Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(59)
“That’s a grave mistake,” Fallon said. “It will greatly diminish your chances of survival if you fight the therapy. Take it willingly. Please.”
“You heard my wife. Go f*ck yourself.”
Fallon’s face . . . changed. It went from a mask of calm friendliness to something so twisted with rage that it was very nearly demonic, and Claire felt terror bolt through her—not for herself but for her friends, so alone and vulnerable and brave.
Fallon rounded on the guard holding Eve. “Take this deviant to the hospital. Tell Dr. Anderson that I want her given a complete course of aversion therapy until she loathes the very sight of vampires. Don’t be gentle about it.”
Michael lunged, but Fallon was faster—he had the remote control to the collars, and it must have been turned up to bone-splitting levels of pain because it knocked Michael out of the air in a graceless heap, his back arched as he convulsed against the current.
And not just him. All of them. The vampires dropped like bags of cement, and Claire realized in that single clear instant that if she didn’t go with them, she’d be as obvious as a bug on a wedding cake—the only one left standing in the middle of the captives. Luckily, Myrnin helped with that, even if it was unintentional; his hand crushed down on her, shoving her toward the floor, and she let herself drop. His weight fell on top of her, hiding her almost completely from sight. She managed to squirm just a little and gain some air, and a sightline toward Fallon.
He turned down the intensity of the collars, but Claire could still feel the current running through Myrnin’s body—enough to make his whole body twitch uncontrollably in pain. She was lucky that it wasn’t transmitting through to her, except as a slight tingle.
Fallon obviously wanted his audience to see, but he also wanted them quiet.
Compliant.
Eve was pulled to her feet and hustled toward the door, screaming Michael’s name. Fallon put a toe of his shoe under Michael’s body and rolled him over on his back, then leaned down to stare at him. That horrible smile was still firmly in place.
“I did warn you. You’ll be cured, whether you want it or not. I’ll have you changed or I’ll have you dead. As for your girl’s unfortunately painful future, you brought that on her, Michael. I want you to remember that when the cure is coursing through your veins and everything you are is stripped away, never to return. I want you to remember who remade you in their image this time. Not Amelie. Me.”
There was nothing Claire could do. Nothing but watch, concealed by Myrnin’s body, as Michael was hauled away. But she had only one thought, one burning and utterly clear thought: We’re going to take you down. Not just because what he was doing was wrong, but because he’d just made it personal. She might be wrong in helping the vampires over the humans; she might be wrong in thinking that Fallon had no right to shove his cure down their throats. But that didn’t matter now.
This was about her friends.
Fallon was talking to the cop standing next to him. With a shock, Claire recognized the straight carriage, the blond hair. Officer Halling. “Valerie, pick twenty of them for the cure, please, and make sure Michael is among them. Have them shipped directly to the hospital and tell Dr. Anderson to start the treatment immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing,” Fallon said. “We’ll have to move up our timetable, since Amelie’s evaded us. I can’t take the risk that she’ll be able to form some kind of resistance. Find the hungriest, most amoral sons of bitches in this building, pick ten, and let them loose tonight.”
Even Halling seemed disturbed by that order. “Let them . . . loose? You mean free? We’re not supposed to shock them, or—”
“I want you to disable their collars before you let them out to hunt.”
“Sir, I don’t mean disrespect, but why—”
“Morganville’s forgotten its fear of the dark,” he said. “They need a reminder just why vampires need to be cured, or put down. Too many in town have started questioning me, complaining about the imprisonment of the vampires. We need to demonstrate there’s only one proper way to handle such wretched creatures: our way.”
Halling didn’t look happy, but she nodded and stepped back. She made sure Michael was securely bound and had him dragged out, and then she began counting off, pointing at bodies until she’d reached twenty. “Right, take those to the hospital,” she said. “These lucky bastards are getting the cure. They might be moving into their own homes in Morganville tomorrow, safe and sound.”
But Claire knew—maybe they all knew—that the odds of that were pretty slim. Four to one.
The chosen twenty—including Michael—were dragged still twitching from the room. Claire held her breath and stayed very still as one of them walked near her; Myrnin’s weight felt like bricks on top of her, and the pain in her arm was growing sharper and sharper with every second. She shut her eyes, concentrating on not reacting or moving, and the guard nudged Myrnin with his foot. His body rolled off of Claire and thumped limply to the tile floor.
“What the hell is up with this one?” the guard asked. “He’s wearing some kind of women’s bathrobe.”
Fallon glanced over, and then focused in on Myrnin. He took several steps toward them. “I’d been wondering where the old spider had been hiding. Careful—he’s dangerous even when he’s sane, and from the looks of him, this isn’t his best period of mental health.” The cop backed away, and Fallon closed in and leaned down. He smoothed dark hair away from Myrnin’s face. “Can you hear me, Spider?”