The whole house smelled like smoke and burned mattress, but on the whole, it could have been a lot worse. Claire's room was a mess, and her bed and curtains were a dead loss. Scorches on the floor and smoke damage on the ceiling.
Still.
Shane dumped more water on the mattress, which was already a sodden mess, and collapsed against the wall next to Claire and Eve.
"They've got to be wondering why we're not all screaming and burning by now," Eve said. "I mean, logically."
"Go look."
"You go look. I've had a tough night."
Claire sighed, got up, and went to the unbroken window at the far end of the room. She couldn't see anything. No vampires, obviously, since the sun was blazing in the sky by now, but no human flunkies, either. "Maybe they're all out front," she said.
In the silence, she distinctly heard...the doorbell.
"You're kidding me," Shane said. "Hey, did you order pizza? Good thinking. I'm starved."
"I think you have brain damage," Eve shot back.
"Yeah, because I'm starved."
There was a crash from downstairs, and Shane stopped smiling. His eyes went dark and focused. "I guess this is it," he said. "Sorry. Last stand at the Alamo."
Eve hugged him and didn't say a word. Claire walked over and hugged each of them in turn, Shane last so she could spend more time doing it. There really wasn't enough time, though, because she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and she felt a strong chill sweep over her. Michael was with them. Maybe that was his version of a hug.
"Stay strong," she heard Eve whisper in her ear. She nodded and took Eve's hand. Shane stepped out in front, which was - she knew by now - just what Shane did. He picked up the baseball bat he'd retrieved from down the hall and got ready.
"There's no need for that," said a light, cool voice from the hallway. "You must be Shane. Hello. My name is Amelie."
Claire gasped and peeked around his broad back. It was the blond vampire from the church, looking perfectly cool and at ease as she stood there, hands folded.
"You can put that away," Amelie said. "You won't need it, I assure you."
She turned and left the doorway. The three of them looked at one another.
Is she gone? Eve mouthed. Shane edged up to the doorway and looked out, then shook his head.
What's she doing?
That was obvious one second later, as there was a faint click and the paneling on the other side popped free.
Amelie opened the hidden door and went up the steps.
"I think you have some questions," she called down. "I have some, as well, as it happens, and it would be prudent if we indulged each other. If not, then of course you are free to go - but I must warn you that Oliver is not happy. And when Oliver is unhappy, he tends to be rather childish about lashing out. You are not, as they say, out of the woods quite yet, mes petits."
"Vote," Shane said. "I'm for leaving."
"Stay," Eve said. "Running won't do us any good, and you know it. We need to at least hear what she has to say."
They both looked at Claire. "I get a vote?" she asked, surprised.
"Why wouldn't you? You pay rent."
"Oh." She didn't even have to think about it. "She saved my life today. I don't think she's - well, maybe she's bad, but she's not, you know, bad. I say we listen."
Shane shrugged. "Whatever. You go first."
Amelie had settled herself on the antique Victorian settee. There were two other vampires in the room, standing very quietly in the corner, both wearing dark suits. Claire swallowed hard and fought an urge to back up and change her vote. Amelie smiled at her, lips closed, and gestured elegantly at the chair next to the sofa. "Claire. Ah, and Eve, how lovely."
"You know me?" Eve asked, surprised. She took a look around at the other two vampires.
"Of course. I always pay attention to the dispossessed. And your parents are particular favorites of mine."
"Yeah, great. So who the hell are you?" Shane asked, blunt as ever. Amelie regarded him for an instant in surprise.
"Amelie," she said, as if that explained everything. "I thought you knew whose symbol you wore from birth, my dear."
Shane looked pissed off. Of course. "I don't wear any symbols."
"That's true. You don't now." She shrugged. "But everyone in this town did once, including those from whom you sprang. One way or another, you are owned, body and soul."
Shane, for once, didn't try a comeback. He just stared at her with dark, angry eyes. She didn't seem bothered.
"You have a question," Amelie stated. Shane blinked.
"Yeah. How did you get in here? Oliver couldn't."
"An excellent question, well phrased. And were I any other vampire, I would not be able to do so.
However, this house is my house, first and foremost. I built it, as I built several such in Morganville. I live in each of them in turn, and while I am in residence the Protections will defend me from any enemy, either human or vampire. While I am absent, they will exclude vampires, if the residents are human, and of course humans if the residents are vampires. Unless the proper permissions are given." She inclined her head. "Does that answer your question?"
"Maybe." Shane chewed on it a little, then said, "Why didn't it protect Michael?"
"He gave Oliver permission to enter, and, in doing so, forfeited the house's Protection. However, the house did what it could to preserve him." Amelie spread her hands. "Perhaps it helped that Oliver was, in fact, not trying to destroy him but to change him."
"Into a vampire," Eve said.
"Yes."
"Yes! I always wanted to ask why that doesn't work. I mean, the vampires keep on biting, but...?"
Amelie said nothing. She seemed to be thinking, or remembering; either way, it was a long and uncomfortable silence before she said, "Have you children any concept of geometric progression?"
Claire raised her hand.
"And how many vampires would it take to turn the entire world into vampires, if it was so simple as that?" Amelie smiled as Claire opened her mouth. "My dear, I do not expect you to answer, though if you would like to work out the math of it and tell me someday, I should be most interested to see it. The truth is that we came very near to it, in my younger years, when humans were much fewer. And it was agreed - as it has lately been agreed among you humans - that perhaps conservation of game is a wise idea. So we - removed the knowledge of how to create more vampires, simply by refusing to teach it.
Over time, the knowledge was lost except to the Elders, and now it is lost altogether, except in two places."
"Here?" Claire asked.
"Here," Amelie said, and touched her temple. "And there."
She pointed at Shane.
"What?" Claire and Eve both blurted, and Claire thought, Oh my God I kissed him and he was a vampire, but Shane was looking odd, too. Not lost, exactly.
Guilty.
"Yeah," he said, and put his hand in the pocket of his blue jeans. He pulled out a small book. The cover - Claire could read it from where she sat - read Shakespeare Sonnets. "It was all I could think of."
He tipped it sideways, and the pages slid out, away from the cover. Sliced neatly at both edges of the binding.
"Very clever," Amelie said. "You gave them the cover, filled with words they did not want, and kept for yourself what was important. But what if I told you that it was the cover they were after, and not the contents?"
He looked shaken. "I had to play the odds."
"Wise gamesmanship," she said. "In fact, I told you that Oliver is unhappy, and so he is, because he has allowed that" - she nodded toward the pages - "to slip through his fingers. And so I find that I come to you for a favor."
His eyes lit up, and he said, "A favor? Like a deal?"
"Yes, Shane. I shall make a deal for what you hold in your hand, and I promise you that it is the only deal that matters, as I am the only vampire that matters. I will take the book, and destroy the last written record of how vampires may be created, which will ensure my continued survival against my enemies, who will not dare to move against me for fear of losing what only I know." She sat back against the puffed cushions, studying him very calmly. "And for this, you and all in this house will receive my Protection for as long as you should choose to have it. This will cancel any other, lesser contracts you might have made, such as the agreement you made with Oliver, through Brandon."
"Oliver - is Brandon's boss?" Claire asked.
"Boss?" Amelie considered that, and nodded. "Yes. Exactly. While I do not command Oliver, neither can he command me. Until he discovers the secrets I hold, he cannot unseat me in Morganville, and he cannot create his own followers to overwhelm mine. We are...evenly matched."
Shane looked down at the book in his hand. "And this would have changed that."
"Yes," she said softly. "That book would have destroyed us all in the end. Vampires as well as humans. I owe you a debt for this, and I will pay it as well as circumstances will allow."
Shane thought about it for an agonizing second, then looked at Eve. She nodded. Claire nodded when he checked for her approval, and then he held the book up. "Michael?" he asked. "Yes or no?" After another long second, he sighed. "Guess that's a yes. Well, anything that pisses off Oliver is a good deed, so..." He held it out to Amelie.
She made no move to take it. "Understand," she said, and her eyes were bitter cold, "that once this is done, it is done. Your Glass House will remain, but you are bound together. None may leave Morganville, after. I cannot risk your knowledge escaping my control."
"Yeah, well, if we go now, we're toast anyway, right?" Shane kept holding it out. "Take it. Oliver was right about one thing: it's nothing to us but death."
"Au contraire," she said, and her pale white fingers took it from his. "It is, in fact, your salvation."
She stood, looked around the room, and sighed a little. "I have missed this place," she said. "And I believe it has also missed me. Someday I will come back." She pressed the hidden catch on the arm of the settee, and without another word to them turned to leave.
"Hey, what about the cops?" Shane asked. "Not to mention all those people who tried to kill us today?"
"They answer to Oliver. I will make it known that you are not to be troubled. However, you must not further disturb the peace. If you do, and it is your fault, I will be forced to reconsider my decision. And that would be...unfortunate." She gave him a full smile. With fangs. "Au revoir, children. Do take care of the house more carefully in the future."
Her two vamp guards went with her. Smoke and silence. There was no sound on the stairs after. Claire swallowed. "Um...what did we just do?" she asked.
"Pretty much all we could," Shane said. "I'm checking the street."
They ended up going down together, in a group - Shane with the bat, Eve with the knife Jennifer had abandoned, and Claire armed with a broken chair leg sharp on one end.
The house was deserted. The front door was standing open, and out on the street, cop cars were pulling away from the curb around the big black Cadillac. A limousine was leaving, too. Its tinted windows cast back blinding reflections of the sun.
It was all over in seconds. No cars, no vampires, nobody hanging around. No Monica. No Richard. No Oliver.
"Crap," Shane said. He was standing on the porch, looking at what was hanging next to the doorbell. It was a black lacquered plaque with a symbol on it. The same symbol that had been on the book cover he'd sent to Oliver. "Does that mean she wrote the damn book, too?"
"I'll bet she did, for backup," Eve said. "You know, the symbol's also on the well in the center of town.
It's the Founder symbol."
"She's the Founder," Shane said.
"Well, somebody had to be."
"Yeah, but I figured it was a dead somebody."
"Funny," Claire said, "but I think it is a dead somebody."
Which made Shane laugh, and Eve snort, and Shane slung his arm over her shoulders. "You still quitting school?" he asked.
"Not if I can't leave town." Claire smacked herself in the head. "Oh my God! I can't leave town! I can't ever leave town? What about school? Caltech? My parents?"
Shane kissed her on the forehead. "Tomorrow's problems," he said. "I'm going with let's just be glad there's a tomorrow, at this point."
Eve closed the front door. It swung open again in the breeze. "I think we're going to need a new door."
"I think we're going to need Home Depot."
"Do they sell stakes at Home Depot here?" Claire asked. Shane and Eve looked blank. "Dumb question.
Never mind."