"Michael," Amelie said, "I said I would give her the benefit of the doubt, not the full story. Please be quiet." She stood up, and Claire saw that she'd changed clothes again, this time to a flawless pale pink suit, something that looked like it belonged on a runway in Paris. Not what Claire would have thought you'd wear to a show-down. "Claire. Thank you for bringing the supplies that I requested from Dr. Mills. Thank you also for retrieving the good doctor. I am told that he will recover from his wound." Her light-colored, cool eyes focused on Claire, and shot right through her. "May I also see your arm?"
Always polite. That was when Amelie was the most dangerous, Claire knew. She slowly extended her arm, still holding Michael's hand on the other side for comfort. Amelie's touch was cold and light. She didn't study the skin, like Oliver had; she ran her fingertips over the surface, and then lowered Claire's arm back to her side.
"Michael," she said,"please take Claire to your friends. I am sure you would both prefer to be with them now."
"But . . ." Claire licked her lips. "Don't you want me here? To help?"
"You'll help when it's needed," Amelie said. "For now, you should be elsewhere. We will be bringing in some of my people to remove them from Bishop's influence. The process can be somewhat unsettling to witness."
Oliver made a rude noise as he continued his relentless pacing. "It's far worse when it fails," he said. "I hope you're not fond of this carpet."
Amelie ignored that. "Myrnin and Dr. Mills had told me that the work could not continue on the serum without more of Bishop's blood. Is that correct?" Claire nodded. "Difficult to achieve, I'm afraid, but I will include that in our calculations."
"We talked about drugging him."
"So Myrnin said." Amelie wasn't going to tell her anything. "It's no longer your concern. I will rely on you and your friends to be in attendance this evening. You should come prepared."
"Prepared for what?" Claire asked.
Amelie's eyebrows rose. "Anything. We are no longer following a plan. We are facing the final moves on the chessboard, and who wins will very much depend on nerve, skill, and the ability to do the unexpected. You may count on my father being ready to do his worst. We must be just as ruthless."
Claire thought about that moment in the tunnels, with Frank Collins. She hadn't felt ruthless at the end. She'd felt sad.
She didn't suppose Amelie, Oliver, or any of the rest of them would have hesitated for a second. Frank Collins was a bad guy. He'd been a bad guy as a human, right? But still . . . there was just that one moment when she'd seen him as a man who loved his son.
Maybe everybody had those moments. Even the worst people.
Maybe it didn't matter, except to her.
The door opened at the far end of the room, and two of Amelie's favorite vamp bodyguards came in, dragging a beat-up human. At least, Claire thought he was human; it was hard to tell, under all the dirt and bruises.
Oh. She knew him. It was Jason Rosser, Eve's crazy-ass brother. He looked like he'd been living in a garbage dump for months - for all Claire knew, he had been. Eve had said he'd been coming by the house, maybe even acting less insane, but right now, Claire couldn't see it. He looked like a rabid sewer rat, and as he scanned the room, he was all gleaming, crazy eyes and bared teeth.
When the guards let him go, at a nod from Amelie, Jason lunged for the Founder of Morganville. She didn't raise a hand to defend herself. She didn't have to.
Oliver met him halfway, grabbed Jason by the throat, and slammed him down onto the carpet flat on his back.
"You see?" Oliver said, and gave Amelie a freakishly calm smile. "You really should have thought about the carpet; you'll never get the smell of him out of it. Really, Amelie, you do insist on bringing home strays."
"I also put them down when necessary," she said. "This one happens to be yours, Oliver, yes? So I leave him to you for proper judgment."
Nobody said a word in protest to that. Not even Claire. Jason was nobody's friend; Claire would never, ever forget the night he'd almost killed Shane, for nothing. She wasn't about to speak up on his behalf.
Oliver stared deep into Jason's eyes and said, "You deserve to die, you know. Not only for the fact that you reek of guilt; I'm partial to a bit of mayhem now and then. No, you deserve to die because you broke the laws of Morganville without my permission." Oliver's smile widened into something out of a bad-clown nightmare. "So what then am I to do with you? You broke your word to Brandon. You broke your word to me. You had the bad taste to betray Amelie, in full public view. You took the side of that ancient reptile Bishop."
Jason laughed. It sounded like breaking ice. "Yeah, I did," he said. "Vamps are getting a break for doing the same thing. I get to die. Perfect. Nothing ever changes around here, does it? If a vampire does it, they can't help it. If a human does it, they're lunch meat."
Amelie said, "Is there anyone who will speak for him?" Claire knew it was a pro forma kind of question, like, Speak now or forever hold your peace, but she was thinking about Eve. About how she was ever going to tell her that she'd watched her brother die, and hadn't said a word . . .
But as it happened, she didn't have to.
"I will," Michael said.
There was a collective intake of breath. Nobody - Claire included - could quite believe he'd spoken up. It even made Oliver turn and lose his bitch face.
"Don't do me no favors, Glass Ass," Jason snapped.
"I'm not." Michael turned to Amelie. "He's a pathetic little worm, but he's just a criminal. He deserves to be punished. Not killed like some rabid dog."
"He's a killer," she said.
"Well, if he is, he's not the only one in this room, is he?"
Amelie showed her teeth briefly in a smile. "Will you take his parole, Michael? Will you put him into your own household and shelter him with those you love?"
Michael didn't answer. He wanted to - Claire could see it - but he just . . . couldn't.
Finally, he shook his head.
"If you won't trust him with those you love, how can I trust him with anyone else's family?" Amelie said, and nodded to Oliver.
Claire blurted, "Wait!"
"May we please have done with interruptions from the children's section?" Oliver said.
"Why is he here?" Claire asked, talking so fast that she stumbled over the words. "Why is he here? Who brought him here?"
"Who cares?"
Amelie held up a warning hand. "It's a reasonable question. Who brought him to us?"
"Nobody," one of the guards said from the door. "He came through the portal."
"What?" Amelie crossed to Jason in a flash, knocked Oliver out of the way, and slammed the boy back against the closest wall. "Tell me how you came to work the portals."
"Somebody showed me," Jason said. "He showed me a lot of things. He showed me how to kill. How to hide. How to get around town without anybody knowing."
"Who?"
Jason laughed. "No way, lady. I'm not telling. That's all I've got left to bargain with, right?"
Amelie's face twisted with anger, and she was about two seconds from snapping some bones for him. "Then you have nothing, because I will have it out of you one way or another."
Sam Glass, who hadn't said a thing, slowly rose to his feet. "Amelie. Amelie, stop."
"Not until this worm tells me who showed him the portals!"
"Then I'll tell you," Sam said. "I showed him. I showed him everything you showed me."
Silence. Even Oliver looked as if he didn't quite understand what he'd just heard. Amelie stood there like an ivory statue, holding Jason in place with one flattened hand on his chest.
"Why?" she whispered. "Sam, why would you do such a thing?"
It felt, to Claire, like suddenly the room was empty and they'd all turned to ghosts, except for Amelie and Sam. There was something so powerful in the stare between them that it just vaporized the rest of the world. "I did the best I could," he said softly. "You left me no choice. You wouldn't see me. You wouldn't speak to me, all those years. I was alone, and I - I wanted to do something good." He took in a deep breath and walked toward her, coming close enough to touch, although he didn't reach out. "Jason was a victim. Brandon brutalized him, and no one did anything to stop it. So yes, I taught the boy to fight, to defend himself from Brandon. I taught him to use the portals to help him escape when he needed to get away. I couldn't stop Brandon, not without you, but I could try to save his victims. I thought I was helping."