"Don't leave my side," she said. "This will be dangerous."
Chapter Three
Amelie grabbed Claire's other arm, and before Claire could so much as grab a breath, she was being pulled through the portal. There was a brief wave of chill, and a feeling that was a little like being pushed from all sides, and then she was stumbling into utter, complete blackness. Her other senses went into overdrive. The air smelled stale and heavy, and felt cold and damp, like a cave. Amelie's icy grip on one arm was going to leave bruises, and Hannah Moses's warmer touch on the other seemed light by contrast, although Claire knew it wasn't.
Claire could hear herself and Hannah breathing, but there was no sound at all from the vampires. When Claire tried to speak, Amelie's icecold hand covered her mouth. She nodded convulsively, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as Amelie--she hoped it was still Amelie, anyway--pulled her forward into the dark.
The smells changed from time to time--a whiff of nasty, rotten something, then something else that smelled weirdly like grapes? Her imagination conjured up a dead man surrounded by broken bottles of wine, and Claire couldn't stop it there; the dead man was moving, squirming toward her, and any second now he'd touch her and she'd scream. . . .
It's just your imagination; stop it.
She swallowed and tried to tamp down the panic. It wasn't helping. Shane wouldn't panic. Shane would-- whatever, Shane wouldn't be caught dead roaming around in the dark with a bunch of vampires like this, and Claire knew it.
It seemed like they went on forever, and then Amelie pulled her to a stop and let go. Losing that support felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, and Claire was really, really grateful for Hannah's grip to tell her there was something else real in the world. Don't let me fall.
And then Hannah's hand went away. A fast tightening of her fingers, and she was gone.
Claire was floating in total darkness, disconnected, alone. Her breath sounded loud as a train in her ears, but it was buried under the thunder of her fast heartbeats. Move, she told herself. Do something!
She whispered, "Hannah?"
Cold hands slapped around her from behind, one pinning her arms to her sides, the other covering her mouth. She was lifted off the ground, and she screamed, a faint buzzing sound like a storm of bees that didn't make it through the muffling gag.
And then she went flying through the air into the darkness . . . and rolled to a stop facedown, on a cold stone floor. There was light here. Faint, but definite, painting the edges of things a pale gray, including the arched mouth of the tunnel at the end of the hall.
She had no idea where she was.
Claire got quickly to her feet and turned to look behind her. Amelie, pale as a pearl, stepped through the portal, and with her came the other two vampires. G?rard had Hannah Moses's arm gripped in his good hand.
Hannah had a bloody gash on her head, and when G?rard let go, she dropped to her knees, breathing hard. Her eyes looked blank and unfocused.
Amelie whirled, something silver in one hand, and stabbed as something came at her from the dark. It screamed, a thin sound that echoed through the tunnel, and a white hand reached out to grab Amelie's shirt.
The invisible portal slammed shut like an iris, and severed the arm just above the elbow.
Amelie plucked the stillgrabbing hand from her shirt, dropped the hand to the ground, and kicked it to the side. When she turned back to the others, there was no expression on her face.
Claire felt like throwing up. She couldn't take her eyes away from that wiggling, fishpale hand.
"It was necessary to come this way," Amelie said. "Dangerous, but necessary."
"Where are we?" Claire asked. Amelie gave her a look and ignored her as she took the lead, heading down the hall. Going through this didn't give her any right to ask questions. Of course. "Hannah? Are you okay?"
Hannah waved her hand vaguely, which really wasn't all that confidencebuilding. The vampire G?rard answered for her. "She's fine." Sure, he could talk, having one hand burned to the bone. He'd probably classify himself as fine, too. "Take her," G?rard ordered, and pushed Hannah toward Claire as he moved to follow Amelie. The other bodyguard--what was his name?--moved with him, as if they were an old, practiced team.
Hannah was heavy, but she pulled herself back on her own center of gravity after a breath or two. "I'm fine," she said, and gave Claire a reassuring grin. "Damn. That was not a walk in the park."
"You should meet my boyfriend," Claire said. "You two are both masters of understatement."
She thought Hannah wanted to laugh, but instead, she just nodded and patted Claire on the shoulder. "Watch the sides," she said. "We're just starting on this thing."
That was an easy job, because there was nothing to watch on the sides. They were, after all, in a tunnel. Hannah, it appeared, was the rear guard, and she seemed to take it very seriously, although it looked like Amelie had slammed the doorway behind them pretty hard, with prejudice. I hope we don't have to go back that way, Claire thought, and shivered at the sight of that pale severed hand behind them. It had finally stopped moving. I really, really hope we don't have to go back there.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Amelie seemed to pause for a moment, and then disappeared to the right, around the corner, with her two vampire bodyguards in flying formation behind her. Hannah and Claire hurried to keep up, and emerged into another hallway, this one square instead of arched, and paneled in rich, dark wood. There were paintings on the walls--old ones, Claire thought--of pale people lit by candlelight, dressed in about a thousand pounds of costume and rice white makeup and wigs.
She stopped and backed up, staring at one.
"What?" Hannah growled.
"That's her. Amelie." It definitely was, only instead of the Princess Gracestyle clothes she wore now, in the picture she was wearing an elaborate sky blue satin dress, cut way low over her br**sts. She was wearing a big white wig, and staring out of the canvas in an eerily familiar way.
"Art appreciation later, Claire. We need to go."
That was true, beyond any argument, but Claire kept throwing glances at the paintings as they passed. One looked like it could have been Oliver, from about four hundred years ago. One more modern one looked almost like Myrnin. It's the vampire museum, she realized. It's their history. There were glass cases lining the hall ahead, filled with books and papers and jewelry, clothing, and musical instruments. All the fine and fabulous things gathered through their long, long lives.
Ahead, the three vampires came to a sudden, motionless halt, and Hannah grabbed Claire by the arm to pull her out of the way, against the wall. "What's happening?" Claire whispered.