Another shrug, and Theo held out his hands to show he was helpless. “Family comes first,” he said. “I have always told you so.”
“Some of us,” Amelie said, “are not so fortunate in our choice of families.”
She turned away from Theo without waiting for his response—if he’d been intending to give one—and without so much as a pause, slammed her fist into a glass-fronted wall box labeled EMERGENCY USE ONLY three steps to the right. It shattered in a loud clatter, and Amelie shook shards of glass from her skin.
She reached into the box and took out . . . Claire blinked. “Is that a paintball gun?”
Amelie handed it to Hannah, who handled it like a professional. “It fires pellets loaded with silver powder,” she said. “Very dangerous to us. Be careful where you aim.”
“Always am,” Hannah said. “Extra magazines?”
Amelie retrieved them from the case and handed them over. Claire noticed that she protected herself even from a casual touch, with a fold of fabric over her fingers. “There are ten shots per magazine,” she said. “There is one already loaded, and six more here.”
“Well,” Hannah said, “any problem I can’t solve with seventy shots is probably going to kill us, anyway.”
“Claire,” Amelie said, and handed over a small, sealed vial. “Silver powder, packed under pressure. It will explode on impact, so be very careful with it. If you throw it, there is a wide dispersal through the air. It can hurt your friends as much as your enemies.”
There were real uses for silver powder, like coating parts in computers; Claire supposed it wasn’t exactly restricted, but she was surprised the vampires were progressive enough to lay in a supply. Amelie raised pale eyebrows at her.
“You’ve been expecting this,” Claire said.
“Not in detail. But I’ve learned through my life that such preparations are never wasted, in the end. Sometime, somewhere, life always comes to a fight, and peace always comes to an end.”
Theo said, very quietly, “Amen.”
4
They left the museum by way of a side door. It was risky to go out into the night, but since the only other way to exit the museum was to go back into the darkness, nobody argued about the choice.
“Careful,” Amelie told them in a very soft voice that hardly reached past the shadows. “I have gathered my forces. My father is doing the same. There will be patrols, especially here.”
The flames hadn’t reached Founder’s Square, which was where they came out—the heart of vamp territory. It didn’t look like the calm, orderly place Claire remembered, though; the lights were all out, and the shops and restaurants that bordered it were closed and empty.
It looked afraid.
The only place she could see movement was on the marble steps of the Elders’ Council building, where Bishop’s welcome feast had been held. Gérard hissed a warning, and they all froze, silent and still in the dark. Hannah’s grip on Claire’s arm felt like an iron band.
There were three vampires standing there, scanning the area.
Lookouts.
“Go,” Amelie said in a whisper so small it was like a ghost. “Move, but be careful.”
They reached the edge of the shadows by the corner of the building, but just as Claire was starting to relax a little, Amelie, Gérard, and the other vampires moved in a blur, scattering in all directions.
This left Claire flat-footed for one horrible second, before Hannah tackled her facedown on the grass. Claire gasped, got a mouthful of crunchy dirt and bitter chlorophyll, and fought to get her breath. Hannah’s heavy weight held her down, and the older woman braced her elbows on Claire’s back.
She’s firing the pistol, Claire thought, and tried to raise her head to see where Hannah was shooting.
“Head down!” Hannah snarled, and shoved Claire down with one hand while she continued to fire with the other. From the screams in the dark, she was hitting something. “Get up! Run!”
Claire wasn’t quick enough to suit either the marines or the vampires, and before she knew it, she was being half pulled, half dragged at a dead run through the night. It was all a confusing blur of shadows, dark buildings, pale faces, and the surly orange glow of flames in the distance.
“What is it?” she screamed.
“Patrols.” Hannah kept on firing behind them. She wasn’t firing wildly, not at all; it seemed like she took a second or two between every shot, choosing her target. Most of the shots seemed to hit, from the shouts and snarls and screams. “Amelie! We need an exit, now!”
Amelie looked back at them, a pale flash of face in the dark, and nodded.
They charged up the steps of another building on Founder’s Square. Claire didn’t have time to get more than a vague impression of it—some kind of official building, with columns in front and big stone lions snarling on the stairs—before their little party came to a halt at the top of the stairs, in front of a closed white door with no knob.
Gérard started to throw himself against it. Amelie stopped him with an outstretched hand. “It will do no good,” she said. “It can’t be opened by force. Let me.”
The other vampire, facing away and down the steps, said, “Don’t think we have time for sweet talk, ma’am. What you want us to do?” He had a drawling Texas accent, the first one Claire had heard from any vampire. She’d never heard him speak at all before.
He winked at her, which was even more of a shock. Until that moment, he hadn’t even looked at her like a real person.
“A moment,” Amelie murmured.
The Texan nodded behind them. “Don’t think we’ve got one, ma’am.”
There were shadows converging in the dark at the foot of the steps—the patrol that Hannah had been shooting at. There were at least twenty of them. In the lead was Ysandre, the beautiful vampire Claire hated maybe more than she hated any other vampire in the entire world. She was Bishop’s girl through and through—Amelie’s vampire sister, if they thought in those kinds of terms.
Claire hated Ysandre for Shane’s sake. She was glad the vamp was here, and not attacking Shane’s Bloodmobile—one, because she wasn’t so sure Shane could resist the evil witch, and two, she wanted to stake Ysandre herself.
Personally.
“No,” Hannah said, when Claire took a step out from behind her. “Are you crazy? Get back!”
Hannah fired over her shoulder. It was at the outer extreme of the paintball gun’s range, but the pellet hit one of the vampires—not Ysandre, Claire was disappointed to see—right in the chest. Silver dust puffed up in a lethal mist, and the close formation scattered. Ysandre might have had a few burns, but nothing that wouldn’t heal.
The vampire Hannah had shot in the chest toppled over and hit the marble stairs, smoking and flailing.
Amelie slammed her palm flat against the door and closed her eyes, and deep inside the barrier something groaned and shifted with a scrape of metal. “Inside,” Amelie murmured, still wicked controlled, and Claire spun and followed the three vampires across the threshold. Hannah backed in after, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut.
“No locks,” she said.
Amelie reached over and pushed Hannah’s gun hand into an at-rest position at her side. “None necessary. They won’t get in.” She sounded sure of it, but from the look Hannah continued to give the door—as if she wished she could weld it shut with the force of her stare—she wasn’t so certain. “This way. We’ll take the stairs.”
It was a library, full of books. Some—on this floor—were new, or at least newish, with colorful spines and crisp titles that Claire could read even in the low light. She slowed down a little, blinking. “You guys have vampire stories in here?” None of the vampires answered. Amelie veered to the right, through the two-story-tall shelves, and headed for a set of sweeping marble steps at the end. The books got older, the paper more yellow. Claire caught sight of a sign that read FOLKLORE, CA. 1870-1945, ENGLISH, and then another that identified a German section. Then French. Then script that might have been Chinese.