Carpe Corpus Page 0,80

took that off her neck and dropped it to the floor.

Amelie surged to her feet - wounded, bloodied, messy, and angrier than Claire had ever seen her. She hissed at Oliver, fangs out, and then darted around him to kneel next to Sam.

His eyes opened and fixed on her face. Neither of them spoke.

She took his hand in hers for a moment, then lifted it to touch the back of it to her face.

"You were right," she said. "You were always right, about everything. And I will always love you, Sam. Forever."

He smiled, and then he closed his eyes . . .

. . . and he was gone. Claire could see his life - or whatever it was that animated a vampire - slip away.

Her eyes blurred with hot tears. No. Oh, Sam . . .

Amelie put his hand gently back on his chest, touched her lips to his forehead, and stood up. Oliver helped her, with one hand under her arm - that was the only way Claire could tell that Amelie wasn't herself, because she seemed to be more alive than ever.

More motivated, anyway.

Bishop was seriously hurt, although Claire couldn't figure out how; Shane's knife couldn't have really injured him. The old man was barely staying on his feet now, as he backed away from Amelie and Oliver.

That put him to moving toward Myrnin, who picked up Pennywell and threw him like a rag doll way out into the distance - all the way to the spotlight, where Pennywell slammed into the glass and smashed the machine into wreckage.

Then Myrnin turned toward Bishop, blocking him from that side.

The three vampires fighting Hannah and Richard suddenly realized that the tide was turning against them, and moved away. As a parting shot, though, one of them yanked the stake out of Fran?ois's chest, and the vampire yelled and rolled around for a second, then jumped to his feet, snarling.

Oliver, annoyed, reached down and picked up the silver leash he'd removed from Amelie's neck. In a single, smooth motion, he wrapped it around Fran?ois's throat and tied him to the arm of Bishop's heavy throne. "Stay," he snapped, and, just to be sure, wrapped another length of heavy silver chain around his ankle. Fran?ois howled in pain.

Oliver plucked the wooden stake out of Claire's hand, removed the silver knife from Ysandre's back, and drove the stake all the way through her to nail her to the stage. It went through her heart. She shuddered and stopped moving, frozen in place.

"There, that should keep them for a while," Oliver said. "Claire. Take this." He tossed the knife to her, and she caught it, still numb and not entirely understanding what had just happened.

"You're . . . you're not - "

"On Bishop's side?" He smiled thinly. "He certainly has thought so, since I sold myself to him the night he came to Morganville. But no. I am not his beast. I've always been my own."

Amelie took a step toward her father. "It's over," she said. "You've done your worst. You'll do no more."

He looked desperate, confused, and - for the first time - really afraid. "How? How did you do this?"

"The key was not in guessing whom you would choose to kill," she said, and her voice was light and calm and ice cold. "You taught me endgames, my father. The key to winning is that no matter what move your opponent makes, it will be the wrong one. I knew you'd kill at least one of us personally; you enjoy it far too much. You couldn't resist."

Like Bishop, she lost her balance. Oliver caught her and held her upright.

Bishop's face went blank. "You . . . you poisoned me. Through Myrnin. But I didn't drink."

"I poisoned Myrnin," she said. "And myself. And Sam. The only one who didn't take poison was Oliver, because I needed him in reserve. You see, we knew about Claire after all. We counted on your knowing where we would be, and what we'd planned, at least insofar as she witnessed it." A pawn. Claire had always been a pawn.

And Sam - Sam had been a sacrifice.

Amelie looked unsteady now, and Oliver put an arm around her shoulders. It looked like comfort, but it wasn't; he took a syringe from his pocket, uncapped it with a flick of his thumb, and drove it into the side of Amelie's neck. He emptied the contents in, and she shuddered and sagged against him for just a moment, then drew in