There were still lights on in the big main building, with its giant marble columns and sweeping steps, and they headed that way.
“Okay,” Claire said as they stopped in the shadows of the trees, staring up at it. “Let me do the talking, please. And try not to do any fighting unless we have to.”
“Who, me?” Shane said, with a bitter twist to his smile. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“I don’t think the two are exactly mutually exclusive as far as you’re concerned,” Claire said. “Promise?”
“I promise not to pound anybody who doesn’t need pounding,” Shane said. “That’s about the best you’re going to get out of me today. It’s been tough enough.”
Eve said quietly, “If somebody tells me we’re not going to get Michael out of this, then I’ll pound them. I mean it.”
“I know,” Claire said. “And I don’t mean to hold you back, but the less of that we do up front, the better. Amelie’s wired tight right now. Let’s not push too hard. We need her.”
“Need her for what?” said a cold, quiet voice from behind them.
Claire whipped around, and so did her friends, and there, standing in the shadows not five feet away, was Amelie.
She wasn’t sporting her usual entourage of guards, or hangers-on; she wasn’t even wearing one of her usual retro-sixties pale suits. She was dressed in a plain pair of blue jeans and a black shirt, and her soft golden hair was down and tied back in a ponytail.
She looked even younger than Claire.
“You were looking for me,” Amelie said. “Congratulations on your initiative; you’ve found me.”
“What are you doing out here?” Claire blurted; she hadn’t expected this, and wasn’t prepared. Shane was busy searching the darkness for approaching vampires; Amelie basically never went anywhere without some kind of überprotection, and this was . . . just strange.
Amelie wasn’t even listening to her, anyway. She was staring off into the distance. “Can you hear it?” she asked softly. “The singing. Always, they sing to us.” Shane and Claire exchanged glances, and he silently held out his earplugs toward Amelie. She snapped back into focus, and smiled. It was a bitter, sad thing. “That is neither sanitary nor useful, but I thank you for the gesture. We can’t resist the call, once it becomes loud enough; I have seen vampires pierce their eardrums to try to fight it, but it is only partly sound. The other part sings inside us, and we can’t rip that away so easily.”
“Amelie—we found them. We know where they are. Where they’re keeping the ones they take.” Claire expected that to spark . . . well, something. Some hint of actual interest.
But Amelie just went back to staring into the distance, with that calm, neutral expression on her face. “We can always find them, Claire. That isn’t the issue. When their numbers are great enough, they sing, and we are called. It always starts slowly, with only one or two, but they grow in numbers the more they feed. Soon, their call will be so strong no one can resist if they remain here. Not even the humans. They prefer us, because we last longer, but humans are food to them as well.”
“So that’s it?” Shane said, and stepped forward. Amelie’s attention snapped back to him, although she didn’t move. “You’re just giving up? Letting them have this town? Have us? What about Michael? What about Oliver and the others? You just . . . walk away?”
“No,” she said. “No, I run, boy, and if you have a brain in your thick head, you will run as well. Stay here, and they will have you. I’ve fought the draug before. The vampires fought them for centuries, and lost, and lost, as the draug spread like a disease. They live in the seas, the rivers, the streams, the lakes. Why do you think we moved here, where there is so little chance for them to survive?” Overhead, the thick clouds gave out a rumble of thunder, and Amelie looked up and laughed. It sounded wild and uncontrolled. “But now they have adapted, and found their own way to travel. They came with the rain. And where can we go now, that the rain doesn’t find us?”
Eve said, “If they’re everywhere, why don’t they prey on humans? Why haven’t we heard of them?”
“You have, in the stories of mermaids and sirens luring the unwary and drowning them,” Amelie said. She walked over to a nearby tree and put her back against it. “But human blood can’t sustain them completely. When their real prey disappears, the draug die off, you see, except for one, the master, who will go in search. Once he finds vampires to hunt, he will create others of his kind. They need water to breed, but that’s easily found. Even here, in this dry place.” She sat down, folded her knees up close to her chest, and leaned back against the sturdy, thick bark. “Living things need water. We prey on the living. And the draug in turn prey on us, all too well.” She paused, watching them with those cool gray eyes, still pale even in the dim light. “You think I’m a coward.”
“I think if you love something, you fight for it,” Shane said. “It’s always been my theory, anyway.”
“And you think I love Morganville.”
“You’ve put a lot of time into it,” Claire said. “And you care. I know you care, not just about the vampires but about the humans, too.” She took a deep breath and made a gamble. “And you care about Oliver.”
Those cool eyes narrowed, just a little. “Why should I? He’s been a thorn in my side for several hundred years, and a relentless critic of everything I do here.”
Claire shrugged. “I never said it made sense. But you care. I saw him, Amelie. I saw him down in that water. I saw Michael. . . .” Her voice shook, and she had to stop, because the memory was too awful, too personal. “I went into that place so I could come back and tell you that they’re still alive. That you can still save them.”
“You think too well of me.” The vampire Founder of Morganville stood up suddenly, the way vampires do. “You can destroy the draug easily enough; they have little strength on their own, until they capture your mind with theirs. But you can never defeat their master. He’s survived longer than vampire memory can stretch. And he always, always comes back. What would you have me do? All the vampires left in the world are in danger! Should I risk them to save a few?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “Because that’s how it works. You save the people you love, no matter what it costs you. If you don’t—” And at his pause, Claire knew he was thinking about his mom, his sister, his father. “If you don’t, you never forgive yourself. You said it yourself—the draug keep coming back. When are you going to throw it down and stop running?”
“When I can win,” Amelie said. “And that is not here, and it is not now. A good general knows when to avoid a battle as much as wage one.”
Claire gave her a long, steady look, and said, “Then never mind. I thought you were serious about saving people, but you’re not. You’re weak. And you’re a loser already. There’s no point in avoiding the battle because it’s already over.” She turned her back on Amelie and slapped Shane and Eve on the shoulders. “Come on. This is a total waste of time. At least the humans around here are spoiling for a fight. Let’s go talk to Captain Obvious.” She glanced back at Amelie, who hadn’t moved. It had been a last shot, and not too likely to work, but Claire still felt bad that she’d missed.
Amelie really wasn’t going to do anything to stop this.
The three of them made it almost ten feet before Amelie said, in a quietly resigned voice, “Maybe it is the time. Maybe there’s no point now in running. So few of us will make it, and the world—the world is much harder, today. Humans more powerful. We are hemmed in by enemies. Maybe it’s time to fight, after all.”