Bitter Blood (31 page)

So she headed to City Hall, and ran straight into a mob scene.

The noise was a dull roar about a block away, and she thought
it was some kind of construction work, maybe a giant bulldozer or grinding machine or something…but as she got closer, she heard that it wasn’t mechanical at all. It was voices—yelling voices, all blending into something that sounded like a collective insanity. People were running
toward
the noise, and she found she had the same impulse to go and see what was going on. Though there’d been some attempts, nothing that big had ever happened in Morganville, in her experience. People just didn’t have the heart to riot in those numbers.

Until now.

As Claire turned the corner, she saw there was a flatbed tractor trailer parked on the curb in front of City Hall, decked out with some sad-looking patriotic streamers and ribbons, and on it stood Flora Ramos, with someone in a black leather jacket, black pants, gloves, and a motorcycle helmet with a dark, opaque faceplate. His—at least, Claire assumed it was a man—arms were crossed. Flora was at the microphone next to a big pair of speakers.

The posters that people had on poles and held up over their heads were the
CAPTAIN OBVIOUS FOR MAYOR
signs.

And clearly, the guy standing on the dais next to Flora was…the new Captain Obvious? It could have been the same guy who’d fired at Oliver in Common Grounds; he’d been wearing a black hood then, instead of the helmet, but the jacket looked similar.

Flora Ramos held up her hands and stilled to a dull mutter the approving roar of the thousand or so people crammed in the street.

“We’ve had enough,” she was saying. “Enough of the oppression. Enough of the death. Enough of the inequality. Enough of losing our homes, our lives, our children, to things we don’t control. And we won’t be silent. If Mayor Moses couldn’t make our voices heard, we will make them heard on every street, in every
building, and on every corner of Morganville until things change! Until we
make
them change! We built this town with our sweat and blood and strength, and it is
our
town as much as that of those who pretend to own it!”

She was, Claire had to admit, a
great
speaker. She was angry, full of passion, and it arced out of her like lightning to sting the crowd into more yells, chants, and shouts. Claire slowed down. She was a little afraid, suddenly, of the power of that mob, and of Flora’s eloquence. So were the Morganville cops, she realized. They were out in force, all twenty or so, forming a solid cordon between the crowd and City Hall.

No telling how the vampires felt about it, but Claire had no doubt, none at all, that they were well aware of this. And if they’d been unhappy about Monica seeking the office, how pissed off were they now? Plenty, she imagined. From the crowd that had gathered, Captain Obvious was going to win in a landslide, and if the vamps thought they could ignore the ballots and pick their own candidate, it was going to get very ugly, very quickly. Nobody would be fooled, and clearly, the humans were in no mood to take it lying down.

Flora was still talking, but it was hard to hear her over the constant, fevered applause and cheering. Claire stared hard at Captain Obvious. Hard to tell anything about him, underneath the disguise, but he had a hell of a lot of guts coming out here in public and standing as a free target after putting a crossbow bolt in
Oliver.

So she could have predicted what came next.

It started calmly enough. Claire was used to looking for vampires, so she picked up the smooth, subtle movements from the shadows well before most other people. It started with one or two coming out, well swathed in long coats and scarves, hats and
gloves, but it didn’t stop there. Soon it was ten. Then twenty. Then too many for Claire to count.

And like the police, they fanned out, but not to cordon off the crowd.

They were making for the stage, and Captain Obvious.

He saw them coming about the time that most others did. Vampires didn’t need protection, even in a crowd like this; Morganville natives had it bred into them to back up, get away, and that was exactly what they did. Cries of alarm went up, and little islands of space formed around the vamps as they pushed forward.

Captain Obvious’s helmet turned toward Flora, and she nodded. He backed up to the edge of the trailer, dropped off and out of sight, and one second later Claire heard the roar of a motorcycle. He came roaring out from concealment on the other side of the truck, spraying smoke as he fishtailed around. The crowd cleared for him, too, or at least for the snarling bike, and he leaned into the handlebars and hit the thrust hard.

A lunging vampire tried to take him off the machine, but he ducked low and weaved expertly, and she went rolling. When another tried it ten feet later, someone in the crowd—more daring than the rest—ran forward and knocked the vampire’s hat off. The vampire turned with a roar of fury and slapped the broad-brimmed coverage back over his smoking head, but his second was lost, and Captain Obvious accelerated away, leaning into a sharp turn with his knee almost on the ground. It was someone with training, Claire thought, someone with a lot of skill.

The vampires largely gave up on him, though a few tried chasing him; the rest bolted forward, swarmed onto the stage, and two grabbed Flora Ramos. A third cleanly severed the microphone cord with a single pull, robbing her of her soapbox.

But when they tried to take her down from the platform, people
surged forward, shouting. They’d lost their fear, all of a sudden. It made sense. Flora was a popular lady, a widow, who’d lost kids to the vampires. She was everybody’s mom, all of a sudden, being dragged off into the dark—not in the middle of the night, but in public, in broad daylight, in a blatant show of vampire force.

Amelie and Oliver must have approved this. They must be watching,
Claire thought with a sudden twinge. She turned and looked behind her, and saw a long blacked-out sedan idling at the corner. She walked that way. Walked right up to the car and rapped on the backseat window.

It glided down to reveal the pale, sharp face of Oliver. He didn’t speak. He just gazed at her with cool disinterest. Next to him, Amelie was looking straight ahead, a slight frown grooved between her brows. She looked flawless, as always, but Claire knew her well enough to think she was bothered by what she saw before her.

“Let Mrs. Ramos go,” Claire told Oliver.

“She’s preaching sedition and breaching the public peace,” he said. “She’s ours by law.”

“Maybe. But if you take her off that stage, you lose. Not just now, but for a long time. People won’t forget.”

“I care not what they remember,” he said. “The only way to stop a rebellion is to crush it with blood and fire, and to wound them so they’ll never dare to raise a hand again.”

He sounded as if he almost
liked
it. Claire shuddered, and looked past him, to Amelie. “Please,” she said. “This isn’t right. Stop it. Let Flora go.”

It took forever for the Founder to speak, but when she did, her voice was soft, even, and decisive. “Let the old woman go,” she said. “It gains us nothing to make her a martyr. Our goal is to find this new Captain Obvious. He can’t hide for long. Once we have
him, we make an example of him and make it clear that this kind of disruption won’t be tolerated. Yes?”

Oliver scowled and sent Claire a murderous glance. “My queen, I think you are listening too much to your pets. The girl’s softhearted. She’ll lead us all to ruin.” He lifted Amelie’s pearl white hand to his lips and kissed it, lips lingering on her skin, and she finally looked at him. “Let me guide you in this. You know I have the best interests of Morganville at heart. And
you
are Morganville.”

The frown between Amelie’s perfectly arched brows relaxed, smoothed, and she kept her gaze fully focused on him. “I fear your way will bring us more trouble, Oliver.”

“And this chit’s way will bring us death,” he said. “Mark me, compromise is no answer. We would compromise ourselves into a pyre of ashes. Humans have no pity for us, and never have; they’d kill every one of us. Have you forgotten that one of them just yesterday tried to put a silver arrow in my heart?”

“And I pulled it out,” Claire said. “Or you’d be dead now, you jerk. What exactly is a
chit
?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Amelie’s gaze tugged away from Oliver’s for a moment, and Claire got the full force of the Founder’s attention. “A disrespectful young woman,” she said. “Something I was called more than once. Something every woman of quality is called, sooner or later, by a man who feels they do not know their place. As we do not, because our place is as lofty as we may aspire to climb. It is the language of men who fear women.” There was something weird about Amelie’s eyes; they seemed darker than normal, and Claire couldn’t figure it out until she realized that the pupils were inordinately large, as if she’d had some kind of dilating drops in them. Was she being drugged? “Which brings up a good point, Oliver. I believe you’ve called me a chit, upon occasion. Yet suddenly you call me your queen.”

“You’ve
ever been queen in my heart,” he said, which made Claire want to gag. His voice was smoky, soothing, and way too seductive. “Can we not agree on this one thing, my liege? That the survival of what few vampires remain must take precedence over the legions of humans who roam this earth in their billions? If we trust to their good graces, we will die.”

“He is not wrong in that, Claire,” Amelie said. “Mankind is not known for its charity toward those it fears. If we’re not torn apart as demons, we’ll be dissected in your laboratories, for science. Or worse, put on exhibition, no better than those ragged lions and exhausted bears in your zoos. Who will protect us, if we don’t protect ourselves?”

Claire wanted to say that she was wrong, that it wouldn’t be like that, but she’d read enough history and knew enough about the grudges and fears that people held close to their hearts to realize that Amelie was probably right, in principle.

“Let her go,” Claire said. “And people will see you’re not afraid to be part of this town and listen to them. Trust me. Please. I don’t want this to explode, and neither do you, but it will. You make Mrs. Ramos disappear, and it’ll never stop exploding. Vampires will take out humans, humans will take out vampires, and sooner or later, we’re all dead or you’re discovered.”

“I cannot let her go. Not an option.” But Amelie seemed to consider things, and suddenly she pulled her hand free of Oliver’s hold, opened the other side of the limousine, and stepped out into the sun.

Unlike the other vampires, she didn’t bother to try to cover herself; she was old enough that the sun wouldn’t do more than give her a painful but mild burn. The sight of her in full daylight was startling. She wore a white silk suit, expertly tailored, and her short stature was concealed with tall white pumps. Her pale gold
hair, wrapped in a coronet around her head, was almost the same shade. The only color on her was a bloodred ruby necklace and a matching ring, and as she walked off toward the mob, she looked every inch a queen.

Oliver slammed his door open, grabbed Claire by the arm, and shoved her back against a brick wall. “Stupid girl,” he said, and ran after Amelie. She didn’t seem to be moving fast—drifting, almost—but he had trouble catching her.

She reached the crowd before him, and it parted in front of her like smoke before a strong wind. The vampires paused on stage, suddenly aware of her presence, and silence swept over the chaos to the point that Claire imagined she could almost hear the click of Amelie’s heels as she moved up the portable stairs to the stage.

Oliver scrambled behind her, impassive in expression, but she could see the anger and frustration in his body language. He was too late to stop whatever she intended to do.

“Release the woman,” Amelie said to the two vamps holding Flora. They let go, immediately, and stepped away with their heads bowed. Amelie advanced to stand in front of her. “Are you injured?”

Flora shook her head no.

“Then you may leave this place, if you wish. Or you may stay here, on this stage, and accept the very difficult and thankless job of mayor, a position to which I believe you are uniquely suited.”

Whatever Flora was expecting, it wasn’t that. Neither were her supporters. A confused babble started up, and Claire jogged back over so she could hear more clearly over the confusion. The microphones were dead, so only the first few rows were likely to hear what was going on.

“I’m not running,” Flora said. “It’s Captain Obvious the people want.”

“And Captain Obvious they will not get,” Amelie replied with perfect calm. “One cannot elect a man too cowardly to show his face. You, Mrs. Ramos, have courage enough for both, quite clearly. And so
you
are my nominee. What say you? We have enough residents here to win you the day, simply by voice. Yes or no?”

“I can’t—” It wasn’t a refusal, though; it was a confused and reluctant argument. “I’m not a politician.”

“Neither is Captain Obvious, else he would not have run away at the first sign of trouble,” Amelie said coolly, and got a ripple of chuckles from a few in the crowd. “I come to stand before the people of Morganville as the Founder. Unafraid. Can he say as much? You stand before them as well. And I say you will uphold their trust. I ask you for nothing but honorable service. Will you accept?”

Claire didn’t hear the answer, because the roar that went up from the crowd was deafening.

There really wasn’t any question of refusing.

Amelie had outmaneuvered Captain Obvious
and
Oliver, and she had regained the equilibrium of Morganville, at least temporarily—all in a mere thirty seconds.

Claire shook her head in wonder, and went home to tell Shane that, despite their hard work—and glitter—Monica was off the ballot.

He’d be
so
disappointed.

Claire wasn’t the first one to get the news to the Glass House, even though she called as she jogged away from City Hall. Eve answered on the first ring and said, “Are you at the riot?”