USE BRACELET. Ada’s black-and-white image flickered again, like a signal getting too much interference. When she re-formed, she looked strained and unhappy. HURRY. NO TIME.
“I don’t know how!”
Ada looked even more annoyed, and wrote something on the board—but it was faint, and faded almost before Claire could read it. B-L-O . . . “Blood?” Claire asked. Ada herself was fading, but Claire saw her mouth the word yes. “Of course. What else? Why can’t any of you guys ever come up with something that uses chocolate ?”
No answer from the computer/spirit world; Ada disappeared in a puff of white mist and was gone. Claire looked around and found a thumbtack pressed into the surface of a bulletin board. She hesitated, positioned the thumbtack over her finger, and muttered, “If I get tetanus, I’m blaming you, Myrnin.”
Then she stabbed the sharp point in, and came up with a few fat drops of red that she dripped onto the surface of the symbol on Amelie’s bracelet.
It glowed white in the dim light. The blood disappeared into the grooves, and the whole bracelet turned warm, then uncomfortably hot against her skin. Claire gritted her teeth until she felt a scream coming on, and finally, the burning sensation faded, leaving the metal oddly cold.
And that was it. Amelie didn’t magically appear. Claire wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this seemed really anticlimactic.
She stuck the thumbtack back on the board and went back to tell Hannah and Michael that she’d completely failed.
Dejected, she headed back to the basement. The hallways were deserted now, since classes were back in session. As she passed the administration office door, it opened, and the man she’d sent to his room like a little kid looked out. “Miss Danvers?” he asked. “Is there something I can do for you?”
This was every high school kid’s fantasy, Claire thought, and she was tempted to tell him to do something crazy, like strip naked and run around the auditorium. But instead she just shook her head and kept on walking.
He came out of the door and got in her way.
“Could you put in a good word for me?” he asked, and when she tried to go around him, he grabbed her by the arm. He lowered his voice to a fast, harsh whisper. “Tell Mr. Bishop I can help him. I can be of use. Just tell him that!”
The big double doors leading out into the sunlight at the end of the hall crashed open, and a whole troop of people came flooding in. They all wore long, dark hooded coats, and they moved fast, with a purpose.
Faster than humans.
The two in the lead threw back their hoods, and Claire was relieved to see that one of them was Amelie, perfectly composed and looking as in charge as ever, even if she wasn’t queen of Morganville anymore.
The other leader of the pack was Oliver, of course. Not so comforting.
“Milton Dyer,” Amelie said. “Please take your hand off of my friend Claire. Now.”
The man went about as pale as his white shirt, and looked down at Claire, and his hand wrapped around her arm. He let go as if she’d suddenly become electrified.
“Now go away,” Amelie said to him in that same calm, emotionless voice. “I don’t wish to see you again.”
“I . . . ” He wet his lips. “I’m still loyal to my Protector... ”
“Your Protector was Charles,” Amelie said. “Charles is dead. Oliver, do you have any interest in picking up Mr. Dyer’s contract?”
“I really don’t,” Oliver said. He sounded bored.
“Then that settles things. Leave my sight, Mr. Dyer. The next time you cross my path, I’ll finish you.” She said it without any particular sense of menace, but Claire didn’t doubt for an instant that she meant it. Neither did Mr. Dyer, who quickly retreated to his office. He didn’t even dare to slam the door. It closed with a soft, careful click.
Leaving Claire in the hallway with a bunch of vampires. Old ones, she thought—Amelie and Oliver were obviously old, but the others seemed to have come through their sunlight stroll without a mark, too. Ten of them in total. Most of them didn’t bother to put their hoods back and reveal their faces.
“You used the bracelet in a way that I did not teach you,” Amelie said. “Who showed you how to use it to summon me?”
“Why?”
“Don’t play games with me, Claire. Was it Myrnin?”
“No. It was Ada.”
Amelie’s gray eyes flickered, just a little, but it was enough to tell Claire that she had knowledge that Amelie wished she didn’t. “I see. We’ll talk of that later,” she said. “Why did you use the blood call? It’s intended to alert me only if you are seriously injured.”
“Well, someone is. Myrnin’s very sick. He’s downstairs. I need to get him some help. I came to find Dr. Mills, but—”
“Dr. Mills has been relocated,”Amelie said.“I thought it best, after Myrnin’s ill-advised visit here. I can’t tell you where he is. You understand why.”
Claire knew. And she felt sick and a little angry, too. “You think I might give him away. To Bishop. Well, I wouldn’t. Myrnin knew that.”
“Whatever Myrnin believes, I can’t take the risk. We are close to the endgame, Claire. I risk only what I must.”
“You’re not happy that Myrnin introduced me to Ada, are you?” Claire asked.
“Myrnin’s judgment has been . . . questionable of late. As you say, he is ill. Where can we find him?”
“Downstairs, by the portal,” Claire said. Amelie nodded a brisk dismissal and turned to go, along with all of her followers. “Wait! What do you want me to do?”
Amelie said nothing. Oliver, lingering behind for just a moment, said, “Stay out of our way. If you value your friends, keep them out of our way, too.”
Then they were gone, moving fast and silently through the basement doorway.
Claire stood in the empty hallway for a few deep breaths, hearing the sounds of lectures continuing on inside of classrooms, student voices raised in questions or answers.
Life went on.
So weird.
She started to go down to the basement, but a vampire she didn’t know blocked the entrance. “No,” he said flatly. “You don’t go with us.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Hannah and Michael—”
“They will be taken care of. Leave.”
There wasn’t any room for negotiation. Claire finally got the hint, and turned away to walk out of the high school the old-fashioned way . . . into the sunlight, the way Amelie and her gang had come. She had no idea where they’d come from, or where they were going.
Amelie wanted it that way.
Claire sat down on the steps of the high school for a few long minutes, shivering in the cold wind, not much warmed by the bright sun in a cloudless sky. The street outside the school looked empty—a few cars making their way around Morganville, but not much else going on.
She heard the door behind her open, and Hannah Moses clumped down in her heavy boots and offered Claire a big, elegant hand. Claire took it and stood. “Amelie’s taking care of him?” she asked. Hannah nodded. “Michael went with?”
“He’ll see you later,” Hannah said. “Important thing is to get you out of here. I need you to help me get your parents on that bus.”
“Bishop’s going to find out,” she said. “You know that, right? He’s going to find out what you’re doing.”
Hannah nodded. “That’s why we’re doing it fast, girlfriend. So let’s move.”
Mom and Dad were having an argument; Claire could hear it from where she and Hannah stood on the front porch of their house, ringing the doorbell. Claire felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her parents didn’t fight very often, but when they did, it was usually over something important.
The shouty blur of voices broke off, and about ten seconds later, the door whipped open. Claire’s mom stood there, color burning high in her cheeks. She looked stricken when she caught sight of Claire, very obviously a guilty-looking earwitness to the fighting, but she rallied and gave a bright smile and gestured them both inside.