly leaning on her cane at all. But there was someone new standing near them, almost invisible behind Monica’s tall, long-legged form…another human, not a vampire.
Jenna? What the hell was the ghost hunter doing here? Trying to get a story? Was she insane?
No. She was holding hands with someone else; a small, slight form that Claire spotted as Flora Ramos shifted to one side.
Jenna had hold of Miranda’s hand.
Miranda shouldn’t be solid. But she was, very solid, though clinging to Jenna’s hand as if to a lifeline in a stormy ocean. Maybe Jenna’s psychic ability was feeding Miranda’s own power and holding her steady in her nighttime form outside the Glass House, but from the strained, scared looks on their faces, it wasn’t easy.
What the hell were they doing?
Naomi hadn’t seen them, or if she had, she didn’t care. She was busy trying to charm her new subjects.
“Tomorrow marks our new age, and I will lead you into it,” she continued. “You have been robbed of your rights for so long, my friends—subjected to indignities, to the constant complaints and restrictions of those who are rightfully our property. And that is over. As a token of this, I give you the first blood of Morganville. It is yours to take, as is your right as the rulers of not only this place, but all the world.” She extended her white hand to point at the people held off to the side—twenty people, including Monica.
The vampires looked in that direction. None of them moved, and then Jason sauntered out of the crowd, and said, “About damn time somebody did the right thing.”
He grabbed Monica and dragged her out of the fenced-in area.
She shrieked and hit him, hard enough to make him stagger back a bit, and Claire lunged forward and yanked the wooden crossbow bolt all the way out of Oliver’s chest. She threw it hard through the bars of the cage and yelled, “Monica, catch!”
Monica leaned over backward as Jason tried to drag her closer, and saw the bolt tumbling end over end through the air. In a move that was shockingly graceful—and probably couldn’t have been repeated if she’d really thought about it—Monica grabbed it and jammed it not into Jason’s heart, but between his teeth. “Bite that!” she yelled, and kicked her way free. Her shoes, Claire realized, had silver caps on the stiletto tips. She yanked them off and held them ready. “Anybody else want some?”
Jason spit the bolt out, looking furious and embarrassed, and when he tried to grab her, she planted the heel of her shoe into his hand. It burned.
“We have to move, right now,” Myrnin said. “She creates a nice distraction, but it won’t last.”
“It doesn’t need to,” Amelie said. She pulled the last inch of wood free from her chest and smiled up at him. “I find that I choose glory, my dear Myrnin.”
“Most excellent,” he said. “Claire has loosened the bars, and—”
Shane held up his bleeding hand.
“And Shane helped,” Myrnin amended grudgingly. “But I believe we should go now. Naomi is losing the respect of her peers. It will not go well for her. She will burn us out of sheer desperation.”
Amelie nodded and rolled to a crouch. She studied the bars at the back of the cage, made a fist, and hit with surgical precision at the point at the top of one of the bars where the weld was weakest.
It snapped.
Her hand was burned in a bright red stripe, but she ignored it, grabbed the loose metal, and bent it in toward them with shocking strength. It, too, snapped cleanly off at the base.
“Hannah!” Shane was yelling behind them. “Hannah, no!”
Claire glanced back and saw that Hannah—probably still following Naomi’s implanted instructions—was reaching for a button that almost certainly would turn the cage into a fry basket. Underneath them, the gas jets sputtered into pale blue flame.