Chapter 29:
Claire's POV:
Everything is ready.
It almost seems too early to be ready; after all, it was only two days ago that Oliver gave me my mission, but here I am. Everything is prepared and once I stop by the local shops later on today, I shall have all the equipment that I need in order to complete something that many, many vampires – and humans – have desired for years. By the end of today, Amelie will be dead, and I know Oliver will be a kind, fair ruler, compared to the unfairness that there currently is in Morganville. There can be no return to these dark days, and therefore I cannot fail in my mission.
As I stand up, I click out my back, the twinge from bending over the desk for all of last night beginning to get to me, and my eyes find themselves rolling down onto Shane's unmoving body mass. He can still breathe, otherwise he would be dead, and I can see the rising and falling of his chest even now – he may be paralysed permanently, or just for a few days, but I don't particularly care whether he can ever move again. If he had to come back, he could have waited just another day! One more day, and we'd have been free from Amelie, free from her persecution of him – we could have been together, been free from restrictions and the fear that he could be captured and killed at any moment.
We could have been happy.
After the brief moment of regret about my actions last night, I move across the room, throwing a few things on the floor in order to cover up the majority of Shane's body – if Michael happened to come in when I'm out of the room, he'd know instantly that someone was there, because of his vampire senses, but anyone else wouldn't. It's sort of silly, but it seems to help my sanity and calm levels as I walk out of the room which is my temporary bedroom, and across into the bathroom. Breathing deeply helps as well, especially when I begin to fret that I've slept in and that the shops will be shut and therefore I won't be able to get the thing I need.
But when I've finished in the shower and ran across the hallway to check the time on my phone and see that it's only eleven in the morning, I relax further; everything is planned, there is nothing that can go wrong, because I know how Amelie is going to die, and the run through in my head hasn't afforded me any further problems, and I will be victorious by the end of the day. She will not be breathing this evening, let me assure you.
"Claire, why are you—?" Michael asks me as I run downstairs, bag in hand and coat on back, his voice coming from the kitchen. As I stop to put my shoes on, he comes out, cup of coffee in one hand, and then deliberately moves to stand in front of me. "Where are you going?" he demands of me, his eyes boring into mine.
"Out," I say, completely unhelpfully, unhappy with him for blocking my way. I don't want to explain where I'm going, and I know that I should be keeping him on side, but I really can't be bothered to. In my bag is the few things I already possess that I can use, incase something happens to this house as well, but it would be rather problematic for me getting to kill Amelie, because everyone'll want to capture me.
He raises an eyebrow at me and levels me off with a glare that could rival Oliver's. "That doesn't say where you're going; in Morganville, there's very little that you could want. So where are you going, Claire, and why will you not tell me?"
"It's none of your business."
"The hell it is!" he yells, the mug in his hand flying across the room to slam into the wall. Upon impact, it fragments into hundreds of pieces, the brown liquid staining the wall, running down the paintwork in rivulets, and yet it doesn't make an impression on me. I don't even flinch. "I am trying to protect you, Claire, and that's important because we're all the other has in this town, now the others have gone. If you don't tell me, well, let's say that you're just not leaving the house."
I shrug, knowing that I could hurt him if I wanted to, to get out of the house, but I don't. I've done everything in my power to protect Michael thus far, even in this state of being that makes me think that I do feel something for him even though nothing really makes me feel right now, and I'm not going to change that, just to get to go to the shops.
"Fine, I'll go out when Amelie summons you for another meeting," I reply bitterly, turning around and stalking back towards the staircase. It's time for the portal to be summoned to this house, definitely. "See you later, Michael. Or, you know, not."
He begins to speak – saying something about how I've changed (I have) and that he misses me, but that if I don't buck my ideas up, he'll call my parents – and yet I don't hear a word of it; I tune him out as I walk up the carpeted steps, and don't even turn to face him as I open the door into my room.
And after I slam my bedroom door, there's complete and utter silence. Perfect opportunity to put the finishing touches on my plan, isn't it?
I summon a portal and step through it, reappearing in a side street behind the main human shopping street in Morganville. Now, it feels as if the plan is almost able to be executed.
Oliver's POV:
It's close.
We're close to the finale, close to the point where Claire kills Amelie, I kill Claire and I emerge victor, the new ruler of Morganville. This lax method of ruling Amelie has, enforcing certain rules and allowing humans away with some things, will no longer be permitted; I will rule with an iron fist…besides for, possibly, my first decision. Whether Claire will die is as yet undecided, for I—I do not believe that I will be able to live with myself if I kill her, for merely acting out my orders. Words cannot describe the twisted state of my mind, the way that I can't comprehend whether or not I need her, or if it's just the desire for her to do what I need her to do; nothing seems to be separated anymore, and it seems that Amelie is in the middle of it.
When there is no more Amelie, I am certain that I will understand what is going on, and everything shall make sense once more. She destroys everything, causes healthy, good things to wilt and crumble into nothing, and she is trying to destroy my mind – and that's without her even realising it.
Closing my eyes, I begin to feel for the residue of Claire's blood in my system, to see if the power that it brought me remains; ever since I tasted it, I've been able to ascertain her mood, and it has been even stronger since last night; I can tell what she feels, not what she is doing or where she is, and yet that can give me an indication as to when she will do it. Part of me is jittery, though I would never admit that to anything other than my deepest subconscious, because I just need Amelie to be dead; with each day that passes, it becomes more and more of a distant dream, one that is merely a desire than an actual possibility.
It is more than just a possibility. With Claire, with her being completely under my control, it will happen; she is strong enough, or at least wilful enough to get under Amelie's defences, and I am more than confident that in the coming days, Amelie shall cease to breathe. Yet with every hour that passes, with every minute that moves forwards in time, I gain another worry, another plausible scenario planting itself in my mind about how Amelie could defeat Claire: the human could be attacked on the way to Amelie's home, she could be apprehended by Amelie if she has increased her security…she could even be walking into a trap. The last one is the most unlikely, yet I begin to consider every angle that could be spun on the situation, and it instils a crisis of confidence I did not have before.
She is calm. As I begin to forget all my worries myself, I focus solely on what she is feeling, and how she is, and realise that there is no need to panic about her losing her cool: she is entirely relaxed, almost seeming like she isn't plotting to kill someone, and there is no way that she will be riled up. I can feel that she hasn't even a little doubt about this, and that would worry me, if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to confirm. I have created a killing machine, someone who will follow orders to do whatever I command: she killed Sam, after all, and she even shot her friend. There are no limits to what she can do, I am absolutely certain.
This has filled me with more confidence than I had before, most certainly. Yet there will always be the niggles in the back of my mind that she will run into a situation that she has not anticipated, and then the entire plan will be destroyed.
Not until I can hold Amelie's cold, dead body in my arms, will I feel secure that this will work.
Claire's POV:
By sunset, I have everything I need. Well, I had it a little before sunset, but I had to ensure that everything is in a working condition, and that Michael won't worry where I am; as soon as he went out to the shops or somewhere – I presume, since we didn't speak, but he didn't seem in such a hurry as he would have been if he was looking for me – I ran into the house and poured a sleeping drug into the coffee pot. It was a crude attempt to stop him trying to find me now, when I need to be hidden, and I don't even know if it will have worked on a vampire, but there's no time to test out the effectiveness. I need to get here and kill Amelie now, rather than later.
There is no other time. Amelie's life ends now.
I hurry through the not so well lit streets which surround Amelie's home, all of them remarkably empty of vampires. Perhaps Oliver has thought to summon in all of his, I do not know, yet I do see that there is a clear path for me on my way to Amelie's home. As I approach my entry point, I haven't had to run for my life once, and there hasn't even been a sighting of a vampire since I passed Common Grounds.
It's almost too quiet, almost too easy to be able to happen right. But that's just what you get when you've planned well, right?
Aiming for the precise spot on the wall that will distract most of the guards, I throw a petrol bomb at the wall at the end of the garden area, watching as it ignites the arid land and parched grass. The fire spreads quickly, the flames licking up the sides of the outhouse at the end of the lawn area, and soon, an alarm starts wailing. Within another minute, copious numbers of guards are running out of the side of the house – or possibly servants, I don't quite know – and they're all armed with fire hoses and extinguishers, yet don't get closer.
Fire is fatal to vampires. I just hope that it wipes a few of them out.
Making use of this opportunity, I run down the side of the building and to the lower storey bathroom window, and jimmy it open with the lock opener I bought. Here, I then slide in and land in a scarily normal bathroom, with the usual commodities, and thankfully the door is already open. It means that I can slip out through it without having to worry about people being outside – there isn't any noise indicating anyone is coming, and so it seems pretty safe.
Now comes the only tricky part. Whilst I know that Amelie will be upstairs, through some sixth sense, there are many, many rooms around here, and—fuck, that's a guard!
I dig around in my bag and take a deep breath, emulating myself in the dream, when I threw the dart straight into the vampire's heart and…yes. It's there. He stumbles and falls to the ground silently, not too far away from a marble staircase. And it's in this moment that I begin to get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, my imagination was actually showing me a premonition of these next few minutes. This guard was here in the dream, I'm sure he was, and, yes, here's the next one.
I dispatch of him with another dart, the body falling halfway on top of the other guard, and then the same happens with the third and final vampire who comes in my direction. Now, I feel much more at home, especially with the feeling that I should climb this set of stairs, white marble steps lined with a golden strip at the front, because I've been here before. Or, rather, my mind has been, but that doesn't really matter, does it? It's a lead in an otherwise fruitless situation, and therefore I may as well try it.
Hastily dashing up the stairs, I turn right as I reach the top, barely remembering to slow down for fear that there are other guards lingering, and one hand rests on top of the bag containing more darts, spare stakes, holy water and the stake that will kill Amelie. My preparations are futile, however, because I come across nobody as I hurry towards the little room that featured in my dream, the one with the cross and the kneeling pads and—
—and Amelie.
The door is open and I can see her sitting with her back to me before I even get within twenty metres of the door. Her hair is falling out of a bun, strands of blonde hair hanging down her silk covered back, and all this does is show to me a vulnerability that she shouldn't be showing. It gives me the edge that makes me think that I can do this, that I can win against the oldest vampire in the world, and I begin to move faster and faster. She's so close to me now, she should be able to hear me, I'm sure.
And then I hear something that ensures that the aura of confidence lingers: Amelie is crying.
Slowing down, I hover in the doorway, fumbling around in my bag for the bottle of holy water – to subdue her, if I have to – and the silver stake which will go through her heart. She is crying, and there is no way that a crying woman could attack me, particularly when she is evidently grieving for Sam.
I don't hesitate as I grip the stake in my right hand, not even bothering to be silent in my approach – I presume that I don't make that much noise, but I don't try and be silent like a ninja – because she knows I'm coming. Evidently, she wants the stake through her back, a way to end her suffering without actually committing suicide, for she would have already moved, wouldn't she?
Three metres away…two metres away…I'm less than a metre away when I'm sure that the dream is actually what is going to happen, that I will kill Amelie, when things change. Her head snaps up, and this movement causes me to freeze in place; even though she doesn't adjust her position further, I can't deal with this being different to what I expected. So the stake slips slightly in my hand, and I grind to a halt, able to reach out to kill her if I want to—but I…I can't.
"Hello, Claire," she speaks, and as she does, I realise that there is no chance of me moving. I'm frozen to the spot, unable to move an inch with fear. "I see that you are here to kill me." when I don't answer, she continues, "how very…quaint, and possibly even amusing, that it has come down to this: you and me."
And, just like that, I realise that I've lost. She isn't going to let me kill her.
I'm a dead girl walking.
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