Carpe Corpus (5 page)

Myrnin gave Bishop a lazy salute. “As my master commands.” He stood with that unconscious vampire grace that made Claire feel heavy, stupid, and slow, and his bright black eyes locked with hers for a long moment. If he was trying to tell her something, she had no idea what it was. “Out, girl. Master Bishop has important work to do here.”

What?
she wondered.
Working on his evil laugh? Interviewing backup minions?

Myrnin crossed the room and closed ice-cold fingers around her arm. She pulled in a breath for a gasp, but he didn’t give her time to react; she was yanked along with him down the hall, moving at a stumbling run.

She looked back at Michael mutely, but he couldn’t help her. He was just as trapped as she was.

Myrnin stopped only when there were two closed doors, and about a mile of hallway, between them and Mr. Bishop.

“Let go of me!” Claire spat, and tried to yank free. Myrnin looked down at her arm, where his pale fingers were still wrapped around it, and raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t quite figure out what his hand was doing. Claire yanked again. “Myrnin,
let go
!”

He did, and stepped back. She thought he looked disappointed for a flicker of a second, and then his loony smile was firmly in place. “Will you be a good little girl, then?” She glared at him. “Ah. Probably not. All right, then, on your head be it, Claire, and let’s do our best to keep your head attached to the rest of you. Come. I’ll take you to your boy, since evidently our mutual benefactor is in a giving sort of mood.”

He turned, and the skirts of his frock coat flared. He was wearing flip-flops again, and his feet were dirty, though he didn’t smell too bad in general. The layers of cheap metallic beads clicked and rattled as he walked, and the slap of his shoes made him just about the noisiest vampire Claire had ever heard.

“Are you taking your medicine?” she asked. Myrnin sent her a glance over his shoulder, and once again, she didn’t know what that look meant at all. “Is that a no?”

“I thought you hated me,” he said. “If you do, you shouldn’t really care, should you?”

He had a point. Claire shut up and hurried along as he walked down a long, curved hallway to a big wooden door. There was a vampire guard on the door, a man who’d probably been Asian in his regular life, but was now the color of old ivory. He wore his hair long, braided in the back, and he wasn’t much taller than Claire.

Myrnin exchanged some Chinese-sounding words with the other vampire—who, like Michael, sported Bishop’s fang marks in his neck—and the vampire unlocked the door and swung it open.

This was as far as Claire had ever been able to get before. She felt a wave of heat race through her, and then she shivered. Now that she was here, actually walking through the door, she felt faintly sick with anticipation.
If they’ve hurt him . . .
And it had been so long. What if he didn’t even want to see her at all?

Another locked door, another guard, and then they were inside a plain stone hallway with barred cells on the left side. No windows. No light except for blazing fluorescent fixtures far overhead. The first cell was empty. The second held two humans, but neither one was Shane. Claire tried not to look too closely. She was afraid she might know them.

The third cell had two small cots, one on each side of the tiny room, and a toilet and sink in the middle. Nothing else. It was almost painfully neat. There was an old man with straggly gray hair asleep on one of the beds, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that he was Frank Collins, Shane’s dad. She was used to seeing him awake, and it surprised her to see him so . . . fragile. So helpless and old.

Shane was sitting cross-legged on the other bed. He looked up from the book he was reading, and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.

He dropped the book, surged to his feet, and was at the bars in about one second flat. His hands curled around the iron, and his eyes glittered wildly until he squeezed them shut.

When he opened them again, he’d gotten himself under control. Mostly.

“Hey,” Shane said, as calmly as if they’d just run into each other in the hallway at the Glass House, their strange little minifraternity. As if whole months hadn’t gone by since they’d been parted. “Imagine seeing you around here. Happy birthday to you, and all.”

Claire felt tears burn in her eyes, but she blinked them back and put on a brave smile. “Thanks,” she said. “What’d you get me?”

“Um . . . a shiny diamond.” Shane looked around and shrugged. “Must have left it somewhere. You know how it is, out all night partying, you get baked and forget where you left your stuff. . . .”

She stepped forward and wrapped her hands around his. She felt tremors race through him, and Shane sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against the bars. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Shutting up now. Good idea.”

She pressed her forehead against his, and then her lips, and it was hot and sweet and desperate, and the feelings that exploded inside her made her shake in reaction. Shane let go of the bars and reached through to run his fingers through her soft, short hair, and the kiss deepened, darkened, took on a touch of yearning that made Claire’s heart pound.

When their lips finally parted, they didn’t pull away from each other. Claire threaded her arms through the bars and around his neck, and his hands moved down to her waist.

“I hate kissing you through prison bars,” Shane said. “I’m all for restraint, but self-restraint is so much more fun.”

Claire had almost forgotten that Myrnin was still there, so his soft chuckle made her flinch. “There speaks a young man with little practical experience,” he said, yawned, and draped himself over a bench on the far side of the wall. He propped his chin up on the heel of one hand. “Enjoy that innocence while you can.”

Shane held on to her, and his dark eyes stared into hers.
Ignore him,
they seemed to say.
Stay with me.

She did.

“I’m trying to get you out,” she whispered. “I really am.”

“Yeah, well . . . it’s no big deal, Claire. Don’t get yourself in trouble. Wait, I forgot who I’m talking to. What kind of trouble are you in today, anyway?”

“I’m not. Don’t worry.”

“I’ve got nothing to do but worry, mostly about you.” Shane was looking very serious now, and he tilted her head up to force her to meet his eyes again. “Claire. What’s he got you doing?”

“You’re worried about
me
?” She laughed, just a little, and it sounded panicked. “You’re the one in a cage.”

“Kind of used to that, you know. Claire, tell me. Please.”

“I . . . I can’t.” That wasn’t true. She
could.
She just desperately didn’t want to. She didn’t want Shane to know any of it. “How’s your father holding up?”

Shane’s eyebrows rose just a little. “Dad? Yeah, well. He’s okay. He’s just . . . you know.”

And that, Claire realized, was what she was afraid of—that Shane had forgiven his father for all his crazy stunts. That the Collins boys were together again, united in their hatred of Morganville in general.

That Shane was back in the vampire-slayer fold. If that happened Bishop would
never
let him out of his cell.

Shane read it in her face. “Not like that,” he said, and shook his head. “It’s pretty close quarters in here. We have to get along, or we’d kill each other. We decided to get along, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” said a deep, scratchy voice from the other bunk. “It’s been one big, sloppy bucket of joy, getting to know my son. I’m all teary-eyed and sentimental.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Frank.”

“That any way to talk to your old man?” Frank rolled over, and Claire saw the hard gleam of his eyes. “What’s your collaborator girl doing here? Still running errands for the vampires?”

“Dad, Christ, will you
shut up
?”

“This is the two of you getting along?” Claire whispered.

“You see any broken bones?”

“Good point.” This was not how she’d imagined this moment going, except for the kissing. Then again, the kissing was better than she’d dared believe was possible. “Shane—”

“Shhhh,” he whispered, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “How’s Michael?” She didn’t want to talk about Michael, so she just shook her head. Shane swallowed hard. “He’s not . . . dead?”

“Define
dead
around here,” Claire said. “No, he’s okay. He’s just . . . you know. Not himself.”

“Bishop’s?” She nodded. He closed his eyes in pain. “What about Eve?”

“She’s working. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.” Eve, like everyone else in Morganville, treated Claire like a traitor these days, and Claire honestly couldn’t blame her. “She’s really busted up about Michael. And you, of course.”

“No doubt,” Shane said softly. He seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat. “Have you heard anything about me and my dad? What Bishop has planned for us?”

Claire shook her head. Even if she knew—and she didn’t, in detail—she wouldn’t have told him. “Let’s not talk about it. Shane—I’ve missed you so much—”

He kissed her again, and the world melted into a wonderful spinning blend of heat and bells, and it was only when she finally, regretfully pulled back that she heard Myrnin’s mocking, steady clapping.

“Love conquers all,” he said. “How quaint.”

Claire turned on him, feeling fury erupt like a volcano in her guts.
“Shut up!”

He didn’t even bother to glance at her, just leaned back against the wall and smiled. “You want to know what he’s got planned for you, Shane? Do you really?”

“Myrnin, don’t!”

Shane reached through the bars and grabbed Claire’s shoulders, turning her back to face him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “
This
matters, right now. Claire, we’re going to get out of this. We’re going to live through it. Both of us. Say it with me.”

“Both of us,” she repeated. “We’re going to live.”

Myrnin’s cold hand closed around her wrist, and he dragged her away from the bars. The last thing she let go of was Shane’s hand.

“Hey!” Shane yelled, as Claire fought, lost, and was pulled through the door. “Claire! We’ve going to live! Say it!
We’re going to live!
”

Myrnin slammed the door. “Theatrical, isn’t he? Come on, girl. We have work to do.”

She tried to shake him off. “I’m not going anywhere with you, you traitor!”

Myrnin didn’t give her a choice; he half dragged, half marched her away from the first vampire guard, then the second, and then pulled her into an empty, quiet room off the long hallway. He shut the door with a wicked boom and whirled to face her.

Claire grabbed the first thing that came to hand—it happened to be a heavy candlestick—and swung it at his head. He ducked, rushed in, and effortlessly took it away from her. “Girl.
Claire!
” He shook her into stillness. His eyes were wide and very dark. Not at all crazy. “If you want the boy to live, you’ll stop fighting me. It’s not productive.”

“What, I should just stand here and let you bite me? Not happening!” She tried to pull away, but he was as solid as a granite statue. Her bones would break before his grip did.

“Why on earth would I bite you?” Myrnin asked, very reasonably. “I don’t work for Bishop, Claire. I never have. I thought you certainly had enough brains to understand that.”

Claire blinked again. “Are you trying to tell me that
you’re still on our side
?”

“Define
our
, my dear.”

“The side of . . .” Well, he was right. It was a little tough to define. “You know. Us!”

Myrnin actually laughed, let go, and stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of his frock coat. “Us, indeed. I understand you might be skeptical. You have reason. Perhaps I should allow someone else to convince you—Ah. Right on time.”

She wouldn’t have believed him, not for a second, except that a section of the wall opened, there was a flash of white-hot light, and a woman stepped through, followed by a long line of people.

The woman was Amelie, vampire queen of Morganville—though she didn’t look anything like the perfect pale princess that Claire had always seen. Amelie had on black pants, a black zip-up hoodie, and
running shoes.

So wrong.

And behind her was the frickin’ vampire
army,
led by Oliver, all in black, looking scarier than Claire could remember ever seeing him—he usually at least tried to look nondangerous, but today, he obviously didn’t care. He wore his graying hair tied back in a ponytail, and it pulled his face into an unsmiling mask.

He crossed his arms and looked at Myrnin and Claire like they were something slimy he’d found on his coffee shop floor.

“Myrnin,” Amelie said, and nodded graciously. He nodded back, like they were passing on the street. Like it was just a normal day. “Why did you involve the girl?”

“Oh, I had to. She’s been quite difficult,” he said. “Which helped convince Bishop that I am, indeed, his creature. But I think it’s best if you leave her behind for now, and me as well. We have more work to do here, work that can’t be done in hiding.”

Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without thinking of a single coherent question to ask. Oliver dismissed both of them with a shake of his head and signaled his vampire shock troops to fan out around the room on either side of the door to the hallway.

Amelie lingered, a trace of a frown on her face. “Will you protect her, Myrnin? I was loath to let you lead her this far into the maze; I should hate to think you’d abandon her on a whim. I do owe her Protection.” Her pale gray eyes bored into his, colder than steel in winter. “Be careful what you say. I will hold you to your answer.”

“I’ll defend the girl with my last breath,” he promised, and clasped his hand dramatically to the chest of his ragged frock coat. “Oh, wait. That doesn’t mean much, does it, since I gasped that last breath before the Magna Carta was dry on the page? I mean, of course I’ll look after her, with whatever is left of my life.”