Carpe Corpus Page 0,15
rest of them; you're just - "
"Claire." Just the one word, but from Amelie that was all it took to stop Claire in her tracks. "What else could I do? Bishop turned enough of my followers that any action I would take would have been against my own people. It would have been a fight to the death, and that fight would have destroyed everyone you or I love. I had to withdraw and allow him to think he had triumphed. Myrnin did what he could to protect you and all your friends, while we found another way."
Claire snorted out a bitter little laugh. "Sure he did."
"You're all alive, I believe, unlike most who've crossed Bishop throughout his life. You might think on how unlikely that is, so long after he should have lost interest and torn you and my town apart." Amelie's face was as hard as carved marble. "My father has no interest in administering. Only in destroying. Myrnin has been persuading him to at least try to keep Morganville alive, and putting himself at constant risk to do so."
Claire didn't want to believe it, but when she actually thought about it, she remembered how often Bishop had ordered people killed, and how often Myrnin - or Myrnin and Michael! - had managed to distract him from carrying it out. "Michael," Claire said slowly. "You turned Michael back, didn't you? He's not really Bishop's anymore."
Amelie and Oliver exchanged looks, and Oliver shrugged very slightly. "She is a quick study," he said. "I never said otherwise. Unless the boy's a bad actor."
"If he were a bad actor, he'd be long dead by now," Amelie said. "Claire - you must not treat Michael any differently. For his life's sake, you must not. Now, I need you to go with Myrnin. The serum you've cultured from Bishop's blood is of vital importance to us now; we need to treat all those we can reach, and we must have enough of a supply to do the job. I rely upon you for that, Claire."
"Why should I help you at all?" Claire asked, and felt a tremor of pure chill along the back of her neck when Amelie's gray eyes sharpened their focus on her. "You haven't promised me anything. I want you to swear you'll get Shane and his father out of there alive."
Oliver growled, and from her peripheral vision she saw the ivory flash of his fangs. "You're going to permit this puppy to bark at you?"
"What I do is my affair, Oliver." Amelie let a long, long moment pass before she said, "Very well, Claire, you have my word that we will retrieve Shane and his father before they are executed. What else?"
Claire hadn't really been prepared to win that argument. She blinked, searched for another demand, and came up with nothing in particular.
Then she did. "I . . . want you to promise me that when this is over, you're going to change things in Morganville."
Amelie looked, for a moment, perplexed. "Change things? What sort of things?"
"No more hunting humans," she said. "No more owning people. You'll make everybody equal around here."
"You're speaking of things you don't understand. These things are required for us to survive in relative security. I won't put my people at further risk, nor leave them at the whims and mercies of yours. I've seen too many centuries of death and destruction." Amelie shook her head. "No, if that is your price, then it's too high for me to pay, Claire. Do as you will, but I won't betray all we've built here to accommodate your sentimental idea of modern life."
Claire had been raised to be kind, to agree, to help, and for just a second, locked in a stare with the Founder of Morganville, she wanted to give up.
The only thing that stopped her was imagining what Shane would have said, if he'd been standing in her place.
"No," she said, and felt her heart flutter madly in panic. Her whole body was shaking, pleading for her to run, avoid the confrontation. "You hear what you're saying, right? You want to save your people at the cost of human lives. I won't agree to that; I can't. Deal's off. I'm not helping you anymore. And the first chance I get, I tell Bishop about Myrnin, too."
Amelie turned on her hard and fast, and before she knew what was happening Claire felt a cold hand around her throat, and she was smashed up against the wall.