Claire screamed and buried her face in Shane's chest as she felt the strain on her leg increase, going from painful to intensely agonizing, and in one more second she knew she'd feel muscles tearing loose....
But then a second later, the crushing hold on her ankle released. Shane had braced himself and was pul ing with allhis strength to counterbalance, and when the pressure let go, they both went crashing to the wooden floor with her on top. She was breathless and frightened, but it was still nice to be body-to-body with him, and she saw the pleasure fire in his eyes, too, just for a moment. He brushed her hair back from her face and said, "Okay?"
She nodded.
"Then let's do this again later," he said, "but right now, Michael needs backup. Stay here." He rolled her off him, got to his feet, grabbed the black canvas bag that Eve threw to him from the kitchen door, and dived into the dark.
Eve hurried to her side as Claire tried to bend her leg, and winced at the shooting pains that went through it. "Don't," Eve ordered, and dropped down next to her to run her hands over Claire's knee. "Damn, I can't believe Myrnin did that to you. I'll stake his ass myself, if there's anything left when the boys get done teaching him manners."
"Myrnin?" Claire asked, and then realized what she'd done. "It's not Myrnin!"
With a horrible sense of doom, she realized that she hadn't told them it was Pennyfeather.
And neither of the boys was prepared for that.
Chapter ELEVEN
MYRNIN
It was so dark. Dark dark dark dark dark dark. Dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark can't breathe darrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk... I gained control of my clattering, chattering mind with an effort that left me trembling. Had I been still human, still breathing-as I was sometimes in dreams-I thought I would have been drenched in the sweat of fear and gasping. I dreamed that sometimes, too, the sticky moisture on my skin, dripping and burning in my eyes, but in the dreams it wasn't dark; it was bright, so bright, and I was running for my life, running from the monster behind....
So many years running blackness turning red nothing nothing safe no havens no friends lost all lost until Amelie until this place until home but home was gone gone dead and gone...I gagged on the taste in the back of my mouth, the excruciating spike of hunger, and sagged against the wet, slick wal . Don't remember, I told myself. Don't think.
But I couldn't stop thinking. Ever. My mother had beaten me for fancies when I watched the stars and drew their patterns and forgot the sheep while wolves ate the lambs and my sisters with their cruel and petty wounds when no one saw and my father penned up like an animal as he howled al the thinking never stopped never never never a howling storm in my head until the heat burst through my skin and devoured me.
Stop. I shouted it inside my head until I could feel the force of it hammering against bone, and for a blessed moment, I gained the space of silence against allthe pressing weight of memory and terror that never, never went away for long.
There was time enough to think where I was and to remember my present situation...not my past.
The prison was familiar to me, familiar not from Morganville but from ancient and heavily unpleasant years past.... My enemy was still a great fan of the classics, because he had dropped me into an oubliette-a round, narrow hole in stone that was deep enough, and smooth enough, to thwart a vampire's attempts to jump or climb. In less civilized times, one would be dropped in to be forgotten entirely. Humans lasted only days, generally, before the confinement, darkness, hunger or thirst-or simple horror-took them. Vampires...wel . We were hardy.
It's a sad thing for a vampire to confess, but I have always hated the bitter, choking dark. It's useful to us to hide and stalk, but only when there is a hint of light-a glimmer, something that wil define the shadows and give them shape. A blood-hot body glows, and that, too, is a comfort and a convenience.
But here, there was no glimmer, no prey, nothing to relieve the inky and utter black. It reminded me of terrible, terrible things like the grave I had dug my way out of more than once, the taste of dirt and screams in my mouth, vivid and sour, and that taste never went away, leaving me gagging on it, gagging and unable to fight past the choking, awful sense of burial only blood could wash out, blood and searing light....
DarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkohmyGodwhy...
When I came to myself, I was doubled over and retching, my hands flat against the wal . I was on my knees, which was even less pleasant than standing. I sagged back and found the cold, wet stone of the wal only a few inches behind me. I could sit, if I did not mind waist-high filthy water, and my knees to my chin. well , it made for a change, at least.
It was my fault that I was here, entirely mine. Claire always chided me for my single-mindedness and she was right, right, always right, even Frank had told me to go but poor, surly Frank, starving for lack of nutrients no one to change out the tanks and care for him properly, and Bob, what to do about Bob, I couldn't leave him behind allon his own how would he catch his flies and crickets and the occasional juicy beetle without assistance he was so very much my responsibility and Claire Claire Claire vulnerable now without Amelie without pity kindness mercy no no no I could not go should not...
Chilly skeletal Pennyfeather, with his acid eyes and killer's smile...
Frank warned me warned me warned me...
Pennyfeather dragging heretics to the flames, hunting me, digging me out of my last safe nest and into burning sunlight where Oliver laughed and then the oubliette the darkness dark darkdarkdarkdarkdarkdark...
I opened my eyes again, eventually, with my screams still ringing back at me from the stone wal s. What a noisy chorus I was. It was still complete and utter darkness-the rock I leaned on, the water, my hand in front of my face, allbleak and black, not even a spark of light, life, color.
That was because I was blind. I remembered it with a sudden, guilty shock; it was odd that one would forget something that significant. But in my defense, one doesn't tend to wish to remember such things (Pennyfeather's awful pale grin, the flash of the knife, the pain, the fal ).
You've healed from worse, I told myself sternly. I pretended to be someone clear, someone practical. Ada, perhaps, in her better days. Or Claire. Yes, Claire would be quite practical at a time like this.
Blind blind three blind mice see how they run who holds the carving knife where is the cat Dear God in heaven the cat and I am only a mouse, a blind and helpless mouse in a trap cheese if only someone would drop down a bite of cheese, or another mouse...The oubliette, I was not a mouse, I was a vampire, I was a blind vampire who would heal, of course, eventually, and see again. Stop, I told myself. I drew in a deep breath and smel ed ancient death, crushed weeds, rotting metal, stone. I had no idea where the oubliette was located. I was simply at the bottom of it, standing in cold, filthy water and thinking that this time, my favorite slippers were well and truly ruined. Such a pity.
All the whimsy in the world won't help you now, fool. I could hear Pennyfeather saying it; I could feel the cold clench of his hands on my shoulders. This town belongs to the strong.
And then the fall.
Well. I was strong. I had survived. I always survived. Not this time never no one to rescue me no one to know I was so alone alone alone darkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
The panic took some time to subdue; it lasted longer each time, it seemed; from a purely scientific perspective, I supposed I ought to have been taking notes. A monograph on the subject of terrors of the dark, with additions for the blind. I could write volumes, should I ever see again to be able to write.
Your eyes will heal, the rational part of me-a tiny part, at best, and by no means the best of me-whispered. Delicate tissues take longer to regenerate. I knew this, but the animal, instinctual part of me still shrieked in panic, convinced that I'd be left in this, choking nothing forever, doubly blind, unable to even make out the blank wal s that confined me.
The evil tide of panic rolled over me again, and when it finally passed and my screaming brain still ed, I was crouched low in the water, huddling to the chilly wal s and shaking in a near fit. My throat felt odd. Ah. I'd been screaming, again. I swal owed a trickle of my own precious and scarce blood and wondered when Claire would seek me out. She would; she must. I desperately believed she would. Surely she was not so angry with me that she'd spurn me and leave me here, in this awful place.
Please. Please come. I can't survive this I can't alone no no no not alone not blind no...