Last Breath

SHANE

Claire was gone, and the worst part was that I couldn't feel it. I stood there staring at her on the floor, at the peaceful way Michael had straightened her body and closed her eyes, at the silent, pale face and the soft, limp hands that would never touch me again, and I should have felt torn apart. I should have been crying, like Eve. Hell, even Michael.

But I couldn't. I couldn't feel.

Well, not that. What I could feel was a dull, crushing pressure, and one pure, vivid thing....

Rage.

I could see the marks on her throat, faint but there. The marks of fingers, just like the ones around my own neck. I'd survived, because she'd been there to save me.

But this time, I hadn't been there for her. No one had. He'd come in here, waited for her, grabbed her by the throat, and snapped her neck.

At least he hadn't choked her to death. At least he'd spared her that much.

There were only three vampires with easy access to our house: Michael was out, because he'd been in the car with me. Amelie . . . I couldn't see Amelie getting her own pale, strong hands dirty. No, it was the one who'd betrayed us already.

Myrnin.

I needed to do the things they expected me to do - get down there next to Claire, hold her, cry, let out all the awful pressure inside me . . . but not yet. Not yet.

No, first ... first I had to make sure someone paid for it.

I didn't think about anything else as I grabbed the vamp bag, checked it, and left the house. As the cold, cold rain hit me, I half expected something else to hit me, too - the real impact of what I'd just seen.

But the pressure inside me crowded out everything else except that harsh, desperate ache to avenge her.

I ran. I couldn't see through the rain well, and made some wrong turns, but by the time the downpour started to let up, I got my bearings and headed for the Day House a few blocks away. The water in the streets was rushing at curb level, every street a river; trash and debris were rolling along with the flood. These were the kind of gully washers that killed people in this part of the country; get caught in an arroyo out there in the desert and you could be swept for miles, body torn apart by a torrent that disappeared into the sand an hour later.

But not here. Not in town. Here, you'd just get your shoes and pants soaked through as you waded the currents.

The Day House appeared through the still-falling rain, a weird kind of deja vu; the Day House and Glass House looked almost exactly alike, except that Gramma Day kept hers in better repair, and there were warm golden lights shining in the windows.

Claire liked - had liked - the old lady. I stared at the deserted front porch for a moment, then turned and jogged down the high-fenced alley between the Day House and its closest neighbor. No lights here, and with the unnatural gloom of the storm, it felt more claustrophobic than usual. The rain had washed it clean, but not of the sense that someone, something, was watching. Waiting to pounce.

I didn't care. Let him pounce. I couldn't fucking wait.

If Myrnin was watching me, he let me get all the way to the shack. Claire had some way in that didn't involve the chained-up front door, but I didn't bother to look for it. A heavy kick knocked the thing right off its rotten hinges.

I unzipped the bag and found a heavy steel-cased flashlight, which I turned on. It lit the junked-up room, and I kicked a couple of boxes aside to uncover the staircase that led down. The first few steps were dusty, but then the concrete turned to a sleek, polished marble, and the tunnel widened out as I descended.

There were lights on in the lab, and I clicked off the flashlight by the time I was halfway down. I didn't bother to be stealthy. It wouldn't matter; if Myrnin was here, and God, I hoped he was, then he'd know I was coming.

He was packing.

There was a massive old trunk, and he was sorting through books - discarding some, dumping others in. The place was a mess, worse than it usually was; Claire would be - would have been - beside herself at the idea of cleaning it up.

Myrnin was standing there paying no attention at all to me as he scowled at the titles and spines of his precious books, but he knew I was there.

"To what do I owe this unexpected - well, I can't call it a pleasure, I suppose - " He kept talking, but it was just a smear of sound. I didn't hear the meaning.

"We found her," I interrupted him. "Just where you left her." I dropped the bag at my feet. I was dripping all over his floor, making a little lake of rainwater around me; the canvas bag was soaked through, too. Didn't matter. I unzipped it and took out a crossbow.

He could have moved. Could have tried to attack, or run, or defend himself.

He didn't. He just stood there, Claire's sad, crazy, manic boss with his handsome pale face and lunatic eyes and stupid damn bunny slippers that had always made her smile....

She would never smile again.

. . . And I lifted the crossbow. It was already cocked and loaded, the silver-tipped arrow a special one, with barbs sticking out so it wouldn't be easy to pull free.

I wanted this to hurt.

He still didn't move. His dark eyes had gone wide, his body very still. Vampires could do that - go so quiet you'd think they were statues. One of the many creepy things I hated about them.

"Tell me why," I said. My voice sounded flat and hard, but it didn't sound like me, really. Not the me that Claire had known, but then, I wasn't that person now. I'd never be him again. "Was it Amelie? Did she tell you to clean up her loose ends?"

"What are you talking about?" Myrnin asked, and put down the book he was holding. That was stupid, because he might have been able to use it to block the bolt I was about to shoot through his dead heart, but hey, I didn't mind. "Shane, what's happened?"

He sounded sincere. He sounded . . . worried.

My finger tightened on the trigger. I wouldn't miss, not this time. I'd put it right through his chest, into his heart, and he'd die right here, in agony, the way he ought to die for what he'd done.

Except that there was fear in his face now, real fear, and he said, softly, "Did something happen to Claire?"

The cry tore its way out of me, and it didn't sound like anything human. It was full of rage and fury and all the things that I'd pushed down, locked out, frozen.

I knew that sound way too well. It was the same scream I'd heard when I'd seen my home burning, with Alyssa still inside. The same one that had echoed around that dirty motel bathroom where I'd found my mom.

Myrnin must have known it, too. His eyes filled with tears and he said, "No. No."

And all of a sudden, I knew he hadn't done it.

I hated that I knew it. I wanted to shoot him, and I wanted to do it anyway, because I needed to do something and he was easy, he'd been so close to Claire, and I needed - needed -

Needed to make him hurt like I hurt.

He braced himself on the table with both arms, head down, and chanted, very softly, no no no no as he rocked back and forth.

I waited until he looked up again and saw I was still aiming the crossbow at him.

"Shoot!" He screamed it at me. It was shocking and sudden, and it sounded wild and dark underneath. "Go ahead! What difference does it make?" He slammed his hands into the teetering stacks of books around him, sending them flying. He grabbed one and shredded it, just ripped it to pieces, all the paper fluttering around him like dying birds. "Go ahead, do it! Make us both feel better!"

I almost did. My finger pressed the trigger, and I felt the tension; another tiny increase, and I could have killed him.

Instead, I slowly lowered the crossbow. "It wasn't you," I said.

"No. My God, no." He gathered up a handful of torn pages and crushed them in his hand, as if he had to hold on to something. "Not me."

"Then who?" The anger was gone inside me, and that was bad; it left a vacuum, and Claire had taught me enough about science to know that a vacuum had to be filled. I knew what was going to come in place of the rage, and I didn't want it. I didn't want to feel that, not ever. The longer I managed to avoid it, the less gone she would be. "Did Amelie send somebody else to take us out?"

"How did she - "

"Broken neck," I said. As I said it, the world tilted around me, and I thought I might have to sit down, but I managed to stay upright. Not like Claire, lying there so fragile and helpless on the floor . . . "Someone broke her neck."

And just like that, it hit me.

The grief and shock fell on me like a concrete block, smashed me down to my knees. I heard the crossbow clatter to the stone floor. I know falling down hurt - objectively - but the pain inside was so great that I couldn't even begin to care about that.

I wrapped both arms around my body, to try to hold it in, but I couldn't. I couldn't.

I knew he was coming closer. I knew I ought to grab a stake, be ready for anything, but some black, dead part of me no longer cared if he finished the job. I wished he'd killed me days ago, so I wouldn't have to know this, see this, feel this.

Her eyes had been open, and so blank, and God, I hadn't even dared to touch her.

I'd walked away.

Myrnin's hand touched my shoulder. I was distantly aware of that, of him saying something, but I couldn't focus. I didn't want to hear all his platitudes, his sympathy, his pain. She was mine, and she was gone.

It hurt worse than any pain I'd ever felt. Not even losing my sister had been this bad. Not even my mother.

I couldn't understand why my heart was still beating.

"Shane," Myrnin was saying. He shook my shoulder, hard enough to break through the continuing waves of agony I felt. "Shane! Listen to me - it's important!"

I gagged in a breath, then another. My insides ached as if I'd gone a dozen rounds in the ring, and been pummeled for all twelve. I felt like I was bleeding inside. Bleeding out.

Nothing was important now that she was gone.

"Shane!" He grabbed me by both shoulders, crouched down, and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. His dark eyes were wounded and desperate, with a tint of red glowing far back in their centers. "Damn you, boy, listen! Where? Where did she die?"

How fast it had all changed. Opening the front door, I was still whole, still alive, still sane. Ten steps later, I was . . . "Home," I said. It came out in a raw, ragged whisper. "She's at home."

"God defend me, you idiot!" Myrnin bounced to his feet, and dragged me with him. Literally, dragged. I stumbled to my feet after being pulled like a toy for a couple of feet, and had to run to keep up as he darted forward, kicking books and chairs out of his way with shattering force. He took the most direct route to where he was going, which meant ripping an entire lab table up out of the floor and tossing it end over end across the room to smash against the far wall.

We stopped in front of a door set in the wall. It was locked. Myrnin stared at the padlock for only a single second, then reached out and ripped it off.

Then he ripped the entire door off its hinges.

The blackness beyond was a portal. I knew that, and I knew it could go directly to our house. Claire had fallen right in front of it, probably trying to make it out.

Oh God, I couldn't help but replay that in my mind . . . her realizing her danger, running for the portal, being caught before she could go through....

Dying.

Myrnin went still, and concentrated. There was a ripple of color over the dark, but it quickly faded. He tried again, and again.

Nothing happened.

"You think you can save her," I said. I felt dull and heavy inside with grief, beaten down with it. And I knew it was only going to get worse. "You can't. She's gone, Myrnin."

"The house, you idiot, the house has saved her. It's done it before, and with the four of you living inside it, it's grown more powerful than ever.... It must have tried!"

Michael. The house had saved Michael, once. I felt a wild, crazy, painful spike of hope, like a shaft of sunlight hitting eyes that had never seen day, but it was gone almost immediately. Burned-out. "Michael's body disappeared," I said. "When the house saved him, his body vanished - he told me that. Hers is still there. If the house tried, it didn't work." And I would have known. I would have felt something if she'd still been there, trapped. I would have known, because what did it say about me if I couldn't feel that?

Myrnin wasn't listening. He was muttering under his breath, something in a language I didn't know, but from the sound of it, he was cursing like a drunken sailor as he stared murderously at the black portal. Then he switched to English. "All right," he said. "Kill me, then, you faithless pile of lumber and nails. Kill me if you have to, but I am coming through."

I'd thought he was talking to me, but he wasn't. He was talking to the Glass House.

He lunged forward into the dark portal. Even I knew that wasn't a good idea; Claire had been really clear about that. He hit the blackness, and it swallowed him up like a pool of ink. Ripples of color spread and faded.

Nothing else.

I stared, waiting, but I didn't see anything. Maybe he was just . . . gone. Dead. Maybe we were all going to die today. I didn't really see any downside with that, except that I seemed to be the one left behind. Always.

That just couldn't keep happening. It couldn't.

I was sensible enough to go back, pick up my vampire kit, and then jump blindly into the dark. I had one thing in my mind as I did.

Please let me see Claire one more time.

Because that was all I wanted now, before the end.