Carpe Corpus (26 page)

“There’s no chance,” he started again, and then stopped. Then he took an unsteady step to the side, like he’d lost his balance.

Then he let her go altogether, to brace himself on the arm of his throne. Bishop looked down at the knife in his hand—Shane’s knife—in disbelief. He couldn’t hold on to it. It slipped out of his fist, hit the seat of the chair, and bounced off to the floor.

Bishop staggered backward.As he did, his coat flapped open, and Claire saw that the wound was bleeding.

Bleeding a
lot.

“Get the book!” Amelie suddenly screamed, and Claire saw it, tucked in the breast pocket of Bishop’s jacket. Amelie’s book, Myrnin’s book. The book of Morganville, with all the secrets and power.

Seemed only right that it ought to be the thing he lost tonight, even if he won everything else.

Claire darted in, grabbed the book, and somehow ducked his clutching hands.

Bishop lunged after her as she danced backward, but he seemed confused now. Slower.

Sicker?

As if sensing some signal, Oliver finally moved. He took a pair of leather gloves from his pocket, calmly put them on, and snapped the silver chains holding Amelie prisoner. He picked up the end of the silver leash and held it for a second, looking into her eyes.

He smiled.

Then he took that off her neck and dropped it to the floor.

Amelie surged to her feet—wounded, bloodied, messy, and angrier than Claire had ever seen her. She hissed at Oliver, fangs out, and then darted around him to kneel next to Sam.

His eyes opened and fixed on her face. Neither of them spoke.

She took his hand in hers for a moment, then lifted it to touch the back of it to her face.

“You were right,” she said. “You were always right, about everything. And I will always love you, Sam. Forever.”

He smiled, and then he closed his eyes . . .

. . . and he was gone. Claire could see his life—or whatever it was that animated a vampire—slip away.

Her eyes blurred with hot tears.
No. Oh, Sam . . .

Amelie put his hand gently back on his chest, touched her lips to his forehead, and stood up. Oliver helped her, with one hand under her arm—that was the only way Claire could tell that Amelie wasn’t herself, because she seemed to be more alive than ever.

More motivated, anyway.

Bishop was seriously hurt, although Claire couldn’t figure out how; Shane’s knife couldn’t have really injured him. The old man was barely staying on his feet now, as he backed away from Amelie and Oliver.

That put him to moving toward Myrnin, who picked up Pennywell and threw him like a rag doll way out into the distance—all the way to the spotlight, where Pennywell slammed into the glass and smashed the machine into wreckage.

Then Myrnin turned toward Bishop, blocking him from that side.

The three vampires fighting Hannah and Richard suddenly realized that the tide was turning against them, and moved away. As a parting shot, though, one of them yanked the stake out of François’s chest, and the vampire yelled and rolled around for a second, then jumped to his feet, snarling.

Oliver, annoyed, reached down and picked up the silver leash he’d removed from Amelie’s neck. In a single, smooth motion, he wrapped it around François’s throat and tied him to the arm of Bishop’s heavy throne. “Stay,” he snapped, and, just to be sure, wrapped another length of heavy silver chain around his ankle. François howled in pain.

Oliver plucked the wooden stake out of Claire’s hand, removed the silver knife from Ysandre’s back, and drove the stake all the way through her to nail her to the stage. It went through her heart. She shuddered and stopped moving, frozen in place.

“There, that should keep them for a while,” Oliver said. “Claire. Take this.” He tossed the knife to her, and she caught it, still numb and not entirely understanding what had just happened.

“You’re . . . you’re not—”

“On Bishop’s side?” He smiled thinly. “He certainly has thought so, since I sold myself to him the night he came to Morganville. But no. I am not his beast. I’ve always been my own.”

Amelie took a step toward her father. “It’s over,” she said. “You’ve done your worst. You’ll do no more.”

He looked desperate, confused, and—for the first time—really afraid. “How? How did you do this?”

“The key was not in guessing whom you would choose to kill,” she said, and her voice was light and calm and ice cold. “You taught me endgames, my father. The key to winning is that no matter what move your opponent makes, it will be the wrong one. I knew you’d kill at least one of us personally; you enjoy it far too much. You couldn’t resist.”

Like Bishop, she lost her balance. Oliver caught her and held her upright.

Bishop’s face went blank. “You . . . you poisoned me. Through Myrnin. But I didn’t drink.”

“I poisoned Myrnin,” she said. “And myself. And Sam. The only one who didn’t take poison was Oliver, because I needed him in reserve. You see, we knew about Claire after all. We counted on your knowing where we would be, and what we’d planned, at least insofar as she witnessed it.” A pawn. Claire had always been a pawn.

And Sam—Sam had been a
sacrifice
.

Amelie looked unsteady now, and Oliver put an arm around her shoulders. It looked like comfort, but it wasn’t; he took a syringe from his pocket, uncapped it with a flick of his thumb, and drove it into the side of Amelie’s neck. He emptied the contents in, and she shuddered and sagged against him for just a moment, then drew in a deep breath and straightened.

She nodded to Oliver, who took out another syringe, which he pitched to Claire. “Give it to him.”

For a second she thought he meant to Bishop, but then she realized, as Myrnin’s strength failed and he went to his knees, who it was really meant to help. She swallowed hard, looking at Myrnin uncertainly, and he moved his hair aside to bare the side of his pale neck. “Hurry,” he said. “Not much time.”

She did it, somehow, and helped him back to his feet.

When he looked up, she could see that he was better.
Much
better.

Amelie said, “In case you have any doubt, Father, that was an antidote to the poison that is taking hold inside you. Without the antidote, the poison won’t kill you, but it will disable you. You can’t win against us. Not now.”

Down among the crowds, the fights were dying down. There were casualties, but many of them were Bishop’s people; the humans of Morganville weren’t quite as easy to lead to slaughter as he’d expected. All their anger and vampire-slaying attitude had helped, after all.

And now, pounding up the steps on the side of the stage, came Shane and Eve, backed by a party of grim-looking humans, including Detective Hess and several other cops. All held weapons. Eve had a crossbow that she aimed at Bishop’s chest.

Michael took an extra stake from Hannah.

All of Morganville on one side, and Bishop alone on the other.

He backed up, toward the back of the stage.

Behind him, the curtain took on a silvery shimmer.

“Portal!” Claire yelled, but it was too late; Bishop had activated an escape hatch, and in the next second he stumbled through it and was gone. Amelie was too far away, and too weak to go after him anyway.

Claire didn’t think; she just jumped forward, put her hand on the portal’s surface, and yelled Ada’s name.

“What?” the computer asked. The sound this time boomed out of the portal.

“I need to track Bishop!” Claire said.

“I don’t work for you anymore, human,” Ada said, and shut down the portal with a snap. Claire turned to look at Myrnin, who was watching a few feet away, eyes fading back to his normal black. He walked toward her, bare feet gliding over the carpet, and studied the empty space where the portal had been.

Then he reached out and drew a wide circle with a sweep of his arm, and the silver shimmer flickered back into view.

“Don’t be rude, Ada,” he said. “Now, I know you can hear me. Where did our dear Mr. Bishop take himself off to?”

“I can’t tell you,” Ada said primly. “I don’t work for you, either.”

Myrnin placed his palm flat on the surface of the shimmer and looked at Claire. “He’s reprogrammed her,” he said. “He must have gone to her and given her his blood while we were making our own plans. I didn’t expect him to move so quickly. I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should have been.” He removed his palm, and Claire realized he’d done it as a kind of mute button, so Ada wouldn’t hear what they had to say. “Ada, my darling, I put you together from scraps and my own blood. Are you really going to say you don’t love me anymore?” Claire had never heard him sound that way before—so in control of himself, so assured and darkly clever. It made her shiver somewhere deep inside. “Let me come to you. I really want to see you, my love.”

Ada was silent for a moment, and then her ghostly image appeared on the surface of the portal—a Victorian woman, dressed in the big skirts and high collar of the times. She smoothed her pale hands over the fabric of her dress. “Very well,” she said. “You may call on me, Myrnin.”

“Excellent.” He grabbed Claire by the hand and stepped through the portal.

Her foot came down on something soft that ran off with a shrill squeak, and she jumped and gave out a squeal of her own.
Rats.
She hated rats. It was too dark to see, but in the next second the lights flickered on around the cavern, and there was the monster tangle of pipes and elaborate bracing that was Ada.

Her ghost stood in front of the clumsy giant typewriter-style keyboard, smiling at Myrnin like a lovesick girl, but the smile faltered when she saw Claire. “Oh,” she said, through the tinny speakers of the computer. “You brought
her.
”

“Don’t be jealous, love. You’re the only girl for me.” Myrnin strode up to the keyboard,
through
Ada’s two-dimensional form, and Claire saw Ada make a startled face and turn toward him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Myrnin!”

“Fixing you, hopefully,” he said. “Claire.”

She headed for his side, but Ada turned on her, and the prim Victorian image turned into . . . something else. Something dark and corrupt and horrible, snarling at her.

She flinched and veered off, but Myrnin’s hand reached out and grabbed her to drag her in, past Ada. “Ignore her,” he said. “She’s in a mood.” Myrnin tapped symbols, then uncovered the sharp needle on the control panel, and slammed his hand down on the point. “Ada. You will no longer accept commands from Mr. Bishop; do you understand me?”

“He was nicer to me,” Ada said sulkily. “He gave me better blood.”

“Better than mine? I believe I’m offended.”

Ada’s giggle sounded like a rattle of tinfoil. “Well, you haven’t been yourself, you know. But you taste
much
better now, Myrnin. Almost like your old self.”

“Imagine that. Well, then, I promise that you’ll get all the lovely sweet blood you’d like from me, if you will block Bishop from access, my sweet.”

Ada made a long, drawn-out humming sound, as if she was thinking, and then she finally said, “Well . . . all right. But you have to give me a full pint.”

“I haven’t moved my hand at all, my dear. Drink away.” He let almost a minute go by, then gestured to Claire to come closer. “Nearly done, Ada?”

“Mmmmmm.” Ada sighed. “Yes. Delicious. I feel ever so much—What are you doing?”

He yanked his hand off the panel, grabbed Claire’s, and slammed it down on the needle. She knew better than to try to fight him this time, just winced and bit her lip and tried not to wonder if, say, having Myrnin’s blood infecting hers would have any nasty side effects, like a sudden craving for blood and an allergy to the sun.

“Sorry,” he said, not as if he was, and altered his voice again to that velvety, dark, seductive tone. “Ada, my love?”

No answer.

“Ada, Claire is my very good friend, and I really must insist that she have the same access I do.”

Ada made a retching sound.

“Ada.”

“No.”

He sighed. “List for me who has access to the system, please.”

Ada said, “There are currently six individuals with full access to the portals, not including you. I have removed Mr. Bishop, because you asked so very nicely. That leaves Amelie, Oliver, Michael,
Claire
, Jason, and Dean. Although Claire is no good for you, Myrnin. You should eat her immediately.”

“Thank you, I shall think that over.” He frowned down at the console. “Jason. Jason Rosser? Why did I not know this? And who is
Dean
?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Ada said, and laughed. Myrnin blinked.

“She’s not supposed to do that, right?” Claire asked.

“Right. Oh dear. I think that my blood might have carried an infection deep into her systems. This may be a very bad thing.”

“Can’t you give her the cure?”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Myrnin said, and shifted his focus again. “Ada, my love? Can you tell me how Jason and Dean have access to the system?”

“Sam Glass gave it to Jason,” she said. “But not full access, of course. Just to use open portals. Dean is Jason’s friend. I revoked Sam’s access, obviously. Because he’s no longer functional.”

Claire fidgeted uncomfortably. The white-hot pain in her hand was starting to eat away at her calm. “Um—Myrnin, can I please stop now?” She figured that Ada must have drained at least a pint by now.

“Please,” Ada said. “I don’t like your blood anyway.” She made a computerized spitting sound. Claire yanked her hand away in relief and cradled it against her chest, squeezing her fist tight to stop the bleeding. “Disgusting. Too sweet.”

Claire stuck her tongue out at the computer.

“I saw that.”

“Good,” she snapped. “Where did Bishop go?”

“Why should I—”

“Ada!” Myrnin’s voice cracked across the computer’s sulky response, and she went quiet. “I want you to block access to the portals for anyone except me, Amelie, Oliver, Michael, and Claire. Do you understand?”

“I’m not your slave.” Ada’s image flickered, then went out completely.