“Amelie and Oliver,” Claire said. “They’re upstairs. Someone should see—” She was staring at Eve, but looked away when Eve glanced her way. “See about Jason.”

“What happened to Jason?” Eve asked. She sounded almost resigned, though. As if she already knew.

“I’ll tell you later,” Claire said.

“They made him a vamp,” Eve said, and Claire looked up, fast. “I already knew he wanted it. It’s not a good thing. Not for us, anyway.”

“Definitely not,” Michael agreed, from the doorway. “I checked upstairs. Nobody’s there except a pile of rotting slime. Amelie doesn’t clean up after herself.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Claire said. “She’s the founder. The queen.” There was something about the way she said it that made me wonder what she’d seen. And what was coming.

Myrnin finished his blood pack and said, “They’ve gone to hunt.”

I closed my mouth on the question of Hunt what, exactly?

Because I figured I already knew.

The draug were finished. All of the vampires’ enemies, gone.

The rules of Morganville were changing, and I had the feeling that they wouldn’t be in our favor.

EPILOGUE

CLAIRE

“You’re certain,” Father Joe said. He stood across from Michael and Eve, lit only by the candles burning in the holders on either side of the altar and the sunlight bleeding through the stained glass. “I haven’t seen any paperwork from Amelie allowing you to do this.” Father Joe, Morganville’s resident priest, looked exhausted. They all were exhausted, Claire thought. The lights still weren’t functioning reliably; most of Morganville was in the dark at night, and deserted, though the first buses were scheduled to return today to bring those who’d evacuated back to town. Water was on, and the pipes had been flushed, tested, and declared clean.

Not that Claire was taking any chances yet. Bottled water was a must.

“Amelie’s not the boss of me,” Eve said flatly. She was, Claire thought, very angry about her brother, though she hadn’t talked about it. At all. She looked at Michael. “Or him, either.”

Father Joe gave him a long, considering look. “If Amelie is against this, there’ll be trouble, Michael,” he said. “What you’re asking is binding not only for the church and by law, but in ways that I can’t explain among the vampires. You’ll be … elevating Eve to a new status. It could protect her, or it could make her even more of a target. You understand?”

Michael nodded. “I understand,” he said.

“And you don’t want to wait.”

“No.” Michael didn’t say anything else, but, Claire thought, he didn’t need to. He’d come ready for this. There weren’t any tuxedos, or gowns; Michael had pulled out a dark suit, a gleaming white shirt, and a nice tie. He’d forced Shane to wear one, too, somehow; there must have been some arm-twisting that Claire hadn’t been privy to, but then she’d been busy rooting through Eve’s closet with her, trying to come up with something wedding-appropriate at a moment’s notice.