The ride in Michael's car felt like a nightmare. Eve had brought loads of blankets, and Claire was almost smothering under them, but she was still cold, and getting colder, as if her thermostat had gone drastically wrong. Her skin was turning white, her fingernails and lips blue.
She was starting to look . . . dead.
Even if she'd been trying to look where they were going, it wouldn't have done any good; Michael's car was vampire-standard, with ultratint on the windows. Human eyes couldn't get anything but murky hints of lights through it, so she just kept her attention on taking another breath, and another.
"Hey, Michael?" she heard Eve say. "Like, soon, okay?"
"I'm already breaking the speed limit."
"Go faster."
A surge of acceleration pressed Claire back in her seat. Shane was holding her, but she couldn't feel it. She'd stopped shivering now, which felt better, but she was also very, very tired, barely able to stay awake. At least the shaking had been something she could hold on to, but now there was nothing but cold, and silence. Everything seemed to be moving away from her, leaving her behind.
"Hey!" She felt something, a flash of heat against her skin, and opened her eyes to see Shane's face inches away. He looked scared. His hands were on her cheeks, trying to force heat into her. "Claire! Don't close your eyes. Stay with me. Okay?"
"Okay," she whispered. "Tired."
"I see that. But don't you go away from me, you hear me? Don't you even think about it." He stroked her skin, her hair, with hands that shook almost as much as she had before. "Claire?"
"Here."
"I love you." He said it quietly, almost a whisper, a secret between the two of them, and she felt a burst of what was almost warmth travel through her chest. "You hear me?"
She managed a nod, and thought she smiled.
Michael brought the car to a quick, sliding stop, and was out of the car before Claire could register that they'd arrived at their destination. "Hey!" Eve protested, and scrambled out after him. Shane opened the back and lifted Claire out in his arms - or rather, lifted the bundle of laundry that Claire felt like, wrapped in half a dozen blankets.
Moonlight fell blue-white over grass, trees, and headstones.
They were at Morganville's official cemetery - Restland. "Crap," Shane breathed. "Not my idea of a great night out, you know? Claire? Still with us?"
"Yes," she said. She actually felt a little better, and didn't know why. Not good, of course. But not going away anymore.
Ahead, she could see that Michael and Eve were making their way together through the maze of leaning tombstones, crosses, and marble statues. A big white mausoleum dominated the hill at the top, but they weren't going that way - they veered off to the right.
Claire thought she knew where they were heading. "Sam," she whispered. Shane pulled in a breath, let it out, and headed in that direction, too.
It had been months since Sam Glass, Michael's grandfather, had died . . . given his life to save them all, really, but most especially Amelie. He was, as far as Claire knew, the only vampire buried here in the cemetery; he'd had a real service, real mourners, and he was maybe the only vampire Morganville had ever had who was universally liked and respected by both sides.
But he'd been loved, too - by Amelie. By vampire standards, Amelie and Sam's had been a whirlwind relationship; he'd been born in Morganville, hadn't even been a hundred years old when he'd died, but from what Claire had seen, it had been an old-style, intense love affair, and one they'd tried to deny themselves more than once.
They found Amelie kneeling at his grave.
From a distance, she looked like one of the marble angels - pale, dressed in white, unmoving. But her long, pale blond hair was down, falling in waves around her face and down her back, and the icy wind lifted and fluttered it like a flag.
As cold as Claire felt, Amelie looked far colder. There was no grief in her expression. There was nothing - just . . . nothing. She didn't seem to see them as the four stopped near her; she didn't move, or speak, or react in any way.
"Hey," Shane said. "Stop it, whatever you're doing. You're hurting Claire."
"Am I?" Amelie's voice came slowly, and it seemed somehow distant, too, as if she were miles away but speaking through the body in front of them. "Your pardon."
She didn't move. She didn't say anything else. Shane and Michael exchanged looks, and Michael clearly got the message that if he didn't do something, Shane would, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Michael reached out for Amelie, to help her up. And she turned on him, suddenly and completely alive and viciously enraged, eyes flaring bloodred in her stark white face, fangs snapping down in place in sharp, lethal angles. "Do not touch me, boy!"
He stepped off, holding up both hands in surrender. Amelie glared at him - at all of them - for another few seconds, and then returned her stare to the grave in front of her. The red swirled away, leaving her eyes pale gray and once again, distant.
Amelie's surge of rage had burned through Claire like summer, driving off the chill for a moment. She squirmed in Shane's arms, and he let her down. Claire shed blankets, except for the last one, and crouched down across from Amelie, facing her over the grave.