Amelie was sitting up when I arrived, escorted in by Richard Morrell, who was instantly pounced on by his sister and father for hugs and information. She didn't look good, but she looked alive.
Sort of.
I didn't have any sympathy for her.
"Myrnin," I said. "You used him."
Sam, sitting on the arm of Amelie's chair, frowned at me. "Don't. She's very tired."
"Yeah, well, we've all got problems." I shook off Michael's hand, too. "Bishop's blood is the cure. You and Myrnin were right."
Amelie's expression didn't change. She looked cold, remote, unreachable.
All of a sudden, I felt a wild urge to hurt her. Badly.
So I did.
"Bishop's there," I said. "He's got Myrnin."
Amelie's eyes focused on mine, and all of my fury melted away. "I know," Amelie said. "I can feel it. We knew it was a risk, using Myrnin as a stalking horse, but something had to be done."
"You can't leave him there. You can't."
Amelie sighed. "No," she agreed. "I can't. I still need Myrnin, very much. It's far too early in the game to sacrifice him."
I swallowed hard. "Do we mean anything to you? Any of us?"
Amelie looked around the room. At the humans, all wearing purple elastic bandages at their elbows, the sign they'd given blood to save her. At the other vampires, all waiting for commands.
"You mean everything to me," she said. "The survival of my people, and yours, is all I have ever wanted, Ana. It's why I came here. It's all I've worked for." Her eyes grew chilly, and some of the old Amelie came back. "I would sacrifice Myrnin for it. Oliver. Sam. Even myself. But it's not enough."
Everyone in the room was still. Justin moved up next to me, and I was aware of Eve and Michael just behind me.
But Amelie was staring right at me.
"What will you sacrifice, Ana?" she asked. "To win?"
"It's not a game," I said.
Amelie inclined her head. "True. It is war. And now we have to fight for all of our lives."
I linked hands with my friends.
"Then tell us what to do."
Amelie was quiet for a moment, and then she stood. I thought that only those who knew her, really knew her, could tell what that cost.
She raised her voice to carry to every part of the room.
"Our forces must be split," she said. "We must not lose the Founder Houses, the Bloodmobile, the university, and Common Grounds. We will hold. Those who follow Bishop have been promised the freedom to hunt. Those of us who are strong enough will deny them that right. Those who are prey will be armed to defend themselves. This is not optional. All humans will be armed and taught how to strike a vampire."
"There's no going back from that," Oliver said. His voice was neutral. His expression wasn't. "You're giving them too much."
"I'm giving them equality," Amelie said. "Do you wish to argue the point with me now, of all times?"
Oliver, after a heart-stopping second, shook his head.
"Then go," Amelie said. "Oliver, Eve, go to Common Grounds and hold it. Sam, choose defenders for each Founder House. At least two vampires and two humans per house. Michael, Richard - go to the university. I will call the regent - you'll have all you need."
Her gaze moved to me. "I need you with me," she said. "We will fetch Myrnin."
"Bishop's there," I reminded her.
"I'm well aware. We will take precautions."
Justin cleared his throat. "You're not going anywhere without me."
"I'm afraid we are," Amelie said. "I have a very special job for you, Justin Bieber."
"I'm not going to like this, am I?"
She smiled.
"Didn't think so," Justin finished under his breath.
"You will be in charge of the Bloodmobile," Amelie said. "And one other thing."
"Like the Bloodmobile isn't bad enough?"
Amelie reached in the pocket of her crystal-specked robes, and pulled out a small leather-bound book.
It looked really, really familiar. It was the book that had gotten us in such trouble before - the book Bishop wanted.
"You'll be in charge of this," she said, and held it out to him.
He took it, and as he did, I realized what Amelie had done.
She'd just made Justin the bait.
It was all going wrong, and Morganville was burning--parts of it, anyway.
I stood at the windows of the Glass House and watched the flames paint the glass a dull, flickering orange. I could always see the stars out here in the Middle of Nowhere, Texas--but not tonight. Tonight, there was--
"You're thinking it's the end of the world," a cool, quiet voice said behind me.
I blinked out of my trance and turned to look. Amelie--the Founder, and the baddest vampire in town, to hear most of the others tell it--looked fragile and pale, even for a vampire. She'd changed out of the costume she'd worn to Bishop's masked ball--not a bad idea, since it had a stakesized hole in the chest, and she'd bled all over it. If I had needed proof that Amelie was tough, I'd certainly gotten it tonight. Surviving an assassination attempt definitely gave you points.
The vampire was wearing gray--a soft gray sweater, and pants. I had to stare, because Amelie just didn't do pants. Ever. It was beneath her, or something.
Come to think of it, I had never seen her in the color gray, either.
Talk about the end of the world.
"I remember when Chicago burned," Amelie said. "And London. And Rome. The world doesn't end, Ana. In the morning, the survivors start to build again. It's the way of things. The human way."
I didn't particularly want a pep talk. I wanted to curl up in my warm bed upstairs, pull pillows over my head, and feel Justin's arms around me. None of that was going to happen. My bed was currently occupied by Miranda, a freakedout teenage psychic with dependency issues, and as for Justin . . .
Justin was about to leave.
"Why?" I blurted. "Why are you sending him out there? You know what could happen--"
"I know a great deal about Justin Bieber that you don't," Amelie interrupted. "He's not a child, and he has survived much in his young life. He'll survive this. And he wishes to make a difference."
She was sending Justin into the predawn darkness with a few chosen fighters, both vampire and human, to take possession of the Bloodmobile: the last reliably accessible blood storage in Morganville.
And it was the last thing Justin wanted to do. It was the last thing I wanted for him.
"Bishop isn't going to want the Bloodmobile for himself," I said. "He wants it destroyed. Morganville's full of walking blood banks, as far as he's concerned. But it'll hurt you if you lose it, so he'll come after it. Right?"
The severe, thin line of Amelie's mouth made it clear that she didn't like being secondguessed. It definitely couldn't be called a smile. "As long as Justin has the book, Bishop will not dare destroy the vehicle for fear of destroying his great treasure along with it."
Translation: Justin was bait. Because of the book. I hated that damn book. It had brought me nothing but trouble from the time I'd first heard about it. Amelie and Oliver, the two biggest vamps in town, had both been scrambling to find it, and it had dropped into my hands instead. I wished I'd had the courage to grab it from Justin right now, run outside, and toss it in the nearest burning house to get rid of it once and for all, because as far as I could tell, it hadn't done anybody any good, ever--including Amelie.
I said, "He'll kill Justin to get it."
Amelie shrugged. "I gamble that killing Justin is far more difficult than it would appear."
"Yeah, you are gambling. You're betting his life."
Amelie's ice gray eyes were steady on mine. "Be clear on this: I am, in fact, betting all our lives. So be grateful, child, and also be warned. I could concede this fight at any time. My father would allow me to walk away--only me, alone. Defeated. I stay out of duty to you and the others in this town who are loyal to me." Her eyes narrowed. "Don't make me reconsider that."
I hoped I didn't look as mutinous as I felt. I pasted on what was supposed to be an agreeable expression, and nodded. Amelie's eyes narrowed even more.
"Get prepared. We leave in ten minutes."
Justin wasn't the only one with a dirty job to do; we were all assigned things we didn't particularly like. I was going with Amelie to try to rescue another vampire--Myrnin. And while I liked Myrnin, and admired him in a lot of ways, I also wasn't too excited about facing down--again--the vampire holding him prisoner, the dreadful Mr. Bishop.
Eve was off to the coffee shop, Common Grounds, with the justaboutasawful Oliver, her former boss. Michael was about to head out to the university with Richard Morrell, the mayor's son. How he was supposed to protect a few thousand clueless college students, I had no idea; I took a moment to marvel at the fact that the vampires really could lock down the town when they wanted. I'd have thought keeping students on campus in this situation would be impossible--kids phoning home, jumping in cars, getting the hell out of Dodge.
Except the vampires controlled the phone lines, cell phones, the Internet, the TV, and the radio, and cars either died or wrecked on the outskirts of town if the vampires didn't want you to leave. Only a few people had ever gotten out of Morganville successfully without permission. Justin had been one. And then he'd come back.
I still had no idea what kind of guts that had taken, knowing what was waiting for him.
"Hey," My housemate Eve said. She paused, arms full of clothes--black and red, so they'd almost certainly come out of Eve's own Gothheavy closet--and gave me a quick onceover. She'd changed to what in Eve's world were practical fighting clothes--a pair of tight black jeans, a tight black shirt with red skull patterns all over it, and stompy, thicksoled boots. And a spiked black leather collar around her throat that almost dared the vampires, Bite that!
"Hey," I said. "Is this really a good time to start laundry?"
Eve rolled her eyes. "Cute. So, some people didn't want to be caught dead in their stupid ball costumes, if you know what I mean. How about you? Ready to take that thing off?"
I looked down at myself. I was honestly surprised to realize that I was still wearing the tight, garish bodysuit of my Harlequin costume. "Oh, yes." I sighed. "Got anything without, you know, skulls?"
"What's wrong with skulls? And that would be a no, by the way." Eve dumped the armload of clothing on the floor and rooted through it, pulling out a plain black shirt and a pair of blue jeans. "The jeans are yours. Sorry, but I sort of raided every body's stash. Hope you like the underwear you have on; I didn't go through your drawers."
"Afraid it might get you all turned on?" Justin asked from over my shoulder. "Please say yes." He grabbed a pair of his own jeans from the pile. "And please stay out of my closet."
Eve gave him the finger. "If you're worried about me finding your porn stash, old news, man. Also, you have really boring taste." She grabbed a blanket from the couch and nodded toward the corner. "No privacy anywhere in this house tonight. Go on, we'll fix up a changing room."
The three of us edged past the people and vampires who packed the Glass House. It had become the unofficial campaign center for our side of the war, which meant there were plenty of people tramping around, getting in our stuff, who none of us would have let cross the threshold under normal circumstances.
Take Monica Morrell. The mayor's daughter had shed her elaborate Marie Antoinette costume and was back to the blond, slinky, pretty, slimy girl I knew and hated.
"Oh my God." I gritted my teeth. "Is she wearing my blouse?" It was my only good one. Silk. I'd just bought it last week. Now I'd never be able to put it on again. "Remind me to burn that later." Monica saw me staring, fingered the collar of the shirt, and gave me an evil smile. She mouthed, Thanks. "Remind me to burn it twice. And stomp on the ashes."
Eve grabbed me by the arm and hustled me into the empty corner of the room, where she shook out the blanket and held it at arm's length to provide a temporary shelter.
I peeled off my sweatsoaked Harlequin costume with a whimper of relief, and shivered as the cool air hit my flushed skin. I felt awkward and anxious, stripped to my underwear with just a blanket held up between me and a dozen strangers, some of whom probably wanted to eat me.
Justin leaned over the top. "You done?"
I squealed and threw the waddedup costume at him. He caught it and waggled his eyebrows at me as I stepped into the jeans and quickly buttoned up the shirt.
"Done!" I called.
Eve dropped the blanket and smiled poisonsweet at Justin.
"Your turn, leather boy," she said. "Don't worry. I won't accidentally embarrass you."
No, she'd embarrass him completely on purpose, and Justin knew it, from the glare he threw her. He ducked behind the blanket. I wasn't tall enough to check him out over the top--not that I wasn't tempted--but when Eve lowered the blanket, bit by bit, I grabbed one corner and pulled it back up.
"You're no fun," Eve said.
"Don't mess with him. Not now. He's going out there alone."
Eve's face went still and tight, and for the first time, I realized that the shine in her eyes wasn't really humor. It was a tightly controlled kind of panic. "Yeah," she said. "I know. It's just--we're all splitting up, Ana. I wish we didn't have to do that."
On impulse, I hugged her. Eve smelled of powder and some kind of darkly floral perfume, with a light undertone of sweat.
"Hey!" Justin's wounded yell was enough to make us both giggle. The blanket had drooped enough to show him zipping up his pants. Fast. "Seriously, girls, not cool. A guy could do serious damage."
He looked more like Justin now. The leather pants had made him unsettlingly hotmodel gorgeous. In jeans and his old, faded Marilyn Manson Tshirt, he was somebody downtoearth, somebody I could imagine kissing.
And I did imagine, just like that. It was, as usual, heartracingly delicious.
"Michael's going out, too," Eve said, and now the tension she'd been hiding made her voice tremble. "I have to tell him--"
"Go on," I said. "We're right behind you."
Eve dropped the blanket and pushed through the crowd, heading for her boyfriend, and the unofficial head of our strange and screwedup fraternity.
It was easy to spot Michael in any group--he was tall and blondeish, with a face like an angel. As he caught sight of Eve heading toward him, he smiled, and I thought that was maybe the most complicated smile I'd ever seen, full of relief, welcome, love, and worry.
Eve crashed straight into him, hard enough to rock him back on his heels, and their arms went around each other.
Justin held me back with a touch on my shoulder. "Give them a minute," he said. "They've got things to say." I turned to look at him. "And so do we."
I swallowed hard and nodded. Justin's hands were on my shoulders, and his eyes had gone still and intense.
"Don't go out there," Justin said. His thumb traced up to my cheek and slowly over my bottom lip.
It was what I'd been intending to say to him. I blinked, surprised.
"You stole my paranoia," I said. "I was going to say, Don't go. But you're going to, no matter what I say, aren't you?"
That threw him off just a little. "Well, yeah, of course I am, but--"
"But nothing. I'll be with Amelie; I'll be okay. You? You're going off with the cast of WWE Raw to fight a cage match or something. It's not the same thing."
"Since when do you ever watch wrestling?"
"Shut up. That's not the point, and you know it. Justin, don't go." I put everything I had into it.
It wasn't enough.
Justin smoothed my hair and bent down to kiss me. It was the sweetest, gentlest kiss he'd ever given me, and it melted all the tense muscles of my neck, my shoulders, and my back. It was a promise without words, and when he finally pulled back, he passed his thumb across my lips gently, to seal it all in.
"There's something I really ought to tell you," he said. "I was kind of waiting for the right time."
We were in a room full of people, Morganville was in chaos outside, and we probably didn't have a chance of surviving until sunrise, but I felt my heart stutter and then race faster. The whole world seemed to go silent around me. He's going to say it.
Justin leaned in, so close that I felt his lips brush my ear, and whispered, "My dad's coming back to town."
That so wasn't what I was hoping he'd say. I jerked back, startled, and Justin put a hand over my mouth. "Don't," he whispered. "Don't say anything. We can't talk about this, Ana. I just wanted you to know."
We couldn't talk about it because Justin's father was Morganville's most wanted, public enemy number one, and any conversation we had--at least here--was in danger of being overheard by unfriendly, undead ears.
Not that I was a fan of Justin's father; he was a cold, brutal man who'd used and abused Justin, and I couldn't work up a lot of dread for seeing him behind bars . . . only I knew that Amelie and Oliver wouldn't stop at putting him in jail. Justin's father was marked for death if he came back. Death by burning. And while I wouldn't necessarily cry any big tears over him, I didn't want to put Justin through that, either.
"We'll talk about it," I said.
Justin snorted. "You mean, you'll yell at me? Trust me, I know what you're going to say. I just wanted you to know, in case--"
In case something happened to him. I tried to frame my question in a way that wouldn't tip our hand to any listening ears. "When should I expect him?"
"Next few days, probably. But you know how it is. I'm out of the loop." Justin's smile had a dark, painful edge to it now. He'd defied his dad once, because of me, and that meant cutting the ties to his last living family in the world. I doubted his dad had forgotten that, or ever would.
"Why now?" I whispered. "The last thing we need is--"
"Help?"
"He's not help. He's chaos!"
Justin gestured at the burning town. "Take a good look, Ana. How much worse can it get?"
Lots, I thought. Justin, in some ways, still had a rosecolored view of his father. It had been a while since his dad had blown out of town, and I thought that Justin had probably convinced himself that the guy wasn't all that bad. He was probably thinking now that his dad would come sweeping in to save us.
It wasn't going to happen. Jeremy Bieber was a fanatic, carbomb variety, and he didn't care who got hurt.
Not even his own son.
"Let's just--" I chewed my lip for a second, staring at him. "Let's just get through the day, okay? Please? Be careful. Call me."
He had his cell phone, and he showed it to me in mute promise. Then he stepped closer, and when his arms closed around me, I felt a sweet, trembling relief.
"Better get ready," he said. "It's going to be a long day."