Kiss of Death (20 page)

“One more second and you’d have been pulled to pieces, which would have done me no good at all,” Oliver said. “Patience and Jacob were stepping aside. They know a lost cause when they see one, and you couldn’t have gotten Eve and Shane both out in any case. It’s better to leave them together, where they can protect each other. Now, are you going to behave yourself? Or do I need to prove to you, again, who is master here?”

Michael didn’t answer, but he dropped his hands to his sides.

Oliver let him go. “How do you feel?”

Michael let out a brittle little laugh. “What, you’re concerned?” He looked bad, Claire realized, even in the dim light bouncing in from Jason’s side of the front window. He was burned red, his face swollen.

“Not really,” Oliver said. “I’m concerned you’ll be a liability. Which is almost certainly going to be the case, if you continue to act like some lovesick boy instead of a thinking man. Are we understood? If you want to save your fragile little friends, you must be a great deal smarter about when you risk your own safety.”

It was hard to tell what the expression on Michael’s swollen face was, but there was no mistaking the flash of hate in his eyes. Claire swallowed, hard. Michael took a deep breath and turned toward her. “You’re okay?” he asked, and stripped off his gloves. His hands were pale, but just above the line where the gloves had been were vivid black and red burns. He gently touched her face, turning it to one side, then the other. “You’re going to have some action-star bruises, tough girl.” But she knew what he was looking for, really.

“No fang marks,” she said. “Well, none that weren’t already there, from before, you know. Look, not even any needle marks.”

“Needle marks?”

“Patience and Jacob, they insisted that all blood get drawn with a needle. I think they were trying to sort of ration it out.”

“They were trying to keep you alive,” Oliver said, turning back to face the front. “That many vampires in an enclosed space, a feeding frenzy would be inevitable. None of you would have survived it, especially not restrained as you were.”

As Eve and Shane still were. Claire felt sick. She also felt horribly, horribly guilty. “Why me?” she asked. “Why save me, not Eve? Or Shane?”

“You were the closest,” Michael said. “And—you’re the youngest. Eve and Shane would both kick my ass if I tried to save them ahead of you.” But he looked sickly guilty, too, and she knew he was thinking, just as she was, of Eve. “I heard her screaming for me. That was why we—why we decided to go in.”

“It was that or listen to his yowling the rest of the drive,” Oliver said. “I’ve never been in love, and more and more, I’m glad I haven’t. It seems to make you foolish, as well as very tiresome.”

Jason snorted; it might have been a choked laugh. “Yeah, you got that right.”

Oliver smacked Jason in the back of the head. “I don’t need your agreement. Drive.”

Claire tried to pull her head back together. “Wh-what are we going to do?” she asked. “Just follow them? What if—what if something happens on the bus? Are we just going to sit here?”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “Because going back now, we’ve lost the element of surprise, and Morley will be ready for us. In fact, he may try to engineer a provocation, to force us to do something stupid. We follow them until they stop. Once they’re off the bus, we have a much better chance.”

Jason said, “What about, you know, ramming the bus? Out here in the sun, they can’t really chase us down on foot. Not for long.”

“Ramming a bus will simply yield us a car that will no longer drive, and will not ensure the bus is disabled,” Oliver said. “It would take something larger. Much larger. In any case, it’s not prudent. Too much risk of damage to your delicate little humans on board.”

“But—”

“Oh, just shut up and follow,” Oliver snapped. “I am tired of debate. There will be no more.”

Claire knew a door slamming when she heard it. She twisted around a little and pulled up the pant leg over her left ankle. It was puffy and starting to bruise. Yep. That was sprained. “Do we have any first aid stuff in here?”

Oliver dug out a box and passed it through the torn grate on Michael’s side. She found some of that rubberized wrapping bandage stuff, and tried to do it herself, but Michael took it away from her, removed her shoe and sock, and wrapped it for her without saying a word.

“Thanks,” she said softly. It felt better, once that was done, although there was still a dull red ache that flared up every time she moved. “Is there anything—”

“I’m healing,” Michael said. He put the medical kit down and let his head fall back against the seat. “Man. This has not been the trip I planned.”

“Really?” Oliver’s voice was dry. “It’s exactly what I expected. Sadly.”

T
hey drove for what seemed like a very long time, but according to the clock built into the cruiser’s dashboard, it was only a couple of hours. The bus kept taking crazy back-road turns, as if they were searching for something. Finally, though, the dot stopped moving. “What is that?” Jason asked, and tapped the screen. It magnified. “Is that a town?” Claire couldn’t see through the grate, other than a dot on a map. “It’s tiny, if it is. Smaller than that last place where you got yourselves jacked.”

“No other roads in,” Oliver said, looking at the display. “They’ll see us coming in any case. The land is as flat as a griddle. And just as hot.”

“Yeah, who ever decided to locate Vampireville in Texas, anyway? Whose good idea was that?” Jason asked.

“Amelie’s,” Oliver said. “And none of your business why she chose it. It’ll do us no good to wait until dark—they will only have sharper senses with which to detect us. Better to strike in the day, if we can. Unfortunately, my army consists of one unreliable criminal, one girl with a disability, and one incredibly foolish young vampire with a tanning issue. I am not confident.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Claire said. “We have to go. Eve and Shane—”

“I am more concerned with what Morley is doing,” Oliver interrupted. “He’s defying Amelie. Defying me. I can’t allow that to go unanswered.”

It boiled down to the same thing, luckily—they didn’t have a choice, and Oliver had to help. He thought about it in silence for a few minutes as the cruiser continued on its path to the dot on the map, then nodded sharply. “All right,” he said. “We go in. Now. But when we do, you must be fast, and you must be ruthless. Michael, since you’re so hell-bent on saving the girl and your friend, that will be your mission. Claire, Jason, you will stay with me. I may require someone to act as distraction.”

“He means bait,” Michael said. “You’re not using Claire.”

“She’s a wounded deer,” Oliver said. “She’s perfect.”

“You’re not using Claire.
And that’s not optional. I don’t care if you think you’re the boss; you’re not using her.” Michael sounded utterly, completely dedicated to that proposition, and Oliver, after a second’s frozen silence, nodded.

“Very well. I’ll use the criminal. He’s serviceable, I suppose.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Do I get the shotgun if you’re staking me out for bait?”

“No,” Oliver said. “Not ever.”

Claire was struck by a random thought, which was proof her brain was finally shaking off the effects of bailing out of the bus at speed. “Hey,” she said. “It takes hours to get here from Morganville. How did Jason—”

“Jason says shut up,” Eve’s brother snapped. “It’s none of your business, okay? Let’s just say I was in the neighborhood.”

Oliver said nothing. That meant that either Jason had tried to get out of Morganville and managed to get himself caught, by Oliver—or he’d been on Oliver’s business errands. Either way, there was some kind of relationship there that Claire was sure hadn’t been in force a month ago. In fact, Oliver had been pretty definitely on the “Let’s execute the jerk” team. So why was Jason suddenly part of his crew—and a trusted part, if Jason had gotten some kind of permission to leave Morganville?

Claire figured she would probably never know. Jason was angrily not talking; Oliver was never Mr. Great Communicator even when he was in a good mood, and this wasn’t one.

He looked angry, focused, and very, very dangerous.

“Take us in,” Oliver said. “You all know what’s required. Do it. Get allies from Morley’s people if you can, by whatever means you can. Intimidate if you can’t persuade. Don’t allow yourself to be surrounded. Arm your friends, destroy your enemies, and whatever the cost,
win.
Are we understood? I will take care of Morley.”

Michael nodded. His face was healing faster than Claire had expected, but she guessed it wouldn’t last, not if they were going out in the daylight again. She wondered how much he could really take, before the pain and damage got too much and just overwhelmed him.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to find out.

Jason drove way too fast, gunning the engine to race-car levels, chasing dust devils down the road, and grinning like the maniac he was, from Claire’s glimpses of his expression. He looked more than ready for a fight. She’d never exactly seen him like this, and it was more than a little frightening.

Next to her, Michael was closed off, focused on controlling the pain he had to be feeling, and the worry. Oliver probably didn’t feel anything. He’d sneer at the idea of being worried.

Claire wanted to throw up, but she was determined to hang on and be as strong as she could. She rooted through the first aid box and found a couple of extra-strength pain relievers, not that they would help much. She also asked Michael, quietly, if he had any kind of weapon he could give her.

He silently dug a silver-coated stake out of his pocket and handed it to her. It had a wicked-sharp tip, enough to slice as well as stab, and it felt cold and solid in her hand as she gripped it hard enough to leave sweat prints on the shiny surface. “Last resort,” he told her. “Don’t get close enough to need it, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, and tried for a smile. She thought she actually managed to pull one off. “Does it hurt? Never mind; stupid question. Of course it hurts. I’m sorry.”

His pale hand, with its vivid red burns at the wrist, gripped hers tightly for a few seconds. “You’re a good person, Claire. You know that, right?”

“So are you.”

“Technically not really a person anymore, as Shane likes to remind me.”

“Shane can be an idiot.”

“But a good friend.”

“That, too.” She sighed. “We have to get them back, Michael. We have to.”

“And we will,” he said. “I promise.”

He might have said more, but just then the car’s acceleration slowed. Jason eased off the gas and said, “Okay, we’re here. Looks like about three blocks’ worth of town, if that. Maybe thirty buildings total? What’s the plan?”

“Find the bus,” Oliver said. “They won’t have gone far.”

“Why not?”

“Because Morley is a lazy sod, and he won’t want to put himself out. Look for the biggest building, and you’ll likely find the bus parked right in front of it.”

Sure enough, as Jason turned the sharp corner into town—if you could call it a town; it was more like a random collection of buildings—the bus was immediately and obviously parked right in front of what looked like a miniature version of the Morganville Courthouse—sort of Gothic, with towers and peaked roofs, and constructed of gray stone blocks. It looked about twenty years out from any kind of maintenance work; the iron fence around the place was leaning, rusted through, and the grass inside was ragged and overgrown.

The sign said BLACKE TOWNSHIP CIVIC HALL AND COURTS. In front of the entrance sat some kind of civic monument—a big, not very good greenish bronze statue of an old man wearing an antique suit, looking very self-satisfied. The plaque at his feet, visible even from the street, said HIRAM WALLACE BLACKE. Hiram hadn’t fared too well. There were dents in his bronze form, and the whole thing leaned a little to the left, as though built on unsteady ground. Another few inches, and the whole thing was going to do a faceplant of Hiram into the overgrown grass.

The bus looked deserted. The doors were wide-open. There was no sign of Morley, his people, or anybody else.

“How do you blow this screen up? Oh yeah, I see,” Jason said. “Okay, the phone is inside the building. That’s where they’ve got Eve, anyway.”

“You know what to do. Michael, when you find your friends, bring them back here if you can. If you can’t, find a defensible position and hold it, and wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find Morley,” Oliver said. “And explain to him why it is a terrible idea to make me come after him. This will be over quickly. Morley’s not a brave man, and he’ll order his people to comply. The only risk is that something could happen before I find him and ... convince him.”

The way he said that last part made Claire shiver. Oliver was capable of a lot of things, and some of them were really not very civilized. She’d seen some of it. It still woke her up at night, heart pounding.

But right now, at least he was pointed in the right direction. Kind of like a cannon.

“Go,” Oliver said. He didn’t yell it, and there wasn’t any special emphasis to it, but Claire heard the absolute flat command in the word. He flung open his door, opened Michael’s side in the back, and then he was moving toward the door, walking, not running, moving with deliberate speed, as if he had all the time in the world, and couldn’t be stopped by anything or anyone. Jason scrambled out and scurried to keep up. He forgot to open Claire’s side, but that was okay; Michael zipped around in less than two seconds, opened it, and flung Oliver’s extra coat over his head to give himself extra protection from the fierce afternoon sun. “Check the bus!” he ordered.

“Wait, where are you—”

Too late. Michael was gone, racing at an angle across the overgrown grass, heading for the leaning shadow of the building. He got there and slammed his back against the stone, bent over and shaking, and finally stripped off the coat and shattered one of the windows that led into the courthouse.