The Morganville Vampires

Glass Houses
The Dead Girls’ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death

Rachel Caine

Contents

Glass Houses

The Dead Girls’ Dance

Midnight Alley

Feast of Fools

Lord of Misrule

Carpe Corpus

Fade Out

Kiss of Death

Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series

“You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.”

—Jim Butcher

“The Weather Warden series is fun reading…more engaging than most TV.”

—Booklist

“A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.”

—Romantic Times

“Hugely entertaining.”

—SF Crowsnest

“A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.”

—Locus

“An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.”

—SF Site

“I dare you to put this book down.”

—University City Review (Philadelphia)

“Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!”

—Mary Jo Putney

GLASS HOUSES

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES, BOOK ONE

RACHEL CAINE

NAL Jam

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
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Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2006

All rights reserved

ISBN: 1-101-12850-X

NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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To Liz, who asked.

To my dad, Robert V. Longstreet, who dared to dream—and to be a dreamer—when it wasn’t cool.

To my mom, Hazel Longstreet, who took on the tough job of being practical in a family of impractical people, and did it brilliantly and with love. I love you both. Miss you, Dad.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every teacher and student at Socorro High School in El Paso, Texas, and every student and professor at Texas Tech University.

None of you are in this book, but heck, if you can’t acknowledge your alma maters…!

You gave me the tools and the passion. Thank you.

1

On the day Claire became a member of the Glass House, somebody stole her laundry.

When she reached into the crappy, beat-up washing machine, she found nothing but the wet slick sides of the drum, and—like a bad joke—the worst pair of underwear she owned, plus one sock. She was in a hurry, of course—there were only a couple of machines on this top floor of Howard Hall, the least valued and most run-down rooms in the least valued, most run-down dorm. Two washing machines, two dryers, and you were lucky if one of them was working on any given day and didn’t eat your quarters. Forget about the dollar-bill slot. She’d never seen it work, not in the last six weeks since she’d arrived at school.

“No,” she said out loud, and balanced herself on the edge of the washer to look down into the dark, partly rusted interior. It smelled like mold and cheap detergent. Getting a closer look didn’t help.

One crappy pair of underwear, fraying at the seams. One sock.

She was missing every piece of clothing that she’d worn in the last two weeks. Every piece that she actually wanted to wear.

“No!” She yelled it into the washer, where it echoed back at her, and slumped back down, then kicked the washer violently in the dent made by all the other disappointed students before her. She couldn’t breathe. She had some other clothes—a few—but they were last-choice clothes, oh-my-God-wouldn’t-be-caught-dead clothes. Pants that were too short and made her look like a hick, shirts that were too big and too stupid, and made her look like her mom had picked them out. And she had.

Claire had about three hundred dollars left to last her for, well, months, after the latest round of calling out for pizza and buying yet another book for Professor Clueless Euliss, who didn’t seem to have figured out yet what subject he was teaching.

She supposed she could find some clothes, if she looked around, that wouldn’t totally blow her entire budget. After all, downtown Morganville, Texas, was the thrift shop capital of the world. Assuming she could find anything she could stand to wear.

Mom said this would happen, she thought. I just have to think. Keep my cool.

Claire threw herself into an orange plastic chair, dumped her backpack on the scratched linoleum, and put her head in her hands. Her face felt hot, and she was shaking, and she knew, just knew, that she was going to cry. Cry like the baby they all said she was, too young to be here, too young to be away from Mommy.

It sucked to be smart, because this was where it got you.

She gulped deep, damp breaths and sat back, willing herself not to bawl (because they’d hear), and wondered if she could call Mom and Dad for an extension on her allowance, or use the credit card that was “just for emergencies.”

Then she saw the note. Not so much “note” as graffiti, but it was addressed to her, on the painted cinder-block wall above the machines.

DEAR DORK, it read, WE FOUND TRASH IN THE MACHINES AND THREW IT DOWN THE CHUTE. IF YOU WANT IT, DIVE FOR IT.

“Shit,” she breathed, and had to blink back tears again, for an entirely different reason. Blind, stupid rage. Monica. Well, Monica and the Monickettes, anyway. Why was it the hot mean girls always ran in packs, like hyenas? And why, with all the shimmery hair and long tanned legs and more of Daddy’s money than Daddy’s accountants, did they have to focus on her?

No, she knew the answer to that.

She’d made Monica look stupid in front of her friends, and some hot upperclassmen. Not that it had been all that hard; she’d just been walking by, heard Monica saying that World War II had been “that dumbass Chinese war thing.”

And by simple reflex, she’d said, “It wasn’t.” The whole lot of them, slouched all over the couches in the dorm lobby, looked at her with as much blank surprise as if the Coke machine had just spoken up. Monica, her friends, three of the cool older frat boys.

“World War II,” Claire had plunged on, panicked and not quite sure how to get out of what she’d gotten herself into. “I just meant—well, it wasn’t the Korean War. That was later. World War II was with the Germans and the Japanese. You know, Pearl Harbor?”

And the guys had looked at Monica and laughed, and Monica had flushed—not much, but enough to ruin the cool perfection of her makeup. “Remind me not to buy any history papers off of you,” the cutest of the guys had said. “What kind of dumbass doesn’t know that?” Though Claire had been sure none of them had, really. “Chinese. Riiiiight.”

Claire had seen the fury in Monica’s eyes, quickly covered over with smiles and laughter and flirting. Claire had ceased to exist again, for the guys.

For the girls, she was brand-new, and unwelcome as hell. She’d been dealing with it all her life. Smart and small and average-looking wasn’t exactly winning the life lottery; you had to fight for it, whatever it was. Somebody was always laughing at, or hitting, or ignoring you, or a combination of the first two. She’d thought when she was a kid that getting laughed at was the worst thing, and then—after the first couple of school-yard showdowns—getting hit jumped up to number one. But for most of her (brief, two-year) high school experience, being ignored was worse by far. She’d gotten there a year earlier than everybody else, and left a year ahead of them. Nobody liked that.

Nobody but teachers, anyway.

The problem was that Claire really loved school. Loved books, and reading, and learning things—okay, not calculus, but pretty much everything else. Physics. What normal girl loved physics? Abnormal ones. Ones who were not ever going to be hot.

And face it, being hot? That was what life was all about. As Monica had proved, when the world had wobbled off its axis for a few seconds to notice Claire, and then wobbled right back to revolve around the pretty ones.

It wasn’t fair. She’d dived in and worked her ass off through high school. Graduated with a perfect 4.0, scored high enough on the tests to qualify for admission to the great schools, the legendary schools, the ones where being a brainiac mutant girl-freak wasn’t necessarily a downside. (Except that, of course, at those schools, there were probably hot tall leggy brainiac mutant girl-freaks.)

Didn’t matter. Mom and Dad had taken one look at the stack of enthusiastic thumbs-up replies from universities like MIT and Caltech and Yale, and clamped down hard. No way was their sixteen-year-old daughter (nearly seventeen, she kept insisting, although it wasn’t really true) going to run off three thousand miles to go to school. At least not at first. (Claire had tried, unsuccessfully, to get across the concept that if anything would kill her budding academic career worse than being a transfer student at one of those places, it was being a transfer student from Texas Prairie University. Otherwise known as TPEwwwwwww.)

So here she was, stuck on the crappy top floor of a crappy dorm in a crappy school where eighty percent of the students transferred after the first two years—or dropped out—and the Monickettes were stealing her wet laundry and dumping it down the trash chute, all because Monica couldn’t be bothered to know anything about one of the world wars big enough to rate a Roman numeral.

But it isn’t fair! something in her howled. I had a plan! An actual plan! Monica slept late, and Claire had gotten up early just to do laundry while all the party crowd was comatose and the studious crowd was off to classes. She’d thought she could leave it for a couple of minutes to grab her shower—another scary experience—and she’d never even thought about anybody doing something so incredibly low.

As she bit back her sobs, she noticed—again—how quiet it was up here. Creepy and deserted, with half the girls deep asleep and the other half gone. Even when it was crowded and buzzing, the dorm was creepy, though. Old, decrepit, full of shadows and corners and places mean girls could lurk. In fact, that summed up the whole town. Morganville was small and old and dusty, full of creepy little oddities. Like the fact that the streetlights worked only half the time, and they were too far apart when they did. Like the way the people in the local campus stores seemed too happy. Desperately happy. Like the fact that the whole town, despite the dust, was clean—no trash, no graffiti, nobody begging for spare change in alleyways.

Weird.

She could almost hear her mother saying, Honey, it’s just that you’re in a strange place. It’ll get better. You’ll just have to try harder.

Mom always said things like that, and Claire had always done her best to hide how hard it was to follow that advice.

Well. Nothing to do but try to get her stuff back.

Claire gulped a couple more times, wiped her eyes, and hauled the arm-twisting weight of her backpack up and over her shoulder. She stared for a few seconds at the wet pair of panties and one sock clutched in her right hand, then hastily unzipped the front pocket of the backpack and stuffed them in. Man, that would kill whatever cool she had left, if she walked around carrying those.

“Well,” said a low, satisfied voice from the open door opposite the stairs, “look who it is. The Dumpster diver.”

Claire stopped, one hand on the rusted iron railing. Something was telling her to run, but something always told her that: fight-or-flight—she’d read the textbooks. And she was tired of flighting. She turned around slowly, as Monica Morrell stepped out of the dorm room—not hers, so she’d busted Erica’s lock again. Monica’s running buddies Jennifer and Gina filed out and took up flanking positions. Soldiers in flip-flops and low-rise jeans and French manicures.

Monica struck a pose. It was something she was good at, Claire had to admit. Nearly six feet tall, Monica had flowing, shiny black hair, and big blue eyes accented with just the right amount of liner and mascara. Perfect skin. One of those model-shaped faces, all cheekbones and pouty lips. And if she had a model’s body, it was a Victoria’s Secret model, all curves, not angles.

She was rich, she was pretty, and as far as Claire could tell, it didn’t make her a bit happy. What did, though—what made those big blue eyes glow right now—was the idea of tormenting Claire just a little more.

“Shouldn’t you be in first period at the junior high by now?” Monica asked. “Or at least getting your first period?”

“Maybe she’s looking for the clothes she left lying around,” Gina piled on, and laughed. Jennifer laughed with her. Claire swore their eyes, their pretty jewel-colored eyes, just glowed with the joy of making her feel like shit. “Litterbug!”

“Clothes?” Monica folded her arms and pretended to think. “You mean, like those rags we threw away? The ones she left cluttering up the washer?”

“Yeah, those.”

“I wouldn’t wear those to sweat in.”

“I wouldn’t wear them to scrub out the boys’ toilet,” Jennifer blurted.

Monica, annoyed, turned and shoved her. “Yeah, you know all about the boys’ toilet, don’t you? Didn’t you do Steve Gillespie in ninth grade in there?” She made sucking sounds, and they all laughed again, though Jennifer looked uncomfortable. Claire felt her cheeks flare red, even though it wasn’t—for a change—a dis against her. “Jeez, Jen, Steve Gillespie? Keep your mouth shut if you can’t think of something that won’t embarrass yourself.”

Jennifer—of course—turned her anger on a safer target. Claire. She lunged forward and shoved Claire back a step, toward the stairs. “Go get your stupid clothes already! I’m sick of looking at you, with your pasty skin—”

“Yeah, Junior High, ever heard of sunshine?” Gina rolled her eyes.

“Watch it,” Monica snapped, which was odd, because all three of them had the best tans money could buy.

Claire scrambled to steady herself. The heavy backpack pulled her off-balance, and she grabbed on to the banister. Jen lunged at her again and slammed the heel of her hand painfully hard into Claire’s collarbone. “Don’t!” Claire yelped, and batted Jen’s hand away. Hard.

There was a second of breathless silence, and then Monica said, very quietly, “Did you just hit my friend, you stupid little bitch? Where do you think you get off, doing things like that around here?”

And she stepped forward and slapped Claire across the face, hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to make flares and comets streak across Claire’s vision, hard enough to make everything turn red and boiling hot.

Claire let go of the banister and slapped Monica right back, full across her pouty mouth, and for just a tight, white-hot second she actually felt good about it, but then Monica hissed like a scorched cat, and Claire had time to think, Oh crap, I really shouldn’t have done that.

She never saw the punch coming. Didn’t even really feel the impact, except as a blank sensation and confusion, but then the weight of her backpack on her shoulder was pulling her to one side and she staggered.

She almost caught herself, and then Gina, grinning spitefully, reached over and shoved her backward, down the stairs, and there was nothing but air behind her.

She hit the edge of every stair, all the way to the bottom. Her backpack broke open and spilled books as she tumbled, and at the top of the stairs Monica and the Monickettes laughed and hooted and high-fived, but she saw it only in disconnected little jerks of motion, freeze-frames.

It seemed to take forever before she skidded to a stop at the bottom, and then her head hit the wall with a nasty, meaty sound, and everything went black.

She later remembered only one more thing, in the darkness: Monica’s voice, a low and vicious whisper. “Tonight. You’ll get what’s coming to you, you freak. I’m going to make sure.”

It seemed like seconds, but when she woke up again there was somebody kneeling next to her, and it wasn’t Monica or her nail-polish mafia; it was Erica, who had the room at the top of the stairs, four doors down from Claire’s. Erica looked pale and strained and scared, and Claire tried to smile, because that was what you did when somebody was scared. She didn’t hurt until she moved, and then her head started to throb. There was a red-hot ache near the top, and when she reached up to touch it she felt a hard raised knot. No blood, though. It hurt worse when she probed the spot, but not in an oh-my-God-skull-fracture kind of way, or at least that was what she hoped.

“Are you okay?” Erica asked, waving her hands kind of helplessly in midair as Claire wiggled her way up to a sitting position against the wall. Claire risked a quick look past her up the stairs, then down. The coast looked Monica-clear. Nobody else had come out to see what was up, either—most of them were afraid of getting in trouble, and the rest just flat didn’t care.

“Yeah,” she said, and managed a shaky laugh. “Guess I tripped.”

“You need to go to the quack shack?” Which was college code for the university clinic. “Or, God, an ambulance or whatever?”

“No. No, I’m okay.” Wishful thinking, but although basically everything in her body hurt like hell, nothing felt like it had broken into pieces. Claire got to her feet, winced at a sore ankle, and picked up her backpack. Notebooks tumbled out. Erica grabbed a couple and jammed them back in, then ran lightly up a few steps to gather the scattered textbooks. “Damn, Claire, do you really need all this crap? How many classes do you have in a day?”

“Six.”

“You’re nuts.” Erica, good deed done, reverted to the neutrality that all the noncool girls in the dorm had shown her so far. “Better get to the quack shack, seriously. You look like crap.”

Claire pasted on a smile and kept it there until Erica got to the top of the stairs and started complaining about the broken lock on her dorm room.

Tonight, Monica had leaned over and whispered. You’ll get what’s coming to you, you freak. She hadn’t called anybody, or tried to find out if Claire had a broken neck. She didn’t care if Claire died.

No, that was wrong. The problem was, she did care.

Claire tasted blood. Her lip was split, and it was bleeding. She wiped at the mess with the back of her hand, then the hem of her T-shirt before realizing that it was literally the only thing she had to wear. I need to go down to the basement and get my clothes out of the trash. The idea of going down there—going anywhere alone in this dorm—suddenly terrified her. Monica was waiting. And the other girls wouldn’t do anything. Even Erica, who was probably the nicest one in the whole place, was scared to come right out on her side. Hell, Erica got hassled, too, but she was probably just as glad that Claire was there to get the worst of it. This wasn’t just as bad as high school, where she’d been treated with contempt and casual cruelty—this was worse, a lot worse. And she didn’t even have any friends here. Erica was about the best she’d been able to come up with, and Erica was more concerned about her broken door than Claire’s broken head.

She was alone. And if she hadn’t been before, she was scared now. Really, really scared. What she’d seen in the Monica Mafia’s eyes today wasn’t just the usual lazy menace of cool girls versus the geeks; this was worse. She’d gotten casual shoves or pinches before, trips, mean laughter, but this was more like lions coming in for the kill.

They’re going to kill me.

She started shakily down the flights of stairs, every step a wincing pain through her body, and remembered that she’d slapped Monica hard enough to leave a mark.

Yeah. They’re going to kill me.

If Monica ended up with a bruise on that perfect face, there wasn’t any question about it.

2

Erica was right about the quack shack being the logical first stop; Claire got her ankle wrapped, an ice pack, and some frowns over the forming bruises. Nothing broken, but she was going to be black-and-blue for days. The doctor asked some pro forma questions about boyfriends and stuff, but since she could truthfully say that no, her boyfriend hadn’t beaten her up, he just shrugged and told her to watch her step.

He wrote her an excuse note, too, and gave her some painkillers and told her to go home.

No way was she going back to the dorm. Truth was, she didn’t have much in the room—some books, a few photos of home, some posters…. She hadn’t even had a chance to call it home, and for whatever reason, she’d never really felt safe there. It had always felt like…a warehouse. A warehouse for kids who were, one way or another, going to leave.

She limped over to the Quad, which was a big empty concrete space with some rickety old benches and picnic tables, cornered on all sides by squat, unappealing buildings that mostly just looked like boxes with windows. Architecture-student projects, probably. She heard a rumor that one of them had fallen down a few years back, but then, she’d also heard rumors about a janitor getting beheaded in the chem lab and haunting the building, and zombies roaming the grounds after dark, so she wasn’t putting too much stock in it.

It was midafternoon already, and not a lot of students were hanging around the Quad, with its lack of shade—great design, considering that the weather was still hovering up in the high nineties in September. Claire picked up a campus paper from the stand, carefully took a seat on the blazing-hot bench, and opened it to the “Housing” section. Dorm rooms were out of the question; Howard Hall and Lansdale Hall were the only two that took in girls under twenty. She wasn’t old enough to qualify for the coed dorms. Stupid rules were probably written when girls wore hoopskirts, she thought, and skipped the dorm listings until she got to OFF CAMPUS. Not that she was really allowed to be living off campus; Mom and Dad would have a total freak-out over it, no question. But…if it was between Monica and parental freakage, she’d take the latter. After all, the important thing was to get herself someplace where she felt safe, where she could study.

Right?

She dug in her backpack, found her cell phone, and checked for coverage. It was kind of lame in Morganville, truthfully, out in the middle of the prairie, in the middle of Texas, which was about as middle of nowhere as it was possible to get unless you wanted to go to Mongolia or something. Two bars. Not great, but it’d do.

Claire started dialing numbers. The first person told her that they’d already found somebody, and hung up before she could even say, “Thanks.” The second one sounded like a weird old guy. The third one was a weird old lady. The fourth one…well, the fourth one was just plain weird.

The fifth listing down read,

THREE ROOMMATES SEEKING FOURTH, huge old house, privacy assured, reasonable rent and utilities.

Which…okay, she wasn’t sure that she could afford “reasonable”—she was more looking for “dirt cheap”—but at least it sounded less weird than the others. Three roommates. That meant three more people who’d maybe take up for her if Monica and company came sniffing around…or at least take up for the house. Hmmmmm.

She called, and got an answering machine with a mellow-sounding, young-sounding male voice.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Glass House. If you’re looking for Michael, he sleeps days. If you’re looking for Shane, good luck with that, ’cause we never know where the hell he is”—distant laughter from at least two people—“and if you’re looking for Eve, you’ll probably get her on her cell phone or at the shop. But hey. Leave a message. And if you’re looking to audition for the room, come on by. It’s 716 West Lot Street.” A totally different voice, a female one lightened up by giggles like bubbles in soda, said, “Yeah, just look for the mansion.” And then a third voice, male again. “Gone with the Wind meets The Munsters.” More laughter, and a beep.

Claire blinked, coughed, and finally said, “Um…hi. My name is Claire? Claire Danvers? And I was, um, calling about the, um, room thing. Sorry.” And hung up in a panic. Those three people sounded…normal. But they sounded pretty close, too. And in her experience, groups of friends like that just didn’t open up to include underage, undersized geeks like her. They hadn’t sounded mean; they just sounded—self-confident. Something she wasn’t.

She checked the rest of the listings, and felt her heart actually sink a little. Maybe an inch and a half, with a slight sideways twist. God, I’m dead. She couldn’t sleep out here on a bench like some homeless loser, and she couldn’t go back to the dorm; she had to do something.

Fine, she thought, and snapped her phone shut, then open again to dial a cab.

Seven sixteen Lot Street. Gone with the Wind meets The Munsters. Right.

Maybe they’d at least feel sorry enough for her to put her up for one lousy night.

The cabbie—she figured he was just about the only cabdriver in Morganville, which apart from the campus at TPU on the edge of town had only about ten thousand people in it—took an hour to show up. Claire hadn’t been in a car in six weeks, since her parents had driven her into town. She hadn’t been much beyond a block of the campus, either, and then just to buy used books for class.

“You meeting someone?” the cabbie asked. She was staring out the window at the storefronts: used-clothing shops, used-book shops, computer stores, stores that sold nothing but wooden Greek letters. All catering to the college.

“No,” she said. “Why?”

The cabbie shrugged. “Usually you kids are meeting up with friends. If you’re looking for a good time—”

She shivered. “I’m not. I’m—yes, I’m meeting some people. If you could hurry, please…?”

He grunted and took a right turn, and the cab went from Collegetown to Creepytown in one block flat. She couldn’t define how it happened exactly—the buildings were pretty much the same, but they looked dim and old, and the few people moving on the streets had their heads down and were walking fast. Even when people were walking in twos or threes, they weren’t chatting. When the cab passed, people looked up, then down again, as if they’d been looking for another kind of car.

A little girl was walking with her hand in her mother’s, and as the cab stopped for a light, the girl waved, just a little. Claire waved back.

The girl’s mother looked up, alarmed, and hustled her kid away into the black mouth of a store that sold used electronics. Wow, Claire thought. Do I look that scary? Maybe she did. Or maybe Morganville was just ultracareful of its kids.

Funny, now that she thought about it, there was something missing in this town. Signs. She’d seen them all her life stapled to telephone poles…advertisements for lost dogs, missing kids or adults.

Nothing here. Nothing.

“Lot Street,” the cabbie announced, and squealed to a stop. “Ten fifty.”

For a five-minute ride? Claire thought, amazed, but she paid up. She thought about shooting him the finger as he drove away, but he looked kind of dangerous, and besides, she really wasn’t the kind of girl who did that sort of thing. Usually. It was a bad day, though.

She hoisted her backpack again, hit a bruise on her shoulder, and nearly dropped the weight on her foot. Tears stung at her eyes. All of a sudden she felt tired and shaky again, scared…. At least on campus she’d kind of been on relatively familiar ground, but out here in town it was like being a stranger, all over again.

Morganville was brown. Burned brown by the sun, beaten down by wind and weather. Hot summer was starting to give way to hot autumn, and the leaves on the trees—what trees there were—looked gray-edged and dry, and they rattled like paper in the wind. West Lot Street was near what passed for the downtown district in town, probably an old residential neighborhood. Nothing special about the homes that she could see…ranch houses, most of them with peeling, faded paint.

She counted house numbers, and realized she was standing in front of 716. She turned and looked behind her, and gasped, because whoever the guy had been on the phone, he’d been dead-on right in his description. Seven sixteen looked like a movie set, something straight out of the Civil War. Big graying columns. A wide front porch. Two stories of windows.

The place was huge. Well, not huge—but bigger than Claire had imagined. Like, big enough to be a frat house, and probably perfectly suited to it. She could just imagine Greek letters over the door.

It looked deserted, but to be fair every house on the block looked deserted. Late afternoon, nobody home from work yet. A few cars glittered in the white-hot sunshine, finish softened by a layer of dirt. No cars in front of 716, though.

This was such a bad idea, she thought, and there were those tears again, bubbling up along with panic. What was she going to do? Walk up to the door and beg to be a roommate? How lame-ass was that? They’d think she was pathetic at best, a head case at worst. No, it had been a dumb idea to even blow the money on cab fare.

It was hot, and she was tired and she hurt and she had homework due, and no place to sleep, and all of a sudden, it was just too much.

Claire dropped her backpack, buried her bruised face in both hands, and just started sobbing like a baby. Crybaby freak, she imagined Monica saying, but that just made her sob harder, and all of a sudden the idea of going home, going home to Mom and Dad and the room she knew they’d kept open for her, seemed better, better than anything out here in the scary, crazy world….

“Hey,” a girl’s voice said, and someone touched her on the elbow. “Hey, are you okay?”

Claire yelped and jumped, landed hard on her strained ankle, and nearly toppled over. The girl who’d scared her reached out and grabbed her arm to steady her, looking genuinely scared herself. “I’m sorry! God, I’m such a klutz. Look, are you okay?”

The girl wasn’t Monica, or Jen, or Gina, or anybody else she’d seen around the campus at TPU; this girl was way Goth. Not in a bad way—she didn’t have the sulky I’m-so-not-cool-I’m-cool attitude of most of the Goths Claire had known in school—but the dyed-black, shag-cut hair, the pale makeup, the heavy eyeliner and mascara, the red-and-black-striped tights and clunky black shoes and black pleated miniskirt…very definitely a fan of the dark side.

“My name’s Eve,” the girl said, and smiled. It was a sweet, funny kind of smile, something that invited Claire to share in a private joke. “Yeah, my parents really named me that, go figure. It’s like they knew how I’d turn out.” Her smile faded, and she took a good look at Claire’s face. “Wow. Jeez, nice black eye. Who hit you?”

“Nobody.” Claire said it instantly, without even thinking why, although she knew in her bones that Goth Eve was in no way bestest friends with preppy Monica. “I had an accident.”

“Yeah,” Eve agreed softly. “I used to have those kinds of accidents, falling into fists and stuff. Like I said, I’m a klutz. You okay? You need a doctor or something? I can drive you if you want.”

She gestured to the street next to them, and Claire realized that while she’d been sobbing her eyes out, an ancient beater of a black Cadillac—complete with tail fins—had been docked at the curb. There was a cheery-looking skull dangling from the rearview mirror, and Claire had no doubt that the back bumper would be plastered with stickers for emo bands nobody had ever heard of.

She liked Eve already. “No,” she said, and swiped at her eyes angrily with the back of her hand. “I, uh—look, I’m sorry. It’s been a really awful day. I was coming to ask about the room, but—”

“Right, the room!” Eve snapped her fingers, as if she’d forgotten all about it, and jumped up and down two or three times in excitement. “Great! I’m just home for break—I work over at Common Grounds, you know, the coffee shop?—and Michael won’t be up for a while yet, but you can come in and see the house if you want. I don’t know if Shane’s around, but—”

“I don’t know if I should—”

“You should. You totally should.” Eve rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe the losers we see trying to get in the door. I mean, seriously. Freaks. You’re the first normal one I’ve seen so far. Michael would kick my ass if I let you get away without at least trying a sales pitch.”

Claire blinked. Somehow, she’d been thinking that she’d be the one begging for them to consider her…and normal? Eve thought she was normal?

“Sure,” she heard herself say. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Eve grabbed her backpack and slung it over her own shoulder, on top of her black silver-studded purse in the shape of a coffin. “Follow me.” And she bounced away, up the walk to the gracious Southern Gothic front porch to unlock the door.

Up close, the house looked old, but not really rundown as such; weathered, Claire decided. Could have used some paint here and there, and the cast-iron chairs needed a coat, too. The front door was actually double-sized, with a big stained-glass panel at the top.

“Yo!” Eve yelled, and dumped Claire’s backpack on a table in the hallway, her purse next to it, her keys in an antique-looking ashtray with a cast-iron monkey on the handle. “Roomies! We’ve got a live one!”

It occurred to Claire, as the door boomed shut behind her, that there were a couple of ways to interpret that, and one of them—the Texas Chainsaw Massacre way—wasn’t good. She stopped moving, frozen, and just looked around.

Nothing overtly creepy about the inside of the house, at least. Lots of wood, clean and simple. Chips of paint knocked off of corners, like it had seen a lot of life. It smelled like lemon polish and—chili?

“Yo!” Eve yelled again, and clumped on down the hall. It opened up to a bigger room; from what Claire could see, there were big leather couches and bookshelves, like a real home. Maybe this was what off-campus housing looked like. If so, it was a big step up from dorm life. “Shane, I smell the chili. I know you’re here! Get your headphones out of your ears!”

She couldn’t quite imagine Texas Chainsaw Massacre taking place in a room like that, either. That was a plus. Or, for that matter, serial-killing roommates doing something as homey as making chili. Good chili, from the way it smelled. With…garlic?

She took a couple of hesitant steps down the hallway. Eve’s footsteps were clunking off into another room, maybe the kitchen. The house seemed very quiet. Nothing jumped out to scare her, so Claire proceeded, one careful foot after another, all the way into the big central room.

And a guy lying sprawled on the couch—the way only guys could sprawl—yawned and sat up rubbing his head. When Claire opened her mouth—whether to say hello or to yell for help, she didn’t know—he surprised her into silence by grinning at her and putting his finger over his mouth to shush her. “Hey,” he whispered. “I’m Shane. What’s up?” He blinked a couple of times, and without any change in his expression, said, “Dude, that is a badass shiner. Hurts, huh?”

She nodded slightly. Shane swung his legs off the couch and sat there, watching her, elbows on his knees and hands dangling loosely. He had brown hair, cut in uneven layers that didn’t quite manage to look punk. He was an older boy, older than her, anyway. Eighteen? A big guy, and tall to match it. Big enough to make her feel more miniature than usual. She thought his eyes looked brown, but she didn’t dare meet them for more than a flicker at a time.

“So I guess you’re gonna say that the other chick looks worse,” Shane said.

She shook her head, then winced when motion made it hurt even more. “No, I—um—how did you know it was—?”

“A chick? Easy. Size you are, a guy would have put you in the hospital with a punch hard enough to leave a mark like that. So what’s up with that? You don’t look like you go looking for trouble.”

She felt like she ought to take offense about that, but honestly, this whole thing was starting to feel like some strange dream anyway. Maybe she’d never woken up at all. Maybe she was lying in a coma in a hospital bed, and Shane was just her lame-ass equivalent of the Cheshire cat. “I’m Claire,” she said, and waved awkwardly. “Hi.”

He nodded toward a leather wing chair. She slid into it, feet dangling, and felt a weird sense of relief wash over her. It felt like home, although of course it wasn’t, and she was starting to think that it really couldn’t be. She didn’t fit here. She couldn’t actually imagine who would.

“You want something?” Shane asked suddenly. “Coke, maybe? Chili? Bus ticket back home?”

“Coke,” she said, and, surprisingly, “and chili.”

“Good choice. I made it myself.” He slid off the couch, weirdly boneless for his size, and padded barefoot into the kitchen where Eve had gone. Claire listened to a blur of voices as the two of them talked, and relaxed, one muscle at a time, into the soft embrace of the chair. She hadn’t noticed until now, but the house was kept cool, and the lazy circle of the ceiling fan overhead swept chilly air over her hot, aching face. It felt nice.

She opened her eyes at the sound of Eve’s shoes clomping back into the room. Eve was carrying a tray with a red and white can, a bowl, a spoon, and an ice pack. She set the tray on a coffee table and nudged the table toward Claire with her knee. “Ice pack first,” she said. “You can never tell what Shane puts in the chili. Be afraid.”

Shane padded back to the couch and flopped, sucking on his own can of soda. Eve shot him an exasperated look. “Yeah, man, thanks for bringing me one, too.” The raccoon eye makeup exaggerated her eye roll. “Dork.”

“Didn’t know if you wanted zombie dirt sprinkled on it or anything. If you’re eating this week.”

“Dork! Go on and eat, Claire—I’ll go get my own.”

Claire picked up the spoon and tried a tentative bite of the chili, which was thick and meaty and spicy, heavy on the garlic. Delicious, in fact. She’d gotten used to cafeteria food, and this was just…wow. Not. Shane watched her, eyebrows up, as she started to shovel it in. “’Sgood,” she mumbled. He gave her a lazy salute. By the time she was halfway through the bowl, Eve was back with her own tray, which she plunked down on the other half of the coffee table. Eve sat on the floor, crossed her legs, and dug in.

“Not bad,” she finally said. “At least you left out the oh-my-God sauce this time.”

“Made myself a batch with it,” Shane said. “It’s got the biohazard sticker on it in the fridge, so don’t bitch if you get flamed. Where’d you pick up the stray?”

“Outside. She came to see the room.”

“You beat her up first, just to make sure she’s tough enough?”

“Bite me, chili boy.”

“Don’t mind Eve,” he told Claire. “She hates working days. She’s afraid she’ll tan.”

“Yeah, and Shane just hates working. So what’s your name?”

Claire opened her mouth, but Shane beat her to it, clearly happy to one-up his roomie. “Claire. What, you didn’t even ask? A chick beat her up, too. Probably some skank in the dorms. You know how that place is.”

They exchanged a look. A long one. Eve turned back to Claire. “Is that true? You got beat up in the dorm?” She nodded, hastily shoveling more food in her mouth to keep from having to say much. “Well, that totally blows. No wonder you’re looking for the room.” Another nod. “You didn’t bring much with you.”

“I don’t have much,” she said. “Just the books, and maybe a couple of things back at my room. But—I don’t want to go back there to get stuff. Not tonight.”

“Why not?” Shane had grabbed a ratty-looking old baseball from the floor and tossed it up toward the tall ceiling, narrowly missing the spinning blades of the fan. He caught it without effort. “Somebody still looking to pound you?”

“Yeah,” Claire said, and looked down into her fast-diminishing chili. “Guess so. It’s not just her, it’s—she’s got friends. And…I don’t. That place just—well, it’s creepy.”

“Been there,” Eve said. “Oh, wait, still there.”

Shane mimed throwing the baseball at her. She mimed ducking.

“What time is Michael getting up?”

Shane gave her another mock throw. “Hell, Eve, I don’t know. I love the guy, but I don’t love the guy. Go bang on his door and ask. Me, I’m gonna go get ready.”

“Ready for what?” Eve asked. “You’re not seriously going out again, are you?”

“Seriously, yeah. Bowling. Her name’s Laura. If you want more details, you’re gonna have to download the video like everybody else.” Shane rolled off the couch, stood up, and padded off toward the wide stairs leading up to the second floor. “See you later, Claire.”

Eve made a frustrated sound. “Wait a minute! So what do you say? You think she’d do okay here, or what?”

Shane waved a hand. “Whatever, man. Far as I’m concerned, she’s okay.” He gave Claire one quick look and a crooked and oddly sweet smile, and bounded up the stairs. He moved like an athlete, but without the swagger she was used to. Kind of hot, actually.

“Guys,” Eve sighed. “Damn, it’d be good to have another girl in here. They’re all like, Yeah, whatever, and then when it comes to picking up the place or washing dishes, they turn into ghosts. Not that you have to, like, be a maid or anything, I mean…you just got to yell at ’em until they do their part or they walk all over you.”

Claire smiled, or tried to, but her split lip throbbed, and she felt the scab break open again. Blood dribbled down her chin, and she grabbed the napkin Eve had put on the tray and applied pressure to her lip. Eve watched in silence, frowning, and then got up from the floor, picked up the ice pack, and settled it gently against the bump on Claire’s head. “How’s that?” she asked.

“Better.” It was. The ice began to numb the ache almost immediately, and the food was setting up a nice warm fire in her stomach. “Um, I guess I should ask…about the room….”

“Well, you have to meet Michael, and he has to say yes, but Michael’s a sweetie, really. Oh, and he owns this place. His family does, anyway. I think they moved away and left him the house a couple of years ago. He’s about six months older than I am. We’re all about eighteen. Michael’s sort of the oldest.”

“He sleeps days?”

“Yeah. I mean, I like to sleep days, but he’s got a thing about it. I called him a vampire once, ’cause he really doesn’t like being up in the daytime. Like, ever. He didn’t think it was real funny.”

“You’re sure he’s not a vampire?” Claire said. “I’ve seen movies. They’re sneaky.” She was kidding. Eve didn’t smile.

“Oh, pretty sure. For one thing, he eats Shane’s chili, which, God knows, has enough garlic to explode a dozen high-quality Dracs. And I made him touch a cross once.” Eve took a big swallow of her Coke.

“You—what? Made him?”

“Well, sure, yeah. I mean, a girl can’t be too careful, especially around here.” Claire must have looked blank, because Eve did the eye-roll thing again. It was her favorite expression, Claire was sure. “In Morganville? You know?”

“What about it?”

“You mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” Eve set her can down and got up to her knees, leaning elbows on the coffee table. She looked earnest under the thick makeup. Her eyes were dark brown, edged with gold. “Morganville’s full of vampires.”

Claire laughed.

Eve didn’t. She just kept staring.

“Um…you’re kidding?”

“How many kids graduate TPU every year?”

“I don’t know…. It’s a crappy college, most everybody transfers out….”

“Everybody leaves. Or at least, they stop showing up, right? I can’t believe you don’t know this. Didn’t anybody tell you the score before you moved in? Look, the vamps run the town. They’re in charge. And either you’re in, or you’re out. If you work for them, if you pretend like they’re not here and they don’t exist, and you look the other way when things happen, then you and your family get a free pass. You get Protection. Otherwise…” Eve pulled a finger across her throat and bugged out her eyes.

Right, Claire thought, and put down her spoon. No wonder nobody rented a room with these people. They’re nuts. It was too bad. Except for the crazy part, she really liked them.

“You think I’m wacko,” Eve said, and sighed. “Yeah, I get that. I’d think I was, too, except I grew up in a Protected house. My dad works for the water company. My mom is a teacher. But we all wear these.” She extended her wrist. On it was a black leather bracelet, with a symbol on it in red, nothing Claire recognized. It looked kind of like a Chinese character. “See how mine’s red? Expired. It’s like health insurance. Kids are only covered until they’re eighteen. Mine was up six months ago.” She looked at it mournfully, then shrugged and unsnapped it to drop it on her tray. “Might as well stop wearing it, I guess. It sure wouldn’t fool anybody.”

Claire just looked at her, helpless, wondering if she was the victim of a practical joke, and if any second Eve was going to laugh and call her an idiot for buying it, and Shane would go from kind of lazy-sweet to cruel and shove her out the door, mocking all the way. Because this wasn’t the way the world worked. You didn’t like people, and then have them turn up all crazy, right? Couldn’t you tell?

The alternative—that Eve wasn’t crazy at all—just wasn’t anything Claire wanted to think about. She remembered the people on the street, walking fast, heads down. The way the mother had yanked her little girl off the street at a friendly wave.

“Fine. Go ahead, think I’m nuts,” Eve said, and sat back on her heels. “I mean, why wouldn’t I be? And I won’t try to convince you or anything. Just—don’t go out after dark unless you’re with somebody. Somebody Protected, if you can find them. Look for the bracelet.” She nudged hers with one finger. “The symbol’s white when it’s active.”

“But I—” Claire coughed, trying to find something to say. If you can’t say anything nice… “Okay. Thanks. Um, is Shane—?”

“Shane? Protected?” Eve snorted. “As if! Even if he was, which I doubt, he’d never admit it, and he doesn’t wear the bracelet or anything. Michael—Michael isn’t, either, but there’s sort of a standard Protection on houses. We’re sort of outcasts here. There’s safety in numbers, too.”

It was a very weird conversation to be having over chili and Coke, with an ice pack perched on the top of her head. Claire, without even knowing she was going to do it, yawned. Eve laughed.

“Call it a bedtime story,” she said. “Listen, let me show you the room. Worst case, you lie down for a while, let the ice pack work, then bug out. Or hey, you wake up and decide you want to talk to Michael before you leave. Your choice.”

Another cold chill swept over her, and she shivered. Probably had to do with the bang on the head, she figured, and how tired she was. She dug in her pocket, found the package of pills the doc had prescribed for her, and swallowed one with the last gulp of Coke. Then she helped Eve carry the trays into the kitchen, which was huge, with stone sinks and ancient polished counters and two modern conveniences—the stove and the refrigerator—stuck awkwardly in the corners. The chili had come from a Crock-Pot, which was still simmering away.

When the dishes had been washed, trays stacked, trash discarded, Eve retrieved Claire’s backpack from the floor and led her through the living room, up the stairs. On the third riser, Eve turned, alarmed, and said, “Hey, can you make it up the stairs? Because, you know—”

“I’m okay,” Claire lied. Her ankle hurt like hell, but she wanted to see the room. And if they were likely to throw her out later, she at least wanted to sleep one more time in a bed, however lumpy and old. There were thirteen steps to the top. She made every one of them, even though she left sweaty fingerprints on a banister Shane hadn’t even bothered to touch on his way up earlier.

Eve’s steps were muffled here by a rich old-looking rug, all swirls and colors, that ran down the center of the polished wood floor. There were six doors up here on the landing. As they passed them, Eve pointed and named. “Shane’s.” The first door. “Michael’s.” The second door. “He’s got that one, too—it’s a double-sized room.” Third door. “Main bathroom.” Fourth. “The second bathroom’s downstairs—that’s kind of the emergency backup bathroom when Shane’s in there moussing his hair for like an hour or something….”

“Bite me!” Shane yelled from behind the closed door. Eve pounded a fist on the door and led Claire to the last two on the row. “This one’s mine. Yours is on the end.”

When she swung it open, Claire—prepared for disappointment—actually gasped. For one thing, it was huge. Three times the size of her dorm room. For another, it was on a corner, with three—three!—windows, all currently shaded by blinds and curtains. The bed wasn’t some dorm-sized miniature; it was a full-sized mattress and box spring with massive wooden columns at the corners, dark and solid. There was a dresser along one wall big enough to hold, well, four or five times the clothes that Claire had ever owned. Plus a closet. Plus…

“Is that a TV?” she asked in a faint voice.

“Yeah. Satellite cable. You’d pitch in, though, unless you want to take it out of the room. Oh, and there’s Internet, too. Broadband, over there. I should probably warn you, they monitor Internet traffic around here, though. You have to be careful what you say in messages and stuff.” Eve put the backpack on top of the dresser. “You don’t have to decide right now. You probably ought to rest first. Here, here’s your ice pack.” She followed Claire to the bed and helped her pull back the covers, and once Claire had pulled off her shoes and settled, she tucked her in, like a mother, and put the ice pack on her head. “When you get up, Michael’ll probably be awake. I have to get back to work, but it’ll be okay. Really.”

Claire smiled at her, a little fuzzily; the painkillers were starting to take effect. She got another chill. “Thank you, Eve,” she said. “This is—wow.”

“Yeah, well, you look like you could use a little wow today.” Eve shrugged, and gave her a stunning smile back. “Sleep well. And don’t worry, the vampires won’t come in here. This house has Protection, even if we don’t.”

Claire turned that over in her mind for a few seconds as Eve left the room and shut the door, and then her mind wandered off in happy clouds of noticing the softness of the pillow and how good the bed felt, and how crisp the sheets were….

She dreamed about the strangest thing: a silent room, with someone pale and quiet sitting on a velvet sofa, turning pages in a book and weeping. It didn’t scare her, exactly, but she felt cold, on and off, and the house…the house seemed like it was full of whispers.

Eventually, she fell into a deeper, darker place, and didn’t dream at all.

Not even about Monica.

Not even about vampires.

3

She woke up in the dark with a panicked flinch that sent the ice pack—water sloshing in a bag now—thumping off her pillow and onto the floor. The house was quiet, except for the creaky, creepy noises houses made at night. Outside, wind rattled the dry leaves on the trees, and she heard music coming from the other side of the bedroom door.

Claire slid out of bed, fumbled for a lamp, and found one next to the bed—Tiffany-style glass, really nice—and the colorful glow chased away any nightmare fears she’d been trying to have. The music was slow and warm and contemplative, kind of guitar alternative. She got her shoes on, took a look in the dresser mirror, and got a nasty shock. Her face still hurt, and it was obvious why—her right eye was swollen, the skin around it purple. Her split lip looked shiny and unpleasantly thick, too. Her face—always pale—looked even paler than normal. Her short pixie-cut black hair had a serious case of bed-head, but she fluffed it out into something like order. She’d never really been much for makeup, even when she’d been stealing Mom’s to try on, but today maybe a little foundation and concealer couldn’t hurt…. She looked ragged, and beaten, and homeless.

Well. It was nothing but the truth, after all.

Claire took a deep breath and opened her bedroom door. Lights were on in the hall, warm and glowing gold; the music was coming from downstairs, in the living room. She checked a clock hanging on the wall at the far end; it was after midnight—she’d slept for more than twelve hours.

And missed all her classes. Not that she’d have wanted to show up looking like this, even if she hadn’t been so paranoid about Monica following her around…but she’d need to hit the books later. At least the books didn’t hit back.

Her bruises felt better, and in fact her head hurt only a little. Her ankle was still the worst of it, sending sharp glassy jabs of pain up her leg with every step down the stairs.

She was halfway down when she saw the boy sitting on the couch, where Shane had been sprawled before. He had a guitar in his hands.

Oh. The music. She’d thought it was a recording, but no, this was real, this was live, and he was playing it. She’d never heard live music before—not really playing, not like this. He was…wow. He was wonderful.

She watched him, frozen, because he clearly didn’t even know she existed yet; it was just him and the guitar and the music, and if she had to put a name to what she could see on his face, it would be something poetic, like longing. He was blond, his hair cut kind of like Shane’s, in a careless mop. Not as big as Shane, and not as muscled, though he was maybe as tall. He was wearing a T-shirt, too, black, with a beer logo. Blue jeans. No shoes.

He stopped playing, head down, and reached for the open beer on the table in front of him. He toasted empty air. “Happy birthday to you, man.” He tossed back three swallows, sighed, and put the bottle down. “And here’s to house arrest. What the hell. Own it or get owned.”

Claire coughed. He turned, startled, and saw her standing there on the stairs; his frown cleared after a second or two. “Oh. You’re the one Shane said wanted to talk about the room. Hey. Come on down.”

She did, trying not to limp, and when she got into the full light she saw his quick, intelligent blue eyes catalog the bruises.

He didn’t say a word about them. “I’m Michael,” he said. “And you’re not eighteen, so this is going to be a real short conversation.”

She sat, fast, heart pounding. “I’m in college,” she said. “I’m a freshman. My name is—”

“Don’t bullshit me, and I don’t care what your name is. You’re not eighteen. It’s a good bet you’re not even seventeen. We don’t take anybody in this house who isn’t legal.” He had a deep voice, warm but—at least right now—hard. “Not that you’d be signing on to Orgy Central, but sorry, me and Shane have to worry about things like that. All it takes is you living here and somebody even hinting there’s something going on—”

“Wait,” she blurted. “I wouldn’t do that. Or say that. I’m not looking to get you guys in trouble. I just need—”

“No,” he said. He put the guitar aside, in its case, and latched it shut. “I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. House rules.”

She’d known it was coming, of course, but she’d let herself think—Eve had been nice, and Shane hadn’t been horrible, and the room was so nice—but the look in Michael’s eyes was as final as it got. Complete and utter rejection.

She felt her lips trembling, and hated herself for it. Why couldn’t she be a badass, stone-cold bitch? Why couldn’t she stand up for herself when she needed to, without breaking down into tears like a baby? Monica wouldn’t be crying. Monica would be snapping some comeback at him, telling him that her stuff was already in the room. Monica would slap money down on the table and dare him to turn it down.

Claire reached in her back pocket and pulled out her wallet. “How much?” she asked, and started counting out bills. She had twenties, so it looked like a lot. “Three hundred enough? I can get more if I have to.”

Michael sat back, surprised, a little frown bracketing his forehead. He reached for his beer and took another sip while he thought about it. “How?” he asked.

“What?”

“How would you get more?”

“Get a job. Sell stuff.” Not that she had much to sell, but in an emergency there was always the panicked call to Mom. “I want to stay here, Michael. I really do.” She was surprised at the conviction in her voice. “Yeah, I’m under eighteen, but I swear, you won’t have any trouble from me. I’ll stay out of your way. I go to school, and I study. That’s all I do. I’m not a partyer, I’m not a slacker. I’m useful. I’ll—I’ll help clean and cook.”

He thought about it, staring at her; he was the kind of person you could actually see thinking. It was a little scary, although he probably didn’t mean it to be. There was just something so…adult about him. So sure of himself.

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, kid. But it’s just too much risk.”

“Eve’s only a little bit older than I am!”

“Eve’s eighteen. You’re what, sixteen?”

“Almost seventeen!” If you were a little fluid on the definition of almost. “I really am in college. I’m a freshman—look, here’s my student ID….”

He ignored it. “Come back in a year. We’ll talk about it,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry. What about the dorm?”

“They’ll kill me if I stay there,” she said, and looked down at her clasped hands. “They tried to kill me today.”

“What?”

“The other girls. They punched me and shoved me down the stairs.”

Silence. A really long one. She heard the creak of leather, and then Michael was on one knee next to the chair. Before she could stop him, he was probing the bump on her head, tilting it back so he could get a good, impersonal look at the bruises and cuts. “What else?” he asked.

“What?”

“Besides what I can see? You’re not going to drop dead on me, are you?”

Wow, sensitive. “I’m okay. I saw the doctor and everything. It’s just—bruises. And a strained ankle. But they pushed me down the stairs, and they meant it, and she told me—” Suddenly, Eve’s words about vampires came back to her and made her trip over her tongue. “The girl in charge, she told me that tonight, I’d get what was coming to me. I can’t go back to the dorm, Michael. If you send me out that door, they’ll kill me, because I don’t have any friends and I don’t have anyplace to go!”

He stayed there for a few more seconds, looking her right in the eyes, and then retreated to the couch. He unlatched the guitar case again and cradled the instrument; she thought that was his comfort zone, right there, with the guitar in his arms. “These girls. Do they go out in daylight?”

She blinked. “You mean, outside? Sure. They go to classes. Well, sometimes.”

“Do they wear bracelets?”

She blinked. “You mean, like—” Eve had left hers behind on the table, so she picked up the leather band with its red symbol. “Like this? I never noticed. They wear a lot of stuff.” She thought hard, and maybe she did remember something after all. The bracelets didn’t look like this, though. They were gold, and Monica and the Monickettes all had them on their right wrists. She’d never paid much attention. “Maybe.”

“Bracelets with white symbols?” Michael made the question casual; in fact, he bent his head and concentrated on tuning his guitar, not that it needed it. Every note sounded perfect as it whispered out of the strings. “Do you remember?”

“No.” She felt a pure burst of something that wasn’t quite panic, wasn’t quite excitement. “Does that mean they have Protection?”

He hesitated for about a second, just long enough for her to know he was surprised. “You mean condoms?” he asked. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“You know what I mean.” Her cheeks were burning. She hoped it wasn’t as obvious as it felt.

“Don’t think I do.”

“Eve said—”

He looked up sharply, and those blue eyes were suddenly angry. “Eve needs to keep her mouth shut. She’s in enough danger as it is, trolling around out there in Goth gear. They already think she’s mocking them. If they hear she’s talking…”

“They, who?” Claire asked. It was his turn to look away.

“People,” he said flatly. “Look, I don’t want your blood on my hands. You can stay for a couple of days. But only until you find a place, right? And make it fast—I’m not running a halfway house for battered girls. I’ve got enough to worry about trying to keep Eve and Shane out of trouble.”

For a guy who made such beautiful music, he was bitter, and a little scary. Claire put the money hesitantly on the table in front of him. He stared at it, jaw tense.

“The rent’s a hundred a month,” he said. “You buy groceries once a month, too. First month in advance. But you’re not staying past that, so keep the rest.”

She swallowed and picked up two hundred of the three hundred she’d counted out. “Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Just don’t get us into trouble. I mean it.”

She got up, went into the kitchen, and spooned chili into two bowls, added the bowls to trays along with spoons and Cokes, and brought it all back to set it on the coffee table. Michael stared at it, then her. She sat down on the floor—painfully—and began eating. After a pause, Michael took his bowl and tasted it.

“Shane made it,” Claire said. “It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah. Chili and spaghetti, that’s pretty much all Shane can cook. You know how to make anything?”

“Sure.”

“Like?”

“Lasagna,” she said. “And, um, sort of a hamburger hash thing, with noodles. And tacos.”

Michael looked thoughtful. “Could you make tacos tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she said. “I have classes from eleven to five, but I’ll stop and pick up the stuff.”

He nodded, eating steadily, glancing up at her once in a while. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.

“About what?”

“Being an asshole. Look, it’s just that I can’t—I have to be careful. Really careful.”

“You weren’t being an asshole,” she said. “You’re trying to protect yourself and your friends. That’s okay. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Michael smiled, and it transformed his face, made it suddenly angelic and wonderful. Dude, she thought in amazement. He’s totally gorgeous. No wonder he’d been worried about her being underage. A smile like that, he’d be peeling girls off of him right and left.

“If you’re in this house, you’re my friend,” he said. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Claire. Claire Danvers.”

“Welcome to the Glass House, Claire Danvers.”

“But only temporarily.”

“Yeah, temporarily.”

They shared a smile, uneasily, and Michael cleared up the plates this time, and Claire went back up to her room, to spread out her books on the built-in desk and start the day’s studying.

She listened to him playing downstairs, the soft and heartfelt accompaniment to the night, as she fell into the world she loved.

4

Morning dawned bright and early, and Claire woke up to the smell of frying bacon. She stumbled to the bathroom down the hall, yawning, barely aware that she was scantily dressed in her extra-long T-shirt until she remembered, Oh my God, boys live here, too. Luckily, nobody saw, and the bathroom was free. Somebody had already been in it this morning; the mirrors were still frosted with steam, and the big black-and-white room glistened with drops of water. It smelled clean, though. And kind of fruity.

The fruity smell was the shampoo, she found, as she lathered and rinsed. When she wiped the mirror down and stared at herself, she saw the patterns of bruises up and down both sides of her pale skin. I could have died. She’d been lucky.

She tossed the T-shirt back on, then dashed back to her room to dig out the panties she’d rescued yesterday from the washer. They were still damp, but she put them on anyway, then dragged on blue jeans.

On impulse, she opened the closet, and found some old stuff pushed to the back. T-shirts, mostly, from bands she’d never heard of, and a few she remembered as ancient. A couple of sweaters, too. She stripped off her bloodstained shirt and dragged on a faded black one, and, after thinking about it, left her shoes on the floor.

Downstairs, Eve and Shane were arguing in the kitchen about the right way to make scrambled eggs. Eve said they needed milk. Shane said milk was for pussies. Claire padded silently past them, over to the refrigerator, and pulled out a carton of orange juice. She splashed some into a glass, then silently held the carton up for the other two. Eve took it and poured herself a glass, then handed it to Shane.

“So,” Shane asked, “Michael didn’t pitch you out.”

“No.”

Shane nodded slowly. He was even bigger and taller than she remembered, and his skin was a golden brown color, like he’d spent a lot of time in the sun over the summer. His hair had that bronzy sheen, too. Sun-bleached where Michael was naturally blond. Okay, truthfully? They’re both hotties. She wished she hadn’t really thought that, but at least she hadn’t said it out loud.

“Something you should know about Michael,” he said. “He doesn’t like taking chances. I wasn’t sure he’d let you stay. If he did, then he got a good vibe off of you. Don’t disrespect that, because if you do—I won’t be happy, either. Got it?”

Eve was silently watching the two of them, which Claire figured was a new experience for Eve, at least the not-talking part. “He’s your friend, right?”

“He saved my life,” Shane said. “I’d die for him, but it’d be a dumbass thing to do to thank him for it. So yeah. He’s been my friend all my life, and he’s more like a brother. So don’t get him in trouble.”

“I won’t,” she said. “No milk in the eggs.”

“See?” Shane turned back to the counter and started cracking eggs into a bowl. “Told ya.”

“Traitor,” Eve sighed, and poked at the frying bacon with a fork. “Fine. So. How was Linda last night?”

“Laura.”

“Whatever. Not like I have to remember a name for more than one date, anyway.”

“She bowled a one fifty.”

“God, you’re such a disappointment. Share, already!”

Shane smiled tightly down at the eggs. “Hey, not in front of the kid. You got the note.”

“Kid?” That hurt. Claire dropped plates on the counter with a little too much force. “Note?”

Shane handed over a folded piece of paper. It was short and sweet, and signed “Michael”…and it told them that Claire was underage, and that the two of them were supposed to look out for her while she was in the house.

Cute. Claire didn’t know whether to be pissed or flattered. On reflection…pissed. “I’m not a kid!” she told Shane hotly. “I’m only, like, a year younger than Eve!”

“And girls are much more mature.” Eve nodded wisely. “So you’re about ten years older than Shane, then.”

“Seriously,” Claire insisted. “I’m not a kid!”

“Whatever you say, kid,” Shane said blandly. “Cheer up. Just means you don’t have to put up with me telling you how much sex I didn’t get.”

“I’m telling Michael,” Eve warned.

“About how much sex I didn’t get? Go ahead.”

“No bacon for you.”

“Then no eggs for you. Either of you.”

Eve glowered at him. “Prisoner exchange?”

They glared at each other, then swapped pans and started scooping.

Claire was just about to join in when the front doorbell rang, a lilting silvery sound. It wasn’t a scary sound, but Eve and Shane froze and looked at each other, and that was scary, somehow. Shane put his plate down on the granite countertop, licked bacon grease from his fingers, and said, “Get her out of sight.”

Eve nodded. She dropped her own plate onto the counter, grabbed Claire’s wrist, and hustled her to the pantry—a door half hidden in the shadow of the awkwardly placed refrigerator. It was big, dark, and dusty, shelves crowded with old cans of yams and asparagus and glass jars of ancient jellies. There was a light with a string pull above, but Eve didn’t turn it on. She reached behind a row of murky-looking cans of fruit and hit some kind of a switch. There was a grating rumble, then a click, and part of the back wall swung open.

Eve pushed it back, reached in, and grabbed a flashlight that she handed to Claire. “Inside,” she said. “I’m going to turn the light on out here, but try to keep that flashlight off if you hear voices. It could show through the cracks.” Claire nodded, a little dazed, and crouched down to crawl through the small opening into…a big empty room, stone floored, no windows. A few spiderwebs in the corners, and loads of dust, but otherwise it didn’t look too bad.

Until Eve shut the door, and then the darkness slammed down, and Claire hastily flicked on the flashlight, moved to the nearest corner, and knelt down there, breathing fast and hard.

Just one minute ago, they’d been laughing about bacon and eggs, and all of a sudden…what the hell had just happened? And why was there a secret compartment in this house? One with—so far as she could tell—no other entrances or exits?

She heard distant voices, and hastily thumbed off the flashlight. That was bad. She’d never really been afraid of the dark, but dark wasn’t really dark most of the time…. There were stars, moonlight, distant streetlights.

This was pitch-black, take-no-prisoners dark, and she had the ice-cold thought that anything could be right next to her, reaching out for her, and she’d never see it coming.

Claire bit down hard on her lip, gripped the flashlight tightly, and slid down the wall until her searching hand found the rough wood of the door she’d come in through. A little light was leaking in around it, barely a glimmer but enough to ease the pounding in her chest.

Voices. Shane’s, and someone else’s. A man’s voice, deeper than Shane’s. “…standard inventory.”

“Sir, there’s nobody living here but what’s on the roster. Just the three of us.” Shane sounded subdued and respectful, which didn’t seem like him. Not that she knew him that well, but he was kind of a smart-ass.

“Which one are you?” the voice asked.

“Shane Collins, sir.”

“Get your third in here,” the voice said.

“Well, I would, but—Michael’s not here. He’s out until tonight. You want to check back then?…”

“Never mind.” Claire, straining her ears, heard paper rustling. “You’re Eve Rosser?”

“Yes, sir.” Eve sounded respectful, but brisk.

“Moved out of your parents’ house—eight months ago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Employed?”

“At Common Grounds, you know, the coffee—”

The man, whoever he was, interrupted her. “You. Collins. Any employment?” Clearly talking to Shane.

“I’m between jobs, sir. You know how it is.”

“Keep looking. We don’t like slackers in Morganville. Everybody contributes.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll keep it in mind, sir.”

A brief pause. Maybe there had been a little bit more smart-ass in Shane’s response than there should have been. Claire deliberately slowed her breathing, trying to hear more.

“You left town for a couple of years, boy. What brings you back?”

“Homesick, sir.” Yes, it was definitely back in his voice, and even Claire knew that was a bad thing. “Missed all my old friends.”

She heard Eve clear her throat. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I’ve got work in a half hour…?”

More paper shuffling. “One other thing. Here’s a picture of a girl that disappeared from her dorm last night. You haven’t seen her?”

They both chorused a “No.”

He must not have believed them, because he didn’t sound convinced. “What’s in here?” He didn’t wait to hear a response; he just opened the outer door of the pantry. Claire flinched and held her breath. “You always leave the light on?”

“I was getting some jam when you rang, sir. I probably forgot to turn it off,” Eve said. She sounded nervous. “Sorry.”

Click. The light in the pantry went out, taking what little there was seeping through the door with it. Claire barely controlled a gasp. Don’t move. Don’t move. She just knew he—whoever he was—was standing there in the dark, looking and listening.

And then, finally, she heard him say, “You ring the station if you see that girl. She’s got herself in some trouble. We’re supposed to help her get straightened out.”

“Yes, sir,” Eve said, and the pantry door shut. The conversation moved away, became softer and softer until it faded into nothing.

Claire switched on the flashlight, covered it with her hand, and pointed it at the corner—only a little light escaped, just enough to convince her that no evil zombie was sneaking up on her in the dark. And then she waited. It seemed like a long time before there were two sharp raps on the door, and it swung open in a blaze of electric light. Eve’s stark white makeup and black eyeliner looked even scarier than before.

“It’s okay,” she said, and helped Claire out of the hidden room. “He’s gone.”

“Oh, the hell it’s okay,” Shane said behind her. He had his arms folded across his chest, and rocked back and forth, frowning. “Those assholes have her picture. They’re looking for her. What’d you do, Claire? Knife the mayor or something?”

“Nothing!” she blurted. “I—I don’t know why—maybe it’s that they’re just worried because I didn’t show up last night?”

“Worried?” Shane laughed bitterly. “Yeah, that’s it. They’re worried about you. Right. I’m going to have to talk this over with Michael. If they’re going to turn the town upside down looking for you, either you’re too hot to stay in Morganville, or we need to get you under some kind of Protection, fast.”

He said it the same way Eve had. “But—maybe the police—?”

“That was the police,” Eve said. “Told you. They run the town. These guys work for the vamps—they’re not vamps themselves, but they’re scary enough without the fangs. Look, can you call your parents? Get them to pull you out of school and take you home or something?”

Sure. That would be the easiest thing in the world, only it would mean failure, and they’d never believe a word of this stuff, ever, and if she tried to explain it, she’d end up drugged and in therapy for the rest of her life. And any chance—any chance—of making it to Yale or MIT or Caltech would be blown completely. She supposed it was kind of dumb to be thinking of it that way, but those things were real to her.

Vampires? Not so much.

“But—I haven’t done anything!” she said, and looked from Shane to Eve, and back again. “How can they be after me if I didn’t do anything?”

“Life ain’t fair,” Shane said, with all the certainty of two more years of experience at it. “You must have pissed off the wrong people, is all I know. What’s the girl’s name? The one who smacked you around?”

“M-Monica.”

They both stared at her.

“Oh, crap,” Eve said, horrified. “Monica Morrell?”

Shane’s face went…blank. Completely blank, except for his eyes, and there was something pretty scary going on behind them. “Monica,” he repeated. “How come nobody told me?”

Eve was watching him, biting her lip. “Sorry, Shane. We would have—I swear, I thought she left town. Went off to college somewhere else.”

Shane shook it off, whatever it was, and shrugged, trying to look like he didn’t care. It was obvious to Claire that he did, though. “She probably couldn’t stand not being the queen bee, and had to come begging back to Daddy to buy her some grades.”

“Shane—”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“She probably doesn’t even remember you,” Eve blurted, and then looked as if she wished she hadn’t said it. “I—that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.”

He laughed, and it sounded wrong and a little bit shaky. There was a short, odd silence, and then Eve changed the subject by resolutely picking up her plate of cooling bacon and eggs.

And then went still and round-eyed. “Oh, shit,” she said, and then covered her mouth.

“What?”

She pointed at the plates on the counter. Shane’s, hers…and Claire’s. “Three plates. He knew something was up. We told him Michael wasn’t around. No wonder he kept poking.”

Shane said nothing, but Claire could see he was—if possible—even more upset. He didn’t show it much, but he picked up his plate and walked away, out into the living room, then up the steps two at a time.

His upstairs door slammed.

Eve bit her lip, watching after him.

“So…Shane and Monica…?” Claire guessed.

Eve kept staring at the doorway. “Not like you’re thinking,” she said. “He wouldn’t touch that skank in a million years. But they were in high school together, and Shane—got on her bad side. Just like you did.”

Claire’s appetite for breakfast was suddenly gone. “What happened?”

“He stood up to her, and his house burned. He nearly died,” she said. “His—his sister wasn’t so lucky. Michael got him out of town, off on his own, before he did something crazy. He’s been gone a couple of years. Just came back right before I moved in here.” Eve forced a bright smile. “Let’s eat, yeah? I’m starving.”

They sat out in the living room, chatting about nothing, not talking about the thing that was most important: what to do.

Because, Claire sensed, neither one of them had a clue.

5

Claire watched the clock—some old-style wall clock, with hands—crawl slowly up to, and past, eleven o’clock. Professor Hamms is starting the lecture, she thought, and felt a nauseating twist in her stomach. This was the second day in a row she’d missed school. In her whole life she’d never missed two days of school back-to-back. Sure, she’d read the textbook already—twice—but lectures were important. That was how you found out the good stuff, especially in classes like physics, where they did practical demonstrations. Lectures were the fun part.

It was Thursday. That meant she had a lab class later, too. You couldn’t make up lab class, no matter how good your excuse.

She sighed, forced herself to look away from the time, and opened up her Calc II book—she’d tested out of Calc I, could have tested out of Calc II, but she’d thought maybe she might learn something new about solving linear inequalities, which had always been a problem for her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shane. He was on the stairs, staring at her. She hadn’t heard him coming, but that was probably because he was barefoot. His hair was a mess, too. Maybe he’d been asleep.

“Studying,” she said.

“Huh,” he said, like he’d never actually seen it done before. “Interesting.” He vaulted over the railing three steps from the bottom and flopped down on the leather couch next to her, flicking the TV on with the remote next to him, then changing inputs. “This going to bother you?”

“No,” she said politely. It was a lie, but she wasn’t quite ready to be, you know, blunt. It was her first day.

“Great. Want to take a break?”

“A break?”

“That’s when you stop studying”—he tilted his head to the side to look at the book—“okay, whatever the hell that is, and actually do something fun. It’s a custom where I come from.” He dumped something in the center of her open book with a plastic thump. She flinched and picked up the wireless game controller with two fingers. “Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you’ve never played a video game.”

Truthfully, she had. Once. She hadn’t liked it very much. He must have read that in her expression, because he shook his head. “This is just sad. Now you have to take a break. Okay, you’ve got a choice: horror, action, driving, or war.”

She blurted, “Those are my choices?”

He looked offended. “What, you want girl games? Not in my house. Never mind, I’ll pick for you. Here. First-person shooter.” He yanked a box from a stack next to the couch and loaded a disc into the machine. “Easy. All you have to do is pull the trigger. Trust me. Nothing like a little virtual violence to make you feel better.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Hey, prove me wrong. Unless you think you can’t.” He didn’t look at her as he said it, but she felt it sting, anyway. “Maybe you’re just not up to it.”

She shut her Calc II book, picked up the controller, and watched the colorful graphics load up on the screen. “Show me what to do.”

He smiled slowly. “Point. Shoot. Try not to get in my way.”

He was right. She’d always thought it was kind of creepy, hanging out in front of a TV and killing virtual monsters, but damn if it wasn’t…fun. Before too long, she was flinching when things lunged out of the corners of the screen, and whooping just like Shane when some monster got put down for the count.

When it ended for her, and the screen suddenly showed a snarling zombie face and splashes of red, she felt it like an ice cube down her back.

“Oops,” Shane said, and kept on firing. “Sorry. Some days you’re the zombie, some days you’re the meal. Good try, kiddo.”

She put the controller on the couch cushions, and watched him play for a while. “Shane?” she finally asked.

“Hang on—damn, that was close. What?”

“How did you get on Monica’s—”

“Shit list?” he supplied, and drilled a few dozen bullets into a lunging zombie in a prom dress. “You don’t have to do much, just not crawl on your belly every time she walks in a room.” Which, she noticed, wasn’t exactly an answer. Exactly. “What’d you do?”

“I, uh…I made her look stupid.”

He hit some control and froze the game in mid-scream, and turned to look at her. “You what?”

“Well, she said this thing about World War II being about the Chinese, and—”

Shane laughed. He had a good laugh, loud and full of raw energy, and she smiled nervously in return. “You’re feistier than you look, C. Good one.” He held up a hand. She awkwardly smacked it. “Oh, man, that’s sadder than the video game thing. Again.”

Five hand smacks later, she had mastered the high five to his satisfaction, and he unfroze the video game.

“Shane?” she asked.

This time, he sighed. “Yeah?”

“Sorry, but—about your sister—”

Silence. He didn’t look at her, didn’t give any indication he’d heard a word. He just kept on killing things.

He was good at it.

Claire’s nerve failed. She went back to her textbook. It didn’t seem quite as exciting, somehow. After half an hour, she bagged it, stood, stretched, and asked, “When does Michael get up?”

“When he wants to.” Shane shrugged. “Why?” He made a face and narrowly avoided getting his arm clawed off on-screen.

“I—I figured I might go back to the dorm and get my things.”

He hit a button, and the screen paused in midshot again. “What?” He gave her his full attention, which made her heart stutter, then pound harder. Guys like Shane did not give mousy little bookworms like her their full attention. Not like that.

“My stuff. From my dorm room.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Did you miss the part where the cops are looking for you?”

“Well, if I check in,” she said reasonably, “I won’t be missing anymore. I can say I slept over somewhere. Then they’ll stop looking for me.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No, it isn’t. If they think I’m back in the dorm, they’ll leave me to Monica, right? It could be a few days before she figures out I’m not coming back. She could forget about me by then.”

“Claire—” He frowned at her for a second or two, then shook his head. “No way are you going over there by yourself.”

“But—they don’t know where I am. If you go with me, they’ll know.”

“And if you don’t come back from the dorm, I’m the one who has to explain to Michael how I let you go off and get yourself killed like a dumbass. First rule of horror movies, C.—never split up.”

“I can’t just hide here. I have classes!”

“Drop ’em.”

“No way!” The whole thought horrified her. Nearly as much as failing them.

“Claire! Maybe you’re not getting this, but you’re in trouble! Monica wasn’t kidding when she pushed you down the stairs. That was light exercise for her. Next time, she might actually get mad.”

She stood up and hoisted her backpack. “I’m going.”

“Then you’re stupid. Can’t save an idiot,” Shane said flatly, and turned back to his game. He didn’t look at her again as he started working the controls, firing with a vengeance. “Don’t tell them where you were last night. We don’t need the hassle.”

Claire set her jaw angrily, chewed up some words, and swallowed them. Then she went into the kitchen to grab some trash bags. As she was stuffing them into her backpack, she heard the front door open and close.

“A plague upon all our houses!” Eve yelled, and Claire heard the silver jingle of her keys hitting the hall table. “Anybody alive in here?”

“Yes!” Shane snapped. He sounded as mad as Claire felt.

“Damn,” Eve replied cheerfully. “I was so hoping.”

Claire came out of the kitchen and met Eve on her way up the hall. She was in plaid today—a red and black tartan skirt, black fishnet hose, clunky patent leather shoes with skulls on the toes, a white men’s shirt, suspenders. And a floor-length black leather coat. Her hair was up in two pigtails, fastened with skull-themed bands. She smelled like…coffee. Fresh ground. There were some brown splatters on her shirtfront.

“Oh, hey, Claire,” she said, and blinked. “Where are you going?”

“Funeral,” Shane said. On-screen, a zombie shrieked and died gruesomely.

“Yeah? Cool! Whose?”

“Hers.” Shane said.

Eve’s eyes widened. “Claire—you’re going back?”

“Just for some of my stuff. I figure if I show up every couple of days, let people see me, they’ll think I still live there….”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, bad idea. Bad. No cookie. You can’t go back. Not by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“They’re looking for you!”

Shane put the game on pause again. “You think I didn’t already tell her that? She’s not listening.”

“And you were going to let her just go?”

“I’m not her mom.”

“How about just her friend?”

He gave her a look that pretty clearly said, Shut up. Eve glared back, then looked at Claire. “Seriously. You can’t just—it’s dangerous. You have no idea. If Monica’s really gone to her Patron and tagged you, you can’t just, you know, wander around.”

“I’m not wandering,” Claire pointed out. “I’m going to my dorm, picking up some clothes, going to class, and coming home.”

“Going to class?” Eve made helpless little flapping motions with her black-fingernailed hands. “No no no! No class, are you kidding?”

Shane raised his arm. “Hello? Pointed it out already.”

“Whatever,” Claire said, and stepped around Eve to walk down the hall to the front door. She heard Shane and Eve whispering fiercely behind her, but didn’t wait.

If she waited, she was going to lose her nerve.

It was only a little after noon. Plenty of time to get to school, do the rest of her classes, stuff some clothes in a garbage bag, say enough hellos to make everything okay, and get home before dark. And it was after dark that was dangerous, right? If they were serious about the vampire thing.

Which she was starting to believe, just a teeny little bit.

She opened the front door, stepped out, closed it, and walked out onto the porch. The air smelled sharp and crisp with heat. Eve must have been cooking in that coat; there were ripples of hot air rising up from the concrete sidewalk, and the sun was a pale white dot in a washed-denim sky.

She was halfway to the sidewalk, where Eve’s big car lurked, when the door slammed behind her. “Wait!” Eve blurted, and came hurrying after with the leather coat flapping in the hot wind. “I can’t let you do this.”

Claire kept walking. The sun burned on the sore spot on her head, and on her bruises. Her ankle was still sore, but not enough to bother her that much. She’d just have to be careful.

Eve darted around her to face her, then danced backward when Claire kept walking. “Seriously. This is dumb, Claire, and you don’t strike me as somebody with a death wish. I mean, I have a death wish—it takes one to know one—okay, stop! Just stop!” She put out a hand, palm out, and Claire stopped short just a few inches away. “You’re going. I get that. At least let me drive you. You shouldn’t be walking. This way I can call Shane if—if anything happens. And at least you’ll have somebody standing by.”

“I don’t want to get you guys into any trouble.” Michael had been pretty specific about that.

“That’s why Shane’s not coming. He’s—well, he attracts trouble like TV screens attract dust. Besides, it’s better not to put him anywhere near Monica. Bad things happen.” Eve unlocked the car doors. “You have to call shotgun.”

“What?”

“You have to call shotgun to get the passenger seat.”

“But nobody else is—”

“I’m just telling you, get used to the idea, because if Shane was here? He’d already have it and you’d be in the back.”

“Um…” Claire felt stupid even trying to say it. “Shotgun?”

“Keep practicing. Got to be fast on the trigger around here.”

The car had slick vinyl seats, cracked and peeling, and aftermarket seat belts that didn’t feel any too safe. Claire tried not to slide around on the upholstery too much as the big car jolted down the narrow, bumpy road. The shops looked as dim and uninviting as Claire remembered, and the pedestrians just as hunched in on themselves.

“Eve?” she asked. “Why do people stay here? Why don’t they leave? If, you know…vampires.”

“Good question,” Eve said. “People are funny that way. Adults, anyway. Kids pick up and leave all the time, but adults get all bogged down. Houses. Cars. Jobs. Kids. Once you have stuff, it’s easy enough for the vamps to keep you on a leash. It takes a lot to make people just leave everything behind and run. Especially when they know they might not live long if they do. Oh crap, get down!”

Claire unhooked her seat belt and slithered down into the dark space under the dash. She didn’t hesitate, because Eve hadn’t been kidding—that had been pure panic in her voice. “What is it?” She barely dared to whisper.

“Cop car,” Eve said, and didn’t move her lips. “Coming right toward us. Stay down.”

She did. Eve nervously tapped fingernails on the hard plastic steering wheel, and then let out a sigh. “Okay, he went past. Just stay down, though. He might come back.”

Claire did, bracing herself against the bumps in the road as Eve turned toward the campus. Another minute or two passed before Eve gave her the all clear, and she flopped back into the seat and strapped in.

“That was close,” Eve said.

“What if they’d seen me?”

“Well, for starters, they’d have hauled me in to the station for interfering, confiscated my car….” Eve patted the steering wheel apologetically. “And you’d have just…disappeared.”

“But—”

“Trust me. They’re not exactly amateurs around here at making that happen. So let’s just get this done and hope like hell your plan works, okay?”

Eve steered slowly through crowds of lunchtime students walking across the streets, hit the turnaround, and followed Claire’s pointed directions toward the dorm.

Howard Hall didn’t look any prettier today than it had yesterday. The parking lot was only half-full, and Eve cruised the big Caddy into a parking space near the back. She clicked off the ignition and squinted at the sunlight glaring off the hood. “Right,” she said. “You go in, get your stuff, be back here in fifteen minutes, or I start launching Operation Get Claire.”

Claire nodded. She wasn’t feeling so good about this idea, now that she was staring at the door’s entrance.

“Here.” Eve was holding something out. A cell phone, thin and sleek. “Shane’s on speed dial—just hit star two. And remember, fifteen minutes, and then I freak out and start acting like your mom. Okay?”

Claire took the phone and slipped it in her pocket. “Be right back.”

She hoped she didn’t sound scared. Not too scared, anyway. There was something about having friends—even brand-new ones—that helped keep the tremors out of her voice, and shakes out of her hands. I’m not alone. I have backup. It was kind of a new sensation. Kind of nice, too.

She got out of the car, waved awkwardly to Eve, who waved in reply, and turned to walk back into hell.

6

The cold air of the lobby felt dry and lifeless, after the heat outside; Claire shivered and blinked fast to adjust her eyes to the relative dimness. A few girls were in the lobby with books propped up on tables; the TV was running, but nobody was watching it.

Nobody looked at her as she walked by. She went to the glassed-in attendant booth, and the student assistant sitting inside looked up from her magazine, saw her bruises, and made a silent O with her mouth.

“Hi,” Claire said. Her voice sounded thin and dry, and she had to swallow twice. “I’m Claire, up on four? Um, I had an accident yesterday. But I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

“You’re the—they were looking for you, right?”

“Yeah. Just tell everybody I’m okay. I’ve got to get to class.”

“But—”

“Sorry, I’m late!” Claire hurried to the stairs and went up as fast as her sore ankle would allow. She passed a couple of girls, who gave her wide-eyed looks, but nobody said anything.

She didn’t see Monica. Not on the stairs, not at the top. The hallway was empty, and all the doors were shut. Music pounded from three or four different rooms. She hurried down to the end, where her own room was, and started to unlock it.

The knob turned limply in her fingers. Great. That, more than any graffiti, said Monica wuz here.

Sure enough, the room was a wreck. What wasn’t broken was dumped in piles. Books were defaced, which really hurt. Her meager clothes had been dragged out of the closet and scattered over the floor. Some of the blouses had been ripped, but she seriously didn’t care that much; she sorted through, found two or three that were intact, and stuffed them in the garbage bag. One pair of sweatpants was fine, and she added that, too. She had a lucky find of a couple of ratty old pairs of underwear that hadn’t been discovered, shoved in the corner of the drawer, and added those to the sack.

The rest was another pair of shoes, what books she could salvage, and the little bag of makeup and toiletries she kept on the shelf next to the bed. Her iPod was gone. So were her CDs. No telling if that had been Monica’s doing, or the work of some other dorm rat who’d scavenged later.

She looked around, swept the worst of the mess into a corner, and grabbed the photo of her mom and dad off of the dresser to take with her.

And then she left, not bothering to try to lock the door.

Well, she thought shakily. That went okay, after all.

She was halfway down the steps when she heard voices on the second-floor landing. “—swear, it’s her! You should see the black eye. Unbelievable. You really clocked her one.”

“Where the hell is she?” Monica’s voice, hard-edged. “And how come nobody came to get me?”

“We—we did!” someone protested. Someone who sounded as scared as Claire suddenly felt. She reached in her pocket, grabbed the phone, and held on to it for security. Star two. Just press star two—Shane’s not far away, and Eve’s right downstairs…. “She was up in her room. Maybe she’s still there?”

Crap. There was nobody in the dorm she could trust, not now. Nobody who’d hide her, or who’d stand up for her. Claire retreated back up the steps to the third-floor landing and went to the fire stairs, flung open the door, and hurried down the concrete steps as fast as she dared, ducking to avoid the glass window at the second-floor exit. She made it to the lobby exit door sweating and trembling from the effort, with her backpack and the garbage bag dragging painfully on her sore muscles, and risked a quick look out the window to the lobby itself.

Monica-groupie Jennifer was on guard, watching the stairs. She looked tense and focused, and—Claire thought—a little bit scared, too. She kept fooling with the bracelet around her right wrist, turning it over and over. One thing was certain: Jennifer would see her the second she opened the door. And sure, maybe that wouldn’t matter; maybe she could get by Jen and out the door and they wouldn’t be attacking her in public, would they?

Watching Jennifer’s face, she wasn’t so sure. Not so sure at all.

The fire door a couple of floors up boomed open, and Claire flinched and looked for a place to hide. The only possible spot was under the concrete stairs. There was some kind of storage closet crammed under there, but when she tried the knob it was locked, and she didn’t have Monica’s lock-smashing superpowers.

And she didn’t have time, anyway. There were footsteps coming down. Either she could hope the person didn’t look back in the corner, or she could make a break for the door. Once again, Claire touched the phone in her pocket. One phone call away. It’s okay.

And once again, she left the phone where it was, took a deep breath, and waited.

It wasn’t Monica; it was Kim Valdez, a freshman like Claire. A band geek, which put her only a tiny step higher than Claire’s status as resident freak of nature. Kim kept to herself, and she didn’t seem to be all that afraid of Monica or her girls; Kim didn’t seem afraid of much. Not friendly, though. Just…solitary.

Kim looked back at her, blinked once or twice, then stopped before putting her hand on the door to exit. “Hey,” she said. She pushed back the hood of her knit shirt, revealing short, shiny black hair. “They’re looking for you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Kim was holding her instrument case. Claire wasn’t exactly clear on which instrument it was, but it was big and bulky in its scuffed black case. Kim set it down. “Monica do that?” She gestured at Claire’s bruises. Claire nodded wordlessly. “I always knew she was a bitch. So. You need to get out of here?”

Claire nodded again, and swallowed hard. “Will you help me?”

“Nope.” Kim flashed her a sudden, vivid grin. “Not officially. Wouldn’t be too smart.”

They had it worked out in a matter of frantic seconds: Claire zipped up in the shirt, pulled the hood down around her face, and held the instrument case by the handle.

“Higher,” Kim advised. “Tilt it so it covers your face. Yeah, like that. Keep your head down.”

“What about my bags?”

“I’ll wait a couple of minutes, then come out with ’em. Wait outside. And don’t go nowhere with my cello, and I mean it. I’ll kick your ass.”

“I won’t,” she swore. Kim opened the door for her, and she took a gasping breath and barged out, head down, trying to look like she was late for a rehearsal.

As she passed Jennifer, the girl gave her a reflexive glance, then dismissed her to focus back on the stairs. Claire felt a hot rush of adrenaline that felt like it might set her face on fire, and resisted the urge to run the rest of the way for the door. It seemed to take forever, her crossing the lobby to the glass doors.

She was swinging the door open when she heard Monica say, “That freak couldn’t get out of here! Check the basement. Maybe she went down the trash chute, like her stupid laundry.”

“But—” Jen’s feeble protest. “I don’t want to go down to the—”

She would, though. Claire suppressed a wild grin—mostly because it still hurt too much to do that—and made it out of the dorm.

The sunlight felt amazing. It felt like…safety.

Claire took a deep breath of hot afternoon air, and walked around the corner to wait for Kim. The heat was brutal out against the sunbaked walls—suffocating. She squinted against the sun and saw the distant glitter of Eve’s car, parked all the way at the back. Even hotter in there, she guessed, and wondered if Eve had gotten out of that Goth-required leather coat yet.

And just as she was thinking that, she saw a shadow fall across hers from behind, and half turned, but it was too late. Something soft and dark muffled her vision and clogged her mouth and nose, and pressure around her head yanked her off-balance. She screamed, or tried to, but somebody punched her in the stomach, which took care of the screaming and most of the breathing, and Claire saw a weak, watery sunshine through the weave of the cloth over her face, and shadows, and then everything got dark. Not that she fainted, or anything like that, although she was wanting to, badly.

The hot pressure of the sun went away, and then she was being dragged and carried into someplace dark and quiet.

Then down a flight of stairs.

When the moving stopped, she heard breathing and whispers, sounds of more than a few people, and then she was shoved backward, hard, and fell off-balance onto a cold concrete floor. The impact stunned her, and by the time she clawed her way out of the bag that had been jammed onto her head—a black backpack, apparently—she found there was a whole circle of girls standing around her.

She had no idea where this room was. Some kind of storage room, maybe, in the basement. It was crammed with stuff—suitcases, boxes labeled with names, all kinds of things. Some of the boxes had collapsed and spilled out pale guts of old clothes. It smelled like molding paper, and she sneezed helplessly when her frantic gasps filled her mouth and nose with dust.

A couple of girls giggled. Most didn’t do anything, and didn’t look very happy to be there, either. Resigned, Claire guessed. Glad it wasn’t them lying on the floor.

Monica stepped out of the corner.

“Well,” she said, and put her hands on her hips. “Look what the cats dragged in.” She flashed Claire a cold toothpaste-ad smile, as if the rest of them weren’t even here. “You ran away, little mouse. And just when we were starting to have fun.”

Claire faked more sneezing, lots of it, and Monica backed away in distaste. Faking sneezing, Claire discovered, wasn’t as easy as she’d thought. It hurt. But it provided time and cover for her to pull the phone out of her pocket, cover it with her body, and frantically punch *2.

She pressed SEND and shoved it between two boxes, hoping the blue glow of the buttons wouldn’t attract Monica’s attention. Hoping Shane wouldn’t be iPoding or Xboxing and ignoring the phone. Hoping…

Just hoping.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Get her up!” Monica ordered. Her Monickettes sprang forward, Jen taking one of Claire’s arms, Gina the other. They hauled her up to her feet and held her there.

Monica pulled the hood back from Claire’s bruised face and smiled again, taking in the damage. “Damn, freak, you look like hell. Does it hurt?”

“What did I ever do to you?” Claire blurted. She was scared, but she was angry, too. Furious. There were seven girls standing around doing nothing because they were scared, and of what? Monica? What the hell gave the Monicas the right to run the world?

“You know exactly what you did. You tried to make me look stupid,” Monica said.

“Tried?” Claire shot back, which was dumb, but she couldn’t stop the impulse. It got her hit in the face. Hard. Right on top of the first bruise, which took away her breath in slow throbs of white-hot agony. Everything felt funny, rattled by the impact of Monica’s jab. Claire felt pressure on her arms, and realized that the Monickettes were holding her up. She put some stiffness back into her legs, opened her eyes, and glared at Monica.

“How come you live in Howard?” she asked.

Monica, inspecting her knuckles for signs of bruising, looked up in honest surprise.

“What?”

“Your family’s rich, right? You could be living in an apartment. Or in a sorority house. How come you live in Howard Hall with the rest of us freaks?” She caught her breath at the sudden cold blaze in Monica’s eyes. “Unless you’re a freak, too. A freak who gets off on hurting somebody weaker than you. A freak your family’s ashamed of. Somebody they hide here where they don’t have to look at you.”

“Shut up,” Jennifer hissed, low in her ear. “Don’t be stupid! She’ll kill you—don’t you get it?”

She jerked her head away. “I heard you went away to college,” Claire continued. Her stomach was rolling, she felt like she was going to puke and die, but all she had to do was stall for time. Shane would come. Eve would come. Maybe Michael. She could imagine Michael standing in the doorway, with those ice-cold eyes and that angel’s face, staring holes through Monica. Yeah, that would rock. Monica wouldn’t look so big then. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t you cut it? I’m not surprised—anybody who thinks World War Two was in China isn’t exactly going to impress—”

She saw the punch coming this time, and ducked as best she could. Monica’s fist smashed into her forehead, which hurt, but it must have hurt Monica a whole lot more, because she let out a shrill little scream and backed off, clutching her right hand in her left. That made the horrible throbbing in Claire’s head almost okay.

“Careful,” Claire gasped, nearly giggling. The scab on her lip had broken open, and she licked blood from her lips. “Don’t break a nail! I’m not worth it, remember?”

“Got that right!” Monica snarled. “Let that bitch go. What are you waiting for? Go on, do it! Do you think that wimp’s going to hurt me?”

The Monickettes looked at each other, clearly wondering if their queen bee had lost her mind, then let go of Claire’s arms and stepped back. Jennifer bumped into the towering column of boxes, spilling an avalanche of dust and old papers, but when Claire looked at her, Jennifer was staring at a spot between the boxes.

The spot where Claire had hidden the phone. Jen had to have seen it, and Claire gasped out loud, suddenly a whole lot more afraid than she’d thought she was.

“What the hell are you looking at?” Monica snarled at Jen, and Jen very deliberately turned her back on the incriminating phone, folded her arms, and stood there blocking it from view. Not looking at Claire at all. Wow. That’s… what? Not lucky, exactly. Jennifer had shown some cracks already. And maybe she wasn’t a complete convert to the First Church of Monica.

Maybe Monica had just pissed her off one too many times. Not that she would be stepping in on Claire’s side anytime soon.

Claire wiped the blood from her lip and looked at the other girls. The ones who were standing, uneasy and indecisive. Monica had been challenged and, so far, hadn’t exactly delivered the smackdown everybody—Claire included—had expected. Kind of weird, really. Unless Claire really struck some nerve besides the ones running through Monica’s knuckles.

Monica was rubbing her hand, looking at Claire as if she’d never seen her before. Assessing her. She said, “Nobody’s told you the facts of life, Claire. The fact is, if you suddenly just up and disappear…?” She jerked her pretty, pointed chin at the dusty towers of boxes. “Nobody but the janitor’s ever going to know or care. You think Mommy and Daddy are going to get all upset? Maybe they would, but by the time they spend their last dime putting your picture on milk cartons and chasing down rumors of how you ran off with somebody else’s boyfriend? They’re going to hate to even think about you. Morganville’s got it down to a science, making people disappear. They never disappear here. Always somewhere else.”

Monica wasn’t taunting her. That was the scary part. She was talking evenly, quietly, as if they were two equals having a friendly conversation.

“You want to know why I live in Howard?” she continued. “Because in this town, I can live anywhere I want. Any way I want. And you—you’re just a walking organ donor. So take my advice, Claire. Don’t get in my face, because if you do, you won’t have one for long. Are we clear?”

Claire nodded slowly. She didn’t dare look away. Monica reminded her of a feral dog, one that would jump for your throat the second you showed weakness. “We’re clear,” she said. “You’re kind of a psycho. I get that.”

“I might be,” Monica agreed, and gave her a slow, strange smile. “You’re one smart little freak. Now run away, smart little freak, before I change my mind and stick you in one of these old suitcases for some architect to find a hundred years from now.”

Claire blinked. “Archaeologist.”

Monica’s eyes turned winter cold. “Oh, you’d better start running away now.”

Claire went back to where Jennifer was standing, and reached behind her to drag the phone out from between the boxes. She held it up to Monica. “Speak clearly for the microphone. I want to make sure my friends get every word.”

For a second, nobody moved, and then Monica laughed. “Damn, freak. You’re going to be fun.” She glanced away from Claire, behind her. “Not until I say so.”

Claire looked over her shoulder. Gina was standing there, right there, and she had some kind of metal bar in her hand.

Oh my God. There was something awful and cold in Gina’s eyes.

“She’ll get hers,” Monica said. “And we’ll get to watch. But hey, why hurry? I haven’t had this much fun in years.”

Claire’s legs felt like they’d suddenly turned into overcooked spaghetti. She wanted to throw up, wanted to cry, and didn’t dare do anything but pretend to be brave. They’d kill her down here if they thought she was bluffing.

She walked past Gina, between two girls who wouldn’t meet her eyes at all, and put her hand on the doorknob. As she did, she glanced down at the phone’s display.

NO SIGNAL.

She opened the door, walked outside, and found her bags dumped on the grass where she’d been abducted. She pocketed the phone, picked up the bags, and walked across the parking lot to Eve’s car. Eve was still sitting in the driver’s seat, looking clown-pale and scared.

Claire tossed her bag in the back as Eve asked, “What happened? Did they see you?”

“No,” Claire said. “No problems. I’ve got class. I’ll see you later. Thanks, Eve. Um—here’s your phone.” She passed it over. Eve took it, still frowning. “I’ll be home before dark.”

“Better be,” Eve said. “Seriously, Claire. You look—weird.”

Claire laughed. “Me? Check the mirror.”

Eve flipped her off, but the same way she’d have flipped off Shane. Claire grabbed her backpack, closed the door, and watched Eve’s big black car cruise away. Heading back to work, she guessed.

She got halfway to her chem lab when her reaction hit her, and she sat down on a bench and cried silently into her hands.

Oh my God. Oh my God, I want to go home! She wasn’t sure if that meant back to Michael’s house, or all the way home, back in her room with her parents watching over her.

I can’t quit. She really couldn’t. She never in her life had been able to, even when it might have been the smart thing to do.

She wiped her swollen eyes and went to class.

Nobody killed her that afternoon.

After the first couple of hours, she quit expecting it to happen, and focused on class. Her back-to-back labs weren’t too much of a disaster, and she actually knew the answers in history. Bet Monica wouldn’t, she thought, and looked guiltily around the classroom to see if Monica was there, or one of her crew. It wasn’t a big class. She didn’t see anybody who’d been in the basement.

She made it to the grocery store after class without getting killed, too. Nobody jumped her while she was picking out lettuce and tomatoes, or while she was in line for checkout. She thought the guy at the meat counter had looked suspicious, though.

She walked back to the Glass House, watching for vampires in the fading afternoon and feeling pretty stupid for even thinking about it. She didn’t see anybody except other college students, strolling along with bulging backpacks. Most of them traveled in bunches. Once she got past the area that catered to students, the stores were closed, lights off, and what few people were walking were hurrying.

At the corner of Gone with the Wind and The Munsters, the front gate was open. She closed it behind her, unlocked the door with the shiny new key that she’d found on her dresser that morning, and slammed the door behind her.

There was a shadow standing at the end of the hallway. A tall, broad shadow in a grungy yellow T-shirt and low-slung, faded jeans frayed at the bottom. A shadow in bare feet.

Shane.

He just looked at her for a few seconds, then said, “Eve put your crap up in your room.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s that?”

“Stuff for dinner.”

He cocked his head slightly, still staring at her. “For a smart girl, you do some stupid things. You know that?”

“I know.” She walked toward him. He didn’t move.

“Eve says you never saw Monica.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You know what? I’m not buying it.”

“You know what?” she shot back. “I don’t care. Excuse me.” She ducked past him, into the kitchen, and set her bags down. Her hands were shaking. She balled them into fists and started setting out things on the counter. Ground beef. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Onions. Refried beans. Hot sauce, the kind she liked, anyway. Cheese. Sour cream. Taco shells.

“Let me guess,” Shane said from the doorway. “You’re making Chinese.”

She didn’t answer. She was still too pissed and—all of a sudden—too scared. Scared of what, she didn’t know. Everything. Nothing. Herself.

“Anything I can do?” His voice sounded different. Quieter, gentler, almost kind.

“Chop onions,” she said, although she knew that wasn’t exactly what he meant. Still, he came over, picked up the onions, and grabbed a huge scary-looking knife from a drawer. “You have to peel it first.”

He shot her a dirty look, just like he would have Eve, and got to work.

“Um—I should probably call my mom,” Claire said. “Can I use the phone?”

“You pay for long distance.”

“Sure.”

He shrugged, reached over, and grabbed the cordless phone, then pitched it underhanded to her. She nearly dropped it, but was kind of proud she didn’t. She got out a big iron skillet from under the cabinet and put it on the counter, heated up the burner, and found some oil. As it was warming, she read over the thin little recipe book she’d bought at the store one more time, then dialed the phone.

Her mom answered on the second ring. “Yes?” It was never hello with her mother.

“Mom, it’s Claire.”

“Claire! Baby, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for days!”

“Classes,” she said. “Sorry. I’m not home that much.”

“Are you sleeping enough? If you don’t get enough rest, you’ll get sick—you know how you are—”

“Mom, I’m fine.” Claire frowned down at the recipe on the counter in front of her. What did sauté mean, exactly? Was it like frying? Diced, she understood. That was just cutting things into cubes, and Shane was doing that already. “Really. It’s all okay now.”

“Claire, I know it’s hard. We really didn’t want you to go even just the few hundred miles to TPU, honey. If you want to come back home, your dad and I would be so glad to have you back!”

“Honestly, Mom, I don’t—I’m fine. It’s okay. Classes are really good”—that was stretching the truth—“and I’ve made friends here. They’re looking out for me.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Because I worry. I know you’re very mature for your age but—”

Shane opened his mouth to say something. Claire made frantic NO NO NO motions at him, pointing at the phone. Mom! she mouthed. Shane held up both hands in surrender and kept chopping. Mom was still talking. Claire had missed some of it, but she didn’t think it really mattered exactly. “—boys, right?”

Wow. Mom radar worked even at this distance. “What, Mom?”

“Your dorm doesn’t allow boys to come up to the rooms, does it? There’s someone on duty at the desk to make sure?”

“Yes, Mom. Howard Hall has somebody on duty twenty-four/seven to keep the nasty evil boys out of our rooms.” She hadn’t actually lied, Claire decided. That was completely true. The fact that she wasn’t actually living in Howard Hall…well, that wasn’t really something she needed to throw in, right?

“It’s not a laughing matter. You’ve been very sheltered, Claire, and I don’t want you to—”

“Mom, I have to go. I need to eat dinner and I have a ton of studying to do. How’s Dad?”

“Dad’s just fine, honey. He says hello. Oh, come on, Les, get up and say hello to your very smart daughter. It won’t break your back.”

Shane handed her a bowl full of diced onions. Claire cradled the phone against her ear and dropped a handful of them into the pan. They started sizzling immediately, much to her panic; she lifted the pan off the burner and almost dropped the phone.

“Hi, kiddo. How are classes?” That was Dad. Not How was your day? or Have you made any friends? No, his philosophy had always been, Eyes on the prize; the other stuff just gets in your way.

And she loved him anyway. “Classes are great, Daddy.”

“Are you frying something? Do they let you have hot plates in the dorm? Didn’t in my day, I can tell you….”

“Um…no, I just opened a Coke.” Okay, that was a straight-up lie. She hastily put the pan down, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a cold Coke so she could open it. There. Retroactively truthful. “How are you feeling?”

“Feel fine. Wish everybody would stop worrying about me, not like I’m the first man in history to have a little surgery.”

“I know, Daddy.”

“Doctors say I’m fine.”

“That’s great.”

“Gonna have to go, Claire, the game’s on. You’re okay down there, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m just fine. Daddy—”

“What is it, honey?”

Claire bit her lip and sipped Coke, indecisive. “Um…do you know anything about Morganville? History, that kind of thing?”

“Doing research, eh? Some kind of report? No, I don’t know much. The university’s been there for nearly a hundred years—that’s all I know about it. I know you’re on fire to get to the bigger schools, but I think you need to spend a couple of years close to home. We talked about all that.”

“I know. I was just wondering…. It’s an interesting town, that’s all.”

“Okay, then. You let us know what you find out. Your mother wants to say good-bye.” Dad never did. By the time Claire got out “Bye, Dad!” he was already gone, and Mom was back on the line. “Honey, you call us if you get worried about anything, okay? Oh, call us whatever happens. We love you!”

“Love you, too, Mom. Bye.”

She put the phone down and stared at the sizzling onions, then the recipe. When the onions turned transparent, she dumped in the ground beef.

“So, finished lying to the folks?” Shane asked, and reached around Claire to snag a bite of grated cheese from the bowl on the counter. “Tacos. Brilliant. Damn, I’m glad I voted somebody in with skills.”

“I heard that, Shane!” Eve yelled from the living room, just as the door slammed. Shane winced. “Do your own bathroom cleaning this weekend!”

Shane winced. “Truce!”

“Thought so.”

Eve came in, still flushed from the heat outside. She’d sweated off most of her makeup, and underneath it, she looked surprisingly young and sweet. “Oh my God, that looks like real food!”

“Tacos,” Shane said proudly, as if it were his idea. Claire elbowed him in the ribs, or tried to. His ribs were a lot more solid than her elbow. “Ow,” he said. Not as if it hurt.

Claire glanced out the window. Night was falling fast, the way it did in Texas at the end of the day—furious burning sun all of a sudden giving way to a warm, sticky twilight. “Is Michael here?” she asked.

“Guess so.” Shane shrugged. “He’s always here for dinner.”

The three of them got everything ready, and sometime midway through the assembly-line process they’d developed—Claire putting meat in taco shells, Eve adding toppings, Shane spooning beans onto the plates—a fourth pair of hands added itself to the line. Michael looked as if he’d just gotten up and showered—wet hair, sleepy eyes, beads of water still sliding down to soak the collar of his black knit shirt. Like Shane, he was wearing jeans, but he’d gone formal, with actual shoes.

“Hey,” he greeted them. “This looks good.”

“Claire did it,” Eve jumped in as Shane opened his mouth. “Don’t even let Shane take credit.”

“Wasn’t going to!” Shane looked offended.

“Riiiiiight.”

“I chopped. What did you do?”

“Cleaned up after you, like always.”

Michael looked over at Claire and made a face. She laughed and picked up her plate; Michael picked up his, and followed her out into the living room.

Someone—Michael, she guessed—had cleared the big wood table next to the bookcases, and set up four chairs around it. The stuff that had been piled there—video game cases, books, sheet music—had been dumped in other places, with a cheerful disregard for order. (Maybe, she amended, that had been Shane’s idea.) She set her plate down, and Eve promptly slapped her own down next to Claire’s and slid a cold Coke across to her, along with a fork and napkin. Michael and Shane strolled back in, took seats, and began shoveling in food like—well, like boys. Eve nibbled. Claire, who was surprisingly hungry, found herself on her second taco before Eve had gotten through her first one.

Shane was already headed back for more.

“Hey, dude,” he said as he returned with a reloaded plate, “when are you going to get a gig again?”

Michael stopped chewing, flashed a look at Eve, then Claire, and then finished the bite before saying, “When I’m ready.”

“Pussy. You had a bad night, Mike. Get back on the horse, or whatever.” Eve frowned at Shane, and shook her head. Shane ignored her. “Seriously, man. You can’t let them get you down.”

“I’m not,” Michael said. “Not everything is about beating your head against the wall until it breaks.”

“Just most things.” Shane sighed. “Whatever. You let me know when you want to stop hermiting.”

“I’m not hermiting. I’m practicing.”

“Like you don’t play good enough. Please.”

“I get no respect,” Michael said. Shane, busy taking another crunchy bite, rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Yeah, I know, world’s smallest violin playing just for me. Change the subject. How was that hot date with Lisa, anyway? Rented shoes turn her on or what?”

“It’s Laura,” Shane said. “Yeah, she was hot, all right, but I think she had the hots for you—kept saying how she saw you over at the Waterhouse last year and you were all, like, wow, amazing. It was like a ménage à trois, only you weren’t there, thank God.”

Michael looked smug. “Shut up and eat.”

Shane shot him the finger.

All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Michael and Eve washed dishes, having lost out on the coin toss, and Claire hovered in the living room, not sure what she wanted to do. Studying sounded—boring, which surprised her. Shane was concentrating on the video game selection, bare feet propped up on the coffee table. Without looking directly at Claire, he asked, “You want to see something cool?”

“Sure,” she said. She expected him to put a game in, but he dumped it back in the pile, got up off the couch, and padded up the stairs. She stood at the bottom, staring up, wondering what to do. Shane appeared at the top of the stairs again and gestured, and she followed.

The second floor was quiet, of course, and dimly lit; she blinked and saw Shane already halfway down the hall. Was he heading for her room? Not that she didn’t have a crazy hot picture in her head of sitting on the bed with him, making out…and she had no idea why that popped into her head, except that, well, he was just…yeah.

Shane moved aside a picture hanging on the wall between her room and Eve’s, and pressed a button underneath.

And a door opened on the other side of the wall. It was built into the paneling, and she’d never have even known it was there. She gasped, and Shane beamed like he’d invented the wheel. “Cool, huh? This damn house is full of crap like that. Trust me, in Morganville it pays to be up on the hiding places.” He pushed open the door, revealed another set of stairs, and padded up them. She expected them to be dusty, but they weren’t; the wood was clean and polished. Shane’s feet left prints of the ball of his foot and his toes.

It was a narrow pitch of just eight steps, half a story, really, and there was another door at the top. Shane opened it and flipped on a switch just inside. “First time I saw this, and the room back of the pantry, I figured, yep. Vampire house. What do you think?”

If she believed in vampires, he might have been right. It was a small room, no windows, and it was…old. It wasn’t just the stuff in it, which was antique and dark; it had this sense of…something ancient, something not quite right. And it was cold. Cold, in the middle of a Texas heat wave.

She shivered. “Does everybody know about this room?”

“Oh yeah. Eve says it’s haunted. Can’t really blame her. It creeps me the hell out, too. Cool, though. We’d have stuck you in here when the cops came, only they’d have seen you through the windows coming out of the kitchen. They’re nosy bastards.” Shane wandered across the thick Persian carpet to flop on the dark red Victorian couch. Dust rose in a cloud, and he waved it off, coughing. “So what do you think? Think Michael sleeps off his evil-undead days in here, or what?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Oh, come on. You think he’s one of them, right? ’Cause he doesn’t show up during the day?”

“I—I don’t think anything!”

Shane nodded, eyes downcast. “Right. You weren’t sent here.”

“Sent—sent here by who?”

“I got to thinking…. The cops were looking for you, but maybe they were looking for you to make us want to keep you here, instead of pitch you out. So which is it? Are you working for them?”

“Them?” she echoed thinly. “Them, who?” Shane suddenly looked at her, and she shivered again. He wasn’t like Monica, not at all, but he wasn’t playing around, either. “Shane, I don’t know what you mean. I came to Morganville to go to school, and got beaten up, and I came here because I was scared. If you don’t believe me—well, then I guess I’ll go. Hope you liked the tacos.”

She went to the door, and stopped, confused.

There wasn’t a doorknob.

Behind her, Shane said quietly, “The reason I think this is a vampire’s room? You can’t get out of it unless you know the secret. That’s real convenient, if you like to bring victims up here for a little munch session.”

She whirled around, expecting to see him standing there with that huge knife he’d used on the onions, and she’d broken the first rule of horror movies, hadn’t she, or was it the second one? She’d trusted someone she shouldn’t have….

But he was still sitting on the couch, slumped at ease, arms flung over the back on both sides.

Not even looking at her.

“Let me out,” she said. Her heart was hammering.

“In a minute. First, you tell me the truth.”

“I have!” And, to her fury and humiliation, she started to cry. Again. “Dammit! You think I’m trying to hurt you? Hurt Michael? How could I? I’m the one everybody hurts!”

He looked at her then, and she saw the hardness melt away. His voice was a lot gentler when he spoke. “And if I was somebody who wanted to kill Michael, I’d put somebody like you in to do it. Be real easy for you to kill somebody, Claire. Poison some food, slip a knife in his back…and I have to look out for Michael.”

“I thought he looked out for you.” She swiped angrily at her eyes. “Why do you think somebody wants to kill him?”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “Always somebody wanting to kill a vampire.”

“But—he’s not. Eve said—”

“Yeah, I know he’s not a vampire, but he doesn’t get up during the day, he doesn’t go out of the house, and I can’t get him to tell me what happened, so he might as well be. And somebody’s going to think so, sooner or later. Most people in Morganville are either Protected or clueless—kind of like you can raise rabbits for either pets or meat. But some of them fight back.”

She blinked the last of the brief storm of tears away. “Like you?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Maybe. How about you? You a fighter, Claire?”

“I’m not working for anybody. And I wouldn’t kill Michael even if he was a vampire.”

Shane laughed. “Why not? Besides the fact that he’d snap you in two like a twig if he was.”

“Because—because—” She couldn’t put it into words, exactly. “Because I like him.”

Shane watched her for another few, long seconds, and then pressed a raised spot on the head of the lion-carving armrest of the couch.

The door clicked and popped open half an inch.

“Good enough for me,” he said. “So. Dessert?”

7

She couldn’t sleep.

Maybe it was the memory of that creepy little Gothic room—which she suspected Eve really, deeply loved—but all of a sudden, her lovely cozy room seemed full of shadows, and the creaks of old wood in the wind sounded…stealthy. Maybe the house eats people, Claire thought, lying there alone in the dark, watching the bone-thin shadows of branches shudder on the far wall. The wind made twigs tap her window, like something trying to get in. Eve had said vampires couldn’t get in, but what if they could? What if they were already inside? What if Michael…?

She heard a soft, silvery note, and knew that Michael was playing downstairs. Something about that helped—pushed the shadows back, turned the sounds into something normal and soothing. It was just a house, and they were just kids sharing it, and if there was anything wrong, well, it was outside.

She must have slept then, but it didn’t feel like it; some noise startled her awake, and when Claire checked the clock next to her bed it was close to five thirty. The sky wasn’t light outside, but it wasn’t totally dark, either; the stars were faded, soft sparkles in a sky gradually turning dark blue.

Michael’s guitar was still going, very quietly. Didn’t he ever sleep? Claire slid out of bed, tossed a blanket over her shoulders over the T-shirt she wore to bed, and shuffled out and into the still-dark hallway. As she passed the hidden door she glanced at it and shivered, then continued on to the bathroom. Once she’d gotten that out of the way—and brushed her hair—she crept quietly down the steps and sat down, blanket around her, listening to Michael play.

His head was down, and he was deep into it; she watched his fingers move light and quick on the strings, his body rock slowly with the rhythm, and felt a deep sense of…safety. Nothing bad could happen around Michael. She just knew it.

Next to him, a clock beeped an alarm. He looked up, startled, and slapped it off, then got up and put his guitar away. She watched, puzzled…. Did he have someplace to be? Or did he actually have to set an alarm to go to bed? Wow, that was obsession….

Michael stood, watching the clock as if it were his personal enemy, and then he turned and walked over to the window.

The sky was the color of dark turquoise now, all but the strongest stars faded. Michael, holding a beer in his hand, drank the rest of the bottle and put it down on the table, crossed his arms, and waited.

Claire was about to ask him what he was waiting for when the first ray of sun crept up in a blinding orange knife, and Michael gasped and hunched over, pressing on his stomach.

Claire lunged to her feet, startled and afraid for the look of sheer agony on his face. The movement caught his attention, and he jerked his head toward her, blue eyes wide.

“No,” he moaned, and pitched forward to his hands and knees, gasping. “Don’t.”

She ignored that and jumped down the stairs to run to his side, but once she was there she didn’t know what to do, didn’t have any idea how to help him. Michael was breathing in deep, aching gasps, in terrible pain.

She put her hand on his back, felt his fever-hot skin burning through the thin cloth, and heard him make a sound like nothing she’d ever heard in her life.

Like someone dying, she thought in panic, and opened her mouth to scream for Shane, Eve, anybody.

Her hand suddenly went right through him. The scream, for whatever reason, locked tight in her throat as Michael—transparent Michael—looked up at her with despair and desperation in his eyes.

“Oh, God, don’t tell them.” His voice came from a long, long way off, a whisper that faded on the shafts of morning sun.

And so did he.

Claire, mouth still open, utterly unable to speak, waved her hand slowly through the thin air where Michael Glass had been standing. Slowly, then faster. The air felt cold around her, like she was standing in a blast from an air conditioner, and the chill slowly faded.

Like Michael.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, and clapped both hands over her mouth.

And muffled the scream that she had to let out or explode.

She might have blacked out a little, because next thing she knew, she was sitting on the couch, next to Michael’s guitar case, and she felt kind of funny. Bad funny, as if her brain had turned liquid and sloshed around in her head.

Weirdly calm, though. She reached over and touched the leather cover of his guitar case. It felt real. When she flipped up the latches and pulled her shaking fingers across the strings, they made a wistful sort of whisper.

He’s a ghost. Michael’s a ghost.

He wasn’t a ghost. How could he be a ghost, if he sat here—right here!—at the table and ate dinner? Tacos! What kind of ghost ate tacos? What kind of…?

Her hand went right through him. Right through him.

But he was real. She’d touched him. She’d—

Her hand went right through him.

“Don’t panic,” she said numbly, out loud. “Just…don’t panic. There’s some explanation….” Yeah, right. She’d stumble over to Professor Wu’s physics class and ask. She could just imagine how that would go over. They’d toss a net over her and pump her full of Prozac or whatever.

He’d said, Oh, God, don’t tell them. Tell who? Tell…? Was he gone? Was he dead?

She was about carried away by panic again, and then something stopped it cold. Something silly, really.

The alarm clock sitting on the table next to the sofa. The one that had gone off just a few minutes ago.

The one that had warned Michael that sunrise was coming.

This happens…every day. He hadn’t acted like it was odd, just painful.

Shane and Eve had both said that Michael slept days. They were both night owls; they were sound asleep right now, and wouldn’t be up for hours yet. Michael could have…disappeared…daily like this with nobody paying attention.

Until she came along, and got nosy.

Don’t tell them. Why not? What was so secret?

She was crazy. That was the only rational explanation. But if she was crazy, she wasn’t rational….

Claire curled up on the sofa, shivering, and felt cold air brush over her again. Ice-cold. She sat up. “Michael?” she blurted, and sat very still. The chill went away, then brushed over her again. “I—I think I can feel you. Are you still here?” Another second or two without the icy draft, and then it drifted across her skin. “So—you can see us?” Yes, she figured, since the warm-cold cycle repeated. “You don’t go away during the day? Oh—um, stay where you are if it’s no, okay?” The chill stayed steady. “Wow. That’s—harsh.” A yes, and weirdly, she felt a little cheered. Okay, she was having a conversation with a breeze, but at least she didn’t feel alone. “You don’t want me to tell Shane and Eve?” Clearly, a no. If anything, it got colder. “Is there anything—anything I can do?” Also a no. “Michael—will you come back?” Yes. “Tonight?” Yes, again. “We are so going to talk.”

The chill withdrew completely. Yes.

She collapsed back on the sofa, feeling giddy and strange and exhausted. There was a ratty old blanket piled near the guitar case; she carefully moved the instrument over to the table (and imagined an invisible Michael following her anxiously the whole way), then wrapped herself in the blanket and let herself drift off into sleep, with the ticking of the grandfather clock and memories of Michael’s guitar as a soundtrack.

That day, Claire went to class. Eve argued with her; Shane didn’t. Nothing much happened, although Claire spotted Monica twice on campus. Monica was surrounded by admirers, both male and female, and didn’t have time for grudges. Claire kept her head down and stayed out of any deserted areas. It was an early afternoon for her—no labs—and although she wanted to get home and wait around for Michael to show up (and boy, she wanted to see how that happened!) she knew she’d drive herself crazy, and make Shane suspicious.

As she walked in that general direction, she spotted the small coffee shop, wedged in between the skateboard shop and a used-book store. Common Grounds. That was where Eve worked, and she’d said to stop by….

The bell rang with a silvery tinkle as Claire pushed open the door, and it was like walking into the living room of the Glass House, only a little more Gothic. Black leather sofas and chairs, thick colorful rugs, accent walls in beige and blood red, lots of nooks and crannies. There were five or six students scattered at café tables and built-in desks. None looked up from their books or computers. The whole place smelled like coffee, a constant simmering warmth.

Claire stood for a second, indecisive, and then walked over to an empty desk and dumped her backpack before going to the counter. There were two people behind the waist-high barrier. One was Eve, of course, looking perky and doll-like with her dye-dark hair in two pigtails, eyes rimmed with liner, and lipstick a dramatic Goth black. She was wearing a black mesh shirt over a red camisole, and she grinned when she spotted Claire.

The other was an older man, tall, thin, with graying curly hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. He had a nice, square face, wide dark eyes, and a ruby earring in his left ear. Hippie to the core, Claire guessed. He smiled, too.

“Hey, it’s Claire!” Eve said, and hurried around the counter to slip her arm around Claire’s shoulders. “Claire, this is Oliver. My boss.”

Claire nodded hesitantly. He looked nice, but hey, a boss. Bosses made her nervous, like parents. “Hello, sir.”

“Sir?” Oliver had a deep voice, and an even deeper laugh. “Claire, you’ve got to learn about me. I’m not a sir. Believe me.”

“That’s true.” Eve nodded wisely. “He’s a dude. You’ll like him. Hey, want a coffee? My treat?”

“I—uh—”

“Don’t touch the stuff, right?” Eve rolled her eyes. “One noncoffee drink, coming up. How about hot cocoa? Chai? Tea?”

“Tea, I guess.”

Eve went back behind the counter and did some stuff, and within a couple of minutes, a big white cup and saucer appeared in front of Claire, with a tea bag steeping in the steaming water. “On the house. Well, actually, on me, because, yikes, boss is right here.”

Oliver, who was working on some complicated machine that Claire guessed was something that made cappuccino, shook his head and grinned to himself. Claire watched him curiously. He looked a little bit like a distant cousin she’d met from France—the same kind of hook nose, anyway. She wondered if he’d been a professor at the university, or just a perpetual student. Either looked possible.

“I heard you had some trouble,” Oliver said, still concentrating on unscrewing parts on the machine. “Girls in the dorm.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, and felt her cheeks burn. “Everything’s okay, though.”

“I’m sure it is. Listen, though: if you have trouble like that, you come here and tell me about it. I’ll make sure it stops.” He said it with absolute assurance. She blinked, and his dark eyes moved to rest on hers for a few seconds. “I’m not without influence around here. Eve tells me that you’re very gifted. We can’t have some bad apples driving you off.”

“Um…thanks?” She didn’t mean to make it a question; it just came out that way. “Thanks. I will.”

Oliver nodded and went back to his work dissecting the coffeemaker. Claire found a seat not far away. Eve slipped out from behind the counter and pulled up a chair next to her, leaning forward, all restless energy. “Isn’t he great?” she asked. “He means it, you know. He’s got some kind of pipeline to—” She made a V sign with her fingers. V, for vampires. “They listen to him. He’s good to have on your side.”

Claire nodded, dunking the tea bag and watching the dark stains spread through the water. “You talk about me to everybody?”

Eve looked stricken. “No! Of course I don’t! I just—well, I was worried. I thought maybe Oliver knew something that…Claire, you said it yourself—they tried to kill you. Somebody ought to be doing something about that.”

“Him?”

“Why not him?” Eve jittered her leg, tapping the thick heel on her black Mary Janes. Her hose had green and black horizontal stripes. “I mean, I get that you’re all about being self-sufficient, but come on. A little help never hurts.”

She wasn’t wrong. Claire sighed, took the tea bag out, and sipped the hot drink. Not bad, even on a blazing-hot day.

“Stay,” Eve said. “Study. It’s a really good place for that. I’ll drive you home, okay?”

Claire nodded, suddenly grateful; there were too many places to get lost on the way home, if Monica had noticed her after all. She didn’t like the idea of walking three blocks between the student streets, where things were bright and busy, and the colorless hush of the rest of the town, where the Glass House lived. She put the tea to one side and unpacked books. Eve went back to take orders from three chattering girls wearing sorority T-shirts. They were rude to her, and giggled behind her back. Eve didn’t seem to notice—or if she did, she didn’t care.

Oliver did. He put down the tools he was using, as Eve bustled around getting drinks, and stared steadily at the girls. One by one, they went quiet. It wasn’t anything he did, exactly, just the steadiness of the way he watched them.

When Eve took their money, each one of the girls meekly thanked her and took her change.

They didn’t stay.

Oliver smiled slightly, picked up a piece of the disassembled machine, and polished it before reattaching it. He must have known Claire was watching, because he said, in a very low voice, “I don’t tolerate rudeness. Not in my place.”

She wasn’t sure if he was talking about the girls, or her staring at him, so she hurriedly went back to her books.

Quadratic equations were a great way to pass the afternoon.

Eve’s shift ended at nine, just as the nightlife at Common Grounds picked up; Claire, not used to the babble, chatter, and music, couldn’t keep her mind on her books anyway. She was glad of an excuse to go when Eve’s replacement—a surly-looking pimpled boy about Shane’s age—took her place behind the counter. Eve went in the back to get her stuff, and Claire packed up her backpack.

“Claire.” She looked up, startled that somebody remembered her name other than, well, people who wanted to kill her, and saw Kim Valdez, from the dorm.

“Hey, Kim,” she said. “Thanks for helping me out—”

Kim looked mad. Really mad. “Don’t even start! You left my cello just laying around out there! Do you have any idea how hard I worked for that thing? Way to be an asshole!”

“But—I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie. You bugged out somewhere. Hope you got your bags and crap. I left them out there just like you left my stuff.” Kim jammed her hands in her pockets and glared at her. “Don’t ask me for any favors again. Right?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, just moved off toward the counter. Claire sighed. “I won’t,” she said, and zipped the backpack. She waited for a few minutes, but the crowd was getting thicker, and Eve was nowhere in sight. She stood up, stepped out of the way of a group of boys, and backed into a table in the shadowy corner.

“Hey,” a voice said softly. She looked back and saw a coffee cup tipping over, and a pale, long-fingered hand catching it before it did. The hand belonged to a young man—she couldn’t really call him a boy—with thick dark hair and light-colored eyes, who’d claimed the table when she wasn’t looking.

“Sorry,” she said. He smiled at her and licked a couple of drops of coffee from the back of his hand with a pale tongue.

She felt something streak hot down her backbone, and shivered. He smiled wider.

“Sit,” he said. “I’m Brandon. You?”

“Claire,” she heard herself say, and even though she didn’t intend to, she sat, backpack thumping on the floor beside her. “Um, hi.”

“Hello.” His eyes weren’t just light; they were pale—a shade of blue so faint it was almost silver. Scary-cool. “Are you here alone, Claire?”

“I—no, I—ah—” She was babbling like an idiot, and didn’t know what was wrong with her. The way he was looking at her made her feel naked. Not in a secretly cool, wow-I-think-he-likes-me way, but in a way that made her want to hide and cover herself. “I’m here with a friend.”

“A friend,” he said, and reached across to take her hand. She wanted to pull it back—she did—but somehow she couldn’t get control of herself. All she could do was watch as he turned her hand palm down, and brought it to his mouth to kiss. The warm, damp pressure of his lips on her fingers made her shiver all over.

Then he brushed his thumb across her wrist. “Where is your bracelet, little Claire? Good girls wear their bracelets. Don’t you have one?”

“I—” There was something sick and terrible happening in her head, something that made her tell the truth. “No. I don’t have one.” Because she knew now what Brandon was, and she was sorry she’d laughed at Eve, sorry she’d ever doubted any of it.

You’ll get yours, Monica had promised.

Well, here it was.

“I see.” Brandon’s eyes seemed to get even paler, until they were pure white with tiny black dots for pupils. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. “The only question is who will have you, then. And since I’m here first—”

He let go of her, both her hand and her mind, and she fell backward with a breathless little gasp. Somebody was standing behind her chair, a solid warmth, and Brandon was frowning and staring past her.

“You offend my hospitality,” Oliver said, and put his hand on Claire’s shoulder. “You ever bother my friend Claire in here again, Brandon, and I’ll have to revoke the privileges for everyone. Understand? I don’t think you want to be explaining that.”

Brandon looked furious. His eyes were blue again, but as Claire watched, he snarled at Oliver, and revealed fangs. Real, genuine fangs, like a snake’s, that snapped down into place from some hidden spot inside of his mouth, and then back up again, quick as a scorpion’s sting.

“None of that,” Oliver said calmly. “I’m not impressed. Off with you. Don’t make me have a conversation with Amelie about you.”

Brandon slid out of his chair and slouched away through the crowd, toward the exit. It was dark outside now, Claire noticed. He went out into the night and disappeared from sight.

Oliver still had his hand on her shoulder, and now he squeezed it gently. “That was unfortunate,” he said. “You need to be careful, Claire. Stay with Eve. Watch out for each other. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

She nodded, gulping. Eve came hurrying out of the back, leather coat flapping around her ankles. Her smile died at the sight of Claire’s face. “What happened?”

“Brandon came in,” Oliver said. “Trolling. Claire happened to run into him.”

“Oh,” Eve said in a small voice. “Are you okay?”

“She’s fine. I spotted him before any permanent damage was done. Take her home, Eve. And keep a sharp eye out for that one; he doesn’t take being ordered off very well.”

Eve nodded and helped Claire to her feet, picked up the backpack, and got her outside. The big black Caddy was parked at the curb, and Eve unlocked it and thoroughly checked it over, backseat and trunk, before putting Claire inside of it. When Claire was fastening the seat belt, she noticed two things: first, Oliver was standing in the doorway of Common Grounds, watching them.

Second, Brandon was standing at the corner, in the very edge of the glow of the streetlamp. And he was watching them, too.

Eve saw, too. “Son of a bitch,” she said furiously, and shot him the finger. Which might not have been too smart, but it made Claire feel better. Eve cranked the engine and squealed out of her parking space, driving like she was breaking the record at a NASCAR race, and screeched to a halt in front of the house just a couple of minutes later. “Okay, you go first,” she said. “Run for the door, bang on it while you’re opening it. Go, Claire!”

Claire bailed out breathlessly and slammed the gate back, pounded up the paved walk and up the stairs as she was digging her key out of her pocket. Her hands were shaking, and she missed the keyhole on the first try. She kicked the door and yelled, “Shane! Michael!” as she tried again.

Behind her, she heard the car door slam, and Eve’s shoes clatter on the sidewalk…and stop.

“Now,” said Brandon’s low, cold voice, “let’s not be rude, Eve.”

Claire whirled, and saw Eve standing absolutely still ten steps from the porch, her back to the house. Hot wind whipped her leather coat behind her with a dry snapping sound.

Brandon was facing her, his eyes completely white in the pale starlight.

“Who’s your sweet little friend?” he asked.

“Leave her alone.” Eve’s voice was faint and shaking. “She’s just a kid.”

“You’re all just kids.” He shrugged. “Nobody asks the age of the cow that gave you hamburger.”

Claire, purely terrified now, concentrated, turned back to the door, and rammed the key into the lock…

…just as Shane whipped it open.

“Eve!” she gasped, and Shane pushed her out of the way, jumped down the steps, and got between Eve and Brandon.

“Inside,” Michael said. Claire hadn’t heard him, hadn’t seen him coming, but he was in the doorway, gesturing her in. As soon as she was over the threshold he grabbed her arm and pushed her out of sight behind him. She peeked around him to see what was happening.

Shane was talking, but whatever he was saying, she couldn’t hear it. Eve was backing up, slowly, and when the back of her heels touched the porch steps she whirled and ran up, diving into the doorway and Michael’s arms.

“Shane!” Michael shouted.

Brandon lunged at Shane. Shane dodged, yelled, and kicked the vampire with all his weight. Brandon flew backward into the fence, broke through, and rolled into the street.

Shane fell flat on the ground, scrambled up, and ran for the door. It was impossible for Brandon to move that fast, but the vampire seemed to flash from lying in the street to reaching for Shane’s back…

…and grabbed hold of Shane’s T-shirt, yanking him to a sudden stop. But Shane was reaching, too, for Michael’s hand, and Michael pulled him forward.

The shirt ripped, Shane stumbled in over the threshold, and Brandon tried to follow. He bounced off an invisible barrier, and for the second time Claire saw his fangs snap down, deadly sharp.

Michael didn’t even flinch. “Try it again, and we’ll come stake you in your sleep,” he said. “Count on it. Tell your friends.”

He slammed the door. Eve collapsed against the wall, panting and trembling; Claire couldn’t stop shaking, either. Shane looked flushed and more worried about the damage to his T-shirt than anything else.

Michael grabbed Eve by the shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he never—wow. That was close.”

“No kidding. Claire?”

She waved, unable to summon up a word.

“Where the hell did he come from?” Shane asked.

“He picked up Claire’s scent at the coffee shop,” Eve said. “I couldn’t shake him. Sorry.”

“Damn. That’s not good.”

“I know.”

Michael clicked the locks on the front door. “Check the back. Make sure we’re secure, Shane. Upstairs, too.”

“Check.” Shane moved off. “Dammit, this was my last Killers T-shirt. Somebody’s paying for this….”

“Sorry, Michael,” Eve said. “I tried, I really did.”

“I know. Had to happen sooner or later, with four of us here. You did okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m glad you and Shane were here.”

Michael started to say something, then stopped, looking at Claire. Eve didn’t seem to notice. She stripped off her leather coat and hung it on a peg by the door, and clumped off in the direction of the living room.

“We were just attacked,” Claire finally managed to say. “By a vampire.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Michael said.

“No, you don’t understand. We were attacked. By a vampire. Do you know how impossible that is?”

Michael sighed. “Truthfully? No. I grew up here, and so did Eve and Shane. We’re just kind of used to it.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Absolutely.”

It hit her then that there was another impossible thing she’d nearly forgotten about, in the press of panic, and she started to blurt it out, then looked around to be sure Shane and Eve were nowhere in sight. “What about, you know? You?” She pointed at him.

“Me?” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Right. Upstairs.”

She expected him to take her to the secret room Shane had shown her, but he didn’t; instead, he took her to his own room, the big one on the corner. It was about twice the size of her own room, but didn’t have much more furniture; it did have a fireplace—empty this time of year—and a couple of chairs and a reading lamp. Michael settled in one. Claire took the other, feeling small and cold in the heavy leather seat. The wing chair was about twice her size.

“Right,” Michael said, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Let’s talk about this morning.” But having said that, he didn’t seem to know how to start. He fidgeted, staring at the carpet.

“You died,” Claire said. “You vanished.”

He seemed glad to have something to respond to. “Not exactly, but—yeah. Close enough. You know I used to be a musician?”

“You still are!”

“Musicians play someplace besides their own houses. You heard Shane at dinner. He’s pushing to find out why I’m not playing gigs. Truth is, I can’t. I can’t go outside of this house.”

She remembered him standing in the doorway, white-faced, watching Shane face off with Brandon. That hadn’t been caution; he wanted to be out there, fighting next to his friend. But he couldn’t.

“What happened?” she asked softly. She could tell it wasn’t going to be an easy story.

“Vampire,” he said. “Mostly they just feed, and eventually they kill you if they feed hard enough. Some of them like that kind of thing, not all of them. But—this one was different. He followed me back from a gig and tried—tried to make me—”

She felt her face burn, and dropped her gaze. “Oh. Oh God.”

“Not that,” he said. “Not exactly. He tried to make me a vampire. But he couldn’t. I guess he—killed me. Or nearly, anyway. But he couldn’t make me into what he was, and he was trying. It nearly killed us both. When I woke up later, it was daylight, he was gone, and I was a ghost. Wasn’t until night came that I realized I could make myself real again. But only at night.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing his hands together as if trying to wash off a stain. “I think the house keeps me alive.”

“The house?” she echoed.

“It’s old. And it has a kind of—” He shrugged. “A kind of power. I don’t know what it is, exactly. When my parents traded up to this house, they only lived here for a couple of months, then moved away to New York. Didn’t like the vibes. I liked it fine. I think it liked me, too. But anyway, I can’t leave it. I’ve tried.”

“Even during the day? When you’re not, you know, here?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Can’t go out any door, window, or crack. I’m trapped here.”

He looked oddly relieved to be telling her. If he hadn’t told Shane or Eve, he probably hadn’t told anybody. That felt odd, being the keeper of that secret, because it was a big one. Attacked by a vampire, left for dead, turned into a ghost, trapped in the house? How many secrets was that, anyway?

Something occurred to her. “You said—the vampire, did he…drink your blood?”

Michael nodded. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“And—you died?”

Another silent nod.

“What happened to your—you know—body?”

“I’m still kind of using it.” He gestured at himself. Claire, unable to stop herself, reached out and touched him. He felt real and warm and alive. “I don’t know how it works, Claire, I really don’t. Except I do think it’s the house, not me.”

She took a deep breath. “Do you drink blood?”

He looked up this time, surprised, lips parted. “No. Of course I don’t. I told you, he couldn’t—make me what he was.”

“You’re sure.”

“I eat Shane’s garlic chili. Does that sound like a vampire to you?”

She shrugged thoughtfully. “Until today, I thought I knew what a vampire was, all capes and fake Romanian accents and stuff. What about crosses? Do crosses work?”

“Sometimes. Don’t rely on them, though. The older ones aren’t stopped by things like that.”

“How about Brandon?” Since he was her main concern right now.

Michael’s lip curled. “Brandon’s a punk. You could melt him with a Super Soaker full of tap water, so long as you told him it was blessed. He’s dangerous, but so far as vampires go, he’s at the bottom of the food chain. It’s the ones who don’t go around flashing fangs and trying to grab you off the street you need to worry about. And yeah, wear a cross—but keep it under your clothes. You’ll have to make one if you don’t already have one—they don’t sell them anywhere in town. And if you can find things like holy water and Eucharist, keep them on hand, but the vampires in this town closed down most of the churches fifty years ago. There’s still a few operating underground. Be careful, though. Don’t believe everything you hear, and never, ever go by yourself.”

That was the longest speech she’d ever heard from Michael. It tumbled out in a flood, driven with intensity and frustration. He can’t do anything. He can’t do anything to help us when we go outside the door.

“Why did you let us move in?” she asked. “After—what happened to you?”

He smiled. It didn’t look quite right somehow. “I got lonely,” he said. “And since I can’t leave the house, there’s too much I can’t do. I needed somebody to help with groceries and stuff. And…being a ghost doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Shane—Shane was looking for a place to stay, and he said he’d pitch in for rent. It was perfect. Then Eve…we were friends back in high school. I couldn’t just let her wander around out there after her parents threw her out.”

Claire tried to remember what Eve had said. Nothing, really. “Why did they do that?”

“She wouldn’t take Protection from their Patron when she turned eighteen. Plus, she started dressing Goth when she was about your age. Said she was never going to kiss any vampire ass, no matter what.” Michael made a helpless gesture with his hands. “At eighteen, they threw her out. Had to, or it would have cost the whole family their Protection. So she’s on her own. She’s done okay—she’s safe here, and she’s safe at the coffee shop. It’s only the rest of the time she has to be careful.”

Claire couldn’t think of anything to say. She looked away from Michael, around the room. His bed was made. Oh my God, that’s his bed. She tried to imagine Michael sleeping there, and couldn’t. Although she could imagine some other things, and shouldn’t have because it made her feel hot and embarrassed.

“Claire,” he said quietly. She looked back at him. “Brandon’s too young to be out before dark, so you’re safe in the daytime, but don’t stay out after dark. Got it?”

She nodded.

“About the other thing…”

“I won’t tell,” she said. “I won’t, Michael. Not if you don’t want me to.”

He let out his breath in a long, slow sigh. “Thanks. I know it sounds stupid, but…I just don’t want them to know yet. I need to figure out how to tell them.”

“It’s your business,” Claire said. “And Michael? If you start, you know, getting this craving for red stuff…?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” he said. His eyes were steady and cool. “And I expect you to do whatever you have to do to stop me.”

She shivered and said yes, okay, she’d stake him if she had to, but she didn’t mean it.

She hoped she didn’t, anyway.

8

Shane’s turn for cooking dinner, and he came up with chili dogs—more chili, but at least he did a good job with it. Claire had two, watching in amazement as Michael and Shane downed four each, and Eve nibbled one. She smiled at Shane, and shot back barbs whenever he sent one sailing her way, but Claire noticed something else.

Eve couldn’t keep her eyes off of Michael. At first, Claire thought, She knows something, but then she saw the flush in Eve’s cheeks showing through the pale makeup, and the glitter in her eyes.

Oh. Well, she guessed Michael had looked pretty hot, grabbing her out of danger like that and dragging her out of harm’s way. And now that she thought about it, Eve had been making little glances his direction every time they’d been together.

Eve finally shoved her plate away and claimed dibs on the bathroom for a long, hot, soaking bubble bath. Which Claire wished she’d thought of first. She and Michael did the dishes while Shane practiced his zombie-fighting skills on Xbox.

“Eve likes you, you know,” she said casually as she was rinsing off the last plate. He nearly dropped the one he was drying.

“What?”

“She does.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No.”

“I don’t think you understand Eve, then.”

“Don’t you like her?”

“Of course I like her!”

“Enough to…?”

“I am not talking about this.” He put the plate into the drainer. “Jesus, Claire!”

“Oh, come on. You like her, don’t you?”

“Even if I did—” He stopped short, glancing toward the doorway and lowering his voice. “Even if I did, there are a few problems, don’t you think?”

“Everybody’s got problems,” she said. “Especially in this town. I’ve only been here six weeks, and I already know that.”

Whatever he thought about that, he dried his hands and walked out. She heard him talking to Shane, and when she went out the two of them were deep into the video game, elbowing each other and fighting for every point.

Boys. Sheesh.

She was on her way to her room, passing the bathroom, when she heard Eve crying. She knocked quietly, and looked in when Eve muffled her sobs. The door wasn’t locked.

Eve was dressed in a black fluffy robe, sitting on the toilet; she’d stripped off her makeup and let her hair down, and she looked like a little girl in a too-large adult outfit. Fragile. She gave Claire a shaky grin and wiped tear tracks from her face. “Sorry,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Kind of a suck-ass day, you know?”

“That guy. That vampire. He acted like he knew you,” Claire said.

“Yeah. He—he’s the one who gives my family Protection. I turned him down. He’s not too happy.” She gave a hollow little laugh. “Guess nobody likes rejection.”

Claire studied her. “You okay, though?”

“Sure. Peachy.” Eve waved her out. “Go study. Get smart enough to blow this town. I’m just a little bit down. Don’t worry about it.”

Later, when Michael started playing, Claire heard Eve crying through the wall again.

She didn’t go investigate, and she didn’t watch Michael vanish. She didn’t think she had the courage.

Shane went with her the next day to buy some clothes. It was only three blocks to the colorless retail section of town, with all its dingy-looking thrift stores; she didn’t want his company, but he wasn’t letting her go alone.

“You let Eve go alone,” she pointed out as he sat on the couch putting on his shoes.

“Yeah, well, Eve has a car,” he said. “Besides, I wasn’t up. You get escorted. Live with it.”

She felt secretly pleased about it. A little. It was another typically sunny day, the sidewalks almost vibrating with heat. Not a lot of pedestrians, but then, there rarely were. Shane walked with a long, loping stride, hands in his pockets; she had to hurry to keep up. She kept waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. After a while, she just started talking. “Did you have a lot of friends, growing up here?”

“Friends? Yeah, I guess. A few. Michael. I kind of knew Eve back then, but we hung with different crowds. Couple of other kids.”

“What—what happened to them?”

“Nothing,” Shane said. “They grew up, got jobs, claimed Protection, kept right on going. That’s how it works in Morganville. You either stay in, or you run.”

“Do you ever see them?” Because she’d been amazed how much she’d missed her friends back home, especially Elizabeth. She’d always thought she was a loner, but…maybe she wasn’t. Maybe nobody really was.

“No,” he said. “Nothing in common these days. They don’t want to hang with somebody like me.”

“Somebody who doesn’t want to fit in.” Shane glanced at her and nodded. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Nobody’s fault. So what about you? Any friends back home?”

“Yeah. Elizabeth, she’s my best friend. We talked all the time, you know? But…when she found out I was going away to school, she just…” Claire decided a shrug was about the best opinion she could offer about it.

“Ever call her?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s like we don’t know each other anymore. You know? We have to think about what to say. It’s weird.”

“God, I know what you mean.” Shane suddenly stopped and took his hands out of his pockets. They were in the middle of the block, in between two stores, and at first she thought he was going to look in a window, but then he said tensely, “Turn around and walk away. Just go into the first store you see, and hide.”

“But—”

“Do it, Claire. Now.”

She backed away and turned, walked as fast as she dared to the store they’d already passed. It was a skanky-looking used-clothing store, nowhere she’d willingly shop, but she pushed open the door and looked back over her shoulder as she did.

A cop car was gliding to the curb next to Shane. He was standing there, hands at his sides, looking bland and respectful, and the cop who was driving leaned out of the window to say something to him.

Claire nearly fell forward as the door was jerked open, and stumbled over the threshold into a darkened, musty-smelling interior.

“Hey there,” the uniformed cop who’d opened the door said to her. He was an older man, blond, with thinning hair and a thick mustache. Cold blue eyes and crooked teeth. “Claire, right?”

“I—” She couldn’t think what to say to that. All her life she’d been told not to lie to the police, but…“Yes, sir.” She could tell he already knew, anyway.

“My name’s Gerald. Gerald Bradfield. Pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand. She swallowed hard, wiped her sweaty palm, and shook. She half expected that he’d click handcuffs around her wrists, but he just half crushed her hand as he pumped it twice, up and down, and let go. “People been looking for you, you know.”

“I—didn’t know that, sir.”

“Didn’t you?” Cold, cold eyes, no matter what the smile said. “Can’t imagine that, little girl. Fact is, the mayor’s daughter was worried about where you might have got off to. Asked us to find you. Make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine, sir.” She could barely talk. Her mouth had gone dry. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

He laughed. “Why would you be in trouble, Claire? No, you don’t have to worry about that. Fact is, we already know where you are. And who you’re running with. You should be more careful, honey. You’re brand-new here, but you already know a hell of a lot more than you ought. And your friends aren’t exactly the kind that guarantee a peaceful life in this town. Troublemakers. You don’t look like a troublemaker to me. Tell you what, you move back into the dorm, be a good girl, go to classes, I’ll personally make sure nothing happens to you.”

Claire wanted to nod, wanted to agree, wanted to do anything to get away from this man. She looked around the store. There were other people in there, but she couldn’t get any of them to look at her. It was like she didn’t even exist.

“You don’t think I can do it,” he said. “I can. Count on it.”

She looked back at him, and his eyes had gone white, with little dots of pupils in the middle. When he smiled, she saw a flash of fangs.

She gasped, backed away, and grabbed for the door handle. She lunged out into the street, running, and saw Shane standing right where he’d been, watching the police car pull away from the curb. He turned and grabbed her as she practically crashed into him. “Vampire!” she gasped. “V-vampire cop. In the store!”

“Must have been Bradfield,” Shane said. “Tall guy? Kind of bald, with a mustache?”

She nodded, shaking all over. Shane didn’t even look surprised, much less alarmed. “Bradfield’s okay,” he said. “Not the worst guy in town, that’s for sure. He hurt you?”

“He—he just shook my hand. But he said he knew! He knew where I was living!”

Again, Shane didn’t look surprised. “Yeah, well, that was just a matter of time. They pulled over to ask me your full name. They added it to inventory.”

“Inventory?”

“That’s what they call it. It’s like a census. They always know how many are living in a place. Look, just walk, okay? And don’t look so scared. They aren’t going to jump us in broad daylight.”

Shane had a lot more confidence in that than she did, but she got control of her shaking and nodded, and followed him up another block to a thrift shop that looked brighter, friendlier, and less likely to have vampires lurking inside. “This is Mrs. Lawson’s place. She used to be a friend of my mom’s. It’s okay.” Shane held open the door for her, like a gentleman. She supposed his mom had taught him that. Inside, the place smelled nice—incense, Claire thought—and there were lots of lights burning. No dark corners here, and a bell rang with a pleasant little tinkling sound when Shane let the door shut behind them.

“Shane!” A large woman in a brightly colored tie-dyed shirt and big, swirly skirt hustled over from behind the counter at the back, gathered Shane up in a hug, and beamed at him when she stepped back. “Boy, what the hell are you doing back here? Up to no good?”

“Up to no good, ma’am. Just like always.”

“Thought so. Good for you.” The woman’s dark eyes landed on Claire. “Who’s your little friend?”

“This is Claire. Claire Danvers. She’s—she’s a student at the college.”

“Nice to meet you, Claire. Now. I’ll bet you didn’t come in here just to say ‘hey,’ boy, so what can I do for you?”

“Clothes,” Claire said. “I’m looking for some clothes.”

“Those we got. You’re about a size four, right? Come with me, honey. I’ve got some really nice things just your size. Shane, you look like you could use some new clothes, too. Those jeans are raggedy.”

“Supposed to be.”

“Lord. Fashion. I just don’t understand it anymore.”

Maybe she didn’t, but Mrs. Lawson had all kinds of cute tops and jeans and things, and cheap, too. Claire picked an armload and followed her to the counter, where she counted out a grand total of twenty-two dollars, including tax. As Mrs. Lawson was ringing it up, Claire looked behind her to the things on the wall. There was some kind of official-looking certificate hanging there, framed, with an embossed seal…. No, that wasn’t a seal. That was a symbol. The same symbol as the one on the bracelet Mrs. Lawson wore.

“You take care,” Mrs. Lawson said as she handed over the bag with the clothes. “Both of you. Tell Shane he needs to get himself right, and he needs to do it quick. They’ve been cutting him some slack, given what he went through, but that won’t last. He needs to be thinking about his future.”

Claire looked over her shoulder to where Shane was staring out the window, looking bored. Eyes half-closed.

“I’ll tell him,” she said doubtfully.

She couldn’t imagine Shane was thinking about anything else.

Days slipped away, and Claire just let them go. She was worried about class, but she was tired and her bruises had turned Technicolor, and the last thing she wanted to do was be the center of attention. It was better—Shane had convinced her—to do some home study and get back to class when she was better, and Monica had had some time to let things blow over.

The week slipped away. She fell into a regular routine—up late with Michael and Shane and Eve, sleep until noon, argue over bathroom rights, cook, clean, study, do it all again. It felt…good. Real, somehow, in a way that dorm life didn’t, exactly.

The following Monday, when she got up and made breakfast, she had to make it for two: Shane was awake, looking grumpy and groggy. He silently grabbed the bacon and fried some up while she did the eggs; there wasn’t any banter, as there had been between him and Eve a couple of mornings back. She tried a little conversation, but he wasn’t in the mood. He just grunted replies. She waited until he was done with his breakfast—which included a cup of coffee, brewed in the tiny little coffeemaker on the corner of the counter—before she asked, “What are you doing up so early?”

Shane leaned his chair back on two legs, balancing as he chewed. “Ask Michael.”

Can’t exactly do that… “You doing something for him?”

“Yeah.” He thumped his chair back down and brushed his hand over his hair, which still looked like a mess. “Don’t expect me to dress up or anything.”

“What?”

“What you see is what you get.” She just looked at him, frowning, trying to figure out what he was saying. “I’m taking you to class. You were going back today, right?”

“You’re kidding,” she said flatly. He shrugged. “You’re kidding. I’m not some six-year-old who needs her big brother to walk her to school! No way, Shane!”

“Michael thinks you should have an escort. Brandon was pretty pissed. He could find a way to take it out on you, even if he can’t do it himself. He’s got plenty of people who’d kick your ass on his say-so.” Shane’s eyes slid away from hers. “Like Monica.”

Oh, crap. “Monica belongs to Brandon?”

“The whole Morrell family does, far as I know. He’s their own personal badass. So.” He rubbed his hands together. “What exciting classes do we have today?”

“You can’t go to class with me!”

“Hey, you’re welcome to knock me out and stop me, but until you do, I’m your date for the day. So. What classes?”

“Calculus II, Physics of Sound, Chemistry III, chem lab, and Biochemistry.”

“Holy crap. You really are smart. Right, I’ll take some comics or something. Maybe my iPod.”

She kept glaring at him. It didn’t seem to do any good—if anything, it just made him more cheerful.

“I always wanted to be a big man on campus,” Shane said. “Guess this is my chance.”

“I’m dead,” she moaned, and rested her forehead on her hands.

“Not yet. And that’s kind of the point.”

She was afraid Shane would make a big deal out of it, but he didn’t. He even combed his hair, which turned out to make him look totally hot in ways that she was afraid to notice. Especially if she had to spend the whole day with him. He’d picked a plain white shirt and his best pair of blue jeans, which were still out at the knees and frayed at the hems. And plain running shoes. “In case we have to do any retreating,” he said. “Plus, kicking somebody when you’re wearing flip-flops hurts.”

“But you’re not kicking anybody,” she said quickly. “Right?”

“Nobody who doesn’t deserve it,” he said. “What else do I need to fit in?”

“Backpack.” She found her spare—she’d brought two—and tossed it to him. He stuck in some paperbacks, a PSP, and his iPod and headphones, then raided the cabinets for Twinkies and bottled water. “We’re not exactly going to the wilderness, Shane. You don’t have to take everything. There are vending machines.”

“Yeah? I didn’t see any lunch in that schedule. You’ll thank me later.”

In fact, she did feel better with Shane loping along beside her; he was watching the shadows, the dark alleys, the empty buildings. Watching everything. Even though he’d packed the iPod, he wasn’t listening to it. She missed hers, all of a sudden, and wondered if Monica had it.

They made it to campus without incident, and they were halfway across it, heading for her first class, when Claire suddenly thought of something and came to a full stop. Shane kept going for a couple of paces, then looked back.

“Monica,” she said. “Monica’s going to be hanging around. She usually is. She’ll see you.”

“I know.” Shane hitched his backpack to a more comfortable spot. “Let’s go.”

“But—Monica!”

He just looked at her, and started walking. She stayed where she was. “Hey! You’re supposed to be with me, not leaving me!”

“Monica’s my business,” he said. “Drop it.” He waited for her, and she reluctantly caught up. “She doesn’t mess with us, I won’t mess with her. How’s that?”

Wishful thinking, to Claire’s mind. If Monica really had gotten it in for Shane, even a year or two ago, and gone far enough to kill his sister, she couldn’t imagine any situation where Shane just walked away. Shane wasn’t a walking-away kind of guy.

The square concrete courtyard between the Architecture Building and the Math Sciences Building was packed with students crossing between classes. Now that Claire knew what to look for, she couldn’t help but notice how many of them had bracelets—leather, metal, even braided cloth—with symbols on them.

And how many students didn’t.

The ones who wore the symbols were the shiny, confident ones. Sorority girls. Frat guys. Athletes. Popular kids. The loners, the sideliners, the dull and average and strange…they were the ones who weren’t Protected.

They were the cattle.

Shane was scanning the crowd. Claire kept walking quickly toward the Math Building; she knew for a fact that Monica wouldn’t be caught dead—or killing anybody—in a place that geeky. The only problem was that the third building on the Quad was the Business Administration Building, and that was, of course, where Monica liked to spend her time hanging out, looking for rich boys.

Almost there…

She was actually on the steps leading up to the Math Building when she heard Shane stop behind her. He was staring off into the Quad, and as Claire turned, she saw Monica, surrounded by a clique of admirers, staring right back at him. The two of them might as well have been alone. It was the kind of look that people in love exchanged, or people who were about to kill each other.

“Son of a bitch,” Shane breathed. He sounded shaken.

“Come on,” Claire said, and grabbed his elbow. She was afraid he wouldn’t let her pull him on, but he did, as if his mind was somewhere else. When he finally glanced at her, his eyes were dark and hard.

“Not here,” she said. “She won’t come in.”

“Why not?”

“It would embarrass her.”

He nodded slowly, as if that made sense to him, and followed her to class.

Claire had a hard time keeping her mind on the droning lecture, which was familiar anyway, and she’d read far ahead of where the professor was teaching…but mostly, she kept thinking about Shane, sitting motionless next to her, hands on the desk, staring blankly into space. He wasn’t even listening to his iPod. She could sense the tenseness in his body, like he was just waiting for the chance to hit something.

I knew this was a bad idea.

It was an hour-and-a-half lecture with a fifteen-minute break in the middle; when Shane got up and walked out, she hastily followed him. He went up to the glass doors and looked out over the Quad.

“She’s gone,” he said, without looking at Claire. “Quit worrying about me. I’m okay.”

“She—Eve said she burned your house.” No reply. “And—your sister—?”

“I couldn’t get her out,” Shane said. “She was twelve, and I couldn’t get her out of the house. That was my job. Watch out for her.”

He still didn’t look at her. She couldn’t think of anything to say. After a while, he walked away, into the boys’ bathroom; she dashed into the girls’, waiting impatiently for the line to clear, and came back out to find him nowhere in sight.

Oh, crap.

But when she went back to the lecture hall he was sitting right where he’d been, this time with his iPod earbuds in place.

She didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

It was the longest lecture, and the least enjoyable, that Claire could remember.

Physics was in the same building; if Monica was waiting out in the wilting sun on the Quad, she’d be getting a really good tan. Shane sat like a statue, if a statue wore headphones and radiated angry coiled tension that made hair stand up on a person’s arms. She felt like she was sitting next to an unexploded bomb, and given all of the physics she’d had, she understood exactly what that meant. Talk about potential energy….

Physics crawled slowly by. Shane broke out water and Twinkies, and shared. Chemistry was in the next building, but Claire made sure that they went out the side entrance, not through the Quad. No sign of Monica. She suffered through another hour and a half of chemistry and tension. Shane gradually unwound to the point that her nerves didn’t jangle like sleigh bells every time he moved, and ended up playing on his PSP through most of the class. Killing zombies, she hoped. That seemed to put him in a good mood.

In fact, he was positively cheerful during chem lab, interested in the experiment and asking so many questions that the teaching assistant, who’d never had to come to Claire’s table before, wandered over and stared at Shane as if trying to figure out what he was doing there.

“Hey, man,” Shane said, and stuck out his hand. “Shane Collins. I’m—what’s the word I’m looking for? Auditing. Auditing the class. With my friend here. Claire.”

“Oh,” said the TA, whose name Claire had never learned. “Right. Okay, then. Just—follow along.”

Shane gave him a thumbs-up and a goofy grin. “Hey,” he said in an undertone, leaning close to Claire. “Any of this stuff blow up?”

“What? Um…yeah, if you do it wrong, I guess.”

“I’m thinking about practical applications. Bombs. Things like that.”

“Shane!” He really was distracting. And he smelled good. Guy good, which was different from girl good—darker, spicier, a smell that made her go all fluttery inside. Oh, come on, it’s Shane! she told herself. That didn’t help, especially when he shot her that crooked smile and a look that probably would kill most girls at ten feet. He’s a slacker. And he’s—not that smart. Maybe he was, though. Just in different places than she was. It was a new idea to her, but she kind of liked it.

She slapped his hand when he reached for the reagents, and concentrated on the details of the experiment.

She was concentrating so hard, in fact, and Shane had gotten so engrossed in watching what she was doing, that neither of them heard footsteps behind them. The first Claire knew about it was a searing, burning sensation down the right side of her back. She dropped the beaker she was holding and screamed—couldn’t help it, because God, that hurt—and Shane whirled around and grabbed somebody by the collar who was backing away.

Gina, the Monickette. She snarled and slapped at him, but he didn’t let go; Claire, gasping in pain and trying to twist to see what was happening on her back, could see that it was taking everything Shane had not to deck his prisoner then and there. The TA came rushing over and other students started realizing there was something wrong, or at least more interesting than lab work; Claire slipped off the stool at the table and tried to look at what was happening to her back, because it hurt. She smelled something terrible.

“Oh my God!” the TA blurted. He grabbed the bottled water out of Shane’s backpack, opened it, and dumped the contents over Claire’s back, then dashed to a cupboard on the side and came back with a box of baking soda. She heard it sizzle when it hit her back, and nearly passed out. “Here. Sit. Sit down. You, call an ambulance. Go!” As Claire sank down breathlessly again on another, lower stool, the TA grabbed a pair of scissors and cut her shirt up the back, and folded it aside. He cut her bra strap, too, and she just barely had the presence of mind to grab hold before the whole thing slid down her arms. God, it hurts, it hurts…. She tried not to cry. The burn was easing up a little as the baking soda did its work. Acid has a low pH; baking soda has a high one…. Well, at least she’d retained some grasp of chemistry, even now.

She looked up and saw that Shane still had hold of Gina. He’d twisted her arm behind her back and made her let go of the beaker; what remained of the acid she’d splashed on Claire was still in the glass, looking as innocent as water.

“It was an accident!” she yelped, and stood on her tiptoes as Shane twisted harder. “I tripped! I’m sorry! Look, I didn’t mean it….”

“We’re not working with H₂SO₄ today,” the TA said grimly. “You’ve got no reason to be walking around with it. Claire? Claire, how bad is the pain?”

“I—it’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, though truthfully she had no idea if she was or not. She felt lightheaded, sick, and cold. Shock, probably. And embarrassment, because God, she was half naked in front of the entire chem lab, and…Shane…“Can I put something on?”

“No, you can’t let anything touch that. The burn’s through several layers of skin. It’ll need treatment, and antibiotics. You just sit still.” The TA turned to Shane and Gina, and leveled a finger at her. “You, you’re talking to the campus police. I will not tolerate this kind of attack in my classroom. I don’t care who your friends are!”

So he knew her. Or at least he knew enough. Shane was whispering something in Gina’s ear, something too low for Claire to hear, but it couldn’t be good, by the expression on the girl’s face.

“Sir?” Claire asked faintly. “Sir, can I have a makeup on the lab work and—”

And she passed out before she finished saying, and I’m sorry for the mess.

9

When she woke up, she was on her side, and she felt warm all over. Sleepy. There was someone sitting next to her, a boy, and she blinked twice and realized that it was Shane. Shane was in her bedroom. No, wait, this wasn’t her bedroom; it was somewhere else….

“Emergency room,” he said. She must have looked confused. “Damn, Claire. Warn a guy before you do a face-plant on the floor next time. I could have looked all heroic and caught you or something.”

She smiled. Her voice came out sounding lazy and slow. “You caught Gina.” That was funny, so she said it again. “You caught Geeeeeeeeeena.”

“Yeah, ha-ha, you’re high as a kite, you know? And they called your parents.”

It took her a little while to realize what he’d just said. “Parents?” she repeated, and tried to lift her head. “Oh. Ow. Not good.”

“Not so much. Mom and Dad were pretty freaked to hear you became a lab accident. The campus cops forgot to mention the part where Gina deliberately threw acid on your back. They seem to think it was just one of those funky accidents.”

“Was it?” she asked. “Accident?”

“No way. She meant to hurt you.”

Claire plucked at the ugly blue hospital gown she was wearing. “Killed my shirt.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Shane looked pale and tense. “I’ve been trying to call Michael. I don’t know where he is. I don’t want to leave you alone here, but—”

“He’s okay,” she said softly, and closed her eyes. “I’m okay, too.”

She thought she felt his hand on her hair, a second of light, sweet pressure. “Yeah,” Shane said. “You’re okay. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She nodded sleepily, and then everything faded into a lemon yellow haze, like she was lying in the sunlight.

Ouch.

Waking up was not fun. No hazy druggy lemon sunlight; this was more like a blowtorch burning on her back right on the shoulder blade. Claire whimpered and burrowed into her pillow, trying to get away from the pain, but it followed close behind.

The drugs had worn off.

She blinked and whimpered and slowly sat up; a passing nurse stopped and came in to check her over. “Congratulations,” she said. “You’re doing well. That burn is going to hurt for a while, but if you take the antibiotics and keep the wound clean, you’ll be fine. You’re lucky somebody was there to wash it off and neutralize the reaction. I’ve seen battery acid burns down to the bone.”

Claire nodded, not sure she could actually speak without throwing up. Her whole side felt hot and bruised.

“Do you want to get down?”

She nodded again. The nurse helped her down, and gave her what was left of her clothes when she asked. The bra, cut through, was a total loss. The shirt—not much left of that, either. The nurse came up with a loose black T-shirt from lost and found and got her presentable, and the doctor came around to give her a quick once-over. From the brisk way they dispensed with her, a little sulfuric acid burn was barely worth working up a sweat about, at least in Morganville.

“How bad is it?” she asked Shane as he wheeled her through the halls to the exit. “I mean, is it, like, really gross?”

“Unbelievably gross,” he said. “Horror movie gruesome.”

“Oh God.”

He relented. “It’s not so bad. It’s about the size of a quarter. Your teacher guy did a good job chopping up your clothes and getting it away from your skin. I know it hurt like hell, but it could have been a lot worse.”

There had been a lot more in the beaker in Gina’s hand. “Do you—do you think she was going to—?”

“Pour it all on you? Hell yeah. She just didn’t have time.”

Wow. That was…unpleasant. She felt hot and cold and a little sick, and it had nothing to do with shock this time. “I guess that was Monica’s payback.”

“Some of it, anyway. She’ll be really pissed now that it didn’t go over the way she thought it would.”

The idea of Monica being really pissed wasn’t the best way to end the day—and it was the end of the day, she realized as Shane rolled her up to the automatic glass double doors.

It was dark.

“Oh,” she said, and covered her mouth. “Oh no.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got transpo covered, at least. Ready?”

She nodded, and Shane suddenly accelerated her chair into a flat-out run. Claire yelped and grabbed for the handles, feeling utterly out of control as the chair bounced its way down the ramp and skidded to a halt just inches from the shiny black side of Eve’s car. Eve threw open the passenger door, and Claire tried to get up on her own, but Shane grabbed her around the waist and lifted her straight into the seat. It took seconds, and then he was kicking the wheelchair back toward the ramp, where it bumped into the railing and sat there, looking lost.

Shane dived into the back. “Punch it!” he said. Eve did, as Claire struggled to find some kind of seat belt setting that wouldn’t reduce her to gasps and tears of pain. She settled for hunching forward, bracing herself on the massive dashboard, as Eve peeled out of the parking lot and raced down the dark street. The streetlights looked eerie and too far apart—was that deliberate? Did the vampires control even how far apart they built the lights? Or was she just freaked beyond belief?

“Is he there?” Shane asked, leaning over the seat back. Eve shot him a look.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s there. But don’t put me in the middle of it. I have to work there, you know.”

“I promise, I won’t tick off your boss.”

She didn’t believe him—that much was clear—but Eve turned right instead of left at the next light, and in about two minutes pulled up at the curb in front of Common Grounds, which was ablaze with light. Crowded, too. Claire frowned, but before she could even ask, Shane was out of the car and heading inside the coffee shop.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

“Something stupid,” Eve said. “How’s the burn? Hurts, huh?”

Claire would have shrugged, but when she even thought about it the imagined pain made her flinch. “Not so bad,” she said bravely, and tried a smile. “Could have been a lot worse, I guess.”

“I guess,” Eve agreed. “Told you classes were dangerous. We need to get this under control. You can’t go back if this kind of thing happens.”

“I can’t quit!”

“Sure you can,” Eve said cheerfully. “People do it all the time. Just not people like you—oh, damn.”

Eve bit her black-painted lip, eyes wide and worried as she stared through the window at the brightly lit interior of the shop. And after a few seconds, Claire saw what she was worried about: the hippie manager, Oliver, was standing at the window watching them right back, and behind him, Shane was pulling up a chair to the far-corner table, where a dark shape was sitting.

“Tell me he’s not talking to Brandon,” Claire said.

“Um…okay. He’s not talking to Brandon.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yeah. He’s talking to Brandon. Look, let Shane do his thing, okay? He’s not as stupid as he looks, mostly.”

“But he’s not—Protected, right?”

“That’s why he’s talking in Common Grounds. It’s sort of a truce spot. Vampires don’t hunt there, or they’re not supposed to, anyway. And it’s where all kinds of deals and treaties and stuff get made. So Shane’s safe enough in there.”

But she was still biting her lip and looking worried. “Unless?” Claire guessed.

“Unless Shane attacks first. Self-defense doesn’t count.”

Shane was being good, as far as Claire could see…. His hands were on the table, and although he was bent over saying something, he wasn’t slugging anybody. That was good, right? Although she had no idea what he could be saying to Brandon, anyway. Brandon wasn’t the one who had poured acid on her back.

Whatever Shane said, it didn’t seem to go down too hard; eventually, Shane just shoved his chair back and walked out, nodding to Oliver on the way out. Brandon slid out from behind the table, dark and sleek, to follow Shane to the doorway, close enough to reach out and grab him. But that was just a mind game, Claire realized as she started to yell a warning. Brandon wanted to freak him out, not hurt him.

Shane just looked over his shoulder, shrugged, and exited the coffee shop. When Brandon started to follow, Oliver reached across and put his arm in the way. By the time Brandon had snarled something at him, Shane was in the car, and Eve was already gunning it away from the curb.

“Do we need to be afraid now?” she asked. “Because I’d like a head start before the official terror alert goes up.”

“Nope. We’re clear,” Shane said. He sounded tired, and a little strange. “Claire’s got a free pass. Nobody’s going to come after her. Including Monica and her sock puppets.”

“But—what? Why?” Claire asked. Eve evidently didn’t have to ask. She just looked grim and angry.

“We did a trade,” Shane said. “Vampires are all about the one-up.”

“You’re such an idiot!” Eve hissed.

“I did what I had to do! I couldn’t ask Michael. He wasn’t—” Shane bit off whatever he was about to say, violently, and got the anger in his voice under tight control. “He wasn’t around. Again. I had to do something. Claire wasn’t kidding. They’ll kill her, or at least, they’ll hurt her so bad she’ll wish they’d finish it up. I can’t let that happen.”

There was, Claire thought, a silent not again at the end of that. She wanted to turn and look at him, but it hurt too much to try. She tried to meet his eyes in the mirror instead.

“Shane,” she said. “What did you promise?”

“Nothing I can’t afford to lose.”

“Shane!”

But Shane didn’t answer. Neither did Eve, although she parted her lips a couple of times, then shut them without making a sound. The rest of the drive was done in silence, and once they’d pulled in at the curb, Eve got out and hurried up the walk to unlock the door. Claire opened the passenger door and started to get out, but again, Shane was there ahead of her, helping her up. Man, he was…strong. And he had big, warm hands. She shivered, and he immediately asked, “Cold?” but it wasn’t that. Not that at all.

“Shane, what did you promise?” she blurted, and grabbed his forearm. Not that he couldn’t have pulled free, but…he didn’t. He just looked down at her. They were standing really close together, close enough she felt every nerve in her body fizz like a shaken can of Coke. “You didn’t—do something—”

“Stupid?” he asked. He looked down at her hand, and after a second, he touched it with his own. Just for a second, and then yanked away from her like she’d burned him. She’d been right; he could break free without even thinking about it. “Yeah. That’s what I’m good at. The stupid stuff. Probably for the best; having two big brains in the house might get kinda crowded.” When she tried to say something, he motioned her toward the house. “Unless you want to hang a This Vein for Rent sign around your neck, move already!”

She moved. The front door was open, and Shane followed behind her, close behind, until she was going up the steps.

She didn’t hear his footsteps anymore, and turned to look. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching the street.

There was a vampire standing at the corner, under the glow of a streetlight. Brandon. Just standing there, arms folded, he was leaning against the lamppost like he had all the time in the world.

He blew them a kiss, turned, and walked away.

Shane shot him the finger and practically shoved Claire across the threshold. “Don’t you ever stop out there!”

“You said I got a free pass!”

“It doesn’t come with a written guarantee!”

“What did you promise him?” she yelled.

Shane slammed the door, hard, and started to push past her to go down the hall, but just as he got there, Michael stepped into his path. And Michael looked pissed.

“Answer her,” he said. “What the hell did you do, Shane?”

“Oh, now you care? Where the hell were you, man? I called! I came and looked for you. Hell, I even picked the lock to your room!”

Michael’s blue eyes flickered from Shane to Claire and back. “I had things to do.”

“Dude, today you had things to do? Whatever, man. You weren’t around, and I had to make the call. So I made it.”

“Shane.” Michael reached out and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him to a stop. “It sounds like she deserves an answer. We all do.” Behind him, Eve stepped around the corner, arms folded.

Shane let out a short, harsh laugh. “Ganging up on me with the girls? Low blow, man. Low blow. What happened to male bonding?”

“Eve says you talked to Brandon.”

Claire watched the fight go out of Shane’s shoulders. “Yeah. I did. I had to. I mean—look, they threw acid on her and the damn cops wouldn’t even—I had to go to the source. You taught me that.”

“You made a deal with Brandon,” Michael said, and Claire heard the sick tremor in his voice. “Oh, dammit to hell, Shane. You didn’t.”

Shane shrugged. He wasn’t meeting Michael’s eyes. “Dude, it’s done. Don’t make a thing out of it. It’s only twice. And he can’t drain me or anything.”

“Shit!” Michael turned and slammed his hand hard into the wooden doorframe. “You don’t even know her, man! You can’t make a crusade out of this!”

“I’m not!”

“She’s not Alyssa!” Michael yelled, and that was the loudest shout she’d ever heard in her life. Claire flinched and stepped back, and saw Eve do the same behind him.

Shane didn’t move. It was like he couldn’t. He just stood there, head down.

And then he took a deep breath, raised his head, and met Michael’s furious eyes.

“I know she’s not Alyssa,” he said, and his tone was still, quiet, and completely cold. “You need to back the hell off, Michael, and you need to stop thinking I’m the screwed-up kid you knew back then. I know what I’m doing, and you’re not my dad.”

“I’m the closest thing you have to family around here!” Michael came off of the yelling, but Claire could hear the anger bubbling in his voice. “And I’m not letting you play the hero. Not now.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d step up and watch my back!”

Shane shoved past him this time, pounded up the stairs, and slammed the door to his room. Michael stood there, staring after him until Claire took a step forward. She froze when he looked at her, afraid he’d be angrier at her than he had been at Shane. After all, it had been her fault….

“Come sit down,” Michael said. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do. Sit. Eve, hold her down if you have to.” He took her hand for a second, squeezed it, and stood aside for her to move to the couch. She sank onto it with a sigh of relief and rested her forehead on her hands. God, what a miserable day. It had started out so—and Shane—but—

“You understand what Shane did, right?” Eve asked, plopping next to her. “How he, you know, made the deal?”

“No.” She felt hot, and miserable, and she definitely didn’t want food. But Michael wasn’t exactly in the mood to take no for an answer. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Shane traded two sessions to Brandon in exchange for him leaving you alone.”

“He—what?” Claire looked up, mortally confused. Was Shane gay? She hadn’t even thought about the possibility….

“Sessions. You know, bites.” Eve mimed fangs. “The agreement is that Brandon can fang him—twice. He just can’t, you know, kill him. It’s not about food, it’s pleasure. And power.” Eve smoothed her pleated skirt and frowned down at her short, black fingernails. “Michael’s right to be angry about it. Not killing somebody is a hell of a long way from not hurting them. And Brandon’s got a lot of experience at making deals. Shane doesn’t.”

Somehow, she’d known that—from the way Shane had acted, the way Brandon had been watching them, the way Michael had been so angry. It wasn’t just that Shane had told Brandon to back off, or made some dumbass promise. Shane had traded his life for hers—or at least, he was risking it.

Claire gasped, and fear prickled her skin so hard it was like rolling in needles. “But if he gets bitten, is he—won’t he—?”

“Turn into a vampire?” Eve shook her head. “It can’t work that way, or Morganville’d be the Undead Metroplex by now for sure. All my life, I’ve never seen or heard of anybody turned into a vampire from a bite. The suckers around here are really old. Not that Shane wouldn’t look completely hot with a nice set of fangs, but…” She fiddled with the pleats on her skirt. “Shit. This is stupid. Why not me? I mean, not that I exactly want to—not anymore—but…it’s worse for guys.”

“Worse? Why?”

Eve shrugged, but Claire could see she was avoiding the question. “Shane’s definitely not going to be able to handle it. Boy can’t even let somebody else have the last corn dog, and he doesn’t even like corn dogs. He’s a total control freak.” She fidgeted for a few more seconds, then added, softly, “And I’m afraid for him.”

As Michael came back into the room, Eve jumped up and ran around moving things, stacking things, until Michael gave her a none-too-subtle signal to leave. Which she did, making some excuse Claire didn’t hear, and clattered upstairs to her room.

Michael handed Claire a bowl. “Chili. Sorry. It’s what we’ve got.”

She nodded and took a spoonful, because she’d always pretty much done what she was told…and the second the chili hit her tongue, she realized that she was starving. She swallowed it almost without chewing, and was scooping up the next bite before she knew what she was doing. Shane needed to go into the chili business.

Michael slipped into the leather armchair to the left and picked up the guitar he’d laid aside. He started tuning it as if the whole scene with Shane hadn’t even happened. She ate, stealing glances at him as he bent over the instrument, drawing soft, resonant notes. “You’re not mad?” she finally asked, or mumbled.

“Mad?” He didn’t raise his curly blond head. “Mad is what you get when somebody flips you the finger on the freeway, Claire. No. I’m scared. And I’m trying to think what to do about it.”

She stopped chewing for a few seconds, then realized that choking on her food wasn’t likely to make things any better.

“Shane’s hotheaded,” Michael said. “He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t think. I should have thought for him, before I brought you in here.”

Claire swallowed. The food had suddenly gone a little sour in her mouth, so she put the spoon down. “Me?”

Michael’s fingers stilled on the guitar strings. “You know about his sister, right?”

Alyssa. That was the name Michael had thrown out. The one that had hurt Shane. “She’s dead.”

“Shane’s not a complicated guy. If he cares about somebody, he fights for them. Simple. Lyssa—Lyssa was a sweet kid. And he had that whole big-brother thing working. He’d have died for her.” Michael slowly shook his head. “Nearly did. Anyway, the point is that Lyssa would have been your age by now, and here you are getting hurt by the same bitches who killed his sister, trying to get him. So yeah. He’d do anything—anything—not to have to live through that again. You may not be Lyssa, but he likes you, and more than that, he hates Monica Morrell. So much he—” Michael couldn’t seem to say it. He stared off into space for a few seconds, then went on. “Making deals with the vampires in this town will keep you alive on the outside, but it eats you on the inside. I watched it happen to my folks, before they got out of here. Eve’s parents, too. Her sisters. If Shane goes through with this, it’ll kill him.”

Claire stood up. “He’s not going through with it,” she said. “I’m not letting him.”

“How exactly are you going to stop him? Hell, I can’t stop him, and he listens to me. Mostly.”

“Look, Eve said—Eve said vampires own this town. Is that true? Really?”

“Yes. They’ve been here as long as anybody can remember. If you live here, you learn to live with them. If you can’t, then you go.”

“They don’t just run around biting people, though.”

“That would be rude,” he said gravely. “They don’t need to. Everybody in town—everybody who’s a resident—pays taxes. Blood tax. Two pints a month, down at the hospital.”

She stared. “I didn’t have to!”

“College kids don’t. They get taxed a different way.” He looked grim, and with a sick, twisting sense of horror she realized what he was going to say right before he made it real. “Vamps have a deal with the school. They get to take two percent a year, right off the top. Used to be more, but I think they got worried. Couple of close calls with the media. There’s nothing TV stations like more than a pretty young college girl gone missing. Claire, what are you thinking?”

She took a deep breath. “If the vamps have this all planned out, then they’ve got, you know, structure. Right? They can’t all just be running their own shows. Not if there are a lot of them. There’s got to be somebody in charge.”

“True. Brandon’s got a boss. And his boss probably has a boss.”

“So all we have to do is make a deal with his boss,” she said. “For something other than Shane getting bit.”

“All?”

“They have to want something. Something more than what they already have. We just need to find out what it is.”

There was a creak on the stairs. Michael turned to look, and so did Claire. Eve was standing there.

“Didn’t hear you coming,” Michael said. She shrugged and padded down the steps; she’d taken off her shoes. Even her black-and-white hose had little skulls on the toes.

“I know what they want,” she said. “Not that we’re going to be able to find it.”

Michael looked at her for a long time. Eve didn’t look away; she walked right up to him, and Claire suddenly felt like she was in the middle of something personal. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, or how she was smiling at him, but it made Claire fidget and closely examine a stack of books on the end table.

“I don’t want you in this,” Michael said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach out and take Eve’s hand.

“Shane’s in it. Claire’s in it. Hey, even you’re in it.” Eve shrugged. “You know how much I hate being left out. Besides, if there’s a way to stick it to Brandon, I’m all for it. That guy needs a poke in the eye with a nice, sharp stake.”

They were still holding hands. Claire cleared her throat, and Michael let go first. “What is it? What do they want?”

Eve grinned. “Oh, you’re gonna love this,” she said. “They want a book. And I can’t think of anybody who’d have a better shot at finding it than you, book girl.”

There were a lot of rules to Morganville Claire hadn’t even thought about. The blood donation, that was one—and she was starting to wonder how Michael was getting away with not paying his taxes. He couldn’t, right? If he couldn’t leave the house?

She sat down cross-legged on the floor with a ledger notebook, turned to a fresh sheet of paper, and made a heading that read Pluses for Vampires. Under that column, she wrote down blood donation, Protection, favors, deals.

“Oh, put down curfew,” Eve said.

“There’s a curfew?”

“Well, yeah, of course. Except for the school. They don’t care if the students roam around all night, because, you know—” Eve mimed fangs in the neck. Claire swallowed and nodded. “But for locals? Oh yeah.”

“How is that a plus for them?”

“They don’t have to worry about who’s safe to bite and who’s not. If you’re out running around, you’re lunch.”

She wrote down curfew. Then she turned the page and wrote down Minuses for Vampires.

“What are they afraid of?” she asked.

“I don’t think we were done with the pluses,” Michael said. He sat down on the floor next to the two girls—well, closer to Eve, Claire noticed. “Probably a lot you didn’t write down.”

“Oh, let the girl feel better about it,” Eve said. “It’s not all gloomy. Obviously, they don’t like daytime—”

Claire wrote it down.

“And garlic…silver…um, holy water—”

“You sure about those?” Michael asked. “I always thought they pretended on a lot of that, just in case.”

“Why would they do that?”

Claire answered without looking up. “Because it makes it easier to hide what really can hurt them. I’m writing it down anyway, but it may not be right.”

“Fire is for real,” Michael said. “I saw a vampire die once, when I was just a kid. One of those revenge deals.”

Eve pulled in a deep breath. “Oh, yeah. I remember hearing about it. Tom Sullivan.”

Claire asked, wide-eyed, “The vampire was named—?”

“Not the vampire,” Michael said. “The guy who killed him. Tommy Sullivan. He was kind of a screwup, drank a lot, which isn’t too unusual around here. He had a kid. She died. He blamed the vampires, so he doused one with gas and set him on fire, sitting right in the middle of the restaurant.”

“You saw that?” Claire asked. “How old were you?”

“You grow up fast in Morganville. The point is, there was a trial the next night. Not much chance for Tommy. He was dead before morning. But…fire works. Just don’t get caught.”

Claire wrote down fire. “What about stakes?”

“You’ve seen Brandon,” Eve said. “You want to try to get close enough to stake him? Yeah, me neither.”

“But do they work?”

“Guess so. You have to fill out a form when you buy wood.”

Claire wrote it down. “Crosses?”

“Definitely.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re evil, soulless, bloodsucking fiends?”

“So was my sixth-grade gym teacher, but he wasn’t afraid of a cross.”

“Funny,” Eve said, in the way that meant not. “Because there are hardly any churches, and so far as I know, crosses are impossible to come by unless you make ’em yourself. Also, all these guys grew up—isn’t that weird, thinking of them growing up?—when religion wasn’t just something you did on Sundays. It was something you were, every minute, every day, and God was always up for a little recreational smiting of the wicked.”

“Don’t,” Michael murmured. “God’s scarce enough around here.”

“No offense to the Big Guy, Michael, but he made himself scarce,” Eve shot back. “You know how many nights I spent in bed praying, Dear God, please take away all the bad people? Yeah, that really worked.” Michael opened his mouth to say something. “And please don’t tell me God loves me. If God loved me, he’d drop a bus ticket to Austin in my lap so I could blow this town once and for all.”

Eve sounded—well, angry. Claire tapped her pencil against the pad, not making eye contact.

“How do they keep people from leaving?” she asked.

“They don’t. Some people leave. I mean, Shane did,” Michael said. “I think the question you’re looking for is, how do they keep them from talking? And that’s where it gets weird.”

“That’s where?” Claire murmured. Eve laughed.

“I don’t know myself, because I never got out of town, but Shane says that once you get about ten miles outside of Morganville, you get this terrible headache, and then you just…start to forget. First you can’t remember what the name of the town was, and then you can’t remember how to get there, and then you don’t remember that the town had vampires. Or the rules. It just—doesn’t exist anymore for you. It comes back if you return to town, but when you’re out, you can’t run around telling all about Morganville because you just don’t remember.”

“I heard rumors,” Eve said. “Some people start remembering, but they get—” She made a graphic throat-cutting gesture. “Hit squads.”

Claire tried to think of things that would cause that kind of memory loss. Drugs, maybe? Or…some kind of local energy field? Or…okay, she had no idea. But it sounded like magic, and magic made her nervous. She supposed vampires were magic, too, when you got right down to it, and that made her even more nervous. Magic didn’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. It was just…wrong. It offended her scientific training.

“So where does all that leave us?” Michael asked. It was a reasonable question.

Claire flipped another page, wrote down memory loss aft. depart, and said, “I’m not sure. I mean, if we’re going to put together any kind of a plan, we have to basically know as much as we can to make sure it’s a good enough approach. So keep talking. What else?”

It went on for hours. The grandfather clock solemnly announced the arrival and departure of nine o’clock, then ten, then eleven. It was nearly midnight, and Claire had scribbled up most of the ledger pages, when she looked at Michael and Eve and asked, “Anything else?” and got negative shakes of their heads in reply. “Okay, then. Tell me about the book.”

“I don’t know a lot,” Eve said. “They just put out a notice about ten years ago that they were looking for it. I heard they have people all over town going through libraries, bookstores, anyplace it could be hidden. But the weird thing is that vamps can’t actually read it.”

“You mean it’s in some other language?”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think it’s that easy. I mean, every one of these suckers has got to speak a dozen languages, at least.”

“Dead languages,” Eve said. When they looked at her, she grinned. “What? Come on. Funny!”

“Maybe they can’t read it for the same reason people can’t remember anything outside of town,” Claire said slowly. “Because something doesn’t want them to.”

“That’s kind of a leap, but the Russian judge gave you a nine point five for style, so okay,” Eve said. “The important thing is that we know what it looks like.”

“Which is?” Claire put her pencil to paper.

“A book with a brown leather cover. Some kind of symbol on the front.”

“What kind?” Because brown leather cover didn’t exactly narrow things down when it came to books.

Eve pushed up the sleeve of her skintight black mesh top, and held out her forearm. There, tattooed in plain blue, was a symbol that looked kind of like an omega, only with some extra waves in it. Simple, but definitely nothing Claire could remember seeing before. “They’ve been searching for it. They gave everybody growing up in a Protected family the tattoo so that we remember what to look for.”

Claire stared for a couple of seconds, wanting to ask how old Eve was when she got the tattoo, but she didn’t quite dare. She dutifully marked the symbol down in her notebook. “And nobody’s found it. Are they sure it’s here?”

“They seem to think so. But I’ll bet they’ve got their sources searching all over the world for it. Seems pretty important to them.”

“Any idea why?”

“Nobody knows,” Michael said. “I grew up asking, believe me. Nobody has a clue. Not even the vampires.”

“How can they be looking for something and not even know why?”

“I’m not saying somebody doesn’t know why. But the vampires have ranks, and the only ones I’ve ever really talked to aren’t exactly in charge. Point is, we can’t find out, so we shouldn’t waste time worrying about it.”

“Good to know.” Claire put contents unknown next to the symbol of the book, then valuable!!!!! underneath, underscored with three dark lines. “So if we can find this book, we can trade it to get Monica off my back, and make sure Shane’s deal is called off.”

Michael and Eve looked at each other. “Did you miss the part where the vamps have been turning Morganville upside down trying to find it?” Eve asked.

Claire sighed, flipped back a page, and pointed at a note she’d made. Eve and Michael both craned over to read it.

Vampires can’t read it.

They looked blank.

“I’m going to need to spend some time at the library,” Claire said. “And we’re going to need some supplies.”

“To do what?” Eve still wasn’t catching on, but Michael was.

“Fake the book?” he asked. “You really think that’ll work? What do you think happens when they figure out we cheated?”

“Bad idea,” Eve said. “Very bad idea. Honest.”

“Guys,” Claire said patiently. “If we’re careful, they’ll never suspect we’re smart enough to do something like that. Not to mention brave enough. So we give them a fake—it’s still more than anybody else has. They may be pissed, but they’ll be pissed that somebody faked it. We just found it.”

They were both looking at her now like they’d never seen her before. Michael shook his head.

“Bad idea,” he said.

Maybe so. But she was going to try it anyway.

10

She was too wired to sleep, and besides, her back hurt, and she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting even one more night to get started. Brandon hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy to wait for his revenge, and Shane—Shane wasn’t the kind of guy to not hold up his end of a deal, either.

If he’s stupid enough to want to get bitten, fine, but he’s not using me for an excuse.

Shane hadn’t come out of his room all night. She hadn’t heard a thing when she’d listened—carefully—at his door. Eve had mimed headphones and turning up an invisible stereo. Claire could understand that; she’d spent lots of hours trying to blow out her own eardrums to avoid the world.

Eve lent her a laptop—a retro thing, big and black and clunky, with a biohazard-symbol sticker on the front. When Claire plugged it into the broadband connection and booted it up, the desktop graphic was a cartoon Grim Reaper holding a road sign instead of a scythe—a road sign that read MORGANVILLE, with an arrow pointing down.

Claire clicked on a couple of folders—guiltily, but she was curious—and found they were full of poetry. Eve liked death, or at least, she liked to write about it. Florid romantic stuff, all angst and blood and moonlit marble…and then Claire noticed the dates. The last of the poetry had been done three years ago. Eve would have been, what, fifteen? She’d been starry-eyed about vampires back then, but something had changed. No poetry at all for the past three years…

Eve walked in the open door. “Working okay?” she asked. Claire jumped, guilty, and gave her the thumbs-up as she clicked open the Internet connection. “Okay, I called my cousin in Illinois. She’s going to let us use her PayPal account, but I have to send her cash, like, tomorrow. Here’s the account.” She handed over a slip of paper. “We’re not going to get her killed, right?”

“Nope. I’m not buying much from any one place. A lot of people buy leather and tools and stuff. And paper—how old is this book supposed to be?”

“Old.”

“Was it on vellum?”

“Is that paper?”

“Vellum is the oldest kind of paper they used in books,” Claire said. “It’s sheepskin.”

“Oh. I guess that, then. It’s really old.”

Vellum would be hard. You could get it, but it was easy to trace. But it wasn’t any good being freak smart if you couldn’t get around things like that…. Oh, yeah, she needed to think about using somebody else to do the research, too. Too dangerous having tracks that led right back here to the Glass House…

Claire went to work. She didn’t even notice Eve going and shutting the door behind her.

For four days, Claire studied. Four solid days. Eve brought her up soup and bread and sandwiches, and Shane dropped by once or twice to tell her she was crazy and he wanted her to stay the hell out of his business; Claire didn’t pay any attention. She got like that when she was completely inside of something. She heard him, and she said something back, but no way was she listening. Like her parents, Shane eventually gave up and went away.

Michael came to her room just a little before dawn. That one surprised her long enough to drag her out of her trance for a while. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Mission Save Shane? Yeah, it’s going,” she said. “I have to work the long way around. No traces. Don’t worry—even if the vamps get angry, they won’t be able to prove we did anything but bring them what we thought they were looking for.”

Michael looked pleased, but worried. He worried a lot. She supposed that being trapped the way he was, that was really all he could do—fight anything that got inside to hurt them, and worry about everything else. Frustrating, she guessed.

“Hey,” she said, “when does Eve go to work?”

“Four o’clock.”

“But that’s—”

“The night shift. I know. She’s safe enough there, though, and I don’t think any vamp is stupid enough to try to get in the way of that damn car. It’s like being run over by a Hummer. I made her promise that Oliver would walk her to the car, and Shane’s going to get her from the sidewalk inside.”

Claire nodded. “I’m going with her.”

“To the coffee shop? Why?”

“Because it’s anonymous,” she said. “Every college student in there has a laptop, and the place has free wireless. If I’m careful, they won’t be able to trace who’s looking up how to fake-age a book.”

He gave her an exasperated look. On him, it looked cute. God. She was still noticing. She really needed to stop that, but hey. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed…

“I don’t like Eve out there at night. You’re definitely not going.”

“If I do it here, everybody could be in danger. Including Eve.”

Oh, low blow—she saw his eyes shift, but he toughed it out. “So your answer is that I let you go out there, risk your life, sit in a coffee shop with Brandon, and pretend like that’s safer? Claire. In no way does that equal safer.”

“Safer than the vampires deciding that everybody in this house deliberately set out to cheat them out of the thing they want most,” Claire said. “We’re not playing, are we? I mean, I can stop if you want, but we don’t have anything else we can trade for Shane’s deal. Nothing big enough. I’d let Brandon—you know—but somehow I don’t think—”

“Over my—” Michael stopped and laughed. “I was going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ but—”

Claire winced.

“No,” he said.

“You’re not my dad,” she pointed out, and all of a sudden…remembered.

Shane, at the hospital, when she’d been drugged up, had said, They called your parents. Also, she distinctly remembered the words freaked out.

Oh, crap!

“Dad,” she said aloud. “Oh no…um, I need to use the phone. Can I?”

“Calling your parents? Sure. Long distance—”

“Yeah, I know. I pay for it. Thanks.”

She picked up the cordless phone and dialed her home number. It rang five times, then flipped over to the machine. “Hello, you’ve reached Les and Katharine Danvers and their daughter, Claire. Leave us a message!” It was her mom’s bright, businesslike voice. When the beep sounded, Claire had a second of blind panic. Maybe they were just out shopping. Or…

“Hi, Mom and Dad, it’s Claire. I just wanted to—um—say hi. I should have called you, I guess. That lab accident thing, that was nothing, really. I don’t want you to be worried about me—everything’s just fine. Really.”

Michael, leaning against the doorframe, was making funny faces at her. That seemed like Shane’s job, somehow. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“I just—I just wanted to say that. Love you. Bye.”

She hung up. Michael said, “You ought to get them to come and take you home.”

“And leave you guys in this mess? You’re in it because of me. Shane’s in it because of me. Now that Monica knows he’s back…”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not underestimating how much trouble we’re in, but you can still go. And you should. I’m going to try to convince Shane to get out, too. Eve—Eve won’t go, but she should.”

“But—” That leaves you alone, she thought. Really alone. There was no getting out for Michael. Not ever.

Michael looked up and out the window, where the sky was gradually washing from midnight blue to a paler dawn. “My time’s up,” he said. “Promise me you won’t go with Eve tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Claire.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have time to argue, though she could see he wanted to. He walked down the hall; she heard his bedroom door close, and thought about what she’d seen downstairs in the living room. She wasn’t sure how she’d handle that if she had to face it every day—it looked really painful. She supposed the worst of it, though, was his knowing that if he’d been alive, been able to walk around in the daylight, he’d have been able to stop Shane from doing what he’d done.

I wouldn’t have to if you’d step up and watch my back! Shane had yelled at him, and yeah, that must have hurt just about worse than dying.

Claire went back to work. Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn’t just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.

If it worked.

The strange thing was, she just knew it would. She knew.

She really was a freak, she decided.

Claire woke up at three thirty, bleary-eyed and aching, and struggled into a fresh T-shirt and a pair of jeans that badly needed washing. One more day, she decided, and then she’d brave the washing machine in the basement. She had monster bed-head, even though she’d barely slept for three hours, and had to stick her head under the faucet and finger fluff her hair back to something that wasn’t too puke-worthy.

She stuck the laptop into the messenger-bag case and dashed downstairs; she could hear Eve’s shoes clumping through the house, heading for the door.

“Wait up!” she yelled, and pelted down the stairs and through the living room just as the front door slammed. “Crap…”

She opened it just before Eve succeeded in locking it. Eve looked guilty. “You were going to leave me,” Claire said. “I told you I wanted to go!”

“Yeah, well…you shouldn’t.”

“Michael talked to you last night.”

Eve sighed and fidgeted one black patent leather shoe. “Little bit, yeah. Before he went to bed.”

“I don’t need everybody protecting me. I’m trying to help!”

“I get it,” Eve said. “If I say no and drive off, what are you going to do?”

“Walk.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Eve shrugged. “Get in the car.”

Common Grounds was packed with students reading, chatting, drinking chai and mochas and lattes. And, Claire was gratified to see, working on laptops. There must have been a dozen going at once. She gave Eve a thumbs-up, ordered a cup of tea, and went in search of a decent spot to work. Something with her back to the wall.

Oliver brought her tea himself. She smiled uncertainly at him and minimized the browser window; she was reading up on famous forgeries and techniques. Dead giveaway, with emphasis on dead. Not that she disliked Oliver, but any guy who seemed to be able to enforce rules on the vampires was somebody she couldn’t trust real far.

“Hello, Claire,” he said. “May I sit?”

“Sure,” she said, surprised. Also, uncomfortable. He was old enough to be her dad, not to mention kind of hippie-dippie. Though, being a fringer herself, she didn’t mind that part so much. “Um, how’s it going?”

“Busy today,” he said, and settled into the chair with a sigh of what sounded like gratitude. “I wanted to talk to you about Eve.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“I’m concerned about her,” Oliver said. He leaned forward, elbows on the table; she hastily closed the cover of the laptop and rested her hands protectively on top of it. “Eve seems distracted. That’s very dangerous, and I’m quite sure that by now you understand why.”

“It’s—”

“Shane?” he asked. “Yes. I thought that was probably the case. The boy’s gotten himself into a great deal of trouble. But he did it with a pure heart, I believe.”

Her pulse was hammering faster, and her mouth felt dry. Boy, she really didn’t like talking to authority figures. Michael was one thing—Michael was like a big brother. But Oliver was…different.

“I might be able to help,” Oliver said, “if I had something to trade. The problem is, what does Brandon want that you, or Shane, can give? Other than the obvious.” Oliver looked thoughtful, and tapped his lips with a fingertip. “You are a very bright girl, Claire, or so Eve tells me. Morganville can use bright girls. We might be able to bypass Brandon altogether, perhaps, and find a way to make a deal with someone…else.”

Which was pretty much exactly what they’d already talked about, only without the Oliver part. Claire tried not to look horribly guilty and transparent. “Who?” she asked. It was a reasonable question. Oliver smiled, and his dark eyes looked sharp and cool.

“Claire. Do you really expect me to tell you? The more you know about this town, the less safety there is for you. Do you understand that? I’ve had to create my own peace here, and it only works because I know exactly what I’m doing, and how far I can go. You—I’m afraid your first mistake might be your last.”

Her mouth wasn’t dry anymore; it was mummified. She tried to swallow, but got nothing but a dry click at the back of her throat. She hastily picked up her tea and sipped it, tasting nothing but glad of the moisture.

“I wasn’t going to—”

“Don’t,” he cut her off, and his voice wasn’t so kind this time. “Why else would you be here today, when you know Brandon is likely to show up any time after dark? You want to make a deal with him to save Shane. That much is obvious.”

Well, it wasn’t why she was here, but still, she tried to look guilty about that, too. Just in case. It must have worked, because Oliver sat back in his chair, looking more relaxed.

“You’re clever,” he said. “So is Shane. But don’t let it go to your heads. Let me help.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice not to quiver or break or—worse—betray how relieved she was.

“That’s settled, then,” Oliver said. “Let me talk to Brandon and a few others, and see what I can do to make this problem go away.”

“Thanks,” she said faintly. Oliver got up and left, looking like any skinny ex-hippie who hadn’t quite let go of the good old days. Inoffensive. Ineffective, maybe.

She couldn’t rely on adults. Not for this. Not in Morganville.

She opened up the laptop, maximized the browser window, and went back to work.

Like always, time slipped away; when she looked up next, it was night outside the windows, and the crowd in the coffee shop had switched over from studious to chatty. Eve was busy at the bar, talking and smiling and generally being about as cheerful as a Goth chick could be.

She went quiet, though, when Brandon slouched in from the back room and took his accustomed seat at the table in the darkest corner. Oliver brought him some kind of drink—God, she hoped it wasn’t blood or anything!—and sat down to have some intense and quiet conversation. Claire tried to look like she wasn’t there. She and Eve exchanged a few glances between customers at the bar.

Putting together the book, Claire had learned during the long research marathon, was work for experts, not sixteen-year-old (nearly seventeen) wannabes. She could put something together, but—to her vast disappointment—anybody with an eye for rare books could spot a fake pretty easily, unless it was expertly done. She suspected that her leatherworking and bookbinding skills needed work.

All of which brought her back to square one, Shane Gets Bitten. Not acceptable.

A line in one of the dozens of windows she’d opened caught her eye. Nearly anything can be created for the movies, including reproductions of ancient books, because the reproduction only has to fool one of the senses: vision….

She didn’t have time—or cash—to get some Hollywood prop house to make a book for her, but it gave her an idea.

A really good idea.

Or a really bad one, if it didn’t work.

Nearly anything can be created for the movies.

She didn’t need the book. She just needed a picture.

By the time midnight rolled around—and Common Grounds ushered the last caffeine addict out into the night—Claire was reasonably sure she could pull it off, and she was too tired to care if she couldn’t. She packed up the laptop and leaned her head on her hand, watching while Eve cleaned up cups and glasses, loaded the dishwasher, chatted with Oliver, and deliberately ignored the dark shadow sitting in the corner.

Brandon hadn’t taken off after his walking snacks. Instead, he kept sitting there, nursing a fresh cup of whatever it was he was drinking, smiling that cruel, weird little smile at Eve, then Claire, then Eve.

Oliver, drying ceramic cups, had been watching the watcher. “Brandon,” he said, and tossed the towel across his shoulder as he began slotting cups into their pull racks. “Closing time.”

“You didn’t even call last round, old man,” Brandon said, and turned that smile on Oliver.

Where it died, fast. After a moment of silence, Brandon stood up to stalk away.

“Wait,” Oliver said, very quietly. “Cup.”

Brandon looked at him in utter disbelief, then picked up the cup—disposable paper—and dumped it in the trash can. First time he’d bused his own table in a few dozen years, Claire guessed. If ever. She hid a nervous grin, because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy—much less vamp—who’d appreciate her sense of humor.

“Anything else?” Brandon asked acidly. Not as if he actually cared.

“Actually, yes. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like the ladies to leave first.”

Even in the shadows, Claire saw the gleam of sharp teeth when Brandon silently opened his mouth—flashing his fangs. Showing off. Oliver didn’t seem impressed.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he repeated. Brandon shrugged and leaned against the wall, arms folded. He was wearing a black leather jacket that drank in light, a black knit shirt, dark jeans. Dressed to kill, Claire thought, and wished she hadn’t.

“I’ll wait,” he said. “But they don’t need to worry about me, old man. The boy made a deal. I’ll stick to it.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Oliver said. “Eve, Claire, get home safe. Go.”

Eve slammed the door on the dishwasher and turned it on; she grabbed her purse from behind the counter and ducked out to take Claire’s hand and pull her toward the door. She flipped the front sign from OPEN to CLOSED and unlocked the door to let Claire out. She locked it back behind them with a set of keys, then hustled Claire quickly to the car, which sat in the warm glow of the streetlight. The street looked deserted; wind whipped trash and dust into clattering ghosts, and the blinking red stoplights danced and swayed along. Eve unlocked the car in record time, and both of them slammed down the locks once they were inside. Eve started up the Caddy and motored away from the curb; only then did she sigh a little in relief.

And then she gasped, because another car turned the corner and whipped past them in a black blur, stopping at the curb where they’d been parked. “What the hell?” Eve blurted, and slowed down. Claire turned to look back.

“It’s a limo,” she said. She didn’t even think Morganville had a limo, but then she thought about funeral homes and funerals, and got chills. For all she knew, maybe Morganville had more limos than any city in Texas….

This one wasn’t part of a procession, though. It was big and black and gleamed like the finish on a cockroach, and as the Caddy inched along, Claire saw a uniformed driver get out and walk around to the back.

“Who is it?” Eve asked. “Can you see?”

The driver handed out a woman. Small—not much taller than Claire herself, she guessed. Pale, with hair that glowed white or blond in the streetlights. They were too far for Claire to get a really good look, but she thought the woman looked…sad. Sad, and cold.

“She’s not very tall—white hair? And kind of elegant?”

Eve shrugged. “Nobody I’ve met, but most of the vamps don’t mingle with the little people. Kind of like the Hiltons don’t shop at Wal-Mart.”

Claire snorted. As Eve turned the corner, she saw the woman standing in front of the door of Common Grounds, and saw Oliver opening it for her. No sign of Brandon. She wondered if Oliver had already sent him out, or if he was making the vamp give them a head start. “How does Oliver do this?” she asked. “I mean, why don’t they just…?”

“Kill him? I wish I knew. He’s got balls of platinum, for one thing,” Eve said. Passing streetlights strobed across her face. “You saw how he did Brandon back there? Dissing him? Unbelievable. Anybody else would be dead by dawn. Oliver…just gets away with it.”

Which made Claire even more curious about the why. Or at least the how. If Oliver could get away with it, maybe other people could, too. Then again, maybe other people had already tried, and ended up as organ donors.

Claire turned back face forward, lost in thought, as Eve sped through the silent, watching streets for home. A police car prowled a side street, but somehow in Morganville she thought they weren’t looking so much for criminals as potential victims.

At first, she thought she was so tired she was imagining things—that happened when you didn’t sleep; you saw ghosts in mirrors and spooky faces at the window—but then she saw something moving fast through the glow of a streetlight. Something pale.

“They’re following,” Eve said grimly. “Damn.”

“Brandon?” Claire tried to scan the sides of the street, but Eve pressed the gas and went faster.

“Not Brandon. Then again, he doesn’t have to get his fangs dirty personally—”

Fifty feet ahead, someone stepped in front of the car.

Claire and Eve screamed, and Eve stamped on the brakes. Claire pitched forward against the seat belt, which snapped tight and grabbed so hard she just knew she was going to pass out from pain as the acid burn on her back rubbed against the seat. But the pain flashed away, buried by fear, because the car was fishtailing to a stop on the dark street, and there was a vampire standing there, resting its hands on the hood.

Grinning with way, way too many teeth.

“Claire!” Eve yelled. “Don’t look at him! Don’t look!”

Too late. Claire had, and she felt something going soft in her head. The fear went away. So did all her good sense. She reached for the lock on the door, but Eve lunged across and grabbed her arm. “No!” she screamed, and held on as she slammed the car into reverse and burned rubber backward. She didn’t get far. Another vampire stepped out, blocking the street. This one was tall, ugly, and old. Same number of gleaming teeth. “Oh, God…”

Claire kept fumbling for the lock on the door. Eve muttered something that would have definitely gotten Claire grounded at home, hit the brakes again, and said, “Claire, honey, this is going to hurt,” and then she pushed Claire forward and slapped her on the burn. Hard.

Claire screeched loud enough to deafen dogs three counties away, nearly fainted, and quit trying to get out of the car. Even the two vampires outside the car—who were all of a sudden right there at the doors—flinched and stepped back.

Eve gunned the engine. Claire, half fainting from the red-hot throbbing agony in her back, heard noise like iron nails on a chalkboard, but then it stopped and they were moving, driving, flying through the night.

“Claire? Claire?” Eve was shaking her by the other shoulder, the one that didn’t feel like she’d taken another acid bath. “Oh, God, I’m sorry! It was just—he was going to get you to open the door, and I couldn’t—I’m sorry!”

Panic was still a hot wire through her nerves, but Claire managed a nod and a weak, sick smile. She understood. She’d always wondered how in the hell anybody could be stupid enough to open up a door to the scary bad thing in the movies, but now she knew. She absolutely knew.

Sometimes, you just didn’t have a choice.

Eve was gasping for breath and crying furiously in between. “I hate this,” she said, and slammed her hand into the hard plastic steering wheel, over and over. “I hate this town! I hate them!”

Claire got that. She was starting to really hate them, too.

11

Shane was in the doorway, ready for action, when Eve screeched the car to a stop; if he was still mad, at least he wasn’t letting it get in the way of a good fight. Eve frantically signaled for him to stay where he was, on safe ground, and checked the street on all sides.

“Do you see anything?” she asked Claire anxiously. Claire shook her head, still sick. “Damn. Damn! Okay…but you know the drill, right? Asses and elbows. Bail!”

Claire fumbled open the lock, bolted out of the car, and hit the sidewalk running. She heard Eve’s door slam and running footsteps. Déjà vu, she thought. Now all they needed was for Brandon to show up and act like a total asshole….

She nearly ran into Shane as she pelted across the threshold; he stepped out of the way in time, just far enough to let her pass, and grabbed Eve to pull her inside as he slammed the door and locked it.

“You have got to get a better job,” he said. Eve wiped at her ruined makeup with the back of one hand and threw him a filthy look.

“At least I have a job!”

“What, professional blood donor? Because that’s all you’re going to be if you—”

Claire turned, ran into a vampire, and screamed her lungs out.

Okay, so she wasn’t a vampire. That was established in about thirty more seconds by a combination of Shane doubling over with laughter, the vampire screaming in fright and cowering, and—last of all—Eve saying, in blank surprise, “Miranda! Honey, what the hell are you doing here?”

The vamp—she looked like a vamp, Claire amended, but now that her heart rate was going down below race-car speeds she saw that it was makeup and drama, not nature—slowly lowered her arms, peered at Claire uncertainly through thick black mascaraed eyelashes, and made a little O with her ruby red lips. “I had to come,” she said. She had a breathy, floaty voice, full of drama. “Oh, Eve! I had such a terrible vision! There was blood and death, and it was all about you!”

Eve didn’t seem impressed. She sighed, turned to Shane, and said, “You let her in? I thought you hated her!”

“Couldn’t leave her out there, could I? I mean, she’s got a pulse. Besides, she’s your friend.”

From the look Eve gave him, friend might have been stretching things.

Miranda gave Shane a loopy smile. Great, Claire thought, annoyed and disgusted and still trying to contain the aftermath of a nuclear terror explosion. The girl was tall and most of her was thin, storklike legs revealed by a black leather miniskirt. She had lots of makeup, the standard dyed-black hair, shag cut around a long white face. Ragged Magic Marker crosses drawn on her wrists and around her neck.

Miranda suddenly swung around and looked up at the ceiling. She raised her hands to her mouth in dread, but, Claire noticed, didn’t smudge her lipstick. “This house,” she said. “Oh my. It’s so…strange. Don’t you feel it?”

“Mir, if you wanted to warn me about something, you could have called,” Eve said, and steered her into the living room. “Now we’ve got to figure out how to get you home. Honestly, don’t you have any sense? You know better than this!”

As Miranda sat down on the couch, Claire caught sight of something else on her neck…bruises. And in the center of the bruises, two raw, red holes. Eve saw it, too, and blinked, looked at Shane, and then at Claire. “Mir?” she asked gently, and turned the girl’s chin to one side. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Miranda said. “Everything. You’ve really got to try it. It’s everything I dreamed it would be, and for a second I could see, I could really see—”

Eve let go of her like she’d caught on fire. “You let somebody bite you?”

“Just Charles,” Miranda said. “He loves me. But Eve, you have to listen—this is serious! I tried to call, but I couldn’t get anyone, and I had this terrible dream—”

“Thought you said it was a vision,” Shane said. He’d followed Claire into the room and was standing near her, arms folded. She felt a little bit of the tight knot of anger and tension unravel at his closeness, even if he wasn’t looking at her. Yeah, Claire, way to go. He treats you like the furniture. Maybe you need some hooker lipstick and Kleenex in your bra, too.

“Don’t, Shane, she’s been through hell—” Eve evidently remembered, too late, that whatever Miranda had been through, it waited for Shane, too, unless they could somehow negate his deal with Brandon. “Um, right. Vision. What did you see, Mir?”

“Death.” Miranda said it with hushed relish, leaning forward and rocking gently back and forth. “Oh, he fought, he didn’t want it, didn’t want the gift, but…and there was blood. Lots of blood. And he died…right…here.” She put out a hand and pointed to a spot on the floor covered by a throw rug.

Claire realized, with a sinking sense of horror, that she was probably talking about Michael.

“Is it—is it Shane? Are you seeing Shane’s future?” Eve asked. She sounded spooked, but then, they’d had a spooky night all around. And worrying about Shane made sense.

“She can’t see the future,” Shane said flatly. “She makes crap up. Right, Mir?”

Miranda didn’t answer. She craned her neck up and looked at the ceiling again. Claire realized, with a strange creepy sensation, that she was looking exactly at where the secret room would be. Did Miranda know? How?

“This house,” she said again. “This house is so strange. It doesn’t make sense, you know.”

There was a creak on the stairs, and Claire looked over to see Michael padding down to join them, barefoot as usual. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s not the only one. Eve, what the hell is she doing here?”

“Don’t ask me! Shane let her in!”

“Hello, Michael,” Miranda said absently. She was still staring at the ceiling. “This one’s new.” She waved at Claire.

“Yeah. That’s Claire.” He hadn’t exactly come bounding to the rescue when Claire had screamed, and she wondered why. Maybe he’d been trying to stay away from Miranda; she understood why he’d want to. Talk about freaky weird…even Eve seemed not quite sure what to do with her.

She realized he hadn’t heard Miranda’s eerie description of his death. Maybe that was for the best.

“Claire,” Miranda whispered, and suddenly looked directly at her. She had pale blue eyes, really strange. They seemed to look right through her. “No, it’s not her, not her. Something else. Something strange in this house. Something not right. I need to read the cards.”

“The hell?” Shane asked. Miranda grabbed Eve’s hand and jumped up, and practically dragged her to the stairs. “Okay, now this is just too much. Eve?”

“Um…right, it’s okay!” Eve called back, as Miranda practically yanked her arm out of its socket. “She just wants to do some tarot or something. It’s okay! I’ll bring her back down! Just a sec!”

Shane, Michael, and Claire just looked at one another for a few seconds, and then Shane made a loopy gesture at his temple and whistled.

Michael nodded. “She didn’t use to be that bad,” he said.

“I guess it’s this Charles guy she was talking about,” Shane said grimly. “Should have known that if anybody would hook up with a bloodsucker for troo wuv”—Shane made it sound ridiculous—“it’d be some ditz like Miranda. I should have made her walk home. She’d probably get off on another bite.”

“She’s a kid, Shane,” Michael said. “But the sooner we get her out of here, the better I’ll feel. She gets Eve a little—nervous.”

Eve? But Eve didn’t really believe all that crap, did she? Claire had become convinced that it was just costuming, that underneath, Eve was just a normal girl after all, all the Goth stuff just posturing. But did she really believe in visions and crystals and tarot cards? Magic was just science misunderstood, she reminded herself. Or, on the other hand, just crazy talk.

The two boys looked at Claire. “What?” she asked. “Oh, by the way, I’m fine, thanks for asking. Got chased by some vampires. Business as usual.”

“Told you not to go,” Shane said, and shrugged. “So, who’s going to get Miranda to leave?”

They kept looking at her, and Claire finally understood that somehow, it had become her job. Probably because she was new, and didn’t know Miranda, and she was a girl. Michael was too polite to ask her to go. Shane—she couldn’t tell what Shane felt about Miranda, except that he wanted her the hell out of the house.

“Fine,” Claire said. “I’ll go.”

“That girl’s smart,” Shane said without smiling, to Michael, as she started up the steps.

“Yep,” Michael agreed. “I like that about her.”

The bedroom doors were all closed except for Eve’s, which was casting a flickering light out onto the polished wood floor. Claire smelled the bright flare of matches. They were lighting candles.

Oh, she really didn’t want to do this. Maybe if she just kept walking, went to her room, and locked the door…?

She took a deep breath and looked around the doorway with a smile that felt totally forced. Eve was lighting the candles—and boy, she had a lot of them, sitting basically everywhere. Big tall black ones, purple ones, blue ones. Nothing in the pastel family. Her bed was black satin, and there was a pirate flag—skull and crossbones—hanging above it like a billowing headboard. Little Christmas lights strung everywhere—no, not Christmas lights after all. Halloween pumpkins and ghosts and skulls. Cheery and strange.

“Hey,” Eve said, not looking up from the black pillar candle she was lighting. “Come on in, Claire. I guess you haven’t really met Miranda exactly.”

Not unless screaming and fleeing counted. “Hi,” she said awkwardly. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Miranda didn’t seem to notice or care, and her hands were up and in the air, petting some invisible cat or something. Weird. The longer that Claire was around the girl, the younger she looked—younger than Eve, for sure. Maybe even younger than Claire herself. Maybe it was all make-believe for her…except the bite. That was deadly serious stuff.

“Um…Eve? Can I talk to you for a sec?” Claire asked. Eve nodded, opened a black-painted dresser, and took out a black lacquer box. When opened, it had a bloodred interior. There was a black silk package inside, which, as Eve unwrapped it, proved to be a deck of cards.

Tarot cards.

Eve held them between her two palms for a few seconds, then cut the deck several times and handed it to Miranda. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and went out into the hall with Claire, closing the door behind her. Before Claire could say anything, Eve held up her hand. She wouldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. “The guys sent you up?” At Claire’s nod, she muttered, “Pansies, both of them. Fine. They want her out, right?”

“Um…yeah. I guess.” Claire rocked uncomfortably back and forth. “She is a little…weird.”

“Miranda’s—yeah, she’s weird. But she’s also kind of gifted,” Eve said. “She sees things. Knows things. Shane ought to get that. She told him about the fire before—” Eve shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. If she came all the way over here in the dark, something’s wrong. I should try to find out what.”

“Well…can’t you just, you know, ask her?”

“Miranda’s a psychic,” she said. “It’s not that simple—she can’t just blurt it out. You have to work with her.”

“But—she can’t really see the future, right? You don’t believe that?” Because if you do, Claire thought, you’re crazier than I thought you were when I first met you.

Eve finally met her eyes. Angry. “Yes. Yes, I do believe that, and for a smart kid you’re pretty dumb if you don’t understand that science isn’t perfect. Things happen. Things that physics and math and crap that gets measured in a lab can’t explain. People aren’t just laws and rules, Claire. They’re…sparks. Sparks of something beautiful and huge. And some of the sparks glow brighter, like Miranda.” Eve looked away again, obviously uncomfortable now. But not half as uncomfortable as Claire felt, because this was…wow. Space cadet city. “You guys just leave us alone for a little while. It’ll be fine.”

She went back into the room and shut the door. It wasn’t quite a slam. Claire swallowed hard, feeling hot all over and wishing she hadn’t let the boys push her into that, and slowly went back down the stairs. Michael and Shane were sitting on the couch and playing a video game with open beers on the table in front of them. Elbowing each other as their on-screen cars raced around turns.

“Not exactly legal,” she said, and sat down on the steps. “The beer. Nobody here’s twenty-one.”

Michael and Shane clicked bottles. Honestly, it was juvenile. “Here’s to crime,” Shane said, and tipped his up. “Hey, it was a birthday present. Two six-packs. We’re only one down, so give us a break. Morganville’s got the highest alcoholics per capita of any place in the world, I’ll bet.”

Michael put the game on pause. “Is she leaving yet?”

“No.”

“If she starts trying to tell me I’m going to meet a tall dark stranger, I’m leaving,” Shane said. “I mean, the kid’s a head case, and I don’t want to be mean, but jeez. She really believes this stuff. And she’s got Eve half-convinced, too.”

There was no half about it, but Claire wasn’t going to say that. She just sat there, trying not to think too hard about anything…about her plans to get Shane free of his agreement, which had seemed really good back in the coffee shop and not so solid now. About the dull-knife scrape of pain in her back. About the desperation in Eve’s eyes. Eve was scared. And Claire didn’t know how to help that, because she was scared half to death herself.

“She was looking at the secret room,” Claire said. “When she was standing down here. She was staring right at it.”

Michael and Shane looked at her. Two sets of eyes, both guilty and startled. And one by one, they shrugged and went for the beer. “Coincidence,” Michael said.

“Total coincidence,” Shane agreed.

“Eve said that Miranda had some kind of vision about you, Shane, when—”

“Not that again! Look, she said she had a vision of the house on fire, but she didn’t say that until later, and even if she did, fat lot of good it did.” Shane’s jaw was tight. A muscle fluttered in it. He punched a button to release the game from pause, and road noise poured out of the television speakers, closing out any chance of conversation on the subject.

Claire sighed. “I’m going to bed.”

But she didn’t. She was tired, and aching, and jittery…but her brain was way too busy picking over things. She finally nudged Shane over on the couch and sat next to him as he and Michael played, and played, and played….

“Claire. Wake up.” She blinked and realized that her head was on Shane’s shoulder, and Michael was nowhere to be seen. Her first thought was, Oh my God, am I drooling? Her second was that she hadn’t realized she was so close to him, snuggled in.

Her third was that although Michael’s part of the couch was empty, Shane hadn’t moved away. And he was watching her with warm, friendly eyes.

Oh. Oh, wow, that was nice.

Embarrassment flooded in a second later and made her pull away. Shane cleared his throat and scooted over. “You should probably get some sleep,” he said. “You’re beat.”

“Yeah,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Three a.m. Michael’s making a snack. You want anything?”

“Um…no. Thanks.” She slid off the couch and then stood there like an idiot, unwilling to leave because he was still smiling and…she liked it. “Who won?”

“Which game?”

“Oh. I guess I was asleep for a while.”

“Don’t worry. We didn’t let the zombies get you.” This time, his smile was positively wicked. Claire felt it like a hot blanket all over her skin. “If you want to stay up, you can help me kick his ass.”

There were not one but three empty beer bottles on the table in front of Shane. And three where Michael had been, too. No wonder Shane was still smiling at her, looking so friendly. “That depends,” she said. “Can I have a beer?”

“Hell no.”

“Because I’m sixteen? Come on, Shane.”

“Drinking kills brain cells, dumbass. And besides. If I give you one, that’s one less for me.” Shane tapped his forehead. “I can do the math.”

She needed a beer, to stay down here next to him, because she was afraid she was going to do or say something stupid, and at least if there was alcohol involved, it wouldn’t be her fault, would it? But just as she opened her mouth to try to convince him, Michael came out of the kitchen with a bag of neon-colored cheese puffs. Shane grabbed a handful and stuffed his mouth. “Claire wants a beer,” he mumbled through orange goo.

“Claire needs to go to bed,” Michael said, and flopped down. “Scoot over, man. I don’t like you that much.”

“Dick. That’s not what you said last night.”

“Bite me.”

“I want another beer.”

“You’re cut off. It was my birthday present, not yours.”

“Oh, that’s low. You really are a dick, and just for that, I’m totally thrashing you.”

“Promises, promises.” Michael glanced at Claire. “You’re still here. No beer. I’m not corrupting a minor.”

“But you’re a minor,” she pointed out. “At least for beer.”

“Yeah, and by the way? How much does it suck that I’m an adult if I kill somebody, and not if I want a beer?” Shane jumped in. “They’re all dicks.”

“Man, seriously, you are one cheap drunk. Three beers? My junior high girlfriend could hold her liquor better.”

“Your junior high girlfriend—” Shane brought himself up short without finishing that sentence, and flushed bright red. Must have been good, whatever it was. “Claire, get the hell out of here. You’re making me nervous.”

“Dick!” she flung at him, and went up the stairs before he could nail her with the pillow he grabbed. It plunked into the wall behind her and slithered down to the bottom of the stairs. She was laughing, but she stopped when a shadow suddenly blocked access to the hallway at the top.

Eve. And Miranda, looking weirder than ever.

“Miranda’s leaving!” Claire called down. Which wasn’t such a great idea, because Eve looked upset, and Shane was drunk, and letting some vampire-crazy maybe-psychic kid walk home by herself was…bad, at best.

“Miranda’s not leaving,” Eve said, and clunked down the stairs, with Miranda drifting like a black-and-white ghost behind her. “Miranda’s going to do aséance.”

Below, in the living room, she heard Michael say, in outright horror, “Oh, shit.”

12

Eve was so intense about it that not even Shane, three beers down, was able to exactly say no. Michael didn’t say anything, just watched Miranda with eyes that were way too clear for somebody who’d had the same amount to drink as Shane. As Eve cleared stuff off the dining room table and set up a single black candle in the center, Claire wrung her hands nervously, trying to get Michael’s attention. When she did, she mouthed, What do we do?

He shrugged. Nothing, she guessed. Well, nobody but Eve believed in it, anyway. She supposed it couldn’t really hurt.

“Okay,” Eve said, and sat Miranda down in a chair at the end. “Shane, Michael, Claire—sit down.”

“This is bullshit,” Shane said.

“Just—please. Just do it, okay?” Eve looked stressed. Scared. Whatever she and Miranda had been doing upstairs with those tarot cards had really made her nervous. “Just do it for me.”

Michael slid into the chair at the other end, as far from Miranda as he could get. Claire sat next to him, and Shane grabbed a seat on the other side, leaving Eve and Claire the closest to Miranda, who was shaking like she was about to have a fit.

“Hold hands,” Eve said, and grabbed Miranda’s left, then Shane’s right. She glared at Claire until Claire followed suit, taking Miranda’s other hand and Michael’s. That left Shane and Michael, who looked at each other and shrugged.

“Whatever,” Michael said, and took Shane’s hand.

“Oh, God, guys, homophobic much? This isn’t about you being manly men, it’s about—”

“He’s dead! I see him!”

Claire flinched as Miranda practically screamed it out. All around the table, they froze. Even Shane. And then fought the insane urge to giggle—well, Claire did, and she could see Shane’s shoulders shaking. Eve bit her lip, but there were tears in her eyes.

“Somebody died in this house! I see him. I see his body lying on the floor…,” Miranda moaned, and thrashed around in her chair, twisting and turning. “It’s not over. It’s never over. This house—this house won’t let it be over.”

Claire, unable to stop herself, looked at Michael, who was staring at Miranda with cold, slitted eyes. His hand was gripping Claire’s tightly. When she started to say something, he squeezed it even more. Right. Shutting up, she was.

Miranda wasn’t. “There’s a ghost in this house! An unquiet spirit!”

“Unquiet spirit?” Shane said under his breath. “Is that politically correct for pissed off? You know, like Undead American or something?”

Miranda opened her eyes and frowned at him. “Somebody already died,” she proclaimed. “Right here. Right in this room. His spirit haunts this place, and it’s strong.”

They all just looked at one another. Michael and Claire avoided more eye contact, but Claire felt her breath get short and her heart race faster. She was talking about Michael! She knew! How was that even possible?

“Is it dangerous?” Eve asked breathlessly. Claire nearly choked.

“I—I can’t tell. It’s murky.”

Shane said, “Right. Dead man walking, can’t tell if he’s dangerous because, wow, murky. Anything else?” And again, Claire had to choke back a hysterical giggle.

There was a bitter, unpleasant twist to Miranda’s face now. “Fire,” she said. “I see fire. I see someone screaming in the fire.”

Shane yanked his hands away from Eve and Michael, slammed his chair back, and said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m outta here. Feel free to get your psychic jollies somewhere else.”

“No, wait!” Eve said, and grabbed for him. “Shane, wait, she saw it in the cards, too—”

He pulled free. “She sees whatever you want! And she gets off on the attention, in case you didn’t notice! And she’s a fang banger!”

“Shane, please! At least listen!”

“I’ve heard enough. Let me know when you want to move on to table rapping or Ouija boards—those are a lot more fun. We could get some ten-year-olds to show us the ropes.”

“Shane, wait! Where are you going?”

“Bed,” he said, and went up the stairs. “Night.”

Claire was still holding Michael’s hand, and Miranda’s. She let go of both, pushed her chair back, and went up after him. She heard his door slam before she made it to the top, and raced down the hall to bang her fist on the wood. There was no answer, no sound of movement inside.

Then she noticed that the picture on the wall hallway was crooked, and moved it to stare at the button underneath. Would he?

Of course he would.

She hesitated for a second, then pressed it. The panel across the hallway clicked open, letting out a breath of cold air, and she quickly slipped inside, latched it back, and went up the stairs.

Shane was lying on the couch, feet on the curved polished-wood armrest, one arm flung over his eyes.

“Go away,” he said. Claire eased herself down on the couch next to him, because his voice didn’t sound, well, right. It was quiet and a little bit choked. His hand was shaking. “I mean it, Claire, go.”

“The first time you met me, I was crying,” she said. “You don’t have to be ashamed.”

“I’m not crying,” he said, and moved his arm. He wasn’t. His eyes were hot and dry and furious. “I can’t stand that she pretends to know. She was Lyssa’s friend. If she knew, if she really knew, she should have tried harder.”

Claire bit her lip. “Do you mean she—?” She couldn’t even say it. Do you mean she tried to tell you? And he couldn’t admit it if she had. If he admitted that much…maybe his sister didn’t have to be dead.

No, Claire couldn’t say that. And he couldn’t hear it.

Instead, she just reached out and took his hand. He looked down at their clasped fingers, sighed, and closed his eyes. “I’m drunk and I’m pissed off,” he said. “Not the best company right now. Man, your parents would kill us all if they knew about any of this.”

She didn’t say anything, because that was absolutely true. And something she didn’t want to think about. She just wanted to sit here, in this silent room where time had frozen still, and be with him.

“Claire?” His voice was quieter. A little smeared with sleep. “Don’t do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Go out like you did tonight. Not at night.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

He smiled, but didn’t open his eyes. “No dates? What is this, the Big Brother house? Anyway, I didn’t come back to Morganville to hide.”

She was instantly curious. “Why did you come back?”

“Michael. I told you. He called, I came. It’s what he’d do for me.” Shane’s smile faded. He was probably remembering Michael not answering the phone, not coming to the hospital. Not having his back.

“It’s more than that,” she said. “Or else you’d have just taken off by now.”

“Maybe,” Shane sighed. “Leave it, Claire. You don’t have to dig into every secret around here, okay? It’s not safe.”

She thought about Michael. About the way he’d looked at Miranda across the séance table. “No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”

They talked for hours, about pretty much nothing—certainly not about vampires, or sisters dying in fires, or Miranda’s visions, obviously. Shane delved into what Claire had always thought were the Boy Classics: debates about whether Superman could take Batman (“Classic Batman or Badass Batman?”), movies they liked, movies they hated. Claire tried him on books. He was light on the classics, but who wasn’t? (She wasn’t, but she was a freak of nature.) He liked scary stories. They had that in common, too.

Time just didn’t seem to pass at all in that little room. The talk seemed to keep going, spinning out of them on its own, gradually getting slower as the minutes and hours slipped away. She got cold and sleepy, and dragged an afghan off the arm of a nearby chair, spread it around her shoulders, and promptly dropped off to sleep sitting on the floor with her back against the settee, where Shane was lying.

She woke up with a start when the settee creaked, and she realized that Shane was getting up. He blinked, yawned, rubbed at his hair (which did very funny things when he did) and checked his watch.

“Oh, God, it’s early,” he groaned. “Hell. Well, at least I can grab the bathroom first.”

Claire jumped to her feet. “What time is it?”

“Nine,” he said, and yawned again. She reached over him, pushed the hidden button, dashed past him to the door, barely remembering to shed the afghan on the way. “Hey! Dibs on the bathroom! I mean it!”

She wasn’t worried about the bathroom so much as being caught. After all, she’d spent the entire night with a boy. A boy who’d been drinking. Most of that was against the house rules, she figured, and Michael would have freaked out if he’d known. Maybe…maybe Michael was too distracted from what Miranda had been spilling to worry about it, though, because she had to admit, Miranda had known exactly what she was talking about.

Just not by name, really.

Well, Michael was back to incorporeal in the light of day, so at least she didn’t have to worry about running into him…but she did need to decide what to do about school. This was already the worst academic week of her life, and she had the feeling it wasn’t going to get any better unless she acted quickly. Shane had made a deal with the devil; it only made sense to take advantage of it, until she could find a way to cancel it. Monica and her girls wouldn’t be after her—not in a lethal way. So there was no reason not to get her butt in the library.

She grabbed her clothes and jumped in the bathroom just as Shane, still yawning, stumbled out of the hidden room.

“But I called dibs!” he said, and knocked on the door. “Dibs! Damn girls don’t understand the rules….”

“Sorry, but I need to get ready!” She cranked up the shower and skinned out of her old clothes in record time. The jeans really needed washing, and she was down to her last clean pair of underwear, too.

Claire was in and out of the shower fast, trusting that the waterproof bandage they’d put on her back would hold (it did). In under five minutes she was fluffing her wet hair and sliding past Shane in a breathless rush to grab her backpack and stuff it with books.

“Where the hell are you going?” he asked from the doorway. He didn’t sound sleepy now. She zipped the bag shut, hefted it on the shoulder that wasn’t aching and complaining, and turned toward him without answering. He was leaning on the doorframe, arms folded, head cocked. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. What’ve you got, some kind of death wish? You really want to get knocked down another flight of stairs or something?”

“You made the deal. They won’t come after me.”

“Don’t be dense. Leave that to the experts. You really think they don’t have ways around it?”

She walked up to him, staring up into his face. He looked enormously tall. And he was big, and in her way.

And she didn’t care.

“You made a deal,” she said, “and I’m going to the library. Please get out of the way.”

“Please? Damn, girl, you need to learn how to get mad or—”

She shoved him. It was dumb, and he had the muscle to stay right where he was, but surprise was on her side, and she got him to stumble a couple of steps back. She was already out the door and heading out, shoes in hand. She wasn’t about to stop and give him another chance to keep her nice and safe.

“Hey!” He caught up, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. “I thought you said you wouldn’t—”

“At night,” she said, and turned to go down the stairs. He let go…and she slipped. For a scary second she was off-balance, teetering on the edge of the stairs, and then Shane’s warm hands closed around her shoulders and pulled her back to balance.

He held her there for a few seconds. She didn’t turn around, because if she did, and he was right there, well, she didn’t know…

She didn’t know what would happen.

“See you,” she gulped, and went down the stairs as fast as she dared, on shaking legs.

The heat of the morning was like a toaster oven, only without any yummy food smells; there were a couple of people out on the street. One lady was pushing a baby stroller, and for a second, while Claire was sitting down to put on her battered running shoes, she considered that with a kind of wonder. Having babies in a town like this. What were people thinking? But she guessed they did it anywhere, no matter how horrible it was. And there was a bracelet around the woman’s slender wrist.

The baby was safe, at least until it turned eighteen.

Claire glanced down at her own bare wrist, shivered, and put it out of her mind as she set off for campus.

Now that she was looking, just about every person she passed had something around his or her wrist—bracelets for the women, watchbands for the men. She couldn’t tell what the symbols were. She needed to find some kind of alphabet; maybe somebody had done research and put it somewhere safe…somewhere the vampires wouldn’t look.

She’d always felt safest at the library, anyway. She went straight there, watching over her shoulder for Monica, Gina, Jennifer, or anybody who looked remotely interested in her. Nobody did.

TPU’s library was huge. And dusty. Even the librarians at the front looked like they might have picked up a cobweb or two since her last visit. More proof—if she’d needed it—that TPU was first, and only, a party school.

She checked the map for the shelves, and saw that the Dewey decimal system reigned in Morganville—which was weird, because she’d thought all the universities were on the Library of Congress system. She traced through the listings, looking for references, and found them in the basement.

Great.

As she started to walk away, though, she cocked her head and looked at the list again. There was something strange about it. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it….

There wasn’t a fourth floor. Not on the list, anyway, and Mr. Dewey’s system jumped straight from the third floor to the fifth. Maybe it was offices, she thought. Or storage. Or shipping. Or…coffins.

It was definitely weird, though.

She started to take the stairs down to the basement, then stopped and tilted her head back. The stairs were old-school, with massive wooden railings, turning in precise L-shaped angles all the way up.

What the hell, she thought. It was only a couple of flights of stairs. She could always pretend she’d gotten lost.

She couldn’t hear anything or anybody once she’d left the first floor. It was silent as—she hated to think it—the grave. She tried to go quietly on the stairs, and quit gripping the banister when she realized that she was leaving sweaty, betraying handprints behind. She passed the second-floor wooden door, and then the third. Nobody visible through the clear glass window.

The fourth floor didn’t even have a door. Claire stopped, puzzled, and touched the wall. Nope, no door, no secrets she could see. Just a blank wall. Was it possible there was no fourth floor?

She went up to the fifth floor, made her way through the silent, dusty stacks to the other set of stairs, and went down. On this side, there was a door, but it was locked, and there weren’t any windows.

Definitely not offices, she guessed.

But coffins weren’t out of the question. Dammit, she resented being scared in a library! Books weren’t supposed to be scary. They were supposed to…help.

If she were some kick-ass superhero chick, she’d probably be able to pick the lock with a fingernail clipping or something. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a superhero, and she bit her fingernails.

No, she wasn’t a superhero, but she was something else. She was…resourceful.

Standing there, staring at the lock, she began to smile.

“Applied science,” she said, and ran down the stairs to the first floor.

She had a stop to make in chem lab.

Her TA was in his office. “Well,” he said, “if you really want to shatter a lock, you need something good, like liquid helium. But liquid helium isn’t all that portable.”

“What about Freon?” Claire asked.

“No, you can’t get your hands on the stuff without a license. What you can buy is a different formulation, doesn’t get as cold but it’s more environmentally friendly. But it probably wouldn’t do the job.”

“Liquid nitrogen?”

“Same problem as helium. Too bulky.”

Claire sighed. “Too bad. It was a cool idea.”

The TA smiled. “Yes, it was. You know, I have a portable liquid-nitrogen tank I keep for school demonstrations, but they’re hard to get. Pretty expensive. Not the kind of thing you’d find lying around. Sorry.” He wandered off, intent on some postgrad experiment of his own, and he promptly forgot all about her. She bit her lip, stared at his back for a while, and then slowly…very slowly, moved back to the door that led to the supply room. It was unlocked so that the TA could easily move in and out if he needed to. Red and yellow signs on it warned that she was going to get cancer, suffocate, or die other horrible deaths if she opened the door…but she did it anyway.

It squeaked. The TA had to have heard it, and she froze like a mouse in front of an oncoming bird. Guilty.

He didn’t turn around. In fact, he deliberately kept his back to her.

She let out a shaky breath, eased into the room, and looked around. The place was neatly kept, all its chemicals labeled and stored with the safety information for each hanging below it. He stored in alphabetical order. She found the LIQUID NITROGEN sign and saw a bulky, very obvious tank…and a small one next to it, like a giant thermos, with a shoulder strap. She grabbed it, then read the sign. USE PROTECTIVE GLOVES, the sign said. The gloves were right there, too. She shoved a pair in her backpack, slung the canister over her shoulder, and got the hell out of there.

The librarians didn’t even give her a second look. She waved and smiled and went into the stacks, all the way to the back stairs.

The door was just as she’d left it. She fumbled on the gloves, opened the top of the canister, and found that there was a kind of steel pipette that fit into a nozzle. She made sure it was in place, then opened the valve, held her breath, and began pouring supercooled liquid into the lock. She wasn’t sure how much to use—too much was better than not enough, she guessed—and kept pouring until the outside of the lock was completely frosted. Then she cranked the valve shut, and—reminding herself to keep the gloves on—yanked on the doorknob.

Crack! It sounded like a gunshot. She jumped, looked around, and realized the knob had moved in her hand.

She’d opened the door.

Nothing to do now but go inside…but somehow, that didn’t seem like such a great idea, now that she was actually able to do it.

Because…coffins. Or worse.

Claire sucked in a steadying breath, opened the door, and carefully looked around the edge.

It looked like a storeroom. Files. Stacks of cartons and wooden crates. No one in sight. Great, she thought. Maybe I did just break into the file room. That would be disappointing. Still, she stuffed the gloves in her backpack, just in case.

The cartons looked new, but the contents—when she unwrapped the string tying one closed—appeared old. Crumbling books, badly preserved. Ancient letters and papers in languages she couldn’t read, some of which looked like ancestors of English. She tried the next box. More of the same. The room was vast, and it was full of this kind of stuff.

The book, she thought. They’re looking for the book. Every old book they find comes here and gets examined. Now that she looked, she saw that the crates had small red X marks on them—meaning they’d been gone through? Initials, too. Somebody was being held accountable.

Which meant…somebody was working here.

She had just enough time to form the thought when two people walked out of the maze of boxes ahead of her. They weren’t hurrying, and they weren’t alarmed. Vampires. She didn’t know how she knew—they weren’t exactly dressed for the part—but the way they moved, loose and sure, screamed predator to her fragile-prey brain.

“Well,” said the short blond girl, “we don’t get many visitors here.” Except for the pallor of her face and the glitter in her eyes, she looked like a hundred other girls out on the Quad. She was wearing pink. It seemed wrong for a vampire to be wearing pink.

“Did you take a wrong turn, honey?” The man was taller, darker, and he looked really odd…really dead. It was because of his skin tone, she realized. He was black. Being a vampire bleached him, not to white, but to the color of ashes. He had on a TPU purple T-shirt, gray sweatpants, and running shoes. If he’d been human, she’d have thought he was old—old enough to be a professor, at least.

They split up, coming at her from two different sides.

“Whose little one are you?” purred the pink girl, and before Claire could engage her brain to run, the girl had taken her left hand, examining her bare wrist. Then examining her right one. “Oh, my, you really are lost, sweetie. John, what should we do?”

“Well,” John said, and put a friendly hand on Claire’s shoulder. It felt colder than the liquid-nitrogen bottle hanging across her back. “We could sit down and have a nice cup of coffee. Tell you all about what we do in here. That’s what you want to know, right? Children like you are just so darn curious.” He was steering her forward, and Claire knew—just knew—that any attempt to pull free would result in pain. Probably broken bones.

Pink Girl still had hold of her other wrist, too. Her cool fingers were pressed against Claire’s pulse point.

I need to get out of this. Fast.

“I know what you do here,” she said. “You’re looking for the book. But I thought vampires couldn’t read it.”

John stopped and looked at his companion, who raised pale eyebrows back at him. “Angela?” he asked.

“We can’t,” she said. “We’re just here as…observers. And you seem very knowledgeable, for a free-range child. Under eighteen, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be under someone’s Protection? Your family’s?”

She seemed honestly concerned. That was weird. “I’m a student,” Claire said. “Advanced placement.”

“Ah,” Angela said, and looked kind of regretful. “Well, then, I guess you’re on your own. Too bad, really.”

“Because you’re going to kill me?” Claire heard herself say it in a kind of dreamlike state, and remembered what Eve had told her. Don’t look in their eyes. Too late. Angela’s were a soft turquoise, very pretty. Claire felt a deliciously warm edge-of-sleep sensation wash over her.

“Probably,” Angela admitted. “But first you should have some tea.”

“Coffee,” John said. “I still like the caffeine.”

“It spoils the taste!”

“Gives it that zip.” John smacked his lips.

“Why don’t you let me look through boxes?” Claire asked, desperately bringing herself back from the edge of whatever that was. The vampires were leading her through a maze of boxes and crates, all marked with red Xs and initials. “You’ve got to let humans do it, right? If you can’t read the book?”

“What makes you think you could read it, little one?” Angela asked. She had a buttery sort of accent, not quite California, not quite Midwest, not quite anything. Old. It sounded old. “Are you a scholar of languages, as well?”

“N-no, but I know what the symbol is that you’re looking for. I can recognize it.”

Angela reached down and drew her fingernails lightly over the skin of Claire’s inner arm, looking thoughtful.

“No, I don’t have the tattoo. But I’ve seen it.” She was absolutely shaking all over, terrified in a distant sort of way, but her brain was racing, looking for escape. “I can recognize it. You can’t, can you? You can’t even draw it.”

Angela’s fingernails dug in just a bit, in warning. “Don’t be smart, little girl. We’re not the kind of people you should mock.”

“I’m not mocking. You can’t see it. That’s why you haven’t found it. It’s not just that you can’t read it—right?”

Angela and John exchanged looks again, silent and meaningful. Claire swallowed hard, tried to think of anything that might be a good argument for keeping her unbitten (Maybe if I don’t drink any tea or coffee?) and spared a thought for just how pissed off Shane was going to be if she went and got herself killed. On campus. In the middle of the day.

The vampires turned a corner of boxes, and there, in an open space, was a door that didn’t lead out onto any stairwell she’d seen, an elevator with a DOWN button, a battered school-issue desk and chair, and…

“Professor Wilson?” she blurted. He looked up, blinking behind his glasses. He was her Classics of English Literature professor (Tuesdays and Thursdays at two) and although he was boring, he seemed to know his stuff. He was a faded-looking man, all grays—thin gray hair, faded gray eyes—with a tendency to dress in colors that bleached him out even more. Today it was a white shirt and gray jacket.

“Ah. You’re”—he snapped his fingers two or three times—“in my Intro to Shakespeare—”

“Classics of English Lit.”

“Right, exactly. They change the title occasionally, just to fool the students into taking it again. Neuberg, isn’t it?” Fright in his eyes. “You weren’t assigned here to help me, were you?”

“I—” Light dawned. Maybe letting mistaken impressions lie was a good idea right now. “Yes. I was. By…Miss Samson.” Miss Samson was the dragon lady of the English department; everyone knew that. Nobody questioned her. As excuses went, this one was thinner than paper, but it was all she had. “I was looking for you.”

“And the door was open?” John asked, looking down at her. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Professor Wilson, who wasn’t likely to hypnotize her into not lying.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “It was open.” The only good thing about the canister on her back was that at least it looked like something a college student might carry around, with soup or coffee or something in it. And it didn’t exactly look like something to break locks. By now, the liquid nitrogen in the lock would have sublimated into the air, and all evidence was gone.

She hoped.

“Well then,” Wilson said, and frowned at her, “better sit down and get to work, Neuberg. We have a lot to do. You know what you’re looking for?”

“Yes, sir.” John let go of her shoulder. After a reluctant second, Angela released her, too, and Claire went to the desk, dragged up a wooden chair, and carefully placed her backpack and canister on the floor.

“Coffee?” John asked hopefully.

“No, thank you,” she said politely, and pulled the first stacked volume toward her.

It was interesting work, which was weird, and the vampires became less and less frightening the more she was in their company. Angela was a fidgeter, always tapping her foot or restlessly braiding her hair or straightening stacks of books. The vampires seemed assigned only as observers; as Professor Wilson and Claire finished each mountain of books, they took them away, boxed them, and brought new volumes to check.

“Where do these come from?” Claire wondered out loud, and sneezed as she opened the cover of something called Land Register of Atascosa County, which was filled with antique, neat handwriting. Names, dates, measurements. Nothing like what they were looking for.

“Everywhere,” Professor Wilson said, and closed the book he’d flipped through. “Secondhand stores. Antique shops. Book dealers. They have a network around the world, and everything comes here for inspection. If it isn’t what they’re looking for, it goes out again. They even make a profit on it, I’m told.” He cleared his throat and held up the book he’d been looking at. “John? This one is a first-edition Lewis Carroll. I believe you should put it aside.”

John obligingly took it and set it in a pile that Claire thought was probably “rare and valuable.”

“How long have you been doing this, Professor?” she asked. He looked tired.

“Seven years,” he said. “Four hours a day. Someone will come in to relieve us soon.”

Us, meaning that she’d get to walk out. Well, that was nice. She’d been hoping that she might at least slip a note out with the professor, something along the lines of IF YOU FIND MY BODY, I WAS KILLED BY MISS PINK IN THE LIBRARY, but that sounded too much like something out of that board game her parents liked so much.

“No talking in class,” John said, and laughed. When he did, his fangs came down. His were longer than Brandon’s, and looked scarier, somehow. Claire gulped and focused on the book in front of her. The cover said Native Grains of the New World. A whole book about grain. Wow. She wondered how Professor Wilson had stayed sane all these years. Corn is a member of the grass family and is native to the American continents…. She flipped pages. More about corn. She didn’t know you could write so much about one plant.

Beside her, Professor Wilson swore softly under his breath, and she looked up, startled. His face had gone pale, except for two red spots high in his cheeks. He quickly faked a smile and held up a finger striped with red. “Paper cut,” he said. His voice sounded high and tight, and Claire followed his stare to see Angela and John moving closer, watching the professor’s finger with eerie concentration. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.” He groped in his pocket, came out with a handkerchief, and wrapped it around his bloodied finger. In trying to attend to that, he knocked the book he’d been reviewing to the floor. Claire automatically bent to pick it up, but Wilson’s foot hooked around it and scooted it out of her reach. He bent over and in the darkness under the desk…switched books.

Claire watched, openmouthed. What the hell was he doing? Before she could do anything stupid that might give him away, there was a ding from the elevator across the room, then the rumble of opening doors.

“Ah,” Wilson said with evident relief. “Time to go, then.” He reached down, picked up the hidden book, and slipped it into his leather satchel with such skill Claire wasn’t absolutely sure she’d seen it. “Come along, Neuberg.”

“Not her,” John said, smiling cheerfully. “She gets to stay after class.”

“But—” Claire bit her lip and made desperate eye contact with the professor, who frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sir, can’t I go with you? Please?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Come along, I said. Mr. Hargrove, if you don’t like it, please take it up with management. I have a class.”

He might have pulled it off, too, if Angela hadn’t been so sharp-eyed, or suspicious; she stopped him halfway to the elevator, opened up his portfolio, and took out the book he’d stashed away. She leafed through it silently, then handed it to John, who did the same.

Both of them looked at the professor with calm, cool, oddly pleased eyes.

“Well,” Angela said, “I don’t know, but I think this may be a violation of the rules, Professor. Taking books from the library without checking them out first. Shame, shame.”

She deliberately opened the first page and read, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” and then flipped carefully through, stopping at random spots, to read lines of text. It all sounded right to Claire. She flinched when Angela pushed the book at her. “Read,” the vampire said.

“Um…where?”

“Anywhere.”

Claire recited a few lines in a faltering voice from page 229.

“A Tale of Two Cities,” John said. “Let me guess, Professor…a first edition?”

“Mint condition,” Angela said, and plucked it out of Claire’s trembling hands. “I think the professor has a nice retirement plan, composed of screwing us out of our rightful profits.”

“Huh,” John said. “He didn’t look quite so dumb as that. Got all those degrees and stuff.”

“That’s just paper smarts. You never can tell about what’s really in their heads until you open them up.” The two of them were talking like he wasn’t even there.

Professor Wilson’s pale skin had a sweaty gleam on it now. “A moment of weakness,” he said. “I really do apologize. It won’t ever happen again, I swear that to you.”

“Apology accepted,” Angela said, and lunged forward, planted her hand on his chest, and knocked him flat to the floor. “And by the way, I believe you.”

She grabbed his wrist, raised it to her mouth, and paused to strip off his gold wristwatch band and toss it on the floor. As it rolled, Claire’s stricken eyes caught sight of the symbol on the watch face. A triangle. Delta?

Her shock broke at the sound of the professor’s scream. Grown men shouldn’t scream like that. It just wasn’t right. Fright made her angry, and she dropped her book bag, took the canister off her shoulder, and yanked off the top.

Then she threw liquid nitrogen all over Angela’s back. When John turned on her, snarling, she splashed what was left at his face, aiming for his eyes. Wilson rolled to his feet as Angela collapsed, shrieking and thrashing; John reached out for him, but she’d managed to hurt him, too—he missed. Wilson grabbed his satchel and she got her book bag; they ran for the elevator. A very surprised professor—someone she didn’t recognize—was standing there, openmouthed; Wilson yelled at him to stand aside, leaped into the cage, and pressed the DOWN button so frantically Claire was afraid it would snap or stick or something.

The doors rolled shut, and the elevator began to fall. Claire tried to get her breathing under control, but it was no good; she was about to hyperventilate. Still, she was doing better than the professor. He looked awful; his face was as gray as his hair, and he was breathing in shallow, hard gasps.

“Oh dear,” he said weakly. “That wasn’t good.”

And then he slowly collapsed down the wall of the elevator until he was in a sitting position, legs splayed loosely.

“Professor?” Claire lunged forward and hovered over him.

“Heart,” he panted, and then made a choking sound. She loosened his tie. That didn’t seem to help. “Listen. My house. Bookshelf. Black cover. Go.”

“Professor, relax, it’s okay—”

“No. Can’t let them have it. Bookshelf. Black—”

His eyes got very wide, and his back arched, and she heard him make an awful noise, and then…

Then he just died. Nothing dramatic about it, no big speeches, no music swelling to tell her how to feel about it. He was just…gone, and even though she pressed her shaking fingers to his neck, she knew she wouldn’t feel anything, because there was something different about him. He was like a rubber doll, not a person.

The elevator doors opened. Claire gasped, grabbed her books and the empty silver canister, and sprinted down the blank cinder-block hallway to the end, where a fire door opened into bright afternoon sunlight.

She stood there for a few long seconds, just shaking and gasping and crying, and then tried to think where to go. Angela and John thought her name was Neuberg, which was good—she supposed not so good for Neuberg, if one existed—but they’d find out who she was eventually. She needed to be home before that happened.

Bookshelf. Black cover.

Professor Wilson had been in that room for seven years, sorting through books. Probably slipping out those he thought might be worth something on the black market.

What if…?

No. It couldn’t be.

Except…what if it was? What if a year ago, or five years ago, Professor Wilson had found that book the vampires were so intent on having, and decided to hang on to it for a rainy day? After all, she’d been basically planning to do the same thing, only for her it was already stormy weather.

She needed his address.

It wasn’t far to the Communication Arts Building, and she ran as much of the way as she could before the pain in her still-bruised ankle and still-raw back made her slow down. Two flights of steps brought her to the offices, and she passed up Professor Wilson’s closed and locked office to stop next to the cluttered desk out in the open between the corridors. The nameplate read VIVIAN SAMSON, but everyone just called her Dragon Lady, and the woman sitting behind it had earned the name. She was old, fat, and legendarily bad-tempered. There was no smoking in all university buildings, but the Dragon Lady had an overflowing ashtray on the corner of her desk and a glowing cigarette hanging out of the corner of her red-painted lips. Beehive hair, straight out of old movies. She had a computer, but it wasn’t turned on, and as far as Claire could tell from the two-inch-long bright red nails, the Dragon Lady didn’t type, either.

She ignored Claire and kept on reading the magazine open in front of her.

“Um—excuse me?” Claire asked. She felt sticky with sweat from the run in the heat, and still kind of sick from what had happened at the library. The Dragon Lady turned a page in her magazine. “I just need—”

“I’m on break.” The red-clawed hand took the cigarette out of the red-painted mouth for a trip to the ashtray to shed some excess. “Not even supposed to be here today. Damn grad students. Come back in half an hour.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’m on break. Shoo.”

“But Professor Wilson sent me to get something from his house, but he didn’t give me the address. Please—”

She slapped the magazine closed. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m going to wring his neck when he gets back here. Here.” She grabbed a card from the holder on her desk and pitched it at Claire, glaring. “If you’re some nutcase, it’s not my problem. You tell His Highness that if he wants to roll around with undergrads, he can damn well remember to tell them his own damn address from now on. Got it?”

“Got it,” Claire said in a very small voice. Roll around with… She wasn’t going to think about that. Not at all. “Thank you.”

The Dragon Lady puffed a cloud of smoke out of both nostrils and raised eyebrows plucked into more of a suggestion than an actual form. “You’re a polite one. Go on, get out of here before I remember I’m supposed to be off today.”

Claire escaped, clutching the card in her sweaty fingers.

13

“You know,” Shane said twenty minutes later, “I’d feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn’t think I was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.”

They were standing on the professor’s back porch, and Claire was peering through a murky window into an equally murky living room. She felt a flash of guilt about the breaking-and-entering part—but she had called him—just before her heart did a funny little painful flip and she heard him say again in her head the two of us.

She didn’t dare look at him. Surely he didn’t mean that, exactly. That meant, you know, friendship or something. He treated her like a kid. Like his sister. He didn’t—he couldn’t—

But what if he could?

And she couldn’t believe she was thinking this now, on the doorstep of a dead man. The memory of Professor Wilson’s limp, rubbery body steadied her, and she was able to finally stand back from the window and meet Shane’s eyes without fluttering like some scared sparrow. “Well, I couldn’t ask Eve,” she said reasonably. “She’s at work.”

“Makes sense. Hey, look, what’s that?” Shane pointed. She whirled to stare. There was a sound of tinkling glass behind her, and when she turned back he was opening the back door. “There. Now you can say you didn’t know I was going to do it. Crime free.”

Well, not exactly. She was still carrying the metal cylinder over her shoulder. She wondered if the vampires had recovered yet, and if anybody had thought to question the TA at the chem lab. She hoped not. He was nice, and in his own way he was brave, but she had no illusions that he wouldn’t sell her out in a hot second. There weren’t a whole lot of heroes left in Morganville.

One of the last of them turned in the doorway and said, “In or out, kid, daylight’s burning.”

She followed Shane over the threshold into Professor Wilson’s house.

It was kind of weird, really—she could see that he’d been here hours ago, living his life, and now the house seemed like it was waiting for him. Maybe not so much weird as sad. They came in through the kitchen, and there was a cereal bowl, a glass, and a coffee cup in the dish strainer. The professor had eaten breakfast, at least. When she touched the towel underneath the strainer, it was still damp.

“Hey,” Shane said. “So what are we looking for in here?”

“Bookshelves,” she said.

“Yo. Found ’em.” He sounded odd. She followed him into the next room—the living room—and felt her stomach sink a little. Why hadn’t she thought about this? He was a professor. Of course he’d have a jazillion books…and there were, floor to ceiling, all the way around the room. Crammed in together. Stacked on the floor in places. Stacked on tables. She’d thought the Glass House was a reader’s paradise, but this…

“We have two hours,” Shane said. “Then we’re gone. I don’t want to risk you out on the street after dark.”

She nodded numbly and went to the first set of shelves. “He said it had a black cover. Maybe that will help.”

But it didn’t. She began pulling out all the black-bound books and piling them on the table; Shane did the same. By the time they’d met in the middle of the shelves, an hour had passed, and the pile was huge. “What the hell are we looking for?” he asked, staring at it. She didn’t suppose I don’t know would be an answer that would get any respect.

“You know the tattoo on Eve’s arm?”

Shane acted like she’d stuck him in the butt with a fork. “We’re looking for the book? Here?”

“I—” She gave up. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s worth a try.”

He just shook his head, his expression something between You’re crazy and You’re amazing. But not in a good way. She pulled up a chair and began leafing through the books, one after another. Nothing…nothing…nothing…

“Claire.” Shane sounded odd. He handed her a black leather-bound book. “Take a look.”

It was too new. They were looking for an old book, right? This was…this was a Holy Bible. With a cross on the front.

“Look inside,” he said. She opened it. The first few gold-leafed pages were standard, the same familiar words she’d grown up with, and still believed. Eve had said they had a few churches in Morganville, right? Maybe they had services. She’d have to check.

Midway through Exodus, the pages went hollow, and there was a tiny little volume hidden inside the Bible. Old. Very old. The cover was water-stained dirty leather, and scratched into it was a symbol.

The symbol.

Claire pulled it out of the Bible and opened it.

“Well?” Shane demanded after a few seconds. “What about it?”

“It’s—” She swallowed hard. “It’s in Latin.”

“So? What does it say?”

“I don’t read Latin!”

“You’re kidding. I thought all geniuses read Latin. Isn’t that the international language for smart people?”

She picked up a book without looking and threw it at him. He ducked. It flopped to the floor. Claire flipped pages in the small volume. It was handwritten in faded, coppery ink, the kind of beautiful perfect writing from hundreds of years ago.

She was actually holding it in her hands.

And here she’d been intending to just fake it.

“We’d better get going,” Shane said. “Seriously. I don’t want to be here when the cops come calling.”

“You think they will?”

“Well, if dear old Prof Wilson keeled over after stealing the vampires blind, yeah, I think they’ll send a couple of cops over to inventory the goodies. So we’d better move it.”

She stuffed the journal back into the Bible and started to put it into her backpack, then paused in outright despair. Too much stuff. “We need another bag,” she said. “Something small.”

Shane came up with a plastic grocery sack from the kitchen, stuck the Bible inside, and hustled her out. She looked back at Professor Wilson’s lonely living room one last time. A clock ticked on the mantel, and everything waited for a life that would never start up again.

She was right. It was sad.

“Run first,” Shane said. “Mourn later.”

It was the perfect motto for Morganville.

They made it back home with half an hour or so to spare, but as they turned the corner on Lot Street, where the Gothic bulk of the Glass House pretty much dwarfed all of the other, newer houses around it, Claire’s eyes went immediately to the blue SUV sitting at the curb. It looked familiar….

“Oh my God,” she said, and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Okay, stopping? Not a great idea. Come on, Claire, let’s—”

“That’s my parents’ car!” she said. “My parents are here! Oh my God!” She practically squealed that last part, and would have turned around and run away, but Shane grabbed her by the neck of her shirt and hauled her around.

“Better get it over with,” he said. “If they tracked you this far, they’re not going to drive off without saying hello.”

“Oh, man! Let go!” He did. She twitched her shirt down over her shoulders and glared at him, and he did an extravagant bow.

“You first,” he said. “I’m watching your back.”

She was, at least temporarily, more worried about her front.

When she cracked open the door to the house, she could hear Eve’s anxious voice. “I’m sure she’ll be here any time—she’s, you know, at class, and—”

“Young lady, my daughter is not in class. I’ve been to her classes. She hasn’t been to class the entire afternoon. Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or do I have to call the police?”

Dad sounded pissed. Claire swallowed hard, resisted the urge to back up and close the door and run away—mainly because Shane was right behind her, and he was finding this way too funny to let her escape—and walked down the hall toward the voices. Just Eve and Dad, so far. Where was—

“Claire!” She’d know that shriek of relief anywhere. Before she could say Hi, Mom, she was buried in a hug and a wave of L’Oréal perfume. The perfume stayed longer than the hug, which morphed into Claire’s being held at arm’s length and shaken like a rag doll. “Claire, what have you been doing? What are you doing here?”

“Mom—”

“We were so worried about you after that terrible accident, but Les couldn’t get off work until today—”

“It wasn’t that big a deal, Mom—”

“And we just had to come up and see you, but your room is empty in the dorm. You weren’t in classes—Claire, what’s happened to you? I can’t believe you’d do something like this!”

“Like what?” she asked, sighing. “Mom, would you quit shaking me? I’m getting dizzy.”

Mom let go and folded her arms. She wasn’t very tall—just a couple of inches over Claire’s height, even in midheeled shoes—and Dad, who was glowering at Shane in the background, was as tall and twice as broad. “Is it him?” Dad asked. “Did he get you into trouble?”

“Not me,” Shane said. “I’ve just got that kind of face.”

“Shut up!” Claire hissed. She could hear that he thought all this was funny. She didn’t. “Shane’s just a friend, Dad. Like Eve.”

“Eve?” Her parents looked at each other blankly. “You mean—” As one, they cast horrified glances at Eve, who was standing with her hands folded, trying to look as demure as it was possible to look while wearing an outfit that looked like something a Goth ballerina might wear—all black netting in the skirt and red satin up top. She smiled sweetly, but it was kind of spoiled by the red lipstick (had she borrowed Miranda’s?) and skull earrings.

Mom said faintly, “Claire, you used to have such nice friends. What happened to Elizabeth?”

“She went to Texas A&M, Mom.”

“That’s no reason not to still be friends.”

Mom logic. Claire decided that Shane had been right—there was no getting out of this one. She might as well jump into the pool; the sharks were circling no matter what she did. “Mom, Eve and Shane are two of my roommates. Here. In this house.”

Silence. Mom and Dad looked frozen. “Les?” Mom asked. “Did she say she was living here?”

“Young lady, you are not living here,” Dad said. “You live in the dorm.”

“I’m not. I’m living here, and that’s my decision.”

“That’s illegal! The rules said that you have to live on campus, Claire. You can’t just—”

Outside the windows, night was slipping up on them, stealthy and quick as an assassin. “I can,” Claire said. “I did. I’m not going back there.”

“Well, I’m not paying good money just to have you squat in some old wreck with a bunch of—” Dad was at a loss for words to describe how little he thought of Eve and Shane. “Friends! And are they even in school?”

“I’m currently between majors,” Shane offered.

“Shut up!” Claire was nearly in tears now.

“All right, that’s it. Get your things, Claire. You’re coming with us.”

All the amusement faded out of Shane’s face. “No, she isn’t,” he said. “Not at night. Sorry.”

Dad got red-faced and even more furious, and leveled a finger at her. “Is this why you’re here? Older boys? Living under the same roof?”

“Oh, Claire,” Mom sighed. “You’re too young for this. You—”

“Shane,” Shane supplied.

“Shane, I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice boy”—she didn’t sound especially convinced—“but you have to understand that Claire is a very special girl, and she’s very young.”

“She’s a kid!” Dad interrupted. “She’s sixteen! And if you took advantage of her—”

“Dad!” Claire thought her face might be just as red as his, for very different reasons. “Enough already! Shane’s my friend! Stop embarrassing me!”

“Embarrassing you? Claire, how do you think we feel?” Dad roared.

In the silence, Claire heard Michael say mildly, from the stairs, “I think maybe we’d all better sit down.”

They didn’t all sit down. Shane and Eve escaped to the kitchen, where Claire heard a clattering of pots and furious whispering; she was sitting uncomfortably on the couch between her parental bookends, looking mournfully at Michael, who was sitting in the armchair. He looked calm and collected, but then, he would. Mom, Dad, this is Michael, he’s a dead guy…. Yeah, that would really help.

“My name is Michael Glass,” he said, and extended his hand to Claire’s dad like an equal. Dad, surprised, took it and shook. “You’ve already met our other two roommates, Eve Rosser and Shane Collins. Sir, I know you’re concerned about Claire. You should be. She’s on her own for the first time, and she’s younger than most kids coming to college. I don’t blame you for being worried.”

Dad, defused, settled for looking stubborn. “And who the heck are you, Michael Glass?”

“I own this house,” he said. “I rent a room to your daughter.”

“How old are you?”

“A little over eighteen. So are Shane and Eve. We’ve known each other a long time, and to be honest, we didn’t really want to let another person into the house, but…” Michael shrugged. “We had an empty bedroom, and splitting costs four ways is better. I thought a long time about letting Claire stay here. We had house meetings about it.”

Claire blinked at him. He had? They did?

“My daughter’s a minor,” Dad said. “I’m not happy about this. Not at all.”

“Sir, I understand. I wasn’t too happy about it, either. Even having her here is a risk for us, you understand.” Michael didn’t have to go into it, Claire saw; her dad totally got it. “But she needed us, and we couldn’t turn her away.”

“You mean you couldn’t turn her money away,” Dad said, frowning. For answer, Michael got up, went to a wooden box sitting on the shelf, and took out an envelope. He handed it to Dad.

“That’s what she paid me,” he said. “The whole amount. I kept it in case she wanted to leave. This wasn’t about money, Mr. Danvers. It was about Claire’s safety.”

Michael glanced across at her, and she bit her lip. She’d been hoping to avoid this—desperately hoping—but she couldn’t see any way out now. She nodded slightly and slumped back on the couch cushions, trying to make herself small. Smaller.

“Claire’s dorm was girls-only,” Claire’s mom put in. She reached over to stroke Claire’s hair absently, the way she did when Claire was little. Claire endured it. Actually, she secretly liked it, a little, and had to fight not to relax against Mom’s side and let herself be hugged. Protected. “She was safe, wasn’t she? That Monica girl said—”

“You talked to Monica?” Claire said sharply, and looked wide-eyed at her mother. Mom frowned a little, dark eyes concerned.

“Yes, of course I did. I was trying to find out where you’d gone, and Monica was very helpful.”

“I’ll bet,” Claire muttered. The idea of Monica standing there smiling at her mom—looking innocent and nice, probably—was sickening.

“She said you were staying here,” Mom finished, still frowning. “Claire, honey, why would you leave the dorm? I know you’re not a silly girl. You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t have a reason.”

Michael said, “She did. She was being hazed.”

“Hazed?” Mom repeated the word like she had no idea what it meant.

“From what Claire told me, it started small—all the freshmen girls get it from the older ones. Nasty stuff, but not dangerous. But she got on the wrong side of the wrong girl, and she was getting hurt.”

“Hurt?” That was Dad, who now had something to hold on to.

“When she came here, she had bruises like a road map,” Michael said. “To be honest, I wanted to call the cops. She wouldn’t let me. But I couldn’t let her go back there. She wasn’t just getting knocked around…. I think her life was in danger.”

Mom’s hand had frozen in Claire’s hair, and she let out a little moan.

“It’s not that bad,” Claire offered. “I mean, look, nothing broken or anything. I had a sore ankle for a while, and a black eye, but—”

“A black eye?”

“It’s gone. See?” She batted her eyelashes. Mom’s gaze searched her face with agonizing care. “Honest, it’s over. Done. Everything’s fine now.”

“No,” Michael said. “It’s not. But Claire’s handling it, and we’re watching out for her. Shane especially. He—he had a little sister, and he’s taken an interest in making sure Claire stays safe. But more than that, I think Claire’s taking care of herself. And that’s what she has to learn, don’t you agree?” Michael leaned forward, hands loosely clasped, elbows on his knees. In the glow of the lamps, his hair was rich gold, his eyes angel blue. If anybody ever looked trustworthy, it was Michael Glass.

Of course, he was dead and all, which Claire had to bite her tongue not to blurt out in sheer altered-state panic.

Mom and Dad were thinking. She knew she had to say something…something important. Something that would make them not drag her home by the ear.

“I can’t leave,” she said. It came from her heart, and she meant every word. Her voice stayed absolutely steady, too—for once. “Mom, Dad, I know that you’re afraid for me, and I—I love you. But I need to stay here. Michael isn’t telling you this, but they put themselves on the line for me, and I owe it to them to stay until it’s settled and I’m sure they won’t get in trouble for me. It’s what I have to do, you understand? And I can do it. I have to.”

“Claire,” Mom said in a small, choked voice. “You’re sixteen! You’re a child!”

“I’m not,” she said simply. “I’m sixteen and a half, and I’m not giving up. I never have. You know that.”

They did. Claire had fought all her life against the odds, and both her parents knew it. They knew how stubborn she was. More, they knew how important it was to her.

“I don’t like this,” her dad said, but he sounded unhappy now, not angry. “I don’t like you living with older boys. Off campus. And I want these people who hurt you stopped.”

“Then I have to stop them,” Claire said. “It’s my problem. And there are other girls in that dorm getting hurt, too, so it isn’t just about me. I need to do it for them, too.”

Michael raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t answer. Mom wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. Eve appeared in the doorway wearing a huge apron with a red-lips emblem that read KISS THE COOK, peered uncertainly at them, and gave Claire’s parents a nervous smile.

“Dinner’s ready!” she said.

“Oh, we couldn’t,” Mom said.

“The heck we can’t,” Dad said. “I’m starved. Is that chili?”

Dinner was uncomfortable. Dad made noncommittal grunts about the quality of the chili. Shane looked like he was barely holding on to his laughter most of the time. Eve was so nervous that Claire thought she would jitter right out of the chair, and Michael…Michael was the calm one. The adult. Claire had never felt more like the kid at the big table in her life.

“So, Michael,” Claire’s mother said, nibbling at a spoonful of chili, “what is it you do?”

Haunts the house where he died, Claire thought, and bit her lip. She took a fast sip of her cola.

“I’m a musician,” he said.

“Oh really?” She brightened up. “What do you play? I love classical music!”

Now even Michael looked uncomfortable. Shane coughed into his napkin and drained Coke in huge gulps to drown out his hiccuping laughter.

“Piano and guitar,” he said. “But mostly guitar. Acoustic and electric.”

“Humph,” Claire’s dad said. “Any good?”

Shane’s shoulders were shaking.

“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I work hard at it.”

“He’s very good!” Eve jumped in, eyes bright and flashing. “Honestly, Michael, you should quit being so humble. You’re really great. It’s just a matter of time before you really do something big, and you know it!”

Michael looked…blank. Expressionless. That didn’t quite hide the pain, Claire thought. “Someday,” he said, and shrugged. “Hey, Shane, thanks for dinner. Good stuff.”

“Yeah,” Eve said. “Not bad.”

“Spicy,” Dad said, as if that was a flaw. Claire knew for a fact he ordinarily added Tabasco to half of what he ate. “Mind if I get a refill?”

Eve jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. “I’ll get it!” But Dad was at the end of the table, closest to the kitchen, and he was already on his feet and heading that direction.

Michael and Shane exchanged looks. Claire frowned, trying to figure out what they were looking so alarmed about.

They sat in silence as the refrigerator opened, bottles rattled, and then it closed. Dad came back, one cold-frosted Coke in his hand.

In his other hand he held a beer. He sat it in the center of the table and glared at Michael.

“You want to explain why there’s beer in a refrigerator with a sixteen-year-old in the house?” he asked. “Not to mention that none of you is old enough to be drinking it!”

Well, that was that. Some days, Claire thought, you just couldn’t win.

She had two days, and only because Dad agreed to allow her to go to the admissions office and file transfer paperwork. Michael tried his best, but even angelic good looks and complete sincerity weren’t good enough this time. Shane had stopped finding it amusing at some point, and started yelling. Eve had gone to her room.

Claire had cried. A lot. Furiously.

She was so angry, in fact, that she barely cared that Mom and Dad were going to be driving out of Morganville in the dark, unprotected and unwarned. Michael took care of that, though, with a story about carjackers stealing SUVs in the area. That was the best anyone could do, and more than Claire wanted, anyway.

Dad had looked at her like she was a disappointment.

She’d never, ever been a disappointment before, and it totally pissed her off, because she didn’t deserve it, not one bit.

Michael and Shane stood in the doorway, watching her parents hurry to their SUV in the dark. Shane, she saw, had a big hand-carved cross, and he was ready to charge to the rescue, even though he was mad as hell. He didn’t need to, though. Mom and Dad got in their truck and drove away, into the hushed Morganville night, and Michael closed and locked the door and turned to look at Claire.

“Sorry,” he said. “That could have been better.”

“You think?” she shot back. Her eyes were swollen and hot, and she felt like she might vibrate apart; she was so mad. “I’m not leaving! No way!”

“Claire.” Michael reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “Until you’re eighteen, you really don’t have the right to say that, okay? I know, you’re almost seventeen, you’re smarter than ninety percent of the people in the world—”

“One hundred percent smarter than anybody else in this house,” Shane said.

“—but that doesn’t matter. It will, but it doesn’t right now. You need to do what they say. If you decide to fight them, it’s going to get ugly, and Claire, we can’t afford it. I can’t afford it. You understand?” He searched her eyes, and she had to nod. “Sorry. Believe me, it isn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but at least you’ll be out of Morganville. You’ll be safe.”

He hugged her. She felt her breath leave for a second, and then he was gone, walking away.

She looked at Shane.

“Well, I’m not hugging you,” he said. He was standing close to her, so close she had to crane her neck way up to meet his eyes. And for a long few seconds, they didn’t say anything; he just…watched her. In the living room, she heard Eve talking to Michael, but here in the hallway it was very quiet. She could hear the fast pounding of her heart, and wondered if he could hear it, too.

“Claire—,” he finally said.

“I know,” she said. “I’m sixteen. Heard it already.”

He put his arms around her. Not the way Michael had, exactly—she didn’t know why it was different, but it was. This wasn’t a hug; it was—it felt—close.

He wasn’t holding himself back, that was it. And she relaxed against him with a breathless sigh, cheek against his chest, almost purring with relief. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She felt so small next to him, but that was all right. It didn’t make her feel weak.

“I’m going to miss you,” he whispered, and she leaned back to look up at him again.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She thought—really thought—that he was going to kiss her, but just then, she heard Eve call, “Shane!” and he flinched and pulled back, and the old Shane, the cocky Shane, was back. “You made things exciting around here.”

He loped off down the hall, and she felt a pure burst of fury.

Boys. Why were they always such dumbasses?

The night did its usual tricks—creepy creaking sounds upstairs, wind hissing at the windows, branches tapping. Claire couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get used to the idea that this room, this lovely room, was hers for only two more nights, and then she’d be carted off, humiliated and defeated, back home. No way would her parents let her go anywhere now. She’d have to wait out the next year and a half, which meant that her admission paperwork would have to be redone, and she’d have to start all over….

At least it didn’t matter now if she blew off classes, she thought, and punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape. Several times.

If she’d been asleep—even a little asleep—she’d have missed the knock on the door, as light as it was, but she was wired and full of restless energy, and she slipped out of bed and went to unlock it and swing it open.

It was Shane. He stood there, clearly wanting to come in, not daring to come in, as uncertain as she’d ever seen him. He was wearing a loose T-shirt and sweatpants, feet bare, and she felt a white-hot wave of—something—sweep over her. This had to be what he slept in. Or…maybe less than that.

Okay, she really needed to stop thinking about that.

She became aware, a hot second later, that she was standing there in a thin oversized T-shirt—one of Michael’s old ones—with bare legs from midthigh down. Half-naked wouldn’t be overstating it.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Shane said. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. I couldn’t sleep.” She was acutely aware of the bed behind her, covers all twisted. “Um, do you want to, um…come in?”

“Better not,” he said softly. “Claire, I—” He shook his head, brown hair swinging loose around his face. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

But he wasn’t leaving, either.

“Well,” she said, “I’m sitting down. If you want to stand there, fine.”

She went to the bed and sat, careful how she did it. Legs together, prim and proper. Her toes barely brushed the carpet. She felt alive and tingling all over.

She looked down at her hands, at the ragged fingernails, and picked at them nervously.

Shane took two steps into the room. “For the next two days, I don’t want you leaving the house,” he said. Which was not what she was expecting him to say. Not at all. “Your dad already thinks we’re getting you drunk and staging orgies in the hallway. Last thing I want is to send you home with fang marks in your neck. Or in a coffin.” His voice dropped lower. “I couldn’t stand that. I really couldn’t. You know that, right?”

She didn’t look up. He came a step closer, and his bare feet and sweatpants came into her vision. “Claire. You’ve got to promise me.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m not some little kid. And I’m not your sister.”

He laughed, low in his throat. “Oh, yeah. That, I know. But I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

His hand cupped her chin in warmth, and tilted her face up.

The whole world hushed, one perfect second of stillness. Claire didn’t even think her heart beat.

His lips were warm and soft and sweet, and the sensation just blinded her, made her feel awkward and scared. I’ve never…nobody ever…I’m not doing it right…. She hated herself, hated that she didn’t know how to kiss him back, knew he was measuring her against all those other girls, those better girls he’d kissed.

It stopped. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like a bird fluttering in her chest. She was flushed and hot and warm, so warm….

Shane pressed his forehead to hers and sighed. His breath warmed her face, and this time she kissed him, letting her instincts guide her, letting him pull her to her feet. Their hands were clasped, fingers laced, and parts of her—parts she’d only ever warmed up alone—were going full blast.

This time, when they came up for air, he pulled completely back. His face was flushed; his eyes were bright. Claire’s lips felt swollen, warm, utterly deliciously damp. Oh, she thought. I guess I should have done the tongue thing. Putting theory into practice was hard when her brain kept wanting to short out entirely.

“Okay,” Shane said. “That—that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “But I’m leaving in two days. It’d be stupid if I never even kissed you.”

She wasn’t absolutely sure who kissed whom this time. Maybe it was gravity tilting, stars exploding. It felt like it. His hands were free this time, and they cupped her face, stroked her hair, her neck, down to her shoulders….

She gasped into his open mouth, and he moaned. Moaned. She had no idea a sensation could go through her like that, traveling through her skin and nerves like lightning.

His hands stopped right there, at her waist.

When their tongues touched, gentle and tentative and wet, it made her knees weak. Made her whole spine rattle like dry bones. Shane put his right arm around her waist, holding her close, and cupped the back of her head with his left.

Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a good-bye, this was Hello, sexy, and wow, she’d never even suspected that it could feel this way.

When he let go, she fell back to sit on the bed, utterly weak, and she thought that if he followed her, she’d fall back and…

Shane took two giant-sized steps backward, then turned and walked out into the hall. Facing away from her. In a kind of dreamlike trance she watched the strong, broad muscles of his back moving under his shirt as he took deep breaths.

“Okay,” he said finally, and turned around. But staying well out in the hall. “Okay, that really shouldn’t have happened. And we’re not going to talk about that, right? Ever?”

“Right,” she said. She felt like there was light dripping from her fingertips. Spilling out of her toes. She felt full of light, in fact, warm buttery sunlight. “Never happened.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, and closed his eyes. “Claire—”

“I know.”

“Lock the door,” he said.

She got up and swung it mostly closed. One last look at him through the gap, and then she clicked it shut and flipped the dead bolt.

She heard a thump against it. Shane was slumped on the other side; she just knew it.

“I am so dead,” he muttered.

She went back to bed and lay there, full of light, until morning.

14

No sign of Shane on Monday morning, but she got up way early—just after Michael would have evaporated into mist, in fact. She showered and grabbed a Pop-Tart from the cabinet for breakfast, washed the dishes that had been dumped in the sink from last night’s disaster of Parental Dinner—hadn’t that been Michael’s job?—and emptied out her backpack to stuff in the metal canister (to return to the chem lab, which made it borrowing, not stealing) and the Bible with its concealed secret.

And then she thought, It won’t do any good if they just steal it from me, and took it out again and put it on the shelves, wedged in between an old volume 10 of the World Encyclopedia and some novel she’d never heard of. Then she stepped out, locked the door, and began walking toward the school.

The chem lab was busy when she arrived between classes, and she had no trouble slipping into the supply room to put the canister back in place, after carefully wiping her fingerprints from everything she could think of. That moral duty done, she hustled to the admissions office to put in her paperwork to withdraw from school. Nobody seemed surprised. She supposed that there were a lot of withdrawals. Or disappearances.

It was noon when she walked down to Common Grounds. Eve was just arriving, yawning and bleary-eyed; she looked surprised to see Claire as she handed over the cup of tea. “I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the house,” she said. “Michael and Shane said—”

“I need to talk to Oliver,” Claire said.

“He’s in the back.” Eve pointed. “In the office. Claire? Is there anything wrong?”

“No,” she said. “I think something’s about to be right for a change.”

The door marked OFFICE was closed. She knocked, heard Oliver’s warm voice telling her to enter, and came in. He was sitting behind a small desk in a very small room, windowless, with a computer running in front of him. He smiled at her and stood up to shake her hand. “Claire,” he said. “Good to see you’re safe. I heard there had been some…unpleasantness.”

Oliver was wearing a tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt and blue jeans with faded patches on the knees—not so much style as wear, she figured. He looked tired and concerned, and she thought suddenly that there was something about him a lot like Michael. Except that he was here in the daytime, of course, and at night, so he couldn’t be a ghost. Could he?

“Brandon is very unhappy,” he said. “I’m afraid that there’s going to be retaliation. Brandon likes striking from an angle, not straight on, so you’d better watch out for your friends, as well. That would include Eve, of course. I’ve asked her to be extra careful.”

She nodded, heart in her throat. “Um…what if I have something to trade?”

Oliver sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Trade for what? And to whom?”

“I—something important. I don’t want to be more specific than that.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be, if you want me to act as any kind of go-between for you. I can’t trade if I don’t know what I’m offering.”

She realized she was still holding her teacup, and put it down on the corner of the desk. “Um…I’d rather do it myself. But I don’t know who to go to. Whoever can order Brandon around, I guess. Or even higher than that.”

“There is a social order to the vampire community,” Oliver agreed. “Brandon’s hardly at the top. There are two factions, you know. Brandon is part of one—the darker side, I suppose you could say. It depends on your viewpoint. Certainly, from a human standpoint, neither faction is exactly lily-white.” He shrugged. “I can help you, if you’ll let me. Believe me, you don’t want to try to contact these people on your own. And I’m not sure they’d even allow you to do so.”

She bit her lip, thinking about what Michael had said about the deals in Morganville. She wasn’t good at it; she knew that. And she didn’t know the rules.

Oliver did, or he’d have been dead a long time ago. Besides, he was Eve’s boss, and she liked him. Plus, he’d been able to keep Brandon from biting her at least twice. That had to count for something.

“Okay,” she said. “I have the book.”

Oliver’s gray eyebrows came down into a straight line. “The book?”

“You know. The book.”

“Claire,” he said slowly, “I hope you understand what you’re saying. Because you can’t be wrong about this, and you absolutely can’t lie. Bluffing will get you, and all your friends, killed. No mercy. Others have tried, passing off fakes or pretending to have it, then running. They all died. All of them. Do you understand?”

She swallowed again, convulsively. Her mouth felt very dry. She tried to remember how it had felt last night, being warm and full of light, but the day was cold and hard and scary. And Shane wasn’t here. “Yes,” she whispered. “I understand. But I have it, and I don’t think it’s a fake. And I’m willing to trade for it.”

Oliver didn’t blink. She tried to look away, but there was something about him, something hard and demanding, and she felt a real surge of fear. “All right,” he said. “But you can’t do this by yourself. You’re too young, and you’re too fragile. I’ll undertake this for you, but I’ll need proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“I need to see the book. Take photographs of at least the cover and one inside page, to prove that it’s legitimate.”

“I thought vampires couldn’t read it.”

“They can’t, at least according to legend. It’s the symbol. Like the Protection symbols, it has properties that humans can’t really understand. In this case, it confuses the senses of vampires. Only humans can read the words inside—but a photograph removes the confusion, and vampires will be able to see the symbol for what it is. Wonderful thing, technology.” He glanced at the clock. “I have a meeting this afternoon that I can’t postpone. I’ll come to your house this evening, if that’s all right. I’d like a chance to speak with Shane and Eve, as well. And your other friend, the one I’ve never seen come in—Michael, correct? Michael Glass?”

She found herself nodding, a little alarmed and not even sure why she should be. It was okay, wasn’t it? Oliver was one of the good guys.

And she had no idea whom else she could turn to, not in Morganville. Brandon? Right. There was a good option.

“Tonight,” she echoed. “Okay.”

She stood up and walked out, feeling strangely cold. Eve looked up at her, frowned, and tried to come after her, but there were people crowding at the coffee bar, and Claire hurried to the door and escaped before Eve could corner her. She didn’t want to talk about it. She was sickly certain she’d just made a terrible mistake, but she didn’t know what, or why, or how.

She was so caught up in it, lost in her own head and lulled by the hot safety of the sun, not to mention people on the streets, that she forgot not all the dangers came at night in Morganville. The first warning she had, in fact, was the low rumble of an engine, and then she was being knocked off-balance and stumbling against the sun-heated finish of a van door, which slid aside.

She was being pushed from one side, pulled from the other, and before she could do more than yelp, she was in the van, bodies were piling on top of her, and the van door slammed shut on the sun. She slid on the carpeted floor as the van accelerated off, and heard whoops and laughter.

Girls’ laughter.

Somebody was kneeling on her chest, making it hard to breathe; she tried to twist and throw her off, but it didn’t work. When she blinked away stars she saw that the person on top of her was Gina, looking freshly made-up and fashion perfect, except for the sick gleam in her eyes. Monica was kneeling next to her, smiling a tight, cruel little smile. Jennifer was driving. There were a couple of other girls in the van, too, ones she remembered from the basement confrontation at the dorm. Apparently, Monica was still recruiting, and these two had made the cut to Advanced Psycho School.

“Get off me!” Claire yelled, and tried to bat at Gina; Monica grabbed her hands and yanked them over her head, painfully hard. “Bitch, get off!”

Monica punched her in the stomach, driving out what little air she had, and Claire whooped for breath. Gina’s weight made it incredibly hard to breathe. Could you kill somebody like this? Smother a person like this? Maybe if the victim was small…like her…

The van was still going, taking her farther and farther away from safety.

“You,” Monica said, leaning over her, “really pissed me off, fish. I don’t forget things like that. Neither does my boyfriend.”

“Brandon?” Claire wheezed. “Jeez, at least get one with a pulse!”

For that, she got punched again, and this time it hurt bad enough she started to cry, furious and helpless. Gina put a hand around her neck and began to squeeze. Not enough to kill her, just enough to hurt and make it even harder to gasp for precious little air.

They could keep this up for hours if they wanted. But Claire thought they probably had a lot more in store.

Sure enough, Monica reached in her pocket and brought out a lighter, one of those butane ones with a long, bright flame. She brought it close to Claire’s face. “We’re going to have a barbecue,” she said. “Roast freak. If you live, you’re going to be hideous. But you shouldn’t worry about that, because you probably won’t live, anyway.”

Claire screamed with whatever she had, which wasn’t much; it startled Monica, and it positively scared Jennifer, who was driving; she twisted to look back, turning the wheel while she did.

Mistake.

The van careened to the right, and smashed into something solid. Claire flew through the air, with Gina riding her like a magic carpet, crashed into the padded back of the seats, and Monica and Gina rolled in confusion as the van skidded to a stop.

Claire shook off her panic and lunged for the van door. She bailed out. The van had plowed into the rear of another car, parked along the side, and car alarms were going off. She felt dizzy and almost fell, then heard Monica yelling furiously behind her. That pulled her together, fast. She began running.

This part of downtown was mostly deserted—shops closed, only a few pedestrians on the street.

None of them would look at her at all.

“Help!” she yelled, and waved her arms. “Help me! Please—”

They all just kept walking, as if she were invisible. She sobbed for a second in horror, and then pelted around the corner and skidded to a stop.

A church! She hadn’t seen a single one the entire time she’d been in Morganville, and there one was. It wasn’t a big one—a modest white building, with a small-sized steeple. No cross on it, but it was unmistakably a church.

She darted across the street, up the steps, and hit the doors at a run.

And bounced off.

They were locked.

“No!” she yelled, and rattled the doors. “No, come on, please!”

The sign on the door said that the church was open from sundown to midnight. What the hell…?

She didn’t dare think too much. She jumped off the steps and ran around the side, then the back. Next to the Dumpster there was a back door with a glass window in it. It was locked, too. She searched around and found a broken piece of wood, and swung it like a baseball bat.

Crash!

She scraped her arm reaching through the broken window for the lock, but she made it, and slammed the door behind her. She locked it, frantically looked around, and found a piece of black poster board to prop against the blank space where the window had been. Hopefully, it would pass a quick glance.

She backed away, sweating, aching now from the crash and the run, and turned to go into the chapel. It was unmistakably a chapel, with abstract stained-glass windows and long rows of gleaming wood pews, but there was no cross, no crucifix, no symbol of any kind. The ultimate Unitarian church, she guessed.

At least it was empty.

Claire sank down on a pew midway back through the sanctuary and then stretched full length on the red velvet padding. Her heart was beating fast, so fast, and she was still so very scared.

Nobody knew where she was. And if she tried to leave, Monica might…

They were going to burn me alive.

She shivered and wiped tears from her cheeks and tried to think, think of something she could do to get out of this. Maybe there was a phone. She could call Eve or Shane? Both of them, she decided. Eve for the car, Shane for the bodyguard duty. Poor Shane. He was right—she really ought to stop calling him every time she needed brute strength. Didn’t seem fair, somehow.

Claire froze, unable to breathe, as she heard a soft noise in the chapel. Like fabric moving. A bare whisper, maybe just a curtain moving in the air-conditioning breeze, right? Or…

“Hello,” said the very pale woman leaning over the pew and looking down on her. “You would be Claire, I believe.”

Once the paralyzing terror receded just a little, Claire finally placed her. She knew she’d seen her; it had been just a split-second glance, but this was the woman—the vampire—who’d been brought to Common Grounds in a limousine after closing time.

What was she doing in a church?

Claire slowly sat up, unable to take her eyes off of the woman, who was smiling slightly. Light filtered in softly from the stained-glass windows and gave her a golden glow.

“I followed you,” the woman said. “Although in truth, I do like this church quite a bit. Very peaceful, don’t you think? A sacred place. And one that grants those within it a certain…immunity from danger.”

Claire licked her lips and tasted salt from sweat and tears. “You mean you won’t kill me here.”

The smile stayed intact. If anything, it widened a little. “I mean exactly that, my dear. The same goes for my guards, of course. I assure you, they’re present. I am never left alone. It is part of the curse of the position I hold.” She smiled and tilted her head an elegant fraction. Everything about her was elegant, from the shining golden crown of her hair to the clothes she was wearing. Claire wasn’t much for noticing fashion, unless it was worn by girls kicking the crap out of her, but this outfit looked like something out of old formal photographs from her mother’s time. Or grandmother’s.

“My name is Amelie,” the woman continued. “You are, in a sense, already acquainted with me, although you might not be aware of it. Please, child, don’t look so frightened. I absolutely assure you that no harm will come to you with me. I always give very clear warning before I do anything violent.”

Claire had no idea how to look any less frightened, but she clasped her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. Amelie sighed.

“You are very new to our town,” she said, “but I have rarely seen anyone disturb quite so many hornets in such a short time. First Monica, then Brandon, and then I hear you turn to my dear Oliver for advice…and now I see you running for your life through my streets…. Well, I find you interesting. I find myself wondering about you, Claire. About who you are. Why you are.”

“I’m—nobody,” Claire said. “And I’m leaving town. My parents are taking me out of school.” It suddenly seemed like a really good idea. Not so much running away as retreating.

“Are they? Well, we’ll see.” Amelie made a shrug seem like a foreign gesture. “Do you know who I am?”

“Somebody important.”

“Yes. Someone very important.” Amelie’s eyes were steady in the dim light, of no real color—gray, maybe? Or blue? It wasn’t color that made them powerful. “I am the oldest vampire in the world, my dear. In a certain sense, I am the only vampire who matters.” She said it without any particular sense of pride. “Although others may have differing opinions, of course. But they would be sadly, and fatally, wrong.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“No, I do not expect you to.” Amelie leaned forward and put lean, elegant, white hands on the wooden pew in front of her, then rested her pointed chin on top of them. “Somehow you have become mixed up in our search for the book. I believe you know the one I mean.”

“I—uh—yes.” No way was she going to confess what she had sitting at home. She’d made that mistake once already. “I mean, I know about all the—”

“Vampires,” Amelie supplied helpfully. “It is not a secret, my dear.”

“Vampires looking for it.”

“And you just happened to stumble into the operation at the library, in which we were combing through volumes to find it?”

Claire blinked. “Does it belong to you?”

“In a way. Let’s say that it belongs to me as much as it belongs to anyone alive today. If I am, strictly speaking, living. The old word was undead, you know, but aren’t all living things undead? I dislike imprecision. I think we may have that in common, young lady.” Amelie tilted her head a little to the side. Claire was reminded, with a chill, of a nature film. A praying mantis studying its food-to-be. “Vampire is such an old word. I believe I shall commission the university to find another term, a more—what is the new saying?—user-friendly term for what we are.”

“I—what do you want?” Claire blurted. And then, ridiculously, “…sorry.” Because she knew it sounded rude, and however scary this vampire, or whatever, might be, she hadn’t been rude.

“That’s quite all right. You’re under a great deal of stress. I shall forgive your breach of manners. What I want is just the truth, child. I want to know what you have found out about the book.”

“I—um, nothing.”

There was a long silence. In it, Claire heard distant noises—somebody tugging on the front door of the church.

“That’s unfortunate,” Amelie said quietly. “I had hoped I would be able to help you. It appears that I cannot.”

“Um—that’s it? That’s all?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.” Amelie sat back again, hands folded in her lap. “You may go the way you came. I wish you luck, my dear. You are going to need it. Unfortunately, mortal life is very fragile, and very short. Yours could be shorter than usual.”

“But—”

“I can’t help you if you have nothing to offer me. There are rules to life in Morganville. I can’t simply adopt strays because they seem winsome. Farewell, little Claire. Godspeed.”

Claire had no idea what winsome meant, but she got the message. Whatever door had been opened—whether it led to good things or bad—had slammed shut on her now. She stood up, wondering what to say, and decided that saying nothing might be the very best thing…

…and she heard the back door crash open.

“Oh, crap,” she whispered. Amelie looked at her in reproach. “Sorry.”

“We are in a house of worship,” she said severely. “Really, did no one teach your generation any sort of manners?”

Claire ducked behind a pew. She heard fast footsteps, and then Monica’s voice. “Ma’am! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were—”

“But I am,” Amelie said coolly. “Morrell, aren’t you? I can never keep any of you straight.”

“Monica.”

“How charming.” Amelie’s voice changed from cool to ice-cold. “I’ll have to ask you to leave, Miss Morrell. You do not belong here. My seal is on this place. You know the rules.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think—”

“Often the case, I suspect. Go.”

“But—there’s this girl—did she—?”

Amelie’s voice turned to a hiss like sleet on a frozen window. “Are you questioning me?”

“No! No, so sorry, ma’am, it won’t happen again, I’m sorry….” Monica’s voice was fading. She was backing away, down the hall. Claire stayed where she was, trembling.

She almost screamed when Amelie’s pale form rose up over the edge of the pew again and gazed down at her. She hadn’t heard her move. Not at all.

“I suggest you go straight home, little Claire,” Amelie said. “I would take you there, but that would imply more than I think I can afford just now. Run, run home. Hurry, now. And—if you have lied to me about the book, remember that many people might want such a valuable thing, and for many reasons. Be sure of why they want it before you give it over.”

Claire slowly took her hands away from her head and slid onto the seat of the pew, facing the vampire. She was still scared, but Amelie didn’t seem…well…evil exactly. Just cold. Ice-cold.

And old.

“What is it?” Claire asked. “The book?”

Amelie’s smile was as faded as old silk. “Life,” she said. “And death. I can tell you no more. It wouldn’t be prudent.” The smile vanished, leaving behind only the chill. “I believe you really should go now.”

Claire bolted up and hurried away, checking over her shoulder every other step. She saw other vampires coming out—she hadn’t spotted them, not a one of them. One of them was John, from the library. He grinned at her, not in a friendly way. One of his eyes was milky white.

She ran.

Wherever Monica and her friends had gone, it wasn’t the way Claire ran—and run she did, the whole way to Lot Street. Her lungs were burning by the time she turned the corner, and she was nearly in tears with gratitude at the sight of the big old house.

And Shane, sitting on the front steps.

He stood up, not saying a word, and she threw herself at him; he caught her and held her close for a few seconds, then pushed her back for a survey of damage.

“I know,” she said. “You told me not to go. I’m sorry.”

He nodded, looking grim. “Inside.”

Once she was in, with the door safely locked, she babbled out the whole story. Monica, the van, the lighter, the church, the vampire. He didn’t ask any questions. In fact, he didn’t even blink. She ran out of words, and he just looked at her, expressionless.

“You,” he finally said, “had better like the inside of your room, because I’m locking you in there, and I’m not letting you out until your parents come to load you in the car.”

“Shane—”

“I mean it. No more bullshit, Claire. You’re staying alive no matter what I have to do.” He sounded flatly furious. “Now. You need to tell me about Michael.”

“What?”

“I mean it, Claire. Tell me, right now. Because I can’t find him anywhere, and you know what? I can never find him during the day—damn! Did you feel that?” She did. A cold spot, sweeping across her skin. Michael, trying to tell her something. Probably Hell no, don’t tell him. “We can’t get through this if we’re not straight with each other.” Shane’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Is he—you know—one of them? ’Cause I need to know that.”

“No,” she said. “No, he’s not.”

Shane closed his eyes and slumped against the wall, hands to both sides of his head. “God, thank you. I was going nuts. I thought—I mean, it’s one thing to be a night person, but Michael—I was—I thought—”

“Wait,” Claire said, and took a deep breath. Cold settled over her again—Michael, trying to stop her. She ignored it. “Quit it, Michael. He needs to know.”

Shane took his hands away from his head and looked around, then frowned at her. “Michael’s not here. I checked. I searched the damn place from top to bottom.”

“Yes, he is. Cold spot.” She held out her hand and waved it through the refrigerated air. “I figure he’s standing…right here.” She looked at her watch. “He’ll be back in about two hours, when the sun goes down. You can see him then.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Michael. He’s a ghost.”

“Oh, come on! Bullshit! The dude sits here and eats dinner with us!”

She shrugged, threw up her hands, and walked away. “You wanted to know. Fine. Now you know. And by the way? I’m fine.”

“What do you mean, he’s a ghost?” Shane caught up with her, came around her, and blocked her path. “Oh, come on. Ghost? He’s as real as I am!”

“Sometimes,” she agreed. “Ask him. Better yet, watch him at dawn. And then tell me what he is, because ghost is about all I know to call him. The thing is, he can’t leave the house, Shane. He can’t help us. He’s stuck here, and during the day, he can’t even talk to us. He just—drifts.” She batted away the cold air again. “Stop it, Michael. I know you’re pissed. But he needs to know.”

“Claire!” Shane grabbed her and shook her out of sheer frustration. “You’re talking to thin air!”

“Whatever. Let go, I’ve got things to do.”

“What things?”

“Packing!” She pulled free and went upstairs, two steps at a time. Shane always slammed his door when he was mad; she tried it out. It helped.

The cold spot followed her. “Dammit, Michael, get out of my room, you pervert!” Could you even be a pervert if you were dead? She supposed you could, if you had a working body half the time. “I swear, I’m going to start taking my clothes off!”

The cold spot stayed resolutely put until she got the hem of her T-shirt all the way up to her bra line, and then faded away. “Chicken,” she said, and paced the room, back and forth. Worried and more than a little scared.

Shane pounded on the door, but she stretched out on her bed, put a pillow over her face, and pretended not to hear him.

Dusk came, pulling a blue gauze over the sky; she watched the sun sink halfway down the horizon, then unlocked her door and stormed out. Shane was just coming out of Michael’s bedroom. Still looking for someone he wasn’t going to find. Not the way he thought, anyway.

“Michael!” Claire yelled from her end, and felt the cold settle around her like an icy blanket. Shane spun around, and she felt the mist gather, thick and heavy, and then she actually saw it, a faint gray shape in the air….

Eve’s door flew open. “What in the hell is going on around here?” she yelled. “Could you guys keep it down to aircraft-carrier noise?”

…And then Michael just…appeared. Midway between all three of them, forming right out of a thick gray heavy mist, taking on color and weight.

Eve screamed.

Michael collapsed to his hands and knees, retching. He fell on his side, then rolled over to stare up at the ceiling. “Shit!” he gasped, and just stayed there, fighting for breath. His eyes looked wet and terrified, and Claire realized that it was like this for him every day. Every night. Frightening beyond anything she could even imagine.

Claire looked down the hall at Shane. He was frozen in place, mouth open, looking like a cartoon of himself. Eve, too, from her angle.

Claire walked over, held out a hand to Michael, and said, “Well, I guess that settles things.”

He gave her a filthy, wordless look, and took her hand to pull himself up. He staggered and leaned against the wall for support, shaking his head when she tried to help. “In a minute,” he said. “Takes a lot out of you.”

Eve said, in a high, squeaky, airless voice, “The ghost! You’re the ghost Miranda was talking about! Oh my God, Michael, you’re the ghost! You bastard!”

He nodded, still concentrating on breathing.

Eve got control of her voice and squealed, “That is without a doubt the coolest damn thing I have ever seen in my entire life!”

Shane looked…pale. Pale and shaken and—how predictable was this?—pissed. Michael met his eyes, and the two of them looked at each other for a long, silent second before Shane said, “This is why you asked me to come back.”

“I—” Michael coughed. When he sagged this time, Eve threw his arm around her shoulders. He looked surprised, then pleased. “Not just because—”

“I get it,” Shane said. “I get it, man. I do. What the hell happened while I was gone?”

Michael just shook his head. “Later.”

No, it wasn’t that Shane was pissed after all, Claire realized. He turned away and pounded down the stairs before she could say anything, but she’d seen his eyes. She knew.

He lost Alyssa. Now he thinks he’s lost Michael, too. She didn’t know how that felt, not really; she could imagine, but she was—she knew it—sheltered. She’d never really lost anybody, not even a grandparent. Grief was something in TV shows, in movies, in books.

She had no idea what to say to him. She’d thought that he’d just take it in stride, the way Shane seemed to take things, but…

“Claire,” Michael said. “Don’t let him leave.”

She nodded and left Eve supporting Michael in the hallway, the two of them looking surprisingly comfortable with the whole living-dead-not-dead thing. She supposed that if a ghost had to have a girlfriend, well, Eve was just about the best choice there was.

Shane was standing downstairs, just…standing. Not paying much attention to her or anything else. She reached out, ready to tap him on the shoulder, let him know she was here even if she was no help at all, but just then, there was a knock on the front door.

“I swear to God, if that’s Miranda—,” he grated. His fists were clenched at his sides.

“No, I think it’s for me,” Claire said, and darted around him to run down the hallway. She checked the peephole first, and sure enough, there was Oliver, standing on the doorstep and looking uncomfortable. She supposed he had good reason…. Jeez, hanging around anywhere after dark in Morganville had to be like hanging an EAT ME sign on your back.

She unlocked the door and swung it open.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “Where are they? Shane and Eve?”

“Inside,” she said, and pulled it open wider, the universal signal for Come in. He didn’t. He held up a hand instead, waved it in the air in front of him with a puzzled frown. “Oliver?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask me in,” he said. “It seems this house has some very detailed Protections in place. I can’t come in unless you ask.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” She was about to ask him inside when it occurred to her that maybe it wasn’t the best idea, just asking people in without okaying it with the rest of the Glass House first. Especially since she was living here only another day. “Um, can you wait just a second?”

“No, Claire, I really can’t,” Oliver said impatiently. He was still wearing the hippie gear from Common Grounds, but somehow he looked…different. Odd. “Please invite me in. I don’t have time to wait.”

“But I—”

“Claire, I can’t help you if you won’t trust me! Now quickly, before it’s too late, let me in!”

“But I—” She pulled in a deep breath. “All right. I invite you—”

“No!” It was a roar from behind her, absolutely terrifying, and she threw herself to one side and covered her mouth with both hands to hold in her scream. It wasn’t Shane bearing down on her; it was Michael. Shane was behind him, and Eve. “Claire, get back!”

Michael looked like an avenging angel, and nobody argued with angels. Claire scurried backward, still holding her hands over her mouth, as Michael strode past her, right up to the doorway. The edge of his territory.

Oliver looked disappointed but, she saw, not particularly surprised. “Ah, Michael. Good to see you again. I see you’re surviving nicely.”

Michael didn’t say anything, but from Claire’s vantage point to the side, she saw the look he was giving Oliver, and it frightened her. She hadn’t thought Michael could get that angry.

“What do you want here?” he asked tightly. Oliver sighed.

“I know you won’t believe me,” he said, “but in truth, I had the best interests of your young friend at heart.”

Michael laughed bitterly. “Yeah. I’ll bet.”

“Also your friend Shane—” Oliver’s eyes darted past Michael to lock on Shane, then Eve. “And of course my dear sweet Eve. Such a fine employee.”

Michael turned slowly to look at Eve, whose eyes were wide with what Claire hoped was horror. Or at least confusion. “You know each other?” Eve blurted. “But—Michael, you said you didn’t know Oliver, and—”

“I didn’t,” Michael said, and turned back, “until he killed me. We were never formally introducted.”

“Yes,” Oliver said, and shrugged. “Sorry about that. Nothing personal about it; it was an experiment of sorts that didn’t quite work out. But I’m pleased to see you survived, even if not quite in the form that I’d hoped.”

Michael made a sound Claire hoped never to hear again from any person, living or dead. It was Eve’s turn to clap her hands over her mouth, then quickly take them away to yell, “Oh my God! Oliver!”

“We can discuss my moral shortcomings later,” he said. “For now, you need to let me inside this house, and as quickly as possible.”

“You have got to be kidding,” Michael said. “I think one of us dead in here is good enough. I’m not letting you in to kill the rest.”

Oliver studied him silently for a long moment. “I’d hoped to be able to avoid this,” he finally said. “Your little Claire is quite the prodigy, you know. She says she’s found the book. I think she has quite a promising future in Morganville…provided she survives the night.”

Michael looked like he wanted to vomit. His eyes darted to Claire, then away. “Doesn’t matter. Go away. Nobody’s asking you in.”

“No?” Oliver smiled widely, and his fangs came down with lazy slowness. That was absolutely the scariest thing Claire had ever seen, that and the sincerity in his eyes. “I think someone will. Sooner or later.”

“I’d say over my dead body, but I think you already made that point,” Michael snapped. “Thanks for the visit. Now fuck off, man.”

He started to close the door. Oliver held up a hand—not like he was trying to stop him physically, just a warning—and his fangs folded up to leave his face kind and trustworthy again. Like…the face of a really cool teacher, the kind who made school worth living through. That, Claire thought, was a bigger betrayal than anything else.

“Wait. Do they understand why they’re here, Michael? Why you risked exposing your secrets to them?” Michael didn’t stop. The door was swinging closed on Oliver. “Shane, listen to me! Michael needed someone living to activate the house Protection! You think he cares about you, he doesn’t! You’re just arms and legs for him! Beating hearts! He’s no different from me!”

“Except for the not-bloodsucking part, you freak!” Shane yelled, and then the door slammed shut on Oliver’s face. Michael threw the bolt with shaking fingers. “Christ, man. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I—about what?” Michael asked, not turning to face him. He looked pale, Claire saw. Scared.

“Any damn thing! How did this happen, Michael? How did you get to be—?” Shane made a gesture that was vague enough to mean anything. “Was he trying to, you know, vamp you out?”

“I think so. It didn’t work. This is as far as I got.” Michael swallowed hard and turned to face him. “He’s right about the Protections. The house won’t enforce any Protection unless there’s someone living in it. I don’t exactly count. I’m—part of it now. I did need you.”

“Whatever, man. I don’t care about that. I care that you went and got yourself drained by some damn leech while my back was turned—”

“He can’t be a vampire,” Eve said suddenly. “He can’t. He’s my boss! And…and he works days! How is that even possible?”

“Ask him,” Michael said. “Next time you go to work.”

“Oh, right, as if I didn’t just quit that job!” Eve moved up beside Michael and put her arms around him. He hugged her back, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like they’d been doing that all along—which, Claire admitted, maybe they had and she just hadn’t known. Michael stroked Eve’s hair. “God, I am so sorry!”

“Not your fault,” he said. “Not anybody’s fault except his.”

“How’d you—?”

“I played a set at Common Grounds. I didn’t know he owned the place. I was dealing with a guy named Chad—”

“Oh. Right. Chad died,” Eve said.

“Wonder how that happened?” Shane put in acidly.

“This guy—Oliver, but I never knew his name—said he was a musician and he was looking for a room to rent. I thought it was a good idea. He came over to see the house.” Michael closed his eyes tight, like he couldn’t bear to see the pictures in his head again. Not that it would help, Claire knew. “As soon as I asked him in. I felt it. But it was too late, and—he had friends.”

Shane cursed, one harsh word that boomed off the wood floor like a gunshot, and leaned back against the wall, head down. Slumped. “I should have been here,” he said.

“Then we’d both be dead.”

“And you still will be,” said Oliver’s voice through the door. “Eve, my dear. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Let me in.”

“Leave her alone!” Michael roared, and turned to face the door.

Claire saw something happen in Eve’s face—the will go out of it, the light go out of her eyes. Oh no, she thought, frozen, and tried to open her mouth to warn Michael.

Before she could do it, Eve said, “Yes, Oliver. Come inside.”

And the lock snapped on the door with a crisp, bright ringing sound, and the door drifted open on the night, and Oliver stepped over the threshold.

15

Claire didn’t even see Michael move; he was that quick. Until that moment she’d thought he was just a normal guy, really…okay, one who disappeared into mist during the day. But nobody moved that fast. Nobody human.

And nobody was that strong, either. Michael grabbed Oliver by the shoulders, lifted him into the air, and launched him headfirst down the hall to crash into the far wall. Claire dived out of the way. So did Shane, and Eve, although Eve was diving toward Oliver, not away. Shane got hold of her ankle and dragged her backward, kicking and screaming.

Michael went after Oliver. As the vampire was rolling to his feet, Michael smashed into him. Oliver was strong, and fast, but in this house Michael was unstoppable, and he was really, really angry.

“You fool!” Oliver screamed at him. “Do you understand what I said? Claire has the book!”

“I don’t care!”

“You have to care! If you don’t give it over, they’ll rip all of you apart to get it! I’m trying to save you!”

Michael slammed his fist into his face two or three times, quicker than Claire could blink. Oliver went down again, scrabbling at the floor, then rolled over and stared furiously through tangled graying hair up at them. Vampires bled, after all, but it didn’t quite look right—not red enough, and too thick. It trickled from the corners of Oliver’s mouth as he snarled, fangs down, and tried to drag Michael close enough to bite. Michael hit him so hard that one of the fangs broke off and skittered away across the floor like an ivory dagger. Oliver shouted in surprise and pain and rolled, trying to protect himself.

“Eve!” Michael yelled, and dragged him by one foot down the hallway toward the door. “Revoke the invitation! Do it!” Oliver was fighting him wildly now, ripping long raw scratches in the wooden floor with his fingernails, snarling and twisting to get free. “Eve!”

Shane lunged for Eve, pulled her to her feet, and shook her hard. That didn’t work. She just stared right past him, her face still and dead.

Claire moved him out of the way and slapped Eve hard.

Eve yelped, clapped a hand to her wounded cheek, and blinked. “Hey! What the hell…?” And then she looked past Claire to the furious battle going on in the hallway, lips parted in amazement.

“Eve!” Michael yelled again. “The invitation! You have to withdraw it now!”

“But I didn’t—” Eve didn’t waste time arguing. “Hey! Oliver! Get the hell out of our house!”

Oliver went still. Completely still, like a dead man. Michael picked him up by an arm and a leg, and threw him out into the dark. Claire heard the vampire hit the pavement outside and curse as he rolled back to his feet and came back at the door.

He bounced off a solid cushion of air in the doorway.

“You’re not welcome,” Michael grated. He had a cut on his face, bleeding a thick thread down the side of his neck, and he was breathing hard. “And by the way? Eve quits.”

He slammed the door in Oliver’s snarling face, and collapsed against it, shaking. He didn’t look all-powerful anymore. He looked terrified. “Michael?” Eve asked, breathless. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” he said, and got it together. “Eve, stay away from the door. He got to you once; maybe he can do it again. Claire! You, too. Stay away from the door.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down the hall—which was a mess, wow, the floor all ripped up, the walls scraped and scratched—and shoved her down to a sitting position on the couch. “Claire.”

“Um…yes?” Things were moving too fast. She didn’t know what he was waiting to hear.

“The book?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well—see, there was this floor in the library where they were going through books, and Professor Wilson was stealing things, and—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “Do you have the book?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me you didn’t bring it here.”

She blinked. “Well—yes.”

Michael fell into the armchair, leaned forward, and buried his face in his hands. “Sweet baby Jesus, do you not pay any attention to what goes on in this town? You really have the book?”

“I…guess so.” She got up and started to retrieve it, but he raised his head and grabbed her wrist as she moved by him.

“No,” he said. “Leave it, wherever it is. The less we know, the better. We need to figure out what we’re going to do, because Oliver wasn’t kidding around. He wouldn’t have come here if he hadn’t intended to kill us all for that book. As it was, he took a big chance. He knows how powerful the Protection is on this house.”

“That how come you could beat him?” Shane asked. “Because you know, I’m your best friend, but you’re just not that badass, man.”

“Thanks, asshole. Yeah. I’m part of the house, and that means I can use what the house has. It’s strong. Really strong.”

“Good to know. So what’s the plan?”

Michael took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Wait for daylight,” he said. “Eve. You ever see Oliver outside in the sun?”

“Um…” She thought hard. “No. Mostly he stays in his office, or in the bar area, away from the windows. But I didn’t think vampires could be awake during the day!”

Claire thought about the church Monica had chased her into, and the elegant, ancient woman sitting in the pews. “I think they can,” she said. “If they’re old. He must be really old.”

“I don’t care how old he is—he’s not tanning,” Shane said. “We wait for dawn, and then we get Claire and the book out of here.”

“She can’t go home. They’ll go there first,” Eve said. Claire went cold.

“But—my parents! What about my parents?”

Nobody answered her for a second or two, and then Shane came and sat down next to her. “You think they’ll listen? If we tell them the truth?”

“What, about Morganville? About vampires?” She laughed, and it sounded hysterical. “Are you kidding? They’d never believe it!”

“Besides,” Eve said, and sat down on her other side to take her hand, “even if you convinced them, they’d forget all about it once they were out of town. It’s hard to be paranoid when you don’t remember they’re out to get you.”

“Ouch,” Shane agreed. “Okay, then. Running’s out—for one thing, we can’t throw Claire’s parents to the vampire wolves…right?”

Michael and Eve nodded.

“And besides, same problem for Claire. Even if we got her out of town, she’d forget why she was running. They’d catch her.”

More nods.

“So what do we do?”

“Trade the book,” Claire said. They all looked at her. “What? I was going to, anyway. In exchange for some things.”

“Like what?” Michael asked, amazed.

“Like—Brandon not holding Shane to his deal. And Monica and her freaks backing off of me. And…Protection for all the dorms on campus, so that the students are safe.” She blushed, because they were all staring at her like they’d never seen her before. “That’s how Oliver knew I had the book. I messed up. I was trying to make a deal, but I thought he was just, you know, a good guy who could help. I didn’t know he was one of the vampires.”

“Oh, he’s not one of them,” Michael said. “He is them.”

Shane frowned. “How do you know that, man?”

“Because in a way I’m one of them,” Michael replied. “And something in me wants to do what he says.”

“But—not a big part, right?” Eve ventured.

“No. But he’s definitely in charge.”

Shane got up and walked to the windows, twitched back the curtain, and looked out. “No kidding,” he said.

“What’ve you got?”

“Vamp city, man. Check it out.”

Michael joined him at the window, then Eve. When Claire squeezed in, she gasped, because there were dozens of people in view, all standing or sitting facing the house. Unnaturally still. Eve dashed to another set of windows. “Same here!” she called. “Hang on!”

“Shane,” Michael said, and jerked his head after her. Shane loped off in pursuit. “Well, so much for sneaking out. I think we’re here for the night, at least. Most of them have to go underground during the day. Those that don’t won’t be able to stay out in direct sunlight—I hope—so maybe we’ll have more options then.”

“Michael—” Claire felt like crying. “I didn’t know. I thought I was doing something good. I really did.”

He put his arm around her. “I know. It’s not your fault. It might have been a dumb idea, but at least it was a sweet one.” He kissed her cheek. “Better get some rest. And if you hear voices, try not to listen. They’re going to be testing us.”

She nodded. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But we’ll think of something.”

Claire curled up on the corner of the couch, piled under an afghan; Eve took the other end. Nobody felt much like going upstairs to bed. Shane paced a lot, talking in low whispers with Michael, who hadn’t once gotten out his guitar. The two of them looked wired. Ready for anything.

Claire didn’t mean to fall asleep—she thought she was too scared—but she did, eventually, as night spun on toward morning. Voices whispered to her—Michael’s, she thought, and then Shane’s. Get up, the voices said. Get up and open the door. Open the window. Let us in. We can help you if you’ll just let us in.

She whimpered in her sleep, sweaty and sick, and felt Shane’s hand on her forehead. “Claire.” She opened her eyes and saw him sitting there next to her. He looked tired. “You’re having a nightmare.”

“Don’t I wish,” she muttered, tried to swallow, and discovered she was burning-up thirsty. She felt feverish and weak, too. Well, this was a perfect time to be catching the flu….

“Michael!” Oliver’s voice came faint through the front door. “Something you should see, my boy! Look out your windows!”

“Trap,” Shane said instantly, and reached out to grab Michael’s arm as he walked by. “Don’t, man.”

“What’s he going to do? Make faces at me?”

“If you start doing what he wants, it’s hard to stop. Just don’t.”

Michael considered that for a few seconds, then pulled away and went on to the windows.

Where he stared out, frowning. There were red and blue flashing lights shining on the glass and reflecting on his skin.

“What is it?” Claire asked, and got up.

“Hey! Seriously, guys. Quit playing their game—”

“Cops,” Michael said. He sounded blank and shocked. “They’ve got the whole street blocked off. They’re moving people out.”

“What people? The vampires?” Eve wanted to know. She piled on at the window, too.

“Sheesh,” Shane said grumpily. “Fine. Don’t listen to me. If a vampire tells you to jump off a cliff…”

“They’re evacuating the neighborhood,” Michael said. “Getting rid of witnesses.”

“Oh, shit,” Shane said, and jumped up and craned to look over Claire’s shoulder. “So just how screwed are we?”

“Well, the cops aren’t vampires. And the Protections won’t keep them out.”

As Claire watched, the six police cars, all with their lights running in bloodred and vein blue flashes, were joined by two long, skeletal fire trucks. One at each end of the block.

Michael said nothing, but his eyes narrowed.

“Oh, shit!” Shane whispered. “They wouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I think they would. If this book is that important, I think they’d do just about anything to get it.”

Oliver’s face suddenly popped up in front of the window. They all screamed—even Michael—and jumped back. Shane tried to push Claire behind him. She smacked at him until he left her alone.

She wanted to hear what Oliver had to say.

“It’s nearly five o’clock,” Oliver said, his voice muffled by the window glass. “We’re running out of time, Michael. Either invite me in and give me the book, or I’m afraid this is going to get unpleasant.”

“Wait!” Claire balled her hands into fists. “I want to trade for it!”

His eyes weighed her, and dismissed her. “I’m very sorry, my dear, but that opportunity has come and gone. We’re in much rougher waters now. Either hand over the book, or we’ll come in and get it. I promise you, this is the best deal you’re likely to get this side of hell.”

Michael yanked down the shade. “Shane. You, Eve, and Claire get into the pantry room. Move it.”

“No way!” Eve declared. “I’m not leaving you!”

He took her hand and locked eyes with her, in a way that made Claire’s knees go weak even at several feet away. “They can’t hurt me, except by hurting the house itself. They can’t kill me, except by destroying the house. Understand? You guys are the vulnerable ones. And I want you safe.”

He kissed her hand, darted a self-conscious look at Claire and Shane, and then kissed her lips, too.

“Huh,” Shane said. “Thought so.” He took Claire’s hand. “Michael’s right. Better get you girls someplace safe.”

“You, too, Shane,” said Michael.

“No way!”

“Not the time to be proving anything, dude. Just take care of them. I can take care of myself.”

Maybe, Claire thought. And maybe he just wanted them out of the way in case he couldn’t.

Either way, she didn’t have a chance to protest. Shane steered her and Eve into the kitchen, loaded them down with water and prepackaged food like Pop-Tarts and energy bars, and helped them stack things in the dark, gloomy hiding place where Claire had spent her first morning in the Glass House.

She didn’t know if Shane really might have followed Michael’s orders—it was possible, she guessed—but just as they were pushing the last of the supplies into the narrow little doorway, there was a loud crashing of glass from the living room.

“What the hell?” Shane blurted, and ducked out to see what was going on. Claire went after him, and when she looked back, Eve was following, too.

But they didn’t get very far, because the kitchen window smashed into splinters, and Claire and Eve stopped and turned to look.

Oliver was standing just outside the window. They heard more glass breaking, all over the house.

“Girls,” he said. “I’m sorry to do this. Truly I am. But you’re not giving me much choice. Last chance. Invite me in, and this can end peacefully.”

“Bite me!” Eve taunted. “Oh, wait…you can’t, can you? Not from way out there!”

His eyes flared, and his fangs snapped down. Threat display. That was what it was called when a rattlesnake shook its tail, or a cobra spread its hood. He was giving them a clear sign that he didn’t find them very funny.

“The book,” he said. “Or your lives. That’s the only deal you’re going to get, Claire. I suggest you make the right choice quickly.”

“It’s okay,” Eve said. “They can’t come inside.”

Oliver nodded, his faded, curling hair blowing in the hot night wind. “That’s true,” he said. “But then, I’m hardly all alone.”

And he stepped aside as a policeman, in uniform, broke out the remaining glass with a nightstick and hopped up on the windowsill to climb through.

Eve and Claire screamed and ran.

The living room was a mess of broken furniture, scattered papers, struggling bodies—Shane punched out some guy in a black jacket, who flew back out of the window and into the arms of some waiting, snarling vampires. Michael was fighting a couple more, whom he just bodily picked up and threw out. As Eve and Claire skidded into the room and broke right and left, the cop in pursuit ran headlong into Michael and got tossed out, as well.

“They’re coming in!” Eve screamed, and slammed the kitchen door and jammed a chair under the handle. Michael grabbed the nearest bookcase—not the one with the Bible on it, Claire saw—and pulled it over to block the window, then leaned the sofa against it.

“Upstairs!” he yelled. “Move it!”

Shane grabbed Claire by the hand and pounded up the steps, half dragging her; she missed a step and stumbled, and pulled him off-balance just at the right moment, because the bat that was swung at his head missed and thumped into the wall with a crack of wood. Another person hiding at the top of the stairs, this one female and tall. Shane grabbed the bat away from her and menaced her with it, driving her back down the hallway. Claire recognized her—one of the dorm girls, Lillian.

“Don’t!” Lillian yelled, and put up her arms when Shane pulled back the bat.

“Hell,” Shane spit in disgust. “I can’t hit a girl. Here, Claire. You hit her.” He tossed her the bat. Claire grabbed it and came to a clumsy batting stance, wishing she’d paid more attention in phys ed. Lillian screamed again and ran into the open doorway of Eve’s room. Eve, coming up the stairs, screamed, too, for different reasons.

“Hey! That’s my room, bitch!” And she flew in to grab Lillian by the hair, swing her around, and throw her out into the hall, then shoved her toward the stairs. “Michael! This one needs to go out!”

She shoved her again. Lillian tottered down the steps, and shrieked once more before leaving the building at speed, propelled by Michael-power.

“Check the rooms,” Shane panted. “If one got in, there are probably more. Don’t take chances. Yell for help.”

Claire nodded and hurried to her room. It looked quiet, thank God—the windows were unbroken, and there was no sign of anybody hiding in the closets or under the bed. Same for the bathroom, although she had a bad shower-curtain moment. She heard crashing from down the hall. Shane had found somebody. She ran out into the hall and started to come to his defense, then hesitated when she saw that Eve’s door was now open a crack.

She’d left it closed.

She opened it slowly, as silently as she could, and peeked around the edge…

…and saw Eve up against the wall, and Miranda holding a knife at Eve’s throat. She recognized the bruises and bite marks on her neck first, then the faded blue eyes as the girl’s head turned toward her.

“Don’t,” Miranda said. “I have to do this. Charles says I need to. To make the visions stop. I want it to stop, Claire. You understand, right?”

“Let her go, Miranda, okay? Please?” Claire swallowed hard and stepped into the room. She could hear fighting from down the hall. Shane and Michael were busy. “You don’t want to hurt Eve. She’s your friend!”

“It’s too much,” Miranda said. “So many people dying, and I can’t do anything. Charles said he’d make it go away. All I have to do is—”

“What? Kill Eve? Really, don’t—you don’t want to—to do anything—” Panicked, she looked to Eve for help. One thing was for sure: the pallor in Eve’s face wasn’t makeup.

“Yeah,” Eve said faintly. “I’m your friend, Mir. You know that.”

Miranda shook her head so hard her dark hair flew. The knife trembled against Eve’s throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut, whispering something that sounded like, “Charles,” and when she opened her eyes again she looked different. Not scared. Focused.

She’s going to do something. I need to— Claire didn’t have time to figure it out; she just moved, because Eve was moving, her arm flashing up and smacking Miranda’s elbow. In the second that the knife was away from Eve’s throat, Claire grabbed a thick handful of Miranda’s hair and yanked, hard, dragging her backward. Miranda shrieked and slashed wildly at them. Eve’s upraised arm got a bloody cut, and Claire moved backward, gasping, holding on to Miranda’s hair and trying to stay out of cutting range.

Miranda swept the knife around and cut off the clump of hair a couple of inches away from Claire’s knuckles. Ohno…

Miranda lunged at her, knife held out, and Claire ran into the black bedside table, toppled over onto the black satin comforter, and saw the knife coming for her.

“Hey!” Eve screamed, and spun Miranda around and slapped her, hard, across the face. Twice. When Miranda tried to stab her, Eve smacked the girl’s hand into the wall and twisted her wrist until Miranda’s fist opened and the knife dropped to the wood floor.

Miranda started crying. It was a hopeless, helpless sound, and if Claire hadn’t been angry-scared, she might have actually felt sorry for her. “No, no, I don’t want to see it anymore, I don’t want to—he said he’d make it stop—”

Eve grabbed her by the arm, opened up the closet door, and stuffed Miranda inside, then jammed a wooden chair under the door handle to hold it shut. She looked furious and really, really hurt. Her arm was bleeding all over the place—not spurting, but flowing pretty freely. Claire grabbed up a black towel lying on the bureau and pressed the makeshift bandage to the wound; Eve blinked, like she’d forgotten all about it, and held it in place.

“Maybe she was just under his spell. Like you were, when you—” Okay, maybe it hadn’t been smart to bring that up, Claire thought.

“That’s why I slapped her,” Eve said. “But I don’t think that’s it. Miranda’s always been crazy. I just thought—well, I thought she wasn’t that crazy.”

Eve looked better. More color in her face, anyway…and then Claire thought, no, she looked too good.

Claire’s eyes turned to the broken window. Outside, there was a slight edge of sunlight climbing above the horizon, and the sky had turned a deep blue gray.

“Michael!” she blurted. “Oh my God!”

She left Eve and ran into the hall. Shane was just coming out of his room, shaking out his right hand. His knuckles were bloody. “Where’s Michael?” she yelled.

“Downstairs,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

Claire realized with a shock that somehow she was still holding the handful of Miranda’s severed hair. She made a face and let go, then fluttered her hand to shake off the clingy strands. “You don’t even want to know. Oh, Miranda’s locked in Eve’s closet, by the way.”

“Well, that’s a bonus. Sorry, but I really don’t like that kid.”

“She’s not growing on me, either,” Claire admitted. “Come on, we need to get to Michael.”

“Trust me, he’s doing okay without us.”

“No, he’s not,” she said grimly. “The sun’s coming up.”

He didn’t get it for a second, and then he did, and oh, boy. He was gone before she could yell at him to wait for her.

She reached the bottom of the staircase a few seconds behind, and saw him race across to where Michael was grabbing another—presumably, human—intruder on his way in through the broken-down front door.

“I don’t need you!” he yelled at them both, and tossed the guy halfway to Kansas. “Get upstairs! Shane, show her where!”

Shane ignored him, plunged past him and into the hallway. Guarding the front door. Michael started to follow him, and stepped into the growing light from the back window.

He spun to look at it, then wordlessly at Claire. She saw the outright fear in his eyes. “No,” he said. “Not now!”

She couldn’t say or do anything to help, and she knew it. “How long…?”

The terrible look on his face pretty much answered the question, but he said it anyway. “Five minutes. Maybe less. Dammit!”

As if the vampires knew, there was a rattle at the window behind the bookcase blocking it. It heaved uneasily, then started to topple forward. Michael got in between it and the floor, caught it, and flung it back upright, then braced it again with the sofa.

“Back up!” Michael ordered her, and she retreated to the stairs. She could hear Shane fighting in the hall again. “Claire, you and Eve need to find a way to block everything. Seal it up. Don’t let Shane—”

She wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but just then he gasped and doubled over, and she knew that it was lost. He looked pale. Paler.

Mist.

Gone, along with a fading ghost of a scream.

Eve skidded to a stop beside her, eyes wide. “He’s gone,” she whispered, as if she really couldn’t believe it. “He left us.”

“He couldn’t help it.” Claire took her hand. “Come on, Eve, let’s get the bookcase down the hall. We need to wedge it in the doorway.”

Eve nodded numbly. It was like all the fight had gone out of her, and Claire understood why…. What hope was there now? Michael had been handling things, but without him…?

“Help me,” she said to Eve, and she meant it in every way she could.

Eve gave her a tiny little smile and squeezed her fingers. “You know I will.”

Between the three of them, they managed to block the front door pretty thoroughly, wedging the bookcase in place and bracing it with two more at an angle. Sweaty, panting, scared, they looked at each other.

It got quiet. Weirdly quiet.

“Well?” Eve looked around the corner. “I don’t see anything….”

“Can we get to the pantry?” Claire asked. “I mean, I don’t hear anybody….”

“Too risky,” Shane said. He grabbed the phone from a pile of debris and started dialing on the fly, then dropped it. “They cut the line.”

Eve pulled her cell phone out of a holster on her belt. Shane grabbed for it, checked the signal, and held up his hand for a high five. He was already dialing when they smacked it. “Come on,” he muttered, pacing, listening. “Pick up, pick up, pick up….”

He stopped in midstep. “Dad? Oh, damn, it’s the machine—Dad, listen, if you get this, it’s Shane, I’m at Michael Glass’s house in Morganville, and I need shock and awe, man—come running. You know why.”

He flipped the phone shut and threw it to Eve. “Upstairs, both of you. Get in the secret room. Michael? Are you with us?”

Claire shivered in a sudden cold draft. “He’s here.”

“Watch out for them,” Shane said. “I—I kind of have a plan.” He said it as if he was half surprised. “Girls. Upstairs. Now.”

“But—”

“Go!” He’d learned how to yell orders from Michael, and it seemed to work, because Claire was moving for the stairs without any conscious decision to do it. The cold chill stayed around her, and she saw Eve shivering, too.

The upstairs was quiet, as well, except for the distant knocking sound of Miranda hammering on her door. “I don’t like this,” Claire said. “Oliver knows Michael can’t do anything after dawn, right?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said, and chewed at her bottom lip. Most of her makeup had sweated off or gotten wiped away; even her lips were normal lip color now, for nearly the first time Claire could remember. “You’re right. It’s weird. Why would they just give up now?”

“They haven’t,” said a voice that Claire’s tingling spine recognized before her brain. Michael’s bedroom door opened, and standing there, smiling, was Monica Morrell. Gina and Jennifer were behind her.

They were all holding knives, and that was a hell of a lot scarier than Miranda, no matter how crazy she might be.

Eve got in between Claire and Monica and began backing her away, down the hallway. “Get in your room,” Eve said. “Lock the door.”

“Won’t do you any good,” Monica said, leaning around Eve. “Ask me why. Go on, ask me.”

She didn’t have to. She heard the door open behind her, and whipped around to see a man in a police uniform stepping out into the hallway with his gun drawn.

“Meet my brother, Richard,” she giggled. “Isn’t he cute?” He might have been, but Claire couldn’t look anywhere but at the gun, which was big and shiny and black. She’d never had a gun pointed at her before, and it scared her in ways that even knives didn’t.

“Shut up, Monica,” he said, and nodded toward the far end of the hall. “Ladies. Downstairs, please. We don’t have to make this bloody.” He sounded harassed more than anything else, like mass home invasion was just something standing between him and morning coffee.

Claire backed up, touched Eve, and whispered, “What do we do?” She was asking Michael, too, for all the good it would do.

“I guess we go downstairs,” Eve said. She sounded defeated.

The chill swept across them stronger than ever. “Um, I think that’s a no?” Warm air flooded in. “That’s a yes?” More warm air. “You’re kidding me, Michael. Stay here?” Fine, if you were already a ghost, but how the hell were the two of them supposed to fight off three girls with knives and a cop with a gun?

Eve fainted. She did it convincingly, too, so well that Claire wasn’t totally for sure that she wasn’t really out. Monica, Gina, and Jennifer looked down at her, frowning, and Claire bent over her, fanning at her face. “She got cut,” she said. “She’s lost a lot of blood.” She hoped that was an exaggeration, but she wasn’t too sure, because the black towel had fallen away from Eve’s arm and it looked soaked.

“Leave her,” said Monica’s brother. “We only need you, anyway.”

“But—she’s bleeding! She needs—”

“Move.” He shoved her, and she nearly ran into the knife Gina was holding out. “Monica, for God’s sake, back the hell off, will you? I think I can handle some little girl!”

Monica frowned at him. “Oliver said we could have her when it’s over.”

“Yeah, when it’s over. Which isn’t now, so back the hell off!”

She shot him the finger, then stepped back to let Claire move past her. Claire did it as slowly as she could, manufacturing a crying jag and some shaking that, once started, felt too real to stop.

“See?” Monica said over her shoulder to Jennifer. “Told you she was a punk.”

Claire doubled over, moaning, and very deliberately puked all over Monica’s shoes. That was all it took. Monica screamed in horror and slapped her, Gina grabbed her, Jennifer stepped away, and Richard, confused by all the sudden girl fighting, took a couple of steps back so he wouldn’t put a bullet in the wrong one.

“Hey!” Shane’s voice, loud and angry. He was on the stairs, looking through the railing at them. “Enough already. I’ll give you the damn book. Just leave them alone.”

“Not fair,” Monica muttered, glaring at him. He glared right back, looking like he’d take back that hitting-a-girl rule, just once. Gladly. “Richard, shoot him.”

“No,” Richard said wearily. “I’m a cop. I only shoot who I’m told to shoot, and you aren’t the chief.”

“Well, I will be. One day.”

“Then I’ll shoot him when you are,” he said. “Shane, right? Get up here.”

“Let them walk out of here first.”

“Not going to happen, so just get your ass up here before I decide I don’t need either one of them.” Richard cocked the gun for emphasis. Shane slowly came up to the top of the steps and stopped. “Where is it?”

“The book? It’s safe. And it’s someplace you’ll never get it if you piss me off, Dick.”

Richard fired the gun. Everybody—even Monica—screamed, and Claire looked down at herself in shock.

He’d missed. There was a smoking round hole in Michael’s door.

Oh. He hadn’t missed.

“Kid,” Richard said wearily, “I am not in the mood. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours, my sister’s crazy—”

“Hey!” Monica protested.

“—and you’re not my high school crush—”

“He is not my high school crush, Richard!”

“The point is, I couldn’t give a crap about you, your friends, or your problems, because for me this isn’t personal. Monica will kill you because she’s nuts. I’ll kill you because you make me kill you. Are we straight?”

“Well,” Shane said, “that’s kind of a personal question.”

Richard aimed directly at Claire. It wasn’t much of a change, but she definitely felt it, like being in the center of the spotlight instead of just on the edges, and she heard Shane say, “Dude, I’m kidding, all right? Kidding!”

She didn’t dare blink, or move her eyes away from the gun. If she could just keep staring at it, somehow, that would keep him from shooting her. She knew that didn’t make sense, but…

In her side vision she saw Shane reach behind his back and pull out a book. Black leather cover. Oh no. He’s really going to…he can’t. Not after all this. Although she didn’t have any answers for how he was supposed to avoid it, either.

Shane held up his left hand, showing it empty, and held out the black Bible with his right.

“That’s it?” Richard asked.

“Swear to God.”

“Monica. Take it.”

She did, scowling at Shane. “You are not my high school crush, idiot.”

“Great. I can die happy, then.”

“I’m shooting the next person who talks who isn’t my sister,” Richard said. “Monica?”

She opened the Bible. “There’s a hole in it. And another book.” She stopped, staring at the inside. “Oh my God. It really is. I thought for sure she was bullshitting us.”

“She knows better. Let me see.”

Monica tilted the open Bible toward him, and Claire’s last faint hope went away, because yes, that was the cover, with its scratchy home-engraved symbol.

Shane had done it. He’d given it up.

Somehow she’d expected better.

“So. We’re square, right?” Shane asked tensely. “No shooting or anything.”

Richard reached out, took the Bible from Monica, and flipped it close to tuck it under one arm. “No shooting,” he agreed. “I meant what I said. I’ll only kill you if you make me. So thanks, I really didn’t need the paperwork.”

He walked past Shane to the stairs, and started down.

“Hey, wait!” Shane said. “Want to take your psycho sister with you?”

Richard stopped and sighed. “Right. Monica? Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to,” she said. “Oliver told me I could have them.”

“Oliver’s not here, and I am, and I’m telling you that we have to go. Right now.” When she didn’t move, he looked back. “Now. Move, unless you want to fry.”

She blew Claire and Shane a mocking kiss. “Yeah. Enjoy the barbecue!”

She followed her brother down. Gina went after, and that just left Jennifer standing there, looking oddly helpless even with a knife in her hands.

She bent over and put it on the floor, held up her hands, and said, “Monica set a fire. You should get out while you can, and run like hell. It probably won’t help, but—I’m sorry.”

And then she was gone. Shane stared after them for a frozen second, then moved over to kneel next to Eve. “Hey. You okay?”

“Taking a nap,” Eve said. “I thought maybe if I stayed down, you’d have it easier.” She sounded shaky, though. “Help me up.”

Shane and Claire each took a hand and pulled her up; she swayed woozily. “Did I get that right? You actually handed it over?”

“You know what? I did. And it kept you guys alive, so there you go. Hate me.” He was going to say something else, but then stopped and frowned and nodded down the hallway.

There was a thin thread of smoke curling out from underneath the door of Claire’s bedroom.

“Oh my God!” she gasped, and ran for it; the knob was hot. She instantly let go and backed away. “We have to get out of here!”

“Like they’re going to let us go?” Shane asked. “And no way am I letting this house burn. What about Michael? He can’t leave!”

She hadn’t even thought of that, and it hit her hard. Michael was trapped. Would he die if the house burned? Could he? “Fire trucks!” she yelled. “There are fire trucks outside—”

“Yeah, to keep everything else from going up,” Eve said. “Trust me. This is their easy answer. The Glass House goes up in flames, along with all their problem kids. Nobody’s going to help us!”

“Then we have to do it,” Shane said. “Yo, Michael! You there?”

“Here’s there,” Eve said. “I’m cold.”

“Anything you can do?”

Eve looked puzzled. “Yes? No? Oh. Maybe. He says maybe.”

“Maybe’s not good enough.” Shane opened the door to Eve’s room and grabbed the black comforter off the bed. “Blankets, towels, whatever, get it in the bathroom and soak it down. Oh, and let Miranda out, will you? We can hate her later.”

Claire kicked the chair out of the way from under the doorknob. The closet door flew open, and Miranda spilled out, coughing. She took one look at them and ran for the stairs.

“My clothes!” Eve yelped, and grabbed a double armful of hangers, then ran to Michael’s room to dump them in a pile.

“Yeah, way to stay focused, Eve!” Shane yelled. He had the tap going in the bath, and seconds later he was back, dragging the soaking wet bundle. “Stay back.”

He kicked open the door, and behind it Claire saw fire licking from the curtains up toward the ceiling. Her bed was on fire, too. It looked like that was where Monica had started it, since it was mostly in flames.

“Be careful!” she yelled, and hesitated to watch as Shane yanked the curtains down, threw the wet comforter over the bed, and began stomping down flames.

“Don’t just stand there!” he said. “Blankets! Towels! Water! Move!”

She dashed off.

16

The whole house smelled like smoke and burned mattress, but on the whole, it could have been a lot worse. Claire’s room was a mess, and her bed and curtains were a dead loss. Scorches on the floor and smoke damage on the ceiling.

Still.

Shane dumped more water on the mattress, which was already a sodden mess, and collapsed against the wall next to Claire and Eve.

“They’ve got to be wondering why we’re not all screaming and burning by now,” Eve said. “I mean, logically.”

“Go look.”

“You go look. I’ve had a tough night.”

Claire sighed, got up, and went to the unbroken window at the far end of the room. She couldn’t see anything. No vampires, obviously, since the sun was blazing in the sky by now, but no human flunkies, either. “Maybe they’re all out front,” she said.

In the silence, she distinctly heard…the doorbell.

“You’re kidding me,” Shane said. “Hey, did you order pizza? Good thinking. I’m starved.”

“I think you have brain damage,” Eve shot back.

“Yeah, because I’m starved.”

There was a crash from downstairs, and Shane stopped smiling. His eyes went dark and focused. “I guess this is it,” he said. “Sorry. Last stand at the Alamo.”

Eve hugged him and didn’t say a word. Claire walked over and hugged each of them in turn, Shane last so she could spend more time doing it. There really wasn’t enough time, though, because she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and she felt a strong chill sweep over her. Michael was with them. Maybe that was his version of a hug.

“Stay strong,” she heard Eve whisper in her ear. She nodded and took Eve’s hand. Shane stepped out in front, which was—she knew by now—just what Shane did. He picked up the baseball bat he’d retrieved from down the hall and got ready.

“There’s no need for that,” said a light, cool voice from the hallway. “You must be Shane. Hello. My name is Amelie.”

Claire gasped and peeked around his broad back. It was the blond vampire from the church, looking perfectly cool and at ease as she stood there, hands folded.

“You can put that away,” Amelie said. “You won’t need it, I assure you.”

She turned and left the doorway. The three of them looked at one another.

Is she gone? Eve mouthed. Shane edged up to the doorway and looked out, then shook his head. What’s she doing?

That was obvious one second later, as there was a faint click and the paneling on the other side popped free.

Amelie opened the hidden door and went up the steps.

“I think you have some questions,” she called down. “I have some, as well, as it happens, and it would be prudent if we indulged each other. If not, then of course you are free to go—but I must warn you that Oliver is not happy. And when Oliver is unhappy, he tends to be rather childish about lashing out. You are not, as they say, out of the woods quite yet, mes petits.”

“Vote,” Shane said. “I’m for leaving.”

“Stay,” Eve said. “Running won’t do us any good, and you know it. We need to at least hear what she has to say.”

They both looked at Claire. “I get a vote?” she asked, surprised.

“Why wouldn’t you? You pay rent.”

“Oh.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “She saved my life today. I don’t think she’s—well, maybe she’s bad, but she’s not, you know, bad. I say we listen.”

Shane shrugged. “Whatever. You go first.”

Amelie had settled herself on the antique Victorian settee. There were two other vampires in the room, standing very quietly in the corner, both wearing dark suits. Claire swallowed hard and fought an urge to back up and change her vote. Amelie smiled at her, lips closed, and gestured elegantly at the chair next to the sofa. “Claire. Ah, and Eve, how lovely.”

“You know me?” Eve asked, surprised. She took a look around at the other two vampires.

“Of course. I always pay attention to the dispossessed. And your parents are particular favorites of mine.”

“Yeah, great. So who the hell are you?” Shane asked, blunt as ever. Amelie regarded him for an instant in surprise.

“Amelie,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I thought you knew whose symbol you wore from birth, my dear.”

Shane looked pissed off. Of course. “I don’t wear any symbols.”

“That’s true. You don’t now.” She shrugged. “But everyone in this town did once, including those from whom you sprang. One way or another, you are owned, body and soul.”

Shane, for once, didn’t try a comeback. He just stared at her with dark, angry eyes. She didn’t seem bothered.

“You have a question,” Amelie stated. Shane blinked.

“Yeah. How did you get in here? Oliver couldn’t.”

“An excellent question, well phrased. And were I any other vampire, I would not be able to do so. However, this house is my house, first and foremost. I built it, as I built several such in Morganville. I live in each of them in turn, and while I am in residence the Protections will defend me from any enemy, either human or vampire. While I am absent, they will exclude vampires, if the residents are human, and of course humans if the residents are vampires. Unless the proper permissions are given.” She inclined her head. “Does that answer your question?”

“Maybe.” Shane chewed on it a little, then said, “Why didn’t it protect Michael?”

“He gave Oliver permission to enter, and, in doing so, forfeited the house’s Protection. However, the house did what it could to preserve him.” Amelie spread her hands. “Perhaps it helped that Oliver was, in fact, not trying to destroy him but to change him.”

“Into a vampire,” Eve said.

“Yes.”

“Yes! I always wanted to ask why that doesn’t work. I mean, the vampires keep on biting, but…?”

Amelie said nothing. She seemed to be thinking, or remembering; either way, it was a long and uncomfortable silence before she said, “Have you children any concept of geometric progression?”

Claire raised her hand.

“And how many vampires would it take to turn the entire world into vampires, if it was so simple as that?” Amelie smiled as Claire opened her mouth. “My dear, I do not expect you to answer, though if you would like to work out the math of it and tell me someday, I should be most interested to see it. The truth is that we came very near to it, in my younger years, when humans were much fewer. And it was agreed—as it has lately been agreed among you humans—that perhaps conservation of game is a wise idea. So we—removed the knowledge of how to create more vampires, simply by refusing to teach it. Over time, the knowledge was lost except to the Elders, and now it is lost altogether, except in two places.”

“Here?” Claire asked.

“Here,” Amelie said, and touched her temple. “And there.”

She pointed at Shane.

“What?” Claire and Eve both blurted, and Claire thought, Oh my God I kissed him and he was a vampire, but Shane was looking odd, too. Not lost, exactly.

Guilty.

“Yeah,” he said, and put his hand in the pocket of his blue jeans. He pulled out a small book. The cover—Claire could read it from where she sat—read Shakespeare Sonnets. “It was all I could think of.”

He tipped it sideways, and the pages slid out, away from the cover. Sliced neatly at both edges of the binding.

“Very clever,” Amelie said. “You gave them the cover, filled with words they did not want, and kept for yourself what was important. But what if I told you that it was the cover they were after, and not the contents?”

He looked shaken. “I had to play the odds.”

“Wise gamesmanship,” she said. “In fact, I told you that Oliver is unhappy, and so he is, because he has allowed that”—she nodded toward the pages—“to slip through his fingers. And so I find that I come to you for a favor.”

His eyes lit up, and he said, “A favor? Like a deal?”

“Yes, Shane. I shall make a deal for what you hold in your hand, and I promise you that it is the only deal that matters, as I am the only vampire that matters. I will take the book, and destroy the last written record of how vampires may be created, which will ensure my continued survival against my enemies, who will not dare to move against me for fear of losing what only I know.” She sat back against the puffed cushions, studying him very calmly. “And for this, you and all in this house will receive my Protection for as long as you should choose to have it. This will cancel any other, lesser contracts you might have made, such as the agreement you made with Oliver, through Brandon.”

“Oliver—is Brandon’s boss?” Claire asked.

“Boss?” Amelie considered that, and nodded. “Yes. Exactly. While I do not command Oliver, neither can he command me. Until he discovers the secrets I hold, he cannot unseat me in Morganville, and he cannot create his own followers to overwhelm mine. We are…evenly matched.”

Shane looked down at the book in his hand. “And this would have changed that.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “That book would have destroyed us all in the end. Vampires as well as humans. I owe you a debt for this, and I will pay it as well as circumstances will allow.”

Shane thought about it for an agonizing second, then looked at Eve. She nodded. Claire nodded when he checked for her approval, and then he held the book up. “Michael?” he asked. “Yes or no?” After another long second, he sighed. “Guess that’s a yes. Well, anything that pisses off Oliver is a good deed, so…” He held it out to Amelie.

She made no move to take it. “Understand,” she said, and her eyes were bitter cold, “that once this is done, it is done. Your Glass House will remain, but you are bound together. None may leave Morganville, after. I cannot risk your knowledge escaping my control.”

“Yeah, well, if we go now, we’re toast anyway, right?” Shane kept holding it out. “Take it. Oliver was right about one thing: it’s nothing to us but death.”

“Au contraire,” she said, and her pale white fingers took it from his. “It is, in fact, your salvation.”

She stood, looked around the room, and sighed a little. “I have missed this place,” she said. “And I believe it has also missed me. Someday I will come back.” She pressed the hidden catch on the arm of the settee, and without another word to them turned to leave.

“Hey, what about the cops?” Shane asked. “Not to mention all those people who tried to kill us today?”

“They answer to Oliver. I will make it known that you are not to be troubled. However, you must not further disturb the peace. If you do, and it is your fault, I will be forced to reconsider my decision. And that would be…unfortunate.” She gave him a full smile. With fangs. “Au revoir, children. Do take care of the house more carefully in the future.”

Her two vamp guards went with her. Smoke and silence. There was no sound on the stairs after. Claire swallowed. “Um…what did we just do?” she asked.

“Pretty much all we could,” Shane said. “I’m checking the street.”

They ended up going down together, in a group—Shane with the bat, Eve with the knife Jennifer had abandoned, and Claire armed with a broken chair leg sharp on one end.

The house was deserted. The front door was standing open, and out on the street, cop cars were pulling away from the curb around the big black Cadillac. A limousine was leaving, too. Its tinted windows cast back blinding reflections of the sun.

It was all over in seconds. No cars, no vampires, nobody hanging around. No Monica. No Richard. No Oliver.

“Crap,” Shane said. He was standing on the porch, looking at what was hanging next to the doorbell. It was a black lacquered plaque with a symbol on it. The same symbol that had been on the book cover he’d sent to Oliver. “Does that mean she wrote the damn book, too?”

“I’ll bet she did, for backup,” Eve said. “You know, the symbol’s also on the well in the center of town. It’s the Founder symbol.”

“She’s the Founder,” Shane said.

“Well, somebody had to be.”

“Yeah, but I figured it was a dead somebody.”

“Funny,” Claire said, “but I think it is a dead somebody.”

Which made Shane laugh, and Eve snort, and Shane slung his arm over her shoulders. “You still quitting school?” he asked.

“Not if I can’t leave town.” Claire smacked herself in the head. “Oh my God! I can’t leave town! I can’t ever leave town? What about school? Caltech? My parents?”

Shane kissed her on the forehead. “Tomorrow’s problems,” he said. “I’m going with let’s just be glad there’s a tomorrow, at this point.”

Eve closed the front door. It swung open again in the breeze. “I think we’re going to need a new door.”

“I think we’re going to need Home Depot.”

“Do they sell stakes at Home Depot here?” Claire asked. Shane and Eve looked blank. “Dumb question. Never mind.”

17

Cleanup took pretty much all day, what with the broken furniture, the shattered windows, the front and back doors, and hauling Claire’s damaged mattress out to the curb. They were just sitting down to dinner when the sun went behind the horizon, and Claire heard the sound of a body hitting the floor, followed by dry retching.

“Michael’s home,” Eve said, as if he’d just come back from school. “You guys dig in.”

It took a while before she came back with Michael. Holding hands. Shane got up, smiling, and held up his hand. Michael high-fived it.

“Not bad, brother,” Michael said. “The girls gave you enough time for the switch.”

“Even though they didn’t know. Yeah. Worked out,” Shane said, pleased. “See? My plans don’t all suck. Just most of them.”

“So long as we keep on being able to tell the difference.” Michael pulled up a chair. “What’s for—oh, you’re kidding me. Chili?”

“Nobody wanted to go to the store.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Michael closed his eyes. “I’m saying a prayer. Maybe you ought to, too. It’s going to take us a miracle to get through this.”

Whether he was serious or not, Claire sent the prayer up toward heaven, and she thought the others did, too. So it seemed kind of miraculous when the doorbell rang.

“At least they’re getting more polite when they try to kill us,” Shane said. Michael got up and went to the door. After a second’s hesitation, they all got up and followed.

Michael swung the new door open. Outside, in the glow of the porch light, stood a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and a huge scar down one side of his face, dressed in black motorcycle leather. Behind him were two more guys, not quite as old and a whole lot bigger and meaner-looking.

Bikers. Claire nearly choked on her bite of chili.

The man nodded.

“Son,” he said, looking past Michael right at Shane. “Got your message. Cavalry’s here.” He walked right in, past the threshold, and ignored Michael like he wasn’t even there. “About time you got your ass in gear. Been waiting for you to call for six damn months. What kept you? Took you this long to find the head bloodsucker?”

They followed him into the living room. Michael turned to look at Shane, who was turning red. Not meeting anybody’s eyes, really. “Things have changed, Dad,” he mumbled.

“Nothing’s changed,” Shane’s dad said, and turned to face them, hands on hips. “We came to kick us some ass and kill us some vampires, just like we planned all along. Time to get some payback for Alyssa and your mother. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“Dad, things are different now, we can’t—”

Shane’s father grabbed him by the hair, quick as a snake. There were tattoos on his hand, ugly dark blue smudges, and he forced Shane’s head back. “Can’t? Can’t? We’re going to burn this town down, boy, just like we agreed. And you’re not changing your mind.”

“Hey!” Michael said sharply, and reached out for Shane’s dad. When he touched him, something happened, something like an electric shock that flared blue white in the room and raised the hair on Claire’s arms. Michael flew back and hit the wall, too stunned to do anything.

“No!” Shane yelled, and tried to pull free. He couldn’t. “Dad, no!”

Shane’s dad nodded to one of his biker buddies. “Yep. He’s one of them,” he said. “Take care of it.”

The biker guy nodded back, pulled a knife from his belt, and advanced on Michael.

“No!” Shane screamed it this time. Claire took a hesitant step forward, and stopped when Michael’s wide blue eyes locked on hers. Eve was screaming, and so was Shane.

Miranda saw this, she thought. Michael was even standing on the rug Miranda had pointed to when she’d said, And he died…right…there. It hadn’t been his first death.

It was his second.

“Guys, stay out of it!” Michael said sharply when Eve tried to lunge toward him and get between him and the biker. He was still backing away, and this time, he looked afraid. He hadn’t been afraid of the vampires and all their minions, but this time…

The biker moved faster than anybody Claire had ever seen, except vampires; she didn’t even see what happened, just heard the heavy thud as Michael hit the floor. The biker went down with him, holding him flat with one huge hand while the other one raised the knife.

“No, Dad, God, I’ll do whatever you want!”

“Shut up,” Shane’s dad said, and threw Shane toward the sofa. He sprawled there, and Claire ran over to him and put her arms around him. “You bet you will. You three are going to tell me which vamps to strike first. Because it’s us against them now, and don’t you forget it.”

“Three?” Eve said faintly. Her huge eyes were locked on Michael, and the biker, and the knife.

“Three,” said Shane’s dad, and nodded to the biker.

They all screamed as the knife came down.

Rachel Caine is the author of more than fifteen novels, including the Weather Warden series. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and still carries on a secret identity in the corporate world. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin, a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley, and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course). Visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com.

Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series

“You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.’”

—Jim Butcher

“The Weather Warden series is fun reading…more engaging than most TV.”

—Booklist

“A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.’”

—Romantic Times

“Hugely entertaining.’”

—SF Crowsnest

“A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.’”

—Locus

“An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.’”

—SF Site

“I dare you to put this book down.’”

—University City Review (Philadelphia)

“Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!’”

—Mary Jo Putney

“A spellbinding…thought-provoking, action-packed thriller.’”

—Midwest Book Review

THE DEAD GIRLS’ DANCE

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES, BOOK TWO

RACHEL CAINE

NAL Jam

Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

ISBN: 1-101-12866-6

Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2007

All rights reserved

NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

     The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For Ter, who helped lay the cornerstone of Morganville.

For Katy, who helped me through the plot jitters!

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Musical inspiration from Joe Bonamassa,
a genius at his art.

Editorial excellence from Liz Scheier,
truly a master.

And a special shout-out to my friends at
Mysterious Galaxy bookstore in San Diego!

1

It didn’t happen, Claire told herself. It’s a bad dream, just another bad dream. You’ll wake up and it’ll be gone like fog….

She had her eyes squeezed tight shut. Her mouth felt dry, shriveled-up, and she was pressed against Shane’s hot, solid side, curled up on the couch in the Glass House.

Terrified.

It’s just a bad dream.

But when she opened her eyes, her friend Michael was still dead on the floor in front of her.

“Shut those girls up, Shane, or I will,’” Shane’s father snapped. He was pacing the wooden floor, back and forth, hands clasped behind him. He wasn’t looking at Michael’s body, shrouded under a thick, dusty velvet curtain, but it was all Claire could see, now that she’d opened her eyes again. It was as big as the world, and it wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t going away. Shane’s dad was here, and he was terrifying, and Michael—

Michael was dead. Only Michael had already been dead, hadn’t he? Ghostly. Dead during the day…alive at night…

Claire realized she was crying only when Shane’s dad turned on her, staring with red-rimmed eyes. She hadn’t felt that scared when she’d stared into vampire eyes…well, maybe once or twice, because Morganville was a scary place, generally, and the vampires were pretty terrifying.

Shane’s father—Mr. Collins—was a tall, long-legged man, and his hair was wild and curly and going gray. Long enough to reach the collar of his leather jacket. He had dark eyes. Crazy eyes. A scruffy beard. And a huge scar running across his face, puckered and liver colored.

Yeah, definitely scary. Not a vampire, just a man, and that made him scary in whole different ways.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes and quit crying. Something in her said, Cry later; survive now. She figured that voice had spoken inside of Shane, too, because Shane wasn’t looking at the velvet-covered sprawl of his best friend’s body. He was watching his father. His eyes were red, too, but there were no tears.

Now Shane was scaring her, too.

“Eve,’” Shane said softly, and then, louder, “Eve! Put a sock in it!’”

Their fourth roommate, Eve, was collapsed in an awkward heap against the far wall by the bookcases, as far from Michael’s body as she could get. Knees up, head down, she was crying hard and hopelessly. She looked up when Shane yelled her name, and her face was streaked with black from running mascara, half her Goth white makeup gone. She had on her death’s-head Mary Jane shoes, Claire noticed. She didn’t know why that seemed important.

Eve looked completely lost, and Claire slipped off the couch and went to sit beside her. They put their arms around each other. Eve smelled of tears and sweat and some kind of sweet vanilla perfume, and she couldn’t seem to stop shaking. Shock. That was what they always said on TV, anyway. Her skin felt cold.

“Shhhh,’” Claire whispered to her. “Michael’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.’” She didn’t know why she said that—it was a lie; it had to be a lie; they’d all seen…what happened…but something told her it was the right thing to say. And sure enough, Eve’s sobbing slowed, then stopped, and she covered her face with shaking hands.

Shane hadn’t said anything else. He was still watching his dad, with the kind of intense stare most guys reserved for people they’d like to pound into hamburger. If his dad noticed, he clearly didn’t care. He continued to pace, up and down. The guys he’d brought with him—walking slabs of muscle in black motorcycle leather, shaved heads and tattoos and everything—were standing in the corners, arms folded. The one who’d killed Michael looked bored as he flipped the knife in his fingers.

“Get up,’” Shane’s dad said. He’d stopped pacing, and was standing right in front of his son. “Don’t you dare give me any crap, Shane. I told you to stand up!’”

“You didn’t have to do that,’” Shane said, and slowly stood, feet slightly apart. Ready to take (or give) a punch, Claire thought. “Michael wasn’t any threat to you.’”

“He’s one of them. Undead.’”

“I said he wasn’t a threat!’”

“And I say that you just don’t want to admit your friend’s turned freak of nature on you.’” Shane’s dad reached out and awkwardly punched Shane on the shoulder. It was supposed to be a gesture of affection, Claire supposed. Shane just rode with the blow. “Anyway, done is done. You know why we’re here. Or do you need a reminder?’”

When Shane didn’t answer, his father reached into his leather jacket and took out a handful of photographs. He threw them at Shane. They bounced off of Shane’s chest, and he reflexively tried to catch them, but some drifted free and fell to the wood floor. Some slid over toward Claire and Eve.

“Oh God,’” Eve whispered.

They were pictures of Shane’s family, Claire guessed—Shane as a cute little boy, arm around an even tinier little girl with a cloud of curly black hair. A pretty woman standing behind them, and a man she could barely recognize as Shane’s dad. No scar, back then. Hair cut short. He looked…normal. Smiling and happy.

There were other pictures, too. Eve was staring at one of them, and Claire couldn’t make any sense of it. Something black and twisted and—

Shane bent over and snatched it up, fumbling it back into the pile.

His house burned. He got out. His sister wasn’t so lucky.

Oh God, that twisted thing was Alyssa. That was Shane’s sister. Claire’s eyes filled up with tears, and she covered her mouth with both hands to hold in a scream, not because what was in the picture was gross—it was—but Shane’s own father had made him look at it.

That was cruel. Really cruel. And she knew it wasn’t the first time.

“Your mother and sister are both dead because of this place, because of the vampires. You didn’t forget that, did you, Shane?’”

“I didn’t forget!’” Shane shouted. He kept trying to make the pictures fit into a neat stack, but he didn’t look at them at all. “I dream about them every night, Dad. Every night!’”

“Good. It was you got this started. You’d better remember that, too. Can’t back out now.’”

“I’m not backing out!’”

“Then what’s all this crap, Things have changed, Dad?’” Shane’s dad mimicked him, and Claire wanted to punch him, never mind that he was about four times her size and probably a whole lot meaner. “You hook up with your old friends and next thing I know, you lose your nerve. That thing was Michael, right? The Glass kid?’”

“Yes.’” Shane’s throat worked hard, and Claire saw tears glitter in his eyes. “Yeah, it was Michael.’”

“And these two?’”

“Nobody.’”

“That one looks like another vamp.’” Shane’s father fixed his red-rimmed glare on Eve, and took a step toward where Claire and Eve were huddled on the floor.

“You leave her alone!’” Shane dropped the pictures into a pile on the couch and jumped into his father’s path, fists clenched. His dad’s eyebrows raised, and he gave Shane a scar-twisted grin. “She’s not a damn vampire. That’s Eve Rosser, Dad. Remember Eve?’”

“Huh,’” his father said, and stared at Eve for a few seconds before shrugging. “Turned into a wannabe, then, just about as bad in my book. What about the kid?’”

He was talking about Claire.

“I’m not a kid, Mr. Collins,’” Claire said, and clambered to her feet. She felt awkward, all strings and wires, nothing working right. Her heart was hammering so hard, it hurt to breathe. “I live here. My name is Claire Danvers. I’m a student at the university.’”

“Are you.’” He didn’t make it a question. “You look a little young.’”

“Advanced placement, sir. I’m sixteen.’”

“Sweet sixteen.’” Mr. Collins smiled again, or tried to—the scar pulled the right side of his mouth down. “Never been kissed, I’ll bet.’”

She felt her face go red. Couldn’t stop it, or keep herself from looking at Shane. Shane’s jaw was set tight, muscles fluttering. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular.

“Oho! So it’s like that. Well, you watch yourself around the jailbait, my boy.’” Still, Shane’s dad looked weirdly pleased. “My name’s Frank Collins. Guess you figured out that I’m this one’s father, eh? Used to live in Morganville. I’ve been gone a few years now.’”

“Since the fire,’” Claire said, and swallowed hard. “Since Alyssa died. And—Shane’s mom?’” Because Shane had never said a word about her.

“Molly died later,’” Mr. Collins said. “After we left. Murdered by the vamps.’”

Eve spoke for the first time—a soft, tentative voice. “How did you remember? About Morganville, after you left town? I thought nobody did, once they left.’”

“Molly remembered,’” Mr. Collins replied. “Little bit at a time. She couldn’t forget Lyssa, and that opened the door, inch by inch, until it was all there. So we knew what we had to do. We had to bring it down. Bring it all down. Right, boy?’”

Shane nodded. It didn’t look like agreement so much as a wish not to get smacked for disagreeing.

“So we spent time preparing, and then I sent Shane here back to Morganville to map the town for us, identify targets, do all the stuff we wouldn’t have time to do once we rolled in. Couldn’t wait any longer once he yelled for help, though. Came running.’”

Shane looked sick. He wouldn’t look at Eve, or Claire, or Michael’s body. Or his father. He just—stared. There were tear tracks on his cheeks, but Claire couldn’t remember seeing him cry, really.

“What are you going to do?’” Claire asked faintly.

“First thing, I guess we bury that,’” Mr. Collins said, and nodded toward Michael’s shrouded body. “Shane, best you stay out of the way—’”

“No! No, don’t you touch him! I want to do it!’”

Mr. Collins gave him a long frowning look. “You know what we’re going to have to do’”—he glanced at Eve and Claire—“to make sure he doesn’t come back.’”

“That’s folklore, Dad. You don’t have to—’”

“That’s the way we’re going to do things. The right way. I don’t want your friend coming back at me next time the sun goes down.’”

“What is he talking about?’” Claire whispered to Eve. Sometime in the last few minutes, Eve had gotten up to stand next to her, and their hands were clasped. Claire’s fingers felt cold, but Eve’s were like ice.

“He’s going to put a stake in his heart,’” Eve said numbly. “Right? And garlic in his mouth? And—’”

“You don’t need all the details,’” Mr. Collins interrupted. “Let’s get this done, then. And once we’re finished, Shane’s going to draw us a map of where to find the high-rolling vampires of Morganville.’”

“Don’t you know?’” Claire asked. “You lived here.’”

“Doesn’t work like that, little girl. Vamps don’t trust us. They move around—they have all kinds of Protection to keep themselves safe from retribution. But my boy’s found a way. Right, Shane?’”

“Right,’” Shane said. His voice sounded absolutely flat. “Let’s get this done.’”

“But—Shane, you can’t—’”

“Eve, shut up. Don’t you get it? There’s nothing we can do for Michael now. And if he’s dead, it won’t matter what we do to him. Right?’”

“You can’t!’” Eve yelled it. “He isn’t dead!’”

“Well,’” Mr. Collins said, “I guess that’ll be his problem when we plant a stake in him and chop off his head.’”

Eve screamed into her clenched fists, and collapsed to her knees. Claire tried to hold her up, but she was more solid than she looked. Shane instantly whirled and crouched next to her, hovering protectively and glaring at his father and the two motorcycle dudes standing guard over Michael’s body.

“You’re a bastard,’” he said flatly. “I told you, Michael was no threat to you before, and he’s no threat now. You killed him already. Let it go.’”

For answer, Shane’s father nodded to his two friends—accomplices?—who then reached down, seized hold of Michael’s body, and dragged him out and around the corner to the kitchen door. Shane bolted back to his feet.

His father stepped into his path and backhanded him across the face, hard enough to stagger him. Shane put up his palms—defense, not offense. Claire’s heart sank.

“Don’t,’” Shane panted. “Don’t, Dad. Please don’t.’”

His father lowered the fist he’d raised for a second blow, looked down at his son, and turned away. Shane stood there, shaking, eyes cast down, until his father’s footsteps moved away, toward the kitchen.

Then Shane spun around, lunged forward, and grabbed Claire and Eve by the arms. “Come on!’” he hissed, and towed them both stumbling toward the stairs. “Move!’”

“But—,’” Claire protested. She looked over her shoulder. Shane’s father had gone to look out the window, presumably at whatever they were doing in the backyard (oh God) to Michael’s body. “Shane—’”

“Upstairs,’” he said. He didn’t leave them much choice; Shane was a big guy, and this time he was using his muscle. By the time Claire got herself together, they were upstairs, in the hallway, and Shane was shoving open the door to Eve’s room. “Inside, girls. Lock the door. I mean it. Don’t open it for anybody but me.’”

“But—Shane!’”

He turned to Claire, took hold of both of her shoulders in those big hands, and leaned forward to plant a warm kiss on her forehead. “You don’t know these guys,’” he said. “You’re not safe. Just—stay in there until I get back.’”

Eve, looking dazed, murmured, “You have to stop them. You can’t let them hurt Michael!’”

Shane locked eyes with Claire, and she saw the grim sadness. “Yeah,’” he said. “Well, that’s pretty much done. Just—I have to look out for you now. It’s what Michael wants.’”

Before Claire could summon up anything else in protest, he pushed her back over the threshold and slammed the door. He banged on it once with his fist. “Lock it!’”

She reached up and flipped the dead bolt, then turned the old-fashioned key, as well. She stayed where she was, because she could feel, somehow, that Shane hadn’t moved away.

“Shane?’” Claire pressed herself against the door, listening. She thought she could hear his uneven breathing. “Shane, don’t let him hurt you again. Don’t.’”

She heard a breathless sound that was more like a sob than a laugh. “Yeah,’” Shane agreed faintly. “Right.’”

And then she heard his footsteps moving away, down the hall to the stairs.

Eve was sitting on her bed, staring into space. The room smelled like a fireplace, thanks to the fire that had raged next door, in Claire’s room, but there was only some smoke damage, nothing really serious. And besides, with all the black Goth stuff everywhere, you couldn’t even really tell.

Claire sat down on the bed beside Eve. “Are you okay?’”

“No,’” Eve said. “I want to go look out the window. But I shouldn’t, right? I shouldn’t see what they’re doing.’”

“No,’” Claire agreed, and swallowed hard. “Probably not a good idea.’” She rubbed Eve’s back gently and thought about what to do…and that wasn’t much. It wasn’t like allies were exactly falling off the trees around here…. Besides Shane, they had nobody else. Their second-best choice was a vampire.

How scary was that?

Still, she could call Amelie. But that was a little like arming a nuclear weapon to take care of an ant problem. Amelie was so badass, the other badass vampires backed down without a fight. She’d said, I will make it known that you are not to be troubled. However, you must not further disturb the peace. If you do, and it is your fault, I will be forced to reconsider my decision. And that would be…

“Unfortunate,’” Claire finished aloud, in a whisper. Yeah. Pretty unfortunate. And there was no way that this didn’t constitute disturbing the peace—or wouldn’t, as soon as Shane’s dad got rolling. He’d come to kill vampires, and he wasn’t going to be stopped by any little considerations like, oh, his son’s life and safety.

No, not a good idea to call Amelie.

Who else? Oliver? Oliver wasn’t exactly at the top of Claire’s Best Friends Forever list, although in the beginning she’d thought he was pretty cool, for an old guy. But he’d been playing her, and he was the second-most badass vamp in town. Who’d use them, and this situation, against Amelie if he could.

So no. Not Oliver, either. The police were bought and paid for by the vampires. Her teachers at school…no. None of them had impressed her as being willing to stand up to pressure.

Mom and Dad? She shuddered to think what would happen if she put in a frantic yell to them…For one thing, they’d already had their memories altered by Morganville’s strange psychic field, or so she assumed, since they’d forgotten all about ordering her home for living off campus. With boys. Mom and Dad weren’t exactly the kind of backup she needed, not up against Shane’s dad and his bikers.

Her cousin Rex…now, there was an idea. No, Rex had been sent to jail three months ago. She remembered Mom saying so.

Face facts, Danvers. There’s nobody. Nobody coming riding to the rescue.

It was her, Eve, and Shane against the world.

So the odds were about three billion to one.

2

It was a long, long day. Claire eventually stretched out on one side of the bed, Eve on the other, each wrapped in her own separate cocoon of misery and heartache. They didn’t talk much. There didn’t seem to be a lot to talk about.

It was almost dark when the doorknob rattled, sending Claire into a heart-pounding terror seizure; she advanced slowly, and whispered, “Who is it?’”

“Shane.’”

She unlocked fast and opened up. Shane came in, head down, carrying a tray on which sat two bowls of chili—which made sense, because it was nearly the only thing Shane knew how to fix. He set it down on the edge of the bed, next to Eve, who was sitting like an unstuffed rag doll, limp with grief and dejection.

“Eat something,’” he said. Eve shook her head. Shane picked up a bowl and shoved it in her direction; she took it just to avoid wearing it, and glared at him.

Claire saw her expression change into something else. Blank at first, then horrified.

“It’s nothing,’” Shane said as Claire came around to see. It wasn’t nothing. It was bruises, dark ones, spilling over his cheek and jaw. Shane avoided looking at her. “My fault.’”

“Jesus,’” Eve whispered. “Your dad—’”

“My fault,’” Shane snapped back, got up, and headed for the door. “Look, you don’t understand. He’s right, okay? I was wrong.’”

“No, I don’t understand,’” Claire said, and grabbed his arm. He pulled free without any effort at all and kept walking. “Shane!’”

He paused in the doorway and looked back at her. He looked bruised, beaten, and sullen, but it was the desperation in his eyes that scared her. Shane was always strong, wasn’t he? He had to be. She needed him to be.

“Dad’s right,’” he said. “This town is sick, it’s poisoned, and it’s poisoning us, too. We can’t let it beat us. We have to take them out.’”

“The vampires? Shane, that’s stupid! You can’t! You know what’ll happen!’” Eve said. She put the bowl of chili back on the tray and got off the bed, looking tear streaked and forlorn but more like herself. “Your dad’s crazy. I’m sorry, but he is. And you can’t let him drag you down with him. He’s going to get you killed, and Claire and me, too. He already—’” She caught her breath and gulped. “He already got Michael. We can’t let him do this. Who knows how many people are going to get hurt?’”

“Like Lyssa got hurt?’” Shane asked. “Like my mom? They killed my mom, Eve! They were willing to burn us up in this house yesterday, don’t forget, and that included Michael.’”

“But—’”

“This town is bad,’” Shane said, and looked at Claire, almost pleading. “You understand, right? You understand that there’s a whole world out there, a whole world that isn’t like this?’”

“Yes,’” she said faintly. “I understand that. But—’”

“We’re doing this. And then we’re getting out of this place.’”

“With your father?’” Eve managed to put a whole dictionary of contempt into that. “I don’t think so. I look good in black, but not so great in black and blue.’”

Shane flinched. “I didn’t say—look, just the three of us. We get out of town while my dad and the others…’”

“We run?’” Eve shook her head. “Brilliant. And when the vamps have a big party and roast your dad and his buddies, what then? Because they’re definitely going to come looking for us. Nobody escapes who had any part in killing a vampire, you know that. Unless you really believe that your dad and his idiot muscle are going to be able to take down hundreds of vamps, all their human allies, the cops, and, for all I know, the U.S. Marines.’”

“Eat your damn chili,’” Shane said.

“Not without something to drink. I know your chili.’”

“Fine! I’ll get you Cokes!’” He slammed the door behind him. “Lock it!’”

Claire did. This time, Shane didn’t linger in the hall; she heard the hard thump of his boots as he went downstairs.

“Did you have to do that?’” she asked Eve. She leaned against the door and folded her arms.

“Do what, exactly?’”

“He’s confused. He lost Michael, his dad’s got him—’”

“Say it, Claire: his dad’s got him brainwashed. Worse. I think his dad’s beaten the fight out of him. He’s certainly beaten the brains out of him.’” Eve wiped at her face impatiently; there were more tears streaming down her cheeks, but it was more like water escaping under pressure than real sobs. “His dad wasn’t always like this. He used to be—well, not nice, because he was kind of a drunk, but better. Way better than this. After Lyssa he just went—crazy. I didn’t know about Shane’s mom. I thought she just, you know…killed herself. Shane never really said.’”

Claire hadn’t heard any footsteps on the stairs, but she heard and felt a soft knock through the door, and then a rattle of the doorknob. She unlocked and swung it open, holding out her hands for the Cokes she expected Shane to thrust at her…

…and there was a grinning, smelly mountain of a man in the doorway. The one who’d stabbed Michael.

Claire let go of the door and stumbled back, thinking only an instant later, Stupid, that was stupid—you should have slammed it… but it was too late; he was already inside, closing the door behind him.

And locking it.

She looked in terror at Eve. Eve lunged forward, grabbed Claire, and hustled her around to the far side of the bed…and stepped in front of her. Claire looked frantically around for a weapon. Anything. She picked up a heavy-looking skull, but it was plastic, light and utterly useless.

Eve yanked a field hockey stick from under her bed.

“Let’s do this nice,’” the man said. “That little stick isn’t going to do you any good, and it’s only going to piss me off.’” His lips widened in a grin, revealing big, square, yellow teeth. “Or get me all excited.’”

Claire felt sick and faint. This wasn’t like Shane coming into her room the other night, not at all. This was the flip side of men, and although she’d heard about it—you couldn’t grow up without that—she’d never really seen it. Some jerks, sure, but there was something horrible about this guy. Something that looked at her and Eve like pieces of meat he was about to devour.

“You’re not touching us,’” Eve said, and raised her voice. “Shane! Shane, get your ass up here now!’”

There was a touch of panic in her voice, although she was putting on a good front. Her hands were shaking where they gripped the hockey stick.

The man glided around the end of the bed, prowling like a cat. Six feet tall, at least, and as broad as two of Eve, maybe bigger. His bare arms were ripped with muscle. His blue eyes looked shallow and hungry.

Claire heard the thump of footsteps outside, and then a bang as Shane fetched up against the locked door. He rattled the knob and pounded hard. “Eve! Eve, open up!’”

“She’s busy!’” the biker yelled, and laughed. “Oh yeah, gonna be real busy.’”

“No!’” Shane screamed it, and the door shook with the strength of the blows he put into it. “Stay away from them!’”

Eve backed Claire up, all the way to the window. She took a swipe at the biker, who just stepped back out of range, still laughing.

“Get your dad!’” she yelled at Shane. “Make him do something!’”

“I’m not leaving you!’”

“Do it, Shane, now!’”

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Claire swallowed, feeling suddenly even more alone and vulnerable. “Do you think his dad will come?’” she whispered. Eve didn’t answer.

“Swear to God, you come near us and—’”

“Like this?’” The biker sidestepped a slash from the hockey stick, grabbed it on the way, and yanked it out of Eve’s hands. He tossed it over his shoulder to land on the floor with a clatter. “This near enough? Whatcha gonna do, doll girl? Cry all over me?’”

Claire hid her eyes as the biker reached out for Eve with one tattooed hand.

“No,’” Eve said breathlessly. “I’m going to let my boyfriend beat the crap out of you.’”

There was a dull thunk of wood meeting flesh, and a howl. Then another, harder thunk, and a crash as a body hit the floor.

The biker was down. Claire stared at him in disbelief, then looked past him, to the figure standing there with the field hockey stick in both hands.

Michael Glass. Back from the dead, again, a gorgeous blond avenging angel, breathing hard. Flushed with anger, blue eyes flashing. He glanced at the two girls, making sure they were okay, and then put the blade of the hockey stick on the biker’s throat. The biker’s eyes fluttered and tried to open, but didn’t make it. He relaxed into unconsciousness.

Eve flew toward Michael, leaped over the biker’s body, and fastened herself around Michael like she was trying to be sure he was all there. He must have been; he winced from the force of the impact, then kissed her on the top of her head without looking away from the man lying limp at their feet.

“Eve,’” he said, and then glanced at her and gentled his tone. “Eve, honey, go open the door.’”

She nodded, stepped away, and followed instructions. Michael handed her the hockey stick, grabbed the biker by the shoulders, and towed him quickly out into the hallway. He closed the door again, locked it, and said, “Right, here’s the story—Eve, you knocked him out with the hockey stick and—’”

He didn’t finish, because Eve grabbed him and pushed him back against the door, wrapping herself around him like a Goth-girl coat. She was crying again, but silently; Claire could see her shoulders shaking. Michael sighed, put his arms around her, and bent his blond head to rest against her dark one.

“It’s okay,’” he murmured. “You’re okay, Eve. We’re all okay.’”

“You were dead!’” she wailed, muffled by the fact that her face was still pressed against his chest. “Damn you, Michael, you were dead, I saw them kill you, and—they—’”

“Yeah, it wasn’t too pleasant.’” Something passed fast and hot across Michael’s eyes, the reflection of a horror that Claire thought he didn’t want to remember or share. “But I’m not a vampire, and they can’t kill me like a vampire. Not while the house owns my soul. They can do pretty much anything to my body, but it just—gets fixed.’”

The prospects of that made Claire sick, like standing on the edge of a huge and unexpected drop. She stared at Michael, wide-eyed, and saw he understood the same things she did: that if Shane’s father and his merry band of thugs found out, they might decide to test that out. Just for fun.

“That’s why I’m not here,’” Michael said. “You can’t tell them. Or Shane.’”

“Not tell Shane?’” Eve pulled back. “Why not?’”

“I’ve been watching,’” he said. “Listening. I can do that when I’m, you know—’”

“A ghost?’” Claire supplied.

“Exactly. I saw—’” Michael didn’t go on, but Claire thought she knew what he’d been about to say.

“You saw Shane’s dad hit him,’” she said. “Right?’”

“I don’t want to make him keep secrets from his dad. Not now.’”

Footsteps pounding up the stairs, then slowing when they hit the hallway. Michael touched his finger to his lips and eased out from Eve’s frantic grip. He pressed his lips silently to hers.

“Hide!’” Claire whispered. He nodded and opened the closet, rolled his eyes at the mess inside, and forced his way in. Burying himself in piles of clothes, Claire hoped. Miranda had been trapped in that closet after trying to knife Eve, before the house had caught fire; she’d really done a job of messing things up. Eve was going to be furious.

Both girls jumped at a hard blow on the door. Eve hastily unlocked the door and stepped back as it flew open, and Shane charged through.

“How—?’” He was breathing hard, and he had a crowbar in his hand. He’d have broken through the locks, Claire realized, if he’d had to. She came toward him slowly, trying to figure out what he was feeling, and he dropped the crowbar and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up off the ground. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, and the warm, fast pump of his breath on her skin made her shiver in raw delight. “Oh Christ, Claire. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’”

“Not your fault,’” Eve said. She held out the field hockey stick. “Look! I hit him. Um, twice.’”

“Good.’” Shane kissed Claire’s cheek and let her slide back down to the floor, but he kept hold of her arms. His eyes, bright under the bruises and swelling, surveyed her carefully. “He didn’t hurt you? Either of you?’”

“I hit him!’” Eve repeated brightly, and brandished the stick again for emphasis. “So, no, he didn’t hurt us. We hurt him. You know, all alone. Without any help. Um, so…where’s your dad? He charges to the rescue pretty slow.’”

Shane closed the door and locked it again as the biker in the hall groaned and rolled over on his side. He didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Shane’s dad needed his bikers more than he needed Eve or Claire. They were expendable. Worse, they’d probably just become rewards.

“We can’t stay here,’” Eve said. “It isn’t safe. You know that.’”

Shane nodded, but he looked bleak. “I can’t come with you.’”

“Yes, you can! Shane—’”

“He’s my dad, Eve. He’s all I’ve got.’”

Eve snorted. “Yeah, well, what you’ve got I’d give back.’”

“Sure, you just walked away from your folks—’”

“Hey!’”

“Didn’t even care what happened to them—’”

“They didn’t care what happened to me!’” Eve almost shouted it. Suddenly, the hockey stick in her hands wasn’t so much for display. “Leave my family out of this, Shane—you don’t have a clue. Not a clue.’”

“I’ve met your brother,’” Shane shot back.

They both went quiet. Dangerously quiet. Claire cleared her throat. “Brother?’”

“Leave it alone, Claire,’” Eve said. She sounded dead calm, not at all like herself. “You really don’t want to get into it.’”

“Bones in every family closet in Morganville,’” Shane said. “Yours rattle pretty loud, Eve. So don’t judge me.’”

“Here’s a thought: why don’t you get the hell out of my room, you asshole!’”

Shane picked up his crowbar, opened the door, and stepped outside. He reached down and hauled the biker to his feet, and shoved him toward the stairs. The biker went, still groaning and weaving.

Claire peeked through the gap in the door until she was sure they were gone, then nodded to Eve, who dumped the hockey stick and opened the closet door. “Oh, crap,’” she sighed. “I hope nothing’s torn in there. It is not easy to get clothes in this town. Michael?’”

Claire looked over her shoulder. A pile of black and red netting stirred, and Michael’s blond head appeared. He sat up, brushing off Goth, and silently held up a pair of black lace panties. Thong.

“Hey!’” Eve yelped, and grabbed them from his fingers. “Personal! And…laundry!’”

Michael just smiled. For a guy who’d been stabbed, hacked up, and buried less than twenty-four hours ago, he looked remarkably composed. “I’m not even going to ask what you wore them with,’” he said. “It’s more fun to imagine.’”

Eve snorted and gave him a hand up. “Shane’s taken our new boyfriend downstairs. What now? We can’t exactly shimmy down a drainpipe.’”

“Not in fishnets, you can’t,’” he agreed, straight-faced. “Get changed. The less attention you attract from these guys, the better.’”

Eve grabbed a pair of blue jeans from the floor of the closet, and a baby-doll T that must have been a gift; it was aqua blue, with a sparkle rainbow over the chest. Very not Eve. She glared at Michael and tapped her foot.

“What?’” he asked.

“Gentlemen turn around. Or so I’ve heard.’”

He faced the corner. Eve stripped off her spiderweb-lace shirt and the red top beneath, and stepped out of the red and black tartan skirt. The fishnets were garters—totally sexy. “Not a word,’” she warned Claire, and rolled them down. She didn’t take her eyes off of Michael. There was red burning hot in her cheeks.

Dressing took thirty seconds, and then Eve grabbed up the scattered clothes, the garter belt, and the fishnets, and stuffed them into the closet before saying, “Okay, you can turn around.’”

Michael did, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He was smiling slightly, eyes half-closed.

“What?’” Eve demanded. She was still blushing. “Don’t I look stupid enough now?’”

“You look great,’” he said, and crossed to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Go wash your face.’”

Eve went to the bathroom and shut the door. Claire said, “You’ve got some kind of a plan, right? Because we don’t. Well, Shane thinks we should let his dad do whatever, and run, but Eve doesn’t think it’s a good idea—’”

“It’s suicide,’” Michael said flatly. “Shane’s dad is an idiot, and he’s going to get Shane killed. You, too.’”

“But you’ve got a plan.’”

“Yeah,’” Michael said. “I have a plan.’”

When Eve came back from the bathroom, Michael put his finger to his lips again, unlocked the door, and walked them across the hall. He reached behind the picture frame and pushed the hidden button, and the paneling creaked open to reveal one of the secret rooms of the Glass House. Amelie’s room, Claire remembered. The one the vampire liked the best, probably because there were no windows and the only exit was from a concealed button. How weird was it to be living in a house built—and, really, owned—by a vampire?

“Inside,’” Michael whispered. “Eve. Cell phone?’”

She patted her pockets, held up a finger, and dashed back to her room. She came back holding it up. Michael hustled them up the narrow staircase, and the door hissed shut behind them. No knob on this side, either.

Upstairs, the room was just as Claire had last seen it—elegant Victorian splendor, a little dusty. This room, like all of the house, seemed to have a sense of something present in it, something just out of sight. Ghosts, she thought. But Michael seemed to be the only ghost, and he was as normal as could be.

Then again, the house was alive, kind of, and it was keeping Michael alive, too. So maybe not so normal.

“Phone,’” Michael said, and held out his hand as he sat down on the couch. Eve handed it over, frowning.

“Just who are you planning to call?’” she asked. “Ghostbusters? It’s not like we have a lot of options….’”

Michael grinned at her and pressed three keys, then activated the call. The response was nearly immediate. “Hello, 911? This is Michael Glass, 716 Lot Street. I have intruders in my house. No, I don’t know who they are, but there are at least three of them.’”

Eve’s mouth flopped open in surprise, and Claire blinked, too. Calling the police seemed so…normal. And so wrong.

“You might want to tell the officers that this house and its occupants are under the Founder’s Protection,’” he said. “They can verify that, I guess.’”

He smiled and hung up a moment later, handed the phone back, and looked very smug.

“And Shane?’” Claire asked. “What about Shane?’”

Michael’s self-assurance faded. “He’s making his own choices,’” he said. “He’d want me to look out for the two of you first. And the only way I can do that is to get these guys out of my house. I can’t protect you twenty-four/seven—in the daytime, you’re vulnerable. And I’m not going to float around and watch while you get—’” He didn’t finish, but Claire—and Eve—knew where that was going. They both nodded. “Once they’re out of the house, I can keep them from coming back, unless Shane lets them in. Or one of you, though I can’t see that happening.’”

More headshakes, this time more violent. Michael kissed Eve’s forehead with obvious affection, and ruffled Claire’s hair. “Then this is the best way,’” he said. “It’ll shake them up, anyway.’”

“I’m sorry,’” Eve said in a small voice. “I didn’t think—I’m so used to thinking of the cops as enemies, and besides, they were just trying to kill us. Right?’”

“Things change. We have to adapt.’”

Michael was pretty much the king of that, Claire thought. He’d gone from a serious musician with his whole focus on making a name for himself, to a part-time ghost trapped in a house, to a part-time ghost trapped in a house forced to take in roommates to make the bills. And now he was trying to save their lives, and he still couldn’t escape himself.

Michael was just so…responsible. Claire couldn’t even imagine how someone got that way. Maturity, she guessed, but that was a lot like a road through fog to her. She had no idea how she was supposed to get there. Then again, she supposed nobody really did know, and you just stumbled through it.

They waited.

After about five minutes there was a wail of sirens in the distance—very faint, because the room was well soundproofed. That meant the sirens were close. Maybe even by the house already. Claire rose and pressed the button concealed in the lion’s-head arm of the couch, and the sirens immediately increased in volume as the secret door opened. She hurried down the steps and peered out. No one in the hallway, but from downstairs she heard angry shouting, and then the sound of a door banging open. Motorcycle engines roaring, tires squealing.

“They’re going,’” she yelled up, and pelted out into the hallway, down the stairs, breathless to find Shane.

Shane was up against the wall, and his father was holding him by the throat. Outside, police sirens suddenly cut off.

“Traitor,’” Shane’s dad said. He had a knife in his hand. “You’re a traitor. You’re dead to me.’”

Claire skidded to a stop, found her voice, and said, “Sir, you’d better get out of here unless you want to end up talking to the vampires.’”

Shane’s father turned his face toward her, and his expression was twisted with fury. “You little bitch,’” he said. “Turning my son against me.’”

“No—’” Shane grabbed at his father’s hand, trying to pry it free. “Don’t—’”

Claire backed up. For a second, neither Shane nor his dad moved, and then Shane’s father let him go, and raced for the kitchen door. Shane dropped to his knees, choking, and Claire went to him…

…just as the front door banged open, splintering around the lock, and the police charged in.

“Oh man,’” Shane whispered, “that sucks. We just fixed that door.’”

Claire clung to him, terrified, as the police swarmed through the house.

3

Shane wasn’t talking to the cops. Not about his dad, and not about anything. He just sat like a lump, eyes down, and refused to answer any questions from the human patrol officers; Claire didn’t know what to say—or, more importantly, what not to—and stammered out a lot of “I don’t know’” and “I was in my room’” sort of answers. Eve—more self-possessed than Claire had ever seen her—stepped in to say that she’d heard the intruders downstairs breaking things, and she’d pulled Claire into her room and locked the door for protection. It sounded good. Claire supported it with a lot of nodding.

“Is that so?’” A new voice, from behind the cops, and they parted ranks to admit two strangers. Detectives, it looked like, in sport jackets and slacks. One was a woman, frost pale, with eyes like mirrors. The other one was a tall man with gray close-cropped hair.

They were wearing gold badges on their belts. So. Detectives.

Vampire detectives.

Eve had gone very still, hands folded in her lap. She looked carefully friendly. “Yes, ma’am,’” she said. “That’s what happened.’”

“And you have no idea who these mysterious intruders might have been,’” said the male vamp. He looked—scary. Cold and hard and scary. “Never saw them before.’”

“We didn’t see them at all, sir.’”

“Because you were—locked in your room.’” He smiled, and flashed fang. Clear warning. “I can smell fear. You give it off like the stench of your sweat. Delicious.’”

Claire fought back an urge to whimper. The human cops had backed up a step; one or two looked uncomfortable, but they weren’t about to interfere with whatever was about to happen. Which—was nothing, right? There were rules and stuff. And they were the victims!

Then again, she didn’t suppose the vamps cared all that much for victims.

“Leave them alone,’” Shane said.

“It speaks!’” the woman said, and laughed. She sank down into a crouch, elegant and perfectly balanced, and tried to peer into Shane’s face. “A knight-errant, defending the helpless. Charming.’” She had an old-world accent, sort of like blurred German. “Do you not trust us, little knight? Are we not your friends?’”

“That depends,’” Shane said, and looked right at her. “You take your orders from Oliver, or the Founder? Because if you touch us—any of us—you have to take it up with her. You know who I mean.’”

She lost her amused expression.

Her partner made a noise, halfway between a bark of laughter and a growl. “Careful, Gretchen, he snaps. Just like a half-grown puppy. Boy, you don’t know what you’re saying. The Founder’s mark is on the house, yes, but I see no bands on your wrists. Don’t be stupid and make bold claims you can’t back up.’”

“Bite me, Dracula,’” Shane snapped.

Gretchen laughed. “A wolf pup,’” she said. “Oh, I like him, Hans. May I have him, since he’s a stray?’”

One of the uniformed cops cleared his throat. “Ma’am? Sorry, but I can’t allow that. You want to file the paperwork, I’ll see what I can do, but—’”

Gretchen made a frustrated noise and came back to her feet. “Paperwork. Fah. In the old days we would have run him down like a deer for insolence.’”

“In the old days, Gretchen, we were starving,’” Hans said. “Remember? The winters in Bavaria? Let him howl.’” He shrugged and gave Eve and Claire a smile that looked a little less terrifying than before. “Sorry. Gretchen gets carried away. Now, you’re sure none of you knew these intruders? Morganville’s not that big a town. We’re all pretty close-knit, especially the human community.’”

“Strangers,’” Eve said. “I think they might have been strangers. Maybe just…passing through.’”

“Passing through,’” Hans repeated. “We don’t get a lot of casual visitors. Even biker gangs.’” He studied them each in turn, and while his eyes were on her Claire felt as if she were being x-rayed. Surely he couldn’t really see her thoughts, right? Hans finished with his gaze on Shane, fixed and dark. “Your name.’”

“Shane,’” he said. “Shane Collins.’”

“You left Morganville with your family a few years ago, yes? What brought you back?’”

“My friend Michael needed a roommate.’” Shane’s eyes flickered, and Claire realized that he’d just made a mistake. A big one.

“Michael Glass. Ah, yes, the mysterious Michael. Never around when anyone comes calling during the day, but always present at night. Tell me, is Michael a vampire?’”

“Wouldn’t you know?’” Shane shot back. “Last I heard, nobody had made a new vampire in fifty years or more.’”

“True.’” Hans nodded. “Yet it’s curious, isn’t it? That your friend seems so hard to keep around?’”

They knew. They knew something, anyway; Claire supposed Oliver would have no reason to keep secrets, especially Michael’s secrets. He’d probably blabbed it to all of his minions that Michael was a ghost, caught between worlds—not quite vampire, not quite human, not quite anything.

“It’s night,’” Gretchen pointed out. “So where is he? Your friend?’”

Shane swallowed, and it was hard to miss the wave of misery that went through him. “He’s around.’”

“Around where, exactly?’”

Claire exchanged a look of dread with Eve. Shane still thought Michael was dead, buried in the backyard…and Michael had been pretty firm on the idea that Shane shouldn’t know….

“I don’t know,’” Shane said. The tips of his ears were turning red.

Hans the Detective smiled slowly. “You don’t know much, son. And yet you look like you’re not completely stupid, so how exactly does that work? Did you hide in the room with the girls?’” He leaned on the last word, and his vampire partner laughed.

Shane got up. There was something insane in his eyes, and Claire felt her heart stop beating because this was bad, very bad, and Shane was going to do something horribly unwise, and there was no way they could stop him….

“You’re looking for me?’”

They all turned.

Michael was standing at the top of the stairs. He was pulling on a plain black T-shirt with blue jeans, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His feet, Claire saw, were bare as usual.

Shane sat down. Fast and hard. Michael took his time coming down the stairs, making sure they were all focused on him instead of Shane, to give Shane time to get through what he was feeling—which was, Claire thought, a lot to pack into less than thirty seconds. Relief, of course, which brought a sheen of tears to his eyes. And then, predictably, he got pissed, because, well, he was a guy, he was Shane, and that was how he handled being scared.

So, really, by the time Michael padded down the last step to the wooden floor and crossed over to the couch through the circle of police, things were pretty much just as they’d been, except that Shane wasn’t about to push the button on his nuclear temper.

“Hey,’” Michael said to him. Shane moved over on the couch to make room. Guy room, which left plenty of empty space. “What’s up?’”

Shane looked at him like he might be crazy, not just nearly dead part-time. “Cops, man.’”

“Yeah, man, I can see that. How come?’”

“You’re telling me you actually slept through all that? Dude, you need to see a doctor or something. Maybe you have a disease.’”

“Hey, I need the sleep. Lisa, you know.’” Michael grinned. They were good at this, Claire realized—good at playing normal, even if there wasn’t a normal thing in the world about their situation. “So what happened?’”

“You weren’t aware of intruders in your home?’” asked Gretchen, who’d been watching the exchange—and the correspondingly shrinking chance of bloodshed—with disappointment. “The others described it as quite loud.’”

“He can sleep through World War Three,’” Shane said. “I told you, it’s some kind of sickness or something.’”

“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was,’” Hans said. “Wasn’t he in his room?’”

Shane shrugged. “I’m not his keeper.’”

“Ah,’” Gretchen said, and smiled. “That is where you are wrong, little knight. You are all your brothers’ keepers here in Morganville, and you can all suffer for their crimes. Which you should know and remember.’”

Hans looked bored now. “Sergeant,’” he said, and the most senior uniformed cop stepped out of the ranks. “I leave this in your hands. If you find anything out of the ordinary, let us know.’”

Just like that, the vamps were gone. They moved fast, and silently; they didn’t seem to want to blend in much, Claire thought, and tried not to tremble. She sank down on the couch beside Shane, nearly crawling into his lap. Eve crowded in between the two boys.

“Right.’” The sergeant didn’t look happy with having the whole thing dumped in his lap again, but he also looked resigned. Couldn’t be the easiest thing, Claire thought, having vamps for bosses. They didn’t seem to have a long attention span. “Glass, right? Occupation?’”

“Musician, sir,’” Michael said.

“Play around town, do you?’”

“I’m rehearsing for some upcoming gigs.’”

The cop nodded and flipped pages in a black leather book. He ran a thick finger down a list, frowned, and said, “You’re behind on your donations, Glass. About a month.’”

Michael threw a lightning-fast glance at Shane. “Sorry, sir. I’ll get out there tomorrow.’”

“Better, or you know what happens.’” The cop ran down the roster. “You. Collins. You still unemployed?’” He gave him a stare. A long one. Shane shrugged, looking—Claire thought—as dumb as possible. “Try harder.’”

“Common Grounds,’” Eve volunteered before he could start in on her. “Eve Rosser, sir, thank you.’” She was vibrating all over—she was so nervous—which was funny; when she’d been on her own, she’d been cool and calm. She had hold of both Michael’s and Shane’s hands. “Although, um, I’m thinking of making a change.’”

The cop seemed bored now. “Yeah, okay. You, the kid. Name?’”

“Claire,’” she said faintly. “Um…Danvers. I’m a student.’”

He looked at her again, and kept looking. “Shouldn’t you be in the dorm?’”

“I have permission to live off campus.’” She didn’t say from whom, because it was primarily herself.

He watched her for another few seconds, then shrugged. “You live off campus, you follow the town rules. Your friends here’ll tell you what they are. Watch on campus about how much you pass along—we got enough problems without panicking students. And we’re real good at finding blabbermouths.’”

She nodded.

That wasn’t the end of it, but it was the end of her discussions with them; the police poked around a little, took some pictures, and left the house a few minutes later without another word to any of them.

For a good ten seconds after the police closed the front door—or closed it as much as was possible with a busted lock—there was silence, and then Shane turned to Michael and said, “You fucking bastard.’” Claire swallowed hard at the tight fury in his voice.

“You want to take this outside?’” Michael asked. He sounded neutral, almost calm. His eyes were anything but.

“What, you can leave the house now?’”

“No, I meant another room, Shane.’”

“Hey,’” Eve said, “don’t—’”

“Shut up, Eve!’” Shane snapped.

Michael came off the couch like somebody had pushed him; he reached down, grabbed Shane by the T-shirt, and yanked him upright. “Don’t,’” he said, and gave him one hard shake. “Your father’s an asshole. It’s not a disease. You don’t have to catch it.’”

Shane grabbed him in a hug. Michael rocked back a little from the impact, but he closed his eyes and hung on for a moment, then slapped Shane’s back. And of course Shane slapped his back, too, and they stepped way apart. Manly. Claire rolled her eyes.

“I thought you were dead,’” Shane said. His eyes looked suspiciously bright and wet. “I saw you die, man.’”

“I die all the time. It doesn’t really take.’” Michael gave him a half smile that looked more grim than amused. “I figured it was better to let your dad think he’d taken me out. Maybe he wouldn’t be so hard on the rest of you.’” His gaze swept over the bruises on Shane’s face. “Brilliant plan. I’m sorry, man. Once I was dead, I couldn’t do much until night came around again.’”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Claire felt a shiver. “Do you remember…you know, what they did to you?’”

Michael glanced at her. “Yeah,’” he said. “I remember.’”

“Oh hell.’” Shane collapsed back on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “God, man, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’”

“Not your fault.’”

“I called him.’”

“You called him because it looked like we were all pulling an Alamo. You didn’t know—’”

“I know my dad,’” Shane said grimly. “Michael, I want you to know, I wasn’t—I didn’t come here to do his dirty work. Not…not after the first week or so.’”

Michael didn’t answer him. Maybe there was no answer to that, Claire thought. She scooted closer to Shane and stroked his ragged, shoulder-length fine hair. “Hey,’” she said. “It’s okay. We’re all okay.’”

“No, we’re not.’” Shane’s voice was muffled by his hands. “We’re totally screwed. Right, Mike?’”

“Pretty much,’” Michael sighed. “Yeah.’”

“The cops will find them,’” Eve said in an undertone to Claire as both girls stood in the kitchen making pasta. Pasta, apparently, was a new thing that Eve wanted to try. She frowned down at the package of spaghetti, then at the not-yet-bubbling pot of water. “Shane’s dad and his merry band of assholes, I mean.’”

“Yeah,’” Claire agreed, not because she thought they would, but because, well, it seemed like the thing to say. “Want me to warm up the sauce?’”

“Do we do that? I mean, it’s in a jar, right? Can’t you just dump it over the pasta?’”

“Well, you can, but it tastes better if you warm it up.’”

“Oh.’” Eve sighed. “This is complicated. No wonder I never cook.’”

“You make breakfast!’”

“I make two things: bacon and eggs. And sometimes sandwiches. I hate cooking. Cooking reminds me of my mother.’” Eve took another pot from the rack and banged it down onto the massive stove. “Here.’”

Claire struggled with the top on the spaghetti sauce jar, and finally got it to release with a pop. “You think they’re going to stay mad at each other?’” she asked.

“Michael and Shane?’”

“Mmm-hmmm.’” The sauce plopped into the pot, chunky and wet and vaguely nauseating. Claire considered the second jar, decided that if two of the four of them were boys, more was better. She got it opened and in the pot, as well, then turned on the burner and set it to simmer.

“Who knows?’” Eve shrugged. “Boys are idiots. You’d think Shane could just say, ‘Oh man, I’m glad you’re alive,’ but no. It’s either guilt or amateur night at the Drama Queen Theater.’” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Boys. I’d turn gay if they weren’t so sexy.’”

Claire tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it, and after a second Eve smiled and chuckled, too. The water started boiling. In went the pasta.

“Um…Eve…can I ask…?’”

“About what?’” Eve was still frowning at the pasta like she suspected it was going to do something clever, like try to escape from the pot.

“You and Michael.’”

“Oh.’” A surge of pink to Eve’s cheeks. Between that and the fact that she was wearing colors outside of the Goth red and black rainbow, she looked young and very cute. “Well. I don’t know if it’s—God, he’s just so—’”

“Hot?’” Claire asked.

“Hot,’” Eve admitted. “Nuclear hot. Surface of the sun hot. And—’”

She stopped, the flush in her cheeks getting darker. Claire picked up a wooden spoon and poked the pasta, which was beginning to loosen up. “And?’”

“And I was planning on putting the moves on him before all this happened. That’s why I had on the garters and stuff. Planning ahead.’”

“Oh, wow.’”

“Yeah, embarrassing. Did he peek?’”

“When you were changing?’” Claire asked. “I don’t think so. But I think he wanted to.’”

“That’s okay, then.’” Eve blinked down at the pasta, which had formed a thick white foam on top. “Is it supposed to be doing that?’”

Claire hadn’t ever seen it happen at her parents’ house. But then again, they hadn’t made spaghetti much. “I don’t know.’”

“Oh crap!’” The white foam kept growing, like in one of those cheesy science fiction movies. The foam that ate the Glass House…it mushroomed up over the top of the pot and down over the sides, and both girls yelped as it hit the burners and began to sizzle and pop. Claire grabbed the pot and moved it. Eve turned down the burner. “Right, pasta makes foam, good to know. Too hot. Way too hot.’”

“Who? Michael?’” Claire asked, and they dissolved in giggles.

Which only got worse when Michael walked in, went to the refrigerator, and retrieved the last two beers from his birthday pack. “Ladies,’” he said. “Did I miss something?’”

“Pasta boiled over,’” Claire gulped, trying not to giggle even harder. Michael looked at them for a second, curious, and then shrugged and left again. “Do you think he’s telling Shane right now that we’re insane?’”

“Probably.’” Eve managed to control herself, and put the pasta back on the burner. “Is this shock? Are we in shock right now?’”

“I don’t know,’” Claire said. “Let’s see, we’ve been barricaded in the house, attacked, nearly burned to death. Michael was murdered right in front of us, then came back, and we got interrogated by the big, scary vampire cops? Yeah, maybe shock.’”

Eve choked on another snort/giggle. “Maybe that’s why I decided to cook.’”

They watched the pasta bubble in silence. The whole room was starting to smell warm with spices and tomato sauce, a comforting and homey sort of smell. Claire stirred the spaghetti sauce, which was looking delicious now that it was simmering.

The kitchen door banged open again. Shane, this time, a beer in one hand. “What’s burning?’”

“Your brain. So, did you two girls kiss and make up?’” Eve asked, stirring the pasta.

He glowered at her, then turned to Claire. “What the hell is she making?’”

“Spaghetti.’” And technically, it was Claire mostly, but she decided not to mention it. “Um, about your dad—do you think they’re going to catch him?’”

“No.’” Shane hip-bumped Eve out of the way at the stove and did some spaghetti maintenance. “Morganville’s got a lot of hiding places. That’s mostly for the vamps’ benefit, but it’ll work for him, too. He’ll go to ground. I’ve been sending him maps. He’ll know where to go.’”

“Maybe he’ll just leave?’” Eve sounded hopeful. Shane dragged a piece of spaghetti out of the tangle in the pot and pressed it against the metal with the spoon. It sliced cleanly.

“No,’” Shane said again. “He definitely won’t leave. He’s got no place else to go. He always said that if he crossed the border into Morganville again, he was here until it was done.’”

“You mean until he’s done.’” Eve crossed her arms, not as if she was angry, more like she was cold. “Shane, if he goes after even one vampire, we are dead. You know that, right?’”

He picked up the beer bottle and drank, avoiding an answer. He flipped off the burner under the spaghetti, took the pot to the sink, and drained it with the edge of a lid. Like a real chef or something.

Which, Claire had to admit, was pretty much totally hot, the way he moved so confidently. She liked to cook, but he had authority. In fact, she was paying a lot more attention to what Shane did today—the way he moved, the way his clothes fit—or didn’t, in his case, because Shane was wearing his jeans loose and just baggy enough to give her fantasies about them sliding down. Which made her blush.

She concentrated on getting down the bowls from the cupboard. Mismatched bowls, two out of four of them chipped. She put them out on the counter as Shane returned with the spaghetti and began portioning it out. Eve grabbed the sauce and followed him down the line, ladling.

It looked pretty tasty, actually. Claire picked up two bowls and carried them into the living room, where Michael was tuning his guitar as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t been stabbed through the heart and dragged outside and—oh my God, she didn’t want to finish that thought at all.

She handed him the bowl. He set the guitar carefully back in its case—somehow, with all the mayhem that had gone on in the past two days, it had escaped damage—and dug in as Eve and Shane trailed in with their own dinner. Eve had two chilled bottles of water under one arm. She tossed one to Claire as she sat down cross-legged on the floor, next to Michael’s knee.

Shane settled on the couch, and Claire joined him. For a few minutes nobody said anything. Claire hadn’t realized that she was hungry, not really, but the second the sauce hit her tongue and exploded into flavors, she was starving. She couldn’t gobble it fast enough.

“Hell’s put in a skating rink,’” Shane said. “This is actually edible, Eve.’”

Again, Claire had the impulse to claim credit…and managed not to, mostly because that would have required her to stop shoveling pasta into her mouth.

“Claire,’” Eve said. “She’s the cook, not me. I just, you know, supervised.’” Which gave Claire a pleasant little spurt of gratitude and surprise.

“See? I knew that.’”

Eve flipped him off and noisily sucked some spaghetti into her mouth.

Claire got to the bottom of the bowl first—even before Michael or Shane—and sat back with a sigh of utter contentment. Nap, she thought. I could take a nap.

“Guys,’” Michael said. “We’re still in trouble. You know that, right?’”

“Yeah,’” Eve said. “But now we have catered trouble.’”

He ignored her, except for a brief little quirk of a smile, and focused on Shane. “You need to tell me everything,’” Michael said. “No bullshit, man. Every last thing, from the time you left Morganville.’”

Shane seemed to lose his appetite.

Which, for Shane, was not a good sign at all.

The vampires had offered them money. Cash compensation. It was Morganville’s version of Allstate, only it wasn’t insurance—it was blood money for a dead child.

And the Collins family—Dad, Mom, and Shane—had packed up whatever had survived the fire that had taken Alyssa, and left town in the middle of the night. Running. That probably would have been that, Shane explained; people did leave town from time to time, and it was rarely any trouble. Michael’s own parents had taken off. But…something went wrong with Molly Collins.

“At first, she’d just space,’” Shane said. He’d drained his beer, and now he was just rolling the bottle between his palms. “Stare at things, like she was trying to remember something. Dad didn’t notice. He was drinking a lot. We ended up in Odessa, and Dad got a job at the recycling plant. He wasn’t home much.’”

“That must have been an improvement,’” Eve muttered.

“Hey, let me get through it, okay?’”

“Sorry.’”

Shane took another deep breath. “Mom…she kept talking about Alyssa. You have to understand, we didn’t—I couldn’t remember anything, except that she’d died. It was all just sort of a blur, but not the kind of blur you worry about, if you know what I mean…?’”

Claire was fairly certain nobody did, but she remembered her conversation with her own parents. They’d forgotten things, and somehow, they hadn’t really cared. So maybe she did understand.

“I started working, too. Mom…she just stayed in the motel. Wouldn’t do anything except eat, sleep, sometimes take a bath if we yelled at her long enough. I figured, you know, depression…but it was more than that. One day, out of nowhere, she grabs me by the arm and she says, ‘Shane, do you remember your sister?’ So I go, ‘Yeah, Mom, of course I do.’ And she says the weirdest thing. She says, ‘Do you remember the vampires?’ I didn’t remember, but it felt—like something in me was trying to. I got a bad headache, and I felt sick. And Mom…she just kept on talking, about how there was something wrong with us, something going wrong in our heads. About the vampires. About Lyssa dying in the fire.’”

He fell silent, still rolling the beer bottle like some kind of magic talisman. Nobody moved.

“And I remembered.’”

Shane’s whisper sounded raw, somehow, vulnerable and exposed. Michael wasn’t looking at him. He was looking down, at his own beer bottle, and the label he was peeling off in strips.

“It was like some wall coming down, and then it all just flooded in. I mean, it’s bad enough to live through it and sort of cope with it, but when it comes back like that…’” Shane visibly shuddered. “It was like I’d just watched Lyss die all over again.’”

“Oh,’” Eve said faintly. “Oh God.’”

“Mom—’” He shook his head. “I couldn’t handle it. I left her. I had to get away, I couldn’t just—I had to go. You know? So I left. I ran.’” A hollow rattle of a laugh. “Saved my life.’”

“Shane—’” Michael cleared his throat. “I was wrong. You don’t have to—’”

“Shut up, man. Just shut up.’” Shane tipped the bottle to his lips for the last few drops, then swallowed hard. Claire didn’t know what was coming, but she could see from the look on Michael’s face that he did, and it twisted her stomach into a knot. “So anyway, I came back a few hours later and she was in the tub, just floating there, and the water was red—razor blades on the floor—’”

“Oh, honey.’” Eve got up and stood there, hovering next to him, reaching out to touch him and then pulling back in jerky motions without making contact, like he had some force field of grief shielding him. “It wasn’t your fault. You said she was depressed.’”

“Don’t you get it?’” He glared up at her, then at Michael. “She didn’t do it. She wouldn’t. It was them. You know how they work: they close in; they kill; they cover it up. They must have gotten there right after I left. I don’t know—’”

“Shane.’”

“—I don’t know how they got her in the tub. There weren’t any bruises, but the cuts were—’”

“Shane! Christ, man!’” Michael looked outright horrified this time, and Shane stopped. The two of them looked at each other for a long, wordless moment, and then Michael—visibly tense—eased back into his chair. “Shit. I don’t even know what to say.’”

Shane shook his head and looked away. “Nothing to say. It is what it is. I couldn’t—shit. Let me just finish, okay?’”

As if they could stop him. Claire felt cold. She could feel Shane’s body shaking next to her, and if she felt cold, how must he be feeling? Frozen. Numb. She reached out to touch him and, like Eve, just…stopped. There was something about Shane right now that didn’t want to be touched.

“Anyway, my dad came home, eventually. Cops said it was a suicide, but after they were gone I told him. He didn’t exactly want to hear it. Things got…ugly.’” Claire couldn’t imagine how ugly that had been, for Shane to actually admit it. “But I made him remember.’”

Eve sat on the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest. She looked at him with anime-wide eyes. “And?’”

“He got drunk. A lot.’” Bitterness ran black through Shane’s voice, and all of a sudden the beer bottle in his hand seemed to get a whole lot of significance for him, beyond just something to occupy his nervous hands. He set it down on the floor and wiped his palms on his blue jeans. “He started hooking up with these bikers and stuff. I—wasn’t in a real good place; I don’t remember some of that. Couple of weeks later we got a visit from these guys in suits. Not vamps, lawyers. They gave us money, lots of it. Insurance. Except we both knew who it was from, and the point was, they were trying to figure out what we knew and remembered. I was too drugged out to know what was going on, and Dad was drunk, so I guess that saved our lives. They decided we were no threat.’” He wiped his forehead with the heel of his hand and laughed—a bitter, broken sound like glass in a blender.

Shane on drugs. Claire saw that Michael had caught it, too. She wondered if he was going to say something, but maybe it wasn’t the best time to say, Hey, man, you using now? Or something like that.

He didn’t need to ask, as it turned out. Shane answered anyway. “But I kicked it, and Dad sobered up, and we planned this out. Thing is, even though we remembered a lot of stuff, the personal stuff, we couldn’t remember things about how to find vamps, or the layout of the town, or even who we were looking for. So that was my job. Come back, scout it out, find out where the vamps hide during the day. Report back. It wasn’t supposed to take this long, and I wasn’t supposed to—get tangled up.’”

“With us,’” Eve supplied softly. “Right? He didn’t want you to have any friends.’”

“Friends get you killed in Morganville.’”

“No.’” Eve put a pale hand on his knee. “Shane, honey, in Morganville, friends are the only things that keep you alive.’”

4

Claire couldn’t believe how much had poured out of Shane—all that grief and horror and bitterness and anger. He’d always seemed sort of, well, normal, and it was a shock to see all the emotional bloodshed…and a shock to hear him talk so much, about things so personal. Shane wasn’t a talker.

She collected the dishes and did them alone, comforted by hot water and the fizz of soap on her hands; she cleaned up pots and pans and splashes of red sauce, and thought about Shane finding his mom dead in a bloody bathtub. I wasn’t in a real good place, Shane had said. The master of understatement. Claire wasn’t so sure that she’d ever have been able to smile again, laugh again, function again, if that had happened to her, especially after losing a sister and winning the Drunk-Asshole Lottery with Dad. How did he do it? How did he keep it together, and stay so…brave?

She wanted to cry for him, but she was almost sure that he’d have been embarrassed, so she kept the misery inside, and scrubbed dishes clean. He doesn’t deserve this. Why don’t they all just leave him alone? Why does he have to be the one everybody beats on?

Maybe just because he’d shown he could take it, and make himself stronger for it.

The kitchen door swung open, and she jumped, expected Shane, but it was Michael. He walked over to the sink, ran some cold water in his hands, and splashed it over his face and the back of his neck.

“Bad night,’” Claire said.

“Tell me about it.’” He cut a sideways look toward her.

“Do you think he’s right? About them, you know, killing his mother?’”

“I think Shane’s carrying around a load of guilt the size of Trump Tower. And I think it helps him to be angry.’” Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible. But I don’t think we can know one way or the other.’”

That felt…sick, somehow. No wonder Shane was so reluctant to talk about it. She tried to imagine living with that kind of uncertainty, those memories, and failed.

She was glad she did.

“So,’” Michael said. “I’ve got about three hours until morning. We need to make some plans about what we’re going to do, and what we’re not going to do.’”

Claire nodded and set a plate aside to dry.

“First thing is, none of you leave the house,’” Michael said. “Got it? No school, no work. You stay indoors. I can’t protect you if you go outside.’”

“We can’t just hide!’”

“We can for a while, and we will. Look, Shane’s dad can’t run around out there forever. It’s a temporary problem. Someone’s going to find him.’” The unspoken subject of what would happen to Shane’s dad after he was caught was a whole other issue. “As long as we don’t do anything directly that ties us to whatever his dad does, we’re okay. Amelie’s word is good for that.’”

“You’re putting a lot of trust in—’”

“A vampire, yeah, I know.’” Michael shrugged and leaned a hip against the counter, looking down on her. “What choices do we have?’”

“Not too many, I guess.’” Claire studied him more closely. He looked tired. “Michael? Are you okay?’”

Now he looked surprised. “Sure. Shane’s the one who’s got issues. Not me.’”

No, Michael was all good. Killed, dismembered, buried, reborn…yeah, just another day in the life. Claire sighed. “Guys,’” she said mournfully. “Michael, I’ll stay home today, but I really do have to go to school, you know. Really.’” Because her missing school was like a caffeine addict going without a daily jolt.

“Your education or your life, Claire. I’d rather you be alive and a little bit dumber.’”

She met his eyes squarely. “Well, I wouldn’t. I’ll stay home today. I don’t promise about tomorrow.’”

He smiled, leaned forward, and put a warm sloppy kiss on her forehead. “That’s my girl,’” he said, and left. She sighed again, this time happily, and found herself grinning. Michael might be Eve’s new main crush, but he was still available as an oh-my-God-how-cute-is-he thrill.

Claire finished the dishes and went back to the living room. The TV was on, tuned to some forensics show, and Shane was slumped on the couch staring at it. No sign of Eve or Michael. Claire hesitated, thinking longingly about bed and forgetting about all this for a while, but Shane just looked so…alone.

She went and settled in next to him. She didn’t say anything, and neither did he, and after a while his arm went around her and that was all right.

She fell asleep there, braced against his warm body.

It was nice.

Claire supposed that she should have known Shane might have nightmares—bad ones—but she’d never really thought about it. When Shane jerked and rolled off the couch, she thumped flat onto the cushions. The TV was still on—a flickering confusion of color—and Claire flailed and scrambled for some grasp of what was going on through the fog of interrupted sleep.

“Shane?’”

He was on his side on the floor, shuddering, curled up into a ball. Claire slid down next to him and put her hands on his broad back. Under the thin T-shirt his skin was clammy, and his muscles were as tense as steel cable. He was making these sounds, agonizing gasps that weren’t quite sobs but weren’t quite not, either.

She didn’t know what to do. She’d felt helpless a lot in the past few hours, but this was worse, somehow, because Michael and Eve were nowhere to be seen, and she wasn’t sure if Shane would have wanted them to see him like this. Or if he wanted her to see him like this. Shane was all about the pride.

“I’m okay,’” he gasped out. “I’m okay. I’m okay.’” He didn’t sound okay. He sounded scared, and he sounded like a little boy.

He managed to sit up. Claire wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight, and after a few seconds of resistance she felt him sag against her, and hug her back. His hand stroked her hair as if she might break. “Shhh,’” she whispered to him, the way her mother had whispered it to her when things got bad. “You’re here. You’re safe. You’re okay.’” Because wherever he’d been in his dreams, he hadn’t been any of those three things.

If she expected him to talk about it, she was disappointed. He pulled back, avoided looking at her, and said, “You should go to bed.’”

“Yeah,’” she agreed. “You first.’”

“Can’t sleep.’” Didn’t want to, more likely; his eyes were red and blurred with exhaustion. “I just need some coffee or something.’”

“Coke?’”

“Whatever.’”

She fetched it for him, and Shane downed it like a frat boy at a mixer, belched, and shrugged an apology. “Where’s Michael?’” She spread her hands. “Eve?’” She did another silent pantomime of ignorance. “Well, at least somebody’s getting a good night’s sleep. They together?’”

Claire blinked. “I—don’t know.’” She hadn’t thought about it, actually. She hadn’t seen them go, didn’t know if they’d gone to separate rooms or if Eve had finally worked up the courage to proposition Michael. ’Cause he’d never make the first move. That just wasn’t Michael, somehow.

“Christ, I hope so,’” Shane said. “They deserve a little fun, even in hell.’” He was kidding, but not. He did see Morganville as hell. Claire had to admit, he had a point. It was hell, and they were the lost souls, and it was coming on toward morning and she’d been scared for what felt like a very, very long time….

He was watching her closely, in a way that made her feel warmth all over her skin, like a light sunburn.

“How about us?’” she heard herself ask. “Don’t we deserve a little fun?’”

I did not just say that.

Only she had.

He smiled. She wondered if the shadows were ever going to leave his eyes again. “I could do something fun.’”

“Ummm…’” She licked her lips. “Define fun.’”

“Quit doing that, jailbait. It’s distracting.’”

The whole idea that somebody would even think of her as jailbait was tremendously exciting. Especially Shane. She tried to hide that, and act like she wasn’t quaking on the inside like a Jell-O fruit salad. “So now you want me to stay up? I thought you said I should go to bed.’”

“You should.’” He didn’t put any particular emphasis on it. “’Cause if you stay down here, there’s going to be fun. I’m just saying.’”

“Video game fun?’”

His eyes widened. “You want to play video games?’”

“Do you?’”

“You are the weirdest girl.’”

“Please. You live with Eve.’” She was not doing this right. How did girls seduce boys? What did they say? Because she was pretty sure that talking about video games and bringing up roommates wasn’t in the have-fun game plan. She was hyperaware of her body, too. How was she supposed to move? She felt awkward, all angles, and she wanted to be one of those graceful girls, all delicacy and elegance. Like in the movies.

Eve would know. She’d had those garter hose on, and those thong panties, and Claire didn’t even own those things, or have any idea how to get them. And Eve had worn them for Michael, or maybe just as a secret little excitement for herself around Michael. Yeah, Eve would know what to say.

Say something sexy, she commanded herself, and in a blind panic, she opened her mouth and blurted, “Do you think they’re doing it?’” She was so appalled that she clapped both hands over her mouth. She’d never in her life wanted to take back words so much, and so fast…and for a second, Shane just looked at her, like he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.

And then he laughed. “Man, I hope. Those two could use a good—uh—’” He blinked and she saw her age flash in front of his eyes. “Hell. Never mind.’”

Words weren’t working for her. She leaned forward and kissed him. It felt weird, and awkward, and he didn’t immediately respond—maybe he was too surprised. Maybe she was doing it wrong, or she’d been wrong to make the move on him….

His lips parted under hers, damp and soft and warm, and she forgot all of that. Her entire life focused in on the sensations, the gentle pressure that grew more intense the longer the kiss went on.

Chaste kisses, then dirtier ones, and man, those tasted good. They tasted better the wider her mouth opened, and especially after his tongue touched hers.

She could have done a whole semester of kissing with Shane. Intense personal study. With lab classes.

Time really wasn’t happening for her, but eventually Claire realized that there was a soft glow coming from the windows, and she was numb and sore from sitting on the floor. She winced as a muscle in her back protested, and Shane reached out, pulled her up, and settled himself on the couch.

He stretched out, and extended a hand to her. She stared, tingling and confused. “There’s no room.’”

“Plenty of room,’” he said.

She felt breathless and kind of wild, stretching out on the tiny area of sofa cushion available next to him, and then smothered a yelp as Shane picked her up and draped her over his chest and, oh my God, over all the rest of him, too.

“Better?’” he asked, and raised his eyebrows. It was a real question, and he was looking for a real answer. Claire felt a blush building a fire in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away from his gaze.

“Perfect,’” she said.

It felt like being naked, except for all the clothes. The kisses this time were wet and urgent and deep, and the feeling of Shane’s muscles tensing and relaxing under her was incredibly exciting. This should be illegal, she thought. Well, it was kind of illegal. Or would be, if any clothes came off.

Shane might not have been Michael, with all the responsibility, but he definitely wasn’t that impulsive. At least, not with her. His hands roamed, but never to places where she wanted them to—badly—and some of the places they roamed made her wonder why she’d never wanted someone to touch her there before. Like the small of her back, where the skin dipped into a shallow valley. Or the back of her neck. Or the inside of her arms. Or…

As he was bringing his hands up her sides, his fingers just barely brushed the outer curve of her breasts, and she gasped into his mouth.

Shane immediately sat her upright, and moved to the other end of the couch. His face was flushed; his eyes were bright and no longer looked even a little bit tired. “No,’” he said, and held out his hand like a traffic cop when she tried to scoot closer. “Red flag. If you make that sound again, we are in trouble. Or I am, anyway.’”

“But—’” Claire felt that blush creeping in again, and had no idea what it was going to be like to put this into words. “What about you? You know—’” She made a vague gesture that could have been anything. Or nothing. Or anything.

“Don’t worry about me. I needed this.’” He was still breathing deeply, but he did look better. Steadier. More like…Shane, instead of that lost and hurt little boy terrified of his nightmares. “So? Did we have fun?’”

“Fun,’” she agreed faintly. So much fun she felt like a fizzed-up soda, ready to burst. “Um, I need to—’”

“Yeah, me, too.’” But Shane made no move to go. Claire swallowed hard and took the course of the better part of valor, up the stairs to her room. She shut the door and locked it, threw herself on her brand-new mattress—she hadn’t even put sheets on it yet, and they were a little light on blankets after using most of them to fight the fire—and bounced. The room smelled like a wet smoky dog, but she didn’t care.

Not at all.

Fun.

Oh yes.

Around noon, Claire heard the doorbell, and ran downstairs. Shane was lying on the couch, sound asleep. Still no sign of Eve, and she didn’t expect to have any Michael sightings, given the daylight hours. She raced down the hall to the door, which was braced with a wooden chair as a temporary lock, and hesitated.

“Michael? You there?’” A chilly breeze swept across her, ruffling her hair. Wow. He was strong today. “Can I open the door? One for yes, two for no.’”

Apparently, yes. She pulled the chair away and peered outside. There were two men standing on the porch, both tall; one was lean and hard-looking, with black hair; the other one was a little pale (but not vamp pale) and heavyset, and where he wasn’t balding, his very short hair looked brown.

They both displayed badges. Police.

“You’re Claire, right?’” the lean one said, and extended his hand. “Joe Hess. This is my partner, Travis Lowe. How you doing?’”

“Um…’” She fumbled for the handshake. “Fine, I guess.’” Lowe also shook her hand. “Is something—I mean, did you find—?’” Because she both hoped that Shane’s dad was in a holding cell, and was afraid of what that would mean for Shane. She rocked nervously back and forth on her heels, her eyes darting from one of them to the other.

Joe Hess smiled. Unlike most smiles she’d seen since coming to Morganville, this one seemed…uncomplicated. Clean, sort of. Not happy, because that would have been weird, but comforting. “It’s okay,’” he said. “No, we haven’t found them, but you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. May we come inside?’”

She heard shuffling footsteps behind her. Shane had woken up, and was standing in the hallway, barefoot and rumpled, with a fierce bed-head that got worse as he yawned and ran fingers through his hair, standing part of it on end.

How sick was it that she found that sexy?

Claire collected herself and pointed at the cops on the doorstep. Shane’s eyes focused fast.

“Officers,’” he said, and came toward the door. “Anything you need?’”

“I was just asking if we can come in and talk,’” Detective Hess said. He’d stopped smiling, but he still looked kind. “Informally.’”

A chill moved softly over Claire’s skin. A single wave of chill. Yes. Michael was okay with it.

“Sure,’” Claire said, and stepped back to swing the door wider. The cops stepped over the threshold, Hess first, then Lowe, and Shane shot Claire a look she couldn’t quite figure out and led the men back to the living room.

Lowe studied the place more than the two of them; he seemed to really appreciate it. “Nice,’” he murmured, which was the first thing he’d said. “Great use of wood in here. Real organic.’”

She couldn’t really say thank you, because, hey, she didn’t build it. She didn’t even own it. But on Michael’s behalf she said, “We think so, too, sir.’” Claire settled nervously back on the sofa, perched on the edge. Shane remained standing, and Hess and Lowe moved around, not exactly searching, but cataloging everything. Hess stayed focused on the two of them, and after a moment, he bent his knees and sat down in the chair that Michael had occupied last night. Déjà vu, Claire thought. Hess seemed to shiver a little, and he looked up, maybe trying to locate the source of the draft that had just brushed past him.

Michael liked that chair.

“You had some trouble here last night,’” Hess said. “I know you had a talk with our colleagues Gretchen and Hans. I read the report this morning.’”

No harm in admitting to that. Both Shane and Claire nodded.

“A little scary, huh?’”

Claire nodded. Shane didn’t. He gave the detective a narrow little smile. “I’m a Morganville lifer. Define scary,’” he said. “Anyway, if you’re playing good cop, bad cop—’”

“I’m not,’” Hess said. “Trust me, you’d know if I was, because I’d be the bad cop.’” And there was something in his eyes that—oddly—made Claire believe it. “Look, I won’t lie to you. Gretchen and Hans, they’ve got their own agendas. But so do we. We want to make sure you’re protected, understand me? That’s our job. We serve and protect, and Travis and I believe in that.’”

Lowe paused in his slow amble to nod.

“We’re neutral. There’s a few of us in town who did enough good for each side to earn a little freedom, as long as we’re careful.’”

“What Joe means,’” Detective Lowe said, “is that they ignore us as long as we keep it on our side of the tracks. Humans are the slave race here—forget about skin color. So we have to take care of our own when we can.’”

“And when we can’t,’” Hess said, as smoothly as if they’d rehearsed all this, “things get ugly. It ain’t like the two of us are free agents. We’re Switzerland. If you cross the line, you’re on your own.’”

Shane frowned at him. “What can you do for us, if you’re Switzerland?’”

“I can make sure that Gretchen and Hans don’t make any follow-up visits,’” Hess said. “I can keep most of the cops away from you, maybe not all. I can put out the word—widely—that you’re not just under a Founder’s seal; Travis and I are keeping an eye on you. That’ll keep anybody else from trying to win friends by smacking you around.’”

“Anybody human, he means,’” Lowe amended. “The vamps, they’ll scare the shit out of you if they can, but they won’t hurt you. Not unless you screw up and that Founder’s seal goes away. Got me?’”

Which had already happened, really. The screwing-up part. Well, technically, she supposed Shane’s dad hadn’t broken any laws—yet—because Michael hadn’t really died.

Except that he had.

God, Morganville made her head hurt.

A door slammed upstairs, and Eve came clattering down the stairs, fully dressed in Goth finery: a purple sheer shirt over a black corset thingie, a skirt that looked like it had gotten caught in a shredder, hose with skulls woven in, and her black Mary Janes. Very fierce. Her makeup was back in full force, ice white face, black-rimmed eyes, lips like three-day-old bruises.

“Officer Joe!’” Eve practically flew across the room to hug him. Shane and Claire exchanged a look. Yeah, this wasn’t something they were going to see every day. “Joe Joe Joe! I’ve been wondering where you were!’”

“Hi, Skippy. You remember Travis, right?’”

“Big T.!’” Another hug. This, Claire thought, had tipped over the edge into the surreal, even for Morganville. “I’m so glad to see you guys!’”

“Ditto, kid,’” Lowe said. He was smiling, and it transformed his face into something that was almost angelic. “You’ve still got the numbers, right?’”

Eve slapped her hand on the mobile phone strapped to her belt in a coffin-shaped holder. “Oh yeah. Speed dial. But there hasn’t been—um—’”

Claire had the sudden weird feeling that Eve had something she couldn’t talk about in front of them. The cops seemed to think so, too, because their eyes met briefly, and then Hess said, “You want an update? How about showing us to your coffeepot?’”

“Sure!’” Eve said brightly, and led them off into the kitchen.

“Well,’” Shane said as the door shut behind them, “that’s bizarre.’”

“Did I miss a chapter?’” Claire asked. “And are there Cliff’s Notes?’”

“No idea.’”

The sound of conversation drifted in from the kitchen, music without words. Claire fidgeted, then got up and tiptoed over.

“Hey!’” Shane protested, but he followed.

Hess was talking about somebody named Jason. Shane reacted, putting his hand on Claire’s shoulder and lifting his finger to his lips.

What? she mouthed silently.

I want to hear.

Detective Lowe was talking. “—you probably would want to know that he’s getting out today. Now, before you say anything, he’s been warned. He’s not about to go near you or your parents. He’ll be monitored.’”

“Monitored.’” Eve sounded shaken. “But—I thought he was going to be in jail for a long time! What about that girl…?’”

“She withdrew the complaint,’” Hess said. “We couldn’t keep him locked up forever, honey. I’m sorry.’”

“But he’s guilty!’”

“I know. But now it’s your word against his, and you know how that gets decided. You’re not sworn to anybody, Eve. He is.’”

Eve cursed. It sounded like she was trying not to cry. “Does he know where I am?’”

“He’ll find out,’” Hess said. “But like I said, he’s being monitored, and we’ll keep an eye on all of you kids here. You leave Jason alone, he’ll leave you alone. Okay?’”

If Eve agreed, she did it silently. Claire nearly tipped backward as Shane tugged on her shoulder; then she caught her balance and followed him back to the couch. “Who’s Jason?’” She couldn’t even wait until they were seated to ask.

“Crap,’” he sighed. “Jason’s her brother. Last I heard, he was in jail for stabbing somebody. He’s kind of a psycho, and Eve turned him in. No wonder she’s freaked.’”

“Her older brother?’” Because Claire was picturing some Gothed-out muscular football type about ten feet tall, with a steroid habit.

“Younger,’” Shane said. “Seventeen, I guess. Skinny, creepy kid. I never liked him.’”

“Do you think—?’”

“What?’”

“Do you think he’ll come here? Try to hurt Eve?’”

Shane shrugged. “If he does, he’ll be regretting it all the way to the hospital.’” He said it in a matter-of-fact kind of way that made Claire feel strangely warm. She fought to catch her breath. If Shane noticed, he didn’t show it. “As long as we stay here, we’re safe.’” He looked up at the blank ceiling. “Right, Michael?’”

A chill drifted over Claire’s skin. “Right,’” she said, on Michael’s behalf.

But she wondered.

5

The cops left, Shane played some video games, and Claire studied. It was a normal kind of day, all things considered. Shane had the TV on, looking for any news that might show a clue as to what his dad was up to, but Morganville’s local station (it had only one) seemed bland, vanilla, and content-free even on the newscast.

The night came; Michael drifted back into human form; they had dinner.

Normal life, such as it passed for in a place like Morganville. In the Glass House.

It was only at midnight, when Claire was drifting off to sleep to the distant, sweet sound of Michael’s guitar, that she started wondering about what she was going to do in the morning. She couldn’t just hide, no matter what Michael thought. She had a life—sort of—and she’d already missed enough classes this semester. It was go or withdraw, and withdrawing would make things worse. She’d never get her academic life together and go on to the Ivy League schools she was dreaming about.

She fell asleep thinking of vampires, fangs, pretty girls with mean smiles and cigarette lighters. Of fires and screaming. Of Shane’s mom floating in the bathtub.

Of Shane, huddled in a corner, crying.

Not a great night. She woke up at first light, wondering if Michael was already gone again, and yawned and struggled her way out of bed and to the bathroom. Nobody else was up, of course. The shower felt good, and by the time she’d dried her hair and pulled on a plain white shirt and blue jeans and sneakers, and loaded up her backpack with the daily essentials, she felt ready to face the outside world.

Shane was asleep on the couch downstairs. She tiptoed past him, but a squeaky floorboard made it a useless exercise; he came bolt upright and stared at her with wild, uncomprehending eyes for a few seconds before he blinked and sighed. “Claire.’” He swung his legs off, sat up, and rested his head on the palms of his hands. “Ow. Man, remind me that two hours of sleep doesn’t really cut it.’”

“I think you just reminded yourself. What were you doing up?’”

“Talking,’” he said. “Michael needed to talk.’”

Oh. Guy stuff. Stuff Michael hadn’t wanted to share with the girls. Okay, fine, not her business. Claire hitched up her backpack and edged toward the hallway.

“Where are you going?’” Shane asked without lifting his head.

“You know where I’m going.’”

“Oh no, you’re not!’”

“Shane, I’m going. Sorry, but you don’t get to tell me what to do.’” Technically, she supposed he could; he was older, and in Michael’s absence he was sort of the owner and operator of the house. But…no. Not even then. Once she started letting that happen—or happen again—she’d lose whatever independence she’d earned. “I have to go to class. Look, I’ll be fine. Amelie’s Protection’s still good, and the campus is neutral ground, you know that. Unless I screw up, I’ll be okay.’”

“It’s not neutral ground for Monica,’” he said, and looked up. “She tried to kill you, Claire.’”

True. Claire gulped down a hard little bubble of fear. “I can handle Monica.’” She didn’t think she could, but at least she could avoid her. Running was always an option.

Shane stared at her with bloodshot, tired eyes for a few long seconds, then shook his head and flopped back against the couch cushions, arms spread wide. “Whatever,’” he said. “Call if you get into trouble.’”

Something in his tone made Claire want to shed the backpack and crawl up on the couch next to him, cuddling close, but she straightened her spine and said, “I will,’” and marched to the door.

Two hard, fast chills swept over her. Michael, telling her a firm no.

“Bite me,’” she said, shot the brand-new locks that Shane had installed, and exited into the warm Texas morning sun.

English class was boring, and she’d already read through everything in the curriculum, so Claire spent her time writing out her thoughts in the back of her journal. A lot of them centered on Shane, and Shane’s lips, and Shane’s hands. And curses on the fact that she wasn’t eighteen yet, and that it was a stupid rule anyway.

She was still thinking about the injustice of all that after class, when she ran into trouble.

Literally.

Claire turned the corner, head down, and collided with a tall, firm body that instantly grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her, hard, backward. Claire nearly lost her balance, but skidded to a shaky and upright halt, bracing herself against the wall. “Hey!’” she yelled, more in shock than anger, and then her brain caught up with her eyes and she thought, Oh, crap.

It was Monica.

Monica Morrell looked polished and perfect, from her shining straight hair to her flawless makeup to the cute, trendy sheer top over baby doll T she was wearing. No backpack for Monica. She had a designer bag, and she looked Claire up and down, glossed lips twisting in disdain. Of course, she wasn’t alone. Monica never went anywhere without an entourage, and today it was her usual wing girls, Jennifer and Gina, as well as a hovering flock of hard-bodied boys, most of them athletes of some kind or other.

Everybody was taller than Claire.

“Watch it, freak!’” Monica said, and glared at her. And then started to smile. It didn’t lessen the menace in her pretty eyes. “Oh, it’s you. You ought to watch where you’re going.’” She half turned to her little gaggle of followers. “Poor Claire. She’s got a syndrome or something. Falls down stairs, hits her head, nearly burns down her house…’” She focused back on Claire as Jennifer and Gina giggled. “Isn’t that right? Didn’t your house burn?’”

“Little bit,’” Claire said. She was shaking, deep down, but she knew that if she backed down, she risked a lot worse. “But I heard it’s not the first time that’s happened when you stop by for a visit.’”

Monica’s clique made a low ooooooooooh sound, a no-she-didn’t murmur evenly split between appreciation and anticipation. Monica’s eyes turned cold. -Er.

“Don’t even go there, freak. Not my fault you live with a bunch of losers and jerks. Probably that Goth whore lighting candles all over the place. She’s a walking fire hazard, not to mention a fashion disaster.’”

Claire bit the inside of her lip and swallowed her reply, which would have had to do with who the real whore was in the conversation. She just raised her own eyebrows—well aware they weren’t plucked, or perfect, or anything—and smiled like she knew something Monica didn’t.

“She’s not the only one. Isn’t that top from Wal-Mart? The Trailer Park collection?’” She turned around to go as Monica’s friends ooooohed again, this time with an edge of laughter.

Monica grabbed her by the backpack, yanking her off-balance. “Tell Shane I said hi,’” she said, her breath hot against Claire’s ear. “Tell him I don’t care who’s put out the truce flag—I’m going to get him, and you, and he’s going to be sorry he ever screwed with me.’”

Claire pulled herself free from Monica’s highly polished manicured grip and said, “He wouldn’t screw you if you were the last girl on earth and it was survival of the species.’”

She thought that Monica was going to scratch her eyes out with those perfectly manicured talons, and backed off fast. Monica, strangely, let her go. She was even smiling, a little, but it was a weird kind of smile, and it made Claire’s stomach lurch when she looked back.

“Bye now,’” Monica said. “Freak.’”

Chem class was already under way when Claire breathlessly slid into an empty seat and unpacked her notebook and text. She kept an eye out for Monica, Gina, Jennifer, or any random chemicals being flung her way—it had happened before—but she didn’t run into Monica there, or on her way to her next class, or the next. By midafternoon she was aching from the tension, but her heart rate was pretty normal, and she’d gotten back into the groove of listening for comprehension. Not that she wasn’t way ahead in the classes—she had a habit of reading the whole book at the beginning of the semester—but it was always nice when professors dropped some tidbit that wasn’t in the book or the published notes. Even the classes she didn’t much like seemed relatively interesting. History had a quiz, which she finished in five minutes and handed in, then escaped with a silent thumbs-up from the professor.

It was late afternoon when she exited into the quadrangle outside of the science building; the crowds of students had thinned, since a lot of people tried to finish classes early and get on with the all-important party schedule. Texas Prairie University wasn’t exactly Harvard on the Plains; most of the students were here to plow through two years of required courses, then transfer out to a legitimate university. So it was “Party till you puke,’” mostly.

It was funny as she looked around now, knowing what she knew about Morganville. She’d never realized what an insulated little world college was; she’d be willing to bet that ninety percent of the kids attending had no idea what the real score was in town, or ever would. TPU was like a wildlife park, and the students were the wildlife.

And sometimes, the herd got culled.

Claire shivered, looked around for any signs of lurking Monicas, and took off for home. It wasn’t a long walk, but it took her over the nicely tended (though sun-seared) grounds and out into Morganville proper’s “business district’”—which really wasn’t. It was a sideshow for the students, all coffee shops (she wondered what poor fool Oliver had gotten to fill Eve’s empty barista apron) and bookstores and trendy clothing emporiums. Buildings sported school colors—green and white—and usually had STUDENT DISCOUNT signs fading in the windows.

There was a weedy-looking guy in black standing at the corner, watching her with burning dark eyes. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t think why…somebody from class, maybe? Scary, anyway. She wondered why he was staring at her. There were other girls on the street. Prettier ones.

Claire walked faster. When she looked back, he wasn’t there anymore. Was that better, or way creepier?

Walking even faster seemed like a great idea suddenly.

As Claire passed Common Grounds, the coffee shop, she glanced inside and saw someone she thought she recognized…but what the hell would Shane’s dad be doing here? In the middle of the day? He didn’t exactly blend in with the college crowd, and every cop in town was shaking the trees for him, right?

But there he was. Granted, she’d gotten only a quick look, but how many Frank Collins look-alikes could there be in Morganville?

I should get the hell out of here, she thought, but then she wondered. If she could find out what he was doing, maybe that would help Michael and Shane with planning what to do next. Besides, it was the middle of the day, broad daylight, and it wasn’t like Mr. Collins didn’t know where to find her if he wanted—he knew where she lived, after all.

So Claire opened the door and slipped inside, hiding behind a couple of big jocks with bulky laptop-laden backpacks who were having some earnest conversation about whether baseball stats were legitimate during the steroid years, or had to be thrown out. Yes, that was Shane’s dad, and he was sitting in the corner of the coffee bar, sipping from a cup. Plain as day.

What the hell…?

She caught her breath as Oliver slipped into the seat opposite him. Oliver was a lanky guy, tall and a bit stooped, with long curling hair that was sprinkled and shot through with gray. Not very threatening, Oliver, until you saw the fangs and the real personality lurking underneath what he put on for the public. Oliver was terrifying, and she had no desire at all to get into any position where she’d have to deal with him again.

Claire turned to go, and ran into a broad chest clad in a soft gray T-shirt. She looked up, and saw a guy she didn’t recognize—a little older than Shane, maybe, but not much. He had soft, short red hair, and he was fair-skinned and freckled. Big blue eyes, the kind of blue that made her think of clear skies or deep oceans. He was just…pretty. And kind of peaceful.

Big and solid, and wearing—of all things, in this Texas late-summer heat wave—an old, worn brown leather jacket. No backpack, but he looked like a student.

He smiled down at her. She expected him to step out of the way, but he didn’t; instead, he reached down, took her hand, and said, “Hello, Claire. I’m Sam. Let’s talk.’”

His fingers felt cool, like clay. And he was, under the freckles, a little too pale. And there was something fey and sad in his eyes, too.

Oh, crap. Vampire.

Claire tried to pull free. He held on effortlessly. He could break bones if he wanted to—she sensed it—but he used just enough strength to keep her from getting loose. “Don’t,’” Sam said. “I need to talk to you. Please, I promise not to hurt you. Let’s sit down, okay?’”

“But—’” Claire looked around, alarmed. The two jocks were moving away, heading for the bar to get drinks. The place was busy, and there were students everywhere—chatting, laughing, playing games, tapping away on laptops, talking on cell phones. And, of course, nobody was paying attention to her. She could make a scene and probably get away, but that would draw the attention of Oliver, not to mention Shane’s dad, and she didn’t want that. Low-pro was the order of the day.

Claire swallowed and let the vampire pull her to a secluded table near the window. He sat far from the hard white line of sunshine that had crept in across the wooden floor. The canopy outside screened most of it, but there was a tiny little area of risk left, she supposed.

Sam kept hold of her hand. She sat down, tried to make her voice strong and steady, and said, “Would you mind letting go now? Since I’m sitting?’”

“What? Oh. Sure.’” He released her, and gave her a smile that even her biased, suspicious (verging on paranoid) mind interpreted as…sweet. “Sorry. You’re just so warm. It feels good.’”

He sounded wistful. She couldn’t afford to feel sorry for him, no way in hell. Couldn’t. “How do you know my name?’” she asked.

His blue eyes narrowed when he smiled. “You’re kidding. Everybody knows your name. You, Shane, Eve, Michael. The Founder put out a Directive. First time in, oh, I guess about thirty years, maybe forty. Pretty dramatic stuff. We’re all on our best behavior around you, don’t worry.’” His gaze flicked around, touched on Oliver, and came back to her. “Well, except for people who don’t really have a best behavior.’”

“People,’” Claire said, and crossed her arms. She hoped it made her look tough and strong, but she really did it because she was feeling cold. “You’re not people.’”

Sam looked a bit hurt. “Harsh, Claire. Of course we’re people. We’re just…different.’”

“No, you kill people. You’re—parasites!’” And she had no idea why she was getting into a debate about it with a total stranger. A vampire, at that. At least he hadn’t done that thing to her like Brandon had done, that mesmerizing thing. Oh, and she wasn’t supposed to be looking him in the eye. Crap. She’d forgotten. Sam seemed kind of, well, normal. And he did have lovely eyes.

Sam was thinking over what she’d said, as if it was a serious argument. “Food chain,’” he offered.

“What?’”

“Well, humans are parasites and mass murderers, from the point of view of vegetables.’”

That…almost made some kind of weird sense. Almost. “I’m not a carrot. What do you want from me? Besides the obvious, I mean.’” She mimed fangs in the neck.

He looked a little ashamed. “I need to ask you a favor. Can you give something to Eve for me?’”

She couldn’t imagine anything Eve would want less than a gift from a vampire. “No,’” she said. “Is that it? Can I go?’”

“Wait! It’s nothing bad, I swear. It’s just that I always thought she was a lot of fun. I’m going to miss her coming in here. She always brightened up the place.’” He reached in his pocket and took out a small black box, which he handed over. Claire frowned and fidgeted with it for a second, then snapped the cover open. Not that it was any of her business, but…

It was a necklace. A pretty one, silver, with a shiny coffin-shaped locket. Claire raised her eyes to Sam’s, reminded herself again not to do that, and focused somewhere in the middle of his chest. (He had a nice chest. Kind of built, actually.) “What’s in it?’”

“Open it,’” he said, and shrugged. “I’m not trying to hide anything. I told you, it’s nothing dangerous.’”

She snapped the lid of the coffin open. Inside, there was a tiny silver statue of a girl with her arms crossed over her chest. Creepy, but kind of cool, too. Claire had to admit, Eve would probably be delighted.

“Look, I’m not stalking her,’” Sam said. “We’re just…friends. She’s not the biggest fan of the not quite breathing, thanks to that asshole Brandon—I get that. I’m not trying to be her boyfriend. I just thought she might like it.’”

Sam was not fitting into Claire’s recently built pigeonholes, so new they still smelled of mental sawdust. VAMPIRES—BAD, one said. The one next to it said VAMPIRES—DOWNRIGHT EVIL. Those were pretty much the only two vampire slots available.

She didn’t know where to put him. Sam just looked like a guy with sad eyes and a sweet smile, who could use some sun. A normal guy, one she’d probably get her heart rate up over talking to in class.

But that was probably how he got his victims, she reminded herself. She snapped the cover shut on the locket, closed the case, and slid it back across the table to him. “Sorry,’” she said. “I’m not taking anything. If you want her to have it, give it to her yourself. Not that I think she’ll ever come in here again.’”

Sam looked taken aback, but he took the case and put it in the pocket of his leather jacket. “Okay,’” he said. “Thanks for listening. Can I ask you something else? Not a favor, just information.’”

She wasn’t sure, but she nodded.

“It’s about Amelie.’” Sam had lowered his voice, and his eyes were suddenly fierce and intense. Not so normal-guy. This was what he’d really wanted, not just the gift to Eve. This was personal. “You talked to her, I heard. How is she? How did she seem?’”

“Why?’”

He didn’t break the stare. “She doesn’t talk to me anymore. None of them do. I don’t care about the others, but…I worry about her.’”

Claire couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A vampire wanted her to talk about his vampire queen? Weirdy McWeird. “Um…she seems…fine…. She doesn’t talk to you anymore? Why not?’”

“I don’t know,’” he said, and sat back. “She hasn’t spoken to me for fifty years, give or take a few months. And no matter how many times I ask, I can’t see her. They won’t accept messages.’” Something dark and wounded flickered in those innocent-looking eyes. “She made me, and she abandoned me. Nobody’s seen her in public in a long time. Now suddenly she’s talking to you. Why?’”

Fifty years. She was talking to an at-least-seventy-year-old man, with skin finer than hers. With a gorgeous, unlined face, and eyes that had seen…well…more than she ever would, most likely. Fifty years? “How old are you?’” she blurted, because it was seriously freaking her out.

“Seventy-two. I’m the youngest,’” he said.

“In town?’”

“In the world.’” He fiddled with the sugar container on the table. “Vampires are dying out, you know. That’s why we’re here, in Morganville. We were being slaughtered out there, in the world. But even here, Amelie’s only made two new vampires in the last hundred and fifty years.’” He looked up slowly and met her eyes, and this time, she felt an echo of that thing Brandon did, that compulsion that held her in place. “I know how it looks to you, because I’ve been there. I was born in Morganville; I grew up Protected. I know it sucks to be you around here. You’re slaves. Just because you don’t wear chains and get branded doesn’t make you any less slaves.’”

She flashed on an image of Shane’s mother, dead in the bathtub. “And if we run, you kill us,’” she whispered. She would have expected him to flinch, or have some kind of reaction to that, but Sam’s expression didn’t change at all.

“Sometimes,’” he said. “But Claire, it isn’t like we want to. We’re trying to survive, that’s all. You understand?’”

Claire could almost see him standing there, looking down at Shane’s mom as she bled to death. He’d have that same gentle, sad look in his eyes. Molly Collins would have been just a pet he had to put down, that was all, and it wouldn’t matter to him enough to make him lose a night’s sleep. If vampires slept. Which she was starting to doubt.

She stood up so fast, her chair hit the wall with a clatter. Sam leaned back, surprised, as she grabbed up her backpack. “Oh, I understand,’” Claire said through gritted teeth. “I can’t trust any of you. You want to know how Amelie is? Go ask. There’s probably a good reason why she won’t talk to you!’”

“Claire!’”

She stiff-armed open the door and escaped into the day. She looked back to see Sam standing there at the edge of the strip of sunlight inside Common Grounds, staring after her with an expression on his face like he’d lost his best—his only—friend.

Dammit, she was not any vampire’s friend. She couldn’t be. And she wasn’t going to be, ever.

6

Claire decided on the way home that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to blurt all of it out to Shane—not about Monica, or his dad, or the vampire Sam. Instead, she made dinner (tacos) and waited for Michael to rejoin the world. Which he did, as soon as the sun was safely under the horizon, and looked just as normal and angelic as ever.

She somehow got the message across to him that she needed to talk in private, which resulted in Michael drying dishes in the kitchen while she washed up. How that happened, she wasn’t sure—it wasn’t her turn—but the warm water and smooth suds were kind of soothing.

“Did you tell Shane about Monica?’” Michael asked when she was done relating the day’s events. He didn’t seem bothered, but then, it took a lot to faze Michael. He might have been wiping the plates a little too thoroughly, though.

“No,’” she said. “He gets a little, you know, about her.’”

“Yeah, he does. Okay, you need to be careful, you know that, right? I’d ask Shane to go with you to class, but—’”

“But that’s probably what she wants,’” Claire finished, and handed him another plate. “To get us both together so she can use us against each other. Right?’”

Michael nodded, eyebrows going up. “All she has to do is grab you and she’s got him. So be careful. I’m—not much use, outside of here. Or any use, actually.’”

She felt bad for the flash of anger in his eyes—it wasn’t directed at her but at himself. He hated this. Hated being trapped here while his friends needed him.

“I’ll be fine,’” she said. “I got a new cell phone. Mom and Dad sent it.’”

“Good. You’ve got us all on speed dial?’”

“One, two, and three. And 911 on four.’”

“Sweet.’” Michael hip-bumped her. “How are classes?’”

“Okay.’” She couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for them right at the moment. “We’re not talking about Shane’s dad?’”

“Nothing to talk about,’” he said. “You stay out of Common Grounds, and stay away from Oliver. If Shane’s dad was in there, he was probably just taking a look around. Oliver might have sent him on his way. He does a good regular-guy act.’” Michael ought to know, Claire reflected. Oliver had done a good enough regular-guy act to charm his way into the house, where he’d killed Michael, trying to make him a vampire. The house had saved Michael—partly. A kind of supernatural apology for having failed to protect him in the first place. The house did things like that. It was creepy, and occasionally flat-out scary, but it was at least mostly loyal to whoever was in residence.

Oliver, though…Oliver was loyal to Oliver. And that was about it.

“So we do nothing?’” Claire asked.

“We do the best nothing you’ve ever seen.’” Michael put the last plate away and tossed the towel over his shoulder like a bartender going on break. “Meaning, you do nothing, Claire. That’s an order.’”

She gave him a cockeyed mock salute. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir.’”

He sighed. “I liked you better when you were this timid little kid. What happened?’”

“I started living with you guys.’”

“Oh, right.’”

He fluffed her hair, smiled, and ambled off toward the living room. “It’s game night,’” he said. “I made Shane swear, no video games tonight. I think he’s blowing the dust off of Monopoly. I wouldn’t let him have Risk. He gets crazy with Risk.’”

Didn’t they all?

“So, I got a new job,’” Eve said brightly as they sat on the floor around the Monopoly board. Shane was kicking ass, but Michael had the railroads; Eve and Claire were just mostly watching their money stacks dwindle. No wonder people like this game, Claire thought. It’s just like life.

“You got a job already?’” Shane asked as Michael rattled the dice in his hand and then tossed them out on the faded, warped board. “Jeez, Eve, throw the brakes on full employment. You’re making me look bad.’”

“Shane Collins, permanent slacker. If you’d book more than one interview a month, and actually, you know, show up to them, you might get a job, too.’”

“Oh, so now you’re a career counselor?’”

“Bite me. You’re not even going to ask me where?’”

“Sure,’” Michael said as he moved his cannon across four squares. “Where?…Oh, crap.’”

“That’ll be five hundred, my man. And extra for clean towels in the hotel.’” Shane held out his palm.

“I got hired at the university,’” Eve said, watching Michael count out cash and hand it over to Shane. “In the student union coffee shop. I even got a raise.’”

“Congratulations!’” Claire said. “And you’re not working for an evil vampire. Bonus.’”

“Bosswise, a definite step up. I mean, he’s a slack-jawed loser with bad breath and a drinking problem, but that pretty much describes most of the male population of Morganville….’”

“Hey!’” both Shane and Michael chorused, and Eve gave them both a brilliant grin.

“Excluding the hotties in the room, of course. And cheer up, guys—it includes most of the female population, too. Anyway. Better hours—I’m working days, so not a lot of vamp worries—and bigger paychecks. Plus, I get to check out campus life. I hear they party hard.’”

“From the other side of the counter, all you’re going to see is people dissing you and complaining about their drinks,’” Shane said without looking up. “You watch yourself, Eve. Some of those assholes on campus think that if you’re wearing a name badge, you’re their own personal toy.’”

“Yeah, I know. I heard about Karla.’”

“Karla?’” Claire asked.

“She works at the university,’” Eve said. “Karla Gast. We went to school with her.’” Michael and Shane both looked up and nodded. “She was kind of a party girl in high school, you know? Real pretty, too. She went to work on campus—I don’t know what she was doing—but anyway, she’s missing.’”

“It was in the paper,’” Michael said. “Abducted last night walking to her car.’”

Claire frowned. “Why would it be in the paper? I mean, they don’t usually put stuff like that in the papers, right?’” Because in Morganville, murder was sort of legitimate, wasn’t it?

“They do if it wasn’t vampires,’” Eve said, and nibbled on a carrot stick as she rolled the dice. “Oooooh, pay me my two hundred, Mr. Banker. If she’d been dragged off by vamps, even rogue vamps, it would have just been swept under the carpet like usual. Payoffs to the family, end of the story. But this is different.’”

“Is that, you know, unusual? Crime? Crime that isn’t vampire related, I mean?’”

“Kinda.’” Eve shrugged. “But people tend to get nasty around Morganville. Nasty, or drunk, or timid. One of those.’”

“Which are you?’” Shane asked. Eve bared her teeth at him and growled. “Ouch. Right. Gotcha.’”

“So…Eve, I heard your brother’s out of jail,’” Michael said. Claire was rolling dice for her move, and by the time the plastic hit the board it sounded as loud as plates shattered on a tile floor. Nobody was making a sound. Nobody was breathing, so far as she could tell. From the expression on his face, Michael was clearly rethinking having brought up the subject, and Eve looked…hard and fierce and (deep down) scared.

Shane was just watching, no expression at all.

Awkward.

“Um…’” Claire cautiously slid her Scottie dog the six squares that she’d rolled. “You haven’t said much about your brother.’” She was curious what Eve would say. Because clearly Eve was not happy Michael had brought it up.

“I don’t talk about him,’” Eve said flatly. “Not anymore. His name is Jason, and he’s a dick, and let’s drop the subject, okay?’”

“Okay.’” Claire cleared her throat. “Shane?’”

“What?’” He looked down at the board where she was pointing. “Oh. Right. Three hundred.’”

She mutely handed over her last bills as Shane took the dice in hand.

“Eve, you know what he went to jail for. You don’t think—,’” Michael began, very slowly.

“Shut up, Michael,’” Eve said tensely. “Just shut up, okay? Is it possible he did it? Sure. I wouldn’t put it past him, but he just got out yesterday morning. That’s pretty fast work, even for Jason.’” But she looked shaken, under the fierce expression, and even paler than normal. “You know what? I have to get up early. ’Night.’”

“Eve—’”

She jumped up and headed for the stairs. Michael followed, two steps behind as she climbed toward her room, black tattered-silk skirt fluttering. Claire watched them go, eyebrows raised, and Shane continued to shake the dice.

“Guess the game’s over,’” he said, and rolled anyway. “Heh. Boardwalk. I think that completes Shane’s real estate empire, thank you for playing, good night.’”

“What was Michael talking about?’” Claire asked. “Does he think Eve’s brother might have taken that girl?’”

“No, he thinks Eve’s brother might have killed that girl,’” Shane said. “And the cops probably think so, too. If he did, they’ll get him, and this time, he won’t be getting out of jail. In fact, he probably won’t even make it to jail. One of Karla’s brothers is a cop.’”

“Oh,’” Claire said in a small voice. She could hear the murmur of conversation upstairs. “Well…I guess I should get to bed, too. I have early classes tomorrow.’”

Shane met her eyes. “Might want to give them some privacy for a while.’”

Oh. Right. She jiggled her foot under the table and started gathering up the cash and cards from the table. Her hands brushed Shane’s, and he let go of the cards and took hold.

And then, somehow, she was in his lap, and he was kissing her. Hadn’t meant to do that, but…well. She couldn’t exactly be sorry about it, because he tasted amazing, and his lips were so soft and his hands were so strong…

He leaned back, eyes half-shut, and he was smiling. Shane didn’t smile all that much, and it always left her breathless and tingling. There was a secrecy about it, like he only ever smiled with her, and it just felt…perfect. “Claire, you’re being careful, right?’” He smoothed hair back from her face. “Seriously. You’d tell me if you got into trouble.’”

“No trouble,’” she lied, thinking about Monica’s not-so-veiled threats, and that glimpse of Shane’s dad seated across from Oliver in the coffee shop. “No trouble at all.’”

“Good.’” He kissed her again, then moved down her jawline to her neck, and, wow, neck nibbles that took her breath away again. She closed her eyes and buried her fingers in his warm hair, trying to tell him through every touch how much she liked this, liked him, loved…

Her eyes came open, fast.

She did not just think that.

Shane’s warm hands moved up her sides, thumbs grazing the sides of her breasts again, and he traced his fingers across the thin skin of her collarbone…down to where the neck of her T-shirt stopped him. Teasing. Pulling it down an inch, then two.

And then, maddeningly, he let go and leaned back, lips damp. He licked them, watching her, and gave her that slow, crazy sexy smile again.

“Go to bed,’” he said. “Before I decide to come with.’”

She wasn’t sure she could stand up, but somehow, she got her legs to steady under her, and made it up the stairs. Michael was in Eve’s room, the door was open, and they were sitting together on her bed. Michael was so bright, with his golden hair and china blue eyes, and he didn’t match the room all draped in dramatic black and red. He looked like an angel who’d taken a massive wrong turn.

He was holding Eve in his arms and rocking her, very gently, back and forth. As Claire looked in, he met her eyes and mouthed, Close the door.

She did, and went to her own bed.

Sadly, alone.

It occurred to Claire that she’d be smart to know what Jason Rosser looked like, in order to avoid him, but she had the strong feeling that it wouldn’t be a very good idea to ask Eve for a peek at the family album. Eve was pretty touchy just now about anything to do with her brother…which, if Shane’s pessimistic assessment was right, probably wasn’t the wrong attitude.

So Claire went researching. Not the university library, which—while not too bad—didn’t really have a lot of info about Morganville itself. She’d checked. There was some history, all carefully blanded down, and some newspaper archives.

But there was a Morganville Historical Society. She found the address in the phone book, studied the map, and calculated the time it would take to walk the distance. If she hustled, she could get there, find what she needed, and still make it to her noon class.

Claire showered, dressed in blue jeans and a black knit top with a screen-printed flower on it—one of her thrift-shop buys—and grabbed her backpack on the way to the door. She set herself a blistering pace once she hit the sidewalks, heading away from the university and into the unexplored guts of Morganville. She had the map with her, which was handy, because as soon as she was out of sight of the Glass House, things became confusing. For having been master planned, Morganville was not exactly logical in the way its streets ran. There were culs-de-sac, dead ends, lots of unlit deserted areas.

But then again, maybe that was logical, from a vampire’s planning perspective. Even in the hot beat of the sunlight, Claire shuddered at that idea, and moved faster past a street that ended in a deserted field littered with piled-up lumber and assorted junk. It even smelled like decay, the ugly smell of dead things left to rot in the heat. Having too much imagination was sometimes a handicap. At least I’m not walking it at night….

No power on earth was going to make her do that.

The residential areas of Morganville were old, mostly run-down, parched and beaten by summer. It was bound to get cooler soon, but for now, Indian summer was broiling the Texas landscape. Cicadas sang in dull dental-drill whines in the grass and trees, and there was a smell of dust and hot metal in the wind. Of all the places to find vampires, this was pretty much the last she would have expected. Just not…Goth enough. Too run-down. Too…American.

The next street was her turn, according to the map. She made it, stopped in the shade of a live oak tree, and took a couple of drinks from her water bottle as she considered how much longer a walk it would be. Not long, she thought. Which was good, because she was not going to miss another class. Ever.

The street dead-ended. Claire came to a stop, frowning, and checked; nope, according to the map, it went all the way through. Claire sighed in frustration and started to turn back to retrace her path, then hesitated when she saw a narrow passage between two fences. It looked like it went through to the next street.

Lose ten minutes or take a chance. She’d always been the lose-ten-minutes kind of girl, the prudent one, but maybe living in the Glass House had corrupted her. Besides, it was hot as hell out here.

She headed for the gap between the fences.

“I wouldn’t do that, child,’” said a voice. It was coming from the deep shadow of a porch, on a house to her right. It looked better cared for than most houses in Morganville—freshly painted in a light sea blue, some brick trim, a neatly kept yard. Claire squinted and shaded her eyes, and finally saw a tiny birdlike old lady seated on a porch swing. She was as brown as a twig, with drifting pale hair like dandelion fuzz, and since she was dressed in a soft green sundress that hung on her like a bag, she looked like nothing so much as a wood spirit, something out of the old, old storybooks.

The voice, though, was pure warm Southern honey.

Claire backed up hastily from the entrance to the passageway. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to trespass.’”

The tiny little thing cackled. “Oh, no, child, you’re not trespassin’. You’re bein’ a fool. You ever heard of ant lions? Or trapdoor spiders? Well, you walk down that path, you won’t be comin’ out the other side. Not this world.’”

Claire felt a pure cold bolt of panic, followed by a triumphant crow from the prudent side of her brain: I knew that! “But—it’s daytime!’”

“So it is,’” the old woman said, and rocked gently back and forth on her swing. “So it is. Day don’t always protect round Morganville. You should know that, too. Now, go back the way you came like a good child, and don’t come here again.’”

“Yes, ma’am,’” Claire said, and started to back away.

“Gramma, what are you—oh, hello!’” The screen door to the house opened, and a younger version of the Stick Lady stepped out—young enough to be a granddaughter. She was tall and pretty, and her skin was more cocoa than wood brown. She wore her hair in braids, lots of them, and she smiled at Claire as she came to lay a hand on the old lady’s shoulder. “My gramma likes to sit out here and talk to people. I’m sorry if she bothered you.’”

“No, not at all,’” Claire said, and nervously fiddled with one of the loose adjustment straps of her backpack. “She, um, warned me about the alley.’”

The woman’s eyes moved rapidly, from Claire to the old lady and back again. “Did she?’” she said. She didn’t sound warm anymore. “Gramma, you know better than that. You need to quit scaring people with your stories.’”

“Don’t be a damn fool, Lisa. They ain’t just stories, and you know it.’”

“Gramma, there hasn’t been any—trouble around here for twenty years!’”

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen,’” Gramma said stubbornly, and pointed a stick-thin shaking finger at Claire. “You don’t go down that alley, now. I meant what I said.’”

“Yes, ma’am,’” she said faintly, and nodded to both women. “Um, thanks.’”

Claire turned to go, and as she did, she noticed something mounted on the wall next to the old woman’s porch swing. A plaque, with a symbol.

The same symbol as was on the Glass House. The Founder’s symbol.

And now that she was looking at the house, really looking, it had some of the same lines to it, and it was about the same age.

Claire turned back, smiled apologetically, and said, “I’m sorry, but could I use your restroom? I’ve been chugging water out here—’”

She thought for a second that Lisa was going to say no, but then the younger woman frowned and said, “I suppose,’” and came down the steps to open the white picket gate for Claire to enter. “Go on inside. It’s the second door off the hall.’”

“Offer the child some lemonade, Lisa.’”

“She’s not staying, Gramma!’”

“How you know if you don’t ask?’”

Claire let them argue it out, and stepped inside. She didn’t feel anything—no tingle of a force field or anything—but then, she didn’t going in and out of the Glass House, either.

Still, she recognized it immediately…. There was something about this house. It had the same quality of stillness, of weight, that she always felt at home. Not the same at all inside from a decorating point of view—Gramma and Lisa seemed to like furniture, lots of it, all in fussy floral patterns and chintz, with rugs everywhere and a smothering amount of curtains and lace. Claire walked slowly down the hardwood hallway, trailing her fingers lightly over the paneling. The wood felt warm, but all wood did, right?

“Freaky,’” she muttered, and opened the bathroom door.

It wasn’t a bathroom.

It was a study, a large one, and it couldn’t have been more different from the overblown frilly living room…severe polished wood floors, a massive dark desk, a few glowering portraits on the walls. Dark red velvet curtains blocking out the sun. The walls were lined with books, old books mostly, and in the cabinet there was something that looked like a wine rack, only it held…scrolls?

Amelie was seated at the desk, signing sheets of paper with a gold pen. One of her assistants, also a vampire, was standing attentively next to her, taking each sheet out of the way as she wrote her name.

Neither of them looked up at Claire.

“Close the door,’” Amelie said in a gentle voice accented with an almost-French sort of pronunciation. “I dislike the draft.’”

Claire thought about running, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe she could run far enough, or fast enough, and even though the idea of shrieking and slamming the door from the other side was pretty tempting, she swallowed her fear and stepped all the way in before she shut it with a quiet click.

“Is this your house?’” Claire asked. It was the only thing she could think of to ask, frankly; every other question had been shaken right out of her head because this couldn’t be happening.

Amelie glanced up, and her eyes were just as cool and intimidating as Claire remembered. It felt a little like being frostbitten. “My house?’” she echoed. “Yes, of course. They are all my house. Oh, I see what you ask. You ask if the particular house you entered is my home. No, little Claire, it is not where I hide myself from my enemies, although it would certainly be a useful choice. Very…’” Amelie smiled slowly. “Unexpected.’”

“Then…how…?’”

“You’ll find that when I need you, Claire, you will be called.’” Amelie signed the last paper, then handed it to her assistant—a tall, dark young man in a black suit and tie—and he bowed slightly and left the room through another door. Amelie sat back in her massive carved chair, looking more like a queen than ever, including the golden coronet of hair on top of her head. Her long fingers tapped lightly on the lion-head arms of the chair. “You are not in the house where you were, my dear. Do you understand that?’”

“Teleportation,’” Claire said. “But that’s not possible.’”

“Yet you are here.’”

“That’s science fiction!’”

Amelie waved her graceful hand. “I fail to understand your conventions of literature these days. One impossible thing such as vampires, this is acceptable, but two impossible things becomes science fiction? Ah well, no matter. I cannot explain the workings of it; that is a subject for philosophers and artisans, and I am neither. Not for many years.’” Her frost-colored eyes warmed just a fraction. “Put down your pack. I’ve seen tinkers carrying lighter loads.’”

What’s a tinker? Claire wondered. She started to ask, but didn’t want to sound stupid. “Thank you,’” she said, and carefully lowered her backpack to the wooden floor, then slid into one of the two chairs facing the desk. “Ma’am.’”

“So polite,’” Amelie said. “And in a time when manners are forgotten…you do understand what manners are, don’t you, Claire? Behaviors that allow humans to live closely together without killing each other. Most of the time.’”

“Yes, ma’am.’”

Silence. Somewhere behind Claire, a big clock ticked away minutes; she felt a drop of sweat glide down her neck and splash into the fabric of her black knit shirt. Amelie was staring at her without blinking or moving, and that was weird. Wrong. People just didn’t do that.

But then, Amelie wasn’t people. In fact, of all the vampires, in many ways she was the most not-people.

“Sam asked about you,’” Claire blurted, just because it popped into her head and she wanted Amelie to stop staring at her. It worked. Amelie blinked, shifted her weight, and leaned forward to rest her pointed chin on her folded hands, elbows still braced on the arms of the chair.

“Sam,’” she said slowly, and her gaze wandered up and to her right, fixed on nothing. Trying to remember, Claire thought; she’d noticed how people—even vampires, apparently—did that with their eyes when remembering things. “Ah yes. Samuel.’” Her gaze snapped back to Claire with unnerving speed. “And how did you come to chat with dear young Samuel?’”

Claire shrugged. “He wanted to talk to me.’”

“About?’”

“He asked about you. I—think he’s lonely.’”

Amelie smiled. She wasn’t trying to impress Claire with her vampiness—no need for that!—so her teeth looked white and even, perfectly normal. “Of course he’s lonely,’” she said. “Samuel is the youngest. No one older trusts him; no one younger exists. He has no ties to the vampire community, save me, and no ties left to the human world. He is more alone than anyone you will ever meet, Claire.’”

“You say that like you…want him that way. Alone, I mean.’”

“I do,’” Amelie said calmly. “My reasons are my own. However, it is an interesting experiment, to see how someone so alone will react. Samuel has been intriguing; most vampires would have simply turned brutal and un-caring, but he continues to seek comfort. Friendship. He is unusual, I think.’”

“You’re experimenting on him!’” Claire said.

Amelie’s platinum eyebrows slowly rose to form perfect arches over her cold, amused eyes. “Clever of you to think such a thing, but attend: a rat who knows it is running a maze is no longer a useful subject. So you will keep your counsel, and you will keep your distance from dear sweet Samuel. Now. Why did you come to me today?’”

“Why did I…?’” Claire cleared her throat. “I think maybe there’s been a mistake. I was, you know, looking for a bathroom.’”

Amelie stared at her for a frozen second, and then she threw back her head and laughed. It was a full, living sound, warm and full of unexpected joy, and when it passed, Claire could see the traces of it still on her face and in her eyes. Making her look almost…human. “A bathroom,’” she repeated, and shook her head. “Child, I have been told many things, but that may yet prove the most amusing. If you wish a bathroom, please, go through that door. You will find all that you require.’” Her smile faded. “But I think you came to ask me something more.’”

“I didn’t come here at all! I was going to the Morganville Historical Society….’”

“I am the Morganville Historical Society,’” Amelie said. “What do you wish to know?’”

Claire liked books. Books didn’t talk back. They didn’t sit there in their fancy throne chairs and look all queeny and imposing and terrifying, and they didn’t have fangs and bodyguards. Books were fine. “Um…I just wanted to look something up…?’”

Amelie was already losing patience. “Just tell me, girl. Quickly. I am not without duties.’”

Claire cleared her throat nervously, coughed, and said, “I wanted to find out about Eve’s brother, Jason. Jason Rosser.’”

“Done,’” Amelie said, and although she didn’t seem to do anything, not even lift a finger, the side door opened and her cute but deathly pale assistant leaned in. “The Rosser family file,’” she told him. He nodded and was gone. “You would have wasted your time,’” Amelie said to Claire. “There are no personnel files of any kind in the Historical Society building. It is purely for show, and the information there is inaccurate, at best. If you want to know the true history of things, little one, come to someone who has lived it.’”

“But that’s just perspective,’” Claire said. “Not fact.’”

“All fact is perspective. Ah, thank you, Henry.’” Amelie accepted a folder from her assistant, who silently left again. She flipped it open, studied what was inside, and then handed it over to Claire. “An unexceptional family. Curious that it produced young Eve and her brother.’”

It was their whole lives reduced to dry entries in longhand on paper. Dates of births, details of school records…there were handwritten reports from the vampire Brandon, who gave them Protection. Even those were dry.

And then not so dry, because between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, Eve changed. Big-time. The school photograph at fifteen was of a pretty, fragile-looking girl dressed in conservative clothes—something even Claire would have worn.

Eve’s photograph at sixteen was Goth City. She’d dyed her dark hair a flat glossy black, whited her face, raccooned her eyes, and generally adopted a ’tude. By seventeen she’d started getting piercings—one showed in the tongue she stuck out at the camera.

By eighteen, she looked pensive and defiant, and then the photographs stopped, except for some that looked like surveillance photos of Eve in Common Grounds, pulling espresso shots and chatting with customers.

Eve with Oliver.

You’re supposed to be looking up Jason, Claire reminded herself, and flipped the page.

Jason was just the same, only younger; about the time that Eve had turned Goth, so had Jason, although on him it looked less like a fashion choice and more like a serious turn to the dark side. Eve always had a light of humor and mischief in her eyes; Jason had no light in his eyes at all. He looked skinny, strong, and dangerous.

And Claire realized with an icy start that she’d seen him before…. He’d been on the street, staring at her just before she’d gone into Common Grounds and talked to Sam.

Jason Rosser knew who she was.

“Jason likes knives, as I recall,’” Amelie said. “He sometimes fancies himself a vampire. I should be quite careful of him, were I you. He is not likely to be as…polite as my own people.’”

Claire shivered and flipped pages, speed-reading through Jason’s not-very-impressive academic life, and then the police reports.

Eve had been the witness who’d turned him in. She’d seen him abduct this girl and drive away with her—a girl who was later found wandering the streets bleeding from a stab wound. The girl refused to testify, but Eve had gone on record. And Jason had gone away.

The file showed he’d been released from prison the day before yesterday at nine in the morning. Plenty of time for him to have grabbed Karla Gast on campus and…

Out with the bad thoughts, Claire. In with the good.

She flipped pages and looked at Eve’s mother and dad. They looked…normal. Kind of grim, maybe, but with a son like Jason, that probably wasn’t too strange. Still, they didn’t look like the kind of parents who’d just toss their daughter out on her ear and never write or call or visit.

Claire closed the file and slid it back across the desk to Amelie, who put it in a wooden out-box at the corner of her desk. “Did you find what you wished to know?’” Amelie asked.

“I don’t know.’”

“What a wise thing to say,’” Amelie said, and nodded once, like a queen to a subject. “You may go now. Use the door that brought you.’”

“Um…thanks. Bye.’” Which sounded like a dumbass thing to say to someone a billion years old, who controlled the town and everything in it, but Amelie seemed to accept it fine. Claire grabbed her backpack and hurried through the polished wood door…

…into a bathroom. With lots of floral wallpaper and really yak-worthy frilly doll-skirt toilet paper covers.

Reality whiplash.

Claire dropped her backpack and yanked open the door again.

It was the hallway. She looked right, then left. The room even smelled different—talcum powder and old-lady perfume. No trace of Amelie, her silent servants, or the room where they’d been.

“Science fiction,’” Claire said, deeply unhappy, and—feeling strangely guilty—flushed the toilet before trudging back the way she’d come. The house was warm, but the heat outside was like a slap from a microwaved towel.

Oh, she was so going to figure that trick out. She couldn’t stand the idea of it being, well, magic. Sure, vampires she could accept…grudgingly…and the whole mind-control thing. But not instantaneous transportation. Nope.

Lisa was sitting next to Gramma on the porch swing now, sipping lemonade. There was an extra one gathering beads of sweat on the small table next to her, and she nodded Claire to it without speaking.

“Thanks,’” Claire said, and took a deep, thirsty gulp. It was good—maybe too sweet, but refreshing. She drained it fast and held on to the cool glass, wondering if it was bad manners to crunch the ice cubes. “How long have you lived here?’”

“Gramma’s been in this house all her life,’” Lisa said, and gently rubbed her grandmother’s back. “Right, Gramma?’”

“Born here,’” the old woman said proudly. “Gonna die here, too, when I’m good and ready.’”

“That’s the spirit.’” Lisa poured Claire another glass of lemonade from a half-empty pitcher. “I find anything missing in Gramma’s house, college girl, and you can’t hide from me in Morganville. You feel me?’”

“Lisa!’” Gramma scolded. “I’m so sorry, honey. My granddaughter never learned proper manners.’” She smacked Lisa on the hand and gave her the parental glare. “This nice girl here, she never would steal from an old lady. Now, would you, honey?’”

“No, ma’am,’” Claire said, and drank half of the second serving of lemonade. It tasted as tart and sweet and wonderful as the first. “I was just wondering, about the symbol next to your door…’”

Lisa and Gramma both looked at her sharply. Neither one of them replied. They were both wearing bracelets, she noticed, plain silver with the Founder’s symbol on a metal plaque, like those Medic Alert bracelets. Finally, Lisa said, softly, “You need to leave now.’”

“But—’”

“Go!’” Lisa yelled it, grabbed the glass out of Claire’s hand, and thumped it down on the table. “Don’t you make me throw you down the stairs in front of my gramma!’”

“Hush, Lisa,’” Gramma said, and leaned forward with a creaking sound, from either the wooden porch swing or her old bones. “Girl’s got no better sense than God gave a sheep, but that’s all right. It’s the Founder’s symbol, child, and this is the Founder’s house, and we’re the Founder’s people. Just like you.’”

Lisa looked at her, openmouthed. “What?’” she finally said when she got control of her voice.

“Can’t you see it?’” Gramma waved her hand in front of Claire. “She shines, baby. They see it, I guarantee you they do. They won’t touch her, mark or no mark. Worth their lives if they do.’”

“But—’” Lisa looked as frustrated and helpless as Claire felt. “Gramma, you’re seeing things again.’”

“I do not see things, missy, and you better remember just who in this family stayed alive when everybody else fell.’” Gramma’s faded eyes fixed on Claire, who shivered despite the oppressive, still heat. “Don’t know why she marked you, child, but she did. Now you just got to live with it. Go on, now. Go home. You got what you came for.’”

“She did?’” Lisa scowled fiercely. “Swear to God, if you lifted anything from our house—’”

“Hush. She didn’t steal. But she got what she needed, didn’t you, girl?’”

Claire nodded and nervously ran a hand through her hair. She was sweating buckets; her hair felt sticky and wet. Home suddenly sounded like a real good idea.

“Thank you, ma’am,’” she said, and extended her hand. Gramma looked at it for a few seconds, then took it in a birdlike grip and shook. “Can I come back and see you sometime?’”

“Long as you bring me some chocolate,’” Gramma said, and smiled. “I’m partial to chocolate.’”

“Gramma, you’re diabetic.’”

“I’m old, girl. Gonna die of something. Might as well be chocolate.’”

They were still arguing as Claire retreated down the steps, through the neatly kept front garden, and out through the gate in the white picket fence. She looked at that alley, the one she’d almost taken, and this time she felt a shiver of warning. Trapdoor spiders. No, she no longer had any desire to take shortcuts. And she’d learned about as much as she could stomach about Jason Rosser. At least she knew now who to watch out for, if he started following her around again.

Claire hitched her backpack to a more comfortable position, and began walking.

7

There was no sign of Shane’s dad or the bikers. In fact, it was very quiet in Morganville, despite Claire’s fears. Travis Lowe and Joe Hess dropped by early the next morning to deliver the no-news-is-good-news party line to Eve and the house in general; they were polite and kind, and generally seemed like okay guys for cops, but they made Claire feel scared and paranoid. She supposed all cops were like that, when they were on Official Business. It didn’t seem to bother Eve at all; she was up, bleary-eyed and yawning, fresh out of the shower and still wrapped in a Hello Kitty bathrobe, free of the Goth mask. Shane was, predictably, asleep, and who knew where Michael was? Watching, Claire thought. Always watching. She supposed that should have been creepy, except that in Michael’s case, it was just…comforting.

“Hey, guys,’” Eve said after wandering down the stairs into the living room. She plopped on the couch, bounced, and yawned again. “Coffee. Need coffee.’”

“I made some,’” Claire said, and went into the kitchen to get it. Travis Lowe followed her silently and carried the cups back out. He and his partner drank it black; Claire could barely stand it even with more milk and sugar than actual coffee. Eve was cream only, no sugar, and she sucked it down like Gatorade after a hard work-out, then collapsed against the couch cushions and sighed happily.

“Morning, Officers,’” she said, and closed her eyes. “It’s too early for this.’”

“Heard you got a job on campus,’” Hess said. “Congratulations, Eve.’”

“Yea, me.’” She made a lazy woo-hoo gesture. “You come all this way to say that?’”

“Not a long way in Morganville.’” Hess shrugged. “But no. Like I told Claire, there’s no sign of your intruders. So I think you’re in the clear on that. Hope that makes your day better.’”

Eve shot Claire a fast, tentative look. “Sure,’” she said. “Um…about…the other thing…?’”

“You want to talk in private?’” Claire asked, and stood up with her coffee cup in hand. “’Cause I can go on to school…’”

“Sit,’” Hess said. “You’re not going anywhere yet. And you’re not going anywhere by yourself.’”

“I’m…what?’”

“We’re giving you girls a ride to school,’” Lowe said, and sipped his coffee. “And a ride home when you’re done. Consider us your Thin Blue Line Taxi Service.’”

“No!’” Claire blurted, appalled. “I mean, you can’t—you shouldn’t—why?’”

“Eve knows why,’” Hess said. “Don’t you, Eve?’”

Eve put her coffee cup on the side table and crossed her arms against her chest. She looked very young in pink and white, and very scared. “Jason.’”

“Yeah, Jason.’” Hess cleared his throat, glanced at Claire, and continued. “We found Karla Gast late last night. Well, actually, some of our more night-inclined colleagues found her. Dumped in a vacant lot about six blocks from here behind some piled-up lumber.’”

In a flash, Claire remembered walking past the empty lot on her way to her unintended visit with Amelie. She’d even smelled decay. She put her coffee cup down and put both hands over her mouth, fighting an impulse to gag.

“You think—’” Eve looked tense and pale. She licked her lips, swallowed, and continued. “You think Jason was involved.’”

“Yeah,’” Hess said softly. “We think. No proof, though. No witnesses, no forensic evidence, but she was definitely not killed by a vampire. Look, Jason’s been spotted in the area, so I don’t want you out there by yourself for now, okay? Either one of you.’”

“He’s my brother!’” Eve sounded angry now, voice shaking. “How could he do this? What kind of—of—’”

“It’s not your fault,’” Lowe said. “You tried to get him help. He just got sicker.’”

“It is my fault!’” she shouted. “I’m the one who turned him in! I’m the one who didn’t stop Brandon from—’”

“From what?’” Lowe asked, very quietly.

Eve didn’t answer. She looked down at her black-painted fingernails, and picked at them restlessly.

“From moving on to an easier target,’” she said. “Once I made sure he couldn’t get to me.’”

“Christ,’” Lowe muttered in weary disgust. “Someday, that goddamn vamp’s going to get his—’”

“Trav,’” Hess said. “It ain’t laundry day. Let’s not air it in public.’”

“Yeah, I know, but Jesus Christ, Joe, it ain’t like this is the first time….’”

It took Claire a few seconds to work out what they were all talking about, but then she remembered Eve’s poetry that she’d looked through on the computer…all romantic Aren’t vampires great? stuff until she was about fifteen, and then…no more romance. Brandon. Brandon tried to mess with her when she was fifteen.

And Jason was her younger brother.

“What did he do to him?’” Claire asked in a very small voice. “Brandon, I mean. Did he—bite him?’”

Eve didn’t look up, but her cheeks went pink to match her robe. “Sometimes,’” she said. “And sometimes it was worse than that. We’re just toys to him, you know. Dolls. We’re not real. People aren’t real at all.’”

“I’m afraid the same goes for Jason now,’” Hess said. “Can’t really blame the kid. He didn’t have much of a chance. But I repeat, Eve, you can’t blame yourself, either. You saved yourself, and that’s important.’”

“Yeah, I saved myself by screwing over my brother. What a hero.’”

“You be careful with all that guilt,’” Lowe said. “It’ll pound you down. Your parents were the ones who should have stepped in, and you know it. Anybody willing to let their kids become toys, just to get ahead…’”

Claire reached out and took hold of Eve’s hand. Eve, surprised, looked up—she wasn’t crying, which was kind of surprising because Eve cried a lot. Her eyes were dry, clear, and hard. Angry.

“Why do you think I left?’” she asked. “As soon as I could. Between my parents and what Brandon made out of Jason…’”

Claire couldn’t think of anything to say. She just sat there, holding Eve’s hand. She’d never been through any of that…. She’d grown up warm and safe in a house where her parents loved her. In a town where there were no such things as vampires, where child abuse and molestation were something that happened on the evening news, and if anybody had brothers who killed people, it happened in big cities, to people she didn’t know.

All this was just…too much to take in. And much too painful.

“It’s going to be okay,’” she finally said. Eve smiled at her sadly, but her eyes were still fierce.

“No,’” she said. “Don’t think so, Claire. But thanks.’”

She took a deep breath, let go of Claire’s hand, and turned back to the two cops. “Right. You guys hang out here while I get dressed.’”

“Oh, sure,’” Hess said, and raised an eyebrow. It made his face look crooked, but maybe that was just the way his nose was; Claire wasn’t sure. “Not like we’re protecting or serving or anything.’”

“You’re not even on duty,’” Eve said.

“Busted,’” Lowe said, smiling. “We’re on our own for this. Hurry up, kid—I’d like to get to sleep sometime today before I have to fight for truth and justice again.’”

Eve padded up the stairs, one hand on the railing, and Claire let out a slow, careful breath. Eve was kind of like an unexploded bomb right now. Claire ached to make it all better, but there was no way she could do that…and no way that Eve would even let her try, she thought.

She wished Shane would wake up. She needed…well, something. A hug, maybe. Or one of those deliciously warm kisses. Or just to look at him, all rumpled and grumpy with his hair sticking up at odd angles, sheet creases on his face, his bare feet looking so cute and soft…

She had never thought of a guy’s feet as sexy before. Not even movie-star feet. But Shane…there was no part of him that wasn’t sizzle hot.

“More coffee?’” Hess asked, and waggled his empty mug. Claire sighed and took his and Lowe’s into the kitchen for refills.

She had just set the two ceramic cups down on the counter, and was reaching for the coffeepot, when a big, thick, sweaty hand closed over her mouth, and irresistibly strong arms yanked her backward. She tried to scream, and kicked, but whoever had her, really had her. She squirmed, but it didn’t do any good.

“Quiet,’” a rough male voice whispered in her ear. “Shut up, or this gets ugly.’”

It was already ugly, at least from Claire’s terrified side of things. She went still, and the man holding her lowered her down enough to let her sneakered toes touch the floor. Didn’t let her go, though.

She’d already figured out who it was—the speaker, not the one holding her—before Shane’s dad stepped out into her view and leaned forward, scary-close. “Where’s my son?’” he asked. His breath was nasty, and stank of booze. Breakfast of Collins champions. “Just nod. Is he in the house?’” She nodded slowly. The hand muffling her mouth let her do it. “Upstairs?’” She nodded again. “Those cops in the living room?’” She nodded vigorously, and tried to think what she could do to get Detective Hess’s attention. Screaming wasn’t doing any good; the kitchen door was pretty solid, and it was useless to try to get sound past a hand that was about two inches thick. If they’d grabbed her when she was holding the mugs, at least she could have dropped them….

“My kid likes you,’” Shane’s dad said. “That’s all that keeps you alive right now, you get me? So don’t push your luck. I could always change my mind, and you could get buried out back with your little friend Michael. Now, my buddy here is going to let go of your mouth, and you’d better not scream, because if you do, we’re just going to have to do some killing, starting with you and ending with the cops. And that vampire-wannabe girlfriend of yours. You get me? My son is all that matters to me.’”

Claire swallowed hard and nodded again. The hand pulled slowly away from her mouth.

She didn’t scream. She pressed her lips together to hold in the urge.

“Good girl,’” Shane’s dad said. “Now tell me what the cops are doing here. They looking for us?’”

She shook her head. “They think you’re gone,’” she said. “They’re here to take me and Eve to school.’”

“School.’” He poured contempt into the word. “That’s not a school. It’s a holding pen for cattle.’”

She licked her lips and tasted the sweat of the guy who was holding her. Disgusting. “You need to go. Right now.’”

“Or?’”

“You can’t do what you’re here to do if everybody’s still looking for you,’” she said. She was making it up, but suddenly it made sense to her. “If you have to kill me, and everybody here, they turn the town upside down until they find you. And they’ll put Shane in jail, or worse. If you let me go and take Shane, I’ll just tell them everything anyway, and they turn the town upside down—’”

“Are you trying to scare me, little girl?’”

“No,’” Claire whispered. She could barely get the word out. “I’m trying to tell you what will happen. They’ve kind of given up looking for you, but if you kill me, you lose. And if you let me go, I’m going to tell them everything.’”

“Then why shouldn’t I kill you?’”

“Because I’ll keep my mouth shut if you promise to leave Shane alone.’”

He glared at her, but she could see he was thinking about it.

“Boss,’” said the man holding her. He had a deep voice, rough like his throat was lined with gravel. “Bitch got no reason to keep her word.’”

“What makes you think I like the vamps any more than you do?’” she shot back. “Did Shane tell you about Brandon? I saw you in Common Grounds—were you looking for him? Because if you weren’t, you should be. He’s a dick.’”

Frank Collins’s eyes drifted half-shut, and she was reminded sickly of Shane, somehow. “You telling me which vamps to kill now?’”

“No.’” She swallowed again, acutely aware that at any second the kitchen door could swing open, and someone could come stumbling in, and everything could go to hell on the express train. “Just a suggestion. Because as far as I can tell, he’s just about the worst one. But you’re going to do what you want, I know that. I just want me and my friends out of it.’”

Shane’s dad smiled at her. Smiled. And it seemed, for the first time, like a mostly genuine expression, not just a freaky twist of his lips. “You’re tougher than you look, kid. That’s good. You’re going to need to be, you stick around here.’” He looked past her, at the biker (or so she thought—she could feel leather squeaking behind her when she struggled). “Let her down, man. She’s okay.’”

The biker released her. She jerked forward, spun, and set her back to the refrigerator. She scrambled for a knife in the drawer next to her, found a wicked-looking cleaver, and held it out in front of her. “You need to go,’” she said. “Right now. And don’t come back here, or I swear, I’ll tell them everything.’”

He wasn’t smiling anymore. Well, not as much. The biker behind him, though, was grinning.

“Girl, you don’t know my son at all, do you?’” he asked. “I don’t have to come back here. He’s going to come to me. Eventually.’”

He made a Let’s go gesture to his six-foot bodyguard, and together they went back out the side door of the kitchen. Claire ran to pull it shut and lock it, both locks plus the newly installed sliding bolts.

Which made her wonder why it hadn’t been locked before…oh. Of course. The cops had come in through the kitchen.

She took some deep breaths, rinsed the taste of that sweaty hand off her lips, and picked up the coffee cups.

Her hands were shaking so badly, there was no way she could carry anything liquid. She put them back down and went back to the door to call through, “Making some fresh!’”

She poured out the rest of the pot, loaded it again, and, by the time the machine finished, had mostly gotten herself under control.

Mostly.

Claire had a break between classes—it couldn’t really be called a lunch break, because it fell at ten a.m.—and she walked over to the University Center for coffee. The UC was large and kind of seedy; the carpet was ancient, and the furniture had seen the eighties, at least, and maybe the seventies. It was one large, open atrium filled with couches, chairs, and even—tucked in one corner—a grand piano. Student-activity banners, most badly painted, draped overhead and fluttered in the weak air-conditioning.

Most of the couch groupings were already claimed by students talking or separately studying. Claire had her eye on an open study table near the corner, but she’d have to hurry; there were plenty of people looking for places to settle.

She hurried to the coffee bar at the back of the atrium, and smiled and waved as she spotted Eve behind the espresso machine. Eve waved back, pulled two shots at the same time, and dumped them into steamed milk. The line was about five deep, and Claire had plenty of time to think about what Shane’s dad had said. And what he hadn’t.

What was he doing there today? Really? Maybe he’d come to fetch Shane, but she wasn’t sure. Shane’s dad seemed to have a plan, but she had no idea what it was. Maybe Shane would know, but she didn’t want to ask.

Michael. She’d tell Michael everything, as soon as he appeared.

“Large mocha,’” Claire said, and dug out the required three-fifty from her jeans pocket. It was a huge expense for her, but she figured it was only right to celebrate Eve’s first day on the job. The cashier—a bored-looking guy who was probably wishing he were anywhere else—took her cash and waved her on to the line for drinks.

She was standing there, thumbing through her English-lit book, when she heard muffled laughter, and then a wet dull thud as a drink tipped over on the counter. She looked up to see a ring of guys standing around a spilled drink, which was dripping off both sides of the counter.

“Hey, zombie chick,’” one of them said to Eve, who was standing next to the counter, still pulling shots and very obviously ignoring them. “Wanna clean that up?’”

A muscle fluttered in Eve’s jaw, but she silently got a handful of paper towels and began to mop up the mess. Once the counter was clean, she raised the hinged section of the bar and cleaned the floor on both sides.

The boys continued to snigger. “You missed a spot,’” said the one who’d spilled the drink. “Over there.’”

Eve had to bend over to get to the spot where he was pointing. He quickly stepped up behind her and began banging his crotch against her butt. “Oh, baby!’” he said, and they all laughed. Laughed. “You’re so fucking hot for a dead girl.’”

Eve calmly straightened up, turned around, and stared at him. Not a word. One thing Claire could say for Goth makeup, at least it covered up blushes…. She was blushing, furiously, on Eve’s behalf. And shaking.

“Excuse me,’” Eve finally said, and moved him aside with one hand flat against his chest. She got behind the bar again and slammed down the hatch, took the two espresso shots and dumped them into a fresh cup, stirred, put a lid on it, and put it on the bar. “Here. On the house.’”

The creep reached out, grabbed the cup, and squeezed. The top popped off. Coffee went everywhere, splattering Eve, the counter, the floor, the guy holding it. His buddies burst into open laughter when he said, “Oops. Guess I don’t know my own strength.’”

Eve looked at the guy at the register, but he just shrugged. She took a deep breath, smiled—not, Claire saw, her normal smile at all—and said, “You ought to see a doctor about that, Bullwinkle. Plus the crotch rash. Next! I have a mocha for Claire!’” Eve thumped down another cup and vigorously scrubbed the counter.

Claire hurried up. “Oh my God!’” she whispered. “What do you want me to do? Get somebody?’”

“Who?’” Eve rolled her eyes. “It’s my first day—it’s a little early to run tattling like a girlie girl. Leave it alone, Claire. Just take your coffee and go on. I’ll be fine. I’ve got a PhD in taking shit from jocks.’”

“But—Shane? Should I call Shane?’”

“Only if you want to be cleaning up blood instead of coffee—’”

“Hey, bitch, where’s my drink?’” the guy asked loudly from behind Claire. She felt him crowding up against her a second before he body-slammed her hard against the bar. “Oops, sorry, little girl, didn’t see you there.’” He didn’t move back. “Since when do we have kindergarten classes, anyway?’”

Her mocha had—of course—tumbled out of her hand and was rolling across the counter, bleeding coffee. Eve caught it and set it back upright. “Hey!’” Claire squirmed to get free; he just kept her pinned.

“Hey! Asshole!’” Eve echoed, louder, and pointed a finger over Claire’s head, glaring. “Back off, man, or I call the campus cops.’”

“Yeah, they’ll really come running.’” Still, he backed up enough to let Claire twist away from him, clutching her mocha. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was a big guy—Shane-big—with black gelled hair in the latest cool style and fierce blue eyes. A nice face, good lips, high cheekbones. Altogether too pretty for his own good, Claire thought. “Get me my damn coffee. Some of us have class around here.’”

Claire grabbed paper towels and began mopping up the spill on the customer side of the counter, so Eve didn’t have to come around. Eve gave her a grateful look and began to pull shots. She assembled the drink in record time, slapped the top on it, and handed it to her tormentor.

Who grinned at her, tasted it, and put it back on the counter. “Sucks,’” he said. “Keep it.’”

He high-fived with his friends, and they all walked away.

“What a jerk!’” Claire said, and Eve just raised her eyebrows, took the latte, and poured it out down the sink.

“No, he was right, it did suck,’” she said. “But then, he paid three bucks for it, so I win. How’s the mocha?’”

Claire swallowed a mouthful and gave her a thumbs-up. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something—’”

“Gotta fight our own battles, Claire Bear. Go on. I’m sure you’ve got some kind of studying to do.’”

Claire backed away as Eve began to pull another set of drinks; the line continued to queue up in front of the register.

The guy picking up his latte next—a tall, kind of awkward-looking boy with a round face and big brown eyes—made a point of thanking Eve, who dimpled at him and winked. He looked much nicer than the hard-bodied jerks who’d just left, although Claire noticed that he was wearing a fraternity shirt.

“Epsilon Epsilon Kappa?’” she read out loud. “EEK?’”

He gave her an apologetic smile. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of a joke. Because of the town. You know, creepy.’” He blinked and focused on her, and smiled wider. “I’m Ian, by the way. Ian Jameson. From, ah, Reno.’”

“You’re a long way from home, Ian Jameson,’” Claire said, and stuck out her hand. He shook it. “Claire Danvers. From Longview.’”

“I’d say you were a short way from home, but everything’s far from this place,’” he said. “So, you’re—a freshman?’”

“Yes.’” She felt the dreaded blush creeping up again. “Early admission.’”

“Yeah? How early?’”

She tried to shrug it off. “Couple of semesters. No biggie.’”

“What’s your major?’” Ian took the top off his coffee and blew on it to cool it down, then took a sip. “Thanks again, by the way, this is really good.’”

“No problem,’” Eve said. She sounded much more cheerful now, and gave the sorority girls their skinny-half-caff-no-sugar lattes with a sunny, slightly manic grin.

Nobody had actually bothered to ask Claire what her major was before. Of course, it was customary for a freshman to change three or four times before settling on something, but Claire had always been pretty definite. “Physics.’”

“Really?’” Ian blinked. “Wow. That’s pretty intense. You must be good at math.’”

She shrugged. “I guess.’” Modesty in action; she’d never failed to land an A, ever.

“Gonna transfer out of here, I suppose. I mean, a degree in physics from Nowhere U isn’t going to do you all that much good, right?’”

“I’m hoping for MIT,’” Claire said. “What about you?’”

Ian shook his head. “CE. Civil engineering. Yeah, I’ve got to take physics, but no way would I volunteer to take more. And I’ve got one more semester. Then I transfer out to UT Austin.’”

A lot of students transferred out to the University of Texas; it was a major school for just about everything. Claire nodded. She’d considered it herself, but…MIT? Caltech? If she had a chance, she’d take it.

“So…what’s EEK? A professional fraternity?’” Because there were some on campus; you paid your dues and went to some meetings and put it on your résumé later.

“It’s a bunch of guys who like to party, really.’” Ian looked embarrassed. “I’m in it because I’ve got a couple of friends…anyway, they do throw this really cool party every year—it’s a big bash. It’s called the Dead Girls’ Dance. All zombie-freaky scary-movie stuff.’” He glanced over at Eve, who was steaming milk. “Your friend there would fit right in as is. Most people wear costumes, though.’”

Was he asking her out? No, he couldn’t be. For one thing, she’d just met him. For another…well, nobody ever asked her out. It just didn’t happen.

“It sounds neat,’” Claire said, and thought, I just used the word neat in a conversation with a cute boy, and I should walk away now and shoot myself.

“It’s at the EEK frat house tomorrow night. Listen, if you give me your number, I can text you the details….’”

“Um…sure.’” Nobody had ever asked before. She stumbled over the digits; he keyed it into his cell phone and smiled at her. A nice smile. A really nice smile, actually. “Um, I don’t know if I can come, though.’”

“Well, if you can, you’d save my life. We geeks have to stick together while everybody else goes nuts, right? See you there tomorrow night at eight?’”

“Right,’” she echoed. “Um…sure. I’ll be there. Thanks. Um, Ian, right?’”

“Ian.’”

“Claire,’” she said, and pointed at herself. “Oh. Did I already say that?’”

He laughed and walked away, sipping his latte.

It was only when he did that she realized she’d just agreed to go out on a date. An actual date. With a boy who was not Shane. How had that happened? She’d meant only to be nice, because he seemed like an okay guy, and then he’d been all charming, especially by comparison with the other guys….

She had a date.

With a boy who was not Shane.

Not good.

“Hey,’” Eve said, and motioned her closer. “So, what was that? Is he giving you a hard time or what?’”

“Ummm….’” Claire’s mind went blank. “No. He just—never mind.’”

Eve’s eyes turned from concerned to shrewd. “He hitting on you?’”

Claire settled for a shrug. She had no idea how to tell, actually. “I think he was just being nice.’”

“Guys aren’t nice,’” Eve said. “What did you tell him you’d do?’”

Okay, that was scary, how quickly she’d nailed it. Claire shifted her weight uncomfortably, and fiddled with her heavy backpack. “Maybe I said I might go to this party. But it totally wasn’t a date.’”

“Oh, totally not,’” Eve agreed. And rolled her eyes. “Next up! Vanilla latte!…which totally describes you, by the way.’”

“I’ll, um, be over there,’” Claire said. “Studying.’”

Eve might have wanted to stop her, but the drinks kept coming, and Claire was able to fade away and go in search of her study table. Which, miraculously, was still unoccupied. She thunked down her backpack on the battered wood and sat, sipping her mocha. The UC seemed safer than most places in Morganville…. Anyplace packed with people reading couldn’t be that bad.

Almost like a real university.

Claire was reading ahead in her history text when a shadow fell over the page. She looked up and saw a girl she slightly knew from her old dorm, Howard Hall—a freshman, like herself. Lisa? Lesley? Something like that.

“Hey,’” the girl said. Claire nodded toward the empty chair opposite her, but Lisa/Lesley didn’t sit. “That Goth at the coffee bar, the one who used to work at Common Grounds—is she your friend?’”

Word got around fast. Claire nodded again.

“Might want to keep her from getting herself killed, then,’” Lisa/Lesley said. “’Cause she’s just pulled the pin from the Monica grenade over at the counter.’”

Claire winced and closed her book. She checked her watch; well, it was probably close to time to leave for class anyway. It was bad, and shallow, but she wished that Lisa Lesley had decided not to do her good deed of the day. It would have been nice to leave without another crisis.

Claire repacked her book bag and walked back toward the coffee bar. I’m just going to tell her good-bye, she thought. No agenda here at all. Totally staying out of it.

Monica, Gina, and Jennifer were leaning on the bar, blocking coffee pickup. The counter was all that separated them from Eve, who was steadily ignoring them.

“Hey, Walking Dead, I’m talking to you,’” Monica was saying. “Is it true your brother tried to kill you?’”

“Yeah, was that before or after he tried to do you?’” Hand gestures and everything. Wow, that was low even for Jennifer.

“Tried?’” Gina snickered. “That’s not what I heard. I heard they were getting it on all through high school. No wonder they both turned out to be freaks.’”

Eve’s face was a still white mask, but her eyes…she looked crazy. In control, but just barely. Her hands were steady as she pulled espresso shots and mixed drinks; she thumped the finished products down on the counter, three across, and said, “If you don’t go away, I’m going to call my manager.’”

“Ooooh,’” Monica said. “Your manager. Wow, I’m terrified. You think some barely-over-minimum-wage brain donor stupid enough to work here is going to scare me? Do you?’” She leaned to the side, trying to catch Eve’s eyes. “I’m talking to you, freak face.’”

Gina noticed Claire standing a few feet away, and drew Monica’s attention with a hand on her shoulder. “Two freaks for one,’” she said. “They must be having some kind of special.’”

“Claire.’” Monica’s smile widened. “Sure, why not? You angry I’m ragging on your little lesbo girlfriend?’”

“Make up your mind,’” Claire said. Her voice sounded low and kind of cool, actually. Maybe it was easier doing this here in public, where she felt more comfortable. Or maybe she was actually getting used to facing down Monica. “Are we gay, or did she sleep with her brother? ’Cause you know, kind of not making much sense.’”

Monica actually blinked. Logic wasn’t her strong suit, anyway. Claire could almost see the Don’t confuse me with facts flicker across her brain. “You laughing at me?’”

“Yeah,’” Claire said. “A little.’”

Monica smiled. A big, genuine smile. “How about that?’” she said. “Claire’s grown a pair. I guess having a badass Protector hanging over your shoulder must be a real comfort.’” She threw a glance at Eve. “But it won’t last. My family means something around here. You freaks are just temporary. And…sad.’”

She flipped her hair back over her shoulders, picked up her latte, and walked away. Guys’ heads turned as she passed, with Gina and Jennifer in a flying-V formation behind her.

“Huh,’” Eve said as she wiped down the machines with maybe a little bit more force than was necessary. “She doesn’t usually back down that easily.’”

“Maybe she’s got class.’”

Eve snorted. “Trust me,’” she said. “That girl’s got no class at all.’”

“How weird is it that we have our own personal cop limo service?’” Eve asked. She and Claire were standing on the sidewalk in front of the UC, and the campus looked mostly deserted—it was seven o’clock, and the sky had darkened to a deep twilight. There were even a few premature stars out already. The sun had just gone down, and there was still a fiery orange and yellow glow on the western horizon. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t have a car. I can drive.’”

“I don’t think they’ll keep it up,’” Claire offered. “I mean, it’s just a special thing. Until they catch—whoever killed that girl.’”

Eve sighed and didn’t answer. A blue car turned and cruised around the circular drive, pulling to a halt in front of them. Joe Hess was driving, and Travis Lowe got out and opened the back door with a dumb-looking overdone bow. It was kind of cute, actually. Claire climbed in and slid over, and Eve got in next to her.

“Hello, girls,’” Hess said, and turned to look back at them. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed like he hadn’t slept at all. “Thanks for the coffee.’”

Claire and Eve looked at each other. “Sorry,’” Eve said. “I always smell like coffee; it’s the perfume of the barista. I didn’t actually bring any for you. But if you want, I’ll go back and—’”

“No way,’” Lowe said as he got into the shotgun seat. “Dark already. Let’s get you gals home. Joe and me, we’ll grab some later.’”

“Thank you,’” Claire said. “For the ride.’”

Neither of the cops answered. Detective Hess drove the other half of the circle, turned out onto the campus main drag, and within two blocks was off campus and into the dark Morganville night. Most shops were tightly closed already. As they passed Common Grounds, Claire and Eve both looked. It was full, of course, an oasis of light in the dark, empty street. No sign of Oliver. No sign of Shane’s dad, either, which made Claire’s conscience twinge hard. I need to tell Shane. Soon. She didn’t see how blabbing it to Eve would help, except to make Eve even more worried. And from the pensive way Eve was staring out into the dark, there was enough of that going on already.

They were only one block from the house when a sleek black car—with tail fins, like a shark—pulled in front of them and, with shocking speed, turned sideways. Hess jammed on the brakes, and the sound of screeching tires was like a banshee’s wail. He didn’t hit the other car…quite. Claire thumped back against the vinyl upholstery, panting from shock, and exchanged a wide-eyed look with Eve.

In the front seat, Hess and Lowe were doing the same things. Only with a full helping of grim, and a side of tense.

“What’s happening?’” Eve asked, and leaned forward. “Detectives?’”

“You stay here,’” Hess said, and popped his door. “Trav. Stay with them.’”

“Joe—’”

“I’ll be fine.’” He got out, slammed the door, and walked toward the other car. A dark-tinted window rolled down, and in the glare of the headlights, Claire saw a dead-pale face she recognized.

“Hans,’” she whispered. The vampire detective. She looked at Detective Lowe, and saw something strange; he had his gun out, held in his lap. And a cross in his left hand. “Right? It’s Hans.’”

“You girls stay put,’” Lowe said. His eyes didn’t move from the scene playing out in front of him. “Just a routine check.’”

Claire didn’t know much about police procedure, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t routine for one cop to block another one off in the road, right? Not even here.

And it wasn’t routine procedure for a detective to have his gun out, either.

Whatever conversation Hess was having, it wasn’t making him happy. It was also short. He shook his head a couple of times and then finally nodded.

As he walked back to the car, Claire had a real bad feeling. His expression was too serious and too angry for it to be good news. Shane. Oh God, maybe it’s about Shane—something’s happened to Shane….

Hess opened the back door—Claire’s side—and leaned in. “Girls,’” he said. “You’re going to have to come with me.’”

“The hell?’” Lowe barked. “I thought we were taking them home.’”

“Change of plans,’” Hess said. He was trying not to look angry, or worried, but Claire could still see it in his eyes. “You’re wanted downtown, girls. I’ll come with you. Trav, I need you to take the car in.’”

The two men exchanged a long look, and then Lowe let out a slow breath. “Right,’” he said. “Sure. You look after them.’”

“You know I will.’”

Claire got out of the car, feeling more exposed and vulnerable even than usual. Hess was right there, big and comforting, but still…she saw Hans’s eyes on her, and it made her feel cold.

His partner, Gretchen, got out of the passenger side and came around to open the back door. “In,’” she snapped. Claire swallowed hard and moved forward, but Eve got there first, sliding inside and all the way across. Hess followed Claire. When Gretchen slammed the door, the three of them barely fit in the backseat.

“You all keep your mouths shut until you’re asked to speak,’” Hans said, and put the car in gear as Gretchen got back in. He turned the big car with a squeal of warm rubber and accelerated fast down the street.

They passed 716 Lot Street. All the lights were on, and the door was open, and someone was standing in the doorway, watching them roar by. It was too quick to tell whether it was Shane or Michael, but Claire hoped it was Shane.

She hoped that if something happened, she at least had gotten to see him before the end.

“I thought we were going to the police station,’” Eve whispered as the car took some turns and wound through the confusing maze of streets.

“We’re not?’” Claire whispered back.

“Passed it back there. I guess we’re going somewhere else.’” Eve sounded flat-out scared, and when Claire reached over, she found Eve’s hand was cold and shaking. They held on to each other as the car made more turns, and then slowed for some kind of barricade. “Oh God. We’re going to the square.’”

“The square?’”

“Founder’s Square. It’s, like, vamptown this time of night.’” Eve swallowed and gripped Claire’s hand more tightly. “I’m trying to think of any way this could be a good thing.’”

“Hush,’” Detective Hess said quietly. “You’re okay. Trust me.’”

Claire did. She just didn’t trust the two vampire detectives sitting in the front seat, who were obviously more in charge.

The barricade lifted. Hans drove them through, brought the big car to a stop in an unlit parking lot, and turned to look at them. Claire first, then Eve. Hess, last of all.

Gretchen turned, too. She was smiling.

“Something we want you to see,’” Hans said. Gretchen exited the car and opened the back door on Eve’s side. “Out.’”

They clambered out into the cooling night air. The moon was up, casting a sickly yellow glow that didn’t illuminate much. The dark seemed very deep, even though there was still some indigo lining the horizon. Not even really full night yet…

A cold, strong hand closed over Claire’s upper arm. She squeaked breathlessly, and heard Eve making a sound of surprise, too. Gretchen had somehow gotten between them, holding them both by the arms.

Hans threw a look at Detective Hess. “Stay with the car,’” he said.

“I’m coming with the girls.’”

“You’re taking orders like a good little neutral,’” Hans said. “Unless you want to lose that status for both you and your partner. This isn’t some minor incident. This has the attention of the Elders. If the girls don’t cause trouble, they’ll come back unharmed, but you stay here.’”

Gretchen said, “No, Hans. Let him come. It’ll be good for him to attend.’”

Hans frowned at her, then shrugged. “Fine. But get in the way, Hess, and you’re meat.’”

Gretchen hustled the girls forward.

“What’s going on?’” Eve asked. Neither of the vampires answered. Claire turned her head and saw that Hess was behind them, but somehow, that didn’t give her all that much comfort. Gretchen frog-marched them around the corner of a blank-faced brick building, and into…

A park.

Claire blinked, surprised, because this was actually very…nice. Green grass, big shady trees rustling in the darkness. There were lights, too, strung through the tree branches and shining on flowers and bushes and walking paths.

The area that bordered the park was more alive than anything she’d seen yet in Morganville. Where the stores bordering the campus were run-down and dingy, the ones facing the square were shining, polished, beautifully maintained. Beautiful in an old-world kind of way, all stone and marble and pillars. There were gargoyles, too, built onto the roofs as drain spouts.

It looked like pictures Claire had seen of old European towns, only…nicer.

Every business facing the square was open. Two outdoor restaurants were serving, and the smell of roasting meats and fresh bread made Claire’s mouth water. All she’d really had for the day was coffee, and that was long gone.

And then she remembered what Eve had said. If downtown at night was vamptown, why the restaurants?

She knew when they passed close to one of them. There were groups dining, mixed vampire and human; the vampires had plates of food and were eating just as enthusiastically as the humans. “You eat!’” Claire blurted, astonished. Gretchen glanced at her with those cold, alien eyes.

“Of course,’” she said. “It provides us no nutrition, but the taste is still attractive. Why? You’ll find that poisons will do you no good, if you’re searching for a way to kill us.’”

Claire hadn’t even thought that far, actually. She was just…weirdly intrigued.

The stores they passed were incredible. Jewelers, with displays of gems and gold. Book dealers carrying ancient volumes as well as new best sellers. Clothing stores, lots of them, with tasteful and expensive styles. It was like a rich neighborhood from a major city, like Dallas or Houston or Austin, had been transplanted directly in.

Weird.

And all the shoppers were vampires. In fact, there were lots of them around, more than Claire had ever imagined lived in Morganville; the more she saw, the more scared she felt. They were staring at her and Eve like the girls were cows on the way to the slaughterhouse, and she felt horribly alone. I want to go home. I swear, if you let me get out of this, I’ll move back with Mom and Dad. I’ll never leave again….

Gretchen steered them toward a black marble building with gold lettering at the top. ELDERS’ COUNCIL, it said.

“It’s okay,’” Hess said quietly from behind them. “You’ll be okay, girls. Just cooperate. If they ask questions, tell the truth.’”

Claire barely felt her feet on the polished black marble steps. It was a little like moving in a dream, helpless and numb, but Gretchen’s grip on her arm was all too real. And painful. Ouch. Bruises later.

Hans opened the big polished door, and they went inside.

Of all the things Claire expected to see, she somehow hadn’t expected a television set, but there one was, tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel showing flickering pictures of a war—bombs exploding, soldiers shooting. And standing in front of it, arms folded, was Oliver. He wasn’t wearing his hippie-dippie Coffee Shop Guy clothes; he was wearing a suit, black, tailored, and sharp as a knife. His graying hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and he was wearing a tie. No, not a tie, exactly. Kind of like a scarf, with a diamond pin through it to hold it in place. Maybe it had been fashionable when Oliver was younger.

“Some things never change,’” he said, staring at the television. “People continue to kill over the stupidest possible excuses. And they call us monsters.’”

On the last word, his gaze snapped to Claire, and she shivered. Oliver had nice eyes, but somehow, they scared her even more than Gretchen’s ice-cold ones. Maybe it was because she still wanted to like him, no matter what he’d done. He killed Michael! she reminded herself. Well, he’d mostly killed him, anyway.

“Hello,’” Oliver said to her, and nodded. He moved his stare to Eve. “Eve. We’ve missed you at the shop.’”

“B—’” Eve swallowed what she’d been about to say, which Claire was ninety-nine percent sure was Bite me. “Thanks.’” Which for Eve was amazingly cautious. If anybody had been shocked and angry about Oliver turning out vampire, it had been Eve.

Oliver nodded and walked across the large, empty room—empty except for the silently playing television and thick plush maroon carpet—and opened a set of double doors. He wasn’t the doorman; he walked on through and into the next room. Gretchen pushed Claire and Eve forward. The carpet was squishy soft under Claire’s feet, and she caught the scent of fading flowers. Roses. Lots of roses.

It hit her full force when they entered the next room, which was a big circular place with burgundy velvet curtains all around, with pillars in between. A low-key chandelier cast a medium-bright glow. Same carpet, but this room had furniture—chairs laid out in neat rows, in three sections with aisles between.

It took Claire a second to realize that she was walking into a funeral parlor. When she did, she stopped, and stumbled as Gretchen continued to drag her relentlessly onward, past the rows of empty folding chairs, all the way to the front, where Oliver was standing near another velvet curtain.

“Sir,’” Joe Hess said, coming out from behind Claire and Eve. “I’m Detective Hess.’”

Oliver nodded. “I know you.’”

“Shouldn’t there be others present here for this?’” The tension in Hess’s voice, and his body, warned Claire that Oliver’s interrogating them on his own was a very bad thing.

“There are others present, Detective Hess,’” said a light, cool voice from the far corner of the room, which Claire could have sworn was empty one second before. She gasped and looked, and there was Amelie, standing there as if she’d been carved in stone before the building came up around her. And her bodyguards—or servants—were standing in a group near her. She’d brought four of them. Claire wondered if that was a signal of how much trouble she and Eve were in.

“There is a third coming,’” Amelie said, and settled herself in a chair as if it were a golden throne. She was wearing black, like Oliver, but her attire was a long elegant suede skirt suit, with a severe white shirt under the tailored jacket. She crossed her legs, which were pale and perfect, and folded her hands in her lap.

Oliver wasn’t looking happy. “Who are we waiting for?’” he asked.

“You know the laws, Oliver, even if you choose to find ways to cheat them,’” Amelie said. “We are waiting for Mr. Morrell.’”

They didn’t have to wait long; in a matter of less than a minute, Claire heard voices coming from the anteroom outside, and a jingle of keys. She’d never seen the man who walked in, flanked by two uniformed cops, but she knew one of the cops: Richard Morrell, Monica’s brother. So the portly, balding man with the smug expression was probably her dad.

The mayor of Morganville.

He was dressed in a suit, too—blue, pin-striped, with wide lapels. Kind of pimpish, really, and the pants were a little too long. He had too many rings on his fingers, all in gold, and he was smiling.

“Oliver,’” he said cheerfully. The smile vanished fast when he spotted Amelie sitting so quietly off to the side, with her entourage. His face composed itself into something a whole lot more…respectful. “Founder.’”

“Mayor.’” She nodded to him. “Good. We can begin.’”

Gretchen let go of Claire’s arm. She winced at the returning flow of blood to her tingling hand, and rubbed at the place where Gretchen had been gripping her. Yeah, that was going to be a bruise. Definitely. She risked a look at Eve, who was doing the same thing. Eve looked dead scared.

Oliver reached over and pulled a hidden cord, and the burgundy velvet curtain behind him opened.

There was a body lying on the marble slab, surrounded by rich red roses, bunches of them in floor vases. The corpse looked blue white, rubbery, and utterly, horribly dead. Claire felt a cloud creep over her, heard a buzzing in her ears, and nearly collapsed, but somehow she managed not to faint.

“Oh my God,’” Eve whispered, and brought both hands to her mouth.

“It’s Brandon,’” Claire said, and looked at Oliver. “It’s Brandon, right?’” Because that cold, white face didn’t look human anymore, and she couldn’t match it up to the living person—vampire—she’d feared. The one who’d threatened her, chased her home, nearly killed her and Eve…

Oliver nodded. He pulled back the velvet covering Brandon from the neck down, revealing black open wounds. Some of them still smoked. Claire caught the smell of cooking meat, and this time, her knees buckled. Detective Hess caught her arm and steadied her.

“He was tortured,’” Oliver said. He sounded neutral—disinterested, even. “It took a long time. Someone very much enjoyed this. Almost as if there was a…personal agenda at work.’”

Mayor Morrell motioned his son forward. Richard wasn’t nearly the psycho his sister was. In fact, Claire kind of liked him, as much as she could like anybody from his family who worked for vampires. He seemed almost fair.

Richard examined the wounds in Brandon’s body. He actually touched them, which made Claire throw up in her head, if not actually through her mouth. “Looks like some kind of weapon straight to the heart. Probably a stake,’” Richard said, and looked up at his father. “Whoever did this was serious. This wasn’t just random; this was done slowly. I don’t know what they wanted out of him, but whatever it was, they probably got it. I can see shadows of wounds that closed over before he died. That’s hours, at least.’”

Silence. Deep, dark silence. Richard straightened up and glanced at Claire and Eve. If he recognized them, he gave no sign. “These two girls have something to do with it?’”

“Perhaps,’” Oliver said. Claire didn’t see him move, but all of a sudden he was right in front of her, looking down. “Perhaps they know something. You didn’t like Brandon very much, did you, Claire?’”

“I—’” She didn’t know what to say. Don’t lie, Hess had said. Did the vamps have some kind of lie detector power? Maybe even mind-reading? “No, I didn’t like him. But I wouldn’t want to see this happen to anybody.’” Not even you. She said that to herself, though.

He had such kind eyes. That was the horrible thing about him, this warm feeling that she could trust him, should trust him, that somehow she was letting him down by not…

“Don’t,’” Eve said sharply, and pinched her arm. Claire yelped and looked at her. “Don’t look him in the eye.’”

“Eve,’” Oliver sighed. “I’m very disappointed in you. Don’t you understand that it’s my responsibility, as Brandon’s Patron, to get to the bottom of this? To find the ones responsible? You’re not the innocent Claire may be; you know the penalties for killing one of us. And you know the lengths to which we’ll go to find out the truth. If I can get it from her without pain, don’t you want me to do that?’”

Eve didn’t answer. She kept her eyes focused somewhere around the middle of his chest. “I think you’ll do whatever you want,’” she said grimly. “Just like vamps always do. You didn’t ask me, but I’m glad Brandon’s dead. And I’m glad he suffered, too. However much it was, it wasn’t enough.’”

That was when Nice Oliver vanished. Just…gone. Claire saw a flicker of movement, nothing more, and then he had hold of Eve’s black-dyed hair and he was yanking her head back at a painful angle.

And there was nothing human in his eyes. Unless pure, flaming rage was human.

“Oh,’” he breathed into Eve’s ear. “Thank you for saying that. Now I don’t have to be so careful anymore.’”

Detective Hess stepped forward, fists clenched; Richard Morrell got in his way. “Easy, Joe,’” he said. “It’s under control.’”

Didn’t look that way to Claire. She was breathing too fast, feeling faint again, and she could see Eve’s knees buckling. The menace in the room—the body on the table—it was all just…terrifying.

Shane’s dad did that. Claire felt sick and even more terrified once she had the thought, because now somehow she had to keep it to herself.

And she knew they were going to ask.

Oliver sniffed at Eve’s exposed neck. “You’ve been working at a coffee shop,’” he said. “On campus, I suppose. Funny. I wasn’t asked for any references.’”

“Let go,’” Eve said faintly.

“Oh, I can’t do that. It makes it harder to hurt you.’” Oliver smiled, then opened his mouth, and his fangs—snake fangs, deadly sharp—snapped down into place. They weren’t like teeth, really; they were more like polished bone, and they looked strong.

He licked Eve’s neck, right over the pulse.

“Oh God,’” she whispered. “Please don’t do that. Please don’t let him do that.’”

“Ask the girl a question, Oliver. We don’t have time for your hobbies.’” Mayor Morrell said it in a bored tone, like all of this was keeping him from something more important. He inspected his manicure and buffed his fingernails against his suit jacket. “Let’s move this train down the track.’”

Amelie wasn’t saying or doing anything.

“I’m Protected,’” Eve said. “You can’t hurt me.’” She didn’t sound very confident, though, and Claire looked at Amelie, sitting in the front row of chairs, studying the scene closely, as if it was all some show put on for her benefit. Her expression was polite, but cool.

Please help, Claire thought. Amelie’s pale gold eyebrow raised just slightly. Can you hear me?

If she could, Amelie gave no other sign. She simply sat, calm as Buddha.

“Let’s just say that Amelie and I have an understanding in matters such as this,’” Oliver said. “And Eve, love, that understanding is that I can use any methods to pursue humans who break the peace. Regardless of Protection. Regardless of who that Protection is from. Now, I think we should have a little talk about your home invaders.’”

“Our…what?’” Eve was struggling not to meet his eyes, but he was so close, it was almost impossible to avoid him. “I don’t know who they were.’”

“You don’t. You’ve very sure about that,’” he said. His voice had dropped to a low, lethal whisper, and Claire tried to think of something to say, something to do, that would help Eve. Because clearly, Eve wasn’t going to help herself, and she couldn’t just stand by and see her—hurt. She couldn’t.

“I know,’” she said, and she felt everyone shift their collective attention onto her. Scary. Claire cleared her throat. “They were bikers.’”

“Bikers.’” Oliver let go of Eve’s hair and turned toward Claire. “I see. You’re attempting to distract me with the obvious, and, Claire, that is not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. We know all that, you see. We know when they came to town. We even know who called them.’”

Claire felt all the blood drain from her head. Her stomach flipped over, and kept flipping, and Oliver walked away from Eve and yanked another cord.

Another curtain slid aside, next to Brandon’s body.

Two men, on their knees, bound and gagged and held in place by really scary-looking vampires. One of the prisoners was a biker.

Shane was the other.

Claire screamed.

8

In the end, they sat her down in a chair and had Gretchen hold her down with those strong, iron-hard hands pressing on her shoulders. Claire continued to struggle, but fear and shock were winning out over anger. And Shane wasn’t moving. He was watching her, but he couldn’t say anything around the gag, and if Shane wasn’t struggling, maybe there wasn’t anything to be gained from it.

Eve spun around and slapped Oliver. An open-hand, hard smack that echoed like a gunshot off of all the marble in the room. There was a collective intake of breath. “You son of a bitch!’” she spit. “Let Shane go! He has nothing to do with this!’”

“Really.’” A flat word, not even really a question. Unlike a human’s, Oliver’s face didn’t show any sign of a handprint from the slap, and it had definitely been hard enough. He barely looked as if he’d felt it at all. “Sit down, Eve, while I tell you the facts of your rather pathetic life.’”

She didn’t. Oliver put his hand flat on her chest, right at the notch of her collarbone, and shoved. Eve sprawled in a chair, glaring at him.

“Detective Hess,’” Oliver said. “I suggest you explain to my dear ex-employee exactly what she risks the next time she touches me in anger. Or, come to think of it, touches me at all.’”

Hess was already moving, sitting in the chair beside Eve and leaning toward her. He whispered to her, urgent words that Claire couldn’t catch. Eve shook her head violently. A trickle of sweat ran from her messy hair down the side of her face, making a flesh-colored track through the white makeup.

“Now,’” Oliver continued once Hess stopped, and Eve was sitting still. “We’re not technological idiots, Eve. And we do own the telephone providers in this area, particularly the cell phone providers. Shane placed a call from your home to a number that, much to our surprise, we found to be assigned to a device we located on his friend Mr. Wallace.’” Oliver pointed to the biker. “GPS is a marvelous invention, by the way. We’re quite grateful for all the hard work humanity has put into keeping track of itself. It makes finding people so much easier than it used to be in the old days.’”

“Shane didn’t do anything,’” Claire said. “Please. You have to let him go.’”

“Shane was found at the crime scene,’” Oliver said. “With Brandon’s body. And I hardly think we can say he wasn’t involved, if he was friendly enough with Mr. Wallace to be exchanging telephone calls.’”

“No, he didn’t—!’”

Oliver slapped her. She never saw it coming, just felt the impact and saw red for a second. Her whole body shook with the force of how much she wanted to hit him back, and she felt the stinging imprint of his hand on her cheek like a brand.

“You see, Eve?’” Oliver asked. “An eye for an eye. Of course, my interpretation is a bit free of the Scriptures.’”

Shane was screaming around his gag, and now he was fighting, but the vampires were holding him down on his knees without breaking a sweat. Eve’s eyes were huge and dark, and Hess was holding her down in the chair as she struggled to come after Oliver.

Don’t, Claire thought wildly. Because her friends had just told Oliver exactly what he wanted to know: that hurting her would get something out of them.

“Oliver,’” Amelie said. Her voice was soft and very gentle. “Is there a question you are posing to the children? Or are you merely indulging yourself? You say you already know the boy called this man. What more information do you need?’”

“I want to know where his father has gone,’” Oliver said. “One of them knows.’”

“The girls?’” Amelie shook her head. “It seems unlikely that someone like Mr. Collins would trust in either of them.’”

“The boy knows, then.’”

“Possibly.’” She tapped her lips with one pale finger. “Yet somehow, I doubt he will tell you. And there is no need for any cruelty to discover the truth, I believe.’”

“Meaning?’” Oliver turned fully toward her, crossing his arms.

“Meaning that he will come to us, Oliver, as you very well know. In order to save the boy from the consequences of his actions.’”

“So you withdraw your Protection from the boy?’”

Amelie looked at the body lying on the slab. After a moment of silence, she rose gracefully and walked to what was left of Brandon, trailed ghost white fingers over his distorted face, and said, “He was born before King John, did you know that? Born a prince. All those years, ending. I grieve for the loss of all that he saw that we will never know. All the memories that can never enrich us.’”

“Amelie.’” Oliver sounded impatient. “We can’t allow his killers to run free. You know that.’”

“He was yours, Oliver. You might spare a moment for his loss before you run baying after blood.’”

Amelie’s back was to him, so she couldn’t have seen it, but Claire did: there was hate in Oliver’s eyes, hate twisting his face. He got it under control before Amelie turned toward him.

“Brandon had his flaws,’” Oliver said. “Of all of us, he was the one who enjoyed the hunt the most. I don’t think he ever came to terms with the rules of Morganville. But it’s those rules we have to observe now. By sentencing these criminals.’”

Sentencing? What about a trial? Claire started to ask, but a cold hand clapped over her mouth from behind, and she looked up to see Gretchen bending over her, fangs out, holding a hushing finger to her own mouth. Eve was likewise gagged by Hans. Next to them, Detective Hess folded his arms and looked deeply troubled, but he didn’t speak.

Amelie looked at Oliver, then past him, at Shane.

“I warned you,’” she said quietly. “My Protection can only extend to you so far. You betrayed my trust, Shane. For the sake of kindness, I will not break faith with your friends; they remain under my Protection.’” She shifted her pale gaze to Oliver, and gave him a slow, regal incline of her head. “He is yours. I withdraw Protection.’”

Claire screamed out a protest, but it was lost against the gag of Gretchen’s hand. Amelie bent over and placed a kiss on Brandon’s waxy forehead.

“Good-bye, child,’” she said. “Flawed as you were, you were still one of the eternal. We won’t forget.’”

Claire heard someone yell outside the room, and Amelie whipped around so quickly that she was a blur, then moved…and something hit the marble pillar next to where she’d been and exploded with a sharp popping sound.

A bottle. Claire smelled gas, and then heard a thick, whooshing sound.

And then the curtains exploded into flame.

Amelie snarled, bone white and utterly not people, all of a sudden, and then she was dragged out of the way and down, with a moving bunker of bodyguards crowding around her. Gunfire exploded in the room, and somebody—Detective Hess?—shoved Claire forward to the carpet and covered her, too. Eve was down, too, curled into a protective ball, her black-fingernailed hands covering her head.

And then, there was fighting—grunts and smacks and wood being thrown against walls and smashed during struggles. Claire couldn’t get any sense of what was going on, except that it was brutal and it was over fast, and when the choking fog of smoke began to clear, Hess finally backed off and let her sit up.

There were two men dead in the entrance of the room. Big guys, in leather. There was one still moving.

Amelie pushed aside her bodyguards and stalked past Claire as if she didn’t exist. She glided down the aisle and to the one biker still feebly trying to crawl away. He was trailing a dark streak on the maroon carpet. Claire got slowly to her feet, grateful for Detective Hess’s arm around her, and exchanged a look of sheer horror with Eve, on his other side.

Amelie never got to the biker. Oliver was there ahead of her, dragging the wounded man up and, before Claire could blink, snapping his neck with a dry sound.

The body dropped to the carpet with a limp thump. Claire turned and hid her face against Hess’s jacket, trying to control a surge of nausea.

When she looked back, Amelie was staring at Oliver. He was staring right back. “No point in taking chances,’” he said, and gave her a slow, full smile. “He might have killed you, Amelie.’”

“Yes,’” she said softly. “And that wouldn’t have been in anyone’s best interests, would it, Oliver? How fortunate I am that you were here to…save me.’”

She didn’t move or gesture, but her bodyguards swarmed and surrounded her, and the whole mass of them moved out, walking around (or over) the dead men.

Oliver watched her go, then turned back to sweep a glare around the entire room, stopping on Shane.

“Your father thinks he can act without consequences, I see,’” he said. “How sad for you. Put these two where they belong. In cages.’”

The biker and Shane were pulled to their knees and dragged off, behind the curtains. Claire lunged forward, but Gretchen grabbed her and put her hand over Claire’s mouth. Claire winced as her arm was twisted up behind her back, and she realized she was crying, unable to breathe for the pressure of the hand on her mouth and the stuffiness building up in her nose.

Eve wasn’t crying. Eve was staring at Oliver, and even when Detective Hess let go of her, she didn’t move.

“What are you going to do to them?’” she asked. She sounded unnaturally calm.

“You know the laws,’” Oliver said. “Don’t you, Eve?’”

“You can’t. Shane had nothing to do with this.’”

Oliver shook his head. “I won’t debate my judgment with you. Mayor? You’ll sign the papers? If you’re done cowering, that is.’”

The mayor had been down in a defensive crouch behind an urn; he got up now, looking flushed and angry. “Of course I’ll sign,’” he said. “The nerve of these bastards! Striking here? Threatening—’”

“Yes, very traumatic,’” Oliver said. “The papers.’”

“I brought a notary. It’ll be all nice and legal.’”

Gretchen let go of Claire, sensing her will to fight was trickling away. “Legal?’” Claire gasped. “But—there hasn’t even been a trial! What about a jury?’”

“He had a jury,’” Detective Hess told her. His tone was gentle, but what he was saying was harsh. “A jury of the victim’s peers. That’s the way the law works here. Same for humans. If a vampire ever got brought up on murder charges, it would be humans deciding whether he lived or died.’”

“Except no vampire has ever been brought up on charges,’” Eve said. She looked nearly cold and pale enough to be a vampire herself. “Or ever will. Don’t kid yourself, Joe. It’s only the humans who get the sharp end of justice around here.’” She looked at the dead guys lying on the carpet at the entrance to the room. “Scared the shit out of you, though, didn’t they?’”

“Don’t flatter them. They had no hope of succeeding,’” Oliver said. He looked at Hans. “I have no further use for these two.’”

“Wait! I want to talk to Shane!’” Claire yelled. Gretchen propelled her toward the exit with a shove. It was move, or fall over the dead, bloody bodies.

Claire moved. Behind her, she heard Eve doing the same.

She blinked away tears, wiped angrily at her face and nose, and tried to think what to do next. Shane’s dad, she thought. Shane’s dad will save him. Although, of course, the dead guys she was stepping over indicated that rescue had already been attempted, and that hadn’t gone so well. Besides, Shane’s dad wasn’t here. He hadn’t stuck around when Shane got caught. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe nobody cared but her.

“Easy,’” Detective Hess said, and stepped in beside her to take her by the elbow. He managed to make it feel like escorting, instead of arresting. “There’s still time. The law says that the convicts have to be displayed on the square for two nights so that everyone can see them. They’ll be in cages, so they’ll be safe enough. It’s not the Ritz, but it keeps Brandon’s friends from ripping them apart without due process.’”

“How—’” Claire’s throat closed up on her. She cleared it and tried again. “How are they going to—?’”

Hess patted her hand. He looked tired and worried and grim. “You won’t be here when it happens,’” he said. “So don’t think about it. If you want to talk to him, you can. They’re putting them in cages now, at the center of the park.’”

“Oliver said take them back,’” Gretchen said from behind them. Hess shrugged.

“Well, he didn’t say when, did he?’”

The Founder’s Park was a large circle, with walkways like spokes in a wheel, all leading to the center.

And at the center were two cages. Cells just big enough for a man to stand up, not wide enough to stretch out. Shane would have to sleep sitting up, if he slept, or curled in a fetal position.

He was sitting, knees up, head resting on his arms, when Eve and Claire arrived. The biker was yelling and rattling his bars. Not Shane. He was…quiet.

“Shane!’” Claire almost flew across the open space, grabbed the cold iron bars in both hands, and pressed her face between them. “Shane!’”

He looked up. His eyes were red, but he wasn’t crying. At least, not now. He managed to move around in the small, cramped cage until he was sitting closer to her, and reached through the bars to lay his hand against her cheek, stroking it with his thumb. It was the cheek that Oliver had slapped, she realized. She wondered if it was still red.

“I’m sorry,’” Shane said. “My dad—I had to go. I couldn’t let him do this. I had to try to stop it, Claire, I had to—’”

She was crying again, silently. With his thumb, he wiped away the tear that fell. She could feel his hand shaking. “You didn’t do anything, did you? To Brandon?’”

“I didn’t like the son of a bitch, but I didn’t hurt him, and I didn’t kill him. That was already done when I got there.’” Shane laughed, but it sounded forced. “Just my luck, huh? Charging off to be the hero, I get to be the villain instead.’”

“Your dad—’”

He nodded. “Dad’ll get us out. Don’t worry, Claire. It’ll be okay.’”

But the way he said it, she knew he didn’t believe it, either. She bit her lip to hold back a fresh wave of sobbing, and turned her head to kiss his palm.

“Hey,’” he said softly. He moved closer to the bars, pressing his face between them. “I always said you were jailbait, but this is ridiculous.’”

She tried to laugh. She really did.

His smile looked broken. “I’m going to consider this protective custody. At least this way, I can’t do anything that’d get me in real trouble, right?’”

She leaned forward to kiss him. His lips felt just the same, soft and warm and damp, and she didn’t want to move away. Not ever.

He sat back first, leaving her stranded there tingling and once again on the verge of tears. Dammit! Shane could not be blamed for this. It wasn’t fair!

“I’ll talk to Michael,’” she said.

“Yeah.’” Shane nodded. “Tell him—well, hell. Tell him I’m sorry, okay? And he can have the PlayStation.’”

“Stop it! Stop it—you’re not going to die, Shane!’”

He looked at her, and she saw the bright spark of fear in his eyes. “Yeah,’” he said softly. “Right.’”

Claire clenched her fists until they ached, and looked at Eve, who’d been standing quietly in the background. As Eve came toward the cage, Claire turned away and went to Detective Hess. “How?’” she asked again. “How are they going to kill him?’”

He looked deeply uncomfortable, but he looked down and said, “Fire. It’s always fire.’”

That nearly made her cry again. Nearly. Shane already knew, she thought, and so did Eve. They’d known all along. “You have to help him,’” she said. “You have to! He didn’t do anything!’”

“I can’t,’” he said. “I’m sorry.’”

“But—’”

“Claire.’” He put both hands on her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. She realized she was trembling, and then the tears came, a huge flood of them, and she held to the lapels on his coat and cried like her heart was breaking. Hess stroked her hair. “You bring me proof that he had nothing to do with Brandon’s death, and I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can. But until then, my hands are tied.’”

The idea of Shane burning in that cage was the most horrible thing she had ever imagined. Get hold of yourself, she thought furiously. You’re all he has! So she pulled in deep, shaking breaths and stepped back from Hess’s embrace, scrubbing the tears from her face with the sleeve of her T-shirt. Hess offered her a tissue. She took it and blew her nose, feeling stupid, and felt Eve’s hand on her shoulder before she even knew Eve was there behind her.

“Let’s go,’” Eve said. “We’ve got things to do.’”

It had been Michael in the doorway when they’d driven by on their way to Founder’s Square, and it was Michael in the doorway when the car pulled to a halt at 716 Lot Street. Gretchen opened the back door to allow Eve and Claire to scramble out. Claire looked back; Hess was still in the backseat, watching them go. He wasn’t making a move to get out with them. “Detective?’” she asked. Eve was already halfway up the walk, moving fast. Claire knew that the first rule of Morganville was “Never hang around out in the dark,’” but she did it anyway.

“I’m going back to the station,’” he said. “Hans and Gretchen will drop me off. It’s okay.’”

She didn’t like the idea of leaving anybody alone with Hans and Gretchen, but he was the adult, and he had to know what he was doing, right? She nodded, backed up, and then turned and ran the rest of the way up the steps and into the house.

Michael had pulled Eve inside, but not far in; she nearly ran into the two of them when she charged over the threshold. She slammed the door and locked it—Shane or Michael had replaced the locks again, and added more—and spun around to see that Michael had Eve in a bear hug, pressing her against him so tight that she nearly disappeared. He looked at Claire in total misery over Eve’s shoulder. “What the hell is going on? Where’s Shane?’”

Oh God, he didn’t know. Why didn’t he know? “What happened?’” she blurted. “Why did you let him leave?’”

“Shane? I didn’t let him do anything. Any more than I let you go running off unprotected in the middle of the day—his dad called. He just…left. It was still daylight. There wasn’t anything I could do.’” Michael pushed Eve back a little and looked at her. “What happened?’”

“Brandon’s dead,’” Eve said. She didn’t try to soften it, and her voice was as hard as an iron bar. “They’ve got Shane in a cage on Founder’s Square for his murder.’”

Michael sagged back against the wall as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “Oh,’” he whispered. “Oh my God.’”

“They’re going to kill him,’” Claire said. “They’re going to burn him alive.’”

Michael closed his eyes. “I know. I remember.’” Oh, crap, he’d seen it done before. So had Eve. She remembered them saying so before, though they’d spared her the details. Michael just breathed for a few seconds, and then said, “We have to get him out.’”

“Yeah,’” Eve agreed. “I know. But by we, you mean me and Claire, right? Because you’re of no damn use at all.’”

She might as well have punched him again, Claire thought; Michael’s mouth dropped open, and she saw the agony in his eyes. Eve must not have seen it. She turned and clomped away, brisk and efficient.

“Claire!’” she called back. “Come on! Move it!’”

Claire looked miserably at Michael. “I’m sorry,’” she said. “She didn’t mean that.’”

“No, she did,’” he said faintly. “And she’s right. I’m no use to you. Or to Shane. What good am I? I might as well be dead.’”

He turned and slammed his hand into the wall, hard enough to break bones. Claire yelped, scrambled backward, and ran after Eve. When Michael went all avenging-angel, well, it was definitely scary. And he didn’t look like he wanted witnesses to whatever was happening inside.

Eve was already going up the stairs. “Wait!’” Claire said. “Michael—shouldn’t we—?’”

“Forget about Michael. Are you in or out?’”

In. She guessed. Claire cast another look back at the hallway, where the sound of flesh hitting wood continued, and winced. Michael couldn’t hurt himself, not permanently, but it sounded painful.

Probably not as painful as what he was feeling.

When Claire reached the doorway, Eve was yanking open drawers, pulling out frilly stuff, and throwing it aside. Black lace. Netting. Fishnet hose. “Ah!’” she said, and brought out a big, black box. It must have been heavy. It made a hollow thunk as she slammed it down on top of the dresser, rattling her collection of Evil Bobbleheads, which all started nodding uneasily. “Come here.’”

Claire went, worried; this was a brand-new Eve, one she wasn’t sure she liked. She liked the vulnerable Eve, the one who cried at the drop of a hat. This one was harsh and hard and liked to order people around.

“Hold out your hand,’” Eve said. Claire did, tentatively. Eve slapped something round and wooden into it.

Pointed on one end.

A homemade stake.

“Vampire killer’s best friend,’” Eve said. “I made a bunch when Brandon was bothering me. I let him know, the next time he came sniffing around me he was going to get a woody. A real one.’”

“Aren’t these—illegal?’”

“They’ll get you thrown under the jail. Or killed and dumped in some empty lot somewhere. So don’t get caught holding.’”

She pulled out more stakes, and set them on the top of the dresser. Then some crude homemade crosses, extra large. She passed one to Claire, who gripped it in numbed fingers. “But—Eve, what are we doing?’”

“Saving Shane. What, you don’t want to?’”

“Of course I do! But—’”

“Look.’” Eve pulled out some more stuff and dumped it on the pile of stakes—lighter fluid, a Zippo lighter. “The time for playing nice is over. If we want to get Shane out of there, vampires have to die. That means we start a war nobody wants, but tough. I’m not watching Shane burn. I won’t do that. They want this. Oliver wants it. Fine, he can have it. He can choke on it.’”

“Eve!’” Claire dropped the cross and stake, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her. “You can’t! You know it’s suicide—you’ve told me that before! You can’t just…kill vampires! You’ll end up in a cage right next to—’”

Oh, God. She hadn’t seen it before, but now she knew what was different about Eve. What was missing in her eyes.

“You want to die,’” Claire said slowly. “Don’t you?’”

“I’m not afraid of it,’” Eve said. “No big deal, right? Tra-la, off to paradise just like my parents always told me, pearly gates and all that. Besides, nobody’s going to help us, Claire. We have to stick together. We have to help ourselves.’”

“What if I find some evidence?’” Claire asked. “Detective Hess said—’”

“Detective Hess stood there and did nothing. That’s what they’re all going to do. Nothing. Just like Michael.’”

“God, Eve, stop it! That’s not fair. Michael can’t leave the house! You know that!’”

“Yeah. Not much help, is it?’” Eve began stuffing her arsenal of vampire-killing equipment into a black gym bag. “It’s time for a little payback around here. There are other people who’re tired of sucking up to the vamps. Maybe I can find them if you’re going to punk out on me. I need people I can rely on.’”

“Eve!’”

“With me or out of the way.’”

Claire retreated to the doorway, and bumped into a warm body. She yelped and lunged forward, turning to face…

Michael.

His face was like a chalky mask, and his eyes were big and wounded and angry. He took Claire’s hand and pulled her through the doorway, out into the hall.

Then he took hold of the doorknob, and looked at Eve. “You’re not going anywhere,’” he said. “Not while I can stop you.’”

He slammed the door and locked it with an old-fashioned key. Seconds later, Eve hit the other side with a bang and began rattling the knob. “Hey!’” she screamed. “Open it! Right now!’”

“No,’” Michael said. “I’m sorry, Eve. I love you. I’m not letting you do this.’”

She screamed and battered harder. “You love me? You asshole! Let me go!’”

“Can you really keep her in there?’” Claire asked anxiously.

“I can for tonight,’” Michael said, his eyes fixed on the door as it vibrated under the force of her kicks and blows. “The windows won’t open, or the doors. She’s stuck. But when the sun comes up…’” He turned to look at Claire. “You said if you could find evidence, Detective Hess would step in for Shane?’”

“That’s what he said.’”

“It’s not enough. We need Amelie on his side. And Oliver.’”

“Oliver’s the one who put him in the cage! And Amelie—she walked away. I don’t think we can get anything from her, Michael.’”

“Try,’” he said. “Go. You have to.’”

Claire blinked. “You mean—go out there? At night?’”

Michael looked exhausted suddenly. And very young. “I can’t do it. I can’t trust Eve enough to let her out of her room, much less go out and talk to some of the most powerful vampires in town. Call Detective Hess, or Lowe. Don’t go alone…but Claire, I need you to do this. I need you to make it right. I can’t—’”

It was written all over his face, the things he couldn’t do. The limits he’d crashed into with so much force it had left him broken and bleeding in the wreckage.

“I know,’” Claire said. “I’ll try.’”

It was dark, it was Morganville, and she was sixteen years old. Not the best idea ever, going out of the house again, but Claire put on her darkest pair of jeans, a black shirt, and a big, gaudy cross that Eve had given her. She felt queasy at the idea of stakes. Doubly queasy at the idea of actually stabbing somebody with one.

I still have Protection, Amelie said so.

She hoped that would actually mean something.

Claire called Detective Hess’s number from the card Eve had left pinned to the board in the kitchen. He answered on the second ring, sounded tired and depressed.

“I need a ride,’” Claire said. “If you’re willing. I need to talk to Amelie.’”

“Even I don’t know how to get to Amelie,’” Hess said. “Best-kept secret in Morganville. I’m sorry, kid, but—’”

“I know how to get to her,’” she said. “I just don’t want to walk. Given—the time.’”

There was a second of silence, and then the sound of a pen scratching against paper. “You shouldn’t be out at all,’” Hess said. “Besides, I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere. You need to find somebody who can back up Shane’s story. That means one of his dad’s biker buddies. There may be one or two running around loose, but I don’t think talking sweet to them’s going to get you much.’”

“What about his dad?’”

“Trust me, you’re not going to find Frank Collins. Not before the powers that be do, anyway. Every vampire in town is out tonight, combing the streets, looking for him. They’ll find him eventually. Not a lot of places he can hide when it’s an all-out effort.’”

“But—if they catch him, that’s kind of a good thing. He could tell them Shane didn’t do it!’”

“He could,’” Hess agreed. “But he’s just crazy enough to think burning in a cage alongside his kid is going out in a blaze of glory. Some kind of victory. He might say Shane was part of it just to punish him. We can’t know.’”

She couldn’t deny that. Claire swallowed hard. “So…are you going to give me a ride or not?’”

“You’re determined to go out,’” Hess said. “In the dark.’”

“Yes. And I’ll walk if I have to. I just hope I don’t—have to.’”

His sigh rattled the phone speaker. “All right. Ten minutes. Stay inside until I honk the horn.’”

Claire hung up the phone and turned, and nearly bumped into Michael. She yelped, and he reached out and steadied her. He kept hold of her arms even after she didn’t need the steadying support anymore. He felt warm and real, and she thought—not for the first time—how weird it was that he could seem so alive when he really wasn’t. Not exactly. Not all the time.

He looked like he had something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. And finally, he looked away. “Hess is coming?’”

“Yeah. Ten minutes, he said.’”

Michael nodded. “You’re going to see Amelie?’”

“Maybe. I’ve got exactly one shot. If that doesn’t work, then…’” She spread her hands. “Then I guess I talk to Oliver instead.’”

“If…you do see Amelie, tell her I need to talk to her,’” he said. “Will you do that for me?’”

Claire blinked. “Sure. But—why?’”

“Something she said to me before. Look, obviously I can’t go to her. She has to come here.’” Michael shrugged and gave her a tiny curve of a smile. “Not important why.’”

That raised a little red flag in the back of her mind. “Michael, you’re not going to do anything, well, crazy, right?’”

“Says the sixteen-year-old about to walk out the door in the dark to go see a vampire? No, Claire. I’m not going to do anything crazy.’” Michael’s eyes glittered suddenly with some fierce emotion. It looked like rage, or pain, or some toxic mix of both. “I hate this. I hate letting you go. I hate Shane for getting himself caught. I hate this—’”

What Michael was really saying, Claire understood, was I hate me. She totally got that. She hated herself on a regular basis.

“Don’t punch anything, okay?’” Because he had that look again. “Take care of Eve. Don’t let her go crazy, okay? Promise? If you love her, you need to take care of her. She needs you now.’”

Some of the fierceness faded out of his eyes, and the way he looked at her made her go all soft and warm inside. “I promise,’” he said, and rubbed his hands gently up and down her arms, then let go. “You tell Hess that if anything happens to you—anything—I’m killing him hard.’”

She smiled faintly. “Ooooh, tough guy.’”

“Sometimes. Look, I didn’t ask before—is Shane okay?’”

“Okay? You mean, did they hurt him?’” She shook her head. “No, he looked pretty much in one piece. But he’s in a cage, Michael. And they’re going to kill him. So no, he’s not okay.’”

The look in his eyes turned a little wild. “That’s the only reason I’m letting you go. If I had any choice—’”

“You do,’” she said. “We can all sit here and let him die. Or you can let Eve go on her wild-ass rescue mission and get herself killed. Or you can let sweet, calm, reasonable Claire go do some talking.’”

He shook his head. His long, elegant hands, which looked so at home wrapped around a guitar, closed into fists. “Guess that means there’s no choice.’”

“Not really,’” Claire agreed. “I was kind of lying about that choice thing.’”

Detective Hess was surprised when she gave him the address. “That’s old-lady Day’s house,’” he said. “She lives there with her daughter. What do you want with them? Far as I know, they’re not involved in any of this.’”

“It’s where I need to go,’” Claire said stubbornly. She had no idea where Amelie’s house was, but she knew of one door into it. She’d been thinking about ways to explain how you could open a bathroom door and be in a house that might be halfway across town, but all she could think of was folded space, and even the most wild-haired physicists said that was nearly impossible.

But she liked folded space better as an explanation than crazy booga-booga vampire magic.

“You going prepared for trouble?’” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he reached into the glove compartment of the car and pulled out a small jewelry-type box. “Here. I always carry spares.’”

She opened it and found a delicate silver cross on a long chain. She silently put it around her neck and dropped it down the neck of her shirt. She already had a backup, one of Eve’s handmade wooden ones, but this one felt…real, somehow. “I’ll give it back to you,’” she said.

“No need. Like I said, I’ve got more.’”

“I don’t take jewelry from older men.’”

Hess laughed. “You know, I thought you were a mousy little thing when I first saw you, Claire, but you’re not, are you? Not underneath.’”

“Oh, I am mousy,’” she said. “All this scares the hell out of me. But I don’t know what else to do, sir, except try. Even a mouse bites.’”

Hess nodded, the laughter fading out of his face. “Then I’ll try to give you the chance to show some teeth.’”

He drove the half mile or so, navigating dark streets with ease. She saw glimpses of people moving in the dark, pale and quick. The vampires were out in force, he’d said, and he was right. She caught a burning reflection of eyes as the car turned a corner. Vampire eyes reflected light like a cat’s. Disturbing.

Hess pulled to a halt in front of the old Victorian-style house. “You want me to come up with you?’” he asked.

“You’d just scare them,’” Claire said. “They know me. Besides, I’m not exactly threatening.’”

“Not until they get to know you,’” Hess said. “Stay out of the alley.’”

She paused, her hand on the door. “Why?’”

“Vampire lives at the end of it. Crazy old bastard. He doesn’t come out of there, and neither does anybody who wanders in. So just stay out.’”

She nodded and ducked out into the dark. Outside, the Morganville shadows had a character all their own. A neighborhood that had been a little shabby in the daytime was transformed into a freak-show park at night, gilded by cold silver moonlight. The shadows looked like holes in the world; they were so black. Claire looked at the house, and felt its presence. It was like the Glass House, all right. It had some kind of living soul, only where the Glass House seemed mildly interested in the creatures scuttling around inside of it, this place…she wasn’t sure it even liked what was going on.

She shuddered, opened the picket gate, and hurried up to knock on the door. She kept knocking, frantic, until a voice shouted through the wood, “Who the hell’s that?’”

“Claire! Claire Danvers, I was here, you remember? You gave me some lemonade?’” No answer. “Please, ma’am, please let me in. I need to use your bathroom!’”

“You what? Girl, you better step off my gramma’s porch!’”

“Please!’” Claire knew she sounded desperate, but then…she was desperate. Not to mention just one step shy of crazy. “Please, ma’am, don’t leave me out here in the dark!’”

That was only a little bit of acting, frankly, because the dark kept getting heavier and closer around her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the alley, the crazy vampire hiding at the end like some giant tarantula waiting to jump—

She nearly screamed as the door was suddenly opened, and a hand closed around her arm.

“Oh, for God’s sake, get in!’” snapped Lisa. She looked irritated, tired, and rumpled; Claire had clearly rattled her right out of bed. She was wearing pink satin pajamas and fluffy bunny slippers, which didn’t make her look any less pissed off. She yanked, Claire stumbled forward across the threshold, and Lisa slammed and multiply locked the door behind her.

Then she turned, crossed her arms, and frowned at Claire. It was a formidable frown, but the pink pj’s and bunny slippers undermined it.

“What the hell are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?’” Lisa demanded. Claire took a deep breath, opened her mouth…and didn’t have to say anything.

Because Gramma was standing in the hallway entrance, and with her was Amelie.

The contrast couldn’t have been more striking. Amelie looked every inch the glorious, perfect ice queen, from her carefully braided and coiled hair to her unlined face to the sleek white dress she wore—she’d changed from the black suit she’d worn to the Elders’ Council building. She looked like one of those Greek statues made out of marble. Next to her, Gramma seemed ancient, exhausted, and breakable.

“The visitor is here for me,’” Amelie said calmly. “I’ve been expecting her. I do thank you, Katherine, for your kindness.’”

Who’s Katherine? Claire looked around, and realized after a few seconds that it had to be Gramma. Funny, she couldn’t imagine Gramma ever having had a first name, or being young; Lisa looked kind of thrown by it, too.

“And I appreciate your vigilance, Lisa, but your caution is unnecessary,’” Amelie continued. “Please return to your—’” For a second, Amelie hesitated, and Claire couldn’t imagine why until she saw that the vampire’s gaze was fixed on the sight of Lisa’s bunny shoes. It was only a second, a little crack in the marble, but Amelie’s eyes widened just a bit, and her mouth curved. She has a sense of humor. That, more than anything else, made Claire feel lost. How could vampires have a sense of humor? How exactly was that fair?

Amelie recovered her poise. “You may return to your sleep,’” she said, and bowed her head gracefully to Lisa and her gramma. “Claire. If you would attend me.’”

She didn’t wait to see if Claire would, or explain what “attend me’” meant; she just turned and glided down the hallway. Claire exchanged a look with Lisa—this time, Lisa looked worried, not angry—and hurried after Amelie’s retreating figure.

Amelie opened the bathroom door and stepped through into the same study Claire had visited before, only now it was night, and a fire was roaring in the enormous hearth to warm the chilly room. The walls were thick stone, and looked very old. The tapestries looked old, too—faded, tattered, but still keeping a sense of magnificence, somehow. The place looked way spookier by firelight. If there were electric lights, they weren’t on. Not even the books crowding the shelves made the place warm.

Amelie crossed to a chair near the hearth and gracefully motioned Claire to one across from her. “You may sit,’” she said. “But be warned, Claire, what I expect you want from me is not in my power to grant.’”

Claire settled carefully, not daring to relax. “You know why I’m here.’”

“I’d be a fool if I thought it was any reason other than young Shane,’” Amelie said, and smiled very sadly. “I can recognize loyalty when I see it. It shines strongly from you both, which is one reason I have trusted you so much on insignificant acquaintance.’” She lost her smile, and her pale eyes turned to frost again. “And that is why I cannot forgive what Shane has done. He broke faith with me, Claire, and that is intolerable. Morganville is founded on trust. Without it, we have nothing but despair and death.’”

“But he didn’t do anything!’” Claire knew she sounded like a whiny little girl, but she didn’t know what else to do. It was that or cry, and she didn’t want to cry. She had the feeling she’d be doing plenty of that, no matter what. “He didn’t kill Brandon. He tried to save him. You can’t punish him for being in the wrong place!’”

“We have no one’s word of that save Shane’s. And make no mistake, child, I know why Shane returned to Morganville in the first place. It is regrettable that his sister was so brutally and unnecessarily killed; we tried to make amends with his family, as is custom. We even allowed them to leave Morganville, which you understand is not common, in hopes that Shane and his parents might heal their grief in less…difficult surroundings. But it was not possible. And his mother broke through the block surrounding her memories.’”

Claire shifted uncomfortably in her chair. It was too big, and too high up; her toes barely touched the ground. She gripped the arms firmly, tried to remind herself that she was strong and courageous, that she had to be, for Shane. “Did you kill her? Shane’s mother?’” she asked, as bluntly as she could. It still sounded timid, but at least she’d gotten the question out.

For a second she thought Amelie wasn’t going to answer her, but then the vampire looked away, toward the fire. Her eyes looked orange in its glow, with dots of reflective yellow in the center. She shrugged, a gesture so small, Claire barely even saw it. “I have not lifted a hand against a human in hundreds of years, little Claire. But that is not what you ask, is it? Am I responsible for his mother’s death? In a larger sense, I am responsible for anything that is done in Morganville, or even beyond its borders if it relates to vampires. But I think you ask if I gave an explicit order.’”

Claire nodded. Her neck felt stiff, and her hands would have been shaking if they hadn’t been grabbing the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles cracked.

“Yes,’” Amelie said, and turned her head back to meet Claire’s eyes. She looked cool, merciless, and absolutely without conscience. “Of course I did. Shane’s mother was one of the rare cases who, by focusing on a single event in their past, are able to overcome the psychic block that is placed on them when they depart this place. She remembered her daughter’s death, and from that, she remembered other things. Dangerous things. As soon as we became aware this was happening, it was brought to my attention, and I gave the order to kill her. It was to be done quickly and without pain, and it was a mercy, Claire. Shane’s mother had been in so much pain for so long, do you understand? She was damaged, and some damages cannot be healed.’”

“Nothing heals if you’re dead,’” Claire whispered. She remembered Shane on the couch, blurting out all the horror of his life, and she wanted to throw up on Amelie’s perfect lap. “You can’t do things like that. You aren’t God!’”

“For the safety of all who live here? Yes, Claire, I can. I must. I am sorry my decisions do not meet with your approval, but nevertheless, they are mine, and the consequences are also mine. Shane is a consequence. My agents warned me at the time that they believed the boy might have been tainted by his mother, that his block was slipping, but I chose not to expand the tragedy by killing a boy who might not have been a threat.’” Amelie shrugged again. “Not all of my decisions are cruel, you see. But the ones which are not are usually wrong. Had I killed Shane then, and his father, as well, we would not now be facing this…bloody and painful farce.’”

“Because he’d be dead!’” Claire felt tears sting hard in her eyes and at the back of her throat. “Please. Please don’t let this happen. You can find out the truth, can’t you? You have powers. You can tell that Shane didn’t kill Brandon….’”

Amelie said nothing. She turned back toward the fire.

Claire watched her miserably for a few seconds, and felt tears break free to run down her cheeks. They felt ice-cold in the overly warm room. “You can tell,’” she repeated. “Why won’t you even try? Is it just because you’re angry at him?’”

“Don’t be infantile,’” Amelie said distantly. “I do nothing out of anger. I am too old to fall into the trap of emotion. What I do, I do for expedience, and for the sake of the future.’”

“Shane is the future! He’s my future! And he’s innocent!’”

“I know all that,’” Amelie said. “And it does not matter.’”

Claire stopped, stunned. Her mouth was open, and she tasted woodsmoke on her tongue until she closed it and swallowed. “What?’”

“I know Shane is innocent of the crime of which he is accused,’” Amelie said. “And yes, I could countermand Oliver. But I will not.’”

“Why?’” It burst out of Claire like a scream, but it was really just a whimper, all the fight kicked out of it.

“I have no reason to explain myself. Suffice to say that I have chosen to place Shane in that cage for a purpose. He may live, or he may die. That is no longer in my hands, and you may save both your breath and your hopes; I shall not stand up dramatically at the last moment as they light the pyres, and save your lover. Should it come to that, Claire, you must be prepared for the harsh reality that the world is not a fair or just place, and all your wishing cannot make it so.’” Amelie sighed, very lightly. “A lesson I learned long, long ago, when the oceans were young, and sand was still rock. I am old, child. Older than you can possibly understand. Old enough that I play with lives like counters in a game. I wish this was not so, but damn me if I can change what I am. What the world is.’”

Claire said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say, so she just cried, silently and hopelessly, until Amelie pulled a white silken handkerchief from her sleeve and gracefully held it out to her. Claire dabbed at her face with it, honked her nose, and hesitated with the silken square clutched in her hand. She’d grown up with disposable tissues; she’d never actually held a handkerchief before. Not one like this, all beautiful embroidery and monogramming. You didn’t throw these away, right?

Amelie’s lips curved into that distant smile. “Wash it and return it to me someday,’” she said. “But go now. I grow tired, and you will not change my mind. Go.’”

Claire slid off the chair and stood up, turned, and gasped. There were two of Amelie’s bodyguards standing right there, and she hadn’t even known they were behind her the whole time. If she’d tried anything…

“Go to sleep, Claire,’” Amelie said. “Let things be. We shall see how the cards fall in our game.’”

“It’s not a game: It’s Shane’s life,’” Claire shot back. “And I’m not sleeping.’”

Amelie shrugged and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “Then go about your quest,’” she said. “But do not come back to me, little Claire. I will not be so well-disposed to you again.’”

Claire didn’t look back, but she knew the bodyguards followed her all the way to the door.

“Was there not something else you wanted to tell me?’” Amelie asked, just before she went out. Claire glanced back; the vampire was still staring into the fire. “Did you not have another request?’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”

Amelie sighed. “Someone asked you for a favor.’”

Michael. Claire swallowed hard. “Michael wants to talk to you.’”

Amelie nodded. Her expression didn’t change.

“What do I tell him?’” Claire asked.

“That is entirely your affair. Tell him the truth—that you did not care enough to deliver his message.’” Amelie waved a hand without even looking toward her. “Go.’”

Lisa was sitting in the living room, frowning, arms folded, when Claire came back down the hall. She still looked fierce, never mind the bunny slippers, as she stood up to open the locks on the front door. Warrior princess on vacation, Claire thought. She guessed you grew up tough in Morganville, especially if you lived in a house Amelie could visit any time she felt like it.

“Bad news,’” Lisa said. “Right?’”

Did it show that much? “Right,’” Claire said, and wiped at her eyes again with the handkerchief. She shoved it in her pocket and sniffled miserably. “But I’m not giving up.’”

“Good,’” Lisa said. “Now, when I open this door, you’re gonna want to hurry. Go straight to the car out there. Don’t look left or right.’”

“Why? Is there something—?’”

“Morganville rules, Claire. Learn them, live them, survive them. Now go!’” Lisa yanked open the door, put a hand flat on Claire’s back, and propelled her out onto the porch. A second later, Lisa slammed the door, and Claire heard the rattle of the locks being turned. She got her balance, jumped down the steps, and hustled down the dark path and through the picket gate, and yanked open the passenger door of the car. She scrambled in and hit the lock, and then relaxed.

“I’m okay,’” she said, and turned to Detective Hess.

He wasn’t there.

The driver’s seat was empty. The keys were still in the ignition, the engine was idling, and the radio was playing softly. But the car was completely empty, except for her.

“Oh God,’” Claire whispered. “Oh God oh God oh God.’” Because she could drive the car, but that would mean stranding Detective Hess, if he’d gone off doing police things. Stranding him without his partner to help him. She’d seen enough cop shows to know that wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he’d just gone off to talk to somebody and was coming right back…or maybe he’d been snatched out of the car by some hungry vamp. But didn’t Hess have some kind of special Protection?

She had no idea what to do.

While she was thinking about it, she heard voices. Not loud, but a steady stream of conversation. It sounded like Detective Hess, and he wasn’t far away. Claire cautiously rolled down the window and listened hard; she couldn’t make out any words, but there were definitely voices.

Claire unlocked her door and eased it open, straining to catch the words, but they were just sound, no meaning. She hesitated, then slipped out of the car, eased the door shut, and hurried toward the sound of the voices. Yes, that was Detective Hess; she recognized his voice. No question about it.

She didn’t even realize where she was going—she was so intent on listening—until she realized how dark it was, and the words weren’t getting any clearer, and she wasn’t at all sure now that was Detective Hess’s voice after all.

And she was halfway down an alley with tall, rough board fence on both sides, trapping her.

She’d gone into the alley. Why the hell had she done that? Hess had warned her. Gramma had warned her. And she hadn’t listened!

Claire tried to turn around, she really tried, but then the whispers came again, and yes, for sure that was Detective Hess, there was no safety back there in the car, the car was a trap waiting to spring, and if she could just get to the end of the alley she’d be safe, Detective Hess would keep her safe, and she’d be—

“Claire.’”

It was a cold, clear voice, falling on her like ice down her back, and it shocked her right out of the trance she’d fallen into. Claire looked up. On the second story of Gramma’s house, bordering the alley, a slender white figure stood in the window, staring down.

Amelie.

“Go back,’” she said, and then the window was empty, curtains blowing in the wind.

Claire gasped, turned, and ran as fast as she could out of the alley. She could feel it at her back, pulling at her—it, whatever it was, it wasn’t a vampire as she understood vamps in Morganville; it was something else, something worse. Trapdoor spider, that was how Gramma and Lisa had described it. Panic whited out its song in her head, and she made it—somehow—to the end of the alley and burst out into the street.

Detective Hess was standing at the car, looking straight at the alleyway. Gun drawn and held at his side. He visibly relaxed at the sight of her, came around, and hustled her to the passenger side of the car. “That was dumb,’” he said. “And you’re lucky.’”

“I thought I heard you,’” she said faintly. Hess raised his eyebrows.

“Like I said. Dumb.’” He shut the door on her, came around, and put the car in gear.

“Where’d you go?’”

He didn’t answer. Claire looked back. There was something in the shadows in the alley, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

Just that its eyes reflected the light.

It was coming up on deep night, when most sensible people were fast asleep in their beds with their doors bolted and windows securely locked, and Claire was knocking on the door of Common Grounds. It had a CLOSED sign in the window, but the lights were on in the back.

“You’re sure you want to do this,’” Hess said.

“You sound just like my subconscious,’” Claire said, and kept knocking. The blinds twitched and tented; locks rattled.

Oliver opened the door of the coffee shop, and the smell of espresso and cocoa and steamed milk washed over her. It was warm, welcoming, and so very wrong, considering what she knew about him.

He looked very humanly harassed at her arrival. “It’s late,’” he said. “What is it?’”

“I need to talk to you about—’”

“No,’” he said very simply, and looked at Hess over her head. “Detective Hess, you need to take this child home. She’s lucky to still be alive today. If she wants to continue that winning streak, then she ought to be a little more cautious than to run around Morganville in the dead of night, knocking on my door.’”

“Five minutes,’” Claire promised. “Then I’ll go. Please. I never did anything to hurt you, did I?’”

He stared at her for a few cool seconds, and then stepped back and held the door open. “You, too, Detective. I hate to leave anyone with a pulse outside of shelter this evening.’”

I’ll bet, she thought. Oliver’s peace-and-love hippie act no longer worked on her. Amelie had a kind of noble dignity that let her get away with pretending concern; Oliver was different. He was trying to be like Amelie, but not quite making it.

And I’ll bet that pisses him off, too.

Hess urged her across the threshold and followed her in. Oliver locked up, walked to the coffee bar, and, without being asked, began to put together three drinks—cocoa for Claire, strong black coffee for Detective Hess, and a pale tea for himself. His hands were steady and sure, the activity so normal that it lulled Claire into relaxing just a little as she sat down at a table. She ached all over with exhaustion and the tension she’d run through her body at Amelie’s.

“Miles to go before you sleep,’” Oliver said, as he stirred the cocoa. “Here. Steamed milk and spiced cocoa. Hot peppers. It does have an amazing effect.’”

He brought it to the table and handed it off to her, put Hess’s coffee down, and retrieved his own brewing teacup before sitting. All very normal-life casual.

“You’re here about the boy, I would suppose,’” Oliver said. He dunked his tea bag and watched the results critically. “I really must get a new supplier. This tea is pathetic. America just doesn’t understand tea at all.’”

“He’s not the boy. His name is Shane,’” Claire said. “And he’s not guilty. Even Amelie knows that.’”

“Does she?’” Oliver raised his gaze to fix it on hers. “How interesting, because I, in fact, don’t. Brandon was hideously and cruelly tortured, then murdered. He might have had his flaws—’”

“What, like molesting children?’”

“—but he was born into a different time, and some of his habits were difficult to change. He had his bright side, Claire, as do we all. And now that’s gone, along with any harm he might have done.’” Oliver wouldn’t let her look away. “Hundreds of years of memory and experience, poured out like water. Wasted. Do you think it’s so simple to forget such a thing for me? For any of us? When we look at Brandon’s body, we see ourselves at the mercy of humans. At your mercy, Claire.’” He glanced at Detective Hess. “Or yours, Joe. And you must admit, that’s a terrifying prospect.’”

“So you’ll just kill anyone who frightens you. Who could hurt you.’”

“Well…yes.’” Oliver took the tea bag out of his cup and set it aside on the saucer, then sipped. “A habit we learned from you, really. Humans are all too ready to slaughter the innocent with the guilty, and if you were older, Claire, you would know this. Joe, I’m sure, is not so naive.’”

Hess smiled thinly and sipped coffee. “Don’t talk to me. I’m just the driver.’”

“Ah,’” Oliver said. “How generous of you.’” They exchanged some kind of a look that Claire didn’t know how to interpret. Was that anger? Amusement? A willingness to get up and beat the crap out of each other at a moment’s notice? She couldn’t even figure out what Shane and Michael were thinking, and she knew them. “Is she then aware of the price of your services?’”

“He’s trying to get you rattled, Claire. There’s no price.’”

“How interesting. And what a departure.’” Oliver dismissed Hess and got back to Claire, who hastily took a sip of her cocoa. Ohhhhhh…it just kind of exploded in her mouth, rich cocoa, warm milk, and a spicy edge that she didn’t expect. Wow. She blinked and took another sip, carefully. “I see you like the cocoa.’”

“Um…yeah. Yes, sir.’” Because somehow, when Oliver was being civilized, she felt compelled to still call him sir. Mom and Dad had a lot to answer for, she decided. She couldn’t even be rude to evil vampires who’d caged her boyfriend and were preparing to roast him alive. “What about Shane?’”

Oliver leaned back, and his eyelids drifted down to half-mast. “We’ve covered this subject, Claire. Quite thoroughly. I believe you might even have the bruises to remind you of my opinion.’”

“He didn’t do it.’”

“Let us deal in facts. Fact, the boy came back to Morganville with the clear intention of disrupting the peace, at the very least, and more likely killing vampires, which is an automatic death sentence. Fact, he concealed himself from us, along with his intentions. Fact, he communicated with his father and his father’s friends both before they came to Morganville and after. Fact, he was at the scene of the crime. Fact, he has offered little in his own defense. Need I go on?’”

“But—’”

“Claire.’” Oliver sounded sad and wounded. He leaned forward, braced his elbows on the table, and placed his chin on top of his folded hands. “You’re young. I understand that you have feelings for him, but don’t be a fool. He’ll drag you down with him. If you force me to it, I’m sure I could uncover evidence that you knew about the presence of Shane’s father in Morganville, and you had knowledge of their agenda. And that, my dear girl, would mean the end of your precious Protection, and put you in a cage alongside your boyfriend. Is that what you want?’”

Hess put a warning hand on her arm. “Enough, Oliver.’”

“Not nearly enough. If you came to bargain, I think you have nothing to offer me that I can’t get elsewhere,’” Oliver said. “So please take yourselves—’”

“I’ll sign whatever you want,’” Claire blurted. “You know, swear myself to you. Instead of Amelie. If you want. Just let Shane go.’”

She hadn’t been planning to do it, but when he’d mentioned bargain it had just taken on a life of its own inside her, and leaped right out of her mouth. Hess groaned and ran a hand over his hair, then covered his mouth, evidently to keep himself from telling her what an idiot she was.

Oliver continued to gaze at her with those steady, kind eyes.

“I see,’” he said. “It would be love, then. For love of this boy, you would tie yourself to me for the rest of your life. Give me the right to use you as I see fit. Do you have any idea what you’re offering? Because I would not offer you the conditional contracts that most in Morganville sign, Claire. No, for you, there would be the old ways. The hard ways. I would own you, body and soul. I would tell you when to marry and whom to marry, and own your children and all their issue. I was born in a time when this was custom, you see, and I am not in a charitable mood just now. Is this what you want?’”

“Don’t,’” Hess said sharply. He gripped Claire’s forearm and pulled her up to her feet. “We’re going, Oliver. Right now.’”

“She has the right to make her own choices, Detective.’”

“She’s a child! Oliver, she’s sixteen years old!’”

“She was old enough to conspire against me,’” he said. “Old enough to find the book that I spent half a hundred years pursuing. Old enough to cut off my one and only chance to save my people from Amelie’s intolerable iron grip. Do you think I care about her age?’” Oliver’s friendly courtesy was all gone, and what was left was like a man-sized snake, with a cruel light flickering behind his eyes, and fangs flicking down in warning. Claire let Hess pull her out from behind the table, toward the door. He’d drawn his gun.

“I may not let you leave,’” Oliver said. “You realize that?’”

Hess spun and raised the gun, pointed it straight at Oliver’s chest. “Silver bullets washed in holy water, with a cross cast right in.’” He clicked back the hammer. “You want to test the line, Oliver? Because it’s right here. You’re standing on it. I’ll take a lot of shit from you, but not this. Not that kind of contract, and not with a kid.’”

Oliver hadn’t even bothered to stand up.

“I take it you don’t want your coffee poured to go? A pity. Do watch your back, Detective. You and I will have a talk, one of these days. And Claire…come back anytime. If the hours run thin, and you want to make that deal, I will listen.’”

“Don’t even think about it,’” Hess said. “Claire, open the door.’” He held his gun trained on the vampire, un-blinking, while Claire unlocked the three dead bolts and swung it open. “Get in the car. Move.’” He backed out behind her as she ran to the car and dived inside. Hess banged the door to Common Grounds closed, hard enough to crack glass, and slid over the hood of the car in a move she’d only ever seen in action movies, and was in the car and starting it before she could take a breath.

They raced off into the night. Claire checked the backseat, suddenly terrified she’d turn around to see Oliver grinning at her, but it was empty.

Hess was sweating. He wiped at the drops with the back of his hand. “You don’t fool around when you get yourself in trouble, I’ll give you that,’” he said. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen anybody get that out of Oliver. Ever.’”

“Um…thanks?’”

“It wasn’t a compliment. Listen, under no circumstances do you ever go back to Common Grounds, get me? Avoid Oliver at all costs. And no matter what happens, don’t make that deal. Shane wouldn’t want it, and you’d live to regret it. You’d live a long time, and you’d hate every horrible second of it.’” Hess shook his head and took a deep breath. “Right. That’s the end of the line for you tonight. You’re going home, I’m seeing you safe inside, and I’m going home to hide in a closet until this blows over. I suggest you do the same.’”

“But Shane—’”

“Shane’s dead,’” Hess said, so quietly and matter-of factly that she thought he meant it, that somehow someone had slipped in and killed him and she hadn’t even known…but then he went on. “You can’t save him. Nobody can save him now. Just let go and watch yourself, Claire. That’s all you can do. You’ve pissed off both Amelie and Oliver in one night. Enough already. A little common sense would be welcome from you right about now.’”

She sat in dull, grim silence the rest of the way home.

Hess was as good as his word. He walked her from the car up the steps, watched her open the front door, and nodded wearily as she stepped inside. “Lock it,’” he said. “And for God’s sake, go get some rest.’”

Michael was right there, warm and comforting, when she closed the door. He was holding his guitar by the neck, so he’d clearly been playing; his eyes were red-rimmed, his face tense. “Well?’” he asked.

“Hello, Claire, how are you?’” Claire asked the air. “No death threats, right? Thanks for going out in the dark to bargain with two of the scariest people on earth.’”

He at least had the good manners to look embarrassed about it. “Sorry. You okay?’”

“Duh. No fang marks, anyway.’” She shuddered. “I do not like those people.’”

“Vampires?’”

“Vampires.’”

“Technically, not people, but then, neither am I, now that I think about it. So never mind.’” Michael put an arm around her and steered her toward the living room, where he sat her down, put a blanket around her shoulders. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.’”

“It didn’t go at all,’” she said. She’d been depressed on the ride home, but having to actually report on her failure was a whole new level of suck. “They’re not letting him go.’”

Michael didn’t say anything, but the light died in his eyes. He went down on one knee next to her and fussed with the blanket, tucking it tighter around her. “Claire. Are you okay? You’re shaking.’”

“They’re cold, you know,’” she said. “They make me cold, too.’”

He nodded slowly. “You did what you could. Rest.’”

“What about Eve? Is she still here?’”

He glanced up at the ceiling, as if he could see through it. Maybe he could. Claire really didn’t know what Michael could and couldn’t do; after all, he’d been dead a couple of times already. Wouldn’t do to underestimate somebody like that. “She’s asleep,’” he said. “I—talked to her. She understands. She won’t do anything stupid.’” He didn’t look at Claire when he said that, and she wondered what kind of talking that might have been.

Her mother had always said, when in doubt, ask. “Was it the kind of talk where you gave her something to live for? Like maybe, um, you?’”

“Did I—what the hell are you talking about?’”

“I just thought maybe you and her—’”

“Claire, Jesus!’” Michael said. She’d actually made him flinch. Wow. That was new. “You think banging me is going to make her forget about charging out to commit cold-blooded vampire slaying? I don’t know what kind of standards you have on sex, but those are pretty high. Besides, whatever’s between me and Eve—well, it’s between me and Eve.’” Until she tells me about it later, Claire thought. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I—persuaded her. That’s all.’”

Persuaded. Right. The mood Eve had been in when Claire left? Not too likely…

And then Claire remembered the voices whispering to her in the alley, and her blind, stupid assumption of safety leading her into danger. Could Michael do that? Would he?

“You didn’t—’” She touched her temple with one finger.

“What?’”

“Screw with her head? Like they can?’”

He didn’t answer. He fussed with the blanket around her shoulders some more, fetched her a pillow, and said, “Lie down. Rest. It’s only a couple of hours until dawn, and I’m going to need you.’”

“Oh, God, Michael, you didn’t. You didn’t! She’ll never forgive you!’”

“As long as she lives to hate me later,’” he said. “Rest. I mean it.’”

She didn’t intend to sleep; her brain was whirling like a tire rim scraping pavement, shooting off sparks in every direction. Lots of energy being expended, but she wasn’t going anywhere fast. Have to think of something. Have to…

Michael started playing, something soft that sounded melancholy, all in minor keys, and she felt herself begin to drift…

…and then, without any sense of going, she was gone.

The blanket around her smelled like Shane.

Claire burrowed deeper into its warmth, murmuring something that might have been his name as she woke; she felt good, relaxed, safe in his embrace. The way she’d been the other night when they’d spent it here on the couch, kissing…

All that faded fast when the events of the past day flooded back, stripping away the comfort and leaving her cold and scared. Claire sat up, clutching the blanket, and looked around. Michael’s guitar was back in its case, and the sun was over the horizon. So, he was gone again, and she and Eve…she and Eve were on their own.

“Right,’” she whispered. “Time to get to work.’” She still needed to find some kind of viable strategy to break Shane out of that cage on Founder’s Square. Which meant research…maybe Detective Hess could tell her something about how many guards there were, and where. Clearly, there was some kind of security process for keeping out the human losers like her, but any security could be broken, right? At least, that’s what she’d always heard. Maybe Eve knew something that could help.

If Eve wasn’t back on suicide watch this morning, anyway. Claire thought wistfully about a hot shower, decided maybe it could wait, and wandered into the kitchen to put on coffee. Eve wasn’t going to be happy, but she’d be even less happy without caffeine. Claire waited while the pot filled, then carried a black mug full of the stuff upstairs. The key to Eve’s door was hanging on a hook, with a note taped to it. Michael’s handwriting. It read, Don’t let her leave the house. By implication, of course, it meant Claire was supposed to stay here, too.

As if she could even think about doing that, with Shane’s last hours running out. And who knew what was happening to him out there? She thought about the cold fury in Oliver, the indifference in Amelie, her stomach twisting. She grabbed the key, turned it in the lock, and opened Eve’s bedroom door.

Eve was sitting, fully dressed and made-up in zombified glory, on the edge of her bed. She’d put her hair into two pigtails, one on each side, and she’d done her makeup with great care. She looked like a scary porcelain doll.

An angry scary porcelain doll. The kind that they made horror movies about, with stabby knives.

“Coffee?’” Claire asked weakly. Eve looked at her for a second, took the coffee, got up, and walked out of the bedroom toward the stairs. “Oh boy.’”

By the time Claire made it downstairs, Eve was standing in the middle of the living room, looking up at nothing. She’d put the coffee down, and her hands were on her hips. Claire paused, one hand still clutching the banister, and watched Eve turn a slow circle as if she was looking for something.

“I know you’re there, you coward,’” she said. “Now hear this, crazy supernatural boy. If you ever fuck with me again, I swear, I will walk out this door and never come back. You get me? One for yes, two for no.’”

He must have said yes, because some of the stiffness went out of Eve’s shoulders. She was still mad, though. “I don’t know what’s lower, you playing vamp tricks on me, or locking me in my room, but either way, you are so busted, man. Being dead can’t save you. When you get back tonight, I am completely kicking your ass.’”

“He was sorry,’” Claire said. She sat down on the first step as Eve turned a glare of righteous anger in her direction. “He knew you were going to be mad, but he couldn’t—he cares about you, Eve. He couldn’t just let you go out and get yourself killed.’”

“Last time I checked, I was over eighteen and nobody’s property!’” Eve yelled, and stomped her foot. “I don’t care if you’re sorry, Michael—you’re going to have to work really hard to make this up to me! Really hard!’”

Claire saw the breeze ruffle Eve’s hair. Eve closed her eyes for a second, swaying, mouth open in a round, red O.

“Okay,’” she said weakly. “That was different.’”

“What?’” Claire asked, and jumped to her feet.

“Nothing. Um, nothing at all. Right.’” Eve cleared her throat. “What happened last night? Did you get them to let Shane go?’”

Claire’s throat just locked up on her in misery. She shook her head and looked down. “But it’s no use going out there with stakes and crosses,’” she said. “They’d be ready. We need another plan.’”

“What about Joe? Detective Hess?’”

Claire shook her head again. “He can’t.’”

“Then let’s go talk to some people who can,’” Eve said reasonably. She picked up her coffee and drained it in long, chugging gulps, set the mug aside, and nodded. “Ready.’”

“Who are we going to see?’”

“It may shock you, but living in Morganville my entire pathetic life isn’t a complete waste. I know people, okay? And some of them actually have backbones.’”

Claire blinked. “Um…okay. Two minutes.’”

She dashed upstairs for the fastest shower and change of clothes in her life.

9

It stood to reason that Eve would know places to go that Claire didn’t, but for some reason it surprised Claire where those places were. A Laundromat, for instance. And a photo-processing place. In each case, Eve made her wait in the car while she talked to somebody—a human somebody, Claire was almost sure. But nothing came out of it, either time.

Eve got back in her big, dusty Cadillac looking grim and already wilting in the morning’s heat. “Father Jonathan’s on a trip,’” she said. “I was hoping we could get him to talk to the mayor. They go back.’”

“Father Jonathan? There’s a priest in town?’”

Eve nodded. “The vampires don’t care about whether or not he celebrates Mass, as long as he doesn’t display any crosses. Communion’s kind of interesting; the vamps keep the wafers and wine under guard. Oh, and forget about the holy water. If they ever caught him making the sign of the cross over anything liquid, they’d make sure his next congregation has an address behind the pearly gates.’”

Claire blinked, trying to get her head around it. “But—he’s on a trip? Out of town? What?’”

“Gone to the Vatican. Special dispensation.’”

“The Vatican knows about Morganville?’”

“No, idiot. When he leaves town, he’s like anybody else: no memory of the vamps. So I don’t think we can count on the Vatican Strike Team storming in to save Shane, if that’s what you were thinking.’”

It wasn’t, but it was kind of comforting to imagine paramilitary priests in bulletproof armor, with crosses on the vests. “So what now, then? If you can’t get to Father Jonathan?’”

Eve started the car. They were parked in the tiny photo-store parking lot, next to a big industrial-sized Dumpster. They were the only car in the parking lot, although a white van was just turning into the lot and squealing to a stop in the space next to them. It was still pretty early—before nine a.m.—and what passed for traffic in Morganville was slowly filtering around the streets. The photo-processing place claimed to be open twenty-four hours; now, that was a job Claire figured she didn’t want. Did vampires take pictures? What kind? Maybe the trick was not to look at what came spitting out of the machine, just shuffle the prints into an envelope and hand them over…but then, that was probably the trick outside of Morganville, too.

She checked the clock again. “Eve! What about your job?’”

“I can get another one.’”

“But—’”

“Claire, it wasn’t that good of a job. Look at what I had to put up with. Jocks. Jerks. Monica.’”

Eve started to back out of the parking lot, then slammed on the brakes when another car pulled in behind her, blocking her in. “Dammit,’” she breathed, and fumbled for her cell phone. She pitched it to Claire. “Call the cops.’”

“Why?’” Claire twisted to look out the back, but she couldn’t see who was driving the other car.

She was looking in the wrong place. The threat wasn’t the car behind them; it was the white van next to the passenger side of the Cadillac, and as she started punching 911, a sliding panel came open, and someone reached out and pulled on the handle of Claire’s door.

It was locked. She wasn’t a total idiot. But two seconds later, it didn’t matter, because a crowbar hit the window behind her, smashing it into a million little sparkly pieces, and Claire reflexively jerked forward, hands over her head. She fumbled the phone into the floorboards, and tried frantically to find it. Eve was cursing breathlessly.

“Get us out of here!’” Claire yelled.

“I can’t! We’re blocked in!’”

Claire grabbed the phone triumphantly, finished pushing buttons for 911, and pressed SEND just as a hand reached in from the backseat and slammed her face-first into the dash.

After that, things got a little distant and fluffy around the edges. She remembered being taken out of the car. Remembered Eve yelling and fighting, then going quiet.

Remembered being bundled into the van and the door sliding shut.

And as her head began to clear up again, except for a monster-sized headache centered right over her eyes, she remembered the van, too. She’d seen it before. She’d been in it before.

And just like before, Jennifer was driving, and Monica and Gina were in the back. Gina was holding her down. The girls looked flushed. Crazy. Not good.

“Eve,’” Claire whispered.

Monica leaned closer. “Who, the freak? Not here.’”

“What did you do to her?’”

“Just a little cut, nothing too serious,’” Monica said. “You ought to be worried about yourself, Claire. My daddy wanted to get a message to you.’”

“Your—what?’”

“Daddy. What, you don’t have one of those? Or do you just not know which john was the sperm donor?’” Monica sneered. She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and an orange top, and she looked as glossy as a magazine page. “Oh, don’t bother, mouse. Just stay down—you won’t get hurt.’”

Gina pinched Claire, hard. Claire yelled, and Monica grinned in response. “Well,’” she amended, “maybe hurt a little. But a tough chick like you can take it, right, genius?’”

Gina pinched Claire again, and Claire gritted her teeth and managed to keep it to just a whimper this time. Easier, since she was already prepared for the pain. Gina looked disappointed. Maybe she should scream her lungs out no matter what, save herself the trouble of Gina having to work harder for it….

“You were following us,’” Claire said. She felt nauseated, probably from smacking her head into the dashboard, and she was deeply worried about Eve. A little cut. Monica wasn’t the type to do anything halfway.

“See? I told you she was a genius, didn’t I?’” Monica sat down in one of the padded leather seats that lined the van, and crossed her legs. She had on cute platform shoes that matched her orange tank top, and she inspected her nails—also done in orange—for signs of chipping. “You know what, genius? You’re right. I was following you. See, I wanted to bring you in quietly, but no, you and Zombie Girlfriend had to make it all difficult. Why aren’t you in class, anyway? Isn’t that, like, against your religion or something, cutting class?’”

Claire struggled to sit up. Gina glanced at Monica, who nodded; Claire edged away from Gina and put her back up against the sliding door of the van. She rubbed her stinging arm where Gina had given her pinches. “Shane,’” she said. “That’s what your dad wants to see me about, isn’t it?’”

Monica shrugged. “I guess. Look, I don’t like Shane; that’s no secret. But I never intended for his sister to get killed in that fire. It was a stupid school thing, okay? No big deal.’”

“No big deal?’” Of everything Monica had ever said to her—and there’d been some jaw-droppers—that was maybe the worst. “No big deal? A kid died, and you destroyed their whole family! Don’t you get it? Shane’s mom—’”

“Not my fault!’” Monica was suddenly flushed. Not used to being blamed, Claire guessed; maybe nobody ever had blamed her except Shane. “Even if she remembered, if she’d kept her mouth shut, she’d have been fine! And Alyssa was an accident!’”

“Yeah,’” Claire said. “I’m sure that makes it all better.’” She felt gritty and tired, never mind the sleep she’d had, or the shower. The floor of the van was filthy. “What the hell does your father want with me, anyway?’”

Monica stared at her in silence for a few seconds, then said, “He doesn’t think Shane killed Brandon.’”

“You’re kidding.’”

“No. He thinks it was Shane’s dad.’” Monica’s perfectly lipsticked mouth curved into a slow smile. “He’d like for you to tell Shane’s dad that and see what happens. ’Cause if he was any kind of a father, he wouldn’t stand by and let his baby boy take the heat for him. Literally.’”

“So he wants me to tell Shane’s dad—the mayor is willing to make a deal?’”

“Shane’s life for his father’s,’” Monica said. “No real dad could resist something like that. Shane’s not important, but Dad wants this over. Now.’”

Claire had a very bad feeling squirming in the pit of her stomach, like she’d swallowed earthworms. “I don’t believe it. They’d never let Shane go!’” Not if Oliver had any say in it, anyway.

Monica shrugged. “I’m just delivering a message. You can tell Frank whatever you damn well want, but if you’re smart, you’ll tell him something to get him out in the open. Get me? Amelie’s Protection only goes so far. You can still be hurt. In fact, Gina would probably enjoy that a lot, even if she gets a slap on the wrist for punishment.’”

“And think about your friend, back there all by herself,’” Gina said. She was smiling, a wet, crazy sort of smile. “All kinds of things can happen to girls out on their own in this town. All kinds of bad things.’”

“Yeah, well, Eve should know,’” Monica said. “Look who her brother is.’”

Claire’s head knocked back against metal as the van bumped over what felt like railroad tracks, setting off a nuclear vibration in her head with the already-fierce headache in the front. “So,’” Monica said. “You know what you have to do, right? Go to Shane’s dad. Convince him to trade himself for Shane. Or—you may find out just how unfriendly Morganville can really be.’”

Claire didn’t say anything. The things she wanted to say would, she figured, get her killed; whether or not Monica and Gina would be punished for it later wasn’t much of a comfort.

She finally gave them one sharp, unwilling nod.

“Home, James!’” Monica called up to Jennifer, who gave the OK sign and turned a corner. Claire tried to peer out, but she didn’t recognize the street. Somewhere close to campus, though. She saw the bell tower next to the UC rising up on the right-hand side.

She grabbed for a handhold as Jennifer slammed on the brakes. Monica wasn’t so lucky; she spilled out of her seat and onto the floor, screaming and cursing. “Dammit! What the hell was that, Jen, Driving for Dummies?’”

Jen didn’t say anything. Her hands slowly came up in a position of surrender.

The door behind Claire slid open, and a big hand grabbed her by the back of the neck and hauled her backward into the hot sunlight. Not a vampire, she thought, but that wasn’t much of a comfort, because a burly, muscular arm stretched out past her, and it was holding a sawed-off shotgun. She recognized the blue flame tattoos licking down his arm and onto the back of his hand.

One of the bikers.

She looked around and saw three more, all armed, pointing weapons at the van—and then, she saw Shane’s father walking up, as easy as if the whole town and every vampire in it hadn’t been hunting him through the night. He even looked rested.

“Monica Morrell,’” he said. “Come on down! See what you’ve won.’”

Monica froze where she was, holding on to one of the hanging leather straps. She looked at the guns, at Gina, who was kneeling with her hands in the air, and then helplessly at Claire.

She was afraid. Monica—crazy, weird, pretty Monica—was actually scared. “My father—’”

“Let’s talk about him later,’” Frank said. “You get your sweet ass down here, Monica. Don’t make me come and get you.’”

She retreated farther into the van. Shane’s dad grinned and motioned two of his bikers inside. One grabbed Gina by the hair and dragged her out to sprawl in the street.

The other one grabbed Monica, struggling and spitting, and handcuffed her to the leather strap in the back. She stopped fighting, amazed. “But—’”

“I knew you were going to do the opposite of what I told you,’” Frank said. “Easiest way to keep you in the van was to tell you to get out.’” He opened the driver’s-side door and stuck a gun in Jennifer’s face. “You, I don’t need. Out.’”

She slid down, fast, and kept her hands high as Frank pushed her toward the bikers. She sat down next to Gina on the curb and put her arms around her. Funny, Claire had never thought of those two as being friends in their own right, just as hangers-on for Monica. But now they seemed…real. And really scared.

“You.’” Shane’s dad turned to look directly at Claire. “In the back.’”

“But—’”

One of the bikers put his gun close to her head. She swallowed and scrambled into the van, claiming the leather seat that Monica had so recently tumbled out of. Shane’s father got in after her, then a sweaty load of bikers. One of them got in the driver’s seat, and the van lurched into gear.

It hadn’t taken but a minute, Claire figured. In Morganville, at this hour, nobody probably even noticed. The streets looked deserted.

She looked at Monica, who stared back, and for the first time, she thought she really understood what Monica was feeling, because she felt it, too.

This was a very bad thing.

The van lurched through a long series of turns, and Claire tried to think of an easy way to get to her cell phone, which was in the pocket of her jeans. She’d dropped Eve’s back at the car, when Monica had slammed her face-first into the dashboard…. She managed to get her fingers hooked in her pocket, casual-like, and touched the metal case. All I have to do is dial 911, she thought. Eve had probably already reported the abduction, if Eve was okay enough to talk. They could trace cell phones, right? GPS tracking or something?

As if he’d read her mind, Shane’s dad came to her, stood her up, and patted her down. He did it fast, not lingering like some dirty old man, and found the phone in her pocket. He took it. Monica was yelling again, and trying to kick; one of the bikers was doing the same thing as Frank, although Claire thought it was more feeling up than patting down. Still, he found her cell, too—a Treo—and slid open the van door to pitch them out into the street. “Kill ’em!’” he yelled to the driver, who pulled the van into a U-turn and went back the other way. Claire didn’t hear the crunch, but she figured the phones were nothing but electronic bits.

The turning and lurching continued. Claire just hung on, head down, thinking hard. She couldn’t get word out, but Eve would have. Detective Hess, Detective Lowe? Maybe they’d come running.

Maybe Amelie would send her own people to enforce her Protection. That would be pretty fabulous right about now.

“Hey,’” Monica said to Shane’s dad. “Stupid move, asshole. My dad’s going to have every cop in Morganville on you in seconds. You’re never going to get away, and once they have you, they’ll throw you in a hole so deep, even the sewer will seem like heaven. Don’t touch me, you pig!’” Monica writhed to get away from the stroking hands of the biker next to her, who just smiled and showed gold-capped teeth.

“Don’t touch her,’” Shane’s dad said. “We’re not animals.’” Claire wondered where all this sudden White Knight syndrome came from, because he’d been willing to let his boys do whatever to her and Eve back at the Glass House. “Take her bracelet.’”

“What? No. No! It doesn’t come off, you know that!’”

The biker reached down and took a small pair of bolt cutters from a pouch on his belt. Claire gasped in horror as the biker grabbed Monica’s arm. Oh God, she thought, he’s going to cut off her hand….

But he just sliced through the metal bracelet, instead, yanked it off her wrist, and tossed it to Shane’s father. Monica glared at him, trembling, and slapped him. Hard.

He drew back a hand to slap her back. “Leave it,’” Shane’s father said. He was staring at the bracelet. The outside was the symbol, of course; Claire couldn’t read it, but she figured it was Brandon’s symbol, and now that Brandon was dead, she wondered who picked up his Protection duties. Maybe Oliver…

On the inside was inscribed Monica’s full name: MON

ICA ELLEN MORRELL. Shane’s dad grunted in satisfaction.

“You want a finger, too?’” the biker asked, snipping the shears. “No trouble.’”

“I think this makes the point for us,’” Shane’s dad said. “Get us underground, Kenny. Move.’”

The guy driving—Kenny, at least now Claire knew one of their names—nodded. He was a tall man, kind of thin, with long black hair and a blue bandanna. His leather vest had a naked girl on a Harley on the back, and it matched the tattoos down the arm that Claire could see. Kenny expertly navigated the confusing streets and turns of Morganville, moving fast but not dangerously fast, and then all of a sudden…darkness.

Kenny flicked on the lights. They were in a storm drain, a huge concrete tunnel big enough to fit the van—though barely—and it was heading down at a steep angle into the dark. Claire fought to get her breath. She didn’t really like closed-in places, or the dark…. She remembered how freaked-out she’d been sealed in the hidden pantry room at the Glass House, not so many days ago. No, she didn’t like this. She didn’t like it at all.

“Where are you taking us?’” she asked. She meant it to sound tough, but instead it sounded like what she was: a scared sixteen-year-old, trying to be brave. Great.

Frank Collins, hanging on to one of the leather straps, looked at her with something strange in his eyes—almost, she thought, respect. “Not taking you anywhere,’” he said. “You get to deliver the message.’” And he pitched her Monica’s severed bracelet. “Tell the mayor that if I don’t hear that my son’s been set free before tomorrow at dawn, pretty little miss here gets to find out what fire is really like. We’ve got us a nice blowtorch.’”

She didn’t like Monica. In fact, she kind of hated her, and she thought Morganville would be a much better place if Monica just…disappeared.

But nobody deserved what he was talking about.

“You can’t do that,’” she said. “You can’t.’” But she knew, looking around at the grinning, sweaty crew he’d brought with him, that he could do that, and a lot worse. Shane was right. His dad was seriously sick.

“Kenny up there’s going to pull up to a ladder soon,’” Frank continued. “And I’m going to want you to get out of the van, Claire. Go up the ladder and push open the grate. You’ll be right in front of the Morganville City Hall. You walk up to the first cop you see and you tell him you need to see the mayor about Frank Collins. And you tell him that Frank Collins has his daughter, and she’s going to pay for the life she already took, not to mention the one they’re about to. Got it?’”

Claire nodded stiffly. Monica’s bracelet felt cold and heavy in her fingers.

“One more thing,’” Frank said. “I’m going to need you to tell them just how serious I am. And you’d better be persuasive, because if I don’t hear something from the mayor before dawn, we’ll be using those bolt cutters to send him some more reminders. And she’s fresh out of bracelets.’”

The van lurched to a stop, and Frank threw open the sliding door. “Out,’” he said. “Better make it good, Claire. You want to save my son, don’t you?’”

He didn’t say anything about saving Monica, she noticed. Nothing at all.

Monica looked at her, no longer sleek and magazine glossy. She seemed small and vulnerable, alone in the van with all those men. Claire hesitated, then got up from her seat and grabbed a leather strap to steady herself. Her knees felt like water. “This is crazy,’” she said. “Hang in there. I’ll get help.’”

Tears glittered in Monica’s eyes. “Thanks,’” she said softly. “Tell my dad—’” She didn’t finish, and she sucked in a deep breath. The tears cleared away, and she gave Claire a half-crazy smile. “Tell my dad that if anything happens to me, he can hold you personally responsible.’”

The door slammed shut between them, and the van sped off into the dark. Claire was glad she had her hand on the ladder, because the lights went away fast, and she was left in a dark so close and hot and filthy that she wanted to curl up into a ball.

Instead, she climbed, feeling for the slimy rungs in the dark and waiting for something—something with teeth—to lunge onto her back at any second. Vampires lived down here, they had to. Or at least, they used these tunnels as highways; she’d always wondered how they got around during the day. These weren’t sewer tunnels, just storm drains built extra large. And since Morganville wasn’t exactly built on a floodplain, chances were, the water had never been more than ankle-high in these things since they’d been constructed.

Claire climbed, and when she squinted just right, she saw flickers of what looked like daylight. There was a grate overhead, covered with some kind of protective material to keep the sun from filtering down into the tunnel. She braced herself on the rungs, hooked her left arm through one of the iron bars, and heaved with her right to push the grate up.

Hot Texas sun washed over her in a warm, sticky flood, and Claire gasped and raised her face to it in gratitude. After taking a few fast breaths, she pushed herself up another rung and thumped the grate back on its hinges to climb out.

Just as Shane’s dad had said, she was standing in front of the Morganville City Hall—which was, unfortunately, not on Founder’s Square. It was a big Gothic castle of a building, all red sandstone in rough-cut blocks, and people were coming and going on their way to or from work, or filing paperwork—just carrying out their daily lives, whatever that meant in Morganville.

She rolled out onto the grass and flopped there, breathing hard. A couple of faces appeared overhead, blocking out the sun. One of them was wearing a policeman’s uniform cap.

“Hello,’” Claire said, and shaded her eyes. “I need to talk to the mayor. Tell him I have information about his daughter, and Frank Collins.’”

The mayor had changed out of the suit he’d worn to put Shane in a cage the night before; he was wearing a green golf shirt with black slacks and loafers. Very preppy. He was in the hallway, talking into his cell phone, looking tense and angry. Claire was escorted past him, into his office, and deposited in a big red leather chair by two members of Morganville’s finest; she didn’t recognize either of them. When she asked after Detectives Hess and Lowe, she got nothing. Nobody even admitted to knowing their names.

Claire was feeling more than a little light-headed. She had no idea how long it had been since she’d eaten, but the world was starting to take on a surreal melty edge that really wasn’t a very good sign. Between the stress, the poor sleep, and the lack of food, she was going to be loopy soon.

Keep it together, Claire. Pretend you’re cramming for a test. She’d gone without sleep for three days once, prepping for her SAT, and she hadn’t eaten much beyond Jolt cola and Cheetos. She could do this.

“Here,’” said a voice from beside her, and a red can of Coca-Cola appeared, held in a big male hand. “You look like you could use something to drink.’”

Claire looked up. It was Richard, Monica’s cop brother. The cute one. He looked tired and worried. He pulled up another chair close to hers and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Claire busied herself with the Coke, popping the top and taking a fast chug of the icy sweet contents.

“My sister got carjacked,’” he said. “You know that, right?’”

Claire nodded and swallowed. “I was there. I was in the van.’”

“That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you before I let you see my dad,’” Richard said. “You were in the van with Jennifer and Gina and Monica.’”

Claire nodded again.

“Let me ask you this, then. How did you signal them?’”

She blinked. “How did I what?’”

“How did you plan the setup? What was your system? Did you text message them? You know, we can pull those records, Claire. Or was it some kind of trap you led my sister into?’”

“I don’t know what you’re—’”

Richard looked up at her, and she fell silent, because he didn’t look so friendly this time. Not friendly at all. “My sister’s a crazy psycho—I know that. But she’s still my sister. And nobody lays their hands on a Morrell in this town, or somebody—maybe a whole bunch of somebodies—pays for it. Get the point? So whatever you know, whatever your relationship is with these invaders, you’d better come to it quick, or we’re going to start digging. And Claire, that’s going to be a fast, bloody kind of process.’”

She wrapped both hands around the Coke can and raised it to her mouth for another trembling gulp, then said, “I didn’t lead them to your sister. Your sister abducted me. Right out of the Photo Finish parking lot. Ask Eve. Oh God—Eve—Gina cut her. Is she okay?’”

Richard frowned at her. “Eve’s all right.’”

That eased a terrible knot in her stomach. “What about Gina and Jennifer?’”

“Also fine. They called in the carjacking. Gina said—’” He turned something over in his mind, and then said, more slowly, “Gina said a lot of things. But I should have remembered who I was talking to. If there’s anybody in Morganville crazier than my sister, it’s Gina.’”

She couldn’t disagree with that. “The guys who took over the van—’”

“Shane’s father,’” Richard interrupted. “We already know all that. Where is he now?’”

“I don’t know,’” she said. “I swear! He let me out in the storm drain and told me to climb the ladder and talk to your father. That’s why I’m here.’”

“Leave the kid alone, Richard.’” Mayor Morrell stalked in, slamming the office door behind him, and paused to glare at the two extra police officers standing guard. “You. Out. If my son can’t handle some sixteen-year-old stick of a girl, he deserves what he gets.’”

They left, fast. Claire put the Coke can aside on a table as the mayor sank into his big, plush leather chair. He no longer looked quite as smug as he had back at Founder’s Square, and he definitely looked angry.

“You,’” he snapped. “Talk. Now.’”

She did, spilling it out in a tumbling stream of words. Shane’s father hijacking the van and pitching Gina and Jennifer out. Destroying the cell phones. Threatening Monica and sending Claire as his messenger of doom. “He’s serious,’” she finished. “I mean, I’ve seen him do things. He’s seriously not afraid to hurt people, and he definitely doesn’t like Monica.’”

“Oh, and suddenly you’re her bestest little friend? Please. You hate her guts, and you’ve probably got reason,’” Richard said. He got up to pace the room. “Dad, look, let me do this. I can find these guys. If we put every available man and vampire on the streets—’”

“We did that last night, son. Wherever these guys go, they’re going someplace we can’t follow.’” The mayor’s red-rimmed eyes fastened back on hers. He cracked his knuckles. He had big hands, like his son. Hard hands. “Oliver wants this over. He wants to move up the timetable, burn the kid tonight and get them out in the open. It’s not a bad plan. Call their bluff.’”

“You think Frank Collins is bluffing?’” Richard asked.

“No,’” the mayor said. “I think he’ll do exactly what he said he’d do, only a whole lot worse than we can imagine. But what Oliver wants…’”

“You’re just going to let him do it? What about Monica?’”

“Oliver doesn’t know they’ve got her. Once I tell him—’”

“Dad,’” Richard said. “It’s Oliver. He’s not going to give a crap and you know it. Acceptable losses. But it’s not acceptable to me, and it shouldn’t be to you, either.’”

Father and son exchanged looks, and Richard shook his head and continued to pace. “We need to find a way to get her back. Somehow.’”

“You.’” The mayor pointed a thick finger at Claire. “Tell me the whole thing again. Everything. Every detail, I don’t care how minor. Start from the first time you saw these men.’”

Claire opened her mouth to answer, and caught herself just in time. No, you idiot! You can’t tell them the truth! The truth gets Shane fried for sure…. She wasn’t a good liar, she knew that, and there was too much time slipping by while she was scrambling around in her head, trying to pick up the threads of where to start the story….

“I guess—I saw some of them when they broke into the house,’” she said tentatively. “You know, when we called the cops about the home invasion? And then I saw…’”

She froze and closed her eyes. She’d seen something important. Very important. What was it? Something to do with Shane’s dad…

“Start with the van,’” Richard said, and short-circuited her attempt at catching the memory. She dutifully recounted it all again, and then again, answering specific questions as fast as she could. Her head ached, and despite the cold Coke, her throat did, too. She needed sleep, and she wanted to roll up in blankets and cry herself into a coma. Oliver wants to move up the timetable, burn the kid tonight. No. No, they couldn’t let it happen, they couldn’t….

But they could. Without question.

“Let’s start over,’” Richard said. “From the beginning.’”

She burst into despairing tears.

It took hours before they were done with her. Nobody offered to drive her home.

Claire walked, feeling like she was drifting half out of her body, and made it all the way home without a single incident. It was still daylight, which helped, but the streets seemed unnaturally quiet and deserted. Word was out, she guessed. Humans were keeping their heads down, hoping the storm would pass.

As Claire slammed the door, Eve came bolting down the stairs, raced to her, and wrapped her in a breathless full-body hug. “Bitch!’” she said. “I can’t believe you scared the crap out of me like that. Oh my God, Claire. Can you believe those jerks at the police station wouldn’t even take my statement? I even had a wound! A real wound with blood and everything! How’d you get away? Did Monica hurt you?’”

Eve didn’t know. Nobody had told her at the police station.

“Shane’s dad stopped the van,’” Claire said. “He took Monica as a hostage.’”

For a second, neither one of them moved, and then Eve whooped and held up her hand for a high five. Claire just stared at her, and Eve compensated by clapping both hands over her head. “Yesssss!’” she said, and did a totally geeky victory dance. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer psycho!’”

“Hey!’” Claire yelled, and Eve froze in midcelebration. It was stupid, but Claire was angry; she knew Eve was right, knew she had no reason at all to think Monica was ever going to be anything but a gigantic pain in the ass, but…“Shane’s dad’s going to burn her if they go through with the execution. He has a blowtorch.’”

The glee dropped out of Eve’s expression. “Oh,’” she said. “Well…still. Not like she didn’t ask for it. Karma’s a bitch, and so am I.’”

“Oliver’s trying to get them to kill Shane tonight. We’re out of time, Eve. I don’t know what to do anymore.’”

That knocked the last of Eve’s smugness right out from under her. She didn’t seem to know, either. She licked her lips and said, “There’s still time. Let me make some phone calls. And you need to get some food. And some sleep.’”

“I can’t sleep.’”

“Well, you can eat, right?’”

She could, as it turned out—and she needed to. The world had taken on a gray color, and her head was aching. A hot dog—plain except for mustard—chips, and a bottle of water solved some of that, though not the ache in her heart, or the sick feeling that had nothing to do with hunger.

What are we going to do?

Eve was on the phone, calling people. Claire slumped on the couch, tipped over, and curled up under the blanket. It still smelled like Shane’s cologne.

She must have slept for a while, and when she woke it was almost as though someone had flipped a switch or whispered in her ear, Wake up! Because she was upright in seconds, heart racing, and her brain was running to catch up. The house was quiet, except for the usual ticks and pops and moans that old houses got. A breeze rattled dry leaves outside.

And it took Claire a second to realize that she couldn’t see the tree that shaded the window because it was dark.

“No!’” She catapulted off the couch and raced to find a clock. It was exactly what she’d feared. No eclipses or sudden unexplained collapses of the normal day-night continuum; no, it was just dark because it was night.

She’d slept for hours. Hours. And Eve hadn’t woken her up. In fact, she wasn’t even sure Eve was still in the house.

“Michael!’” Claire went from room to room, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Michael! Eve! Where are you?’”

They were in Michael’s room. He opened the door, and he was half-dressed—shirt open, jeans hanging low-slung around his hips, revealing a chest and abs that even now Claire had to notice—and Eve was curled up in the bed, under the covers.

Michael quickly stepped out, buttoning his shirt. “You’re awake.’”

“Yeah.’” Claire suppressed a burst of pure fury. “If you’re done screwing around, maybe we can talk about Shane dying tonight.’”

Michael dipped his chin a little, staring her straight in the eyes. “You do not want to go there, Claire,’” he said flatly. “You really don’t. You think I don’t know? I don’t care? Fuck. What do you think Eve’s been doing all day while you—’”

“Slept? Yeah, I fell asleep! You could have woken me up!’”

He came forward a step. She backed up a step, then another, because his eyes…not Michael’s usual expression. Not at all.

“So you could sit and rip your guts out, too?’” he asked softly. “Enough of that going around, Claire. You needed to sleep. I let you sleep. Get over it.’”

“So what’s the brilliant plan you guys came up with while I was napping, then? What is it, Michael? What the hell do we do now?’”

“I don’t know,’” he said, and whatever tight control he’d been hanging on to ripped loose at the roots. “I don’t know!’” It was a yell, and it came right out of his guts. Claire backed up another step, feeling an icy flush race over her skin. “What the hell do you want me to do, Claire? What?’”

Her eyes filled up with tears. “Anything,’” she whispered. “God, please. Anything.’”

He grabbed her and hugged her. She sagged against him, trembling, not quite crying but…not quite not, either. It was a hopeless sort of feeling, as if they were loose and drifting and there was no land in sight.

Like they were lost. All lost.

Claire sniffled and stepped back, and when she did, she saw Eve standing in the doorway, watching them. Whatever Eve was thinking, it wasn’t good, and it wasn’t anything that Claire ever wanted to see again.

“Eve—’”

“Whatever,’” Eve said flatly. “There’s still one vampire who might help us. If we can find him and get him to agree. He could get into Founder’s Square without any problem. He might even be willing to open up Shane’s cage if we create some kind of diversion.’”

Michael turned toward her. “Eve.’” He didn’t sound guilty, at least. He sounded worried, though. “No. We talked about this.’”

“Michael, it’s the last thing we can do. I know that. But we need to go for it now, if we’re going to do it at all.’”

“What vampire?’” Claire asked.

“His name is Sam,’” Michael said, “and this is going to sound weird, but he’s my grandfather.’”

“Sam? He’s your—your—’”

“Grandfather. Yeah. I know. Freaks me the hell out, too. It has all my life.’”

Claire had to sit down. Fast.

When she recovered her breath, she told Eve and Michael about running into Sam at Common Grounds. About the present Sam had tried to give her for Eve. “I didn’t take it,’” she said. “I didn’t know—well, it just didn’t seem—right.’”

“Damn straight,’” Michael said.

Eve wasn’t looking at him. “Sam’s okay,’” she said.

“I thought you hated vampires.’”

“I do! But…I guess if there’s a most-hated-vampire list, he’s at the bottom. He always seems so lonely,’” Eve said. “He came into Common Grounds pretty much every night and just talked for hours. Just talked. Oliver always watched him like a hawk, but he never did anything, never threatened anybody—not like Brandon. In fact, I sometimes wondered—’”

“Wondered what?’”

“If Sam was there keeping an eye on Brandon. Maybe on Oliver, although I didn’t know that at the time. Looking out for…’”

“For the rest of us?’” Michael nodded slowly. “I don’t know how true it is, because I always avoided him, but family talk always said Sam was a good guy, before he was changed. And he is the youngest of all of them. The most like…well, like us.’”

Eve had gone over to the dark window, and was looking out, hands behind her back. “You know anything else about him? Family secrets, I mean?’”

“Just that supposedly he took on the vampires and won.’”

“Won? He’s one of them! How exactly is that winning?’”

Michael shook his head, moved up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. He kissed the nape of her neck gently. “I don’t know, Eve. I’m just telling you what I heard. He got some kind of agreement out of the vampires. And it was because Amelie loved him.’”

“Yeah, loved him enough to kill him and turn him into a bloodsucking fiend,’” Eve said grimly. “How sweet. Romance isn’t dead. Oh, wait. It is.’”

She pulled free of Michael and walked into the kitchen. Michael looked at Claire mutely. She shrugged.

When they got downstairs, they found that Eve was making bologna and cheese sandwiches. Claire wolfed down one in about six bites, then took a second sandwich. The other two looked at her. “What?’” she asked. “I’m starved. Honest.’”

“Be my guest,’” Michael said. “I hate bologna. Besides, not like I can starve.’”

Eve snorted. “I made you roast beef, genius.’” She handed him one. “So go on. This is the first I’ve heard from you about the History of Sam. What made him so special to be the last vampire ever?’”

“I don’t really know,’” Michael said. “The only thing Mom ever told me was what I just told you. The point is, Sam’s never really fit in with the vampires. Amelie doesn’t like to be reminded of weakness, and he was a constant neon sign. She really cared about him. So she cut him off—last I heard, she wouldn’t see him or talk to him. He hangs around humans a lot more than other vampires.’”

“And that’s why I said he could help us,’” Eve said. “Or at least, he’d be willing to listen. Bonus if he’s family.’”

“So where do we find him?’” Claire looked from Michael to Eve, then back again. “At Common Grounds?’”

“Off-limits to you,’” Eve said. “Hess told me what happened with you and Oliver.’”

“Something happened?’” Michael mumbled around his roast beef. “Why don’t I know this? God, I needed this. Tastes great.’”

Eve rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sandwiches take great skill. I’m thinking of teaching a class. Meanwhile, back on the subject, Claire is not going anywhere near Common Grounds. I said so. If anybody’s going, it’s me.’”

“No,’” Michael said. Eve glared at him.

“We had this talk,’” she said. “You may be dead sexy, and I mean, like, really dead and really sexy, but you don’t get to tell me what to do. Right? And no headshrinker stuff, either, or I swear to God, I’ll pack my shit and move!’”

Claire scraped her chair back, walked over to the cordless phone lying on the counter, and dialed from the business card still stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. Four rings, and a cheerful voice answered on the other end and announced she’d reached Common Grounds. “Hi,’” Claire said. “Can I talk to Sam, please?’”

“Sam? Hold on.’” The phone clattered, and Claire could hear the buzz of activity in the background—milk being steamed, people chatting, the usual excitement of a busy coffee shop. She waited, jittering one leg impatiently, until the voice came back on the line. “Sorry,’” it said. “He’s not here tonight. I think he went to the party.’”

“The party?’”

“You know, the zombie frat party? Epsilon Epsilon Kappa? The Dead Girls’ Dance?’”

“Thanks,’” Claire said. She hung up and turned to face Michael and Eve, who were staring at her in outright surprise. She held up the phone. “The power of technology. Embrace it.’”

“You found him.’”

“Without going into Common Grounds,’” Claire pointed out. “He’s at a party on campus. The big frat thing. The one—’” She paused, felt a chill, then a rush of heat. “The one I was invited to. It was kind of a date. I was supposed to meet this boy there. Ian Jameson.’”

“Guess what?’” Eve said. “We’re both going. Time to put on the dead look, Claire.’”

“The—what?’”

Eve was looking at her critically while she munched her sandwich. “Size one, maybe two, right? I’ve got some things that would fit you.’”

“I’m not getting dressed up!’”

“I don’t make the rules, but everybody knows you don’t get into the Dead Girls’ Dance without making an effort. Besides, you’ll look way cute as a teeny little Goth girl.’”

Michael was frowning at them both now. “No,’” he said. “It’s too dangerous for you to be out at night without an escort.’”

“Well, we’re fresh out of escorts. I think Claire broke Detective Hess last night. And I’m not going to just sit and wait, Michael. You know that.’” Eve locked eyes with him, and softened as he reached across the table and took her hand. “No head stuff. You promised.’”

“I promised,’” he agreed. “Never happen again.’”

“Cute as you are when you worry, it’s a party—there are hundreds of people there. It’s safe enough.’” Eve held his gaze steadily. “Safer than Shane is, in that cage, waiting to die. Unless you’re giving up on him.’”

Michael let go of her hand and walked away. He stiff-armed his way out of the kitchen door.

“Guess not,’” Eve said softly. “Good. Claire. We need to find out what the timeline is. Whether they’ve moved it.’”

“I’ll do it,’” Claire said, and punched in the number from another card. It was Detective Hess’s private number, the one penciled in on the back, and it rang four times before he picked up. He sounded bleary and exhausted. “Sir? It’s Claire. Claire Danvers. I’m sorry to wake you—’”

“Not asleep,’” he said, and yawned. “Claire, whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Stay home, lock the doors, and keep your head down. I mean it.’”

“Yes, sir,’” she lied. “I just want to know—there was talk about moving up the—the execution?’”

“The mayor said no,’” Hess said. “Said he wanted due process, and called for Shane’s dad to give himself up. Looks like a Mexican standoff to me: he’s got Shane; Shane’s dad has Monica. Nobody wants to blink.’”

“How long…?’”

“Before sunrise. Five in the morning,’” Hess said. “It’ll all be over before dawn. For Monica, too, if Shane’s dad isn’t just bluffing.’”

“He’s not bluffing,’” Claire said numbly. “Oh God. That’s not much time.’”

“Better than what Oliver wanted. He wanted to do it at sunset tonight. The mayor backed him off, but only to the legal deadline. There won’t be any last-minute stays of execution.’” Hess shifted; his chair creaked. “Claire, you need to prepare yourself. There’s no miracle coming; nobody’s going to have a change of heart. He’s going to die. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’”

She didn’t have the heart to argue with him, because she knew, deep down, that he was right. “Thank you,’” she whispered. “I have to go now.’”

“Claire. Don’t try. They’ll kill you.’”

“Good-bye, Detective.’”

She hung up, put the phone down on the counter, and braced herself with stiffened arms. When she looked up, Eve was watching her with bright, strange eyes.

“All right,’” Claire said. “If I have to be a zombie, I’ll be a zombie.’”

Eve smiled. “Cutest zombie ever.’”

Claire had never worn this much makeup in her life, not even at Halloween. “You wear this every day?’” she asked as Eve stepped back to look at her critically, makeup sponge still in hand. “It feels weird.’”

“You get used to it. Close your eyes. Powder time.’”

Claire obeyed, and felt the feathery touch of the powder brush as it glided over her face. She fought back an urge to sneeze.

“Okay. Now, eyes,’” Eve said. “Hold still.’”

It went on like that for a while, with Claire passively sitting and Eve working whatever dark magic she was working. Claire didn’t know. There was no mirror, and she was weirdly reluctant to see what was happening to her, anyway. It felt a little like she was losing herself, although that was stupid, right? How you looked wasn’t you. She’d always believed that, anyway.

Eve finally stepped back, studied her, and nodded. “Clothes,’” she said. Eve herself had put on a black corset thing, a tattered black skirt, and a necklace of skulls with matching earrings. Black lipstick. “Here you go.’”

Claire took off her blue jeans and T-shirt with great reluctance, then sat down to put on the black hose. They had white death’s-head symbols in a line, and she couldn’t figure out if they were supposed to go front or back. “Where do you find this stuff?’” she asked.

“Internet. Skulls go in the back.’”

After the adventure of the hose, the black leather skirt—knee-length, jingling with zippers and chains—seemed almost easy. Claire’s legs felt cold and exposed. She hadn’t been in a skirt in…when? Not since she was twelve, probably. She’d never liked them.

The top was a black net thing, stretchy and tight, see-through with a black skull and crossbones printed on it. “No way,’” she said. “It’s transparent!’”

“You wear it over a camisole, genius,’” Eve said, and tossed a black silky thing to her. Claire slipped it over her head, then fought her way into the clingy embrace of the skull shirt. “Watch the makeup!’” Eve warned. “Okay, you’re good. Excellent. Ready to take a look?’”

She wasn’t, but Eve didn’t seem to notice. She steered her into the bathroom, turned on the light, and put her arm around Claire. “Ta da!’” Eve said.

Oh my God, Claire thought. I can’t believe I’m doing this.

She looked like Eve’s skinny little sister. A dead-on junior freak in training.

Well, at least she’d blend in, and if anybody was looking for her, they’d never, ever recognize her. She wouldn’t recognize herself. And somehow she just knew there’d be pictures on the Internet later.

Claire sighed. “Let’s go.’”

Eve drove the black Cadillac onto campus and parked in the faculty lot—a blatant violation, but then, Eve didn’t give a crap about campus tickets, either. It was the closest parking to the frat house. So close, in fact, that Claire could see the lights blazing from every window, and hear the low thudding thump of the bass rattling through the car.

“Wow,’” Eve said. “They’ve gone all out this year. Good old EEK.’”

There was a graveyard around the house—tilting tombstones, big creepy-looking mausoleums, some decaying statues. There were also zombies—or, Claire guessed, party guests—lurching around and doing their best Night of the Living Dead parody for their friends’ cameras.

The dull roar of the party was audible even through the car’s closed windows.

“Stay close,’” Eve said. “Let’s find Sam, yeah? In and out.’”

“In and out.’” Claire nodded.

They got out and ran the short distance to the graveyard.

At close range, the tombstones were either foam rubber or Styrofoam, and the mausoleum was a dressed-up storage building, but it looked great. Zombie hands were reaching up out of the dirt. Nice touch, Claire thought. She came close to one, and it turned and groped her ankle. Claire screamed and jumped back into Eve, who caught her. “Jesus, guys, grow up,’” Eve said, and crouched down to look at the ground. “Where are you?’”

“Right here!’” A trapdoor covered with sod lifted up, and a geeky-looking frat boy wearing a pledge board stuck his head out. “Uh, sorry. Just kidding. I have to—’”

“Grope girls and look up their skirts. Yeah. Tough work, pledge.’” Eve stood up and brushed dirt from her knees. “Carry on.’”

He grinned at her and thumped the trapdoor back down. His hand came up again through a hole in the ground.

“Wow,’” Claire said. “How many of them are there? In the ground?’”

“Just the pledges,’” Eve said. “Come on. If Sam’s here, he’ll be talking to people. He loves to talk.’”

If Sam could talk, and anyone could hear him, it was more than Claire could imagine. The music was pounding so loud that she felt it like physical waves through her body, and she had to fight back an urge to cover her ears. Eve had put Claire’s hair up in little pigtails, and she missed having it over her ears to block out the roar. “I need earplugs!’” she yelled in Eve’s ear. Eve mimed a What did you say? “Never mind!’”

The Epsilon Epsilon Kappa fraternity house was trashed. Claire suspected it was usually trashed, but this was extra special—plastic cups everywhere, drinks soaking into carpet, a chair broken in the corner, and drunks sleeping on the sofa. And this was just the foyer. Two guys stepped into their path and held out their hands in the universal gesture for Don’t even think about it; they were big, muscular guys dressed in white face paint with black T-shirts that said UNDEAD SECURITY on them. “Invitations?’” one of them yelled. Claire exchanged a look with Eve.

“Ian Jameson invited me!’” she screamed back. “Ian Jameson!’”

The security guys had a list. They checked it, and nodded. “Upstairs!’” one yelled. “Last door on the left!’”

She didn’t intend to find Ian, but she nodded anyway. She and Eve pressed between the two security guys—who were maybe a little too close—and stepped over the threshold into the wildest party Claire had ever seen in her entire life.

Not that her experience was wide, but still…she was pretty sure Paris Hilton would have classified this as wild. Despite the fact that alcohol was banned on campus, she was also pretty sure the punch that was being ladled out of gigantic coolers was alcoholic (it also had severed hands, eyeballs, and assorted plastic gross-outs floating in it, and was bloodred). A lot of the people at the party already showed the telltale signs of being wasted—stumbling, laughing too loud, making wild gestures. Spilling drinks all over themselves and others, which really didn’t seem to bother people because, hey, zombies! Not neat freaks. Everybody wore white makeup, or had some kind of rubbery disgusting mask (though that was mostly the guys).

The main room was kind of a dance floor, people pressed up against each other and swaying. Claire stood in the doorway, frozen with sudden dread. It looked like a room full of dead people. Worse—dead, drunk, horny people.

“Come on,’” Eve yelled impatiently, and grabbed her by the hand. She plunged into the crowd without hesitation, craning her head to look around. “At least he’s a redhead!’” Because most of those at the party were wearing black wigs, or had dyed their hair like Eve’s. Claire’s had suffered a temporary blacking from some kind of spray-on stuff Eve had assured her would wash right out. Claire tried to shield herself from unnecessary body-to-body contact, but it was pretty much useless; she was closer to a whole bunch of guys than she’d ever been in her life.

A hand tried to go up her skirt as she pressed through the crowd. She yelped and jumped, moving faster. Somebody else swatted her on the ass.

“Faster!’” she yelled at Eve, who had slowed down to get her bearings. “God, I can’t breathe in here!’”

“This way!’”

Claire felt filthy—not just from getting groped, which continued to happen, but because she was sopping with other people’s sweat by the time Eve squirmed them through to a small clear space on the other side of the room, next to the stairs. It must have been the Wall-flower Corner; there were some shy-looking girls, all dressed in mock-Goth finery, grouped together for comfort and (Claire suspected) protection. She felt an instant sympathy for them. “Great party!’” Eve screamed over the pounding beat of the music. “Wish I could enjoy it!’”

“Any sign of Sam?’”

“No! Not in here! Let’s try the other rooms!’”

After the chaos of the main dance room, the kitchen felt like a study hall, even though it was still filled with people talking too loud and gesturing too much. More punch-filled coolers in here, which was driving Claire crazy; she was thirsty, but no way was she adding being drunk to her problems just now. Too much was at stake.

Her ears were still ringing. At least, in here, there was room to breathe. Claire reflexively searched for her cell phone, remembered it getting crunched under the wheels of the white van, and cursed under her breath. “What time is it?’” she asked Eve, who consulted her own black Razr (decorated, of course, with skulls).

“Ten,’” she said. “I know. We have to hurry.’”

Somebody grabbed Claire by the arm, and she recoiled in fright, but then she recognized him under the makeup—Ian, the guy who’d told her about the party. The one whose name they’d used to get inside. “Claire?’” he asked. “Wow. You look great!’”

He looked less geeky now, more edgy, with spiked black hair and vampire-style makeup. Claire wondered uneasily how many actual vampires were infiltrating this party tonight. Not a pleasant thought. “Oh—hi, Ian!’” Eve was scanning the room, and as Claire glanced at her, Eve shook her head and mimed going to the next room. Claire begged her not to go, at least with her eyes, but the thick makeup probably disguised her desperation.

“I’m so glad you came!’” Ian said. He hardly had to raise his voice at all to be heard over the roar; he just had that kind of voice, and plus, it was a blessedly dull roar in here. “Can I get you some punch?’”

“Um…do you have anything that’s not, you know…?’”

“Right, yeah. How about some water?’”

“Water would be wonderful.’” Where the hell was Eve? She’d ducked behind two tall guys and now Claire couldn’t see her, and she felt alone and very vulnerable just standing here in her fake Goth getup, and God, this makeup itched; how did Eve stand it? Claire wanted a shower, wanted to scrub her face clean, and wanted to put on plain jeans and a plain T-shirt and never be adventurous again.

Shane. Think about Shane. She felt an uncomfortable twist of guilt that she’d ever let him slip out of her thoughts, even for a minute.

Ian came back with a bottle of water, the top already off. “Here you go,’” he said, and handed it over. He was drinking water, too, not the punch stuff. “Crazy, huh?’”

“Crazy,’” she agreed. In a town full of vampires, this was just about the craziest idea she could imagine, putting a bunch of drunk, horny college kids in a place where vampires could blend right in. “Did you see where my friend went?’”

“Girls,’” Ian sighed. “Always travel in packs. Yeah, she went into the library. Come on.’”

Claire gulped water as she followed him, stepping carefully over the legs of several people who’d decided the kitchen floor looked like a good place to sit down for a chat. And oh God, what was that couple in the corner doing? She blushed under the makeup and looked quickly away, focusing on the back of Ian’s neck. He’d missed a spot on the makeup. It looked pink.

The next room had people, too, but not quite as many as the kitchen and it was practically deserted compared to the dance room. Library was a generous word. It had books, but not as many as Claire would have thought, and most of them were old textbooks. Some were being defaced by people wielding black markers and pens, giggling with one another over the results.

No sign of Eve.

“Huh,’” Ian said. “Hang on.’” He went to ask a question of another guy, taller, dressed in a silky-looking black shirt open halfway down to reveal a strong, muscular chest. It took a while. Claire swigged more water, grateful for the moisture because even the library was steaming hot, and almost wiped at her face before she remembered the careful makeup job.

There was no sign of Sam in this room, either. While Ian was talking, Claire went over to one of the girls defacing books. She looked vaguely familiar—maybe somebody from chemistry? Anna something?

“Hi—Anna?’” It must have been right; the girl looked up. “Have you seen Sam? Red hair…maybe wearing a brown leather jacket…?’” Although he had to have taken it off, in this heat. “Blue eyes?’”

“Oh, sure. Sam. He’s upstairs somewhere.’” Anna went back to her book sabotage, which seemed to involve drawing devils and pitchforks. Upstairs. Claire needed to get upstairs, but most importantly, she needed to find Eve. Fast.

Ian came back. “She went upstairs,’” he said. “She’s looking for a guy named Sam, right?’”

“Yeah,’” Claire said. “Would you mind if—?’”

“No, sure, I’ll go with you.’” He looked at the drained bottle in Claire’s hand. “Want some more?’”

She nodded. He grabbed a bottle from an ice-filled cooler and handed it over. She cracked the seal and took another life-giving mouthful as Ian led the way to the stairs.

The heat was making her feel slow and disconnected. She wanted to pour the cold water over her face, but realized just in time—again—about the makeup. Stupid makeup.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, and it was like dancing around land mines; people were sitting on just about every step, some talking, some mumbling to themselves, some passing joints back and forth. Oh man. She really needed to get out of here, fast.

The upstairs landing seemed like a paradise of open space, and Claire clung to the handrail and breathed for a few seconds. Ian came back to get her. “You okay?’” he asked. She nodded. “I don’t know which room he’s in. We’ll just have to look.’”

She followed him. He swung open the first door on the hall, and behind him she saw about ten people talking very intensely. They all looked at Ian with a definite Get out vibe, and as he shut the door, Claire realized that all ten of them were vampires.

Not Sam, though, but given what Sam had told her, and what she’d heard from Michael and Eve, that made sense. He’d be hanging around the humans, right? The vampires didn’t want any part of him.

“Wrong room,’” Ian said unnecessarily, and moved to the next one. She couldn’t see over his shoulder, but he closed it in a hurry. “Really wrong room. Sorry.’”

There were about ten doors on the hallway, but they didn’t get that far. Claire was feeling kind of light-headed—in fact, she was dizzy. Maybe it was the heat. She took another gulp from the bottle, but that just seemed to make her feel nauseous. As Ian opened the fourth door, she said, “I don’t feel so good.’”

Ian smiled and said, “Well, that was fast,’” and shoved her into the room. “I thought I was going to have to work a little harder, but you’re pretty easy.’”

There were three other guys in the room. She didn’t know any of them…. No, wait, one looked familiar.

The jerk from the UC coffee bar, the one who’d been so mean to Eve. He was one of them. She turned toward Ian, confused, but he was locking the door.

Her knees felt wobbly, and so did her head. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong…but she hadn’t had anything to drink. She’d been careful….

Not careful enough. The first water bottle he’d brought her, he’d opened it first.

Stupid, Claire. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But he’d seemed so…nice.

“You don’t want to do this,’” she said, and backed up as one of the guys reached for her. There wasn’t a lot of space. It was somebody’s bedroom, most of it taken up by a bed, a dresser with the drawers hanging half-open. Dirty laundry piled in a corner. Oh God. It hit her hard that Eve had no idea where she was, she had no cell phone, and even if she screamed, no one would hear her over the music. Or care.

She remembered what Eve had done that terrible evening after the biker shoved his way in. You need a weapon. Yeah, but Eve was older and bigger, and wasn’t drugged at the time….

She nearly tripped over a baseball bat sticking out from under the bed. She grabbed it and took up a bleary, weaving batting stance. “Don’t touch me!’” she said, and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Eve! Eve! I need help!’”

She took a wild swing at Ian, who was strolling forward, and he ducked it easily. She reversed and slammed the butt end of the bat toward him, and that one, he didn’t duck. It hit him squarely in the mouth, and he staggered back, bleeding.

“You bitch!’” he said, and spit blood. “Oh, you are gonna pay for that.’”

“Hold up,’” said the coffee bar jerk, who was leaning against the door with his arms folded. “You put the full dose in her bottle, right? And she drank it?’”

Ian nodded. He fished around in the laundry pile and found a sock to press against his mouth and nose. Good. She hoped it was filthy. And had athlete’s foot on it.

“Then all we have to do is wait a couple of minutes,’” the jerk said. “She’s not going anywhere except to la-la land.’” He high-fived his buddies. Ian continued to glare at her. They were all between her and the door. There was a window, but it was the second floor and she wasn’t even steady enough to stand, much less free-climb. Claire gripped the bat in sweaty, numbed hands, and saw sparkles at the edges of her vision. Everything looked bleary. She felt waves of heat sweep over her, and then an icy chill. Michael? Was Michael here? No, Michael couldn’t leave the house….

Somehow, she was sliding down to a sitting position on the floor. The bat was still clutched in her hands, but she was tired, very tired, and she felt so sick and hot….

Somebody rattled the doorknob. Claire summoned up whatever was left of her strength and screamed, “Help! Get help! Eve!’”

Ian said, and grinned at Claire with bloody teeth, “Just somebody looking for a place to screw. Don’t worry, baby. We won’t hurt you. Not that you’ll remember, anyway.’”

She pretended to be worse off than she really was (although truthfully, she was pretty bad) and, mumbling, let her eyes drift half-closed.

“That’s it,’” the coffee bar jerk said. “She’s out. Get her on the bed.’”

She’d never really done this before, but she was imagining hard how Eve would have handled it. She let the bat kind of wobble and fall to rest in her lap, aligned with her leg, as if it had gotten too heavy to hold up. (Not quite. Just nearly.)

And when Ian walked up to grab her, she brought the bat straight up with as much force as she could manage. It smacked him right where it would hurt the most, and Ian crumpled with a high-pitched, breathless scream, huddled in on himself.

Claire forced her legs to hold her, and slid back up to a standing position. She was leaning for support, and lucky to be in a corner, where the two angled walls let her look like she wasn’t about to topple over. Her arms were shaking, and the guys would have seen that if she’d tried to raise the bat, so she tapped it casually against her leg. “Who wants some?’” she asked. “I won’t hurt you. Much.’”

It was all show, and they only had to wait. Coffee Bar Jerk knew that, all too well, and she could feel the drug—what the hell was it?—stealing away her concentration, her strength, making her slow and stupid and all-too-easy prey.

Shane, she thought, and forced herself to stand upright just a little longer. Shane needs me. I’m not letting this happen.

“You’re bluffing,’” Coffee Bar Jerk said, and came around the bed. Claire took a swing at him, missed, and smacked the bat into the wood so hard it rattled her teeth.

He grabbed the bat on the backswing and easily twisted it out of her grip. He tossed it to one of the other two guys, who caught it one-handed. “That,’” he said, “was really stupid. This could have been real nice and easy, you know that, right?’”

“I have Amelie’s Protection,’” Claire said.

He grabbed her by the throat of her sheer black skull-printed shirt, and dragged her forward. Her legs folded when she tried to pull away.

“I don’t care,’” he said. “I’m not from this stupid town. None of us are. Monica said that was the way to go, to get around the dumbass rules, whatever they are. Whoever Amelie is, she can kiss my ass. After you’re done doing it.’”

The door to the hall gave a dry, metallic pop, and swung slowly open. Claire blinked and tried to focus her eyes, because there was someone standing there. No, two someones. One had red hair. Wasn’t there something about red hair…? Oh yeah. Sam had red hair. Sam the vampire. Sam I Am. Michael’s grandpa, wasn’t that just too weird?

The door no longer had a knob on the outside. The one on the inside fell out with a dull thud to the carpet and rolled under the bed.

“Claire!’” Oh, that was Eve. “Oh my God…’”

“Excuse me,’” Sam said, “but what did you say about Amelie?’”

Coffee Bar Jerk let go of Claire’s top, and she slid back down the wall. She fumbled around for something to use for a weapon, but all she came up with was another set of filthy socks that had missed the laundry. For some reason, that seemed funny. She giggled and rested her head against the wall to let her neck relax. Her neck was working too hard.

“I said that Amelie can kiss my ass, Red. And what are you going to do about it? Stare me to death?’”

Sam just stood there. Claire couldn’t see anything about him change, but it was like the room just went…cold. “You really don’t want to do this,’” Sam said. “Eve, go get your friend.’”

“Yeah, Eve, come on in, we’ve got a nice big bed!’” Ian giggled. “I hear you know how to have a real good time.’” He tossed the bloody sock he’d been pressing to his nose down on the floor and got ready to grab Eve if she came inside. Sam looked at the discarded sock for a second, then picked it up and squeezed it, drizzling blood into the palm of his hand.

And then he licked it up. Slowly. Meeting the eyes of every guy facing him.

“I said,’” he whispered, “you really don’t want to do this.’”

Claire heard a great big buzzing in her head, like a hive full of bees. Oh, I’m going to pass out, because that was gross.

“Shit,’” Ian whispered, and backed up. Fast. “You’re sick, man!’”

“Sometimes,’” Sam agreed. “Eve, go get her. Nobody’s going to touch you.’”

Eve cautiously edged past him, hurried to Claire, and gave her a fast embrace before she hauled her upright again. “Can you walk?’”

“Not very well,’” Claire said, and gulped down nausea. The world kept coming in hot and cold flashes, and she felt like she was going to throw up, but somehow it was all smeared and funny, even the terror in Eve’s eyes.

Not so funny when Coffee Bar Jerk decided to grab Eve, though.

He lunged over the bed, reaching for Eve’s wrist—Claire was too fuzzy to know why he was doing it. Maybe he was hoping to use her as some kind of shield against Sam. But whatever he meant, it was a bad decision.

Sam moved in a flicker, and when Claire blinked, Coffee Bar Jerk was up against the wall, eyes wide, staring at Sam’s face from a distance of about three inches.

“I said,’” Sam whispered, “nobody was going to touch her. Are you deaf?’”

Claire didn’t see it, but she imagined he probably flashed some fang right about then, because Coffee Bar Jerk whimpered like a sick dog.

The other boys moved out of Eve’s way without even trying to stop her.

“Monica,’” Claire said. “I think it was Monica. She got Ian to ask me.’”

“What?’”

“Monica got him to ask me. Told them to do this.’”

“Bitch! Okay, I take it all back. She needs a good blowtorching.’”

“No,’” Claire said faintly. “Nobody deserves that. Nobody.’”

“Great. Saint Claire, the patron saint of the kick-me sign. Look, keep it together, okay? We need to get out of here. Sam! Come on! Leave them!’”

Sam didn’t seem inclined to listen. “Manners, boys,’” he said. “Looks to me like nobody ever taught you any. It’s time you had a lesson before somebody else gets hurt.’”

“Hey, man—’” Ian was holding out his hands in surrender. “Seriously. Just having fun. We weren’t going to hurt her. No need to go all Charles Bronson. We didn’t even really touch her. Look. Clothes still on.’”

“Don’t even try.’” Sam continued to stare at Coffee Bar Jerk, who was looking less like a predator, and more and more like a scared kid faced with the big, bad wolf. “I like these girls. I don’t like you. Do the math. Consider yourself subtracted.’”

“Sam!’” Eve’s voice was loud and flat. “Enough with the macho hero stuff. We came to find you. Let’s get out of here and talk.’”

“I’m not leaving,’” Sam said, his eyes fixed on the boy he was holding. “Not until Disney Princess here apologizes, or his head comes off, one of the two.’”

“Sam! What we need to talk about is important, and Disney Princess is not!’”

For a second Claire thought nothing Eve could say would get through, but then she saw Sam smile—it wasn’t a nice smile—and he let Coffee Bar Jerk slide back to the floor. “Fine,’” he said. “Consider yourself horribly tortured. Make sure you think about all the ways I could have hurt you, because if I hear about anything like this happening again, I want you to know what’s coming.’”

Coffee Bar Jerk nodded shakily, and kept his back to the wall as he slid over to join his posse.

Sam turned toward the girls, and came forward to touch Claire lightly on the shoulder. “Are you all right?’”

Claire nodded, a loose flop of her head. That was a mistake; she nearly pitched over, and it took all of Eve’s strength to keep her on her feet.

When she was able to open her eyes and focus again, Sam had moved away, to the door.

“What?’” Eve asked. “And by the way, you’re blocking the escape hatch.’”

“Hush,’” Sam said softly, barely loud enough to be heard over the pounding, relentless beat of the music.

And then Claire heard the screaming.

In a blink, Sam was gone from the doorway. Eve moved out into the hallway, craning her head to look over the rail, and Claire looked, too.

It was chaos down there, and not the happy chaos of a dance. Knots of screaming, pushing people, desperately jamming up the exits from the big open room, all in black clothes, white faces, some splashes of red here and there…

Blood. There was blood.

Sam grabbed both her and Eve by the shoulders, swung them around, and pushed them back inside the room. He looked at Ian, who was still cowering against the wall. “You. O Positive. How many exits?’”

“What?…Oh shit, did you just call me by my blood type?’”

“How many exits?’”

“The stairs! You have to take the stairs!’”

Sam cursed under his breath, went to the closet, and yanked it open. It was a walk-in, pretty large, filled with junk. He shoved Claire and Eve inside and held the door open. “You,’” he said to the four boys. “If you want to live, get in. Touch these girls and I’ll kill you myself. You know I’m serious, yeah?’”

“Yeah,’” Ian said faintly. “Not a finger on ’em. What’s happening? Is it, like, one of those shooting things?’”

“Yes,’” Sam said. “It’s like that. Get in.’”

The boys piled into the closet. Eve dragged Claire to the farthest corner, shoving piles of rank-smelling athletic shoes out of the way, and sat her down. Eve crouched next to her, ready for action, and glared at the guys. They kept their distance.

Sam slammed the door.

Darkness.

“What the hell is going on?’” Coffee Bar Jerk demanded. His voice was shaking.

“People are getting hurt,’” Eve said tightly. “Could be you if you don’t shut up.’”

“But—’”

“Just shut the hell up!’”

Silence. The music was still pounding downstairs, but over it Claire could hear the screaming. She started to go into that funny gray place, but jerked herself back with an effort and squeezed Eve’s tense hand. “It’s okay,’” Eve whispered to her. “You’re okay. I’m so sorry.’”

“I was doing okay,’” Claire said. Surprised, actually, that it was true. “Thanks for saving me.’”

“I didn’t do anything but find Sam. He found you.’” Eve stopped. “All right, who’s touching me?’”

A high-pitched male voice out of the darkness. “Oh shit! Sorry!’”

“Better be.’”

There was a tense silence in the dark.

And then Claire heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway.

“Quiet,’” Eve whispered. She didn’t need to say it. Claire felt it, and she knew everybody else did, too. There was something bad out there, something worse than four horny, stupid, cruel boys.

She felt something brush against her. A hand. One of the boys, she didn’t know which one—was it Ian who’d slumped against the wall nearest to her?

She took it and squeezed. He squeezed back, silently.

And Claire waited to see if they were going to die.

10

The screaming stopped, and the music cut off in mid-rave. That was worse, somehow. The silence felt…cold. Claire held on grimly to consciousness. The effects seemed to be coming and going. Maybe she was going to be okay.

A floorboard creaked right outside the closet door.

Claire felt a tremor go through the boy whose hand she held, and she pressed herself harder against the wall and stared at the closet door. It was a big black rectangle outlined in warm yellow.

There was a flicker of shadow, and a snarl, and a man’s full-throated yell, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Then the boom of a gun going off. Claire jumped, and felt Eve and the boy jump, too. “Oh God,’” he whispered. He was shaking all over. Claire supposed that was one thing that being roofied was good for—it kept your heart rate down in an emergency. She felt pretty calm, all things considered. Or maybe she was just getting used to being scared out of her mind.

Running footsteps. The banister in the hall creaked. More shouts from downstairs, feet pounding on the stairs, heading down…

And then the distant, shrill sound of sirens.

“Cops,’” somebody whispered, maybe Coffee Bar Jerk. He sounded a whole lot less arrogant. “We’ll be okay. We’re going to be okay.’”

“Yeah, until these two turn us in,’” muttered another boy. “For, you know. The thing.’”

“You mean for attempted rape?’” Eve whispered fiercely. “Jesus, listen to you. The thing. Call it what it is, you asshole.’”

“Look, it was just—I’m sorry, okay? We didn’t want to hurt her. We just—’”

“She’s sixteen, man.’”

“What?’”

“Sixteen. So you can thank me now for saving you serious jail time, because attempted rape is a hell of a lot better than actual rape. The statutory kind. Did Monica put you up to it?’”

“I—uh—yeah. She said—she said Claire was good to go, that she just needed it rough. She wanted to be sure we got her here.’”

“Shhhhhh,’” Claire whispered frantically. She heard another floorboard creak. Everybody fell silent.

The door swung open, blinding them with a wash of light, and Claire squinted at the man standing there.

Red hair.

“Out,’” Sam said. “Move.’”

The boys got up and filed out, looking a whole lot less arrogant than before, and clustered together in the corner. It had been Ian whose hand she’d held, after all, Claire saw. He was looking at her in a weird, new way, as if he actually saw her for the first time.

“I’m sorry about your nose,’” she said. He blinked.

“It’s not so bad,’” he offered. “Look, Claire—’”

“Don’t.’”

“You still going to tell the cops?’” That was Coffee Bar Jerk.

“No,’” Claire said.

“Bullshit! Yes,’” Eve said. “A world of yes. So you’d better not try this again. Ever. And besides, if you do, the last thing you have to worry about is the cops. Right, Sam?’”

Sam nodded without speaking.

“Let’s get out of here. Claire? Can you walk?’”

“I can try.’”

But the world just slipped out from under her when she got up, and she fell into Eve’s arms. Eve juggled her awkwardly, trying to find the right way to hold her up, and suddenly Claire was floating about four feet off the ground.

Oh. Sam had her, and he was holding her as if she were as heavy as a bag of feathers.

“Hey,’” Coffee Bar Jerk said. Sam stopped on his way to the door. “Sorry, seriously. It was just—Monica said—’”

“Stop, man,’” Ian said. “Monica just gave us the idea. We were the ones who did it. No excuses.’”

“Yeah,’” Coffee Bar Jerk said. “Whatever, man. Won’t happen again.’”

“If it does,’” Sam said, “never mind the police. I’ll find you.’”

Things were melting into one another. Claire felt sick and disoriented, and only having her arms around Sam’s cool, strong neck kept her from floating away on a tide of chemicals. When she opened her eyes she caught flashes…. The EEK frat house was trashed. Furniture broken, walls bashed, people lying on the floor…

And some of them were bloody.

Eve stopped and pressed her fingers to the throat of a boy wearing full vamp gear, including the teeth; his blue eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t move.

“He’s dead,’” she whispered.

There was a wooden stake in his chest.

“But—he wasn’t a vampire,’” Claire said. “Right?’”

“They didn’t care. He looked like one, and he must have gotten in the way,’” Sam said. “There are two vampires dead in the other room. This one was a mistake.’”

“In the other room?’” Claire asked. “How do you know?’”

“I know.’” Sam stepped over the body and moved around a busted-up couch. Glass crunched under his feet. The sirens were getting closer now, late to the party as usual.

“Was it Frank’s guys?’” Eve asked. “The bikers?’”

Sam didn’t answer, but he didn’t really have to. How many rampaging antivamp gangs could there be in Morganville?

Claire closed her eyes and let her head drop against Sam’s chest, meaning just to rest for a second.

And…she just left the world for a while.

Claire woke up to the sound of voices and a headache the size of Cleveland inside of her skull; her mouth was dry as a bone, and her tongue a thick roll of felt covered in sandpaper. Also, hello, nausea.

She was lying in her own bed, at home.

Claire rolled out, ran to the bathroom, and took care of the sickness first, then looked in the mirror. It was horrible. Her face was smeared with makeup, her black eyeliner smudged every which way, her black-sprayed hair sticking up in thick clumps.

Claire started the shower, stripped off the Goth disguise, and sat in the tub with the water pounding down. There wasn’t enough soap in the world, really, but she tried, scrubbing hard. Scrubbing until her skin was stinging.

She froze at the sound of a knock on the bathroom door. “Claire? It’s Eve. You okay?’”

“Yeah,’” she said. “I’m okay.’” Her voice sounded thick and weak.

Eve must have taken her at her word, because she went away. Claire wished she hadn’t, somehow; she needed somebody to ask; she needed somebody to be there for her. I was almost…

The worst part of it was that they weren’t monsters, those guys. In fact, they were probably okay most of the time. How was that even possible? How could people be good and bad at the same time? Good was good; bad was bad—you had to draw a line, right? Like with the vampires? some part of her mind whispered. Where’s Amelie, then? Where’s Sam? Sam saved your life. Which side of the line do you put him on?

She didn’t know. And she didn’t want to think about it anymore. Claire sat under the pounding hard rain of the hot water and let it all go for a while, until the water started to run cool and she remembered that Eve probably wanted to shower, too. Crap. She jumped up, turned off the taps, and dried off, realized she hadn’t brought more clothes in with her, and wrapped in the towel for the fast trip to her room.

When she opened the bathroom door, Michael was standing right outside. He looked up, saw she wasn’t dressed, and looked briefly conflicted.

He solved it by turning his back. “Go get some clothes on,’” he said. “Then I need to talk to you.’”

“What time is it?’” she asked. He didn’t answer, and she felt something sick take hold in her stomach. “Michael? What time is it?’”

“Just get dressed,’” he said. “And come downstairs.’”

She raced to her room, dropped the towel, and grabbed her little travel clock.

It was four a.m. Dawn was just a couple of hours away. “No,’” she whispered. “No…’” She’d been asleep for hours.

No time to waste, then. Claire put on underwear, jeans, and a T-shirt, grabbed her shoes and socks, and hurried to the stairs.

She stopped on the first step down when she heard Amelie’s voice. Amelie? In the house? Why? Sam, she kind of expected—not that Michael liked any vampires, but hey, he was family, right? And besides, Sam seemed okay. And sure enough, she caught sight of Sam’s copper-colored hair when she eased down another step; he was standing in the far corner, near the kitchen, with his arms folded.

Amelie and Michael were in the center of the room.

“Hey!’” Eve’s voice, coming from behind her, made her jump. Claire turned and saw Eve standing there in a thick black bathrobe, clothes in her arms. “I’m taking my shower. Tell them I’ll be there soon, okay?’”

Eve looked tired, her makeup sweated or smeared away. Claire felt guilty about using all the hot water. “Okay,’” she said, and edged another step down toward the living room. Eve’s footsteps creaked behind her, and the bathroom door closed. The water went on.

Claire heard Amelie say, “…can’t take it back. Do you understand? Once you make this choice, it is done. There can be no returning.’”

That didn’t sound good. No, that didn’t sound good at all. Claire still felt shaky and sick, as if she’d drunk half a gallon of that red punch at the party, and she didn’t feel in any shape to face Amelie again. Only so much scary she could deal with in one day. Maybe she’d just wait for Eve….

“I understand,’” Michael said. “But there isn’t a lot of choice anymore. I can’t live like this, trapped in this house. I need to leave. I can’t help Shane if I’m stuck here.’”

“You may not be able to help Shane at all,’” Amelie said coolly. “I would not base such a choice on the love of one friend. It may turn out badly for you both.’”

“Life is risk, right? So I have to risk it.’”

She shook her head. “Samuel, please speak to him. Explain.’”

Sam stirred from where he stood in the corner, but he didn’t come closer. “She’s right, kid. You don’t know what you’re getting into. You think you do, but…you don’t. You’ve got a good thing here—you’re alive; you’re safe; you have friends who care about you. Family. Stay where you are.’”

Michael let out a hollow laugh that sounded a little crazy. “Stay where I am? Jesus Christ, what choice do I have? This house is twenty-five hundred square feet of tomb. I’m not alive. I’m buried alive.’”

Sam shook his head and bent his head, avoiding Michael’s stare.

Amelie stepped closer to him. “Michael. Please think what you are asking. It is not only difficult for you; it is difficult for me. If I give you your freedom from this house, it comes at a terrible price. There will be great pain, and the loss of things that neither you nor I can fully name. What you are will change, and change forever. You would live and die at my command, do you understand? And you would never be even the half human you are now, never again.’” She shook her head slowly. “I believe you will regret this, and regret is like cancer to us. It rots our will to live.’”

“Yeah? What do you think it’s like, being trapped here when people need me?’” Michael asked. His fists were clenched, his face tense and flushed. “I’ve watched my girlfriend nearly get killed five feet away from me, and I couldn’t do anything because she was outside the house. Now it’s Shane, and he’s all alone out there. It couldn’t be worse than this, Amelie. Trust me. If you’re not going to save Shane, then you have to do this for me. Please.’”

He was asking Amelie for…what? Something she could do that would set him free? Claire eased down another step, and saw Sam’s eyes shift and lock on her. She expected him to say something, but he just gave her a very small shake of his head. Warning her.

She retreated back to the top of the stairs, hesitating. Maybe she should get Eve…. No, the shower was still running. She should wait. Michael wouldn’t do anything stupid…would he?

While she was hesitating, she heard Amelie say something that she couldn’t quite understand, except for one word.

“Vampire.’”

And she heard Michael say, “Yes.’”

“No!’” Claire jumped up and pelted down the steps, fast as she could, but before she could get to the bottom Sam was standing there, looking up at her. Blocking her path. She looked over the railing at Michael and Amelie, and saw Michael watching her.

He looked scared, but he gave her a smile—broken, like the one Shane had put on for her in the cage. Trying to show it didn’t matter.

“It’s okay, Claire,’” he said. “I know what I’m doing. This is the way it has to be.’”

“No, it doesn’t!’” She edged down another step, clinging to the rail with both hands. She felt hot and disoriented again, but she figured if she was going to fall, at least Sam was there to cushion her. “Michael, please. Don’t do this!’”

“Oliver tried to make me a vampire. He made me into—’” Michael made a disgusted gesture at himself. “I’m half-alive, Claire, and there’s no going back. I can only go forward.’”

She couldn’t say anything to that, because he was right. Right at every point. He couldn’t go back to being just a regular guy; he couldn’t live with being stuck here, helpless. Maybe he could have, if Shane hadn’t been taken, but now…

“Michael, please.’” Her eyes were filling up with tears. “I don’t want you to change.’”

“Everybody changes.’”

“Not as you will,’” Amelie said. She was standing there like the Snow Queen, all perfect and white and smooth, nothing really human about her at all. “You will not be the man she knows, Michael. Or the one Eve loves. Will you risk that, too?’”

Michael took in a deep breath and turned back toward her. “Yes,’” he said. “I will.’”

Amelie stood in silence for a moment, then nodded. “Sam,’” she said. “Take the child away. This wants no witnesses.’”

“I’m not leaving!’” Claire said.

Yeah, good plan. Sam walked up three steps, scooped her into his arms, and carried her upstairs. Claire tried to grab for the railing, but her fingers slipped away. “Michael! Michael, no! Don’t do this!’”

Sam carried her to her room and dumped her on the bed, and before she could struggle up to a sitting position he was already outside, closing the door.

Later, thinking back on it, Claire couldn’t say if she heard the scream or felt it; either way, it seemed to vibrate through the bones and boards of the Glass House, through her head, and she moaned and clapped her hands over her ears. That didn’t stop it. The scream just went on and on, shrill and painful as a steam whistle, and Claire felt something…pull at her, like she was made of cloth, and a gigantic, malicious kid was yanking at her loose threads.

And then it just…stopped.

She slid off the bed, ran to the door, and opened it. Sam was nowhere to be seen. Eve was rushing out of the bathroom, clutching her bathrobe around her dripping body, her black hair plastered wet against her face. “What’s happening?’” she yelled. “Michael? Where’s Michael?’”

The two girls exchanged a desperate look, and then ran for the stairs.

Amelie was sitting in an armchair, the one Michael usually used; she looked drawn and tired, and her head was bent. Sam was crouched next to her, holding her hand, and he rose to his feet when Eve and Claire arrived breathlessly at the bottom of the stairs.

“She’s resting,’” he said. “It takes a lot to do what she did. A lot of strength, and a lot of will. Leave her alone. Let her recover.’”

“Where’s Michael?’” Eve demanded. Her voice was shaking. “What did you do to Michael, you bastard?’”

“Easy, child. Sam had nothing to do with it. I set him free,’” Amelie said. She raised her head and let it rest against the back of the chair, eyes closed. “So much pain in him. I thought he could be happy here, but I see I was wrong. One such as Michael can never stay caged for long.’”

“What do you mean, you set him free?’” Eve was stammering now, her face ashen without any Goth cosmetics to help. “You killed him?’”

“Yes,’” Amelie said. “I killed him. Sam!’”

Claire couldn’t see why she snapped the other vampire’s name until Sam turned in a blur, and met another blur coming at them from across the room. That turned into a struggle, two bodies moving too fast for Claire’s eyes to follow until it ended and one was flat on his back on the floor.

That was Michael on his back…but not the Michael she knew. Not the one she’d seen five minutes before, talking to Amelie, making this choice. This Michael was terrifying. Sam was having trouble holding him; Michael was struggling, trying to throw him off, and he was snarling, oh God, and his skin—his skin was the pale color of marble and ashes….

“Help me up,’” Amelie said quietly. Claire looked at her, stunned. Amelie was holding out a queenly hand, clearly expecting to be obeyed. Claire gave her help up to her feet, just because she’d always been taught to be polite, and braced the vampire, as she seemed about to lose her balance. Amelie found her balance and gave her a weary, thin smile. She let go of Claire’s arm, and walked slowly—painfully—to where Sam was fighting to keep Michael down.

Claire looked at Eve. Eve was backed into the corner, her hands in fists covering her mouth. Her eyes were huge.

Claire put her arm around her.

Amelie put one white hand on Michael’s forehead, and he instantly stopped struggling. Stopped moving at all, staring straight up at the ceiling with fierce, strange eyes. “Peace,’” Amelie whispered. “Peace, my poor child. The pain will pass; the hunger will pass. This will help.’” She reached into a pocket of her dress and took out a very small, very thin silver knife—no bigger than a fingernail—and sliced a gash across her palm. She didn’t bleed like a normal person; the blood seeped out, thicker than normal, and darker. Amelie put it to Michael’s lips, pressed it, and closed her eyes.

Eve screamed beneath the cover of her hands, then turned blindly and hid her face against Claire. Claire wrapped her in a tight, shaking hug.

When Amelie withdrew her hand, the gash was closed, and there was no blood on Michael’s lips. He closed his eyes, swallowing, gasping. After a few long seconds, Amelie nodded to Sam, who let go and stepped back, and Michael slowly rolled over on his side and met Claire’s horrified stare.

His eyes. They were the same color, and…not the same at all. Michael licked his pale lips, and she saw the bright white flicker of snake fangs in his mouth.

She shuddered.

“Behold,’” Amelie said softly, “the youngest of our kind. From this day on, Michael Glass, you are one of the eternal of the Great City, and all will be yours. Rise. Take your place among your people.’”

“Yeah,’” Sam said. “Welcome to hell.’”

Michael got to his feet. Neither of them helped him up.

“That’s it?’” Michael asked. His voice sounded strange—deep in his throat, deeper than Claire remembered. It gave her a little shiver at the base of her spine. “It’s done?’”

“Yes,’” Amelie said. “It’s done.’”

Michael walked toward the door. He had to stop and brace himself against the wall on the way, but he looked stronger every second. Stronger than Claire felt comfortable with, in fact.

“Michael,’” Amelie said. “Vampires can be killed, and many know the ways. If you grow careless, you will die, no matter how many laws Morganville holds to protect us from our enemies.’” Amelie glanced at the two girls, standing together in the corner. “Vampires cannot live among humans. It is too difficult, too tempting. You understand? They must leave your house. You must have time to learn what you are.’”

Michael looked at Eve and Claire—more at Claire than Eve, as if he couldn’t stand to really face her yet. He looked more like himself now, more in control. Except for the pale skin, he might nearly have been normal.

“No,’” he said. “This is their home, and it’s my home, and it’s Shane’s home. We’re a family. I’m not giving that up.’”

“Do you know why I stopped you?’” Amelie said. “Why I ordered Sam to stop you? Because your instincts cannot be trusted, Michael, not at this point. You cannot care, because your feelings for them will hurt them. Do you understand? Were you not moving toward these two girls with the intention of feeding on them?’”

His eyes went wide and, suddenly, very dark. “No.’”

“Think.’”

“No.’”

“You were,’” Sam said quietly, from behind him. “I know, Michael. I was there once. And there was no one to stop me.’”

Michael didn’t try to deny it again; he looked at Eve, right at her, with such terrible dawning pain that it hurt to see it.

“It won’t happen again.’” Eve hadn’t said a word since all this had started, so it was a little shocking to hear her say that, so calmly. So…normally. “I know Michael. He wouldn’t have done this if he was going to hurt any of us. He’d die first.’”

“He did die,’” Amelie said. “The human part of him is gone. What is left is mine.’” She said it with a little regret, which didn’t surprise Claire much; she’d seen it in Amelie’s infinitely weary eyes as she’d helped her up. “Come, Michael. You need food. I will show you where to go.’”

“Wait a minute,’” he said. “Please.’” And he stepped away from her, and held out his hand to Eve.

Amelie drew breath to tell him something—probably no—but she didn’t speak. Sam didn’t, either, but he turned and walked away, aimlessly circling the room. Claire reluctantly let go of Eve, and Eve walked directly to Michael, no hesitation at all.

He took both of her hands in his.

“I’m sorry. There wasn’t any other way.’” Michael swallowed, his eyes fixed on Eve’s. “I’ve been feeling it, more and more. Like this—pressure inside. It’s not just that I needed to do this to help Shane. I just…needed it to stay sane. And I’m sorry. You’re going to hate me.’”

“Why?’” Eve asked. It was half bravado, it had to be, but she sounded certain. “Because you’re vamped? Please. I loved you when you were only halfway here at all. As long as you’re with me, I can deal, Michael. For you, I can deal.’”

He kissed her, and Claire blinked and looked away. There was a lot of hunger in that kiss, and desperation, and it was way too personal.

Eve wasn’t the first one to pull away, either.

When he stepped back from her, he was the old Michael after all, never mind the paler skin and the odd shine to his eyes. That smile…he was Michael, and everything was going to be okay.

He wiped away Eve’s silent tears with his thumbs, kissed her again, very lightly, and said, “I’ll be back. Amelie’s right, I need to—’” He hesitated, glanced at Amelie, and then back down at Eve. “I need to feed. I guess I need to get used to saying that.’” His smile looked a little dimmer this time. “I’m going to miss dinners.’”

“You won’t,’” Sam said. “You can still eat solid foods if you want. I do.’”

For some reason, that seemed really important. It was something they could hold on to.

“I’ll make dinner tonight,’” Claire said. “To celebrate getting Shane home.’”

“It’s a deal.’” Michael let go of Eve and stepped back. “I’m ready.’”

“Then come outside,’” Amelie said. “Come back to the world.’”

Michael might have become a vampire, but watching him stand outside in the night air, breathing in his freedom…Claire thought that was as human as it could get.

11

Eve changed into what Claire thought of as “Goth camo’”…black pants, a black silk shirt with red skulls embroidered at the collar, and a black vest with loads of pockets that could hold things. Things like stakes and crosses, as it turned out. “Just in case,’” Eve said, catching Claire’s look. “What?’”

“Nothing,’” she sighed. “Just don’t use them on Michael.’”

Eve stopped for a second, stricken, and then nodded. She was still getting her head around it, Claire knew. Well, Claire was doing the same thing. She kept expecting to hear Michael’s guitar downstairs; she kept wondering about what time it was. Not dawn yet—she checked the Internet and found out that they still had time, but if Michael didn’t come back soon…

The front door opened and closed. Eve snatched a stake from her pocket, wide-eyed, and Claire motioned to her to stay where she was, then sneaked carefully to the corner.

She nearly ran into Michael, who was moving way more quietly than she was used to. He looked nearly as surprised as she did. Behind him was Sam, but there was no sign of Amelie.

“You okay?’” she asked. Michael nodded. He looked…better, in some strange sort of way. At peace. “Not going to…?’” She mimed fangs in her neck. He smiled.

“No way, kid.’” He ruffled her hair lightly. “There’s a deal on the table for Shane.’”

“A deal?’” Eve sounded tense as she came around into view, and Claire didn’t blame her. Deals hadn’t gone especially well for them so far.

“If we get Monica back safely, Shane goes free. The Morrells still have influence in this town, even with the vamps.’” Of which Michael was one now, but he didn’t seem to be lumping himself in quite yet. “Oliver was willing to trade. Or maybe not willing—convinced.’”

“Shane for Monica? Sweet!’” Eve realized she was holding a stake in her hand, blushed, and put it away. Neither Sam nor Michael seemed all that bothered. “Ah, sorry. Nothing personal…so it’s you two and us against the world, or what?’”

“No,’” Sam said, and looked at Michael. “It’s the three of you. I can’t go with you.’”

“What? But—you—’”

“I’m sorry.’” Sam honestly sounded like he meant it. “Amelie’s orders. Vampires stay neutral—Michael’s the only exception because of his agreement with Amelie. I can’t help you.’”

“But—’”

“I can’t,’” he repeated, with emphasis, and sighed. “You’ll get some help from the human community—that’s all I can tell you. Good luck.’” He started to walk away, toward the door, then turned back. “Thank you, Claire. Eve.’”

“What for?’”

Sam’s smile was suddenly luminous, and it looked just like Michael’s. “You brought me to Amelie. And she talked to me. That counts.’”

There was a story behind that, Claire was sure, full of heartbreak and longing; she could see it, for a second, written all over his face. Amelie? He loved Amelie? That was kind of like loving the Mona Lisa—the painting, not the person. Presuming Amelie even had enough emotion in her to feel something for Sam these days.

Maybe once she had. Wow.

Sam nodded to Michael, equal to equal, and he left, closing the door behind him.

“Hey,’” Eve said. “Did he have an invitation? To get into the house?’”

“He didn’t need one,’” Michael said. “The house adjusted itself once I—changed. Now humans need an invitation. Except for you, since you live here.’”

“Okay, that’s stupid.’”

“It’s Protection,’” Michael said. “You know how it works.’”

Claire didn’t, but she was fascinated. Not the time, though. “Um, he said the town was sending help…?’”

“Richard Morrell,’” Michael said. “Monica’s cop brother. And he’s bringing Hess and Lowe with him.’”

“That’s it?’” Claire squeaked. Because there were a lot of bikers. Like, a lot. Not to mention Shane’s dad, who frankly scared her worse than most of the vampires just because he didn’t seem to have any rules.

Funny, the vampires seemed to be all about rules. Who knew?

“I’m going to want you both to stay here,’” Michael said.

“No,’” Eve said flatly. Claire echoed it.

“Seriously, you need to stay. This is going to get dangerous.’”

“Dangerous? Dude, they killed kids. On campus!’” Eve shot back. “We were there! Don’t you get it? We’re not safe here, and maybe we can help you. At the very least, we can grab Monica and hustle her skanky ass back to her dad while all you brave, strong menfolk hold off the bad guys. Right?’”

“Not Claire, then.’”

“Claire,’” Claire said, “decides for herself. In case you forgot.’”

“Claire doesn’t decide when it’s something like this, because Claire is sixteen and Michael doesn’t want to be explaining her tragic accidental death to her parents. So, no.’”

“What’re you going to do?’” Eve asked, and cocked her head to one side. “Lock her in her room?’”

He looked from one of them to the other, his frown deepening. “Oh, crap. What is this, Girl Solidarity?’”

“Bet your ass,’” Eve said. “Somebody’s got to keep you in line.’” Her smile faded, because that was true now, not just a funny idea. Michael cleared his throat.

“Did you hear that?’”

“What?’”

“A car. Brakes. Outside.’”

“Great,’” Eve said. “Vampire hearing, too. I’m never going to be able to keep a secret around here. Bad enough when you were a ghost…’” She was doing a good job of looking like she wasn’t freaked-out, but Claire thought she was. So did Michael, apparently, because he reached out and touched her cheek—just one small gesture, but it said a lot.

“Stay here,’” he said.

He should have known they wouldn’t—not completely, anyway. Claire and Eve followed him partway down the hall, enough to watch him unlock the front door and swing it open.

Richard Morrell stood on the doorstep in his police uniform. Next to him were Detectives Hess and Lowe, both looking even more exhausted than normal.

“Michael,’” Richard said, and nodded to him.

He tried to move across the threshold, and was stopped cold. Hess and Lowe exchanged a curious look and tried to come across, as well. Nothing.

“Come in,’” Michael said, and stepped back. This time, all three men could enter.

Richard was looking at Michael closely. “You’re kidding,’” he said. “You’ve got to be kidding. All this time, and she picks you?’”

Hess and Lowe exchanged looks, a second behind the curve, and both appeared startled.

“Yeah,’” Michael said. “What about it?’”

Richard smiled, all teeth. “Nothing, man. Congratulations, and all that. You’re going to be the talk of the town. Get used to it.’”

Michael shut the door behind them. “Whatever. How much time do we have to get to Shane?’”

“Not much,’” Hess said. “And the thing is, we don’t have anyplace to start. No leads.’”

“Well, we’ve got one. We know the van went through the Underground,’” Richard said. “We’ve got an eyewitness. Right?’” He looked straight at Claire, who nodded. “We pulled all the surveillance tapes, and we tracked the van in and out of the Underground half a dozen times, but it finally disappeared. Problem is, one white van looks a lot like other white vans, especially on Night Sight surveillance cameras.’”

“We know that Shane’s dad had maps of Morganville. Shane provided them. You’re sure he didn’t say anything about where his father might be making his base of operations?’” Hess asked. “Any of you?’”

“He never said anything,’” Claire said. “Not to me. Michael?’” Michael shook his head. “God, I can’t believe nobody knows where these guys are! They have to be somewhere!’”

“Actually, two people probably know exactly where they are,’” Richard said. “Shane, and the biker, Des. One of them, maybe both, has to know the places Frank was using.’”

“And nobody’s asked them?’” Eve questioned, and then her expression turned blank with horror. “Oh God. Somebody has.’”

“It’s not so bad as that,’” Lowe offered. “I was there observing. They’re all right.’”

“That doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way,’” Michael said. “Especially now. Or was that the plan, Richard? Get the two neutral cops here with you so your guys could beat the information out of Shane?’”

Richard smiled slowly. “You know, that’s not a bad idea, but no. I honestly thought you guys would have a place for us to start looking. We can go with that plan B if you come up empty, though. I never liked that kid anyway.’”

Michael’s eyes were narrowing, and Claire felt the whole barely reasonable alliance starting to come apart. “Wait!’” she said. “Um, I think I have something. Maybe.’”

“Maybe?’” Richard turned to her. “Better be good. It’s your boyfriend on the line, and if anything happens to my sister, I swear I’ll torch him myself.’”

Claire looked at Michael, then Eve. “I saw him,’” she said. “Shane’s dad. He was in Common Grounds.’”

“He was what?’”

“In Common Grounds. It was the same day I met Sam for the first time. I wondered what he was doing there, but—’”

Richard interrupted her, grabbing the neck of her T-shirt and hauling her forward. “Who was he talking to? Who?’” He shook her.

“Hey!’” She smacked at his hand, and to her surprise, he let go. “He was talking to Oliver.’”

Silence. They all stared at her, and then Hess put a hand to his forehead. Lowe said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. Why would the Fearless Vampire Killer be talking to Oliver? He knows, right? Who Oliver is? What Oliver is?’”

Claire nodded. “Shane must have told him. He knows.’”

“And Oliver knows who Frank Collins is,’” Hess said. “He’d know him on sight. So we’ve got two mortal enemies sitting down together, and we don’t know why. When was it, Claire?’”

“Right before Brandon was killed.’”

Another silence, and this one was deep. Lowe and Hess were staring at each other. Richard was frowning. After a long moment, Lowe said slowly, “Anybody want to take a bet?’”

“Spit it out, Detective,’” Richard said. “If you know something, say so.’”

“I’m not saying I know. I’m saying I’ve got a hundred dollars that says Oliver knew all about Frank Collins rolling back into town, and he used Frank to get rid of a troublemaking child-molesting bastard who’d outlived his usefulness.’”

Claire asked, “Why didn’t he just kill him, if he wanted him dead?’”

“Vampires do not kill each other. They just don’t. So this way, he and Frank both get what they want. Oliver gets Morganville in chaos, Amelie losing control—and I heard about the attack on her downtown. Maybe Oliver was hoping they’d take her out, leave him in charge. Brandon was probably a small price to pay.’” He paused for thought. “I’m guessing here, but I’ll bet Oliver made Frank a whole lot of promises he never intended to keep. Brandon was a sign of good faith, to get Frank to commit. And holding on to Shane was insurance. No way would Oliver have let Frank keep on killing, though. Chaos is one thing. A bloodbath is another.’”

“How does this help?’” Michael asked. “We still don’t know where they are.’”

Hess reached in his pocket and pulled out a folding pocket map—a Morganville map. It was marked in grids, color-coded: yellow for the university, pale red for the human enclaves, blue for the vampires. The center of town, Founder’s Square, was black. “Here,’” he said, and walked to the dining room table. Michael moved his guitar case out of the way, and Hess spread the map out. “Travis, you know who owns what near the square, right?’”

“Yeah.’” Lowe leaned forward, fished some reading glasses out of his coat pocket, and looked closer. “Okay, these are warehouses here. Vallery Kosomov owns some of them. Most of these belong to Josefina Lowell.’”

“Anything owned by Oliver down there?’”

“Why down there?’” Lowe asked.

“You want to answer that one, Officer Morrell?’” Hess asked. Richard edged in to consider the map, and marked out something with his finger.

“Underground runs right through here,’” he said. “This is the only area of the Underground where we didn’t see the van come and go.’”

“Which tells you what?’” Hess asked.

“Crap. They were faking the video. Showing us where they weren’t, sending us all over town. And hiding where they were.’” Richard looked up at Hess, then Lowe. “Oliver’s warehouses are off of Bond Street. It’s mostly storage.’”

“Gentlemen, we have exactly’”—Hess consulted his watch—“fifty-two minutes. Let’s get moving.’”

They all moved to the door, and it was going fine until Richard Morrell glanced at Claire and Eve, put his arm up like a barricade, and said, “Oh, I don’t think so, kids.’”

“We’ve got a right to—’”

“Yeah, I’m getting all choked up about your rights, Eve. You stay here.’”

“Michael’s going!’” Claire said, and winced, because she sounded like a disappointed little kid instead of the responsible, trustworthy adult she’d intended.

Richard rolled his eyes nearly as well as Eve. “You sound like my sister,’” he said. “That’s really not attractive. And it’s not going to work. Michael can take care of himself on a whole bunch of levels you can’t, kid, so you. Stay. Here.’”

And Hess and Lowe backed him up.

Michael just looked vaguely sorry to be in the middle of it, but relieved all the same that they weren’t going. It was Michael who took Eve’s car keys from the tray on the hall table, where she always left them. “Just in case,’” he said, and dropped them in his pocket. “Not that I don’t trust you or anything, just that I know you never listen to me.’”

He slammed the door on Eve’s frustrated cry.

And that, Claire thought, was that.

“I can’t believe they left us,’” Claire said numbly, staring at the door. Eve kicked it hard enough to leave a black mark on the wood and stalked away, into the living room. She stood at the window until the police cruiser pulled away from the curb and glided off into the night. Then she turned and looked at Claire.

She was smiling.

“What?’” Claire asked, confused, as Eve grinned wider. “Are we happy about getting left behind?’”

“Yes, we’re happy. Because now I know where they’re going,’” Eve said, and reached in her pocket. She pulled out a second key ring and shook it with a merry, metallic jingle. “And I’ve got a spare set of keys. Let’s go save their asses.’”

It was a good thing the Morganville police force was otherwise occupied, because Claire thought that Eve probably broke every traffic law that was on the books. Twice. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes very often—just peeks every other block or so—but it seemed like they were going very, very fast, and taking corners at speeds that would have given a driver’s-ed instructor a heart attack. Not much traffic, at least, in this predawn darkness. That was something, Claire supposed. She clung to the stiff aftermarket shoulder belt as Eve screeched the big black Cadillac through a hairpin right-hand turn, then another, and into one of the storm-drain tunnels.

“Oh God,’” Claire whispered. If she’d been in danger of motion sickness before, it was ten times worse in the tunnel. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried to breathe. Between the dark, the panic, and the closed-in spaces, it wasn’t exactly her best rescue attempt ever.

“Almost there,’” Eve said, but Claire thought she said it to herself. Eve wasn’t calm, either. That was…not comforting. “Left turn up ahead…’”

“That’s not a turn!’” Claire yelped, and braced herself against the dashboard as Eve slammed on the brakes and the big car shimmied and sprayed shallow water as it skidded. “That’s a dead end!’”

“Nope, that’s a turn,’” Eve panted, fought the wheel, and somehow—Claire had no idea how—got the car to make the impossible corner with only a little bang and scrape up against the concrete wall. “Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.’” And she laughed, high and wild, and hit the gas again. “Hold on, Claire Bear! Next stop, Crazytown!’”

Claire thought they were already there, actually.

She lost track of the nauseatingly twisty course they were following. In fact, she started to think that Eve didn’t know where she was going at all, and was just making random turns hoping to find an exit, when suddenly the tunnel ended, and the car hit an upslope, and they rocketed out into the open darkness again.

“Bond Street,’” Eve said. “Home of upscale vampire shopping, fine restaurants, and…oh shit.’”

She hit the brakes and brought them to a fast, complete stop that tossed Claire painfully against the restraints. Not that Claire noticed all that much, because like Eve, she was pretty much horror-struck by what she was seeing ahead.

“Tell me that’s not the place,’” she said.

Because if it was, the place was on fire.

Richard Morrell’s police cruiser was parked at the wrought-iron gates, its doors hanging open. The guys had bailed out fast. Eve moved the Caddy closer, then shut off the engine, and the two girls looked in dawning horror at the flames shooting out from the windows and roof of the big stone building.

“Where’s the fire department?’” Claire asked. “Where are the cops?’”

“I don’t know, but we can’t count on help. Not tonight.’” Eve opened the door on her side and stepped out. “Do you see them? Anywhere?’”

“No!’” Claire flinched as glass exploded from one of the upper windows. “Do you?’”

“We have to go in!’”

“Go in?’” Claire was about to point out how crazy that was, but then she saw someone inside the gates, lying very still. “Eve!’” She ran to the gate and rattled it, but it was locked tight.

“Up!’” Eve yelled, and scrambled up on the wrought iron. Claire followed. It was slippery and sharp, and cut her hands, but somehow she made it to the top, then dangled from the crossbar and let herself fall on the other side. She hit hard, and rolled clumsily back to her feet. Eve, who’d come down a lot more gracefully, was already moving toward the guy lying on the ground…

…who was one of Frank’s guys. Dead. Eve looked up at Claire wordlessly and showed her the blood on her hand, shaking her head. “He was shot,’” she said. “Oh, God. They’re inside, Claire. Michael’s inside!’”

Only he wasn’t, because between one blink and the next, as Eve tried to rush into the open smoke-filled door, Michael plunged out of it, and he grabbed her and hauled her back. “No!’” he yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?’”

“Michael!’” Eve turned and threw herself into his arms. “Where’s Monica?’”

“In there.’” Michael looked terrible—smoke-stained and red-eyed, with little burned patches in his shirt. “The others went in to get her. I—I had to come out.’”

Vampires could be killed by fire. Claire remembered that from the list she’d made shortly after moving to Morganville. She couldn’t believe he’d risked his just barely begun life to get as far as he’d gone.

“Damn right you can’t!’” Eve yelled. “If you go and get yourself killed for Monica Morrell, I’ll never forgive you!’”

“It wouldn’t be for Monica,’” he said. “You know that.’”

They stared at the flames, waiting. Seconds ticked by, and there was no sign of anyone: no Monica, and no cops, either. The horizon was getting lighter in the east, Claire realized, going from dark blue to twilight.

Dawn was coming, and they were almost out of time to get Monica to Founder’s Square, if they could get her at all.

If she was still alive.

“Sun’s coming!’” Michael shouted over the roar of the fire.

Claire didn’t ask how he knew. He’d known when he was a ghost; she figured it was probably the same time sense as a vampire’s. Made sense. It would be a survival trait, to know when to get under cover. “You need to get out of here!’” she yelled back. A thick, black billow of smoke belched out of the doorway and made her double over, coughing. They all retreated. “Michael, you have to go! Now!’”

“No!’”

“At least get in the police car!’” Eve pointed to it, on the other side of the fence. “Tinted windows! We’ll wait here, I swear!’”

“I’m not leaving you!’”

The sun crested the far horizon in a tiny sliver of gold, and where it touched him, Michael’s pale skin started to sizzle and smoke. He hissed in pain and slapped at it. A pale, licking flame took hold on his hand.

Claire and Eve screamed, and Eve tackled him into the shadows. That helped, but not much; he was still burning, just more slowly. Michael groaned and looked like he was trying not to scream.

“Claire!’” Eve tossed her the car keys. “Ram the gate! Get it open! Do it!’”

“But—your car!’”

“It’s just a freakin’ car! Come on, move it! We’ll never get him over the fence!’”

Claire scrambled back over the slick, warm iron of the fence, slicing her hands in two or three more places, and barely felt the impact when she fell this time. She was up and running for the Caddy—

—and then she changed course, threw herself into the driver’s seat of the police car, and started it with the keys hanging from the ignition.

This had to be some kind of crime, right? But in an emergency…

She backed it up almost to the end of the block, put the car in drive, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

She screamed and managed to hang on to the wheel somehow as the gate rushed up at her; there was a bone-jarring crunch, and she slammed on the brakes. The gates flew open, bent and mangled, and the police car gave a roar and died, sputtering. Claire got out and opened the back door as Eve rushed Michael toward her; Michael dived in, and Claire slammed the door behind him. Eve was right—the windows were heavily tinted, probably to protect vampire cops from the sun. He’d be okay in there.

Claire hoped.

“What about the others?’” she yelled at Eve, who shook her head. They both turned to look at the warehouse, which was fully on fire now, shooting flames twenty or thirty feet into the morning sky. “Oh God. Oh God! We have to do something!’”

Just then, two figures staggered out of the side door, bathed in black smoke, and collapsed to the pavement. Eve and Claire dashed to them. For a second, Claire didn’t even know who they were, so blackened were they by smoke, and then she recognized Joe Hess under the grime.

The other one was Travis Lowe. They were both coughing and retching up black stuff.

“Get up!’” Eve ordered, and grabbed Hess’s arm to drag him away from the building. “Come on, get up!’”

He did, weaving badly, and Claire managed to get Lowe to do the same. They made it about halfway to the police car, and then Lowe sat down in the open parking lot, coughing his lungs out, gasping. Claire crouched down next to him, wishing she could do something, wishing the damn fire department would come, wishing….

“We’re too late,’” Eve said. She was watching the sun climb over the horizon. “It’s dawn. We’re too late.’”

Hess gasped, “No. Not yet. Richard—had Monica—’”

“What? Where?’” Claire spun to look at him. Hess was nearly as bad off as his partner, but he was able to form words, at least. “They’re still alive?’”

“Should have been right behind us,’” Lowe wheezed.

Claire didn’t think about it. If she’d given herself time, she would have talked herself out of it, but her brain was on hold and all that was left was instinct. It wasn’t just that there was still hope to save Shane; it was that she couldn’t leave anybody to die like that.

She just couldn’t.

She heard Eve yelling her name, but she didn’t stop, couldn’t stop; she kept running until she was in the smoke, and then she dropped to her knees and crawled into the hot, suffocating darkness. She flailed with her hands, trying to find something, anything, and kept her eyes tight shut. She could barely breathe, even close to the ground, and every breath she did manage to take was tainted and toxic, more harm than good.

Okay, this was a really bad idea.

She didn’t dare crawl too far; in the chaos and darkness, she’d never find her way out again. Something fell near her with a huge crash, and fire roared overhead. Claire went flat on the floor and curled into a ball, then—when she wasn’t roasted or crushed—forced herself to keep moving. One minute. One minute and then straight back out.

She wasn’t sure she could survive a minute in here.

Her searching fingers brushed cloth. Claire opened her eyes and was instantly sorry, because the smoke burned and stung, and she couldn’t see a thing anyway. But she had her hand on cloth, and yes, that was a leg, a pant leg….

And that was a hand that turned and gripped hers. An unrecognizable voice rasped, “Get Monica out!’”

A new burst of fire lit up the darkness, and she saw Richard Morrell lying there, curled around his sister. Protecting her. Monica looked up, and there was sheer terror in her face. She reached out blindly. Claire took her hands and pulled her back the way she’d come in, straight back. She felt the draft of air coming in the door, and that helped guide her. “Grab your brother!’” she yelled. Monica took Richard’s hand, and Claire hauled with all her strength, dragging them both.

She didn’t make it.

She wasn’t sure how it happened exactly…. One minute she was pulling; the next she was down, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop coughing. Oh no. No no no. But she couldn’t get up, couldn’t force her body to move.

Shane…

Somebody grabbed her by the ankles and yanked, hard. Claire had just enough presence of mind left to hold on to Monica’s wrist.

“Shit!’” Eve was groaning, coughing, and all of a sudden Claire was outside lying in the sun, watching black smoke billow into the air. “Claire! Breathe, dammit!’”

It wasn’t so much breathing as hacking up a lung, but at least air was moving in and out. She heard someone else coughing next to her, and raised her head to see Monica on her hands and knees, spitting out black phlegm.

And now Eve was dragging Richard Morrell out by his feet.

Eve collapsed next to them, coughing, too, and somewhere on the distant edges of the fire’s roar, as if somebody had flipped a switch, Claire heard sirens. Oh, now they were coming. Perfect. Someone’s tax dollars at work, even if it wasn’t hers…

Claire rolled painfully to her feet. There were burned patches in her clothes, and she smelled burned hair, too. She was going to hurt later, but for now, she was just glad to be alive.

“Get Monica,’” she wheezed at Eve, and grabbed one of Monica’s arms. Eve grabbed the other, and they half dragged her across the parking lot to the shattered gate. Hess and Lowe were leaning up against the police car. Lowe, incredibly, was smoking a cigarette, but he dropped it and managed to get to his feet to stumble over to where Richard was lying, and help him up.

“Michael!’” Eve rapped on the window of the police car. Claire blinked her watering eyes; she could just barely see his shadow through the tinted glass. “Move over!’” Eve opened the back door carefully, making sure he was out of the direct sun, and loaded Monica into the backseat, then got in with them. Monica made a groan of protest. “Oh, shut up already and be grateful.’”

Claire went around to the front seat, got in, and asked blankly, “Who’s driving?’”

Richard Morrell slid in behind the wheel. “Joe and Travis will stay here,’” he said. “I’ll bring you back for your car. Everybody, hold on.’”

As Richard backed the car out and then accelerated toward Founder’s Square, lights and sirens going, Monica managed to get her first coherent words out between coughs.

“Claire…bitch!’” Her voice sounded raw and hoarse. “You…think this…makes us…friends?’”

“God, no,’” Claire said. “But I think you kinda owe me.’”

Monica just glared.

“I’ll call it even if Shane walks away.’”

Monica coughed again. “You wish.’”

12

Founder’s Square was insane. Richard had to stop the car almost a block away, just outside of a cordon of police cars with flashing lights. Claire got out and had another coughing fit, bad enough that Eve patted her nervously on the back and did the talking for her to the grim-faced uniformed policewoman standing guard at the barricade. “We need to see Mayor Morrell,’” she said.

“Mayor’s busy,’” the policewoman said. “You’ll have to wait.’”

“But—’”

Monica got out of the backseat, and the cop’s eyes widened. “Miss Morrell?’” Well, Claire admitted, the smoke-stained scarecrow with frizzed hair didn’t look much like the usual Monica. She secretly hoped somebody would take pictures. And put them on the Internet.

When Richard got out, as well, the policewoman gulped. “Jesus. Sorry, sir. Hang on, I’ll get someone here.’” The policewoman got on her radio and passed on information; while they waited, she passed out bottled water from her squad car. Claire took two bottles and ducked back into the patrol car’s backseat, where Michael was sitting, eyes shut tight. He stirred and looked at her when she called his name. He didn’t look good—paper pale, burned in places, and apparently sick, too. She handed him the water. “I don’t know if it’ll help, but…?’”

Michael nodded and gulped some down. Claire cracked her own bottle and swallowed, nearly moaning in ecstasy. Nothing had ever tasted so good in Claire’s entire life as that lukewarm, flat water washing away the smoke from her throat.

“I thought—’” Michael licked his lips and let his head flop back against the seat. “I thought I’d be stronger. I’ve seen other vampires in the daytime.’”

“Older ones,’” Claire said. “I think it must take time. Amelie can even walk around in the daylight, but she’s really old. You just have to be patient, Michael.’”

“Patient?’” He closed his eyes. “Claire. Today’s the first day I’ve been outside of my house for nearly a year, my best friend’s still under a death sentence, and you’re telling me to be patient?’”

It did sound stupid, when he put it that way. She drank her water silently, wiping sweat from her forehead and then grimacing at the sooty mess.

It’s going to be all right, she told herself. We’ll get Shane. We’ll all go home. It’ll be fine.

Which even now she knew wasn’t very likely, but she had to have something to hold on to.

It was only about a five-minute wait, and the mayor came himself, trailed by an anxious entourage and two uniformed paramedics, who swooped in on Monica and Richard, ignoring Claire and Eve. “Hey, we’re fine, thanks,’” Eve said sarcastically. “Flesh wounds. Look, we kept our part of the bargain. We want Shane. Right now.’”

The mayor, hugging his soot-stained daughter, barely even glanced their way. “You’re too late,’” he said.

Claire’s knees went out from under her. It came to her in a blinding rush—the fire, the smoke, the terror. Shane. Oh no, no, it couldn’t be….

The mayor must have realized what she was thinking, and what Eve was thinking, too, from the expressions on their faces, because he looked momentarily annoyed. “No, not that,’” he said. “Richard said you were en route. I said I’d wait. I don’t break my word.’”

“Much,’” Eve muttered, and covered it with a fake cough. “Okay, then why are we too late?’”

“He’s already gone,’” the mayor said. “His father staged an attack just before dawn, when our attention was on the warehouse fire. Broke Shane and the other one out of the cages, killed five of my men. They were heading out of town, but we’ve got them cornered this time. It’ll all be over soon.’”

“But—Shane!’” Claire looked at him pleadingly. “We kept our part of the bargain—please, can’t you just let him go?’”

Mayor Morrell frowned at her. “Our agreement was that I’d let him go if you brought my daughter back. Well, he’s free. If he gets himself killed trying to save his no-good father, that’s no business of mine,’” the mayor said. He put his arm around Monica and Richard. “Come on, kids. You can tell me what happened.’”

“I’ll tell you what happened,’” Eve said angrily. “We saved both of their lives. You can thank us for that anytime, by the way.’”

From the glare he threw Eve, the mayor really didn’t find that funny. “If you hadn’t put them in danger in the first place, none of this would have happened,’” he said. “Consider yourselves lucky that I don’t toss you in jail for aiding and abetting a vampire hunter. Now, if you want my advice, go home.’” He kissed his daughter’s filthy hair. “Come on, princess.’”

“Dad,’” Richard said. “She’s right. They did save our lives.’”

The mayor looked more than just annoyed now, at this minor rebellion in the family ranks. “Son, I know that you may feel some gratitude toward these girls, but—’”

“Just tell us where Shane is,’” Claire said. “Please. That’s all we want.’”

The two Morrell men exchanged long looks, and then Richard said, “You know the old hospital? The one on Grand Street?’”

Eve nodded. “Our Lady? I thought they tore that thing down.’”

“Scheduled for demolition at the end of the week,’” Richard said. “I’ll take you there.’”

Claire almost cried; she was so relieved. Not that the problem was solved—it wasn’t—but at least they had another step to take.

“Richard,’” the mayor said. “You don’t owe them anything.’”

“I do, though.’” Richard looked from Eve, to Claire. “And I won’t forget it.’”

Eve grinned. “Awww. Don’t worry, Officer. We won’t let you.’”

There were vampires out in the daytime. Claire figured that was unusual, but she realized just how unusual when Richard Morrell, slowing the police car to a crawl, whistled. “Oliver’s called out the troops,’” he said. “Not good for your friend. Or his father.’”

The streets around the massive bulk of the old hospital were lined with cars…big cars, dark-tinted windows. Lots of police cars, too, but it was those other autos that looked…menacing.

As did the people standing in shadows, surrounding the building. Some wore heavy coats and hats, even in the oppressive heat. There had to be at least a hundred gathered, and a lot of them were vampires.

And right in the center, standing right at the edge of the border of sunlight and shadow, stood Oliver. He was wearing a long black leather coat, and a leather broad-brimmed hat, and his hands were cased in gloves.

“Oh, man. I don’t think you guys are going to do any good here,’” Richard said. Oliver’s head turned toward them, and he stepped out into the sunlight. The vampire approached, moving at a slow, leisurely pace. “Maybe I ought to take you on home.’”

In less time than it took to tell Richard no, Oliver had crossed the open space and jerked open the back door of the police cruiser. “Maybe you should join us instead,’” Oliver said, and bared his teeth in a smile. “Ah, Michael. Out of the house at last, I see. Felicitations on your birthday. I would suggest, for your own safety, that you stay strictly in the shadows this morning. Not that you’ll have the strength to do anything else.’”

And he grabbed Claire, who was sitting nearest the door, by the throat.

Claire heard Michael and Eve yelling, and felt Eve trying to hold on to her, but there was no way Eve could match Oliver’s strength. He simply pulled Claire out of the car like a rag doll, his fingers wrapped cruelly tight around her throat, and dragged her out into the street.

“Shane! Shane Collins!’” he shouted. “I have something for you! I want you to watch this very carefully!’”

Claire grabbed at his hand with both of her own, trying to pry his grip free, but it was no good. He knew just how tightly to hold on without quite crushing her throat or cutting off her breathing. She fought back another panicked bout of coughing, and tried to think of something, anything, to do.

“I’m going to kill this girl,’” Oliver continued, “unless she swears herself to me and my service, in front of all of these witnesses. Shane, you can save her by making the same deal. You have two minutes to consider your decision.’”

“Why?’” Claire whispered. It came out as a mouse squeak, barely audible. Oliver, who was staring at the decaying facade of the old hospital, with its weather-stained weeping angels and molding baroque stonework, turned his attention briefly to her. The morning was warm and cloudless, the sun a hot brass penny in a bright blue sky. It seemed wrong for a vampire to be out here.

He wasn’t even sweating.

“Why what, Claire? It’s an imprecise question. You have a better mind than that.’”

She fought for breath, helplessly clawing at his fingers. “Why…kill Brandon?’”

He lost his smile, and his eyes turned wary. “Clever,’” he said. “Cleverness may not be good for you after all. The question you should be asking is, why do I want your service?’”

“All right,’” she wheezed. “Why?’”

“Because Amelie has some use for you,’” he said. “And I am not accustomed to giving Amelie what she wants. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with history. But, sadly, I’m making it your problem. Cheer up; if your boyfriend swears on your behalf, I’ll keep him alive. Let you see him from time to time. Star-crossed lovers are so entertaining.’”

Amelie didn’t seem to have much of a use for her, Claire reflected, but she didn’t argue about it. Couldn’t, in fact. Couldn’t do much of anything but stand on tiptoe, gag for each breath, and hope that somehow, she’d figure a way out of this stupid situation that she’d gotten herself into. Again.

“One minute!’” Oliver called. There was movement inside of the building, flickers at the windows. “Well. It appears we have a domestic disturbance.’”

What he meant was, Shane’s dad was kicking the crap out of him. Claire struggled to see what was going on, but Oliver’s grip was too tight. She could see only from the corner of her eye, and what she could see wasn’t good. Shane was in the doorway of the hospital, trying to get free, but someone dragged him back.

“Thirty seconds!’” Oliver announced. “Well, this is coming down to the wire. I’m a bit surprised, Claire. The boy really is fighting for the chance to save you. You should be very impressed.’”

“You should take your hands off of her, Oliver,’” said a voice from behind them, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being pumped. “Seriously. I’m not in a good mood, I’m tired, and I just want to go home.’”

“Richard,’” Oliver said, and turned to regard him. “You look like hell, my friend. Don’t you think you should go be with your family, instead of worrying about these—outcasts?’”

Richard stepped forward and put the shotgun under Oliver’s chin. “Yeah, I should. But I owe them. I said—’”

Oliver backhanded him. Richard went flying and rolled to a limp stop on the pavement, the shotgun clattering to the ground.

“I heard you the first time,’” Oliver said mildly. “My, you do make friends in strange places, Claire. I suppose you’ll have to tell me all about that later.’” He raised his voice. “Time’s up! Claire Danvers, do you swear your life, your blood, and your service to me, now and for your lifetime, that I may command you in all things? Do say yes, my dear, because if you don’t, I’ll simply close my hand. It’s a very messy way to go. Takes minutes for you to choke to death, and Shane gets to watch the whole thing.’”

Claire couldn’t believe she’d ever thought Oliver was kind, or reasonable, or human. She stared at his cold, cold eyes, and saw a thin, blood-colored trickle of sweat run down his face under the hat.

She was no longer standing on tiptoe, she realized. Her feet were flat on the ground.

He’s getting weaker!

Not that it would do her any good.

“Wait.’” Shane’s voice. Claire breathed in a shallow gasp and saw him limping across the open ground from the hospital building toward her. His face was bloody, and there was something wrong with his ankle, but he wasn’t stopping. “You want a servant? How about me?’”

“Ah. The hero appears.’” Oliver turned toward him, and as he did, Claire got a better look at Shane. She saw the fear in his eyes, and her heart just broke for him. He’d been through so much; he didn’t deserve this, too. Not this. “I thought you might say that. What if I take you both, then? I’m a generous, fair boss. Ask Eve.’”

“Don’t believe anything he says. He’s working with your dad,’” Claire wheezed. “He’s been working with him the whole time. He arranged for Brandon to be killed. Shane—’”

“I know all that,’” Shane said. “Politics, right, Oliver? Mind games, you and Amelie. We’re just pawns to you. Well, she’s not a pawn. Let her go.’”

“All right, my young knight,’” Oliver said, and smiled. “If you insist.’”

He was going to kill her, he really was….

Shane had something in his hand, and he threw it right in Oliver’s eyes.

It looked like water, but it must have burned like acid. Oliver let go of Claire and screamed, stumbling backward, tearing the hat from his head and bending over, clawing at his face….

Shane grabbed Claire’s hand, and pulled her with him in a limping run.

Straight into the old hospital building.

With a roar, the cops, the vampires, and their servants came rushing across the open sunlit parking lot. Some of the vampires went down, hammered by the hot sun, but not all of them. Not nearly all of them.

Shane pushed Claire through the doorway and yelled, “Now!’”

A huge, heavy wooden desk dropped down on its side, blocking the doorway with a crash, and then another one dropped on top of it from the balcony above.

Shane, breathing hard, grabbed Claire and pulled her into a hug. “You okay?’” he asked. “No fang marks or anything?’”

“I’m fine,’” she gasped. “Oh, God, Shane!’”

“So this charcoal look, that’s just fashion. You’re okay.’”

She clung to him tightly. “There was a fire.’”

“No kidding. Dad makes one hell of a diversion.’” Shane swallowed and pushed her back. “Did you get Monica out of there? Dad told me—well, he meant to leave her in there.’” She nodded. Shane’s eyes glittered with relief. “I tried to stop this, Claire. He won’t listen to me.’”

“He never did. Didn’t you know that?’”

He shrugged, and looked around. “Funny, I keep thinking he will. Where’s Eve? In the police car?’”

With Michael, she almost said, and realized it probably wasn’t the best moment to announce that Shane’s best friend was now a full-fledged vampire. Shane was just barely warming up to the whole ghost issue. “Yeah. In the police car.’” She took a corner of his shirt and lifted it to wipe at the blood on his face.

“Ouch.’”

“Where’s your dad?’”

“They’ve been moving out,’” he said. “He tried to get me to go. I said I’d damn well go when I had you back. So…I guess now would be a good time.’”

There was a clatter of metal off to the side, and Claire’s world gradually expanded past the miracle of seeing Shane again to take in the room where she stood. It was a big lobby, floored in scarred, ugly green plastic tile. What little furniture remained in the room was mostly bolted down, like the reception desk; the walls were black and furry with thick streaks of mold, and lights hung at odd angles overhead, clearly ready to fall at the slightest jolt. There was a creaky-looking second floor overlooking the lobby, and around it dented filing cabinets blocked the windows.

It smelled like dead things—worse, it felt that way, like terrible things had been done here over the years. Claire was reminded of the Glass House, and the energy stored inside of it…. What kind of energy was stored here? And what had it come from? She shuddered even thinking about it.

“They’re coming!’” someone called from up above, and Shane raised a hand in acknowledgment. “Time to get the hell out, man!’”

“Coming.’” He grabbed Claire’s hand. “Come on. We have a way out.’”

“We do?’”

“Morgue tunnels.’”

“What?’”

“Trust me.’”

“I do, but…morgue tunnels?’”

“Yeah,’” Shane said. “They were sealed off in the mid-fifties, but we opened up one end. It’s not on the maps. Nobody’s watching it.’”

“Then who’s in here with you?’”

“Couple of Dad’s guys,’” Shane said.

“That’s it?’” She was horrified. “You know there are about a hundred angry people outside, right? And they have guns?’”

Behind them, the battering at the doors strengthened. The desks blocking access grated across the floor, one torturous inch at a time. She could see daylight spilling inside.

“We’d better move,’” Shane said. “Come on.’”

Claire let him tow her along, and looked back over her shoulder to see the desks shuddering under the impact of bodies. They slid across the tile with another groan, and one of them cracked in half, drawers spilling out in a noisy clatter.

Shane waved to a big guy in black leather as they passed, and the three of them ran down the second-floor hallway. It was dark, filthy, and scary, but not as scary as the sounds coming from the lobby behind them. Shane had a flashlight, and he switched it on to pick out obstacles in the way—fallen IV stands, an abandoned, dust-covered wheelchair, a gurney tipped over on its side. “Faster,’” she gasped, because she heard a final crash from the lobby.

They were inside.

Claire didn’t think more than half the vampires had made it successfully across the sun-drenched parking lot, but those who’d been strong enough were inside now, and it was nice and dark for them. No contest.

Shane knew where he was going. He turned right at a corner, then left, yanked up a fire exit door, and pushed Claire inside. “Up!’” he said. “Two flights, then go left!’”

There were things on the stairs; Claire couldn’t see them very well, even in the glow of Shane’s flashlight, but they smelled dead, sickly rotten. She tried not to breathe, avoided the sticky puddles of dried—whatever that was, she couldn’t think of it as blood—and kept running up the steps. First landing, then another set of stairs, these clear except for some broken bottles she vaulted over.

She yanked the fire door two flights up, and nearly dislocated her shoulder.

It was blocked.

“Shane!’”

He pushed her out of the way, grabbed the handle, and pulled. “Shit!’” He kicked it furiously, looked blank for a second, then turned to the next flight of stairs. “One more! Go!’”

The fifth-floor door was open, and Claire darted through it into the dark.

Her foot caught on something, and she toppled forward, hit the floor, and rolled. Shane’s flashlight bounced a ball of light toward her, lighting up scarred linoleum tile, stacks of leaning boxes…

…and a skeleton. Claire yelped and scrambled back from it, then realized that it was one of those medical teaching skeletons, scattered out on the floor from where she’d tripped over it.

Shane grabbed her by the arm, hauled her up, and pulled her along. Claire looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the biker guy, the one who’d been following them. Where had he—

She heard a scream.

Oh.

Shane hurried her down the long hall, then turned left and pulled Claire after him. There was another set of fire stairs. He opened the door, and they raced down one flight.

This exit was open. Shane pulled her out into another long, dark hallway and moved fast, counting doorways under his breath.

He stopped in front of number thirteen.

“Inside,’” he said, and kicked it open. Metal gave with a shriek, and the door flew back to slam against tile. Something broke with a clatter like dropped plates.

Claire felt a chill take hold, because she had walked into what looked like a morgue. Stainless steel trays, stainless steel lockers on the wall, some gaping open to reveal sliding trays.

Yes, she was pretty sure it was the morgue. And pretty sure it was going to feature prominently in her nightmares from now on, provided she ever got to sleep again.

“This way,’” Shane said, and pulled open what looked like a laundry chute. “Claire.’”

“Oh, hell, no!’” Because if she hated tight spaces, there couldn’t be anything much worse than this. She had no idea how long it was, but it was small, it was dark, and had he said something about morgue tunnels? Was this a body chute? Maybe there was a corpse still stuck in it! Oh God…

There were noises coming from outside—the mob, coming fast.

“Sorry, no time,’” Shane said, and picked her up and dumped her into the chute feetfirst.

She tried not to scream. She thought she might have actually succeeded as she slid helplessly through the dark down a cold, metal tunnel meant only for the dead.

13

She landed hard, on stone, in the dark, and suppressed a burning need to whimper. A hand closed on her arm and helped her up. She heard a thumping clatter behind her, and got out of the way just in time as Shane—she thought it was Shane, anyway—tumbled out of the chute after her.

And the lights came on.

Well, not lights exactly…one light, and it was a flashlight.

And Shane’s dad was holding it.

He took one fast, cold look at his son, then one at Claire, and said, “Where’s Des?’”

Shane looked shocked. “Dad—you were supposed to go! That was the whole point!’”

“Where the hell is Des?’”

“He’s gone!’” Shane shouted. “Dammit, Dad—’”

Frank Collins looked blackly furious, face twisting, and he swung the flashlight away from them. Claire blinked spots away, and saw that he was aiming it at two of his guys standing in the dark. “Right,’” he said. “Let’s do this.’”

“Do what?’” Shane demanded, getting to his feet. He winced as he put his weight on his wounded ankle. “Dad, what the hell is going on? You said you were leaving!’”

“Didn’t kill enough vampires to leave,’” Frank Collins said. “But I’m about to even the score.’”

The two guys he had trained his light on were crouched next to a makeshift circuit board built out of what looked like old computer parts. It was hooked up to a car battery. One of the two guys held two wires by the insulated parts, but the tips were bare copper, freshly stripped.

Things fell together.

Shane’s dad had used him, again. Used him as bait, letting him think he was being the hero, distracting the vampires to give his dad time to escape.

Used him to get a large number of vampires in one place. But they weren’t just vampires; there were people there, too. Cops, and wannabe vampires. And people who were just there because they owed Oliver.

It was cold-blooded murder.

Richard had said it. Demolition this week. The explosives were already in place.

“They’re going to blow the building!’” Claire screamed, and lunged. She couldn’t fight the bikers, but she didn’t need to.

All she had to do was yank at the wires under the circuit board.

They gave with a blue white pop, and she was lucky not to be fried. One of the bikers reached her then, grabbed her, and threw her back, looking at the mess and shaking his head. “Got a problem!’” he yelled. “She trashed the board! Gonna take time to rewire!’”

Frank’s face went scarlet with fury, and he ran toward her, fist in the air. “You stupid little—’”

Shane caught his fist in an open palm and held it there. “Don’t,’” he said. “Enough, Dad. No more.’”

Frank tried to hit him. Shane ducked. He caught the second blow in an open palm again.

The third one, he blocked, and punched back. Just once.

Frank went down, flat on his ass, something like fear in his face.

“Enough,’” Shane said. Claire had never seen him look taller, or more frightening. “You’ve still got time to run, Dad. You’d better do it while you can. They’ll figure out where we are soon, and you know what? I’m not dying for you. Not anymore.’”

Frank’s mouth opened, then closed. He wiped blood from his mouth, staring at Shane, as he got to his feet.

“I thought you understood,’” he said. “I thought you wanted—’”

“You know what I want, Dad?’” Shane asked. “I want my life back. I want my girlfriend. And I want you to leave and never come back.’”

Frank’s eyes went flat, like a shark’s. “Your mother’s turning over in her grave, watching you betray your own kind. Your own father. Siding with the parasites that infest this sick town.’”

Shane didn’t answer him. The two of them stared at each other in tense, angry silence for a few seconds, and then Claire heard metal clattering from up above. She tugged on Shane’s arm urgently. “I think they found the chute,’” she said. “Shane—’”

Shane’s dad said, “I should have left you in the damn cage to fry, you ungrateful little bastard. You’re no son of mine.’”

“Hallelujah,’” Shane said softly. “Free at last.’”

His dad turned off the flashlight, and Claire heard running footsteps in the dark.

Shane grabbed Claire’s sweating hand, and they ran the opposite direction, with Shane breathlessly counting steps, until there was a golden glow of light at the end of the tunnel.

Shane wanted to run, but escape was impossible. Unless they made it out of Morganville, and even then, Claire understood—finally—that the vampires wouldn’t let them leave. Not with what they’d done, or nearly done.

She needed to make it right.

Claire worked it out in her head before she said anything to him; Shane was talking in a breathless monologue, spinning a plan to steal a car, head out of town, maybe out of state.

Claire kept quiet until she saw the cherry red and blue flashers of a Morganville police cruiser coming down the darkened street, and then she let go of Shane’s hand and said, “Trust me.’”

“What?’”

“Just trust me.’”

She stepped out in front of the police car, which came to a fast, controlled stop. A floodlight blinded her, and she stood still for it. She sensed Shane retreating, and said, sharply, “Shane, no! Stay where you are!’”

“What the hell are you doing?’”

“Surrendering,’” she said, and put her hands in the air. “Come on. You, too.’”

She didn’t think he would, for a long terrifying second, and then he stepped out into the street with her, put his hands up, and laced his fingers behind his head. The police cruiser’s doors popped open, and Shane dropped to his knees. Claire blinked at him, then followed suit.

She was on the ground in seconds, pinned by someone’s hot, hard hand, and she heard a male voice say, “Heller here. We’ve got Danvers and the Collins kid. They’re alive.’”

She didn’t hear the reply, but she was too busy wondering if she’d made an awful mistake as cold steel handcuffs clicked shut around her wrists. The policeman hauled her upright by her elbow, and she winced at the pull on her sore muscles. Next to her, Shane was getting the same treatment. He wasn’t resisting. He looked…tense.

“It’s okay,’” she told him. “Trust me.’”

His eyes were wild, but he nodded.

Better be right, she thought, and swallowed hard as they were shoved inside the back of the police car.

The police didn’t talk to her or Shane at all. The ride was short, and silent, and when the cruiser pulled into the parking garage at City Hall, there was a welcoming committee standing there waiting. Claire almost cried at the sight of Michael and Eve—smoke-stained but standing side by side, holding hands. They looked worried. Next to them was Richard Morrell, with a bandage on his head.

And Mayor Morrell. She couldn’t read his expression at all—annoyed, but she thought that was usual for him. Claire caught a glimpse of red hair, and saw Sam leaning against a pillar up on the dock. Apart from Michael, he was the only vampire present. At least, the only one she could see.

The cruiser’s doors were opened, and Claire slid out. The mayor looked her over, then Shane. His eyes narrowed.

“My sources say somebody set up a spark board down under the hospital,’” he said. “Connected up the wires and got ready to blow the building. Looks like somebody trashed it before anything happened.’”

Shane said, “Claire pulled the wires. My dad was going to blow it and kill everybody inside.’”

The Morrells, father and son, exchanged a look. Even Sam raised his head, though he stayed where he was, arms folded, looking relaxed and neutral. “And where’s your dad?’” Richard asked. “Shane, you don’t owe him. You know that.’”

“Yeah,’” Shane said. “I know. He’s gone. I wish I could tell you he wouldn’t be back, but—’” He shrugged. “Let Claire go, man. She saved people. She didn’t hurt anybody.’”

Mayor Morrell nodded at the cop standing behind Claire. She felt her handcuffs jiggle, then loosen, and gratefully folded her arms across her chest.

“What about Shane?’” she asked.

“The vampires caught two of Frank’s men. They admitted that Frank murdered Brandon. Shane’s in the clear,’” Richard said.

Shane blinked at him. “What?’”

“Go home,’” Richard said, and the cop unlocked Shane’s handcuffs, as well. “Sam’s taken care of getting word out to the vampires. They don’t like you much, so watch your step, but you’re not guilty of any crimes. Not major ones.’”

“Great!’” Eve said, and grabbed Claire’s hand, then Shane’s. “We’re outta here.’”

Eve’s Cadillac was parked a few spaces away. The back and side windows had been blacked out, Claire realized, and there was a fresh smell of paint in the air, and two cans of spray enamel lying on the ground. She got in the front seat, and Michael slid into the backseat. Shane hesitated, looking in at him, then climbed in and slammed the door.

Eve started the car. “Shane?’”

“Yeah?’”

“I’m freaking killing you when we get home.’”

“Good,’” Shane said. “Because right now, death seems like a better idea than talking about any of this.’”

The town was strangely quiet—fires out, mobs dispersed, nothing to see here, move along. But Claire didn’t really think it was over. Not at all.

She leaned against the window on the ride home, exhausted and unhappy. There was an ominous silence coming from the backseat, a feeling like thunderclouds rolling in and ready to break. Eve rambled on nervously about Shane’s dad, and where he might have gone; nobody responded. I hope he leaves, Claire thought. I hope he gets away. Not because he shouldn’t pay—he should—but because if he did, all it meant for Shane was more grief. Losing the last member of his already destroyed family. Better if his dad just…disappeared.

“Have you told Shane?’” Eve asked. Claire sat up, blinking and yawning, as Eve pulled the Caddy to a halt in front of their house.

“About what?’”

Eve pointed at Michael. “You know.’”

Claire turned to look at him. Shane was staring straight ahead, his face like stone. “Let me guess,’” he said. “You came up with some magical fairy who granted you your freedom, and now you can come and go whenever you want,’” he said. “Tell me that’s it, Michael. Because I’ve been thinking about why you’re sitting in this car the whole way, and I can’t really come up with any other answer that won’t make me vomit.’”

“Shane—,’” Michael said, and then shook his head. “Yeah. My fairy godmother came and granted me a wish. Let’s just get past this.’”

“Get past it?’” Shane said. “How exactly do I do that? Fuck off.’”

He got out of the car and stalked up the walkway. Eve grabbed a huge black umbrella and hurried around to Michael’s side of the car; she opened it like a valet, and he stepped out, grabbed the umbrella, and ran after Shane. Even with the thin shade, his skin began to smoke lightly as it cooked.

Michael made it to the shade of the porch, he dropped the umbrella, and Shane turned and punched him.

Hard.

Michael rode the punch, caught the second one in his open palm, stepped in, and hugged him.

“Get off me!’” Shane yelled, and shoved him back. “Damn! Get off!’”

“I wasn’t going to bite you, idiot,’” Michael said wearily. “Jesus. I’m just glad you’re alive.’”

“Wish I could say the same, but since you’re not—’” Shane slammed open the door and vanished inside, leaving Michael leaning against the wall.

Claire and Eve came slowly up the walk.

“I’ll—’” Claire swallowed hard. “I’ll talk to him. I’m sorry. He’s just a little—it’s been a long day, you know? He’ll be okay.’”

Michael nodded. Eve put an arm around him and helped him into the house.

Shane was nowhere to be seen when Claire entered the living room, but she heard his door slam upstairs. Damn, he was fast when he wanted to be. And bitter. Who said girls were moody? She eyed the couch—it was the first comfortable spot to lie down—with weary longing. Maybe she should just let Shane get through it alone. Not like he wasn’t used to dealing with trauma.

Then again…just because he could do it alone didn’t mean he ought to have to.

There was something odd about the room, and for a long second, Claire couldn’t put her finger on it. Then it dawned on her.

The room smelled like flowers. Roses, to be exact.

Claire frowned, turned, and saw a huge bunch of red roses lying on the side table. There was an envelope next to it with her name on it in old-fashioned copper-plate handwriting.

She tore it open and unfolded the papers inside.

Dear Claire,

My informal Protection is no longer sufficient for you and your friends, and I think you know that now. More drastic steps must be taken, and soon, or your friends will pay the price. Oliver will not allow today’s events to go unanswered. You have been brave, but extremely foolish in your enemies.

Consider my proposal carefully.

I shall not offer it again.

There wasn’t a signature, but Claire didn’t have any doubt who had written it. Amelie. The letter was water-marked with her seal.

The other papers in the stack looked legal. She read them, frowning, trying to understand what they meant, and some of the language leaped out at her.

I, Claire Elizabeth Danvers, swear my life, my blood, and my service to the Founder, now and for my lifetime, that the Founder may command me in all things.

It was the same thing Oliver had said, back at the hospital, when he’d been trying to make her…

…make her his slave.

Claire dropped the paper like it had caught on fire. No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t.

Or your friends will pay the price.

Claire swallowed, stuffed the contract back into the envelope, and shoved it in her pocket just as Eve came around the corner and said, “Roses! Jeez, who died?’”

“Nobody,’” Claire said hoarsely. “They’re for you. From Michael.’”

Michael looked surprised, but his back was to Eve, and if he had any sense at all, he’d play along.

Claire went upstairs to take a shower.

Being clean made it better. Not a whole lot better, but some. She sat for a while, staring at the white envelope with her name on it, wishing she could talk to Shane about it, or Eve, or Michael, but not daring to do any of that because this was her choice. Not theirs. And she knew what they’d say, anyway.

Not enough no in the world, that’s what they’d say.

It was after dark when Shane finally knocked on her door. She opened it and stood there looking at him. Just looking, because somehow she didn’t think she’d ever see enough of him. He looked tired, and rumpled, and sleep creased.

And he was so beautiful she felt her heart break into a million little sharp-edged pieces.

He shifted uncertainly. “Can I come in? Or do you just want me to—?’” He pointed back down the hall. She stepped back and let him inside, then shut the door behind him. “I freaked about Michael.’”

“Yeah, you think?’”

“Why didn’t you tell me?’”

“Well, it didn’t exactly seem like the right time,’” she said tiredly, and sat down on the bed, back to the head-board. “Come on, Shane. We were running for our lives.’”

He granted that argument with a shrug. “How did this happen?’”

“You mean, who? Amelie. She was here, and Michael asked.’” Claire looked at him for a long second before she added the coup de graĉe. “He asked because he wanted to be able to leave the house.’”

Shane looked stricken. He lowered himself down on the corner of the bed, staring at her with those wounded, vulnerable eyes. The ones that made her heart break all over again. “No,’” he said. “Not because of me. Tell me it wasn’t—’”

“He said it wasn’t. Not, you know, completely, anyway. He had to do this, Shane. He couldn’t live like this, not forever.’”

Shane looked away. “Christ. I mean, he knows how I feel about vampires. Now I’m living with one. Now I’m best friends with one. That’s not good.’”

“Doesn’t have to be bad, either,’” she said. “Shane—don’t be angry, okay? He did what he thought he had to do.’”

“Don’t we all?’” He flopped back on the bed, hands under his head. Staring up at the ceiling. “Long day.’”

“Yeah.’”

“So,’” he said. “You got plans for tonight? Because suddenly I’m free.’”

He made her laugh, even though she thought she didn’t have any of that left. Shane rolled up on one elbow, and the gentleness in the way he smiled at her made her breath catch in her throat.

He reached out and tugged at her hair, smiling. “You’re all wild today,’” he said. “Hero.’”

“Me? No way.’”

“Yeah, you. You saved lives, Claire. Granted, some people I’d just as soon see gone, but…still. I think you even saved my dad. If he’d blown up that building, killed all those people…he couldn’t have walked away from it. I couldn’t have let him.’” They just looked at each other, and Claire felt tension coiling up between them, pulling them closer. She saw him leaning toward her, drawn by the same thing. He reached out and traced one hand slowly along her bare foot. “So. What’s the plan, hero? Want to watch a movie?’”

She felt odd. Crazy and strange and full of uncertainty. “No.’”

“Kill some video zombies?’”

“No.’”

“If we get down to canasta, I’m jumping…off…the…what are you doing?’”

She stretched out across the bed on her side, facing him. “Nothing. What do you want to do?’”

“Oh, let’s not go there.’”

“Why not?’”

“Don’t you have school tomorrow?’”

She kissed him. It wasn’t an innocent kiss—anything but. She felt like those roses downstairs, dark and red and full of passion, and it was new to her, so new, but she couldn’t stop the feeling that she had to do this, now, because she’d almost lost him, and—

Shane leaned his forehead against hers and broke the kiss with a gasp, like a drowning man. “Hang on,’” he said. “Slow down. I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right? You don’t have to put out to keep me here. Well, as long as you eventually—’”

“Shut up.’”

He did, mainly by pressing his lips back to hers. A slower kiss this time, warm and then hot. She thought she’d never get enough of the taste of him; it just jolted through her like raw current and lit her up inside. Lit her up in ways she knew weren’t good, or at least weren’t completely legal.

“Want to play baseball?’” she asked. Shane’s eyes opened, and he stopped stroking her hair.

“What?’”

“First base,’” she said. “You’re already there.’”

“I’m not running the bases.’”

“Well, you could at least steal second.’”

“Jeez, Claire. I used to distract myself with sports stats at times like these, but now you’ve gone and ruined it.’” Another damp, hot kiss, and his hands trailed down her neck, featherlight. Over her shoulders, brushing skin her thin jersey nightshirt left bare. Down…

“Dammit.’” He rolled over on his back, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling again.

“What?’” she asked. “Shane?’”

“You could have died,’” he said. “You’re sixteen, Claire.’”

“Nearly seventeen.’” She moved up against his side, cuddling close.

“Yeah, that makes it all better. Look—’”

“You want to wait?’”

“Yeah,’” he said. “Well, obviously, not my first choice, but I’m all about second thoughts right now. But the thing is…I don’t want to leave you.’” His arm was around her, and there was nothing in the world to her but the warmth of his body against her, and his whisper, and the utterly vulnerable need in his eyes. “But it’s not going to be easy for me to say no. So help me out here.’”

Her heart was pounding. “You want to stay?’”

“Yes. I—’” He opened his mouth, then closed it, then tried again. “I need to stay. I need you.’”

She kissed him, very gently. “Then stay.’”

“Okay, but so far as baseball goes, second base is as far as I go.’”

“You’re sure about that?’”

“I swear.’”

And somehow, he kept his word, no matter how hard she tried to convince him.

Shane was still asleep, curled in a heap among the pillows, snoring lightly. She’d gotten his shirt off at some point, and Claire lay in the soft glow of the rising sun, watching the light gleaming on the strong muscles of his back. She wanted to touch him…but she didn’t want him to wake up. He needed to sleep, and she had something she had to do.

Something he wasn’t going to like.

Claire eased out of bed, moving very carefully, and found her blue jeans crumpled on the floor. The envelope was still in the back pocket. She opened it and slipped out the stiff, formal paper, unfolded it, and read the note again.

She put the contract on the desk, looked at Shane, and thought about the risk of losing him. Of Eve and Michael, too.

I, Claire Elizabeth Danvers, swear my life, my blood, and my service…

Shane had said she was a hero, but she didn’t feel like one. She felt like a scared teenager with a whole lot to lose. I can’t watch him get hurt, she thought. Not if there’s anything I can do to stop it. Michael—Eve—I can’t take the risk.

How bad could it be?

Claire opened the drawer and found a pen.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

Â 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Â 

About the Author

Praise for The Morganville Vampire Novels

â€˜â€˜An electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.â€™â€™ â€”The Best Reviews

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â€˜â€˜A solid, utterly compelling story that you will find addictive and hypnotic. If Rachel Caine is not on your auto-buy list, put her there immediately, if not sooner.â€™â€™ â€”The Eternal Night

Â 
â€˜â€˜Rachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.â€™â€™ â€”Romance Reviews Today

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â€˜â€˜A rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos.â€™â€™ â€”Midwest Book Review

Â 
Praise for Rachel Caineâ€™s Weather Warden Series

Â 
â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.â€™â€™ â€”Jim Butcher

Â 
â€˜â€˜The Weather Warden series is fun reading . . . more engaging than most TV.â€™â€™ â€”Booklist

â€˜â€˜A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.â€™â€™ â€”Romantic Times

Â 
â€˜â€˜Hugely entertaining.â€™â€™ â€”SF Crowsnest

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â€˜â€˜A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.â€™â€™ â€”Locus

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â€˜â€˜An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.â€™â€™ â€”SF Site

Â 
â€˜â€˜I dare you to put this book down.â€™â€™

â€”University City Review (Philadelphia)

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â€˜â€˜Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!â€™â€™

â€”Mary Jo Putney

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â€˜â€˜A spellbinding . . . thought-provoking, action-packed thriller.â€™â€™ â€”Midwest Book Review

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRE NOVELS

Glass Houses
The Dead Girlsâ€™ Dance
Midnight Alley

NAL Jam
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, October 2007

Copyright Â© Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2007

All rights reservedÂ 

NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHERâ€™S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authorâ€™s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authorâ€™s rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

For the people who got me through my own personal Morganville years: Elizabeth Sandlin, Andy Sealy, Mona Fluitt, Bruce Tinsley, Luis Hernandez, Gary Wiley, Scott Chase, Marsha McNeill, Rachel Scarbrough, and many more who made the days bright. Also to the memory of sitting next to Stevie Ray Vaughn, hearing him make magic when few people were even listening.

For the people who are getting me through these Morganville years: Cat Conrad, Kelley Walters, Marla Stair, Katy Hendricks, Claire Wilkins and Baby Griff, Becky Rocha, Laurie Andrews and her lovely girls, P. N. Elrod, Jackie Leaf, Bill Leaf, Joanne Madge, Irene Ferris, Ter Matthies, the Alphas, ORAC, Douglas Joseph, Sharon Sams and her son Boardman, Ann Jackson and her son Trey, and literally too many LiveJournal and MySpace friends to even attempt to list. Every one of them a special, undeserved gift.

And to Charles Armitage and Kevin Cleary, for making Morganville an even more exciting place.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Fast turnaround reading and commenting from a select group of people, including (but probably not limited to) Jackie, Sharon, Donna, and Lisa. Especially Donna, who reminded me that if you put a knife on the table in the first act, youâ€™d better not switch it to a gun in the third . . . thanks, Donna!

1

The instant the phone rang at the Glass House, Claire knew with a psychic flash that it had to be her mother.

Well, it wasnâ€™t so much a psychic flash as simple logic. Sheâ€™d told Mom that she would call days ago, which she hadnâ€™t, and now, of course, it could only be her mother calling at the most inopportune moment.

Hence: had to be a call from Mom.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t,â€™â€™ her boyfriendâ€”she couldnâ€™t believe she could actually call him that, boyfriend, not a boy friendâ€”Shane murmured without taking his mouth off of hers. â€˜â€˜Michael will get it.â€™â€™ And he was giving her a very good argument in favor of ignoring the phone, too. But somewhere in the back of her mind that little voice just wouldnâ€™t shut up.

She slid off of his lap with a regretful sigh, licked her damp, tingling lips, and dashed off in the direction of the kitchen door.

Michael was just rising from the kitchen table to head for the phone. She beat him to it, mouthing a silent apology, and said, â€˜â€˜Hello?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire! Oh my goodness, Iâ€™ve been worried sick, honey. Weâ€™ve been trying to call you on your cell for days, andâ€”â€™â€™

Crap. Claire rubbed her forehead in frustration. â€˜â€˜Mom, I sent you guys an e-mail, remember? My cell got lost; Iâ€™m still working on getting another one.â€™â€™ Best not to mention how it had gotten lost. Best not to mention anything about how dangerous her life had become since sheâ€™d moved to Morganville, Texas.

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Mom said, and then, more slowly, â€˜â€˜Oh. Well, your father forgot to tell me about that. You know, heâ€™s the one who checks the e-mail. I donâ€™t like computers.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes, Mom, I know.â€™â€™ Mom really wasnâ€™t that bad, but she was notoriously nervous with computers, and for good reason; they had a tendency to short out around her.

Mom was still talking. â€˜â€˜Is everything going all right? How are classes? Interesting?â€™â€™

Claire opened the refrigerator door and retrieved a can of Coke, which she popped open and chugged to give herself time to think what, if anything, to tell her parents. Mom, there was a little trouble. See, my boyfriendâ€™s dad came to town with some bikers and killed people, and nearly killed us, too. Oh, and the vampires are angry about it. So to save my friends, I had to sign a contract, so now Iâ€™m basically the slave of the most badass vampire in town.

Yeah, that wouldnâ€™t go over well.

Besides, even if she said it, Mom wouldnâ€™t understand it. Mom had been to Morganville, but she hadnâ€™t really seen. People usually didnâ€™t. And if they did, they either never left town or had their memories wiped on the way out.

And if by some chance they started to remember, bad things could happen to them. Terminally bad things.

So instead, Claire said, â€˜â€˜Classes are great, Mom. I aced all my exams last week.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Of course you did. Donâ€™t you always?â€™â€™

Yeah, but last week I had to take my exams while worrying that somebody was going to stick a knife in my back. It could have had an effect on my GPA. Stupid to be proud of that . . . â€˜â€˜Everythingâ€™s fine here. Iâ€™ll let you know when I get the new cell phone, okay?â€™â€™ Claire hesitated, then asked, â€˜â€˜How are you? Howâ€™s Dad?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, weâ€™re fine, honey. We miss you is all. But your fatherâ€™s still not happy about your living in that place, off campus, with those older kids. . . .â€™â€™

Of all the things for Mom to remember, she had to remember that. And of course Claire couldnâ€™t tell her why she was living off campus with eighteen-year-olds, especially when two of them were boys. Mom hadnâ€™t gotten around to mentioning the boys yet, but it was just a matter of time.

â€˜â€˜Mom, I told you how mean the girls were to me in the dorm. Itâ€™s better here. Theyâ€™re my friends. And really, theyâ€™re great.â€™â€™

Mom didnâ€™t sound too convinced. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re being careful, though. About those boys.â€™â€™

Well, that hadnâ€™t taken long. â€˜â€˜Yes, Iâ€™m being careful about the boys.â€™â€™ She was even being careful about Shane, though that was mostly because Shane never forgot that Claire was not quite seventeen, and he was not quite nineteen. Not a huge age difference, but legally? Huger than huge, if her parents got upset about it. Which they definitely would. â€˜â€˜Everybody here says hello, by the way. Ah, Michaelâ€™s waving.â€™â€™

Michael Glass, the second boy in the house, had settled down at the kitchen table and was reading a newspaper. He looked up and gave her a wide-eyed, no-you-donâ€™t shake of his head. Heâ€™d had a bad enough time of it with her parents the last time, and now . . . well, things were even worse, if that was possible. At least when heâ€™d met them, Michael had been half-normal: fully human by night, an incorporeal ghost by day, and trapped in the house twenty-four/ seven.

For Morganville, that was half-normal.

In order to help get Shane out of trouble, Michael had made a terrible choiceâ€”heâ€™d gained his freedom from the house and obtained physical form at the time, but now he was a vampire. Claire couldnâ€™t tell if it bothered him. It had to, right? But he seemed so . . . normal.

Maybe a little too normal.

Claire listened to her motherâ€™s voice, and then held out the phone to Michael. â€˜â€˜She wants to talk to you,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜No! Iâ€™m not here!â€™â€™ he stage-whispered, and made waving-off motions. Claire wiggled the phone insistently.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re the responsible one,â€™â€™ she reminded him. â€˜â€˜Just try not to talk about theâ€”â€™â€™ She mimed fangs in the neck.

Michael shot her a dirty look, took the phone, and turned on the charm. He had a lot of it, Claire knew; it wasnâ€™t just parents who liked him, it was . . . well, everybody. Michael was smart, cute, hot, talented, respectful . . . nothing not to love, except the whole undead aspect. He assured her mother that everything was fine, that Claire was behaving herselfâ€”his eye roll made Claire snort cola up her noseâ€”and that he was watching out for Mrs. Danversâ€™s little girl. That last part was true, at least. Michael was taking his self-appointed older-brother duties way too seriously. He hardly let Claire out of his sight, except when privacy was required or Claire slipped off to class without an escortâ€”which was as often as possible.

â€˜â€˜Yes maâ€™am,â€™â€™ Michael said. He was starting to look a little strained. â€˜â€˜No maâ€™am. I wonâ€™t let her do that. Yes. Yes.â€™â€™

Claire had pity on him, and reclaimed the phone. â€˜â€˜Mom, weâ€™ve got to go. I love you both.â€™â€™

Mom still sounded anxious. â€˜â€˜Claire, are you sure you donâ€™t want to come home? Maybe I was wrong about letting you go to MIT early. You could take the year off, study, and weâ€™d love to have you back home again. . . .â€™â€™

Weird. Usually she calmed right down, especially when Michael talked to her. Claire had a bad flash of Shane telling her about his own mother, how her memories of Morganville had started to surface. How the vampires had come after her to kill her because the conditioning didnâ€™t stick.

Her parents were in the same boat now. Theyâ€™d been to town, but she still wasnâ€™t sure just how much they really knew or understood about that visitâ€”it could be enough to put them in mortal danger. She had to do everything she could to keep them safe. That meant not following her dreams to MIT, because if she left Morganvilleâ€”assuming she could even get out of townâ€”the vampires would follow her, and theyâ€™d either bring her back or kill her. And the rest of her family, too.

Besides, Claire had to stay now, because sheâ€™d signed a contract pledging herself directly to Amelie, the townâ€™s Founder. The biggest, scariest vampire of them all, even if she rarely showed that side. At the time, sheâ€™d been Claireâ€™s only real hope to keep herself and her friends alive.

So far signing the contract hadnâ€™t meant a whole lotâ€”no announcements in the local paper, and Amelie hadnâ€™t shown up to collect on her soul or anything. So maybe it would just pass by . . . quietly.

Mom was still talking about MIT, and Claire didnâ€™t want to think about it. Sheâ€™d dreamed of going to a school like MIT or CalTech her whole life, and sheâ€™d been smart enough to do it. Sheâ€™d even gotten early acceptance. It was drastically unfair that she was stuck in Morganville now, like a fly in a spiderâ€™s web, and for a few seconds she let herself feel bitter and angry about that.

Nice, the brutally honest part of her mocked. Youâ€™d sacrifice Shaneâ€™s life for what you want, because you know thatâ€™s what would happen. Eventually, the vampires would find an excuse to kill him. Youâ€™re not any better than the vampires if you donâ€™t do everything you can to prevent that.

The bitterness left, but regret wasnâ€™t following bitterness any time soon. She hoped Shane never knew how she felt about it, deep down.

â€˜â€˜Mom, sorry, Iâ€™ve got to go; I have class. I love youâ€”tell Dad I love him, too, will you?â€™â€™

Claire hung up on her motherâ€™s protests, heaved a sigh, and glanced at Michael, who was looking a little sympathetic.

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s not easy, talking to the folks,â€™â€™ he offered. â€˜â€˜Sorry.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t you ever talk to your parents?â€™â€™ Claire asked, and slid into the chair at the small breakfast table across from him. Michael had a cup of something; she was afraid it was blood for a second, but then she smelled coffee. Hazelnut. Vampires could, and did, enjoy food; it just didnâ€™t sustain them.

Michael looked suspiciously good this morningâ€”a little color in his face, an energy to his movements that hadnâ€™t been there last night.

Heâ€™d had more than coffee this morning. How did that happen, exactly? Did he sneak off to the blood bank? Was there some kind of home delivery service?

Claire made a mental note to check into it. Quietly.

â€˜â€˜Yeah, I call my folks sometimes,â€™â€™ Michael said. He folded the newspaperâ€”the local rag, run by vampiresâ€”and picked up a smaller, rolled bundle of letter-sized pages secured by a rubber band. â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™re Morganville exiles, so they have a lot to forget. Itâ€™s better if I donâ€™t keep in contact too much; it could make trouble. I mostly write. The mail and e-mail get read before theyâ€™re sent; you know that, right? And most of the phone calls get monitored, especially long-distance.â€™â€™

He stripped off the rubber band and unfolded the cheap pages of the second newspaper. Claire read the masthead upside down: The Fang Report. The logo was two stakes at right angles making up a cross. Wild.

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s that?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜This?â€™â€™ Michael rattled the paper and shrugged. â€˜â€˜Captain Obvious.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Captain Obvious. Thatâ€™s his handle. Heâ€™s been doing these papers every week for about two years now. Itâ€™s an underground thing.â€™â€™

Underground in Morganville had a lot of meanings. Claire raised her eyebrows. â€˜â€˜So . . . Captain Obvious is a vampire?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not unless heâ€™s got a serious self-image problem,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Captain Obvious hates vampires. If somebody steps out of line, he documents itâ€”â€™â€™ Michael froze, reading the headline, and his mouth opened, then closed. His face set like stone, and his blue eyes looked stricken.

Claire reached over and took the newspaper from his hands, turned it, and read.

NEW BLOODSUCKER IN TOWN

Michael Glass, once a rising musical star with too much talent for this twisted town, has fallen to the Dark Side. Details are sketchy, but Glass, whoâ€™s been keeping to himself for the past year, has definitely joined the Fang Gang.

Nobody knows how or where it happened, and I doubt Glass will be talking, but we should all be worried. Does this mean more vamps, fewer humans? After all, he is the first newly risen undead in generations.

Beware, boys and girls: Glass may look like an angel, but heâ€™s got a demon inside now. Memorize the face, kibbles. Heâ€™s the newest addition to the Better-Off-Dead club!

Â 
â€˜â€˜The Better-Off-Dead club?â€™â€™ Claire repeated aloud, horrified. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s kidding, right?â€™â€™ There was Michaelâ€™s picture, probably directly out of the Morganville High yearbook, inset as a graphic into a tombstone.

With crudely drawn-in fangs.

â€˜â€˜Captain Obvious never comes out and tells anyone to kill,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s pretty careful about how he phrases things.â€™â€™ Her friend was angry, Claire saw. And scared. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s got our address listed. And all your names, too, though at least he points out none of you are vampires. Still. Thatâ€™s not good.â€™â€™ Michael was getting past the shock of seeing himself outed in the paper, and was getting worried. Claire was already there.

â€˜â€˜Well . . . why donâ€™t the vampires do something about him? Stop him?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™ve tried. Theyâ€™ve arrested three people in the last two years who said they were Captain Obvious. Turned out they didnâ€™t know anything. The captain could teach the CIA a thing or two about running a secret operation.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜So heâ€™s not that obvious,â€™â€™ Claire said.

â€˜â€˜I think he means it in the ironic sense.â€™â€™ Michael swallowed a quick gulp of coffee. â€˜â€˜Claire, I donâ€™t like this. Not like we didnâ€™t have enough trouble without this kind ofâ€”â€™â€™

Eve slammed in through the kitchen door, which hit the wall with a thunderous boom, startling both of them. She clomped across the kitchen floor and leaned on the breakfast table. She wasnâ€™t very Goth today; her hair was still matte-black, but it was worn back in a simple ponytail, and the plain knit shirt and black pants didnâ€™t have a skull anywhere in view. No makeup, either. She almost looked . . . normal. Which was so wrong.

â€˜â€˜All right,â€™â€™ she said, and slapped down a second copy of The Fang Report in front of Michael. â€˜â€˜Please tell me you have a snappy comeback for this.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll make sure the three of you are safe.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, so not what I was looking for! Look, Iâ€™m not worried about us! Weâ€™re not the ones Photoshopped into tombstones!â€™â€™ Eve looked at the picture again. â€˜â€˜Although yes, better dead than that hairdo . . . God, was that your prom photo?â€™â€™

Michael grabbed the paper back and put it facedown on the table. â€˜â€˜Eve, nothing is going to happen. Captain Obvious just loves to talk. Nobodyâ€™s going to come after me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Right,â€™â€™ a new voice said. It was Shane. Heâ€™d come in behind Eve, clearly wanting to watch the fireworks, and now he leaned against the wall next to the stove and crossed his arms. â€˜â€˜By all means, letâ€™s keep on shoveling the bull,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s trouble, and you know it.â€™â€™ Claire waited for him to come over to the table and join the three of them, the way things used to be.

He didnâ€™t. Shane hadnâ€™t willingly stayed long in the same room with Michael since . . . the change. And he wouldnâ€™t look at him, except in angles and side glances. Heâ€™d also taken to wearing one of Eveâ€™s silver crosses, although just now it was hidden beneath the neck of the gray T-shirt he was wearing. Claire found her eyes fixing on its just-visible outline.

Eve ignored Shane; her big, dark eyes were fixed on Michael. â€˜â€˜You know theyâ€™ll all be gunning for you now, right? All the would-be Buffys?â€™â€™ Claire had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she had no idea how Eve had managed; it was contraband in Morganville, along with every other movie or book featuring vampires. Or vampire killing, more to the point. Internet downloads were strictly controlled, too, though no doubt there was a hot black market in those kinds of things that Eve had tapped into.

â€˜â€˜Like you?â€™â€™ Michael said. He still hadnâ€™t forgotten the arsenal of stakes and crosses that Eve kept hidden in her room. In the old days, that had seemed like good sense, living in Morganville. Now, it seemed like a recipe for domestic violence.

Eve looked stricken. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d neverâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know.â€™â€™ He took her hand gently in his. â€˜â€˜I know.â€™â€™

She softened, but then she shook it off and went back to frowning at him. â€˜â€˜Look, this is dangerous. They know youâ€™re an easier target than those other guys, and theyâ€™re going to hate you even more, because youâ€™re one of us. Our age.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Eve, come on, sit. Sit down.â€™â€™

She did, but it was more like a collapse, and she didnâ€™t stop jittering her heel up and down in agitation, or drumming her black-painted fingernails on the table. â€˜â€˜This is bad,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You know that, right? Nine point five on the ten point scale of make-me-yak.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Compared to what?â€™â€™ Shane asked. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re already living with the enemy. What does that score? Not to mention you probably get extra points for banging himâ€”â€™â€™

Michael stood up so fast his chair tipped and hit the floor with a clatter. Shane straightened, ready for trouble, fists clenched.

â€˜â€˜Shut up, Shane,â€™â€™ Michael said, deathly quiet. â€˜â€˜I mean it.â€™â€™

Shane stared past him at Eve. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s going to bite you. He canâ€™t help it, and once he starts, he wonâ€™t stop; heâ€™ll kill you. But you know that, right? What is that, some freak-ass Goth idea of romantic suicide? You turning into a fang-banger?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butt out, Shane. What you know about Goth culture you got from old episodes of The Munsters and your Aryan Brotherhood dad.â€™â€™ Great, now Eve was angry, too. That left Claire the only sane one in the room.

Michael made an effort to dial it back. â€˜â€˜Come on, Shane. Leave her alone. Youâ€™re the one hurting her, not me.â€™â€™

Shaneâ€™s gaze snapped to Michael and focused. Hard. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t hurt girls. You say I do, and youâ€™d better back it up, asshole.â€™â€™

Shane pushed away from the wall, because Michael was taking steps in his direction. Claire watched, wide-eyed and frozen.

Eve got between them, hands outstretched to hold both of them back. â€˜â€˜Come on, guys, you donâ€™t want to do this.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Kinda do,â€™â€™ Shane said coolly.

â€˜â€˜Fine. Either hit each other or get a room,â€™â€™ she snapped, and stepped out of the middle. â€˜â€˜Just donâ€™t pretend itâ€™s all about protecting the itty-widdle girl, because it isnâ€™t. Itâ€™s about the two of you. So get it together, or leave; I donâ€™t care which.â€™â€™

Shane stared at her for a second, eyes gone wide and oddly hurt, then looked at Claire. She didnâ€™t move.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m out,â€™â€™ he said. He turned and walked through the kitchen door. It swung shut behind him.

Eve let out a little gasp. â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t think heâ€™d go,â€™â€™ she said, so unsteadily that for a second Claire thought she was going to cry. â€˜â€˜What a freaking idiot.â€™â€™

Claire reached over and took her hand. Eve squeezed, hard, and then leaned back into Michaelâ€™s embrace. Vampire or not, the two of them seemed happy, and anyway, this was Michael. She just couldnâ€™t understand Shaneâ€™s anger. It seemed to bubble up when she least expected it, for no reason at all.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d better . . .â€™â€™ she ventured. Michael nodded.

Claire slipped out of her chair and went to find Shane. Not like it was difficult; he was slumped on the couch, staring at the PlayStation screen and working the controls on yet another zombie-killing adventure. â€˜â€˜You taking his side?â€™â€™ Shane asked, and splattered the head of an attacking undead monster.

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire said and settled in carefully next to him, with enough open space between so he didnâ€™t feel pressured. â€˜â€˜Why are there sides, anyway?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Michaelâ€™s your friend; heâ€™s our housemate. Why do there have to be sides?â€™â€™

He snapped his fingers. â€˜â€˜Um, wait, Iâ€™ve got this one . . . because heâ€™s a bloodsucking, night-crawling leech who used to be my friend?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You think you know, but you donâ€™t. Heâ€™s going to change. They all change. Maybe itâ€™ll take time, I donâ€™t know. Right now, he thinks heâ€™s just human plus, but thatâ€™s not what it is. Heâ€™s human minus. And youâ€™d better not forget it.â€™â€™

She stared at him, a little bit stunned and a whole lot saddened. â€˜â€˜Eveâ€™s right. That sounds like your father talking.â€™â€™

Shane flinched, paused the game, and threw the controller down. â€˜â€˜Low, Claire.â€™â€™ He wasnâ€™t exactly his dadâ€™s biggest fan at the best of timesâ€”he couldnâ€™t be, with the number of cruel things his dad had done to him.

â€˜â€˜No, itâ€™s just true. Look, itâ€™s Michael. Canâ€™t you give him the benefit of the doubt? He hasnâ€™t hurt anybody, has he? And you have to admit, having a vampire on our side, really on our side, couldnâ€™t hurt. Not in Morganville.â€™â€™

He just glared at the screen, jaw set. Claire was trying to think of another way to get through to him, but she was derailed by the ringing of the doorbell. Shane didnâ€™t move. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll get it,â€™â€™ she sighed, and went down the hall to open the front door. It was safe enoughâ€”midmorning, sunny, and relatively mild. Summer was finally starting a slide toward fall, now that it had burned all the green out of the Texas landscape.

Claire squinted against the brilliance. For a second she thought that there was something deeply wrong with her eyes.

Because her archenemy, Queen Bitch Monica Morrell, flanked by her ever-present harpies Gina and Jennifer, was standing on the doorstep. It was like seeing Barbie and her friends, blown up life-sized and dressed like Old Navy mannequins. Tanned, toned, and perfect, from lip gloss to toenail polish. Monica had on a forced, pleasant expression. Gina and Jennifer were trying, but they looked like they were smelling something rotten.

â€˜â€˜Hi!â€™â€™ Monica said brightly. â€˜â€˜Got plans today, Claire? I was thinking we could hang.â€™â€™

Thatâ€™s it, Claire thought. Iâ€™m dreaming. Only this is a nightmare, right? Monica pretending to be my friend? Definitely a nightmare.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”what do you want?â€™â€™ Claire asked, because her relationship with Monica, Gina, and Jennifer had started with being pushed down the stairs at the dorm, and hadnâ€™t improved since. She was a crawling bug to the Cool Girls. At best. Or . . . a tool. Was this about Michael? Because his status had changed from â€˜â€˜hermit musicianâ€™â€™ to â€˜â€˜hottie vampireâ€™â€™ in one night, and Monica was definitely a fang-banger, right? â€˜â€˜You want to talk to Michael?â€™â€™

Monica gave her an odd look. â€˜â€˜Why would I want to do that? Can he go shopping in broad daylight?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh.â€™â€™ She had no idea what else to say to that.

â€˜â€˜I thought a little retail therapy, and then we all go study,â€™â€™ Monica said. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re going to check out that new place, not Common Grounds. Common Grounds is so last century. Like I want to be under Oliverâ€™s thumb all the time. Now that heâ€™s taken over as Protector for our family, heâ€™s been all hands-on, wanting to see my grades. Sucks, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Câ€™mon, save my life. I really need help with economics, and these two are boneheads.â€™â€™ Monica dismissed her two closest friends with an offhand wave. â€˜â€˜Seriously. Come with. Please? I could really use your brainpower. And I think we should get to know each other a little better, donâ€™t you? Seeing as how things have changed?â€™â€™

Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. The last two times sheâ€™d gone anywhere with Monica, sheâ€™d been flat on her back on the floor of a van, getting beaten and terrorized.

She managed to stammer, â€˜â€˜I know this is going to sound rude, butâ€”what the hell are you doing?â€™â€™

Monica sighed and lookedâ€”how weird was this?â€” contrite. â€˜â€˜I know what youâ€™re thinking. Yes, I was a bitch to you, and I hurt you. And Iâ€™m sorry.â€™â€™ Gina and Jennifer, her constant Greek chorus, nodded and repeated sorry in whispers. â€˜â€˜Water under the bridge, all right? All is forgiven?â€™â€™

Claire was, if anything, even more mystified. â€˜â€˜Why are you doing this?â€™â€™

Monica pursed her glossy lips, leaned forward, and dropped her voice to a low, confidential tone. â€˜â€˜Well . . . all right, yeah, itâ€™s not like I had a head injury or something and woke up thinking you were cool. But youâ€™re different now. I can help. I can introduce you around to all the people you really need to know.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re kidding. Iâ€™m different how?â€™â€™

Monica leaned even closer. â€˜â€˜You signed.â€™â€™

So . . . this wasnâ€™t about Michael. Claire had just become . . . popular. Because sheâ€™d become Amelieâ€™s property.

And that was terrifying.

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ she managed, and then, more slowly, â€˜â€˜Oh.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Trust me,â€™â€™ Monica said. â€˜â€˜You need somebody in the know. Somebody to show you the ropes.â€™â€™

If the only other person left on the planet was Jack the Ripper, Claire would have trusted him first. â€˜â€˜Sorry,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I have plans. Butâ€”thank you.

Maybe some other time.â€™â€™

She shut the door on Monicaâ€™s surprised face, then locked it. She jumped when she turned to find Shane standing right behind her, staring at her as though heâ€™d never seen her before.

â€˜â€˜Thank you?â€™â€™ he mimicked. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re thanking that bitch? For what, Claire? For beating you? For trying to kill you? For killing my sister? Christ. First Michael, then you. I donâ€™t know any of you anymore.â€™â€™

In true Shane fashion, he just took off. She listened to the heavy tread of his footsteps cross the living room and then go up the stairs. Heard the familiar slam of his door.

â€˜â€˜Hey!â€™â€™ she shouted after him. â€˜â€˜I was just being polite!â€™â€™

2

â€˜â€˜So,â€™â€™ Eve said as she drove Claire to school, â€˜â€˜what was up with the Monica thing? I mean, maybe you ought to watch your back with her. Even more than you already do.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜She sounded like she really kind of meant it. It took a lot for her to come eat crow like that.â€™â€™

Eve shot her a look. One of those looks, doubly effective coming from a girl wearing rice-powder makeup and flawless eye liner and black-cherry lips. â€˜â€˜In Monicaâ€™s world, being friends means doing whatever Monica wants, when Monica wants to do it. Somehow, I canâ€™t see you as one of her brain-dead backup singers.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No! Thatâ€™s notâ€”I didnâ€™t say I was going to be her friend, justâ€”you asked.â€™â€™ Claire crossed her arms and settled back in the bucket seat of Eveâ€™s ancient black Caddy, shooting for a stubborn look. â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s not my friend, okay? Youâ€™re my friend.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜So when Monica starts bringing the in-crowd to hang at your study table, youâ€™ll get up and leave? No way. Youâ€™re too nice. Before you know it, youâ€™re tagging along with them, and then you start to actually feel sorry for them. Youâ€™ll tell me how Monicaâ€™s not bad, sheâ€™s just misunderstood, and before you know it youâ€™re braiding each othersâ€™ hair and giggling over boy bands.â€™â€™

Claire made a retching sound. â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t do that.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Please. You like everybody. You even like me. You like Shane, and letâ€™s face it, Shaneâ€™s kind of an idiot, at least right now.â€™â€™ Eveâ€™s eyes narrowed as she thought about that. â€˜â€˜And about Shane, I swear, if he doesnâ€™t snap out of it, Iâ€™m going to punch him in the face. Well, punch him in the face and then run like hell.â€™â€™

Claire played that out in her head and nearly laughed. Eveâ€™s best possible punch wouldnâ€™t do more than surprise Shane, she figured, but she could just picture the wounded look of confusion on his face. What the hell did I do?

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not popular,â€™â€™ she declared. â€˜â€˜Monicaâ€™s not my friend, and Iâ€™m not hanging with her, ever, end of story.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Swear?â€™â€™

Claire held up her hand. â€˜â€˜Swear.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Huh.â€™â€™ Eve didnâ€™t sound convinced. â€˜â€˜Whatev.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Look, if weâ€™re friends, how about buying me a mocha?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Mooch.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re the one with the job.â€™â€™

Â 
Midafternoon, and it was raining, which was kind of a rarityâ€”a cold, early-fall rain that came down in glittering sheets. Claire, like about 90 percent of the other students, hadnâ€™t thought to bring an umbrella, so she sloshed along miserably along the Quadrangle, past the empty benches and rain-soaked message boards, toward her chem lab. She loved Chem Lab. She hated rain. She hated being soaked to the skin and frankly, living in this part of Texas made it usually not that much of a risk. There was no room in her backpack for anything frivolous, like a raincoat. She worried her books were getting soggy, but the backpack was supposed to be waterproof. . . .

â€˜â€˜You look cold,â€™â€™ said a voice from behind her, and then the rain cut off, and she heard the hollow thump of raindrops hitting the thin skin of an umbrella. Claire looked up, blinked water out of her eyes, and saw she was walking under a golf umbrella big enough for four or five of her . . . or one of her, plus the guy holding the umbrella. Because he was huge. Also cute, in that big-boned football player kind of way. He would have made Shane look small. Well proportioned, though, so the height (had to be at least six feet five, Claire thought) and weight just seemed right on him. He had chocolate brown skin and gorgeous brown eyes, and he seemed . . . kind of nice.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m Jerome,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Hey.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hey,â€™â€™ she said back, still amazed that somebody who was clearly somebody would stop to hang an umbrella over her head. â€˜â€˜Thanks. Um, Iâ€™m Claire. Hi.â€™â€™

She juggled her dripping backpack to her other hand and offered him her right. He took it and shook. His was about three times as large, big enough (she bet) to cup most of an entire football.

He was wearing a TPU athletic department T-shirt. No mystery about his major.

â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™re you heading, Claire?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Chem Lab,â€™â€™ she said, and pointed at the building, which was about a football field-length away, on the other side of the Quad. He nodded and steered that direction. â€˜â€˜Look, itâ€™s nice of you, but you donâ€™t have toâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s no problem.â€™â€™ He smiled at her. He had dimples. â€˜â€˜I hear the Science Building is nice this time of year. And anything for a friend.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But Iâ€™m notâ€”â€™â€™

Jerome nodded to a group of girls standing huddled together under the awning of the Language Arts Building. Pretty girls. In the center of them was Monica Morrell, and she blew Jerome a flirty sort of kiss.

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜That friend.â€™â€™ Her estimate of Jerome fell by several dozen notches, hit bottom, and started digging for China. â€˜â€˜Look, I appreciate it, but Iâ€™m not sugar. I wonâ€™t melt.â€™â€™

She veered away and walked fast. Jerome took about two long strides and put the umbrella over her again without comment. She glared at him.

He lifted an eyebrow. â€˜â€˜I can play this game all day.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜But I donâ€™t need favors from Monica.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Girl, itâ€™s an umbrella, not a Lamborghini,â€™â€™ he pointed out. Way too reasonably. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not even lending it to you. Itâ€™s not really that much of a favor.â€™â€™

She kept her mouth shut, head down, and walked fast. Jerome stopped at the foot of the Science Buildingâ€™s stairs, and she bounded up and darted under the concrete porch, which was already choked with other students hiding from the rain. She looked back down. Jerome smiled and waved, and a bronze or copper bracelet caught her eye.

He was Protected. Probably a native of Morganville.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not her friend. That was not my fault,â€™â€™ she complained, defending herself to an Eve who wasnâ€™t even there.

And then she sneezed, sniffled, and dragged her soggy butt to class.

Â 
The rain kept up all day and all night, but the next day dawned bright and shiny, with a pale silver sun not quite as fierce as Claire expected. Kind of nice, actually. Sheâ€™d already showered by the time Eve stumbled into the bathroom, looking more like the walking dead than most vampires. Eve mumbled something and ignored Claire as she started up the shower again. Claire finished at the sink and hurried downstairs. She found Michael at the coffeepot, emptying the filter of cold grounds. Deeply weird that he was more of a morning person as a vampire. Maybe he was just enjoying having a morning again, instead of becoming a floaty ghost at dawn.

â€˜â€˜Eveâ€™s up. Youâ€™d better make it so dark the spoon melts.â€™â€™

Michael shot her a half smile, still almost lethal enough to stop a girlâ€™s heart. Luckily he knew just how much current to use on his charm. â€˜â€˜That bad, huh?â€™â€™

She thought about it for a second as she took down a bowl and the box of Rice Krispies, and found the milk behind the bottles of beerâ€”contraband, from Shaneâ€”in the fridge. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve seen that movie where the zombies eat peopleâ€™s brains?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Night of the Living Dead?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The zombies would run if they got a look at her.â€™â€™

Michael spooned extra coffee into the fresh filter. He looked good, she thought. Strong, tall, confident. He had on a nice blue shirt and some not-so-ratty blue jeans, and he was wearing shoes. Running shoes, sure, but shoes. Claire stared at his feet. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re going out,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜Got a job,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Working at JTâ€™s Music over on Third Street, ten to close. Mostly Iâ€™ll be demoing guitars and selling them, but JT said heâ€™d let me do some private lessons if I wanted.â€™â€™

That was so . . . normal. Really normal. And he sounded happy, too. Claire bit her lip and tried to organize the explosion of questions in her brain. â€˜â€˜Ahâ€”what about the sun?â€™â€™ she asked. Because that seemed to be the first hurdle.

â€˜â€˜They issued me a car,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s in the garage. Fully sunproofed. And thereâ€™s underground parking at JTâ€™s. There is most places.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Issuedâ€”who issued you a car?â€™â€™ He shot her a youâ€™re not stupid look. â€˜â€˜The town? Amelie?â€™â€™

He didnâ€™t answer directly as he slid the filter compartment shut and turned on the brew switch. The machine began wheezing and trickling into the pot. â€˜â€˜They tell me itâ€™s standard procedure,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜For new vampires.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not that there have been any for fifty years, right?â€™â€™

He shrugged. It was obvious that she was making him uncomfortable with the questions, but Claire couldnâ€™t help herself. â€˜â€˜Did you ever find out whyâ€” why there havenâ€™t been any in so long?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t think itâ€™s a great idea to be too curious right now.â€™â€™

She understood thatâ€”and understood he meant it for her as wellâ€”but she couldnâ€™t stop asking questions, somehow. â€˜â€˜Michaelâ€”did they get you the job, too?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. I know JT. I got the job all by myself. They offeredâ€”â€™â€™ He stopped, clearly thinking heâ€™d already said too much.

Claire finished it out, guessing. â€˜â€˜They offered you some kind of job in the vampire community. Right? Orâ€”â€™â€™ Oh God. â€˜â€˜Or they offered to make you a Protector?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not right off the bat,â€™â€™ he said, still staring at the coffeemaker. â€˜â€˜You have to work up to that. So they say.â€™â€™

Michael. Owning people. Skimming off their wages like some Mafia don. She tried not to let him see how sick that idea made her feel, that heâ€™d ever really consider doing it.

His eyes suddenly cut toward her, as if heâ€™d read her mind. â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t do it. I found the job at JTâ€™s, Claire,â€™â€™ Michael said, and suddenly moved toward her. She flinched, and he took a deep breath and held out his hand in clear apology. â€˜â€˜Sorry. I forget sometimesâ€”itâ€™s hard, okay, learning how to move around people when I can go so much faster. But I wouldnâ€™t hurt you, Claire. No way.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane thinksâ€”â€™â€™

Light caught and flared in Michaelâ€™s eyes, eerie and frightening, and then he blinked and it was gone. He obviously made a real effort to keep his voice quiet. â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€™s wrong,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not changing, Claire.

Iâ€™m still your friend. Iâ€™ll look after you. All of you. Even Shane.â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t answer him. Truthfully, as much as she liked himâ€”and it verged on loveâ€”she felt something different about him today. Something complicated and agitated and strange.

Was he . . . hungry? He was staring at her. No, he was staring at the thin skin of her neck, wasnâ€™t he? Claire put her hand to it, involuntary but irresistible, and Michael got a very slight pink flush in his pale cheeks and looked away.

â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t,â€™â€™ he said, in a far different tone than before. It almost sounded scared to her. â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t, Claire. You have to believe me. Butâ€”this is hard. Itâ€™s so hard.â€™â€™

She did believe him, mostly because she could hear all the heartbreak and sorrow in his voice. She took a breath, stepped forward, and hugged him. He was tall; the top of her head only brushed his chin. His arms felt strong and comforting, and she told herself that he wasnâ€™t warm because it was chilly in the kitchen. It wasnâ€™t really true, but that helped.

â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t hurt you,â€™â€™ he murmured. â€˜â€˜But Iâ€™ve got to admit, I want to. I spent all my life hating vampires, and nowâ€”now look at me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You had to,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜You didnâ€™t have a choice.â€™â€™

She felt his sigh go through both of them. â€˜â€˜Not true,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€™s rightâ€”I did have a choice. But this is the choice I made, and now I have to live with it.â€™â€™

He let go when she stepped back. Neither of them knew what to say, so Claire busied herself by opening kitchen cabinets to get down the four mismatched cups they used in the morning. Michaelâ€™s was plain chunky stoneware, oversized, like a diner cup on steroids. Eveâ€™s was a petite black thing with a yawning cartoon vampire on it. Shaneâ€™s had a happy face with a bloody bullet hole in the center of its forehead. Claire had taken one with Goofy and Mickey on it.

â€˜â€˜Howâ€™s school?â€™â€™ Michael asked. Neutral subjects. He didnâ€™t want to talk it out; he wanted to keep it inside. She wasnâ€™t too surprised. Michael had always been too self-contained for his own good, as far as she could tell.

â€˜â€˜Too easy,â€™â€™ she sighed, and poured coffee.

They were sitting down and sipping from their mugs when the kitchen door opened, and Shaneâ€”wearing pajama bottoms and a ratty old faded T-shirtâ€”came into the kitchen. He avoided Michael, picked up his cup off the counter, and filled it to the brim. He left without a word.

Michael watched him go, face set and hard.

Claire felt the need to apologize. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s justâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Believe me. I know exactly how Shane is. Doesnâ€™t mean I have to like it right now.â€™â€™

Â 
I really need to stop being the Glass Goodwill Ambassador, Claire thought, but she knew sheâ€™d keep on doing it. Somebody had to, after all. So after sheâ€™d finished her coffee, she went to talk to Shane.

Shaneâ€™s door was unlocked and slightly open. Claire pushed it and stepped inside, then stopped short. All her carefully prepared speeches flew right out of her head, because Shane was getting dressed.

The sight of him short-circuited her thought processes and completely grounded her better judgment. Heâ€™d already hauled on his blue jeans, and his back was to her. No shirt yet. She was spellbound by the ripples of muscles on his back, the gorgeous smoothness of his skin, the way his shaggy hair brushed the tops of his shoulders and begged to be smoothed back. . . .

The sound of his zipper being pulled up snapped her back to sanity. She stepped hastily back, out into the hall, and pulled the door almost shut, then knocked.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ It wasnâ€™t a friendly response.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s me,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Can I come in?â€™â€™

She heard something halfway between a grunt and a sigh, and opened the door to find him dragging a dark gray, form-fitting shirt over his head. It looked very good on him. Not as good as the no-shirt thing, but she was trying hard not to think about that. It had made her warm and fluttery inside.

â€˜â€˜Is that a new shirt?â€™â€™ she asked, desperate to get her mind off the vivid mental pictures that kept bubbling up. That got another indefinite grunt. â€˜â€˜It looks nice.â€™â€™

Shane gave her an ironic look. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re talking clothes now? Wait, let me get my Fashion for Dummies book.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”never mind. About Michaelâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Stop.â€™â€™ Shane stepped forward and kissed her on the forehead. â€˜â€˜I know, you donâ€™t want me ripping him, but I canâ€™t help it. Give me some time, okay? I need to figure some things out.â€™â€™

Claire tipped her head back, and this time he found her lips. It was, she thought, supposed to be a fast and sweet little kiss, but somehow it slowed down, got warmer and deeper. His lips were damp and soft as silk, and that was such a contrast to the hard lines of his body pressed against her, the strength of his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her even closer. She heard him growl low in his throat, a wild and hungry sound that made her go weak and faint.

He broke the kiss and leaned against her, breathing hard. â€˜â€˜Good morning to you, too. Man, I just canâ€™t stay mad when you do that.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Do what?â€™â€™ she asked innocently. She didnâ€™t feel innocent. She also didnâ€™t feel sixteen-nearly-seventeen, not at all. Shane always made her feel older. Much older. Ready for anything. It was a good thing Shane wasnâ€™t as dumb as her hormones seemed to be.

â€˜â€˜Unless you want to stay home and cut class, we donâ€™t really have time to talk about it,â€™â€™ he said, and waggled his eyebrows. â€˜â€˜So. Wanna cut class and make out?â€™â€™

She socked him on the arm. â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You are such a strange girl. Ow,â€™â€™ he said, in the way that meant he hadnâ€™t felt it at all. â€˜â€˜You riding with Eve?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜When she passes the snarling cannibal phase, yeah. Another two cups of coffee, probably.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You sure you donâ€™t want a bodyguard?â€™â€™ He meant it. Shane didnâ€™t have a jobâ€”she wasnâ€™t really sure he could get one, after what his dad had been up to in Morganville recently. Probably better he kept it low profile for a while. The fewer vampiresâ€”and vampire loyalistsâ€”he came in contact with right now, the better. He was still thought of as an unindicted coconspirator to his dadâ€™s revenge rampage, and even though the mayor had officially signed his pardon, nobody had much liked it.

Accidents happened.

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t need a bodyguard,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Nobodyâ€™s out to get me. Even Monicaâ€™s gotten all friends-making with me.â€™â€™

That earned her a too-sharp look, which didnâ€™t go well with his reddened, kissable lips. â€˜â€˜Yeah. Why is that?â€™â€™

She shrugged and avoided his eyes. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know.â€™â€™ He tipped her chin up with one finger. â€˜â€˜So, are we at the lying part of the relationship already? Usually that comes after the exciting, hot and sexy honeymoon period.â€™â€™

She stuck out her tongue at him, and he leaned forward andâ€”to her horrorâ€”licked it. â€˜â€˜Ewwww!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then donâ€™t stick it out.â€™â€™ Shane smiled. â€˜â€˜If youâ€™re going to hang out in my room and tempt me, thereâ€™s a penalty. One item of clothing per minute comes off.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Perv.â€™â€™

He pointed to himself. â€˜â€˜Male and eighteen. Whatâ€™s your point?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You are soâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Say, you got any pleated miniskirts and kneesocks? I really get off onâ€”â€™â€™

She squealed and dodged his grabby hands, then checked her watch. â€˜â€˜Oh, crapâ€”I really do have to go. Iâ€™m sorry. Look, youâ€™ll beâ€”youâ€™re okay, right?â€™â€™

The smile disappeared, leaving only a trace in his dark, secretive eyes. â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be okay. Watch your back, Claire.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You too.â€™â€™ Claire started for the door, but she heard his footsteps behind her and turned; he moved her back to the wall, tipped up her chin, and kissed her so thoroughly that she felt her head fill with light and her knees turn to rubber.

When she could breathe again, and he pulled back to give her just an inch or so of space between their lips, she gasped, â€˜â€˜Was that a good-bye?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜That was a come-home-soon,â€™â€™ he said, and pushed off from the wall. â€˜â€˜Seriously, Claire. Watch yourself. I worry.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know,â€™â€™ she said, and smiled. Her knees were still weak, and the chorusing light in her head just didnâ€™t seem to be fading. â€˜â€˜Best kiss so far, by the way.â€™â€™

His eyebrows rose. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re keeping score?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hey, you raised the bar. I donâ€™t grade on a curve.â€™â€™

She left him, reluctantly, to grab her backpack and see if Eve was in the mood to eat brains, or to give her a ride to school.

3

Morning classes went pretty well, and Claire spent her breaks hanging at the coffee bar at the University Center, where Eve baristaâ€™d her way through the day. Eve was good at itâ€”calm, efficient, seemingly impervious to the pissy demands and bitchiness of a lot of the students. Claire had figured out that the rude ones were mostly Protected, so it was a class thing; Eve had elected not to sign up with a vampire for protection, and those who had looked down on her.

Or else they were just bitchy. Which was equally possible. People didnâ€™t have to have a vampire connection to be arrogant jerks.

Eve was working today with another girl, somebody Claire didnâ€™t know; she had long, straight brown hair that shimmered like a curtain when she moved. She wore it loose around her shoulders, which Claire guessed was okay because she wasnâ€™t working directly with the drinks or anything, just taking orders and cash. Her name tag said AMY, and she looked cheerful and sweet. She and Eve were talking like friends, which was good; Eve needed that. Claire killed time between classes by skimming through her English Litâ€”boringâ€”and reading a book sheâ€™d checked out from the library on advanced string theoryâ€”not boring. She liked the whole idea of vibrating strings being the basis of everything, that there were all kinds of surfaces that vibrated. It made the world more . . . exciting. Always in motion.

Her watch beeped to let her know she was going to be late for class if she didnâ€™t hurry, so she packed it up, waved to Amy and Eve, and jogged out of the UC and into the warm afternoon sunshine.

As she was blinking in the glare, she ran into Monica. Literally, as Monica was coming up the steps while she was going down. Claire automatically reached out to steady the other girl when she wavered, and then thought, What am I doing? Because Monica had once laughed as Claire tumbled down the stairs and cracked her head halfway open.

â€˜â€˜Hey, watch it, bitch!â€™â€™ Monica snapped, and then did a double take. â€˜â€˜Claire? Oh, hi. Cute shirt!â€™â€™

Claire looked down at herself, mystified. It wasnâ€™t. She didnâ€™t really own any clothes sheâ€™d classify as cute, and even the best of them would never match Monicaâ€™s standards, which were much higher.

â€˜â€˜You on your way to class?â€™â€™ Monica continued brightly. â€˜â€˜Too bad, Iâ€™d buy you a mocha or something.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”uhâ€”yeah, Iâ€™ve got class.â€™â€™ Claire edged around and tried to descend the steps, but Monica got in her way. Monicaâ€™s smile was friendly, but it didnâ€™t really warm up her big, pretty eyes. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be late.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜One thing,â€™â€™ Monica said, and lowered her voice. It occurred to Claire that it was almost the first time sheâ€™d seen Monica alone, not flanked by Gina and Jennifer, not trailing an entourage of the Popular. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m having a party on Friday night. Can you come? Itâ€™s at my parentsâ€™ house. Hereâ€™s the address.â€™â€™ Before Claire could react, Monica pressed a slip of paper into her hand. â€˜â€˜Keep it quiet, all right? Iâ€™m asking only the best people. Oh, and wear something nice; itâ€™s formal.â€™â€™

And then Monica was gone, breezing by her up the steps, where she fell in with a group of girls and went into the UCâ€™s glass atrium, chatting and laughing.

The best people? Claire eyed the slip of paper, thought about throwing it away, and then shoved it in her pocket.

Maybe this was a golden opportunity to convince Monica that she wasnâ€™t ever going to be anything like a friend.

She headed out for class, moving quickly, but keeping her eyes peeled. When she spotted the guys she was looking for, she veered off the sidewalk and onto the grass.

Gamers. Nerds. They sat around outside most of the afternoon moving counters around on complicated-looking boards and rolling dice. Sheâ€™d seen them every day for weeks, and in all that time sheâ€™d never seen any kind of girl with them, or even approach them. In fact, when she cleared her throat they stared at her as though she were an alien from one of the planets on their game board.

â€˜â€˜Hi,â€™â€™ she said, and thrust out the slip of paper. â€˜â€˜My nameâ€™s Monica. Iâ€™m having a party on Friday night. If you guys want to come. Tell your friends.â€™â€™

One of them reached out and gingerly took the slip of paper. Another snatched it away from him, read it, and said, â€˜â€˜Wow. Really?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Really.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Mind if we invite some other people?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Knock yourself out.â€™â€™

Claire headed off to class.

Â 
â€˜â€˜Claire Danvers?â€™â€™

Last class of the day, and Claire, startled, looked up from writing the date in her notebook. The professor didnâ€™t usually take roll. In fact, he seemed pretty much indifferent to who showed up, which was sometimes next to nobody. Like todayâ€”she was one of about twelve people. Showing up was really kind of useless in this particular course, since Professor Whatâ€™s-His-Name lectured from PowerPoint slides, bullet by bullet, and then made them available on his Web site right after the lecture. No wonder most people skipped.

She raised her hand, wondering what was going on. She had a guilty flash of handing over the party invitation to the Nerd Squad, but no, how could they find out so soon? And besides, whoâ€™d care, besides Monica?

The professorâ€”gray, wrinkled, tired, and unenthusiasticâ€”stared at her for a second without recognition, then said, â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re wanted in Administration, room three-seventeen. Go now.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™ Claire started to ask what was going on, but heâ€™d already dismissed her and turned back to his PowerPoint, droning on in a monotone. She stuffed books into her bag, wondered again what was going on, and left without much regret.

Sheâ€™d been in the Administration Building exactly three timesâ€”once to register, once to file the official paperwork to move off campus, once to do add/drop. It looked just like any administration building at any schoolâ€”grubby and utilitarian, with tired, crabby employees and desks piled high with file folders. She avoided the first-floor Registrarâ€™s Office and went up the steps. The second floor was quieter, but still full of people talking, keys clicking on computers, printers running.

The third floor was whisper-quiet. Claire started down the hallway, and the silence sank deeper. She couldnâ€™t even hear sounds from outside the windows, although she could clearly see people out there walking and talking, and cars tooling around the street below. Room 317 was at the end of the hall. All of the glossy wooden doors were firmly closed.

She knocked on 317, and thought she heard someone say â€˜â€˜Come in,â€™â€™ so she turned the knob and stepped inside . . . into darkness. Complete, velvety darkness that disoriented her immediately. The knob slipped out of her hand and the door clicked shut, and she couldnâ€™t find it again. Her hand moved over what felt like a featureless, smooth wall.

A light bloomed behind her and she turned to see the flare of a match, and a candle wick catching fire. In the glow, Amelieâ€™s face shone like perfect ivory.

The elder vampire looked exactly the same as before: cool, queenly, pale, with her white-blond hair twisted back in an elegant updo that must have required servants to achieve. She was wearing a white silk suit, and her skin was flawless. If she wore makeup, Claire couldnâ€™t tell. Her eyes were eerie in the near-dark . . . luminous and not quite human, and very beautiful.

â€˜â€˜My apologies for the dramatics,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and smiled at her. It was a very nice smile, cool and polite. Claireâ€™s mother had always loved the Hitchcock movie Rear Window, and Claire was struck by the thought that if Grace Kelly had ended up a vampire, this was how sheâ€™d have looked. Icy and perfect. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t bother looking for the door. Itâ€™s gone until I wish it to be there again.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s heartbeat sped up, and she knew Amelie could tell, though the vampire didnâ€™t comment on it; she just shook out the match and dropped it in a silver dish on the table next to the candle. Claireâ€™s eyes adjusted gradually to the dimness. She was standing in a fairly small room, some kind of library crammed with books. Crammed was an understatementâ€”the books were double-stacked on the shelves, leaning in towers on the top of the bookcases, filling the corners in untidy ziggurats. So many books that the whole room smelled like ancient paper. There wasnâ€™t any wall space, except where Claire had come in, that wasnâ€™t blocked up by packed, groaning shelves.

â€˜â€˜Hi,â€™â€™ Claire said awkwardly. She hadnâ€™t seen Amelie since signing the Protection papers and putting them, as instructed, in the mailbox outside. Sheâ€™d expected some kind of visit, but . . . nothing. â€˜â€˜Umâ€” what should I call you?â€™â€™

Amelieâ€™s delicate brows rose, pale on pale. â€˜â€˜I know that the concept of manners has declined, but I should think you would know at least some polite form of address that would be appropriate.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maâ€™am,â€™â€™ Claire stammered. Amelie nodded.

â€˜â€˜That will do.â€™â€™ She lit another candle. The light strengthened, flickering but casting a warm and welcome glow. Claire spotted another door in the shadows, small and fitted with an antique-style doorknob. There was a big skeleton key in the massive lock.

Nobody else in the room, just she and Amelie.

â€˜â€˜I have called you to discuss your studies,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and sat down in a chair on the other side of the table. There wasnâ€™t any seat on Claireâ€™s side, so she stood there, awkwardly. She put her backpack down and folded her hands.

â€˜â€˜Yes maâ€™am,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Arenâ€™t my grades okay?â€™â€™ Because usually a 4.0 GPA was okay by most standards.

Amelie dismissed it with a wave. â€˜â€˜I did not say classes; I said studies. No doubt you are finding the local college beneath your abilities. You are said to be quite exceptional.â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t know what to say to that, so she didnâ€™t say anything. She wished she had a chair. She wished she could say something nice and get back to class and never, ever see Amelie again, because as superficially polite and kind as the old vampire was, there was something ice-cold about her. Something unsettlingly not human.

â€˜â€˜I would like you to study privately with a friend of mine,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜For credit, of course.â€™â€™ She looked around, smiling very slightly. â€˜â€˜This is his library. Mine is far more orderly.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s throat felt tight and uncomfortable. â€˜â€˜A . . . uh . . . vampire friend?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is that an issue?â€™â€™ Amelie folded her white hands together on the table. The candlelight flickered in her eyes.

â€˜â€˜N-no maâ€™am.â€™â€™ Yes. God, she couldnâ€™t imagine what Shane was going to say.

â€˜â€˜I believe you will find him most interesting, Claire. He is indeed one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered in my long life, and he has learned so much through his lifetime that he could never teach it all. Still, he has much to pass along. I have been seeking the right pupil, one who can quickly grasp the discoveries he has made, and assist him in his research.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Claire whispered faintly. So . . . an old vampire. Her experience wasnâ€™t so good with the older ones. Like Amelie, they were cold and strange, and most of them were cruel, too. Like Oliver. Oh God, she wasnâ€™t talking about Oliver, was she? â€˜â€˜Whoâ€”?â€™â€™

Amelie looked down. Just for an instant, and then she met Claireâ€™s eyes and smiled. â€˜â€˜You have not met,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Not formally, at any rate. His name is Myrnin. He is one of my oldest friends and allies. Understand, Claire, that your actions since you came to Morganville, including your agreement with me, have won my trust. I would not grant this honor to any but those I found worthy.â€™â€™

Flattery. Claire recognized it, and knew the slight warmth in Amelieâ€™s voice was probably calculated, but it still worked. It made her feel less scared. â€˜â€˜Myrnin,â€™â€™ she repeated.

â€˜â€˜It is an old name,â€™â€™ Amelie agreed, in response to the question in Claireâ€™s tone. â€˜â€˜Old and forgotten, now. But once he was a great scholar, known and revered. His works should not be forgotten as well.â€™â€™

There was something strange in that, but Claire was too nervous to figure out what Amelie could be trying to say. Or not say. She was working hard to swallow a lump in her throat, but it was about the size of a poisoned apple and seemed to be growing larger. She could only nod.

Amelie smiled. It looked kind of artificial, like an expression sheâ€™d practiced in a mirror rather than learned as a child. Smiling was something her face just didnâ€™t naturally do, Claire decided. And sure enough, the smile was gone in seconds, without a trace.

â€˜â€˜If youâ€™re ready . . . ?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Now?â€™â€™ Claire cast an involuntary, helpless look at the blank wall behind her. There wasnâ€™t a door, and that meant there was no way to retreat. So she didnâ€™t really have a choice.

Amelie wasnâ€™t waiting for her answer, anyway. The ice queen stood up and walkedâ€”oh so very undead Grace Kellyâ€” to another small, low doorway with the key in the lock. She turned the key, withdrew it, and looked down at it for a moment before holding it out to Claire. â€˜â€˜Keep it,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Leave your book bag here, please. I shouldnâ€™t want you to forget it. You will leave through the same door that brought you.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s fingers closed around the key, registering rough, cold, heavy metal. She shoved it in the pocket of her blue jeans as Amelie swung open the door, and leaned her backpack against a convenient bookcase.

â€˜â€˜Myrnin?â€™â€™ Amelieâ€™s voice was low and gentle. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, Iâ€™ve brought the girl I told you about. Her name is Claire.â€™â€™

Claire knew that tone of voice. You used it with old, sick people, people who didnâ€™t really understand what was happening anymore. People you didnâ€™t think were really going to be around for long. Coming from Amelie, it was really odd, because she could also hear the love in that low voice. Could vampires love? Well, sure, she guessed; Michael could, right? So why not Amelie, too?

Claire stepped out from behind Amelie at the vampireâ€™s imperative gesture, and anxiously scanned the room. It was big, full of the weirdest mixture of equipment and junk sheâ€™d ever seen. A brand-new wide-screen laptop computer with a shimmying belly dancer as a screen saver. An abacus. A chemistry set that looked straight out of some old Sherlock Holmes movie. More books, carelessly piled around as trip hazards, leaning in columns on every table. Lampsâ€” some electric, some oil. Candles. Bottles and jars and shadows and angles and . . .

And a man.

Claire blinked, because she was expecting an old, sick person; expecting it so much she looked around again, trying to find him. But the only man in the room sat in a chair, peacefully reading a book. He marked the spot with a finger, closed it, and looked up at Amelie.

He was young, or at least he looked it. Shoulder-length curly brown hair, big, dark puppy-dog eyes, flawless, faintly golden skin. Frozen at the age of maybe twenty-five, just enough for creases to be forming at the corners of his eyes. Also, he was really, really . . . pretty.

And he didnâ€™t look sick. Not at all.

â€˜â€˜Ah, good, Iâ€™ve been waiting for you,â€™â€™ he said. He spoke English, but with some kind of accent, nothing that Claire could identify. It sounded a little bit like Irish, a little bit like Scottish, but more . . . liquid, somehow. Welsh? â€˜â€˜Claire, is it? Well, come forward, girl, I wonâ€™t bite.â€™â€™ He smiled, and unlike Amelieâ€™s cool attempt, it was a warm, genuine expression, full of merriment. Claire took a couple of steps toward him. She sensed Amelie tensing behind her, and wondered why. Myrnin seemed okay. Seemed more okay than any vampire sheâ€™d seen so far, except maybe Sam, Michaelâ€™s grandfatherâ€”and Michael, the youngest vampire in Morganville.

â€˜â€˜Hello,â€™â€™ she said, and got an even wider smile.

â€˜â€˜She speaks! Excellent. I have no use for someone without a backbone. Tell me, young Claire, do you like the sciences?â€™â€™

That was an antique way of saying it . . . the sciences. People usually said science or mentioned a specific thing, like biology or nuclear studies or chemistry. Still, she knew the right answer. â€˜â€˜Yes, sir. I love the sciences.â€™â€™

His dark eyes glittered, full of slightly wicked humor. â€˜â€˜So very polite, you are. And philosophy?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”I donâ€™t know. We didnâ€™t study it in high school. I just got to college.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Science without philosophy is nonsense,â€™â€™ he said, very seriously. â€˜â€˜And alchemy? Do you know anything of it?â€™â€™

She just shook her head to that one. She knew what it meant, but wasnâ€™t it all about turning lead into gold or something like that? Sort of con-man science?

Myrnin looked tragically disappointed. She almost wanted to lie to him and tell him that sheâ€™d gotten an A in Alchemy 101.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t be difficult, Myrnin,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜I told you, this age doesnâ€™t regard the subject with much respect. You wonâ€™t find anyone with a working knowledge of the Hermetic arts, so youâ€™ll have to use whatâ€™s available. From all accounts, this girl is quite gifted. She should be able to understand what you have to teach, if you are patient.â€™â€™

Myrnin nodded soberly and put the book aside. He stood upâ€”and upâ€”and up. He was tall, gawky, with long legs and armsâ€”like a human stick bug. He was wearing a weird mixture of clothes, tooâ€”not homeless-guy weird, but definitely funky. A vertically striped knit shirt under what looked like some kind of frock coat, and blue jeans, old ones, with holes in the knees. And flip-flops. Claire stared at his exposed toes. Somehow, with that outfit, flip-flops looked almost indecent.

But he had pretty feet.

He extended his hand to Claire, bending over to do it. She carefully took it and shook. Myrnin looked surprised, then delighted. He pumped the handshake enthusiastically enough to make her shoulder ache. â€˜â€˜A handshake, is that the correct way to greet these days?â€™â€™ he asked. â€˜â€˜Even for such a lovely young woman? I know itâ€™s common among men, but among women it seems quite a violent gestureâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes,â€™â€™ Claire said quickly. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s fine. Everybody does it.â€™â€™ God, he wasnâ€™t going to try to kiss her hand or anything, was he? No, he was letting go and crossing his arms. Studying her.

â€˜â€˜Quickly,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s the elemental designation for rubidium?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Um . . . Rb.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Atomic number?â€™â€™

Claire frantically called to mind the periodic table. Sheâ€™d played with it the same way other kids played with puzzles, back when she was young; sheâ€™d known every detail. â€˜â€˜Thirty-seven.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Group number?â€™â€™

She could see the square on the table now, as real as if it were a card in her hand. â€˜â€˜Group one,â€™â€™ she said confidently. â€˜â€˜Alkali metal. The period number is five.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And what are the dangers of working with rubidium, young Claire?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜It spontaneously burns when exposed to air. It also reacts violently to water.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Solid, liquid, gas, plasma?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Solid to forty degrees centigrade. Thatâ€™s the melting point.â€™â€™ She waited for the next question, but Myrnin only cocked his head and watched her. â€˜â€˜How did I do?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Adequately,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve memorized well.

But memorization is not science, and science is not knowledge.â€™â€™ Myrnin stalked over to a leaning stack of books, tossed some carelessly to the floor, and found a threadbare volume that he flipped open without much regard for the fragile pages. â€˜â€˜Ah! Here. What is this, then?â€™â€™

He held the book out to her. Claire squinted at the dim illustration. It looked a little like a small square sail, full of wind. She frowned and shook her head. Myrnin snapped the book closed with a sharp clap, making her jump.

â€˜â€˜Too much to teach her,â€™â€™ he said to Amelie. He began to pace, then got distracted and fiddled with a glass retort full of some noxious green liquid. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t have time to coddle infants, Amelie. Bring me someone who at least understands the basics of what I am trying toâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve told you before, there is no one available who would recognize that symbol, and in any case, the field has never attracted the most trustworthy of characters. Give Claire a chance. Sheâ€™s a quick study.â€™â€™ Her voice cooled to a measured, icy tone. â€˜â€˜Do not force me to make it an order, Myrnin.â€™â€™

He stopped moving, but he didnâ€™t raise his head. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t want another student.â€™â€™ He sounded resentful.

â€˜â€˜Nevertheless, you must have one.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Have you explained the risks?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I leave that to you. She is yours, Myrnin. But make no mistake, I will hold you responsible for her performance, and for her safety.â€™â€™

Claire heard the click of metal, and when she looked behind her, Amelie was . . . gone.

Sheâ€™d left her alone. With him.

When Claire turned back to him, Myrnin had raised his head and was staring straight at her. Warm, brown eyes no longer amused. Very serious.

â€˜â€˜It seems neither of us has much choice,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ll just have to make the best of it, then.â€™â€™ He fumbled through the stacks of books and came up with one that looked just as threadbare and fragile as the first one heâ€™d mishandled, but this one was much thinner. He thrust it toward her, and Claire took it. The inscription on the cover was in English. Metals in Egyptian Inscriptions.

â€˜â€˜The symbol I showed you is for copper,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. â€˜â€˜Know the rest when you come back tomorrow. I will also expect you to read Basil Valentineâ€™s Last Will and Testament. I have a copy here . . . .â€™â€™ He shoved books around, almost frantic, and located something with a cry of satisfaction. He held that out to her as well. â€˜â€˜Pay special attention to the alchemical symbols. Youâ€™ll be expected to copy them out until you know them by heart.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Take them! Take them and get out! Out! Iâ€™m busy!â€™â€™

Myrnin rushed past her, bowling over stacks of books in his haste, to fling open the door through which Amelie had disappeared. He was at least a foot taller than the door itself, like a human in a hobbit house. He stood there, jittering his foot in impatience, the flip-flop making plastic slaps between flesh and floor.

â€˜â€˜Did you hear me?â€™â€™ he snapped. â€˜â€˜Go. No time now. Get out. Come tomorrow.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”I donâ€™t know how to get home. Or back here.â€™â€™

He stared for a second, and then he laughed. â€˜â€˜Someone will have to bring you. I canâ€™t configure the system just for you!â€™â€™

Configure the system? Claire stopped, staring back. â€˜â€˜What system? Theseâ€”doorways?â€™â€™ The implications were dizzying. If Myrnin understood the doorways, controlled the doorways, the ones that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere in Morganville . . . I need to know. I need to know how that works.

â€˜â€˜Yes, I am responsible for that, among many other things, though itâ€™s hardly the most important thing right now,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Later, Claire. Go now. Talk tomorrow.â€™â€™

He took hold of her, bodily shoved her through the doorway, and slammed it behind her. She heard his hand hit the wood with stunning force.

â€˜â€˜Lock it!â€™â€™ he shouted. Claire dug the key out of her pocket. She could barely get it in the lock; the light was bad here, and her hands were shaking. But she managed, and heard the solid click as the tumblers fell. â€˜â€˜Take the key!â€™â€™ Myrnin yelled.

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re responsible for me now, Claire. You must keep me safe.â€™â€™ Myrninâ€™s voice had fallen lower now, as if heâ€™d gotten tired. â€˜â€˜Keep me safe from everyone.â€™â€™

And then he started . . . crying.

â€˜â€˜Myrnin?â€™â€™ Claire said, bending closer to the door. â€˜â€˜Are you okay? Should I come in andâ€”â€™â€™

The whole door vibrated with the force of his blow. Claire scrambled backward, shocked.

And the crying continued. Lost, little-boy crying.

Claire hesitated for a few seconds, then turned to see that Amelie hadnâ€™t left after all. She was standing quietly by the desk, in the glow of the single candle, and her expression was composed, but sad.

â€˜â€˜Myrninâ€™s mind is not what it once was. He has periods of lucidity, however. And at all costs, you must take full advantage of these to learn what he has to teach. It canâ€™t be lost, Claire. It must not be lost. There are things he does thatâ€”â€™â€™ Amelie shook her head. â€˜â€˜There are projects in motion that must continue.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s heart was racing, her whole body shaking. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s crazy, heâ€™s a vampire, and you want me to be his student.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜I require you to be his student. You will comply, Claire, by the rules of the contract you signed of your own free will. This is valuable work. I would not risk you unnecessarily.â€™â€™

Have you explained to her the risks? Myrnin had asked that. â€˜â€˜What are the risks?â€™â€™ Claire demanded.

Amelie merely pointed to the bookcase, where her backpack still leaned. Claire grabbed it and hauled it to her shoulderâ€”and paused, because a doorway had formed in the blank area of the wall. A solid wooden door, with a plain knob. Identical to those at the university. â€˜â€˜Open it,â€™â€™ Amelie said.

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Open the door, Claire.â€™â€™

Claire did, and the glare of fluorescent lights and the dead, air-conditioned smell of the Administration Building swept over her in a rush.

Amelie blew out the light. In the darkness, Claire couldnâ€™t see her anymore.

â€˜â€˜Be ready at four oâ€™clock tomorrow in the University Center,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜Sam will fetch you. I suggest you do the reading Myrnin requires of you. And Claireâ€”tell no one what youâ€™re doing here. Absolutely no one.â€™â€™

It wasnâ€™t until Claire was in the hall, with the door shut, that she realized Amelie hadnâ€™t answered her question. She opened the door again, butâ€”there was just a room piled with discarded, broken furniture. Something moved furtively in the corner. There was a window with crooked blinds, but no Amelie. No cave of books. No Myrnin.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s sick,â€™â€™ Claire said aloud, to whatever was rustling in the corner behind a three-legged desk. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s why she talked to him like that. Heâ€™s old, and heâ€™s sick. Maybe even dying.â€™â€™ Vampires could get sick. Vampires could die? Somehow sheâ€™d never even considered that.

She shut the door gently, adjusted the weight of her backpack, and looked down at the two ancient books in her hand.

Last Will and Testament.

She hoped that wasnâ€™t a sign of her future.

Â 
Eve chattered on about her day on the drive back, talking about some boy who had totally tried to ask her out, and Amyâ€™s boyfriend, Chad, whoâ€™d come by to help clean up and was a total sweetheart, and how her boss was a toerag, but at least heâ€™d given her a twenty-cent-an-hour raise. â€˜â€˜I think thatâ€™s just for not quitting in the first couple of weeks,â€™â€™ Eve said, but she sounded pretty jacked about it, and Claire was pleased for her. â€˜â€˜Yeah, itâ€™s only a couple more dollars a week, butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But itâ€™s something.â€™â€™ Claire nodded. â€˜â€˜Congratulations, Eve. You deserve it. Youâ€™re really good at this. Iâ€™ll bet you could run the whole thing if you wanted.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Me? Manager?â€™â€™ Eve laughed so hard she snorted. â€˜â€˜Yeah, like I want to become Tinpot Dictator of the coffee bar. Get serious.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No, I mean it. Youâ€™re nice, people like you; you know what youâ€™re doing. You could. Youâ€™d be good at it.â€™â€™

Eve shot her a sideways look that was almost a frown. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re serious.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yep.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know if Iâ€™m ready for management. Donâ€™t you have to wear a tie for that?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve got one,â€™â€™ Claire said solemnly.

â€˜â€˜Only one with the Grim Reaper on it. Hey, wait. That could be my management style! Screw up and Iâ€™ll kill you, maggot.â€™â€™ Eve grinned. â€˜â€˜They ought to teach that in business school.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜They probably do here,â€™â€™ Claire sighed.

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s up with you, CB?â€™â€™ CB stood for Claire Bear, which was Eveâ€™s funny nickname for her. Claire didnâ€™t think she much resembled a bear, not even the stuffed Gund variety. â€˜â€˜You seem really, I donâ€™t know, thoughtful.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, wellâ€”â€™â€™ She couldnâ€™t talk to Eve about Myrnin. â€˜â€˜Homework and stuff.â€™â€™ Yeah, it was just that sheâ€™d never had quite this kind of pass/fail pressure before. Sheâ€™d flipped through the book on Egyptian inscriptions. That was pretty straightforward, though she wasnâ€™t sure how actually Egyptian it all was. Interesting, though. The other one, Last Will and Testament, was lots tougher. Tons of symbols in some weird notation she didnâ€™t understand. Sheâ€™d be up all night trying to make sure she remembered even the basics. â€˜â€˜Eve . . . has anybody ever broken their contract in Morganville? I mean, and lived?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Contract?â€™â€™ Eve shot her yet another look, this one definitely coming with a side order of frowning. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re talking about a vamp contract? Sure. People have tried everything, at one time or another. But not very successfully.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What happened?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Back in the old days, they got hanged. These days, I think they just throw â€™em in jail until they rot, if the vampires donâ€™t eat â€™em. But hey, not like you and me have to worry about it, right? Live free or die!â€™â€™ Eve held up her hand. â€˜â€˜High five!â€™â€™

Claire slapped it, without much enthusiasm. She was thinking about the way the pen had felt in her hand, moving across that stiff paper. Signing her life away. And she felt ashamed.

â€˜â€˜Why?â€™â€™ Eve asked.

â€˜â€˜Huh?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why are you asking?â€™â€™ Eve made the turn onto Lot Street, and the glow of the windows of the Glass Houseâ€”homeâ€”spilled out into the street. â€˜â€˜Câ€™mon, Claire. Someone you know thinking about it?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Um . . . thereâ€™s this guy at school. I just heard him sayâ€”I wondered, thatâ€™s all.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, quit wondering. His problem, not yours. Ready for the fire drill? Quick like a bunny. Go!â€™â€™ Eve braked the black Caddy hard, Claire threw open her passenger-side door and jogged around the back of the car, banged open the white picket gate, and raced up the walk to the steps with her house keys in her hand. She heard the engine die, and the noisy clatter of Eveâ€™s shoes behind her.

Eveâ€™s steps stopped. Stopped dead. Claire whirled, scared and expecting to see a vampire on the prowl, but Eve was just checking the mailbox, grabbing a small handful of stuff, and then hurrying up the steps as she sorted through it. Claire stepped over the threshold, and Eve followed, hip-bumping the door shut behind them and shooting the bolt with her elbow, a feat Claire would never have triedâ€”or been able to accomplish with half that grace.

â€˜â€˜Electric bill, water billâ€”Internet bill. Oh, and something for you.â€™â€™ Eve pulled out a small bubble-padded mailer from the pile and handed it over. â€˜â€˜No return address.â€™â€™

Whoâ€™d send her anything? Well, Mom and Dad, sure, and the occasional card from another relative. Her former BFF Elizabeth had sent a postcard from Texas A&M, but only the one. Claire didnâ€™t recognize the neat handwriting on the outside of the envelope. Eve left her to it and walked down the hallway, yelling to let Shane and Michael know they were back, to which Michael yelled back, â€˜â€˜Get in here and make me some dinnerâ€”now, woman.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜News flash, Michael, youâ€™re supposed to have turned evil, not redneck!â€™â€™

Claire ripped open the package and upended it, and a small jewelry box slid into her hand. A nice oneâ€” red velvet, with some kind of gold crest embossed into it. She felt the skin tighten up on the back of her neck. Oh no.

Her suspicions were confirmed as she flipped up the lid and saw the gold bracelet nestled on bloodred velvet. It was pretty, and it wasnâ€™t too big; delicate enough to circle one of her small wrists.

The Founderâ€™s Symbol was embossed discreetly in a small gold cartouche.

Oh no.

Claire bit her lip and stared at the bracelet for a long time, then snapped the lid shut, put it back in the envelope, and went to join Eve and Michael in the kitchen.

â€˜â€˜So?â€™â€™ Eve was getting down pots, and Michael was rummaging in the refrigerator. â€˜â€˜Spaghetti okay with you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ Claire said. She wondered if she looked spooked. She hoped not, but even if she did, Eve was looking at Michael, and he was looking back, and she was safe from any kind of major inspection while they were making eyes at each other.

Until she turned, and ran into Shane, whoâ€™d come in the kitchen door behind her. The package felt hot and heavy in her right hand, and she took an involuntary step back.

Which hurt him. She saw the flash of it in his eyes. â€˜â€˜Hey,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You all right?â€™â€™

She nodded, unable to speak, because if she said anything, it would have to be a lie. Shane stepped closer and put a warm hand on her face; it felt good, so very good that she leaned into it, then further, into his arms. He made her feel small and loved, and for just a second, what was in the package in her hand didnâ€™t matter.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re working too hard,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You look pale. School okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Schoolâ€™s fine,â€™â€™ she said. That wasnâ€™t a lie, school was definitely not what scared her anymore. â€˜â€˜I guess I need more sleep.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Just a few more days until the weekend.â€™â€™ He kissed the top of her head, bent closer, and whispered, â€˜â€˜My room. I need to talk to you.â€™â€™

She blinked, but he was already stepping back and heading out the door. She looked over her shoulder at Eve and Michael, but they were happily talking as Eve adjusted the flame under the pots, and they hadnâ€™t noticed anything.

Claire shoved the package into her backpack, zipped it up, and followed Shane upstairs.

Shaneâ€™s room was very utilitarianâ€”his bed was never made, though he made an attempt as she came in to straighten out the sheets and toss the blanket over it. A couple of posters on the wall, nothing special. No photos, no mementos. He didnâ€™t spend a lot of time here, except to sleep. Most of his stuff was crammed into the closet.

Claire leaned her backpack against the wall and sat down next to him on the bed. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ she asked. If sheâ€™d expected a wild predinner make-out session, she was disappointed. He didnâ€™t even put his arm around her.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m thinking of leaving,â€™â€™ he said.

â€˜â€˜Leaving? But Eveâ€™s making dinnerâ€”â€™â€™

He turned and made eye contact. â€˜â€˜Leaving Morganville.â€™â€™

She felt a surge of utter panic. â€˜â€˜No. You canâ€™t!â€™â€™ â€˜â€˜Done it before. Look, this place, itâ€™sâ€”I didnâ€™t come back here because I missed it. I came back because my dad sent me, and now that heâ€™s been and gone and Iâ€™m not doing his dirty work anymore . . .â€™â€™ Shaneâ€™s eyes were begging her to understand. â€˜â€˜I want a life, Claire. And you donâ€™t belong here. You canâ€™t stay. Theyâ€™ll kill you. No, worse. Theyâ€™ll make you into one of them, one of the walking dead. Iâ€™m not talking about the vampires, either. Nobody who lives here has a pulse, not really.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€”â€™â€™

He kissed her, and his lips were warm and damp and soft and urgent. â€˜â€˜Please,â€™â€™ he whispered. â€˜â€˜We need to leave this town. Itâ€™s going to get bad. I can feel it.â€™â€™

God, why was he doing this? Why now? â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€”school, andâ€”I just canâ€™t, Shane. I canâ€™t leave.â€™â€™ Her signature on a piece of paper. Her soul on a platter. It had been the price to keep them safe, but sheâ€™d have to keep on paying, right? As apprentice to Myrnin. And she guessed that wouldnâ€™t be a long-distance study course.

â€˜â€˜Please.â€™â€™ It was barely a whisper from him, his lips brushing hers, and honestly, she would have done almost anything for him when he used that tone, but this time . . .

â€˜â€˜What happened?â€™â€™ she asked.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Was it something with Michael? Did heâ€”did youâ€”?â€™â€™ She didnâ€™t even know what she was asking, but something had deeply disturbed Shane, and she had no idea what it was.

He looked at her for a long few seconds, then pulled away, stood up, and walked to his window to look down on the backyard they never really used. â€˜â€˜My dad called,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜He told me that he was coming back, and he wanted me to be prepared to take out some vampires. If I stay, Iâ€™m going to have to kill Michael. I donâ€™t want to be here, Claire. I canâ€™t.â€™â€™

He didnâ€™t want to make the choice, not again. Claire bit her lip, hard; she could hear the pain in his voice, although he wasnâ€™t going to let her see it in his expression. â€˜â€˜You really think your dad will come back?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah. Eventually. Maybe not this month, maybe not this year, but . . . someday. And next time, heâ€™ll have what he needs to start a real war around here.â€™â€™ Shane shivered; she saw the muscles in his back tense up under the tight gray shirt he was wearing. â€˜â€˜I need to get you out of here before you get hurt.â€™â€™

Claire got up, walked to him, and put her arms around him from behind. She leaned against him, her head on his back, and sighed. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m more worried about you,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You and trouble . . .â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah.â€™â€™ She heard the smile in his voice. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re like that.â€™â€™

4

The spaghetti was good, and a little pleading got Shane to sit down and eat. He sat across from Michael, but they didnâ€™t talk, and they didnâ€™t make eye contact. All in all, pretty polite. Claire was just starting to relax when Shane asked, blandly, â€˜â€˜You put extra garlic in this, Eve? You know how I like the garlic.â€™â€™

She shot him a dirty look. â€˜â€˜Oh, the neighborhood knows.â€™â€™ And then an apologetic one toward Michael. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s okay, right? Not too much?â€™â€™ Because garlic wasnâ€™t something vampires were especially fond of. That was why Shane tended to use it as garnish on everything he ate.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s fine,â€™â€™ Michael said, but he was picking at his food, and he looked a little pale. â€˜â€˜Monica stopped by today. Looking for you, Claire.â€™â€™

Both Shane and Eve groaned. For once, all three of her housemates were entirely in agreement. And they were all looking at her.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ she asked. â€˜â€˜I swear, itâ€™s notâ€”Iâ€™m not sucking up to her or anything! Sheâ€™s justâ€”crazy, okay? Iâ€™m not her friend. I donâ€™t know why sheâ€™s coming around.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s probably going to set you up again,â€™â€™ Eve said, and scooped more spaghetti into her bowl. â€˜â€˜Like she did at the frat dance. Hey, sheâ€™s throwing a party this Friday, did you hear? Superexclusive, flying in out of towners and everything. I guess itâ€™s her birthday, or Daddy-gave-me-money day, or whatever. We should crash.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I like the sound of that,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Crashing Monicaâ€™s party.â€™â€™ He glanced at Michael, then quickly away. â€˜â€˜What about you? That break some kind of vampire rules of conduct or something?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Blow me, Shane.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Boys,â€™â€™ Eve said primly. â€˜â€˜Language. Minor at the table.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well,â€™â€™ Shane said, â€˜â€˜I wasnâ€™t actually planning to do it.â€™â€™

Claire rolled her eyes. â€˜â€˜Not like itâ€™s the first time Iâ€™ve heard it. Or said it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You shouldnâ€™t say it,â€™â€™ Michael said, all seriousness. â€˜â€˜No, I mean it. Girls should say â€˜eat me,â€™ not â€˜blow me.â€™ Wouldnâ€™t recommend â€˜bite me,â€™ though. Not around here.â€™â€™

Eve choked on her spaghetti. Shane pounded her on the back, but he was laughing, too, and so was Michael, and Claire glared at them for a little bit before giving in and admitting it was funny, after all.

Everything was all right.

â€˜â€˜So. Friday night?â€™â€™ Eve asked, wiping her eyes and gasping through her giggles. â€˜â€˜Par-tay? Because I could so use a good blowout.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m in,â€™â€™ Michael said, and took a manful bite of spaghetti. Claire wondered if it burned him. â€˜â€˜I think if Iâ€™m with you, thereâ€™s no way she can keep us out. Vampire VIP status. Might as well be good for something.â€™â€™

Shane looked at him, and for a second there was that warmth that Claire missed so much, but then it was gone again, and the wall was back firmly in place between the two of them.

â€˜â€˜Must be nice,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜We should all go, if itâ€™s going to ruin Monicaâ€™s night.â€™â€™

They finished the rest of the meal in uncomfortable silence. Claire realized that she kept thinking about that red velvet box sitting upstairs in her room, and struggled not to look guilty. Probably didnâ€™t succeed. She caught Michael watching her with a strange intensity; whether he was picking up on her discomfort or still wondering about why she didnâ€™t jump at the chance to go to Monicaâ€™s party.

She ate too fast, cleaned her dishes, and dashed upstairs with a mumbled excuse about homework. Well, it wasnâ€™t as though they werenâ€™t used to her studying. It was Shaneâ€™s turn for dishes, so that would keep him busy for a while. . . .

The box was right where sheâ€™d left it, sitting on the dresser. She grabbed it, put her back against the wall, and slid down to a cross-legged sitting position as she weighed the box in her hand.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re wondering whether or not to wear it,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and Claire yelped in surprise. The elegant older vampire, completely at her ease, was seated in the antique old velvet chair in the corner, her hands folded primly in her lap. She looked like a painting, not a person; there was something about herâ€”now more than everâ€”that seemed antique and cold as marble.

Claire scrambled to her feet, feeling stupid about it, but you just didnâ€™t sit like that in Amelieâ€™s presence. Amelie acknowledged the courtesy with a graceful nod, but didnâ€™t otherwise move.

â€˜â€˜I apologize for surprising you, Claire, but I needed to speak with you alone,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜How can you get in here? I mean, this is our house; arenâ€™t vampires . . . ?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Prevented from entry? Not into another vampireâ€™s home, and even were you all human, this house ultimately belongs to me. I built it, as I built all of the Founder Houses. The house knows me, and so I need no permissions to enter.â€™â€™ Amelieâ€™s eyes glinted in the dark. â€˜â€˜Does that disturb you?â€™â€™

Claire swallowed and didnâ€™t answer. â€˜â€˜What did you want?â€™â€™

Amelie raised one long, slender finger and pointed at the velvet box in Claireâ€™s hand. â€˜â€˜I want you to put that on.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I am not asking. I am instructing.â€™â€™

Claire shivered, because although Amelieâ€™s voice stayed level, it sounded . . . hard. She opened the box and shook the bracelet out. It felt heavy and warm in her hand, and she peered at it carefully.

There wasnâ€™t a catch, but it was clearly too small to fit over her hand. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know howâ€”â€™â€™

She saw a flash in her peripheral vision, and by the time she looked up, Amelie was taking the bracelet out of her palm, and cold strong fingers were holding her arm.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s made for you,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜Hold still. Unlike the bracelets most of the other children wear, yours cannot be removed. The contract you signed gives me this right, do you understand?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”no, I donâ€™t wantâ€”â€™â€™

Too late. Amelie moved, and the bracelet seemed to pass through Claireâ€™s skin and bone, and settle heavily around her wrist. Claire tried to yank free, but there was no way, not as strong as Amelie was. Amelie smiled and held her still for another second, just to make the point, before she let go. Claire turned the bracelet frantically, pressing, looking for the trick.

It looked seamless, and it wasnâ€™t coming off.

â€˜â€˜It must be done this way, the old way,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜This bracelet will save your life, Claire. Mark me. It is a favor I have given rarely in my life. You should be grateful.â€™â€™

Grateful? Claire felt like a dog on a leash, and she hated it. She glared at Amelie, and the vampireâ€™s smile intensified. She couldnâ€™t really say it brightenedâ€” there was something in it that undermined the whole concept of comfort.

â€˜â€˜Perhaps youâ€™ll be grateful at a later date,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and raised her eyebrows. â€˜â€˜Very well. Iâ€™ll leave you now. No doubt you have studies.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How am I supposed to hide this from my friends?â€™â€™ Claire blurted, as the vampire walked toward the door.

â€˜â€˜You arenâ€™t,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and opened the door without unlocking it. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t forget. You should be well prepared for Myrnin tomorrow.â€™â€™ She stepped out into the hall and closed it behind her. Claire lunged forward and turned the knob, but it refused to open. By the time she twisted the thumb lock and swung it back, Amelie was gone. The hall was empty. Claire stood there, listening to the clatter of dishes from downstairs, the distant laughter, and wanted to cry.

She scrubbed at her eyes, took a deep breath, and went to her desk to try to study.

Â 
The next day was a busy whirl of classes, quizzes, and discussion groups, and Claire was grateful for the afternoon break when it finally arrived. She felt stupid, dressed in her long-sleeved T, but it was the only thing she had that could hide the bracelet, and she desperately wanted to hide it. So far, so good. Eve hadnâ€™t noticed, Shane hadnâ€™t been awake when theyâ€™d left for school. No sign of Michael, either. Sheâ€™d gotten desperate last night and tried a couple of ways to break the gold bandâ€”scissors, then a pair of rusty old bolt-cutters from the basementâ€”but she broke the blade on the scissors, and the bolt-cutters were clumsy and slid right off the metal. She couldnâ€™t do it alone, and she couldnâ€™t ask for help.

Canâ€™t hide it forever.

Well, she could try.

Claire headed for the UC and the coffee bar, and she found Eve harassed, pink-cheeked under the rice-powder makeup, all alone behind the counter. â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™s Amy?â€™â€™ Claire asked, and handed over three dollars for a mocha. â€˜â€˜I thought she was working all week?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, no kidding, me too. I called my boss, but heâ€™s sick and soâ€™s Kim, so itâ€™s just me today. Not enough coffee in the world to make this easy.â€™â€™ Eve blew hair from her sweaty forehead and zipped over to the espresso machine, where she pulled shots. â€˜â€˜Ever have one of those dreams where youâ€™re running and everybody else is standing still, but you canâ€™t catch up?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Usually mine are about being naked in class.â€™â€™

Eve grinned. â€˜â€˜For that, you get a free caramel shot. Go sit down. I donâ€™t need you hovering like the rest of these vultures.â€™â€™

Claire claimed a study desk and spread out her books, got her mocha when Eve called her name, and yawned as she cracked open Last Will and Testament again. Sheâ€™d spent most of the night memorizing the symbols, but they were tricky. Sheâ€™d gotten all of the Egyptian ones down, but these were a whole lot less straightforward, and she had the sense that Myrnin wouldnâ€™t be too forgiving of mistakes.

A shadow fell over her book. She looked up and saw Detective Travis Lowe, and his partner, Joe Hess, standing close behind him. She knew both of them pretty well; theyâ€™d helped her during that crazy time when Shaneâ€™s dad had been skulking around Morganville, trying to kill vampires (and succeeding). They didnâ€™t wear bracelets, and they werenâ€™t Protected; as she understood it, theyâ€™d earned some kind of special status. She wasnâ€™t sure how theyâ€™d managed that, but it had to be something really brave.

â€˜â€˜Morning, Claire,â€™â€™ Hess said, and pulled up a chair. Lowe did the same. They werenâ€™t all that similar in body typesâ€”Hess was tall and kind of wiry, with a long face; Lowe was chubby and balding. But the expressions in their eyes were identicalâ€”careful, hidden, wary. â€˜â€˜How have you been?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ she said, and resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to touch her bracelet, fiddle with it. She looked from one to the other, feeling less secure all the time. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s going on? Is something wrong?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Lowe said. â€˜â€˜You could say that. Look, Claire, thereâ€™sâ€”Iâ€™m sorry to tell you this, but there was a dead girl out back of your house. She was found this morning by the trash collectors.â€™â€™

A dead girl? Claire swallowed hard. â€˜â€˜Who is she?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amy Callum,â€™â€™ Hess said. â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s a local girl. Family lives just a few blocks from you. Her people are pretty broken up about it.â€™â€™ He shifted his gaze toward the coffee bar. â€˜â€˜She worked here.â€™â€™

Amy? Coffee Bar Amy? Oh no . . . â€˜â€˜I knew her,â€™â€™ Claire said faintly. â€˜â€˜She worked with Eve. She was supposed to be here today. Eve was sayingâ€”â€™â€™ Eve. Claire looked over and saw that Eve was still chattering away brightly, filling orders, taking cash. They hadnâ€™t told her yet. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re sure it was our house?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire . . .â€™â€™ The two detectives exchanged a look, not a good one. â€˜â€˜Her body was stuffed inside your trash can. Weâ€™re sure.â€™â€™

Claire felt faint. That close . . . sheâ€™d put out trash just two days ago, right? Dumped garbage bags into the can. Amy had been alive then. And now . . .

â€˜â€˜Did you see anything last night?â€™â€™ Hess continued.

â€˜â€˜No, I wasâ€”it was dark when I got home. And then I studied all night.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hear anything, maybe some racket out by the garbage cans?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No, sir. I had headphones on. Iâ€™m sorry.â€™â€™

Shane had been looking out the window, she remembered. Maybe heâ€™d seen someone. But heâ€™d have said, right? He wouldnâ€™t hide something like that.

An awful thought struck her, and she looked up into Joe Hessâ€™s calm, impartial eyes. â€˜â€˜Was itâ€”â€™â€™ Too many people around. She mimed fangs in the neck. He shook his head.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s the same as the last one we found,â€™â€™ Lowe said. â€˜â€˜Canâ€™t rule out our toothy friends, but it doesnâ€™t fit their style. You know whose style it fits, though?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Jasonâ€™s,â€™â€™ Claire said numbly. â€˜â€˜Eveâ€™s brother. Heâ€™s still out?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Havenâ€™t caught him doing anything illegal yet. But we will. Heâ€™s too crazy to live sane.â€™â€™ Lowe studied her. â€˜â€˜Havenâ€™t seen him, have you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Good.â€™â€™ Like thereâ€™d been some signal between them, Hess and Lowe got up from their chairs. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™d better go tell Eve. Look, you think of anything, you call, all right? And donâ€™t go out alone. Protection doesnâ€™t cover this.â€™â€™ Lowe cast a significant look at her wrist, and she felt herself blush, as though heâ€™d guessed what color panties she had on. â€˜â€˜You need to go out, you go with one of your friends, all right? Same goes for Eve. Weâ€™ll try to keep an eye on you, but caution is your best defense.â€™â€™

Claire watched as the cops walked away. They exchanged nods with a tallish young man who was coming in her direction. For a second she thought it was Michaelâ€”he had the same walk, the same basic shapeâ€”but then his hair caught the light. Red hair, not blond like Michaelâ€™s.

Sam. Sam Glass, Michaelâ€™s grandfather. Amelie had told her that Sam would escort her to see Myrnin; sheâ€™d just forgotten about it. Well, that was okay. Claire liked Sam. He was quiet and kind and didnâ€™t seem much like a vampire at all, except for the pale skin and the slight weird shine to his eyes. Exactly like Michael, now that she thought of it. But then, they were the two youngest, andâ€”weirdlyâ€”related. Maybe the older the vampires got, the farther they moved from normal.

â€˜â€˜Hey, Claire,â€™â€™ Sam said, as if theyâ€™d just talked five minutes before, although she hadnâ€™t seen him for nearly a week, at least. She supposed that time was different for vampires. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™d they want?â€™â€™ He was wearing a TPU T-shirt and jeans, and it made him look kind of hot. Hot for a redheaded vampire, anyway. And he had a nice, if absent, smile. She wasnâ€™t his type. As far as Claire knew, Sam was still totally in love with Amelie, a concept she found harder to wrap her brain around than curved-surface string theory.

He was still waiting for an answer. She scrambled to put one together. â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™s a dead girl. She was found in our garbage cans. Amy. Amy Callum?â€™â€™

Samâ€™s mobile, earnest face took on a grim look. â€˜â€˜Dammit. I know the family, theyâ€™re good folks. Iâ€™ll stop by and see them.â€™â€™ He sat down and leaned closer, dropping his volume. â€˜â€˜She wasnâ€™t a vampire kill, I know that much. Iâ€™d have heard by now if someone had stepped out of line.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire agreed. â€˜â€˜It sounded as though she was killed by one of us.â€™â€™ She realized, with a rush of horror, that he wasnâ€™t us, exactly, and blushed. â€˜â€˜I meanâ€” one of theâ€”humans.â€™â€™

Sam smiled at her, but his eyes were a little sad. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s all right, Claire; Iâ€™m used to it by now. Itâ€™s an us-and-them town.â€™â€™ He looked down at his hands, loose and relaxed on the tabletop. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m supposed to take you to your appointment.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah.â€™â€™ She hastily closed up her books and began loading her backpack. â€˜â€˜Sorry, I didnâ€™t realize what time it was.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No rush,â€™â€™ he said. Still not looking at her. Very softly, he continued, â€˜â€˜Claire. Are you sure you know what youâ€™re doing?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

His hand flashed out and grabbed her wristâ€”the one with the bracelet hidden under the long sleeve. It dug painfully into her skin. â€˜â€˜You know what.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Ow,â€™â€™ she whispered, and he let go. â€˜â€˜I had to. I didnâ€™t have a choice. I had to sign if I wanted to keep my friends safe.â€™â€™

Sam didnâ€™t say anything to that; he was looking at her now, but she didnâ€™t dare meet his eyes. She didnâ€™t like him knowing about her agreement with Amelie. What if he told Michael? What if Michael told Shane? Heâ€™s going to find out, sooner or later. Well, sheâ€™d much rather it be later.

Sam said, â€˜â€˜I know that. I wish you wouldnâ€™t do this other thing. With Myrnin. Itâ€™sâ€”not safe.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know. Heâ€™s sick or something. But he wonâ€™t hurt me. Amelieâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelie isnâ€™t in the business of worrying about individuals.â€™â€™ That, for Sam, was surprisingly bitter, especially when it came to Amelie. â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s using you the way she uses all humans. Itâ€™s not personal, but itâ€™s not in your best interest, either.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why? What is it youâ€™re not telling me?â€™â€™

Sam looked at her for a long time, clearly trying to decide, and finally said, â€˜â€˜Myrninâ€™s had five apprentices in the past few years. Two of them were vampires.â€™â€™

Claire blinked, surprised, as Sam got to his feet. â€˜â€˜Five? What happened to them?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re asking the right questions. Now ask the right people.â€™â€™

He walked away. Claire gasped, grabbed her bag, and followed.

Over at the coffee bar, the two detectives were breaking the news to Eve. As Claire looked back, she saw the precise second that Eve realized her friend was dead. Even from across the room, it hurt to see the pain in her face, quickly masked and locked away. In Morganville, losing someone was something you got used to, Claire supposed.

God, this town sucked sometimes.

Â 
Sam had a car, a sleek, dark red sedan with dark-tinted windows. It was parked in the underground garage beneath the UC, in a reserved spot marked SPONSORS ONLY, with a graphic of a sticker that had to appear in the corner of the windshield for the parking to be legal.

A sticker that Sam, of course, had. â€˜â€˜So that means what, you donate money or something?â€™â€™

Sam opened the passenger door for her, a bit of chivalry she wasnâ€™t really used to, and Claire climbed inside. â€˜â€˜Not exactly,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Amelie gives them to vampires who have campus business.â€™â€™

Once he was in the car, turning the key, Claire said, â€˜â€˜You have campus business?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I teach night classes,â€™â€™ Sam said, and grinned. He looked about twelve, when he did that. She had the feeling it wasnâ€™t something vampires were into, looking that endearingly goofy. Maybe if they were, theyâ€™d be more popular with the local breathing population. â€˜â€˜Sort of an outreach program.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Cool.â€™â€™ The tinting was so dark it was like midnight outside. â€˜â€˜You can see through this?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Like daylight,â€™â€™ Sam said, and she gave up, buckled her seat belt, and let him drive. It wasnâ€™t a long tripâ€” nothing in Morganville wasâ€”but she had time to notice some things about Samâ€™s car. It was clean. Really clean. No trash at all. (Well, he wouldnâ€™t be chowing down on burgers in the car, now, would he? Wait. He could . . . ) It also didnâ€™t smell like most cars. It smelled new and kind of sterile. â€˜â€˜How are classes going?â€™â€™

Oh, Sam was going to do the interested-adult thing now. â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ Claire said. Nobody ever wanted to really hear the truth, to a question like that, but fine wasnâ€™t a lie, either. â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™re not very hard.â€™â€™ Also not a lie.

Sam shot her a glance, or so she thought, in the dim lights from the dashboard. â€˜â€˜Maybe youâ€™re not getting all you can out of them,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Ever thought of that?â€™â€™

She shrugged. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve always been ahead. Itâ€™s better than high school, but I was hoping for something harder.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Like working for Myrnin?â€™â€™ Samâ€™s voice had gone dry. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s a challenge, all right. Claireâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelie didnâ€™t exactly give me a choice.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But you still want to do it, donâ€™t you?â€™â€™

She did. She had to admit that. Myrnin had been scary, but there had been something so bright in him, too. She knew that spark. She felt it herself, and she was always looking for someone, something to feed it. â€˜â€˜Maybe he just needs someone to talk to,â€™â€™ she said.

Sam made a noncommittal noise that somehow sounded amused, too, and pulled the car to a stop. â€˜â€˜I have to move fast,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s the door at the end of the alley; Iâ€™ll meet you there in the shade.â€™â€™

He opened his door and just . . . vanished. The door slammed shut, but it did it on its own. Claire gaped, unbuckled her seat belt, and got out, but there was no sign of Sam at all on the street, in the brilliant sunlight. The car was parked at the curb of a cul-de-sac, and it took her a second, but then she recognized the house in front of her. A big Gothic ramble of a house, nearly a mirror image of the Glass House where she lived, but this one belonged to a lady named Katherine Day and her granddaughter.

Gramma Day was on her porch, rocking peacefully and stirring the warm air with a paper fan. Claire raised her hand and waved, and Gramma waved back. â€˜â€˜You come to see me, girl?â€™â€™ Gramma called. â€˜â€˜Come on up; Iâ€™ll get some lemonade!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe later!â€™â€™ Claire called back. â€˜â€˜I have to goâ€”â€™â€™

She realized, with a jolt of horror, where Sam had told her to go.

Into the alley. The alley where everybody, Gramma Day included, had told her not to go. The alley with the trap-door spider vampire whoâ€™d tried before to lure her inside.

Gramma pulled herself to her feet. She was a tiny, wrinkled woman who looked as dry and tough as old leather. Had to be tough, to be old in Morganville, Claire thought. â€˜â€˜You all right, girl?â€™â€™ she asked.

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Thanks. Iâ€™llâ€”Iâ€™ll be back.â€™â€™

She headed off down the alley. Behind her, Gramma Day called out, â€˜â€˜Girl, what you playinâ€™ at? Ainâ€™t you got good sense?â€™â€™

Probably not.

The alley was narrow, with fences on both sides, and it seemed to get even more narrow the farther she went, like a funnel. She didnâ€™t feel any strange attraction, though, or hear voices.

She also didnâ€™t see Sam.

â€˜â€˜Here,â€™â€™ a voice said, as she turned a slight corner. And there he was, leaning back in a patch of black shade next to an overhanging doorway, which was attached to what looked like a shack. Not a really well-made shack, either. Claire wondered if it was supposed to lean like that.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s Myrnin,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s the trap-door spider.â€™â€™

Sam looked thoughtful at that, and then nodded. â€˜â€˜Most people know not to come down this way,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜He only takes Unprotecteds. He can tell the difference, so he wouldnâ€™t try it with you. Not now.â€™â€™

Cheery. Sam opened the door, which didnâ€™t look sturdy enough to keep out a cool breeze, and stepped inside. A smell washed out into the still air, something old and bitter. Chemicals. Ancient paper. Unwashed clothes.

Well?

Claire sucked in a breath that tasted of all those things, and stepped into Myrninâ€™s lair.

5

Myrnin was in a mood. A good mood.

â€˜â€˜Claire!â€™â€™ As she came down the stepsâ€”the only thing in the shack itself were the steps leading downâ€” into his main chamber, he flashed across the room in a blur and stopped just an inch away from her, close enough that she flinched back into Samâ€™s broad chest and he steadied her. Myrninâ€™s eyes were wide, blazing with enthusiasm. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve been waiting! Late, late, late, youâ€™re very late, you know. Come on, come on, we havenâ€™t got time for nonsense. Did you bring the books? Good. What about Last Will and Testament? Are you familiar with the symbols? Here, take this.â€™â€™ Chalk, pressed into her hand. Myrnin moved again, fast as a grasshopper, and rolled an ancient stained chalkboard closer. He had to shove over some stacks of books to do it, which he did with cheerful disregard for how much of a mess he was making.

Sam, almost inaudibly, whispered, â€˜â€˜Be careful. Heâ€™s dangerous when heâ€™s like this.â€™â€™

Yeah, no kidding. Claire nodded, swallowed, and smiled as Myrnin turned toward her with those crazy, delighted eyes. She wanted to ask what came after the manic phase, but she didnâ€™t dare.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be in the other room,â€™â€™ Sam said. Myrnin waved him off impatiently, barely sparing him a glance.

â€˜â€˜Yes, yes, fine, go. Here. First letâ€™s start with the Egyptian inscription for asem. Asem. You know what element that represents?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Electrum,â€™â€™ Claire said, and carefully chalked the symbol. Sort of a bowl, with a big staff through the middle. â€˜â€˜Howâ€™s that?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Excellent! Yes, thatâ€™s it. Now, something difficult. Chesbet.â€™â€™

Sapphire. That was a hard one. Claire bit her lip for a second, getting the order in her mind, and then drew it out. Circle above a double-slashed line, next to a leg, next to a thing that looked kind of like a car with no wheels over two separated circles.

â€˜â€˜No, no, no,â€™â€™ Myrnin said, grabbed an eraser, and rubbed out the car. â€˜â€˜Too modern. Look.â€™â€™

He drew it again, this time more roughly, and it still looked like a car to her. She copied it, twice, until he was satisfied.

There were a lot of symbols, and he quizzed her on just about all of them, growing more and more excited. Her arm ached from holding up the chalk to the board, especially when, after she screwed up the symbol for lead, he made her repeat it a hundred times.

â€˜â€˜We should do this on computer,â€™â€™ she said, chalking it carefully for the eighty-ninth time. â€˜â€˜With a drawing pad.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nonsense. Youâ€™re lucky I donâ€™t make you inscribe it with a stylus on a wax tablet, like the old days,â€™â€™ Myrnin snorted. â€˜â€˜Children. Spoiled children, always playing with the shiniest toy.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Computers are more efficient!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I can perform calculations on that abacus faster than you can solve them on your computer,â€™â€™ Myrnin sneered.

Okay, now he was pissing her off. â€˜â€˜Prove it!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Prove it.â€™â€™ She backed off on her tone, but Myrnin wasnâ€™t looking angry; he was looking strangely interested. He stared at her for a second in silence, and then he broke into the biggest, oddest smile sheâ€™d ever seen on the face of a vampire.

â€˜â€˜All right,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜A contest. Computer versus abacus.â€™â€™

She wasnâ€™t at all sure now that was a good idea, even if it had been her idea, essentially. â€˜â€˜Umâ€”what do I win?â€™â€™ More importantly, what do I lose? Making bargains was a way of life in Morganville, and it was a lot like making deals with man-eating fairies. Better be careful what you ask for.

â€˜â€˜Your freedom,â€™â€™ he said solemnly. His eyes were wide and guileless, his too-young face shining with honesty. â€˜â€˜I will tell Amelie you were not suited to the work. Sheâ€™ll let you go about your life, such as it is.â€™â€™

Good prize. Too good. Claire swallowed hard. â€˜â€˜And if I lose?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then I eat you,â€™â€™ Myrnin said.

With absolutely no change in expression.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€”you canâ€™t do that.â€™â€™ She pulled up the sleeve on her shirt and held up her wrist so the gold bracelet caught the light.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t be ridiculous,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Of course I can do it. I can do anything I want, child. Without me, there is no future. No one, especially Amelie, begrudges me the occasional tidbit. Youâ€™re hardly large enough to qualify as a meal in any case, and besides, Iâ€™m making it well worth your while.â€™â€™

She took a step back from him. A big one. That crazy smile . . . She glanced toward the door of the other room, where Sam was waiting for her. No wonder Amelie had told him to stay.

Myrnin gave a sad, theatrical sigh. â€˜â€˜Mortals simply arenâ€™t what they used to be,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜A thousand years ago, you would have bartered your immortal soul for a crust of stale bread. Now I canâ€™t even get you to gamble at all, even for your freedom. Really, people have become so . . . boring. So, no bet? Really?â€™â€™

She shook her head. His expression fell into utter disappointment. â€˜â€˜All right,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Then you will write me an essay for tomorrow on the history of alchemy. I canâ€™t expect it to be scholarly, but I do expect you to understand the basis of what it is that I am trying to teach you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re teaching me alchemy?â€™â€™

He seemed surprised, and looked around his laboratory. â€˜â€˜Can you not see what Iâ€™m doing here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But alchemyâ€”itâ€™s crap. I mean, itâ€™s like magic, not science.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Alchemyâ€™s accomplishments are sadly forgotten, and yes, magic is an excellent description for things for which you have no basis to understand. As for science . . .â€™â€™ Myrnin made a rude noise. His eyes had taken on that hectic shine again. â€˜â€˜Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here, Claire. Always open minds. Question everything; accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself. Yes?â€™â€™

She nodded hesitantly, more afraid to disagree with him than convinced. Myrnin grinned at her and slapped her back with stinging force.

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s my girl,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Now. What do you know of this theory of SchrÃ¶dingerâ€™s? The one about the cat?â€™â€™

Â 
Myrnin didnâ€™t go weird until the very end of Claireâ€™s time with him, when he wasâ€”she thoughtâ€”getting tired. She had to admit, there was something fun about working in his lab; he had so much passion, so much enthusiasm for everything. Even for scaring her silly. He was like a little kid, all nervous energy and fiddling hands, quick to laugh, quick to cut her down if she made a mistake. He liked to mock, not correct. He thought if she had to figure it out for herself, sheâ€™d learn it properly.

She checked her watch and found it was almost eight oâ€™clockâ€”late. She was supposed to be home by now. Myrnin was ignoring her, temporarily, as she copied out tables of incomprehensible symbols from a book he said was so rare his was the only copy left. She yawned, stretched, and said, â€˜â€˜I need to be going.â€™â€™

He had his eye fixed to what looked like a clunky, ancient microscope. â€˜â€˜Already?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s late. I should go home.â€™â€™

Myrnin straightened, stared at her, and she saw the storm forming in his expression. â€˜â€˜You are dictating to me now?â€™â€™ he snapped. â€˜â€˜Who is the master? Who is the student?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”sorry, but I canâ€™t stay here all night!â€™â€™

Myrnin walked toward her, and she couldnâ€™t even recognize him. No more manic energy, no more humor, no more sharp, brilliant anger. He looked troubled and clouded.

â€˜â€˜Home,â€™â€™ he repeated. â€˜â€˜Home is where the heart is. Why donâ€™t you leave yours here? Iâ€™ll take very good care of it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜M-myâ€”heart?â€™â€™ She dropped the pen and backed up, putting a big lab table full of chemical equipment between them. Myrnin bared his teeth and put down his fangs. Discovery Channel. King cobra. Oh God, can he spit venom or something? His eyes flared bright, fueled with something that looked to her like . . . fear.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t run,â€™â€™ he said, and sounded annoyed. â€˜â€˜I hate it when they run. Now, tell me what youâ€™re doing here!â€™â€™ he demanded. â€˜â€˜Why do you keep following me? Who are you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s Claire, Myrnin. Iâ€™m your apprentice. Iâ€™m supposed to be here, remember?â€™â€™

That was the wrong thing to say, and she had no idea why. Myrnin stopped, and the light in his eyes intensified to insanity. Ugly, and very scary. When he moved, it was a smooth, sinuous glide. â€˜â€˜My apprentice,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜So I own you, then. I can do as I wish.â€™â€™

King cobra.

â€˜â€˜Sam!â€™â€™ Claire yelled, and bolted for the stairs.

She didnâ€™t get more than two steps. Myrnin came over the table, scattering glass instruments to shatter in glittering sprays on the floor, and she felt his cold, impossibly strong hands close on her ankles and jerk backward. She flailed for something to grab on to, but it was only a tower of books, and it collapsed as she fell.

She hit the floor hard enough to put the world on a sparkling, unsteady hold for a few seconds, and when she blinked away the stars, Myrnin had taken hold of her shoulders and was staring down at her, inches away.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, donâ€™t. Iâ€™m your friend! I wonâ€™t hurt you!â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t know why she said it, but it must have been the right thing to do. His eyes widened, white showing all around, and then the glitter of crazy was replaced by a flood of tears. He patted her cheek, soft and confused, and the fangs folded up in his mouth. â€˜â€˜Dear child,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜What are you doing here? Is Amelie making you come here? She shouldnâ€™t. Youâ€™re far too young and kind. You should tell her you wonâ€™t come back. I donâ€™t want to hurt you, but I will.â€™â€™ He tapped his forehead. â€˜â€˜This is betraying me. This stupid, stupid flesh.â€™â€™ The tapping became violent slaps to his forehead, and tears broke free to run down his cheeks. â€˜â€˜I need to teach someone, but not you. Not you, Claire. Too young. Too small. You bring out the beast.â€™â€™

He stood up and wandered away, tsking over the broken glass, righting the fallen books. As if sheâ€™d ceased to exist. Claire sat up and rolled to her feet, shaky and scared.

Sam was standing just a few feet away. She hadnâ€™t seen or heard him approach, and he hadnâ€™t acted to save her. His face was tense, his eyes uneasy.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s sick,â€™â€™ Claire said.

â€˜â€˜Sick, sick, sick, yes, I am,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. He had his head in his hands now, as if it hurt him. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re all sick. All doomed.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s he talking about?â€™â€™ Claire turned to Sam.

â€˜â€˜Nothing.â€™â€™ He shook his head. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t listen to him.â€™â€™

Myrnin looked up and bared his teeth. His eyes were fierce, but they were sane. Mostly sane, anyway. â€˜â€˜They wonâ€™t tell you the truth, little morsel, but I will. Weâ€™re dying. Seventy years agoâ€”â€™â€™

Sam moved Claire out of his way, and for the first time since sheâ€™d met him, Sam actually looked threatening. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, shut up!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Myrnin sighed. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s time for talking. Iâ€™ve been shut up enough.â€™â€™ He looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed and full of tears. â€˜â€˜Oh, little girl, do you understand? My race is dying. My race is dying and I donâ€™t know how to stop it.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s mouth opened and closed, but she couldnâ€™t find anything to say. Sam turned toward her, fury still radiating off him like heat. â€˜â€˜Ignore him,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜He doesnâ€™t know what heâ€™s saying. We should go, before he remembers what he was about to do. Or forgets what he shouldnâ€™t.â€™â€™

Claire cast a look back over her shoulder at Myrnin, who was holding a broken glass pipe in his hands, trying to fit the two pieces back together. When it wouldnâ€™t go, he dropped it and covered his face with both hands. She could see his shoulders shaking. â€˜â€˜Canâ€™tâ€”shouldnâ€™t somebody help him?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™s no help,â€™â€™ Sam said in a voice flat with anger. â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™s no cure. And youâ€™re not coming back here again if I can do anything about it.â€™â€™

6

Claire kept her silence for about half the ride home, and Sam didnâ€™t offer anything, either. The pressure of questions finally was too much for her. â€˜â€˜He was telling the truth, wasnâ€™t he?â€™â€™ she asked. â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™s some kind of disease. Amelie tried to make me think that not making more vampires was her choice, but thatâ€™s not really true, is it? You canâ€™t. Sheâ€™s the only one who isnâ€™t sick.â€™â€™

Samâ€™s face went tight and still in the glow of the dashboard lights. Sitting in the car was like traveling through space; the dark-tinted windows refused even starlight, so it was just the two of them in their own pocket universe. He had the radio on, and it was playing classical music, something light and sweet.

â€˜â€˜No use telling you to shut up, is there?â€™â€™

She said regretfully, â€˜â€˜Probably not. And I wouldnâ€™t stop trying to find out.â€™â€™

Sam shook his head. â€˜â€˜Do you even have a sense of self-preservation?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane asks me that all the time.â€™â€™

That made Sam smile, despite his obvious unease. â€˜â€˜All right,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Amelieâ€™s sick, too. Itâ€™s getting harder and harder for her to create new vampiresâ€” she was barely able to bring Michael over; I was terrified it would kill her this time. The truth is, weâ€™re all sick. Myrninâ€™s been searching for the causeâ€”and the cureâ€”for seventy years now, but itâ€™s too late now. Heâ€™s too far gone, and the chance that anyone else could help him through it is too small. I canâ€™t let her sacrifice you like this, Claire. I told you that heâ€™s had five assistants. I donâ€™t want you to become another statistic.â€™â€™

Oh God. The vampires were all dying. Claire felt a rush of pure adrenaline, enough to make her hands tremble with the force of it. She felt a fierce surge of something like . . . satisfaction. And then another one, right on top of it, of guilt. What about Sam? What about Michael? Yeah, and what about Oliver and all those scary vamps like him? Wouldnâ€™t it be great to see them go?

â€˜â€˜What if he doesnâ€™t find the cure?â€™â€™ Claire asked. She tried not to give away any of what she was feeling, but she was sure Sam could hear her elevated heartbeat. â€˜â€˜How longâ€”?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire, you need to forget you ever heard any of this. I mean it. There are a lot of secrets in Morganville, but this one could kill you. Say nothing, understand? Not to your friends, and not to Amelie. Do you understand?â€™â€™

His intensity was even more terrifying than Myrninâ€™s, because it was so controlled. She nodded.

It didnâ€™t stop the questions from swirling in her brain, or the possibilities.

Sam let her out at the curb and watched her until she was inside the houseâ€”it was full dark, and there were plenty of hunting vampires out on a clear, cool night like this. Nobody would hurt herâ€”probablyâ€” but Sam wasnâ€™t in the mood to take chances.

Claire shut the door and locked it, leaned against the wood for a long few seconds, and tried to get her head together. She knew her friends would bombard her with questionsâ€”where had she been, was she crazy being out alone in the darkâ€”but she couldnâ€™t answer them, not without violating some order from either Amelie or Sam.

Theyâ€™re dying. It seemed impossible; the vampires seemed so strong, so frightening. But sheâ€™d seen it. Sheâ€™d seen the way Myrnin was decaying, and how afraid Sam was. Even Amelie, perfect icy Amelie, was doomed. Wasnâ€™t that a good thing? And if it was, why did she feel so sick when she thought about Amelie going slowly mad, like Myrnin?

Claire took a few more deep breaths, willed her mind to shut up for a while, and pushed off to walk down the hall.

She didnâ€™t get far. There was stuff piled everywhere. It took her a second, but she recognized it with a shock of horror. â€˜â€˜Oh no,â€™â€™ she whispered. â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€™s stuff.â€™â€™ It was blocking the hallway. Claire shoved a path through the boxes and suitcases piled there. Oh crap. There was the PlayStation, unplugged and looking mournful, in a heap with its game controllers.

â€˜â€˜Hey? Hey guys? Whatâ€™s going on?â€™â€™ Claire called, edging around the barricades. â€˜â€˜Anybody here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire?â€™â€™ Michaelâ€™s shadow appeared at the end of the hall. â€˜â€˜Where the hell have you been?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”got held up late at the lab,â€™â€™ she said. Which wasnâ€™t a lie. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s happening?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane says heâ€™s moving out,â€™â€™ Michael said. He looked deeply angry, but it was covering up hurt, too. â€˜â€˜Glad youâ€™re here. I was about to come looking for you.â€™â€™

Claire heard the indistinct buzz of voices upstairs. Eveâ€™s voice, high and strident. Shaneâ€™s rumbling low. There was about a sixty second delay, and then Shane came down the stairs carrying a box. His face was pale but determined, and although he hesitated for a second when he saw Claire was back, he kept coming down.

â€˜â€˜Seriously, dumbass, what the hell are you doing?â€™â€™ Eve demanded from the top of the stairs. She darted around and got into his path, forcing him to back up and try to get around her. â€˜â€˜Yo, village idiot! Talking to you!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You want to live here with him, fine,â€™â€™ Shane said tightly. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m going. Iâ€™ve had enough.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re moving at night? Do you have a head wound?â€™â€™

He faked Eve to the right and moved past her to the left.

And ran into Claire, who didnâ€™t move. She didnâ€™t say anything, and after a few seconds of silence he said, â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry. Got to do it. I told you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is this about your dad?â€™â€™ she asked. â€˜â€˜About this prejudice youâ€™ve got against Michael now?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Prejudice? Jesus, Claire, you act like heâ€™s still really Michael. Well, heâ€™s not. Heâ€™s one of them. Iâ€™m done with this crap. If I need to Iâ€™ll go break some laws and get my ass thrown in jail. Better that than living here, looking at himâ€”â€™â€™ Shane stopped dead and shut his eyes for a second. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t understand. You just donâ€™t understand, Claire. You didnâ€™t grow up here.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But I did,â€™â€™ Eve said, stepping up closer. â€˜â€˜And I donâ€™t get your paranoid bullshit, either. Michael hasnâ€™t hurt anybody! Especially you, you jerk. So lay off.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I am,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m leaving.â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t move out of his way. â€˜â€˜What about us?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You want to go with me?â€™â€™

She slowly shook her head, and saw the pain in his face for a split second before it turned hard again.

â€˜â€˜Then weâ€™ve got nothing to talk about. And sorry to break it to you, but thereâ€™s no us. Get it straight, Claire, itâ€™s been fun, but youâ€™re not really my typeâ€”â€™â€™

Michael moved. He smacked the box out of Shaneâ€™s hands, and it flew halfway across the room, skidded across the wood floor the rest of the way, and slammed into the baseboard, where it tipped over and spilled things all over the place.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t,â€™â€™ he said, and grabbed Shane by the shoulders and flattened him against the nearest convenient wall. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t you disrespect her. Be an asshole to me, fine. Be an asshole to Eve if you want to; she can give it right back. But donâ€™t you take it out on Claire. Iâ€™ve had enough of your crap, Shane.â€™â€™ He stopped and took a breath, but the anger wasnâ€™t burning out of him, not yet. â€˜â€˜You want to go, get the hell out, but youâ€™d better take a good hard look at yourself, my man. Yeah, your sister died. Your mom died. Your dadâ€™s a violent, prejudiced asshole. Your life has sucked. But you donâ€™t get to be the victim anymore. We keep cutting you breaks, and you keep screwing up, and itâ€™s enough. Iâ€™m not letting you whine anymore about how your life sucks worse than ours.â€™â€™

Shaneâ€™s face went dead white, then red.

And he socked Michael in the face. It was a solid, painful punch, and Claire winced and covered her mouth in sympathy, moving back.

Michael didnâ€™t move. Didnâ€™t even react. He just stared into Shaneâ€™s eyes.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re just like your dad,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You want to stake me now? Cut my head off? Bury me out back? That work for you, friend?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes!â€™â€™ Shane screamed, right in his face, and there was something so frightening in his eyes that Claire couldnâ€™t move. Couldnâ€™t breathe.

Michael let him go, walked over, and picked up a couple of things from the pile that had spilled from the box Shane had been carrying out.

A pointed stake.

A wickedly sharp hunting knife.

â€˜â€˜You came prepared,â€™â€™ he said, and tossed them to Shane, who caught them out of the air. â€˜â€˜Go for it.â€™â€™

Eve screamed and threw herself in front of Michael, who gently but firmly moved her out of the way.

â€˜â€˜Go on,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜We do this now, or we end up doing it later. You want to move out so you can kill me with a clear conscience. Why wait? Come on, man, do it. I wonâ€™t fight.â€™â€™

Shane turned the knife in his hand, the edge slashing the light with every agitated move. Claire felt frozen, winter-cold, unable to think of anything to say or do. What had happened? How did things get this bad? Whatâ€”

Shane took a step toward Michael, a sudden long lunge, and Michael didnâ€™t move. His eyesâ€”they werenâ€™t cold at all, and they werenâ€™t vampire-scary, either. They were human, and they were afraid.

For a long breath, nobody moved, and then Michael said, â€˜â€˜I know you feel like I betrayed you, but I didnâ€™t. This wasnâ€™t about you. It was for me; it was so I didnâ€™t have to be trapped here anymore. I was dying here. I was buried alive.â€™â€™

Shaneâ€™s face twisted, as if that hunting knife had slid into his own guts. â€˜â€˜Maybe you should have stayed dead.â€™â€™ He raised the stake in his right hand.

â€˜â€˜Shane, no!â€™â€™ Eve was screaming, trying to get between them, but Michael was holding her off. She turned on him in a fury. â€˜â€˜Dammit, stop it! You donâ€™t really want to die!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t. He knows I donâ€™t.â€™â€™ Shane paused, trembling. Claire watched his face, his eyes, but she couldnâ€™t tell what he was thinking. What he was feeling. It was just a face, and she didnâ€™t know him at all.

â€˜â€˜You were my friend,â€™â€™ Shane said. He sounded lost. â€˜â€˜You were my best friend. How screwed up is this?â€™â€™

Michael didnâ€™t say anything. He took a step forward, took the knife and stake out of Shaneâ€™s hands, and pulled him into a hug.

And this time, Shane didnâ€™t resist.

â€˜â€˜Asshole,â€™â€™ Michael sighed, and slapped his back.

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Shane muttered, stepped back, and scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. â€˜â€˜What-ever. You started it.â€™â€™ He looked around and focused on Claire. â€˜â€˜You. You were supposed to be home already.â€™â€™

Crap. Sheâ€™d hoped theyâ€™d forget all about her late arrival, in the explosion of Shaneâ€™s freak-out. But of course, heâ€™d try to find a way to shift attention away, and there she was, a sitting duck.

â€˜â€˜Right,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Guess you forgot the number to call and tell us you werenâ€™t dead in a ditch.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m fine,â€™â€™ Claire said.

â€˜â€˜Amy wasnâ€™t. She was murdered and stuffed in our trash can, so excuse me if I got a little bit worried that you might be dead.â€™â€™ Eve crossed her arms, her dark stare getting even more fierce. â€˜â€˜I already checked out there for you, before Shane decided to pull this crap.â€™â€™

Oh man. Somehow, in all of the stress of her afternoon with Myrnin, Claire had forgotten about Amyâ€™s death. Of course Eve was angry; not so much angry, really, as plain terrified.

Claire didnâ€™t dare meet Shaneâ€™s gaze. She looked at Michael instead, helplessly. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I gotâ€”I was at the lab, andâ€”I should have called, I guess.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And you walked home? In the dark?â€™â€™ Another question she had to avoid. She just shrugged. â€˜â€˜You know what we call pedestrians in Morganville? Mobile blood banks.â€™â€™ Michael sounded cold, too. Cold and angry. â€˜â€˜You scared the shit out of us. Thatâ€™s not like you, Claire. What happened?â€™â€™

Shane moved to her side, and she felt a moment of relief that at least he wasnâ€™t angry at her. But then he yanked her shirt away from her neck on the left, then on the right, an efficient rough search that surprised her too much to fight him. He skinned up her right sleeve all the way to the elbow and turned her arm to inspect it.

As he reached for the left, she felt an electric bolt of alarm. The bracelet. Oh God.

She yanked free and shoved him back. â€˜â€˜Hey!â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m fine, okay? Iâ€™m fine! Fang-free!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then show me,â€™â€™ Shane said. His eyes were steady and scared, and that broke her heart. â€˜â€˜Câ€™mon, Claire. Prove it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why do I have to prove anything to you?â€™â€™ She knew she was wrong, and it made her stupidly angry that he cared so much. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t own me, like some vampire! I just said Iâ€™m fine! Why canâ€™t you just trust me?â€™â€™

She would have done anything to take it back, but it was too late, and it hit him like a punch in the face. Heâ€™s been hurt so much. Why did I do that? Why . . .

Michael stepped in between them. He threw a glance over his shoulder at Shane. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll do it.â€™â€™ He was blocking Eve and Shaneâ€™s view. Before Claire could do anything to stop himâ€”as if she could do anythingâ€”he grabbed her left hand and pulled the sleeve up to her elbow.

He stared at the gold bracelet for a paralyzing second before turning her arm first one way, then the other. Then pulling her sleeve back down over the telltale jewelry evidence.

â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s fine,â€™â€™ he said, and met her eyes. â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s telling the truth. Iâ€™d know if a vampire had bitten her. Iâ€™d feel it.â€™â€™

Shaneâ€™s mouth opened, then closed. He took another step back, stared at her for a second, then walked away. Eve called, â€˜â€˜Hey, how about taking some of your crap back upstairs, if youâ€™re planning on staying?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Later,â€™â€™ Shane snapped, and went upstairs without looking back.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d better go talk to him,â€™â€™ Claire said. Michael kept hold of her arm.

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜First, youâ€™d better talk to me.â€™â€™

He hustled her toward the kitchen. Behind them, Eve said, â€˜â€˜Just another great family dinner. Whatever! Iâ€™m taking the last hot dog!â€™â€™

Even with the kitchen door shut, Michael wasnâ€™t taking any chances. He pulled Claire along with him to the pantry, opened the door, and turned on the light. â€˜â€˜Inside,â€™â€™ he ordered. She stepped in, and he shut the door after her. It was cramped with two people, and it smelled like old spices and vinegar, from where Shane had dropped the bottle a few weeks back. Michaelâ€™s voice dropped to a fierce hiss. â€˜â€˜What the hell do you think youâ€™re doing?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What I had to,â€™â€™ she said. She was shaking all over, but she wouldnâ€™t let Michael intimidate her. She was tired, and besides, everybody seemed to be trying to intimidate her these days. She was small; she wasnâ€™t weak. â€˜â€˜It was the only way. Amelieâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You should have talked to me. Talked to us.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Like you came clean with us, when you were a ghost? And did you have a house meeting before you decided to go all the way to vampire?â€™â€™ Claire shot back. â€˜â€˜Right. Well, youâ€™re not the only one who can make choices, Michael. This was mine; I made it; Iâ€™ll live with it. And itâ€™ll keep all of you safe.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Who says?â€™â€™ Michael asked bluntly. â€˜â€˜Amelie? Youâ€™re trusting vampires now?â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t look away from his big blue eyes. â€˜â€˜I trust you.â€™â€™

He suppressed a smile. â€˜â€˜Dumbass.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Dork.â€™â€™ She shoved him, just a little, and he let her do it. He even pretended to stagger, although she didnâ€™t imagine vampires got knocked off balance very often, except by other vampires. â€˜â€˜Michael, she didnâ€™t give me any choice. Shaneâ€™s dadâ€”even though he left, he did damage. Shane wasnâ€™t going to be trusted here, and you know what happens ifâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If they donâ€™t trust him,â€™â€™ Michael said somberly. â€˜â€˜Yeah. I know. Look, donâ€™t worry about Shane. Iâ€™ll protect him. I told youâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You may not be able to. Look, no offense, but youâ€™ve only been a vampire for a couple of weeks. I have library books that have been out longer. You canâ€™t promiseâ€”â€™â€™

Michael reached out and put one cool finger across her lips, stilling them instantly. His blue eyes were intense, narrow, and very focused.

â€˜â€˜Shhhh,â€™â€™ he whispered, and turned out the light.

Claire heard the kitchen door thump, and then the hard-heeled clonk of Eveâ€™s shoes crossing the wood floor. â€˜â€˜Hello? Helllloooooooo? Great. Why do all my housemates sulk like little girls or vanish when the dishes are dirty? If you can hear me, Michael Glass, Iâ€™m talking to you!â€™â€™

Claire snorted, almost laughed. Michaelâ€™s hand closed over her mouth, stifling her. He tugged on her arm, and she followed him, moving carefully so as not to knock anything off the shelf. She heard the scrape of the door opening at the rear of the pantry, the tiny little bolt-hole, and bent down to go through it. The other side was pitch-black, with not even the tiny crack of light that the pantry had enjoyed, and Claire felt a flutter of panic. Michaelâ€™s hand pushed her onward, and she stepped hesitantly into the close, thick dark. Behind her, she heard him close the door with a very soft click, and bright electric light flooded over the floor.

â€˜â€˜Here,â€™â€™ Michael said, and handed her the flashlight. â€˜â€˜She might come looking for us here, but not for a while.â€™â€™

It was a secret hidey-hole, one that Claire had been shoved into on her very first morning in the Glass House; no exits, only the one entrance. Sheâ€™d thought from the beginning it looked like someplace a vampire might stash a couple of handy coffins, but it was empty. And as far as she knew, Michael slept on a Serta.

â€˜â€˜I meant to ask you. What is this?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Root cellar,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜This house was built before refrigerators, and ice deliveries were only so-so. This was where they kept most of their vegetables.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜So . . . not a vampire hideout?â€™â€™

Michael stretched his long legs out with a sigh and leaned against the wall. God, he was pretty. No wonder Eve was willing to overlook the lack of pulse. â€˜â€˜Not so far as Iâ€™ve ever known, but the vampires in Morganville never really had to hide. Only the humans did.â€™â€™

Which wasnâ€™t what they were here to talk about, she supposed. She crossed her arms and felt the bracelet bite into the skin of her wrist under the shirt. â€˜â€˜Whatever lecture you were going to give me, itâ€™s too late. I signed, itâ€™s done, Iâ€™ve got the souvenir bracelet.â€™â€™ Which made her suddenly, strangely want to cry. â€˜â€˜Michaelâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s she asking you to do?â€™â€™ Which was so right-on that she felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes and in her nose get even higher.

â€˜â€˜Um . . .â€™â€™ She couldnâ€™t tell him; Amelie and Sam had both made it clear. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s just extra schoolwork. She wants me to study some things.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What things?â€™â€™ Michaelâ€™s voice got sharp and worried. â€˜â€˜Claireâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s nothing. Science stuff. I would have probably been doing it anyway, but itâ€™s justâ€”itâ€™s a lot more time, and I donâ€™t know how Iâ€™m going toâ€”â€™â€™ Keep it from Shane. Because she had to, right? Bad enough he hated Michael for being a vampire, but what was he going to think about her, selling herself to Amelie? â€˜â€˜I just donâ€™t know how Iâ€™m going to do all this.â€™â€™

And suddenly, she was crying. She didnâ€™t mean to, but there it was, boiling out of her. She expected Michael to do the Shane thing, come and comfort her, but he didnâ€™t. He sat right where he was and watched her. When her sobs died down, and she swiped her hands across her wet cheeks, he said, â€˜â€˜Finished?â€™â€™

She gulped and nodded.

â€˜â€˜You made the choice; now you want to have it both waysâ€”the benefits, but not the consequences. You canâ€™t, Claire. Itâ€™s coming home to roost, and youâ€™d better handle it now rather than later.â€™â€™ Michaelâ€™s tone softened, just a little. â€˜â€˜Look, Iâ€™m not an asshole; I know how scared you are. But youâ€™re a player in this town now. Youâ€™re not the fragile little thing we took in for protection. Youâ€™re trying to protect us. That means you may not be as well liked anymore, and youâ€™re going to have to sack up about that.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ She felt dazed. Somehow, this wasnâ€™t how sheâ€™d expected all this to go. Especially Michaelâ€™s cool, challenging look, and the lack of hugging.

â€˜â€˜Signing the contract isnâ€™t the last choice youâ€™re going to have to make,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s the choices you make from now on that show whether you did the right thing or not.â€™â€™ He stood up, pale and strong and as gorgeous as an angel in the glow of Claireâ€™s flashlight. â€˜â€˜And stop lying to me. You ought to get off to a better start.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”what?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You said what Amelie has you doing is just more studying,â€™â€™ he said grimly. â€˜â€˜And I can tell when youâ€™re lying. No, Iâ€™m not going to ask, because I can tell it scares you, but just remember, vampires know, all right?â€™â€™

He swung the door open and ducked out. Claire stared after him, openmouthed, but by the time sheâ€™d scrambled through and switched off the flashlight, Michael was already gone, out of the pantry. In fact, by the time Claire followed, Michael was already sitting on the couch, Eve curled next to him with her head on his chest. They were watching something on TV, and Eveâ€™s gaze followed Claire as she hurried past them, mumbling an apology.

She stopped on the stairs and looked back at them. Two people she cared about, wrapped in a moment of warmth and happiness.

Michael was a vampire, and that meant that Michael was dying. Like Myrnin. He was going to suffer and lose his mind and hurt people.

He could even hurt Eve, no matter how much he cared about her.

Tears pricked at her eyes, and she felt suddenly short of breath. When it had been just an abstract problem, just Morganville minus vampires equals safety, then that had been one thing, but it wasnâ€™t abstract. It was people she knew, liked, even loved. She wouldnâ€™t shed any tears over Oliver, but how could she not care about Michael? Or Sam? Or even Amelie?

Claire picked up her book bag and went upstairs.

Shaneâ€™s door was shut. She knocked. He didnâ€™t answer for a long moment, and then said, â€˜â€˜If I ignore you, will you go away?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜Might as well come in, then.â€™â€™

He was flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling, hands under his head, and he didnâ€™t look at her as she entered and closed the door behind her.

â€˜â€˜So is this how itâ€™s going to go?â€™â€™ she asked. â€˜â€˜I do something dumb like stay out late; you get mad and run away; I come and apologize and make everything better?â€™â€™

Shane, surprised, looked at her, then said, â€˜â€˜Well, that kinda works for me, yeah.â€™â€™

Claire thought about Michael, about the suddenly grown-up way heâ€™d treated her. She sat down on the bed next to Shane, staring down at the floor for a few seconds to gather her courage, and then she pulled back her sleeve to expose the bracelet.

Shane didnâ€™t make a sound. He slowly sat up, staring at the shiny gold band with its Founderâ€™s Symbol.

â€˜â€˜We need to talk,â€™â€™ she said. She felt sick and terrified, but she knew it was the right choice. The only other thing to do was lie, but she couldnâ€™t keep on lying. Michael was right about that.

Shane could have done anythingâ€”he could have run away, he could have thrown her out of his room. He could even have hit her.

Instead, he took her hand in his, bent his head, and said, â€˜â€˜Tell me.â€™â€™

Â 
Eve wasnâ€™t so understanding. â€˜â€˜Are you out of your mind?â€™â€™ She picked up the handiest thing to throwâ€”it happened to be the PlayStation controllerâ€”and Shane quickly, carefully de-gamed her. Claire thought he probably wouldnâ€™t have moved that fast if Eve had grabbed, oh, say, a book.

â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s be adults about this,â€™â€™ Michael said. They were downstairs again, together, although Shane and Michael were still clearly standing at opposite poles. It was getting lateâ€”eleven alreadyâ€”and Claire was feeling the strain of a very long, hard day. In fact, she yawned, which only made Eve shoot her a look of absolute exasperation.

â€˜â€˜Oh, Iâ€™m sorry, are we keeping you awake? Michael, how the hell do we be adults about this when one of us isnâ€™t an adult?â€™â€™ Eve leveled a shaking finger at her. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re a kid, Claire. As in, youâ€™re still a wet-behind-the-ears dumbass who hasnâ€™t even been in this town a couple of months. You have no idea what youâ€™re doing!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe I donâ€™t,â€™â€™ Claire agreed. Her voice was almost steady, which pleased and surprised her. She didnâ€™t like having Eve angry at her. She didnâ€™t like having anyone angry at her. â€˜â€˜The thing is, itâ€™s done. I made the choice; that discussion was over before we had it. I wanted you to know, though. I didnâ€™t want toâ€™â€™â€”her eyes met Michaelâ€™s brieflyâ€”â€˜â€˜lie to you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why the hell not? Everybody around here lies. Michael lied about being a ghost. Shane lies about shit all the time. Why not you, too?â€™â€™

Shane groaned. â€˜â€˜Yo, Drama Princess, want to tone it down a little? Somewhere, Sandra Bernhard wants her tantrum back.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, like you donâ€™t throw a hissy every time somebody trips your angst switch!â€™â€™

Claire looked helplessly at Michael, who was having a hard time not smiling. He shrugged and took a step forward. That meant, of course, that Shane backed up. â€˜â€˜Eve,â€™â€™ Michael said, ignoring Shane for the moment.

â€˜â€˜Give the girl some credit. At least she told you, instead of letting you figure it out on your own.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, and she told me last!â€™â€™ Eve glared at the two boys, hands on her hips.

â€˜â€˜Boyfriend,â€™â€™ Shane said, holding up his hand.

â€˜â€˜Landlord,â€™â€™ Michael chimed in.

â€˜â€˜Crap,â€™â€™ Eve sighed. â€˜â€˜Right, next time you sell your soul to the devil, I get first contact! Girl solidarity, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Umâ€”okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Dumbass,â€™â€™ Eve sighed, defeated. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t believe you did that. I worked so hard to get away from that Protection crap, and here you are, all . . . Protected. I just wanted you to beâ€”safe. And Iâ€™m not sure this is.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Me neither. But I swear, it was the best thing I could think of. And at least itâ€™s Amelie. Sheâ€™s okay, right?â€™â€™

They all looked at each other. Shane said, â€˜â€˜But you wonâ€™t tell us what sheâ€™s got you doing that keeps you out late.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. Iâ€”I canâ€™t do that.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then sheâ€™s not okay,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜And neither are you.â€™â€™

But none of them had any good suggestions for how to fix it, and Claire fell asleep on the couch with her head in Shaneâ€™s lap as he and Michael and Eve kept talking, and talking, and talking. It was three a.m. when she woke up. Shane hadnâ€™t moved, but she was covered with a blanket, and he was sound asleep, sitting straight up.

Claire yawned, groaned at sore muscles, and rolled to her feet. â€˜â€˜Shane. Up. You need to go to bed.â€™â€™

He woke up cute, softened by sleep. â€˜â€˜Come with?â€™â€™ He was only half joking. She remembered being curled up with him in her bed the night sheâ€™d been so scared; heâ€™d been careful then, but she wasnâ€™t sure she could count on that kind of self-restraint at three a.m., when he was half-awake.

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t,â€™â€™ she said reluctantly. â€˜â€˜Not that I donâ€™t want to. . . .â€™â€™

He smiled and stretched out on his side on the couch, leaving a narrow space between his warm, solid body and the cushions. â€˜â€˜Stay,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I promise, no clothes will come off. Well, maybe shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?â€™â€™

She kicked hers off and climbed over him to slip into that small pocket, and sighed in relief as his body pressed against hers. She didnâ€™t even need the blanket, but he put it over the two of them, anyway, and then combed her hair back from her neck and kissed her on the soft, vulnerable skin.

â€˜â€˜You were leaving,â€™â€™ she whispered. He stopped moving. As far as she could tell, he stopped breathing. â€˜â€˜You were leaving, and you didnâ€™t even know if I was okay.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. I was going to go look for you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜After you packed.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire, I didnâ€™t even know you hadnâ€™t come home until Eve came upstairs to yell at me. I was going to look for you.â€™â€™

She looked back at him, over her shoulder, and saw the desperation hiding in his eyes.

â€˜â€˜Please,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Please believe me.â€™â€™

Against her will, even against her better judgment, she did believe him. She felt safe, anchored against the troubled world by the heat of his body against hers.

His arm went around her waist, and she felt absolutely protected.

â€˜â€˜I wonâ€™t let anything happen to you,â€™â€™ he said. It was a promise he probably couldnâ€™t keep, but in the night, in the dark, it meant everything to her. â€˜â€˜Hey.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Wanna fool around?â€™â€™

She did.

Â 
She must have drifted off to sleep, because she woke up with her heart pounding, and feeling like there was something really, really wrong. For a second, as she came awake, she thought she smelled smoke, and that propelled her upright in a surge of panic. The house had almost burned once already. . . .

No, not fire, but something was definitely wrong. There was something in the whole atmosphere of the house. The smoke had been some kind of signal, from it to her. A get your butt out of bed signal.

Shane was still lying next to her on the couch, but he was already awake, too, and in the next second he rolled off to his feet as if heâ€™d also felt it.

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s happening?â€™â€™ Claire felt a jolt go through her like electricity. â€˜â€˜Shane?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Somethingâ€™s wrong.â€™â€™

They both froze as they heard the sudden loud blare of a siren. It sounded as though it was right in front of the house.

Claire heard feet on the stairs and saw Eve hurrying down in a satin nightgown and fluffy black robe. Eveâ€™s face was bare of any Goth makeup, and she looked flushed and anxious and scared.

â€˜â€˜What is it?â€™â€™ Eve called. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s going on?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Something bad. Canâ€™t you feel it?â€™â€™

This was an event; they were all up and it was barely six a.m.

Eve plunged down the steps and yanked up the cord to raise the blinds on the window that faced the front yard. They all looked out. A police car was in the middle of the street, siren still wailing, and its headlights cast a hot circle of light on a maroon sedan stopped on the street, its driverâ€™s-side door open. Its lights were still on, and there was a body slumped on the road next to it.

The windows were dark-tinted.

It was a vampireâ€™s car.

Eve screamed, spun, and looked at them with wide, terrified eyes. â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™s Michael?â€™â€™ she asked, and Claire stupidly looked behind her, as if she were going to find him standing there.

They all looked back at the street, the car, the body.

â€˜â€˜It canâ€™t be,â€™â€™ Claire whispered. Shane was already moving for the door at a flat run, but Eve just stood there staring, frozen. Claire put her arm around her and felt her shaking.

She saw Shane blow through the gate at the fence and run toward the body; the cop whoâ€™d just emerged from the patrol car grabbed him, slung him around, and slammed him face-first onto the hood. Shane was yelling something.

â€˜â€˜I need to go out there,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Stay here.â€™â€™

Eve nodded numbly. Claire hated leaving her there, but Shane was going to get himself arrested if he kept it up, and who knew what could happen to him in jail?

She was only to the porch when another police car turned the corner, lights flashing, siren adding its howl to the chaos. It braked beside the first one, and another policeman got out and moved to where Shane was being restrained.

Claire didnâ€™t recognize the cop who had Michael facedown on the hood, but she knew the new arrival. It was Richard Morrell, Monicaâ€™s big brother. He wasnâ€™t a bad guy, although he was definitely from the same icky gene pool. He took over for the other cop, who backed away.

â€˜â€˜Shane! Dammit, Shane, calm the hell down. This is a crime scene; I canâ€™t let you run out there, do you understand? Calm down!â€™â€™

Richard was occupied with keeping Shane under control, so the other policeman went to crouch next to the body on the street. The body. Claire took a step closer, and the policeman produced a flashlight and focused it on the face of the man lying in the street. Red hair flared in the light.

Not Michael.

Sam.

There was a stake in his chest, and he was still and white and not moving.

â€˜â€˜Richard!â€™â€™ the cop yelled. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s Sam Glass! Looks dead to me!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sam,â€™â€™ Claire whispered. â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™

Sam had been kind to her, and somebody had dragged him out of his car and put a stake through his chest.

â€˜â€˜Shit!â€™â€™ Richard spat. â€˜â€˜Shane, sit your ass down. Down, right now. Donâ€™t make me handcuff you.â€™â€™ He yanked Shane by the collar of his T-shirt and sat him down on the curb, glared at him for a second, then came over to look at the body. â€˜â€˜Holy Mother ofâ€” grab his feet.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ The other copâ€”his name tag said FENTONâ€”looked at him with a frown. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s a crime scene; we canâ€™tâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s still alive, you idiot. Grab his damn feet, Fenton! If he burns, heâ€™s dead.â€™â€™

The first rays of sun crept over the horizon and fell on Samâ€™s still form.

And Claire saw him start to smoke.

â€˜â€˜What are you waiting for?â€™â€™ Richard shouted. â€˜â€˜Pick him up!â€™â€™ The other cop, after a blank hesitation, grabbed Sam by the feet. Richard took him under the arms, and together they bodily threw him into the maroon sedan, the one with tinted windows, and slammed the door shut. Fenton started for the driverâ€™s side, but Richard got there first. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll drive,â€™â€™ Richard said. â€˜â€˜The woundâ€™s still fresh. Heâ€™s got a chance if I can get him to Amelie.â€™â€™

Fenton backed off. Richard gunned the engine and slammed the door even as he was peeling rubber toward the end of the street.

Officer Fenton glared at Shane. â€˜â€˜You going to give me trouble, boy?â€™â€™ he demanded. Claire sure hoped not. This man was twice the size of Richard Morrell, twice as old, and he looked like a human pit bull.

Shane held up his hands. â€˜â€˜No trouble from me, Officer. Sir.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You two see what happened here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜I was asleep. We all were.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜All in the same room?â€™â€™ the cop grunted, and looked her over, from her bed-head to the wrinkled clothes. â€˜â€˜Didnâ€™t take you for the type.â€™â€™

She couldnâ€™t figure out what he meant for a few seconds, and then felt a wave of hot embarrassment sweep over her. â€˜â€˜No, I meanâ€”Eve was in her own room. We were asleep on the couch.â€™â€™

Shane said, â€˜â€˜Yeah, we were all asleep. Woke up when we heard the siren.â€™â€™ Which wasnâ€™t quite true, was it? Theyâ€™d woken up, and then heard the siren. But Claire wasnâ€™t sure why that would be important.

The cop tapped on a handheld device, still frowning. â€˜â€˜Ought to be four of you in the house. Whereâ€™re the other two?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eveâ€™s still inside. And Michaelâ€”â€™â€™ Where the hell was Michael? â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know where he is.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll go see if heâ€™s in his room,â€™â€™ Shane volunteered, but the cop froze him in place with another thunderous scowl.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ll sit your ass down on that curb and be quiet. You, whatâ€™s your name?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire Danvers.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire, get in there, find out if Michael Glass is inside. If heâ€™s not, find out if his car is missing.â€™â€™

Claire stared at him, wide-eyed. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t think . . . ?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t think anything until I have facts. I need to know whoâ€™s here, who isnâ€™t, and work from there.â€™â€™ The cop transferred his dark stare to Shane, who was starting to get up. â€˜â€˜I already told you, sit your ass down, Collins.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t have anything to do with this!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If I had to put together a list of prime suspects out to stake some vampires, youâ€™d be right at the top, so yeah, you do. Sit down.â€™â€™

Shane sat, looking furious. Claire silently begged him not to do anything stupid, and hurried back into the house. Eve was upstairs dressingâ€”black baby-doll T with a bling-enhanced cartoon Elmer Fudd on the front, and black jeans with clunky Doc Martens.

â€˜â€˜It wasnâ€™tâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know. I saw,â€™â€™ Eve said. Her voice sounded stuffy, as though sheâ€™d been crying, or was about to. â€˜â€˜It was Sam, right? Is he alive? Orâ€”whatever?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know. Richard said something like he could still be okay.â€™â€™ Claire gripped the doorknob tightly, and glanced down the hall. Michaelâ€™s door was closed. It was always closed. â€˜â€˜Did you lookâ€”?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™ Eve took a deep breath and stood up. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll go with you.â€™â€™

Michaelâ€™s door was unlocked, and it was completely dark inside. Claire flipped on the lights. Michaelâ€™s bed was empty, neatly made, and the room looked absolutely normal. Eve checked the closets, under the bed, even the master bathroom.

â€˜â€˜No sign of him,â€™â€™ she said breathlessly. â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s check the garage.â€™â€™

The garage was a shed in the back, not attached to the house; the two of them went out the back kitchen door and crossed the rutted driveway. The shedâ€™s doors were closed.

Eve opened one side, Claire the other.

Michaelâ€™s car was gone.

â€˜â€˜What about work? Could he be at work?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜TJâ€™s doesnâ€™t open until ten,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Why would he be in there at six?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Inventory?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You think theyâ€™re going to call a vampire in at six a.m. to do inventory?â€™â€™ Eve slammed the shed door and kicked it for good measure. â€˜â€˜Where the hell is he? And why the hell donâ€™t I have a working cell phone? Why donâ€™t you?â€™â€™

Hers had been lost, Eveâ€™s had been smashed; both of them miserably looked at each other for a few seconds, then, without a word, walked to the front yard where Shane was still sitting on the curb. If anybody could sit rebelliously, he was doing it.

â€˜â€˜Give me your phone,â€™â€™ Eve demanded and held out her hand. Shane looked at her with a frown. â€˜â€˜Now, dumbass. Michaelâ€™s not inside, and his carâ€™s gone.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Michaelâ€™s got a car? Since when?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Since the vampires issued him one. He didnâ€™t tell you?â€™â€™

Shane just shook his head. A muscle jumped in his jaw. â€˜â€˜He doesnâ€™t tell me shit, Eve. Not sinceâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not since you started treating him like the Evil Dead? Yeah. Imagine that.â€™â€™

He silently handed over his cell phone and looked away, staring at the street where Samâ€™s body had been tossed. Claire wondered if he was thinking about his dadâ€™s crusade, about how the only good vampire is a dead vampire.

Claire wondered if he really, deep down, still agreed.

Eve dialed and put the phone to her ear. For a tense few seconds nothing happened, and then Claire saw relief melt the tension out of Eveâ€™s face and body. â€˜â€˜Michael! Where the hell are you?â€™â€™ Pause. â€˜â€˜Where?â€™â€™ Pause. â€˜â€˜Oh. Okay. I need to tell youâ€”â€™â€™ Pause. â€˜â€˜You know.â€™â€™ Pause. â€˜â€˜Yeah, weâ€™ll . . . talk later.â€™â€™

Eve closed the phone and handed it back. Shane slipped it in his pocket again, eyebrows up and signaling questions.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s okay,â€™â€™ she said. Her eyes had gone dark and narrow.

â€˜â€˜And?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And nothing. Heâ€™s fine. End of story.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Bullshit,â€™â€™ Shane said, and tugged her down to sit next to him on the curb. â€˜â€˜Spill it, Eve. Now.â€™â€™

Claire sat, too, on Eveâ€™s other side. The curb felt cold and hard, but the good thing was that the patrol car blocked Fentonâ€™s view of them. He was talking to the occupants of another car, vampire-tinted, who had pulled up behind the cruiser.

â€˜â€˜He was downtown,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜At the Eldersâ€™ Council. They pulled him in there early this morning.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Who did?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The Big Three.â€™â€™ Oliver, Amelie and the mayor, Richard and Monicaâ€™s dad. â€˜â€˜Amelie just got word about Sam. But Michaelâ€™s not hurt or anything.â€™â€™ An unspoken for now was at the end of that. Eve was worried. She bent her head closer to Shaneâ€™s, lowered her voice even further, and said, â€˜â€˜You didnâ€™t have anything to do with what happened to Sam, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Jesus, Eve!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m only asking becauseâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know why youâ€™re asking,â€™â€™ he whispered back fiercely. â€˜â€˜Hell no. If I were going to go after some vampire, it wouldnâ€™t have been Sam. Iâ€™d be staking somebody like Oliver, make it worth my time. Speaking of Oliver, heâ€™d be my number one suspect.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Vampires donâ€™t kill their own.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜He arranged for Brandon to die,â€™â€™ Claire offered. â€˜â€˜I think Oliverâ€™s capable of anything. And heâ€™d love to see Amelie even more isolated.â€™â€™ She swallowed hard. â€˜â€˜She told me once that Sam was safer if she didnâ€™t keep him close. I guess she was right.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Doesnâ€™t matter. Oliver keeps his hands clean, no matter what. Some broke-ass human is going to burn for this, and you know it,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜And it happened in front of our house, and nobodyâ€™s forgotten what happened with my dad. You donâ€™t think weâ€™re being set up?â€™â€™

Crap. Shane was right. The fact that Michael was safe was good, but it was also a double-edged sword; it meant that Michael had been gone when Sam had been attacked.

And Michael was the only one of them whose word might be worth anything to the vampires.

Sure enough, Fenton came back around the cruiser and stared at the three of them for a few seconds, then said, â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re being taken in for questioning. All three of you. Get in the backseat.â€™â€™

Shane didnâ€™t move. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not going anywhere.â€™â€™

The policeman sighed and leaned against the quarter panel. â€˜â€˜Son, youâ€™ve got a lot of attitude, and I respect that. But get it straight: either you get in my car, or you get in their car.â€™â€™ He pointed toward the silent dark sedan, the one with vampires inside. â€˜â€˜And I promise you, that wonâ€™t end so well. You get me?â€™â€™

Shane nodded, stood, and gave Eve a hand up. Claire stayed seated. She pulled up the sleeve on her left arm. The bracelet glittered and glimmered in the morning light, and she held it up for Fentonâ€™s clear view.

His eyes widened. â€˜â€˜Is that . . . ?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I want to see my Patron,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Please.â€™â€™ He went off to talk on his radio, then came back and jerked his head at Shane and Eve. â€˜â€˜In the backseat,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re going to the station. You, kid . . .â€™â€™ He nodded toward the other sedan. â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™ll take you to Amelie.â€™â€™

Claire swallowed hard and exchanged a look with Shane, then Eve. That hadnâ€™t been her plan. She wanted them all to stay together. How could she keep them safe if they got separated?

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Come with us.â€™â€™

Truthfully, that was starting to sound like a better idea. The vampires werenâ€™t going to be happy, and her shiny gold bracelet didnâ€™t exempt her from suspicion. Amelie could still order her hurt, or killed.

â€˜â€˜Okay,â€™â€™ Claire said. Shane looked massively relieved as he ducked his head and entered the backseat of the cruiser. Eve followed him in.

The cop slammed the door after Eve, before Claire could get in the patrol car.

â€˜â€˜Hey!â€™â€™ Shane yelled, and hit the car window. He and Eve were both trying to get out, but the doors werenâ€™t opening.

Fenton grabbed her by the arm and hustled her over to the other sedan, opened the door, and put her in the backseat before she could protest. Claire heard the faint click of locks engaging, and sat very still, trying to see through the gloom.

One of the vampires flicked on the overhead light. Oh crap. It was two of her not-favorite people. The woman was pale as snow, with white-blond hair and eyes of palest silver. Gretchen. Her partner, Hans, was a hard man made of angles, with graying short hair, and a stony expression.

â€˜â€˜I wish weâ€™d gotten the boy instead,â€™â€™ Gretchen said, clearly disappointed. Her voice was low-pitched, throaty, with a heavy foreign accent. Not quite German, but not quite anything else, either. An old accent, Claire thought. â€˜â€˜He was so rude to us when last we spoke. And surely his father deserves a lesson, even if the boy does not.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelie says just bring this one,â€™â€™ Hans said, and put the car in gear. He looked at Claire in the rear-view mirror. â€˜â€˜Seat belt, please.â€™â€™

She had trouble wrapping her head around thatâ€” why did he care?â€”but she clicked the safety restraint shut and sat back. Like the ride in Samâ€™s car the day before, she couldnâ€™t see a thing outside the windows except a faint gray dot where the sun was rising.

â€˜â€˜Where are you taking me?â€™â€™ she asked. Gretchen laughed. Claire caught the flash of fangs, but Gretchen didnâ€™t really need them to be scary. Not at all.

â€˜â€˜To the Eldersâ€™ Council,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You remember it, Claire. You had such a good time there when last we visited.â€™â€™

7

There was Morganvilleâ€”the dry, dusty, run-down town that was all most people ever sawâ€”and then there was Founderâ€™s Square, a lush little piece of Europe where people with a pulse werenâ€™t welcome. Claire had been inside once, and it wasnâ€™t a fond memory; no matter how cute the little cafÃ©s were, or how nice the shops, she could see only the center of the square in the park, with the cage where theyâ€™d locked up Shane.

Where theyâ€™d been meaning to burn him alive as punishment for something he hadnâ€™t even done.

For some reason, Claire had expected to be parked in the same place as last timeâ€”outside of the square, at the police checkpointâ€”but of course that wasnâ€™t possible, was it? A few of the older vampires might be able to stand the sun, but they wouldnâ€™t willingly stroll around in it. Morganville was built for the convenience of vampires, not humans, and when Claireâ€™s door opened, and Gretchen impatiently gestured for her to get out, they were in an underground parking garage. It was full of cars, all nice ones, with darkened windows. Like a Beverly Hills mall or something.

There were armed guards. One of them started toward them as Gretchen pulled Claire out of the car, but Hans flashed him a badge, and the other guyâ€” vampire, presumablyâ€”backed off.

â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s go,â€™â€™ Hans said. â€˜â€˜Your Patron is waiting.â€™â€™

Gretchen chuckled. Not a happy sound. Claire stumbled over her own feet trying to keep up as the two vampires set off at a brisk walk, Gretchenâ€™s iron-hard grip on her upper arm setting in with bruising force. Claire was short of breath by the time they got to a long double flight of stairs, which the vampires took at a jog. At the top of the stairs was some kind of fire door, with a code panel. Claire didnâ€™t dare try to sneak a look at what Hans entered; knowing the vampiresâ€™ paranoia, it wouldnâ€™t do her any good. The machines were probably calibrated to exclude anybody with a heartbeat.

Which made her wonder: was Myrnin behind the townâ€™s security, too? Was that something else she was supposed to learn? It could really come in handy if she could persuade him to show her. . . .

She was obsessing on technicalities to avoid feeling the terror, but as soon as the door lock released, she had nothing else to focus on except fear, and it washed over her in a sticky, cold wave. Gretchen seemed to sense it. She looked down at Claire with those cool, mirror gray eyes, and smiled. â€˜â€˜Worried, little one?â€™â€™ she asked sweetly. â€˜â€˜Worried for yourself, or for your friends?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Worried for Sam,â€™â€™ Claire said. Gretchen lost her smile, and for just an instant, she seemed honestly off balance and surprised. â€˜â€˜Is he alive?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Alive?â€™â€™ Gretchenâ€™s armor slid firmly back in place, and she raised a slender arched eyebrow. â€˜â€˜He may yet be saved, if that is what you mean. I suppose your friend Shane will have to try again.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane didnâ€™t do anything!â€™â€™

This time, Gretchenâ€™s smile got positively cruel. â€˜â€˜Perhaps not,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Perhaps not yet. But be patient. He will. Itâ€™s in his nature, as much as killing is in ours.â€™â€™

Claire had to save her breath, because they were walking again, big strides across thick maroon carpet. Claireâ€™s first impression of the Eldersâ€™ Council building had been that it was a funeral home; it still felt like that to her, all hushed and quiet and elegant. Theyâ€™d had roses in the last time, when the vampire theyâ€™d thought Shane killed had been lying in state. She didnâ€™t see any flowers this time.

Gretchen led her down a hallway and through thick double doors, into the round entry hall. There were four armed vampire guards in the room, and Gretchen and Hans had to stop and show ID, and surrender their weapons. Claire got searchedâ€”quick, competent pats from cold hands that made her shiver.

And then the doors opened, and she was pulled into a big round room with a high ceiling, chandeliers like falls of ice, and dim, expensive paintings on the walls. She hadnâ€™t imagined the smell of roses. In the center of the room stood a massive round conference table, surrounded by chairs, and in the center was a vase filled with red, red blooms.

Nobody was at the table. Instead, a group of at least ten was standing at the other side of the room, looking down.

Some of them turned, and Claireâ€™s gaze fixed irresistibly on Oliver. She hadnâ€™t seen him since heâ€™d threatened her life, trying to lure Shane out of hiding, and as he stood up, now she had a flash of that again, how icy and hard his hands had been around her throat. How scared sheâ€™d been.

Oliver snarled, low in his throat but loud enough to be heard, and his eyes were like a wolfâ€™s. Not human at all.

â€˜â€˜I see you brought us a criminal for punishment,â€™â€™ he said, and moved toward them.

Gretchen looked at Hans, and then shoved Claire behind her. â€˜â€˜Stop,â€™â€™ she said. Oliver did, mostly in surprise. â€˜â€˜The girl asked to come, to see her Patron. We have no proof she is guilty.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If she lives in that house, then sheâ€™s guilty,â€™â€™ Oliver said. â€˜â€˜You surprise me, Gretchen. When did you begin taking the side of the breathers?â€™â€™

She laughed, but it had a bright, false sound to it. She said something in a language that Claire didnâ€™t recognize; Oliver spat something back, and Hans put a big hand on Claireâ€™s shoulder.

â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s our responsibility,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜And sheâ€™s Amelieâ€™s property. Nothing to do with you, Oliver. Move.â€™â€™

Oliver, smiling, raised his hands and backed away. Hans moved Claire forward, past him, and she felt his stare on the back of her neck, as sharp as knives.

The circle of people parted as Hans approached. It was mostly (Claire guessed) vampires; they didnâ€™t wear tags or anything, but most of them had the same cool, pale skin, the same whip-snake quickness when they moved. In fact, the only two humansâ€”breathers?â€”she saw were Mayor Morrell, looking miserably uncomfortable as he stood near the edge of the group, and his son Richard. Richardâ€™s uniform was damp in places, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that it was wet with blood.

Samâ€™s blood.

Sam was lying on his back on the carpet, with his head cradled in Amelieâ€™s lap. The elder vampire was kneeling, and her hands were stroking gently through Samâ€™s bright copper hair. He looked pale and dead, and the stake was still in his chest.

Amelieâ€™s eyes were closed, but opened as Hans pushed Claire toward her. For a long second the older vampire didnâ€™t seem to recognize Claire at all, and then weariness flashed through her expression; she looked down at Sam, her fingers trailing across his cheek.

â€˜â€˜Claire, assist me,â€™â€™ she said, as if they were continuing a conversation Claire hadnâ€™t even been in on. â€˜â€˜Give her room, please.â€™â€™

Hans let go, and Claire felt a wild urge to run, run out of this room, get Shane and just go, anywhere but here. There was something too big to understand in Amelieâ€™s eyes, something she didnâ€™t want to know. She started to take a step back, but Amelieâ€™s hand flashed out and grabbed her wrist and pulled, and Claire fell to her knees on the other side of Samâ€™s body.

He looked dead.

Really, really dead.

â€˜â€˜When I tell you, take hold of the wood and pull,â€™â€™ Amelie said, her voice low and steady. â€˜â€˜Not until I tell you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”Iâ€™m not very strong. . . .â€™â€™ Why wasnâ€™t she asking Richard? Asking one of the vampires? Oliver, even?

â€˜â€˜You are strong enough. When I tell you, Claire.â€™â€™ Amelie closed her eyes again, and Claire scrubbed her damp palms nervously over her blue jeans. The wooden stake in Samâ€™s chest was round, polished wood, like a spike, and she couldnâ€™t tell how deep it was in his body. Was it in his heart? Wouldnâ€™t that kill him, once and for all? She remembered theyâ€™d talked about other vampires whoâ€™d gotten staked, and theyâ€™d died. . . .

Amelieâ€™s expression suddenly twisted in pain, and she said, â€˜â€˜Now, Claire!â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t even think. She fastened her hands around the stake and pulled, one massive yank, and for a terrifying second she thought it wouldnâ€™t work, but then she felt it sliding free, scraping against bone as it went.

Samâ€™s whole body arched, as though heâ€™d been shocked with one of those heart machines, and the circle of vampires moved back. Amelie kept hold of him, her fingers white as bone where they pressed on the sides of his head. Her eyes flew open, and they were pure blazing silver.

Claire scrambled backward, clutching the stake in both hands. Someone plucked it out of her gripâ€” Richard Morrell, looking grim and tired. He put it into a plastic bag and zipped it shut.

Evidence.

Sam went limp again. The wound in his chest was bleeding a steady, slow trickle, and Amelie took off her jacketâ€”white silkâ€”and folded it into a pad to press it against the flow. Nobody spoke, not even Amelie. Claire sat there feeling helpless, watching Sam. He wasnâ€™t moving, not at all.

He still looked dead.

â€˜â€˜Samuel,â€™â€™ Amelie said, and her voice was low and quiet and warm. She bent closer to him. â€˜â€˜Samuel. Come back to me.â€™â€™

His eyes opened, and they were all pupil. Scary owl eyes. Claire bit her lip and thought again about running, but Hans and Gretchen were at her back and she knew she didnâ€™t have a chance, anyway.

Sam blinked, and his pupils began to shrink slowly to a more normal size. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

â€˜â€˜Breathe in,â€™â€™ Amelie said, in that same quiet, warm tone. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m here, Samuel. I wonâ€™t leave you.â€™â€™ She stroked fingers gently over his forehead, and he blinked again and slowly focused on her.

It was as though there was nobody else in all the world, just the two of them. Amelie was wrong, Claire thought. It isnâ€™t just that Sam loves her. She loves him just as much.

Sam looked from Amelie to the circle of people, searching it for someone. When he didnâ€™t find the right one, he looked at Amelie again. His lips formed a name. Michael.

â€˜â€˜Michael is safe,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜Hans. Fetch him here.â€™â€™

Hans nodded and left, walking quickly. Michael. Claire realized with a jolt that sheâ€™d forgotten heâ€™d be here, forgotten all about him in the shock of all that had happened. Sam was, at least, looking better with every passing second, but Amelie continued to press the makeshift bandage to the wound in his chest.

Samâ€™s hand crept up, clumsy and slow, to cover hers, and for a long few seconds they looked at each other silently, and then Amelie nodded and let go.

Sam held the bandage in place and, with Amelieâ€™s help, pulled himself to a sitting position. She helped him lean against the wall.

â€˜â€˜Can you tell us what happened?â€™â€™ she asked him. Sam nodded, and Claire looked up to see Richard Morrell crouching down, notebook and pen at the ready.

Samâ€™s voice, when it finally came, was soft and thin, and it was clearly an effort for him to speak at all. â€˜â€˜Went to see Michael,â€™â€™ he said.

â€˜â€˜But Michael was here, with us,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜We summoned him during the night.â€™â€™

Samâ€™s handâ€”the one not occupied holding the jacket to his chestâ€”rose and fell helplessly. â€˜â€˜Sensed he wasnâ€™t home, so I backed out of the drive. Someone pulled open the car doorâ€”Taser, couldnâ€™t fight back. Staked me while I was down.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Who?â€™â€™ Richard asked. Samâ€™s eyes closed briefly, then opened.

â€˜â€˜Didnâ€™t see. Human. Heard the heartbeat.â€™â€™ He swallowed. â€˜â€˜Thirsty.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You must heal first,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜A few more moments. Is there anything at all you can tell us about this human who attacked you?â€™â€™

Samâ€™s eyes opened again, with an effort. â€˜â€˜He called me Michael.â€™â€™

Michael arrived just in time to hear that last part. He looked at Claire, wide-eyed, then crouched down beside Sam. â€˜â€˜Who did? The one who did this?â€™â€™

Sam shook his head. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know who. Male, thatâ€™s all I know. He used your name. I think he thought I was you.â€™â€™ Samâ€™s lips curled in the pale ghost of a smile. â€˜â€˜Guess he didnâ€™t see the hair before he staked me.â€™â€™

The article in the newspaper. Captain Obvious. Somebody had decided to take out the newest vampire in town, and it was sheer luck that theyâ€™d gotten Sam instead. It could have been Michael lying in the street.

And from the look on Michaelâ€™s face, he was thinking the exact same thing.

Â 
Amelie was agitated. It wasnâ€™t really obvious, but Claire had seen her enough to know the difference. She moved more swiftly, and there was something less calm than usual in her eyes. Claire shivered a little when Amelie summoned her into a side room. It was small and empty, probably some kind of meeting room. Amelie didnâ€™t come alone; a tall blond vampire guy followed along and stood with his back to the door, a flesh-and-blood deadbolt. No getting out quickly, or at all, really.

â€˜â€˜What happened?â€™â€™ Amelie demanded.

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜I was asleep. I woke up whenâ€”â€™â€™ When I heard the sirens, sheâ€™d been about to say, but again, that wasnâ€™t really true. Sheâ€™d felt something, a flash of alarm that had come out of nowhere. And Shane and Eve had felt it, too. It normally would take a nuclear explosion to blast Shane out of sleep in the predawn hours, but heâ€™d been wide-awake. â€˜â€˜It was like some alarm went off in the house.â€™â€™

Amelieâ€™s face went very still and smooth. â€˜â€˜Indeed.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why? Is that important?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe. What else?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothingâ€”we went downstairs. The sirens were going outside, and by the time we got down there it was all over, I guess. Sam was down on the road, and the cop was already there.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You saw no one else?â€™â€™

Claire shook her head.

â€˜â€˜And your friends?â€™â€™ Amelie asked. â€˜â€˜Where were they?â€™â€™

It wasnâ€™t a casual question. Claire felt her pulse speed up, and tried to stay calm. If Amelie didnâ€™t believe her . . . â€˜â€˜Asleep,â€™â€™ she said firmly. â€˜â€˜Shane was with me, and I saw Eve come out of her own room. They couldnâ€™t have done it.â€™â€™

Amelie shot her a look. Not one that made her feel any too secure. â€˜â€˜I know how much you value their lives. But understand, Claire, if you lie for them, I will not forgive it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not lying. They were in their rooms when I came out. The only one missing was Michael, and he was here with you.â€™â€™

Amelie turned away from her and paced the length of the room in slow, graceful steps. She looked so perfect, so . . . together. Unable to help it, Claire blurted out, â€˜â€˜Arenâ€™t you worried about Sam?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I am more concerned about whoever attacked him not receiving another chance to do such harm,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜Sam was old enough to survive such a thingâ€”but only barely. If the stake had remained in his chest much longer, or the sun had burned him, he could not have survived. Had the assassin succeeded in attacking Michael, he would have died almost instantly. It would take decades for him to build up an immunity.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s mouth opened, shut, and opened again when she found the words. â€˜â€˜You meanâ€”vampires donâ€™t die from stakes in the heart?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I mean that it takes quite a lot to kill one of us,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜More every year we survive. You could put a stake through my heart, and I would simply pull it out and be very annoyed with you for ruining my wardrobe. If I failed to remove it within a few hours, it would damage me, perhaps seriously, but it would not destroy me in the way youâ€™re thinking. We are not so fragile, little Claire.â€™â€™ Her teeth gleamed for a second like pearls as she smiled. â€˜â€˜You would do well to tell your friends. Especially Shane.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”Brandonâ€”â€™â€™

Amelieâ€™s smile faded. â€˜â€˜He was tortured,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Burned with sunlight to reduce his resistance. By the time he was murdered, he had no more strength than a newborn. Shaneâ€™s father understands us too well, you see.â€™â€™

And now, so did Claire. Which probably wasnâ€™t good. â€˜â€˜The cops took Shane and Eve to the police station. I donâ€™t want anything to happen to them.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sure you donâ€™t. As I did not want anything to happen to my dear Samuel, who would willingly die for the rights of breathers in this town.â€™â€™ Amelieâ€™s tone had gone cold and dark, and it gave Claire a deep-down trembling in her stomach. â€˜â€˜I wonder if I have been too lenient. Allowed too much freedom.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t own us,â€™â€™ Claire whispered, and it seemed like the bracelet around her wrist tightened all of a sudden, pinching. She grabbed at it, wincing.

â€˜â€˜Do I not?â€™â€™ Amelie asked coolly. She exchanged a glance with the vampire at the door. â€˜â€˜Let her leave. I am done with her.â€™â€™

He bowed slightly and stepped out of the way. Claire resisted the urge to lunge for the exit. Being in the same room with Amelie, never mind her guard, was scary and intense, but she needed to at least try. â€˜â€˜About Shane and Eveâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t interfere in human justice,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜If they are innocent, then they will be released. Go now. I shall expect you to attend to Myrnin today, and I have arranged for some additional classes at university for you to attend. A list has been provided to you at your home this morning.â€™â€™

Claire hesitated.

â€˜â€˜Sam was supposed to take me to Myrninâ€”whoâ€™s going toâ€”â€™â€™

Amelie spun on her, and there was something wild and terrible in her eyes. â€˜â€˜Little fool, donâ€™t bother me with trivia! Go now!â€™â€™

Claire ran.

Â 
The house was empty when she arrived. No Shane, no Eve, and she hadnâ€™t seen Michael again at the Eldersâ€™ Council building before Hans and Gretchen had bundled her off. Claire felt very alone, and she locked all the doors and made sure of all the windows.

The house felt . . . warm, somehow. Not in the hot-air sense, but cozy. Welcoming. Claire put her hand flat on the wall in the living room. â€˜â€˜Can you hear me?â€™â€™ she asked, and then felt stupid. It was just a house, right? Just wood and bricks and concrete and wiring and pipes. How could it hear her?

But she couldnâ€™t shake the feeling that the house had jabbed her awake this morning, her and Shane and Eve. That it had been trying to warn them. The house had saved Michael, after all, when heâ€™d been killed by Oliver; it had given him what life it could, as a ghost. It wanted to help.

â€˜â€˜I wish you could talk,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I wish you could tell me who tried to kill Sam.â€™â€™

But it couldnâ€™t, and she was talking to a dumbass wall. Claire sighed, turned away, and caught a glimpse of a piece of paper stirring in a breeze.

A breeze that wasnâ€™t there.

The paper was lying on the table, on top of Michaelâ€™s guitar case. Claire grabbed it and read it, barely daring to believeâ€” What was she thinking? That the house was going to provide her with the name of Samâ€™s would-be Van Helsing? Of course not. It wasnâ€™t an answer to her question.

It was a class schedule printout, stamped AMENDED in big red letters. Her core classes were mostly gone; the notation next to them showed that sheâ€™d tested out.

What caught her attention, though, was what had been scheduled in their place. Advanced Biochem. Philosophical Studies. Quantum Mechanics. Honors Myth and Legend.

Wow. Was it wrong that she felt her heart skip a beat over that? Claire checked the times, then her watch. She barely had an hour until the first new class, but she couldnâ€™t go yet. Not until sheâ€™d heard from Shane and Eve.

Thirty minutes later she was on the phone, trying to get somebody to answer her questions at the police station, when she heard the locks rattle on the door and Eveâ€™s voice saying, â€˜â€˜â€”dumbass,â€™â€™ and the knot of fear in Claireâ€™s chest began to loosen. â€˜â€˜Yo, Claire! You here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Here,â€™â€™ she said, and hung up to come down the hall toward them.

Eve had her arm around Shane, half supporting him. Claire blinked and focused on his face. At the swelling and bruises. â€˜â€˜Oh God,â€™â€™ she said, and hurried to his side to help Eve. â€˜â€˜What happened?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, Big Man here decided to get a little shirty with Officer Fenton. You ever see Bambi Versus Godzilla? It was like that, only with more punches,â€™â€™ Eve said. She sounded false and bright, like tinsel. â€˜â€˜I tried to take him to the hospital and get checked out, butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m fine,â€™â€™ Shane gritted out. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve had worse.â€™â€™

Probably true, but Claire still felt painfully helpless. She wanted to do something. Anything. She and Eve got Shane to the couch, where he collapsed against the cushions and closed his eyes. He looked pale, under the bruises. Claire stroked his matted hair anxiously, silently asking Eve what to do; Eve shrugged and mouthed, Just let him rest. She looked scared, though.

â€˜â€˜Shane,â€™â€™ Eve said aloud. â€˜â€˜Seriously, I donâ€™t want to leave you here alone. You need to go to the hospital.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thanks, Mom,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s bruises. I think Iâ€™ll live. Go on, get out of here.â€™â€™ He reached up and captured Claireâ€™s hand, and his dark eyes opened. Well, one of them. The other was swelling shut. â€˜â€˜What happened to you? You okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothing happened, Iâ€™m fine. I talked to Amelie.â€™â€™ Claire pulled in a deep breath. â€˜â€˜Samâ€™s going to be okay, I think.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And Michael? Michael was all right?â€™â€™ Eve asked.

â€˜â€˜Yeah, he was all right. Iâ€™m sorry I couldnâ€™t get you out any earlier. Amelieâ€”â€™â€™ Probably best not to get into how not-bothered Amelie had been by the idea of Eve and Shane behind bars. â€˜â€˜She was busy with Sam.â€™â€™

Eve shrugged and shot Shane an exasperated look. â€˜â€˜We probably wouldâ€™ve been out of there in ten minutes if heâ€™d behaved himself,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Look, Shane, I know youâ€™re a hard-ass, but do you have to pick a fight with every jerk in the world? Canâ€™t you just choose half or something?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The scary thing? I do only pick fights with half of them. Thatâ€™s how many there are.â€™â€™ He groaned and adjusted himself to a more comfortable position on the couch. â€˜â€˜Crap. Officer Asshole can really hit.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane,â€™â€™ Claire said, â€˜â€˜really. Are you okay? I can take you to the hospital if youâ€™re not.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™d just give me an ice pack and send me home, minus a hundred bucks I donâ€™t have.â€™â€™ He caught her hand in his. His knuckles were scraped. â€˜â€˜What about you? Nothing bitten or broken, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said softly. â€˜â€˜Nothing bitten or broken. Theyâ€™re angry, and theyâ€™re worried, but nobody tried to hurt me.â€™â€™ She checked her watch, and her heart skipped and hammered faster. â€˜â€˜Um . . . I have to go. I have class. Youâ€™re sure youâ€™reâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If you ask me if Iâ€™m okay again, Iâ€™m going to smack myself in the face just to punish you,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Go on. Eve, make sure she doesnâ€™t go wandering off by herself, okay?â€™â€™

Eve already had her keys in her hand, and she was jingling them impatiently. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll do my best,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Hey. This came special delivery for you.â€™â€™ She tossed Claire a package with her name neatly lettered on it. Same handwriting, Claire thought, as the package that had held her bracelet.

This one held a sleek new cell phone, complete with MP3 player and a tiny little flip-open keypad for texting. It was on, and it was fully charged.

The note said, simply, For safety. The signature, of course, was Amelieâ€™s. Eve saw it, and raised her eyebrows. Claire quickly crumpled it up.

â€˜â€˜Do I even want to know what that is?â€™â€™ Shane asked.

â€˜â€˜Probably not,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Claire, little girls who take candy from strangers in Morganville get hurt. Or worse.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s not a stranger,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜And I really need a phone.â€™â€™

Â 
The classes were nothing like Claire had experienced before. It was as if sheâ€™d finally come to school. From the first moment of the first class, the professors seemed bright, engaged; they seemed to see her. Even better, they challenged her. She fumbled her way nervously through Advanced Biochem, made notes of the books she needed, and did the same in Philosophy. There was a lot of talking in Philosophy, and she didnâ€™t understand half of it, but it sounded a lot more interesting than the droning voices of her core class instructors.

She felt exhilarated by the time her late lunch break rolled around . . . she felt, in fact, alive. She was happy as she hunted for used copies of the textbooks she needed, and even happier when she discovered that, mysteriously, she had a scholarship account set up to cover the costs. It even came with its own cash card.

She bought a new long-sleeve T-shirt, too. And some disposable razors. And some shampoo.

Scary, how good it felt having money in her pocket.

By the time three p.m. rolled around, she was starting to wonder if she was expected to head out for Myrninâ€™s house on her own, but she decided to wait. Nobody had told her of a change of plan, so she headed over to the UC to get in some study time while she waited. The big main study room was packed, and somebody was playing guitar in the corner of the roomâ€”quite a big crowd over there, clapping between songs. Whoever it was played wellâ€”something complicated and classical, then a pop song right after. Claire was spreading out her books on the table when she heard a song that sounded familiar, and stood up on her chair to get a better look over the heads of the people gathered in the corner.

As sheâ€™d suspected, it was Michael. He was sitting down to play, but she could see his head and shoulders. He looked up and met her eyes, nodded, then went back to focus on the music. Claire jumped down, wiped her dusty footprints off the wooden chair, and sat. Her brain was racing. Michael was here. Why? Was it just a coincidence? Or was it something else?

She sat down and tried to concentrate on the properties of low frequency wave modes in magnetized plasma, which was frankly pretty cool. The physics of stars. She couldnâ€™t wait for the lab demonstrations . . . the reading was slow going, but interesting. It linked to another thing about plasma physics that had caught her attention: confinement and transport. It might have been coincidence, but somehow she felt there was something there she ought to understand. Something that related to what Myrnin had been telling her about recomposition, which was a key element in alchemy. Was it possible there really was a link between the two?

Plasma is charged particles. It can be controlled and influenced by shaped magnetic fields. Plasma was the raw state between matter and energy . . . between one form and another.

Reconstitution.

It hit her, suddenly, what Myrnin had discovered. The doorways. They were shaped magnetic fields, holding a tiny, pliable field of plasma held in a steady state. But how did he make them into portable worm-holes? Because that was what they had to be, to bend space like that . . . and the plasma couldnâ€™t be regular plasma, could it? Low-heat plasma? Was that even possible?

Claire was so absorbed that she didnâ€™t even hear the chair scrape back across from her, didnâ€™t know someone had sat down, until a hand grabbed the book propped in front of her and pushed it down.

â€˜â€˜Hey, Claire,â€™â€™ said Jason, Eveâ€™s nutty brother. He looked weaselly and paleâ€”not Goth-pale, sick-pale. Anemic. There were crusty sores on his neck, and his eyes were wide and red-veined, and he looked high. Really, crazy high. He also hadnâ€™t had a bath or been near a Laundromat in a few days or weeks; he smelled filthy and rotten. Ugh. â€˜â€˜How you doing?â€™â€™

She couldnâ€™t quite think what the right move would be. Scream? She closed the book and held on to itâ€” it was pretty heavy, and would make a decent blunt objectâ€”and darted a look around. The UC was filled with people. Granted, Michaelâ€™s playing was the center of attention at the moment, but there were plenty of others walking around, talking, studying. From where she sat, Claire could see Eve at the coffee bar, smiling and pulling espresso shots.

It was as though Jason were invisible or something. Nobody was paying him the slightest bit of attention.

â€˜â€˜Hi,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜What do you want?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜World peace,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re pretty.â€™â€™

Youâ€™re really not. She didnâ€™t, and couldnâ€™t, say it. She just waited. Iâ€™m perfectly safe here. There are a lot of people, Michaelâ€™s right over there, and Eve . . .

â€˜â€˜Did you hear me?â€™â€™ Jason asked. â€˜â€˜I said, youâ€™re pretty.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thank you.â€™â€™ Her mouth felt dry. She was scared, and she couldnâ€™t even think why, really, except what Eve had told her about Jason. He did look dangerous. Those scabs on his throatâ€”had he been bitten? â€˜â€˜I have to go.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll walk you to class,â€™â€™ Jason said. Somehow, he made that sound filthy, like some porn movie come-on. â€˜â€˜I always wanted to carry some hot college girlâ€™s books.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t. I meanâ€”Iâ€™m not going to class. But I have to go.â€™â€™ And why couldnâ€™t she just tell him to leave her alone? Why?

Jason blew her a kiss. â€˜â€˜Go on. But donâ€™t blame me when the next dead girl shows up in the trash because you wouldnâ€™t do me a simple favor.â€™â€™

She was in the act of standing up when he said it, and she just . . . stopped. Stopped moving, and stared. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ she asked, stupidly. Her brain, which had been moving at light speed while skipping from one physics problem to the next, felt sluggish now. â€˜â€˜What did you say?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not that I did anything. But if I had, Iâ€™d be planning another one. Unless somebody talked to me and convinced me to stop, for instance. Or I made a deal.â€™â€™

Claire felt cold. Worse, she felt alone. Jason wasnâ€™t doing anythingâ€”he was just sitting there, talking. But she felt violated, and horribly exposed. Michaelâ€™s right over there. You can hear him playing. Heâ€™s right there. Youâ€™re safe.

â€˜â€˜All right,â€™â€™ she said, and swallowed a mouthful of what felt like dust and tacks. She sank slowly back into her chair. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m listening.â€™â€™

Jason leaned forward, rested his arms on the table, and lowered his voice. â€˜â€˜See, itâ€™s like this, Claire. I want my big sister to understand what she did to me when she sent me to that place. You know what a jail is like in Morganville? Itâ€™s as though some third-world country threw it out for prisoner abuse. Eve put me there. And she didnâ€™t even try to save me.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s fingers felt numb, she was holding her book so tightly. She forced herself to relax. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜That must have been bad.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Bad? Bitch, are you even listening?â€™â€™ He kept on staring at her, and, as though he were dead, he never blinked. â€˜â€˜I was supposed to be his, you know. Brandonâ€™s. He was going to make me a vampire someday, but now heâ€™s dead, and Iâ€™m screwed. Now Iâ€™m just waiting around for somebody to put me back in jail, and guess what, Claire? Iâ€™m not going. Not without a little fun first.â€™â€™

He grabbed her wrist, and she opened her mouth to scream. . . .

All of a sudden he had a knife, and he was pressing it to her wrist. â€˜â€˜Hold still,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not done talking. You move, you bleed.â€™â€™

She was going to yell anyway, but when it made it to her lips it died into a weak little yelp. Jason smiled, and he tossed a filthy-looking handkerchief on top of her wrist and the knife, covering it up. â€˜â€˜There,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Now nobodyâ€™s going to notice, not that theyâ€™d care. Not in Morganville. But just in case there are any dumbass heroes, letâ€™s keep this between just us.â€™â€™

She was shaking now. â€˜â€˜Let me go.â€™â€™ Somehow, her voice stayed low and steady. â€˜â€˜I wonâ€™t say anything.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, come on. Youâ€™ll run to your friends, and then youâ€™ll run to the cops. Probably those two dicks Hess and Lowe. Theyâ€™ve been out to get me since I was a kid, did you know that? Sons of bitches.â€™â€™ He was sweating. A milky drop ran down the side of his pale face and splashed on his camouflage jacket. â€˜â€˜I hear youâ€™re in good with the vamps. That true?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ The knife pressed harder against her wrist, hot and painful, and she thought about how easy it would be for him to cut right through her veins. Her whole arm was shaking, but somehow, she managed to hold still against an overwhelming urge to try to yank her wrist away. It would only do the job for him. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™mâ€”yes. Iâ€™m Protected. Youâ€™ll get in trouble for this, Jason.â€™â€™

He had a truly creepy smile, a rubbery snarl that didnâ€™t affect his hot, strange eyes at all. â€˜â€˜I was born in trouble,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Bring it on. You tell whatever vamp put the mark on you that I know something. Something that could blow this town in half. And Iâ€™ll sell it for two things: rights to do whatever I want to my sister, and a ticket out of Morganville.â€™â€™

Oh God oh God oh God. He wants to bargain. For Eveâ€™s life.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not making any deals,â€™â€™ she said, and knew it was probably a death sentence. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not going to let you hurt Eve.â€™â€™

He actually blinked. It made him look almost human, for a second, and Claire remembered that he wasnâ€™t much older than she. â€˜â€˜How you going to stop me, cupcake? Hit me with your book bag?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If I have to.â€™â€™

He sat back, staring at her, and then he laughed. Loudly. It was a harsh, metallic clatter of a laugh, and she thought, Oh God, heâ€™s going to kill me, but then he lifted up the handkerchief covering her wrist and like a magic trick, the knife was gone. There was a trickle of blood dripping from the shallow cut in her skin, and she was starting to feel the burn.

â€˜â€˜You know what, Claire?â€™â€™ Jason asked. He got up, stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, and smiled at her again. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m going to like you a lot. Youâ€™re a scream.â€™â€™

He strolled off, and Claire tried to get up and see where he was going, but she couldnâ€™t. Her knees wouldnâ€™t cooperate. He was out of sight in seconds.

Claire looked at the coffee bar. Eve was standing there, motionless, staring right at her with huge dark eyes, and even without the Goth rice powder sheâ€™d have been pale as death.

Eve mouthed, You okay?

Claire nodded.

She really wasnâ€™t, though, and the cut on her wrist wouldnâ€™t stop bleeding. She dug in her backpack and found an adhesive bandageâ€”she always kept them, just in case she got blisters on her feet from all the walking. That seemed to do the trick.

She was smoothing it in place when she felt someone standing over her, and jumped, expecting the return of Jason, complete with psycho stabbing attack.

But it was Michael. He had his guitar case in his hand, and he lookedâ€”great. Relaxed, somehow, in a way that sheâ€™d never really seen him. There was even a slight flush of color in his face, and his eyes were shining.

But that quickly faded, and he frowned. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re bleeding,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜What happened?â€™â€™

Claire sighed and held up her wrist to show him the bandage. â€˜â€˜Man, you would be so embarrassed if I said it was something else.â€™â€™ Michael looked blank. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m a girl, Michael, it could have been all natural, you know. Tampons?â€™â€™

Vampire or not, he was such a guy, and his expression was pricelessâ€”a combination of embarrassment and nausea. â€˜â€˜Oh crap, I hadnâ€™t really thought that through. Sorry. Not really used to this yet. Soâ€”what happened?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Paper cut,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜Claire.â€™â€™

She sighed. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t freak, okay? It was Eveâ€™s brother, Jason. I think he just wanted to scare me.â€™â€™

Michaelâ€™s eyes widened, and his head turned fast, searching the coffee bar for Eve. When he saw her, the relief that spread over his face was painfulâ€”and it didnâ€™t last long before it curdled into something grim. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t believe heâ€™d come here. Why canâ€™t they catch this jerk?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe somebody doesnâ€™t want to,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s only killing human girls. If heâ€™s the one doing it.â€™â€™ Although heâ€™d pretty much confessed, hadnâ€™t he? And the knife was a big clue. â€˜â€˜We can talk about it later. I need to getâ€”â€™â€™ She remembered, just in time, that she couldnâ€™t talk to Michael about Myrnin. â€˜â€˜Get to class,â€™â€™ she said. She hadnâ€™t really thought Amelie would make her go alone, and she wasnâ€™t sure she could do it. Myrnin was fascinating, most of the time, but then when he turned . . . no, she couldnâ€™t go alone. What if something happened? Sam wouldnâ€™t be there to help get him off her.

Michael didnâ€™t move. â€˜â€˜I know where youâ€™re going,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m your ride.â€™â€™

She blinked. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re myâ€”what?â€™â€™

He lowered his voice, even though nobody was paying attention. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll take you where youâ€™re supposed to go. And Iâ€™ll wait for you.â€™â€™

Â 
Amelie had told him, Claire found out on the way to Michaelâ€™s new car. Sheâ€™d needed to, apparently; she hadnâ€™t trusted any vampire but Sam with the information and access to Myrnin, but Michael had an investment in Claireâ€™s well-being, and Sam was going to be out of action for a couple of days at least. â€˜â€˜But heâ€™s okay?â€™â€™ Claire asked.

Michael opened the door to the parking garage for her, an automatic gesture that heâ€™d probably learned from his grandfather, once upon a time. He had some of Samâ€™s mannerisms, and they had the same walk. â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜He nearly died, though. Peopleâ€”vampiresâ€”are pretty wired right now. They want the one who staked him, and they donâ€™t really care how it happens. I made Shane promise to keep his ass inside, and not to go out alone.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You really think heâ€™ll keep his word?â€™â€™

Michael shrugged and opened the door of a standard-issue, dark vampire-tinted sedan, exactly the same as the one Sam had driven. A Ford, as it happened. Nice to know the vamps were buying American. â€˜â€˜I tried,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Shane doesnâ€™t listen to much of anything I have to say. Not anymore.â€™â€™

Claire got into the car and buckled in. As Michael climbed in the driverâ€™s side, she said, â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s not your fault. Heâ€™s just not dealing with it very well. I donâ€™t know what we can do about that.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothing,â€™â€™ Michael said, and started the car. â€˜â€˜We canâ€™t do anything about it at all.â€™â€™

It was a short drive, of course, and as far as Claire could tell from the dimly seen streets outside, Michael took the same route Sam had to the alley, and Myrninâ€™s cave. Michael parked the car at the curb. When she got out, though, Claire realized something, and bent to look into the dim interior of the car, then ducked back inside.

â€˜â€˜Crap,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t come inside, can you? You canâ€™t go out in the sun!â€™â€™

Michael shook his head. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m supposed to wait out here for you until the sun goes down; then Iâ€™ll come in. Amelie said sheâ€™d make sure you were safe until then.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™ Claire bit her lip. It wasnâ€™t Michaelâ€™s fault. There were about three hours of sun left, so she was just going to have to watch her own back for a while. â€˜â€˜Okay. See you after dark.â€™â€™

She closed the car door. When she straightened she saw that Gramma Katherine Day was on the porch of her big Founder House, rocking and sipping what looked like iced tea. Claire waved. Gramma Day nodded.

â€˜â€˜You beinâ€™ careful?â€™â€™ she called.

â€˜â€˜Yes maâ€™am!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I told the queen, I donâ€™t like her putting you down there with that thing. I told her,â€™â€™ Gramma Day said, with a fierce stab of her finger for emphasis. â€˜â€˜You come on up here and have some iced tea with me, girl. That thing down there, heâ€™ll wait. He donâ€™t know where he is half the time, anyway.â€™â€™

Claire smiled and shook her head. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t, maâ€™am. Iâ€™m supposed to be there on time. Thank you, though.â€™â€™ She turned toward the alley, then had a thought. â€˜â€˜Ohâ€”whoâ€™s the queen?â€™â€™

Gramma made an impatient fly-waving gesture. â€˜â€˜Her, of course. The White Queen. Youâ€™re just like Alice, you know. Down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter.â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t dare think about that too much, because the phrase Off with her head! loomed way too close. She gave Gramma Day another polite smile and wave, hitched her backpack higher on her shoulder, and went to night school.

8

Amelie had made sure she was safe, all right. Sheâ€™d done it by locking Myrnin up.

Claire dropped her backpack at the bottom of the stairsâ€”where it was easy to grab in midrunâ€”and spotted a new addition to the lab: a cage. And Myrnin was inside it.

â€˜â€˜Oh my Godâ€”â€™â€™ She took a few steps toward him, navigating around the usual haphazard stacks of books, and bit her lip. It was, as far as she could tell, the same cage that the vampires had used to lock up Shane in Founderâ€™s Squareâ€”heavy black bars, and the whole thing was on wheels. Vampire-proof, hopefully. Whoever had locked Myrnin in had been nice enough to give him a whole pile of books, and a comfy (if threadbare) tangle of blankets and faded pillows. He was lounging in the corner on the cushions, with a pair of old-fashioned, Benjamin Franklin-style glasses perched on the end of his hooked nose. He was reading.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re late,â€™â€™ he said, as he turned a page. Claireâ€™s mouth opened and closed, but she couldnâ€™t think of a thing to say. â€˜â€˜Oh, donâ€™t fret about the cage. Itâ€™s for your precaution, of course. Since Samuel isnâ€™t here to watch over you.â€™â€™ He turned another page, but his eyes werenâ€™t moving to follow text. He was pretending to read, and somehow that was worse than heart-breaking. â€˜â€˜Amelieâ€™s idea. I canâ€™t say that I really approve.â€™â€™

She finally was able to say, â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry.â€™â€™

Myrnin shrugged and closed the book, which he dropped with a bang on the pile next to him. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve been in cages before this,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜And no doubt I will be let out once your appointed guardian is here to chaperone. In the meantime, letâ€™s continue with our instruction. Pull a chair close. Youâ€™ll excuse me if I donâ€™t get up, but Iâ€™m a bit taller thanâ€”â€™â€™ He reached up and rapped the bars overhead. â€˜â€˜Amelie tells me you have enrolled in advanced placement classes.â€™â€™

Claire gratefully took that as an opportunity not to think about how disturbingly reassuring this was, seeing him locked up like an animal in a cage, because of her. She read off her class schedule, and answered his questions, which were sharply worded and a strange mix of expert knowledge and complete ignorance. He understood philosophy and biochem; he didnâ€™t know anything at all about quantum mechanics, until she explained the basics, and then he nodded.

â€˜â€˜Myth and Legend?â€™â€™ he echoed, baffled, when she read off the class title. â€˜â€˜Why would Amelie feel it necessary . . . ah, no matter. Iâ€™m sure she has reason. Your essay?â€™â€™ He held out his hand. Claire dug the stapled computer printout from her bag and handed it over. Six pages, single spaced. The best she could do on the history of a subject she was only just now starting to understand. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll read it later. And the books I gave you?â€™â€™

Claire went to her backpack and pulled them out, then came back to her chair. â€˜â€˜I read through Aureus and The Golden Chain of Homer.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Did you understand them?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Notâ€”really.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s because alchemy is a very secretive field of study. Rather like being a Masonâ€”are there still Masons?â€™â€™ When she nodded, Myrnin looked oddly relieved. â€˜â€˜Well, thatâ€™s good. The consequences would be quite terrible, you know, if there werenâ€™t. As to alchemy, I can teach you how to translate the codes that were spoken and written, but Iâ€™m more concerned that you learn the mechanics than the philosophy. You do understand the methods outlined in the texts for constructing a calcining furnace, yes?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I think so. But why canâ€™t we just order what we need? Or buy it?â€™â€™

Myrnin flicked the silver ring on his right hand into the bars of his cell, setting up a metallic ringing. â€˜â€˜None of that. Modern children are fools, slaves to the work of others, dependent for everything. Not you. You will learn how to build your tools as well as use them.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You want me to be an engineer?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is it not a useful thing for one who studies physics to understand such practical applications?â€™â€™

She stared at him doubtfully. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re not going to make me get an anvil and make my own screwdrivers or anything, are you?â€™â€™

Myrnin smiled slowly. â€˜â€˜What a good idea! Iâ€™ll consider it. Now. I have an experiment Iâ€™d like to try. Are you ready?â€™â€™

Probably not. â€˜â€˜Yes sir.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Move that bookcaseâ€”â€™â€™ He pointed to a leaning monstrosity of shelves that looked ready to collapse. It was groaning with volumes, of course. â€˜â€˜Push it out of the way.â€™â€™

Claire wasnâ€™t at all sure the thing would hold together to be pushed, but she did as he said. It was better built than it looked, and to her surprise, when sheâ€™d pushed it aside, she found a small arched doorway. It was secured with a big heart-shaped iron lock.

â€˜â€˜Open it,â€™â€™ he said, and picked up the book heâ€™d dropped upon her entrance, leafing randomly through the pages.

â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™s the key?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No idea.â€™â€™ He flipped faster, frowning at the words. â€˜â€˜Look around.â€™â€™

Claire looked around the lab in complete frustration. â€˜â€˜In here?â€™â€™ Where was she supposed to start? It was all piles and stacks and half-open drawers, nothing in any order at all that sheâ€™d been able to determine so far. â€˜â€˜Can you give me a hint, at least?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜If I remembered, I would.â€™â€™ Myrninâ€™s voice was dry, but just a little sad, too. She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He folded the book closed again and stared out of the cageâ€”not at her, or at anything, really. There was a careful blankness to his face. â€˜â€˜Claire?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah?â€™â€™ She pulled open the first drawer near the door. It was full of bottles of what looked like dust, none of them labeled. A spider scuttled frantically out of sight into the darker recesses, and she made a face and slammed it shut.

â€˜â€˜Can you tell me why Iâ€™m in this cage?â€™â€™ He sounded odd now, strangely calm with something underneath. Claire pulled in a deep breath and kept looking in the drawers. She didnâ€™t look directly at him. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t like cages. Bad things have happened to me in cages.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelie says you have to stay in there for a while,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Remember? Itâ€™s to help us.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t remember.â€™â€™ His voice was warm and soft and regretful. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d like to get out of here. Could you open it, please?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t have theâ€”â€™â€™

Keys, except that she did. There was a ring of them sitting right there in front of her, half-hidden by a leaning tower of loose, yellowing pages. Three keys. One was a great big iron skeleton key, and she was instantly almost sure that it fit the big heart-shaped lock on the door behind the bookcase. The other one was newer, still big and clunky, and it had to be the key to Myrninâ€™s cage.

The third was a tiny, delicate silver key, like the kind that opened diaries and suitcases.

Claire reached out for the key ring and pulled it toward her, trying to do it silently. He heard, of course. He got up from the corner of the cage and came to the front, where he held on to the bars. â€˜â€˜Ah, excellent,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Claire, please open the door. I canâ€™t show you what you need to do if Iâ€™m locked in this cage.â€™â€™

God, she couldnâ€™t look at him, she just couldnâ€™t. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not supposed to do that,â€™â€™ she said, and sorted out the big iron skeleton key. It felt cold and rough to her fingers, and old. Really old. â€˜â€˜You wanted me to open this door, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire. Look at me.â€™â€™ He sounded so sad. She heard the soft ringing chime of his ring on the bars when he gripped them again. â€˜â€˜Claire, please.â€™â€™

She turned away from him and put the key into the heart-shaped lock.

â€˜â€˜Claire, donâ€™t open that!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You told me to!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t!â€™â€™ Myrnin rattled the bars of his cage, and even though they were solid iron, she heard them rattle. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s my door! My escape! Come here and release me! Now!â€™â€™

She checked her watch. Not enough time, not nearly enough; it was still at least an hour to sunset, maybe more. Michael was still stuck in the car. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry.â€™â€™

The sound Myrnin made then was enough to make her glad that she was across the room. Sheâ€™d never heard a lion roar, not in person, but somehow she imagined that it would sound like that, all wild animal rage. It shredded her confidence. She closed her eyes and tried not to listen, but he was talking; she couldnâ€™t understand what he was saying now, but it was a constant, vicious stream in a language she didnâ€™t know. The tone, thoughâ€”you couldnâ€™t not get the evil undercurrents.

Heâ€™d kill her if he got hold of her now. Thank God, the cage was strong enough to . . .

He snarled something low and guttural, and she heard something metal snap with a high, vibrating sound.

The cage wasnâ€™t strong enough.

Myrnin was bending the bars away from the lock.

Claire spun, key still in her hand, and saw him rip at a weak point in the cage as though it were wet paper. How could he do that? How could he be that strong? Wasnâ€™t he hurting himself?

He was. She could see blood on his hands.

It came to her with a jolt that if he got out of that cage, he could do the same thing to her.

She needed to get out.

Claire moved around the lab table, squeezed past two towering stacks of volumes, and tripped over a broken three-legged stool. She hit the floor painfully, on top of a pile of assorted junkâ€”pieces of old leather, some bricks, a couple of withered old plants she guessed Myrnin was saving for botanical salvage. Man, that hurt. She rolled over on her side, gasping, and climbed to her feet.

She heard a long, slow creak of metal, and stopped for a fatal second to look over her shoulder.

The cage door was open, and Myrnin was out. He was still wearing his little Ben Franklin glasses, but what was in his eyes looked like something that had crawled straight out of hell.

â€˜â€˜Oh crap,â€™â€™ she whispered, and looked desperately toward the stairs.

Too far. Way too far, too many obstacles between her and safety, and he could move like a snake. Heâ€™d get there first.

She was closer to the door with the lock on it than the stairs, and the key was still clutched tightly in her hand. Sheâ€™d have to abandon her book bag; no way to get to it now.

She didnâ€™t have time to think about it. The cut Jason had put on her wrist was still fresh; Myrnin could still smell it, and it was ringing the dinner bell loud and clear.

She kicked stacks of books out of the way, jumped over the pile of junk, and, with the key outstretched, raced for the locked door. Her hands were shaking, and it took two tries to get the oversized key into the hole; when she started to turn it there was a terrible moment of utter panic because it wouldnâ€™t turn. . . .

And then it did, a smooth metallic slide of levers and pins, and the door swung open.

On the other side was her own living room, and Shane was sitting on the couch with his back to her, playing a video game.

Claire paused, utterly off balance. That couldnâ€™t be real, could it? She couldnâ€™t be seeing him, right there, but she could hear all of the computerized grunts and punches and wet bloody sounds from whatever fight game he had on. She could smell the house. Chili. Heâ€™d made chili. He still hadnâ€™t taken some of his boxes back upstairs. They were piled in the corner.

â€˜â€˜Shane,â€™â€™ she whispered, and reached out, through the doorway. She could feel something there, like a slight pressure, and the hair on her arm shivered and prickled.

Shane put the game on pause, and slowly stood up. â€˜â€˜Claire?â€™â€™ He was looking in the wrong place; he was looking up, at the staircase.

But heâ€™d heard her. And that meant she could just step right through and sheâ€™d be safe.

She never got the chance.

Myrninâ€™s hand landed on her shoulder, dragged her back, and as Shane started to turn toward them, Myrnin slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.

She didnâ€™t dare move. He was crazy; she could see it. There was nothing in him that recognized her at all. Amelieâ€™s warnings screamed through her head, and Samâ€™s. Sheâ€™d underestimated Myrnin, and that was what had gotten all the other would-be apprentices killed.

Myrnin was shaking, and his broken hands were crunched into fists. His blood was dripping on an open copy of an old chemistry textbook that lay by his feet.

â€˜â€˜Who are you?â€™â€™ he whispered. The accent sheâ€™d noted the first time sheâ€™d met him was back, and strong. Really strong. â€˜â€˜Child, what brings you here? Do you not understand your danger? Who is your Patron? Were you sent as a gift?â€™â€™

She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them and looked right into his eyes and said, â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re Myrnin, and Iâ€™m Claire; Iâ€™m your friend. Iâ€™m your friend, okay? You should let me help you. You hurt yourself.â€™â€™

She pointed to his injured fingers. Myrnin looked down, and he seemed surprised, as if he hadnâ€™t felt it at all. Which maybe he hadnâ€™t.

He took two steps backward, ran into a lab table, and knocked over a stand that held empty glass test tubes. They fell and shattered on the dirty stone floor.

Myrnin staggered, then sank down to sit against the wall, his face covered by bloody hands, and began to rock back and forth. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s wrong,â€™â€™ he moaned. â€˜â€˜There was something important, something I had to do. I canâ€™t remember what it was.â€™â€™

Claire watched him, still scared to death, and then sank down to a crouch across from him. â€˜â€˜Myrnin,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜The door. The one I opened. Where does it go?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Door? Doorways. Moments in time, just moments, none of it stays; it flows like blood, you know, just like blood. I tried to bottle it, but it doesnâ€™t stay fresh. Time, I mean. Blood turns, and so does time. Whatâ€™s your name?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire, sir. My nameâ€™s Claire.â€™â€™

He let his head fall back against the wall, and there were bloody tears running down his cheeks. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t trust me, Claire. Donâ€™t ever trust me.â€™â€™ He bounced the back of his head off the wall with enough force to make Claire wince.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”no, sir. I wonâ€™t.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How long have I been your friend?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not that long.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t have friends,â€™â€™ he said hollowly. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t, you know, when youâ€™re as old as I am. You have competitors, and you have allies, but not friends, never. Youâ€™re too young, far too young to understand that.â€™â€™ He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he looked mostly sane. Mostly. â€˜â€˜Amelie wants you to learn from me, yes? So you are my student?â€™â€™

This time, Claire just nodded. Whatever the fit was, it was leaving him, and he was empty and tired and sad again. He took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in the pocket of his coat.

â€˜â€˜You wonâ€™t be able to do it,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t possiby learn quickly enough. I nearly killed you tonight, and next time I wonâ€™t be able to stop. The othersâ€”â€™â€™ He stopped, looked briefly sick, and cleared his throat. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m notâ€”I wasnâ€™t always like this, Claire. Please understand. Unlike many of my kind, I never wanted to be a monster. I only wanted to learn, and this was a way to learn forever.â€™â€™

Claire bit her lip. â€˜â€˜I can understand that,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€”Amelie wants me to help you, and learn from you. Do you think Iâ€™m smart enough?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, youâ€™re smart enough. Could you master the skills, given enough time? Perhaps. And youâ€™ll have no choice in the matter; sheâ€™ll keep you coming until you learn, or I destroy you.â€™â€™ Myrnin slowly lifted his head and looked at her. Rational again, and very steady. â€˜â€˜Did I remind you not to trust me?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes, sir.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s good advice, but just this once, ignore it and allow me to help you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Help . . . ?â€™â€™

Myrnin stood up, in that eerie boneless way that he seemed to have, and rummaged around through the glass jars and beakers and test tubes until he found something that looked like red salt. He shook the containerâ€”it was about the size of a spice jarâ€”and opened it to extract one red crystal. He touched it to his tongue, shut his eyes for a second, and smiled.

â€˜â€˜Yes,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I thought so.â€™â€™ He recapped it and held it out to her. â€˜â€˜Take it.â€™â€™

She did. It felt surprisingly heavy. â€˜â€˜What is it?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I have no idea what to call it,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜But itâ€™ll work.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What do I do with it?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shake a small amount into your palm, like so.â€™â€™ He reached out for her hand. She pulled away, curling her fingers closed, and Myrnin looked briefly wounded. â€˜â€˜No, youâ€™re right. You do it. I apologize.â€™â€™ He handed her the shaker and made an encouraging gesture. She hesitantly turned the shaker upside down over her palm. A few red chunky crystals poured out. He wanted her to keep going, so she did, making quick jerks with the container until there was maybe half a teaspoon of the stuff piled up.

Myrnin took the shaker from her, set it back where heâ€™d found it, and nodded at her. â€˜â€˜Go on,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Take it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Excuse me?â€™â€™

He mimed popping it into his mouth. â€˜â€˜Iâ€”umâ€”what is it, again?â€™â€™

This time, Myrnin rolled his eyes in frustration. â€˜â€˜Take it, Claire! We donâ€™t have much time. My periods of lucidity are shorter now. I canâ€™t guarantee I wonâ€™t slip again. Soon. This will help.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t understand. How is this stuff supposed to help?â€™â€™

He didnâ€™t tell her again; he just pleaded silently with her, his whole expression open and hopeful, and she finally put her hand to her mouth and tentatively tasted one of the crystals.

It tasted like strawberry salt, with a bitter after-flavor. She felt an instant, tiny burst of ice-cold clarity, like a strobe light going off in a darkened room full of beautiful, glittering things.

â€˜â€˜Yes,â€™â€™ Myrnin breathed. â€˜â€˜Now you see.â€™â€™

This time, she licked up more of the crystals. Four or five of them. The bitterness was stronger, barely offset by the strawberries, and the reaction was even faster. It was as though sheâ€™d been asleep, and all of a sudden she was awake. Gloriously, dizzyingly awake. The world was so sharp she felt as though even the dull battered wood of the table could cut her.

Myrnin picked up a book at random and opened it. He held it up in front of her, and it was like another burst of light in the darkness, brilliant and beautiful, oh, so pretty, the way the words curved themselves around each other and cut into her brain. It was painful and perfect, and she read as fast as she could.

Â 
The essence of gold is the essence of Sun, and the essence of silver is the essence of Moon. You must work with each of these according to its properties, gold in the daylight, silver in the night . . .

Â 
It all made sense to her. Total sense. Alchemy was nothing but a poetâ€™s explanation of the way matter and energy interacted, the way different surfaces vibrated at different speeds; it was physics, nothing but physics, and she could understand how to use it now.

And then . . . then it was as though the bulbs all dimmed again.

â€˜â€˜Go on, take it,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. â€˜â€˜The dose in your hand will last for an hour or so. In that time, I can teach you a great deal. Enough, perhaps, for us to understand where we should be going.â€™â€™

This time, Claire didnâ€™t hesitate licking up every last bit of the red crystals.

Â 
Myrnin was right; the crystals lasted for a little more than an hour. He took some as well, one at a time, carefully measuring them out and making them last until finally even a red crystal couldnâ€™t drive the growing confusion out of his eyes. He was getting anxious by the end. Claire started closing the books and stacking them up on the tableâ€”the two of them were sitting cross-legged on the floor, practically buried in volumes. Myrnin had jumped her from one book to another, pulling out a paragraph here, a chapter there, a chart from physics, and a page from something so old he had to teach her the language before she could understand.

I learned languages. I learned . . . I learned so much. Heâ€™d shown her a diagram, and it hadnâ€™t been just a diagramâ€”it had been three dimensional and as intricate as a snowflake. Morganville hadnâ€™t just happened; it had been planned. Planned around the vampires. Planned by the vampires, carried out by Myrnin and Amelie. The Founder Houses, they were part of itâ€” thirteen bright, hard nodes of power in the web, holding together a complex pattern of energy. It could move people from one place to another, via the doorways, although Claire didnâ€™t yet understand how to control them. But the web could do more. It could change memories. It could even keep people away, if Amelie wanted it to do that.

Myrnin had shown her the journals, too, with all his research conducted over the last seventy years into the vampireâ€™s sickness. It was chilling, the way his notes degenerated from meticulous to scrawls at the end, and sometimes into nonsense.

Some part of her still wondered if she shouldnâ€™t just stand by and let it happen, but Myrnin . . . what he knew, what heâ€™d accomplishedâ€”and sheâ€™d never learned so much, never, not from anyone.

Maybe just a little. Maybe I could help him just a little.

The influence of the crystals was dimming now, and Claire felt horribly tired. There was a steady ache in her muscles, a feverish throb that told her this stuff wasnâ€™t exactly kind to the human body. She could feel every heartbeat pounding through her head, and everything looked so dark. So . . . so confusing.

She felt a breath of air stir against her cheek, and she turned toward the stairs. Michael was descending, moving faster than sheâ€™d ever seen him, and he came to a fast halt when he saw her sitting beside Myrnin.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s supposed to beâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Locked up in a cage? Yeah, I know.â€™â€™ Claire knew she sounded bitter. She didnâ€™t care. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s sick, Michael. Heâ€™s not an animal. And anyway, even if you lock him up, heâ€™ll get out.â€™â€™

Michael looked young to her, all of a sudden, although he was older than she was. And a vampire, on top of that. â€˜â€˜Claire, get up and come to me. Please.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why? Heâ€™s not going to hurt me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜He canâ€™t help what he does. Look, Sam told me how many people heâ€™s killedâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s a vamp, Michael. Of course heâ€™sâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How many heâ€™s killed in the last two years. Itâ€™s more than all the other vampires in Morganville combined. Youâ€™re not safe. Now, get up and walk over here.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s right,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. He was losing it, Claire could see that, but he was desperately hanging on to being the man whoâ€™d been with her for the last hour. The gentle, funny, sweet one, ablaze with excitement and passion for showing her his world. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s time for you to go.â€™â€™ He smiled, showing teethâ€”not vampire teeth. It was a very human kind of expression. â€˜â€˜I do all right on my own, Claire, or at least thereâ€™s rarely anyone for me to harm. Amelie will send someone to look after me. And I usually canâ€™t leave here, once Iâ€”forget things. Itâ€™s too difficult for me to find the keys, and I canâ€™t remember how to use them once I have them. But I never forget how to kill. Your friend is right. You should go, please. Now. Continue your studies.â€™â€™

It was stupid, but she hated leaving him like this, with all the light going out in his eyes and the clouds of fear and confusion rolling in.

She didnâ€™t mean to do it; it just happened.

She hugged him.

It was like hugging a tree; he was so surprised, he was as stiff as a block of wood. She wasnâ€™t actually sure how long it had been since anybody had touched him like this. For a second he resisted her, and then his arms went around her, and she felt him heave a great sigh. Still not a hug, not really, but it was as close as he was likely to get.

â€˜â€˜Go away, little bird,â€™â€™ he whispered. â€˜â€˜Hurry.â€™â€™ She backed away. His eyes were strange again, and she knew they were out of time. Someday, he wonâ€™t come back. Heâ€™ll just be the beast.

Michael was beside her. She hadnâ€™t heard him cross the room, but his hand closed around hers, and there was real compassion in his face. Not for Myrnin, though. For her.

â€˜â€˜You heard him,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Hurry.â€™â€™

She bumped into the table, and the small jar of red crystals shuddered a little, nearly tipping over. She grabbed it to put it back upright, and then thought, What if he loses this? He loses stuff all the time.

She would only be keeping it safe, that was all. It helped him, right? So she ought to make sure he didnâ€™t knock it over or throw it away or something.

She slipped it into her pocket. She didnâ€™t think Myrnin saw, and she knew Michael didnâ€™t. Claire felt a hot burst of somethingâ€”shame? Embarrassment? Excitement? I should put it back. But really, sheâ€™d never find it again if he moved it around. Myrnin wouldnâ€™t remember. He wouldnâ€™t even know it was gone.

She kept looking back, all the way up the stairs. By the time they were halfway out, Myrnin had already forgotten them, and he was restlessly flipping through a pile of books, muttering anxiously to himself.

Gone already.

He looked up at them and snarled, and she saw the hard glint of fangs.

She hurried to the door at the top of the stairs.

9

Michael wasnâ€™t talking to her, and that was bad. He wasnâ€™t sullen, like Shane got from time to time; he was just thoughtful. That made the drive uneasily quiet. It was fully dark out, not that she could see through the window tinting, anyway.

The world didnâ€™t seem real to her anymore, and her head ached.

â€˜â€˜This is the deal you made with Amelie,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜To work for him.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. I made the deal with Amelie; then she told me to work for him. Or learn from him.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is there a difference?â€™â€™

Claire smiled. â€˜â€˜Yeah. I donâ€™t get paid.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Brilliant plan, genius. Is anybody paying you?â€™â€™

Actually, she had no idea. The thought hadnâ€™t occurred to her, to ask Amelie for money. Was that normal, to get paid for a thing like this? She supposed it was, if she was supposed to risk her life with Myrnin on a regular basis. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll ask,â€™â€™ she offered.

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Michael said grimly. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll ask. I want to talk to Amelie about this whole thing, anyway.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t get all older-brother on me, Michael. Itâ€™s not safe. You may be one of them now, but youâ€™re notâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜One of them? Yeah, I know that. But youâ€™re way too young for this, Claire, and you donâ€™t know what youâ€™re doing. You didnâ€™t grow up in this town; you donâ€™t understand the risks.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What, death? I understand that one pretty well already.â€™â€™ She was feeling tired and achy, but also strangely annoyed with Michaelâ€™s protectiveness. â€˜â€˜Look, Iâ€™m fine, okay? Besides, I learned a lot today. Sheâ€™ll be happy, trust me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelieâ€™s mood isnâ€™t what bothers me,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s you. Youâ€™re changing, Claire.â€™â€™

She looked straight at him. â€˜â€˜Like you havenâ€™t?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Cheap shot. Look, Iâ€™m sick of having to tiptoe around Shane. Donâ€™t make me do it with you, too.â€™â€™ Ah, now Michael was annoyed, too. Great.

â€˜â€˜Tell you what? Iâ€™ll stop nagging you about your life if youâ€™ll stay out of mine. Youâ€™re not my brother, youâ€™re not my dadâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ he interrupted. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m the guy who says if you get to stay in the house.â€™â€™

He wouldnâ€™t. He wouldnâ€™t. â€˜â€˜Michaelâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You made a deal with Amelie without talking to anyone, and then you covered it up. Look, the only reason you even came clean was because I saw the bracelet. If I hadnâ€™t, youâ€™d still be lying to us. That doesnâ€™t exactly make you the ideal housemate.â€™â€™ Michael paused for a second. â€˜â€˜And then thereâ€™s Shane.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How am I to blame for Shane?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re not. But I canâ€™t deal with both of you, not now. So just straighten up, Claire. No more lying, and no more risk-taking, all right? Iâ€™ll convince Amelie to let you out of these sessions with Myrnin. Youâ€™re too young to be doing this; she ought to know that.â€™â€™

No more lying. No more risk-taking. Claire shifted and felt the bottle in her pocket, and had a flash of that perfect clarity again. She wondered what Michael would have to say about her letting Myrnin give her the crystals. Probably nothing. He was talking about throwing her out of the house, right? So he probably didnâ€™t care at all.

The car slowed and turned, then bumped down a rutted drive. Home.

Claire bolted before Michael could say anything else to her.

Shane was in the kitchen, pouring himself a beer. He toasted her silently, took a sip, and nodded toward a pot on the stove. â€˜â€˜Chili,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Extra garlic.â€™â€™

Michael was closing the kitchen door, and he sighed. â€˜â€˜When is this going to stop?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜When you quit sucking blood?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t get pissy. I made yours garlic-free.â€™â€™ Shane looked at her again, and frowned a little. â€˜â€˜You okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sure. Why wouldnâ€™t I be?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Justâ€”I donâ€™t know. Whatever.â€™â€™ He slung an arm over her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. â€˜â€˜Bad day, probably.â€™â€™

Letâ€™s see, sheâ€™d been threatened by Eveâ€™s brother, had her wrist cut, and then played keep-away with Myrnin for hours. Did that qualify as a bad day in Morganville? Probably not. No body count.

Not yet, anyway.

Michael pushed past them and through the door into the living room. Claire pulled free of Shaneâ€™s arm and went to the stove to ladle herself a bowl of chili. It smelled hot and delicious. But mostly hot. She tasted a drop and nearly choked; was it usually this molten-lava wicked spicy? Everything felt raw to her right now. She supposed that was a side effect of the crystals.

â€˜â€˜I thought I heard you,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Weirdest thing, I heard your voice today. Right out of the air. I thought youâ€”I kept thinking about Michael, how he used to be during the daytime. . . .â€™â€™

When he was a ghost. â€˜â€˜You thought I wasâ€”?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I thought maybe something happened,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I called your cell number, the new one.â€™â€™

Sheâ€™d left it in her backpack. Claire reached down and unzipped the pocket, then checked the phone. Three calls, all from Shane. With voice mails. â€˜â€˜Sorry,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t hear it. Guess I need to turn the ringer up.â€™â€™

He looked at her very steadily, and she felt the cold spot in her center, the place that had chilled while sheâ€™d been with Myrnin, slowly warm. â€˜â€˜You worry me,â€™â€™ he said, and put his hand on her cheek. â€˜â€˜You know that, right?â€™â€™

She nodded, and hugged him. Unlike Myrnin, he was warm and solid, and his body just molded right into hers, perfect and sweet. When he kissed her she tasted beer and chili, but only for a second. After that, it was pure Shane, and she forgot all about Myrnin, and any kind of physics except friction. Shane backed her up against the stove. She felt the low heat of the burner at her back, but she was too preoccupied to worry much about bursting into flames from outside sources. Shane just had that effect on her.

â€˜â€˜I missed you,â€™â€™ he whispered, brushing her damp lips with his. â€˜â€˜Want to go upstairs?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What about my chili?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Get it to go.â€™â€™

There were good things about the way she felt tonight, she decided; her nerves might be raw, but that only made his touch all the sweeter. She would have felt awkward, usually, and uncertain, and scared, but it seemed like the afternoon that had started with Jason and ended with Myrninâ€™s snarl had burned all that out of her.

â€˜â€˜Not hungry,â€™â€™ she said breathlessly. â€˜â€˜Come on.â€™â€™

She felt as wild and free as a little kid, running up the steps with Shane in hot pursuit, and when he grabbed her around the waist, spun her around into his room, and kicked the door shut, she squealed in delight. And wiggled to fit herself against his warm, hard body as she kissed him again, breathless and flying.

He kissed as though their lives depended on it. As though it were an Olympic event and he intended to earn a medal. Somewhere in the back of her head she was chattering to herself, warning that this was going to go too far, that she was just making things worse for both of them, but she couldnâ€™t help it. Before long they were stretched out together on Shaneâ€™s bed, and his big, warm hands were teasing under the hem of her shirt, stroking the fluttering skin of her stomach and stealing her breath. She lost it all when he spread his fingers out, pressing his palm flat against her, and she felt an almost irresistible impulse to feel those hands all over. Everywhere. Her heart was hammering hard enough to make her dizzy, and it was all just so . . .

Perfect.

She reached down and pulled up her shirt. Slowly, feeling the cool air slip over tender skin.

Up, to the bottom line of her bra. Then up.

Shane stopped.

â€˜â€˜I want to,â€™â€™ she whispered against his mouth. â€˜â€˜Please, Shane. I want to.â€™â€™ She sat up and reached for the clasp on her bra, and unhooked it. â€˜â€˜Please.â€™â€™

He pulled back from her and sat up, head down. When he looked up he licked his lips, and his eyes were wide and dark, and she could fall into them, fall forever.

â€˜â€˜I know,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Me too. But I made promises, and Iâ€™m going to keep them. Especially the one to your parents, because your dad said heâ€™d hunt me down like a dog.â€™â€™ Shane gave her a wild, bitter smile. â€˜â€˜Sucks to be me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™ She felt her bra slipping, and quickly grabbed to hold it in place. She felt ridiculous now, and wounded.

He sighed. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t, Claire. Itâ€™s not like Iâ€™m a saint or anything; Iâ€™m not, and trust me, for you, a saint would buy a condom and go to confession. But itâ€™s not about that. Itâ€™s about keeping my word, and around here, my word is all Iâ€™ve got.â€™â€™

She wanted him with a red fury that was all out of character for her, but somehow, the way he said it, the way he looked her straight in the eyes, she felt all that fall away and the fury turn into something pure, hot, and silver.

â€˜â€˜Besides,â€™â€™ Shane said, â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m all out of condoms, and I hate confession.â€™â€™

He put his arms around her and hooked her bra with an ease that showed he had plenty of practice.

She threw a pillow at him.

Â 
Somebody was rummaging around outside the house.

Claire woke up with a start, instantly tense, as she heard the distant rattle of metal. She rolled out of bed and peeked out of the blinds. Her bedroom window looked out on the back, a glorious corner vantage point, and she had a clear view of the fence, and the trash cans on the other side.

Somebody was definitely out there, a black shape in the moonlight. Claire could see him moving around but couldnâ€™t tell what he was doing. She reached for her cell phone and dialed 911, and told the operator she needed either Joe Hess or Travis Lowe. Detective Lowe picked up the call, sounding wide-awake even at three in the morning; Claire described what she was seeing in a whisper, as if whoever was across the yard might hear her.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s probably Jason,â€™â€™ she said. She heard the scratch of pen on paper on the other end of the phone.

â€˜â€˜Why Jason? Can you see his face?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she admitted, â€˜â€˜but Jason told meâ€”he practically admitted it. About the dead girl. I think itâ€™s Jason, honest.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Did he threaten you, Claire?â€™â€™

The cut on her wrist was still throbbing. â€˜â€˜I guess you could say so,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I was going to tell you about it, but Iâ€”I had things to do.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜More important than keeping us in the loop? Never mind. What happened?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shouldnâ€™t I tell you when you get here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Patrol carâ€™s already en route. Where did you see him today?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜At the university,â€™â€™ she said, and told the story. He didnâ€™t interrupt her, just let her talk, and she could hear him continuing to take notes.

When she paused for breath, Lowe said, â€˜â€˜You know that was stupid, right? Look, next time you see him, you start screaming bloody murder. And put me and Hess on speed dial. Jasonâ€™s nobody to play around with.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”we were in public. He wouldnâ€™t haveâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Ask Eve about why he ended up in jail in the first place, Claire. Next time, donâ€™t hesitate. This isnâ€™t about you being strong; this about you living through the day, all right? Trust me.â€™â€™

She swallowed hard. â€˜â€˜I do.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is he still there?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know. I canâ€™t see him. He mightâ€™ve gone.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The patrol car ought to be there in just a couple of seconds; theyâ€™re doing a silent approach. You see them yet?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No, but my room faces the alley.â€™â€™ Something moved in the yard, and she felt a lurch of pure adrenaline. â€˜â€˜I thinkâ€”I think heâ€™s in the yard now. Coming to the house. To the back.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Go wake up Michael and Shane. Make sure Eveâ€™s okay. Go now, Claire.â€™â€™

She wasnâ€™t dressed, but she supposed it didnâ€™t really matter; the oversized T-shirt she was wearing came to her knees, anyway. She unlocked her door and swung it open, and yelled in shock.

Tried to, anyway. She couldnâ€™t quite get the sound out, because Oliverâ€™s hand clapped over her mouth, spun her around, and dragged her backward over the threshold. She screamed, but it was barely a buzz in her throat. Her bare heels scraped on the wood as she tried to get her feet under her, but he had her helpless and off balance. She dropped the phone.

She could hear Loweâ€™s voice distantly whispering her name, but it was blotted out by Oliverâ€™s soft voice in her ear as he bent close and said, â€˜â€˜I only want to talk. Donâ€™t make me hurt you, girl. You know I will if you force me.â€™â€™

She went still, breathing hard. Had he been out there in the yard? How had he gotten up here so fast? Didnâ€™t the protections on the house keep him out?

No. They only work against uninvited humans now, because Michaelâ€™sâ€”Michaelâ€™s a vampire. Oliver had some way in and out. Easy access. God.

â€˜â€˜Good girl. Stay quiet,â€™â€™ Oliver whispered. He looked up and down the hall, moved the painting next to the doorway, and pressed the hidden switch. The secret doorway across from Eveâ€™s room opened with a soft sigh, and he dragged her inside, then shut it. No knob on the inside. The release switch was up a flight of stairs, and heâ€™d never let her get there if she tried to run. When he let her go, Claire stayed where she was.

He let his voice return to normal levels. Not afraid of being overheard, not here. â€˜â€˜I thought it was time we had a talk. You signed an agreement with Amelie. That hurts me, Claire. I thought we had a special friendship, and after all, I did offer first.â€™â€™ Oliver smiled at her, that cold and oddly kind smile that had suckered her in the first few times sheâ€™d met him. â€˜â€˜You turned me down. So why, I wonder, did you decide that Amelie would be a better choice?â€™â€™

He might know about Myrnin, but not what Myrnin did. Amelie had been pretty specific: he could never know that.

â€˜â€˜She smells better,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜And she made me cookies.â€™â€™ Somehow, after the day sheâ€™d had, Oliver just didnâ€™t seem all that terrifying anymore.

Until he bared his fangs, and his eyes went a strange, wide black. â€˜â€˜No games,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜The roomâ€™s soundproofed. Amelie used to play with her victims here, you know. Itâ€™s a killing jar, and youâ€™re inside. So perhaps you should be more polite, if you intend to see morning.â€™â€™

Claire held up her left wrist. The golden bracelet glinted in the light. â€˜â€˜Bite it, Oliver. You canâ€™t touch me. You canâ€™t touch anybody in this house. I donâ€™t know how you got in, butâ€”â€™â€™

He grabbed her right wrist and ripped away the bandage covering the cut Jason had made. It broke open, and a red trickle ran from it down the interior of her arm.

Oliver licked it off.

â€˜â€˜Okay, thatâ€™s just gross,â€™â€™ Claire said faintly. â€˜â€˜Let go. Let go!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You belong to Amelie,â€™â€™ he said, and let her go. â€˜â€˜I can taste it. Smell it on you. Youâ€™re right, I canâ€™t touch you, not anymore. But the others, youâ€™re wrong about them. While theyâ€™re in the house theyâ€™re safe, but not out there, not in my town. Not for long.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I made a deal!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Did you? Did you see in writing that your friends would be protected from all attacks? Because I very much doubt that, little Claire. Weâ€™ve been writing agreements for thousands of years, and youâ€™re only sixteen years old. You have no idea what kind of deal youâ€™ve made.â€™â€™ Oliver actually sounded a little sorry for her, and that was scary. He folded his arms and leaned against the door. He was in his usual good-guy disguise tonight: a tie-dyed T-shirt, battered cargo pants, his graying, curling hair pulled back in a ponytail. Heâ€™d probably just closed up Common Grounds, she figured. He smelled like coffee. She wondered what Oliver wore on his days off, if he wasnâ€™t trying to intimidate. Pajamas? Fuzzy slippers? One thing sheâ€™d figured out about the vampires in Morganville, they were never exactly what they seemed to be, even the bad ones.

â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ she said, and backed away from him until her heels hit the first step. She sat down. â€˜â€˜You tell me what Iâ€™ve done.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve upset the balance of power in the town, and thatâ€™s a terrible thing, little Claire. You see, Amelie intended to be queen of this little kingdom. She thought I was safely dead when she did so. When I came here a year ago, many people decided that theyâ€™d rather listen to me than to her. Not all, of course, and not even a majority. But sheâ€™s won no real friends during her long existence, and it isnâ€™t only the humans who are trapped here, you know. Itâ€™s the vampires as well.â€™â€™

This was a new idea to her. â€˜â€˜What are you talking about?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We canâ€™t leave,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Not without her permission. As I said, she fancies herself the cold White Queen, and most are content to let her. Not all. I was working to come to some . . . arrangements with her, to let a number of us leave Morganville and set up a community outside of her influence. Things had been static here for fifty years, you see, since she made the last vampire. Now Amelie feels the need to protect her position. Sheâ€™s blocked me. She wonâ€™t allow me to make a move without her permission.â€™â€™ He lowered his chin and stared at her, and it chilled her deep inside. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t like to be controlled. I tend to get . . . unhappy.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why are you talking to me? What can I do?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You, stupid little child, are her pet. When you want something, she indulges you. I want to know why.â€™â€™

Amelie hadnâ€™t exactly indulged her the last time theyâ€™d talked, although the cell phone sitting abandoned in her room might argue otherwise. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜She thinks you have something she needs, or sheâ€™d hardly bother. Sheâ€™s seen whole cities die without shedding a tear or lifting a finger. Itâ€™s not altruism.â€™â€™

Myrnin. Itâ€™s about Myrnin. If I werenâ€™t learning from him . . . She couldnâ€™t say that, didnâ€™t even dare to really think it through. Oliver was unnerving, and sometimes he seemed downright psychic. â€˜â€˜Maybe sheâ€™s lonely.â€™â€™

He laughed, a harsh bark of sound with no amusement in it. â€˜â€˜She certainly deserves to be.â€™â€™ He took a step forward. â€˜â€˜Tell me why she needs you, Claire. Tell me what sheâ€™s hiding, and Iâ€™ll make a deal, a perfectly straightforward one: Iâ€™ll give your friends my direct Protection. No one will hurt them.â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t say anything this time; she just looked back at him. She didnâ€™t dare not look at him; even when she was watching him she had the eerie feeling that somehow he was creeping up behind her, ready to do something awful to her when she least expected it.

Oliver made a sound of deep frustration. â€˜â€˜You stupid, stupid girl.â€™â€™ He shoved past her, going up the stairs so lightly the wood hardly even creaked. After a second, the hidden, knobless door sighed open. Claire got up, steadied herself for a second, and then stepped out into the hallway. Nobody else had heard a thing, apparently. It was quiet as the grave.

Oliverâ€™s hands closed around her shoulders, and he moved her out of his way by simply picking her up and putting her down, as if she weighed nothing. He didnâ€™t let go once heâ€™d done it; he stepped up behind her, bent down, and whispered, â€˜â€˜Not a sound, Claire. If you wake your friends and they come against me, Iâ€™ll destroy you all. Understand?â€™â€™

She nodded.

She felt the cold pressure of his hands go away, but not his presence, and she was surprised when she looked back and saw that he was gone.

As if heâ€™d never been there at all.

She pressed the button behind the painting, and the hidden door sealed itself. Then she picked up her phone from the floor of her bedroom. The call had ended; Travis Lowe was probably on his way over, burning sirens all the way.

She sat down to wait for the panic to start.

Â 
There just had to be something out there in the alley, given the response. It wasnâ€™t only a couple of cops, some yellow tape, and a write-up in Captain Obviousâ€™s underground newspaper; it looked, from Claireâ€™s window, like a full-blown CSI-style investigation, with people in white jumpsuits collecting evidence and everything. There was a big blocky van with heavily tinted windows that she guessed housed vampire detectives or forensics people or something, with the emblem of the Morganville police on the side, and she guessed the majority of people roaming around in Michaelâ€™s backyard this morning were, in fact, the undead.

Crime-solving undead. That was new.

She wasnâ€™t sure what she was feeling anymore. Light-headed, disconnected, looped. Last night had felt like a dream, and it had passed in a blur from the time she and Shane had come upstairs until sheâ€™d heard the rattle of trash cans in the alley.

Someone was ringing the doorbell downstairs. She didnâ€™t move away from the windowâ€”couldnâ€™t seem to convince herself to move at all, in fact. It was probably the cops. Travis Lowe had, as sheâ€™d thought, already come racing to the rescue, but on finding her unfanged and still alive, heâ€™d called in the full-on police assault. So those were probably the detectives, Gretchen and Hans, or maybe Richard Morrell coming to take her statement.

Claire looked down at herself. I should probably get dressed. Her wrist was a mess, smeared with slow-leaking blood, and she pressed her T-shirt against it before she could think about what she was doing. Great, now she wasnâ€™t only undressed, she was undressed in bloody nightclothes.

It took ten minutes to shower, change, and bandage up her arm, and then she padded down the stairs in bare feet to face the music.

Her housemates were all standing in the living room, and they all looked at her with identical expressions, blank enough that she came to a stop on the steps. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ Claire asked. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™d I do now?â€™â€™

Michael stepped aside so Claire could see who was sitting cross-legged in the chair, flipping through a bubble-gum pink edition of Teen People.

Monica Morrell.

She was dressed in a tight-fitting pink top with diamonds that spelled out BITCH/PRINCESS, and white short-shorts that even Daisy Duke would have thrown out as too trashy. Her tan was deep and dark, and she was lazily dangling a pink flip-flop with a yellow flower on top from her perfectly manicured toes.

â€˜â€˜Hey, Claire!â€™â€™ she said, and stood up. â€˜â€˜I thought we could grab some breakfast.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”what?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Break . . . fast,â€™â€™ Monica said, drawing out the word. â€˜â€˜Most important meal of the day? Do you even have parents?â€™â€™

Claire felt ridiculously off balance. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t understand. Why are you here?â€™â€™

Shane leaned against the wall, glaring at Monica. He had a serious bed-head thing going on, and Claire wanted to run her hands through his thick, soft hair and return it to its usual shaggy mess. â€˜â€˜What a good question. The second best one being, who let her inside? And weâ€™re going to have to throw out that chair. The smellâ€™s never coming out.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I let her in,â€™â€™ Michael said quietly, and that got him a stare from Shane. â€˜â€˜Lay off the daggers. It was better to let her in than have her pitch a fit on the porch with all the cops around. Weâ€™ve already got enough trouble.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s this we, paleface? I mean that in the vampire sense, notâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up, man.â€™â€™

Claire rubbed her forehead, feeling her headache blooming back to hot, throbbing life. She ignored Michael and Shane with an effort and focused on Monica, who had a malicious smile curving her lips. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re enjoying this,â€™â€™ Claire said. Monica shrugged.

â€˜â€˜Of course. Theyâ€™re jackasses to me most of the time; itâ€™s nice to see them take it out on each other for a change. Not that I care.â€™â€™ Monica arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow. â€˜â€˜So? I know you like coffee. Iâ€™ve seen you drinking it.â€™â€™

Eve stepped in between them, and for a second Claire thought her friend honestly looked . . . dangerous. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re not taking Claire anywhere. And youâ€™re sure not taking her anywhere near that son of a bitch,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜Which son of a bitch would that be, exactly? Because hey, she lives here. Itâ€™s not like sheâ€™s choosy about who she hangs out with.â€™â€™

Eve bunched up a fist, and for a second Claire thought she was going to haul off and slug Monica right in her perfect, pouty mouth. But Eve checked herself. Barely.

â€˜â€˜You so need to leave our house,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Now. Before something bad happens that I wonâ€™t really regret.â€™â€™

Monica gave her a look. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sorry, were you talking? Because I think I dropped off. Claire? Iâ€™m not here to banter with the mentally challenged. Iâ€™m just trying to be friendly. If you donâ€™t want to go, just say so.â€™â€™

Claire felt ridiculously like laughing, it was so weird. Why was this happening to her?

â€˜â€˜What do you really want?â€™â€™ she asked, and Monicaâ€™s lovely, crazy eyes widened. Just a little.

â€˜â€˜I want to talk to you without the Losers Club hanging over my shoulder. I figured we could have breakfast, but if youâ€™re allergic to caffeine and pastry . . .â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of my friends,â€™â€™ Claire said. That brought both of Monicaâ€™s eyebrows up.

â€˜â€˜Oooookay. Your funeral,â€™â€™ she said, and glanced at Shane. â€˜â€˜So where was your boyfriend last night after midnight?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Who? Shane?â€™â€™ What time had she left his room, anyway? Late. But . . . not after midnight.

â€˜â€˜None of your damn business where I was,â€™â€™ Shane said to Monica. â€˜â€˜Eve told you to get out. The next step is I throw your skanky ass and see if you bounce when you hit the porch. I donâ€™t care whose pet you are; you donâ€™t come here andâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane,â€™â€™ Monica interrupted with elaborate calm, â€˜â€˜shut the hell up. I saw you, idiot.â€™â€™

Claire waited for Shane to give her a biting comeback, but he just sat there. Waiting. His eyes had gone very dark.

â€˜â€˜They donâ€™t know, do they?â€™â€™ Monica continued, and tapped her rolled-up copy of Teen People against her hip. â€˜â€˜Wow. Shocker. Bad boy keeps secrets. That never happens.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up, Monica.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Or youâ€™ll what? Kill me?â€™â€™ She smiled. â€˜â€˜There wouldnâ€™t even be DNA left when they got done with you, Shane. And the rest of you, too. And your families.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s she talking about?â€™â€™ Eve asked. â€˜â€˜Shane?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothing.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothing,â€™â€™ Monica mocked. â€˜â€˜Deny everything. Thatâ€™s a brilliant plan. Then again, itâ€™s what Iâ€™d expect from someone like you.â€™â€™

Michael was frowning at Shane now, and Claire couldnâ€™t resist, either. Shaneâ€™s dark eyes darted to each of them in turn, Claire last.

â€˜â€˜The cops arenâ€™t going to find any bodies out there in the alley. And theyâ€™re not going to find one anywhere else in your house,â€™â€™ Monica said, â€˜â€˜because Shane moved a body last night, out the back door.â€™â€™

Shane still wasnâ€™t saying anything. Claire covered her mouth with her hand. â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re lying.â€™â€™

Monica folded her arms. â€˜â€˜Why exactly would I do that? Why would I admit to hanging around watching your house unless I had to? Embarrassing! Look, if Iâ€™m lying, all it takes is for him to deny it. Ask him. Go on.â€™â€™ She was staring right at Shane.

Shaneâ€™s eyes narrowed, but he didnâ€™t say anything. For a frozen second or two, nobody moved, and then Michael said, â€˜â€˜Christ, Shane, what the hell?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up!â€™â€™ Shane snapped. â€˜â€˜I had to! I thought I heard something down in the basement last night, when I was getting some water in the kitchen. So I went to check it out. Andâ€”â€™â€™ He stopped, and Claire saw his Adamâ€™s apple bob as he swallowed, hard. â€˜â€˜She was dead down there. At the bottom of the stairs, as if somebody had just . . . thrown her. For a second I thought it wasâ€™â€™â€”he glanced at Eve, then awayâ€”â€˜â€˜I thought it was you. I thought youâ€™d tripped and fallen down the stairs or something. But when I got down there, it wasnâ€™t you. And she was dead, not just knocked out.â€™â€™

Eve sank down on the arm of the sofa, looking as stunned as Claire felt. â€˜â€˜Who? Who was it?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t recognize her. Some college girl, I guess.

She didnâ€™t look local and she wasnâ€™t wearing a bracelet.â€™â€™ Shane took in an audible deep breath. â€˜â€˜Look, weâ€™ve been in enough trouble as it is. I had to get rid of her. So I wrapped her up in one of the blankets out of the boxes down there and carried her out. I put her in the trunk of your carâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You what?â€™â€™ Michael snapped.

â€˜â€˜And I drove her to the church. I left her there, inside. I didnâ€™t want to justâ€”dump her. I thoughtâ€™â€™â€” Shane shook his headâ€”â€˜â€˜I thought it was the right thing to do.â€™â€™

Monica sighed. She was checking out her fingernails with exaggerated boredom. â€˜â€˜Yeah, yeah, touching. The point is, when I saw you, you were hauling a dead chick into the trunk of his car. And I just canâ€™t wait to tell my brother. You know my brother, right? The cop?â€™â€™

Unbelievable. â€˜â€˜What do you want?â€™â€™ Claire practically yelled it at her.

â€˜â€˜I told you. Breakfast.â€™â€™ Monica gave her a sunny movie-star smile. â€˜â€˜Please. If you say yes, I just could forget all about what I saw. Especially since I was, you know, out after curfew, and I donâ€™t want to get asked about why. Think of it as mutually assured destruction.â€™â€™

It sounded like a deal, but it wasnâ€™t, not really. Monica had all the cards, and they had none. None at all.

â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™s no body in the alley,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜The police arenâ€™t going to find anything. Youâ€™re sure?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t think so, but wouldnâ€™t that suck for you if they did?â€™â€™ Monica shrugged, puckered her lips, and blew Shane a mocking kiss. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve got guts, Shane. No brains, but a whole lot of guts. You thought it out, right? Now that Michaelâ€™s one of the chosen undead, humans canâ€™t get in this house without an invitation. So you have to either blame it on a vampire, or face up to the fact that one of you killed her. Either way, itâ€™s not going to be pretty, and somebodyâ€™s going down.â€™â€™ She held up her hand. â€˜â€˜I vote for Shane. Anybody else?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Leave him alone!â€™â€™ Claire said sharply. â€˜â€˜You want to go out, fine. Weâ€™ll go. No, donâ€™t you even start!â€™â€™ Eve hadnâ€™t even had a chance to do more than open her mouth, and now she shut it, fast. â€˜â€˜You guys work it out between the three of you. I wonâ€™t be long. Believe me, I probably wonâ€™t be able to keep anything down, whatever I manage to eat.â€™â€™

Monica nodded, as if sheâ€™d known it would happen all along, and did a runway modelâ€™s walk down the hall toward the front door. From the back, her shorts were barely legal.

And however much they hated her, Shane and Michael were watching her go.

â€˜â€˜Guys,â€™â€™ Claire muttered, and grabbed her backpack.

Â 
Claire hadnâ€™t been inside Common Grounds in a while, but it hadnâ€™t changed. It was bohemian, warm, packed to the gills with college types grabbing their morning venti-whatever, and if Claire hadnâ€™t known betterâ€”known very wellâ€”sheâ€™d never have believed that the nice, smiling hippie type behind the counter was a vampire.

Oliver locked gazes with her and nodded slightly. His face stayed pleasant. â€˜â€˜Nice to see you back,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™ll it be?â€™â€™

Much as she hated to admit it, he made the best drinks in town. Better than Eve, actually. â€˜â€˜White mocha,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜With whip.â€™â€™ She managed to hold back from adding anything more, because she didnâ€™t like being nice to him. God, heâ€™d been licking blood off her wrist two hours ago! The least she could do was not say please and thank you.

â€˜â€˜No charge,â€™â€™ he said, and waved away the five dollar bill she dug out of her jeans pocket. â€˜â€˜A welcome-back present, Claire. Ah, Monica. Your usual?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Half-caf no foam double pump latte, with pink sugar,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜In a real cup, not that foam stuff.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜A simple yes would suffice,â€™â€™ he said. As Monica started to turn away, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. He did it in such a way that nobody but Claire would notice, but it was unmistakably threatening. â€˜â€˜She doesnâ€™t pay. You do, Monica. You may think of yourself as a princess, but trust me, Iâ€™ve met them, and you donâ€™t qualify.â€™â€™ He grinned just a little, but there was no humor in his eyes. â€˜â€˜Well, perhaps met isnâ€™t quite the right word.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eaten?â€™â€™ Claire supplied acidly. His smile turned darker.

â€˜â€˜Oh, the charm and eloquence of the younger generation. It does warm my heart.â€™â€™ Oliver let go of Monicaâ€™s arm and stepped away to make the drinks. Monica backed away, looking flushed. She threw a dirty look at Claireâ€”Yeah, like itâ€™s my fault, Claire thoughtâ€”and stalked to the table in the corner. The one the deceased vampire Brandon had once staked outâ€”pun intendedâ€”as his own. There were two young college girls sitting there, with books and papers piled up. Monica folded her arms and took up a belligerent pose.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re in my chair,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Move.â€™â€™

The two girlsâ€”shorter and pudgier than Monicaâ€” stared up with saucer-huge eyes. One of them stammered, â€˜â€˜Which one of us?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Both,â€™â€™ Monica snapped. â€˜â€˜I like my space. Get out.â€™â€™

They gathered up papers and books and hurried away, nearly dumping coffee all over Claire in their haste to go. â€˜â€˜Did you have to do that?â€™â€™ Claire asked.

â€˜â€˜No. It was just fun.â€™â€™ Monica sat, crossed her smooth tanned legs, and patted the table. â€˜â€˜Come on, Claire. Have a seat. We have so much to talk about.â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t want to, but it was stupid to stand there, looking obvious. So she sat, dumped her backpack on the floor next to her feet, and concentrated on the scarred wood of the tabletop. She could see Monicaâ€™s flip-flop living up to its name as the other girl casually jiggled her foot. Ridiculously, it reminded her of Myrnin.

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s better.â€™â€™ Monica sounded way too pleased with herself. Not cool. â€˜â€˜So. Tell me all about it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜About what?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Whatever Amelieâ€™s got you doing,â€™â€™ Monica said. â€˜â€˜Your supersecret stuff. I mean, she picked you for a reason, and itâ€™s not for your charm and good looks, right? Obviously. Itâ€™s for your brains. You donâ€™t have any family here; youâ€™ve got nothing anybody wants other than that.â€™â€™

Monica was smarter than she looked. â€˜â€˜Amelieâ€™s not asking me to do anything,â€™â€™ Claire lied. â€˜â€˜Maybe she will later, I donâ€™t know. But she hasnâ€™t yet.â€™â€™ She nervously twisted the gold bracelet circling her left wrist. It was starting to remind her of those bands biologists put on endangered species.

And lab animals.

Monicaâ€™s eyes were half-closed when Claire risked a glance upward. â€˜â€˜Huh,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Really. Well, thatâ€™s disappointing. I really thought youâ€™d have something good I could use. Oh well. Then letâ€™s talk about making a deal.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜A deal?â€™â€™ First Jason, now Monica. How had Claire stepped into the role of negotiator?

â€˜â€˜I want to talk to Amelie about Protection. You can give me an introduction. And a recommendation.â€™â€™

Claire nearly laughed. â€˜â€˜Ask her yourself!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I would, but she wonâ€™t let me near her. She doesnâ€™t like me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m shocked,â€™â€™ Claire muttered under her breath.

Monica gave her a long look, one strangely missing the usual hip, ironic, contemptuous features. It looked almost . . . earnest. â€˜â€˜Since Brandon died, Oliver took over his contracts. The thing is, heâ€™s not keeping most of them. Heâ€™s trading them for favors with other vampires. If I donâ€™t make a better deal, thereâ€™s no telling what could happen to me.â€™â€™ Monica pointed at Claireâ€™s bracelet. â€˜â€˜Might as well start at the top.â€™â€™

Claire drummed her short fingernails on the table, glaring at the bar where it seemed like Oliver was taking forever to deliver their drinks. It occurred to her to wonder if it was really safe to drink something prepared by a vampire whoâ€™d been threatening her just a couple of hours before, but honestly, if Oliver wanted to get her, it wasnâ€™t as though it would be hard for him.

And she really wanted the white mocha.

â€˜â€˜Oliverâ€™s your Patron now?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜For now. Until he finds something he wants more than holding on to my contract, anyway.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Is he behind your asking about why Amelie signed me up?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Do I look like I run somebody elseâ€™s errands?â€™â€™

Claire glanced back again at the bar. â€˜â€˜Maybe.â€™â€™

Monica went quiet. It wasnâ€™t the comfortable kind of silence, and Claire was glad when Oliver called out their orders. She jumped up to get hers, hesitated, and then picked up Monicaâ€™s as well. She managed to do it without making eye contact with Oliver. He was just a dark shape at the corner of her eye, and she turned her back on him as soon as she could.

Monica had gotten up, and she looked honestly surprised when Claire handed her the drink. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ Claire asked. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s called being polite; they probably didnâ€™t teach you that at home. Doesnâ€™t mean I like you or anything.â€™â€™

Monica seemed to have to think hard about what to say to that, and finally came up with a simple â€˜â€˜Thanks.â€™â€™ Which, Claire had to admit, might have been the nicest thing Monica had ever managed to say to her. Claire gave her a nod and sat down again. Peace in our time, she thought wryly. And promptly blew it by asking again, â€˜â€˜Did Oliver put you up to it?â€™â€™

Monica didnâ€™t even glance in his direction. â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™ But somehow, Claire didnâ€™t believe her.

â€˜â€˜Do you have to do everything he says?â€™â€™ she asked, as if Monica hadnâ€™t just lied. And Monica lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. No other answer. â€˜â€˜So you donâ€™t really want to talk to me, do you? Youâ€™ve just been told to do it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not exactly. I thought it was a good chance to get my name in front of Amelie, too.â€™â€™ Monica smiled slightly, and very bitterly. â€˜â€˜Besides, check it out: youâ€™re a star. Everybody wants to know about you, vampires and humans. Theyâ€™re looking into your history, your familyâ€™s history. If you farted in grade school, somebody in Morganville knows it now.â€™â€™

Claire almost choked on her first mouthful of white mocha. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The Founder isnâ€™t what you might call accessible. And most of the vamps donâ€™t understand her any better than we do. Theyâ€™re always looking for clues about who she is, what sheâ€™s doing here, with this town. This isnâ€™t normal, you know. The way they live here.â€™â€™ Monicaâ€™s gaze flicked to Oliver, then away. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s old enough to know more than most, but he still needs inside information. And the word is, you could be the way to get it. If I canâ€™t get Protection from Amelie, at least I can get in good with him if I have something new and valuable to tell him.â€™â€™

Claire rolled her eyes. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m nobody. And if she cared about me at allâ€”which she doesnâ€™tâ€”sheâ€™d never let anybody know it. I mean, look how she treatsâ€”â€™â€™ She stopped herself cold, heart suddenly hammering fast. Sheâ€™d almost said Myrnin, and that would have been bad. â€˜â€˜Sam,â€™â€™ she finished lamely. Which was also true, but Monica had to have noticed her stumble.

Which Monica emphasized by waiting for a full ten seconds of silence before she continued. â€˜â€˜Whatever. The point is, youâ€™re sort of famous, and by hanging with you, I get seen by the right people doing the right thing, and I do what Oliver wants. Which is all I care about. Youâ€™re right, I donâ€™t care if weâ€™re BFFs. Weâ€™re not going to trade clothes and get matching tattoos. Iâ€™ve got friends. I need allies.â€™â€™ She sipped her complicated drink, her eyes steady on Claire. â€˜â€˜Oliver wants what you know, yeah. And thisâ€™â€™â€” she tapped her own braceletâ€”â€˜â€˜this says that I do what he says, or else.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Or else what?â€™â€™

Monica looked down. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve met him. Best case, it means he hurts me. Bad. Worst case . . . he trades me down.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s worse?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah. That means I get handed to the bottom-of-the-barrel vamps, the ones too lame to get the good earners and the pretty people. That means Iâ€™m a loser.â€™â€™ She looked down and fidgeted with her ceramic coffee cup, frowning at it. â€˜â€˜Sounds shallow, maybe, but around here, itâ€™s survival. If Oliver blackballs me, I canâ€™t get anything but the freaks and the skanks, the ones who get their fix the hard way. Theyâ€™ll kill me, if Iâ€™m lucky. If not, I end up some strung-out junkie fang-banger.â€™â€™

She said it with such dry, matter-of-fact intensity that Claire could tell sheâ€™d spent a lot of time thinking about it. It was a long way to fall, from the darling daughter of the mayor to some addict trying to please a kinky freak for protection.

â€˜â€˜You could be neutral,â€™â€™ Claire blurted. She felt oddly sympathetic, even after everything Monica had done. She had been born here, after all. Not like sheâ€™d ever had a real choice in what she was going to be, or do. â€˜â€˜Some people are, right? Theyâ€™re left alone?â€™â€™

Monica sneered, and the second or two of humanity Claire had imagined sheâ€™d seen in that pretty face vanished. â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™re left alone until theyâ€™re not. Look, officially, theyâ€™re untouchable because theyâ€™ve done favors, big favors, and their Patrons let them out of contracts. By big favors, I mean the kind they were lucky to live through, get it? Iâ€™m not interested in that kind of hero crap.â€™â€™

Claire shrugged. â€˜â€˜Then go without a contract.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, right. That works. Iâ€™m really looking forward to a future as second assistant fry wrangler at the Dairy Queen, and decomposing in some ditch before Iâ€™m thirty.â€™â€™ Monica rested her elbows on the table, coffee cup cradled in both hands. â€˜â€˜I thought about leaving. I actually went to Austin for a semester, you know? But . . . it wasnâ€™t the same.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Meaning you flunked out of school.â€™â€™

That earned Claire a filthy look. â€˜â€˜Shut up, bitch. Iâ€™m here only because I need to be, and youâ€™re here only because you have to be. Letâ€™s not get too touchy-feely.â€™â€™

Claire swallowed a mouthful of sweet, rich mocha. If it was poisoned, sheâ€™d die happy, at least. â€˜â€˜Fine by me. Look, I canâ€™t help you get to Amelie. I donâ€™t even know how to get to her myself. And even if I did, I donâ€™t think sheâ€™d take your contract.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then just shut up and smile. If I donâ€™t get anything else out of this wasted morning, at least Oliver can see that I tried.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How long do I have to do this?â€™â€™

Monica checked her watch. â€˜â€˜Ten minutes. Suck it up that long, and I wonâ€™t call my brother about your boyfriendâ€™s little indiscretion.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How can I be sure?â€™â€™

Monica slapped both hands to her cheeks and looked overdramatically horrified. â€˜â€˜Oh no! You donâ€™t trust me! Iâ€™m crushed.â€™â€™ She dropped the act. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t care if Shane has opened his own corpse taxi service; I care only about what I can get out of it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Maybe you want revenge,â€™â€™ Claire said.

Monica smiled. â€˜â€˜If Iâ€™d wanted that, Iâ€™d have already turned him in. Besides, I hear itâ€™s best served cold.â€™â€™

Claire pulled out a book. â€˜â€˜All right. Ten minutes. I need to study, anyway.â€™â€™ Monica sat back and began a running, acidly accurate monologue on the outfits of the girls standing in line for coffee, which Claire tried earnestly not to find funny. Which she was able to do, until Monica pointed out a girl wearing a truly horrible polka-dot-leggings-under-shorts ensemble. â€˜â€˜And somewhere in heaven, Versace sheds a single, perfect tear.â€™â€™

Claire couldnâ€™t control a snort of laughter, and hated herself for it. Monica cocked an eyebrow.

â€˜â€˜See?â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m so good I can even charm a hard case like you. Itâ€™s a waste of my talent, but I need to keep myself sharp.â€™â€™ She finished her coffee and picked up her little pink purse with the Teen People magazine sticking out of it. â€˜â€˜Gotta fly, loser. Tell your boyfriend as far as Iâ€™m concerned, weâ€™re even. Well, okay, Iâ€™m a little bit more than even, and thatâ€™s the way I like it. Consider this his restraining order: if I see him within fifty feet of me, Iâ€™ll not only tell my brother about Shaneâ€™s midnight adventure, but Iâ€™ll get some football types to pay his kneecaps a visit.â€™â€™

She walked out, hips swaying dangerously. People got out of her way, and they watched her go. Fear and attraction, in just about equal measure.

Claire sighed. She supposed people always did like that sort of girl, and always would. And secretly? She envied Monicaâ€™s confidence. Maybe just a little, traitorous bit.

10

The dead girl that Shane had taken to the church was Jeanne Jackson, a sophomore whoâ€™d gone missing from a sorority party two nights before. The papers said that sheâ€™d been raped and strangled, but nothing about suspects, and no cops showed up to interrogate Shane, much to Claireâ€™s relief. Heâ€™d done a dumbass thing, but she could understand his paranoia. In Morganville, he was one suspicion away from taking up residence in Jasonâ€™s old cell, whether heâ€™d actually done anything or not.

That was if the vampires didnâ€™t decide to hold their own brand of frontier justice.

Captain Obviousâ€™s Fang Report had a much more detailed article on the killings, linking the other two that Claire knew about with this one, and speculating that instead of a vampire menace, they might be dealing with a human one this time. He didnâ€™t seem as enthusiastic about forming vigilante parties for someone with a pulse, Claire noticed. Not that it mattered to the dead girls which type of monster had killed them.

She got a note from Amelie giving her time off from working with Myrnin for the rest of the week, so she devoted herself to keeping up with classes. They were tougher than she was used to, which was kind of a relief. She loved a good challenge, and the professors seemed to actually care whether or not their students had a clue. Myth and Legend wasnâ€™t what sheâ€™d expected, not at all; it wasnâ€™t Greek gods, or even Native American Trickster stories. No, it was about . . . vampires. Comparative vampires, actually, examining the literature and folklore from earliest recorded history to the latest vampire-as-hero in pop culture. (Which, now that Claire thought about it, kind of was the modern-day version of myth and legend.) Oddly, for Morganville, the professor wasnâ€™t skipping the parts about vampire-killing methods, but Claire guessed that she was one of the few in the class whoâ€™d ever know the score about the town, anyway. The rest would bumble cluelessly through their one or two years, transfer out to bigger schools, and never know theyâ€™d rubbed elbows at parties with real monsters.

She kept her mouth shut about anything that might get her in trouble, because the professor had a bracelet, too. She was trying to match up glyphs with vampires, and she thought he probably belonged to a female vamp named Susan, who seemed to be into finance. Susan owned a lot of property, anyway, and was some kind of bigwig at the Morganville Bank and Trust.

Claire began keeping notes in a special book about glyphs, vampires, who owned what. Not because she had any agenda, but just because it was interesting, and could be useful someday. She supposed if sheâ€™d asked, Amelie would have told her all about it, but it was more challenging to figure it out herselfâ€”and this way, Amelie couldnâ€™t be really sure how much Claire knew, which couldnâ€™t be a bad thing. Sheâ€™s nice when it suits her. That doesnâ€™t mean sheâ€™s nice.

And on Friday, Eve left a note stuck to the bathroom mirror for Claire to find when she got up.

Â 
CBâ€”Donâ€™t forget tonight is the party. Objective: look hotter than Monica and make everybody totally forget who threw the party in the first place. Outfit on back of door. Pay me back.â€”E.

Â 
The outfit was nothing Claire would ever, ever, ever have bought for herself. For one thing, the black leather skirt was . . . short. Like, really short. There were some kind of patterned panty hose and a sheer red shirt with big red roses woven into the fabric in flocked material. And a black cami to go under it.

There was another sticky note attached to the skirt. Shoes under the cabinet. Claire looked. They were thick clunky platforms, in her size, in shiny patent leather.

She took it all back into her bedroom and put it down, backed off, and stared at it for a few seconds. I canâ€™t wear that. Itâ€™s not me.

Eve would totally mock her if she wore her blue jeans to the party. And sheâ€™d gone to a lot of trouble, because all of this stuff was Claireâ€™s size, not Eveâ€™s. Even the shoes.

And . . . it really would burn Monica if Claire looked hot. (Sheâ€™d never be hotter than Monica; that was a fantasy, but still.) Imagining the expression on Monicaâ€™s face, Claire slowly stroked her fingers down the soft leather of the skirt. No. I canâ€™t.

And then she imagined Shaneâ€™s face when he saw her.

Well. Maybe she could, after all.

Â 
She hadnâ€™t gotten his expression quite right in her imagination, because the stunned, vacant expression on Shaneâ€™s face when she started down the stairs was even better than fantasy. His mouth actually dropped open. Next to him, Michael turned around, and although she hadnâ€™t counted on it, there was a warm fuzzy feeling to making a hot golden-angel vampire blink and give her a quick, involuntary once-over.

Claire stopped on the steps above them and did a tentative hip shimmy. â€˜â€˜Okay?â€™â€™ she asked. Shaneâ€™s mouth shut with a snap, and Michael actually cleared his throat.

â€˜â€˜Fine,â€™â€™ Michael said.

â€˜â€˜Fine?â€™â€™ That was Eve, coming down the stairs behind Claire. She moved around the roadblock and punched Michael in the arm. â€˜â€˜She looks amazing. Iâ€™m not half-gay, and I think sheâ€™s hot.â€™â€™

Shane wasnâ€™t saying anything. Claire felt warm and a little dizzy, the way he was looking at her. She resisted the urge to check to see if her skirt was straightâ€”sheâ€™d done it a dozen times alreadyâ€”and forced herself to meet his gaze and smile.

â€˜â€˜You sure this is smart?â€™â€™ Shane asked, which was not what sheâ€™d expected, not at all. â€˜â€˜You look fantastic.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thanksâ€”â€™â€™

He interrupted her. â€˜â€˜Fantastic in this town pops you to the top of the take-out menu.â€™â€™

She held up her left hand and pointed to her wrist. The gold bracelet was clearly visible. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be okay,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜The vamps wonâ€™t bother me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not even talking about the vamps. Youâ€™re going to be drawing every guy there whoâ€™s looking to get off.â€™â€™

Eve rolled her eyes. â€˜â€˜Oh, God, Shane, buzz kill? She looks great, and you donâ€™t have to get all jealous and overprotective about it! Sheâ€™ll be with us; weâ€™ll all look out for her. And youâ€™ve got to admit, girlfriend looks good all cleaned up. I did her hair, too. Smokinâ€™, right?â€™â€™ The hair, Claire felt, was just almost over the top. It was mostly gel and sprays and stuff, but it did have that carefully tousled look that models always seemed to wear.

Eve wasnâ€™t exactly wallflower quality tonight, either; she was wearing a dramatic, floor-sweeping black dress that left her pale arms bare, plunged a neckline halfway to China, and had a slit in the side that went all the way to her hip. Fishnet hose, even. It was outrageously sexy, and if Michael had noticed Claireâ€™s transformation, he was completely focused on Eve now.

Eve winked at him and spun around to show him the back. Of which there wasnâ€™t any. It was just her skin, and a crimson rose tattoo at the small of her back.

â€˜â€˜Man,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s justâ€”yeah.â€™â€™

It wasnâ€™t until sheâ€™d gotten past their reactionsâ€” which were pretty funâ€”that Claire realized that Eve must have done a number on the boys, too . . . because they looked amazingly fine. Michael was wearing black pants and a black leather coat, and a dark blue silk shirt. It made him just . . . blaze, like white gold against velvet.

Shane looked good enough to drag back to her room. Eve must have forced him to get the worst of his shag evened up, which brought out his strong cheekbones and chin. He was wearing black, too, with a dark maroon knit shirt. Claire had never seen him in a jacket. She decided he needed to never take it off.

Michael shook his head and offered Eve his arm. She took it, smiling with her red, red lips, and winked at Claire. Claire winked back, suddenly feeling very wicked, and slid her arm through Shaneâ€™s.

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t believe weâ€™re doing this,â€™â€™ Shane said.

This was going to be fun.

Â 
Claire hadnâ€™t forgotten the address, even though sheâ€™d given away the invitation, and Michael knew Morganville like the back ofâ€”Eveâ€™s back, the way he kept looking at her exposed skin, especially the tattoo. And besides, if you were within a couple of blocks of the party, you couldnâ€™t possibly miss it. Between the glow of the lights and the low-pitched rumble of the music, there was no sleeping through it if you lived nearby.

Michael cruised around the block, looking for parking, and finally located a narrow few feet of curb. As he pulled in, he said, â€˜â€˜Ground rules. We donâ€™t split up. Eve and Claire, you two especially. Itâ€™s not just because of the vampires; itâ€™s because of Jason. Got it?â€™â€™

They nodded.

â€˜â€˜Besides,â€™â€™ Shane said, and playfully tugged at Claireâ€™s overgelled hair, â€˜â€˜I want to see Monicaâ€™s face when she catches sight of the two of you. Kodak moment.â€™â€™

Eve fumbled in her tiny little coffin-shaped purse and held up a brand new cell phone, with camera. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m ready.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Me too,â€™â€™ Claire said, and pulled out the fancy phone that Amelie had given her. She felt a blast of shame as Shane glanced at it, but controlled it. She couldnâ€™t be ashamed all the time, and besides, it wasnâ€™t so bad, right? What she was doing? It wasnâ€™t any worse than having a day job. Just . . . different.

â€˜â€˜Be careful what you eat and drink,â€™â€™ Michael continued. â€˜â€˜Monicaâ€™s party is probably roofie heaven. I can smell what they put in the drinks; you guys canâ€™t. And if you get into any trouble, step back; let me handle it. If youâ€™re going to have a freak vamp friend, you might as well get your moneyâ€™s worth out of it.â€™â€™

Shane didnâ€™t answer, but Claire could see there was some smart-ass remark burning a hole in his tongue. She was glad he didnâ€™t let it loose. It was nice to feel like four friends again, instead of four people all about to spin apart in different directions.

â€˜â€˜Anything else, Dad?â€™â€™ Eve asked. Michael kissed her, very lightly, sparing her lipstick.

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You look good enough to eat. Promise me youâ€™ll remember that.â€™â€™

Claire was caught between a smile and a shiver, and saw that Eve was, too.

Â 
The Morrell home looked like Tara from Gone with the Wind, post-Shermanâ€™s march. Claire watched, blinking, as a mob of drunken frat boys stumbled down the walk, roaring something she couldnâ€™t make out, and carrying a couch.

The couch they deposited in the giant European-style fountain in front of the house. Apparently they were relocating most of the living room out there. Some partyers were already sitting in chairs, soaking in the fountainâ€™s spray, and now three or four of them piled giggling onto the wet couch.

â€˜â€˜Now this,â€™â€™ Shane said with respect, â€˜â€˜is out of bounds. I like it.â€™â€™

It was totally out of control. The four of them stood together by Michaelâ€™s shiny vampire-tinted car, watching in admiration. The house was blazing with lights, there were lit tiki torches tilting drunkenly all over the lawn, and partyers were everywhere. Making out under the trees, in full glare of the security lights. Doing shots on the big, white-columned front steps. A girl ran by, dressed in half a bikini. The top half.

â€˜â€˜Damn,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Monica does know how to throw it.â€™â€™

No kidding. Claire watched as a big bobtail truck inched its way through a knot of people toward the back of the house. It had the logo of BOBâ€™S FINE LIQUORS. Apparently, Monica had called in liquid reinforcements already, and the night was young.

â€˜â€˜Well?â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Are we standing out here all night? Because Iâ€™m ready to knock somebody dead.â€™â€™

The four of them strolled up the walkway, keeping an eye out for frat boys and wandering furniture. They went as a group up the front steps, where about ten people were playing some complicated game that involved drinking shots, spray cans of fluorescent paint, and giggling hysterically. Even the drunkest turned to look at the four of them and whistle.

The frat boys, the drunks in the fountain, and the even drunker people on the porch were all wearing standard college casual dress, mostly shorts and T-SHIRTS. â€˜â€˜Um,â€™â€™ Claire said, â€˜â€˜Maybe we should have come a little less formal.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No way,â€™â€™ Eve replied. â€˜â€˜If youâ€™re going, go big.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Remind me to play poker with you later,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜I love a girl whoâ€™ll go all in.â€™â€™

She hip-bumped him. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s what you want to do with me later? Dude. Respect the dress, at least.â€™â€™

Michael trailed his pale fingers down her back, following the line of her spine, all the way to the red rose. Eve shivered, and her eyes went half-closed. Whatever Michael whispered in her ear, Claire thought it was probably way too personal to hear.

Not that she could have, because right then the front door banged open and the noise flowed out in a syrup-thick wave of pounding techno and yelled conversations. Two people stumbled out of the door, arms around each other. Claire blinked and recognized two of the gamers whom sheâ€™d given Monicaâ€™s invitation to that afternoon on campus.

â€˜â€˜Freakinâ€™ awesome party!â€™â€™ one of them screamed, and fell flat on his face.

â€˜â€˜Apparently.â€™â€™ Eve stepped over him and swept into the party, with Michael right behind her. Claire started to follow, but Shaneâ€™s grip on her arm had tightened, and he was holding her back.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ she asked, and turned to face him. God, he looked amazing. He needed to let Eve dress him all the time.

â€˜â€˜Before we go in,â€™â€™ he said, and bent and kissed her. Claire distantly heard the whistles and catcalls of the shot drinkersâ€”distantly, because the kiss was sweet and hot and wild, and there was something crazy in it that made her just quiver inside.

He pulled away way too soon. â€˜â€˜Stay with me,â€™â€™ he said, with his lips near her ear, and she nodded. Like Iâ€™d let you out of my sight.

And then they followed Michael and Eve into the party of the century.

It was the second big party of Claireâ€™s lifeâ€”not counting birthday parties and ones where there were as many chaperones as kids. The first one, the Dead Girlsâ€™ Dance thrown by the EEK fraternity, hadnâ€™t exactly come out well, what with Shaneâ€™s dad going on a rampage through the place looking for vampires to stake. This one looked, if possible, even crazier.

She was grateful to be with her friends. She couldnâ€™t imagine how scary it would be if sheâ€™d stepped into this by herself. The main hall was wide and tall, but it was jam-packed with people talking, dancing, kissing, gropingâ€”it was like the hottest dance club with all the lights up full. Claire brushed up against a couple who wereâ€”what were they doing? She looked away before she could be sure, but the guyâ€™s hand was in places that she couldnâ€™t imagine a porn actress allowing in public.

Michael and Eve pushed through the crowd into the next room, and Claire and Shane followed, staying close. There were a few people in the big living area who were dressed fancy, but most had on standard-issue college wear, and somehow, Claire had the distinct impression the casual-dress crowd had not come invited.

Monica was standing at the top of the stairs, arms folded, looking right at them.

â€˜â€˜Oooh, that is a Kodak moment,â€™â€™ Eve said, and held up her cell phone to snap a photo of Monicaâ€™s scowl. â€˜â€˜Yep. Weâ€™re good.â€™â€™

She high-fived Shane, who seemed to be expecting it. Monica cleared the annoyance out of her expression with an effort and started down the steps. She was dressed in a pink, clinging sheath dress with huge lime-outlined flowers climbing the fabric, and her shoes were prissy-perfect in matching pink. Very fancy.

â€˜â€˜Claire, you brought strays,â€™â€™ Monica said. â€˜â€˜How nice.â€™â€™ And then she looked strangely sorry. â€˜â€˜Michael, I didnâ€™t mean you. Youâ€™re always welcome.â€™â€™

He raised his pale eyebrows. â€˜â€˜I am?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Of course.â€™â€™

Claire elbowed him. â€˜â€˜Because youâ€™re a VIP. Vampire Important Person.â€™â€™

Two more of the gamers Claire had gifted with the invitation stumbled by; one grabbed Claireâ€™s arm and planted a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheek. â€˜â€˜We passed out copies,â€™â€™ he said, and giggled. â€˜â€˜Hope that was okay. Great party!â€™â€™

Shane sighed and moved him off with one hand on his shoulder. â€˜â€˜Yeah, yeah, whatever. Naked Vulcan chick in the next room. Better hurry.â€™â€™

The gamers sobered up fast, and moved on. Monicaâ€™s glossy, perfect lips were open, her eyes wide.

â€˜â€˜You?â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You did this? These idiots made flyers! They put them all over campus! This was supposed to be the best people!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t worry,â€™â€™ Eve said sweetly. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re here.â€™â€™ She smiled, which in that lipstick was Wicked-Witch-of-the-West evil. â€˜â€˜Air kiss!â€™â€™ She mwahed the air somewhere near Monicaâ€™s cheek. â€˜â€˜Lovely party. Shame about the furniture. Ta!â€™â€™ She sashayed on, Michael on her arm, as if she were the Queen of Everything, never mind Morganville. Claire got out her camera and captured a picture of the murderous fury on Monicaâ€™s face as she watched her go.

â€˜â€˜You treacherous little bitch!â€™â€™ Monica snarled.

Claire lowered the phone and met her eyes for a long second. She wasnâ€™t scared, not anymore. â€˜â€˜You got your friends to roofie me and told them I wanted it rough. All I did was recycle your invitation. Letâ€™s call it even.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s call it not!â€™â€™

Shane leaned forward, dropped his voice so that Monica had to work to hear it, and said, â€˜â€˜Calm down. You get blotchy when youâ€™re angry. And if you call my girlfriend a bitch one more time, I wonâ€™t be so nice about it.â€™â€™

Monicaâ€™s eyes were fierce and fiery, but she didnâ€™t move, and after a second she turned and ran up the steps to the second floor, where her formally dressed friends were huddled together like the cast of Survivor: Abercrombie & Fitch Island.

â€˜â€˜Score one for the little guys,â€™â€™ Shane said. He stared at a bunch of guys wearing football shirts who rumbled past, carrying a bed. Claire blinked. Yes, that was a bed. â€˜â€˜Okay, I donâ€™t really think I want to know. So. Drinks?â€™â€™

In the kitchen, a group was making punch in a trash can. Claire hoped it was a new trash can, but as blitzed as the guys were who were pouring stuff in, she really couldnâ€™t be sure of that.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d avoid that,â€™â€™ Shane said, his mouth close to her ear. â€˜â€˜See anybody you know?â€™â€™

She wasnâ€™t sure. There was barely room to move in here, with people crowding up to the counters, and streaming in and out with red plastic cups in their hands. . . .

A shock zipped down her spine. â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I see somebody.â€™â€™

How the hell had Eveâ€™s brother gotten into the party? He was standing in a corner, slouching and sneering. Lank hair dripped toward his shoulders, and he wore the same filthy, dangerous-boy clothes that heâ€™d had on when heâ€™d threatened Claire at the UC. He had a drink, but he wasnâ€™t drunk; there was too much hot contempt in his eyes as he surveyed the crowd. Crazy eyes. Oh God, thatâ€™s how they look, those guys who shoot up rooms full of people.

His eyes locked with Claireâ€™s, and he gave her a bent smile. Claire anxiously looked at Eve, but her back was to her brother and she was talking to Michael; she clearly hadnâ€™t seen the potential trouble at all.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ Shane asked.

Claire turned back and pointed.

Jason was gone.

Shane shook his head when she told him, and moved away to talk to Michael. Michael nodded, then handed Eve off to Shane. Claire saw his lips move: Watch her.

And then Michael angled off through the crowd. So much for staying together.

Shane draped his arms over both of their shoulders and said, â€˜â€˜Now this is the life. Want to get a room, girls?â€™â€™

Eve rolled her thickly mascaraed eyes. â€˜â€˜Like youâ€™d know what to do with one of us, never mind two. Whereâ€™s he going?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Bathroom,â€™â€™ Shane said blandly. â€˜â€˜Even vamps gotta pee.â€™â€™

Which, for all Claire knew, might be true, but she was sure that wasnâ€™t why Michael had cut out on them. Shane steered them up to the counter and snagged a sealed bottled water for Claire and two sealed beers, which he opened himself. Not taking any chances, Claire thought, and cracked the top on the bottle to take several gulps of the cool, sweet water. She hadnâ€™t realized how hot it was until then, but she could feel sweat sticking her flocked mesh shirt to her exposed skin.

Somebody grabbed her ass. Claire yelped and jumped, then turned and saw a drunk-off-his-butt frat boy leaning in next to her. â€˜â€˜Oh baby, me like!â€™â€™ he yelled in her ear. â€˜â€˜You, me, outside, okay?â€™â€™ He did a drunken pantomime of what he was thinking of doing outside, and she felt a hot roll of embarrassed shame.

â€˜â€˜Get lost,â€™â€™ she said, and shoved him off. His buddies tossed him back toward her, and this time, he crashed into her off balance and pushed her up against the bar. He took advantage of it, too, hands all over her, hips grinding her right into the counter.

Shane grabbed him by the collar of his TPU golf shirt, spun him around, and punched him right in the face.

Great, Claire thought in shaken disgust. Thatâ€™s always the answer around here. Punch somebody. Then again, she didnâ€™t think reasoned discourse was going to be big tonight.

And of course, the guyâ€™s friends piled on. Eve grabbed Claireâ€™s hand and pulled her out of the way; a tight circle formed around the combat, with people whooping and clapping. â€˜â€˜We have to stop him!â€™â€™ Claire yelled. Eve patted her on the shoulder.

â€˜â€˜This is Shaneâ€™s idea of a good time,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Trust me. You do not want to try to stop him right now. Let him do his thing. Heâ€™ll be fine.â€™â€™

Claire hated it. She hated seeing Shane get hit, and she didnâ€™t much like the way his eyes lit up when he was knee-deep in conflict, either. Stupid to be upset by it, she guessed, considering this was part of why she was so attracted to Shane in the first placeâ€”the way he would unhesitatingly throw himself into things, especially when it came to protecting others.

Eve was practically reading her mind. â€˜â€˜Let him be who he is,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I know itâ€™s hard, because in general, guys are clueless, and you just want to fix it, but justâ€”let him be. You donâ€™t want him trying to change you, right?â€™â€™

Right. She didnâ€™t, although he was changing her, whether he knew it or not. Not in bad ways, she thought. Just . . . change. A year ago sheâ€™d have been paralyzed with terror at the idea of coming to a party like this, and even more terrified to imagine being groped by a stranger like that.

Now, she was mostly just annoyed, and felt like she needed a shower.

Eve whirled. â€˜â€˜Hey! I know my ass is fine, but look, donâ€™t touch!â€™â€™ An eruption of drunken laughter. She took Claireâ€™s hand. â€˜â€˜We need a wall behind us. Less chance of getting the stealth feel-up.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”â€™â€™ She gave up as somebody else patted her rear. â€˜â€˜Yeah. Okay.â€™â€™

That put them half a room away from Shane, who was now somehow at the center of a knot of maybe ten guys, all whaling away at each other (mostly without connecting; they were all too drunk to really do damage). Claire leaned gratefully against the wall and sipped water. Somehow, sheâ€™d ended up holding Shaneâ€™s beer, and with a quick sideways glance at Eve, she took a sip of that, too. Ugh. Nasty.

â€˜â€˜Acquired taste,â€™â€™ Eve said, laughing at her expression. â€˜â€˜Shane buys like a college boy. If itâ€™s cheap and the ad has a girl in a bikini, it must be great.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s disgusting,â€™â€™ Claire said, and took another long drink of water to wash her tongue clean. Even the water tasted bitter, after that.

â€˜â€˜Well, in fairness, beer is mostly about the buzz, not the taste,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜You want taste and buzz, you get something like rum and Coke, or White Russians.â€™â€™ She seemed to remember, suddenly, how old Claire was. â€˜â€˜Not that Iâ€™m going to let you have any of that, by the way. We promised your parents.â€™â€™ She managed to look almost righteous when she said it, and she took Shaneâ€™s beer out of Claireâ€™s hand. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll keep this.â€™â€™ Eve raised her normally soft voice to a parade-ground bellow. â€˜â€˜Yo, Shane! Quit screwing around or Iâ€™m drinking this!â€™â€™

A ripple of laughter through the room. The fight was mostly over, anyway, and Shane shoved away the last stumbling frat boy whoâ€™d tried to take a swing at him, wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and left the field of battle. He looked rumpled and flushed and a little bit savage, and Claire felt something in her just growl in response.

She stared at him, wide-eyed. Iâ€™m not ready for this.

Parts of her clearly were.

â€˜â€˜Have a drink, Galahad,â€™â€™ Eve said, and handed him his bottle. They clinked glass. â€˜â€˜Our hero. Here. Fix your hair.â€™â€™ She picked at it with her black-manicured nails, twitching it this way and that, until it had that glamour-boy, carefully careless look again. â€˜â€˜God, youâ€™re hot. Get felt up yet?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Couple of times,â€™â€™ he said, and smiled at Claire. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t hurt them. They just couldnâ€™t help themselves.â€™â€™

Eve snorted and looked around. â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™s Michael?â€™â€™ â€˜â€˜Probably in line at the bathroom.â€™â€™ Shane shrugged. It was probably true, but Claire didnâ€™t think that was the reason. Shane did that thing where he looked at Eve too long and didnâ€™t blink. She thought she could tell when he was lying, and that definitely was a flashing neon sign. â€˜â€˜Ladies? Letâ€™s wander.â€™â€™

It wasnâ€™t so much wander as wriggle, like salmon heading upstream. What Claire could see of the house was amazingâ€”fine art on the walls, gorgeous old furniture (mostly being splashed with drinks or shoved against the walls to make room for dancing), big, expensive Turkish rugs (Claire hoped they were dry-cleanable), and huge plasma TVs that were all playing the same music channel, blasting at ear-piercing volume. Nine Inch Nailsâ€™ â€˜â€˜Closerâ€™â€™ was on now, and despite her best intentions Claire found herself moving to the rhythm. Eve was dancing, too, and then they were dancing together, which should have seemed weird but didnâ€™t, really. Shane formed the third point on their triangle, but Claire could see that he wasnâ€™t really giving in to the festive atmosphere; he was scanning the crowd, looking for trouble. Or Michael.

Somebody tried to pass her somethingâ€”a shot glass with a hit of something clear. She shook her head and passed it right back. Not that she wasnâ€™t tempted, but after what had almost happened to her at the last party, she wasnâ€™t going to be stupid.

Well, not any stupider than she already was to come here in the first place.

The drinks and drugs kept coming. Liquid E, poppers, shots, even something that she was almost sure was a crack pipe. Morganville liked its drugs, but she guessed that made sense. There was a hell of a lot to escape from around here.

She kept on dancing. Shane and Eve didnâ€™t take anything, eitherâ€”not that Claire saw, anyway. Shane was looking less into the party and more worried all the time.

Michael didnâ€™t come back. Two songs laterâ€”two long songsâ€”Eve finally got Shane to look for him, and the three of them moved out through the bottom floor, checking out the rooms (all packed) and not finding Michael anywhere. In the hall bathroom a line of people was waiting for the toilet, but no sign of a tall, blond vampire.

When they went up the big, sweeping steps toward the second floor, Claire couldnâ€™t help but think about Gone With the Wind, and Rhett Butler carrying Scar-lett. Her mom loved that movie. Sheâ€™d always thought it was boring, but that scene stayed with her, and she could almost see it in this house. But instead of Scar-lett, Monica Morrell was still standing at the top of the steps, surrounded by her protective circle of toadies. Gina and Jennifer were back, each wearing a dress that was plainer than what Monica had on, but in complementary colors. Her very own backup group. There were a couple of other girls in the crowd, but mostly it was guysâ€”good-looking, polished types. The entitled of Morganville, and every one of them was wearing a bracelet.

â€˜â€˜Well,â€™â€™ Monica said. â€˜â€˜Look whoâ€™s coming up in the world.â€™â€™ Her crowd laughed. Monicaâ€™s eyes were vicious. If sheâ€™d been sort of human when theyâ€™d been alone in the coffee shop, sheâ€™d gotten over it. â€˜â€˜Scrubs stay downstairs. Weâ€™re going to have to have the place gutted and rebuilt anyway, after this.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, Iâ€™ll bet Daddyâ€™s going to be furious when he gets home,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜I meant to ask, is that dress vintage? Because I could swear I saw it on my mother once.â€™â€™ She swept up, heading straight for one of Monicaâ€™s big strong linebacker types; he looked confused, and edged out of her way. Shane and Claire followed. Monica was dangerously silent, probably realizing that any comeback she could try would sound cheap.

â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re going to have trouble getting out of here,â€™â€™ Shane said. It was quieter upstairs, although the continuing clamor downstairs throbbed through the floor and walls. The hallway was deserted, and all the doors were closed. It was lined with expensive portraits and framed formal photographs of the Morrell family. Not surprisingly, Monica took a lovely picture. Claire had never seen Mrs. Mayor, but there she was in the family photosâ€”a wispy, half-ethereal woman always looking somewhere other than her family. Unhappy, somehow. Richard Morrell seemed grounded and adapted to this town, and of course, so did the mayor; Monica might not be stable, but she was definitely Morganville material.

Her mom, maybe not so much.

â€˜â€˜Wonder where her parents are?â€™â€™ Claire said aloud.

â€˜â€˜Out of town,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜So I heard, anyway. Bet theyâ€™ll just love getting back to find somebody did an Extreme Home Makeover: Crackhead Edition.â€™â€™ She tested the doorknob of the first room on the left. Locked. Shane tried the one on the right, opened it, and leaned in. He leaned out again, eyebrows arched.

â€˜â€˜Well, thatâ€™s new,â€™â€™ he said. Claire tried to look. He put his big hand over her eyes. â€˜â€˜Trust me, youâ€™re not old enough. Iâ€™m not old enough.â€™â€™ He carefully shut the door. â€˜â€˜Moving on.â€™â€™

Claire opened the next room, and for a second she couldnâ€™t figure out what she was seeing. Once she did, she couldnâ€™t speak. She backed up and touched Shane wordlessly on the shoulder and pointed.

There were three guys in the room, and a girl on the bed, and she was passed out. They were taking off her panty hose.

â€˜â€˜Shit,â€™â€™ Shane said, and moved Claire back. â€˜â€˜Eve, call the cops. Now. Time to shut this crap down before somebody gets really hurt.â€™â€™

Eve got out her cell phone and dialed, and Shane went into the room and closed the door. He came back after about a minute with the unconscious girl in his arms. â€˜â€˜Anybody know who she is?â€™â€™

Claire shook her head. â€˜â€˜What about those guys?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™re sorry,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Eve? You recognize her?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Um . . . maybe. I think Iâ€™ve seen her around the UCâ€”couldnâ€™t swear to a name or anything. But sheâ€™s definitely gown, not town. No bracelet.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, I figured.â€™â€™ Shane adjusted her to a more comfortable angle in his arms. The girlâ€”petite, brunette, prettyâ€”snuggled into his embrace with a sleepy moan. â€˜â€˜Damn it. I canâ€™t just leave her.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What about Michael? We need to find him!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, I know. Look, Iâ€™ll carry her. Check the other rooms.â€™â€™

Claire was having trouble controlling her breathing. Sheâ€™d almost been that girl, not so long ago. Only sheâ€™d been a little more alert, a little more able to take care of herself. . . .

Get it together, she told herself, and opened the next door. She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands, because there was a vampire in the room, and he was bending over a girl lying limp on the floor.

He looked up, and she saw the hard gleam of fangs before his face came into focus and became shockingly familiar.

Michael.

There were two raw holes in the girlâ€™s neck, and her open, dry eyes had gone gray. Her skin was the color of old, wet paper, more blue than white.

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Claire whispered, and stumbled backward out of the room. â€˜â€˜Oh no, no, noâ€”â€™â€™

Michael shot to his feet. â€˜â€˜Claire, wait! I didnâ€™tâ€”â€™â€™

Eve was in the doorway now, and Shane. Eve took one look at the dead girl, one at Michael, and turned and ran. Shane just stood there, staring at him, then said quietly, â€˜â€˜Claire. Go after her. Now. The two of you, stay together. Iâ€™ll come find you.â€™â€™

Michael took a step toward them. â€˜â€˜Shane, I know youâ€™re looking for reasons to hate me, but you know I wouldnâ€™tâ€”â€™â€™

Shane backed up, fast, keeping distance between them. His eyes had gone very dark, his face flushed and set with anger. â€˜â€˜Claire,â€™â€™ he said again. â€˜â€˜Get the hell away from him. Now.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shit!â€™â€™ Michael looked furious, but he also looked scared and hurt. â€˜â€˜You know me, Shane. You know I wouldnâ€™t do this. Think!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You come near me or the girls, I will kill you,â€™â€™ Shane said flatly, and then turned and yelled at Claire, full volume. â€˜â€˜Go!â€™â€™

She backed out of the room and ran after Eve. Her heavy platform shoes felt awkward, and her cool outfit was nothing but a cheap dress-up costume. She wasnâ€™t cool. She wasnâ€™t sexy. She was a stupid jerk to be here, and now Michael . . . God, he couldnâ€™t have, could he? But there was a flush to his skin, as though heâ€™d fed. . . .

Eve was heading down a set of back stairs. Claire caught sight of the sweep of her long black dress around the spiral. She followed as fast as she dared, with the treacherous shoes. As she neared ground level, the volume of the party swelled and broke into a roar.

When she got to the bottom of the steps, there was no sign of Eve anywhere. It was a sea of moving, swaying bodies, a drunken orgy of dancing (and maybe, in the corners, just an orgy), but she didnâ€™t see anybody in formal wear.

â€˜â€˜Eve!â€™â€™ She yelled, but even she couldnâ€™t hear it. She looked back up the stairs but she didnâ€™t see Shane, either.

She was alone.

When she craned her neck, she caught a flash of black velvet heading out of a door, and threw herself into the crowd to follow. If drunks groped on her way by, she barely noticed; she wanted out of here, badly, and she couldnâ€™t let anything happen to Eve. Her dignity was the least of her worries.

A hand slipped under her skirt. She turned, instinctively furious, and slapped the guy, hard. Didnâ€™t even register his face, or anything about him. He held up his hands in surrender, and she turned and plunged on.

The next room was nearly empty for some reason that Claire didnâ€™t understand, until she saw (and smelled) some guy throwing up in the corner. She hurried faster. Was that Eve she was following? She couldnâ€™t be sure. It looked like her, but the glimpses were too short, the angles all wrong. Claire had to move quicker.

She wasnâ€™t sure how it happened, but she ended up in the vast, gleaming kitchen. A bunch of burly guys were carrying in boxes of liquor. Claire pushed past two frat guys who were high-fiving each other. â€˜â€˜Liquid panty removerâ€™s here!â€™â€™ one of them yelled, and there was a cheer in the other room.

Claire made it outside and gulped the cool, clear night air. She was shaking, sweating, and she felt utterly filthy, inside and out. That was fun? Yeah, she supposed if she were drinking and didnâ€™t care, itâ€™d be fun, but then again, this was Morganville. Fun like that, you could end up passed out on a bed with strangers . . . or in a morgue drawer.

Eve was leaning against a tree in the glare of a security light, gasping for breath. She looked glamorous, like some lost Hollywood starlet from the days of black and white, except for the red blaze of her lipstick.

â€˜â€˜Oh God,â€™â€™ she moaned, and as Claire came toward her she realized she was crying. â€˜â€˜Oh God, heâ€™s done it; heâ€™s really done itâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We donâ€™t know that,â€™â€™ Claire heard herself say. â€˜â€˜Maybe he just found her. Was trying to help her.â€™â€™

Eve glared at her. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s a vampire! Thereâ€™s a dead girl with holes in her neck! Iâ€™m not stupid!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t believe heâ€™d do it,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Come on, Eve, do you? Really? You know him. Is he a killer? Especially when he doesnâ€™t have to be?â€™â€™

Eve shook her head, but that wasnâ€™t really an answer. She was shaking off the question.

Shane came out of the kitchen door with the brunette still held in his arms. â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s go.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We came in Michaelâ€™s car,â€™â€™ Eve said numbly. â€˜â€˜He has the keys. I couldâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. Nobody goes up there, and you guys stay the hell away from Michael until we know whatâ€™s going on.â€™â€™ Shane thought for a second, then pulled in a breath. â€˜â€˜We walk.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Walk!â€™â€™ Claire and Eve both blurted. Eve improved it by squeaking, â€˜â€˜Are you freaking mental?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claireâ€™s got Protection, and Iâ€™m in the mood to beat the hell out of the first vamp to look at me sideways, and itâ€™s safer than getting the threeâ€™â€™â€”he glanced down at the nameless girl in his armsâ€”â€˜â€˜four of us in the car with Michael right now. I want room to run if I have to. And fight.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We walk,â€™â€™ he interrupted. â€˜â€˜University first, we can drop this one off with the campus cops.â€™â€™

Claire cleared her throat. â€˜â€˜Canâ€™t we wait for the police here?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Trust me, no,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Theyâ€™re going to roust everybody that isnâ€™t tagged, and that includes me and Shane. And once they find a drained dead girl, itâ€™ll be a free-for-all. We canâ€™t take the chance. We need to go. Now.â€™â€™

Claire was half hoping that Michael would show up, but he didnâ€™t come out after them. She wondered why. She wondered where heâ€™d been, while theyâ€™d been searching the house for him.

Shane started walking toward the street, with the drugged girl murmuring and giggling in his arms. Heâ€™d saved one victim, but lost another. And he was taking that second part very personally.

Claire looked at Eve, put her arm around her, and hurried the both of them after Shane.

Â 
It was a quiet walk to the university campus. They didnâ€™t see anybody. The few cars that passed didnâ€™t stop, and although they heard sirens converging on the party, none of the police cars cruised their way.

The night was just cool enough to be pleasant, and the air felt dry and crisp. No clouds. It would have been pretty and romantic, except for the general crappiness of the evening. Eve had stopped crying, but that was almost worse; sheâ€™d been so happy before, and now sheâ€™d sunk into a gloom so deep she really did seem like a true Goth.

Claireâ€™s feet hurt. She was glad when they turned the corner and caught sight of the big, well-lit campus behind the wrought-iron fencing. Theyâ€™d have to go to one of the four entrances to get through. Sheâ€™d never really thought about it before, but the place looked unnatural, like a wildlife park.

Or a zoo.

Shane was getting tired, and put the girl down on the first bench they came to once they were inside the fence, while Eve flagged down a passing campus cop car. The Q&A went pretty well, but then, the campus cops werenâ€™t especially sharp. It took about half an hour, and then the girl was whisked off to the clinic for detox and checkups, and the three of them looked at each other in the glow of the cop carâ€™s headlights as it backed up and pulled away.

â€˜â€˜Right,â€™â€™ Shane said. â€˜â€˜Probably ought to get moving.â€™â€™

Eve got out her phone.

â€˜â€˜What are you doing?â€™â€™ he asked.

â€˜â€˜Calling a cab.â€™â€™

He snorted. â€˜â€˜In Morganville? At night? Right. Eddie doesnâ€™t even like picking people up during the daytime. No way is he risking his ass out here for us at night. He probably took his phone off the hook, anyway. He hates frat parties.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What about Detective Hess?â€™â€™ Claire offered. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sure heâ€™d give us a ride.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Light it up.â€™â€™

Claire tried. The number rang, but nobody picked up. Same thing with Travis Lowe. She looked at Shane with a sinking feeling and shrugged helplessly. Eve stood up, shivered, and crossed her bare arms for warmth. Shane took his black jacket off and draped it around her shoulders.

â€˜â€˜Guess weâ€™re on foot,â€™â€™ he said, and took Claireâ€™s hand, then Eveâ€™s. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t slow down, and donâ€™t stop for anything. If I tell you guys run, you run. Got it?â€™â€™

He didnâ€™t give them a chance to argue. They walked down the path to the exit from the university grounds. Outside, the streetlights were few and far between, and Claire could just feel eyes on her in the shadows. Whether that was real or not, she didnâ€™t know, but it made her shake all over with fear. Come on, Claire, get it together. There are three of us, and Shane can kick enough ass for all of us.

They crossed the street and headed over a couple of blocks, then down. It was the straightest shot to the house, and the best lit, but it also was going to take them right by Common Grounds. Somehow, Claire felt even more uncomfortable at the idea that Oliver was going to see them trailing by, in all their not-too-smart glory. Theyâ€™d had a rough enough night without that.

Although, it was a cheering thought that Monica almost certainly was having a worse one, trying to explain to the cops about why there were more drugs in her house than the Rite Aid Pharmacy, not to mention the underage drunken orgies and the dead girl in the bedroom.

By contrast, walking home in darkness in Vampire U.S.A. seemed a little bit mild.

At least until Eve whispered, â€˜â€˜Somebodyâ€™s following.â€™â€™

Claire almost faltered, but kept walking when Shaneâ€™s hand tightened around hers. â€˜â€˜Who?â€™â€™ he asked. Eve didnâ€™t turn her head.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t know; I just caught a glimpse. Somebody in dark clothes.â€™â€™

Since only Amelie seemed to like colors in the pale winter hues, Claire figured that didnâ€™t narrow it down much. She walked faster, tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and nearly went down, if it hadnâ€™t been for Shaneâ€™s steadying grip. But it slowed them all down, and they couldnâ€™t afford for it to happen again.

â€˜â€˜Crap,â€™â€™ Shane breathed. They were still at least a block from the next burning streetlight, and now Claire could hear slow, steady footsteps behind them. Up ahead, a single open storefront spilled warm yellow light onto the street. Common Grounds. Neutral territory, at least theoretically. â€˜â€˜Right. Weâ€™re not going to make it all the way home. We go into Common Grounds, andâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No way, Iâ€™m not going in there!â€™â€™ Eve blurted. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes you can; you have to. Neutral ground. Nobody will hurt you there. We can make some kind of deal with Oliver if we have to, temporary protection or something. Promise meâ€”â€™â€™

Shane didnâ€™t have time for anything else, because all hell broke loose. The footsteps behind them suddenly accelerated to a run, Shane swung around and pushed the two girls behind him, and there was a flash of movement Claire couldnâ€™t really see. Something hit Shane in the head. Hard. He stumbled and went down to one knee.

Claire screamed and reached for him, but Eve grabbed her and hauled her by force toward the glow of Common Grounds.

â€˜â€˜Get up!â€™â€™

Claire twisted out of Eveâ€™s grip and whirled to see that the yell had come from the jerk from the party, the one whoâ€™d felt her up and then gotten his ass kicked by Shane. Heâ€™d followed them, and he had a baseball bat. Heâ€™d hit Shane in the head with the baseball bat and he was getting ready to do it again.

â€˜â€˜No!â€™â€™ Claire cried, and lunged back toward them, but Eve grabbed her tightly and swung her around toward the coffee shop again.

â€˜â€˜Get inside!â€™â€™ she screamed.

â€˜â€˜Let goâ€”â€™â€™

They stopped fighting each other as a shadow stepped out of the alley, right in front of them, blocking the way.

A long silver line glinted in the starlight. A knife.

It was Eveâ€™s brother Jason, looking as greasy and starved and fevered as he had at the party.

â€˜â€˜Hey, sis,â€™â€™ he said, and the knife turned, and turned, and turned. â€˜â€˜I knew youâ€™d be coming this way. Soon as I heard you left the party without your bloodsucking bodyguard, I knew the time was right.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Jasonâ€™â€™â€”Eve let go of Claire and stepped in between the two of themâ€”â€˜â€˜this isnâ€™t her problem. Let her go.â€™â€™

Claire was tornâ€”watch Jason, who was terrifying, or pay attention to what was happening behind her, because Shane was fighting now, fighting for his life, and he was already hurt. She risked a glance back and saw Shane grab the baseball bat from his attacker, hit a home run to the guyâ€™s shoulder, and send him spinning into the brick wall. The frat guy went down, screaming, but Shane was clearly not doing well, eitherâ€”he lurched, off balance, and went down to his hands and knees. The bat rolled away.

â€˜â€˜Oh God,â€™â€™ Claire whispered. There was blood running down his face, dripping in a wet thread to the pavement. â€˜â€˜Shane!â€™â€™

Shane shook his head, and the blood flew in a spray, splattering the concrete around him. He looked up, saw her, and blinked.

Then he saw Eve, and behind her, with the knife, Jason.

Shane fumbled for the bat, found it, and climbed to his feet. He stumbled forward, grabbed Claire and pushed her behind him, then yanked Eve away from Jason, as well. He set his feet wide apart and took up a batting stance.

He looked pale and shaken and half-dead, but Claire knew he wasnâ€™t backing down.

â€˜â€˜Leave them alone,â€™â€™ he said. Not a yell, not a threat, just a low, quiet voice with absolute control. â€˜â€˜Walk away, Jason.â€™â€™

Jason lost his smile. He put the knife in his pocket and held up his hands. â€˜â€˜Sure. Sorry, man. Donâ€™t go all Sammy Sosa on me.â€™â€™ He lowered his hands again and stuffed them in his coat pockets, looking casual, but there was an avid glitter to his eyes, and a cruel twist to his thin lips. â€˜â€˜I heard you found a present in your basement. Something girl-shaped.â€™â€™

Eve groaned, and Claire reached out to steady her when she swayed. â€˜â€˜Jason,â€™â€™ Eve whispered, and she looked awful, as though she was going to throw up. â€˜â€˜Oh God, why?â€™â€™

Shane took a step forward, bat raised and ready, and Jason backed up again. â€˜â€˜Doing it there, that was just fun,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜But itâ€™s not about the girls. I had to show them I was ready.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Ready?â€™â€™ Eve echoed. â€˜â€˜Oh God, Jase, is that what this is about? Youâ€™re just some pathetic wannabe vampire making his bones?â€™â€™ Eve sounded so freaked it made Claireâ€™s guts knot up. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re trying to impress them? By killing?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sure.â€™â€™ Jason shrugged. He looked thin and weedy, almost lost inside that black leather jacket. â€˜â€˜How else do you get attention around here? And Iâ€™m going to get lots of attention. Starting with you, Claire.â€™â€™

Shane yelledâ€”it wasnâ€™t even words, just a yell of pure furyâ€”and swung at him. Jason jumped back, faster than Claire would have expected, and the bat missed him. Then he lunged forward. Shane was off balance, not really steady on his feet, but that wouldnâ€™t matter; if Jason was crazy enough to want to go hand-to-hand with Shane, it was all over.

Wasnâ€™t it?

Jason punched Shane low in the stomach, and Shane made a surprised sound and took a step back from him.

Shane was backing away. . . .

And then Claire saw the knife in Jasonâ€™s hand, glittering silver and red, and for a second she didnâ€™t understand, she didnâ€™t understand at all.

It wasnâ€™t until Shaneâ€™s hand opened and the baseball bat hit the pavement with a noisy rattle, and Shane collapsed to his knees, that she realized that heâ€™d been stabbed.

Shane didnâ€™t seem to understand it, either. He was panting, trying to say something, but he couldnâ€™t get the words out. His eyes were wide and confused. He tried to get up, but couldnâ€™t.

Jason pointed the knife at him, slung it in an arc that spattered them all with blood drops, and turned and walked away. He put the blade back in his pocket. People were coming out of Common Grounds, looking puzzled and alarmed, and at the forefront was Oliver. Oliverâ€™s head turned quickly to stare at Jasonâ€™s departing form, and then he focused on them.

Claire dropped to her knees next to Shane. He looked desperately into her face, and slowly collapsed to his side.

His hands were clutching his stomach, and there was so much blood. . . .

Eve hadnâ€™t moved. She was justâ€”standing there, in her lovely black dress, staring blindly after her brother.

Oliver grabbed her and shook her. Her black hair flew wildly, and when he let go, Eve sank down in a defeated slump against the buildingâ€™s brick wall. Oliver shook his head impatiently and turned to Claire, and Shane.

Claire looked up, mute with misery, and saw Oliver staring down at them.

For just a second, she thought she saw something in him. Maybe just a tiny glimmer of empathy.

â€˜â€˜Someone is calling the ambulance,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You should put pressure on the wound. Heâ€™s losing a lot of blood. Itâ€™s a waste.â€™â€™ The blood, he meant. Not Shane.

â€˜â€˜Help me,â€™â€™ Claire said. Oliver shook his head. â€˜â€˜Help me!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ll find that vampires arenâ€™t particularly good with the wounded,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m doing you a favor by staying away. And donâ€™t try to order me, little girl. That gold bracelet of yours means almost nothing to me, except that I shouldnâ€™t leave witnesses behind.â€™â€™

Shane coughed, wet and hard, and blood trickled out of his mouth. He looked as pale as Michael. Vampire pale.

Claire cradled him in her arms. Oliver glanced at Eve, frowned, and went away. People were coming closer, murmuring, asking questions, but Claire couldnâ€™t make any sense out of it. She pressed down on the wet bloody mess of Shaneâ€™s shirt, felt him tense and try to squirm away, and didnâ€™t let him. Pressure on the wound. It seemed to take forever until she heard the distant sound of sirens approaching.

Shane was still breathing when they loaded him inside the ambulance, but he wasnâ€™t moving, and he wasnâ€™t talking.

Claire went to Eve, got her on her feet, and put an arm around her shoulders. â€˜â€˜Come on,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜We should ride with Shane.â€™â€™

Oliver was staring at the wet, dark smears of blood on the concrete, and as Claire helped Eve up into the back of the ambulance, he looked at one of his coffee shop employees and nodded toward the mess.

â€˜â€˜Clean it up,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Use bleach. I donâ€™t want to smell it all night.â€™â€™

11

Shane survived the trip, and they rushed him right into surgery. Eve sat silent in her black velvet dress, looking more Goth than ever, and wildly out of place in the soothing neutral waiting room. Claire kept getting up and washing her hands, because she kept finding more of Shaneâ€™s blood on her clothes and skin.

Eve was crying quietly, almost hopelessly. For some reason Claire didnâ€™t cry at all. Not at all. She wasnâ€™t even sure she could. Did that make her sick? Screwed up? She wasnâ€™t sure whom she could ask. She couldnâ€™t seem to feel anything right now except a vague sense of dread.

Richard Morrell came to take their statements. It was simple enough, and Claire had no hesitation in turning in Jason for the stabbing. â€˜â€˜And he confessed,â€™â€™ Claire added. â€˜â€˜To killing those girls.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Confessed how?â€™â€™ Richard asked. He sat down in the chair across from her in the lounge area, and Claire thought he looked tired. Older, too. She guessed it wasnâ€™t easy being the semisane one in the family. â€˜â€˜What exactly did he tell you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜That he left one for us,â€™â€™ she said, and glanced at Eve, who hadnâ€™t said a word. Hadnâ€™t, as far as Claire could tell, actually blinked. â€˜â€˜He called them presents.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Did he mention any of them by name?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she whispered. She felt very, very tired all of a sudden, as if she could sleep for a week. Cold, too. She was shivering. Richard noticed, got up, and came back with a big gray fleece blanket that he tucked around her. Heâ€™d brought a second one for Eve, who was still wrapped in Shaneâ€™s black coat.

â€˜â€˜Is it possible that Jason just said that because he knew about the bodies being found near your house?â€™â€™ Richard asked. â€˜â€˜Did he talk about anything more specific that wasnâ€™t in the papers?â€™â€™

Claire almost said yes to that, but she stopped in time. The police didnâ€™t know about the girl being found in their basement. They thought sheâ€™d been taken to the church by her killer.

She had no choice. She just shook her head.

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s possible Jasonâ€™s all talk, then,â€™â€™ Richard said.

â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ve been watching him. We havenâ€™t seen anything to prove that heâ€™s got any involvement with these dead girls.â€™â€™ He hesitated, then said, very gently, â€˜â€˜Look. I donâ€™t want to make this about Shane, but he did have a bat, right?â€™â€™

Eve raised her head, very slowly. â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane had a bat.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜He took it from another guy,â€™â€™ Claire said, nearly tripping over the words in her hurry to get them out. â€˜â€˜A guy from Monicaâ€™s party. Shane got jumped; he was just defending himself! And he was trying to get Jason to back offâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We have witnesses who say that Shane swung the bat at Jason after Jason had put away his knife.â€™â€™

Claire couldnâ€™t find the words. She just sat there, lips parted, staring into Richardâ€™s weary, hard eyes.

â€˜â€˜So thatâ€™s it,â€™â€™ Eve said. Her voice started out soft, but hardened quickly. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s all going to be Shaneâ€™s fault, because heâ€™s Shane. Never mind that some frat ass tried to knock his head off, or that Jason stabbed him. Itâ€™s still Shaneâ€™s fault!â€™â€™ She stood up, stripped away the blanket, and threw it at him. Richard grabbed it before it hit his face, but just barely. â€˜â€˜Here, youâ€™ll need it for your cover-up!â€™â€™ She stalked away, slender and pale as a lily in all that black.

â€˜â€˜Eveâ€”â€™â€™ Richard sighed. â€˜â€˜Dammit. Look, Claire, I have to have the facts, okay? And the facts are that during the confrontation, Jason put his knife away, Shane had a bat, and Shane threatened him. Then Jason stabbed him in self-defense Is that right?â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t answer. She sat for a few seconds, just staring at him, and then stood up, stripped off the blanket, and handed it to him.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re going to need a bigger cover-up,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜See if thereâ€™s a circus in town. Maybe you can borrow a tent.â€™â€™

She walked down the hall to see if Shane was out of surgery.

He wasnâ€™t.

Eve was pacing the hallway, stiff with rage, hands clenched into fists barely visible as knots in the too-long sleeves of the coat. â€˜â€˜Those sons of bitches,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Those bastards! Theyâ€™re going to put Shane down; I can feel it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Put him down?â€™â€™ Claire repeated. â€˜â€˜What do you mean, put him down? Like, a dog?â€™â€™

Eve glared at her. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and wet with tears. â€˜â€˜I mean even if he makes it through the surgery, theyâ€™re not going to let him get out of this. Richard practically told us; donâ€™t you get it? Itâ€™s the perfect frame. Shane took the swing, Jason acted in self-defense, and nobodyâ€™s even going to look at Jason for these murders. Theyâ€™ll just bury it, like they bury the bodies.â€™â€™

She stopped talking, and her eyes refocused over Claireâ€™s shoulder. Claire turned.

Michael was striding toward them, lean and powerful and tall, and he headed straight for Eve. No hesitation, as if nothing had happened. As if they hadnâ€™t seen him bending over a dead girl at the party.

He stopped just inches away from Eve, and held out his hands.

â€˜â€˜I went looking for you guys. I finally tracked you to Common Grounds. How is he?â€™â€™ he asked. His voice was hoarse.

â€˜â€˜Not so good,â€™â€™ Eve whispered, and flowed into his arms like water through a broken dam. â€˜â€˜Oh God. Oh God, Michael, it all went wrong, itâ€™s all wrongâ€”â€™â€™

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, and rested his golden head next to her dark one. â€˜â€˜I should have come with you. I should have made you get in the damn car. I was going to, butâ€”things happened; I had to take care of it at the party. I never thought youâ€™d try to walk home.â€™â€™ He paused, and when he finally went on, his voice was thick with pain. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s my fault.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s nobodyâ€™s fault,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜You know you canâ€™t make Shane do something he doesnâ€™t want to do. Or Eve, for that matter. Or me.â€™â€™ She put a hand hesitantly on Michaelâ€™s arm. â€˜â€˜You didnâ€™t kill that girl, did you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I found her when I was searching for Jason. I was trying to find him and get him out of the party. He was probably already gone by then.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then whoâ€”â€™â€™

Michael looked up, and his blue eyes were fiercely bright. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s what I had to take care of. There were vampires there, hunting. I had to stop it.â€™â€™

One of the nurses passing by slowed, watching Michael and Eve. Her eyes narrowed, and she stopped to stare. She muttered something, then walked on.

Michael turned to the nurse, who was already halfway down the hall. â€˜â€˜Excuse me,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜What did you say?â€™â€™

The nurse stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him. â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t say anything. Sir.â€™â€™ That last word sounded sharp enough to cut.

â€˜â€˜I think you did,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜You called her a fang-banger.â€™â€™

The nurse smiled coldly. â€˜â€˜If I muttered something under my breath, sir, that shouldnâ€™t concern you. You and yourâ€”girlfriendâ€”ought to do your business in the waiting room. Or the blood bank.â€™â€™

Michaelâ€™s hands curled into fists, and his face went tight with rage. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s not like that.â€™â€™

The nurseâ€”her name tag said her name was Christine Fenton, RNâ€”outright sneered at him. â€˜â€˜Yeah, it never is. Itâ€™s always different, right? Youâ€™re just misunderstood. You want to hurt me, go ahead and try. Iâ€™m not afraid of you. Any of you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Good,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜You shouldnâ€™t be afraid of me because Iâ€™m a vampire. You ought to be scared because you just trash-talked my girlfriend to her face.â€™â€™

Nurse Fenton flipped him off and kept walking.

â€˜â€˜Wow,â€™â€™ Eve said. She almost sounded like herself again, as if having somebody diss her had helped, like a slap in the face. â€˜â€˜And people treated me bad when I dated Bobby Fee. At least he was breathing. Mouth-breathing, yeah, butâ€”â€™â€™

Michael put his arm around her, still staring after the nurse. He had a frown on his face, but he forced it off to smile at Eve and plant a kiss on her forehead.

â€˜â€˜You need some rest. Letâ€™s go back to the waiting room,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I promise not to embarrass you anymore.â€™â€™ He guided her in that direction, and threw a look back. â€˜â€˜Claire? You coming?â€™â€™

She nodded absently, but her mind was somewhere else, trying to sort through data. Fenton. Sheâ€™d seen that name before, hadnâ€™t she? Not the nurse, though; sheâ€™d never met her before and now really didnâ€™t look forward to ever seeing her again.

Claire realized she was standing alone in the hallway, and shivered. While this was a modern building, not nearly as nasty as the old, falling-to-ruins abandoned hospital where she and Shane had been chased for their lives, it still gave her the creeps. She threw one last, aching glance at the frosted-glass doors that read SURGICAL AREAâ€”ADMITTANCE TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. She couldnâ€™t see anything beyond except vague moving shadows.

She followed Michael back to the waiting room. Richard Morrell was gone, which was good, and Claire sat in silence, rubbing her hands together, still feeling the phantom slickness of Shaneâ€™s blood on her skin.

â€˜â€˜Hey,â€™â€™ Michael said. She didnâ€™t know how much time had passed, just that she was stiff and sore and tense. She looked up into his crystal blue eyes, and saw strength and kindness, but also just a little bit of a glitter that didnâ€™t seem . . . natural. â€˜â€˜Rest. I can almost hear the gears grinding in your head.â€™â€™ Eve was asleep in his lap, curled up like a cat. He was stroking her dark hair. â€˜â€˜Here,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Lean in.â€™â€™ And he put his arm around Claire, and she leaned, and despite everything that had happened, she felt warm and safe.

It all fell in on her then, all the fear and the pain and the fact that Shane had gotten stabbed, right in front of her, and she didnâ€™t know how to deal with that, didnâ€™t know how to feel or what to say or do, and it was all just . . .

She turned her face into Michaelâ€™s blue silk shirt and cried, silent heaving sobs that tore up out of her guts in painful jerks. Michaelâ€™s hand cradled her head, and he let her cry.

She felt him press his cool lips to her temple when she finally relaxed against him, and then she just slid away, into the dark.

Â 
Claire fought her way, panicked, out of a nightmare, and into another one. Hospital. Shane. Surgery.

Eve was shaking her with both hands on her shoulders, babbling at her, and she couldnâ€™t follow the words, but the words didnâ€™t matter at first.

Eve was smiling.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s okay,â€™â€™ Claire said in a whisper, then louder. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s okay!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Eve said, the words tumbling out in a confusing bright flood, way too fast. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s out of surgery. It was touch and go. He had a lot of internal bleeding. Heâ€™s going to be in ICU for a few days before they let him come home, and heâ€™ll have a temporary bracelet, you know, the plastic kind?â€™â€™

Claire tried to literally shake the sleepy fog out of her head. â€˜â€˜Plasticâ€”wait, donâ€™t you always get one of those in the hospital? Like an ID tag?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Do you? Really? How weird. Oh. Well, in Morganville you leave it on when you leave, and it protects you for up to a month after surgery. Kind of like a temporary vampire restraining order.â€™â€™ Eve actually bounced up and down. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s going to be okay, oh my God, heâ€™s going to be okay!â€™â€™

Claire scrambled out of her seat, grabbed Eveâ€™s arms, and the two of them bounced together up and down, then fell into a hug and squealed.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll justâ€”let you guys do that,â€™â€™ Michael said. He was sitting in the chairs watching, but he was smiling. He looked tired.

â€˜â€˜What time is it?â€™â€™ Claire asked.

â€˜â€˜Late. Early.â€™â€™ Eve checked her skull watch. â€˜â€˜About six in the morning. Michael, you should get home; itâ€™ll be dawn soon. Iâ€™ll stay here with Claire.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜We should all go home,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s not going to wake up for hours yet. You could change clothes.â€™â€™

Claire looked down at herself, and grimaced tiredly. â€˜â€˜Yeah, I could,â€™â€™ she admitted. Shaneâ€™s blood had soaked into her patterned tights, and she thought Michael could probably smell it. She could even smell it, a musty, rotten odor that made her gag. â€˜â€˜Eve? You want to go, too?â€™â€™

Eve nodded. The three of them walked out of the waiting room and down the long, empty hallway toward the elevators. They passed the front desk, where Nurse Fenton glared at them. When Claire looked back, as they waited for the elevator, Nurse Fenton was dialing the phone.

â€˜â€˜Why do I know that name?â€™â€™ she asked, and then realized, duh, she was with two Morganville natives. â€˜â€˜Fenton? You guys know anything about her?â€™â€™

The elevator arrived. Eve stepped in and pushed the button for the lobby, and she and Michael looked at each other for a second.

â€˜â€˜The familyâ€™s been here for generations,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜Nurse Charming out thereâ€™s a new arrival. She came to TPU for school, married into the family.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You met her husband,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜Officer Fenton, Brad Fenton. Heâ€™s the one whoâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The one who showed up when Sam was attacked,â€™â€™ Claire blurted. â€˜â€˜Of course! I forgot his name.â€™â€™ Why did that still leave her vaguely uneasy? She couldnâ€™t remember anything that Officer Fenton had done that had made her think he was antivamp; heâ€™d acted quickly enough when Sam was in trouble. Not like his wife, who clearly wasnâ€™t as open-minded.

She worried about it for a while, but couldnâ€™t see any real connection, and there were other things to think about. After all, Shane was okay, and that was all that mattered.

Â 
A shower helped, but it didnâ€™t banish the dull ache between Claireâ€™s eyes, or the strange gray cast the world had taken on. Exhaustion, she guessed, and stress. Nothing looked quite right. She changed clothes, grabbed her backpack, and went back to the hospitalâ€” this time, taking a cab, despite it being broad daylightâ€” to wait for visiting hours to start in ICU. No sign of Jason, but then, she hadnâ€™t expected him to be that obvious. Or that stupid. Heâ€™d managed to get away with it this long.

But then again . . . He really hadnâ€™t struck her as all that far-thinking, either. More of a want-take-have kind of guy. So what did that mean? Was Eve right? Was this a giant official cover-up, and Jason had been given free rein to run around town raping and killing and stabbing as the mood moved him? She shuddered just thinking of it.

Nurse Fenton was, mercifully, off duty when Claire arrived. She checked in with the younger, nicer lady at the desk, whose name was Helen Porter, and went to find the least uncomfortable chair in the waiting area. The building wasnâ€™t completely lame; there were laptop connections and desks, and she set herself up there. The wireless was crap, but there was a LAN connection, and that worked fine.

Of course, the filters restricted where she could go on the Internet, and she quickly grew frustrated trying to find out what was happening in the world outside of Morganville . . . more of the same, she guessed. War, crime, death, atrocity. Sometimes it hardly seemed that vampires were the bad guys, given the things people did to each other without the excuse of needing a pint of O neg to get through the day.

She wondered if the vampires had made any headway tracking down who could have staked Sam. Surely theyâ€™d found out something. Then again, they hadnâ€™t had a lot of luck cornering Shaneâ€™s dad, either. . . .

Her laptop connection stopped working, right in the middle of an e-mail to her parents. Sheâ€™d been avoiding making the call, because there was this dangerous temptation to start spilling out her hurt and fear and look for comfortâ€”after all, wasnâ€™t that what parents were for?â€”but if she did, theyâ€™d either come running to town, which would be bad, or theyâ€™d try to pull her out of school again, which would definitely be worse. Worse in every way.

Still, she knew she was overdue to talk to her mom, and the longer she put it off, the more stress it was going to be for both of them.

Claire logged off the laptop, packed it, and opened up her new cool phone. It glowed with a pale blue light when she dialed the number, and she heard faint clicking. That probably meant the call was being recorded, or at least monitored. More reason to be careful about what she said . . .

Mom answered the phone on the third ring. â€˜â€˜Hello?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hi!â€™â€™ Claire winced at the artificial cheeriness of her tone. Why couldnâ€™t she sound natural? â€˜â€˜Mom, itâ€™s Claire.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire! Honey, Iâ€™ve been worried. You should have called days ago.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know, Mom, Iâ€™m sorry. I got busy. I got transferred into some advanced classes; theyâ€™re really great, but thereâ€™s been a lot of homework and reading. I just forgot.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well,â€™â€™ her mother said, â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m glad to hear those teachers are recognizing that you need special attention. I was a little worried when you told me the classes were so easy. You like challenges, I know that.â€™â€™

Oh, Iâ€™m challenged now, Claire thought. Between the classes and Myrnin, being stalked by Jason, and being terrified for Shane . . . â€˜â€˜Yeah, I do,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜So I guess this is all good.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What else? How are your friends? That nice Michael, is he still playing his guitar?â€™â€™ Mom asked it as if it was a silly little hobby that heâ€™d give up eventually.

â€˜â€˜Yes, Mom, heâ€™s a musician. Heâ€™s still playing. In fact, he was playing in the University Center the other day. He got quite a crowd.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, fine. I hope heâ€™s not playing in some of those clubs, though. That gets dangerous.â€™â€™

There was more of that, the danger talk, and Claire worried that her mother was, if not remembering exactly, at least remembering something. Why would she be so fixated on how dangerous things could be?

â€˜â€˜Mom, youâ€™re overreacting,â€™â€™ Claire finally said. â€˜â€˜Honest, everythingâ€™s fine here.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, you started out this semester in the emergency room, Claire; you canâ€™t really blame me for worrying. Youâ€™re very young to be out on your own, and not even in the dorm. . . .â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I told you about the problems with the dorm,â€™â€™ Claire said.

â€˜â€˜Yes, I know; the girls werenâ€™t very niceâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not very nice? Mom! They threw me down the stairs!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sure that was an accident.â€™â€™

It hadnâ€™t been, but there was something about her mother that wasnâ€™t going to accept that, not really. For all her fluttering and worrying, she didnâ€™t want to believe that something really could be badly wrong.

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ Claire sighed. â€˜â€˜Probably. Anyway, the house is great. I really like it there.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And Michael has our numbers? In case thereâ€™s any problem?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes, Mom, everybodyâ€™s got the numbers. Oh, speaking of that, hereâ€™s my new cell phoneâ€”â€™â€™ She rattled off the digits, twice, and made her mother read them back. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s got better reception than the old one, so you can get me a lot more easily, okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire,â€™â€™ her mother said, â€˜â€˜are you sure youâ€™re all right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes. Iâ€™m fine.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t want to pry, but that boy, the one in the houseâ€”not Michael, butâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shane.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes, Shane. I think you should keep your distance from him, honey. Heâ€™s old for you, and he seems pretty sure of himself.â€™â€™

She did not want to get into the subject of Shane. Sheâ€™d nearly stumbled over saying his name, it hurt so bad. She wanted to talk to her mother the way sheâ€™d used to. Theyâ€™d talked about everything, once, but there was no way she could really talk about Morganville with her family.

And that meant that there was no way she could talk about anything at all.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be careful,â€™â€™ she managed to say, and her attention was caught by the young nurse standing in the doorway of the waiting area, waving for her attention. â€˜â€˜Ohâ€”Mom, I have to go. Sorry. Somebodyâ€™s waiting for me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜All right, honey. We love you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Love you, too.â€™â€™ She hung up, slid the phone into her pocket, and grabbed her backpack.

The nurse led her through another set of glass double doors into an area labeled ICU. â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s awake,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t stay long; we want him to rest as much as possible, and I can already tell heâ€™s going to be a difficult patient.â€™â€™ She smiled at Claire, and winked. â€˜â€˜See if you can sweeten him up a little for me. Make my life easier.â€™â€™

Claire nodded. She felt nervous and a little sick with the force of her need to see him, touch him . . . and at the same time, she dreaded it. She hated the thought of seeing him like this, and she didnâ€™t know what she was going to say. What did people say when they were this scared of losing someone?

He looked worse than sheâ€™d imagined, and she must have let it show. Shane grunted and closed his eyes for a few seconds. â€˜â€˜Yeah, well, Iâ€™m not dead; thatâ€™s something. One of those in the house is enough.â€™â€™ He looked awfulâ€”pale as, well, Michael. The baseball bat had left him with Technicolor bruising, and he seemed fragile in ways Claire hadnâ€™t even thought about. There were so many tubes and things. She sat down in the chair next to his raised bed and reached over the railing to touch him lightly on his scraped, bruised hand.

He turned it to twine their fingers together. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re all right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Jason ran away, after.â€™â€™ Walked, really, but she wasnâ€™t going to say that. â€˜â€˜Eveâ€™s okay, too. She was here while you were in surgery; she just went home to change clothes. Sheâ€™ll be back.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, I guess the diva dress might have been a little much around here.â€™â€™ He opened his eyes and looked at her directly. â€˜â€˜Claire. Really. Youâ€™re okay?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m fine,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Except that Iâ€™m scared for you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m okay.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Except for the stab wound and all the internal bleeding? Yeah, sure, tough guy.â€™â€™ She heard her voice quiver, and knew she was about to cry. She didnâ€™t want to. He wanted to laugh it off, wanted to be tough, and she ought to let him, right?

He tried to shrug, but it must have hurt, from the spasm that went across his face. One of the machines near Claire beeped, and he let out a slow sigh. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s better. Man, they give you the good stuff in ICU. Remind me to always get seriously wounded from now on. That minor injury stuff isnâ€™t as much fun.â€™â€™

It was wearing him out to talk. Claire got up and leaned over to stroke her fingertips lightly over his lips. â€˜â€˜Shhhh,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Rest, okay? Save it for somebody who isnâ€™t me. Itâ€™s okay to be scared. Itâ€™s okay to be hurt, Shane. With me, itâ€™s okay.â€™â€™

For a second his eyes glittered with tears, and then the tears spilled over, threading wet trails into his hair. â€˜â€˜Damn,â€™â€™ he whispered. â€˜â€˜Sorry. I justâ€”I felt it all going away, I felt you going away, I triedâ€”I thought he was going to hurt you and there was nothing I could do about itâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know.â€™â€™ She leaned forward and kissed him very lightly, careful of the bruises. â€˜â€˜I know.â€™â€™

He cried a little, and she stayed right where she was, his shield against the world, until it was over. Finally, he fell into a light sleep, and she felt a tap on her shoulder. The nurse motioned for her to step out, and Claire carefully pulled her hand free of Shaneâ€™s and followed.

â€˜â€˜Sorry,â€™â€™ Helen said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d like for him to sleep a while before we start with the poking and prodding. You can come back this afternoon, all right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sure. What time?â€™â€™

Four oâ€™clock. That left her the entire day to kill, and not the slightest idea what she ought to be doing with it. She didnâ€™t have to see Myrnin; Amelie hadnâ€™t given her any other instructions to follow. It was Saturday, so she wasnâ€™t cutting any classes, and she didnâ€™t want to go back to the Glass House and just . . . worry.

Claire was still trying to decide what to do when she spotted a familiar, well-groomed figure standing outside the hospital doors.

What was Jennifer, one of Monicaâ€™s regular clique, doing hanging around here?

Waiting for Claire, apparently, because she hurried to catch up as Claire strode by, heading for the taxi stand. â€˜â€˜Hey,â€™â€™ she said, and tucked her glossy hair behind her ear. â€˜â€˜So. Howâ€™s Shane doing?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Like you care,â€™â€™ Claire said.

â€˜â€˜Well, yeah. I donâ€™t. But Monica wants to know.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s alive.â€™â€™ That was no more than Monica could learn without her help, so it didnâ€™t really matter, and Claire didnâ€™t like having Jennifer this close. Monica was creepy, but at least she was Alpha Creepy. There was something pathetic and extra-weird about her two groupies.

Jennifer kept pace with her. Claire stopped and turned to face her. They were halfway down the sidewalk, in the full glare of early-fall sunlight, which at least meant it wasnâ€™t too likely some vampire would be sneaking up on her while Jennifer kept her distracted. â€˜â€˜Look,â€™â€™ Claire said, â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t want anything to do with you, or Monica, okay? I donâ€™t want to be friends. I donâ€™t want you sucking up to me just because Iâ€™m . . . somebody, or something.â€™â€™

Jennifer didnâ€™t look like she wanted to be sucking up, either. In fact, she looked as bitter and resentful as a glossy, entitled rich girl could lookâ€”which was a lot. â€˜â€˜Dream on, loser. I donâ€™t care who your Patron is; youâ€™re never going to be anything more than jumped-up trailer trash with delusions. Friends? I wouldnâ€™t be friends with you if you were the last person breathing in this town.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Unless Monica said so,â€™â€™ Claire said spitefully. â€˜â€˜Fine, you donâ€™t want to exchange friendship rings. So why are you bothering me?â€™â€™

Jennifer glared at her for a few seconds, stubborn and angry, and then looked away. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re smart, right? Like, freak smart?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What does that have to do with anything?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You placed out of the two classes we were in together. You must have aced the tests.â€™â€™

Claire nearly laughed out loud. â€˜â€˜You want tutoring?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No, idiot. I want test answers. Look, I canâ€™t bring home anything under a C; thatâ€™s the rule, or my Patron cuts off my college. And I want my full four years, even if I never do anything with it in this lame-ass town.â€™â€™ A muscle fluttered in Jenniferâ€™s jawline. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t get this economics crap. Itâ€™s all math, Adam Smith, blah blah blah. What am I ever going to use it for, anyway?â€™â€™

She was asking for help. Not in so many words, maybe, but that was what it was, and Claire was off balance for a few heartbeats. First Monica, now Jennifer? What next, a cookie bouquet from Oliver?

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t give you test answers,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t even if I could.â€™â€™ Claire took in a deep breath. â€˜â€˜Look, Iâ€™m going to regret this, but if you really want help, Iâ€™ll go over the notes with you. Once. And you pay me, too. Fifty dollars.â€™â€™ Which was wildly out of line, but she didnâ€™t really care if Jennifer said no.

Which Jennifer clearly thought about, hard, before giving her a single, abrupt nod.

â€˜â€˜Common Grounds,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Tomorrow, two oâ€™clock.â€™â€™ Which was pretty much the safest time to be out and about, providing they didnâ€™t stay too long. Claire wasnâ€™t wild about visiting Oliverâ€™s shop again, but she didnâ€™t suppose there were too many places in town that Jennifer would agree to go. Besides, it wasnâ€™t far from Claireâ€™s house.

â€˜â€˜Two oâ€™clock,â€™â€™ Claire echoed, and wondered if they were supposed to shake hands or something. Not, obviously, because Jennifer flipped her hair and walked away, clearly glad to have it over with. She jumped into a black convertible and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires.

Leaving Claire to contemplate the afternoon sunlight and the odds of walking home through a Morganville where Jason was still on the loose.

She took out her cell phone and called the townâ€™s lone taxi driver, who told her he was off duty, and hung up on her.

So she called Travis Lowe.

Â 
Detective Lowe wasnâ€™t really happy to be the Claire Taxi Service. She could tell because he wasnâ€™t his usual self, not at allâ€”heâ€™d always been kind to her, and a little bit funny, but there wasnâ€™t any of that in the way he pulled his blue Ford to the curb and snapped, â€˜â€˜Get in.â€™â€™ He was accelerating away even before she got strapped in. â€˜â€˜You do know Iâ€™ve got a real job, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sorry, sir,â€™â€™ she said. The sir was automatic, a habit she couldnâ€™t seem to break no matter how hard she tried. â€˜â€˜I just didnâ€™t think I should be walking home, with Jasonâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Right thought, just wrong timing,â€™â€™ he said, and his tone softened some. He looked tired and sallow, and there were dark bags under his eyes as though he hadnâ€™t slept in days. He needed a shave and a shower. Probably the shower more than the shave. â€˜â€˜Howâ€™s Shane?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Better,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜The nurse told me he was going to be okay; itâ€™s just going to take some time.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Good news. Couldâ€™ve gone the other way. Whyâ€™d you try to walk home like that?â€™â€™

She fidgeted a little in the seat. In contrast to the vampire cars, with their dark tinting, the glare inside Loweâ€™s car seemed way too bright. â€˜â€˜Well, we tried getting a ride,â€™â€™ she said. In retrospect, none of the explanations seemed all that good, really. She didnâ€™t mention that sheâ€™d tried both Loweâ€™s phone and Joe Hessâ€™s. No point in making him feel guilty. Guiltier. â€˜â€˜We thought with the three of us together . . .â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, good plan, if it had been any other kids. You guys, youâ€™re just trouble to the power of three. And Iâ€™m no math whiz, but Iâ€™m betting thatâ€™s a lot.â€™â€™ His eyes were cold and distant, and she had the distinct feeling he wasnâ€™t really thinking about her at all. â€˜â€˜Listen, Iâ€™ve got to make a stop. Iâ€™m running late as it is. You stay in the car, okay? Just stay in the car. Do not get out.â€™â€™

She nodded. He turned some corners, into a residential area of Morganville she didnâ€™t recognize. It was run-down and faded, with leaning fences that were marked with sun-bleached gang signs. The houses werenâ€™t much better. Most of them just had sheets tacked up in the windows instead of real curtains.

He parked in front of one, got out, and said, â€˜â€˜Windows up. Lock the doors.â€™â€™

She followed his orders and watched him go up the narrow, cracked sidewalk to the front door. It opened on the second knock, but she couldnâ€™t see who was inside, and Lowe closed the door behind him.

Claire frowned and waited, wondering what he was doingâ€”cop stuff, she guessed, but in Morganville that could be anything, from running errands for vampires to dog-catching.

He didnâ€™t come back. She checked her watch and found that more than ten minutes had passed. Heâ€™d ordered her to stay put, but for how long? She could have been home already if sheâ€™d been able to get the taxi, or even if sheâ€™d walked.

And it was getting hot in the car.

Ten more minutes, and she started to feel anxious. The neighborhood seemed desertedâ€”no people on the street, even in the bright sunlight. Even for Morganville, that didnâ€™t seem . . . normal. She didnâ€™t know this area, hadnâ€™t been through it before, and she wondered what went on around here.

Before Claire could decide to do something really stupid, like investigating on her own, Detective Lowe came out of the house and, after rapping on the window for her to unlock the door, got back in the car. He looked, if possible, even more tired. Depressed, almost.

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s wrong?â€™â€™ she asked. The sheets tacked up as curtains twitched in the window of the house, as if somebody was peering out at them. â€˜â€˜Sir?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Quit calling me sir,â€™â€™ Lowe snapped, and put the car in gear. â€˜â€˜And itâ€™s none of your affair. Stay out of it.â€™â€™

There was blood on his hand. His knuckles were scraped. Claire pulled in a fast breath, her eyes widening as she noticed, and he sent her a narrow glance as the car accelerated away down the deserted street. â€˜â€˜Were you in a fight?â€™â€™ she asked.

â€˜â€˜What did I just tell you?â€™â€™ Detective Lowe had never been angry before, not with her, but she could tell he was being pushed pretty far. She nodded and turned face forward, trying too keep herself still. It wasnâ€™t easy. She wanted to ask questions, a dozen of them. She wanted to ask him where Detective Hess had gone. She wanted to find out who lived in that house, and why Lowe had gone there. And whom heâ€™d hit, to scrape up his knuckles like that.

And why he was so desperately angry that heâ€™d snap at her.

Lowe didnâ€™t enlighten her about any of it. He pulled the car to a stop with an abrupt jerk of brakes, and Claire blinked and realized that she was home. â€˜â€˜You need another ride, call a taxi,â€™â€™ Lowe said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m on police business the rest of the day.â€™â€™

She climbed out and tried to thank him, but he wasnâ€™t listening. He was already flipping open his cell phone and dialing one-handed as he put the car in gear with the other. She barely got the door shut before he pulled away from the curb.

â€˜â€˜Bye,â€™â€™ she said softly, to the empty air, and then shrugged and went inside.

Michael was sitting in the living room, playing guitar. He looked up and nodded at her when she came in. â€˜â€˜Eve went to the hospital,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜She must have just missed you.â€™â€™

Claire sighed and slumped down on the couch. â€˜â€˜They wonâ€™t let her in. Visiting hours are over.â€™â€™ She yawned and curled up, tucking her feet under her. She ached all over, and everything seemed too bright, and not quite right. â€˜â€˜Michael?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah?â€™â€™ He was working out a chord progression and was focused on the music; his response didnâ€™t mean he was listening, really.

â€˜â€˜Shouldnâ€™t you be asleep? I mean, donâ€™t vampiresâ€”?â€™â€™

He was listening after all. â€˜â€˜Sleep during the day? Yeah, mostly. But Iâ€”couldnâ€™t. I keep thinking . . .â€™â€™ The chord progression turned minor, then wrong, and he grimaced. â€˜â€˜I keep thinking that I should have fixed this crap with Shane by now. I donâ€™t know if heâ€™s going to get over it, not really. Not in the ways that count. And I hate it. I canâ€™t stop thinkingâ€”I donâ€™t want him doing this stuff. Not without me watching his back.â€™â€™

Claire leaned her head against the battered black pillow on the corner of the couch. It smelled like spilled Coke, a little, but mostly it smelled like Shane, and she gladly turned her face into it and took a deep breath. It made it seem like he was here, at least for a second.

â€˜â€˜He wouldnâ€™t hate you so bad if he didnâ€™t love you, at least a little bit,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ll be okay. Weâ€™re going to stay together, right? The four of us?â€™â€™

Michael looked up, and for a second she wasnâ€™t sure what he was going to say; but then he said, â€˜â€˜Yeah. Weâ€™ll stay together. No matter what.â€™â€™

It felt like a lie, and she wished he hadnâ€™t said it.

She fell asleep, listening to him compose a new song, and dreamed about vibrating strings and doorways that led nowhere, and everywhere. Someone was watching her; she could feel it, and it wasnâ€™t Michael. It wasnâ€™t warm and kind; it wasnâ€™t safe. She wasnâ€™t safe, and there was something wrong, wrong, wrong. . . .

She nearly fell off the couch, she jerked so hard. Michael wasnâ€™t there, and his guitar was in the case on the table. Claire squinted at the clock. It was nearly two oâ€™clock, and sheâ€™d slept through lunch, but it wasnâ€™t hunger that had woken her up. Sheâ€™d heard something.

It came again, a thumping knock on the front door. She yawned and pushed back the blanket that Michael had draped over her, and, still trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes, padded to the door.

She had to stand on tiptoes at the peephole to see out. Some guy, nobody that clicked any immediate recognitionâ€”not Jason, at least. That was good. Claire looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign Michael had heard. She had no idea where heâ€™d gone.

She opened the door. The guy standing outside looked up and held out a padded mailer with stickers on it; she took it and read her own name on it. â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ she said, preoccupied. â€˜â€˜Thanks.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No problem, Claire,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Be seeing you.â€™â€™

There was something way too familiar about the way he said it. She jerked her head up, staring at him, but she still didnâ€™t know him. He was just . . . normal. Average height, average weight, average everything. There was a silver bracelet on his wrist, so he was human, not vampire.

â€˜â€˜Do I know you?â€™â€™ she asked. He tilted his head a little, but didnâ€™t answer. He just turned and walked away down the sidewalk, toward the street. â€˜â€˜Hey, wait! Who are you?â€™â€™

He waved and kept walking. She went a couple of steps outside into the early-afternoon heat, frowning, but sheâ€™d left her shoes off, and the concrete was blazing hot. No way could she run after him in bare feet; sheâ€™d fry like bacon.

She retreated back into the cool darkness of the house and sighed in relief at the feeling of cool wood under her soles. She looked down at the envelope in her hand and suddenly wanted to drop it and step away. She didnâ€™t know who this guy was, and it was really strange that he wouldnâ€™t answer her. And strange, in Morganville, was rarely going to be a good thing.

She closed and locked the door, took a deep breath, and tore open the top of the envelope. No smell of blood or disgusting rotting things, which was a plus. She carefully squeezed the sides to open it up, and saw nothing in it but a note. She shook it out into her hand, and recognized the paper immediatelyâ€”heavy, expensive paper, cream-colored, embossed with the same logo that was on her gold bracelet.

It was a note from Amelie. Which meant the guy whoâ€™d dropped it off had to be somebody she trusted, at least that far.

â€˜â€˜Everything okay?â€™â€™ Michaelâ€™s voice came from the end of the hall. Claire gasped, stuffed the paper back into the envelope, and turned to face him.

â€˜â€˜Sure,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Just mail.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Good stuff?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t know yet; I havenâ€™t read it. Probably junk.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Enjoy the fact that you donâ€™t have electricity, water, cable, Internet, and garbage to pay for,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Look, Iâ€™m going upstairs. Yell if you need anything. Thereâ€™s stuff in the fridge if youâ€™re hungry.â€™â€™ A brief pause. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t open the pitcher in the back on the top shelf.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Michael, tell me youâ€™re not putting blood in our refrigerator.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I told you not to open it. So youâ€™ll never know.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You suck!â€™â€™ Of course he did; he was a vampire. â€˜â€˜I mean, not in a good way, either!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eat something! Iâ€™m sleeping.â€™â€™ And she heard his door shut, so she was effectively alone.

Claire fumbled out the letter and unfolded it. A smell of faint, dusty roses came from the paper, as though it had been stored in a trunk with dried flowers. She wondered how old it was.

It was a short, simple note, but it made her whole body turn cold.

It read:

Â 
I am displeased with your progress in your advanced studies. I suggest you spend additional time learning all you can. Time is growing short. I do not care how you arrange this, but you will be expected to demonstrate within the next two days at least a journeyman understanding of what you are being taught. You cannot involve Michael. He is not to be risked.

Â 
Nothing else. Claire stared at the perfect handwriting for a few seconds, then folded the note up and put it back in the envelope. She still felt tired and hungry, but more than anything else, now she felt scared.

Amelie wasnâ€™t happy.

That wasnâ€™t good.

Two days. And Michael could go with her only in the evenings. . . .

She couldnâ€™t wait.

Claire checked in her backpack. The red crystal shaker was still inside, safely zipped into a pocket.

If she took Michaelâ€™s carâ€”no, she couldnâ€™t. Sheâ€™d never be able to see through the tinting, even if she felt confident in her ability to drive it. And Detective Lowe wasnâ€™t going to give her a ride. She could try Detective Hess, but Loweâ€™s attitude had made her gun-shy.

Still, she couldnâ€™t just go out alone.

With a sigh, she called Eddie, the taxi driver.

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ he snapped. â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t I get a day off? What is it with you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eddie, Iâ€™m sorry, Iâ€™m really sorry. I need a favor.â€™â€™ Claire hastily checked her wallet. â€˜â€˜Um, itâ€™s a short trip, Iâ€™ll pay you double, okay? Please?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Double? I donâ€™t take checks.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know that. Cash.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t wait. I pick up, I drop off, I leave.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eddie! Double! Do you want it or not?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Keep your panties on. Whatâ€™s the address?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Michael Glassâ€™s house.â€™â€™

Eddie heaved a sigh so heavy it sounded like a temporary hurricane. â€˜â€˜You again. Okay, I come. But I swear, last time. No more Saturdays, yes?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes! Yes, okay. Just this time.â€™â€™

Eddie hung up on her. Claire bit her lip, slipped the note from Amelie into her bag, and hoped Michael had been serious about going to bed. Because if heâ€™d eavesdropped on her, even by accident, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

It took five minutes for Eddie to arrive. She waited on the sidewalk, and jumped in the back of the battered old cabâ€”barely yellow, after so much sun exposureâ€”and handed Eddie all the cash she had. He counted it. Twice.

Then he grunted and flipped the handle on the taxi meter. â€˜â€˜Address?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Katherine Dayâ€™s house.â€™â€™ One thing Claire had learned about riding with Eddieâ€”you didnâ€™t need numbers, only names. He knew everybody, and he knew where everybody lived. All the natives, anyway. The students, he just dropped on campus and forgot.

Eddie threw an arm over the back of his seat and frowned at her. He was a big guy, with a lot of wild dark hair, including a beard. She could barely see his eyes when he frowned, which was pretty much always. â€˜â€˜The Day House. Youâ€™re sure.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sure.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Told you Iâ€™m not staying, right?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Eddie, please!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Your funeral,â€™â€™ he said, and hit the gas hard enough to press her back into the cushions.

12

Myrninâ€™s shack was easy enough to get intoâ€”the trick, after all, wasnâ€™t getting in. It was getting out. Light slashed in thin ribbons through the darkness where the boards didnâ€™t quite meet, but it wasnâ€™t exactly easy to see, and she didnâ€™t much like roaming around in Myrninâ€™s lair in the dark. Or even half dark. She found a flashlight on the shelf near the door and thumbed it on. A pure white circle of light brushed across the dusty floor and showed her the narrow steps at the back that led down.

She went very slowly. Very carefully. â€˜â€˜Myrnin?â€™â€™ She said it quietly, because heâ€™d hear her; heâ€™d told her that his ears were sensitive because of the silence and his lack of company.

He didnâ€™t answer.

â€˜â€˜Myrnin?â€™â€™ Claire could see the hard edge of light at the bottom of the steps. He had everything on, it looked likeâ€”the light had a funny color, a mixture of fluorescent bulbs and oil lamps, candles and incandescents. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, itâ€™s Claire. Where are you?â€™â€™

She almost missed him, because he was so still. Myrnin was usually in motion of some kindâ€”moving fast, like a hummingbird, from one bright attraction to the next. But what was standing in the center of the room looked like Myrninâ€”only completely still. Vampires did breathe, a little; the blood they took from humans needed oxygen, Claire had figured out, although a lot less than in a normal person. But his chest was still, his eyes were open and staring, and he wasnâ€™t moving at all. Not even to look at her. His attention was focused somewhere off to the side.

â€˜â€˜Myrnin?â€™â€™ She put her bag down slowly. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s Claire. Can you hear me?â€™â€™

His chest rose just a fraction, and he whispered, â€˜â€˜Get out. Go.â€™â€™

And tears slid out of his wide, staring eyes to run down his pale cheeks.

â€˜â€˜What is it? Whatâ€™s wrong?â€™â€™ She forgot about caution, and moved toward him. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, please tell me whatâ€™s wrong!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜This is wrong.â€™â€™

And then he justâ€”collapsed. Dropped like his knees had given out, and the rest of him followed. It wasnâ€™t a graceful fall, and it would have hurt a normal human, maybe badly. Myrninâ€™s head hit the floor with a solid crack, and Claire crouched down next to him and put her hand on his chestâ€”not sure what she was doing, what she was supposed to be feeling for. Not his pulseâ€”vampires didnâ€™t have one, at least not that humans could detect. She knew that from leaning against Michael.

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t do this,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. His cold hand flashed out and grabbed hold of her arm, hard enough to bruise. â€˜â€˜Why are you here? You werenâ€™t supposed to come!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What are you talking about?â€™â€™ Claire tried to pull free, but she might as well have been pulling against a bridge cable. Myrnin could snap her bones, if he wanted. Or even if he got careless. â€˜â€˜Myrnin, youâ€™re hurting me. Pleaseâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Why?â€™â€™ He shook her, and she could see the panic in his eyes. That made her take a deep breath and forget the ache where he was holding her. â€˜â€˜You werenâ€™t supposed to come back!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Amelie sent me a note. She said I had only two days to learnâ€”â€™â€™

Myrnin groaned and let her go. He covered his eyes with his hands, dry-scrubbed his face, and said, â€˜â€˜Help me up.â€™â€™ Claire put a hand under his arm and managed to get him upright, leaning against a solid lab cabinet that seemed like it was bolted to the floor. â€˜â€˜Let me see the note.â€™â€™

She went back to the stairs, grabbed her backpack, and produced the note. Myrnin unfolded it in shaking hands and looked at it intently.

â€˜â€˜What? Is it a fake?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ he said slowly. â€˜â€˜She sent you to me.â€™â€™ He dropped the note in his lap, as if it had gotten unbearably heavy, and rested his head against the hard surface of the lab cabinet. â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s lost hope, then. Sheâ€™s acting out of fear and panic. That isnâ€™t like her.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t understand!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s exactly the problem,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t. And you wonâ€™t, child. I explained this to her beforeâ€”even the brightest human canâ€™t learn this quickly. And you are so very young.â€™â€™ He sounded tired and very sad. â€˜â€˜Now we come to the last of it, Claire. Think it through: Amelie sent you to me, knowing that I do not believe you are the solution to my problems. Why would she do that? You know what I am, what I do, what I crave. Why would she put you in front of me if she didnâ€™t want me toâ€”toâ€”â€™â€™ He seemed to be begging her to understand, but he wasnâ€™t making any sense. â€˜â€˜You donâ€™t know what she is capable of doing, child. You donâ€™t know!â€™â€™

There was so much fear in his voice, and in his face, that she felt a real sense of dread. â€˜â€˜If she didnâ€™t want you to teach me, why did she send me?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The question is, whyâ€”after being so careful to provide you with escortsâ€”would she send you to me alone?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”â€™â€™ She stopped, remembering. â€˜â€˜Sam said to ask you about the others. The other apprentices. He said I wasnâ€™t the firstâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Samuel is quite intelligent,â€™â€™ Myrnin said, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. â€˜â€˜You glow, you glow like the finest lamp. So much possibility in you. Yes, there have been others Amelie sent to learn. Vampires and humans. I killed the first one almost by accident, you must understand, but the effectâ€”you see, the more intelligent the mind, the longer my clarity lasts, or so we thought at first. The first bought me almost a year without attacks. The second . . . mere months, and so on, in ever-decreasing cycles as my disease grew worse.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜She sent me here to die,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜She wants you to kill me.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. â€˜â€˜Clever, isnâ€™t she? She understands my desperation so well. And you do glow so brightly, Claire. The temptation is almostâ€”â€™â€™ He shook his head violently, as if trying to throw something out of his mind. â€˜â€˜Listen to me. She seeks to fend off the inevitable, but I canâ€™t accept this trade. Your life is so fragile, just beginning; I canâ€™t steal it away for half a day, or an hour. Itâ€™s no use.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Butâ€”I thought you said I could learnâ€”â€™â€™

He sighed. â€˜â€˜I wanted to believe, but it isnâ€™t possible. Yes, I could teach youâ€”but youâ€™d be nothing more than a gifted mimic, a mechanic, not an engineer. There are things you cannot do, Claire, not for years at best. Iâ€™m sorry.â€™â€™

Myrnin was saying that she was stupid, and Claire felt a hot, strange spark of anger. â€˜â€˜Let go of my arm!â€™â€™ she snapped, and he was surprised enough that some of the blankness in his dark eyes went away, replaced with concern. He slowly relaxed his fingers. â€˜â€˜Explain it to me. Youâ€™re not all-knowing; maybe you forgot something.â€™â€™

Myrnin smiled, but it was a shadow of his usual manic grin. â€˜â€˜I assure you, I probably have,â€™â€™ he agreed. â€˜â€˜But Claire, attend: already, my muscles disobey me. Soon I wonâ€™t be able to walk, and then my voice will lock in my throat. And then blindness, and madness, and I will end my days locked in a black, dark place, screaming silently as I starve. If there were any shred of hope that I could avoid that fate, donâ€™t you think I would seize it?â€™â€™

He said it so . . . calmly. As if it had already happened. â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire said. She couldnâ€™t help it. â€˜â€˜No, that isnâ€™t going to happen.â€™â€™ Sheâ€™d somehow thought that heâ€™d just . . . fade away. Without pain. But this kind of tortureâ€”he didnâ€™t deserve it. Not even Oliver deserved to have this creeping up on him. â€˜â€˜Howâ€” Do you know what causes it?â€™â€™

Myrnin smiled, but the smile looked bitter. â€˜â€˜I thought I did, once. Amelie knows much of what Iâ€™ve forgotten, but you may find your clues in the notebooks. I was cautious, of course, but if you look closely, you may find my theories. In any case, it no longer matters. I can feel myself slipping into the black. Thereâ€™s no return.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜How do you know?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve seen it happen. Itâ€™s always the same. Amelie will lock me away because sheâ€™ll have no choice; she must try to keep the secret, and it will take me a very long time to die, because I am so very old.â€™â€™ He shook his head. â€˜â€˜Doesnâ€™t matter. Not now. All that matters is that you go home, child, and never come back. I canâ€™t imagine I would have the unexpected strength of will to refuse such a lovely warm gift twice.â€™â€™

It was stupid. She didnâ€™t like Myrnin, she couldnâ€™t. He was scary and strange and heâ€™d tried to kill her not just once, but at least twice.

So why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

â€˜â€˜What if we use the crystals?â€™â€™ she blurted. Myrninâ€™s eyes narrowed. â€˜â€˜I learned, when you had me take them. What if we use them now? Both of us? Would that help?â€™â€™

He was already shaking his head. â€˜â€˜Claire, itâ€™s a foolâ€™s quest. Even if we continue research on the cure, thereâ€™s not enough timeâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜The cure to your disease!â€™â€™ She felt a sudden surge of hope as she dug through her backpack and came up with the shaker of crystals. â€˜â€˜Isnâ€™t this what youâ€™ve done so far?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜It is. Clever of you to discover that. But the point is, itâ€™s taken years to develop it, and itâ€™s at best only a temporary measure. Even a large dose will wear off in a few hours for either one of us, and the consequences for you . . .â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But if we can come up with a cure, a real cure?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s naÃ¯ve to think that we could perfect such a thing in mere hours. No, I think you had better go. I have been quite noble today. You really should let me enjoy it while I can.â€™â€™ He looked at the shaker in her hands, and for a second she thought she saw a spark of that quick interest that had driven him so hard in earlier meetings. â€˜â€˜Perhapsâ€”if I show you the research, you could carry that part of it onward. For the others.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sam said you were all sick. Even Amelie.â€™â€™

Myrnin nodded. â€˜â€˜As I am, so shall they all be. Every vampire who lives will suffer this in the next ten years, unless it is stopped.â€™â€™

Ten years! No. Not Michael.

She couldnâ€™t stand by without trying to stop it, at least for him.

Â 
â€˜â€˜Amelie brought us to Morganville to buy us time, to find a way to ensure our survival. She believedâ€” she believed that humans might hold the keys to this plague, and she also believed that we could no longer afford to live as we had, preying in the night or hiding. She thought that humans and vampires could live in cooperation, and find the solution to our illness together. That quickly became impossible, of course; she realized, after telling the first few vampires, that they would go mad knowing what was to come, that they would kill indiscriminately. So it became a secret, a terrible secret. She told them part of the truth, that she was seeking a cure to what makes us sterile. Never the rest.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Soâ€”Morganvilleâ€™s a kind of lab. Sheâ€™s trying to find a cure, and protect all of you at the same time.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Exactly so.â€™â€™ Myrnin rubbed his hands over his face again. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m getting tired, Claire. Best give me the crystals.â€™â€™

She poured out a few in his hand. He met her eyes. â€˜â€˜More,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜The disease has advanced. I will need a large dose to stay with you, even for a while.â€™â€™

She poured about a teaspoon out. Myrnin popped it into his mouth, made a face at the bitterness, and swallowed. A shudder went through him, and she actually saw the weariness and confusion fade. â€˜â€˜Excellent. That really was an amazing discovery. Too bad about the doctor; really, he was very bright.â€™â€™ Oh dear. Myrnin was swinging toward the manic now, thanks to the drugs. That was dangerous. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re very bright. Perhaps you could read through the notes.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”Iâ€™m just now starting advanced biochemistryâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nonsense, your native ability is clear.â€™â€™ He pointed toward the shaker of crystals in her hand. â€˜â€˜Take it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No. Itâ€™s your medicine, not mine.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜And it will help you keep up with me, because we have very little time, Claire, very little.â€™â€™ His eyes were bright and clear, like a birdâ€™s, and with about as much affection. â€˜â€˜There are two ways you can assist me. You can take the crystals, or you can help me extend this period of clarity in other ways.â€™â€™

She sat back on her heels. â€˜â€˜You said you wouldnâ€™t.â€™â€™ â€˜â€˜Indeed. But you see, the disease makes me a sentimental fool. If I am to find an heir to my knowledge, and find a cure for my people, then I canâ€™t be burdened with such considerations.â€™â€™ His gaze brushed over her, abstract and hungry. â€˜â€˜You burn so very brightly, you know.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah,â€™â€™ she muttered. â€˜â€˜You said.â€™â€™ She hated this. She hated that Myrnin could change like this, go from friend to enemy in the space of a minute. Which one was real? Or was any of it?

Claire shook half a teaspoon of the crystals into her palm.

â€˜â€˜More,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. She added a couple, and he reached out, took the shaker, and poured a heaping mound of it into her hand. â€˜â€˜You have a great deal to learn, and you are operating from such a disadvantage. Better safe than sorry.â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t want to take itâ€”well, she did, a little, because the strawberry smell of the crystals brought back flashes of the way the world had looked: diamond clear, uncomplicated, simple.

Hard not to want that.

Myrnin said, â€˜â€˜Take it, or I will have to take you, Claire. We have no more moves on our chessboard.â€™â€™

She poured the crystals onto her tongue and almost gagged from the bitterness. The strawberry flavor was overwhelmed by it, and the aftertaste was rotten and cold on her tongue, and she thought for a second she might throw up. . . .

And then everything snapped into hot, sharp, perfect focus.

Myrnin no longer looked strange and pathetic; he was a burning pillar of energy barely contained by skin. She could see that he was sick, somehow; there was a darkness in him, like rot at the heart of a tree. The room took on a fey glitter. Neurotransmitters, she thought. Her brain was rushing a million miles an hour, making her giddy and breathless. My reaction time must be ten times faster.

Myrnin bounded up to his feet, grabbed her hand, and dragged her to the shelves, where he began frantically pulling down books. Notebooks, textbooks, scraps of handwritten paper. Two black-bound composition books, the same kind Claire used in lab class. Even a couple of the cheap blue books she used for essay tests. Everything was crammed with fine, perfect handwriting.

â€˜â€˜Read,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Hurry.â€™â€™

All she had to do was flip pages. Her eyes captured things, like cameras, and her brain was so fast and efficient that she translated and comprehended the text almost instantly. Nearly two hundred pages, and she paged through as fast as her fingers could go.

â€˜â€˜Well?â€™â€™ Myrnin demanded.

â€˜â€˜This is wrong,â€™â€™ she said, and flipped back to the first third of the notebook. â€˜â€˜Right here. See? The formulaâ€™s wrong. The variable doesnâ€™t match up with the prior version, and the error gets replicated going forwardâ€”â€™â€™

Myrnin gave out a fierce, sharp cry, like a hunting hawk, and snatched the book away from her. â€˜â€˜Yes! Yes, I see it! That fool. No wonder he sustained me only for a few days. But you, Claire, oh, you are different.â€™â€™

She knew she ought to be afraid of the slow, predatory smile he gave her, but she couldnâ€™t help it.

She smiled back.

â€˜â€˜Give me the next one,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜And letâ€™s start making crystals.â€™â€™

Â 
When it wore off, it hit Myrnin first. He took more, but she could see it wasnâ€™t really working this time. Diminishing returns. That was why heâ€™d only taken a few crystals last time, to prolong the effects even if the change hadnâ€™t been as dramatic.

This crash was like hitting a brick wall at ninety miles an hour.

It started when he lost his balance, caught himself, and knocked a tray off the lab table; he tried to catch it in midair, a feat heâ€™d been more than capable of an hour before, and missed it completely. He stared at his hands in frustration and viciously kicked the tray. It sailed across the room and hit the far wall with a spectacular clatter.

Claire straightened up from spreading the crystals out on the drying tray. She could feel the effects, tooâ€”her brain was slowing down, her body aching. It had to be worse for Myrnin, because of the disease. It was wrong to do this, she thought. Wrong, because his manic phase always led to dementia, and heâ€™d wanted so badly to be himself again.

But the crystals drying on the tray could change that, or at least, she hoped they could. It wasnâ€™t that Myrnin had been wrong, but that his last assistant had made mistakes; whether deliberate or not, Claire couldnâ€™t tell. But the crystals in the tray would be more effective, and longer lasting.

Myrnin could stabilize again.

â€˜â€˜It isnâ€™t a cure,â€™â€™ Myrnin said, as if he were reading her thoughts.

â€˜â€˜No, but it buys you time,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Look, I can come tomorrow. Promise me youâ€™ll leave these here, all right? Donâ€™t try to take them yet; theyâ€™re not ready. And theyâ€™re more powerful, so youâ€™ll have to start with a small dose and work up.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t tell me what to do!â€™â€™ Myrnin barked. â€˜â€˜Who is the master here? Who is the student?â€™â€™

This was familiar, and dangerous. She lowered her head. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re the master,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I have to go now. Iâ€™m sorry. Iâ€™ll come back tomorrow, okay?â€™â€™

He didnâ€™t answer. His dark eyes were fixed on her, and she couldnâ€™t tell what he was thinking. Or even if he was thinking. He was right on the edge.

Claire took the shaker of the less effective crystals and stuffed it in her backpackâ€”there wasnâ€™t that much left, but enough for one more dose for them both, and if he did something to the crystals during his manic phase, they might need it. She needed to ask Amelie for some kind of strongbox where she could store things. . . .

â€˜â€˜Why?â€™â€™ Myrnin asked. She looked up at him, frowning. â€˜â€˜Why are you helping us? Isnâ€™t it better for humans if we waste away and die? By helping me, you help all vampires.â€™â€™

Claire knew what Shane would have done. Heâ€™d have walked away, considered it a win all around. Eve might have done the same thing, except for Michael.

And she . . . she was helping. Helping. She couldnâ€™t even really explain why, except that it seemed wrong to turn away. They werenâ€™t all bad, and she couldnâ€™t sacrifice people like Sam and Michael for the greater good.

â€˜â€˜I know,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Believe me, Iâ€™m not happy about it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You do it because youâ€™re afraid,â€™â€™ he said.

â€˜â€˜No. I do it because you need it.â€™â€™

He just stared at her, as if he couldnâ€™t figure out what she was saying. Time to go. She shivered, shouldered her backpack, and hurried for the stairs. She kept looking behind, but she never saw Myrnin move. . . . Even so, he was in a different place, closer, every time she looked. It was like a childâ€™s game, only deadly serious. He wouldnâ€™t move while she was looking at him.

Claire turned and walked backward, staring at him. Myrnin chuckled, and the sound echoed through the room like the rustle of bat wings.

When her heels hit the steps, she turned and ran.

He could have caught her, but he didnâ€™t. She burst through the doors of the shack into the alley, breathing hard, sweating, shaking.

He didnâ€™t follow. She didnâ€™t think he could, past the steps. She wasnâ€™t sure whyâ€”maybe the same way that Morganville itself kept people in town, or wiped their memories, kept Myrnin confined in his bottle.

She felt the hair on the back of her neck stir, and then she heard a voice. Whispering and indistinct. Shane? What was Shane doing here?

He was inside. He was inside and he was in trouble; she had to go to him. . . .

Claire found herself reaching for the door to the shack before she knew what she was doing.

â€˜â€˜Myrnin, stop it!â€™â€™ she gasped and pulled away. She turned and ran down the alley toward the relative safety of the street.

It was only when she got there that she saw it was already nightfall.

Eddie wouldnâ€™t come for her after dark, and she was a long way from home. Too far to walk.

Claire was about to dial Michael at home when she spotted a police car cruising slowly down the cul-de-sac. Not a vampire squad carâ€”this one had only light tinting on the front windows, although the back was blacked out. Claire squinted against the harsh brightness and waved. The effects of the crystals were ebbing fast, and she felt clumsy, strange, and exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep. Sheâ€™d have taken a ride with Satan in his big red handbasket if it had helped her get off her feet for a few minutes.

The cruiser pulled to a stop, and the passenger-side window rolled down. Claire bent over to look inside.

Officer Fenton. â€˜â€˜You shouldnâ€™t be out by yourself,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜You know better. Everybodyâ€™s looking for you. Your friends called you in as missing.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ she said. That hadnâ€™t even occurred to her. She hadnâ€™t realized how long sheâ€™d been away. â€˜â€˜I justâ€”can I get a ride home? Please?â€™â€™

He shrugged. â€˜â€˜Hop in.â€™â€™ She did, gratefully, and buckled herself in. Everything ached nowâ€”her head, her eyes, every muscle in her body. And she had the feeling it was going to get worse before it got better. â€˜â€˜Speaking of your friends, how are they? Heard about that thing with Shane. Damn shame.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™ll be okay,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜And the other one? Michael?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yeah, heâ€™s fine,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Why?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Just checking. Probably good to keep an eye on him, since he was the target of the hit in the first place,â€™â€™ Fenton said. He turned the patrol car in a slow, crunching circle and headed back out, away from the alley. â€˜â€˜Since the guy was looking for him, specifically.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s head hurt too much for conversation. â€˜â€˜I guess,â€™â€™ she agreed faintly. And then some last flash of cognitive clarity put together strings of chemicals, and she felt her heartbeat jump and hammer harder. â€˜â€˜How did you know that?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I mean, about Sam not being the real target? He was unconscious when you found him. He couldnâ€™t have said anything.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Unconscious, crap. He was dead.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜But anyway, he couldnâ€™t have saidâ€”â€™â€™ Things clicked into place, and the pattern looked bad. Very bad. â€˜â€˜You were there before the sirens.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What are you talking about?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜When we first looked out, we saw you parked behind Samâ€™s car and we just thought youâ€™d found him there. But you didnâ€™t just find him lying in the streetâ€”â€™â€™

Officer Fenton pressed the gas pedal, and the cruiser shot forward at a high rate of speed. He turned on the lights. She heard the harsh clicking sound they made, and the night was flooded with flashes of blue and red strobes.

â€˜â€˜Where are you taking me?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up.â€™â€™

Claire put her hand on the door handle, but they were going so fast she knew she couldnâ€™t jump. Sheâ€™d be badly hurt, at the very least. â€˜â€˜If you hurt me, the Founderâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s what weâ€™re counting on,â€™â€™ Fenton sneered. â€˜â€˜Shut up.â€™â€™

Â 
Shane would have totally gotten off on the whole vampire-killer-secret-society thing. Claire just wanted to go home. Badly.

In addition to Officer Fenton, the group that gathered in the shed behind the photo processing store included Fentonâ€™s wife, the unpleasant nurse who treated Claire as though she were carrying some totally disgusting disease. She even wore latex gloves to tie Claire to the chair.

Claire barely recognized the others. One was a maintenance worker from the university; sheâ€™d seen him a few times. One was a bank teller. One was the smooth-faced, unremarkable guy whoâ€™d delivered Amelieâ€™s note to her that afternoon. Heâ€™d killed her courier, Claire found out. He spent a lot of time tracking down who worked for Amelie and trying to find out where she stayed.

He was the one who leaned over into her space, hands braced on the arms of the chair, and said, â€˜â€˜We donâ€™t much care for collaborators. Even little underage ones.â€™â€™

Claireâ€™s mouth felt foul and dry, and she was shaking now with the aftereffects of the crystals. Myrnin had been right: the consequences werenâ€™t going to be pleasant. â€˜â€˜Captain Obvious, I presume,â€™â€™ she said.

He laughed. He had nice, white teeth, no sign of vampire fangs. â€˜â€˜Arenâ€™t you the clever one. Living up to your reputation, I see.â€™â€™ He tapped a finger on her gold bracelet. â€˜â€˜Not too many breathers have ever seen the Founder, much less become her pet. Sam Glass was the last one, before you. Did you know that? This is his bracelet youâ€™re wearing. Probably sized down a little, though.â€™â€™

She squirmed a little, but the ropes were too tight. â€˜â€˜What do you want with me?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Leverage,â€™â€™ said Officer Fenton. â€˜â€˜Vamps seem to like you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not all of them,â€™â€™ Claire said. If they asked Oliver to come running to her rescue, it wasnâ€™t too likely heâ€™d so much as yawn. â€˜â€˜And if you think Amelieâ€™s going to sacrifice herself for me, youâ€™re crazy.â€™â€™ Amelie had already sold her down the river, by sending her to Myrnin with the clear expectation that Myrnin would . . . eat her. The fact that he hadnâ€™t was just Claireâ€™s good luck. â€˜â€˜In fact, I donâ€™t think any of them would raise a fingerâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Michael Glass would,â€™â€™ Captain Obvious said. â€˜â€˜And heâ€™s the one we want. She knows that, of course. Sheâ€™s done everything she could to keep him away from us.â€™â€™ He flipped open the phone and pressed something on speed dial. â€˜â€˜Tell him where you are.â€™â€™

Claire glared. â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™ She clamped her lips shut as she heard Michaelâ€™s distant hello on the other end. Iâ€™m not going to talk; Iâ€™m not going to make a sound. . . .

The door at the back of the shed opened, and someone came in. Thin, greasy, dressed in a black leather jacket with a hole in the pocket. Crazy eyes. Fang marks on his neck.

Jason.

He took the phone from Captain Obvious. â€˜â€˜Hey, Mikey, itâ€™s Jason. Just shut up and listen. Iâ€™ve got Claire, and Iâ€™m thinking about all the things I can do with her until you get here. Better hurry.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No!â€™â€™ Claire blurted, and realized it was a mistake. Sheâ€™d just confirmed that she was there, and now Michael wouldnâ€™t have any choice, would he? â€˜â€˜Michael, donâ€™t!â€™â€™

She could hear the sound of Michaelâ€™s voice, but not what he was saying. Jason put the phone back to his ear and listened. â€˜â€˜Yeah, thatâ€™s right. Youâ€™ve got half an hour to show, or Iâ€™ll bring her home in pieces. Oh, and itâ€™s not a trap; itâ€™s a business proposition. You walk in alone, you both walk out alive.â€™â€™ Pause. â€˜â€˜Where? Oh, come on, man. You know where. The captainâ€™s waiting.â€™â€™

He snapped the phone shut, tossed it in the air, and caught it, smiling. His eyes never left Claire.

Michael wouldnâ€™t do it. He just wouldnâ€™t be that stupid, right? But Shane was in the hospital. He didnâ€™t have anybody he could turn to for help except the other vampires, and they wouldnâ€™t lift a finger to save Claire. She wasnâ€™t sure anymore that Amelie would bother, unless she was just saving her as Myrninâ€™s midnight snack.

The door to the shed opened again, and both Captain Obvious and Jason turned to look.

Detective Travis Lowe stepped inside and closed the door, and for a second Claire felt a wild jolt of relief and satisfaction, but it faded just as quickly. Lowe looked at Jason and Captain Obvious as though he was expecting to find them there, and when his gaze moved to Claire, he didnâ€™t react except to seem angry and harassed.

Oh God. He was one of them. Whoever them might be.

â€˜â€˜Could you screw this up any more?â€™â€™ he asked, low and vicious. â€˜â€˜I told you, Glass isnâ€™t important. We donâ€™t need to do this.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s the youngest. Heâ€™s a symbol, man,â€™â€™ Captain Obvious said. â€˜â€˜And he was one of us. Heâ€™s a traitor.â€™â€™

One of us? Did he meanâ€”no, he couldnâ€™t mean that. He couldnâ€™t mean that Michael knew these people, that heâ€™d been part of this skanky little conspiracy . . . but Jason had acted as though Michael knew where they were.

Nurse Fenton destroyed that hope by saying, â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ve already been over this. Michael knows too much. If he decides to talk, weâ€™re all dead. We canâ€™t take the risk. Not anymore.â€™â€™ She shot her husband a dark look. â€˜â€˜If you hadnâ€™t screwed upâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t blame me! Vampire car pulling out of the vampireâ€™s house, how was I supposed to know it wasnâ€™t him?â€™â€™

Of course. No wonder that had bothered her all alongâ€”the house had woken all of them up not because of the threat to Sam, but the threat to Michael, its owner. Even though Michael wasnâ€™t there, it was reacting to intent.

Officer Fenton hadnâ€™t been the first man on the scene; heâ€™d been the one who staked Sam and left him to die, then pretended to be Johnny-on-the-spot. If Richard Morrell hadnâ€™t shown up to scoop and run, he would have succeeded.

Claire swallowed hard and focused on Detective Lowe. â€˜â€˜I thought you were a good guy.â€™â€™

Something weary and painful passed across his face. â€˜â€˜Claireâ€”â€™â€™ He shook his head. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s not as simple as that. Not in Morganville. You donâ€™t just get to be one thing around here.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s not his fault,â€™â€™ Jason said, and grinned like a wolf. â€˜â€˜If he wants his partner back, heâ€™s not going to do anything stupid.â€™â€™

Detective Hess. They had him. No wonder she hadnâ€™t seen him for daysâ€”and no wonder Lowe had been acting weird. She looked more closely at Officer Fenton, and found he had a dark bruise on his left cheek that matched the scrapes on Detective Loweâ€™s knuckles. Heâ€™d been in the house, maybe with Detective Hess, and Lowe had taken a swing at him.

Loweâ€™s eyes were dark and full of misery, and he looked away from Claire. â€˜â€˜The kid has nothing to do with this,â€™â€™ he said.

â€˜â€˜The kid hangs with the top-shelf vampires,â€™â€™ Nurse Fenton shot back. â€˜â€˜How many humans do you know with access to the Founder? She doesnâ€™t even let her own kind get close! Of course sheâ€™s got something to do with this. Probably a lot more than you know.â€™â€™

Truer than Nurse Fenton knew. Claire thought about what sheâ€™d learned from Myrninâ€”the vampire sickness, the wormhole doorways through town, the network of Founder Housesâ€”and realized that she knew enough to destroy Morganville.

She did her best to look scared and clueless. The first part, at least, wasnâ€™t much of a stretch.

When Jason sauntered over and put his hand on Claireâ€™s shoulder, she flinched. He smelled like a garbage heap in the summer, and she caught a lingering hint of blood from his coat. He stabbed Shane. And heâ€™d smiled about it, too.

â€˜â€˜Get your hands off me,â€™â€™ she said, and turned to stare right at him. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not afraid of you.â€™â€™

Lowe grabbed Jason by the arm, swung him around, and slammed him face-first into the rough wooden wall of the shed. â€˜â€˜Me neither,â€™â€™ he growled. â€˜â€˜And Iâ€™m not tied to a chair. Leave her alone.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Big hero,â€™â€™ Nurse Fenton said bitterly. â€˜â€˜You and Hess, youâ€™re both pathetic.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Am I?â€™â€™ Lowe twisted Jasonâ€™s arm painfully high. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not the one raping and killing girls for fun.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Jasonâ€™s not the one doing it, either,â€™â€™ Fenton said. â€˜â€˜He just likes to talk about it.â€™â€™

Claire said, â€˜â€˜Then howâ€™d he know about the one in our basement?â€™â€™

They all looked at her. â€˜â€˜I never saw a report about any body in your house,â€™â€™ Lowe said. â€˜â€˜Just the one in the alley.â€™â€™

Jason laughed, a dry crack of sound. â€˜â€˜They moved it. Hey, Claire, you ever think that maybe it wasnâ€™t me? Maybe it was one of your two boyfriends inside the house. Shane, he ainâ€™t too stable, you know. And who knows about Michael these days?â€™â€™

She wanted to scream at him, but she saved her strength. She had thin wrists, and Captain Obvious hadnâ€™t done a very good job of tying her; she could feel a little give in the ropes, and she wouldnâ€™t need much slack to slip at least one hand free. The rough surface of the rope sawed at her skin, but she kept pulling, trying not to make it too obvious, and felt a sudden sharp pain in her wrist as the cut Jason had given her broke open again, sending a slow trickle of blood down her wrist.

It helped, along with the sweat running down her arms. She coughed, and at the same time pulled, and her right hand slipped free of the ropes with a fiery scrape. She kept it behind her back and started working on the knot holding her left hand to the crossbar of the chair.

â€˜â€˜So what are you?â€™â€™ she asked, to fill the silence and keep them from noticing what she was doing. â€˜â€˜Vampire hunters?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Something like that,â€™â€™ Officer Fenton said.

â€˜â€˜Not that Iâ€™ve noticed,â€™â€™ Claire sniffed. â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€™s dad blew into town and killed all the vampires that I know about. What have you done?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up,â€™â€™ Nurse Fenton said flatly. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™ve been here months, if that. You have no idea what this town is like to live in. When weâ€™re ready, weâ€™ll act. Frank Collins had the right idea, but he wasnâ€™t much of a planner.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜So youâ€™re planning a revolution,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Not just random attacks.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Would you stop telling the prisoner our plans?â€™â€™ Captain Obvious snapped. â€˜â€˜Jesus, donâ€™t you watch movies? Just shut up!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sheâ€™s not going to tell anybody,â€™â€™ Officer Fenton said, in such an offhand way that Claireâ€™s heart sank.

They didnâ€™t intend to keep any promises to Michael. No way were they letting Michael, or her, walk out of here alive.

Donâ€™t do it, Michael. Donâ€™t come for me.

But fifteen minutes later, the door burst open and a vampire rushed in, wrapped in a heavy blanket. The greasy smell of cooking flesh filled the shed, and then the vampire kicked the door closed and collapsed against it, gasping. Smoke rose up from him in a thick, choking cloud. In a few places, Claire could see blackened skin beneath the covering.

â€˜â€˜About time,â€™â€™ Fenton growled. Then he picked up a black stick from a crate next to him and drove it into the vampireâ€™s chest. For a second Claire thought that it was a stake, but then she saw sparks, and the vampire went down in a tangle of blankets and smoke.

Heâ€™d been Tasered.

Captain Obvious brought out a wooden stake and rolled the vampire over. Claire screamed. Somehow, sheâ€™d been avoiding thinking of him as Michael, but the flash of golden hair and the pale shape of his face were unmistakable.

His blue eyes were open, but he couldnâ€™t move. There were burned patches on his hands and arms, but he was alive. . . .

Captain Obvious positioned the stake.

Claire lurched to her feet and spun to her right. Her left hand was still tied to the crossbar of the chair, but the momentum helped her swing it with bone-breaking force right into Captain Obviousâ€™s back. He crumpled against the wall. Claire grabbed the chair in both hands and used it as a shield as Officer Fenton jabbed the Taser at her, knocking it aside, and managed to hit him in the gut with at least one of the chairâ€™s legs as she screamed for help. He stumbled backward.

Travis Lowe cursed and flicked handcuffs onto Jasonâ€™s wrists. â€˜â€˜Sit,â€™â€™ he ordered, and pulled his gun. He looked strained and grim, but determined. â€˜â€˜Back up, Fenton. You too, Christine. Turn and face the wall.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t do this,â€™â€™ Officer Fenton said. â€˜â€˜Trav, if you cross usâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I know. Youâ€™ll get me. Iâ€™ll try not to pee all over myself in terror.â€™â€™ Lowe nodded to Claire, who was undoing the last of the knots holding the chair to her left hand. â€˜â€˜Put the cuffs on them. Iâ€™ll cover you.â€™â€™ He tossed her an extra two sets, and she fumbled the unfamiliar weight in her numbed fingers. As she bent to pick them up, Captain Obviousâ€”down, not outâ€” reached over Michaelâ€™s still body, grabbed her foot, and yanked. Claire cried out and fell, and Captain Obvious dragged her backward.

Lowe spun, aiming his gun, but it was too late. Captain Obvious had a knife, a big, wicked thing, and he put it to Claireâ€™s throat, right under her chin. It felt cold, then hot as it pressed into the tender skin. â€˜â€˜Put it down, Jeff,â€™â€™ Lowe barked. He took a threatening step forward. â€˜â€˜I mean it; I will put you down.â€™â€™

He got Tasered in the back. Claire watched him convulse and fall, and felt panic well up inside. Theyâ€™ll kill us now. All three of us. Four, counting Joe Hess, who was being held prisoner somewhere else.

She heard a sharp, loud crack, and a pale strong hand exploded through the boards beside Captain Obviousâ€™s head, grabbed him, and pulled. The entire section of boards broke away, and Captain Obvious was yanked backward. Claire felt the knife slide along her neck, but it didnâ€™t have any force behind it. He dropped it, flailing for balance, and then he was outside in the bright, dusty sunlight, and there was a dry snapping sound.

Dressed in a black leather trench coat, a black broad-brimmed hat, and black gloves, Oliver stepped into the shed. He gave them all a vampire smile.

â€˜â€˜Well, that was refreshing,â€™â€™ he said. He reached down and pulled Michael up to a sitting position next to Claire, then stepped in front of them.

â€˜â€˜Couldâ€™ve come sooner,â€™â€™ Michael whispered. He was shaking all over, but he was coming out of his paralysis. Claire hugged him. He fumbled in his pocket, came up with a handkerchief, and pressed it to Claireâ€™s neck. She hadnâ€™t even realized she was bleeding.

Oliver ignored them and walked toward the Fentons, who tried to get to the door. He flashed ahead of them with that easy snakelike speed vampires could display when they wanted, and Claire shuddered at the looks on their faces.

They knew what was going to happen to them.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t worry,â€™â€™ Oliver said. â€˜â€˜Thereâ€™ll be a fair trial. Since Samuel didnâ€™t die, and you didnâ€™t succeed today, you wonâ€™t burn for what youâ€™ve done.â€™â€™ He reached for Christine Fentonâ€™s wrist, ripped her sleeve, and exposed her silver bracelet. It fit tightly around her wrist, but he slid a finger underneath the metal and it split along an invisible seam. He dropped the bracelet in his pocket, then did the same to Officer Fenton.

The places where their bracelets had been were sickly pale, and Christine kept rubbing hers, as if the shock of open air on the skin was painful.

â€˜â€˜Congratulations,â€™â€™ Oliver said. â€˜â€˜I release you from your contracts.â€™â€™

And then he grabbed Christine. Claire had a glimpse of his fangs flashing down, silvery and sharp, and then he slammed the woman against the wall of the shed and bit.

Claire hid her face against Michaelâ€™s chest. He put his hand on her hair and held her there, turned away from the sight of Christine Fenton dying.

She heard the womanâ€™s body hit the floor and then Oliver, his voice thick and dark, say, â€˜â€˜Your turn now.â€™â€™

A sharp, snapping sound, and another body hit the floor.

When Michael let her go, Claire didnâ€™t look at the bodies. She couldnâ€™t.

She looked at Oliver, who was staring down at Travis Lowe. The detective was just starting to stir. â€˜â€˜What about this one?â€™â€™ he asked. â€˜â€˜Friend or foe?â€™â€™

He wasnâ€™t waiting for an answer. He grabbed Lowe by the collar and lifted him off the ground.

â€˜â€˜Friend! Friend!â€™â€™ Claire blurted frantically, and saw Loweâ€™s eyes close in relief. â€˜â€˜His partnerâ€™s missing. I think they were holding him somewhere.â€™â€™

Oliver shrugged, clearly not interested. He dropped Lowe back to the ground and turned a slow circle. â€˜â€˜There was another one,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Where is he?â€™â€™ He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out with a disgusted cough. â€˜â€˜Jason. Well, well.â€™â€™

Sometime while Oliver had been busy killing the Fentons, Jason had escaped out the door, and Michael hadnâ€™t stopped him. Maybe too weak, maybe just worried for Claire. But anyway, Jason was long gone.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll find him,â€™â€™ Oliver said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ve been tolerant, so long as he didnâ€™t threaten our interests, but enough.â€™â€™ He glanced down at Michael and Claire. â€˜â€˜Go home.â€™â€™ He stalked away, out into the sun, without a backward glance. Three dead bodies, and he didnâ€™t even pause.

Travis Lowe managed to pull himself to a sitting position, groaning, and rested his head in his hands. â€˜â€˜I hate Tasers.â€™â€™ He looked up and fixed his bloodshot gaze on Claire. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re okay? Let me see your throat.â€™â€™

She moved the handkerchief. There was just a thin smear on the cloth. Her wrist was worse; she tied the cloth around it as a makeshift bandage and thought, Iâ€™m going to have to buy Michael some new ones.

Though why she thought of that now, she had no idea. Maybe she just wanted to imagine normal life.

Because this definitely wasnâ€™t normal.

Michael stood up and helped Claire to her feet, then Lowe. He pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them to Lowe. â€˜â€˜Pull the car in with the trunk facing the door,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Open it and honk when youâ€™re ready.â€™â€™

Lowe nodded and went outside, into the blinding sun. Michael put both hands on Claireâ€™s shoulders and looked down at her, then cupped her cheeks in his palms.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t do that again,â€™â€™ he said.

â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t do anything. I got a ride from a cop, that was allâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not that,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Myrnin. Donâ€™t do it again. You canâ€™t go back. Heâ€™ll kill you next time.â€™â€™

He knew where sheâ€™d been. Well, she supposed it hadnâ€™t been hard to figure out.

â€˜â€˜You shouldnâ€™t have come,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜You knew it was a trap; what are you, crazy?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I called Oliver,â€™â€™ Michael said.

â€˜â€˜You didnâ€™t!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜It worked, didnâ€™t it?â€™â€™

She looked around at the dead people in the shed. â€˜â€˜Yeah.â€™â€™

He looked ill for a second and started to say something, but then the horn honked outside, and he changed it to, â€˜â€˜Rideâ€™s here.â€™â€™

She nodded, and walked out into the dazzling glare. Something brushed by her, moving fast, and then the trunk of the sedan slammed closed before sheâ€™d taken more than two steps.

Claire trudged to the passenger side of the car. Exhausted and aching, and feeling a stupid need to cry, she said nothing at all on the ride home.

13

Joe Hess was in the run-down house on Spring Street, locked in a closet, filthy, with a broken arm and two broken ribsâ€”Lowe had called with the news of his rescue two hours later. Claire tried to be happy, but the crash that had started for her before she left Myrninâ€™s just kept driving her down. She felt sick and weak and hollow, and she couldnâ€™t even summon the energy to go to the hospital to see Shane. Michael told Eve that she was sick, which wasnâ€™t much of a lie; Claire stayed in bed, shivering, wrapped in layers of blankets even though the room was warm. Everything kept shifting in her head, from dull gray fog to glittering icy clarity, and she didnâ€™t know how long it was going to last. She developed a knife-sharp headache sometime during the night, and by the time she finally slept, it was nearly morning.

Her cell phone rang at two p.m. on Sunday. Sheâ€™d gotten up to visit the bathroom and grab a bottle of water, but no food, and her whole body felt weak and abused. â€˜â€˜Where are you?â€™â€™ the voice on the other end demanded. Claire squinted at the clock and scrubbed a hand through her matted, oily hair.

â€˜â€˜Who is it?â€™â€™

A sigh rattled the speaker. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s Jennifer, idiot. Iâ€™m waiting at Common Grounds. Are you going to show or what?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said, and then tried again. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sick.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Look, I donâ€™t care if youâ€™re dying; Iâ€™ve got a midterm tomorrow for half my grade! Get your ass down here now!â€™â€™

Jennifer hung up. Claire threw the phone down on the nightstand with a clatter and satâ€”or fellâ€”onto the bed. I canâ€™t. I just want to sleep, thatâ€™s all.

Someone rapped gently on the door, and then it creaked open. Eve was standing there, with a cracked, much-abused plastic tray in her hands. On it was a frosty glass of Coke, still fizzing, a sandwich, and a cookie.

And a red rose.

â€˜â€˜Eat,â€™â€™ she said, and slid the trap onto Claireâ€™s lap. â€˜â€˜Man, thatâ€™s one hell of a hangover.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hangover?â€™â€™ Claire looked at her oddly, and sipped the Coke. It went down sweet and cool, and that helped. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m not hungover.â€™â€™

Eve just shook her head. â€˜â€˜Been there, CB. Trust me on this. Eat, shower, youâ€™ll feel better.â€™â€™

Claire nodded. She did feel a spark of hunger, distant as it was, and managed to take two bites of the sandwich before weariness overtook her again. She tried the cookie in between.

The shower felt like heaven, and Eve was right about that, too; when she finally got dressed and finished half the sandwich she felt almost alive.

Her cell phone rang again. Jennifer. Claire didnâ€™t even let her get started yelling and threatening. â€˜â€˜Ten minutes,â€™â€™ she said, and hung up. She didnâ€™t want to go, but staying in bed didnâ€™t seem to be doing much for her. She took the tray downstairs, washed up, and grabbed her backpack on the way out.

â€˜â€˜Where the hell do you think youâ€™re going?â€™â€™

Michael. He was standing in the hallway, blocking the door, looking like he was guarding the gates of heaven itself. His hands looked raw and pinkâ€”still healing from the burns. She thought about that, about how important his hands were to him, because of the music, and felt a sharp stab of guilt.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m meeting Jennifer at Common Grounds,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Tutoring. For money.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, youâ€™re not walking, and I canâ€™t take you until dark.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I can,â€™â€™ Eve offered. She joined Claire in the hall. â€˜â€˜I need to go into work, anyway. Kim didnâ€™t show again; they called a little while ago. Hey, overtime pay. Gotta love it. Maybe we can afford tacos.â€™â€™

Michael looked exasperated, but it wasnâ€™t as though there were a lot of choices. He nodded and stepped out of the way. Eve stretched up on her toes to kiss him, and that went on for a while before Claire cleared her throat, checked her watch, and got her moving to the car.

It was a short ride to Common Grounds, but not exactly a comfortable one, because the first thing Eve said was, â€˜â€˜Is it true? Oliver killed the Fentons and Captain Obvious?â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t want to talk about it, but she nodded.

â€˜â€˜And Michael? Michael was there?â€™â€™

Again, the nod. Claire looked out the window.

â€˜â€˜He got hurt. I saw the burns.â€™â€™ This time she didnâ€™t even try to answer. Eve let the silence stretch for a few seconds, then said, â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t shut me out, Claire. The four of us, weâ€™re all weâ€™ve got.â€™â€™

Except that what Claire had couldnâ€™t be shared. Not with Michael, not with Eve, and certainly not with Shane.

She was alone, carrying an ugly weight of knowledge she didnâ€™t want and couldnâ€™t use. And every time she thought about Oliverâ€™s icy smile, about him ripping out Christine Fentonâ€™s throat, she felt sick. Iâ€™m helping him, if I keep working for Myrnin and Amelie.

But she was also helping Michael. Sam. Myrnin.

Eve seemed to sense it wasnâ€™t time to push; she pulled to a stop in front of the coffee shop and said, â€˜â€˜Stay inside until dark; Michael will come get you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m going to see Shane,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜But Iâ€™ll get a ride home.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Claire, dammitâ€”â€™â€™ Eve sighed. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t stop you. But if you wait, you and Michael can go together. Iâ€™ll see you guys tonight. Tacos for dinner, right?â€™â€™

Nothing sounded very exciting to her right now, but Claire nodded. She got out and walked into Common Grounds, which was a sea of noise and conversationâ€” packed, as always, with college students and a few locals. She was getting used to picking out the gleam of ID bracelets.

Jennifer was sitting at the same table Monica favored, sipping a drink that Claire bet was the same thing Monica always had, wearing an outfit that was probably Monicaâ€™s hand-me-downs, or at least copied from the same designers. She looked angry and scowled at Claire as Claire dropped her backpack on the floor and slid into her chair. â€˜â€˜You look like crap,â€™â€™ Jennifer said. â€˜â€˜Sick sick, or hungover?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Does it matter?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Hungover,â€™â€™ Jennifer said, and grinned. â€˜â€˜And here I thought you were all underage Goody Two-shoes.â€™â€™

The smell of coffee was making her feel queasy, but Claire went to the counter and ordered a mocha anyway. Oliver wasnâ€™t on duty, and she didnâ€™t know the two working as baristas.

When she turned around, somebody else was sitting at Jenniferâ€™s table in the previously empty third chair.

Monica.

Crap. I canâ€™t deal with her. Not now. She felt horrible, and the last thing she wanted to do was match wits with the witch queen.

Monica gave her the X-ray scan, looked at Jennifer, and did an over-the-top hand to the forehead. â€˜â€˜I thought the homeless look died in the nineties.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Shut up.â€™â€™ Claire slid into her chair, mocha in hand.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m tutoring Jennifer, not you.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Bitch, I wouldnâ€™t let you tutor me. Youâ€™d probably give me all the wrong answers.â€™â€™

Which was a totally good idea, and Claire saw the fear flash into Jenniferâ€™s expression. She sighed. â€˜â€˜I wouldnâ€™t,â€™â€™ she said.

â€˜â€˜Why not?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Becauseâ€”because this matters. School.â€™â€™ They both looked at Claire as though she were a lunatic. â€˜â€˜Never mind. I just wouldnâ€™t. You want my help or not?â€™â€™

Jennifer nodded. Claire reached for her notebook and flipped to the notes sheâ€™d taken in Economics, and started explaining. Jennifer was trying, at least; Monica kept sighing and fidgeting, but Jennifer seemed to be kind of following along. She even got a couple of the formulas right, when Claire pop-quizzed her. It took about an hour to get her to the level of a solid B, but that was good enough. Jennifer wasnâ€™t interested in As, and Monica couldnâ€™t have cared less.

Claireâ€™s mocha was making her nauseated. She tossed the half-full cup and went to the bathroom. She picked up her backpack and brought it along; half out of an entirely reasonable expectation that Monica and/ or Jennifer would do something mean if she left it at their mercy.

She was standing at the mirror staring at her sallow face with its raccoon-bruise eyes and pale lips when the second of clarity hit again, a flicker of unforgiving beauty in a world that seemed drowning in gray.

Maybe a little. Just to get through the day. There wasnâ€™t that much left, anyway.

She didnâ€™t let herself think. Her head was pounding, her mouth dry, her muscles aching, and she needed to feel better. Because right now, she didnâ€™t know if she could make it through the day.

She shook about ten measly crystals out into her palm. The strawberry scent teased her, and she shifted them around, watching the light glint on the sharp edges. It looked like candy.

Itâ€™s a drug. She was finally admitting it to herself. Itâ€™s not even for you. Itâ€™s for Myrnin. What are you doing? Itâ€™s making you sick.

But it would also make her well.

She was in the process of dumping the crystals in her mouth when Monica shoved open the bathroom door.

Claire swallowed and choked and quickly wiped her hand on her pants. She knew she looked guilty. Monica, whoâ€™d been heading for the stall, stopped and looked at her.

â€˜â€˜What was that?â€™â€™ Monica asked.

â€˜â€˜What was what?â€™â€™ Wrong answer, Claire knew it as soon as she said it. Why not, aspirin for my hangover ? Or, breath mints? She was a terrible liar.

She couldnâ€™t help but drag in a shocked breath as the crystals raced their chemical message through her nerve endings, ice in every vein, and the whole world turned sharp and bright andâ€”for the momentâ€” painless.

And Monica was way too savvy. She looked at the hand Claire was convulsively rubbing against her blue jeans, then gave her the X-ray stare again, and slowly smiled. â€˜â€˜Man, that must be good stuff. Your pupils just dilated like crazy.â€™â€™ Monica edged up next to her and checked her makeup. â€˜â€˜Whereâ€™d you get it?â€™â€™

Claire said nothing. She reached for the shaker, which was sitting on the edge of the sink, but Monica got there first. She looked it over and shook a crystal out in her hand. â€˜â€˜Cool. What is it?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nothing. Itâ€™s not for you.â€™â€™

Monica pulled the shaker back when she reached for it. â€˜â€˜Oh, I think it is. Especially if you want it so bad.â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t think; she just acted. Her brain worked so fast that she moved in a blur, slamming Monica back against the wall, then twisting the silver can out of her hand. Monica didnâ€™t even have time to yell.

Monica straightened her clothes and tossed back her hair. There was a crazy light in her eyes, and a glow in her cheeks. She liked this.

â€˜â€˜Oh, you stupid bitch,â€™â€™ Monica breathed. â€˜â€˜That was such a bad idea. So, it makes you faster. And Iâ€™m betting itâ€™s something from the vamps. That makes it mine.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Claire said. Sheâ€™d screwed up, she knew that, but talking was only going to make it worse. She put the shaker in her backpack and zipped it up, shouldered the load, and turned to go.

Her hand was on the doorknob when Monica said, â€˜â€˜Shaneâ€™s still in ICU.â€™â€™ There was something about the way she said it. . . . Claire turned slowly to face her. â€˜â€˜That means heâ€™s not out of the woods yet. Funny thing, people can have all kinds of setbacks. Maybe he gets the wrong meds or something. That can kill you. They did a story about it on the news.â€™â€™ Monicaâ€™s smile was vicious. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™d hate to see that happen.â€™â€™

Claire felt the wildest, coldest impulse that had ever come over herâ€”she wanted to lunge for Monica, knock her head into the wall, rip her apart. She could visualize it. That was terrifying, and she pulled herself back with a snap into sanity.

â€˜â€˜What do you want?â€™â€™ she said. Her voice wasnâ€™t quite steady.

Monica just held out her finely manicured hand, raised an eyebrow, and waited.

Claire put down her backpack, pulled out the shaker, and handed it over. â€˜â€˜When thatâ€™s gone, I donâ€™t have any more,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜I hope you choke on it.â€™â€™

Monica poured some of the red crystals into her palm. â€˜â€˜How much? And donâ€™t be stupid. You OD me, and itâ€™s your neck, not mine.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t do more than half of that,â€™â€™ Claire said. Monica scraped half of the crystals off her palm, back into the container. It looked about right. Claire nodded.

Monica dumped it into her mouth, licked the residue from her palm, and Claire could tell the exact second that the chemicals hit herâ€”her eyes went wide, and her pupils began to grow. And grow. It was eerie, and Claire felt her skin crawl as Monica began to shake. This is what it looks like. It looked awful.

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re pretty.â€™â€™ Monica sounded surprised. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s all so clear nowâ€”â€™â€™

And then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell down and started to convulse.

Claire screamed for help, jammed her backpack under Monicaâ€™s head to keep her from knocking it against the tile floor, and tried to hold her down. Jennifer ran in and screamed, too, then came at Claire, swinging. Claire moved out of the way of the punchâ€” it seemed slow to herâ€”and shoved Jennifer out of the way. â€˜â€˜I didnâ€™t do it!â€™â€™ she yelled. â€˜â€˜She took something!â€™â€™

Jennifer called 911.

Â 
This wasnâ€™t how Claire had intended to end up at the hospital. Worse, by the time theyâ€™d gotten there, Monica had stopped breathing, and the paramedics had to put a tube down her throat. They were hooking her up to machines now, and the mayor was coming, and half the cops in town were converging on it.

â€˜â€˜I need to know what she took,â€™â€™ the doctor was saying. Claire tried to look over his shoulder; she saw Richard Morrell coming through the parking lot doors. The doctor snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. â€˜â€˜Your pupils are dilated. You took something, too. What is it?â€™â€™

Claire silently handed over the shaker. The doctor looked at the red crystals, frowned, and said, â€˜â€˜Where did you get these?â€™â€™ He was wearing a bracelet, silver, with a symbol she didnâ€™t recognize. â€˜â€˜Look, Iâ€™m not kidding. That girl is dying, and I need to knowâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t tell you,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Ask Amelie.â€™â€™ She held up the bracelet. She felt numb. Even though sheâ€™d wanted to kill Monica, she hadnâ€™t really meant to kill her. Why had this happened? It was the same dose Claire had taken, and she knew the crystals werenâ€™t contaminated. . . .

The doctor gave her a look of cold contempt, and handed it to an orderly. â€˜â€˜Lab,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I need to know what this stuff is, right now. Tell them itâ€™s priority one.â€™â€™

The orderly left at a run.

â€˜â€˜I want you in the lab, too,â€™â€™ the doctor said, and grabbed a passing nurse. He rattled off tests, talking faster than even Claireâ€™s heightened brain could process, though the nurse just nodded. Blood tests, she thought. Claire went without complaint. It was better than waiting for Richard Morrell to hear that sheâ€™d poisoned his sister.

As soon as the nurse was finished drawing her blood, Claire went to ICU. Shane was awake, reading a book. He looked better, and his smile was warm and relieved. â€˜â€˜Eve said you were sick,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I figured maybe you were just sick of seeing me here.â€™â€™

Claire wanted to cry. She wanted to crawl into the bed with him and be wrapped in his arms and not have all this guilt and horror bearing down on her shoulders, just for a minute.

â€˜â€˜Whatâ€™s wrong?â€™â€™ he asked. â€˜â€˜Your eyesâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I made a mistake,â€™â€™ she blurted. â€˜â€˜I made a terrible mistake, and I donâ€™t know how to fix it. Sheâ€™s dying and I donâ€™t know howâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Dying?â€™â€™ Shane struggled to sit up. â€˜â€˜Who? God, not Eveâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Monica. I gave her something, and she took it and sheâ€™s dying.â€™â€™ There were tears sliding cold down her cheeks, and she could feel every icy pinprick. â€˜â€˜I have to do something. But I donâ€™t know what I can do.â€™â€™

Shaneâ€™s eyes narrowed. â€˜â€˜Claire, are you talking about drugs? You gave her drugs? Christ, what are you thinking?â€™â€™ He grabbed her hand. â€˜â€˜Did you take something, too?â€™â€™

She nodded miserably. â€˜â€˜It doesnâ€™t hurt me, but itâ€™s killing her.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You have to tell them. Tell them what you took. Do it now.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I canâ€™tâ€”itâ€™sâ€”â€™â€™ She knew what it would mean, saying this. She already knew how it would change things between them. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t tell because itâ€™s something to do with Amelie. I canâ€™t, Shane.â€™â€™

His hand tightened, then released. He let go and looked away. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re going to let a human die because Amelie told you not to say anything. Not even Monica ranks that low. If you donâ€™t do somethingâ€”â€™â€™ He paused and took in a long, slow breath. His voice wasnâ€™t quite steady when he went on. â€˜â€˜If you donâ€™t do something, that means that you put the vampires first, and I canâ€™t deal with that, Claire. Iâ€™m sorry, but I canâ€™t.â€™â€™

She knew that. Tears continued to burn in her eyes, but she didnâ€™t try to talk him out of it. He was right, she was wrong, and she had to find a way out of this; she had to. Enough people were dying in Morganville, and some of them had died because of her.

The notes. The notes I left at Myrninâ€™s. Those could tell the doctor exactly what the crystals were, and how to counteract them. She could start reconstructing them now, since her brain was still working at high speed, but she could already feel things starting to fade at the edges.

â€˜â€˜Shane,â€™â€™ she said. He didnâ€™t look at her. â€˜â€˜I love you.â€™â€™ She wasnâ€™t going to say it, but she knew that she might not come back. Ever. And as if he knew that, he grabbed her hand and squeezed it. When he did finally look at her she said, â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t tell them anything, but I think I can help her. And Iâ€™m going to.â€™â€™

His brown eyes were tired and anxious and understood way too much. â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re going to do something crazy.â€™â€™

Well,â€™â€™ she said, â€˜â€˜not as crazy as what youâ€™d do, but . . . yeah.â€™â€™ She kissed him, and it felt terrifyingly good, the perfect way his lips fit to hers, the way time seemed to stop when they touched. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll see you,â€™â€™ she whispered, and stroked her fingers down his cheek.

And then she escaped before he could try to talk her out of it.

â€˜â€˜Wait!â€™â€™ he called after her. She didnâ€™t.

Claire left the hospital at a run, moving faster than anyone could react to stop her, and headed for the last place on earth she wanted to go.

Â 
It was deathly silent inside Myrninâ€™s lab. Claire came down the steps very slowly, very carefully, listening for any hint of his presence. All the lights were burning, oil lamps flickering, and a couple of Bunsen burners hissed under bubbling flasks. The whole place smelled of strawberry and rot, and it felt strangely cold.

If I hurry . . . Myrnin had a bedroom somewhere down here, right? Maybe he was asleep. Or reading. Or doing something normal.

And maybe heâ€™s not.

Claire picked her way across the room, moving very slowly and taking care not to tip over any of the leaning books, or crunch on any broken glass. At the back of the lab she saw that the tray where sheâ€™d put out the red crystals for drying was empty. There was no sign of the crystals themselves, but the notebooks were stacked neatly on one corner.

As she picked them up, Myrninâ€™s voice came from right behind her shoulder. She felt his breath cool on the back of her neck. â€˜â€˜Those donâ€™t belong to you.â€™â€™

She whirled, backed up, and overturned a stack of books that slithered into another, like stacks of dominos crashing.

â€˜â€˜Now look what youâ€™ve done,â€™â€™ Myrnin said. He seemed very quiet, but there was something wrong in his eyes.

Badly wrong.

Claire backed up, glancing behind her to be sure the way was clear; in that instant, Myrnin was on her. She shoved the notebooks between them, and his claws tore into them, shredding them. â€˜â€˜No! Myrnin, no!â€™â€™

She threw him off, mainly because his knees slipped on fallen books, and she scrambled away, panting. Somehow, she remembered to hold on to the damaged notebooks. Myrnin snarled and tried to follow, but the debris made for uncertain footing, and his jump went wrong. He crashed into a bookcase, and it toppled over on him, raining volumes.

Claire tried to get to the stairs, but there was no way she was going to make it. He was already flanking her, angling to cut her off from any hope of rescue or escape.

She was going to die, and Monica would die, too. And so would Myrnin, because he was too far gone now. She hadnâ€™t seen any flicker of recognition left, not even for an instant.

She backed up, and her shoulders hit the hard stone wall. She slid, trying to put herself in a corner, but there was a leaning bookcase in the way. When she fell against it, it slid sideways, revealing the door that Myrnin had shown her before.

The heart-shaped lock was hanging open.

Unlocked.

Claire gasped and grabbed it, ripped it away, and swung open the door.

She felt Myrninâ€™s claws catch in her hair, but she pulled free and fell forward . . . into the dark.

No, no, this showed me my house; it led to the living room. . . .

It didnâ€™t now. Myrnin had changed the destination, and this was no place she recognized at all. It was dark, damp, and it smelled like a combination of sewer and garbage dump. She blinked, and her eyes adjusted much more quickly to the darkness than they should haveâ€”the crystals, still doing their job. She was feeling an ache in her extremities now, working its way in. Once it reached her core, sheâ€™d be into withdrawal again.

She had no idea how bad it would be this time, but she couldnâ€™t afford to wait.

Claire whirled, and the doorway was still there, right where it had been.

Myrnin was framed in it, staring at her.

She couldnâ€™t go that way. She had to find another path.

Claire ran into the dark. There was just enough light filtering in from very narrow, very tall windows, that as her eyes adjusted, she realized she was inside a prisonâ€”a filthy, horrible prison, with very little light.

And some of the cells were full.

It took her a while to realize it, because they were all so quietâ€”pale, quiet things, one to a cell, that flashed to the bars like ghosts as she ran past. That changed, the farther she went. A sound went upâ€”a whisper at first, rising to a howl. She heard metal rattling.

They were trying to get out.

Claire was gasping, and she was getting tired, and Myrnin was behind her.

This is where she keeps them. The ones who canâ€™t be fixed.

It was where all the vampires would end up, one after another. Left to die in the dark, alone, trapped, and starving.

Amelie let that happen.

It got quiet suddenly, and that was worse than the howling and rattling. Claire glanced over her shoulder and saw that Myrnin was slowing down, then stopping. There was only the sound of her feet hitting the stone floor, until she skidded to a stop, too.

â€˜â€˜Claire,â€™â€™ Myrnin whispered. â€˜â€˜What are you doing here?â€™â€™ He sounded confused, but at least he knew her name. He fumbled at his pockets, found some kind of small silver box, and opened it. Red crystals spilled out into his palm, mounded up, and, choking and retching, he forced them into his mouth.

The effects sent him staggering. He braced himself with one shoulder against the wall of the hallway and moaned. It sounded like it hurt. A lot.

â€˜â€˜Not much time,â€™â€™ he said. His voice was barely there at all, but in the cold silence, she heard every word. â€˜â€˜The notebooks. You need them?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”I made a mistake. Somebody else took the crystals. I need to give them to the doctors.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Someone else took the crystals?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Yes.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Most die,â€™â€™ he said, as if it didnâ€™t matter. â€˜â€˜Maybe you can find a way from what you wrote; I donâ€™t know. I never tried.â€™â€™

That meant that when heâ€™d given her the crystals that first time, he hadnâ€™t even known if they would kill her.

God. And sheâ€™d thought he actually cared.

He sounded very tired. â€˜â€˜You understand how to use the doors now?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜No.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜All you have to do is find a doorway, then concentrate on your destination. Mind you, itâ€™s the rare human who has the mind to manage it even once, never mind on a regular basisâ€”and the doors have a subtle go-away to anyone not invited to use them. You can go to any Founder House, or to seven other doorways in town, but you must have a mental picture of where you are going first. If you fail to do so, you end upâ€™â€™â€”he raised a hand with effort, and gestured feeblyâ€”â€˜â€˜here. Where she keeps the monsters.â€™â€™ Myrnin smiled faintly, but his smile looked broken. â€˜â€˜After all, I ended up here, didnâ€™t I?â€™â€™

Claire fought to still her heartbeat. â€˜â€˜How do I get back? Back to your lab?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜That way.â€™â€™ Myrnin looked down at his hand, as if it seemed odd to him. He turned it this way and that, examining it, and then pointed. â€˜â€˜Stay to the right; youâ€™ll find it. Donâ€™t go near the bars. If they grab you, you must not let them pull you close enough to bite. And Claire . . .â€™â€™

She clutched the notebooks tight to her chest as he met her eyes. He still seemed rational, but even that massive dose of crystals hadnâ€™t driven the beast completely back.

â€˜â€˜I need you to do me two services,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Firstâ€”promise me that youâ€™ll continue to work to find the cure. Iâ€™m no longer able to carry it forward.â€™â€™

She swallowed hard, and nodded. Sheâ€™d have tried, anyway. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t do it alone,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll need help. Doctors. Iâ€™m going to give them the notes and see if we can find something.â€™â€™

Myrnin nodded. â€˜â€˜Just donâ€™t explain what it does.â€™â€™ He looked around. On the far side of the wall was an empty cell, with its door standing open. There was a decaying bunk, but nothing else.

He took a breath, let it out, and walked into the cell. Then he turned and firmly closed the door behind him. Claire heard the lock engage with a thick, metallic clank.

â€˜â€˜Second thing,â€™â€™ Myrnin said, â€˜â€˜do bring me some books, when you visit. And perhaps more crystals, if youâ€™re able to produce more. Itâ€™s so nice to think clearly again, even for a few moments.â€™â€™

She felt as though heâ€™d punched into her chest and ripped out her heart. She felt hollow, light, and empty.

And very, very sad.

â€˜â€˜I will,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™ll be back.â€™â€™

When she looked back, Myrnin had settled himself on the edge of the bunk, staring at the floor.

He didnâ€™t look up when she said, â€˜â€˜I wonâ€™t just leave you here. I promise. Iâ€™ll come see you.â€™â€™

She hesitated, and thought she heard something whispering to her. A voice.

Her motherâ€™s voice.

â€˜â€˜You should go,â€™â€™ Myrnin said tonelessly. â€˜â€˜Before we both have cause to regret it.â€™â€™

She ran.

Â 
Nothing got her on the way back to the door, although a lot of the sick vampires reached out mutely to her, or screamed; she covered her ears and ran, heart pounding, feeling sicker and more terrified all the time. The relief of seeing the open door ahead was like a warm blanket after the cold. The doorway was black, just black; she couldnâ€™t see Myrninâ€™s lab on the other side. Couldnâ€™t see anything.

Think! Myrnin had said she had to focus, visualize where she wanted to go. Of course, heâ€™d also said that she probably wouldnâ€™t be able to do it. No, donâ€™t think about that. If you want out of here, you have to focus. Hard!

Nothing. Nothing at all.

She closed her eyes, even though it was terrifying to do it here, in this place, and slowed her breathing. She thought about the lab, about the confusion of clutter, the books, the bottles, the new and the old. She smelled it, like a breath of home, and when she opened her eyes she could see it on the other side of the door.

Claire took a deep breath, stepped over the threshold through a slight tug of resistance, and turned to close the door as soon as she was through.

When she turned back, Amelie was waiting.

She stood in the center of the room, hands folded. Her ancient, smooth face was untroubled by any kind of expression, but there was something bitter in her eyes.

â€˜â€˜Heâ€™s gone,â€™â€™ Amelie said. â€˜â€˜Where is he?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”the prison.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You took him below.â€™â€™ Amelie frowned slightly. â€˜â€˜You took him below.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I think he wanted to go there. Heâ€”put himself in a cage.â€™â€™ Claire struggled to keep her voice steady. â€˜â€˜Howâ€”how can you leave them like that?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I have no choice.â€™â€™ It would never occur to Amelie to explain, of course, and it would probably get Claire nowhere to demand it. â€˜â€˜If he is truly lost, then itâ€™s over. The experiment is ended, and there is no cure. No way to save my people.â€™â€™ She sat down in one of the threadbare armchairs, shoving books out of the way as she did. It was the first ungraceful thing Claire had ever seen her do. â€˜â€˜I thoughtâ€”I never thought we would fail.â€™â€™

Claire came a step or two closer. â€˜â€˜I have the notebooks,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Andâ€”Myrnin must have left more stuff here I can read. You havenâ€™t failed yet.â€™â€™

Amelie shook her head, and a wisp of hair broke free from the coronet. It made her look young and very fragile. â€˜â€˜I must have someone trusted to maintain the machines, or it will all fail, anyway. And only Myrnin could do that. I had hoped that youâ€”but he told me only a vampire could. And there is no one else.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Sam?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Not old enough, and nowhere near powerful enough. It would have to be someone near my own age, and that would meanâ€”â€™â€™ Amelie looked at her sharply. â€˜â€˜I canâ€™t give such power to my enemy.â€™â€™

Claire didnâ€™t like the thought, either. â€˜â€˜What else can you do?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜End it.â€™â€™ Amelieâ€™s voice was so soft Claire barely understood the words. â€˜â€˜Let it all go. Destroy it.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜You meanâ€”let everybody go?â€™â€™

Amelieâ€™s gaze locked with hers, and held. â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜That is not what I mean at all.â€™â€™

Claire shuddered. â€˜â€˜Thenâ€”why not let Oliver in? Youâ€™ve been fighting so hard to keep him out. Why not try this first? What do you really have to lose?â€™â€™

Amelieâ€™s pale eyebrows slowly rose. â€˜â€˜Nothing. And everything, of course. But you should fear that we would succeed, Claire. Because if we do, if the vampire race is not doomed to die, where does that leave you? An interesting question, for another day, perhaps.â€™â€™ She nodded at the notebooks in Claireâ€™s hands. â€˜â€˜If you intend to save the Morrell girl, you should hurry,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Use the portal. I will send you directly to the hospital.â€™â€™

There was a portal to the hospital? Claire blinked and looked back at the closed and locked door. â€˜â€˜Umâ€”are you sure it wonâ€™t open toâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜To below?â€™â€™ Amelie shook her head. â€˜â€˜I have no intention it should. If you do not, then it will do as we say. Myrnin could only make the doorway work to below, never back here. So only you and I have such abilities, for now.â€™â€™

Claire thought about something, with a sickening wrench. â€˜â€˜Are you sure?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What do you mean?â€™â€™ Amelie looked up, slowly, her eyes fierce and bright.

A rush of images flitted through Claireâ€™s mind: Oliver, grabbing her in her own house. The dead girl in the basement. Jason appearing and disappearing from Monicaâ€™s party, and reappearing near Common Grounds.

Oh no.

â€˜â€˜Can you tell?â€™â€™ Claire asked. â€˜â€˜If somebodyâ€™s using the portal?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Myrnin could, I suspect, but I cannot. Why?â€™â€™ Amelie stood up, and this time the frown was definite. â€˜â€˜What do you know?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I think youâ€™ve got a traitor,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Somebody showed Oliver, and Oliver showed Jason. And Captain Obvious and his friends probably knew, too. Jason must have shown themâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Impossible,â€™â€™ Amelie interrupted with a flash of impatience. â€˜â€˜My people are beyond suspicion.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Then how did Jason bring a dead girl into Michaelâ€™s house without permission? Because you said heâ€™d have to be invited in. And he wasnâ€™t.â€™â€™

Amelie froze, and her eyes went cold and flat. â€˜â€˜I see,â€™â€™ she said, and then whirled toward the small door that led into the narrow, overstuffed library, and the door that Claire had once used to come in from the university. â€˜â€˜You seem to be proven right. Someoneâ€™s coming in. Go, take the doorway. Hurry.â€™â€™

Claire opened the door. Beyond it, air rippled, and shifted . . . her living room. A strangerâ€™s house. A quiet white room with a stained-glass window.

â€˜â€˜Now!â€™â€™ Amelie said sharply. â€˜â€˜Thatâ€™s the hospital.â€™â€™

Claire stepped through. As she looked back, she saw Oliver walk into Myrninâ€™s lab, look around, and focus on Amelie. Jason was right behind him, grinning, clearly Oliverâ€™s new pet. Or maybe, Oliverâ€™s pet all along.

â€˜â€˜Interesting,â€™â€™ Oliver said, and then turned his head to look at the open doorway, and Claire. â€˜â€˜And unexpected.â€™â€™

She slammed the door between them, heart pounding, and it vanished on her side. That didnâ€™t mean it couldnâ€™t reappear, but at least she was safe for the moment. She didnâ€™t think Amelie would let Oliver follow her.

She hoped.

She flipped pages in the notebooks. Myrnin had clawed them, but only the last one, and only at the back. The rest were intact.

She left the white room and found that she was standing in the hospitalâ€™s nondenominational chapelâ€” more of a meditation room than anything else. It was empty, except for one person kneeling near the front.

Jennifer. She scrambled to her feet when she saw Claire, and blurted, â€˜â€˜What are you doing here?â€™â€™ Her eyes were red, and she sniffled and swiped angrily at her eyes, smearing mascara and ruining what was left of her makeup. She had freckles. Claire had never known that.

â€˜â€˜Saving your friend,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜I hope.â€™â€™

Â 
It took three days for the lab to work out a counteragent, but once they did, Monica came off the ventilator within hours. Or so Claire heard from Richard Morrell, who dropped by on Wednesday night, as the four of themâ€”Shane being finally released from the hospitalâ€”were sitting down to dinner.

â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m glad sheâ€™s going to be okay,â€™â€™ Claire said. â€˜â€˜Richardâ€”Iâ€™m sorry. If Iâ€™d knownâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™re lucky that stuff didnâ€™t fry you, too,â€™â€™ he said, but without any real heat. â€˜â€˜Look, my sister isnâ€™t the best person Iâ€™ve ever met, but I love her. Thanks for helping.â€™â€™

Claire nodded. Michael was nearby, seeming to be just lounging but, she knew, ready to step in if Richard went postal. Not that Richard would. So far, he was the best-adjusted Morrell sheâ€™d met.

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t come by the hospital,â€™â€™ Richard continued. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m trying to convince her you werenâ€™t out to kill her. If you show up, I may not be able to keep a lid on things. As it isâ€”â€™â€™ He shifted uncomfortably and looked away. â€˜â€˜Just watch your back, Claire.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜She doesnâ€™t need to,â€™â€™ Eve said, and put her arm around Claireâ€™s shoulders. â€˜â€˜Tell your sister, if she messes with Claire, she messes with all of us.â€™â€™

Richardâ€™s expression went deliberately bland. â€˜â€˜Iâ€™m sure thatâ€™ll terrify her,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜Night, Claire. Eve.â€™â€™ He nodded to Michael. Shane hadnâ€™t gotten up from the table, partly because hey, gut wound, but also he wasnâ€™t about to put himself out for any Morrell, even Richard. Claire had the impression Richard was just as happy not to have to make nice.

Claire saw Richard out the door, locked it, and came back to fight over who would get the last taco. Which, of course, turned out to be Shane. â€˜â€˜Wounded!â€™â€™ was his new comeback, and it was one they couldnâ€™t really argue with, at least for a couple of weeks. He happily loaded up his plate, and Claire sat back and felt, for the first time in days, a little of the tension relax. Shane was even being civil to Michael again, especially after sheâ€™d explained to him how Michael had raced to her rescue. That mattered to Shane, in ways that other things didnâ€™t.

When the knock came on the front door, the four of them froze, and Michael sighed. â€˜â€˜Right. My turn to play doorman, I guess.â€™â€™

Claire nabbed some meat off Shaneâ€™s plate. He pretend-stabbed her hand, and ended up licking Claireâ€™s fingers for her, one at a time.

â€˜â€˜Okay, thatâ€™s either gross or hot, but Iâ€™m thinking gross, so quit it,â€™â€™ Eve said. â€˜â€˜If youâ€™re going to be licking each other, get a room.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Good idea,â€™â€™ Shane whispered.

â€˜â€˜Wounded!â€™â€™ Claire shot back mockingly. â€˜â€˜And anyway, I thought you wanted to play it safe.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Dude, I live in Morganville. How exactly is that playing it safe?â€™â€™

Michael came back down the hall with a very odd expression. â€˜â€˜Claire,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜I think you should come.â€™â€™

She pushed away from the table and went after him. He opened the door and stepped aside.

Her parents were standing on the step.

â€˜â€˜Mom! Dad!â€™â€™ Claire threw herself into their arms. It was stupid to be so cheered by the sight of them, but for a second she enjoyed being stupid, through and through.

And then the dread hit her, and she backed up and said, â€˜â€˜What are you doing here?â€™â€™ Please say youâ€™re dropping something off. Please.

Her motherâ€”dressed in pressed blue jeans and a starched blue work shirt and a Coldwater Creek jacket, even in the heat of summerâ€”looked taken aback. â€˜â€˜We wanted to surprise you,â€™â€™ she said. â€˜â€˜Isnâ€™t that all right? Claire, you are only sixteenâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Nearly seventeen,â€™â€™ Claire sighed, under her breath.

â€˜â€˜And really, we ought to be able to come see you when we want to, to be sure youâ€™re safe and happy.â€™â€™ Claireâ€™s mom gave Michael a distracted, nervous smile. â€˜â€˜All right, then, Iâ€™ll tell you the truth. Weâ€™ve been very worried about you, honey. First you had that trouble in the dorm; then you were attacked and ended up in the hospitalâ€”and someone told us about that party.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜What?â€™â€™ She sent Michael a look, but he looked just as surprised as she felt. â€˜â€˜Who told you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know. An e-mail. You know I can never figure those things out; anyway, it was some friend of yours.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Claire breathed, â€˜â€˜I really donâ€™t think it was. Mom, look, it wasâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Donâ€™t tell us it was nothing, honey,â€™â€™ her dad cut in. â€˜â€˜I read all about it. Drinking, drugs, fighting, destruction of property. Kids having sex. And you were at this party, werenâ€™t you?â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Iâ€”no, Dad, not likeâ€”â€™â€™ She couldnâ€™t lie about it. â€˜â€˜I was there. We were all there. But Shane wasnâ€™t stabbed at the party; it was after, on the way home.â€™â€™ She realized as soon as she said it that neither one of them had mentioned anything about Shane. And it was too late to take it back.

â€˜â€˜Stabbed?â€™â€™ her mother echoed blankly, and covered her mouth with her hand. â€˜â€˜Oh, that is just it. Thatâ€™s the last straw!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Letâ€™s talk about all this inside,â€™â€™ her father said. He looked so grim now. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ve decided we had to make a change.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜A change?â€™â€™ Claire echoed.

â€˜â€˜Weâ€™re moving,â€™â€™ he said. â€˜â€˜We bought a nice house on the other side of town. Looks kind of like this one, maybe a little smaller. Even has the same layout to the place, I think. Good thing we did. Clearly, things are much worse than we thought.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Youâ€™reâ€”â€™â€™ She could not have heard that right. â€˜â€˜Moving here? To this town? You canâ€™t! You canâ€™t move here!â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, Claire, I was so hoping youâ€™d be happy,â€™â€™ her mom said, in that tone that Claire dreaded. The Iâ€™m-so-disappointed-in-you tone. â€˜â€˜Weâ€™ve already sold our old house. The truck with the furniture should get here tomorrow. Ohâ€™â€™â€”she turned to Claireâ€™s fatherâ€” â€˜â€˜did we remember toâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Oh, for heavenâ€™s sakeâ€”yes,â€™â€™ he rumbled. â€˜â€˜What-ever it is, yes, we remembered.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Well, you donâ€™t have to beâ€”â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Mom!â€™â€™ Claire interrupted desperately. â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t move here!â€™â€™

Michael put his hand on her shoulder. â€˜â€˜Just a second,â€™â€™ he said to her parents, and pulled Claire a few feet back. â€˜â€˜Claire, donâ€™t. Itâ€™s already too late. If the Council hadnâ€™t wanted them here, they wouldnâ€™t be here, and they wouldnâ€™t have a Founder House. If it looks like this house and has the same layout, thatâ€™s what it is, a Founder House. That means Amelie wants it to happen. She probably made it happen.â€™â€™

That didnâ€™t exactly make her feel any better. She was shaking all over now. â€˜â€˜But theyâ€™re my parents!â€™â€™ she whispered fiercely. â€˜â€˜Canâ€™t you do something?â€™â€™

He looked grim and shook his head. â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t know. Iâ€™ll try. But for now weâ€™d better just make nice, okay?â€™â€™

She didnâ€™t want to. She wanted to drag her parents out to their car and make them go.

How could Amelie do this to her? No, that was obvious: it was easy. Her parents were just another way to force Claire to do whatever the vampires needed. And now that she knew so much, now that she was their only hope of working with Myrnin on a cure, theyâ€™d never let her go.

â€˜â€˜Hello?â€™â€™ Claireâ€™s mom called. â€˜â€˜Can we come in?â€™â€™

Michael kept his expression blank and friendly. â€˜â€˜Sure. Everybody inside.â€™â€™ Because it was getting dark.

Claireâ€™s mom and dad stepped over the threshold. As Michael started to swing the door shut, a third person stopped the door from closing with an open hand and stepped through. Claire had no idea who he was. Sheâ€™d never seen him before, and she was sure sheâ€™d have remembered. He had thick gray hair, a big gray mustache, and huge green eyes behind thick, fifties-style eyeglasses.

Michael froze, and Claire knew instantly that something was very, very wrong.

â€˜â€˜Oh,â€™â€™ Claireâ€™s mother said, as if sheâ€™d forgotten all about him. â€˜â€˜This is Mr. Bishop. We met him on our way into town; his car was broken down.â€™â€™

Mr. Bishop smiled and tipped an invisible hat. â€˜â€˜Thank you for the kind invitation to enter your home,â€™â€™ he said. His voice was incredibly deep and smooth, with an inflection that sounded like Russian. â€˜â€˜Although I really didnâ€™t require one.â€™â€™

Because he was a vampire.

Claire backed slowly away. Michael looked like he couldnâ€™t move at all as Bishop walked into the house.

â€˜â€˜I donâ€™t want to upset your nice family,â€™â€™ Bishop said in a lower tone, focusing on Claire, â€˜â€˜but if Amelie isnâ€™t here to talk to me in half an hour, Iâ€™ll kill everyone breathing in this house.â€™â€™

Claire involuntarily looked after her parents, but they were already moving down the hall. They hadnâ€™t heard.

â€˜â€˜No,â€™â€™ Michael said. â€˜â€˜You wonâ€™t touch anyone. This is my house. Get out now, or Iâ€™ll have to hurt you.â€™â€™

Bishop looked him up and down. â€˜â€˜Nice bark, puppy, but you donâ€™t have the teeth. Get Amelie.â€™â€™

â€˜â€˜Who are you?â€™â€™ Claire whispered. There was menace boiling off this old man like fog. She could almost see it.

â€˜â€˜Tell her that her fatherâ€™s come to visit,â€™â€™ he said, and smiled. â€˜â€˜Arenâ€™t family reunions nice?â€™â€™

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to the Morganville Vampires series, Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, and Firestorm. Her sixth Weather Warden novel, Thin Air, was released in August 2007, and she is currently at work on the seventh in the series. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin, a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) Oâ€™Malley, and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).

Please visit her Web site: www.rachelcaine.com; and her MySpace: www.myspace.com/rachelcaine.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About the Author

Praise for the Morganville Vampires series

"An electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.’’ —The Best Reviews

"A solid, utterly compelling story that you will find addictive and hypnotic. If Rachel Caine is not on your autobuy list, put her there immediately, if not sooner.’’

—The Eternal Night

‘‘Rachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.’’ —Romance Reviews Today

‘‘A rousing horror thriller.’’ —Midwest Book Review

Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series

‘‘You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.’’ —Jim Butcher

‘‘The Weather Warden series is fun reading . . . more engaging than most TV.’’ —Booklist

‘‘A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.’’ —Romantic Times

‘‘Hugely entertaining.’’ —SF Crowsnest

‘‘A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.’’ —Locus

‘‘An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.’’ —SF Site

‘‘I dare you to put this book down.’’

—University City Review (Philadelphia)

‘‘Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!’’

—Mary Jo Putney

‘‘A spellbinding . . . thought-provoking, action-packed thriller.’’ —Midwest Book Review

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRE NOVELS

Glass Houses
The Dead Girls’ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools

NAL Jam
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, June 2008

Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2008

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To the Time Turners, who keep me moving
forward . . .
And to P. N. Elrod, who knows why.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Couldn’t have happened without Sondra Lehman, Josefine Corsten, Sharon Sams, and my friends at LSG Sky Chefs.

Thanks also to Lucienne Diver and Anne Bohner, without whom . . . well, you know!

THE STORY SO FAR . . .

Claire Danvers was going to Caltech. Or maybe MIT. She had her pick of great schools ... but her parents were a little worried about sending a wide-eyed sixteen-year -old into such a high-pressure world. So they compromised and sent her to a safe place for a year—Texas Prairie University, a small school located in Morganville, Texas, just an hour or so from their home.

One problem: Morganville isn’t what it seems. It’s the last safe place for vampires, and that makes it not very safe at all for the humans who venture in for work or school. The vampires rule the town . . . and everyone who lives in it.

Claire’s second problem is that she’s gathered enemies, major ones, human and vampire. Now she lives with housemates Michael Glass (newly made a vampire), Eve Rosser (always been Goth), and Shane Collins (whose absentee dad is a vampire killer). Claire’s the normal one . . . or she would be, except that she’s deep into the secrets of Morganville. She’s become an employee of the Founder, Amelie, and befriended one of the most dangerous, yet most vulnerable, vampires of them all—Myrnin.

And just when she thinks things can’t get any worse . . . they have.

Amelie’s vampire father has come to town, and he’s not happy.

When Daddy’s not happy . . . nobody’s happy.

1

It was hard to imagine how Claire’s day—even by Morganville standards—could get any worse ... and then the vampires holding her hostage wanted breakfast.

‘‘Breakfast?’’ Claire repeated blankly. She took a look at the living room window, just to prove to herself that, yes, it was still dark outside. Getting darker all the time.

The three vampires all looked at her. It was bad enough having that kind of attention from the two she hadn’t properly met yet—man and woman, eerily pretty—but when the cold, old Mr. Bishop’s eyes focused her way, it made her want to curl up in a corner and hide.

She held his stare for a full five seconds, then looked down. She could almost feel him smiling.

‘‘Breakfast,’’ he said softly, ‘‘is something to be eaten in the mornings. Mornings for vampires are not controlled by sunrise. And I like eggs.’’

‘‘Scrambled or over easy?’’ Claire asked, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. Don’t say over easy. I don’t know how to make eggs over easy. I don’t even know why I mentioned it. Don’t say over easy. . . .

‘‘Scrambled,’’ he said, and Claire’s breath rushed out in relief. Mr. Bishop was sitting in the comfortable chair in the living room that her housemate Michael normally occupied while he was playing his guitar. Unlike Michael, Mr. Bishop made it look like a throne. Part of it was that everybody else stayed standing— Claire, with her boyfriend, Shane, hovering protectively by her side; Eve and Michael a little distance away, holding hands. Claire risked a glance at Michael. He looked . . . contained. Angry, sure, but under control, at least.

Claire was more scared about Shane. He had a pretty well-documented history of acting before thinking, at least when it came to the personal safety of those he cared about. She took his hand, and he sent her a quick, dark, unreadable glance.

No, she wasn’t sure about him at all.

Mr. Bishop’s voice pulled her attention back to him with a cold snap. ‘‘Have you told Amelie that I’ve arrived, girl?’’

That had been Bishop’s first command—to let his daughter know he’d come to town. His daughter? Amelie—the head vampire of Morganville—didn’t seem human enough to have family, not even family as scary as Mr. Bishop. Ice and crystal, that was Amelie.

He was waiting for an answer, and Claire hastily got one together. ‘‘I called. I got her voice mail,’’ Claire said. She tried not to sound defensive. Bishop’s eyebrows drew together in a scowl.

‘‘I suppose that means you left some sort of a message. ’’ She nodded mutely. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. ‘‘Very well. We’ll eat while we wait. Eggs, scrambled, as I said. We shall also have bacon, coffee—’’

‘‘Biscuits,’’ drawled the woman leaning on the arm of his chair. ‘‘I love biscuits. And honey.’’ The vampire had a molasses-slow accent, something that wasn’t quite Southern and wasn’t quite not, either. Mr. Bishop gave her a tolerant look, the kind a human would give a favorite pet. She had the icy glitter in her eyes, and moved so smoothly and quietly that there was no way she was regular-flavored human. Not hiding it, either, the way some of the vampires of Morganville tried to do.

The woman kept smiling, dark eyes fixed on Shane. Claire didn’t like the way she was looking at him. It looked—greedy.

‘‘Biscuits,’’ Mr. Bishop agreed, with a quirk of a smile. ‘‘And I’ll indulge you further by agreeing to gravy, child.’’ The smile vanished when he turned back to the four standing in front of him. ‘‘Go about your business, then. Now.’’

Shane grabbed Claire’s hand and practically dragged her toward the kitchen. However fast he was moving, Michael was there first, pushing Eve through the door. ‘‘Hey!’’ Eve protested. ‘‘I’m walking here!’’

‘‘And the faster, the better,’’ Michael said. His normally angelic face looked stark, all sharp edges, and he closed the kitchen door once they were safely inside. ‘‘Right. We don’t have a lot of choices. Let’s do exactly what he says and hope Amelie can sort all this out when she gets here.’’

‘‘I thought you were all Big Bad Bloodsucker these days,’’ Shane said. ‘‘It’s your house. How come you can’t just throw them out?’’ That was a reasonable question, and Shane managed to say it without making it seem like a challenge. Well, much of one. The kitchen felt cold, Claire noticed—as if the temperature of the whole house was steadily dropping. She shivered.

‘‘It’s complicated,’’ Michael said. He yanked open cabinets and began assembling the makings of fresh coffee. ‘‘Yeah, it’s our house’’—emphasis, Claire noted, on the our—‘‘but if I revoke Bishop’s invitation, he will still kick our asses, I guarantee you.’’

Shane leaned his butt against the stove and crossed his arms. ‘‘I just thought you were supposed to be stronger than them on home ground—’’

‘‘Supposed to be. I’m not.’’ Michael spooned coffee into the filter. ‘‘Don’t be an asshole right now—we don’t have time for it.’’

‘‘Dude, I wasn’t trying to be.’’ And Claire could tell he actually meant it this time. Michael seemed to hear it, too, and sent Shane an apologetic glance. ‘‘I’m trying to figure out how big a pile of crap we’re in. Not blaming you, man.’’ He hesitated a second, then continued. ‘‘How do you know? Whether or not you have a chance?’’

‘‘Any other vampire I meet, I know where I stand with them. Who’s stronger, who’s weaker, whether or not I could take them in a straight-up fight if it came to that.’’ Michael poured water into the machine and switched it on to brew. ‘‘These guys, I know I haven’t got a chance in hell. Not against one of them, much less all three, not even with the house itself backing me up. They’re badass, man. Truly black hat. It’s going to take Amelie or Oliver to handle this.’’

‘‘So,’’ Shane said, ‘‘landfill-sized pile of crap. Good to know.’’

Eve pushed him out of the way and began getting pots and pans out of the cabinets, clattering everything noisily. ‘‘Since we’re not fighting, we’d better get breakfast ready,’’ she said. ‘‘Claire, you get the eggs, since you volunteered us for short-order cooks.’’

‘‘Better than volunteering us for breakfast,’’ Shane pointed out, and Eve snorted.

‘‘You,’’ she said, and pressed a finger into the center of his well-worn T-shirt. ‘‘You, mister. You’re making gravy.’’

‘‘You do want us all to die, don’t you?’’

‘‘Shut up. I’ll do the biscuits and bacon. Michael—’’ She turned, looking at him with big dark eyes, made almost anime-wide by the Goth eyeliner. ‘‘Coffee. And I think you have to be the private eye here. Sorry.’’

He nodded. ‘‘I’ll go make sure I know what they’re doing when I finish here.’’

Assigning Michael the barista and spy duties made sense, but it left the three of them the majority of the work, and none of them were exactly future chefs in training. Claire struggled with the scrambled eggs. Eve cursed the bacon grease in a fierce whisper, and whatever Shane was making, it didn’t really look that much like gravy.

‘‘Can I help?’’

They all jumped at the voice, and Claire whirled toward the kitchen door. ‘‘Mom!’’ She knew she sounded panicked. She was panicked. She’d forgotten all about her parents—they’d come in with Mr. Bishop, and Bishop’s friends had moved them into the not-much-used parlor at the front of the house. In the great scheme of scary things, Bishop had taken the forefront.

But there was her mother, standing in the kitchen doorway, smiling a fragile, confused smile and looking . . . vulnerable. Tired.

‘‘Mrs. Danvers!’’ Eve jumped in, hurried over, and guided her to the kitchen table. ‘‘No, no, we’re just— ah—making some food. You haven’t eaten, right? What about Mr. Danvers?’’

Her mother—looking every year of the forty-two she claimed not to be—seemed tired, vague, kind of out of focus. Worried, too. There were lines around her eyes and mouth that Claire couldn’t remember seeing before, and it scared her.

‘‘He’s—’’ Claire’s mom frowned, then leaned her forehead on the palm of her hand. ‘‘Oh, my head hurts. I’m sorry. What did you say?’’

‘‘Your husband, where is he?’’

‘‘I’ll find him,’’ Michael said quietly. He slipped out of the kitchen with the grace and quickness of a vampire—but at least he was their vampire. Eve settled Claire’s mom at the table, exchanged a helpless look with Claire, and chattered on nervously about what a long drive it must have been to Morganville, what a nice surprise it was that they were moving to town, how much Claire was going to enjoy having them here. Etc., etc., etc.

Claire numbly continued to rake eggs back and forth in the skillet. This can’t happen. My parents can’t be here. Not now. Not with Bishop. It was a nightmare, in every way.

‘‘I could help you cook,’’ Mom said, and made a feeble effort to get up. Eve glared at Claire and mouthed, Say something! Claire swallowed a cold bubble of panic and tried to make her voice sound at least partly under control.

‘‘No, Mom,’’ Claire said. ‘‘It’s fine. We’ve got it covered. Look, we’re making extra in case you and Dad are hungry. You just sit and relax.’’

Her mom, who was usually a control freak deluxe in the kitchen, prone to take command of something as error free as boiling water, looked relieved. ‘‘All right, honey. You let me know if I can help.’’

Michael opened the kitchen door, and ushered in Claire’s father. If her mom looked tired, her dad just looked . . . blank. Puzzled. He frowned at Michael, like he was trying to work out exactly what was happening but couldn’t put his finger on it.

‘‘What’s going on around here?’’ he barked at Michael. ‘‘Those people out there—’’

‘‘Relatives,’’ Michael said. ‘‘From Europe. Look, I’m sorry. I know you wanted to spend some time with Claire, but maybe you should just go on home, and we’ll—’’

He paused, then turned, because someone was standing in the kitchen door behind him. Following him.

‘‘Nobody’s going anywhere,’’ said the other one of Bishop’s vampire companions—the guy. He was smiling. ‘‘One big happy family, eh, Michael? It’s Michael, isn’t it?’’

‘‘What, we’re on a first-name basis now?’’ Michael got Claire’s dad inside the kitchen and closed the door in the other vampire’s face.

‘‘Right. Let’s get you guys out of here,’’ he said to Claire’s parents, and opened the back door, the one that led out into the backyard. ‘‘Where’s your car? Out on the street?’’

Outside the night looked black and empty, not even a moon showing. Claire’s dad frowned at Michael again, then took a seat at the kitchen table with his wife.

‘‘Close the door, son,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re not going anywhere.’’

‘‘Sir—’’

Claire tried, too. ‘‘Dad—’’

‘‘No, honey, there’s something strange going on here, and I’m not leaving. Not until I know you’re all okay.’’ Her father transferred the frown back to Michael again. ‘‘Just who are these . . . relatives?’’

‘‘The kind nobody wants to claim,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Every family’s got them. But they’re just here for a little while. They’ll be leaving soon.’’

‘‘Then we’ll stay until they do,’’ Dad said.

Claire tried to focus on the scrambled eggs she was making.

Her hands were shaking.

‘‘Hey,’’ Shane whispered, leaning close. ‘‘It’s okay. We’ll all be okay.’’ He was a big, solid, warm presence next to her, stirring what could not possibly really be gravy. She knew this mainly because Shane’s sole culinary ability came in the genre of chili. But at least he was trying, which was new and different, and probably showed just how seriously he was taking all this.

‘‘I know,’’ Claire said, and swallowed. Shane’s arm pressed against hers, a deliberate kind of thing, and she knew if his hands weren’t full, he’d have put his arms around her. ‘‘Michael won’t let them hurt us.’’

‘‘Weren’t you listening?’’ Eve joined them at the stove, whispering fiercely. She scowled at the frying bacon. ‘‘He can’t stop them. Best he can do is get himself really hurt in the process. So maybe you ought to call Amelie again and tell her to get her all-powerful ass over here now.’’

‘‘Yeah, good idea, piss off the only vampire who can help. Look, if they were going to kill us, I don’t think they’d ask for eggs first,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Not to mention biscuits. If you ask for biscuits, clearly, you think you’re some kind of a guest.’’

He had a point. It didn’t really stop the trembling in Claire’s hands, though.

‘‘Claire, honey?’’ Her mom’s voice, again. Claire jumped and nearly flipped a spatula full of eggs out onto the stove top. ‘‘Those people. What are they really doing here?’’

‘‘Mr. Bishop—he’s, uh, waiting for his daughter to come pick him up.’’ That wasn’t a lie. Not at all.

Claire’s father got up from the table and went to the coffeepot, which had wheezed itself full; he poured two mugs and took them back to the table. ‘‘Have some coffee, Kathy. You look tired,’’ he said, and there was a gentle note in his voice that made Claire look at him sharply. Her dad wasn’t the most emotional of guys, but he looked worried now, almost as worried as Mom.

Dad drained his coffee like it was water after a hot afternoon of lawn mowing. Mom listlessly creamed and sugared, then sipped. Neither of them spoke again.

Michael slipped out the kitchen door, taking mugs of coffee out to the others. When he came back, he closed the door and leaned against it for a minute. He looked bone white, strained, worse than he had in the months since he’d been transformed fully into a vampire. Claire tried to imagine what they’d said to him to make him look like that, and couldn’t even begin to guess. Something bad. No, something horrible.

‘‘Michael,’’ Eve said tensely. She nodded toward Claire’s parents. ‘‘More coffee?’’

He nodded and moved away from the door to pick up the coffeepot, but he never made it to the breakfast table. The kitchen door opened again, and Mr. Bishop and his entourage entered the room.

Tall and haughty as nineteenth-century royalty, the three vampires surveyed the kitchen. The other two vampires were pretty, young, and frightening, but Mr. Bishop was the one in charge; there was no mistaking it. When his gaze fell on her, Claire flinched and turned back to the sizzling eggs.

The female vampire strolled over and dipped her finger in the gravy Shane was stirring, then lifted the finger slowly to her lips to suck it clean. She stared at Shane the whole time. And Shane, Claire realized with a helpless, unpleasant shock, stared right back.

‘‘We’ll sit for the meal now,’’ Bishop said to Michael. ‘‘You will have the pleasure of serving us, Michael. And if your little friends decide to try to poison me, I’ll have your guts out, and believe me, a vampire can suffer a very, very long time when I want him to.’’

Michael swallowed and nodded once. Claire sent an involuntary look toward her folks, who could not possibly have missed that.

And they hadn’t. ‘‘Excuse me?’’ Claire’s father asked, and began to rise out of his chair. ‘‘Are you threatening these kids?’’

Bishop turned those cold eyes toward them, and Claire desperately thought about whether a hot iron skillet with a panful of frying eggs might be a useful weapon against a vampire. Her dad froze, halfway up.

She felt a wave of something go through the room, and her parents’ eyes went blank and vague. Her dad sank down again heavily in his chair.

‘‘No more questions,’’ Bishop said to them. ‘‘I tire of your chatter.’’

Claire felt a surge of utter black fury. She wanted to leap on that evil old man and claw his eyes out. The only thing holding her back, in those two long seconds, was the fact that if she tried, they’d all end up dead.

Even Michael.

‘‘Coffee?’’ Eve broke the silence with a desperate, brittle brightness in her tone. She grabbed the coffeepot from Michael and bore down on Claire’s mom and dad like the avenging dark angel of caffeine. Claire wondered what her parents made of Eve, with her rice-powder makeup and black lipstick and raccoon eyeliner, and her dyed-black hair teased into fierce spikes.

Then again, she had coffee, and she was smiling.

‘‘Sure,’’ Claire’s mom said, and tried a tentative smile in return. ‘‘Thank you, dear. So—did you say that man is a relative of yours?’’ She cast a look toward Bishop, who was exiting the kitchen and heading for the dining table in the living area. The handsome younger male vamp caught Claire’s look and winked, and she hastily focused back on Eve and her parents.

‘‘Nope,’’ Eve said, with fear-fueled cheer. ‘‘Distant relative of Michael’s. From Europe, you know. Cream?’’

‘‘Eggs are done,’’ Claire said, and turned down the burner. ‘‘Eve—’’

‘‘I hope we have enough plates,’’ Eve interrupted, more than a little frantic. ‘‘Jeez, I never thought I’d say this, but where’s the good china? Is there good china?’’

‘‘Meaning plates without chips in the edges? Yeah. Over there.’’ Shane pointed to a cabinet about four feet higher than Eve’s head. She gave him a stare. ‘‘Don’t look at me—I’m not reaching for it. Still wounded, you know.’’ He was. Claire had forgotten that, too, in the press of all the other stuff—he was doing better, but he’d been out of the hospital only a short while. Hardly enough time to really heal up from the stab wound that had nearly killed him.

That was another good reason not to make waves unless they absolutely had to—without Shane, their ability to fight back was seriously compromised.

Eve climbed up on the counter, found the plates, and handed them down to Claire. Once that was done, Claire took Shane’s place at the stove, stirring the lumpy stuff that was supposed to be gravy. It looked like something an alien would barf.

‘‘That girl,’’ Claire said to Shane.

‘‘What girl?’’

‘‘The—you know. Out there.’’

‘‘You mean the bloodsucker? Yeah, what about her?’’

‘‘She was staring at you.’’

‘‘What can I say? Irresistible.’’

‘‘Shane, it’s not funny. I just—you should be careful.’’

‘‘Always am.’’ Which was an absolute lie. Shane’s eyes fixed on hers, and she felt a burst of heat inside that crept up to burn in her cheeks. He smiled slowly. ‘‘Jealous?’’

‘‘Maybe.’’

‘‘No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse.’’ He took her hand and pressed his fingers gently against her wrist. ‘‘Yep, you’ve got one. It’s beating pretty fast, too.’’

‘‘I’m not kidding, Shane.’’

‘‘Neither am I.’’ He stepped closer, and they were barely a breath apart. ‘‘No vamp’s going to come between us. You believe me?’’

She nodded wordlessly. For the life of her, she couldn’t have forced out a single word just then. His eyes were dark, the color of rich brown velvet, with a thin rim of gold. She’d looked into his eyes a lot recently, but she’d never noticed just how beautiful they were.

Shane stepped back as the door opened again. Michael turned first toward them, offering up a mute apology, then faced Claire’s parents.

‘‘Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, Mr. Bishop would like for you to join him for dinner,’’ he said. ‘‘But if you have to go home—’’

If Michael was hoping they’d changed their minds, Claire could have told him that wasn’t going to happen. As long as her dad had the idea something funny was going on, he wasn’t about to do the sensible thing. Sure enough, he got to his feet, holding his coffee cup. ‘‘I could do with some breakfast. Never tasted Claire’s eggs before. Kathy? You coming?’’

Clueless, Claire thought in despair, but then again, she’d been just as bad when she’d first come to Morganville. She hadn’t taken the strong hints, or even the outright instructions, seriously. Maybe she’d gotten that from her parents, along with the fair skin and slightly curly hair. In their defense, though, Mr. Bishop was playing with their heads.

And they were scared for her.

She watched as her parents followed Michael into the other room, and then helped Eve get the eggs and bacon and biscuits onto serving dishes—nice ones at that. The lumpy gravy couldn’t be helped. They poured it into a gravy bowl and hoped for the best, then silently carried it out into the dining area, which was really a corner of the living room.

Claire was struck again, as she was at the oddest times, how the mood of the house could change at a moment’s notice. Not just the mood of the people in it—the house itself. Right now, it felt dark, cold, foreboding. Almost hostile. And yet all that dark emotion seemed directed at the intruding vampires.

The house was worried, and on guard. The solid Victorian furniture crouched hunched and deformed, nothing warm or welcoming about it. Even the lights seemed dimmed, and Claire could feel something, almost a presence—the way she’d been able to sometimes sense Michael when he’d been trapped in the house as a ghost. The fine hair on her arms stood on end, and her skin pebbled into gooseflesh.

Claire set the eggs and bacon down on the wooden table and backed away. Nobody had asked her, Eve, and Shane to take seats, although there were empty places at the table; she caught Eve’s eye and retreated back to the kitchen, grateful to escape. Michael stayed by the table, putting food on plates. Serving. There was a tight, pale set to his face and a cold fear in his eyes, and God, if Michael was panicking, there was definitely reason for a total freak-out.

As soon as the kitchen door closed again, Shane grabbed her and Eve and hustled them to the farthest corner of the room. ‘‘Right,’’ he whispered. ‘‘It’s official—this is getting way more than creepy. Did you feel that?’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Eve breathed. ‘‘Wow. I think if the house had teeth, it’d be chomping down right now. You have to admit, that’s cool.’’

‘‘Cool isn’t getting us anywhere. Claire?’’

‘‘What?’’ She stared at him blankly for a few long seconds, then said, ‘‘Oh. Right. Yeah. I’ll call Amelie again.’’ She dug the cell phone out of her pocket. It was new, and came with a few important numbers preloaded on it. One of them—the first on speed dial, in fact—was a contact number for Amelie, the Founder of Morganville.

The head vampire. Claire’s boss, sort of. In Morganville, the technical term was Patron, but Claire had known from the beginning that it was just a more polite word for owner.

It rang—again—to voice mail. Claire left another hurried, half-desperate message to ‘‘come to the house, please, we need your help,’’ and hung up. She looked mutely at Eve, who sighed and took the phone, then dialed another number.

‘‘Yeah, hi,’’ she said when she got someone on the line. ‘‘Let me talk to the boss.’’ A longish pause, and Eve looked like she was steeling herself for something really unpleasant. ‘‘Oliver. It’s Eve. Don’t bother to tell me how nice it is to hear from me, because it’s not, and this is business, so save the BS. Hold on.’’

Eve handed over the phone to Claire. Frowning, Claire mouthed, Are you sure? Eve made an emphatic thumb-and-little-finger phone gesture at her ear.

Claire reluctantly took the call.

‘‘Oliver?’’ she asked. On the other end of the line, she heard a low, lazy chuckle.

‘‘Well,’’ he said. The owner of Common Grounds, the local coffee shop, had a warm voice—the kind that had made her think he was just an all-around nice guy when she’d first met him. ‘‘If it isn’t little Claire. Eve didn’t want to hear it, but I’ll tell it to you—it’s nice that you turn to me in your moment of need. It is a moment of need, I assume? And not an invitation to socialize?’’

‘‘Someone’s here,’’ she said as softly as she could. ‘‘In the house.’’

The warmth drained out of Oliver’s voice, leaving a sharp annoyance. ‘‘Then call the police if you have a prowler. I’m not your security service. It’s Michael’s house. Michael can—’’

‘‘Michael can’t do anything about it, and I don’t think we should call the cops. This man, he says his name is Mr. Bishop. He wants to talk to Amelie, but I can’t get her on the—’’

Oliver cut her off. ‘‘Stay away from him,’’ he said, and his voice had grown edges. ‘‘Do nothing. Say nothing. Tell your friends the same, especially Michael, yes? This is far beyond any of you. I will find Amelie. Do as he says, whatever he says, until we arrive.’’

And Oliver hung up on her. Claire blinked at the dead phone, shrugged, and looked at her friends. ‘‘He says do what we’re doing,’’ she said. ‘‘Take orders and wait for help.’’

‘‘Fantastic advice,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Remind me to stock a handy vampire-killing kit under the sink for times like these.’’

‘‘We’ll be okay,’’ Eve said. ‘‘Claire’s got the bracelet. ’’ She grabbed Claire’s wrist and lifted it to show the delicate glitter of the ID bracelet circling it—a bracelet that had Amelie’s symbol on it, instead of a name. It identified her as property, someone who’d signed over life and limb and soul to a vampire in return for certain protections and considerations. She hadn’t wanted to do it, but it had seemed like the only way, at the time, to ensure the safety of her friends. Especially Shane, who was already on the bad side of the vamps.

She knew that the bracelet could bring its own brand of hazard, but at least it obligated Amelie (and maybe even Oliver) to come to her defense against other vampires.

In theory.

Claire slipped the phone into her pocket. Shane took her hands in his and rubbed lightly over her knuckles, a gentle, soothing kind of motion that made her feel at least a little safe, just for a moment.

‘‘We’ll get through this,’’ he said. When he tried to kiss her, though, he winced. She put a hand lightly on his stomach.

‘‘You’re hurting,’’ she said.

"Only when I bend over. When did you get so short, anyway?"

‘‘Five minutes ago.’’ She rolled her eyes, playing along, but she was worried. According to the rules of Morganville, he was off-limits to vampires during his convalescence; the hospital bracelet still around his wrist, glowing white plastic with a big red cross on it, ensured that any passing bloodsucker would know he wasn’t fair game.

If their visitors played by the rules. Which Mr. Bishop might not. He wasn’t a Morganville vampire. He was something else.

Something worse.

‘‘Shane, I’m serious. How bad is it?’’ she asked in a low whisper, just for Shane’s ears. He ruffled her short hair, then kissed it.

‘‘I’m cool,’’ he said. ‘‘Takes more than a punk with a switchblade to put a Collins down. Count on it.’’

Unspoken was the fact that they were up against a hell of a lot more than that, and he knew it.

‘‘Don’t do anything dumb,’’ she said. ‘‘Or I’ll kill you myself.’’

‘‘Ouch, girl. Whatever happened to unconditional love around here?’’

‘‘It got tired of visiting you in the hospital.’’ She held his eyes for a long few seconds. ‘‘Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t. We have to wait. We have to.’’

‘‘Yeah, all the vampires say so. Must be true.’’ She hated hearing him say the word quite that way, with so much loathing; when he said it, she always thought of Michael, of the way that he suffered when Shane’s hatred boiled out. Michael hadn’t wanted to be a vampire, and he was trying as best he could to live with it.

Shane wasn’t making that any easier.

‘‘Look.’’ Shane put his hands around her face and stared earnestly into her eyes. ‘‘What if you take Eve and get out of here? They’re not watching you. I’ll cover for you.’’

‘‘No. I’m not leaving my parents. I’m not leaving you.’’

And they didn’t have time to talk about it, because there was a tremendous crash from the living room. The kitchen door flew open, and Michael stumbled backward through it, held by the throat by the handsome young vamp who’d come in with Bishop. He slammed Michael up against the wall. Michael was fighting, but it didn’t seem to be doing him a lot of good.

The other vampire opened his mouth in a snarl, and his big, sharp vampire teeth flashed down like switchblades.

So did Michael’s, and Claire involuntarily backed up against Shane.

Shane yelled, ‘‘Hey! Let him go!’’

Michael choked out, ‘‘Don’t!’’ but of course Shane wasn’t listening, and Claire’s grip on his arm wasn’t going to stop him, either.

What did stop him was Eve, holding a big, nasty-looking knife. She gave Shane a wild warning look, then spun around and leveled the knife at the vampire holding Michael. ‘‘You! Let him go!’’

‘‘Not until this one apologizes,’’ the vampire said, and emphasized it by banging Michael against the wall again, hard enough that every piece of glass in the room rattled. No—it wasn’t the impact; it was a low-level vibration coming from the room itself. The walls, the floor . . . the house. Like a warning growl.

‘‘You’d better let him go,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Can’t you feel that?’’

The vampire frowned at her, and his pretty green eyes narrowed even as the pupils expanded. ‘‘What are you doing?’’

‘‘Nothing,’’ Eve said, and gestured with the knife.

‘‘You’re doing it. The house doesn’t like it when you play dirty with Michael. Now step away from him before something bad happens.’’

He thought they were bluffing—Claire could see it in his eyes—but he also didn’t see much of a reason to push his luck. He let Michael go, his full lips curling in contempt. ‘‘Put that away, silly girl,’’ he told Eve, and before any of them could even blink, he slapped it out of her hand—slapped it so hard it flew across the room and stuck in the wall. Eve grabbed her hand and cradled it close, backing away from him.

‘‘Apologize,’’ he told her. ‘‘Beg my forgiveness for threatening me.’’

‘‘Bite me!’’ she snapped.

The vampire’s eyes flared like hot crystal, and he lunged for Eve. Michael moved faster than Claire had ever seen him, just a confusing blur, and then the stranger was hurtling into the stove. He caught himself with both hands out, and she heard the sizzle as his palms hit the burners, followed by an enraged cry of pain.

This was going to get really bad, and there was nothing, nothing, they could do.

Shane grabbed Eve by the shoulder, Claire by the arm, and he hustled them into the corner by the breakfast table, where they had at least partial cover. But that left Michael on his own, fighting out of his weight class against something more like a wildcat than a man.

It didn’t take long, maybe a few seconds, before Michael’s strength failed. The stranger threw Michael to the kitchen floor and straddled him, fangs down and gleaming. The temperature in the kitchen plummeted to icy chill, cold enough that Claire could see her own breath as she panted in fear. That low-frequency rumble began again, jittering plates and glasses and pans.

Eve screamed and fought to get free of Shane’s hold, not that she could do anything, anything at all—

The back door shuddered and crashed open under a single, overpowering blow. Wood splinters flew across the room, and Claire heard the locks snap like ice breaking.

Oliver, the second-scariest vampire in town (the first, some days), stood at the back door, staring inside. He was a tall man, built like a runner, all wiry muscles and angles. Tonight, he’d dispensed with his usual nice-guy disguise; he was in black, and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His face looked like carved bone in the moonlight.

He slapped an open palm against the empty air of the doorway, and it smacked into a solid barrier. ‘‘Fools!’’ he shouted. ‘‘Let me in!’’

The stranger laughed, and yanked Michael up to a sitting position, fangs poised just over his neck. ‘‘Do it and I’ll drain him,’’ he said. ‘‘You know what that will do. He’s too young.’’

Claire didn’t know, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good. Maybe not even survivable.

‘‘Invite me in,’’ Oliver repeated, in a deadly soft voice. ‘‘Claire. Do it now.’’

She opened her mouth, but she was interrupted.

‘‘No need for that,’’ said a cool female voice. The cavalry had finally arrived.

Amelie moved Oliver aside and walked through the invisible barrier like it wasn’t there—which, to her, it wasn’t, as Amelie was technically the creator and owner of the house. She was without her usual attendants and bodyguards, but there was no mistaking that she, not Oliver, was in charge by the way she swept across the threshold.

As always, Claire thought of her as a queen. Amelie was wearing a perfectly tailored yellow silk suit, and her pale hair was piled in a glossy crown on top of her head and secured with gold and diamond pins. She wasn’t especially tall, but the aura she gave off was as powerful as an unexploded bomb. Her eyes were cold and very wide, and focused completely on the intruding vampire threatening Michael.

‘‘Leave the boy alone,’’ she said. Claire had never heard her use that tone, not ever, and she shuddered even though it wasn’t directed toward her. ‘‘I rarely kill our own, but if you test me, François, I’ll destroy you. I only give one warning.’’

The other vampire hesitated only for a second, then let go of Michael, who collapsed back full length on the floor. François rose to his feet in a single smooth, graceful motion, facing Amelie.

And then he bowed. Claire didn’t have a lot of experience with seeing men bow, but she didn’t think that one looked exactly respectful.

‘‘Mistress Amelie,’’ he said, and the vampire teeth folded back into his mouth, discreetly hidden. ‘‘We’ve been waiting for you.’’

‘‘And amusing yourself at my expense while you do,’’ she said. Claire didn’t think she’d blinked at all. ‘‘Come. I wish to talk with Master Bishop.’’

François smirked. ‘‘I’m sure he wishes to speak with you, as well,’’ he said. ‘‘This way.’’

She swept in front of him. ‘‘I know my own home, François—I don’t require a guide.’’ A quick glance over her shoulder, to where Oliver still stood silently at the door. ‘‘Come inside, Oliver. I will replace the Protections against you later, on behalf of our young friends.’’

He raised his eyebrows and crossed the threshold. Michael was just sitting up. Oliver extended a hand to him, but Michael didn’t take it. They exchanged a look that made Claire shiver.

Oliver shrugged, stepped over him, and followed Amelie and François into the other room.

When the kitchen door swung shut, Claire let out a long, relieved breath, and heard Eve and Shane do the same. Michael rolled painfully to his feet and braced himself against the wall, shaking his head.

Shane put a hand on his shoulder. ‘‘Okay, man?’’ Michael gave him a thumbs-up answer, too shaken to do anything more, and Shane slapped his back and grabbed the collar of Claire’s shirt as she rushed past him, heading for the door of the kitchen. ‘‘Whoa, whoa, Flash, where do you think you’re going?’’

‘‘My parents are in there!’’

‘‘Amelie’s not going to let anything happen to them,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Get your breath. This isn’t our fight, and you know it.’’

Now Shane was talking sense? Wow. Was it opposite day? ‘‘But—’’

‘‘Your parents are okay, but I don’t want you rushing in. Got it?’’

She nodded shakily. ‘‘But—’’

‘‘Michael. Help me out here. Tell her.’’

Michael was doing the vampire equivalent of gasping for air, but he nodded, eyes unfocused and vague. ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said weakly. ‘‘They’re okay. That’s why François came after me, because I got between him and your mom.’’

‘‘He went after my mom?’’ Claire flung herself toward the door of the kitchen, and this time Shane barely managed to hold on.

‘‘Dude, that was not the kind of help I was looking for,’’ Shane said to Michael, and wrapped both arms around Claire to hold her in place. ‘‘Easy. Easy, Amelie’s in there, and you know she’ll keep things under control—’’

Claire did. After a second’s thought, it made her struggle harder, because Amelie was perfectly capable of seeing Claire’s parents as expendable if it served her needs. She saw Claire as expendable, off and on. But Shane didn’t let go until she jabbed an elbow back and felt him stagger and release his grip. She didn’t realize what she’d done . . . until she saw a thin line of red on his T-shirt, and Shane thumped himself down hard in the nearest available chair.

She’d hit him where he’d been stabbed.

‘‘Dammit!’’ Eve hissed, and yanked Shane’s shirt up to expose his chest and stomach—still bruised—and the white bandages, which were staining fresh with blood. Claire could even smell it . . .

. . . and as if she were in a dream, or a nightmare, she turned to look at Michael.

His eyes weren’t vague and unfocused anymore. No, they were wide and intent and very, very scary. His face was still and white, and he wasn’t breathing at all.

‘‘Get the bleeding stopped,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Hurry.’’

Michael was right. Shane was bait in a shark tank, and Michael was one of the sharks.

Shane was staring back at him as Eve poked and probed at his bandages, making sure they were tight. ‘‘I think it’s okay, but you need to be careful,’’ she said. ‘‘These bandages need to be changed. You might have popped a stitch or something.’’

She put her shoulder under Shane’s and helped him to his feet. Shane was still watching Michael, and Michael didn’t seem to be able to physically look away from the bloody slash of bandage on Shane’s stomach.

‘‘Want some?’’ Shane asked. ‘‘Come and get it, bat boy.’’ He was almost as pale as Michael, and his expression was tight and furious.

Michael somehow managed to smile. ‘‘You’re not my blood type, bro.’’

‘‘Rejected again.’’ But some of the wildness in Shane’s eyes eased. ‘‘Sorry.’’

‘‘No problem.’’ Michael turned toward the closed kitchen door for a moment. ‘‘They’re talking. Look, I’m going to go in and get your parents, Claire. I want everybody together who’s still—’’

‘‘Breathing?’’ Shane asked.

‘‘In danger,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Back in a second.’’ He hesitated just a breath, then added, ‘‘See if you can fix him up while I’m gone.’’

And then he was out the door, moving unnaturally fast, as if it was a relief to get away from the smell of Shane’s blood. Claire swallowed and exchanged a look with Eve. Eve looked just as shaken as she felt, but she moved quickly on with priorities. ‘‘Okay. Where’s the first aid kit?’’

‘‘Upstairs,’’ Claire said. ‘‘In the bathroom.’’

‘‘Nope, it’s down here,’’ Shane said. ‘‘I moved it.’’

‘‘You did? When?’’

‘‘Couple of days ago,’’ he said. ‘‘Figured it would be better where I could get to it, since I’m the one who’s usually getting bandaged. Look under the sink.’’

Eve did, and hauled out a big white metal box marked with a red cross. She opened it up and pulled out supplies. ‘‘Shirt off.’’

‘‘You only love me for my abs.’’

‘‘Shut up, loser. Shirt off.’’

With a glance toward Claire, Shane pulled it over his head and tossed it on the breakfast table next to him. Claire took the shirt to the sink, where she rinsed it in cold water, watching as Shane’s blood tinted the water light pink. She didn’t like to watch what Eve was doing; seeing the damage that Shane put himself through made her feel sick and frail, because he’d done it—as always—for other people. For her, and Eve.

‘‘Done,’’ Eve pronounced a few minutes later. ‘‘You’d better not bleed all over my nice clean bandages, or I’ll stick a sale price on you and put you on the corner for the next neck-muncher.’’

‘‘You’re such a bitch,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Thanks.’’

She gave him an air kiss and a wink. ‘‘Like most girls wouldn’t line up to play nurse with you. Right.’’

Claire felt an unwelcome, completely surprising surge of jealousy. Eve? No, it was just Eve’s usual teasing. Nothing else, right? She wasn’t—she wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t.

Claire wrung out the shirt until her hands ached, then pressed it between two towels to try to get it as dry as possible. She handed it to Shane while Eve was busy putting the unused supplies back in the box, and helped him drag the damp fabric over his head and down his chest. She couldn’t help but let her fingers brush down his skin, and to be honest, she didn’t really try. In fact, she might have moved a little more slowly than she should have.

‘‘Feels good,’’ Shane said, very quietly, in her ear. ‘‘You okay?’’

Claire nodded. He touched her lightly under the chin to lift it, and studied her face closely.

‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re okay.’’ He brushed her lips with his and looked past her at the kitchen door as it opened.

Michael, with Claire’s parents in tow. The knot in Claire’s chest, the one tied tight around her heart, eased a couple of precious notches.

Her parents looked . . . blank. Frowning, as if they’d forgotten something important. When her mother’s eyes focused on her, Claire dredged up a smile.

‘‘Weren’t we going to have dinner?’’ her mother asked. ‘‘It’s getting very late, isn’t it? Were you going to cook, or—’’

‘‘No,’’ Michael said. ‘‘We’ll go out.’’ He grabbed his car keys from the hook next to the door. ‘‘All of us.’’

2

There weren’t a lot of choices for late-night dining in Morganville for those who weren’t of the fanged persuasion, but there were a few places near the campus, most notably a twenty-four-hour diner. They ended up in an uncomfortable bunch around a table, the four of them plus Claire’s parents, after an even more uncomfortably close ride in Michael’s big vampire-tinted car.

The hamburgers were good, but Claire couldn’t concentrate on the taste. She was too busy watching the people outside the diner. Some were college students, laughing in groups in the parking lot, ignoring the occasional pale-looking strangers walking nearby. Claire was reminded of videos of lions pacing along with antelopes as they grazed, waiting for one or two to fall behind.

She wanted to warn those kids, and she couldn’t. The gold bracelet on her wrist made sure of that.

Michael, predictably, had to bear the brunt of parental conversation. He was just better at it, and he had a soothing kind of presence that made everything seem . . . normal. Claire’s parents didn’t exactly remember what had happened back at the house; more of Mr. Bishop’s influence, Claire was sure. She hated that he’d messed with their heads, but in a way she was relieved, too. One less thing to have to worry about.

Her dad’s attitude with Shane was enough.

‘‘So,’’ Dad said, as he pretended to concentrate on his pot roast, ‘‘how old are you again, son?’’

‘‘Eighteen, sir,’’ Shane said, in his most blandly polite voice. They’d been over this. Repeatedly.

‘‘You know my daughter’s only—’’

‘‘Almost seventeen, yes sir, I know.’’

Dad frowned more deeply. ‘‘Sixteen, and sheltered. I don’t like her living in a house with a bunch of hormone-crazy teenagers—no offense, I’m sure you mean to do right, but I was young myself once. Now that we’re in town, with a place of our own, it’s probably better that Claire move in with us.’’

Claire had not been expecting that. Not at all. ‘‘Dad! You don’t trust me?’’

‘‘Honey, it’s not about trusting you. It’s about trusting the two adult men you’re living with. Especially one I can see you’re getting very close to, even though you know that’s not very smart.’’

Fury burst open inside of her, and all she could see beyond the haze of red was Shane, standing between her and Eve, defending their lives while putting his own at risk.

Shane, turning away from her time after time because he was better—better by far—than she was at self-control.

Claire sucked in a deep breath and was about to let it out in a torrent of words, at top volume, when Shane’s hand came down over hers and gripped it.

‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re right about that. You don’t know me, and what you do know you probably don’t much like. I’m not really parent friendly. Not like Michael.’’ Shane jerked his chin at Michael, who was trying to shake his head no, don’t do it. ‘‘I think maybe you’re right. Maybe it would be better if Claire moved back in with you for a while. Give you a chance to get to know all of us, especially me.’’

‘‘What the hell are you doing?’’ Claire whispered fiercely. She didn’t care that Dad could probably hear, and Michael certainly could. ‘‘I don’t want to go anywhere!’’

‘‘Claire, he’s right. You’d be safer there. Our house isn’t exactly a fortress, in case what happened today didn’t sink in yet,’’ Shane replied. ‘‘Hell, between strangers cruising in and out, my dad’s threat to come back and finish what he started—’’

Claire threw down her fork. ‘‘Wait just a minute. You’re telling me it’s for my own good, is that it?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Michael? Jump in anytime!’’

Michael held up his hands in surrender. He’d had enough, and Claire couldn’t really blame him.

Eve, though, cleared her throat and waded right into the conversational swamp. ‘‘Mr. Danvers, honest, Claire’s perfectly fine with us. We all look after her, and Shane’s not the kind of guy who’d take advantage—’’

‘‘Wouldn’t say that,’’ Shane said, way too mildly. ‘‘I’m exactly that kind of guy, really.’’

Eve sent him a dirty look. ‘‘—and besides, he knows we’d both kill him if he tried. But he wouldn’t do it. Claire’s fine where she is. And she’s happy, too.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ Claire agreed. ‘‘I’m happy, Dad.’’

Michael still hadn’t spoken. He was, instead, watching Claire’s father with a strange kind of intensity; at first she thought, He’s trying to put some kind of vampire whammy on him, but then she changed her mind. It was more like Michael was honestly puzzled, and trying to figure out what to say next.

Her father hadn’t heard a word that anyone had said. ‘‘I want you to move home, Claire, and that’s that. I don’t want you staying in that house anymore. End of discussion.’’

Her mother wasn’t talking, which was unusual, too; she just stirred her coffee slowly and tried to look interested in the food on the plate in front of her.

Claire opened her mouth to shoot back a heated, not very respectful reply, but Michael shook his head and put his hand over hers. ‘‘Don’t waste your breath,’’ he said. ‘‘This isn’t their idea. Bishop planted the suggestion.’’

‘‘What? Why would he do that?’’

‘‘No idea. Maybe he wants us separated. Maybe he just likes messing with people. Maybe he wants to piss off Amelie. But the important thing is, I don’t think you ought to let this get to you—’’

‘‘Not get to me? Michael, my father is saying I have to move!’’

‘‘You don’t,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Not if you don’t want to.’’

Claire’s father, who’d been frowning, turned a dark, unhealthy color of red in the face. ‘‘You damn well do,’’ he snapped. ‘‘You’re my daughter, Claire, and until you turn eighteen, you’ll do what I tell you. And you—’’ He leveled a finger at Michael. ‘‘If I have to bring charges against you—’’

‘‘For what?’’ Michael asked mildly.

‘‘For—look, don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here. If I find out that my daughter’s been— been . . .’’ Dad didn’t seem to be able to work up the words. Michael continued to watch him steadily, with no sign of comprehension.

Claire cleared her throat.

‘‘Dad,’’ she said. She felt color blazing in her cheeks, and her voice was barely steady. ‘‘If you’re asking if I’m still a virgin, I am.’’

‘‘Claire!’’ Her mom’s voice cracked sharply across the last of her sentence. ‘‘That’s enough.’’

Total silence at the table. Not even Michael seemed to know where to take the conversation from there. Eve looked like she was having a hard time deciding whether to laugh or wince, and finally dug into her chocolate sundae as the best possible response.

Michael’s cell phone rang. He opened it, spoke softly, listened, and closed it without replying. He signaled the waitress. ‘‘We have to go,’’ he said.

‘‘Where?’’

‘‘Back to the house. Amelie wants to see us.’’

‘‘You’re coming home with us,’’ Dad said to Claire, who shook her head. ‘‘Don’t argue with me—’’

‘‘I’m sorry, sir, but she has to come with us right now,’’ Michael said. ‘‘If Amelie says it’s the right thing to do, I’ll bring her to your house myself. But we’ll drop you off on the way, and I’ll let you know as soon as possible.’’ It was said respectfully, but without any room for argument, and there was something about Michael in that moment that just couldn’t be pushed.

Dad’s face set, still red, and very hard. ‘‘This isn’t over, Michael.’’

‘‘Yes sir,’’ he said. ‘‘That much I know. We haven’t even started yet.’’

The drive back was even more uncomfortable, and not just physically; Claire’s father was livid, her mother embarrassed, and Claire herself was so mad she could barely stand to look at either of them. How could they? Even if Mr. Bishop had done something to them, screwed with their heads, they’d bought into it completely. They’d always said they trusted her, always said that they wanted her to make her own decisions, but when it came right down to it, they wanted her to be their helpless little girl, after all.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen. She’d come too far for that.

Michael pulled to a stop in front of her parents’ new house—another big Gothic-style house, looking almost exactly like their own except for the landscaping out front. Her parents’ Founder House had a spreading live oak tree towering over the property that rustled like dry paper in the evening breeze, and the trim was painted what looked like, in the dark, a dull black.

Claire’s dad leaned in to give her one last look. ‘‘I expect to hear from you tonight,’’ he said. ‘‘I expect you to tell me when you’re coming home. And by home, I mean here, with us.’’

She didn’t answer. After extending the look for way too long, her dad shut the car door, and Michael accelerated smoothly away—not too quickly, but not slowly, either.

And they all breathed an audible sigh of relief when the house faded into the darkness behind the car. ‘‘Wow,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Dude’s got a glare on him. Maybe he really does belong here in Morganville.’’

‘‘Don’t say that,’’ Claire said. She was fighting with all kinds of emotions—anger at her parents, frustration with the situation, worry, outright fear. Her parents didn’t belong here. They’d been just fine where they were, but Amelie had to uproot them and bring them here. Having Claire’s parents where she could control them gave her more leverage.

And now it gave Mr. Bishop leverage, too.

Shane took her hand. ‘‘Easy,’’ he said. ‘‘Like Michael said, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to go. Not that I wouldn’t feel better if you were someplace a hell of a lot safer.’’

‘‘I don’t think the Danvers house will be safer,’’ Michael said. ‘‘They don’t understand the rules, or the risks—they’re too new here. I think Bishop’s trying to play with Amelie’s head, and whatever we think about her, he’s worse. I guarantee it.’’

Claire shuddered. ‘‘Was it Amelie who called you at the restaurant?’’

‘‘No,’’ Michael said, and there was a grim tone in his voice. ‘‘That was Oliver. I have to admit, I’m not feeling real good about this. Oliver’s never really been on her side—maybe he’s taken Bishop’s. In which case we could be going home to a trap.’’

‘‘Do we have a choice?’’ Shane asked.

‘‘Don’t think so.’’

‘‘Then screw it. I’m getting tired.’’ Shane yawned. ‘‘Let’s go get eaten. At least then I can get some sleep.’’

Nobody thought it was funny—least of all Shane, Claire suspected—but they didn’t have any better ideas, and Michael drove home. Morganville was silent outside the dark-tinted windows; Claire could barely see dim gleams of lights, and they might have been the few and far-between streetlamps, or the glow from house porch lights. It was a lot like being in a space capsule, but with better upholstery.

Michael parked and turned off the car. As Eve reached for her door handle, he said, ‘‘Guys.’’ She waited. They all waited. ‘‘I didn’t exactly get any instant upgrade on knowledge when I—when I changed, but I’m damn sure of one thing. This Bishop, he’s real trouble. Trouble like maybe we’ve never seen before. And I’m worried. So watch each other’s backs. I’ll try—’’

He didn’t seem to know how to finish that. Eve reached out to touch his face, and he turned toward her, lips parted. The look that went between them was so naked it felt wrong to see it. Shane cleared his throat.

‘‘We’re all on it, man,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ll be okay.’’

Michael didn’t answer, but then, Claire figured maybe there wasn’t much to say. He got out of the car, and the others followed. The evening was getting cold, and the wind fluttered around Claire’s hair and clothes, looking for skin to chill. Finding it, too. She wrapped her jacket closer and hurried after Michael toward the back door.

Inside, the kitchen was exactly as they’d left it— messy. Pots and pans still on the stove, though thankfully they’d remembered to turn off the burners before they’d left. The smell of stale bacon grease and rubbery gravy hung heavy in the air, barely cut by the aroma of old, overcooked coffee.

They didn’t stop. Michael led them straight through the kitchen door, into the living room.

Bishop was gone. So were his two pretty hangers-on. It was just Amelie and Oliver, sitting alone at the large wooden table. They’d carelessly shoved aside plates and cups and glasses into a tottering pile, and between them was a chessboard. Nothing Claire recognized that belonged in the house; it looked old, and well used. Beautiful, too.

Amelie was playing white. She ignored their entry as she contemplated the chessboard. Across from her, Oliver leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and sent the four of them an unreadable look. He seemed right at home, which made Claire fume, and she could only imagine how Michael felt about it. Oliver had killed Michael—ripped away his human existence and trapped him in a twilight state between human and vampire— right here in this house. In fact, almost on this very spot. It had been brutal, and murderous, and Michael had never for a second forgotten who and what Oliver was, however he appeared.

Amelie had offered Michael the chance to escape from that trap, and he’d taken it even at the cost of becoming a true vampire. So far, he didn’t seem to regret it. Much.

‘‘You’re not welcome here,’’ Michael said to Oliver, who raised his eyebrows and smiled.

‘‘Waiting for the house to evict me? Keep waiting,’’ he said. ‘‘Amelie, you really should teach your pets manners. Next thing you know, they’ll be clawing the carpet and spraying the drapes.’’

She didn’t look up. ‘‘Do try to be civil,’’ she replied. ‘‘You’re a guest in their house. My house.’’ She moved a piece on the chessboard. ‘‘Be seated, all of you. I dislike having people stand.’’

It had the force of royal command, and before she could think about it, Claire was sliding into one of the dining-table chairs, and Shane was settling in next to her. Eve hesitated, then took a chair as far away from Oliver as possible.

That left one empty chair, and it was next to Oliver. Michael shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the wall.

Amelie gave him a glance, but didn’t force the issue. ‘‘So you have met Mr. Bishop,’’ she said. ‘‘And he has most assuredly met you. I wish this had not happened, but since it has, we must find ways to guard you against him and his associates.’’ Oliver took one of her bishops and set it aside. She had no visible reaction. ‘‘Otherwise, I fear this house will be in the market for new tenants soon.’’

Oliver laughed. He stopped laughing when Amelie made her next move, and concentrated on the chessboard with a fierce, blank expression.

‘‘Who is Bishop?’’ Michael asked.

‘‘Exactly who he says he is. He has no reason to lie.’’

‘‘So he’s your father?’’ Claire asked. There was a long silence, one not even Oliver broke; Amelie raised her cool gray eyes and focused on Claire’s face until Claire felt the urge, not just to look away, but to run.

Amelie finally said, ‘‘In a sense, at least, as you might understand such things. Both my human and immortal bloodlines flow through him. Oliver, do hurry. I feel the need to go home before the sun rises.’’

The sun wasn’t anywhere close to rising, which must have been Amelie’s bone-dry idea of a joke. Oliver moved a pawn. Amelie took it effortlessly.

Michael chimed in. ‘‘Maybe the better question is, where is Mr. Bishop?’’

‘‘Gone,’’ Oliver said. ‘‘I packed him off in a nice limousine with a driver. He’ll be staying at one of the Founder Houses.’’

‘‘Which one?’’ Claire felt a sudden surge of illness, one that got worse as neither of the vampires answered. ‘‘It isn’t my parents’ house, right? Right?’’

‘‘I’d rather you not be aware of his exact location,’’ Amelie said, which wasn’t an answer, certainly not the right answer. She moved her white queen in a long, deliberate scrape down the chessboard. ‘‘Checkmate.’’

Oliver studied the board, then studied her with equal annoyance as he tipped over his doomed black king. ‘‘We need to discuss this,’’ he said. ‘‘Obviously.’’

‘‘Your tragic lack of strategic skills?’’ Amelie’s frost-colored brows slowly rose. ‘‘I am deliberating what to do about our guests. For now, go home, Oliver. And thank you for coming.’’

She said it without a trace of irony—she could dismiss him like a servant, but at least she thanked him. Oliver’s eyes went even darker, but he got up without comment and walked out into the kitchen. Claire heard the door slam behind him.

Amelie took in a deliberate breath, then let it out. She rose to her feet and nodded to Michael. ‘‘I think you’ll be safe enough here tonight,’’ she said. ‘‘Let no one enter, not for any reason.’’ A quick, almost invisible flicker of a smile. ‘‘Except for me, of course. Me, you cannot stop.’’

‘‘What about Oliver?’’ Shane asked.

‘‘His invitation to enter has been revoked. He won’t be able to bother you unless you do something foolish. ’’ Which, from the look Amelie gave him, she considered hardly unlikely. ‘‘Bishop is my affair, not yours. Go about your business, and stay out of this. All of you.’’

‘‘Wait, my parents—’’

Amelie didn’t wait. With silent grace, she left the table and walked up the stairs, and as her luminous pale figure disappeared at the top, Shane said, ‘‘Where the hell is she going? There’s no door up there.’’

Claire knew. She knew all too well. ‘‘However she does it, she’s gone.’’ They all looked at her, even Michael. ‘‘There must be some way out. What’s she going to do, bring her pajamas and crash on the couch?’’

‘‘Do you think she has any?’’ Eve asked. ‘‘Because I’m betting she sleeps in the nude.’’

‘‘Eve!’’

‘‘What? Come on. Can you really see her in flannel footies? Bunny slippers?’’

Michael sank into the chair Amelie had vacated, and stared at the chessboard. He slowly reset it, but Claire could tell he wasn’t really thinking about the game. ‘‘Shane,’’ he said. ‘‘Go make sure we’re locked up, would you?’’

Shane nodded and left, heading straight for the kitchen first. Claire sat across from Michael, in the chair Oliver had occupied. ‘‘You’re worried,’’ she said.

‘‘No,’’ Michael said, and picked up the white knight, to turn it over and over in his pale fingers. ‘‘I’m scared. If this guy’s got Amelie and Oliver nervous, we’re way out of our league. Morganville is way out of its league.’’

He looked up at Eve, who didn’t respond except to press her lips tighter together. Claire heard Shane’s footsteps as he went toward the front door, checked the lock and dead bolt, and then went on to test the windows.

‘‘We should get some rest,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Could be a long day tomorrow.’’

As he got up, Eve’s hand grazed his, just a very light caress, and the two of them locked stares for about a half second.

‘‘Yeah,’’ Eve agreed. ‘‘I should rest, too.’’

Claire threw a stray magazine at her. ‘‘Get a room.’’

‘‘Paying for one already,’’ Eve shot back. ‘‘And I’m going to get my money’s worth, too.’’

She jogged up the stairs, pausing near the top to throw a glance back down toward Michael, who had the most luminous smile on his face. He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what was going through his mind, and cleared his throat when he saw Claire watching him.

‘‘Discreet,’’ Claire said. ‘‘You guys ought to hang a towel on the doorknob or something.’’

‘‘Quiet.’’ But Michael was smiling, and when he smiled, her heart just soared. She loved seeing him happy. He was usually so . . . focused. ‘‘If you need anything, you know where to find me.’’

‘‘Yeah, you think?’’

He waved and followed Eve upstairs.

Shane came back from checking all the ground-floor entry points, and dropped into the chair Michael had vacated. ‘‘Where’d they go?’’

She pointed straight up.

‘‘Oh.’’ He knew, all too well. ‘‘So. Want to play a game?’’

‘‘I want to call my parents,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Do you seriously think Amelie let Mr. Bishop stay in their house?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said. ‘‘Call if you think it’ll help.’’

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed information; her parents had a new listing, since they’d just arrived in Morganville. While she waited for an answer, Shane reached across the table and took her free hand in his, and the warm touch of his skin made her feel a little less nervous.

Until her mom answered the phone, at least. ‘‘Claire! I didn’t expect you to call so soon. Are you ready to come home?’’

She froze for a second, then said, as calmly as possible, ‘‘No, Mom. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Everything all right?’’

‘‘Of course everything’s all right. Why wouldn’t it be?’’

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. ‘‘No reason,’’ she said. ‘‘I just wanted to check in and see how you were settling in. How’s the house?’’

‘‘Well, it’s a fixer-upper, you know. Needs some wiring, and an absolute mountain of decorating, but I’m looking forward to that.’’

‘‘That’s great. And—so, you don’t have any guests or anything?’’

‘‘Guests?’’ Her mother laughed. ‘‘Claire, honey, we barely have sheets on our mattress right now. I’m not ready for guests!’’

That, at least, was a relief. ‘‘Great. Well—Mom, I have to go. Good night.’’

‘‘Good night, sweetheart. I’m looking forward to having you home.’’

Claire hung up, and Shane slipped an arm around her waist. ‘‘Hey,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re okay?’’

‘‘For now. But he could get to them, right? Anytime he wants.’’

‘‘Maybe. But he could get to us just as easily. Look, you can’t help them right now, but he’s got no good reason to hurt them. It’ll be okay.’’

Shane was the optimist. That was how you knew things were really bad. . . . Claire forced a smile, opened her eyes, and tried to be a brave little toaster. ‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. ‘‘Yeah, it’ll be fine. No problem.’’

His dark eyes searched hers, and she knew that he could see she was lying. But he didn’t call her on it, probably all too familiar with the concept of denial. ‘‘So,’’ he said. ‘‘Care for a nice, civilized game of chess?’’

A thump, and the unmistakable sound of a muffled giggle, drifted through the ceiling from the second floor. Approximately where Eve’s room would be.

‘‘Hey!’’ Shane yelled up. ‘‘Turn down the porn soundtrack! Trying to concentrate here!’’

More laughter, quickly stifled. Shane focused back on Claire, and Claire felt her lips curling into a more genuine kind of smile.

‘‘Chess,’’ she said. ‘‘Your move, tough guy.’’

Another thump from upstairs. Shane shook his head and tipped over his king. ‘‘What the hell. I surrender. Let’s hook up a video game and kill some zombies.’’

3

In the morning, it was ... the morning. For a precious few seconds when Claire woke up, nothing was wrong, nothing at all. Her body hummed with energy, and the birds were singing outside, and the sun burned in warm stripes across her bed.

She squinted at the alarm clock. Seven thirty. Time to get up if she intended to make it to her first class and still have any margin for coffee.

It wasn’t until she was in the shower, and the hot water was pounding sense back into her head, that she realized that all was not well. Her parents were in town. Her parents were on the radar screen of the monsters.

And her parents wanted her to move back in with them.

That put an end to her good mood, and by the time she padded down the steps, dragging her textbook-loaded backpack and carrying her shoes, she was frowning. The house was a mess. Nobody had done the chores, including her. The kitchen was still a wreck, with breakfast congealing in the pans. She muttered to herself as the coffee brewed, dumped filthy dishes and pans in the sink to soak in hot water, and left a snarky note for her housemates. Especially Shane, who’d slacked even more than was normal.

Then she put on her shoes and walked to school.

Morganville looked just like any other dusty, sleepy town in the daylight: people out driving to work, jogging, pushing strollers, walking dogs. College students with backpacks as she got closer to the campus. The casual visitor never knew, at least during the daytime, that this place was so vastly screwed up.

Claire supposed that was the point.

She spotted some trucks delivering to local businesses; did those drivers know? Did they just come and go without incident? Was there some off-limits rule for the vamps about whom they could hunt and whom they couldn’t? There would have to be. Having the state police descend on Morganville wouldn’t be helpful for the vamps. . . .

‘‘Hey.’’

Claire blinked. A car was idling next to her, barely keeping pace as she walked. A red convertible, harsh and shiny as fresh blood in the sun. In it, three girls with identically false smiles.

The driver was Monica Morrell, the daughter of the town’s mayor. Claire’s worst human enemy from day one of her tenure in Morganville. Monica had mostly recovered from her recent brush with death by drugs, or at least she looked that way—glossy as the car, and just as hard. Her blond hair was shiny and casually styled, her makeup perfect, and if she looked just a shade more pale than usual, it was hard to tell.

‘‘Hey,’’ Claire said, and made sure to drift farther over on the sidewalk, out of easy grabbing range. ‘‘How are you feeling, Monica?’’

‘‘Me? Great. Couldn’t be better,’’ Monica said brightly. There was something way darker in her eyes than in her tone. ‘‘You tried to kill me, freak.’’

Claire stopped dead in her tracks. ‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘I didn’t do that.’’

‘‘You gave me that drug. It almost killed me.’’

‘‘You took it from me!’’ The red crystals, the ones that she’d stolen from Myrnin. The ones that, however briefly, had seemed like a good idea. Not so much once she’d seen their effect on Monica, and her own face in the mirror after taking them. They hadn’t hurt her, but their effect on Monica had been shocking.

‘‘Don’t give me that. You nearly killed me,’’ Monica said. ‘‘I’d file charges, but with you being the Founder’s pet and all, that won’t do any good. So we’ll just have to find some other way to make sure you pay. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, bitch—this isn’t done. It isn’t even started. It is on.’’

She gave Claire a cold, hard smile, and accelerated away with a screech of rubber on pavement.

Claire shifted her backpack nervously and looked around. Nobody had paid attention, of course. It didn’t pay, in Morganville, to get into anybody else’s business.

She was on her own out here. Eve worked on campus, but Claire didn’t want to drag her friends into this. They had enough problems already, and Monica was all her own.

Like it or not.

But as she passed the recessed doorway of a boarded-up shop, she sensed someone watching her.

She tried to dismiss it as imagination, but there really was someone watching her. She couldn’t make him out for a few seconds, and then she did, with another unpleasant shock. Heroin-addict-skinny, pale, stringy hair. Wearing black. Eve’s brother.

‘‘Jason,’’ she said, and involuntarily looked around for help. Nobody there, nobody she could turn to. Not even a passing police car—and the police definitely wanted to talk to Jason, after his run-in with Shane.

It hit her again: He’d stabbed her boyfriend. Tried to kill him. The cops said it was self-defense, but she knew better.

Jason took his hands out of his coat pockets and held them up. ‘‘Don’t scream,’’ he said. ‘‘Unless you really feel like it. I’m not going to hurt you. Not in broad daylight on a busy street, anyway.’’

He sounded . . . different. Odder than usual, and that was a pretty high standard of odd.

‘‘What do you want?’’ She clutched the strap of her backpack in a white-knuckled fist. In an emergency, it would make a respectable blunt object. She might knock him down with it, or at least trip him. It was only about a block to Common Grounds—Oliver owed her Protection once she was inside the building, even from human enemies.

‘‘Stop freaking, genius. I’m not here to hurt you.’’ He put his hands back in his jacket pockets. ‘‘How’s Shane?’’

‘‘Why do you care?’’

‘‘Because—’’ He frowned and shrugged. ‘‘Look, that was self-defense, okay?’’

‘‘You baited him. You threatened me and Eve. You wanted him to come after you.’’

‘‘Yeah, well, granted, I was tweaking, but the guy took a home-run swing at my head, in case you missed it.’’

Uncomfortably, that was true. ‘‘What about the other people you’ve killed? Were those all self-defense, too?’’

‘‘Who says I’ve killed people?’’

‘‘You did. Remember? You left a dead girl in our basement for Shane to find. You tried to put him in prison.’’

Jason didn’t say a word to that. He just stared at her, and in the shadows his dark eyes were like holes in his still, pale face. He looked . . . dead. Deader than most vampires.

‘‘I need to talk to my sister,’’ he said.

‘‘Eve doesn’t want to talk to you, you psycho. Leave us alone!’’

‘‘It’s about our dad,’’ he said, and even though Claire was walking away, leaving him and all his psycho problems behind, she slowed to look back. ‘‘I need to talk to Eve. Tell her I’ll call. Tell her not to hang up.’’

Claire nodded, once. She didn’t hate him any less, but there was something different about him right now—something that asked for a truce, but didn’t get down on its knees and beg for it, either. ‘‘No promises, ’’ she said.

Jason nodded back. ‘‘Didn’t expect any.’’

He didn’t say thanks. She kept walking.

When she looked back, the doorway was empty. She caught a glimpse of a black jacket turning the corner at the end of the block. Damn, he moves fast, she thought, and that gave her another kind of chill. What if Jason had gotten his wish? What if someone had made him a full-fledged vampire, as hard as that seemed?

She decided she’d ask Amelie, first chance she got.

The morning classes came and went. It wasn’t like any of them were especially difficult, even the high-level physics courses she’d tested herself into. She’d traded out some of her lame core classes for a mythology course, or rather Amelie had insisted on it—that was a fairly cool thing, and she found herself looking forward to it. No discussions of vampires just now, unfortunately. It was all about zombies, voodoo, and popular media on the subject. They were going to watch Night of the Living Dead next week. Claire didn’t know nearly as much about zombies as most of the other students; except for the first-person-shooter game that Shane liked to play, she couldn’t remember ever really paying attention to the idea.

Of course, since moving to Morganville, she wasn’t ruling anything out as unlikely.

After mythology, which turned out to be a wealth of information about voodoo, if she ever needed that, Claire had a break before lab sessions began. She took herself off to the University Center. It was a sprawling building, home to a large study area with long tables and groupings of chairs, and it featured a bookstore, a cafeteria that served fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches and salads, and a pretty decent coffee bar.

There wasn’t a line today. Claire paid for her mocha and moved around to the barista side, where Eve was working. Eve looked great today, and not just because of the care she’d taken with her outfit and makeup; she kind of radiated satisfaction.

Oh. Right.

Eve gave her an absolutely stunning smile and handed over her drink. ‘‘Hey, bookworm. Doing okay?’’

‘‘Sure. You?’’

‘‘Not bad. It’s even been kind of slow and steady today, after the morning rush.’’ That smile had a secret.

‘‘So? How was your night?’’ Claire prodded. The secret wanted to be shared, and besides, she was kind of . . . curious.

‘‘Fantastic,’’ Eve sighed. ‘‘I just—yeah. Since I was fourteen, I’ve had a crush on that boy, you know? And he never knew I existed. I went to every one of his concerts, from the time he first started playing, up to the last time he headlined at Common Grounds. I never thought—I just never thought it’d work out.’’

‘‘And how was . . . ?’’ Claire raised her eyebrows and left the question open to anything Eve wanted to make it mean.

Eve’s smile got wicked. ‘‘Fantastic.’’

They shared muffled squeals. Eve did a little happy-dance behind the counter, dumped shots in a drink, and twirled. Claire had never seen her look so full-stop happy.

Reality came back, and she remembered why she’d come in the first place. She had the strong suspicion she was about to blow all that happiness sky-high.

Eve’s smile was fading, like someone had turned down her dimmer switch. ‘‘Claire, you’re wearing the worried face. What’s wrong?’’

‘‘I . . .’’ Claire hesitated, then plunged in. ‘‘I saw Jason. This morning.’’

Eve’s dark eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. She waited.

‘‘He wanted me to tell you that he’s going to call. It’s something about your dad, he says. He says not to hang up.’’

‘‘My dad,’’ Eve repeated. ‘‘You’re sure.’’

‘‘That’s what he said. I told him, no promises.’’ Claire sipped her mocha, which was perfect, and watched Eve’s expression. Not too easy to read, right now. ‘‘He didn’t try to hurt me.’’

‘‘Broad daylight, on a main street? Yeah, well, he’s bug-out crazy, but he’s not stupid.’’ Eve seemed very far away, suddenly. And all her happy glow was gone. ‘‘I haven’t talked to either one of my parents since my eighteenth birthday.’’

‘‘Why not?’’

‘‘They tried to sell me to Brandon,’’ she said flatly. ‘‘Like a piece of meat on the hoof. I don’t know why Jason’s suddenly all nostalgic about the fam; it’s not like there were good times to remember.’’

‘‘But they’re still your parents.’’

‘‘Yeah, unfortunately. Look, here’s the story of the Rosser clan: we’re the original nuclear family. As in, nuclear bomb. Toxic even when it doesn’t explode.’’ Eve shook her head. ‘‘Whatever Dad’s damage is, I don’t care. And I don’t know why Jason would, either.’’

Another student had paid for coffee, and Eve cast him an absent, empty smile and started pulling espresso shots with mechanical precision. ‘‘It’s nothing, ’’ she said. ‘‘And I’m hanging up on him when he calls. If he calls. And even if it’s something, I don’t give a damn anyway.’’

Claire just nodded. She had no idea what to say. Eve was clearly upset, a lot more upset than she’d expected her to be. She waved good-bye and took herself off to a nearby study table, and began plowing through a book she’d borrowed from the library. Somebody’s PhD paper, which read like the guy had never bothered to attend a single English Composition class.

Good equations, though. She was heavily involved in them when her cell phone rang.

‘‘Hello?’’ She didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, and not her parents.

‘‘Claire Danvers?’’

‘‘Yes, who’s this?’’

‘‘My name’s Dr. Robert Mills. I’m the one who treated your friend Shane in the hospital.’’

She felt a piercing sensation of alarm. ‘‘Nothing’s wrong with—’’

‘‘No, nothing like that,’’ he broke in hastily. ‘‘Look, you were the one who had the red crystals, right? The ones that nearly killed the mayor’s daughter?’’

Claire’s momentary relief burned away like flash paper. ‘‘I guess,’’ she said. ‘‘I gave them to the doctor.’’

‘‘Well, here’s the thing: I’ve been looking at those crystals. Where’d you get them?’’

‘‘I—found them.’’ Technically true.

‘‘Where?’’

‘‘In a lab.’’

‘‘I need you to show me this lab, Claire.’’

‘‘I don’t think I can do that, I’m sorry.’’

‘‘Look, I understand that you’re probably protecting someone—someone important. But if it helps, I already have approval from the Council to work on these crystals, and I really need more information about them—who developed them, how, the ingredients. I think I can help.’’

Amelie was on the Elders’ Council. But she hadn’t said anything about working with the doctor. ‘‘Let me find out what I can tell you,’’ Claire said. ‘‘I’m sorry. I’ll call you back.’’

‘‘Soon,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve been told the goal is to increase the effectiveness of the drug by at least fifty percent within the next couple of months.’’

Claire blinked, surprised. ‘‘Do you know what it does?’’

Dr. Mills—who sounded pleasant and normal— laughed. ‘‘Do I really know? Probably not. This is Morganville—we invented the concept of the secret around here. But I have a pretty decent idea that whatever it is, it’s not designed for human consumption. ’’

That was as much as Claire wanted to talk about on the phone, no matter how friendly he seemed. After a quick excuse, she hung up and called Amelie. She intended to leave a message, and that, she thought, would probably be the end of it.

Amelie picked up the call. Claire stammered, took a deep breath, and told her about Dr. Mills and his request.

‘‘I should have told you last evening. I have decided to concede to your request to have additional resources on this project,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘Dr. Mills is a trusted expert, a longtime resident of the town, and he won’t make the kind of value judgments others might. He’s also capable of keeping our secrets, and that is imperative. You understand why.’’

Claire did, all too well. The crystals were a drug that helped vampires ward off the effects of a degenerative disease—a disease they all had, one that was robbing them of their ability to reproduce. Amelie was the strongest, but she was sick, too, and the worst cases were insane and locked away in cells beneath Morganville.

And so far, few of the vampires knew about the illness. Once they did, there might be nothing to stop them from lashing out, blaming others. Innocent humans, probably.

Just as bad would be the effect on the human population. Once they knew the vampires weren’t invincible, how many of them would really cooperate? Amelie had long ago figured that this could destroy Morganville, and Claire was pretty sure she was right.

‘‘But—he wants to see Myrnin’s lab,’’ Claire said. Myrnin, her mentor and sometimes even her friend, had slipped off the edge of sanity, and he was in one of the cells. Lucid sometimes, and other times . . . dangerously not. ‘‘Should I take him there?’’

‘‘No. Tell him that you’ll bring what he needs to the hospital. I don’t want any human other than yourself in that lab, Claire. There are secrets that must be kept, and I rely on you to see to it. Restrict his research only to refining and enhancing the formula you’ve already created.’’ What Amelie meant, in that queen-cool way, was that if Claire spilled the beans, she’d end up dead. Or worse.

‘‘Yes,’’ Claire said faintly. ‘‘I understand. About my parents—’’

‘‘They are safe enough,’’ Amelie said. That wasn’t the same thing as saying they were safe. ‘‘You will not see Mr. Bishop for the time being. If you happen to see his two associates, be polite, but don’t fear; they are well in hand.’’

Maybe by Amelie’s standards. Claire was a little bit more worried. ‘‘Okay,’’ she said doubtfully. ‘‘If anything happens—’’

‘‘Discuss it with Oliver,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘Curiously, I find the differences between us lessened dramatically once my sire paid a visit. Nothing like a common enemy to unite squabbling neighbors.’’ She paused for a moment, and then said, almost awkwardly, ‘‘You and your friends? You are well?’’

We’re doing small talk now? Claire shivered. ‘‘Yeah, we’re fine. Thank you.’’

‘‘Good.’’ Amelie hung up. Claire mouthed a silent Oooo-kay, and pocketed the phone.

As she was leaving, she saw Eve at the barista station, staring blankly at the levers as she worked. The happy glow hadn’t returned. In fact, she looked grim. And scared.

Dammit. Why did I ruin her day like that? I should have just blown him off, the little psycho.

Claire checked her watch, snagged her backpack, and jogged off to her lab class.

When she met Dr. Mills later that afternoon, she did it at the hospital, in his office. He was a medium sort of guy—medium tall, medium age, medium coloring. He had a nice smile, which seemed to promise that everything would be okay, and despite the fact that Claire knew it was total fiction, she smiled back.

‘‘Have a seat, Claire,’’ he said, and indicated one of the blue club chairs in front of his desk. Behind him were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves—medical references in matching bindings, with some newer off-brand volumes thrown in for variety. Dr. Mills had stacks of magazines and photocopied articles on one corner of the desk, and a teetering set of patient files on the other. A framed photo faced away from Claire, so she couldn’t see if he had a family. He had a wedding ring, though.

Dr. Mills didn’t speak immediately; he leaned back in his leather chair, steepled his fingers, and looked at her for a while. She fought against the urge to squirm, but couldn’t keep her fingers from restlessly picking at the fabric of her jeans.

‘‘I knew you were young,’’ he said finally, ‘‘but I admit, I’m even more surprised now. You’re sixteen?’’

‘‘Seventeen in a few weeks,’’ Claire said. She was getting resigned to having this conversation with every single adult in Morganville. She ought to just record it and play it back every time she met somebody new.

‘‘Well, from the notes that Amelie has provided to me, you have a very solid grasp of what you’re doing. I don’t think I’ll be so much directing your research as helping you execute your experiments. Where I see opportunities to add some value, I will. Obviously, the labs here at the hospital have much more sophisticated equipment than I imagine you have—wherever you developed your initial crystals.’’ He flipped through the large folder open in the center of his desk, and Claire saw photocopies of her own neat handwriting. Her notes, which she’d provided to Amelie. ‘‘I took the liberty of making up a set of crystals based on your formula, using the facilities in our labs. I found that if you accelerate the drying process with heat, you can increase the strength of the dosage by about twenty percent. And I also created a stronger liquid version that can be delivered directly into the body by injection.’’

She blinked. ‘‘Injection.’’ She tried to imagine getting close enough to Myrnin to stick a needle in his arm, especially when he was in one of his bad swings.

‘‘It can be delivered through a dart,’’ he said. ‘‘Like an animal tranquilizer, although I wouldn’t use that analogy to anyone else. Wouldn’t be respectful.’’

She managed a smile. ‘‘That’d be—very helpful. I didn’t try the heating process for drying the crystals. That’s interesting.’’

‘‘No reason you should have. I tried it because I didn’t have an unlimited time to dry them—our lab’s busy, and I didn’t want anyone questioning what I was doing. I’ve asked Amelie to provide us with some secured laboratory space at the university. More convenient for you, and safer for me. I can have equipment moved there as we need it, or requisition it through the Council.’’ Dr. Mills cocked his head and looked at her again, brown eyes bright and challenging. Like Myrnin’s, only not half as crazy. ‘‘About my request to tour the lab where you made the crystals . . .’’

‘‘Sorry, I can’t.’’

‘‘Perhaps if you checked with Amelie—’’

‘‘I did.’’

He sighed. ‘‘Then when can I examine our patient?’’

‘‘You don’t.’’

‘‘Claire, this will not work if I can’t take baseline readings on the patient and determine what the measurable improvements are as we change the formula!’’

She did see that, actually, but the thought of putting nice Dr. Mills in grabbing distance of Myrnin made her shiver. ‘‘I’ll check,’’ she promised, and got to her feet. ‘‘I’m sorry, it’s getting late. I need to—’’

Dr. Mills glanced at his office window. Outside the blinds, the sky was darkening from faded denim to indigo. ‘‘Of course. I understand. Here’s a sample of the new batch of crystals. But before you give it to him, see if you can get baseline information—most importantly, a blood sample.’’

‘‘A blood sample,’’ she repeated. He opened a drawer and handed her a small, sealed kit. It had a syringe, gauze pads, alcohol wipes, and a couple of vacuum tubes. ‘‘You’re not serious.’’

‘‘I’m not saying it might not be difficult, but if you won’t let me go with you to do it . . .’’

She could do a lot of things, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t hold Myrnin down and stick a needle in his vein. Not while he was . . . altered.

She took the kit and put it in her backpack. ‘‘Anything else?’’

Dr. Mills passed her a gun—a dart gun. He opened the back to show her the fluffy end of the tube. ‘‘It’s preloaded with one dose,’’ he said. ‘‘I only made up a few—it takes some time to distill. Here are two extra, if you need them.’’ As she stowed the gun in her backpack, he said, ‘‘It’s untested. So be careful. I think it will be stronger and longer lasting, but I’m not sure about the side effects.’’

‘‘And the crystals?’’

He passed them over, too. They looked a little finer than the ones she’d developed—more like raw sugar. Those went into the backpack, as well.

‘‘Claire,’’ he said, as she hoisted the burden, ‘‘have you heard any rumors about a new vampire in town?’’

She froze. Her gold bracelet, the one with Amelie’s symbol etched on it, caught the light and glittered— not that she needed the reminder.

‘‘Just Michael,’’ she said. ‘‘But that’s not news.’’

‘‘I heard there were strangers.’’

Claire shrugged. ‘‘Guess you heard wrong.’’

She left before she had to lie any more. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back at him. He nodded and smiled a good-bye.

She felt bad, but there was only so much truth she was prepared to give, even to somebody who came recommended by Amelie.

‘‘Did you bring the hamburger?’’

Claire didn’t even have time to drop her backpack on the hallway floor at home before Eve had buzzed in on her like a dark, caffeine-fueled Tinkerbell, brandishing a wooden spoon.

‘‘Uh—what?’’

‘‘Hamburger. I sent you a text.’’

Oops. Claire dug her phone out and saw that, sure enough, there was a flashing message icon. ‘‘I didn’t get it. Sorry.’’

‘‘Crap.’’ Eve turned away and marched back down the hall, Doc Martens boots clomping with fine disregard for the safety of the wood floor. ‘‘Michael! Guess what? You’re running errands!’’

Michael was playing guitar—something fast and complicated. He stopped periodically, which was unusual for him, and he ignored Eve, which wasn’t normal, either. As Claire rounded the corner, she saw him standing up at the dinner table, leaning over to jot down music on a lined page.

Turned out that he wasn’t ignoring Eve so much as not obeying. ‘‘I’m busy,’’ he said, frowned at the paper, and played the same phrase again, then again. Shook his head in frustration and erased notes on the paper. ‘‘You and Shane go.’’

‘‘I’m cooking!’’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘‘Creative people. They think the world stops when they think.’’

‘‘I’ll go,’’ Claire said. The chance to be alone with Shane, even on something as boring as a trip to the all-night grocery, was too good to miss. ‘‘Better if I do, anyway. I’ve got the free pass.’’ She held up the bracelet.

Michael pulled himself away from the music in his head long enough to give her a look. He tapped his pencil in a fast, complicated rhythm on the table. ‘‘Thirty minutes,’’ he said. ‘‘There and back. No excuses. If you guys are late, I’m coming after you, and I’m going to be pissed off.’’

‘‘Thanks, Dad.’’ She wished she hadn’t said it—not so much because of the grimace on Michael’s face, but because it made her think of her actual dad. And that the clock was running on how long he’d allow her to continue her current living arrangements.

Shane came out of the kitchen sucking on his fingertip. ‘‘What’s going on?’’

‘‘You have not been sticking your dirty fingers in my sauce,’’ Eve said, and pointed her wooden spoon at him.

He quickly took the finger out of his mouth. ‘‘First off, they’re not dirty. I licked them first. And second— did I hear something about the store? Claire?’’

‘‘Yeah, I’m ready.’’

He grabbed Eve’s keys from the hall table. ‘‘Then let’s roll."

Shane was a good driver, and he knew Morganville like the back of his hand—of course, Morganville was just about that big, too, and there was only one all-night grocery store, the Food King, locally owned and operated. The parking lot was lit up like a football stadium. There were fifteen or so cars already there, evenly split between human vehicles and vamp-mobiles. Shane parked directly under a blazing set of lights and turned off the car.

‘‘Wait,’’ he said as Claire reached for the door handle. ‘‘It takes us about five minutes to get here, five minutes to get the stuff, five minutes back home. That gives us fifteen whole extra minutes.’’

She felt her heart stammer, and race a little faster. Shane was looking at her with fierce intensity.

‘‘So what do you want to do?’’ she asked, trying to sound casual about it.

‘‘I want to talk,’’ he said, which was not what she expected. Not at all. ‘‘I can’t talk about this back at the house. I never know who could be listening.’’

‘‘Meaning Michael?’’

Shane shrugged. ‘‘It’s just never exactly private.’’

He wasn’t wrong, but she still felt horribly disappointed. ‘‘Sure,’’ she said, and knew she sounded stiff and wounded. ‘‘Go ahead. Talk.’’

His eyes widened. ‘‘You thought—’’

‘‘Just talk, Shane.’’

He cleared his throat. ‘‘I’ve been doing some research on Bishop.’’

The idea of Shane and research didn’t seem to want to fall into the same sentence. ‘‘Where?’’

‘‘The town library,’’ he shrugged. ‘‘Special collections. I know Janice, the librarian—she was a friend of my mom’s. She let me into the back to take a look at some of the older stuff, the things they don’t put out for public reading.’’

‘‘The vampire collection.’’

He nodded. ‘‘Anyway, the only thing I could find out was a reference to a Bishop—maybe not the same one—who killed a whole lot of people about five hundred years ago.’’

‘‘Doesn’t sound too unusual . . .’’

‘‘Except that he wasn’t killing humans,’’ Shane said. ‘‘From the way the thing was written, Bishop was killing off his enemies in the vampire community. Making himself the ruler of the world. And then something happened, and he dropped out of sight.’’

‘‘Wow. No wonder Amelie and Oliver were freaked.’’

‘‘If he’s been underground all this time, and has a rep for taking out anyone who stands in his way, human or vampire—yeah. I’d be freaked, too. Anyway, I thought you should know. It could be important.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’

He nodded, gaze fixed on hers.

‘‘Anything else?’’ she prompted.

‘‘Yeah.’’

He leaned forward and kissed her. His weight settled toward her, leaning her back against the door, and she felt all the strength and breath go out of her body, replaced with a quivering, golden vibration. Oh. Shane’s lips were warm and damp, soft but demanding, and she heard herself make a sound like a whimper in response. His hands knew just where to hold her—one at the back of her head, one at the small of her back, pulling her closer. Fitting their bodies together.

It felt so good, it was like swimming in sunlight. Her fingers tangled in his soft, shaggy hair and traced down his back, and for a wild second she imagined what it would be like, right here, right now, in Eve’s big car. It seemed to go on forever, a dreamy eternity of heat. . . .

His hands slipped down her shoulders, traced her collarbone, then moved lower. She heard herself make a sound that was more a whine than anything else, a naked plea, as the heat of his touch reached the top edge of her bra, slid past the edge and down. . . .

Shane broke the kiss with a gasp, leaning his cheek against hers. The sound of his breath in her ear made her shiver again. So close. God, we’re so close. . . .

‘‘We’d—better go inside,’’ he said. It sounded like he was fighting hard to sound normal, but he was missing by a mile, and when he sat back, all she could see was the hot focus in his eyes, and his damp, reddened, totally kissable lips. She wondered what he was seeing in her, and realized with a shock that it was probably the same thing.

Shared hunger.

‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. She didn’t sound normal, either. She wasn’t sure she could walk, in fact; her whole body felt like it had melted, especially around the knees. She took in a couple of deep breaths, then stopped when Shane’s eyes focused on the rise and fall of her chest. ‘‘We should—go shop.’’

Shane checked his watch. ‘‘No, we should get the hamburger, throw money at the cashier, and break every speed limit back to the house if we don’t want Michael calling out the SWAT team.’’

That sobered them up, enough to get them out of the car and into the store, but they held hands the whole way.

Inside, the place looked too bright, and yet somehow too cold. Aisles of colorful packages. There were a few shoppers pushing carts, and some of them, Claire knew, had to be vampires, but she couldn’t necessarily tell which ones, at a glance. Many of them had perfected their human disguises. Was it the twenty-something girl with the red hair and the long shopping list? Or the elderly lady with her little fluffy dog riding in the child seat of the cart? Not the dad with the two small children and the harassed look—she was sure of that one.

Claire didn’t really have time to gawk. Shane let go of her hand and pointed off down one aisle; she split off toward the meat section. Choosing hamburger was mainly a decision about poundage, and Eve hadn’t said how much to get. Claire settled for two packages, and headed for the aisle where Shane had disappeared. The snack aisle, what a shock.

The song on the store’s speakers changed to an annoying and slightly creepy song from the 1970s, something about seasons in the sun, and she was thinking about how ironic that was when she rounded the endcap display and found Shane backed up against the shelves, with a woman pressed right up against him.

It was the female vamp Bishop had brought to town. She was wearing a tight-fitting pair of blue jeans, a formfitting maroon knit shirt, and a black leather jacket. Black ankle boots, with buckles. Feminine, but dangerous. Her dark hair flowed over her shoulders in luxurious, glossy waves, and her skin was the color of fine porcelain, just a tiny hit of blush in her cheeks.

Her eyes were fixed on Shane’s. He was crushing a bag of chips in one hand, but he’d clearly forgotten all about it.

The vampire leaned forward and took in a deep breath from around Shane’s neck. Shane closed his eyes and didn’t move.

‘‘Mmmmm,’’ she said in that slow, sweet voice. ‘‘You smell like desire. I can feel it curling off your skin. Poor little thing, all frustrated and wanting. I could help you with that.’’

Shane didn’t open his eyes. ‘‘Get away from me.’’

The vampire’s hand shot out to slam hard against the shelves next to Shane’s head. The entire structure rocked unsteadily, but didn’t quite go over. ‘‘Don’t be rude, Shane Collins. Yes, I know who you are. You’ve been looking us up, so I did a little reading all on my own. You’ve got daddy problems, don’t you? I understand. I have those, too. I could tell you all about it, if you come with me. It’d be nice to have a strong man to tell my troubles to.’’

As quickly as it had come, her anger was gone, and she was back to the vampire sex kitten she’d been back at the Glass House, running her pale fingers down Shane’s collarbone, over his chest. . . .

‘‘I said go away,’’ Shane said, and opened his eyes to stare at her face. ‘‘Not interested, leech.’’

‘‘My name’s Ysandre, honey. Not leech, bitch, or bloodsucker. And if you want to survive my visit to this cesspool of a town, you’ll learn to call me by my name, Shane.’’ Her pale lips curled into a smile. ‘‘Or if you want other people to survive it. Now, let’s be friends.’’

She leaned forward and brushed her lips lightly against Shane’s, and Claire saw him shudder and go completely still. Ysandre laughed, reached past him, and plucked a bag of baked chips from the rack.

‘‘Mmmm,’’ she said. ‘‘Salty. Tell your girlfriend I like the taste of her lip gloss.’’

She walked away. Shane and Claire stayed frozen where they were until she was out of sight, and then Claire rushed to him. When she put her hand on him, he flinched, just a little.

‘‘Don’t touch me,’’ he said. His voice was hoarse, and the vein in his throat was beating very, very fast. ‘‘I don’t want—’’

‘‘Shane—it’s me, it’s Claire—’’

He reached out for her then, like a drowning man clutching a life raft, and his strength shocked her as he pulled her in. His head bent, and she felt the weight of it resting on her shoulder. The feverish, damp heat of his forehead against her neck.

She felt the shudder go through him, just one, just enough to tell her how horribly wrong he felt.

‘‘God,’’ she whispered, and gently stroked his hair. It was wet underneath, matted with sweat. ‘‘What did she do to you?’’

He shook his head without raising it from her shoulder. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say it. His chest rose and fell, taking in breaths that felt like gasps but were too deep for that, and after what seemed like a full minute, Shane’s body began to relax, uncoiling from that awful tension.

When he pulled back, she expected to get a look at his expression, but he turned away so fast it was just a blur—wounded dark eyes in a stark, pale mask. He looked down at the chips he was holding, and dropped them on the floor as he walked away.

Claire quickly put them back on the shelf and followed. He kept going, right past the registers. She shelled out cash to the impatient cashier for the hamburger, grabbed the plastic bag, and hurried out into the lamplit darkness after her boyfriend.

He was already unlocking the car and getting in. She was still at least a dozen feet away when he started the car with a roar, and she saw the flare of brake lights as he shifted into gear.

For a heart-stopping second Claire thought he was going to peel out and drive away, leaving her there in the dark, but he waited. She opened the passenger door and got in. Shane didn’t move.

‘‘Are you okay?’’ she asked.

He didn’t so much as look at her.

He put the car in gear and burned rubber on the way out of the lot.

4

Shane went straight to his room, and didn’t come down again for the dinner that Eve made— spaghetti with meat sauce, light on the garlic for the sake of the vampire at the table. It was probably delicious, but Claire couldn’t taste a thing. She couldn’t keep her mind off the white, rigid set of Shane’s face, and the panic and loathing in his eyes. She didn’t understand what had happened, and she knew he didn’t want to be asked. Not now.

‘‘Well?’’ Eve twirled spaghetti around her fork as she stared at Claire. ‘‘How is it?’’

‘‘Oh—fantastic,’’ Claire said, with so much enthusiasm she knew nobody was fooled. She sighed. ‘‘I’m sorry. It’s just—’’

Eve pointed above their heads. ‘‘The dean of the drama department?’’

Michael looked up at her, and for a second Claire saw the blue of his eyes flicker. ‘‘He’s got his reasons,’’ he said. ‘‘Let it go, Eve.’’

‘‘Pardon me, but that boy can make a paper cut seem like a mortal wound. . . .’’

‘‘I said let it go.’’ Michael snapped it this time, and there was unmistakable command in his voice. Eve stopped twirling spaghetti. Stopped doing everything except watching him with narrowed, kohl-rimmed eyes.

‘‘Let’s review,’’ she said, and put the fork carefully down on a napkin. ‘‘You got all diva and decided you were too busy to go to the store. Next, Shane threw a tantrum and stomped up to his room to put on a one-man pity party. And now you’re ordering me around like you own me. Are we under a testosterone storm warning?’’

‘‘Eve.’’

‘‘I’m not finished. You may think that growing a pair of fangs makes you the boss around here, but you’d better check your playlist. You’re on the seriously wrong track.’’

‘‘Eve.’’ Michael leaned forward, and Claire caught her breath. His eyes were all wrong, his movements too fast, and she caught a flash of teeth that were too white, too sharp.

Eve pushed her chair back from the table, picked up her bowl, and walked into the kitchen without a backward glance.

Michael put his head in his hands. ‘‘Christ, what just happened?’’

Claire swallowed. She tasted nothing but metal, as if she’d tried to chew the fork instead of the food. Her whole body felt cold, aching with the need to do . . . something.

She took Michael’s bowl, stacking it with her own. ‘‘I’ll clean up,’’ she said.

Michael’s hand closed around her wrist. She didn’t dare look up at him. At close range, she didn’t want to see the changes in his eyes, the ones Eve had seen so clearly.

‘‘I wouldn’t hurt any of you. You believe me, right?’’

She heard the sudden doubt in his voice.

‘‘Sure,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s just—Michael, I don’t think you really know what you are yet. What’s changing inside you. Eve thinks that showing you our weakness is a bad idea. I don’t think she’s wrong about that.’’

Michael was watching her as if he’d never actually seen her before. As if she’d changed right before his eyes, from a child to an equal.

She swallowed hard. That was a powerful look, and it wasn’t the vampire part of him—it was the Michael part. The part she admired, and loved.

‘‘No,’’ he said softly. ‘‘I don’t think she’s wrong, either.’’ He touched Claire’s cheek gently. ‘‘What happened to Shane?’’

‘‘You don’t think it was just another pity party, like Eve?’’

Michael had never looked so serious, she thought. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘And I think he may need help. But I don’t think he’d take it from me right now.’’

‘‘I’m not sure he’ll take it from me, either,’’ Claire said.

Michael took the plates from her. ‘‘Don’t underestimate yourself.’’

Shane’s room was dark, except for the dim glow that came in from the distant streetlights. Claire eased the door open and, in the stripe of warm hallway light, saw his foot and part of his leg. He was lying on the bed. She shut the door, took a slow, calm breath, and walked to sit down next to him.

He didn’t move. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that his eyes were open. He was staring at the ceiling.

‘‘You want to talk about it?’’ she asked. No answer. He blinked; that was all. ‘‘She got to you, didn’t she? Somehow, she got to you.’’

For a long few seconds, she thought he was just going to lie there and ignore her, but then he said, ‘‘They get inside your head, the really strong ones. They can make you—feel things. Want things you don’t really want. Do things you’d never do. Most of them don’t bother, but the ones that do—they’re the worst.’’

Claire reached out in the darkness, and his hand met hers midway—cool at first, then growing warm where their skin touched.

‘‘I don’t want her, Claire,’’ he said. ‘‘But she made me want her. You understand?’’

‘‘It doesn’t matter.’’

‘‘It does. Because now that she’s done it once, it’s going to be easy for her to do it again.’’ His fingers tightened on hers, hard enough to make her wince. ‘‘Don’t try to stop her. Or me, if it comes to that. I have to handle this myself.’’

‘‘Handle it how?’’

‘‘Any way I can,’’ Shane said. He shifted over on the bed. ‘‘You’re shivering.’’

Was she? She honestly hadn’t realized, but the room felt cold, cold and full of despair. Shane was the only bright thing in it.

She stretched out facing him. Too close, she thought, for her dad’s comfort, if he’d seen them, even though they were only holding hands.

Shane reached down on the other side of the bed, found a blanket, and threw it over both of them. It smelled like—well, like Shane, like his skin and hair, and Claire felt a rush of warmth go through her as she breathed it in. She moved closer to him under the covers, partly to get warm, and partly—partly because she needed to touch him.

He met her halfway, and their bodies pressed together with every curve and hollow. Their intertwined fingers curled in on one another. Even though they were close enough to kiss, they didn’t—it was a kind of intimacy that Claire wasn’t used to, being this close and just . . . being. Shane freed his hand from hers and brushed stray locks of hair back from her eyes. He traced her slightly parted lips.

‘‘You’re beautiful,’’ he said. ‘‘When I first saw you, I thought—I thought you were too young to be on your own here, in this town."

"Not now?"

‘‘You’ve made it through better than most of us. But if I could get you to leave this place, I would.’’ Shane’s smile was dim and crooked and a little broken, in the shadows. ‘‘I want you to live, Claire. I need you to live.’’

Her fingers touched the warm fringe of his hair. ‘‘I’m not worried about me,’’ she said.

‘‘You never are. That’s my point. I worry about you. Not just because of the vampires—because of Jason. He’s still out there somewhere. And—’’ Shane paused for a second, as if he couldn’t quite get the rest of it out. ‘‘And there’s me, too. Your parents might be right. I might not be the best—’’

She moved her fingers to put them over his mouth, over those soft, strong lips. ‘‘I won’t ever stop trusting you, Shane. You can’t make me.’’

A shaky laugh out of the dark. ‘‘My point exactly.’’

‘‘That’s why I’m staying here,’’ Claire said. ‘‘With you. Tonight.’’

Shane took in a deep breath. ‘‘Clothes stay on.’’

‘‘Mostly,’’ she agreed.

‘‘You know, your parents really are right about me.’’

Claire sighed. ‘‘No, they’re not. Nobody knows you at all, I think. Not your dad, not even Michael. You’re a deep, dark mystery, Shane.’’

He kissed her for the first time since she’d entered the room, a warm press of lips to her forehead. ‘‘I’m an open book.’’

She smiled. ‘‘I like books.’’

‘‘Hey, we’ve got something in common.’’

‘‘I’m taking off my shoes.’’

‘‘Fine. Shoes off.’’

‘‘And my pants.’’

‘‘Don’t push it, Claire.’’

Claire woke up drowsy and utterly peaceful, and it took a slow second for her to realize that the heavenly warmth at her back was radiating from someone else, in the bed, with her.

From Shane.

She stopped breathing. Was he awake? No, she didn’t think so; she could feel his slow, steady breaths. There was a delicious, forbidden delight to this, a moment that she knew she’d carry with her even when it was gone. Claire closed her eyes and tried to remember everything—like the way Shane’s bare chest touched her back, warm and smooth where their skin connected. She’d negotiated for the removal of shirts, since she’d been wearing a sleeveless camisole underneath, and Shane had wavered enough to let it go. He’d insisted on keeping the pants, though.

She hadn’t mentioned that she’d gotten rid of the bra, though she knew he’d noticed that right off.

Dangerous, some part of her said. You’re going to take this too far. You’re not ready—Why not? Why wasn’t she? Because she wasn’t seventeen? What was so magic about a number, anyway? Who decided when she was ready except her?

Shane made a sound in his sleep—a deep, contented sigh that vibrated through her whole body. I’ll bet if I turn around and kiss him, I could convince him. . . .

Shane’s hand was resting on the inward curve just above her hip, a warm loose weight, and that was how she knew when he woke up—his hand. It went from utterly limp to careful, tensing and relaxing but not moving from its spot.

She could feel each individual finger on her skin.

She stayed very still, keeping her breathing slow and steady. Shane’s hand slowly, gently moved up her side, barely skimming, and then he moved away from her and sat up, facing away toward the window. Claire rolled toward him, holding the blanket at neck level.

‘‘Good morning,’’ she said. Her voice sounded drowsy and slow, and she saw a slice of his face as he turned slightly toward her. Sunlight glimmered warm on his bare skin, like he’d been dusted in gold.

‘‘Good morning,’’ he said, and shook his head. ‘‘Man. That was stupid.’’

Not at all what she was thinking. Shane got up, and she gulped at the way his blue jeans rode low on his hips, the way his bones and muscles curved together and begged to be touched—

‘‘Bathroom,’’ he blurted, and moved almost as fast as a vampire getting out of there. Claire sat up, waiting, but when he didn’t come back, she slowly began to assemble her clothes again. Bra, clicked back into place. Camisole neat and demure, if wrinkled. She’d kept her jeans on. Her hair looked like she’d combed it with a blender—she was still messing with it when she heard Eve’s trademark heavy shoes clopping down the hallway outside, passing Shane’s door, going all the way to the end.

To Claire’s own room.

Oh, damn.

Eve hammered on the door. ‘‘Claire?’’

Claire slipped out of Shane’s room quietly, trying not to look obvious about it, and made sure she was several steps into neutral territory before she said, ‘‘What is it?’’

Eve, who’d opened up Claire’s door and was looking inside, whirled so fast she almost overbalanced. She was ultra-Goth today—deep purple dress with skull patterns, black-and-white striped tights, a death’s-head choker. Her hair was up in one scary-looking spiked ponytail, and her makeup was the usual rice paper and dead black, with the addition of dark cherry lipstick.

‘‘Where’d you come from?’’ she asked. Claire gestured vaguely toward the staircase. ‘‘I just came from there.’’

‘‘Bathroom,’’ Claire said. And got a frown, but Eve let it go.

‘‘It’s Michael,’’ she said. ‘‘He’s gone.’’

‘‘Gone to work?’’

‘‘No, gone. As in, he took off in the middle of the night and didn’t tell me where he was going, and he hasn’t come back. I checked—he’s not at the music store. I’m worried, especially—’’ Eve’s train of thought switched tracks, and her eyes widened. ‘‘Oh my God, are you wearing the same thing you had on yesterday? You’re not doing the walk of shame, are you? Because I totally cannot face your parents if you are.’’

‘‘No, no, it’s not like that—’’ Claire felt a hot blush work its way up from her neck to vividly light up her face. ‘‘I just—we were talking, and we fell asleep. I swear, we didn’t, um—’’

‘‘Yeah, you’d better not have ummed, because if you did, that would be—’’ Eve struggled not to smile. ‘‘That would be bad.’’

‘‘I know, I know. But we didn’t. And we aren’t going to until—’’ Until I can convince him it’s okay. ‘‘Whatever. About Michael—what do you want to do?’’

‘‘Go ask some questions. Common Grounds is a place to start, much as I hate it; Sam’s probably there, or we can leave a message for him. I heard he’s back out in public again.’’ Sam was Michael’s grandfather— and a vampire. He’d nearly been staked dead, and it had taken Amelie’s help to save him. But he’d been left weak. Claire was glad to hear that he was better— Sam was, she felt, one of the best of the vampires. One she could trust. ‘‘Well? Are we going or what?’’

Shane still hadn’t come out of the bathroom. ‘‘Five minutes,’’ Claire said, resigned. No chance of a hot shower, or even clean clothes—the best she had available were cleanish, and not slept in. She might be able to find that last-picked pair of underwear hiding in a drawer. . . .

There was a knock downstairs at the front door. An authoritative, urgent sort of knock. It was still early, and the number of drop-in visitors in Morganville was generally pretty small anyway; Claire dragged the least wrinkled of the two T-shirts over her head, pulled on the fresh underwear and old jeans, and hurried out into the hall still zipping up. Eve was ahead of her, already going down the stairs, and as Claire passed the bathroom, Shane opened the door and stuck his wet head out. ‘‘What’s going on?’’

‘‘Don’t know!’’ she shot back, and hurried after Eve.

What was going on was the delivery of an envelope, which Eve had to sign for. As she turned it over, Claire made out the name, neatly written in an antiquely beautiful hand: Mr. Shane Collins. There was even a decorative little flourish underneath his name. The envelope was heavy cream-colored paper. On the back flap there was a gold seal with some kind of shield on it.

Eve lifted it to her nose, sniffed, and raised her eyebrows. ‘‘Wow,’’ she said. ‘‘Expensive perfume.’’

She waved it in Claire’s direction, and she caught a hint of the dark, musky fragrance—full of promise and danger.

Shane padded downstairs, barefoot and wearing only his jeans except for the towel draped around his neck. He slowed as they both turned toward him. ‘‘What?’’

Eve held up the envelope. ‘‘Mr. Shane Collins.’’

He took it from her fingers, frowned at it, and then ripped open the back flap. Inside was a folded card of the same expensive cream paper, with raised black printing. Shane looked at it for a long second, then put it back in the envelope and handed it back to Eve. ‘‘Burn it,’’ he said.

And then he went upstairs.

Eve lost no time digging the card out, and since she did, Claire didn’t feel too guilty about reading over her shoulder.

You have been summoned to attend a masked ball and feast to celebrate the arrival of Elder Bishop, on Saturday the twentieth of October, at the Elders’ Council Hall at the hour of midnight.

You will attend at the invitation of the lady Ysandre, and are required to accompany her at her pleasure.

‘‘Who’s Ysandre?’’ Eve asked.

Claire was too busy worrying about the phrase at her pleasure.

They located Sam Glass at Common Grounds, sitting and talking with two others Claire didn’t recognize, but Eve clearly did, from the nods they exchanged. Humans, because they were wearing bracelets. They said their good-byes and cleared the chairs for Eve and Claire.

Sam looked a lot like Michael—a little older, maybe, with a slightly wider chin. He had red hair to Michael’s bright gold, but a similar build and height.

That had nearly gotten him killed, not so long ago, when he’d taken a stake meant for Michael. He still looked drawn, Claire thought—tired, too. But his smile was genuine as he nodded his greeting. ‘‘Ladies, ’’ he said. ‘‘It’s good to see you. Eve, I didn’t think you’d ever come in here again, not voluntarily. ’’

‘‘Believe me, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t,’’ she said, and tapped dark purple fingernails on the scarred table in agitation. ‘‘Do you know where Michael is?’’

Sam’s ginger eyebrows rose. ‘‘He’s not at work?’’

‘‘He left last night, didn’t say where he was going. We haven’t seen him, and he’s not at work. So? Ideas?’’

‘‘Nothing good,’’ Sam said, and sat back in his chair. ‘‘Does he have his car?’’

‘‘Yeah, as far as I know. Why?’’

‘‘GPS. All of our cars are trackable.’’

‘‘Wow, good to know in case I ever go into the grand-theft-auto business around here,’’ Eve said. ‘‘Who’s got the supersecret-spy tracking gear, and how do I get my hands on it?’’

‘‘You don’t,’’ Sam said. ‘‘I’ll take care of it.’’

‘‘Soon?’’

‘‘As soon as I can.’’

‘‘But I need to find him! What if he’s—’’ Eve leaned even closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. ‘‘What if someone has him?’’

‘‘Who?’’

‘‘Bishop!’’

Sam’s eyes widened, and all over the coffee shop, other heads snapped up. Mostly vampires, Claire thought, who knew the name, or at least knew of it. And who could hear a whisper across a crowded room.

‘‘Quiet,’’ Sam said. ‘‘Eve, stay out of it. It’s nothing for any of you to get involved in. It’s our business.’’

‘‘It’s our business, too. The guy was in our house. He threatened us, all of us,’’ Eve said. ‘‘Can’t you find out right now? Because otherwise I’m going to call up Homeland Security and tell them that we’ve got a whole bunch of terrorists skulking around in the dark.’’

‘‘You wouldn’t.’’

‘‘Oh, I so would. With glee. And I’d tell them to bring tanning beds and conduct interviews at noon out in the parking lot.’’

Sam shook his head. ‘‘Eve—’’

Eve slammed her hand down on the table. It sounded like a gunshot, and every head turned in their direction. ‘‘I’m not kidding, Sam!’’

‘‘Yes, you are,’’ he said, deliberately quiet. ‘‘Because if you were serious, you would be making a threat against people who control the destiny of your next heartbeat, and that would be very, very stupid. Now, say you’ll let me handle this.’’

Eve’s dark eyes didn’t blink. ‘‘Is this about Bishop? Why is he here? What’s he doing? Why are you so scared of him?’’

Sam stood up, and there was something remote and cold about him just then. Something that reminded Claire, very strongly, that he was a vampire first.

‘‘Go home,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll find Michael. I doubt he’s in any trouble, and I doubt it has anything to do with Bishop.’’

Eve stood up, too, and for the first time, Claire saw her as an adult—a woman, facing him on equal terms.

‘‘You’d better be right,’’ she said softly. ‘‘Because if anything happens to Michael, that won’t be the end of it. I swear to that.’’

Sam watched them all the way out of the coffee shop. So did everyone else. Some of them looked worried; some looked gleeful. Some looked angry.

But nobody ignored the two of them as they left. Nobody. And that was . . . unsettling.

They got in the car, and Eve started it up without a word. Claire finally ventured a question. ‘‘Where are we going?’’

‘‘Home,’’ Eve said. ‘‘I’m giving Sam a chance to keep his word.’’

That, Claire thought, was going to involve Eve chewing the corners off the walls and pacing holes in the floor. And Claire had absolutely no idea what to do to help her.

But that was basically what friends were for . . . to be there to keep you from doing the crazy.

They’d been home for exactly one hour when the phone rang. Shane was sitting next to the phone— he’d appropriated the place, because he was worried Eve would keep picking up the receiver to check the line—and answered on the first chime. ‘‘Glass House,’’ he said, and listened. Claire watched every muscle in his body go tense and still. ‘‘Go screw yourself.’’

And he hung up.

Claire and Eve both gaped at him. ‘‘What the hell—?’’ Eve blurted, and lunged for the phone. She flicked the contact switch.

‘‘Star sixty-nine,’’ Claire suggested. ‘‘Shane—who was it?’’

He didn’t answer. He crossed his arms over his chest. Eve frantically punched in the code. ‘‘It’s ringing, ’’ she said—and then, like Shane, she went still.

She sank down in a chair.

‘‘Should’ve left it alone,’’ Shane said.

Eve closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. ‘‘Yeah, I’m here,’’ she said tightly. ‘‘What is it, Jason?’’

Claire caught Shane’s look, and she must have seemed suspiciously in the know, because he frowned at her. ‘‘Have you seen him?’’ Shane asked.

Truth, or lie? ‘‘Yes,’’ Claire said, even though that definitely wasn’t the path of least resistance. ‘‘I saw him yesterday morning on the way to school. He said he wanted to talk to Eve.’’

Oh, that look. It could have melted steel. ‘‘And you forgot about chatting with the local serial killer? Sweet, Claire. Very smart.’’

‘‘I didn’t forget. I—never mind.’’ There was no explaining the vibe she had gotten from Jason, not to Shane, whose most vivid memories of the little creep had to do with Jason sinking a knife into his guts. ‘‘I’m sorry. I should have told you.’’

Eve made a shushing motion at them and hunched over the phone, listening hard. ‘‘He said what? You’re not serious. You can’t be serious.’’

Apparently, he was. Eve listened another few seconds, and then said, ‘‘Okay, then. No, I don’t know. Maybe. Bye.’’

She put the phone back in the cradle and stared at it. Her face looked frozen.

‘‘Eve?’’ Claire asked. ‘‘What is it?’’

‘‘My dad,’’ Eve said. ‘‘He’s—he’s sick. He’s in the hospital. They don’t think—they don’t think he’s going to make it. It’s his liver.’’

‘‘Oh,’’ Claire whispered, and leaned across the table to take Eve’s right hand. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

Eve’s fingers were cool and limp. ‘‘Yeah, well—he asked for it, you know? My dad was an ugly drunk, and he—me and Jason didn’t exactly have the greatest childhood.’’ She locked gazes with Shane. ‘‘You know.’’

He nodded. He took her left hand and stared at the table. ‘‘Our dads were drinking buddies sometimes,’’ he said. ‘‘But Eve’s was worse. Lots worse.’’

Claire, having met Shane’s dad, couldn’t really imagine that. ‘‘How long—?’’

‘‘Jason said a couple of days, maybe. Not long.’’ Eve’s eyes filled with tears that didn’t fall. ‘‘Son of a bitch. What does he expect from me, anyway? To come running and sit there and watch him die?’’

Shane didn’t answer. He didn’t lift his head. He just . . . sat. Claire had no idea what to do, how to act, so she followed his example. Eve’s hands suddenly closed on theirs, hard.

‘‘He threw me out,’’ she said. ‘‘He told me that if I didn’t let Brandon fang me, I couldn’t be his daughter. Well, so he’s dying, boohoo. I don’t care.’’

Yes, you do, Claire wanted to say, but she couldn’t. Eve was trying to convince herself, that was all, and in about thirty seconds she shook her head, and the tears broke free to run in dirty streaks down her pale face.

‘‘I’ll take you,’’ Shane said quietly. ‘‘That way, you don’t have to stay unless you want to.’’

Eve nodded. She couldn’t seem to get her breath. ‘‘I wish—Michael—’’

Claire remembered, with a shock, that they were still waiting for Sam’s call. ‘‘I’ll stay,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ll call you when I hear from Sam. I’ll get Michael to come there, okay?’’

‘‘Okay,’’ Eve said weakly. ‘‘I—need my purse, I guess.’’

She swiped at her eyes and walked into the other room. Shane looked at Claire, and she wondered what all this was bringing up for him—memories of his father, of his dead mother and sister, of a family he didn’t really even have anymore.

You’re a deep, dark mystery, she’d said to him, and now, more than ever, that was true.

‘‘Take care of her,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Call me if you need anything.’’

He kissed her on the lips, and in a few minutes she heard the front door bang shut. Locks clicked. Claire sat by the phone and waited.

She’d rarely felt so alone.

The phone rang after ten minutes. ‘‘He’s coming home,’’ Sam said, and hung up. No explanation.

Claire gritted her teeth and settled in to wait.

It took another twenty minutes for Michael’s car to pull into the driveway. He crossed the short distance from garage to back door in a few fast strides, covering his head with a black umbrella he left by the steps. Even then, when he entered the kitchen, Claire smelled a faint burned reek coming from him, and he was shivering.

His eyes looked hollow and exhausted.

‘‘Michael? You okay?’’

‘‘Fine,’’ he said. ‘‘I need to rest, that’s all.’’

‘‘I—where were you? What happened?’’

‘‘I was with Amelie.’’ He scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘‘Look, there’s a lot going on. I should have left a note for you guys. I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep you in the loop next time—’’

‘‘Eve’s at the hospital,’’ Claire blurted. ‘‘Her dad’s dying.’’

Michael slowly straightened. ‘‘What?’’

‘‘Something about his liver, I guess because of his drinking. Anyway, they say he’s dying. She and Shane went to see him.’’ Claire studied him for a few seconds. ‘‘I told her I’d call when you got home. If you don’t want to go—’’

‘‘No. No, I’ll go. She needs—’’ He shrugged. ‘‘She needs people who love her. It’s going to be hard, facing her parents.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Claire agreed. ‘‘She seemed upset.’’ Of course she was upset. What a stupid thing to say. ‘‘I think she’d like it if you were there for her.’’

‘‘I will be.’’ Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘‘What about you? You okay to stay here?’’

Claire glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘‘Could you drop me off somewhere?’’

‘‘Where?’’

‘‘I need to see Myrnin. Sorry, but I promised.’’

Not that visiting her crazy vampire mentor was going to be any more pleasant than going to the hospital.

5

Someone had done a makeover on Myrnin’s cell, and it wasn’t Claire; she’d thought about it, but she hadn’t been sure about what Amelie would allow him to have.

So when she stepped through the doorway from the laboratory to the cells, where the sickest and most disturbed vampires of Morganville were warehoused, she was surprised to see the glow of electric light coming from the end . . . from Myrnin’s cell. As she got closer, she noted other things. Music. Something classical was playing softly, from a stereo set up outside the bars. There was a television, as well, currently turned off.

Myrnin’s cell, which had been as bare as a monk’s in the beginning, was floored with a plush, expensive-looking Turkish rug. His narrow cot had been replaced with a much more comfortable bed. There were books stacked waist-high in the corners of the cell.

Myrnin was lying on the bed, hands folded across his stomach. He looked young—as young as Michael, really—but there was something indefinably old about him, too. Long, curling black hair, a sense of style far out-of-date. He was dressed in a blue silk dressing gown with dragons on it—neat and clean.

Someone had been here before her to take care of him. She felt guilty.

His eyes didn’t open, but he said, ‘‘Hello, Claire.’’

‘‘Hi.’’ She hung back, watching him. He seemed calm enough, but Myrnin wasn’t all that predictable. ‘‘How are you?’’

‘‘Bored,’’ he said, and laughed. ‘‘Bored, bored, bored. I had no idea a cell could be such a prison.’’

His eyes opened, and his pupils were huge. There was a fey look in his eyes that made the skin along her backbone shiver and tighten.

‘‘Did you bring me anything to eat?’’ he asked. ‘‘Someone juicy?’’

He was definitely not right. She hated it when he got this way—cruel and lazy, willing to say or do anything. It was as if the Myrnin she liked had just . . . disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the dark shell.

Myrnin slithered off his bed, boneless and silent as a reptile. He took hold of the bars in his white, strong fingers and fixed his black-hole eyes on her face.

‘‘Sweet, sweet Claire,’’ he murmured. ‘‘So brave, to come here. Come on, Claire. Come closer. You’ll have to if you want to help.’’

He smiled, and even though he wasn’t showing vampire teeth, she felt the predator’s breath on the back of her neck.

‘‘I have some new medicine,’’ she said, and set her backpack down. She unzipped it and took out the bottle with the crystals—a plastic bottle, thankfully, so she could throw it without fear of breakage. She tossed it underhand through the bars of the cage. It skidded to a stop against Myrnin’s pale feet. ‘‘I need you to take it, Myrnin.’’

He didn’t even bend down for it. ‘‘I don’t think I like your tone,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t order me, slave. I order you.’’

‘‘I’m not your slave.’’

‘‘You’re property.’’

Claire opened up her backpack, took out the dart gun that Dr. Mills had given her, and shot him.

Myrnin staggered back, staring down at his stomach, and brushed his fingers over the yellow bristle of a hypodermic dart. ‘‘You little bitch,’’ he said, and sat down heavily on the bed.

His eyes rolled back as the drug delivered itself into his bloodstream, and he slumped back flat on the mattress.

‘‘I may be a bitch, but I’m not your property,’’ Claire said. She didn’t move from where she stood as she loaded a second dart, just in case. She watched his body as his muscles twitched and contracted, then relaxed. ‘‘Myrnin?’’

His eyes blinked, and she saw the pupils begin to shrink down to normal-sized black dots. ‘‘Claire?’’ He reached down and pulled the dart from his stomach. ‘‘Ouch.’’ He examined the dart curiously, then laid it carefully aside. ‘‘That was interesting.’’

Well, he sounded saner, anyway. ‘‘How are you feeling?’’

‘‘Sore?’’ He brushed his fingers over the healing puncture wound. ‘‘Ashamed?’’ His dark gaze lifted to brush across hers. ‘‘I have the feeling I’ve been—unpleasant.’’

‘‘I wouldn’t know,’’ Claire said. ‘‘I just got here. Hey, who brought you all the stuff?’’

Myrnin glanced around, frowning. ‘‘I—to be honest, I’m not really certain. I think it might have been one of Amelie’s creatures.’’ He didn’t sound at all sure. ‘‘I was cruel to you just now, wasn’t I?’’

‘‘A little,’’ she agreed. ‘‘But then again, I did shoot you.’’

‘‘Ah, yes. By the way, is there any particular reason you shot me in the stomach rather than the chest?’’

‘‘Less bone,’’ she said. ‘‘And my hands were shaking. How are you now?’’

He sighed and sat up. ‘‘Better,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t trust me, though. We don’t know how long this will last, do we?’’

‘‘No.’’ Claire put the gun away, and came closer to the bars. Not close enough to grab, though.

‘‘That’s a new formulation? In liquid?’’

She nodded. ‘‘It’s stronger, but I’m not sure it will last as long. Your body may break it down faster, so we have to be careful.’’

‘‘Start the clock,’’ he said. He looked down at himself and laughed softly. ‘‘My dark side dresses better than I do.’’ He stood up and reached for clothes folded neatly on a table to the side as he loosened the tie on his robe. He hesitated, smiled, and raised his eyebrows. ‘‘If you don’t mind, Claire . . . ?’’

‘‘Oh. Sorry.’’ Claire turned her back. She didn’t like turning her back on him, even with the cell door locked. He was better behaved when he knew she was watching. She focused on the faint, distorted image of his reflection on the TV screen as he shed the dressing gown and began to pull on his clothing. She couldn’t see much, except that he was very pale all over. Once she was sure his pants were up, she glanced behind her. He had his back to her, and she couldn’t help but compare him with the only other man she’d really studied half-naked. Shane was broad, strong, solid. Myrnin looked fragile, but his muscles moved like cables under that pale skin—far stronger than Shane’s, she knew.

Myrnin turned as he buttoned his shirt. ‘‘It’s been a while since a pretty girl looked at me with such interest,’’ he said. She looked away, feeling the blush work its heat up through her neck and onto her cheeks. ‘‘It’s all right, Claire. I’m not offended.’’

She cleared her throat. ‘‘Any side effects from the new mixture?’’

‘‘I feel warm,’’ he said, and smiled. ‘‘How pleasant.’’

‘‘Too warm?’’

‘‘I have no idea. It’s been so long since I felt anything like it, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference. ’’ He looped his hands loosely around the bars. ‘‘How long are you going to wait?’’

‘‘The first time, we wait until the effects start to fade, so we can have a good baseline and we’ll know how long it’ll allow you to be out. Safely.’’

‘‘And you’ll keep your dart pistol ready at all times, yes?’’ He leaned casually against the bars, elegant and relaxed. There was still a faint glow in his eyes, just a little unsettling. ‘‘What shall we talk about, then? How are your studies, Claire?’’

She shrugged. ‘‘You know.’’

‘‘They’re still too simple, I would expect.’’

‘‘See? You do know.’’ Claire hesitated. ‘‘We have visitors in town.’’

‘‘Visitors?’’ Myrnin didn’t seem overly interested. ‘‘Is it homecoming already? Why on earth Amelie tolerates these human traditions, I’ll simply never understand—’’

‘‘Vampire visitors,’’ she said. That got his full attention.

For a frozen second, he didn’t speak, only stared, and then he said, low in his throat, ‘‘In the name of God, who?’’ His fingers tightened on the bars, squeezing so tightly she was afraid his bones might snap. Or the steel. ‘‘Who?’’

She hadn’t expected that reaction. ‘‘His name is Bishop,’’ she said. ‘‘He says he’s Amelie’s father—’’

Myrnin’s face went as still and pale as a plaster mask. ‘‘Bishop,’’ he repeated. ‘‘Bishop’s—here. No. It can’t be.’’ He took in a deliberate breath—one he didn’t need—and let it slowly out. His hands relaxed on the bars. ‘‘You said visitors. Plural.’’

‘‘He brought two people with him. Ysandre and François.’’

Myrnin said something soft and vicious under his breath. ‘‘I know them both. What’s happened since his arrival? What does Amelie say?’’

‘‘She said we should stay out of it. So do Sam and Oliver, for that matter.’’

‘‘Has she made any public announcements? Is she planning any public events?’’

‘‘Shane got an invitation,’’ she said. ‘‘To some kind of ball. He—it says he has to go as Ysandre’s escort.’’

‘‘Jesu,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘She’s doing it. She’s acknowledging his status with a welcome feast.’’

‘‘What does that mean?’’

Myrnin suddenly rattled the bars. ‘‘Let me out. Now.’’

Claire swallowed. ‘‘I—can’t, I’m sorry. You know how this works. The first time we test a new formulation you have to stay—’’

‘‘Now,’’ he snarled, and his eyes took on that terrifying vampire sheen. ‘‘You have no idea what’s happening out there, Claire! We can’t afford to be cautious.’’

‘‘Then tell me what’s going on! Please! I want to help!’’

Myrnin visibly controlled himself, let go of the bars, and sat down on the bed. ‘‘All right. Sit down. I’ll try to explain.’’

Claire nodded. She pulled over a steel industrial chair—left over from this facility’s use as a prison, she thought—and took a seat herself. ‘‘Tell me about Bishop.’’

‘‘You’ve met him?’’ Claire nodded. ‘‘Then you already know all you need to know. He’s not like the vampires you’ve met here, Claire, not even the worst of us. Amelie and I are modern predators, tigers in the jungle. Bishop is from a far colder, harder time. A Tyrannosaurus rex, if you will.’’

‘‘But he really is Amelie’s father?’’

Myrnin’s turn to nod. ‘‘He was a warlord. A murderer on a scale that you would find it difficult to fathom. I—thought he was dead, many years ago. The fact that he’s come here, now—it’s very bad, Claire. Very bad indeed.’’

‘‘Why? I mean, if he’s Amelie’s father, maybe he just wants to see her—’’

‘‘He’s not here for happy memories,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘In all likelihood, he’s here to have his revenge.’’

‘‘On you?’’

Myrnin slowly shook his head. ‘‘I’m not the one who tried to kill him,’’ he said.

Claire’s breath caught. ‘‘Amelie? Not—she couldn’t. Not her own father.’’

‘‘It’s best you don’t ask any more questions, little one. All you need to know is that he has reason to hate Amelie—reason enough to bring him here and for him to try to destroy everything she has worked for and accomplished.’’

‘‘But—she’s trying to save vampires. To stop the sickness. He has to understand that. He wouldn’t—’’

‘‘You have no idea what he wants, or what he would do.’’ He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the picture of earnestness. ‘‘Bishop comes from a time before there were concepts among vampires of cooperation and self-sacrifice, and he’ll have nothing but contempt for them. As you would say, he’s old-school evil, and all that matters to him is his own power. He won’t tolerate Amelie having her own.’’

‘‘Then what do we do?’’

‘‘First, you let me out of here,’’ he said. ‘‘Amelie is going to need her friends around her.’’

Claire slowly shook her head. The minutes were ticking by, and Myrnin seemed stable, but she had to abide by the rules.

‘‘Claire.’’

She looked up. Myrnin’s face was still and sober, and he seemed utterly in control of himself. This was a Myrnin she rarely saw—not as charming as the manic version, not as terrifying as the angry one. A real, balanced person.

‘‘Don’t let yourself be drawn into this,’’ he said. ‘‘Humans don’t exist for Bishop except as pawns, or food.’’

‘‘I didn’t think we did for too many of you,’’ she said. Myrnin’s eyes widened, and he smiled.

‘‘You do have a point. As a species, we do have an—empathy gap,’’ he replied. ‘‘But at least we’re trying. Bishop and his friends won’t bother.’’

The formula was much, much better than the last one—Myrnin’s stability lasted for nearly four long hours, a score that delighted him almost as much as it did her. But once he’d tired, and begun sliding back into confusion and anger, Claire stopped the clock, made her notes, and checked the massive refrigerator in the center of the prison. She thought it had probably been built as central storage for the kitchens— kitchens that had gotten ripped out long ago—but it had the feeling of a giant, stainless-steel morgue.

Someone had forgotten to restock the supplies of blood inside. Claire made a note as she retrieved supplies for Myrnin, and tossed the blood packs into his cell. She didn’t wait to watch him rip into them.

That always made her sick.

The other vampires were mostly beyond conversation— silent, reduced to basic survival instincts. She loaded up a cart and made the rounds delivering the last of the blood. Some of them had enough control left to nod a silent thanks to her; some only stared with mad, empty eyes, seeing her as just a giant, walking version of the blood bag.

It always gave her the creeps, but she couldn’t stand to see them starve. It was somebody else’s responsibility to feed them and keep the cells clean—but she wasn’t sure that somebody did a very good job.

By the time she was done, it was late afternoon. Claire walked to the shimmering door in the prison wall, concentrated, and formed the portal back to Myrnin’s lab. It was empty. She was tired and upset about what Myrnin had said about Bishop, and considered resetting the portal to take her directly to the Glass House . . . but she didn’t like using it; it took too much out of her. She also didn’t want to explain to the others about why she was stepping out of a blank wall, either.

‘‘Guess I’m walking,’’ she said to the empty lab. She climbed the stairs to the rickety, leaning shack that covered the entrance, and exited into the alley behind Gramma Day’s Founder House. It was another mirror of the Glass House—slightly different trim, different curtains in the windows. Gramma Day had a front-porch swing, and she liked to sit outside with her lemonade and watch people, but she wasn’t out today. The empty swing creaked in the faint, cooling wind.

The sun still felt fierce, although the temperatures were dropping steadily, day by day; Claire was sweating by the time she’d negotiated Morganville’s tortuously twisted avenues and turned onto Lot Street.

The sweat turned icy as she saw the police car parked in front of the house. Claire broke into a run, slammed through the white picket fence, and pounded up the stairs. The door was shut and locked. She fumbled out her keys and let herself in, then followed the sound of voices down the hallway.

Shane was sitting on the couch, wearing what Eve liked to call his Asshole Face. He was staring at Richard Morrell, who was standing in front of him. The contrast was extreme—Shane looked like he’d forgotten he owned a hairbrush, his clothes were rumpled from sitting in a laundry basket for a week, and his whole body language screamed SLACKER.

A whole different person from the one who’d been so quietly concerned about Eve earlier.

Richard Morrell, on the other hand, was a Morganville success story. Neat and sharp in his dark blue police uniform, every crease perfect, every hair at regulation length. The gun on his hip looked just as well cared for.

He and Shane both transferred their stares to Claire. She felt sweaty, disheveled, and panicked. ‘‘What’s happened?’’

‘‘Officer Dick dropped by to remind me I’d missed some appointments,’’ Shane said. He had a flat, dark look in his eyes, the kind he got when he was committed to a fight. ‘‘I was just telling him I’d get around to it.’’

‘‘You’re months behind in donations,’’ Richard said. ‘‘You’re lucky it’s me standing here, not somebody a lot less sympathetic. Look, I know you don’t like this, and you don’t have to. What you do have to do is get your ass up and down to the Donation Center.’’

Shane didn’t move. ‘‘You going to make me, Dick?’’ ‘‘I don’t understand,’’ Claire said. ‘‘What are you talking about?’’

‘‘Shane’s not paying his taxes.’’

‘‘Taxes—’’ It came together suddenly. The blood she’d just tossed into the cells of ravenous, maddened vampires. Oh. ‘‘Blood donations.’’

Shane held up his wrist. His hospital tag, marked with a red cross, was still on. ‘‘Nobody gets to touch me for another two weeks. Sorry.’’

Richard didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. ‘‘No, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t hold up. Your hospital exemption protects you from attack. It doesn’t excuse you from civic duty.’’

‘‘Civic duty,’’ Shane mocked. ‘‘Right. Whatever, man. Tell you what, you delivered your message. Go bust some crime or something. Maybe arrest your sister—she probably deserves it today, if it’s a day that ends in y.’’

‘‘Shane,’’ Claire said, with just a little pleading in her voice. ‘‘Where’s Eve?’’

‘‘At the hospital,’’ Shane said. ‘‘I left her there with Michael. It’s pretty rough on her, but she’s coping. I came back to make sure you were okay.’’

‘‘I am,’’ she said. Not that either of them was listening to her anymore. Richard and Shane had locked stares again, and it was a guy thing. A contest of wills.

‘‘So you’re refusing to accompany me to the Donation Center,’’ Richard said. ‘‘Is that right?’’

‘‘ ’Bout the size of it, Dick.’’

Richard reached behind his back, unhooked the shiny silver handcuffs from the snap on his belt, and held them at his side. Shane still didn’t move.

‘‘Up,’’ Richard said. ‘‘Come on, man, you know how this is going to go. Either you end up in the jailhouse or you spend five minutes with a needle in your arm.’’

‘‘I’m not letting any vamp eat me, not even by remote control.’’

‘‘Not even Michael?’’ Richard asked. ‘‘Because when supplies run low, the younger the vampire, the lower he is in the priority list. Michael’s the last one in Morganville to get blood. So you’re doing nothing but hurting your own, man.’’

Shane’s fists clenched, trembled, relaxed. He glanced at Claire, and she saw the mixture of rage and shame in his eyes. He hated this, she knew. Hated the vampires, and wanted to hate Michael but couldn’t.

‘‘Please,’’ she whispered. ‘‘Shane, just do it. I’ll go, too.’’

‘‘You don’t have to,’’ Richard said. ‘‘College students are exempt.’’

‘‘But I can volunteer, right?’’

He shrugged. ‘‘No idea.’’

Claire turned to Shane. ‘‘Then we’ll both go.’’

‘‘The hell we will.’’ Shane folded his arms. ‘‘Go on, handcuff me. I’ll bet you’re dying to use that shiny new Taser.’’

Claire dropped her backpack, crossed to him, and got in his face. ‘‘Stop,’’ she hissed. ‘‘We don’t have time for this, and I don’t need you in jail right now, okay?’’

He stared right into her eyes, for so long that she was afraid he was going to tell her to mind her own business—but then he sighed and nodded. She stepped away as he stood and held out his wrists to Richard Morrell.

‘‘Guess you’ve got me, Officer,’’ he said. ‘‘Be gentle.’’

‘‘Shut up, Shane. Don’t make this harder than it is.’’

Claire trailed along behind, uncertain what she ought to be doing; Richard didn’t seem interested in her at all. He used the radio clipped to his shoulder to make some kind of police call on the way down the hall, in code. She wasn’t sure she liked that. Morganville wasn’t big enough to need codes, unless it was something really nasty.

As she stopped to lock the front door behind them, a big, shiny black RV rounded the corner—so sleek it looked almost predatory. It had a red cross painted on the nose, and on the side, below its blind, dark-tinted windows, red letters spelled out MORGANVILLE BLOODMOBILE. In cursive script below that, it said, No appointment necessary.

Shane stopped moving. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not doing that.’’

Richard used leverage to get him going again at a stumble down the steps. ‘‘It’s this or the Donation Center. Those are your choices, you know that. I was trying to make it easier.’’

Claire swallowed hard and hurried down the steps. She got in front of Shane, blocking his path, and met his eyes. He was furious, and scared, and something else, something she couldn’t really understand.

‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘People get in that damn thing and don’t come out,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘I’m not doing it. They strap you down, Claire. They strap you down and nobody can see inside.’’

She felt a little ill herself at the mental image. Richard Morrell’s face was carefully blank. ‘‘Sir?’’

He didn’t much care for her asking him; she could tell. ‘‘I can’t give you an opinion, but one way or another, he has to do this.’’

‘‘What if you drive us both to the Donation Center instead?’’

Richard thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. He unhooked the radio from his shoulder again, muttered some quiet words, and the engine on the Bloodmobile started up with a smooth hum.

It glided away like a shark, looking for prey. All of them watched it go.

‘‘Crap, I hate that thing,’’ Shane said. His voice trembled a little.

‘‘Me, too,’’ said Richard, to Claire’s surprise. ‘‘Now get in the car.’’

6

The Donation Center was still open, even though it was getting dark. As Richard pulled his police cruiser to the curb, two people Claire vaguely recognized came out, waved to each other, and set off in separate directions. ‘‘Does everybody come here?’’ she asked.

‘‘Everybody who doesn’t use the Bloodmobile,’’ Richard answered. ‘‘Every human who’s Protected has to donate a certain number of pints per year. Donations go to their Patron first. The rest goes to whoever needs it. Vampires who don’t have anyone to donate for them.’’

‘‘Like Michael,’’ Claire said.

‘‘Yeah, he’s our most recent charity project.’’ Richard got out and opened the back door for her and Shane. She slid out. Shane, after a hesitation long enough to make her worry, followed. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stared up at the glowing red cross sign above the door. The Donation Center didn’t look exactly inviting, but it was far less terrifying than the Bloodmobile. For one thing, there were bright windows that offered a clear view of a clean, big room. Framed posters on the wall—the same kind you could find in any town, Claire thought—listed the virtues of giving blood.

‘‘Does any of it get to other humans?’’ she asked as Richard held the door open for Shane. He shrugged.

‘‘Ask your boyfriend,’’ he said. ‘‘They used quite a few units on him after his stabbing, as I remember. Of course it gets used for humans. It’s our town, too.’’

‘‘You’re dreaming if you really think that,’’ Shane said, and stepped inside. As Claire followed, she felt a definite change of atmosphere—not just the air, which was cool and dry, but something else. A feeling, barely contained, of desperation. It reminded her of the way hospital waiting areas felt—industrial, impersonal, soaked with large and small fears. But it was still clean, well lit, and full of comfortable chairs.

Nothing at all scary about the place. Not even the motherly-looking older lady sitting behind the wooden desk at the front, who gave them all the same bright, welcoming smile.

‘‘Well, Officer Morrell, it’s nice to see you!’’

He nodded to the lady. ‘‘Rose. Got a truant for you here.’’

‘‘So I see. Shane Collins, isn’t it? Oh, dear, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. Tragedy has come to your door too often.’’ She was still smiling, but it was muted. Respectful. ‘‘Can I put you down for two pints today? To make up some of what you’re behind?’’

Shane nodded. His jaw was clenched, his eyes brilliant and narrowed. He was fighting for control, Claire thought. She slipped her fingers in his where they were handcuffed behind his back.

‘‘You remember me, don’t you?’’ Rose continued. ‘‘I knew your mother. We used to play bridge together.’’

‘‘I remember,’’ Shane choked out. Nothing else. Richard raised his eyebrows, got a mirrored look from Rose, and tugged on Shane’s elbow to lead him away to one of the empty chairs. They were all empty, Claire noticed. She’d seen a couple of people leaving the building, but nobody coming inside.

One thing about the Donation Center, they were better than most medical places about keeping their magazines up-to-date. Claire found a brand-new edition of Seventeen and began reading. Shane sat stiffly, in silence, and watched the single wooden door at the end of the room. Richard Morrell chatted with Rose at the desk, looking relaxed and friendly. Claire wondered if he came here to donate his blood, or if he used the Bloodmobile. She supposed that whatever he chose, the vampires wouldn’t be crazy enough to hurt him—son of the mayor, respected police officer. No, Richard Morrell was probably safer than just about anybody in Morganville, Protected or not.

Easy for him to be relaxed.

The door at the end of the room opened, and a nurse stepped through it. She was dressed in bright floral surgical scrubs, complete to the cap over her hair, and like Rose, she had a nice, unthreatening smile. ‘‘Shane Collins?’’

Shane took in a deep breath and struggled up out of his chair. Richard turned him around and unfastened the handcuffs. ‘‘Good behavior, Shane,’’ he said. ‘‘Trust me, you don’t want to start trouble here.’’

Shane nodded stiffly. He glanced at Claire, then fixed his attention on the nurse who was waiting. He walked toward her with slow, deliberate calm.

‘‘Can I go with him?’’ Claire asked, and Richard looked at her in surprise.

‘‘Claire, they’re not going to hurt him. It’s just like blood donation anywhere else. They stick a needle in your arm and give you a squeezy ball. Orange juice and cookies at the end.’’

‘‘So I can donate?’’

He looked to Rose for help.

‘‘How old are you, child?’’

‘‘I’m not a child. I’m almost seventeen.’’

‘‘There’s no legal requirement for anyone under the age of eighteen to donate blood,’’ Rose said.

‘‘But is there a law against it?’’

She blinked, started to answer, and stopped herself. She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a small book that was titled Morganville Blood Donations: Regulations and Requirements. After flipping a few pages, she shrugged and looked at Richard. ‘‘I don’t think there is,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve just never had anyone donate voluntarily at the Donation Center. Oh, we take the Bloodmobile to the university from time to time, but—’’

‘‘Great,’’ Claire interrupted. ‘‘I’d like to donate a pint, please.’’

Rose immediately became all business.

‘‘Forms,’’ she said, and thumped down a clipboard and pen.

To say that Shane was surprised to see her was an understatement.

To say he was pleased would have been a lie.

As she took the couch next to his, Shane hissed, ‘‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy?’’

‘‘I’m donating blood,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t have to, but I don’t mind.’’ At least, she didn’t think she minded. She’d never actually done it before, and the sight of the red tube snaking out of Shane’s arm and down to the collection bag was a little bit terrifying. ‘‘It doesn’t hurt, right?’’

‘‘Dude, they’re sticking a big-ass needle in your vein—of course it hurts.’’ He looked pale, and she didn’t think it was all from the fact that he was on his second pint. ‘‘You can still say no. Just get up and tell them you changed your mind.’’

The same friendly-looking nurse who’d called Shane to the back rolled up a wheeled stool and a cart. ‘‘He’s right,’’ she said. ‘‘If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I saw your paperwork. You’re a little young.’’ The nurse’s bright brown eyes focused beyond her, to Shane, and then back again. ‘‘Doing it for moral support?’’

‘‘Kind of,’’ Claire admitted. Her fingers felt ice-cold, and she shivered as the nurse took her hand. ‘‘I’ve never done this before.’’

‘‘You’re in luck. I have. Now, I’m going to stick your finger and run a quick test, and then we’ll get started. Okay?’’

Claire nodded. Lying on the couch seemed to have effectively sapped away her will to move. The finger stick came as a sharp, bright flash, there and gone, and Claire lifted her head from the pillow to see the nurse using a tiny glass pipette to gather blood from her fingertip. It was about five seconds, and then the stick was bandaged up. The nurse did some things with items on her cart, nodded in satisfaction, and smiled at Claire. "O negative,’’ she said. ‘‘Excellent.’’

Claire gave her a weak thumbs-up. The nurse took her arm and fastened the rubber tourniquet above the elbow. ‘‘Talk to your boyfriend,’’ she advised. ‘‘Don’t watch.’’

Claire turned her head. Shane was staring at her with dark, intense eyes. He smiled slightly, just enough, and she returned it.

‘‘So,’’ she asked, ‘‘come here often?’’

He laughed quietly. She felt something hot slip into her arm, a jolt that faded to discomfort, and then tape being applied. A ball was pressed into her hand, and the tight pressure of the tourniquet snapped loose. ‘‘Squeeze,’’ the nurse said. ‘‘You’re good to go.’’

Surprised, Claire glanced down. She had a thing in her arm, and a tube, and there was red running through it. . . .

Her head fell back against the pillow, and she couldn’t hear for the dark buzzing inside her skull. She thought someone was calling her name, but for the moment that didn’t seem very important. She tried to breathe, slowly and steadily, and after what seemed like hours, the buzzing faded, and the world took on edges and bright colors again. There was a poster on the ceiling overhead, one of a kitten sitting in a tea-cup, looking adorable. She fixed on it and tried not to think about the blood that was draining out of her. This is what it’s like, she couldn’t help but realize. This must be what Michael felt when Oliver was draining his blood. This is what all those people feel when the vampires kill them.

It was only a little piece of death, hardly enough to matter.

The nurse slipped a warm blanket over her, smiled down, and said, ‘‘It’s okay. You’re not the first to pass out. That’s why the seats recline, honey.’’

Claire hadn’t passed out, not really, but she wasn’t feeling her best, either. The nurse rolled her cart and stool around to Shane.

‘‘Done,’’ she announced, and Claire tried to turn her head that way, but she didn’t want to see the needle coming out any more than she’d wanted to see it go in. Squeamish. She was squeamish about needles, and she’d never realized that before. Funny.

A warm hand covered hers, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that Shane was standing next to her, pale and hollow-eyed but upright.

‘‘Shane,’’ the nurse said. ‘‘Go get some juice.’’

‘‘When she’s done,’’ he said.

The nurse must have realized there was no arguing about it, because she kicked her wheeled stool over to him. ‘‘Then at least sit down. I really don’t want to be picking you up off the floor.’’

It probably took less time than it felt, but Claire was desperately glad when the nurse came back to remove the needle and apply bandages. She didn’t look at the blood bag. The nurse said something nice, and Claire tried to respond in kind but wasn’t absolutely sure what came out of her mouth. Shane led her to the next room, which was a sitting area with a plasma television tuned to a news channel, juice and sodas and water, and trays of crackers and cookies and fruit. Claire took an orange and a bottle of water. Shane went straight for the sugar shock—Coke and cookies.

Claire rubbed her fingers over the purple stretch bandage around her elbow. ‘‘Is it always like that?’’

‘‘Like what?’’ Shane mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate chips. ‘‘Scary? Guess so. They try to make it nice, but I never forget whose mouth that blood ends up in.’’

She felt a surge of nausea, and stopped peeling her orange. Suddenly, the thick pulpy smell was overwhelming. She chugged some water instead, which went down cool and heavy as mercury.

‘‘They use it for the hospitals, though,’’ she said. ‘‘For accident victims and things like that.’’

‘‘Sure. Reusing the leftovers.’’ Shane crammed another cookie into his mouth. ‘‘I hate this shit. I swore I’d never do it, but here I am anyway. Tell me again why I stay in this town?’’

‘‘They’ll hunt you down if you leave?’’

‘‘Good reason.’’ He dusted crumbs from his fingers. She peeled the rest of her orange, broke loose a slice, and ate it with methodical determination—not hungry, no sir, but well aware she was still shaky. She ate three more slices, then passed Shane the rest.

‘‘Wait,’’ she said. He paused in the act of biting into the orange. ‘‘You’ve never done this before, have you? I mean, you left town before you were eighteen, so you didn’t have to. And then you’ve ducked it since coming back. Right?’’

‘‘Damn straight.’’ He finished the orange and chugged the rest of his Coke.

‘‘So you’ve never been inside the Bloodmobile.’’

‘‘I didn’t say that.’’ Shane got that grim look again. ‘‘I went with my mother once—didn’t have to donate, but she wanted me to get used to the idea. I was fifteen. They dragged in this guy—he was crazy, out of his head. Strapped him down and started draining him. They hustled the rest of us out of there, but when we left, he was still there. I watched. They drove away with him. Nobody ever saw him again.’’

Claire swallowed more water. She felt weak, but she wanted out of here. The comfortable room felt like a trap, a windowless, airless box. She tossed the rest of her water and the orange peel in the trash. Shane three-pointed his Coke can and took her hand.

‘‘Is Eve going to stay at the hospital?’’ she asked.

‘‘Not all night. It’s pretty uncomfortable; her dad’s sobered up, and he’s doing the amends thing.’’ Shane’s mouth twisted. He clearly didn’t think much of that. ‘‘Her mom just sits there and cries. She always was practically a bag of wet tissues.’’

‘‘You don’t like them much.’’

‘‘You wouldn’t, either.’’

‘‘Any sign of Jason?’’

Shane shook his head. ‘‘If he’s showing up to do his family duty, he’s sneaking around in the dead of night. Which, come to think of it, would probably work for him. Anyway, Michael said he’d bring Eve home. They’re probably already there.’’

‘‘I hope so. Did Michael say where he was, you know, before?’’

‘‘When he was missing? Something about this damn ball,’’ Shane said.

I should ask him about the invitation. She almost did—she opened her mouth to do it—but then she remembered how Shane had looked last night, how deeply Ysandre had shaken him.

She didn’t want to see him look like that again.

Maybe she ought to just leave it. He’d talk about it when he wanted to talk.

There were two doors—one that said EXIT, one that had nothing on it at all. Shane passed the unmarked door, hesitated, and backed up.

‘‘What?’’ Claire asked. Shane took hold of the handle and eased the door open.

‘‘Just a hunch,’’ he said. ‘‘Shhhh.’’

On the other side was another waiting area, and there were people standing in line. This part of the Donation Center was darker, with fewer overhead lights. Three people were standing in front of a long white counter, like at a pharmacy, and behind it stood a tall woman wearing a lab coat. She didn’t smile, and she was about as warm as a flask of liquid nitrogen.

‘‘Oh crap,’’ Shane breathed, and about the same time Claire realized that the blond guy first in line at the counter was Michael. He wasn’t home. . . . He was here.

He finished signing something and shoved the clipboard back, and the woman handed him over a plastic bottle, about the size of the bottled water Claire had been drinking.

This one didn’t hold water. Tomato juice, Claire told herself, but it didn’t look at all like juice. Too dark, too thick. Michael tilted it one way, then another, and his face—he looked fascinated.

No, he looked hungry.

Claire wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Michael unscrewed the cap on the bottle as he stepped out of line, put the blood to his lips, and began to drink. No, to guzzle. Claire was distantly aware that Shane’s grip on her hand was so tight it was painful, but neither of them moved. Michael’s eyes were shut, and he tilted the bottle back and drank until it was empty except for a thin red film on the plastic.

He licked his lips, sighed, and opened his eyes, and looked straight at the two of them.

His eyes were a bright, brilliant, glowing red. He blinked, and it went away, replaced by an eerie shine. Another blink, and it was all gone, and he was back to being Michael again.

He looked as horrified as Claire felt. Betrayed and ashamed.

Shane shut the door and dragged Claire toward the exit. They hadn’t reached it before Michael came barreling in after them.

‘‘Hey!’’ he said. His skin had taken on a flush, a faint pink tone, that Claire remembered seeing before. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

‘‘What do you think we’re doing? They hauled me here in cuffs, man,’’ Shane snapped. ‘‘You think I’d be here if I had a choice?’’

Michael stopped in his tracks, and his gaze flashed down to the stretchy bandages on their arms. Recognition flashed, and then he looked . . . sad, somehow. ‘‘I—I’m sorry.’’

‘‘What for? Not like we didn’t already know how much you crave the stuff.’’ Still, Claire heard the betrayal in Shane’s voice. The revulsion. ‘‘Just didn’t expect to see you chugging it down like a drunk at happy hour, that’s all.’’

‘‘I didn’t want you to see it,’’ Michael said quietly. ‘‘I drink it here. I only keep some at home for emergencies. I never wanted you to watch—’’

‘‘Well, we did,’’ Shane said. ‘‘So what? You’re a bloodsucking vampire. That’s not a news flash, Michael. Anyway, it’s no big thing, right?’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Michael agreed. ‘‘No big thing.’’ He focused on Claire, and she couldn’t fit the two things together—Michael with those terrifying red eyes, gulping down fresh blood, and this Michael standing in front of her, with that sad hope in his expression. ‘‘You okay, Claire?’’

She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to talk, not even a word.

‘‘I’m taking her home,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Unless that was your appetizer, and now you’re looking for the main course.’’

Michael looked sick. ‘‘Of course not. Shane—’’

‘‘It’s all right.’’ The fight dropped out of Shane’s voice. He sounded resigned. ‘‘I’m okay with it.’’

‘‘And that bugs the crap out of you, doesn’t it?’’

Shane looked up, startled. The two of them stared it out, and then Shane tugged on Claire’s arm again. ‘‘Let’s go,’’ he said. ‘‘See you at home.’’

Michael nodded. ‘‘See you.’’

He was still holding the empty bottle, Claire realized. There was a tiny trickle of blood left in the bottom.

As the door shut between them, she saw Michael realize what he had in his hand, and throw it violently in the trash can.

‘‘Oh, Michael,’’ she whispered. ‘‘God.’’ In that one gesture, she realized something huge.

He really did hate this. He really did, on some level, hate what he’d become, because of what he saw in their eyes.

How much did that suck?

The rest of the night passed quietly. The next morning, they woke up to a ringing phone.

Eve’s dad was gone.

‘‘The funeral’s tomorrow,’’ Eve said. She wasn’t crying. She didn’t look much like herself this morning— no makeup, no effort at all put into what she’d thrown on. Her eyes were veined with red, and her nose almost glowed. She’d cried all night; Claire had heard her, but when she’d knocked on the door, Eve hadn’t wanted company. Not even Michael’s.

‘‘Are you going?’’ Michael asked. Claire thought that was a funny question—who wouldn’t go? But Eve just nodded.

‘‘I need to,’’ she said. ‘‘They’re right about that closure thing, I guess. Will you . . . ?’’

‘‘Of course,’’ he said. ‘‘I can’t do graveside, but—’’

Eve shuddered. ‘‘So not going there, anyway. The church is bad enough.’’

‘‘Church?’’ Claire asked, as she poured mugs of coffee for the three of them. Shane, as usual, had slept through the phone. ‘‘Really?’’

‘‘You’ve never met Father Joe, have you?’’ Eve managed a weak smile. ‘‘You’ll like him. He’s— something.’’

‘‘Eve had the hots for him when she was twelve,’’ Michael said, and got a dirty look. ‘‘What? You did, and you know it.’’

‘‘It was the cassock, okay? I’m over it.’’

Claire raised her eyebrows. ‘‘Is Father Joe a . . . ?’’ She did the teeth-in-neck mime. They both smiled.

‘‘No,’’ Michael said. ‘‘He’s just nonjudgmental.’’

Eve got through the day without too much trouble; she did the normal things—helping with the laundry, taking half the cleaning jobs for the day. It was her day off from work. Claire had a few classes, but she skipped three that she knew she’d already built up enough momentum in, and attended only the one that seemed critical. Michael didn’t go in to teach private guitar lessons, either.

It was nice. It was like . . . family.

The funeral was held at noon the next day, and Claire found herself trying to pick out what to wear. Party clothes seemed too . . . festive. Jeans were too informal. She borrowed a pair of Eve’s black tights and wore them with an also-borrowed black skirt. Paired with a white shirt, it looked moderately respectful.

She wasn’t sure how Eve planned to dress, because at eleven a.m., Eve was still sitting in front of her vanity mirror, staring at her reflection. Still in her black dressing gown.

‘‘Hey,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Can I help?’’

‘‘Sure,’’ Eve said. ‘‘Should I do my hair up?’’

‘‘It’d look nice that way,’’ Claire said, and picked up the hairbrush. She brushed Eve’s thick black hair until it shone, then twisted it into a knot and pinned it up at the back of her head. ‘‘There.’’

Eve reached for her rice-powder makeup, then stopped. She met Claire’s eyes in the mirror.

‘‘Maybe not the right time,’’ she said.

Claire didn’t say anything at all. Eve applied some lipstick—dark, but not her usual shade—and began searching through her closet.

In the end, she went with a black high-necked dress, one long enough to hang to the tops of her shoes. And a black veil. It was subdued, for Eve.

The four of them were at the church with fifteen minutes to spare, and as Michael pulled into the parking garage, Claire saw that several vampire-tinted cars were already present. ‘‘Is this the only funeral?’’ she asked.

‘‘Yeah,’’ he said, and turned off the engine. ‘‘I guess Mr. Rosser had more friends than we thought.’’

Not that many, as it turned out; when they entered the vestibule of the church, it was nearly empty, and there weren’t many names noted in the register. Eve’s mother stood by the book, waiting to pounce on anyone who came in the door.

True to Michael’s earlier description, Mrs. Rosser couldn’t seem to stop crying; she was wearing all black, like Eve, only it was much more theatrical— dramatic sweeps of black satin, a big formal hat, gloves.

And, Claire reflected, when you were more theatrical than Eve, you definitely had issues.

Mrs. Rosser had gone in heavy for mascara, and it was in messy streams all down her cheeks. Her hair was dyed blond, and straggling around her face. If she was going for the role of Ophelia in the town production of Hamlet, Claire thought she probably had it in the bag.

Eve’s mother threw herself on Claire like a wet blanket, sobbing on her shoulder and smearing mascara on her white shirt. ‘‘Thank you for coming!’’ she wailed, and Claire awkwardly patted her on the back. ‘‘I wish you’d known my husband. He was such a good man, such a hard life—’’

Eve stood there looking remote and a little sick. ‘‘Mom. Get off her. She doesn’t even know you.’’

Mrs. Rosser drew back, gulping back another sob. ‘‘Don’t be cruel, Eve, just because you didn’t love your father—’’

Which was just about the coldest thing Claire had ever heard. She exchanged a stricken look with Shane.

Michael got between mother and daughter, which was damn brave of him. Maybe it was the vampire gene. ‘‘Mrs. Rosser. I’m sorry about your husband.’’

‘‘Thank you, Michael, you’ve always been such a good boy. And thank you for taking care of Eve when she went out on her own.’’

Mrs. Rosser blew her nose, which was how she missed Eve saying caustically, ‘‘You mean, when you threw my ass out on the street?’’

‘‘Sign us in,’’ Michael said to Claire, and took Eve’s arm and led her into the church. Claire hastily scribbled their names in the book, nodded to Mrs. Rosser—who was staring after her daughter with an expression that turned Claire’s stomach—and grabbed Shane’s arm to follow.

She’d been in the church before. It was nice—not overly fancy, but peaceful in its simplicity. No crosses anywhere in sight, but just now, the focus was the big, black casket at the end of the room. She was struck by the smooth curve of the wood, and how much it reminded her of the Bloodmobile.

That made Claire shiver and grip Shane’s arm even more tightly as they slid into the pew beside Michael and Eve.

There were about fifteen people scattered through the sanctuary, and more arrived as the minutes ticked by. A couple of men in suits—from the funeral home, Claire supposed—set up more floral displays on either side of the casket.

It somehow didn’t seem real. And the sounds of Mrs. Rosser’s continued sobs and wails, responding to every mourner who entered, made it even weirder.

Eve slid out of the pew and walked up to the coffin. She stared down into it for a few long seconds, then bent and put something in it and came back to take her seat. She had her veil down, but even with the softening blur, her expression looked frozen and hard.

‘‘He was a son of a bitch,’’ she said when she saw Claire watching her. ‘‘But he was still my dad.’’

She leaned against Michael’s shoulder, and he put his arm around her.

Mrs. Rosser finally entered the sanctuary and took a seat in the front row, ahead of where the four of them were. One of the funeral home attendants handed her an entire box of tissues. She pulled out a handful and continued to sob.

And a tall, good-looking man in a black cassock and white surplice, with a purple stole around his neck, came out from behind the floral displays and knelt down next to her, patting her hand. The fabled Father Joe, Claire supposed. He seemed nice—a little earnest, and younger than she’d expected. Brown hair and golden eyes that were very direct behind a pair of square gold-rimmed spectacles. He listened to Mrs. Rosser’s ode to her husband with a sympathetic, if distant, expression, nodding when she paused. His glance flicked away once or twice, to the clock, and he finally bent forward and whispered something to her. She nodded.

More people had come in at the last minute, enough to fill about half the church. Claire, turning, spotted familiar faces: Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe, who nodded in her direction as they took their seats at the back of the room. She recognized a few more people, including a total of four vampires in dark suits and sunglasses.

One of them was Oliver, looking bored. Of course— Eve’s family had been under Brandon’s Protection, and when Brandon had died, they’d come under his superior’s authority. Oliver’s appearance here had less to do with genuine feeling than public relations.

Father Joe stepped to the pulpit and began eulogizing a man Claire had never met, and one she doubted Eve recognized; except for the facts and figures of his life, his character seemed way better than anything his daughter had ever mentioned. From the way Mrs. Rosser nodded and cried, she was buying into the fiction wholesale.

‘‘What a load of crap,’’ Shane whispered to Claire. ‘‘Her dad hit her, you know. Eve.’’

Claire sent him a startled look.

‘‘Just keep that in mind,’’ he finished. ‘‘And don’t shed any tears. Not for this.’’

Shane could, Claire thought, be one of the hardest people she’d ever met. Not that he was wrong. Just—hard.

But it helped. The emotion swirling through, amped higher by Eve’s mother, washed over her and away without doing more than making her eyes sting. When Father Joe finished his eulogy, the organ started, and Mrs. Rosser was the first to the casket.

‘‘Oh, God,’’ Eve sighed under her breath as her mother draped herself dramatically over the wood and screamed. Bloodcurdling, theatrical screams. ‘‘I guess I’d better—’’

Michael went with her, and whether it was his male presence or his angelic face or his vampire blood, he was able to pry Mrs. Rosser away and lead her back to the pew, where she sat in a complete collapse, blubbering.

Eve stood there at the casket for a few seconds, back straight, head inclined, and then walked away.

Tears dripped from under her veil and pattered on her black dress, but she didn’t make a sound.

Claire filed by, but gave Eve’s dad only a quick glance; he looked—unnatural. Not disgusting, but clearly not alive. She shivered and took Shane’s arm, and followed Eve as she passed her mother without a word and headed for the exit.

Eve almost ran into her brother.

Jason had slipped in the back. As far as Claire could tell, the kid hadn’t changed his clothes at all—ever— and the unwashed smell of him was evident from three feet away.

He looked high, too. ‘‘Nice disguise, Sis,’’ he smirked.

Eve stopped, staring at him, and scraped the veil back from her face. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

‘‘Mourning.’’ He laughed under his breath. ‘‘Whatev.’’

Eve deliberately looked to the side, where Detectives Hess and Lowe were sitting. ‘‘I think you’d better go.’’ They hadn’t noticed him yet, but they would. All it would take would be a raised voice, or Eve snapping her fingers.

‘‘He’s my dad, too.’’

‘‘Then show him some respect,’’ she said. ‘‘Leave.’’

She went around him. The rest of them followed, though Shane slowed down, and Claire had to tug at his arm to keep him moving.

Jason made a bring it motion. Shane shook his head. ‘‘Really not worth the trouble,’’ he said.

And then they were out in the vestibule, away from the choking smell of flowers and the subtle smell of death, and all Claire could think was, How is that closure?

But Eve looked better, and that was what mattered. ‘‘Let’s go have a burger,’’ she said.

As ideas went, that one was popular, and Claire’s spirits lifted as they walked out of the church and into the shaded parking structure, heading for Michael’s car.

They were intercepted.

Michael sensed it first—he stopped dead in his tracks, turning in a circle as if trying to pinpoint a sound the rest of them couldn’t hear.

A lithe shadow leaped down from the concrete rafters above, landed in a crouch, and grinned.

Ysandre. She rose with effortless grace and strolled toward the four of them.

‘‘Get in the car,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Go.’’

‘‘Not leaving you,’’ Shane said. He didn’t take his eyes off Ysandre.

‘‘Don’t be an idiot. She’s not after me.’’

Shane’s eyes flicked to Michael’s face.

‘‘Go.’’

Claire tugged on Shane’s arm. He let himself be guided to the car. Michael tossed the keys.

Ysandre flashed across the open space and plucked them out of the air. She tossed them carelessly up and down in her palm, and the cool, metallic jingle was the only sound in the garage.

‘‘Don’t get all paranoid,’’ she said. ‘‘I just stopped by to say hello. It’s a free country.’’

‘‘It’s car theft if you keep my keys,’’ Michael said. He held up his hand, and she shrugged and pitched them back. ‘‘What do you want?’’

‘‘Just wanted to make sure Mr. Shane got my invitation, ’’ she said. ‘‘Did you, honey?’’

Shane didn’t move. Didn’t speak. As far as Claire could tell, he wasn’t even breathing.

‘‘From the fast little beat of that heart, I guess you did,’’ Ysandre said, and smiled. ‘‘See you on Saturday, then. You-all have a good rest of the week.’’

She walked away, high-heeled boots tapping on the pavement, and vanished into shadow.

Shane let out a slow breath.

None of them knew exactly what to say. Michael unlocked the car, and the quiet ruled for at least five minutes, until he stopped at Denny’s.

‘‘We still eating?’’ he asked.

‘‘I guess,’’ Shane said. ‘‘I’m not letting her ruin my appetite.’’

There was a shade awning stretching from the covered parking to the front door, which Claire had never thought about before—apparently, the local Denny’s catered to vampires as much as humans even in the daytime. There were local flyers taped to the glass front doors, and Claire glanced at them on the way inside. She stopped so suddenly Shane ran into her.

‘‘Hey! Walking here!’’

‘‘Look.’’ Claire pointed at the paper.

It said ONE NIGHT ONLY! and there was a black-and -white photograph of a young man with blond hair cradling a guitar.

Underneath it said Michael Glass returns to Common Grounds, and the date on it was . . . tonight.

Shane ripped it off the door, grabbed Michael’s shoulder, and held it up. ‘‘Hey,’’ he said. ‘‘Ring any bells? When were you going to tell us?’’

Michael looked surprised, then embarrassed. ‘‘I— wasn’t going to. Look, it’s just a tryout, okay? I wanted to see if I could still—I don’t want you guys to come. It’s nothing.’’

Eve grabbed the flyer and stared at it. ‘‘Nothing? Michael! You’re playing! In public!’’

‘‘That’s new?’’ Claire whispered to Shane.

‘‘He hasn’t played anywhere but our living room since—’’ Teeth-in-neck mime. ‘‘You know. Oliver.’’

‘‘Oh.’’

Michael’s face was turning pink. ‘‘Just put it back, okay? It’s not a big deal!’’

Eve kissed him. ‘‘Yes, it is,’’ she said. ‘‘And I hate you for not telling me. Were you just going to sneak off or something?’’

‘‘Absolutely,’’ Michael sighed. ‘‘Because if I suck, I don’t want any of you hearing it firsthand.’’

Claire taped the flyer carefully back to the door. ‘‘You’re not going to suck.’’

‘‘Not at the guitar, anyway,’’ Shane said, deadpan. Claire punched him in the arm. ‘‘Ow.’’

7

Michael spent two hours tuning his guitar, which was annoying, and he left early. Eve went with him, despite his protests that it really wasn’t a big thing. That left Claire and Shane to decide on their own what to do.

She made chili dogs and was putting the shredded cheese on top when Shane, fresh from video-game triumph, came into the kitchen. ‘‘Hey,’’ he said. ‘‘Nice. Thanks.’’ He shoved part of the chili dog in his mouth, standing at the kitchen counter.

‘‘You could at least sit down,’’ she sighed. ‘‘We do have tables. They even have chairs.’’

‘‘You want to go?’’ he mumbled. ‘‘To the thing?’’

Did she? Claire ate a bite of her own hot dog, hardly even aware that she was breaking her own eating-while-standing rules, and thought about it. On the one hand, it meant going out at night, and going out to Common Grounds for recreational purposes, which was sort of not done around their house these days.

But—Michael. Out in public. Playing.

‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. ‘‘I would, if you don’t mind. I know you don’t like the place, but—’’

‘‘I like it better than Eve does, trust me. Besides, I don’t want her down there alone. She needs somebody watching her back while he’s neck-deep in groupies or whatever.’’

She laughed.

‘‘Oh, you think that’s funny? Should have seen him in high school. Guy could draw the hotties every time he picked up that guitar.’’

‘‘He still can, I’ll bet.’’

‘‘Exactly my point. Eat up. They usually start music sets around seven.’’

Claire wolfed down her meal and ran upstairs for a quick shower and change of clothes. After some debate, she went with the short skirt and tights she’d last worn to crash Monica Morrell’s disastrous house party, and a plain black top tight enough to match but loose enough that she wouldn’t die if her parents saw her.

Shane blinked in surprise when she came downstairs. He’d thrown on different clothes, too, but they were still slacker-casual. The only sign that he was trying to make an impression was that she suspected he might have combed his hair. A little.

‘‘You look great,’’ he said, and smiled. She stopped on the last step from the bottom, which put them on about equal levels, and he kissed her. Long and slow. He tasted of toothpaste, at first, but then he just tasted like Shane, and that was so, so delicious that she found herself rising on her tiptoes to get even closer. ‘‘Hold up, girl. I thought we were going out. Kissing like that, you’re making me think about staying in.’’

Claire had to admit, it made her think of it, too. Especially since the house was empty, and they were all alone.

She saw it cross Shane’s mind, too, and for a second his eyes widened, and so did his pupils.

Oh, the possibilities.

‘‘Better go if we’re going,’’ Claire said regretfully. ‘‘Only—how are we getting there?’’

Shane offered her his arm. ‘‘Nice night for a walk, I hear.’’

‘‘Are you sure?’’

He tapped her gold bracelet, then his own white hospital-issue one. ‘‘This may be the only night we get to do it in this town,’’ he said. ‘‘Let’s live dangerously. ’’

It was nice, strolling arm in arm with Shane and not worrying (well, not worrying too much) about which danger was about to sweep in on them from the dark.

Tonight, at least, the dangers kept their distance. It was a short walk to Common Grounds, but a lonely one; Claire felt a little unreal, moving slowly in the dark past shut houses with lit-up windows. People didn’t venture out much after sunset, and if they did, they went in groups, and in cars.

Two people out in the night like this . . . seemed wrong, and when they were about halfway to the coffee shop, Claire saw someone pull a car into a driveway ahead of them and jump out. The look on the woman’s face was starkly panicked as she looked toward them, and Claire realized that she’d thought they were—

Vampires. Which was both funny and sad.

The woman grabbed her groceries and hurried into her house, shutting the door with a bang and locking it with a harsh rasp of metal.

Claire didn’t say anything to Shane, and he didn’t venture a comment, but she had no doubt he felt the same unsettling guilt. But what could they have said? It’s okay, lady, we’re not here to eat you?

Claire was glad when the hot golden spill of light from Common Grounds’ front window came into view. It was obviously doing good business—cars lined the streets on both sides, and more parked as she and Shane approached the entrance. ‘‘Going to be nuts,’’ Shane said, but he didn’t sound displeased. ‘‘Next time I’ll take you someplace nice and quiet.’’

Claire searched her memory. So much had happened since she’d met Shane, but she was almost sure that this constituted their first real, actual date on their own. Which was startling, and sweet, and precious to her in ways she suspected Shane would never imagine. She savored the warmth of his hand in hers, smiled at him, and entered Common Grounds while he held the door for her.

The noise level was amazing. The coffee shop was normally quiet, although never boring, but as the sun went down, the excitement level rose, and tonight it was blowing through the roof. Every table was already crowded with people—humans, mostly, but toward the corners of the room Claire saw a few vampire faces she recognized, including Sam’s. Michael’s only family in town had come to support him. Sam sent her a smile and a wave, which Claire returned.

Michael himself was standing in the clear area behind the coffee bar, looking tense and a little bit blank. He was dressed in a plain gray T-shirt and jeans, and he had his acoustic guitar slung around his body. Claire thought the puka shell necklace he was wearing looked new—a gift from Eve? A good-luck charm?

Eve was standing next to him, and although she couldn’t see clearly, Claire thought they were holding hands.

Claire and Shane pushed through the crowd to the bar. Shane nodded to Michael, who nodded back—all very manly—and then Shane went to place some drink orders, leaving Claire to fumble for words.

‘‘You’re going to do great,’’ she finally said. Michael’s blue eyes blinked and focused in the here and now.

‘‘Man, I don’t know,’’ he said. ‘‘It was supposed to be casual—I show up and play a couple of songs. Just to get used to it again. But this—’’

Somebody out in the corner of the room started clapping, and suddenly everybody was doing it, a wave of rhythmic noise.

Michael couldn’t possibly get any more pale, but Claire saw the outright doubt in his eyes. Eve did, too, and gave him a quick kiss.

‘‘You can do this, Michael,’’ she said. ‘‘Come on. Get out there. It’s what you do.’’

Claire nodded and smiled her support. Michael lifted the hinged section of the bar and stepped out, to a thunderous wave of applause. There was a small stage set up at the far end of the room, near the closed door that said OFFICE, and as Michael moved up on it, the stage lights caught and glittered in his golden hair, sparked an unearthly blue in his eyes.

Wow, Claire thought. That wasn’t Michael anymore. That was . . . something else.

Eve ducked under the bar and came to lean next to Claire, her arms folded. She had a wistful smile on her Evil Queen-red lips. ‘‘He’s beautiful,’’ she said. ‘‘Right? He is.’’

Claire could only agree with that.

Michael adjusted the microphone, tested it, played a couple of fast finger exercises she knew he used to calm himself, and then smiled out at the crowd. It was a different smile than she’d ever seen from him before—more, somehow. More intense, more joyous, more personal. She felt a hot flutter somewhere deep inside as his gaze brushed over her, and immediately felt embarrassed about it.

But man, he was hot. She understood now what Shane was talking about, and she wasn’t immune.

Shane touched her shoulder and handed her a drink just as Michael said, ‘‘I guess you all know who I am, right?’’

And about eighty percent of the room cheered like thunder. The others—college students, who’d either wandered in or come because they were bored— looked lost.

Michael gave the mike stand one last, precise adjustment. His hands were sure now, moving with confidence. ‘‘My name is Michael Glass, and I’m from Morganville. ’’

More cheers. Before they died away, Michael started to play, a fast and complicated song that Claire had heard him fooling around with at the house—but this wasn’t fooling around; this was serious talent. He glittered like white gold, and music flowed out of his hands like streams of light. It wrapped around Claire like a shining net, and she didn’t dare breathe, didn’t move, as Michael played like she’d never heard anyone play before, ever.

She managed to glance aside at Shane, whose eyes were wide and fixed on Michael, as well. She nudged him. He gave her a dumbfounded shake of his head.

Eve was smiling, as if she’d known it all along.

Michael brought the song to a liquid, blazing finish, and as the guitar strings rang in the silence, the crowd was utterly still. Michael waited, just as motionless, and then the room spontaneously erupted in applause and cheers.

Claire thought that the smile that spread across Michael’s face was worth everything about Morganville, right at that moment.

His next song was slower, sweeter, and Claire realized with a shock that it was a slowed-down version of the song he’d been writing the other night, when he’d been too busy to go to the store. It had lyrics, too, and Michael’s voice transformed them into sad, aching beauty.

It was a song for Eve.

Claire realized her chest was hurting, both from the pressure of unshed tears and the fact that she wasn’t breathing. She’d never known music could have that much power. As she glanced around the coffee shop, she saw the same thing in the others’ faces—common rapture. Even Oliver, standing behind the bar, was transfixed. And in the shadows, Claire glimpsed someone else—Amelie, nodding thoughtfully, as if she’d known all along, like Eve.

Sam’s eyes were full of tears, but he was smiling.

Michael’s voice drifted to a whisper, and he finished the song. This time, the applause didn’t stop, and the cheers were a full-throated roar.

Michael adjusted the mike stand again. ‘‘Save it, guys,’’ he said over the noise, and smiled. ‘‘We’re just getting started.’’

It was the best night Claire had ever had in Morganville. She’d never felt so much a part of something— never seen so much unity in a room full of people so diverse. Clueless students were backslapping Morganville natives with bracelets, vampires were smiling impartially at humans, and even Oliver seemed affected by the general euphoria.

When Michael came offstage, it was only after three encores and thunderous standing ovations. He made a beeline straight for Eve, folded her in a hug, and then kissed her so deeply Claire had to look away. When they came up for air, Michael was still grinning.

‘‘So?’’ he asked. ‘‘Didn’t suck, right?’’

Shane offered his hand. ‘‘Didn’t suck. Congratulations, dude.’’

Michael ignored the hand and hugged him, then turned to Claire. She didn’t hesitate to embrace him. He was warmer than usual, and sweaty; she hadn’t known vampires could sweat. Maybe they just usually didn’t exert themselves that much. ‘‘You were amazing,’’ Claire whispered. ‘‘I just—amazing. Wow. Did I say amazing?’’

He gave her a kiss on the cheek, and then turned away to the press of well-wishers coming to shake his hand. There were a lot of them, and many of them were pretty girls. Claire retreated back to Shane’s side.

‘‘See what I mean?’’ Shane said. ‘‘Good thing Eve’s here. This can go to a guy’s head.’’

‘‘Even a vampire’s?’’

‘‘Heh. Especially a vampire’s.’’

It took about fifteen minutes for the rush of instant fans to die down, and by then the tables had cleared out, leaving just a few hard-core caffeine addicts to close out the evening. Claire and Shane grabbed chairs and fresh drinks while Eve helped Michael get his things together.

‘‘Hey,’’ Claire said, and got Shane’s full attention. ‘‘Thank you.’’

His eyebrows rose. ‘‘What for?’’

‘‘For the best date I’ve ever had.’’

‘‘This? Nah. Just average. I can do much better.’’

She cocked her head. ‘‘Really?’’

‘‘Absolutely.’’

‘‘You willing to prove it?’’

Somehow, his hand had taken hold of hers, and his warm fingers stroked shivers down her palm. ‘‘Someday, ’’ he said. ‘‘Soon. Absolutely.’’

She found herself doing the not-breathing thing again, caught in all the possibilities. Shane smiled, slow and wicked, and she wanted to kiss him right then, for a very long time.

‘‘Ready?’’ Michael was standing at the table, gazing down at them. Some of the brilliance he’d had onstage had faded, and he was just regular Michael again—a little tired, too. Claire gulped down hot cocoa and nodded.

Even the best nights had to come to an end.

Claire was getting ready for bed when she heard Eve scream—not the shriek of Stop tickling me, you jerk, but a full-out cry of alarm, one that went through the house like a buzz saw. She pulled on her pajama top, grabbed her robe, and pelted out into the hall. Shane was already there, heading downstairs, still dressed in a pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt.

When they got to the front hall, they found Michael sitting on the floor, holding a bloody girl in his arms. Eve was snapping the locks on the front door shut.

‘‘Miranda,’’ Michael said, and moved the bloody hair away from her face. ‘‘Miranda, can you hear me?’’

Claire realized with a breathless shock that it was Eve’s sometime friend Miranda—just a kid, really, at that gawky stage where girls both yearned to be and feared to be women. Mir had filled out a little since the last time Claire had seen her—not quite as scary thin—but she still looked like a waif.

A wounded one. There was a gash in her head, and blood dripping down her neck to patter on Michael’s blue jeans and fingers.

‘‘Ow,’’ Miranda whispered, and began to cry. ‘‘Ow. I hit my head—’’

‘‘You’re okay, you’re safe now,’’ Eve said. She dropped to her knees across from Michael and held out her arms; Michael quickly transferred the girl over. His pupils had gone to pinpoints, and he seemed—different. ‘‘Michael, maybe you’d better go—wash up.’’

He nodded stiffly and pushed past Shane and Eve, heading upstairs so quickly he was just a blur.

‘‘Ambulance?’’ Shane asked.

‘‘No! No, I can’t!’’ Miranda sounded frantic. ‘‘Please, don’t send me there. You don’t know—you don’t know what they’ll do—the fire—’’

Eve kept hold of the girl, somehow, though Miranda was flailing like mad. ‘‘Okay, chill, we won’t. I promise. Relax. Shane—maybe the first aid kit? Towels and hot water?’’

‘‘I’ll help,’’ Claire said, and she and Shane took off for the kitchen. When she glanced back, she saw that Miranda had stopped fighting and was lying exhausted in Eve’s arms. ‘‘What the hell happened to her?’’

‘‘Morganville,’’ Shane said, and shrugged. He stiff-armed the kitchen door and went straight for the cabinets under the sink. The first aid kit was getting a lot of play, Claire thought as she turned on the hot water and gathered up some clean kitchen towels.

Miranda’s first aid session wasn’t as bad as Claire had feared—the head wound was bloody but superficial, and Eve fixed it with some butterfly bandages.

The holes in Miranda’s neck looked fresh, though. When Eve asked about them, Miranda looked embarrassed and pulled up the collar of her shirt. ‘‘None of your business,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s Charles, right? Son of a bitch.’’ Eve had a problem with vampires who preyed on the underage— in fact, from what Claire had gathered, so did a lot of the other vampires. There were laws against it, after all. She wondered whether Amelie knew about Charles and Miranda. Or cared. ‘‘You can’t let him gnaw on you like this, Mir! You know that!’’

‘‘He was so hungry,’’ Miranda said, and hung her head. ‘‘I know. But it didn’t hurt, not really.’’

That made Claire want to throw up. She exchanged a look with Shane.

‘‘There’s a guy who needs staking,’’ he said.

Miranda looked up sharply. ‘‘That’s not funny!’’

‘‘Do I have on my funny face? Miranda, the guy’s a pedophile. The fact that he just sucks your blood instead of—’’ Shane paused, staring at her. ‘‘It is instead of, right?’’

It was impossible to tell if Miranda even understood what he was getting at, but Claire thought she did, and it made the girl deeply uncomfortable. Miranda tried to get out of the chair they’d put her into. ‘‘I need to go home.’’

‘‘Whoa, whoa, you can barely stand up,’’ Eve said, and managed to get her settled again. ‘‘Claire, would you check on Michael? See if he’s okay?’’

In other words, there were questions Shane and Eve were about to ask, personal questions. Claire nodded and went upstairs. The bathroom door was closed. She knocked softly.

‘‘Michael?’’

No answer. She tried the handle. Locked.

Claire turned at what sounded like footsteps down the hall, but she saw no one. She didn’t hear the door unlock, but when she looked back, the bathroom door was open, and Michael was standing about two inches away from her.

She stumbled backward. Instead of just washing up, he’d showered; his hair was damp and curling and darker than usual, and he was wearing a towel around his waist. There was a lot more of Michael on display than she was used to, and it was . . . impressive.

Claire backed away, all the way to the wall.

‘‘Sorry,’’ he said. Not as if he really was. He sounded annoyed, stressed, and jittery. ‘‘She’s still here.’’ It wasn’t a question, but Claire nodded anyway. ‘‘She can’t stay. We need to get her out of here.’’

‘‘I don’t think she’s in any shape to go,’’ Claire offered. ‘‘She seemed pretty hysterical. Shane and Eve are—’’

‘‘I can still smell her blood,’’ Michael interrupted her. ‘‘I washed it off of me. I took off my clothes. I showered. None of that matters, I can still—she has to go. Now.’’

‘‘What’s wrong with you? I thought you’d—’’ She hesitated, then made a drinking motion.

‘‘I did.’’ Michael rubbed his face with both hands. ‘‘Guess I burned it off tonight at the show. I’m hungry, Claire.’’

It cost him a lot to say it. Claire gulped, and nodded. ‘‘Wait here.’’

She went downstairs, past where Shane and Eve were still earnestly talking with Miranda, and into the kitchen. At the very back of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator sat some bottles that might have been full of beer, and weren’t. There were three of them. She grabbed one without looking too closely at it and made sure it was concealed against her side as she passed the little downstairs group. Nobody really looked her way; they were too intent on keeping their own secrets.

Michael was still waiting, leaning against the bathroom doorframe, arms folded. He straightened when he saw what she had in her hand. She gave it to him silently. Michael never took his eyes off her as he popped the cap with his thumbnail and lifted the cold bottle to his lips. The contents moved more like syrup than blood, and Claire almost gagged.

Michael did gag. But he swallowed it. And kept on drinking until the bottle was empty.

His blue eyes flushed hot red, and then cleared back to their normal color.

She saw something like horror go through him. ‘‘I didn’t just do that in front of you.’’

‘‘Uh—yeah. You did.’’ And there had definitely been some kind of challenge in it, too. Some kind of come-on, even. Which was beyond yuck and creepy, and yet . . .

And yet.

Michael wiped his lips with the back of his hand, looked down at the faint smear, and went back to the washbasin to rinse it off.

He stared into the mirror at himself for so long, Claire thought he’d forgotten she was there, and then he said, ‘‘Thanks.’’

Claire tried to think of something not totally idiotic to say. ‘‘Pretty disgusting, isn’t it? When it’s cold?’’ That wasn’t it.

Luckily, Michael was relieved to have any kind of conversational lifeline, after that weird moment. ‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. ‘‘But it keeps the edge off. That’s what’s important.’’ He rinsed out the bottle carefully, then threw it away and took in a deep breath. ‘‘I’ll get dressed. Be there in a second.’’

It was a dismissal, but a nice one, and Claire took it at face value this time, and went back to the living room.

Where Shane and Eve were standing together, heads cocked at identical angles, staring.

‘‘What’s going on?’’ Claire whispered.

‘‘Shhh,’’ both Shane and Eve hissed, eerily in unison.

Because Miranda was talking in a strange monotone voice, and she looked . . . dead. Unconscious. Only talking.

‘‘I see the feast,’’ she was saying. ‘‘So much anger . . . so much lying. All dead, walking dead, falling down. It’s spreading. It’ll kill us all.’’

Claire felt a hot snap of alarm. Walking dead, falling down. It’s spreading. Miranda had psychic episodes— Claire knew that. It was part of the reason Eve let her hang around from time to time. Sometimes her visions were fake, but a lot of the time, they were as serious as a heart attack, and Claire somehow knew this one was real.

She was talking about the disease infecting the vampires, and she was talking about it spreading to humans. No, that can’t happen. Can it? They hadn’t even really been able to pinpoint what the disease was, only what it did, and what it did was erode the vampires’ sanity, carving steadily until what was left was unable to function at all.

The first thing to go—for all the vampires of Morganville—had been the ability to reproduce. To create new vampires. Only Amelie still had the strength, and creating Michael had almost destroyed her.

It’s spreading. Claire thought of all the humans in Morganville, all the families, all the young people who’d been in the coffee shop tonight, and felt cold and unsteady.

It couldn’t be true.

‘‘Feast,’’ Miranda said again. ‘‘You’re all fools, all fools—don’t let him trick you. It’s not just three—it’s more—’’

‘‘Who?’’ Eve sank down next to Miranda’s chair and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘‘Mir, who are you talking about?’’

‘‘Elder,’’ she said, and now there were tears leaking down Miranda’s pale cheeks. ‘‘Oh no. Oh no . . . they’re turning. They’re all so hungry, can’t stop them—’’

Michael, who was coming down the steps, paused. He looked calm again, but worried. ‘‘What’s she talking about?’’

‘‘Shhh!’’ This time, all three of them shushed at the same time. Eve bent closer to Miranda. ‘‘Honey, are you talking about the vampires? What’s going to happen with the vampires?’’

‘‘Dying,’’ Miranda whispered. ‘‘So many dying. We think we’re safe but we’re not. They won’t listen— they won’t see us—’’ She restlessly turned the silver bracelet on her wrist and twisted in her chair. ‘‘He’s doing it. He’s making it happen.’’

‘‘Oliver?’’ Eve asked. Because Oliver was the only male vampire Elder on the town council.

But Miranda shook her head. She didn’t say another word, but she cried, cried so hard she shook herself out of her trance and clung to Eve like a thin little reed in the wind.

‘‘Bishop,’’ Michael said. They all looked at him. ‘‘It’s not Oliver. She’s talking about Bishop. He’s going to try to destroy Morganville.’’

Miranda ended up sleeping on the couch, and when Claire came downstairs the next morning, she found the girl huddled in a ball under mountains of blankets, still shivering but fast asleep. She looked even more frail. Her pale skin was translucent, and there were dark, exhausted circles around her eyes.

Claire felt sorry for her, but it was a distant kind of sorry—Miranda didn’t really invite a lot of devotion. She didn’t have any friends to speak of, or so Eve said; people tolerated her, but they didn’t exactly enjoy her company. That was hard on the kid, but Claire could understand it. Miranda was a mixture of denial and outright creepiness, and even in Morganville, she was going to have a hard time fitting in.

No wonder she defended the vampire who was feeding on her. He was probably the only one who really showed her any kind of affection.

Claire paused to tuck the blankets more firmly around the girl’s trembling frame before she went into the kitchen to make coffee and toast. As breakfasts went, it was lonely and basic, but the sun was barely up and none of the others were what you might call morning people.

There were times when signing up for early classes seemed like a really bad idea.

When the phone rang, Claire nearly jumped out of her skin. She leaped for the extension hanging on the wall by the kitchen door and got it before the second earsplitting jangle. ‘‘Hello?’’

There was a pause on the other end, and then her mother said, ‘‘Claire?’’

‘‘Mom! Hi—what’s wrong?’’

‘‘Why should anything be wrong? Why can’t I just call because I wanted to talk to my daughter?’’ Oh, great. Now her mother sounded agitated and defensive. ‘‘I know it’s early, but I wanted to catch up with you before you went off to class for the day.’’

Claire sighed and leaned against the wall, idly kicking at the linoleum floor. ‘‘Okay. How are you and Dad settling in? Getting all unpacked?’’

‘‘Just fine,’’ her mother said, in so false a tone that Claire went very, very still. ‘‘It’s just—an adjustment, that’s all. Such a small town and all.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Claire agreed quietly. ‘‘It’s an adjustment.’’ She had no idea what her mother and father knew about Morganville by now, but they had to be getting some kind of—what would they call it? Orientation? Morganville was nothing if not efficient about that, she suspected. ‘‘Have you—met some people?’’

‘‘We went to a nice getting-to-know-you party downtown,’’ Mom said. ‘‘Mr. Bishop and his daughter took us.’’

Claire had to bite her lip to hold back a moan. Bishop? And Amelie? Oh God. ‘‘What happened?’’

‘‘Oh, nothing, really. It was a cocktail party. Hors d’oeuvres and drinks, a little conversation. There was a presentation on the history of—of—’’ With shocking suddenness, Claire’s mother burst into tears. ‘‘I swear, we didn’t know—we didn’t know or we wouldn’t have sent you to this awful place, oh, honey—’’

Claire could barely swallow around the lump in her throat. ‘‘Don’t cry, Mom. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay now.’’ She was lying, but she had to. The sound of her mother breaking apart was just too hard. ‘‘Look, you’ve met Amelie, right?’’

Sniffles on the other end. ‘‘Yes, she seemed nice.’’

Nice wasn’t how Claire would have put it. ‘‘Well, Amelie’s the most powerful person in Morganville, and she’s definitely on our side.’’ An exaggeration, but it was the best she could do to describe the situation in simple terms. ‘‘So there’s really nothing to be worried about, Mom. I work for Amelie. She has some responsibility for me, and for you, to make sure we’re safe. Okay?’’

‘‘Okay.’’ It was wan and muffled, but at least it was agreement. ‘‘I was just so worried about your father. He didn’t look well, not well at all. I wanted him to go to the hospital, but he said he was fine—’’

Claire had a cold second of flashback to Miranda saying, Please don’t send me there. You don’t know what they’ll do. . . . She’d been talking about the hospital. ‘‘But he’s okay?’’

‘‘He seems all right today.’’ Claire’s mom blew her nose, and when she came back to the phone, she sounded clearer and stronger. ‘‘I’m sorry to lay this on you, honey. I just had no idea—it was so strange to think that you’d been here all this time and never said a word to us about—the situation.’’ Meaning, the vampires.

‘‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t think you’d believe me,’’ Claire said. ‘‘And out-of-town calls are monitored. They told you that, right?’’

‘‘Yes, they did. So you were protecting us.’’ Her mom laughed shakily. ‘‘Parents are supposed to protect their children, Claire. We’ve done a bang-up job of that, haven’t we? We really thought that it would be so much safer for you here than off in Massachusetts or California on your own. . . .’’

‘‘It’s okay. I’ll get there someday.’’

They moved the conversation to easier things—to unpacking, to the vase that had gotten broken during the move (‘‘Honestly, I hated that thing anyway—your aunt gave it to us for Christmas that year, remember? ’’), to how Claire intended to spend her day. By the end of it, Mom seemed more or less stable, and Claire’s coffee was hopelessly cold. So was her toast.

‘‘Claire,’’ Mom said. ‘‘About moving out of that house—’’

‘‘I’m not moving,’’ Claire said. ‘‘I’m sorry, Mom. I know it’s going to upset Dad, but these are my friends, and this is where I belong. I’m staying.’’

There was a short silence on the other end, and then her mother said, very softly, ‘‘I’m so proud of you.’’

She hung up with a soft click. Claire stood for a moment, tears prickling in her eyes, and then said to the silent line, ‘‘I love you.’’

And then she picked up her stuff and went to class.

8

Days passed, and for a change, there were no further emergencies. Normal life—or what passed for it, anyway—set in. Claire went to class, Eve went to work, Michael taught guitar lessons—he was a lot more in demand since the concert at Common Grounds—and Shane . . . Shane slacked, although Claire thought he seemed preoccupied.

It finally dawned on her that he was thinking about Saturday, and the invitation. And that he didn’t want to talk to her about it at all.

‘‘So what should I do?’’ she asked Eve. ‘‘I mean, can’t he just call in sick for the party or something?’’

‘‘You’re kidding,’’ Eve said. ‘‘You think they’d buy an excuse? If you get an invitation to something like this, you go. End of story.’’

‘‘But—’’ Claire, who was getting glasses out of the cabinet while Eve put out plates, nearly dropped everything. ‘‘But that means that creepy little bi—’’

‘‘Language, missy.’’

‘‘—witch is going to make him go with her!’’ That made her blindly furious, and not entirely because of how upset Shane had been before. It was the whole idea of Shane going along with it. Of Ysandre putting those pale, thin fingers on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

Shane hadn’t said a word to her about it. Not a single word. And she didn’t know how to help.

Eve stared at her thoughtfully for a few seconds before she said, ‘‘Well, she’s not the only one who’s going, of course. Shane won’t be all by himself.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Michael’s going, too. I recognized the invitation when it came in. Didn’t open it, though.’’

Still, Eve had every reason to expect that Michael would at least ask her to go with him. Claire, on the other hand, was completely shut out.

Which made her irrationally angry again, and this time for herself. You’re jealous, she realized. Because you don’t want him going anywhere without you.

She so did not want to be that person, but there it was. And she had no idea what to do about it.

When she set Shane’s glass of Coke down in front of him, she did it with probably a little too much emphasis; he glanced up at her with a question-mark expression. Eve had already settled into her chair across the table. Michael wasn’t home, but Eve didn’t seem bothered about it this time. Maybe he’d talked to her about where he was going.

Nice to know somebody’s talking, Claire thought.

‘‘What?’’ Shane asked her, and took a drink. ‘‘Did I forget to say thanks? Because, thanks. Best Coke ever. Did you make it yourself? Special recipe?’’

‘‘Got any plans for Saturday night?’’ she asked. ‘‘I was thinking maybe we could go to the movies, or—’’

Too transparent. Shane knew instantly, and Eve choked on her forkful of microwave lasagna. The silence stretched. Claire poked at her own meal, just for something to do.

‘‘I can’t,’’ Shane finally said. ‘‘I guess you know why.’’

‘‘You’re going to that ball thing,’’ Claire said. ‘‘With Bishop’s—friend.’’

‘‘I don’t exactly have a choice.’’

‘‘Are you sure about that?’’

‘‘Of course I’m sure—why are we talking about this exactly?’’

‘‘Because—’’ She stuck the fork into her lasagna so deep it scraped the plate. ‘‘Because Michael’s going. I guess Eve is, too. And what am I supposed to do, exactly?’’

‘‘You’re kidding. Are you on crack? Because I thought you just implied that you wanted to go to the scary vampire thing. Which, by the way, I don’t.’’

Claire tried not to glare. ‘‘I thought you hated her. Ysandre. But you’re going with her.’’

‘‘I do. And I am.’’ Shane shoveled food into his mouth, a blatant excuse to end the conversation, or at least avoid it.

Eve cleared her throat. ‘‘Maybe I should, I don’t know, leave? Because this is starting to sound like one of those reality shows I don’t want to be in. Maybe you guys want to take turns in the confessional booth.’’

Shane and Claire ignored her. ‘‘I didn’t tell you because there’s nothing you can do,’’ Shane said. ‘‘There’s nothing anyone can do.’’

‘‘Stop talking with your mouth full.’’

‘‘Dude, you asked!’’

‘‘I—’’ Claire felt a sudden burn of tears in her eyes. ‘‘I just wanted you to talk to me, that’s all. But I guess you can’t even do that.’’

She picked up her uneaten lasagna and drink and took it upstairs to her room. It was her turn to throw a fit, slam a door, and sulk, and dammit, she was going to do it well.

She burst into tears the second the door was closed, put everything down on the dresser, and collapsed into a soggy heap in the corner. She hadn’t cried like this in a long time, not over something so stupid, but she just couldn’t—didn’t—

There was a knock at the door. ‘‘Claire?’’

‘‘Go away, Shane.’’ Her heart wasn’t in it, though, and he must have heard that. He opened the door. She kind of expected him to rush to her and sweep her up in a hug, but instead Shane just . . . stood there. Looking like some mixture of annoyed and confused.

‘‘Why is this about you?’’ he asked her. It was a perfectly reasonable question, so absolutely logical it made her gasp and cry harder. ‘‘I have to get dressed up in a stupid outfit. I have to pretend I don’t want to shove a stake in this bitch’s heart. You don’t.’’

‘‘But you’re going! Why are you going? You—I thought you hated her—’’

‘‘Because she said she’d kill you if I didn’t show up. And because I know it’s not a threat. She’d do it. Happy now?’’

He closed the door quietly. Claire couldn’t get her breath. The hurt in her chest seemed to be smothering her, as if every heartbeat might be her last. She heard herself make a sound, but she couldn’t tell if it was tears or anger or anguish.

Eventually, the tears stopped, and Claire wiped the wet streaks from her cheeks. She felt sore, alone, and utterly to blame for everything. Her dinner held no appeal, and all she wanted to do was curl up under the blankets with the biggest, fluffiest stuffed animal she could find.

But she couldn’t do that.

When she opened her door, she found Shane sitting outside, back against the wall. He looked up at her.

‘‘You done?’’ he asked. His eyes were red, too. Not exactly tearful, but—something. ‘‘Because it’s not like this floor’s real comfortable.’’

She sank down next to him. He put his arm around her, and her head fell against his chest. There was something so soothing about the stroke of his fingers through her hair, the soft rhythm of his breathing. The reassurance of his solid warmth next to her.

‘‘Don’t let her hurt you,’’ she whispered. ‘‘God, Shane—’’

‘‘No worries. Michael will be there, and I’m pretty sure he’d get into it if she tried. But I want you safe. Promise me that while we’re gone, you’ll go stay with your parents or something. No—’’ Because she was already trying to protest. ‘‘No, promise me. I need to know you’ll be okay.’’

She nodded, still miserable. ‘‘I promise,’’ she said, and took a deep breath to push all that away. ‘‘So what dumbass costume are you wearing?’’

‘‘Don’t ask.’’

‘‘Does it involve leather?’’

‘‘Yeah, actually, I think it might.’’ He sounded like he dreaded the prospect. She managed a smile, despite everything.

‘‘I can’t wait.’’

Shane banged his head back against the wall. ‘‘Chicks.’’

Her next visit to Myrnin’s lab brought a surprise. When she descended the steps, she saw the glow of lamps, and her first thought was, Oh God, he’s out of his cell. Her second was that she’d better get the dart gun ready, and she was unzipping the backpack to reach for it when she saw that it wasn’t Myrnin at all.

The overcrowded, dimly lit lab—which was more like a storeroom of outdated equipment, really—held a chair and reading lamp. Seated in the chair, turning pages in one of the fragile, ancient journals, was none other than Oliver.

Claire put her hand on the butt of the dart gun, just in case, although she wasn’t really sure what good a dose of antidote would do in this situation.

‘‘Oh, relax, I’m not going to attack you, Claire,’’ Oliver said in a bored voice. He didn’t even look up. ‘‘Besides, we’re on the same side these days. Or haven’t you heard?’’

She came down the remaining steps slowly. ‘‘I guess I haven’t. Was there a memo?’’ Granted, he’d come running when Eve had called about Bishop, but that didn’t necessarily put him in the category of ally in Claire’s books.

‘‘When outsiders threaten the community, the community pulls together against the outsiders. It’s a rule as old as the tribal system. You and I are in the same community, and we have a common enemy.’’

‘‘Mr. Bishop.’’

Oliver looked up, marking the place in the journal with one finger. ‘‘You have questions, I’d assume. I would, in your place.’’

‘‘All right. How long have you known him?’’

‘‘I don’t know him. I doubt anyone does who’s still alive today.’’

Claire slipped into a rickety chair across from him. ‘‘But you’ve met him.’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘When did you meet him, then?’’

Oliver tilted his head, eyes narrowed, and she remembered how she’d once thought he was nice, just a normal kind of person. Not so much now.

Not so much a person, either.

‘‘I met him in Greece,’’ he said. ‘‘Some time ago. I don’t think the circumstances would be particularly enlightening to you. Or comforting, come to think of it.’’

‘‘Did you try to kill him?’’

‘‘Me?’’ Oliver smiled slowly. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘Did Amelie?’’

He didn’t answer, but he continued to smile. The silence stretched until she wanted to scream, but she knew he wanted her to babble.

She didn’t.

‘‘Amelie’s affairs are none of yours,’’ Oliver said. ‘‘I assume you’ve been listening to Myrnin’s chatter.

I confess, I find it fascinating he’s still with us. I thought him dead and gone, long ago.’’

‘‘Like Bishop?’’

‘‘He’s quite mad, you know. Myrnin. And he has been for as long as I can recall, though it certainly got worse in more recent times.’’ Oliver’s eyes took on a faraway look. ‘‘He did so love the hunt, but he was always such a pathetic weeping idiot after. It doesn’t surprise me he wants to blame his own weakness on some—mythical disease. Some people simply aren’t cut out for this life.’’

Of all the things Claire had expected, that one caught her off guard. ‘‘You don’t believe there’s a disease?’’

‘‘I don’t believe that because Myrnin and a few others are—defective—that it means we’re all declining, no.’’

‘‘But—you can’t, um—’’

‘‘Reproduce?’’ Oliver said it without any emotion at all. ‘‘Perhaps we don’t wish to.’’

‘‘You tried to turn Michael.’’

Oh, she shouldn’t have said that, she really shouldn’t have; Oliver’s face tensed, and she saw the skull underneath that smooth, pale skin. A flicker of red went through his eyes. ‘‘So Michael says.’’

‘‘So Amelie says. You wanted—you wanted your own power base here. Your own converts. But you couldn’t do it. That surprised you, didn’t it? Because all of a sudden you’re—not able to.’’

‘‘Child,’’ Oliver said, ‘‘you should think carefully about the next thing you say to me. Very, very carefully.’’

He followed up with another stretch of silent staring, and this time Claire did look away. She picked at invisible lint on her backpack. ‘‘I should get to work,’’ she said. ‘‘And you aren’t supposed to be in here without Amelie knowing about it.’’

‘‘How do you know she doesn’t?’’

‘‘There’d be somebody else here watching you if she did,’’ Claire pointed out, and got a small, cold smile in response.

‘‘Clever girl. Yes, very well. Are you going to tell me to leave?’’

‘‘I don’t think I can tell you to do anything, Oliver, but if you want me to call Amelie—’’ She took her cell phone out, opened it, and scrolled through the address book.

Oliver thought about killing her. She saw it flash across his face, plain as sunrise, and she almost dialed the phone in sheer reflex.

Then it was gone, and he was smiling, and he stood up and gave her a nod. ‘‘No need to bother the Founder with such nonsense,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll be leaving. There’s only so many ridiculous mad ravings one can read at a sitting, in any case.’’

He dropped the journal onto a pile scattered near the chair and walked away, moving with effortless grace around the piles of books and barriers of mismatched furniture. He didn’t seem to move quickly, but before she could blink, he was gone, a shadow on the steps.

Claire let out a shaky breath, got the dart gun from her backpack, and went to see Myrnin.

‘‘Magnificent,’’ Myrnin said, staring down at his hands. He flexed them into fists, turned them over, extended his fingers. ‘‘I haven’t felt this good in—well, years. I had numbness in my hands—did you know?’’

It was a symptom Myrnin had forgotten to mention, and Claire wrote it down in her notebook. She had the countdown clock—a new addition to the lab, one she’d ordered from the Internet—up on the wall, and the red flickering numbers reminded both of them that Myrnin had a maximum of five hours of sanity from the current formulation of the treatment.

Myrnin followed her glance at the clock, and the giddy excitement in his expression faded. He still looked like a young man, except for his eyes; it was creepy to think he’d looked exactly that way for generations before she was born, and would long after she was dead and gone. He did so love the hunt, Oliver had said. There was really only one kind of hunt for vampires. Hunting people.

He smiled at her, and it was the smile that had won her over in the first place—sweet, gentle, inviting her to share in some delightful secret. ‘‘Thank you for the clock, Claire. That’s a great help. There’s an alarm feature?’’

‘‘It starts sounding a tone fifteen minutes before the clock runs out,’’ she said. ‘‘And it has tones striking every hour, too.’’

‘‘Very helpful. Well, then. Now that I have use of my fingers—what shall we do?’’ Myrnin wiggled his thick black eyebrows suggestively, which was actually funny, coming from him. Not that he wasn’t cute—he was—but Claire couldn’t really imagine finding him sexy.

She wondered if that would hurt his feelings.

‘‘How about if we start shelving some of these books?’’ she said. It really was getting to be a hazard; she’d tripped over stacks more than once even when it wasn’t an emergency. Myrnin, however, made a face.

‘‘I only have a few hours in my right mind, Claire. Housekeeping seems a poor way to spend them.’’

‘‘All right, what do you want to do?’’

‘‘I think we made great progress in this last formulation, ’’ he said. ‘‘Why not see if we can distill the essence further? Strengthen the effects?’’

‘‘I think we’d better do some chemical analysis on what happens in your blood before we do that.’’

Before she could stop him, he strode over to a table, picked up a rusty knife, and slashed open his arm. She was just opening her mouth to scream when he grabbed a clean beaker from the rack on the table and caught the drizzling blood. The wound healed before he’d lost more than a few teaspoons.

‘‘There are—easier ways to do that,’’ she said weakly. Myrnin held the beaker out to her. The blood looked darker than regular human blood, and thicker, but then she supposed it would—he wasn’t as warm. She tried not to think about all those people donating blood, but she couldn’t help it. Was Shane’s blood going to end up in Myrnin’s veins? And how did that work, anyway? . . . Did vampires digest the blood, or just somehow pass it whole into their circulatory systems? Did blood types matter? Conflicting Rh factors? What about bloodborne diseases, like malaria and Ebola and AIDS?

There were a lot of questions to answer. She thought Dr. Mills would be in heaven over the prospect.

‘‘Pain doesn’t matter much,’’ Myrnin said, and yanked his sleeve down over his pale, unmarked arm after wiping away the trickles of blood that were left. ‘‘One learns to ignore it, eventually.’’

Claire doubted that, but she didn’t argue. ‘‘I’m going to take part of this back to the hospital,’’ she said. ‘‘Dr. Mills wanted blood samples. They’ve got a lot of cool equipment there, he can give us detailed information we can’t get here.’’

Myrnin shrugged, clearly uninterested in Dr. Mills or any human beyond Claire. ‘‘Do as you like,’’ he said. ‘‘What kind of equipment?’’

‘‘Oh, all kinds. Mass spectrometers, blood-chemistry analyzers—you know.’’

‘‘We should get those things.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘How can we possibly operate as we should if we don’t have the most current equipment?’’

Claire blinked at him. ‘‘Myrnin, you don’t exactly have room down here. And I don’t think your current dinky little power situation is going to let you plug in an electron microscope. That’s not the way scientists work anymore, anyway. The equipment’s too expensive, too delicate. The big hospitals and universities buy the equipment. We just rent time on it.’’

Myrnin looked surprised, then thoughtful. ‘‘Rent time? But how can you schedule such a thing when you don’t know what you’re looking for or how long it will take?’’

‘‘You have to learn to schedule your epiphanies. And be patient.’’

That got a laugh out of him. ‘‘Claire, I am a vampire. We aren’t known for patience, you know. Your Dr. Mills—maybe we should pay him a visit. I’d like to meet him.’’

‘‘He’d—probably like to meet you, too,’’ she said slowly. She wasn’t at all sure how Amelie was going to feel about that, but she could tell that Myrnin had it in his head to do it whether she went along or not. ‘‘Next time, okay?’’

They both glanced at the countdown clock. ‘‘Yes,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘Next time. Ah! I meant to ask you. What did you hear about Bishop and the welcome feast?’’

‘‘Not much. I think Michael and Eve are going. Shane—Shane says he has to go.’’

‘‘With Ysandre?’’

Claire nodded. Myrnin turned away from her, shoved over a stack of books with restless enthusiasm, then another. He gave a raw cry of delight and scrambled over the piled volumes to retrieve one that, to Claire’s eyes, looked just like any other.

He threw it to her. Claire managed to grab it before it smacked into her chest. ‘‘Ow!’’ she complained. ‘‘Not so hard, please.’’

‘‘Sorry.’’ He wasn’t, really. There was a subversive, dark streak in him today.

‘‘What is this, anyway?’’

Myrnin came back to her side, took the book, opened it, and flipped pages. He paused around the middle and handed it back.

‘‘Ysandre,’’ he said.

The book was written in English, but it was from the eighteenth century, and not easy to make out, considering the stains on the pages.

She was of a beauty so unusual and so marvelous that her grandfather was fascinated by the dazzling sight, and mistook her for an angel that God had sent to console him on his deathbed. The pure lines of her fine profile, her great black liquid eyes, her noble brow uncovered, her hair shining like the raven’s wing, her delicate mouth, the whole effect of this beautiful face on the mind of those who beheld her was that of a deep melancholy and sweetness, impressing itself once and for ever. Tall and slender, but without the excessive thinness of some young girls, her movements had that careless supple grace that recalls the waving of a flower stalk in the breeze.

‘‘Oh,’’ Claire said, surprised. That was Ysandre; he was right. ‘‘She was—’’

‘‘A very famous murderess. She helped her husband and cousins kill a king shortly after her grandfather’s death. She was hanged, in the end, but that was after she’d been made a vampire. Lucky timing, for her.’’

The book contained a gruesome account of the king’s murder, and a whole lot of others. Claire shivered and closed the book. ‘‘Why did you show me this?’’

‘‘I don’t want you to do what her grandfather did— underestimate her because she has the look of an angel. Ysandre has destroyed more lives than you can begin to imagine, starting with her own.’’ Myrnin’s eyes were dark and very, very serious. ‘‘If she wants Shane, let her have him. She’ll be done with him soon enough. Amelie won’t allow her to kill him.’’

‘‘I think she wants other things,’’ Claire said.

‘‘Ah. Sexual, then. Or some version of it. Ysandre has always been a bit—odd.’’

‘‘How do I stop her?’’

Myrnin slowly shook his head. ‘‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you. My only suggestion—which I’m quite certain you won’t like—is to let him deal with this in his own way. She’ll leave him alive, and largely intact, unless he resists her.’’

‘‘You’re right. I don’t like it.’’

‘‘Complain to the management, my dear.’’ His fit of seriousness passed off, like a cloud from the sun. ‘‘How about a game of chess, then?’’

‘‘How about we just analyze your blood, because you’ve only got a few more minutes before I have to put you back in your, ah, room?’’

‘‘Cell,’’ he corrected. ‘‘Perfectly all right to say so. And you work too hard for someone so young.’’

She worked too hard, Claire thought in frustration, because somebody had to. Myrnin certainly didn’t.

By Thursday, the upcoming masked ball was the buzz of Morganville. Claire couldn’t avoid hearing about it. At the university coffee shop, that was inevitable; people said the weirdest, most private things right out in public, like there was some invisible privacy wall around them. She’d heard way too much about her fellow students’ sexual adventures over the past few weeks; apparently, it was mating season, now that everybody was settling in for the semester. Girls rated guys. Guys rated girls. Both wanted what they couldn’t have, or had what they didn’t really want.

But as Claire sipped her coffee and wrote out her physics essay on mechanics, heat, and fields—which didn’t have to do with auto shops, weather, or farming—she heard something that made her pen come to a stuttering stop on the page.

‘‘—invitation,’’ someone was saying. The someone was sitting behind her. ‘‘Can you believe it! My God, I actually got one! They say there are only three hundred invitations being sent out, you know. It’s really going to be amazing. I was thinking of going as Marie Antoinette—what do you think?’’

They had to be talking about the masked ball. Claire shifted in her chair. That didn’t help—she still couldn’t see who was speaking.

‘‘Well, I think somebody might have actually known her, back in the day,’’ the other girl said. ‘‘So you might want to go with something safe, like Catwoman. I’ll bet none of them know Catwoman.’’

‘‘Catwoman’s good,’’ the first girl agreed. ‘‘Tight black leather is never out of style. I would look totally hot as Catwoman.’’

Claire spilled her coffee, more or less deliberately, and jumped up to gather handfuls of napkins from the common dispenser at the creamer station. On the way back, she got a look at the two who were talking.

Gina and Jennifer, Monica’s ever-present friends. Only, this time, no Monica to be seen. Interesting.

Jennifer glared at her. ‘‘What are you looking at, klutz?’’

‘‘Absolutely nothing,’’ Claire said, deadpan. She wasn’t afraid of them, not anymore. ‘‘I wouldn’t go as Catwoman. Not with those thighs.’’

‘‘Oh, mee-yow.’’

She gathered up books and coffee, and retreated to a table closer to the actual coffee bar. Eve was working. She looked perky today, bright-eyed and smiling; she had on red, and it totally worked for her. Goth, but somehow cheerful. She still grieved for her dad—Claire saw it in odd moments, when she thought nobody was watching—but Eve had pulled herself together, and was holding it together despite all the odds.

She had a break in the coffee line, so she flashed her coworker a hand signal of five—a five-minute break, Claire guessed as Eve stripped off the apron and ducked under the bar to slip into the chair opposite her.

‘‘So,’’ she said, ‘‘I heard from Billy Harrison that his dad got an invitation to this ball thing, from Tamara—the vamp who owns all those warehouses on the north side, and runs the paper? And he said that vamps all over town are going, and taking humans as their—I don’t know, dates? That’s weird, right? That they’re all bringing humans?’’

‘‘It’s never happened before?’’

‘‘Not that I know of,’’ Eve said. ‘‘I asked around, but nobody’s seen anything like it. It’s become the hot-ticket event of the year.’’ Her smile dimmed slightly. ‘‘I guess Michael forgot to send me mine. My invitation. I should remind him.’’

Claire felt a tight little knot tug inside. ‘‘He hasn’t asked you?’’

‘‘He will.’’

‘‘But . . . it’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?’’

‘‘He will. Besides, it’s not like I have to come up with some elaborate costume or anything. Have you seen my closet? Half of what I wear qualifies as dress-up. ’’ Eve glanced at her, then down. ‘‘You?’’

‘‘Nobody’s asking me to go.’’ Yeah, the bitterness was there in her voice. Claire couldn’t keep it out. ‘‘You know who Shane’s going with.’’

‘‘It’s not his fault. It’s hers. Ysandre.’’ Eve made a face. ‘‘What kind of a name is that, anyway?’’

‘‘French. Myrnin gave me a book about her,’’ Claire said. ‘‘I knew she was dangerous, but honestly, she’s worse than I thought. She might have started out just trying to get by, but she was a real player, back when politics was war.’’

‘‘What about the guy? François?’’ Eve rolled her eyes when she said his name, doing her best foo-foo French pronunciation. ‘‘He thinks he’s hotter than the surface of the sun. Who’s he taking?’’

‘‘No idea,’’ Claire said. ‘‘But—it’s not a date, you know. It’s—’’ She had no real idea what it was. ‘‘It’s something else.’’

‘‘Looks like a date, dresses like a date, dates like a date,’’ Eve said. ‘‘And I intend to be arm candy for Michael and protect him from all the big, bad social climbers out there looking to grab on to the newest vamp in town.’’

‘‘He’s not, though,’’ Claire said. ‘‘The newest. Not anymore. Bishop and his crew are newer than he is, at least in terms of novelty factor.’’

Eve frowned. ‘‘Yeah,’’ she said. ‘‘I guess that’s true.’’

A shadow fell across their table, but before they could look up, something hit the surface between them, and both Claire and Eve involuntarily focused on it.

It was one of the cream-colored invitations.

They looked up. Monica. She swept her perfect blond hair back over her shoulders, raised her eyebrows, and gave Eve a slow, evil smile.

‘‘Too bad,’’ she said. ‘‘I guess your hottie boyfriend knows where his social bread is buttered, after all.’’

Eve’s eyes widened. She turned the invitation around to read it, but even upside down, Claire saw the incriminating evidence.

You have been summoned to attend a masked ball and feast to celebrate the arrival of Elder Bishop, on Saturday the twentieth of October, at the Elders’ Council Hall at the hour of midnight.

You will attend at the invitation of Michael Glass, and are required to accompany him at his pleasure.

The name jumped out at her like a fanged surprise attack. Michael Glass. Michael was inviting Monica.

Eve didn’t say another word. She shoved the invitation back at Monica, got up, and ducked behind the coffee bar to don her apron again. Claire stared after her, stricken. She could see the jittery anguish in her friend’s movements, but not her face. Eve was keeping carefully turned away, and even when she went to the espresso machine again to pull shots, she kept staring down, hiding her pain.

Claire’s shock thawed into a nice warm glow of anger. ‘‘You’re a total bitch, you know that?’’ she said. Monica raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘‘You didn’t have to do that.’’

‘‘Not my fault you freaks can’t hang on to your men. I heard Shane was boy-toying around with Ysandre. Too bad. I’ll bet you never even got him between the sheets, did you? Or wait . . . maybe you did. Because I’ll bet that would drive him straight into somebody else’s bed.’’

Claire fantasized for a few seconds about planting her physics textbook squarely in the middle of Monica’s pouty, lip-glossed smile. She glared, instead, remembering how effective Oliver’s periods of icy silence could be. Monica finally shrugged, picked up the invitation, and tucked it in the pocket of her leather jacket.

‘‘I’d say ‘See you,’ but I probably won’t,’’ Monica said. ‘‘I guess you can hold your own Loser Party on Saturday, with special shots of cyanide or something. Enjoy.’’

She joined up with Gina and Jennifer, and the three girls walked away, turning heads. The golden, fortunate girls, tight and toned and perfect.

Laughing.

Claire realized she was clenching her fists, forced herself to relax and breathe, and picked up her pen again. The details of the essay kept slipping away, because all she could see was Monica preening at Michael’s side, rubbing Eve’s face in the humiliation. And even when she looked past that, there was Ysandre, and Shane, and that hurt even more.

‘‘Why?’’ she whispered. ‘‘Michael, why would you do that to her?’’ Had they had a fight of some kind? Eve didn’t seem to think so. She acted like it had come as a bolt from the blue sky.

With a feeling that she was making a terrible mistake, she dialed the first speed-dial number on her phone.

‘‘Yes, Claire,’’ Amelie said.

‘‘I need to talk to you. About this masked-ball thing. What’s going on?’’

For a few seconds Claire was sure Amelie would hang up on her, but then the vampire said, ‘‘Yes, I suppose we must talk about it. I will meet you upstairs at your home. You know where.’’

She meant the hidden room. ‘‘When?’’

‘‘I am, of course, at your convenience,’’ Amelie said, which was winter cold and utterly untrue. ‘‘Would an hour suffice?’’

‘‘I’ll be there,’’ Claire said. Her hands were shaking, fine little trembles that were a sign of the inner earthquake. ‘‘Thank you.’’

‘‘Oh, don’t thank me, child,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘I shouldn’t imagine you’ll find anything I have to say will be of the least comfort to you.’’

The house was empty when Claire got there. She checked every room, including the laundry room in the basement, to be absolutely sure. Eve was still at work; Michael was at the music store. Shane—she had no idea where Shane was, except that the house was Shane free.

Claire pressed the hidden button in the hallway on the second floor, and the paneling opened on the dusty steps leading up to the hidden room. She shut the opening behind her and trudged up, feeling sicker and more isolated with every single stair.

At the top, color spilled across the walls: Victorian lamps, all jeweled hues and pale, watery light. There were no windows, no exits here. Only a few nice pieces of dusty furniture, and Amelie.

And the bodyguards, of course. Amelie hardly ever went anywhere without at least one. There were two this time, lurking in the corners. One of them nodded to Claire. She was on nodding terms with scary bodyguard dudes. Great. She really was moving up in the social ladder of Morganville.

‘‘Ma’am,’’ Claire said, and stayed standing. Amelie was seated, but she didn’t look as though she was in any mood to indulge the fantasy that Claire was her equal. It was hard to determine Amelie’s feelings, but Claire was pretty sure that this one qualified as impatient, with a possible upgrade to annoyed.

‘‘I have very little time for soothing your ruffled feathers,’’ Amelie said. She shifted a little, which was surprising; Amelie was usually very still, very composed. That was almost fidgeting. There was something else unusual about her today—the color of her suit. It was still classic and beautifully tailored, but it was in a dark gray, much darker than Amelie usually preferred. It turned her eyes the color of storm clouds. ‘‘Yet you’ve done more than I asked with Myrnin. I am inclined to forgive your impertinence, if you understand that it’s an indulgence on my part. Not a right on yours.’’

‘‘I understand,’’ Claire said. ‘‘I just—this masked ball. Myrnin called it a welcome feast. He acted like it had something important to do with Mr. Bishop.’’

Amelie’s eyes, which had been regarding her with impersonal focus, suddenly sharpened. ‘‘You’ve spoken with Myrnin regarding Bishop’s arrival?’’

‘‘Well—he asked me what was happening in town, and—’’ Claire broke off, because Amelie was suddenly standing. And her bodyguards had moved out of the corners of the room and were very close, close enough to hurt. ‘‘You didn’t tell me not to!’’

‘‘I told you to stay out of my affairs!’’ Something pale and hungry flickered in those eyes, as scary in its own way as Mr. Bishop. Amelie deliberately relaxed. ‘‘Very well. The damage is done. What did Myrnin tell you?’’

‘‘He said—’’ Claire wet her lips and glanced at the bodyguards hovering terrifyingly close. Amelie raised an eyebrow and nodded, and Claire felt rather than saw them move away. ‘‘He said you both thought Bishop was dead, so he was surprised to find out that he’d come to town. He said that Bishop wanted revenge. Against you.’’

‘‘What did he tell you about the feast?’’

‘‘Only that it was part of some kind of ceremony to welcome Bishop to town,’’ Claire said. ‘‘And that you weren’t going to fight him if you were putting on the feast.’’

Amelie’s smile was quick and cold. ‘‘Myrnin knows something about the world and its politics. No, I’m not going to fight him. Not unless I must. Did he tell you anything else?’’

‘‘No.’’ Claire sucked up her courage. ‘‘Ysandre’s taking Shane. And Michael—I just found out he’s going, and he’s taking Monica. Not Eve.’’

‘‘Do you imagine I have the slightest concern for how your friends arrange their romantic affairs?’’

‘‘No, it’s just—I want you to invite me. Please. All the vampires are taking humans. Why don’t you take me?’’

Amelie’s eyes widened. Not much, but it was enough to make Claire think she’d scored a big-time surprise. ‘‘Why would you possibly wish to attend?’’

‘‘Monica says it’s the social event of the season,’’ Claire said. She wasn’t sure a joke was the way to go; she knew Amelie had a sense of humor, but it was obscure.

Today, it was apparently nonexistent.

‘‘All right, the truth is, I’m worried about Michael and Shane. I just want to be sure—sure they’re okay.’’

‘‘And how would you go about ensuring that, if I cannot?’’ Amelie didn’t wait for an answer, because there obviously wasn’t one. ‘‘You want to watch the boy, to be sure he doesn’t fall prey to Ysandre. Is that it?’’

Claire swallowed and nodded. That wasn’t all, but that was a lot of it.

‘‘It’s a waste of time. No,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘You will not attend, Claire. I tell you this, explicitly, so that we are understood: I cannot risk you in this. You will not be at this event. Neither you nor Myrnin. Is that clear?’’

‘‘But—’’

Amelie’s voice rose to a shout. ‘‘Is that clear?’’ The fury cut like knives, and Claire gasped and nodded. She wanted to take a step back from the horrible glow in Amelie’s eyes, but she knew that would be a very bad idea. She’d been around Myrnin enough to understand that retreat was a sign of weakness, and weakness triggered attack.

Amelie continued to stare at her, fixed and silent, and there was a wildness to her that Claire couldn’t understand.

‘‘Mistress,’’ said one of the bodyguards. ‘‘We should go.’’ He made it sound as if they had someplace to be, but Claire had the eerie feeling that he was intervening deliberately. Providing Amelie an excuse to back off.

‘‘Yes,’’ Amelie said. There was a husky tone to her voice Claire had never heard before. ‘‘By all means, let us be done with this. You have heard my words, Claire. I warn you, don’t test me on this. You’re valuable to me, but you are not irreplaceable, and you have friends and family in this town who are far less useful.’’

There was no mistaking that for anything but an outright threat. Claire nodded slowly.

‘‘Say the words,’’ Amelie said.

‘‘Yes. I understand.’’

‘‘Good. Now don’t bother me again. You may go.’’

Claire backed away toward the stairs. She even backed down two steps before turning and hurrying down the rest, and when she was halfway there, she realized that the control to open the door from inside lay at the top, in the couch where Amelie sat.

If Amelie didn’t want to let her out, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Claire reached the landing at the bottom. The door was still closed. She looked back up the stairs and saw shadows moving, but heard nothing.

The lights went out.

‘‘No,’’ she whispered, and fear came down like a bucket of freezing water, from head to toe. Her hand reached out blindly to stroke the closed door. ‘‘No, don’t do this—’’

Something had changed in Amelie. She wasn’t the cool, remote queen she’d been before. She was more—animal. More angry.

And Claire finally admitted it to herself: Amelie was more hungry.

‘‘Please,’’ she said to the dark. She knew there were ears listening. ‘‘Please let me go now.’’

She heard a sharp click, and the door moved under her fingertips, swinging inward. Claire grabbed the edge with both hands and pulled it open. She was suddenly in the hall, and when she looked back, the door was closing.

She collapsed against the wall, trembling.

That went well, she thought sarcastically. She wanted to scream, but she was almost sure that would be a very, very bad idea.

Downstairs, the front door opened and closed, and Claire heard the clump of heavy shoes on the wood floor.

‘‘Eve?’’ she called.

‘‘Yeah.’’ Eve sounded exhausted. ‘‘Coming.’’

She looked even worse than she sounded. The red outfit that had flattered her so much before seemed to scream now, overpowering her; she seemed ready to drop, and from the state of her makeup, she’d already shed a lot of tears.

‘‘Oh,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Eve . . .’’

Eve tried for a smile, but there wasn’t much left. ‘‘Pretty stupid to be upset about Monica, right? But I think that’s why it hurts so bad. It’s not like he’s taking somebody halfway nice or anything. He has to pick the walking social disease.’’ Eve wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. Her eyeliner and mascara had made a true Gothic mess, trickling in dirty streaks down her pale cheeks. ‘‘Don’t try to tell me he was ordered to do it. I don’t care if he was—he could have told me first. And why aren’t you arguing with me?’’

‘‘Because you’re right.’’

‘‘Damn right I’m right.’’ Eve kicked open the door to her room, walked in, and threw herself facedown on the black bed. Claire clicked on the lights, which mostly consisted of strings of dim white Christmas lights and one lamp with a bloodred scarf draped over the shade. Eve screamed into her pillow and punched it. Claire perched on the corner of the bed.

‘‘I’m going to kill him,’’ Eve said, or at least that was what it sounded like filtered through the pillow. ‘‘Stake him right in the heart, shove garlic up his ass, and—and—’’

‘‘And what?’’

Michael was standing in the doorway. Claire jumped off the bed in alarm, and Eve sat up with her pillow clutched in both hands. ‘‘When did you get home?’’ Claire demanded.

‘‘Apparently just in time to hear my funeral plans. I especially like the garlic up the ass. It’s . . . different.’’

‘‘Yeah, well, I’m not finished,’’ Eve said. She slithered off the bedspread, dropped the pillow, and faced Michael with her arms crossed. ‘‘I’m also going to stake you outside in the sun, on top of a fire ant mound. And laugh.’’

‘‘What did I do?’’

‘‘What did you do?’’ Eve’s glare was fierce enough to rip even a vampire’s heart right out of his chest. ‘‘You can’t be serious.’’

Michael went very still, and Claire thought the expression in his eyes was the definition of busted. ‘‘Monica. She told you.’’

‘‘Duh. Why wouldn’t she take the chance to rub my face in it, you loser? And speaking of that, Monica? Did you lose a bet or something? Because that’s really the only reason I can think of for you to humiliate me like this.’’

‘‘No,’’ Michael said. His gaze flickered to Claire in an unmistakable plea for her to leave. She didn’t. ‘‘I can’t explain, Eve. I’m sorry, I just can’t. But it’s not what it—’’

‘‘Don’t you even say it’s not what it looks like, because it’s always what it looks like!’’ Eve lunged forward, shoved Michael square in the chest, and drove him a foot backward, out of her room. ‘‘I can’t talk to you right now. Get out! And stay out!’’

She slammed the door and locked it. Not, Claire reflected, that a lock would do any good, considering how strong Michael was. But he probably wouldn’t go around battering down doors in his own house, at least.

‘‘Eve, you have to listen to me. Please.’’

Eve threw herself back on the bed, grabbed her iPod from the drawer, and shoved headphones over her ears as she hit the play button. Claire could hear the thundering metal all the way across the room.

‘‘Eve?’’

Claire opened the door and looked at Michael. ‘‘I don’t think she’s listening,’’ she said. ‘‘You really screwed this up—you know that, right? At least Shane got ordered to do what he did. You chose, didn’t you?’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Michael agreed softly. ‘‘I chose. But you really don’t have any idea of what my choices were, do you?’’

She watched him walk away, enter his room at the end of the hall, and shut the door.

Maybe he was right. Maybe it really wasn’t what it looked like. Not that Eve was going to listen. Claire stood there for a while, listening to the cold and stony silence, and then shook her head and went downstairs.

Chili dogs weren’t the same eaten alone.

Shane got home after dark, and the second Claire saw him, she knew something was wrong. He looked— distracted. Different.

And he barely nodded to her on his way through the living room to the kitchen. She was curled up on the sofa highlighting text in her English book, wondering for the thousandth time why anybody thought knowing about the Brontë sisters was important and multitasking by not really watching a cooking show on cable TV.

‘‘Hey,’’ she called after him. ‘‘I left the chili on for you!’’

He didn’t answer. Claire capped her marker pen and went to the kitchen door. She didn’t open it, but she stood and listened. Shane wasn’t making the normal dish noises of a guy desperate for dinner; in fact, he wasn’t making any noise at all.

Claire was debating whether to return to studying when she heard him open the back door of the house. Voices, hushed and muffled. She eased the door open just a little, and listened harder.

‘‘You’re lucky I don’t call the cops,’’ Shane was saying. ‘‘Walk away, man.’’

‘‘I can’t. I need to talk to her.’’

‘‘You’re not coming near either one of the girls, got me?’’

‘‘I’m not going to hurt anyone!’’

She knew that voice, or thought she did. But that couldn’t be right, it just couldn’t be.

Shane could not be talking to Eve’s brother, Jason, especially not at the back door. She had to be imagining things. Maybe it was someone else, someone who just sounded like Jason Rosser. . . .

Claire eased the door open enough to get a tiny slice of a view.

No, that was Jason. There was absolutely no doubt about it. He was even wearing the same skanky, stained jeans and leather jacket. His hair was lank and even greasier than the last time she’d seen him, and he looked sallow and sick.

‘‘Come on, man,’’ he said. ‘‘Just let me talk to Claire. You keep me waiting out here in the dark, I’m lunch meat.’’

‘‘Good to know.’’

Jason put out a hand to stop Shane from closing the door on him. ‘‘Please, man. I’m asking.’’

Shane hesitated. Claire couldn’t really imagine why. Jason had stalked Eve; he’d killed—or at least he said he’d killed—innocent girls out of some misguided attempt to get the vampires to sign him up for service. He’d stabbed Shane in the guts.

Shane did swing the bat at him first, Claire’s prim little voice of conscience said. She told it to shut up. Jason had engineered that fight, he’d provoked Shane into it, and it was only the fact that they’d gotten an ambulance there so fast that had saved Shane’s life.

Jason didn’t look like a crazy killer just now. He looked like a half-starved scared junkie kid who was terrified out of his mind. And desperate.

Claire came into the kitchen. Jason’s face lit up. ‘‘Claire! Claire, tell him—tell him it’s okay. I promise, I’m not going to hurt anybody. Tell him it’s okay to let me in so I can talk to you.’’

‘‘It’s not okay,’’ Claire said. ‘‘But he already knows that.’’

Shane nodded. He shoved Jason backward, off-balance, off the porch. Jason tripped over a brick and fell flat on his ass. He glared up at Shane and rolled slowly to his feet. ‘‘Claire, I’m supposed to tell you something. From Oliver.’’

‘‘Oliver’s got nothing to tell us that we want to hear, man. Especially from you.’’

‘‘You sure about that?’’

Shane grinned. ‘‘Pretty sure. Good luck with that survival thing out there in the dark.’’

Shane started to shut the door. He almost made it before Jason blurted out, ‘‘Bishop’s setting a trap. We can tell you where and when.’’

Claire put a hand on Shane’s shoulder, and he kept the door open, just a crack. ‘‘What are you talking about?’’

‘‘Let me in and I’ll tell you.’’ Jason looked desperate enough to claw paint off the door. ‘‘Please, Claire. I swear, I’m on the level here.’’

‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘If Oliver’s got something to say, I’ll talk to him, not to you.’’

Resentment flickered in Jason’s dark eyes like oil on fire, and he got up and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘‘Yeah? You gonna play it like that?’’

‘‘I’m not playing at all,’’ Claire said.

‘‘I think you are. So maybe we do it the hard way after all.’’ Jason threw himself against the door with such force that Shane was knocked backward, and Claire lost her footing and ended up flat on her back on the kitchen floor. As she twisted around to try to get up, she felt Jason’s hand close on her hair, painfully tight. He yanked her up to her knees and dragged her out into the night. She yelled and fought, but he had a lot of experience with making girls do what he wanted.

And she stopped fighting when he put a gun to her head.

‘‘Good,’’ he said in her ear, and even in a blind, black rage she thought his breath was disgusting enough to peel paint. ‘‘Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you. I was serious. You need to listen to me.’’

Shane followed them outside, moving slowly but never taking his eyes off Jason. Off the gun. ‘‘Let her go.’’

Jason laughed, and dragged her backward to the driveway, where a big black car was waiting. Shane followed at a safe distance. Don’t, Claire mouthed. She’d seen Jason nearly kill Shane before. She couldn’t stand to see it happen again. I’ll be okay.

Jason opened the driver’s-side door of the car, shoved her inside, and pushed in after. She immediately lunged for the other door.

Locked.

Jason slammed the car door and turned the key to start the engine. He took a firmer grip on Claire’s hair. ‘‘Stay still!’’

Something heavy fell on the roof of the car, denting it down almost to the level of their heads; Claire and Jason both ducked, and Claire yelped at the thought that panic might make him squeeze the trigger.

It didn’t.

A fist punched through the metal roof of the car, grabbed the ragged edge, and peeled it back like a tin can lid. And the face that looked down was Michael’s.

No—not Michael; it was Vampire Michael. Fangs completely down, eyes completely crimson.

Michael was angry. Also, terrifying.

He dropped through the hole in a fall of moonlight, took hold of Jason’s gun hand, and yanked him away from Claire like a toy. A breakable one. Jason screamed. The gun went off, and Claire flinched and covered her head, trying to pull into a ball in the corner. The car shook as Michael threw Jason out, straight up through the opening in the roof. Jason screamed the whole way up, and the whole way down. He hit the ground with a sickening thud and rolled.

Michael launched himself up out of the car, landed lightly on his feet in the wash of headlights, and walked to where Jason was crawling to get away. Jason rolled over. He still had the gun.

He shot Michael six times, point-blank. Claire flinched with every loud crack.

Michael didn’t.

He reached Jason, took the gun, ripped it in half, and threw the two pieces into the trash can leaning at the side of the house. Jason looked shocked, then resigned, as Michael reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his leather jacket.

Shane reached through the ragged sunroof, opened the car door, and grabbed Claire. He pulled her out and to her feet. ‘‘You okay?’’ He sounded deeply shaken, and he kept running his hands over her, looking for bullet holes, she guessed. ‘‘Claire, say something! ’’

‘‘Stop him,’’ she whispered, looking past him at Michael. ‘‘Don’t let him do that.’’

Because Michael was going to bite Jason, and once he did, there’d be no going back. Shane sent her a look, one that probably meant he thought she was crazy, but she forced herself to stay still and calm, even if her insides were quivering in terror.

‘‘Shane,’’ she said, and tried her best to channel Amelie’s cool authority. ‘‘Stop him.’’

She saw the reality of what was happening dawn on Shane, and he nodded and turned toward Michael, who didn’t look as if he was in any mood to be talked off the murder ledge.

But Shane didn’t have to try, because Michael looked up and saw Eve standing in the doorway, hands pressed to her mouth, dark eyes wide in horror, staring at her boyfriend threatening to suck blood out of her little brother.

Michael let go. Jason collapsed back to the ground, whimpering, and tried to crawl away.

Michael put his foot on Jason’s back, holding him in place. ‘‘No,’’ he said. His voice sounded low and very, very dangerous. ‘‘I don’t think so. Attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder of a vampire? You’re done, man. It’s all over but the screaming.’’

‘‘You asshole!’’ Jason yelled. ‘‘I’m working for Oliver! You can’t touch me!’’

He skinned back the sleeve on his jacket, and there, on his wrist, was a silver bracelet.

Michael responded by pressing his foot harder into Jason’s back. ‘‘Then you and I are going to have a talk with Oliver about how he sends his little worm to my house to shoot me,’’ he said. ‘‘I think you’re not going to like that very much. Because I’m pretty sure that Oliver didn’t ask you to do that kind of thing.’’

‘‘Michael,’’ Shane said. It was a warning, and as Claire turned, she saw why—another car was arriving, a police car with lights flashing. It pulled to a stop in the driveway, blocking in Jason’s half-peeled car, and Richard Morrell got out of the driver’s side carrying a shotgun. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were with him, and each of them held a drawn gun.

She’d never seen the three of them looking so grim, but she was glad to see them. At least this meant somebody would be putting a stop to Jason and his craziness at last. Michael was right: it wasn’t going to be a good ending for him, but—

Richard Morrell put the shotgun to his shoulder. He was aiming at Michael. The other two men took up shooting stances.

Claire gasped.

‘‘Out of the way,’’ Detective Hess ordered Shane, with a jerk of his head. Shane didn’t argue. He held up his hands and backed away. Michael turned and saw the cops aiming at him, and frowned.

‘‘Let him go, Michael,’’ Travis Lowe said. ‘‘Let’s do this easy.’’

‘‘What’s going on?’’

‘‘One thing at a time. Let the kid up.’’

Michael removed his foot. Jason scrambled to a standing position and tried to run; Richard Morrell sighed, handed his shotgun to Joe Hess, and took off after him. As fast as Jason was, Richard was faster. He took him down in a flying tackle before he was halfway to the fence. He rolled Jason onto his back and handcuffed him with brutal efficiency, yanked him upright, and marched him back to where the other two policemen held Michael at gunpoint.

‘‘What’s going on?’’ Michael repeated. ‘‘He tries to kidnap Claire, and you come after me? Why?’’

‘‘Let’s just say we’re saving you from yourself,’’ Detective Hess said. ‘‘You okay? You calm?’’

Michael nodded. Hess lowered his gun, and so did Travis Lowe. Richard Morrell put Jason in the backseat of the police car.

‘‘We got a tip,’’ Hess continued, ‘‘that you’d gone berserk and were trying to kill your friends. But since I see they’re all standing here alive and well, I’m guessing little Jason is the real problem.’’

Richard came back, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. Clearly, he didn’t like touching Jason, either. ‘‘Did he break in?’’

‘‘No,’’ Shane said. ‘‘He pulled a gun on us and grabbed Claire at the back door. He was trying to drive away with her. Michael stopped him.’’

Michael, Claire realized as her heartbeat started to slow, had also been shot six times in the chest at point-blank range. His loose white shirt had the blackened ragged holes to prove it, each one rimmed with a thin outline of red. She remembered Myrnin swiping the knife carelessly down his arm, laying open veins and arteries and muscles just to get a blood sample.

She couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t look like there was a mark on Michael’s chest under the shirt, and he wasn’t moving like a man with bullets buried inside. Not even one in shock.

Wow.

‘‘What did he want?’’ Detective Hess asked. ‘‘Did he say?’’

‘‘He said he wanted to talk to me,’’ Claire said. That much was true, but she didn’t want to drag Oliver into this. It was enough of a mess already. ‘‘I think he really did want to. He just knew he wouldn’t be able to do it here. I don’t—I don’t think he really meant to hurt me.’’ This time.

Shane was looking at her like she’d grown a second head, one with serious brain damage. ‘‘It’s Jason. Of course he meant to hurt you! Wasn’t the gun pointed at your head a clue?’’

He was right, of course, but—she’d seen the look in Jason’s eyes, and it hadn’t been the predatory glee she’d seen before when he was playing his little sadistic games. This had been flat-out desperation. She couldn’t explain it, but she believed Jason.

This time.

Shane was still watching her with a frown. So was Michael. ‘‘Are you all right?’’ Shane asked, and folded his arms around her. The warm weight of his body pressed against hers, and she realized just how cold she felt. She was shivering, and her knees felt weak underneath her. I could collapse, she realized. And he’d catch me.

But she stayed on her own two feet, pulled back, and looked him in the eyes.

‘‘I’m fine,’’ she said. She kissed him. ‘‘Everything’s fine.’’

9

Eve hadn’t said a word, but she’d allowed Michael to take her back inside once the cops had pulled away; she’d taken only one look at her brother as he’d been hauled off in handcuffs, but that had been enough. On top of the shock of her father’s death, and the trouble with Michael, Eve didn’t seem to have any emotion left to spare.

Through common consent, none of them went to bed. They didn’t eat. The four of them crammed onto the couch, grateful for the warmth and the company, and put on a movie. A scary one, as it turned out, but Claire was glad to focus on someone else’s problems for a change. Being hunted by a city full of zombies might have seemed like a relief in some ways—at least you knew whom to run from, and whom to run toward. She lay with her head on Shane’s chest, listening more to him breathe than to the characters babbling at one another. His hand kept a slow, steady rhythm on her hair, stroking all her tension and fear away.

Eve and Michael didn’t cuddle, but after a while, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer, and she didn’t resist.

By the time the DVD menu came on after the credits, they were all sound asleep, and trouble was far, far away.

Fridays were usually good days, classwise; even most of the professors were in better moods.

Not this Friday, though. There was a weird tension in the air, along with the increasingly chilly bite to the wind. Her first professor of the day had lost his temper over a cell phone going off, and reduced some sophomore sorority girl to tears before exiling her from the class with a flat-out failing grade. Her second class didn’t go much better; the TA had a headache, maybe a hangover, and was grumpy as hell—too much to bother slowing down as he sped through the lecture, or to answer any questions.

The only good thing about her third hour was that she was confident it would be over in under an hour. Professor Anderson had widely advertised today’s supposedly pop quiz; only a complete coma patient wouldn’t know to come prepared. Anderson was one of those professors—the ones who gave you plenty of chances, but the test was The Test, full stop. He gave only two a year, and if you didn’t do well on both of them, you were screwed. He had a reputation for being a nice guy who smiled a lot, but he’d never yet allowed anybody extra-credit work, or so Claire had heard.

The history majors liked to call his class Andersonville, which was a not very funny reference to the Civil War prison camp. Claire had studied her brains out, and she was absolutely sure that she would ace the test, and have extra time left over.

She stopped off in the restroom, since she was a little early, and carefully balanced her backpack against the wall of the bathroom stall as she did her business. She was going over dates and events in her head when she heard a soft, muffled laugh from near the sinks. Something about it made her freeze—it wasn’t innocent, that laugh. There was something weird about it.

‘‘I hear there’s a test in Andersonville today,’’ a voice said. A familiar one. It was Monica Morrell. ‘‘Hey, does this color look okay?’’

‘‘Nice,’’ Gina said, fulfilling her job as Affirmation Friend #1. ‘‘Is that the new winter red?’’

‘‘Yeah, it’s supposed to shimmer. Is it shimmering? ’’

‘‘Oh yeah.’’

Claire flushed the toilet, grabbed her backpack, and braced herself for impact. She tried to look as if she didn’t care a bit that Monica, Gina, and Jennifer were occupying three out of the four sinks in the bathroom. Or that the rest of the place was deserted.

Monica was touching up her hooker-red lipstick, blowing kisses at her reflection. Claire kept her eyes straight ahead. Get the soap. Turn on the water. Wash—

‘‘Hey, freak, you’re in Andersonville, right?’’

Claire nodded. She scrubbed, rinsed, and reached for the paper towels.

Jennifer snagged her backpack and pulled it out of her reach.

‘‘Hey!’’ Claire grabbed for her stuff, but Jennifer dodged out of her way, and then Monica took hold of her wrist and snapped something cold and metallic around it. For a crazy second Claire thought, She’s switched bracelets with me. Now I’m Oliver’s property. . . .

But it was the cold metal of a handcuff, and Monica bent down and fastened the other end to the metal post on the bottom of the nearest bathroom stall.

‘‘Well,’’ she said as she stepped back and put her hands on her hips, ‘‘I guess you’ll be finding out just how tough the little general can be, Claire. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’re so smart, you’ll just fill in those test answers by the power of your mind or something. ’’

Claire yanked uselessly at the handcuffs, even though she knew that was stupid; she wasn’t going anywhere. She kicked the bathroom stall. It was tough enough to stand up to generations of college students; her frustration wasn’t going to make a dent.

‘‘Give me the key!’’ she yelled. Monica dangled it in front of her—small, silver, and unreachable.

‘‘This key?’’ Monica tossed it into the toilet in the first stall and flushed. ‘‘Oops. Wow, that’s a shame. You wait here. I’ll get help!’’

They all laughed. Jennifer contemptuously shoved her backpack across the floor to her. ‘‘Here,’’ Jennifer said. ‘‘You might want to cram for the test or something.’’

Claire grimly opened her backpack and began looking for something, anything she could use as a lock-pick. Not that she knew the first thing about picking locks, exactly, but she could learn. She had to learn. She barely looked up as the three girls exited the restroom, still laughing.

Her choices were a couple of paper clips, a bobby pin, and the power of her fury, which unfortunately couldn’t melt metal. Only her brain.

Claire took the cell phone out of her pocket and considered her choices. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Eve or Shane had experience with handcuffs—and getting out of them—but she wasn’t sure she wanted to endure the questions, either.

She called the Morganville Police Department, and asked for Richard Morrell. After a short delay, she was put through to his patrol car.

‘‘It’s Claire Danvers,’’ she said. ‘‘I—need some help.’’

‘‘What kind of help?’’

‘‘Your sister kind of—handcuffed me in a bathroom. And I have a test. I don’t have a key. I was hoping you—’’

‘‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m heading to a domestic-disturbance call. It’s going to take me about an hour to get over there. I don’t know what you said to Monica, but if you just—’’

‘‘What, apologize?’’ Claire snapped. ‘‘I didn’t say anything. She ambushed me, and she flushed the key, and I have to get to class!’’

Richard’s sigh rattled the phone. ‘‘I’ll get there as fast as I can.’’

He hung up. Claire set to work with the bobby pin, and watched the minutes crawl by. Tick, tock, there went her grade in Andersonville.

By the time Richard Morrell showed up with a handcuff key to let her loose, the classroom was dark. Claire ran the whole way to Professor Anderson’s office, and felt a burst of relief when she saw that his door was open. He had to give her a break.

He was talking to another student whose back was to Claire; she paused in the doorway, trembling and gasping for breath, and got a frown from Professor Anderson. ‘‘Yes?’’ He was young, but his blond hair was already thinning on top. He had a habit of wearing sport jackets that a man twice his age would have liked; maybe he thought the tweed and leather patches made people take him seriously.

Claire didn’t care what he looked like. She cared that he had the authority to assign grades.

‘‘Sir, hi, Claire Danvers, I’m in—’’

‘‘I know who you are, Claire. You missed the test.’’

‘‘Yes, I—’’

‘‘I don’t accept excuses except in the case of death or serious illness.’’ He looked her over. ‘‘I don’t see any signs of either of those.’’

‘‘But—’’

The other student was watching her now, with a malicious light in her eyes. Claire didn’t know her, but she had on a silver bracelet, and Claire was willing to bet that she was one of Monica’s near and dear sorority girls. Glossy dark hair cut in a bleeding-edge style, perfect makeup. Clothes that reeked of credit card abuse.

‘‘Professor,’’ the girl said, and whispered something to him. His eyes widened. The girl gathered up her books and left, giving Claire a wide berth.

‘‘Sir, I really didn’t—it wasn’t my fault—’’

‘‘From what I just heard, it was very much your fault,’’ Anderson said. ‘‘She said you were asleep out in the common room. She said she passed you on the way to class.’’

‘‘I wasn’t! I was—’’

‘‘I don’t care where you were, Claire. I care where you weren’t, namely, at your desk at the appointed time, taking my test. Now please go.’’

‘‘I was handcuffed!’’

He looked briefly thrown by that, but shook his head. ‘‘I’m not interested in sorority pranks. If you work hard the rest of the semester, you might still be able to pull out a passing grade. Unless you’d like to drop the class. I think you still have a day or two to make that decision.’’

He just wasn’t listening. And, Claire realized, he wasn’t going to listen. He didn’t really care about her problems. He didn’t really care about her.

She stared at him for a few seconds in silence, trying to find some empathy in him, but all she saw was self-absorbed annoyance.

‘‘Good day, Miss Danvers,’’ he said, and sat down at his desk. Pointedly ignoring her.

Claire bit back words that probably would have gotten her expelled, and skipped the rest of her classes to go home.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a clock was ticking. Counting down to Bishop’s masked ball.

There was one comforting thing about the theory of complete apocalypse: at least it meant she wouldn’t have to fail any classes.

Just when she thought her Friday couldn’t get any worse, visitors dropped by the house at dinnertime.

Claire peered out the peephole, and saw dark, curling hair. A wicked smile.

‘‘Better invite me in,’’ Ysandre said. ‘‘Because you know I’ll just go hurt your neighbors until you do.’’

‘‘Michael!’’ Claire yelled. He was in the living room, working out some new songs, but she heard the music stop. He was at her side before the echoes died. ‘‘It’s her. Ysandre. What should I do?’’

Michael opened the door and faced her. She smiled at him. François was with her, both of them sleek and smug and so arrogant it made Claire’s teeth itch.

‘‘I want to talk to Shane,’’ Ysandre said.

‘‘Then you’re going to be disappointed.’’

François raised his eyebrows, reached down, and pulled a bound human form from the bushes on the side of the steps. Claire gasped.

It was Miranda, looking completely terrified. Tied hand and foot, and gagged.

‘‘Let’s put it another way,’’ Ysandre said. ‘‘You can let us in to talk, or we have our dinner alfresco, right here on your veranda.’’

There was absolutely no right answer to that, Claire thought, and saw Michael struggle with it, too. He let the silence stretch for so long that Claire was really afraid Miranda would be killed—François seemed glad to have the chance—but then Michael nodded. ‘‘All right,’’ he said. ‘‘Come in.’’

‘‘Why, thank you, honey,’’ Ysandre said, and strolled in. François dropped Miranda on the wooden hallway floor and followed her. Claire knelt next to the girl and untied her hands.

‘‘Are you okay?’’ she whispered. Miranda nodded, eyes as big as saucers. ‘‘Get out of here. Run home. Go.’’

Miranda stripped off the ropes around her ankles, scrambled up, and escaped.

Claire shut the door and hurried to the living room.

François had shoved Michael’s guitar out of the way and taken the chair. Ysandre sat on the couch, as comfortable as if she owned the world and everything in it. ‘‘How kind of you to ask us in, Michael. I didn’t think we got off to a very good beginning. I want to start over.’’

François laughed. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said. ‘‘We should be friends, Michael. And you shouldn’t be living with cattle.’’

‘‘Is this all you have? Because if it is, I think we’re all done.’’

‘‘Oh, not quite,’’ Ysandre said.

‘‘They’re making dinner,’’ François said. ‘‘That’s ironic, don’t you think? When they let ours go.’’

‘‘These humans, all they do is eat,’’ Ysandre said. ‘‘No wonder they’re all fat and lazy.’’

Shane came out of the kitchen. He wasn’t surprised, Claire saw; he must have heard them. ‘‘You’re not invited, ’’ Shane said. Ysandre kissed her lips toward him.

‘‘Oh, Shane, I really don’t care whether I am or not, and you aren’t anywhere near powerful enough to make me leave,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s Friday, my love. You received the costume I want you to wear for tomorrow?’’

Shane nodded unwillingly, like his neck had frozen stiff. His eyes were more than a little crazy.

‘‘You need to go,’’ Claire said to Ysandre, with a bravado she really didn’t feel.

‘‘What do you think, Michael? Do I?’’ Ysandre locked gazes with him, and there was something awful in her eyes. ‘‘Do I have to go?’’

‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘Stay.’’

Claire gaped.

They make you feel things. Do things, whether you want to do them or not. Shane had said it, but Claire hadn’t imagined that they could do it to other vampires. Even one as young and inexperienced as Michael.

"Michael!"

He didn’t look at her. He seemed completely caught in the web of Ysandre’s attraction.

Claire dug her cell phone out of her pocket. She hesitated over the address book.

‘‘Deciding who to call for help?’’ François yanked the cell phone out of her hands and threw it across the room. ‘‘Amelie won’t thank you for distracting her from all her preparations. She’s busy, busy, busy, making sure everything goes just right to welcome our beloved father properly.’’

‘‘Maybe you ought to ask Michael what to do,’’ Ysandre said, and laughed, showing fang. She pronounced it like Michelle. ‘‘I’m sure he’ll help dispatch us. So fierce, isn’t he?’’

Michael’s eyes were slowly turning crimson.

They can make you feel things. Do things.

‘‘Shane,’’ Claire said. ‘‘We need to get out of here. Now.’’

‘‘I’m not leaving Michael.’’

‘‘Michael’s the problem.’’

Ysandre laughed. ‘‘You really are clever, ma chérie.’’

François snapped his fingers in front of Michael’s face. ‘‘Dinner’s ready.’’

Michael opened his mouth and snarled. Full fangs.

And he turned and fixed his gaze on Claire.

‘‘Oh, crap,’’ Shane breathed. He grabbed Claire’s arm. ‘‘Kitchen!’’

They retreated. Shane shoved the table against the swinging door, for all the good it would do, and they backed up toward the rear door.

Claire opened the refrigerator and took Michael’s last two sealed bottles out of the back of the refrigerator. Have to tell Michael to pick up more, she thought, and how weird was that? Running short of blood was getting as normal as needing Coke or butter.

She was gibbering in her head, that was it. And yet, oddly calm.

Michael burst into the room and headed straight for them.

Claire stepped into his path, held out a bottle, and said, ‘‘You’re not one of them. You’re one of us. One of us, and we love you.’’

‘‘Claire—’’ Shane sounded agonized, but he didn’t move. Maybe he knew it would have blown everything.

Michael stopped. His eyes were still blazing red, but he seemed to see her.

And the red flickered a little.

She held out the bottle.

‘‘Drink it,’’ she said. ‘‘You’ll feel better. Trust me, Michael. Please.’’

He was staring into her eyes.

And this time, she was the one who challenged him. See me. Know what you’re doing.

Push her out.

His eyes flared white. He grabbed the bottle out of her hand, popped the cap, and tipped the bottle, guzzling the contents as fast as he could swallow.

He didn’t look away.

Neither did she.

His eyes faded back to blue, and he lowered the bottle with a gasp. A thin line of blood dripped off his lip, and he wiped it with a trembling hand.

‘‘It’s okay,’’ Claire said. ‘‘She got in your head. She can do that. She—’’

Shane was gone. While she’d been so focused on Michael, he’d just . . . disappeared.

The kitchen door was still swinging.

It’ll be easier for her the next time, Shane had told her.

Claire headed for the living room. Michael tried to stop her, but he seemed weak. Sick. She remembered how shaken Shane had been.

Why not me? Why doesn’t she control me?

Maybe she couldn’t.

Shane was sitting on the couch beside Ysandre, and his shirt was unbuttoned. Ysandre was running her hands up and down Shane’s chest, tracing invisible lines, and as Claire watched, the vampire began to nibble on Shane’s neck. Not seriously, as in not drawing blood, but little teasing nips. Licks.

Shane’s face was still and blank, but his eyes were pools of panic. He doesn’t want this, Claire realized. She’s making him.

Claire threw the second bottle of blood at Ysandre. The vampire’s hand came up unbelievably fast to snatch it out of the air before it made contact with the side of her head.

‘‘If you’re hungry, eat,’’ she said. ‘‘And get your claws out of my boyfriend.’’

Ysandre’s eyes narrowed. Claire felt something brush at her mind, but it was like walking through a spiderweb, easily broken.

Ysandre flipped the cap from the bottle, sniffed it, and made a disgusted face. ‘‘Don’t be so possessive. Shane is at my command. The invitation said so.’’

‘‘He’s at your command tomorrow. Not today.’’

‘‘How charming. So young for a lawyer.’’ Ysandre sipped from the bottle, gagged, and shook her head. ‘‘Why your vampires subject themselves to this indignity is beyond my understanding. This is rancid. Undrinkable filth.’’ She threw the bottle back at Claire, who had no choice but to try to catch it; she did, but the contents splattered cold over her face and neck. ‘‘Remove it from our presence.’’ Her eyes took on a horrible dull shine, angry and cruel. ‘‘And clean yourself up. You’re as useless as the hospitality you offer.’’

‘‘Get out,’’ Claire said. She felt the power of the house now, gathering like a storm around her. Rushing into the cool silence, crackling with energy. ‘‘Get out of our house. Now.’’

It exploded up through her feet, painful and shocking, and hit Ysandre and François like a bolt of invisible lightning. It knocked them flat, grabbed them by the ankles, and dragged them to the front door, which crashed open before they reached it.

Ysandre shrieked and clawed at the floor, but it was useless. In that moment, the house wasn’t taking any prisoners.

It threw them out into the sun. François and Ysandre staggered to their feet, covered their heads, and ran for their car.

Claire stood in the doorway, spattered with cold blood, and yelled, ‘‘And don’t come back!’’

The power cut off, and the sudden emptiness left her shaking. Claire clung to the door for a few seconds, long enough to see them drive away, and then staggered back to the living room. Shane sat on the couch with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, head in his hands.

Shuddering.

‘‘You okay?’’ she asked.

He nodded convulsively without looking up at her. Michael opened the kitchen door and came straight to her. He had a towel, and he scrubbed the blood off her face and hands with rough, anxious movements.

‘‘How did you do that?’’ he asked. ‘‘Even I can’t— not on command. Not like that.’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said. She felt sick and shaky, and perched on the couch next to Shane. Shane was buttoning his shirt. His fingers moved slowly, and didn’t seem very steady, either.

‘‘Shane?’’ Michael stood next to him, and his voice was very gentle.

‘‘Yeah, man, I’m fine,’’ he said. His voice was threadbare with exhaustion. ‘‘She may own me, but she can’t take possession until tomorrow night. I don’t think she’ll risk coming back here. Not just for me.’’ He looked up at Michael then, and Michael nodded tightly. ‘‘I don’t want to ask, but—’’

‘‘You don’t have to ask,’’ Michael said. ‘‘I’ll look out for you. As much as I can.’’

They bumped fists.

‘‘I need a shower,’’ Shane said, and went upstairs. He wasn’t moving like Shane, not at all—too slow, too heavy, too . . . defeated.

Michael had made the promise, but Claire was afraid—very afraid—that he wouldn’t be able to keep it. Once they were away from this house, isolated and separated, nobody could stop Ysandre from doing whatever she wanted to Shane. To Michael. To anyone.

If Jason had been telling the truth when he’d come by the house looking to talk, then Oliver had had something to say. Maybe he still did.

Maybe, somehow, it would help Shane.

It was really the only thing Claire could think of that might help.

When she went to Oliver’s coffee shop, she walked into more trouble, although it wasn’t as obvious as Ysandre and François taking over the living room. In fact, it took Claire a few seconds to identify what was odd about what she was seeing, because on the surface it looked quite normal.

But it wasn’t.

Eve was sitting peacefully across the table from Oliver, whom she’d sworn she’d rather stake than look at again. And whatever it was she was saying, Oliver was gravely listening, head cocked, expression composed. He had a very thin smile on his face, and his eyes were fixed on Eve’s face with so much focus it made Claire’s skin crawl.

She was going to draw their attention, standing like an idiot in the middle of the room, even as busy as the place was. She turned away, went to the coffee bar, and ordered a mocha she didn’t crave, just to have some reason to be here. Eve was too deep into her own thing to realize Claire had come in, but Oliver knew; Claire could feel it, even though he hadn’t so much as glanced her way.

She paid her four bucks and took her overpriced, yet delicious, drink to an empty table near the front windows, where there were plenty of students to cover her. She didn’t really need to worry, though; when Eve got up and left, she walked straight out, and she didn’t look right or left as she stiff-armed the door and stalked off down the street. She was wearing a black satin ankle-length skirt that reminded Claire of the inside of a coffin, and a purple velvet top, and she looked thin and fragile.

She looked vulnerable.

‘‘Terrible, the lengths some girls will go to for attention, ’’ Oliver said, and settled into a chair across from Claire. ‘‘Don’t you think her obsession with the morbid is a bit much?’’

She didn’t take the bait, just looked at him. The line of sunlight was very close to him, and creeping closer. In another few minutes, it would touch him on the shoulder. She knew he, like most older vampires, had partial immunity to sunlight, but it would still hurt.

Oliver knew what she was thinking. He glanced at the hot line of light and scooted his chair sideways, enough to buy another few minutes in the shadows.

‘‘Why did you send Jason the other night?’’ she asked.

‘‘Why do you think I sent him?’’

‘‘He said so.’’

‘‘Is Jason so reliable a source as all that? I thought he was a crazed murderer who was stalking his own sister.’’

‘‘What did you just talk to Eve about?’’

Oliver raised his eyebrows. ‘‘I believe that is Eve’s business, not yours. If there’s nothing else—’’

‘‘Ysandre and François just tried a power play at our house. In our house, Oliver. Why did you send Jason?’’

Oliver was quiet a moment. He wasn’t looking at her at all; he was watching the people walking outside on the street, the cars passing. His gaze wandered over the students inside his shop, talking and laughing. There was something odd in his expression, as if—like Eve—he was suddenly aware of his own vulnerability.

And that of others.

‘‘I don’t admit that I did send him,’’ Oliver said. ‘‘But if I did, obviously I would have had a very good reason, yes?’’

She didn’t answer. His gaze flashed back to her, bright and very, very focused. ‘‘I have never made any secret of my desire for power, Claire. I don’t like Amelie, and she doesn’t care for me, but our games are honest ones. We know the rules and we abide by them. But Bishop—Bishop is beyond all rules. He would take our game board and overturn it completely, and that I cannot have. Not even if I gain in the process.’’

The light dawned, finally. ‘‘Bishop tried to recruit you. Against Amelie.’’ Claire’s blood chilled a couple of degrees. ‘‘You couldn’t tell her directly. So you wanted to use Jason to tell me, and let me tell her.’’

‘‘Too late now. Things are moving too quickly to the edge. It’s not within my power to halt it, or hers. Much less yours, Claire.’’

Claire realized she was clutching the table in a death grip, and let go. Her fingers ached from the pressure. ‘‘What were you talking to Eve about?’’

Oliver’s eyes fixed on hers, and he said, ‘‘She is accompanying me to the feast.’’

Eve was going to the masked ball. With Oliver.

Claire sat back, unable to think of a single thing to say for a moment, and then it hit her exactly what that meant. ‘‘Does Michael know?’’

‘‘Frankly, I could not care less. Eve can explain it as and if she chooses; it’s no concern of mine. I believe I’m finished assisting you with your inquiries, Claire. But if I might give you a piece of advice—’’ Oliver leaned forward, and it put him completely in the sun. He didn’t flinch, though the pupils of his eyes contracted to almost nothing, and his skin began to take on a definite pink tinge. ‘‘Stay home tomorrow. Lock your doors and windows, and if you’re a religious person, a little prayer might not go amiss.’’

It was such a startling thing for him to say that Claire almost laughed. ‘‘I’m supposed to pray? For who, you?’’

Oliver didn’t blink. ‘‘If you would,’’ he said, ‘‘that would be comforting. I don’t think anyone’s done it in quite some time.’’

He stood up and walked away. Claire sat for a while staring off into the afternoon sunlight, sipping a mocha long gone cold and tasting nothing at all. When a knot of big upper-class jocks asked her, none too politely, if she was done with the table, she left without any protest. She went for a walk, following the curve of streets without any real awareness of where she was, or where she might be going.

All these people. She was away from the college crowd now, and Morganville natives took advantage of the sunshine any way they could—sunbathing, working in their gardens, painting their houses.

And tomorrow, if Oliver was right, it could be all over. If Bishop succeeded in taking over from Amelie . . .

Claire realized with a start that the sun was slipping toward the horizon, and turned at the nearest cross street to head for home. She made it with the day still officially in the late-afternoon phase, although twilight was creeping in, but as she opened the gate and came through the walk, she realized that someone was sitting on the front steps waiting for her.

Shane.

‘‘Hey,’’ he said.

‘‘Hey,’’ she returned, and sat down next to him. He was looking out at the street, the occasional passing car. A breeze ruffled his dark hair, and the sunlight made his skin look like it had a faint brushing of gold.

God, he was so . . . perfect. And he was breaking her heart with the look in his eyes.

‘‘So,’’ Shane said. ‘‘I was thinking we should go out tonight.’’

‘‘Out?’’ she repeated blankly. ‘‘Out where?’’

He shrugged. ‘‘Doesn’t matter. Movies. Dinner. I’d take you to the local bar for a blowout, but your dad might kill me.’’ Shane looked at her for a few seconds, then went back to his careful study of nothing. ‘‘I just want to spend tonight doing something with you. Whatever it is.’’

Because tomorrow, it could all change. It was the same eerie feeling Claire had felt walking around town: the feeling that the world was ending, and only a few people had a clue it was coming.

‘‘Any place you’ve always wanted to go?’’ Claire asked.

‘‘Sure. I play a great game of Anywhere but Here. You mean in Morganville?’’ He was quiet for a second, as if the question had caught him by surprise. ‘‘Maybe. You up for a drive?’’

‘‘In whose car?’’

‘‘Eve’s.’’ He held up the car keys and jangled them. ‘‘I made her a deal. I get the car two nights a week; I do her share of the chores two more days. I’m exercising my rental coupon.’’

‘‘The sun’s going down,’’ Claire felt compelled to point out.

‘‘So it is.’’ He jangled the car keys again. ‘‘Well?’’

Really, he already knew what the answer would be.

They drove to a restaurant near the vampire downtown area—far enough that it had mostly human patronage, but still stayed open late. There was a lounge area with a dance floor, and a jukebox that played oldies. Shane had a beer he was too young to order. Claire had a Coke, and they spent a roll of quarters on choosing songs, one right after another.

"This is the biggest damn iPod I’ve ever seen,’’ Claire said, which made him choke on his beer. ‘‘Kidding. I have seen a jukebox before.’’

‘‘The way you’re feeding it, I’m not so sure. You think you picked enough songs?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said. ‘‘How many will it take to play all night?’’

He put his beer down on the table, put his arms around her, and they swayed together as the songs changed, and changed, and changed.

And around them, Morganville slowly went quiet.

10

Saturday dawned cooler and windier, with a breath of chill cutting like metal.

Shane and Claire drove in just before dawn, exhausted but peaceful. They’d danced until the restaurant closed down, then drove, then parked. It had been sweet and urgent and Claire had almost, almost wanted it to go further . . . at least into the backseat.

But Shane had held to his word, no matter how frustrating that was for both of them, and she supposed that was still a good thing.

Mostly, she just wanted to get his clothes off and dive into the bed with him and never, ever come out. But he kissed her at her bedroom door, and she knew from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t trusting himself that far with her.

Not tonight. Not even with the whole world changing.

Claire fell asleep just before dawn and slept right through sunrise. Through lunch. She only woke up at all because the next-door neighbor started up his monster gas-powered lawn mower for the last trim of the season. It was like a gardening jet engine, and no matter how many pillows Claire piled on her head, it didn’t help.

The house was eerily quiet. Claire put on her robe and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. She tapped on Eve’s door on the way, but there was no answer. None at Shane’s or Michael’s, either. She took the fastest shower on record and went downstairs, only to find . . . nothing. No Michael, no Shane, no Eve. And no note. There was coffee in the pot, but it had long cooked down to sludge.

Claire sat down at the kitchen table and paged through numbers on her phone. No answer from Eve’s cell, and Michael’s rang to voice mail. So did Shane’s.

‘‘Hey,’’ Claire said when his recorded voice told her to leave her message. ‘‘I’m—I just was hoping I’d see you. You know, this morning. But—look, can you give me a call, please? I want to talk to you. Please.’’

She felt so alone that tears prickled her eyes. The feast. It’s today.

Everything was changing.

A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. ‘‘What do you want, Richard?’’

Richard Morrell’s police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn’t flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn’t an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn’t pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.

And not in uniform.

‘‘Good question,’’ Richard said. ‘‘I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I’ll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in.’’

‘‘How do I know you’re you?’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Ysandre. She—well, let’s say I need to be sure it’s really you.’’

‘‘I had to uncuff you in a girl’s bathroom at the university this week. How’s that?’’

She slid the chain loose and stepped back as he walked in. He looked tired—not as tired as she felt, but then she guessed that wasn’t humanly possible, really. ‘‘What do you want?’’

‘‘I’m going to this thing tonight,’’ he said. ‘‘I figured you’d be going too. I was thinking you might need a ride.’’

‘‘I—I’m not going.’’

‘‘No?’’ Richard looked puzzled by that. ‘‘Funny, I could have sworn you’d be Amelie’s first choice to parade around at a thing like this. She’s proud of you, you know.’’

Proud? Why on earth would she be proud? ‘‘What, like a pedigreed dog?’’ Claire asked bitterly. ‘‘Best in show?’’

Richard held up his hands in surrender. ‘‘Whatever, it’s none of my business. Where is your gang, anyway? ’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘It’s my business to know where the troublemakers are.’’

‘‘We’re not troublemakers!’’ Richard gave her a look. One she had to admit she deserved. ‘‘Your sister’s going, you know.’’

‘‘Yeah, I know. She’s been preening around the house for days. Spent a fortune on that damn costume of hers. Dad’s going to kill her if she gets anything on it. I think he’s planning to return it.’’

Claire waved the fresh coffeepot inquiringly, and Richard nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. She slid a mug over to him, and watched as he sipped. He seemed—different today. Everything’s changing. Richard seemed more vulnerable, too. He’d always been the steady one, the sane Morrell. Today, he looked barely older than Monica.

‘‘I think something’s going to happen,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Don’t you?’’

Richard nodded slowly. There were lines of tension around his eyes, and bags under his eyes big enough to hold changes of clothes. ‘‘This Bishop, he’s not like the others,’’ he said. ‘‘I met him. I—saw something in him. It’s not human, Claire. Not even a little bit. Whatever humanity he ever owned, he sold a long time ago.’’

‘‘What are you going to do?’’

Richard shrugged. ‘‘What the hell can I do? Stick with my family. Look out for the people of this town. Wish I was a million miles away.’’ He was quiet for a few seconds, sipping coffee. ‘‘Thing is, I think we’re going to be asked to promise him some kind of loyalty, and I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I want to do that.’’

Claire swallowed. ‘‘Do you have a choice?’’

‘‘Probably not. But I’ll do my best to keep people safe. That’s all I know how to do.’’ His eyes skimmed past hers, as if he didn’t dare to really look too deeply. ‘‘The others are going, aren’t they?’’

She nodded.

‘‘Did you know your parents are going?’’

Claire gasped, covered her mouth with her hands, and shook her head. ‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘No, they’re not. They can’t be.’’

‘‘I saw the list,’’ Richard said. ‘‘Sorry. I figured you were just on another page. I couldn’t believe you were left off. That’s good, though, that you can stay home. It’s—I think it’s going to be dangerous.’’

He drained the rest of his coffee and pushed the mug back toward her.

‘‘I’ll watch out for your friends and your parents,’’ he said. ‘‘As much as I can. You know that, right?’’

‘‘You’re nice,’’ Claire said. She was surprised that she said it out loud, but she meant it. ‘‘You really are, you know.’’

Richard smiled at her, and even though she’d developed a partial immunity to hot guys smiling at her, thanks to Shane and Michael, some part of her still went Oooooooooh.

‘‘I’m hiring you as my press agent,’’ Richard said. ‘‘Lock up and stay inside, all right?’’

She saw him to the door and dutifully turned all the dead bolts, since he was standing there waiting to hear it. He waved and got back in his police cruiser, and silently backed out of the drive to the street.

Which was, Claire realized, eerily deserted. Morganville was usually active in the afternoons, but here it was prime walking-around time, and she couldn’t see a soul out there. Not walking, not driving, not weeding a garden. Even the next-door neighbor had powered down the mower and locked up tight.

It was like everyone just . . . knew.

Claire booted up her laptop and checked her e-mail, which was really more like checking her spam. Today, come-ons from sad Russian girls and Nigerian businessmen desperate to get rid of millions of tax-free dollars didn’t amuse her all that much. Neither did random surfing or the I’m Feeling Lucky Google feature. She had hours to kill, and her whole body was aching with tension.

You could visit Myrnin. Myrnin’s not going, either.

Oh, that was way too tempting. Myrnin was work. And work was a great distraction.

Richard told me to lock myself in. Yeah, but he hadn’t said where, had he? Myrnin’s lab was pretty safe. So was the prison where Myrnin was kept. And at least she’d have company.

‘‘Nope,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Can’t do it. Too dangerous.’’

Except it was still daylight outside. So, not nearly as dangerous as it could be.

The sensible side of her threw up its hands in disgust. Whatever. Go on, get yourself killed. See if I care.

Claire grabbed a few things and shoved them in the backpack—textbooks, of course, but a couple of novels that she’d been meaning to take to Myrnin, since he was always interested in new things to read.

And a bread knife. Somehow, that seemed like a wise thing to pack, too. She put it in her history textbook, like the world’s most dangerous bookmark.

And then, with one last glance around the house, she left.

I hope I come back, she thought, and turned to look at the house as she fastened the front gate. I hope we all come back.

She felt like the house was hoping that, too.

It was a long walk to Myrnin’s lab, but she wasn’t in any danger, except from dying of the creepies. She saw one or two cars, but they were full of frightened, anxious people heading to some safe haven—work, home, school. Nobody else was outside. Nobody else was walking.

Claire followed the twisting streets of Morganville into a run-down older area. At the end of the street sat a duplicate of the Glass House—the Day House, where a lovely old lady named Katherine Day still lived. Today, her battered rocking chair was empty, nodding in the breeze. Claire had been kind of hoping that Gramma Day, or her fiercer granddaughter, would be hanging out; they’d have invited her up to the porch for a lemonade, and tried to talk her out of what she was doing. But if they were home at all, they were inside with the curtains drawn.

Just like everybody else in town.

Claire turned down the dark alley next to the Day House. It was bordered with tall fences, and it got narrower the farther it went. She’d come here by accident the first time, and on purpose ever since, and it still struck her as a terrifying place, even in broad daylight.

Gramma Day had known about Myrnin. She’d called him a trap-door spider.

Gramma Day, in Claire’s experience, had been right about a lot of things, and that was one of them. As sweet and kind and gentle as Myrnin could be, when he turned, he turned all the way.

Claire reached the end of the alley, which was a rickety shed barely large enough to qualify as one room. The door was locked with a new, shiny padlock. She dug in her pocket and found her keys.

Inside, the shack wasn’t any better—nothing but a square of floor, and steps leading down. What little light there was spilled in through the grimy windows. Claire grabbed a flashlight from the corner—she always kept a supply there—and flicked it on as she descended the steps into Myrnin’s lab.

She’d half expected to find Amelie here, or Oliver, or somebody else—but it was just as she’d left it. Deserted and quiet, with only a couple of dim electric lights burning. Claire pushed aside the bookcase that stood against the right-hand wall—it was rigged to move easily—and behind it was a door. It was locked, too, and she got the keys out of the drawer under the journal shelves.

As she was unlocking it, she could have sworn she heard a rustle from the shadows. Claire turned, and felt the stupid impulse to ask who it was; all that stopped her was pure shame, and a determination not to be as stupid as the girls in horror movies. There was nobody here. Not even Oliver.

Instead, she slipped the lock from the door, took a deep breath, and concentrated.

The physics of Myrnin’s special doorways still eluded her, although she thought she was beginning to understand the breakthrough he’d made in quantum mechanics. . . . Of course, he didn’t look at it scientifically; to him it was magic, or at least alchemy. You don’t have to know how something works to use it, Claire reminded herself. It irritated her, but she was getting used to the fact that some things were going to be harder to figure out, and anything that had to do with Myrnin definitely fell into that category.

She swung open the door, which led to the prison on the other side of town. She’d looked it up on maps, measured the distance between Myrnin’s hidden lab and the abandoned complex. It wasn’t possible for there to be a door between the two, unless you seriously twisted the laws of physics as she understood them, but there it was.

And she stepped through and closed the door behind her. There was a hasp on this side of the door, too; she locked it up, just in case her imagination hadn’t been running wild and someone was in the lab watching her. They’d have a hell of a time getting through, and with the nature of Myrnin’s doorways, they probably wouldn’t end up here if they ended up anywhere at all.

‘‘Hi,’’ Claire said to the cells as she passed them; she didn’t think any of the vampires really understood her, but she always tried to be kind. They couldn’t help what they were—whatever that was. Insane, certainly. Some of them less than others, and those were the ones who made her feel sad—the ones who seemed to understand where they were, and why.

Like Myrnin.

Claire stopped in at the refrigerator and picked up supplies of blood packs, which she tossed into the cells from a careful distance away. She saved two for Myrnin, whose cell was at the end of the hall.

He was sitting on the bed, spectacles perched at the end of his nose. He was reading a battered copy of Voltaire.

‘‘Claire,’’ he said, and put a faded silk ribbon between the pages to mark his place. He looked up, young and pretty and (today, at least) not entirely crazy. ‘‘I’ve had the oddest thing happen.’’

She pulled up her chair and settled in. ‘‘Which is?’’

‘‘I think I’m getting better.’’

"I don’t think so,’’ she said. ‘‘I wish that was true, but—"

He shoved a Tupperware container toward the bars of the cell. ‘‘Here.’’

Claire froze, eyeing the container doubtfully. ‘‘Umm . . . what is that?’’

‘‘Brain tissue.’’

‘‘What?’’

Myrnin adjusted his glasses and looked at her over their tops. ‘‘I said, brain tissue.’’

‘‘Whose brain tissue?’’

He looked around the cell, eyebrows raised. ‘‘I haven’t a lot of volunteers in easy reach, you know.’’

Claire had a horrible thought. She couldn’t actually bring herself to say it.

Myrnin gave her an evil smile.

‘‘We are testing the serum, are we not? And so far, I am the only test subject?’’

‘‘That’s brain tissue. How can you—?’’ Claire shut her mouth, fast. ‘‘Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.’’

‘‘Truly, I think that’s best. Please take it.’’ He showed his teeth briefly in a very unsettling grin. ‘‘I’m giving you a piece of my mind.’’

‘‘I so wish you hadn’t said that.’’ She shuddered, but she ventured close enough to the bars to fish out the container. Yes, that looked . . . gray. And biological. She checked to be sure that the top was firmly fastened, and stuck it in her backpack. ‘‘What makes you think you’re getting better?’’

Myrnin picked up half a dozen thick volumes and held them out on the palm of his hand. ‘‘I’ve read these in the past day and a half,’’ he said. ‘‘Every word. I can answer any question you’d like about the contents.’’

‘‘Not a good test. You already know those books.’’

He seemed surprised. ‘‘Yes, that’s true. Very well. How would you propose to test me?’’

‘‘Read some of this,’’ she said, and passed him a novel from her backpack. He glanced at the author’s name and the title, flipped to page 1, and began. She watched his eyes flicker rapidly back and forth—faster than most humans could begin to comprehend words on a page. He was focused, and he seemed genuinely interested.

‘‘Stop,’’ she said five minutes later. Myrnin obligingly closed the book and handed it back to her. ‘‘Tell me about what you read.’’

‘‘It’s rather clever of you to make it a novel about vampires,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘Although I think their avoidance of mirrors is a bit ridiculous. The main characters seemed interesting. I think I’d like to finish it.’’ And then he proceeded to recite, at length, the descriptions and histories of the characters as they’d been given in the first fifty pages . . . and the plot. Claire blinked and checked his facts.

All correct.

‘‘See?’’ Myrnin took off his spectacles and stowed them in a pocket of the purple satin vest he was wearing over a white dress shirt. ‘‘I am better, Claire. Truly.’’

‘‘Well, we really should wait to see—’’

‘‘No, I don’t think so.’’ He stood up, lithe and strong, and walked to the bars.

He took hold of them and heaved, and the lock— the lock that was supposed to hold the strongest, craziest vampires—snapped loudly. He rolled the bars aside on their groove and stood in the open doorway, smiling at her.

‘‘Are those for me?’’ He nodded at the blood bags lying on top of her backpack. She realized that she was clutching the book in white-knuckled fingers, barely breathing. I hope he didn’t remove some part of his brain that stops him from attacking me. . . .

‘‘Yes,’’ she managed to say. She’d been intending to throw the blood to him, but somehow it didn’t seem right. She picked up the first one and held it out.

Myrnin walked slowly toward her—deliberately slowly, making sure she got used to the idea—and took the plastic pack from her hand without so much as brushing her skin. He even turned away to bite into it, and although the sucking noises made her uncomfortable and a bit sick, when he turned around, there wasn’t a speck of blood on him, or in the plastic packaging, either.

Claire held up the second one. He shook his head. ‘‘No need to stuff myself,’’ he said. ‘‘One is plenty for now.’’ Which was odd, too, because Myrnin was usually—how could she put it without making herself feel nauseous?—a hearty eater.

‘‘I’ll put it back,’’ she said, but before she could move, Myrnin had taken it from her palm. She hadn’t even seen him move this time.

‘‘I’ll do it.’’ She shivered, listening and watching, but he was already gone into the shadows. She heard the creak of the massive refrigerator door open and close, and then suddenly he was back, strolling slowly out of the darkness. Arms crossed over his chest. He leaned against the wall across from her.

‘‘So?’’ he asked. ‘‘Do I seem insane to you?’’

She shook her head.

‘‘You wouldn’t tell me even if I was, would you, Claire?’’

‘‘Probably not. You might get angry.’’

‘‘I might get angry if you lied,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘But I won’t. I don’t feel angry at all right now. Or hungry, or even anxious, and that never seemed to leave me the last few years. The drugs you gave me, Claire, I think they’re taking hold. Do you know what that means?’’ He flashed across the empty space, and when she was able to focus on him again, he was kneeling next to her chair, one pale hand gently resting on her knee. ‘‘It means my people can be saved. All of them.’’

‘‘What about mine?’’ Claire asked. ‘‘If yours get well, what happens to mine?’’

Myrnin’s face went carefully still and blank. ‘‘The fate of humans isn’t really my area of responsibility,’’ he said. ‘‘Amelie has worked hard to be sure Morganville is a place of balance, a place where our two kinds can live in relative harmony. I doubt she’d change all that based on the outcome of this experiment.’’

He could doubt it all he wanted, but Claire knew Amelie better. She’d do whatever was best for her own first, humans second. In fact, Claire wasn’t altogether sure, but she suspected Morganville was the experiment—and an experiment would be ended when an outcome was achieved.

If this was the outcome—what happened to the lab rats?

Myrnin’s dark eyes were glowing now with sincerity. ‘‘I’m not a monster, Claire. I wouldn’t allow you to be hurt. You’ve done us a great service, and you’ll be looked after.’’

‘‘What about other people?’’ she asked.

‘‘Which people? Ah, your friends, your family. Yes, of course, they’ll be safeguarded, as well, whatever happens.’’

‘‘No, Myrnin, I mean everybody else! The guy who makes hamburgers at the Burger Dog! The lady who runs the used-clothing store! Everybody!’’

He blinked, clearly taken aback. ‘‘We can’t care about everyone, Claire. It isn’t in our natures. We can only care about those we know, or those we’re connected with. I appreciate your altruism, but—’’

‘‘Don’t talk to me about our natures! We’re not the same!’’

‘‘Aren’t we?’’ Myrnin patted her knee gently. ‘‘I’m a scientist. So are you. I have friends, people I care for and love. So do you. How are we different?’’

‘‘I don’t suck my dinner out of a bag!’’

Myrnin laughed. He showed no trace at all of fangs. ‘‘Oh, Claire, do you imagine that eating slaughtered and mutilated animals is any less disgusting? We both eat. We both enjoy the company of others. We both—’’

‘‘I don’t dig brain tissue out of my skull! Oh, and I don’t kill,’’ she said. ‘‘You do. And you really don’t mind it.’’

He sat back a little, staring into her face. The glow of sincerity took on a harder edge. ‘‘I think you’ll find I do mind it,’’ he said. ‘‘Or else I wouldn’t put up with this from—’’

‘‘From a servant? Because that’s what I am, right? Or worse—a slave? Property?’’

‘‘You’re upset.’’

‘‘Yes! Of course I’m—of course I’m upset.’’ She fought to keep it together, but she couldn’t; the misery just boiled out of her like steam under pressure. ‘‘I’m sitting here debating the future of the human race, and my friends and family are going to that party, and I can’t protect them—’’

‘‘Hush, child,’’ he said. ‘‘The feast. It’s tonight, yes?’’

‘‘I don’t even know what it is.’’

‘‘Amelie’s formal recognition of Bishop. Every vampire in Morganville who is able will be present, all there to swear their obedience, and every one of them will bring a token gift.’’

She sniffled, sat up, and wiped her face. ‘‘What kind of gift?’’

Myrnin’s dark eyes were steady on hers. ‘‘A token gift of blood,’’ he said. ‘‘Specifically, a human. You’re right to be worried for your friends, your family. He has the right to choose any human offered to him. The gesture is meant to be ceremonial—it’s come down to us as a tradition from long ago—but it doesn’t have to be.’’

And Claire understood. She understood why Amelie had forbidden her to come; she understood why Michael had deliberately asked Monica Morrell instead of Eve.

It was chess, and the pawns were people. The vampires were playing with what they could afford to lose.

‘‘You—’’ Her voice didn’t sound steady. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘‘You said that he could choose any human.’’

Myrnin didn’t blink. ‘‘Or all of them,’’ he said. ‘‘If he so wishes.’’

‘‘You know he’ll do it. He’ll kill someone.’’

‘‘Most likely, yes.’’

‘‘We have to stop this,’’ she said. ‘‘Myrnin—why would she do this?’’

‘‘Amelie is not a brave woman. If the odds are against her, she will surrender; if the odds are near even, she will play for time and advantage. She knows she can’t defeat Bishop on her own; not even she and Oliver combined can do it. She has to play the long game, Claire. She’s played it all her life.’’ Myrnin’s dark eyes were glowing again, and he began to smile. ‘‘Amelie reckons her odds without me, of course. With me at her side, she can win.’’

‘‘You want to go. To the feast.’’

Myrnin straightened his vest and brushed imaginary dust from his sleeves. ‘‘Of course. And I’m going with or without you. Now, are you going under those circumstances?’’

‘‘I—Amelie said—’’

‘‘Yes or no, Claire.’’

‘‘Then . . . yes.’’

‘‘We’ll need costumes,’’ he said. ‘‘Not to worry, I know just the place to get them.’’

‘‘I look ridiculous,’’ Claire said. She also looked completely obvious. ‘‘Can’t we do something in, I don’t know, black? Since we’re supposed to be sneaky?’’

‘‘Stop talking,’’ Myrnin commanded as he applied makeup to her face. He seemed to be enjoying himself a hell of a lot more than the situation called for, and she felt doubt once again that his cure was really a cure. There had been a good reason Amelie said he shouldn’t be at the feast; there’d been a good reason, too, for leaving him out of her calculations for war or peace.

But Claire knew Amelie too well. If peace meant it had to come at the price of a few human deaths, even ones that were dear to Claire, she’d count it an acceptable cost.

Claire didn’t.

‘‘There,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘Close your eyes.’’

Claire did, and felt a soft brushing of powder over her face. When she opened her eyes, Myrnin stepped out of the way, and she saw some alien creature in the mirror reflecting back at her.

She did look ridiculous, but she had to admit she didn’t look like Claire Danvers. Not at all. A white face that would have done Eve proud. Full red lips. Huge, black-rimmed eyes with funny little lines to draw attention to them.

A tight-fitting costume, top and tights, covered with red and black diamonds. A matador’s hat. ‘‘What am I supposed to be?’’ she blurted. Myrnin looked disappointed in her.

‘‘Harlequin,’’ he said, and twirled like a crazy little girl. ‘‘I am Pierrot.’’ Myrnin was dressed in white, and where her costume was tight, his was full, billowing around his body like choir robes with white pants beneath. He had an enormous white ruffle around his collar, and a white hat that looked like a traffic cone. The same manic makeup, which only made his dark eyes look wider and less sane. ‘‘Don’t they teach anything in your schools?’’

‘‘Not about this.’’

‘‘Pity. I suppose that’s what comes of your main education flowing from Google.’’ He fitted something over her head. ‘‘Your mask, madam.’’ It was a simple domino mask, but it was patterned in the same red and black as her costume. ‘‘Can you do cartwheels? Backflips?’’

She gave him a hopeless look. ‘‘I’m a science nerd, not a cheerleader.’’

‘‘Pity about that, too.’’ He put on his own mask, which was plain black. He’d painted his face to match hers—dead white, huge red lips. It was eerie. ‘‘Well, then, we have costumes. Now all we need is something to tip the scales in our favor, should things go badly. As I’m sure they will, knowing Bishop.’’

They were in the attic of the Glass House, surrounded by what looked like centuries of . . . stuff. Claire had never been up here; in fact, she hadn’t known there was an entrance at all. Myrnin had taken her to the hidden Victorian room, and then pressed a few studs on the wall to pop loose yet another secret door, which led through a dusty, cramped hallway and opened out into a vast, dark storage space. He’d found the costumes packed in a trunk that looked old enough to have been carried through the Civil War. The dressing table, where Claire sat, was probably even older. The dust on it looked older.

Myrnin wandered off into the stacks of boxes and suitcases and discarded treasures, muttering in what sounded like a foreign language. He began rummaging around. Claire went back to staring at herself in the mirror. The makeup and costume made her look alien and cool, but her eyes were still Claire’s eyes, and they were scared.

I can’t believe we’re going to do this, she thought.

Myrnin popped up like some terrifying full-sized jack-in-the-box next to her, carrying a suitcase the width of Rhode Island. He dropped it to the wooden floor, where it hit with a shuddering thud.

‘‘Ta da!’’ He threw it open and struck a heroic pose.

Inside were weapons. Lots of weapons. Crossbows. Knives. Swords. Crosses, some with crudely pointed ends.

Myrnin fished around in the chaos and came up with a dirty-looking bottle that had probably once held perfume, back around the Middle Ages. ‘‘Holy water,’’ he said. ‘‘True holy water, blessed by the pope himself. Very rare.’’

‘‘What is this? Where did these things come from?’’

‘‘People who were unsuccessful in using them,’’ he said. ‘‘I wouldn’t recommend the vials of flammable liquid, the green ones. They do work, but you’re as apt to kill your own allies as your enemies. Holy water will hurt, but it won’t destroy. I would rather you were armed with nonfatal methods.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘Even if we win, Amelie will be forced to bring to trial any human who kills a vampire. You know how well that ends.’’ Claire did, and she shuddered. Shane had nearly been killed for a murder he hadn’t committed. ‘‘So if there’s any killing to be done, let me or another vampire do it. We’re better suited in any case.’’ He folded cloth over his hand and picked up a medium-sized ornate cross with a pointed end, which he handed over with care. ‘‘Self-defense only. Now, for me . . .’’

Myrnin picked up a wickedly sharp knife and eyed the edge critically, then slipped it back into its leather scabbard. It went under his tunic and against his side.

He closed the lid on the suitcase.

‘‘That’s all?’’ Claire asked, surprised. There had been an arsenal just waiting for him.

‘‘It’s all I need. Time to go,’’ he said. ‘‘That is, if you’re certain you want to do this.’’

‘‘I’m sure.’’ Claire looked down at herself, and the tight costume. ‘‘Um . . . where are my pockets?’’

11

The Glass House was on what Claire had come to think of as the Impossible Travel Network.... Myrnin’s doorway system led to a total of twenty places in town that she’d been able to identify, and one of them was in their living room. One, of course, was to the prison where he’d been making his residence lately. One was to the Day House, and she suspected most if not all the Founder Houses had similar connections.

There was also a doorway to Amelie’s castle—or at least, Claire thought of it as a castle; she had no idea what it looked like on the outside. She didn’t even know where it was in town. But inside, it felt and looked old and very, very strong. There were exits in the system to the university administration building, to the library, to the town hall, and to the Elders’ Council building.

Which was where the ball was being held.

‘‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’’ Claire whispered as Myrnin contemplated the blank wall in the Glass House living room. ‘‘Myrnin, are you sure? Maybe we should take a car or something.’’

‘‘This is faster,’’ he said. ‘‘Not afraid, are you? No need. You’re with me.’’ He said it with effortless arrogance, and once again, she had that flash of chilly doubt. Was he okay? He seemed to be stringing thoughts together just fine, but there was something . . . off. The sweet-natured Myrnin who normally emerged during his brief bouts of sanity was gone, and she didn’t really know this Myrnin at all.

But he’d given her holy water and a cross, and he didn’t have to do that. Besides . . . she needed him.

Didn’t she?

It was too late for second thoughts. The area of wall where Myrnin was staring fluttered and melted into gray fog. The fog swirled, took on color, and became darkness with a line of hot gold light barely visible at the bottom.

It looked like the interior of a closet.

‘‘Come on,’’ Myrnin said, and extended his hand to her. She took it, and they stepped through together into the darkness. Behind them, she felt the portal seal itself, and when she turned to look, there was nothing there.

The place smelled like cleaning supplies, and as Claire swept her hand around, she came into contact with the wooden shaft of a mop. Janitor’s closet. Well, she supposed it made arrivals a little less noticeable.

Except for the part about sneaking out of the janitor’s closet.

Myrnin hadn’t stopped. He reached out and turned the knob of the door, then eased it open just a crack.

‘‘Clear,’’ he said, and opened it wide. He stepped out first. Claire hurried to follow, and shut the door behind them. They were in what looked like a utility hallway, plain white walls and dark red carpet.

All the doors were unmarked. And identical. Claire tried to count, to be sure she could find the room again.

‘‘This way,’’ Myrnin said, and strode down the hallway to the right. His white tunic billowed as he walked, and he ought to have looked ridiculous in that traffic-cone hat, but somehow . . . somehow, he didn’t. ‘‘I should have let you be Pierrot, little Claire. Pierrot is known for his sweet, innocent nature. Not like Harlequin. Libitor frenzy, Claire.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘I said, I should have let you be Pierrot—’’

‘‘No,’’ she said slowly. ‘‘You said libitor frenzy. What does that mean?’’

‘‘I said what?’’ Myrnin sent her an odd look. ‘‘That’s nonsense. Aqua lace that.’’

She stopped dead in her tracks, and after a couple of steps on, he realized she’d been left behind and turned impatiently. ‘‘Claire, iguana time.’’ Claire, we don’t have time.

‘‘Myrnin, you’re not making sense. I—think the serum is wearing off.’’

‘‘I feel acting.’’ I feel fine.

‘‘Can you hear yourself? What you’re saying?’’

He held up his hands. He couldn’t tell that he was making word salad. Neurological complications, she thought, and wished she could talk to Dr. Mills. Of course, he did carve out part of his brain. That could have done some damage. Then again, he’d been talking fine right up until these last few moments.

Claire tried to keep her voice as calm as possible. ‘‘I think you need another shot. Please. I don’t think we should wait to see how much worse you get, do you?’’

Myrnin silently held out his arm and pulled up his sleeve. His exposed skin was alabaster pale, and as she took hold, it felt less like a human arm than soft leather over marble. Claire took out the small case she’d stuck in the waistband of her tights—the one Dr. Mills had given her, with the syringe and vials of medicine. She’d practiced giving injections with the needle on an orange, but this was different.

‘‘I’ll try not to hurt you,’’ she said. Myrnin rolled his eyes.

Her hands trembled as she slipped the needle into the rubber stopper of the vial and filled up the syringe. She squirted a few drops of the liquid from the needle and took a deep breath.

She hoped Myrnin would let her do this without a fight.

He didn’t seem inclined to act out, at least not yet; he stood passively as she positioned the needle over the cold blue of his vein.

‘‘Ready?’’ she asked. She was really asking herself, not him. He seemed to know that, because he smiled.

‘‘I trust you,’’ he said.

She pushed, and the needle popped through his skin and slipped deep. There was a second of resistance against the surface of his vein, and then it was in.

She quickly pressed the plunger and yanked out the needle. A thin drop of blood marked where it had come out, and she wiped it away with her thumb, leaving a faint smear on his perfect skin.

She looked up and saw his pupils shrink to nothing, and a feeling of utter terror swept over her, freezing her in place. Myrnin’s mouth was wide and red and smiling, and there was something about him that really, really wasn’t at all right—

Then it was gone, as he blinked, and his pupils began to expand again to normal size. He shuddered and heaved a sigh.

‘‘Unpleasant,’’ he said. ‘‘Ah, there comes the warmth. Now, that’s pleasant.’’

‘‘It didn’t hurt, though?’’

‘‘I don’t like needles.’’

Which was funny enough to make her laugh. He frowned at her, but she kept giggling and had to cover her mouth with her hand as the laughter ratcheted higher and thinner, toward hysteria. Get it together, Claire.

‘‘Better?’’ she asked him. Myrnin’s arrogance was back, obvious in the look he sent her as she packed away the supplies.

‘‘I wasn’t bad,’’ he said. ‘‘But I appreciate your concern.’’

The hallway ended up ahead in a pair of white swinging doors, and Myrnin took her hand and practically dragged her toward them. ‘‘Wait! Slow down!’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘Because I want to be sure you’re—’’

‘‘Compos mentis? That’s Latin, Claire. It means—’’

‘‘In your right mind, yes, I know.’’

‘‘I’m not babbling nonsense. And I don’t think I needed the shot in the first place.’’ He sounded huffy about it. That was, Claire thought, the scariest part of it—Myrnin really couldn’t tell when he was slipping away.

She hoped that was the scariest part, anyway. From the eagerness in Myrnin’s face, she was afraid it might get a lot worse.

On the other side of the doors was the round foyer of the Elders’ Council building, and it was packed. People stood talking, holding flutes of champagne or wine or something that was too red to be wine. All in costume, all masked.

‘‘You were right,’’ she said to Myrnin. ‘‘I think every vampire in town is here.’’

‘‘And every one brought a little human friend,’’ he said. ‘‘But I think you’re the only one who was told the true reason.’’

Claire caught sight of Jennifer first, who was preening on the arm of François, Bishop’s protégé. She was wearing a sixties costume of a tie-dyed halter top and tiny miniskirt, platform shoes, peace-sign jewelry. Her mask was an afterthought. Clearly, her whole costume’s point was to show as much skin as possible without actually going nude. Good job, Claire thought. François clearly approved. He was dressed as Zorro, all in black satin and leather, with a flat Spanish hat.

Near Jennifer was Monica, who’d gone as Marie Antoinette, from low-cut bodice to wide skirts. She’d tied a red ribbon around her throat, which made Claire feel a little queasy, and had a miniature guillotine in her hand. She was clinging to the arm of . . . Michael. Who looked, even with the mask, like he wished he was far, far away and anywhere but next to Monica. He was dressed as a priest, in a plain black cassock and white collar. No cross visible.

Claire followed Michael’s eyeline across the room to a tall scarecrow—straight out of the scariest corn-field movie she could imagine—and a girl dressed as Sally from Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas . . . Oliver, and Eve. Eve looked like the perfect Sally— wistful, sad, stitched together by nothing but hope.

And she was staring at Michael, too.

Oliver, on the other hand, was ignoring her to focus on everyone else. Looking around, Claire slowly picked out a few more she recognized. Her mother wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but her father was dressed in a bear costume, looking intensely uncomfortable as he stood next to a middle-aged woman— vampire?—dressed as a witch.

‘‘Do you see Shane?’’ Claire asked Myrnin anxiously. He nodded toward the other side of the room. She’d already looked there, but she tried again, and after skipping over him three times, she finally figured it out.

Does your costume involve leather? she’d asked. And he’d said, Actually, yeah, it might.

It really did. It involved a leather dog collar, leather pants and a leash, and the leash was held by Ysandre, who was in skintight red rubber, from neck to thigh-high boots. She’d topped it off with a pair of devil horns and a red trident.

She’d made Shane her dog, complete with furry dog mask.

‘‘Breathe,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘I’m not much for it myself, but I hear it’s quite good for humans.’’

Claire realized he was right; she’d been holding her breath. As she let it out, her shock faded, letting in a cascade of rage. That bitch!

No wonder Shane had looked so sick.

‘‘She hasn’t hurt him,’’ Myrnin said, speaking softly next to her ear. ‘‘And you may be wearing the costume of Harlequin, but Ysandre is most definitely more of a devil. So be cautious. Bide your time. I’ll let you know when we can engage with our enemy.’’

Claire nodded stiffly. If she’d had any doubts at all about this, that was done now. She was going to get her friends and her family out of this, and she was going to personally take that leash out of Ysandre’s hand and—do something violent with it.

‘‘I’m ready when you are,’’ she said.

Myrnin shot her a mad, smiling look. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said. ‘‘I think you might be, little one.’’

They stayed to themselves, watching the others, and although others eyed them curiously, no one approached. Claire asked—better late than never—if people wouldn’t recognize Myrnin, even with the makeup, but he shook his head.

‘‘I’m hardly a social fixture,’’ he said. ‘‘Amelie, Sam, Michael, Oliver, a few more might know me by sight. But very few others, and none of them would expect to see me here. Especially as’’—he twirled theatrically, the white tunic billowing out around him—‘‘Pierrot.’’

Which made zero sense to her, since she still had no idea who Pierrot was, but she nodded. Myrnin saw one of the vampire women nearby watching him, and made an elaborate low bow in her direction. ‘‘Do a cartwheel,’’ he said under his breath to Claire.

‘‘Do a what?’’

‘‘I would ask you to do a backflip, but I’m almost certain that would be a problem. Cartwheel. Now.’’

She felt like a total idiot, but she fastened the elastic string on her matador hat under her chin and did a cartwheel, coming off it and bouncing to her feet with a bright, trembling smile.

People clapped and laughed, then turned back to their own conversations. All except Oliver, who stared intently.

But at least he kept his distance.

There was no sign of Bishop or Amelie, but Claire gradually identified most of the vampires she knew. Sam arrived, dressed as Huckleberry Finn, which went well with his red hair and freckles. He’d brought a girl Claire knew slightly from Common Grounds, one of Oliver’s employees. Probably the one who’d replaced Eve when she’d quit. For Sam’s sake, Claire hoped she was someone Oliver could afford to lose.

Miranda was there, dressed in ancient Greek robes with snakes for hair, and with her was a faded, small man in a Sherlock Holmes costume. ‘‘Charles,’’ Myrnin confirmed when Claire asked. ‘‘He always did have a weakness for the damaged ones.’’

‘‘She’s only fifteen!’’

‘‘Modern standards, I’m afraid. Charles comes from a time when twelve was a good age to be married, so he takes your age-of-eighteen rules a little lightly.’’

‘‘He’s a pedophile.’’

‘‘Probably,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘But he’s not on Bishop’s side.’’

Sam spotted them, frowned, and gradually made his way through the crowd to them. Myrnin pulled off the comical bow again, but Claire was glad to note he didn’t require a cartwheel this time. ‘‘Samuel,’’ he said. ‘‘How lovely to see you.’’

‘‘Are you—?’’ Sam visibly checked himself, because the question had probably been, Are you crazy? and that answer was self-evident. ‘‘Didn’t Amelie tell you to stay away? Claire—’’

‘‘He was coming anyway,’’ she said. ‘‘He broke the lock. I thought I ought to at least come along.’’ Which was a true—if cowardly—explanation of how they’d come to be standing here. Still, Myrnin gave her a look. One that clearly said, Confess. ‘‘I probably would have done it anyway,’’ she said in a rush. ‘‘I can’t let my friends and my parents be here without me. I just can’t.’’

Sam looked grim, but he nodded like he understood. ‘‘Fine, you’ve been here. You’ve seen. It’s time to go, before you’re announced. Myrnin—’’

Myrnin was shaking his head. ‘‘No, Samuel. I can’t do that. She needs me.’’

‘‘She needs you to stay out of it!’’ Sam stepped up, right into Myrnin’s personal space, and Myrnin’s eyes turned a muddy crimson. So did Sam’s. ‘‘Go home,’’ Sam said. ‘‘Now.’’

‘‘Make me,’’ Myrnin said in a silky whisper. Claire had never seen him look so deadly, and it was terrifying.

She nudged him. Carefully. ‘‘Myrnin. What happened to biding our time? Sam’s not the enemy.’’

‘‘Sam would protect our enemy.’’

‘‘I’m protecting Amelie. You know I’d die to protect her.’’

That sobered Myrnin up, at least to the extent that he took in a breath and stepped back. The white froufrou of the Pierrot costume made him look like the scariest clown she’d ever seen, especially when he smiled. ‘‘Yes,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘I know you would, Sam. That will destroy you, one day. You have to know when to let go. It’s an art the oldest of us have been forced to master, again and again.’’

Sam gave them both frustrated looks and turned away.

The crowd had thickened, filling the circular room, and Claire heard a distant grandfather clock striking the hour. It seemed to go on forever in deep, sonorous bongs, and when it finished, there was silence in the room except for the rustle of fabric as people jostled for position.

The gilt-edged double doors to Claire’s right opened, and a smell of roses drifted out. She knew that smell, and that room. A vampire’s body had been laid in state on that stage. She and Eve and Shane had been terrorized there.

Not her favorite place, or her favorite memory.

‘‘The lady Muriel and her attendant, Paul Grace,’’ said a deep, echoing voice near the door. It carried to all corners of the room. Claire craned her neck and saw a short, round vampire dressed as an Egyptian being escorted through the doors by a tall man dressed in Victorian costume. The man doing the announcing was standing to one side, a gilded book open in both hands, though he wasn’t consulting it.

The maître d’ of the undead.

‘‘John of Leeds,’’ Myrnin whispered to her. ‘‘Excellent choice. He was herald to King Henry, as I remember. Impeccable manners.’’

The next name was already being spoken, and another couple moved forward. Claire couldn’t see what was beyond the door from her angle, but she saw the glow of candlelight. ‘‘It’s going to take forever,’’ she said.

‘‘Ceremony is part of the joy of life,’’ Myrnin said, and handed her a glass of something that sparkled. ‘‘Drink.’’

‘‘I shouldn’t.’’

He raised an eyebrow. She put her lips to the champagne and tasted it—not sweet, not bitter, just right. Like light, bottled.

Maybe just one sip.

The glass was empty by the time she and Myrnin had drifted up to the front of the line; Claire felt hot and a little off-balance, and she was glad Myrnin had taken her arm. The herald, John, stood to Myrnin’s left, and he seemed mildly surprised for a bare second, then said with his usual smoothness, ‘‘Lord Myrnin of Conwy, with his attendant, Claire Danvers.’’

So much for the subtle approach.

Heads turned. Lots of heads turned, and although vampires weren’t given much to gasping, Claire heard the whispers start as she and Myrnin swept into the room. It was a cavernous, dark place set up ballroomstyle, with round tables and chairs, and a large dais on the stage. Fine white linens. Floral arrangements on each table. Glittering glass and gleaming china. The entire room was lit by candles—thousands of them, in massive crystal displays.

It would have been magical, if it hadn’t been so scary. The pressure of all that attention—hundreds of eyes watching their every move—made Claire’s knees feel like bags of water.

Myrnin seemed to sense it. ‘‘Steady,’’ he said softly. ‘‘Smile. Head up. No sign of weakness.’’

She tried. She wasn’t sure how she managed it, but when he released her next to a chair, she sank down fast. They were at an empty table near the back of the room. As she looked around, she saw that Sam was seated not far away, and so was Oliver. Eve was with him, staring wide-eyed at Claire.

She couldn’t see Michael. Unfortunately, she could see Shane all too clearly, because Ysandre was on the dais on the stage, and she’d brought Shane on his leash up the steps so that everyone could see him, too. They were seated at a long table on one side; François and his date were on the other.

Still no sign of Amelie, or Bishop.

Claire’s father started to get up from his seat across the room, but the vampire with him took his arm and pulled him back into his chair. So the rules were no mingling, apparently. She wanted to go to him, very badly, but when she glanced at Myrnin, he shook his head. ‘‘Wait,’’ he said. ‘‘You wanted to play the game, Claire. Now we’ll find out if you really have the gall for it.’’

‘‘That’s my dad!’’

‘‘I told you, this will be a test of nerves. Yours are on display. Calm yourself.’’

Fine talk from a guy who’d let his eyes turn red when somebody as unthreatening as Sam got in his face. But Claire concentrated on deep, slow breaths, and kept her gaze turned down, away from temptation.

‘‘Ah,’’ Myrnin said, in a voice full of satisfaction. ‘‘They’re here.’’

He meant, of course, Amelie and Bishop. Amelie entered first from the right of the stage, a glittering sculpture all in a white so cold it hurt the eyes. She’d come as some sort of ice spirit, which was appropriate in so many ways. Her platinum hair was woven into a crystalline tower, and she looked delicate and fragile.

On her arm was Jason Rosser. At least, Claire thought it was Jason. She’d never seen him after a bath and a haircut, but she recognized the stooped shoulders and the walk, if nothing else. He was wearing a hooded brown monk’s robe. She picked someone she could afford to lose, Claire thought. That’s why she didn’t pick me. It should have made her feel better about being left out, but somehow, it didn’t.

Bishop entered, stage left. He was dressed all in Episcopal purple, in—what else?—a bishop’s costume, minus the cross. He even had the tall hat, the miter.

On his arm, he had an angel. A woman dressed as one, anyway, with fine white feathery wings that were taller than she was, and swept the floor behind her.

Claire slapped both hands over her mouth to hold in the shriek that threatened to erupt.

It was her mother.

‘‘Steady,’’ Myrnin said. His cool hand pressed her arm. ‘‘What did I tell you? Control yourself! We have miles to go yet.’’

She didn’t want to listen to him. She wanted to get her mom and her dad, Shane and Michael and Eve. She wanted to get out of here, hit the borders of Morganville, and keep on going.

She didn’t want to be here anymore.

Other guests filled in the remaining seats at their table, and two of them were Charles and Miranda. Miranda looked dreadfully young and pallid under her snaky hair and Greek robes. She sat next to Claire, and under cover of the tablecloth, reached for her hand. Claire allowed it. Miranda’s felt as cool as Myrnin’s, and clammy with fear.

‘‘It’s happening,’’ Miranda said. ‘‘All the blood. All the fear. It’s really happening.’’

‘‘Hush,’’ said Charles, seated next to her, and nodded at her plate. ‘‘Eat. Beef will build your strength.’’

Miranda, like Claire, picked at the prime rib on her plate. Claire tried a bite. It was good—smoky, tender, just the right warmth—but she had no appetite. Myrnin tucked into his with a frightening zeal. She wondered how long it had been since he’d had an actual meal, or wanted one. That led her to an erratic series of questions—were there vegetarians in the crowd? Did the vampires cater to food allergies? As she nibbled dully on the bread, Claire saw Amelie staring toward them. At this distance, it was impossible to really see her expression, but Claire was sure it wasn’t pleased.

‘‘I think Amelie’s going to have us thrown out,’’ she said to Myrnin. He chewed his last bite of prime rib.

‘‘She won’t,’’ he said with absolute confidence. ‘‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’’

Claire gave up and passed her plate. Myrnin began cutting up the meat.

‘‘Amelie can’t afford a scene,’’ he said. ‘‘And no doubt it will amuse Bishop to have me here.’’

He seemed odd again, almost happy. Claire eyed him doubtfully. ‘‘Do you feel okay?’’

‘‘Never better,’’ he said. ‘‘Ah, dessert!’’

The servants—Claire never did catch more than a shadowy glimpse of them, so they must have been vampires—delivered exquisite little martini glasses full of berries and cream to each place. Berries and cream were something that even Claire couldn’t resist. She ate the whole thing, in between staring at Shane to see if he was eating. She didn’t think he was. He wasn’t moving at all.

As after-dinner drinks were delivered—blood for the vamps, champagne and coffee for the hemoglobin intolerant—Claire felt her anxiety ratchet up another notch. There was murmuring in the room, a rising tide of it, and she felt the swell of excitement. ‘‘Myrnin? What’s happening?’’

Miranda’s hand grabbed hers again, squeezing so hard Claire almost yelped.

‘‘It’s coming,’’ Miranda said. ‘‘It’s almost over.’’

Before Claire could ask what she meant, Myrnin touched her shoulder and said, ‘‘They’re beginning the ceremony.’’

John of Leeds had come out of the wings behind the dais, and had taken up a post at a dark wooden podium. He was wearing a traditional herald’s tabard, Claire realized, just like in books and paintings. She half expected him to pull out a long, thin trumpet.

He opened the book that he’d been holding outside the room instead.

‘‘Behold,’’ he said in a deep, velvety smooth voice, ‘‘there comes to us on this day one who is worthy of our fealty, and as one, we welcome him to our house.’’

Bishop stood up. A curtain pulled back onstage, and behind it was a huge dark wooden throne, heavily carved.

Bishop walked up the steps to take his seat on it.

Claire’s mother stayed where she was, at the table.

"What’s happening?’’ Claire asked. Myrnin shushed her.

‘‘As I speak your name, come forward with your tribute,’’ John said. ‘‘Maria Theresa.’’

A tall Spanish woman dressed in a glittering matador’s costume rose from her chair, took hold of the man she’d brought to the feast, and escorted him up onto the dais. She bowed to Amelie and then turned to Bishop on his throne. She bowed again.

‘‘I give you my fealty,’’ she said. ‘‘And my gift.’’

She looked at the man standing next to her. He seemed . . . stunned. Frozen.

Bishop looked at him and smiled. ‘‘Princely,’’ he said. ‘‘I thank you for your gift.’’

And he flicked his fingers at them, and just like that, it was over.

‘‘Vassily Ivanovich,’’ John of Leeds called, and the parade went on.

Nobody got killed. It was just like Myrnin had said . . . a token. A gesture.

Claire let out her breath. She hadn’t even been aware how hard she’d been holding it, but her whole rib cage ached. ‘‘He could kill them. Right? If he wanted?’’

‘‘Right,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘But he isn’t doing so.’’ He looked grave and focused under his clown’s makeup. ‘‘I wonder what’s stopping him.’’

It was, Claire saw, going to stretch on for hours. She was glad they had seats, because standing would have been torture. As John of Leeds called each name, a vampire would rise and lead his or her human up to be presented to Bishop; Bishop would nod; and that would be it.

As life-and-death confrontations went, it was really boring.

And then it suddenly wasn’t.

The first hint came when Sam mounted the dais with his ‘‘gift’’—he bowed to Amelie, but he only nodded to Bishop. Myrnin made a slight sound and leaned forward, dark eyes intent, and Bishop sat up straighter in his chair.

‘‘I welcome you to Morganville,’’ Sam said. ‘‘But I’m not going to swear my loyalty to you.’’

The hall went absolutely still, not even the little rustles of fabric and clinks of cups on china that had been noticeable to that point. Amelie, Claire noticed, had moved closer to Sam than she had to the other vampires.

‘‘No?’’ Bishop asked, and beckoned Sam forward. Sam obliged by one single step. ‘‘Your lady will acknowledge me. Why won’t you?’’

‘‘I have other oaths.’’

‘‘To her,’’ Bishop said. Sam nodded. ‘‘Well, then, her oath to me will bind you, as well, Samuel. I believe that will do.’’ He eyed the girl. ‘‘Leave the gift.’’

Sam didn’t move. ‘‘No.’’

Amelie murmured something to him, but it was soft enough that it didn’t carry to Claire’s ears despite the excellent acoustics of the room.

‘‘She’s my responsibility,’’ Sam said, ‘‘and if you want a gift, take what Morganville offers you. Freedom.’’

He reached in the pocket of his rope-belted Huck Finn blue jeans and pulled out a blood pack.

Ysandre leaped from her seat. So did François. ‘‘You dare!’’ François snarled, and knocked the blood pack out of Sam’s hand. ‘‘Take that filthy thing away!’’

Ysandre grabbed hold of Sam’s date by the hair and yanked her away. ‘‘She’s the tribute,’’ Ysandre said, ‘‘and you have no right to deny her to him.’’

‘‘He has no right,’’ Amelie said. Every word was clear as crystal. ‘‘But I do.’’

Bishop’s eyes locked with hers, and for a long, long moment, nobody moved.

Then Bishop smiled, sat back in his chair, and waved. ‘‘Take her, Samuel,’’ he said. ‘‘I find she’s not to my taste, after all.’’

Sam grabbed the girl’s hand, shoved François out of the way, and descended the steps back to the banquet-hall floor. Murmurs bloomed in the darkness as he passed. He headed straight for the table where Michael sat, leaned over, and said something. Michael replied, looking strained and a little bit desperate. Whatever the argument was about, it was ripping Michael apart to take the other side.

Sam yanked Michael to his feet, and this time Claire heard what he said. ‘‘Just come with me!’’

Whether Michael might have or not, it was too late, because John of Leeds said, ‘‘Michael Glass of Morganville, ’’ and everybody waited to see what the youngest vampire in town was going to do.

Michael took Monica’s hand and walked to the dais. He mounted the steps, nodded to Amelie, and nodded to Bishop. Not much in the way of obedience either direction.

‘‘Ah, the Morrell girl,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘I’ve heard so much about you, child.’’

Monica, the idiot, seemed pleased about that. She risked her tall wig by doing a deep curtsy in those mile-wide Marie Antoinette skirts. ‘‘Thank you, sir.’’

‘‘Did I tell you to speak?’’ he asked, and transferred his attention to Michael again. ‘‘Your kinsman refused to swear fealty. What say you, Michael?’’

‘‘I’m here,’’ Michael said. ‘‘But I’m not swearing anything.’’

There was a long, tense moment, and then Bishop impatiently waved him offstage.

Monica dragged her feet, simpering at the big, bad vampire. ‘‘What an idiot,’’ Claire muttered under her breath, and Myrnin chuckled.

‘‘There are always a few,’’ he said. ‘‘Thankfully.’’ The next vampire was already onstage. He was a little more politic than Michael—he welcomed Bishop as a guest to Morganville, but again, no pledges of loyalty. Bishop looked sour. ‘‘Well, this is taking a turn for the interesting. I wonder how long he’ll tolerate it.’’

Not long, it seemed, because Oliver was next. And even though Oliver bowed, there was something forced about it. Something militant. Bishop sensed it.

‘‘What say you, Oliver of Heidelberg?’’

‘‘I bid you welcome,’’ Oliver said. ‘‘And nothing more.’’ He bowed again, mockingly. ‘‘Your days of ordering us about are done, Master Bishop. Haven’t you noticed?’’

Bishop stood up. So did François and Ysandre. ‘‘Bring your tribute,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘And walk away, while I allow you to walk at all.’’

And Oliver, the coward, dropped Eve’s hand and left the stage. Abandoning her.

Michael, down on the floor, tried to go to her rescue, but Sam tackled him and held him down. ‘‘Get off me!’’ Michael yelled, and the two of them rolled into a table and sent the expensive china and glasses flying. ‘‘You can’t let him—’’

François and Ysandre were closing in on Eve like hunting tigers. And she was standing, petrified, caught in Bishop’s stare.

Shane stood up and took off the dog mask Ysandre had made him wear. He walked over to stand next to Eve, unhooked the leash, and let it fall to the floor in a slither of leather.

‘‘I’m so done with this crap,’’ he said, and extended his elbow toward Eve. ‘‘How about you?’’

‘‘So done,’’ she agreed. ‘‘Though I do love a good dress-up party. Can I have the collar when you’re done with it?’’

‘‘Knock yourself out.’’

They were trying to be cool, but Claire could feel the menace up there, the hair-trigger violence just waiting to erupt. And Shane couldn’t win. He couldn’t even hurt them. All he could do was get himself killed.

She fought to get out of her chair. Myrnin’s hand crushed her shoulder hard, forcing her down again. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘Wait.’’

‘‘They’re my friends!’’

‘‘Wait!’’

He was right. Amelie stepped forward, between Shane and Eve and Bishop. ‘‘They belong to me,’’ she said. ‘‘They are not Oliver’s to give.’’

‘‘That argument could be made for anyone in this town,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘Will you deny me any tribute at all?’’

She smiled slowly. ‘‘I never said that. Be careful, Father. You sound desperate.’’

Claire saw Bishop’s eyes flare red, then white-hot.

Amelie didn’t back down. She turned her head slightly, and nodded at Shane and Eve. Shane hustled Eve off the stage and down to the banquet-hall floor. François seemed to get some silent message from Bishop, because he backed out of their way.

Sam let Michael up, and in seconds, Michael was across the room to join them as Shane and Eve descended the stairs from the dais.

Sam followed. That made a small group in the noman’s -land in the center of the tables on the floor.

‘‘It’s starting,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘We’re at the tipping point now. He knows he’s losing. He’ll have to act.’’

And John of Leeds said, in that perfectly calm voice, ‘‘Lord Myrnin of Conwy.’’

There was that head-turning thing again. Myrnin got up from his chair and held out his hand to Claire. His eyes were bright, a little too bright. A little too manic.

His smile scared her, and she didn’t think it was just the makeup. ‘‘Ready?’’ he asked.

She didn’t really have a choice. She stood and put her hand in his, and walked toward the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

12

Going up the steps felt like the proverbial march to the gallows. Amelie stood to one side, glittering like a chandelier, and she was glaring at Myrnin with fierce displeasure.

He took her pale, perfect hand and kissed it. ‘‘Oh, don’t look so distressed, my old friend,’’ he told her. ‘‘I’m perfectly fine.’’

‘‘No,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘You’re not. And you’re about to be a good deal less so.’’ She turned to Bishop. ‘‘I regret that Lord Myrnin is unwell. He must leave, for his own health.’’

‘‘He looks well enough,’’ Bishop replied. ‘‘Let him come forward.’’

‘‘You fool,’’ Amelie whispered as Myrnin did his Pierrot twirl and ended in a dancer’s perfect floor-scraping bow. ‘‘Oh, my lovely fool.’’ Claire couldn’t tell if she was appalled, angry, or sad. Maybe all three.

Bishop seemed amused. ‘‘It’s been years,’’ he said. ‘‘And how have you fared, Myrnin?’’

‘‘As well as you’d expect,’’ Myrnin said.

‘‘Pierrot. How . . . odd for you. You’re much more the Harlequin, I should think.’’

‘‘I’ve always thought that Pierrot was the secretly dangerous one,’’ Myrnin said. ‘‘All that innocence must hide something.’’

Bishop laughed. ‘‘I’ve missed you, fool.’’

‘‘Truly? Odd. I haven’t missed you at all, my lord.’’

That stopped Bishop’s laughter in its tracks, and Claire felt the fear close around her, like suffocating cold. ‘‘Ah, I remember now why you ceased to amuse, Myrnin. You use honesty like a club.’’

‘‘I thought it more like a rapier, lord.’’

Bishop was all done with the witty conversation. ‘‘Will you swear?’’

And Myrnin said, shockingly, ‘‘I will.’’ And he proceeded to, a string of swearwords that made Claire blink. He ended with, ‘‘—frothy fool-born apple-john! Cheater of vandals and defiler of dead dogs!’’ and did another twirl and bow. He looked up with a red, red grin that was more like a leer. ‘‘Is that what you meant, my lord?’’

Claire gasped as hands closed cold around her throat from behind. She was pulled backward. It was Ysandre holding her, and the vampire woman bent to whisper, ‘‘Yes, please do struggle. I lost your boyfriend before I could get a taste. I’ll have you instead.’’

Claire didn’t hesitate. She reached under her tunic, got out the ancient glass perfume bottle that Myrnin had given her, and thumbed off the cap.

And she dumped the holy water right on Ysandre’s head.

Ysandre screamed in registers so high the crystal on the tables shivered. She spun away clawing at her hair, shedding drops that landed on François, who was moving toward her. He screamed, too. Where the drops touched, they ate away into skin. Claire stared, appalled. She’d hurt them, all right. Badly.

Myrnin laughed, deep in his throat, and took out the thin, sharp knife he’d worn at his side. As Bishop advanced on him, he cut at him, still laughing.

He connected.

It was a minor little wound to Bishop’s arm, barely a nick, but Clare saw the cut on the older vampire’s robes, and a thin film of blood on the knife.

Bishop looked surprised enough to stop to examine the damage to his costume.

Myrnin’s laughter ratcheted higher and higher, and he twirled again, faster, almost a blur.

‘‘Myrnin!’’ Claire yelled. She was backing away from Ysandre, burned and furious, who was stalking toward her. She tripped and fell flat on her back. ‘‘Myrnin, do something!’’

He stopped twirling and looked at the bloody knife in his hand.

‘‘I told Sam before, you have to know when to let go,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s time, Claire.’’ He blew her a kiss, and leaped over the table.

And ran away, shrieking with laughter, still holding the knife. Right out of the hall.

For a few seconds, nobody moved. Claire stared at Ysandre, who seemed just as surprised, and glanced at Bishop.

Who flicked his fingers against the cut in his robe, and chuckled.

‘‘My fool,’’ he said, almost fondly. ‘‘Madmen are the laughter of God, don’t you agree?’’

He sat down on his throne, smiling. ‘‘Ysandre, leave the child. I’m inclined to allow our friends their small acts of defiance tonight.’’

‘‘She burned me!’’ Ysandre snarled.

‘‘And you’ll heal. Don’t whine like a kicked dog. It’s no more than you deserve.’’

Amelie, Claire realized, hadn’t moved at all. Not even when Claire’s life had been in danger. Now she did, leaning down to help Claire to her feet.

‘‘Enough of this,’’ she said. ‘‘You’ve had your fun, Father. End this.’’

‘‘Very well,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s time for the test, my child. Swear fealty to me, and it will all be over.’’

‘‘If I swear fealty, it will never be over,’’ Amelie corrected him. ‘‘I never have sworn an oath to you. Did you really think tonight that would change?’’

His cold, cold eyes narrowed. ‘‘Blood traitor,’’ he said. ‘‘Murderous witch. Do you welcome me to your little town? Do you grant me leave to walk your streets and take your peasants? I don’t think you dare. You know me too well.’’

‘‘I grant you nothing,’’ she said. ‘‘I won’t swear loyalty to you. I won’t give you welcome. I won’t give you anything, Father.’’ It didn’t seem possible, but as Claire watched her, Amelie seemed . . . human. Vulnerable. Fragile and waiting to be broken.

‘‘You will give me one thing if you want to keep what you’ve built here,’’ he said. ‘‘I want my book. The one you stole as you rolled me into my hasty grave, daughter.’’

She froze, eyes widening. Amelie, who couldn’t be surprised, had been completely taken for a ride this time. ‘‘The book.’’

‘‘You think I want your pathetic town? Your ridiculous peasants?’’ Bishop’s contemptuous gaze swept over Claire, over the room beyond. ‘‘I want my property . Give it to me, and I’ll leave. There. Now all our cards are up, child. What say you?’’

‘‘The book isn’t yours,’’ Amelie said.

‘‘I took it from the dead hands of a rival,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘That makes it mine. Right of conquest.’’ He gave her a cold, slow stare. ‘‘The same way you took it from me, if you remember, except that I wasn’t quite dead enough. A pity you didn’t make sure, eh?’’

It was all going wrong. Myrnin had run away, and he was supposed to stay, supposed to fight. Amelie couldn’t do this on her own; he’d said it himself.

The other vampires were all standing by and letting it happen.

‘‘Amelie,’’ Bishop said, ‘‘I’ll destroy you if you refuse. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you known it from the moment I came to town?’’

Claire moved up beside her. ‘‘She wants you to leave,’’ she said. ‘‘You need to go. Now.’’

Bishop laughed. ‘‘A threat from a little yapping dog. Will you make me, mongrel?’’

‘‘No,’’ said Sam Glass. He jumped from the banquet floor up to the table in one lithe, easy motion, and then down to stand on Amelie’s other side. ‘‘Not by herself, anyway.’’ He’d taken off his Huck Finn straw hat, but even if he’d been wearing it, his expression was one that demanded to be taken seriously.

Michael joined him, crossing the distance with a leap, while Eve and Shane took the stairs.

There was a second’s breathless pause, and then others began to move. Oliver. Monica. Charles and Miranda.

Claire’s dad came up to take her mother’s hands and lead her off to the side, out of danger.

More kept coming.

The vampires and humans of Morganville stood together, crowding the stage in front of Bishop, Ysandre, and François. Not all of them—but more than half the room.

‘‘You’re not welcome here,’’ Oliver said, ‘‘Master Bishop. This is our town. Our people. It’s time for you to leave.’’

‘‘A rebellion,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘How refreshingly modern.’’

He nodded to Ysandre and François. François yanked Jennifer out of her seat on the dais.

Ysandre feinted toward Shane, then grabbed hold of Jason Rosser and sank her fangs deep into his neck.

Pandemonium. Sam and Michael both hit François, bearing him backward as he tried to get his teeth into a screaming Jennifer, and Claire lost sight of them almost immediately. Bishop was on his feet, struggling hand to hand with Oliver.

Amelie, eyes the color and hardness of diamond, grabbed Ysandre by the back of the neck and yanked her backward, away from Jason.

‘‘My property,’’ she snapped, and held Ysandre at arm’s length as she hissed and struggled. ‘‘Boy. Boy!’’ She bent over Jason, her pale fingers touching his face.

Jason opened his eyes. He was crying, Claire thought, but then she saw his face, and she knew that wasn’t crying at all.

That was laughter.

‘‘Sucker,’’ he said.

‘‘No!’’ Claire cried, but it was too late.

Jason took a stake out of the folds of his brown monk’s robe and stabbed Amelie, right in the heart.

Everything stopped.

Amelie staggered backward. The wooden stake in her chest looked unreal, obscene, wrong.

Amelie was invulnerable. Couldn’t be hurt.

A rim of blood spread into the white cloth around the stake, growing before Claire’s eyes.

Sam screamed. He abandoned François as Amelie fell, and caught her, easing her down to the wooden stage. The look on his face—Claire had never seen that much pain, ever.

Oliver punched Bishop so hard that the old man staggered backward and fell over the side of the throne; then Oliver moved to Amelie’s side.

‘‘No!’’ Oliver snapped as Sam took hold of the stake to pull it out. ‘‘She’s old. She’ll survive until we get her to safety. Take her!’’

And then he turned as Jason lunged at him, crazy-eyed, with another stake. Oliver grabbed him in midair and snapped his arm with an effortless twist, tossing him across the stage to crash into François, who had Michael down on the ground.

‘‘Mom! Dad! Get out of here!’’ Claire yelled. Her dad beckoned her to come with them, but she shook her head. She wasn’t leaving her friends behind. Not the way Myrnin had left her.

Her parents got out, all the way out the door. Others were running, mostly the ones who’d elected not to go up against Bishop in the first place. Claire saw Maria Theresa slipping out the side door, tugging her human tribute by the arm. He looked horrified, and he was trying to break free.

Out in the darkness, she heard screaming.

Amelie blinked, pulled in a breath, and whispered something to Sam. He looked up at Claire, and his face was as hard and pale as polished marble. ‘‘Endgame, ’’ he said. ‘‘Bishop’s counterattack.’’

Claire looked out and saw that some of those who’d held back were turning on their humans, or attacking other vampires. Bishop had brought his own sleeper agents with him, and it was only a matter of time before they made their way up to the stage. It was going to be a free-for-all.

Michael joined them. His clothes were ripped, and he had a bloodless cut along one cheekbone.

‘‘Get them out of here!’’ Oliver yelled to him. ‘‘Now!’’

Oliver lunged for Bishop, drove the older vampire back against the throne, and reached into his scarecrow costume. He pulled out a long, needle-pointed dagger, and shoved it through Bishop’s chest to pin him to the wood.

It annoyed Bishop more than hurt him. Bishop wrenched free and pulled the dagger out, then back-handed Oliver so hard the other vampire went completely off the stage and out into the darkness of the banquet hall.

‘‘Sam!’’ Michael yelled. Sam gathered up Amelie in his arms and jumped off the stage. Most of the others followed him. Michael grabbed Eve and Shane, and Claire turned to follow as they clattered down the stairs.

Ysandre stopped her.

‘‘Not so fast,’’ she said. Her voice no longer sounded like a purr; it was a growl, low and vicious. ‘‘You I want.’’

Claire fumbled for a weapon. She came up with a fork from a fallen place setting, and stabbed it into Ysandre’s arm. The vampire yelped, plucked it out, and fastened her hand around Claire’s throat, bending her back over the table. Claire couldn’t breathe. She battered at the vampire’s iron hand, and tried to twist free, but it was no use.

She was dying.

Oliver hit Ysandre in a flying leap. He knocked her into Bishop, and they both went down. Before they hit the floor, he’d grabbed Claire’s wrist and pulled her toward the stairs. She wasn’t moving fast enough for him. He scooped her into his arms, and the world blurred around them.

Vampire speed.

Screams smeared into noise, and Claire heard crashes and sirens, and then nothing.

Strange, to feel safe in Oliver’s arms.

When she woke up, her head was in Shane’s lap, and he was stroking her hair. She heard the hushed murmur of voices. ‘‘What—’’ Her throat hurt. Hurt a lot. And her voice sounded funny.

‘‘Hey,’’ Shane said, and smiled down at her. It didn’t look right, that smile. ‘‘Don’t talk. We’re home— we’ve got everything secured. It’s okay.’’

She doubted that. She could hear sirens outside, racing past on the street. Voices inside the house, lots of them. She tried to sit up, but Shane held her back. ‘‘Sam’s upstairs with Amelie, in the rec room.’’ Which was Shane’s term for Amelie’s hidden lair. ‘‘The city’s in lockdown. Bishop had a lot of people on his payroll already. Lots of surprises. He’s been busy.’’

She mouthed, Who’s here?

‘‘Yeah, well, we’ve got guests tonight,’’ he said. ‘‘Couldn’t get them to their own places, so they’re taking refuge here. Your mom and dad are right here—’’

And there they were, pushing Shane out of the way. Mom was crying as she stroked Claire’s face. Her dad was more stoic, but his face was flushed and his jaw was tightly clenched.

‘‘How you doing, kiddo?’’ he asked.

‘‘Fine,’’ she whispered, and pointed at them.

‘‘We’re just fine, sweetheart,’’ her mother said, and kissed her on the forehead. She was still wearing the long white dress, but the angel wings looked battered and off center. ‘‘When Oliver brought you in, I thought—I thought it was too late. I thought—’’

They’d thought she was dead. Claire felt guilty, even though passing out hadn’t been her idea, exactly. ‘‘I’m okay,’’ she managed to say. She tried to swallow, and found that was not just a bad idea; it was a terrible idea. She coughed. That hurt worse.

Pitiful.

‘‘Oliver?’’ she whispered. Her dad nodded to someplace behind the couch, where she was stretched out.

‘‘On the phone,’’ he said. ‘‘He’s quite the take-charge guy, isn’t he?’’

The lights in the house went out, and people screamed. Almost immediately, flashlights clicked on; Eve and Shane had them ready, and so did Michael.

‘‘Calm down,’’ Michael said. ‘‘Everybody relax. The house is secure.’’

Nothing was secure from Bishop, Claire wanted to tell him. Ysandre and François had been here, and they’d get in again if they wanted. The gloom felt thick and oily around her. If there were ghosts in the house—other than the one Michael had been—they were coming out in force tonight, drawn by the fear and fury.

‘‘Hey,’’ Eve said. She was standing at the front windows, looking out. ‘‘Something’s on fire out there.’’

A fire truck roared by, screaming, chased by a fleet of patrol cars. Busy night for city services, Claire thought dizzily. She got up, despite her mother’s attempts to keep her flat. The room spun a little, then steadied. She joined Eve at the window. Eve put an arm around her and hugged her, eyes still on the fire. It was a big one, maybe three streets away. Flames were leaping a dozen feet into the air.

‘‘How you doing?’’ Eve asked her.

Claire gave her a silent thumbs-up, and saw Eve smile.

‘‘Yeah, you went all Spartacus up there. I was proud, you know. Well, until you kind of got your ass kicked.’’

Claire tried to choke out an indignant ‘‘Hey!’’

‘‘Okay, so, maybe not your fault.’’ Eve hugged her again. ‘‘Holy water. Nice touch. I was almost impressed.’’

‘‘Whose house?’’ Two words, Claire managed in one whisper. That was progress. ‘‘On fire?’’

‘‘I think it’s the Melville house.’’ Eve angled for a different view. ‘‘Crap. I see some more. This isn’t good.’’

Michael joined them. ‘‘It’s part of Bishop’s plan,’’ he said. ‘‘Or at least, that’s what I’d guess. Create chaos. Keep Amelie off-balance.’’

Claire bet the power failure was all part of the plan too. ‘‘How many are here?’’

‘‘In our house? About thirty.’’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘‘Half of them vampires. Great, huh? After all that.’’

Claire stared at her. ‘‘Thirty?’’

Eve nodded. ‘‘What?’’

‘‘Makes us a good target.’’

‘‘She’s right,’’ Michael said. ‘‘We need to stay alert.’’

Shane pressed in next to Claire. He was still wearing his leather pants, but he’d thrown on a grotty old Marilyn Manson T-shirt that looked rescued from the bottom of the laundry bag.

She didn’t care. She collapsed against him, and felt his arms go around her, and just for a second, it was all right.

‘‘Killer rabbit,’’ Shane said fondly, and kissed her. ‘‘What’s with the outfit?’’

‘‘Harlequin,’’ she croaked. ‘‘Myrnin—’’ The memory of what Myrnin had done came flooding back. He’d taunted Bishop. He’d set Amelie up to take the fall, and he’d run. He’d left her there, too, to die.

‘‘That’s Myrnin? The crazy one? Claire. How could you trust him in the first place?’’ Shane cupped her face in his hands. ‘‘He talked you into it, didn’t he?’’

Not exactly. She’d wanted to believe Myrnin. She wanted to believe in that sweet, innocent soul that she glimpsed in him from time to time—but now she wasn’t at all sure it even existed at all.

Or if it had, maybe her cure had destroyed it.

‘‘I couldn’t—’’ Claire tried to put the words together, but it was too hard, and Shane’s eyes were too forgiving. He kissed her, and even under the circumstances, with her parents right there, with a house full of vampires and half of Morganville in danger, she thought she could stand here all night and all day, in his arms.

‘‘I know,’’ he murmured, with his damp, sweet lips on hers. ‘‘I know.’’

She almost thought he did.

‘‘Sorry to break this up,’’ Michael said drily from behind Claire, ‘‘but I’m thinking we need to do a little perimeter patrolling.’’

‘‘Not a bad idea,’’ Shane said, and stepped back, ‘‘if they’re torching houses to drive people out in the streets. Easier to pick them off that way, I’ll bet.’’

‘‘Exactly.’’ Michael handed him a crowbar. Shane twirled it and captured it under his arm. ‘‘Like Claire said, we’re a good target. All the Founder Houses are. I’ll take the back; you go to the front.’’

‘‘I’ll do it,’’ Claire offered. Shane and Michael both grabbed her arms and towed her back to the couch, where she was unceremoniously dumped. ‘‘Hey!’’

Shane turned to her parents. ‘‘Make sure she stays in.’’

‘‘We will,’’ her mother said, and sat down beside Claire. ‘‘Honestly, Claire, what are you thinking? It’s dangerous out there!’’

That was exactly what Claire was thinking, in relation to Shane. But she knew that in her present condition, she wasn’t much use. Not for this, at least.

‘‘Bathroom,’’ she sighed, and there was no arguing with that. Her parents exchanged a look. Dad shrugged.

‘‘I’ll go with you,’’ Mom offered.

‘‘Mom, I’m old enough to go to the bathroom alone.’’ Her voice was getting stronger all the time; she only had to hesitate a couple of times getting all that out. She still sounded like she had a pack-a-day cigarette habit, though. But husky was sexy, right?

Mom had her doubts about the whole old-enough theory, but she stayed where she was, on the couch. She and Dad exchanged shrugs. Claire stepped around a knot of strangers—all vampires, with cool, suspicious eyes—and took the stairs.

Miranda was sitting on the landing with her Medusa-snaked head cradled in her hands. ‘‘Hey,’’ Claire said, and hunkered down next to her. ‘‘You okay?’’

Miranda nodded. ‘‘Told you,’’ she said. ‘‘Blood. Fire. It’s all going away.’’

‘‘Can you see anything about us? About the house?’’

Miranda shook her head. ‘‘Too tired.’’ She sounded like it—almost catatonic, slurring her words. ‘‘Head hurts.’’

‘‘Come on,’’ Claire said, and got Miranda to her feet. ‘‘I’ve got a bed. No reason somebody shouldn’t be using it.’’

She saw the girl tucked in, already dozing off, and then—as she’d promised Mom and Dad—visited the bathroom. There was a line. Once that was done, she felt free to investigate other options.

She’d never promised to come right back.

The way she wanted to go was blocked by one of Amelie’s bodyguards—the one who’d nodded to her during an earlier visit, in fact. He was marginally less stone-faced than the rest of her staff, but definitely intimidating. Claire looked up at him, well aware that the bruising around her throat was turning purple.

‘‘Can I go up?’’ she asked. The bodyguard seemed to consider her for a long second before giving her a nod and moving aside. He knocked. The hidden door popped open, and Claire slipped inside and closed it behind her.

There was another vampire bodyguard at the foot of the stairs, and he wasn’t as friendly, but after a whispered conversation at the top of the stairs, he let her go up.

Upstairs it was only Amelie, lying in a frozen waterfall of white silk on the couch, and Sam, and Oliver.

The stake was still in her chest, and her eyes were open and blank.

Oliver snapped at Claire the second she cleared the stairs. ‘‘Go away!’’

She nearly did, but Sam jumped in quickly. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘She’s earned the right. She was the first one to stand next to Amelie, not you. Not even me.’’

Oliver seemed harassed, but he refocused on Amelie’s still, pale face. His long fingers were on her temples, unexpectedly gentle. He’d stripped off his scarecrow costume, or most of it, but there were still bits of straw in his hair, and smudges of greasepaint on his skin.

He leaned close, staring into her open eyes, and held there. Seconds ticked by, and Sam waited.

‘‘Now,’’ Oliver whispered.

Sam grabbed the stake and pulled, one swift yank. Amelie’s body followed it upward in a spasm, and her mouth opened wide. Her vampire teeth glittered, sharp and deadly in the light.

She didn’t make a sound.

Sam looked tormented. Oliver was whispering something, too faint for Claire to catch, and he bent his head so close to Amelie’s they were almost touching. When Sam reached out toward her, Oliver looked up and shook his head sharply. Sam froze.

‘‘Take her,’’ Oliver said, and removed his hands from her head. Sam quickly took over, sliding into his place. Oliver skinned back his gray shirtsleeve, took in a deep breath, and put his forearm to Amelie’s mouth.

Claire flinched as Amelie bit deep. Oliver didn’t. Sam’s gaze alternated between Amelie and Oliver, looking for something Claire didn’t quite understand, and then he let go of Amelie and grabbed Oliver’s arm to pull it away from her.

Oliver staggered and collapsed, and covered his eyes with both hands. The open wounds on his arm trailed blood drops, pattering on the floor, then slowing. Stopping as he healed.

Amelie blinked and turned her head toward Claire. She looked dead, except for the fact that she was moving; her eyes were still fixed, pupils gone wide, and her skin was an eerie blue white.

‘‘The girl,’’ she whispered. ‘‘Must go. Hungry.’’

Sam nodded and looked over his shoulder at Claire. ‘‘Go get her some blood,’’ he said. ‘‘There should be some in the refrigerator.’’

And Claire realized with a shock that there wasn’t. They were all out of blood.

‘‘Crap,’’ Shane breathed as they stood together looking into the fridge. The shelves held leftover chili, some pasta stuff, hamburger patties. Enough for them, for a couple of days. Not enough for anywhere near the number of people in the house, even for the humans. ‘‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’’

‘‘I’m thinking we have about fifteen vampires and no blood,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Is that it?’’

‘‘No, I was thinking we’re out of chips. Of course that’s what I was thinking.’’ Shane moved some condiment bottles again, in a three-time-loser search for some elusive hidden blood bottle. ‘‘Did I say crap?’’

‘‘More than once, yeah. Shouldn’t you get back outside?’’

‘‘I traded shifts with a vampire. Better to have them walking around in the dark than us, you know? Besides, the fewer of them there are in here right now—’’

‘‘The better,’’ she finished. ‘‘I don’t disagree. But Sam said Amelie needs to feed, and that means blood. She’s not the only one, either. What about the Donation Center?’’

‘‘They don’t deliver,’’ Shane said, and then snapped his fingers. ‘‘Wait. Wait a minute. Yes, they do.’’

‘‘What?’’

He spun away and picked up the phone from the cradle on the wall, then put it back down. ‘‘Dead.’’

Claire took out her cell phone. ‘‘I’ve got a signal.’’ She pitched it to him, and watched as he punched a number. ‘‘Who are you calling?’’

‘‘Pizza Hut.’’

‘‘Loser.’’

He held up a finger. ‘‘Hey, Richard?’’ Not, Claire noticed, Dick. This situation had upgraded him to full-name status. ‘‘Listen, man, we’ve got a situation here at the Glass House.’’

Claire could fill in the other half of the conversation from Richard Morrell almost verbatim. What do you think I have, with the town going crazy?

‘‘We’re out of blood,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Amelie’s wounded. You do the math, man. A little home delivery service from Morganville’s Finest wouldn’t hurt right now.’’

Whatever Richard said, it wasn’t encouraging. ‘‘You’re kidding,’’ Shane said, in an entirely different tone. A worried one. ‘‘You’re not kidding. Oh my God.’’ A short pause. ‘‘Yeah, man, I get it. I get it. Okay, right. Take care.’’

That, she thought, was definitely the most civil she’d ever heard Richard and Shane. It was almost friendly.

Shane folded up the phone and threw it back to her, and his face was a study in self-control.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Donation Center’s burning,’’ he said. ‘‘How do you feel about blood drives?’’

The Bloodmobile arrived in front of the house exactly fifteen minutes later—glossy, black, and intimidating. It came with a flanking guard of squad cars and police wearing protective vests who took up posts on either end of the street.

Claire looked at the clock. It was nearly four a.m.— still hours until dawn, although the fires were making it hard to tell day from night. The Morganville Fire Department was outmatched. Whatever serial arsonists Bishop had employed were definitely doing their jobs.

Claire wondered what Bishop was doing. Waiting, probably. He didn’t really have to do anything else. Morganville was coming apart, with strikes at the communications hubs, the Donation Center, and—as she heard by word of mouth from some of the others— the hospital. So far, the university seemed safe. There was a blood supply on campus, but it would be tough to get to in the chaos.

Michael went out to meet the vampire driving the Bloodmobile. He came back shaking his head. ‘‘Nothing left,’’ he said. ‘‘He’d already dropped off the day’s collections at the Center. There’s nothing in storage. He says he’s heard the supplies at the hospital have been sabotaged, too.’’

‘‘Unless we go door-to-door and gather up bottles and bags, that’s all there is,’’ said the stern-looking vampire. ‘‘I told the Council there should be more backup supplies.’’

‘‘What about the university storage?’’

‘‘Enough for a couple of days,’’ the Bloodmobile driver said. ‘‘I don’t know of anything else.’’

‘‘I do,’’ Claire said, and swallowed painfully as they all looked at her. ‘‘But I need to get permission from Amelie to take you there.’’

‘‘Amelie’s not in any shape to give permission. What about Oliver?’’

Claire shook her head. ‘‘It has to be Amelie. I’m sorry.’’

The Bloodmobile driver looked tired and very frustrated. He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘‘Fine,’’ he said. ‘‘But before she can begin to give consent, she needs feeding. And I need donors.’’

Eve, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet, stepped forward. ‘‘I’ll do it,’’ she said.

‘‘Me, too.’’ That was Monica Morrell. She stripped off her heavy Marie Antoinette wig and dropped it on the ground. Claire thought about what Richard Morrell had told her about the mayor wanting to return the costume for credit, and almost laughed. So much for that plan. ‘‘Gina! Jennifer! Get over here! And bring everybody you can!’’

Monica, as imperious as a real French queen, put her ability to threaten and intimidate to good use for a change. Within ten minutes, they had a line of donors ready, and all four Bloodmobile stations were working.

Claire slipped back inside. The vampires were all facing the windows, watching for surprises. Most of the humans were outside, giving blood.

She faced the blank wall in the living room, next to the table. Got to do this fast.

It faded into mist, and she stepped through and was gone almost before the portal opened.

She stepped out into the prison, reached under her Harlequin top, and pulled out the sharpened cross that Myrnin had given her. Use it only in self-defense.

She was ready to do that.

Myrnin’s cell was empty, and the television was on and tuned to a game show. Claire checked the prison refrigerator. There was a good stockpile of blood there, if she could get it out where it was needed.

Myrnin could be anywhere.

No, she thought. Myrnin could be only in about twenty places in Morganville, at least if he was using the doorways.

She went back to the portal wall and concentrated, formed the wormhole tunnel to the lab, and stepped through.

And there he was.

He was feverishly working, and every lamp and candle in the room burned at full capacity. He hadn’t stopped to change, though he’d lost the cone-head cap somewhere; as Claire watched, he got one of his full white sleeves too close to a candle and caught it on fire.

‘‘Cachiad!’’ he blurted, and ripped off his sleeve to throw it on the ground and stomp out the blaze. Irritated, he stripped off the whole billowy top and dumped it, too.

He looked up, half-naked, wild, and saw Claire watching him.

For a second neither of them moved, and then Myrnin said, ‘‘It’s not what you think.’’

Claire stepped away from the door. She swung it shut and clicked the padlock shut. ‘‘If you didn’t want anybody coming after you, you should have locked up.’’

‘‘I don’t have time for this, and neither do you. Now, do you want to help me, or—’’

‘‘I’m done helping you!’’ she shouted. Her abused voice broke like shattered glass, and she heard the raw fury bleed out. ‘‘You ran! You left us all to die!’’

Myrnin flinched. He looked away, down at what he’d been doing at the lab table, and she saw that he’d prepared a number of slides. ‘‘I had my reasons, ’’ he said. ‘‘It’s the long game, Claire. Amelie understands.’’

‘‘Amelie got staked in the heart,’’ she said.

His head slowly rose. ‘‘What?’’

‘‘Bishop bought off her tribute, Jason. Jason staked her.’’

‘‘No.’’ It was a bare thread of sound. Myrnin shut his eyes. ‘‘No, that can’t be. She knew—I told her—’’

‘‘You left her to die!’’

Myrnin’s legs failed. He slid down to his knees and buried his face in his hands, silent in his anguish.

Claire gripped the cross, holding it at her side, and walked toward him. He didn’t move.

‘‘Is she alive?’’ he asked.

‘‘I don’t know. Maybe.’’

Myrnin nodded. ‘‘Then it is my fault. That shouldn’t have happened.’’

‘‘And the rest of it should have?’’

‘‘Long game,’’ Myrnin whispered. ‘‘You don’t understand.’’

There was a chessboard, a familiar one, set up in the corner where Myrnin normally read. A game was frozen in midattack. Claire stared at it, and for a second she saw the specter of Amelie sitting with Myrnin, moving those pieces in white, cold fingers.

‘‘She knew,’’ she said. ‘‘She helped you. Didn’t she?’’

Myrnin stood up, and Claire held up the cross between them. Myrnin didn’t so much as look at it. She pushed it closer. Maybe it was a proximity thing?

Myrnin closed his hand over hers, and took the cross away. He held it on the open palm of his hand.

No sizzling. No reaction at all.

"Crosses don’t work,’’ he said. ‘‘We all pretend they do, but they don’t."

Her mouth was hanging open. ‘‘Why?’’ Great. Her last words were, as always, going to be questions.

‘‘Obviously, it keeps people from moving on to things that will hurt us.’’ Myrnin lifted his eyebrows, but the dark eyes below them were cautious and sad. ‘‘Claire. I wasn’t supposed to stay. I was to provide a distraction, get my sample, and leave.’’

‘‘Sample.’’

He pointed toward the lab table, and what he’d been doing. Claire saw the silver gleam of the knife he’d carried to the feast—clean now, no trace of blood.

But there was blood carefully mounted and fixed on glass slides, ranks of them.

‘‘Bishop’s blood?’’

Myrnin nodded. ‘‘We’ve never been able to obtain a sample from any vampire beyond Morganville. As far as we knew, there weren’t any vampires beyond Morganville. Look.’’

Claire didn’t trust him. He stepped back, far back, and indicated the microscope with an apologetic bow.

‘‘Mind if I hold this?’’ she asked, and grabbed the knife.

‘‘So long as you keep it pointed away from me,’’ he said. The weight of it eased her jitters a little, but it still took her several tries to look into the microscope long enough to focus, instead of checking his position.

When she did, she immediately recognized the difference.

Bishop’s blood cells were—for a vampire—healthy.

She stepped back and stared at Myrnin. ‘‘He’s not infected.’’

‘‘It gets better,’’ Myrnin said, and nodded toward the ranks of slides. ‘‘Try number eight.’’

She switched out the slides. ‘‘I don’t see any difference.’’

‘‘Exactly,’’ he said. ‘‘That is my blood, mixed with Bishop’s. Now check number seven—my blood, alone.’’

It was a nightmare. Worse than Claire had ever seen it. Whatever the serum was doing to Myrnin, it was destroying him.

She checked slide eight again.

Slide seven.

‘‘He’s the cure,’’ she said.

‘‘Now you see,’’ Myrnin said, ‘‘why I was willing to risk everything and everyone to be sure.’’

Myrnin’s health failed again after another hour— longer than Claire would have given him, based on what she saw under the slides. When he started tiring and mixing words, she unlocked the prison door and took him back to his cell.

‘‘Damn,’’ she sighed, remembering the broken door. ‘‘We need to move you.’’

That took some time, although she grabbed only what Myrnin pointed out as essentials—clothes, blankets, the rug, his books. By the time she’d gotten everything put into the next cell, and replaced the ancient filthy bunk with the clean cot, Myrnin was in the corner of the room, curled into a ball. Rocking slowly back and forth.

She approached him as carefully as she could. ‘‘It’s ready,’’ she said. ‘‘Come on. I’ll get you something to eat.’’

Myrnin looked up, and she couldn’t tell if he’d understood her until he scrambled to his feet and waved her out of the way with a trembling hand.

He closed the cell door and tested the lock, then slumped onto his bed.

‘‘Amelie,’’ he said. ‘‘Take care of Amelie.’’

‘‘We will,’’ Claire promised. She handed him a blood pack—not threw, handed. ‘‘I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.’’

His nod was more of a convulsive tremble. His gaze was drawn to the blood, but he forced it back to her face. ‘‘Long game,’’ he said. ‘‘Use what Bishop wants. Let him think he’s winning. Play for time. Bring the doctor.’’

‘‘Dr. Mills?’’

‘‘Need help.’’

‘‘I’ll get him here somehow.’’ Claire didn’t want to leave Myrnin, but he was right. There were things to do. ‘‘Are you going to be okay?’’

Myrnin’s smile was, once again, broken, but beautiful. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said softly. ‘‘Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for believing.’’

She hadn’t, really. But she did now.

As she turned away, she heard him whisper, ‘‘I’m so sorry, child. So very sorry I left you.’’

She pretended not to hear.

13

The portals were more confusing now, because the power was out in Morganville. Most places were completely dark, and no matter how hard Claire concentrated, she couldn’t pull up three of the destinations at all.

Which meant, she supposed, that they no longer existed.

She focused on the surroundings of home, but again got darkness. She heard people talking, though, and caught a glimpse of candles being lit.

Eve’s face caught by the glow.

Home.

She was getting ready to step through when something hit her from behind, silent and heavy. She lost control of the portal as she crashed forward, screaming. She heard Myrnin, far behind her, call out, ‘‘Claire? Claire, what’s wrong?’’

She thought it was one of the inmates, until she felt a hand wind deep in her hair and lips brush her neck.

She heard Bishop’s mocking laughter. ‘‘Thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘For leading me to my fool.’’

He threw her through the portal.

She hit the floor on the other side and rolled, then scrambled up and threw herself at the wall. It didn’t open for her. She battered at it with her fists.

Nothing.

Claire turned, because it didn’t feel like home. Darkness and utter silence.

‘‘Hello?’’ No answer. ‘‘Shane? Mom?’’

She wasn’t at the Glass House. Bishop had screwed up her destination when he’d thrown her through the portal, and she had no idea where she was.

Half-sobbing, Claire felt her way across the room. Her fingers brushed soft cloth, and she pulled. Curtain, she thought. She tugged, and caught a glimmer through a window.

Orange light.

Claire pulled back the curtains of the window, and looked out at Morganville, burning. It gave her enough light to see the inside of the room where she was standing. It was the same as the Glass House living room in shape, so it had to be a Founder House . . . one of the thirteen, then. But which one? Not Gramma Day’s; she’d been inside that one, and it had been crammed with furniture. This one was piled with boxes. . . .

Claire’s gaze fell on the familiar outline of a couch. She walked to it and brushed her hand over the soft curve of the arm. There was a slightly stiffer patch near where it joined with the back, where she’d spilled a soda two years ago but hadn’t ever quite gotten the stickiness out.

Some of the boxes in the corner were labeled CLAIRE.

It was Mom and Dad’s new house.

Claire mapped it in her head. This house was to the northwest, so if she went to the mirror of her own bedroom, she ought to be able to see toward the Glass House. She wasn’t sure what that would get her, except maybe a better idea of what her chances were to get back.

But she needed to see it. To know her friends and family were okay.

There was a house on fire that direction, but it was the same one that had been burning earlier. The Melville house. Claire couldn’t make anything out past the blaze except a few faintly lit windows.

They were, she thought, still safe.

A police car raced toward the fire, lights flashing, and Claire slapped her forehead in frustration. ‘‘Idiot,’’ she muttered. She’d lacked any pockets to put her phone, so she’d stowed it inside her hat.

Thanks to the elastic band, the silly little matador cap was still on her head.

Claire breathed a sigh of relief as she dug the phone from the hole in the lining, and dialed Richard Morrell.

‘‘I need a ride.’’

Richard was in the middle of a cell phone rant about how he wasn’t her taxi service, and how important it was to keep city services moving, when he screeched his patrol car to a halt at the curb just outside. Claire jumped down the steps of her parents’ house and raced for the car door as he threw it open.

She made it, slammed the door, and locked it. Richard looked her up and down. He no longer seemed pressed and perfect; he was smoke-stained, tired, and rumpled, and he was the most lovely thing she’d seen.

‘‘What the hell are you supposed to be?’’ he asked.

‘‘Harlequin.’’

‘‘Isn’t that a Batman villain?’’

‘‘I thought you were in a hurry.’’

Richard slammed on the gas, and the car screeched away from the curb. ‘‘Strap in,’’ he said absently. She fastened her seat belt. ‘‘So. Nice night for you?’’

‘‘Peachy,’’ she said. ‘‘You?’’

‘‘Fantastic.’’ He jerked the wheel and nearly spun the car as he took a right-hand turn. ‘‘There are two of Amelie’s vampire buddies at the power station right now, refusing to turn on the lights. And three of them made us stand by while the Donation Center burned. You have any idea what’s going on?’’

‘‘The long game,’’ Claire said. He sent her a look. ‘‘Not really, no. But in chess you create openings to make your opponent move the wrong way.’’

‘‘Chess,’’ Richard said in disgust. ‘‘I’m talking about lives. Kid, you’re starting to scare me.’’

‘‘I’m scaring myself,’’ Claire said. She didn’t feel like a kid. She felt a million years old, and very tired. ‘‘Just get me home.’’

Because she was going to have to tell Amelie that she’d just left Myrnin, alone, at Bishop’s mercy.

Amelie was sitting up when Claire arrived, escorted in by Richard Morrell, who was instantly pounced on by his sister and father for hugs and information. She didn’t look good, but she looked alive.

Sort of.

Claire didn’t have any sympathy for her.

‘‘Myrnin,’’ Claire said. ‘‘You used him.’’

Sam, sitting on the arm of Amelie’s chair, frowned at her. ‘‘Don’t. She’s very tired.’’

‘‘Yeah, well, we’ve all got problems.’’ Claire shook off Michael’s hand, too. ‘‘Bishop’s blood is the cure. You and Myrnin were right.’’

Amelie’s expression didn’t change. She looked cold, remote, unreachable.

All of a sudden, Claire felt a wild urge to hurt her. Badly.

So she did.

‘‘Bishop’s there,’’ she said. ‘‘He’s got Myrnin.’’

Amelie’s eyes focused on hers, and all of Claire’s fury melted away. ‘‘I know,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘I can feel it. We knew it was a risk, using Myrnin as a stalking horse, but something had to be done.’’

‘‘You can’t leave him there. You can’t.’’

Amelie sighed. ‘‘No,’’ she agreed. ‘‘I can’t. I still need Myrnin, very much. It’s far too early in the game to sacrifice him.’’

Claire swallowed hard. ‘‘Do we mean anything to you? Any of us?’’

Amelie looked around the room. At the humans, all wearing purple elastic bandages at their elbows, the sign they’d given blood to save her. At the other vampires, all waiting for commands.

‘‘You mean everything to me,’’ she said. ‘‘The survival of my people, and yours, is all I have ever wanted, Claire. It’s why I came here. It’s all I’ve worked for.’’ Her eyes grew chilly, and some of the old Amelie came back. ‘‘I would sacrifice Myrnin for it. Oliver. Sam. Even myself. But it’s not enough.’’

Everyone in the room was still. Shane moved up next to Claire, and she was aware of Eve and Michael just behind her.

But Amelie was staring right at her.

‘‘What will you sacrifice, Claire?’’ she asked. ‘‘To win?’’

‘‘It’s not a game,’’ Claire said.

Amelie inclined her head. ‘‘True. It is war. And now we have to fight for all of our lives.’’

Claire linked hands with her friends.

‘‘Then tell us what to do.’’

Amelie was quiet for a moment, and then she stood. Claire thought that only those who knew her, really knew her, could tell what that cost.

She raised her voice to carry to every part of the room.

‘‘Our forces must be split,’’ she said. ‘‘We must not lose the Founder Houses, the Bloodmobile, the university, and Common Grounds. We will hold. Those who follow Bishop have been promised the freedom to hunt. Those of us who are strong enough will deny them that right. Those who are prey will be armed to defend themselves. This is not optional. All humans will be armed and taught how to strike a vampire.’’

‘‘There’s no going back from that,’’ Oliver said. His voice was neutral. His expression wasn’t. ‘‘You’re giving them too much.’’

‘‘I’m giving them equality,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘Do you wish to argue the point with me now, of all times?’’

Oliver, after a heart-stopping second, shook his head.

‘‘Then go,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘Oliver, Eve, go to Common Grounds and hold it. Sam, choose defenders for each Founder House. At least two vampires and two humans per house. Michael, Richard—go to the university. I will call the regent—you’ll have all you need.’’

Her gaze moved to Claire. ‘‘I need you with me,’’ she said. ‘‘We will fetch Myrnin.’’

‘‘Bishop’s there,’’ Claire reminded her.

‘‘I’m well aware. We will take precautions.’’

Shane cleared his throat. ‘‘You’re not going anywhere without me.’’

‘‘I’m afraid we are,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘I have a very special job for you, Shane Collins.’’

‘‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’’

She smiled.

‘‘Didn’t think so,’’ Shane finished under his breath.

‘‘You will be in charge of the Bloodmobile,’’ Amelie said. ‘‘And one other thing.’’

‘‘Like the Bloodmobile isn’t bad enough?’’

Amelie reached in the pocket of her crystal-specked robes, and pulled out a small leather-bound book.

It looked really, really familiar. It was the book that had gotten them in such trouble before—the book Bishop wanted.

‘‘You’ll be in charge of this,’’ she said, and held it out to him.

He took it, and as he did, Claire realized what Amelie had done.

She’d just made Shane the bait.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to the Morganville Vampires series, Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, Firestorm, and Thin Air. Her seventh Weather Warden novel, Gale Force, will be released in August 2008. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Pop-eye and Darwin; a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley; and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).

Please visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com and her MySpace, www.myspace.com/rachelcaine.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Â 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Â 

AUTHORâ€™S NOTE

Teaser chapter

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Praise for the Morganville Vampires Series

Feast of Fools

âRachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.â

âRomance Reviews Today

âA rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos . . . a heroine the audience will admire and root for. . . . The key to this fine tale is . . . plausible reactions to living in a town run by vampires that make going to college in the Caine universe quite an experience.ââMidwest Book Review

âAn electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.ââThe Best Reviews

Midnight Alley

âA fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page. . . . For fans of vampire books, this is one that shouldnât be missed!ââFlamingnet

âWeaves a web of dangerous temptation, dark deceit, and loving friendships. The nonstop vampire action and delightfully sweet relationships will captivate readers and leave them craving more.ââDarque Reviews

The Dead Girlsâ Dance

âIt was hard to put this down for even the slightest break. . . . Forget what happens to the kid with the scar and glasses; I want to know what happens next in Morganville. If you love to read about characters with whom you can get deeply involved, Rachel Caine is so far a one hundred percent sure bet to satisfy that need. I love her Weather Warden stories, and her vampires are even better.ââThe Eternal Night

âThrow in a mix of vamps and ghosts, and it canât get any better than Dead Girlsâ Dance.ââDark Angel Reviews

Praise for Rachel Caineâs Weather Warden Series

Â 

âYouâll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.ââJim Butcher

Â 

âThe Weather Warden series is fun reading . . . more engaging than most TV.ââBooklist

Â 

âA kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.ââRomantic Times

Â 

âHugely entertaining.ââSF Crowsnest

Â 

âA fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.ââLocus

Â 

âAn appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.ââSF Site

Â 

âI dare you to put this book down.â

âUniversity City Review (Philadelphia)

Â 

âRachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!â

âMary Jo Putney

Â 

âA spellbinding . . . thought-provoking, action-packed thriller.ââMidwest Book Review

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRE NOVELS

Glass Houses
The Dead Girlsâ€™ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule

NAL Jam
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, January 2009

Copyright Â© Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2009

eISBN : 978-1-440-66085-6

All rights reserved

Â 

NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHERâ€™S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authorâ€™s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authorâ€™s rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Ter Matthies, Anna Korraâ€™ti, and Shaz Flynnâ€”
courageous fighters, each one.

Â 

And to Pat Flynn, who never stopped.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book wouldnâ€™t be here without the support of my husband, Cat, my friends Pat, Jackie, and Sharon, and a host of great online supporters and cheerers-on.

Â 

Special thank-you recognition to Sharon Sams, Shaz Flynn, and especially to fearless beta readers Karin and Laura for their excellent input.

Â 

Thanks always to Lucienne Diver.

THE STORY SO FAR . . .

Claire Danvers was going to Caltech. Or maybe MIT. She had her pick of great schools, but because sheâ€™s only sixteen, her parents sent her to a supposedly safe place for a year to matureâ€”Texas Prairie University, a small school in Morganville, Texas.

One problem: Morganville isnâ€™t what it seems. Itâ€™s the last safe place for vampires, and that makes it not very safe at all for the humans who venture in for work or school. The vampires rule the town . . . and everyone who lives in it.

Claireâ€™s second problem is that sheâ€™s gathered both human and vampire enemies. Now she lives with housemates Michael Glass (newly made a vampire), Eve Rosser (always been Goth), and Shane Collins (whose absentee dad is a wannabe vampire killer). Claireâ€™s the normal one . . . or she would be, except that sheâ€™s become an employee of the town Founder, Amelie, and befriended one of the most dangerous, yet most vulnerable, vampires of them allâ€”Myrnin, the alchemist.

Now Amelieâ€™s vampire father, Bishop, has come to Morganville and destroyed the fragile peace, turning vampires against one another and creating dangerous new alliances and factions in a town that already had too many.

Morganvilleâ€™s turning in on itself, and Claire and her friends have chosen to stand with the Founder, but it could mean working with their enemies . . . and fighting their friends.

1

It was all going wrong, and Morganville was burningâparts of it, anyway.

Claire stood at the windows of the Glass House and watched the flames paint the glass a dull, flickering orange. She could always see the stars out here in the Middle of Nowhere, Texasâbut not tonight. Tonight, there wasâ

âYouâre thinking itâs the end of the world,â a cool, quiet voice said behind her.

Claire blinked out of her trance and turned to look. Amelieâthe Founder, and the baddest vampire in town, to hear most of the others tell itâlooked fragile and pale, even for a vampire. Sheâd changed out of the costume sheâd worn to Bishopâs masked ballânot a bad idea, since it had a stake-sized hole in the chest, and sheâd bled all over it. If Claire had needed proof that Amelie was tough, sheâd certainly gotten it tonight. Surviving an assassination attempt definitely gave you points.

The vampire was wearing grayâa soft gray sweater, and pants. Claire had to stare, because Amelie just didnât do pants. Ever. It was beneath her, or something.

Come to think of it, Claire had never seen her in the color gray, either.

Talk about the end of the world.

âI remember when Chicago burned,â Amelie said. âAnd London. And Rome. The world doesnât end, Claire. In the morning, the survivors start to build again. Itâs the way of things. The human way.â

Claire didnât particularly want a pep talk. She wanted to curl up in her warm bed upstairs, pull pillows over her head, and feel Shaneâs arms around her.

None of that was going to happen. Her bed was currently occupied by Miranda, a freaked-out teenage psychic with dependency issues, and as for Shane . . .

Shane was about to leave.

âWhy?â she blurted. âWhy are you sending him out there? You know what could happenââ

âI know a great deal about Shane Collins that you donât,â Amelie interrupted. âHeâs not a child, and he has survived much in his young life. Heâll survive this. And he wishes to make a difference.â

She was sending Shane into the predawn darkness with a few chosen fighters, both vampire and human, to take possession of the Bloodmobile: the last reliably accessible blood storage in Morganville.

And it was the last thing Shane wanted to do. It was the last thing Claire wanted for him.

âBishop isnât going to want the Bloodmobile for himself,â Claire said. âHe wants it destroyed. Morganvilleâs full of walking blood banks, as far as heâs concerned. But itâll hurt you if you lose it, so heâll come after it. Right?â

The severe, thin line of Amelieâs mouth made it clear that she didnât like being second-guessed. It definitely couldnât be called a smile. âAs long as Shane has the book, Bishop will not dare destroy the vehicle for fear of destroying his great treasure along with it.â

Translation: Shane was bait. Because of the book. Claire hated that damn book. It had brought her nothing but trouble from the time sheâd first heard about it. Amelie and Oliver, the two biggest vamps in town, had both been scrambling to find it, and it had dropped into Claireâs hands instead. She wished she had the courage to grab it from Shane right now, run outside, and toss it in the nearest burning house to get rid of it once and for all, because as far as she could tell, it hadnât done anybody any good, everâincluding Amelie.

Claire said, âHeâll kill Shane to get it.â

Amelie shrugged. âI gamble that killing Shane is far more difficult than it would appear.â

âYeah, you are gambling. Youâre betting his life.â

Amelieâs ice gray eyes were steady on hers. âBe clear on this: I am, in fact, betting all our lives. So be grateful, child, and also be warned. I could concede this fight at any time. My father would allow me to walk awayâonly me, alone. Defeated. I stay out of duty to you and the others in this town who are loyal to me.â Her eyes narrowed. âDonât make me reconsider that.â

Claire hoped she didnât look as mutinous as she felt. She pasted on what was supposed to be an agreeable expression, and nodded. Amelieâs eyes narrowed even more.

âGet prepared. We leave in ten minutes.â

Shane wasnât the only one with a dirty job to do; they were all assigned things they didnât particularly like. Claire was going with Amelie to try to rescue another vampireâMyrnin. And while Claire liked Myrnin, and admired him in a lot of ways, she also wasnât too excited about facing downâagainâthe vampire holding him prisoner, the dreadful Mr. Bishop.

Eve was off to the coffee shop, Common Grounds, with the just-about-as-awful Oliver, her former boss. Michael was about to head out to the university with Richard Morrell, the mayorâs son. How he was supposed to protect a few thousand clueless college students, Claire had no idea; she took a moment to marvel at the fact that the vampires really could lock down the town when they wanted. Sheâd have thought keeping students on campus in this situation would be impossibleâkids phoning home, jumping in cars, getting the hell out of Dodge.

Except the vampires controlled the phone lines, cell phones, the Internet, the TV, and the radio, and cars either died or wrecked on the outskirts of town if the vampires didnât want you to leave. Only a few people had ever gotten out of Morganville successfully without permission. Shane had been one. And then heâd come back.

Claire still had no idea what kind of guts that had taken, knowing what was waiting for him.

âHey,â Claireâs housemate Eve said. She paused, arms full of clothesâblack and red, so theyâd almost certainly come out of Eveâs own Goth-heavy closetâand gave Claire a quick once-over. Sheâd changed to what in Eveâs world were practical fighting clothesâa pair of tight black jeans, a tight black shirt with red skull patterns all over it, and stompy, thick-soled boots. And a spiked black leather collar around her throat that almost dared the vampires, Bite that!

âHey,â Claire said. âIs this really a good time to start laundry?â

Eve rolled her eyes. âCute. So, some people didnât want to be caught dead in their stupid ball costumes, if you know what I mean. How about you? Ready to take that thing off?â

Claire looked down at herself. She was honestly surprised to realize that she was still wearing the tight, garish bodysuit of her Harlequin costume. âOh, yes.â She sighed. âGot anything without, you know, skulls?â

âWhatâs wrong with skulls? And that would be a no, by the way.â Eve dumped the armload of clothing on the floor and rooted through it, pulling out a plain black shirt and a pair of blue jeans. âThe jeans are yours. Sorry, but I sort of raided everybodyâs stash. Hope you like the underwear you have on; I didnât go through your drawers.â

âAfraid it might get you all turned on?â Shane asked from over her shoulder. âPlease say yes.â He grabbed a pair of his own jeans from the pile. âAnd please stay out of my closet.â

Eve gave him the finger. âIf youâre worried about me finding your porn stash, old news, man. Also, you have really boring taste.â She grabbed a blanket from the couch and nodded toward the corner. âNo privacy anywhere in this house tonight. Go on, weâll fix up a changing room.â

The three of them edged past the people and vampires who packed the Glass House. It had become the unofficial campaign center for their side of the war, which meant there were plenty of people tramping around, getting in their stuff, who none of them would have let cross the threshold under normal circumstances.

Take Monica Morrell. The mayorâs daughter had shed her elaborate Marie Antoinette costume and was back to the blond, slinky, pretty, slimy girl Claire knew and hated.

âOh my God.â Claire gritted her teeth. âIs she wearing my blouse?â It was her only good one. Silk. Sheâd just bought it last week. Now sheâd never be able to put it on again. âRemind me to burn that later.â Monica saw her staring, fingered the collar of the shirt, and gave her an evil smile. She mouthed, Thanks. âRemind me to burn it twice. And stomp on the ashes.â

Eve grabbed Claire by the arm and hustled her into the empty corner of the room, where she shook out the blanket and held it at armâs length to provide a temporary shelter.

Claire peeled off her sweat-soaked Harlequin costume with a whimper of relief, and shivered as the cool air hit her flushed skin. She felt awkward and anxious, stripped to her underwear with just a blanket held up between her and a dozen strangers, some of whom probably wanted to eat her.

Shane leaned over the top. âYou done?â

She squealed and threw the wadded-up costume at him. He caught it and waggled his eyebrows at her as she stepped into the jeans and quickly buttoned up the shirt.

âDone!â she called.

Eve dropped the blanket and smiled poison-sweet at Shane.

âYour turn, leather boy,â she said. âDonât worry. I wonât accidentally embarrass you.â

No, sheâd embarrass him completely on purpose, and Shane knew it, from the glare he threw her. He ducked behind the blanket. Claire wasnât tall enough to check him out over the topânot that she wasnât temptedâbut when Eve lowered the blanket, bit by bit, Claire grabbed one corner and pulled it back up.

âYouâre no fun,â Eve said.

âDonât mess with him. Not now. Heâs going out there alone.â

Eveâs face went still and tight, and for the first time, Claire realized that the shine in her eyes wasnât really humor. It was a tightly controlled kind of panic. âYeah,â she said. âI know. Itâs justâweâre all splitting up, Claire. I wish we didnât have to do that.â

On impulse, Claire hugged her. Eve smelled of powder and some kind of darkly floral perfume, with a light undertone of sweat.

âHey!â Shaneâs wounded yell was enough to make them both giggle. The blanket had drooped enough to show him zipping up his pants. Fast. âSeriously, girls, not cool. A guy could do serious damage.â

He looked more like Shane now. The leather pants had made him unsettlingly hot-model gorgeous. In jeans and his old, faded Marilyn Manson T-shirt, he was somebody down-to-earth, somebody Claire could imagine kissing.

And she did imagine, just like that. It was, as usual, heart-racingly delicious.

âMichaelâs going out, too,â Eve said, and now the tension sheâd been hiding made her voice tremble. âI have to tell himââ

âGo on,â Claire said. âWeâre right behind you.â

Eve dropped the blanket and pushed through the crowd, heading for her boyfriend, and the unofficial head of their strange and screwed-up fraternity.

It was easy to spot Michael in any groupâhe was tall and blond, with a face like an angel. As he caught sight of Eve heading toward him, he smiled, and Claire thought that was maybe the most complicated smile sheâd ever seen, full of relief, welcome, love, and worry.

Eve crashed straight into him, hard enough to rock him back on his heels, and their arms went around each other.

Shane held Claire back with a touch on her shoulder. âGive them a minute,â he said. âTheyâve got things to say.â She turned to look at him. âAnd so do we.â

She swallowed hard and nodded. Shaneâs hands were on her shoulders, and his eyes had gone still and intense.

âDonât go out there,â Shane said.

It was what sheâd been intending to say to him. She blinked, surprised.

âYou stole my paranoia,â she said. âI was going to say, Donât go. But youâre going to, no matter what I say, arenât you?â

That threw him off just a little. âWell, yeah, of course I am, butââ

âBut nothing. Iâll be with Amelie; Iâll be okay. You? Youâre going off with the cast of WWE Raw to fight a cage match or something. Itâs not the same thing.â

âSince when do you ever watch wrestling?â

âShut up. Thatâs not the point, and you know it. Shane, donât go.â Claire put everything she had into it.

It wasnât enough.

Shane smoothed her hair and bent down to kiss her. It was the sweetest, gentlest kiss heâd ever given her, and it melted all the tense muscles of her neck, her shoulders, and her back. It was a promise without words, and when he finally pulled back, he passed his thumb across her lips gently, to seal it all in.

âThereâs something I really ought to tell you,â he said. âI was kind of waiting for the right time.â

They were in a room full of people, Morganville was in chaos outside, and they probably didnât have a chance of surviving until sunrise, but Claire felt her heart stutter and then race faster. The whole world seemed to go silent around her. Heâs going to say it.

Shane leaned in, so close that she felt his lips brush her ear, and whispered, âMy dadâs coming back to town.â

That so wasnât what she was hoping heâd say. Claire jerked back, startled, and Shane put a hand over her mouth. âDonât,â he whispered. âDonât say anything. We canât talk about this, Claire. I just wanted you to know.â

They couldnât talk about it because Shaneâs father was Morganvilleâs most wanted, public enemy number one, and any conversation they hadâat least hereâwas in danger of being overheard by unfriendly, undead ears.

Not that Claire was a fan of Shaneâs father; he was a cold, brutal man whoâd used and abused Shane, and she couldnât work up a lot of dread for seeing him behind bars . . . only she knew that Amelie and Oliver wouldnât stop at putting him in jail. Shaneâs father was marked for death if he came back. Death by burning. And while Claire wouldnât necessarily cry any big tears over him, she didnât want to put Shane through that, either.

âWeâll talk about it,â she said.

Shane snorted. âYou mean, youâll yell at me? Trust me, I know what youâre going to say. I just wanted you to know, in caseââ

In case something happened to him. Claire tried to frame her question in a way that wouldnât tip their hand to any listening ears. âWhen should I expect him?â

âNext few days, probably. But you know how it is. Iâm out of the loop.â Shaneâs smile had a dark, painful edge to it now. Heâd defied his dad once, because of Claire, and that meant cutting the ties to his last living family in the world. Claire doubted his dad had forgotten that, or ever would.

âWhy now?â she whispered. âThe last thing we need isââ

âHelp?â

âHeâs not help. Heâs chaos!â

Shane gestured at the burning town. âTake a good look, Claire. How much worse can it get?â

Lots, she thought. Shane, in some ways, still had a rose-colored view of his father. It had been a while since his dad had blown out of town, and she thought that Shane had probably convinced himself that the guy wasnât all that bad. He was probably thinking now that his dad would come sweeping in to save them.

It wasnât going to happen. Frank Collins was a fanatic, car-bomb variety, and he didnât care who got hurt.

Not even his own son.

âLetâs justââ She chewed her lip for a second, staring at him. âLetâs just get through the day, okay? Please? Be careful. Call me.â

He had his cell phone, and he showed it to her in mute promise. Then he stepped closer, and when his arms closed around her, she felt a sweet, trembling relief.

âBetter get ready,â he said. âItâs going to be a long day.â

2

Claire wasnât sure if get ready meant put on her game face, brush her teeth, or pack up a lot of weapons, but she followed Shane to say good-bye to Michael first.

Michael was standing in the middle of a bunch of hard-looking typesâsome were vampires, and many sheâd never seen before. They didnât look happy about playing defense, and they had that smelling-something-rotten expression that meant they didnât like hanging out with the human help, either.

The non-vamps with Michael were older, post-collegeâtough guys with lots of muscles. Even so, the humans mostly looked nervous.

Shane seemed almost small in comparisonânot that he let it slow him down as he rushed the defensive line. He pushed a vampire out of his way as he headed for Michael; the vampire flashed fang at him, but Shane didnât even notice.

Michael did. He stepped in the way of the offended vamp as it made a move for Shaneâs back, and the two of them froze that way, predators facing off. Michael wasnât the one to look down first.

Michael had a strange intensity about him nowâsomething that had always been there, but being a vampire had ramped it up to about eleven, Claire thought. He still looked angelic, but there were moments when his angel was more fallen than flying. But the smile was real, and completely the Michael she knew and loved when he turned it on them.

He held out his hand for a manly kind of shake. Shane batted it aside and hugged him. There were manly backslaps, and if there was a brief flash of red in Michaelâs eyes, Shane didnât see it.

âYou be careful, man,â Shane said. âThose college chicks, theyâre wild. Donât let them drag you into any Jell-O shot parties. Stay strong.â

âYou too,â Michael said. âBe careful.â

âDriving around in a big, black, obvious lunch wagon in a town full of starving vampires? Yeah. Iâll try to keep it low profile.â Shane swallowed. âSeriouslyââ

âI know. Same here.â

They nodded at each other.

Claire and Eve watched them for a moment. The two of them shrugged. âWhat?â Michael asked.

âThatâs it? Thatâs your big good-bye?â Eve asked.

âWhat was wrong with it?â

Claire looked at Eve, mystified. âI think I need guy CliffsNotes.â

âGuys arenât deep enough to need CliffsNotes.â

âWhat were you waiting for, flowery poetry?â Shane snorted. âI hugged. Iâm done.â

Michaelâs grin didnât last. He looked at Shane, then Claire, and lastâand longestâat Eve. âDonât let anything happen to you,â he said. âI love you guys.â

âDitto,â Shane said, which was, for Shane, positively gushing.

They might have had time to say more, but one of the vampires standing around, looking pissed off and impatient, tapped Michael on the shoulder. His pale lips moved near Michaelâs ear.

âTime to go,â Michael said. He hugged Eve hard, and had to peel her off at the end. âDonât trust Oliver.â

âYeah, like you had to tell me that,â Eve said. Her voice was shaking again. âMichaelââ

âI love you,â he said, and kissed her, fast and hard. âIâll see you soon.â

He left in a blur, taking most of the vampires with him. The mayorâs son, Richard Morrellâstill in his police uniform, although he was looking wrinkled and smoke stained nowâled the humans at a more normal pace to follow.

Eve stood there with her kiss-smudged lips parted, looking stunned and astonished. When she regained the power of speech, she said, âDid he just sayâ?â

âYes,â Claire said, smiling. âYes, he did.â

âWhoa. Guess Iâd better stay alive, then.â

The crowd of peopleâfewer now than there had been just a few minutes beforeâparted around them, and Oliver strode through the gap. The second-most badass vampire in town had shed his costume and was dressed in plain black, with a long, black leather coat. His long graying hair was tied back in a tight knot at the back of his head, and he looked like he was ready to snap the head off anyone, vampire or human, who got in the way.

âYou,â he snapped at Eve. âCome.â

He turned on his heel and walked away. This was not the Oliver theyâd known beforeâcertainly not the friendly proprietor of the local coffee shop. Even once heâd been revealed as a vampire, he hadnât been this intense.

Clearly, he was done pretending to like people.

Eve watched him go, and the look in her eyes was boiling with resentment. She finally shrugged and took a deep breath. âYeah,â she said. âThisâll be so much fun. See ya, Claire Bear.â

âSee you,â Claire said. They hugged one last time, just for comfort, and then Eve was leaving, back straight, head high.

She was probably crying, Claire thought. Eve cried at times like these. Claire didnât seem to be able to cry when it counted, like now. It felt like pieces of her were being pulled off, and she felt cold and empty inside. No tears.

And now it was her heart being ripped out, because Shane was being summoned impatiently by yet another hard-looking bunch of vampires and humans near the door. He nodded to them, took her hands, and looked into her eyes.

Say it, she thought.

But he didnât. He just kissed her hands, turned, and walked away, dragging her red, bleeding heart with himâmetaphorically, anyway.

âI love you,â she whispered. Sheâd said it before, but heâd hung up the phone before sheâd gotten it out. Then sheâd said it in the hospital, but heâd been doped up on painkillers. And he didnât hear her now, as he walked away from her.

But at least she had the guts to try.

He waved to her from the door, and then he was gone, and she suddenly felt very alone in the worldâand very . . . young. Those who were left in the Glass House had jobs of their own, and she was in the way. She found a chairâMichaelâs armchair, as it turned outâand pulled her feet up under her as humans and vampires moved around, fortifying windows and doors, distributing weapons, talking in low tones.

She might have become a ghost, for all the attention they paid her.

She didnât have to wait long. In just a few minutes, Amelie came sweeping down the stairs. She had a whole scary bunch of vampires behind her, and a few humans, including two in police uniforms.

They were all armedâknives, clubs, swords. Some had stakes, including the policemen; they had them, instead of riot batons, hanging from their utility belts. Standard-issue equipment for Morganville, Claire thought, and had to suppress a manic giggle. Maybe instead of pepper spray, they have garlic spray.

Amelie handed Claire two things: a thin, silver knife, and a wooden stake. âA wooden stake in the heart will put one of us down,â she said. âYou must use the silver knife to kill us. No steel, unless you plan to take our heads off with it. The stake alone will not do it, unless youâre very lucky or sunlight catches us helpless, and even then, we are slower to die the older we are. Do you understand?â

Claire nodded numbly. Iâm sixteen, she wanted to say. Iâm not ready for this.

But she kind of had to be, now.

Amelieâs fierce, cold expression seemed to soften, just a touch. âI canât entrust Myrnin to anyone else. When we find him, it will be your responsibility to manage him. He may beââ Amelie paused, as if searching for the right word. âDifficult.â That probably wasnât it. âI donât want you to fight, but I need you with us.â

Claire lifted the stake and the knife. âThen why did you give me these?â

âBecause you might need to defend yourself, or him. If you do, I donât want you to hesitate, child. Defend yourself and Myrnin at all costs. Some of those who come against us may be those you know. Donât let that stop you. We are in this to survive now.â

Claire nodded numbly. Sheâd been pretending that all this was some kind of action/adventure video game, like the zombie-fighting one Shane enjoyed so much, but with every one of her friends leaving, sheâd lost some of that distance. Now it was right here in front of her: reality. People were dying.

She might be one of them.

âIâll stay close,â she said. Amelieâs cold fingers touched her chin, very lightly.

âDo that.â Amelie turned her attention to the others around them. âWatch for my father, but donât be drawn off to face him. Itâs what he wants. He will have his own reinforcements, and will be gathering more. Stay together, and watch each other closely. Protect me, and protect the child.â

âUmâcould you stop calling me that?â Claire asked. Amelieâs icy eyes fixed on her in almost-human puzzlement. âChild, I mean? Iâm not a child.â

It felt like time stopped for about a hundred years while Amelie stared at her. It probably had been at least a hundred years since the last time anybody had dared correct Amelie like that in public.

Amelieâs lips curved, very slightly. âNo,â she agreed. âYou are not a child, and in any case, by your age, I was a bride and ruled a kingdom. I should know better.â

Claire felt heat build in her face. Great, she was blushing, as everybodyâs attention focused on her. Amelieâs smile widened.

âI stand corrected,â she said to the rest of them. âProtect this young woman.â

She really didnât feel like that, either, but Claire wasnât going to push her luck on that one. The other vampires looked mostly annoyed with the distinction, and the humans looked nervous.

âCome,â Amelie said, and turned to face the blank far wall of the living room. It shimmered like an asphalt road in the summer, and Claire felt the connection snap open.

Amelie stepped through what looked like blank wall. After a second or two of surprise, the vampires started to follow her.

âMan, I canât believe weâre doing this,â one of the policemen behind Claire whispered to the other.

âI can,â the other whispered back. âMy kids are out there. What else is there to do?â

She gripped the wooden stake tight and stepped through the portal, following Amelie.

Â 

Myrninâs lab wasnât any more of a wreck than usual. Claire was kind of surprised by that; somehow sheâd expected Mr. Bishop to tear through here with torches and clubs, but so far, heâd found better targets.

Or maybeâjust maybeâhe hadnât been able to get in. Yet.

Claire anxiously surveyed the room, which was lit by just a few flickering lamps, both oil and electric. Sheâd tried cleaning it up a few times, but Myrnin had snapped at her that he liked things the way they were, so sheâd left the stacks of leaning books, the piles of glassware on counters, the disordered piles of curling paper. There was a broken iron cage in the cornerâbroken because Myrnin had decided to escape from it once, and theyâd never gotten around to having it repaired once heâd regained his senses.

The vampires were whispering to one another, in sibilant little hisses that didnât carry even a hint of meaning to Claireâs ears. They were nervous, too.

Amelie, by contrast, seemed as casual and self-assured as ever. She snapped her fingers, and two of the vampiresâbig, strong, strapping menâstepped up, towering over her. She glanced up.

âYou will guard the stairs,â she said. âYou two.â She pointed to the uniformed policemen. âI want you here as well. Guard the interior doors. I doubt anything will come through them, but Mr. Bishop has already surprised us. I wonât have him surprising us again.â

That cut their forces in half. Claire swallowed hard and looked at the two vampires and one human who remained with her and Amelieâshe knew the two vampires slightly. They were Amelieâs personal bodyguards, and one of them, at least, had treated her kind of decently before.

The remaining human was a tough-looking African American woman with a scar across her face, from her left temple across her nose, and down her right cheek. She saw Claire watching her, and gave her a smile. âHey,â she said, and stuck out a big hand. âHannah Moses. Moses Garage.â

âHey,â Claire said, and shook hands awkwardly. The woman had musclesânot quite Shane-quality biceps, but definitely bigger than most women would have found useful. âYouâre a mechanic?â

âIâm an everything,â Hannah said. âMechanic included. But I used to be a marine.â

âOh.â Claire blinked.

âThe garage was my dadâs before he passed. I just got back from a couple of tours in Afghanistanâthought Iâd take up the quiet life for a while.â She shrugged. âGuess troubleâs in my blood. Look, if this comes to a fight, stay with me, okay? Iâll watch your back.â

That was so much of a relief that Claire felt weak enough to melt. âThanks.â

âNo problem. Youâre what, about fifteen?â

âAlmost seventeen.â Claire thought she needed a T-shirt that said it for her; it would be a great time-saverâthat, or some kind of button.

âHuh. So youâre about my kid brotherâs age. His nameâs Leo. Iâll have to introduce you sometime.â

Hannah, Claire realized, was talking without really thinking about what she was saying; her eyes were focused on Amelie, who had made her way around piles of books to the doorway on the far wall.

Hannah didnât seem to miss anything.

âClaire,â Amelie said. Claire dodged piles of books and came to her side. âDid you lock this door when you left before?â

âNo. I thought Iâd be coming back this way.â

âInteresting. Because someone has locked it.â

âMyrnin?â

Amelie shook her head. âBishop has him. He has not returned this way.â

Claire decided not to ask how she knew that. âWho elseââ And then she knew. âJason.â Eveâs brother had known about the doorways that led to different destinations in townâmaybe not about how they worked (and Claire wasnât sure she did, either), but he definitely had figured out how to use them. Apart from Claire, Myrnin, and Amelie, only Oliver had the knowledge, and she knew where heâd been since her encounter with Mr. Bishop.

âYes,â Amelie agreed. âThe boy is becoming a problem.â

âKind of an understatement, considering he, you know . . .â Claire mimed stabbing with the stake, but not in Amelieâs directionâthat would be like pointing a loaded gun at Superman. Somebody would get hurt, and it wouldnât be Superman. âUmâI meant to ask, are youâ?â

Amelie looked away from her, toward the door. âAm I what?â

âOkay?â Because sheâd had a stake in her chest not all that long ago, and besides that, all the vampires in Morganville had a disadvantage, whether they knew it or not: they were sickâreally sickâwith something Claire could only think of as vampire Alzheimerâs.

And it was ultimately fatal.

Most of the town didnât have a clue about that, because Amelie was rightly afraid of what might happen if they didâvampires and humans alike. Amelie had symptoms, but so far they were mild. It took years to progress, so they were safe for a while.

At least, Claire hoped it took years.

âNo, I doubt I am all right. Still, this is hardly the time to be coddling myself.â Amelie focused on the door. âWe will need the key to open it.â

That was a problem, because the key wasnât where it was supposed to be. The key ring was gone from where Claire kept it, in a battered, sagging drawer, and the more Claire pawed through debris looking for it, the more alarmed she became. Myrnin kept the weirdest stuff. . . . Books, sure, she loved books; small, deformed dead things in alcohol, not so much. He also kept jars of dirtâat least, she hoped it was dirt. Some of it looked red and flaky, and she was really afraid it might be blood.

The keys were missing. So were a few other thingsâsignificant things.

With a sinking feeling, Claire pulled open the half-broken drawer where sheâd kept the bag with all the tranquilizer stuff, and Myrninâs drug supplies.

Gone. Only a scrape in the dust to indicate where it had been.

That meant that ifâwhenâMyrnin turned violent, she wouldnât have her trusty dart gun to help her. Nor would she have even her trusty injectable pen, so cool, that sheâd loaded up for emergencies, because it had been in the bag with the drugs. Sheâd lost the other supplies sheâd had with her.

But even worse, she didnât have any medicine for him, other than the couple of small vials she had with her in her pockets.

In summary: so very screwed.

âEnough,â Amelie said, and turned to her bodyguard. âI know this isnât easy, but if you would?â

He gave her a polite sort of nod, stepped forward, and took the lock in his hand.

His hand burst into flame.

âOh my God!â Claire blurted, and clapped her hands over her mouth, because the vampire guy wasnât letting go. His face was contorted with pain, but he held on, somehow, and jerked and twisted the silver-plated lock until, with a scream of metal, it ripped loose. The hasp came with it, right off the door.

He dropped it to the floor. His hand kept burning. Claire grabbed the first thing that came to handâsome kind of ratty old shirt Myrnin had left thrown on the floorâand patted out the fire. The smell of burned flesh made her dry heave, and so did the sight of what was left of his hand. He didnât scream. She almost did it for him.

âA trap,â Amelie said. âFrom my father. GÃ©rard, are you able to continue?â

He nodded as he wrapped the shirt around the ruin of his hand. He was sweating fine pink beadsâblood, Claire realized, as a trickle of it ran down his pale face. She realized that as she was standing there right in front of him, frozen in place, and his eyes flashed red.

âMove,â he growled at her. âStay behind us.â And then, after a brief pause, he said, âThank you.â

Hannah took her by the arm and pulled her to the spot in the back, out of vampire-grabbing range. âHe needs feeding,â she said in an undertone. âGÃ©rardâs not a bad guy, but you donât want to make yourself too available for snack attacks. Remember, weâre vending machines with legs.â

Claire nodded. Amelie put her fingers in the hole left by the broken lock and pulled the door open . . . on darkness.

Hannah said nothing. She didnât let go of Claireâs arm.

For a long moment, nothing happened, and then the darkness flickered. Shifted. Things came and went in the shadows, and Claire knew that Amelie was shuffling destinations, trying to find the one she wanted. It seemed to take a very long time, and then Amelie took a sudden step back. âNow,â she said, and her two bodyguards charged forward into what looked like complete darkness and were gone. Amelie glanced back at Hannah and Claire, and her black pupils were expanding fast, covering all the gray iris of her eyes, preparing for the dark.

âDonât leave my side,â she said. âThis will be dangerous.â

3

Amelie grabbed Claireâs other arm, and before Claire could so much as grab a breath, she was being pulled through the portal. There was a brief wave of chill, and a feeling that was a little like being pushed from all sides, and then she was stumbling into utter, complete blackness. Her other senses went into overdrive. The air smelled stale and heavy, and felt cold and damp, like a cave. Amelieâs icy grip on one arm was going to leave bruises, and Hannah Mosesâs warmer touch on the other seemed light by contrast, although Claire knew it wasnât.

Claire could hear herself and Hannah breathing, but there was no sound at all from the vampires. When Claire tried to speak, Amelieâs ice-cold hand covered her mouth. She nodded convulsively, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as Amelieâshe hoped it was still Amelie, anywayâpulled her forward into the dark.

The smells changed from time to timeâa whiff of nasty, rotten something, then something else that smelled weirdly like grapes? Her imagination conjured up a dead man surrounded by broken bottles of wine, and Claire couldnât stop it there; the dead man was moving, squirming toward her, and any second now heâd touch her and sheâd scream. . . .

Itâs just your imagination; stop it.

She swallowed and tried to tamp down the panic. It wasnât helping. Shane wouldnât panic. Shane wouldâ whatever, Shane wouldnât be caught dead roaming around in the dark with a bunch of vampires like this, and Claire knew it.

It seemed like they went on forever, and then Amelie pulled her to a stop and let go. Losing that support felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, and Claire was really, really grateful for Hannahâs grip to tell her there was something else real in the world. Donât let me fall.

And then Hannahâs hand went away. A fast tightening of her fingers, and she was gone.

Claire was floating in total darkness, disconnected, alone. Her breath sounded loud as a train in her ears, but it was buried under the thunder of her fast heartbeats. Move, she told herself. Do something!

She whispered, âHannah?â

Cold hands slapped around her from behind, one pinning her arms to her sides, the other covering her mouth. She was lifted off the ground, and she screamed, a faint buzzing sound like a storm of bees that didnât make it through the muffling gag.

And then she went flying through the air into the darkness . . . and rolled to a stop facedown, on a cold stone floor. There was light here. Faint, but definite, painting the edges of things a pale gray, including the arched mouth of the tunnel at the end of the hall.

She had no idea where she was.

Claire got quickly to her feet and turned to look behind her. Amelie, pale as a pearl, stepped through the portal, and with her came the other two vampires. GÃ©rard had Hannah Mosesâs arm gripped in his good hand.

Hannah had a bloody gash on her head, and when GÃ©rard let go, she dropped to her knees, breathing hard. Her eyes looked blank and unfocused.

Amelie whirled, something silver in one hand, and stabbed as something came at her from the dark. It screamed, a thin sound that echoed through the tunnel, and a white hand reached out to grab Amelieâs shirt.

The invisible portal slammed shut like an iris, and severed the arm just above the elbow.

Amelie plucked the still-grabbing hand from her shirt, dropped the hand to the ground, and kicked it to the side. When she turned back to the others, there was no expression on her face.

Claire felt like throwing up. She couldnât take her eyes away from that wiggling, fish-pale hand.

âIt was necessary to come this way,â Amelie said. âDangerous, but necessary.â

âWhere are we?â Claire asked. Amelie gave her a look and ignored her as she took the lead, heading down the hall. Going through this didnât give her any right to ask questions. Of course. âHannah? Are you okay?â

Hannah waved her hand vaguely, which really wasnât all that confidence-building. The vampire GÃ©rard answered for her. âSheâs fine.â Sure, he could talk, having one hand burned to the bone. Heâd probably classify himself as fine, too. âTake her,â GÃ©rard ordered, and pushed Hannah toward Claire as he moved to follow Amelie. The other bodyguardâwhat was his name?âmoved with him, as if they were an old, practiced team.

Hannah was heavy, but she pulled herself back on her own center of gravity after a breath or two. âIâm fine,â she said, and gave Claire a reassuring grin. âDamn. That was not a walk in the park.â

âYou should meet my boyfriend,â Claire said. âYou two are both masters of understatement.â

She thought Hannah wanted to laugh, but instead, she just nodded and patted Claire on the shoulder. âWatch the sides,â she said. âWeâre just starting on this thing.â

That was an easy job, because there was nothing to watch on the sides. They were, after all, in a tunnel. Hannah, it appeared, was the rear guard, and she seemed to take it very seriously, although it looked like Amelie had slammed the doorway behind them pretty hard, with prejudice. I hope we donât have to go back that way, Claire thought, and shivered at the sight of that pale severed hand behind them. It had finally stopped moving. I really, really hope we donât have to go back there.

At the mouth of the tunnel, Amelie seemed to pause for a moment, and then disappeared to the right, around the corner, with her two vampire bodyguards in flying formation behind her. Hannah and Claire hurried to keep up, and emerged into another hallway, this one square instead of arched, and paneled in rich, dark wood. There were paintings on the wallsâold ones, Claire thoughtâof pale people lit by candlelight, dressed in about a thousand pounds of costume and rice white makeup and wigs.

She stopped and backed up, staring at one.

âWhat?â Hannah growled.

âThatâs her. Amelie.â It definitely was, only instead of the Princess Grace-style clothes she wore now, in the picture she was wearing an elaborate sky blue satin dress, cut way low over her breasts. She was wearing a big white wig, and staring out of the canvas in an eerily familiar way.

âArt appreciation later, Claire. We need to go.â

That was true, beyond any argument, but Claire kept throwing glances at the paintings as they passed. One looked like it could have been Oliver, from about four hundred years ago. One more modern one looked almost like Myrnin. Itâs the vampire museum, she realized. Itâs their history. There were glass cases lining the hall ahead, filled with books and papers and jewelry, clothing, and musical instruments. All the fine and fabulous things gathered through their long, long lives.

Ahead, the three vampires came to a sudden, motionless halt, and Hannah grabbed Claire by the arm to pull her out of the way, against the wall. âWhatâs happening?â Claire whispered.

âSorting credentials.â

Claire didnât know what that meant, exactly, but when she risked moving out just a bit to see what was happening, she saw that there were lots of other vampires in hereâabout a hundred of them, some sitting down and obviously hurt. There were humans, too, mostly standing together and looking nervous, which seemed reasonable.

If these were Bishopâs people, their little rescue party was in serious trouble.

Amelie exchanged some quiet words with the vampire who seemed to be in charge, and GÃ©rard and his partner visibly relaxed. That settled the friend-or-foe question, apparently; Amelie turned and nodded to Claire, and she and Hannah edged out from behind the glass cases to join them.

Amelie made a gesture, and immediately several vampires peeled off from the group and joined her in a distant corner.

âWhatâs going on?â Claire asked, and stared around her. Most of the vampires were still dressed in the costumes theyâd worn to Bishopâs welcome feast, but a few were in more military dressâblack, mostly, but some in camouflage.

âItâs a rally point,â Hannah said. âSheâs talking strategy, probably. Those would be her captains. Notice there arenât any humans with her?â

Claire did. It wasnât exactly a pleasant sensation, the doubt that boiled up inside.

Whatever orders Amelie delivered, it didnât take long. One by one, the vampires nodded and peeled off from the meeting, gathered up followersâincluding humans this timeâand departed. By the time Amelie had dispatched the last group, there were only about ten people left Claire didnât know, and they were all standing together.

Amelie came back to them, saw the group of humans and vamps, and nodded toward them.

âClaire, this is Theodosius Goldman,â Amelie said. âTheo, he prefers to be called. These are his family.â

Family? That was a shock, because there were so many of them. Theo seemed to be kind of middle-aged, with graying, curly hair and a face that, except for its vampiric pallor, seemed kind of . . . nice.

âMay I present my wife, Patience?â he said with the kind of old manners Claire had only seen on Masterpiece Theater. âOur sons, Virgil and Clarence. Their wives, Ida and Minnie.â There were more vampires bowing, or in the case of the one guy down on the floor, with his head held in the lap of a female vamp, waving. âAnd their children.â

Evidently the grandkids didnât merit individual introductions. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, all pale like their relatives. They seemed younger than Claire, at least physically; she guessed the littler girl was probably about twelve, the older boy around fifteen.

The older boy and girl glared at her, as if she were personally responsible for the mess they were in, but Claire was too busy imagining how a whole familyâdown to grandkidsâcould all be made vampires like this.

Theo, evidently, could see all that in her expression, because he said, âWe were made eternal a long time ago, my girl, byââhe cast a quick look at Amelie, who noddedââby her father, Bishop. It was a joke of his, you see, that we should all be together for all time.â He really did have a kind face, Claire thought, and his smile was kind of tragic. âThe joke turned on him, though. We refused to let it destroy us. Amelie showed us we did not have to kill to survive, and so we were able to keep our faith as well as our lives.â

âYour faith?â

âItâs a very old faith,â Theo said. âAnd today is our Sabbath.â

Claire blinked. âOh. Youâre Jewish?â

He nodded, eyes fixed on her. âWe found a refuge here, in Morganville. A place where we could live in peace, both with our nature and our God.â

Amelie said, softly, âBut will you fight for it now, Theo? This place that gave you refuge?â

He held out his hand. His wifeâs cool white fingers closed around it. She was a delicate china doll of a woman, with masses of sleek black hair piled on top of her head. âNot today.â

âIâm sure God would understand if you broke the Sabbath under these circumstances.â

âIâm sure he would. God is forgiving, or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think.â He shook his head again, very regretfully. âWe cannot fight, Amelie. Not today. And I would prefer not to fight at all.â

âIf you think you can stay neutral in this, youâre wrong. I will respect your wishes. My father will not.â

Theoâs face hardened. âIf your father threatens my family again, then we will fight. But until he comes for us, until he shows us the sword, we will not take up arms against him.â

GÃ©rard snorted, which proved what he thought about it; Claire wasnât much surprised. He seemed like a practical sort of guy. Amelie simply nodded. âI canât force you, and I wouldnât. But be careful. I cannot spare anyone to help you. You should be safe enough here, for a time. If any others come through, send them out to guard the power station and the campus.â She allowed her gaze to move beyond Theo, to touch the three humans huddled in the far corner of the room, under another painting, a big one. âAre these under your Protection?â

Theo shrugged. âThey asked to join us.â

âTheo.â

âI will defend them if someone tries to harm them.â Theo pitched his voice lower. âAlso, we may need them, if we canât get supplies.â

Claire went cold. For all his kind face and smile, Theo was talking about using those people as portable blood banks.

âI donât want to do it,â Theo continued, âbut if things go against us, I have to think of my children. You understand.â

âI do,â Amelie said. Her face was back to a blank mask that gave away nothing of how she felt about it. âI have never told you what to do, and I will not now. But by the laws of this town, if you place these humans under your Protection, you owe them certain duties. You know that.â

Another shrug, and Theo held out his hands to show he was helpless. âFamily comes first,â he said. âI have always told you so.â

âSome of us,â Amelie said, âare not so fortunate in our choice of families.â

She turned away from Theo without waiting for his responseâif heâd been intending to give oneâand without so much as a pause, slammed her fist into a glass-fronted wall box labeled EMERGENCY USE ONLY three steps to the right. It shattered in a loud clatter, and Amelie shook shards of glass from her skin.

She reached into the box and took out . . . Claire blinked. âIs that a paintball gun?â

Amelie handed it to Hannah, who handled it like a professional. âIt fires pellets loaded with silver powder,â she said. âVery dangerous to us. Be careful where you aim.â

âAlways am,â Hannah said. âExtra magazines?â

Amelie retrieved them from the case and handed them over. Claire noticed that she protected herself even from a casual touch, with a fold of fabric over her fingers. âThere are ten shots per magazine,â she said. âThere is one already loaded, and six more here.â

âWell,â Hannah said, âany problem I canât solve with seventy shots is probably going to kill us, anyway.â

âClaire,â Amelie said, and handed over a small, sealed vial. âSilver powder, packed under pressure. It will explode on impact, so be very careful with it. If you throw it, there is a wide dispersal through the air. It can hurt your friends as much as your enemies.â

There were real uses for silver powder, like coating parts in computers; Claire supposed it wasnât exactly restricted, but she was surprised the vampires were progressive enough to lay in a supply. Amelie raised pale eyebrows at her.

âYouâve been expecting this,â Claire said.

âNot in detail. But Iâve learned through my life that such preparations are never wasted, in the end. Sometime, somewhere, life always comes to a fight, and peace always comes to an end.â

Theo said, very quietly, âAmen.â

4

They left the museum by way of a side door. It was risky to go out into the night, but since the only other way to exit the museum was to go back into the darkness, nobody argued about the choice.

âCareful,â Amelie told them in a very soft voice that hardly reached past the shadows. âI have gathered my forces. My father is doing the same. There will be patrols, especially here.â

The flames hadnât reached Founderâs Square, which was where they came outâthe heart of vamp territory. It didnât look like the calm, orderly place Claire remembered, though; the lights were all out, and the shops and restaurants that bordered it were closed and empty.

It looked afraid.

The only place she could see movement was on the marble steps of the Eldersâ Council building, where Bishopâs welcome feast had been held. GÃ©rard hissed a warning, and they all froze, silent and still in the dark. Hannahâs grip on Claireâs arm felt like an iron band.

There were three vampires standing there, scanning the area.

Lookouts.

âGo,â Amelie said in a whisper so small it was like a ghost. âMove, but be careful.â

They reached the edge of the shadows by the corner of the building, but just as Claire was starting to relax a little, Amelie, GÃ©rard, and the other vampires moved in a blur, scattering in all directions.

This left Claire flat-footed for one horrible second, before Hannah tackled her facedown on the grass. Claire gasped, got a mouthful of crunchy dirt and bitter chlorophyll, and fought to get her breath. Hannahâs heavy weight held her down, and the older woman braced her elbows on Claireâs back.

Sheâs firing the pistol, Claire thought, and tried to raise her head to see where Hannah was shooting.

âHead down!â Hannah snarled, and shoved Claire down with one hand while she continued to fire with the other. From the screams in the dark, she was hitting something. âGet up! Run!â

Claire wasnât quick enough to suit either the marines or the vampires, and before she knew it, she was being half pulled, half dragged at a dead run through the night. It was all a confusing blur of shadows, dark buildings, pale faces, and the surly orange glow of flames in the distance.

âWhat is it?â she screamed.

âPatrols.â Hannah kept on firing behind them. She wasnât firing wildly, not at all; it seemed like she took a second or two between every shot, choosing her target. Most of the shots seemed to hit, from the shouts and snarls and screams. âAmelie! We need an exit, now!â

Amelie looked back at them, a pale flash of face in the dark, and nodded.

They charged up the steps of another building on Founderâs Square. Claire didnât have time to get more than a vague impression of itâsome kind of official building, with columns in front and big stone lions snarling on the stairsâbefore their little party came to a halt at the top of the stairs, in front of a closed white door with no knob.

GÃ©rard started to throw himself against it. Amelie stopped him with an outstretched hand. âIt will do no good,â she said. âIt canât be opened by force. Let me.â

The other vampire, facing away and down the steps, said, âDonât think we have time for sweet talk, maâam. What you want us to do?â He had a drawling Texas accent, the first one Claire had heard from any vampire. Sheâd never heard him speak at all before.

He winked at her, which was even more of a shock. Until that moment, he hadnât even looked at her like a real person.

âA moment,â Amelie murmured.

The Texan nodded behind them. âDonât think weâve got one, maâam.â

There were shadows converging in the dark at the foot of the stepsâthe patrol that Hannah had been shooting at. There were at least twenty of them. In the lead was Ysandre, the beautiful vampire Claire hated maybe more than she hated any other vampire in the entire world. She was Bishopâs girl through and throughâAmelieâs vampire sister, if they thought in those kinds of terms.

Claire hated Ysandre for Shaneâs sake. She was glad the vamp was here, and not attacking Shaneâs Bloodmobileâone, because she wasnât so sure Shane could resist the evil witch, and two, she wanted to stake Ysandre herself.

Personally.

âNo,â Hannah said, when Claire took a step out from behind her. âAre you crazy? Get back!â

Hannah fired over her shoulder. It was at the outer extreme of the paintball gunâs range, but the pellet hit one of the vampiresânot Ysandre, Claire was disappointed to seeâright in the chest. Silver dust puffed up in a lethal mist, and the close formation scattered. Ysandre might have had a few burns, but nothing that wouldnât heal.

The vampire Hannah had shot in the chest toppled over and hit the marble stairs, smoking and flailing.

Amelie slammed her palm flat against the door and closed her eyes, and deep inside the barrier something groaned and shifted with a scrape of metal. âInside,â Amelie murmured, still wicked controlled, and Claire spun and followed the three vampires across the threshold. Hannah backed in after, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut.

âNo locks,â she said.

Amelie reached over and pushed Hannahâs gun hand into an at-rest position at her side. âNone necessary. They wonât get in.â She sounded sure of it, but from the look Hannah continued to give the doorâas if she wished she could weld it shut with the force of her stareâshe wasnât so certain. âThis way. Weâll take the stairs.â

It was a library, full of books. Someâon this floorâwere new, or at least newish, with colorful spines and crisp titles that Claire could read even in the low light. She slowed down a little, blinking. âYou guys have vampire stories in here?â None of the vampires answered. Amelie veered to the right, through the two-story-tall shelves, and headed for a set of sweeping marble steps at the end. The books got older, the paper more yellow. Claire caught sight of a sign that read FOLKLORE, CA. 1870-1945, ENGLISH, and then another that identified a German section. Then French. Then script that might have been Chinese.

So many books, and from what she could tell, every single one of them had to do in some way with vampires. Was it history or fiction to them?

Claire didnât really have time to work it out. They were taking the stairs, moving around the curve up to the second level. Claireâs legs burned all along the calf muscles, and her breathing was getting raspy from the constant movement and adrenaline. Hannah flashed her a quick, sympathetic smile. âYeah,â she said. âConsider it basic training. Can you keep up?â

Claire gave her a gasping nod.

More books here, old and crumbling, and the air tasted like dry leather and ancient paper. Toward the back of the room, there were things that looked like wine racks, the fancy X-shaped kind people put in cellars, only these held rolls of paper, each neatly tied with ribbon. They were scrolls, probably very old ones. Claire hoped theyâd go that direction, but no, Amelie was turning them down another book aisle, toward a blank white wall.

No, not quite blank. It had a small painting on the wall, in a fussy gilt frame. Some bland-looking nature scene . . . and then, as Amelie stared at it, the painting changed.

It grew darker, as though clouds had come across the meadow and the drowsy sheep in the picture.

And then it was dark, just a dark canvas, then some pinpricks of light, like candle flames through smoke. . . .

And then Claire saw Myrnin.

He was in chains, silver-colored chains, kneeling on the floor, and his head was down. He was still wearing the blousy white pantaloons of his Pierrot costume, but no shirt. The wet points of his damp hair clung to his face and his marble-pale shoulders.

Amelie nodded sharply, and put a hand against the wall to the left of the picture, pressing what looked like a nail, and part of the wall swung out silently on oiled hinges.

Hidden doors: vampires sure seemed to love them.

There was darkness on the other side. âOh, hell no,â Claire heard Hannah mutter. âNot again.â

Amelie sent her a glance, and there was a whisper of amusement in the look. âItâs a different darkness,â she said. âAnd the dangers are very different, from this point on. Things may change quickly. You will have to adapt.â

Then she stepped through, and the vampires followed, and it was just Claire and Hannah.

Claire held out her hand. Hannah took it, still shaking her head, and the dark closed around them like a damp velvet curtain.

There was the hiss of a match dragging, and a flare of light from the corner. Amelie, her face turned ivory by the licking flame, set the match to a candle and left the light burning as she flicked on a small flashlight and played it around the room. Boxes. It was some kind of storeroom, dusty and disused. âAll right,â she said. âGÃ©rard, if you please.â

He swung another door open a crack, nodded, and widened it enough to slip through.

Another hallway. Claire was getting tired of hallways, and they were all starting to look the same. Where were they now, anyway? It looked like some kind of hotel, with polished heavy doors marked with brass plates, only instead of numbers, each door had one of the vampire markings, like the symbol on Claireâs bracelet. Each vampire had one; at least she thought they did. So these would beâwhat? Rooms? Vaults? Claire thought she heard something behind one of the doorsâmuffled sounds, thumping, scratching. They didnât stop, thoughâand she wasnât sure she wanted to know, really.

Amelie brought them to a halt at the T-intersection of the hall. It was deserted in every direction, and disorienting, too; Claire couldnât tell one hallway from another. Maybe we should drop crumbs, she thought. Or M&Mâs. Or blood.

âMyrnin is in a room on this hall,â Amelie said. âIt is quite obviously a trap, and quite obviously meant for me. I will stay behind and ensure your escape route. Claire.â Her pale eyes fixed on Claire with merciless intensity. âWhatever else happens, you must bring Myrnin out safely. Do you understand? Do not let Bishop have him.â

She meant, Everybody else is expendable. That made Claire feel sick, and she couldnât help but look at Hannah, and even at the two vampires. GÃ©rard shrugged, so slightly she thought it might have been her imagination.

âWe are soldiers,â GÃ©rard said. âYes?â

Hannah smiled. âDamn straight.â

âExcellent. You will follow my orders.â

Hannah saluted him, with just a little trace of irony. âYes sir, squad leader, sir.â

GÃ©rard turned his attention to Claire. âYou will stay behind us. Do you understand?â

She nodded. She felt cold and hot at the same time, and a little sick, and the wooden stake in her hand didnât seem like a heck of a lot, considering. But she didnât have any time for second thoughts, because GÃ©rard had turned and was already heading down the hall, his wing man flanking him, and Hannah was beckoning Claire to follow.

Amelieâs cool fingers brushed her shoulder. âCareful.â

Claire nodded and went to rescue a crazy vampire from an evil one.

Â 

The door shattered under GÃ©rardâs kick. That wasnât an exaggeration; except for the wood around the door hinges, the rest of it broke into hand-sized pieces and splinters. Before that rain of wreckage hit the floor, GÃ©rard was inside, moving to the left while his colleague went right. Hannah stepped in and swept the room from one side to the other, holding her air pistol ready to fire, then nodded sharply to Claire.

Myrnin was just as sheâd seen him in the pictureâkneeling in the center of the room, anchored by tight-stretched silvery chains. The chains were double-strength, and threaded through massive steel bolts on the stone floor.

He was shaking all over, and where the chains touched him, he had welts and burns.

GÃ©rard swore softly under his breath and fiercely kicked the eyebolts in the floor. They bent, but didnât break.

Myrnin finally raised his head, and beneath the mass of sweaty dark hair, Claire saw wild dark eyes, and a smile that made her stomach twist.

âI knew youâd come,â he whispered. âYou fools. Where is she? Whereâs Amelie?â

âBehind us,â Claire said.

âFools.â

âNice way to talk to your rescuers,â Hannah said. She was nervous, Claire could see it, though the woman controlled it very well. âGÃ©rard? I donât like this. Itâs too easy.â

âI know.â He crouched down and looked at the chains. âSilver coated. I canât break them.â

âWhat about the bolts in the floor?â Claire asked. In answer, GÃ©rard grabbed the edge of the metal plate and twisted. The steel bent like aluminum foil, and, with a ripping shriek, tore free of the stones. Myrnin wavered as part of his restraints fell loose, and GÃ©rard waved his partner to work on the other two plates while he focused on the second in front.

âToo easy, too easy,â Hannah kept on muttering. âWhatâs the point of doing this if Bishop is just going to let him go?â

The eyebolts were all ripped loose, and GÃ©rard grabbed Myrninâs arm and helped him to his feet.

Myrninâs eyes sheeted over with blazing ruby, and he shook GÃ©rard off and went straight for Hannah.

Hannah saw him coming and put the gun between them, but before she could fire, GÃ©rardâs partner knocked her hand out of line, and the shot went wild, impacting on the stone at the other side of the room. Silver flakes drifted on the air, igniting tiny burns where they landed on the vampiresâ skin. The two bodyguards backed off.

Myrnin grabbed Hannah by the neck.

âNo!â Claire screamed, and ducked under GÃ©rardâs restraining hand. She raised her wooden stake.

Myrnin turned his head and grinned at her with wicked vampire fangs flashing. âI thought you were here to save me, Claire, not kill me,â he purred, and whipped back toward his prey. Hannah was fumbling with her gun, trying to get it back into position. He stripped it away from her with contemptuous ease.

âI am here to save you,â Claire said, and before she could think what she was doing, she buried the stake in Myrninâs back, on the left side, right where she thought his heart would be.

He made a surprised sound, like a cough, and pitched forward into Hannah. His hand slid away from her throat, clutching blindly at her clothes, and then he fell limply to the floor.

Dead, apparently.

GÃ©rard and his partner looked at Claire as if theyâd never seen her before, and then GÃ©rard roared, âWhat do you think youâreââ

âPick him up,â Claire said. âWe can take the stake out later. Heâs old. Heâll survive.â

That sounded cold, and scary, and she hoped it was true. Amelie had survived, after all, and she knew Myrnin was as old, or maybe even older. From the look he gave her, GÃ©rard was reassessing everything heâd thought about the cute, fragile little human heâd been nursemaiding. Too bad. Claire thought one of her strengths was that everybody always underestimated her.

She was cool on the outside, shaking on the inside, because although it was the only way to keep Myrnin calm right now without tranquilizers, or without letting him rip Hannahâs throat out, sheâd just killed her boss.

That didnât seem like a really good career move.

Amelie will help, she thought a bit desperately, and GÃ©rard slung Myrnin over his shoulder in a firemanâs carry, and then they were running, moving fast again back down the hall to where Amelie had stayed to secure their escape.

GÃ©rard came to a fast halt, and Hannah and Claire almost skidded into him. âWhat?â Hannah whispered, and looked past the two vampires in the lead.

Amelie was at the corner ahead of them, but ten feet past her was Mr. Bishop.

They were standing motionless, facing each other. Amelie looked fragile and delicate, compared to her father in his bishopâs robes. He looked ancient and angry, and the fire in his eyes was like something out of the story of Joan of Arc.

Neither of them moved. There was some struggle going on, but Claire couldnât tell what it was, or what it meant.

GÃ©rard reached out and grabbed her arm, and Hannahâs, and held them in place. âNo,â he said sharply. âDonât go near them.â

âProblem, sir, thatâs the way out,â Hannah said. âAnd the dudeâs alone.â

GÃ©rard and the Texan sent her a wild look, almost identical in their disbelief. âYou think so?â the Texan said. âHumans.â

Amelie took a step backward, just a small one, but a shudder went through her body, and Claire knewâjust knewâit was a bad sign. Really bad.

Whatever confrontation had been going on, it broke.

Amelie whirled to them and screamed, âGo!â There was fury and fear in her voice, and GÃ©rard let go of both girls and dumped Myrnin off his shoulder, into their arms, and he and the Texan pelted not for the exit, but to Amelieâs side.

They got there just in time to stop Bishop from ripping out her throat. They slammed the old man up against the wall, but then there were others coming out into the hall. Bishopâs troops, Claire guessed.

There were a lot of them.

Amelie intercepted the first of Bishopâs vampires to run in her direction. Claire recognized him, vaguelyâone of the Morganville vamps, but heâd obviously switched sides, and he came for Amelie, fangs out.

She put him down on the floor with one twisting move, fast as a snake, and looked back at Hannah and Claire, with Myrninâs body sagging between them. âGet him out!â she shouted. âIâll hold the way!â

âCome on,â Hannah said, and shouldered the bulk of Myrninâs limp weight. âWeâre leaving.â

Myrnin felt cold and heavy, like the dead man he was, and Claire swallowed a surge of nausea as she struggled to support his limp weight. Claire gritted her teeth and helped Hannah half carry, half drag Myrninâs staked body down the corridor. Behind them, the sounds of fighting continuedâmainly bodies hitting the floor. No screaming, no shouting.

Vampires fought in silence.

âRight,â Hannah gasped. âWeâre on our own.â

That really wasnât good newsâtwo humans stuck God knew where, with a crazy vampire with a stake in his heart in the middle of a war zone.

âLetâs get back to the door,â Claire said.

âHow are we going to get through it?â

âI can do it.â

Hannah threw her a look. âYou?â

It was no time to get annoyed; hadnât she just been thinking that being underestimated was a gift? Yeah, not so much, sometimes. âYes, really. I can do it. But weâd better hurry.â The odds werenât in Amelieâs favor. She might be able to hang on and cover their retreat, but Claire didnât think she could win.

She and Hannah dragged Myrnin past the symbol-marked doorways. Hannah counted off, and nodded to the one where theyâd entered.

Not too surprisingly, it was marked with the Founderâs Symbol, the same one Claire wore on the bracelet on her wrist.

Hannah tried to open it. âDammit! Locked.â

Not when Claire tried the knob. It opened at a twist, and the single candle in the corner illuminated very little. Claire caught her breath and rested her trembling muscles for a few seconds as Hannah checked the room and pronounced it safe before they entered.

Claire let Myrnin slide in a heap to the floor. âIâm sorry,â she whispered to him. âIt was the only way. I hope it doesnât hurt too much.â

She had no idea if he could hear her when he was like this. She wanted to grab the stake and pull it out, but she remembered that with Amelie, and with Sam, it had been the other vampires whoâd done it. Maybe they knew things she didnât. Besides, the disease weakened themâeven Myrnin.

She couldnât take the risk. And besides, having him wake up wounded and crazy would be even worse, now that they didnât have any vampires who could help control him.

Hannah returned to her side. âSo,â she said, as she checked the clip on her paintball gun, frowned, and exchanged it for a new one, âhow do we do this? We got to go back to that museum first, right?â

Did they? Claire wasnât sure. She stepped up to the door, which currently featured nothing but darkness, and concentrated hard on Myrninâs lab, with all its clutter and debris. Light swam, flickered, shivered, and snapped into focus.

No problem at all.

âGuess itâs only roundabout getting here,â Claire said. âMaybe thatâs on purpose, to keep people out who shouldnât be here. But it makes sense that once Amelie got here, sheâd want to take the express out.â She turned back. âShouldnât we wait?â

Hannah opened the door and looked out into the hall. Whatever she saw, it couldnât have been good news. She shook her head. âWe bug out, right now.â

With a grunt of effort, Hannah braced Myrninâs deadweight on one side and dragged him forward. Claire took his other arm.

âDid he just twitch?â Hannah asked. â âCause if he twitches, Iâm going to shoot him.â

âNo! No, he didnât; heâs fine,â Claire said, practically tripping over the words. âReady? One, two . . .â

And three, they were in Myrninâs lab. Claire twisted out from under Myrninâs cold body, slammed the door shut, and stared wildly at the broken lock. âI need to fix that,â she said. But what about Amelie? No, sheâd know all the exits. She didnât have to come here.

âGirl, you need to get us the hell out of here, is what you need to do,â Hannah said. âYou dial up the nearest Fort Knox or something on that thing. Damn, howâd you learn this, anyway?â

âI had a good teacher.â Claire didnât look at Myrnin. She couldnât. For all intents and purposes, sheâd just killed him, after all. âThis way.â

There were two ways out of Myrninâs lab, besides the usually-secured dimensional doorway: steps leading up to street level, which were probably the absolute worst idea ever right now, and a second, an even more hidden dimensional portal in a small room off to the side. That was the one Amelie had used to get them in.

But the problem was, Claire couldnât get it to work. She had the memories clear in her headâthe Glass House, the portal to the university, the hospital, even the museum theyâd visited on the way here. But nothing worked.

It just felt . . . dead, as if the whole system had been cut off.

They were lucky to have made it this far.

Amelieâs trapped, Claire realized. Back there. With Bishop. And sheâs outnumbered.

Claire double-checked the other door, too, the one sheâd blocked.

Nothing. It wasnât just a malfunctioning portal; the whole network was down.

âWell?â Hannah asked.

Claire couldnât worry about Amelie right now. She had a job to doâget Myrnin to safety. And that meant getting him to the only vampire she knew offhand who could help him: Oliver. âI think weâre walking,â she said.

âThe hell we are,â Hannah said. âIâm not hauling a dead vampire through the streets of Morganville. Weâll get ourselves killed by just about everybody.â

âWe canât leave him!â

âWe canât take him, either!â

Claire felt her jaw lock into stubborn position. âWell, fine, you go ahead. Because Iâm not leaving him. I canât.â

She could tell that Hannah wanted to grab her by the hair and yank her out of there, but finally, the older woman nodded and stepped back. âThird option,â she said. âCall in the cavalry.â

5

It wasnât quite the Third Armored Division, but after about a dozen phone calls, they did manage to get a ride.

âIâm turning on the streetânobody in sight so far,â Eveâs voice said from the speaker of Claireâs cell phone. Sheâd been giving Claire a turn-by-turn description of her drive, and Claire had to admit, it sounded pretty frightening. âYeah, I can see the Day House. Youâre in the alley next to it?â

âWeâre on our way,â Claire said breathlessly. She was drenched with sweat, aching all over, from the effort of helping drag Myrnin out of the lab, up the steps, and down the narrow, seemingly endless dark alley. Next door, the Founder House belonging to Katherine Day and her granddaughterâa virtual copy of the house where Claire and her friends livedâwas dark and closed, but Claire saw curtains moving at the upstairs windows.

âThatâs my great-auntâs house, Great-Aunt Kathy,â Hannah panted. âEverybody calls her Gramma, though. Always have, as far back as I can remember.â

Claire could see how Hannah was related to the Days; partly her features, but her attitude for sure. That was a family full of tough, smart, get-it-done women.

Eveâs big, black car was idling at the end of the alley, and the back door kicked open as the two of themâthree? Did Myrnin still count?âapproached. Eve took a look at Myrnin, and the stake in his back, sent Claire a youâve-got-to-be-kidding-me look, and reached out to drag him inside, facedown, on the backseat. âHurry!â she said, and slammed the back door on the way to the driverâs side. âDamn, heâd better not bleed all over the place. Claire, I thought you were supposed toââ

âI know,â Claire said, and climbed into the middle of the big, front bench seat. Hannah crammed in on the outside. âDonât remind me. I was supposed to keep him safe.â

Eve put the car in gear and did a ponderous tank-heavy turn. âSo, who staked him?â

âI did.â

Eve blinked. âOkay, thatâs an interesting interpretation of safe. Werenât you with Amelie?â Eve actually did a quick check of the backseat, as if she were afraid Amelie might have magically popped in back there, seated like a barbarian queen on top of Myrninâs prone body.

âYeah. We were,â Hannah said.

âDo I have to ask? No, wait, do I want to ask?â

âWe left her,â Claire said, miserable. âBishop set a trap. She was fighting when we had to go.â

âWhat about the other guys? I thought you went with a whole entourage!â

âWe left most of them. . . .â Her brain caught up with her, and she looked at Hannah, who looked back with the same thought in her expression. âOh, crap. The other guys. They were in Myrninâs lab, but not when we came back. . . .â

âGone,â Hannah said. âTaken out.â

âSuper. So, weâre winning, then.â Eveâs tone was wicked cynical, but her dark eyes looked scared. âI talked to Michael. Heâs okay. Theyâre at the university. Things are quiet there so far.â

âAnd Shane?â Claire realized, with a pure bolt of guilt, that she hadnât called him. If heâd called her, she wouldnât have known; sheâd turned off the ringer, afraid of the noise when creeping around on a rescue mission.

But as she dug out her phone, she saw that she hadnât missed any calls after all.

âYeah, heâs okay,â Eve said, and steered the car at semihigh speed around a corner. The town was dark, very dark, with a few houses lit up by lanterns or candles or flashlights. Most people were waiting in the dark, scared to death. âThey had some vamps try to board the bus, probably looking for a snack, but it wasnât even a real fight. So far theyâre cruising without too much trouble. Heâs fine, Claire.â She reached over and took Claireâs hand to squeeze it. âYou, not so much. You look awful.â

âThanks. I think I earned it.â

Eve took back her hand to haul the big wheel of the car around for a turn. Headlights swept over a group on the sidewalkâunnaturally pale. Unnaturally still. âOh, crap, weâve got bogeys. Hang on, Iâm going to floor it.â

That was, Claire thought, a pretty fantastic idea, because the vampires on the curb were now in the street, and following. There was a kind of manic glee to how they pursued the car, but not even a vamp could keep up with Eveâs driving for long; they fell back into the dark, one by one. The last one was the fastest, and he nearly caught hold of the back bumper before he stumbled and was left behind in a black cloud of exhaust.

âDamn freaks,â Eve said, trying to sound tough but not quite making it. âHey, Hannah. Howâs business?â

âRight now?â Hannah laughed softly. âNot so fantastic, but Iâm not bothered about it. Letâs see if we can make it to the morning. Then Iâll worry about making ends meet at the shop.â

âOh, weâll make it,â Eve said, with a confidence Claire personally didnât feel. âLook, itâs already four a.m. Another couple of hours, and weâre fine.â

Claire didnât say, In a couple of hours, we could all be dead, but she was thinking it. What about Amelie? What were they going to do to rescue her?

If sheâs even still alive.

Claireâs head hurt, her eyes felt grainy from lack of sleep, and she just wanted to curl up in a warm bed, pull the pillow over her head, and not be so responsible.

Fat chance.

She wasnât paying attention to where Eve was going, and anyway, it was so dark and strange outside she wasnât sure sheâd recognize things, anyway. Eve pulled to a halt at the curb, in front of a row of plate glass windows lit by candles and lanterns inside.

Just like that, they were at Common Grounds.

Eve jumped out of the driverâs side, opened the back door, and grabbed Myrnin under the arms, all the while muttering, âIck, ick, ick!â Claire slid out to join her, and Hannah grabbed Myrninâs feet when they hit the pavement, and the three of them carried him into the coffee shop.

Claire found herself shoved immediately out of the way by two vampires: Oliver and some woman she didnât know. Oliver looked grim, but then, that wasnât new, either. âPut him down,â Oliver said. âNo, not there, idiots, over there, on the sofa. You. Off.â That last was directed at the frightened humans who were seated on the indicated couch, and they scattered like quail. Eve continued her ick mantra as she and Hannah hauled Myrninâs deadweight over and settled him facedown on the couch cushions. He was about the color of a fluorescent lightbulb now, blue-white and cold.

Oliver crouched next to him, looking at the stake in Myrninâs back. He steepled his fingers for a moment, and then looked up at Claire. âWhat happened?â

She supposed he could tell, somehow, that it was her stake. Wonderful. âI didnât have a choice. He came after us.â The us part might have been an exaggeration; heâd come after Hannah, really. But eventually he would have come after Claire, too; she knew that.

Oliver gave her a moment to squirm while he stared at her, and then looked back at Myrninâs still, very corpselike body. The area where the stake had gone in looked even paler than the surrounding tissue, like the edge of a whirlpool draining all the color out of him. âDo you have any of the drugs you have been giving him?â Oliver asked. Claire nodded, and fumbled in her pocket. She had some of the powder form of the drug, and some of the liquid, but she hadnât felt confident at all that sheâd be able to get it into Myrninâs mouth without a fight she was bound to lose. When Myrnin was like this, you were going to lose fingers, at the very least, if you got anywhere near his mouth.

Not so much an issue now, she supposed. She handed over the vials to Oliver, who turned them over in his fingers, considering, and then handed back the powder. âThe liquid absorbs into the body more quickly, I expect.â

âYes.â It also had some unpredictable side effects, but this probably wasnât the time to worry about that.

âAnd Amelie?â Oliver continued turning the bottle over and over in his fingers.

âSheâsâwe had to leave her. She was fighting Bishop. I donât know where she is now.â

A deep silence filled the room, and Claire saw the vampires all look at one anotherâall except Oliver, who continued to stare down at Myrnin, no change in his expression at all. âAll right, then. Helen, Karl, watch the windows and doors. I doubt Bishopâs patrols will try storming the place, but they might, while Iâm distracted. The rest of youââhe looked at the humans and shook his headââtry to stay out of our way.â

He thumbed the top off the vial of clear liquid and held it in his right hand. âGet ready to turn him faceup,â he said to Hannah and Claire. Claire took hold of Myrninâs shoulders, and Hannah his feet.

Oliver took the stake in his left hand and, in one smooth motion, pulled it out. It clattered to the floor, and he nodded sharply. âNow.â

Once Myrnin was lying on his back, Oliver motioned her away and pried open Myrninâs bloodless lips. He poured the liquid into the other vampireâs mouth, shut it, and placed a hand on his high forehead.

Myrninâs dark eyes were open. Wide-open. Claire shuddered, because they looked completely deadâlike windows into a dark, dark room . . . and then he blinked.

He sucked in a very deep breath, and his back arched in silent agony. Oliver held his hand steady on Myrninâs forehead. His eyes were squeezed shut in concentration, and Myrnin writhed weakly, trying without much success to twist free. He collapsed limply back on the cushions, chest rising and falling. His skin still looked like polished marble, veined with cold blue, but his eyes were alive again.

And crazy. And hungry.

He swallowed, coughed, swallowed again, and gradually, the insane pilot light in his eyes went out. He looked tired and confused and in pain.

Oliver let out a long, moaning sigh, and tried to stand up. He couldnât. He made it about halfway up, then wavered and fell to his knees, one hand braced on the arm of the couch for support. His head went down, and his shoulders heaved, almost as if he were gasping or crying. Claire couldnât imagine OliverâOliverâdoing either one of those things, really.

Nobody moved. Nobody touched him, although some of the other vampires exchanged unreadable glances.

Heâs sick, Claire thought. It was the disease. It made it harder and harder for them to concentrate, to do the things theyâd always taken for granted, like make other vampires. Or revive them. Even Oliver, who hadnât believed anything about the sickness . . . even he was starting to fail.

And he knew it.

âHelp me up,â Oliver finally whispered. His voice sounded faint and tattered. Claire grabbed his arm and helped him climb slowly, painfully up; he moved as if he were a thousand years old, and felt every year of it. One of the other vampires silently provided a chair, and Claire helped him into it.

Oliver braced his elbows on his thighs and hid his pale face in his hands. When she started to speak, he said, softly, âLeave me.â

It didnât seem a good idea to argue. Claire backed off and returned to where Myrnin was, on the couch.

He blinked, still staring at the ceiling. He folded his hands slowly across his stomach, but didnât otherwise move.

âMyrnin?â

âPresent,â he said, from what seemed like a very great distance away. He chuckled very softly, then winced. âHurts when I laugh.â

âYeah, umâIâm sorry.â

âSorry?â A very slight frown worked its way between Myrninâs eyebrows, made a slow V, and then went on its way. âAh. Staked me.â

âI . . . uh . . . yeah.â She knew what Oliverâs reaction would have been, if sheâd done that kind of thing to him, and the outcome wouldnât have been pretty. She wasnât sure what Myrnin might do. Just to be sure, she stayed out of easy-grabbing distance.

Myrnin simply closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. He looked old now, exhausted, like Oliver. âIâm sure it was for the best,â he said. âPerhaps you should have left the wood in place. Better for everyone, in the end. I would have justâfaded away. Itâs not very painful, not comparatively.â

âNo!â She took a step closer, then another. He just looked soâdefeated. âMyrnin, donât. We need you.â

He didnât open his eyes, but there was a tiny, tired smile curving his lips. âIâm sure you think you do, but you have what you need now. I found the cure for you, Claire. Bishopâs blood. Itâs time to let me go. Itâs too late for me to get better.â

âI donât believe that.â

This time, his great dark eyes opened and studied her with cool intensity. âI see you donât,â he said. âWhether or not that assumption is reasonable, thatâs another question entirely. Where is she?â

He was asking about Amelie. Claire glanced at Oliver, still hunched over, clearly in pain. No help. She bent closer to Myrnin. No way she wouldnât be overheard by the other vampires, though, she knew that. âSheâsâI donât know. We got separated. The last I saw, she and Bishop were fighting it out.â

Myrnin sat up. It wasnât the kind of smooth, controlled motion vampires usually had, as though theyâd been practicing it for three or four human lifetimes; he had to pull himself up, slowly and painfully, and it hurt Claire to watch. She put her hand against his shoulder blade to brace him. His skin still felt marble-cold, but not dead. It was hard to figure out what the difference wasâmaybe it was the muscles, underneath, tensed and alive again.

âWe have to find her,â he said. âBishop will stop at nothing to get her, if he hasnât already. Once you were safely away, sheâd have retreated. Amelie is a guerrilla fighter. Itâs not like her to fight in the open, not against her father.â

âWeâre not going anywhere,â Oliver said, without taking his head out of his hands. âAnd neither are you, Myrnin.â

âYou owe her your fealty.â

âI owe nothing to the dead,â Oliver said. âAnd until I see proof of her survival, I will not sacrifice my life, or anyone elseâs, in a futile attempt at rescue.â

Myrninâs face twisted in contempt. âYou havenât changed,â he said.

âNeither have you, fool,â Oliver murmured. âNow shut up. My head aches.â

Â 

Eve was pulling shots behind the counter, wearing a formal black apron that went below her knees. Claire slid wearily onto a barstool on the other side. âWow,â she said. âFlashback to the good times, huh?â

Eve made a sour face as she thumped a mocha down in front of her friend. âYeah, donât remind me,â she said. âAlthough I have to say, I missed the Monster.â

âThe Monster?â

Eve patted the giant, shiny espresso machine beside her affectionately. âMonster, meet Claire. Claire, meet the Monster. Heâs a sweetie, really, but you have to know his moods.â

Claire reached out and patted the machine, too. âNice to meet you, Monster.â

âHey.â Eve caught her wrist when she tried to pull back. âBruises? What gives?â

Amelieâs grip on her really had raised a crop of faint blue smudges on her upper arm, like a primitive tattoo. âDonât freak. I donât have any bite marks or anything.â

âIâll freak if I wanna. As long as Michael isnât here, Iâm kind ofââ

âWhat, my mom?â Claire snapped, and was instantly sorry. And guilty, for an entirely different reason. âI didnât meanââ

Eve waved it away. âHey, if you canât spark a âtude on a day like this, when can you? Your motherâs okay, by the way, because I know thatâs your next question. So far, Bishopâs freaks havenât managed to shut down the cell network, so Iâve been keeping in touch, since nothingâs happening here except for some serious caffeine production. Landlines are dead, though. So is the Internet. Radio and TV are both off the air, too.â

Claire looked at the clock. Five a.m. Two hours until dawn, more or lessâprobably less. It felt like an eternity.

âWhat are we going to do in the morning?â she asked.

âGood question.â Eve wiped down the counter. Claire sipped the sweet, chocolatey comfort of the mocha. âWhen you think of something, let us know, because right now, I donât think anybodyâs got a clue.â

âYouâd be wrong, thankfully,â Oliver said. He seemed to come out of nowhereâGod, didnât Claire hate that!âas he settled on the stool next to her. He seemed almost back to normal now, but very tired. There was a shadow in his eyes that Claire didnât remember seeing before. âThere is a plan in place. Amelieâs removal from the field of battle is a blow, but not a defeat. We continue as she would want.â

âYeah? You want to tell us?â Eve asked. That earned her a cool stare. âYeah, I didnât think so. Vampires really arenât all about the sharing, unless it benefits them first.â

âI will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it,â Oliver said. âGet me one of the bags from the walk-in refrigerator.â

Eve looked down at the top of her apron. âOh, Iâm sorry, where does it say servant on here? Because Iâm so very not.â

For a second, Claire held her breath, because the expression on Oliverâs face was murderous, and she saw a red light, like the embers of a banked fire, glowing in the back of his eyes.

Then he blinked and said, simply, âPlease, Eve.â

Eve hadnât been expecting that. She blinked, stared back at him for a second, then silently nodded and walked away, behind a curtained doorway.

âYouâre wondering if that hurt,â Oliver said, not looking at Claire at all, but staring after Eve. âIt did, most assuredly.â

âGood,â she said. âI hear sufferingâs good for the soul, or something.â

âThen we shall all be right with our God by morning.â Oliver swiveled on the stool to look her full in the face. âI should kill you for what you did.â

âStaking Myrnin?â She sighed. âI know. I didnât think I had a choice. Heâd have bitten my hand off if Iâd tried to give him the medicine, and by the time it took effect, me and Hannah would have been dog food, anyway. It seemed like the quickest, quietest way to get him out.â

âEven so,â Oliver said, his voice low in his throat, âas an Elder, I have the power to sentence you, right now, to death, for attempted murder of a vampire. You do understand?â

Claire held up her hand and pointed to the gold bracelet on her wristâthe symbol of the Founder. Amelieâs symbol. âWhat about this?â

âI would pay reparations,â he said. âI imagine I could afford it. Amelie would be tolerably upset with me, for a while, always assuming she is still alive. Weâd reach an accommodation. We always do.â

Claire didnât say anything else in her defense, just waited. And after a moment, he nodded. âAll right,â he said. âYou were right to take the action you did. You have been right about a good deal that I was unwilling to admit, including the fact that some of us areââhe cast a quick look around, and dropped his voice so low she could make out the word only from the shape his lips gave itââunwell.â

Unwell. Yeah, that was one way to put it. She resisted an urge to roll her eyes. How about dying? Ever heard the word pandemic?

Oliver continued without waiting for her response. âMyrninâs mind was . . . very disordered,â he said. âI didnât think I could get him back. I wouldnât have, without that dose of medication.â

âDoes that mean you believe us now?â She meant, about the vampire disease, but she couldnât say that out loud. Even the roundabout way they were speaking was dangerous; too many vampire ears with too little to do, and once they knew about the sickness, there was no predicting what they might do. Run, probably. Go off to rampage through the human world, sicken, and die alone, very slowly. Itâd take years, maybe decades, but eventually, theyâd all fall, one by one. Oliverâs case was less advanced than many of the others, but age seemed to slow down the diseaseâs progress; he might last for a long time, losing himself slowly.

Becoming nothing more than a hungry shell.

Oliver said, âIt means what it means,â and he said it with an impatient edge to it, but Claire wondered if he really did know. âI am talking about Myrnin. Your drugs may not be enough to hold him for long, and that means we will need to take precautions.â

Eve emerged from the curtain carrying a plastic blood bag, filled with dark cherry syrup. That was what Claire told herself, anyway. Dark cherry syrup. Eve looked shaken, and she dumped the bag on the counter in front of Oliver like a dead rat. âYouâve been planning this,â she said. âPlanning for a siege.â

Oliver smiled slowly. âHave I?â

âYouâve got enough blood in there to feed half the vampires in town for a month, and enough of those heat-and-eat meals campers use to feed the rest of us even longer. Medicines, too. Pretty much anything weâd need to hold out here, including generators, batteries, bottled water. . . .â

âLetâs say I am cautious,â he said. âItâs a trait many of us have picked up during our travels.â He took the blood bag and motioned for a cup; when Eve set it in front of him, he punctured the bag with a fingernail, very neatly, and squeezed part of the contents into the cup. âSave the rest,â he said, and handed it back to Eve, who looked even queasier than before. âDonât look so disgusted. Blood in bags means none taken unwillingly from your veins, after all.â

Eve held it at armâs length, opened the smaller refrigerator behind the bar, and put it in an empty spot on the door rack inside. âUgh,â she said. âWhy am I behind the bar again?â

âBecause you put on the apron.â

âOh, youâre just loving this, arenât you?â

âGuys,â Claire said, drawing both of their stares. âMyrnin. Where are we going to put him?â

Before Oliver could answer, Myrnin pushed through the crowd in the table-and-chairs area of Common Grounds and walked toward them. He seemed normal again, or as normal as Myrnin ever got, anyway. Heâd begged, borrowed, or outright stolen a long, black velvet coat, and under it he was still wearing the poofy white Pierrot pants from his costume, dark boots, and no shirt. Long, black, glossy hair and decadently shining eyes.

Oliver took in the outfit, and raised a brow. âYou look like you escaped from a Victorian brothel,â he said. âOne that . . . specialized.â

In answer, Myrnin skinned up the sleeves of the coat. The wound in his back might have healedâor might be healing, anywayâbut the burns on his wrists and hands were still livid red, with an unhealthy silver tint to them. âNot the sort of brothel Iâd normally frequent, by choice,â he said, âthough of course you might be more adventurous, Oliver.â Their gazes locked, and Claire resisted the urge to take a step back. She thought, just for a second, that they were going to bare fangs at each other . . . and then Myrnin smiled. âI suppose I should say thank you.â

âIt would be customary,â Oliver agreed.

Myrnin turned to Claire. âThank you.â

Somehow, she guessed that wasnât what Oliver had expected; she certainly hadnât. It was the kind of snub that got most people hurt in Morganville, but then again, she guessed Myrnin wasnât most people, even to Oliver.

Oliver didnât react. If there was a small red glow in the depths of his eyes, it could have been a reflection from the lights.

âUmâfor what?â Claire asked.

âI remember what you did.â Myrnin shrugged. âIt was the right choice at the moment. I couldnât control myself. The pain . . . the pain was extremely difficult to contain.â

She cast a nervous glance at his wrists. âHow is it now?â

âTolerable.â His tone dismissed any further discussion. âWe need to get to a portal and locate Amelie. The closest is at the university. We will need a car, I suppose, and a driver. Some sturdy escorts wouldnât go amiss.â Myrnin sounded casual, but utterly certain that his slightest wish would be obeyed, and again, she felt that flare of tension between him and Oliver.

âPerhaps youâve missed the announcement,â Oliver said. âYouâre no longer a king, or a prince, or whatever you were before you disappeared into your filthy hole. Youâre Amelieâs exotic pet alchemist, and you donât give me orders. Not in my town.â

âYour town,â Myrnin repeated, staring at him intently. His face had set into pleasant, rigid lines, but those eyesânot pleasant at all. Claire moved herself prudently out of the way. âWhat a surprise! I thought it was the Founderâs town.â

Oliver looked around. âOddly, she seems unavailable, and that makes it my town, little man. So go and sit down. Youâre not going anywhere. If sheâs in troubleâwhich I do not yet believeâand if thereâs rescuing to be done, we will consider all the risks.â

âAnd the benefits of not acting at all?â Myrnin asked. His voice was wound as tight as a clock spring. âTell me, Old Ironsides, how you plan to win this campaign. I do hope you donât plan to reenact Drogheda.â

Claire had no idea what that meant, but it meant something to Oliver, something bitter and deep, and his whole face twisted for a moment.

âWeâre not fighting the Irish campaigns, and whatever errors I made once, Iâll not be making them again,â Oliver said. âAnd I donât need advice from a blue-faced hedge witch.â

âThereâs the old Puritan spirit!â

Eve slapped the bar hard. âHey! Whatever musty old prejudices the two of you have rattling around in your heads, stop. Weâre here, twenty-first century, USA, and weâve got problems that donât include your ancient history!â

Myrnin blinked, looked at Eve, and smiled. It was his seductive smile, and it came with a lowering of his thick eyelashes. âSweet lady,â he said, âcould you get me one of those delicious drinks you prepared for my friend, here?â He gracefully indicated Oliver, who remembered the cup of blood still sitting in front of him, and angrily choked it down. âPerhaps warm the bag a bit in hot water first? Itâs a bit disgusting, cold.â

âYeah, sure,â Eve sighed. âWant a shot of espresso with that?â

Myrnin seemed to be honestly considering it. Claire urgently shook her head no. The last thing sheâany of themâneeded just now was Myrnin on caffeine.

As Eve walked away to prepare Myrninâs drink, Oliver shook himself out of his anger with a physical twitch, took a deep breath, and said, âItâs less than two hours to dawn. Even if something has happened to Amelieâwhich again, I disputeâitâs too risky to launch a search just now. If Bishop has Amelie, heâll have her some place thatâll hold against an assault in any case. Two hours isnât enough time, and I wonât risk our people in the dawn.â

Myrnin flicked a glance toward Claire. âSome of those here arenât affected by the dawn.â

âSome of them are also highly vulnerable,â Oliver said. âI wouldnât send a human out after Bishop. I wouldnât send a human army out after Bishop, unless youâre planning to deduce his location from the corpses he leaves behind.â

For a horrified second, Myrnin actually mulled that over, and then he shook his head. âHeâd hide the bodies,â he said regretfully. âA useful suggestion, though.â

Claire couldnât tell if he was mocking Oliver, or if he really meant it. Oliver couldnât tell, either, from the long, considering look he gave him.

Oliver turned his attention to her. âTell me everything.â

6

In an hour, the blush of dawn was already on the horizon, bringing an eerie blue glow to the night world. Somewhere out there, vampires all over town would be getting ready for it, finding secure places to stay the dayâwhatever side they were fighting on.

The ones in Common Grounds seemed content to stay on, which made sense; it was kind of a secured location anyway, from what Oliver and Amelie had said beforeâone of the key places in town to hold if they intended to keep control of Morganville.

But Claire wasnât entirely happy with the way some of those vampiresâstrangers, mostly, though all from Morganville, according to Eveâseemed to be whispering in the corners. âHow do we know theyâre on our side?â she asked Eve, in a whisper she hoped would escape vampire notice.

No such luck. âYou donât,â Oliver said, from several feet away. âNor is that your concern, but I will reassure you in any case. They are all loyal to me, and through me, to Amelie. If any of them âturn coats,â you may be assured that theyâll regret it.â He said it in a normal tone of voice, to carry to all parts of the room.

The vampires stopped whispering.

âAll right,â Oliver said to Claire and Eve. The light of dawn was creeping up like a warning outside the windows. âYou understand what I want you to do?â

Eve nodded and gave him a sloppy, insolent kind of salute. âSir, yes sir, General sir!â

âEve.â His patience, what little there was, was worn to the bone. âRepeat my instructions.â

Eve didnât like taking orders under the best of circumstances, which these werenât. Claire quickly said, âWe take these walkie-talkies to each of the Founder Houses, to the university, and to anybody else on the list. We tell them all strategic orders come through these, not through cell phone or police band.â

âBe sure to give them the code,â he said. Each one of the tiny little radios had a keypad, like a cell phone, but the difference was that you had to enter the code into it to access the emergency communication channel heâd established. Pretty high tech, but then, Oliver didnât really seem the type to lag much behind on the latest cool stuff. âAll right. Iâm sending Hannah with you as your escort. Iâd send one of my own, butââ

âDawn, yeah, I know,â Eve said. She offered a high five to Hannah, who took it. âDamn, girl, love the Rambo look.â

âRambo was a Green Beret,â Hannah said. âPlease. We eat those army boys for breakfast.â

Which was maybe not such a comfortable thing to say in a room full of maybe-hungry vampires. Claire cleared her throat. âWe shouldââ

Hannah nodded, picked up the backpack (Claireâs, now filled with handheld radios instead of books), and handed it to her. âI need both hands free,â she said. âEveâs driving. Youâre the supply master. Thereâs a check-list inside, so you can mark off deliveries as we go.â

Myrnin was sitting off to the side, ominously quiet. His eyes still looked sane, but Claire had warned Oliver in the strongest possible terms that he couldnât trust him. Not really.

As if I would, Oliver had said with a snort. Iâve known the man for many human lifetimes, and Iâve never trusted him yet.

The vampires in the coffee shop had mostly retreated out of the big, front area, into the better-protected, light-proofed interior. Outside of the plate glass windows, there was little to be seen. The fires had gone out, or been extinguished. Theyâd seen some cars speeding about, mostly official police or fire, but the few figures theyâd spotted had been quick and kept to the shadows.

âWhat are they doing?â Claire asked as she hitched her backpack to a more comfortable position on her shoulder. She didnât really expect Oliver to reply; he wasnât much on the sharing.

He surprised her. âTheyâre consolidating positions,â he said. âThis is not a war that will be fought in daylight, Claire. Or in the open. We have our positions; they have theirs. They may send patrols of humans theyâve recruited, but they wonât come themselves. Not after dawn.â

âRecruited,â Hannah repeated. âDonât you mean strong-armed? Most folks just want to be left alone.â

âNot necessarily. Morganville is full of humans who donât love us, or the system under which they labor,â Oliver replied. âSome will believe Bishop is the answer. Some will act out of fear, to protect their loved ones. He will know how to appeal to them, and how to pressure. Heâll find his human cannon fodder.â

âLike youâve found yours,â Hannah said.

They locked stares for a few seconds, and then Oliver inclined his head just a bit. âIf you like.â

âI donât,â she said, âbut Iâm used to the front lines. You got to know, others wonât be.â

Claire couldnât tell anything from Oliverâs expression. âPerhaps not,â he said. âBut for now, we can count on our enemies regrouping. We should do the same.â

Hannah nodded. âIâm out first, then you, Eve. Have your keys in your hand. Donât hesitate, run like hell for the car, and get it unlocked. Iâll get Claire to the passenger side.â

Eve nodded, clearly jittery. She took the car keys out of her pocket and held them in her hand, sorting through until she had the right key pointing out.

âOne more thing,â Hannah said. âYou got a flashlight?â

Eve fumbled in her other pocket and came up with a tiny little penlight. When she twisted it, it gave a surprisingly bright glow.

âGood.â Hannah nodded. âBefore you get in the car, you shine that in the front and backseats. Make sure you can see all the way down to the carpet. Iâll cover you from the door.â

The three of them moved to the exit, and Hannah put her left hand on the knob.

âBe careful,â Oliver said from the back of the room, which was kind of warmly surprising. He spoiled it by continuing, âWe need those radios delivered.â

Should have known it wasnât personal. Claire resisted the urge to flip him off.

Eve didnât bother to resist hers.

Then Hannah was swinging open the door and stepping outside. She didnât do it like in the movies; no drama, she just stepped right out, turned in a slow half circle as she scanned the street with the paintball gun held at rest. She finally motioned for Eve. Eve darted out and headed around the hood of the big, black car. Claire saw the glow of her penlight as she checked the inside, and then Eve was in the driverâs seat and the car growled to a start, and Hannah pushed her toward the passenger door.

Behind them, the Common Grounds door slammed shut and locked. When she looked back, Claire saw that they were pulling down some kind of steel shutters inside the glass.

Locking up for dawn.

Claire and Hannah made it to the car without any problems. Even so, Claire was breathing hard, her heart racing.

âYou okay?â Eve asked her. Claire nodded, still gasping. âYeah, I know. Terror Aerobics. Just wait until they get it at the gym. Itâll be bigger than Pilates.â

Claire choked on her fear, laughed, and felt better.

âThatâs my girl. Locks,â Eve said. âAlso, seat belts, please. We may be making some sudden stops along the way. Donât want anybody saying hello to Mr. Windshield at speed.â

The drive through predawn Morganville was eerie. It was very . . . quiet. Theyâd mapped out a route, planning to avoid the most dangerous areas, but they almost had to divert immediately, because of a couple of cars parked in the middle of the street.

The doors were hanging open, interior lights were still shining.

Eve slowed down and crawled past on the right side, two wheels up on the curb. âSee anything?â she asked anxiously. âAny bodies or anything?â

The cars were completely empty. They were still running, and the keys were in the ignition. One strange thing nagged at Claire, but she couldnât think what it was. . . .

âThose are vampire cars,â Hannah said. âWhy would they leave them here like that?â Oh. That was the odd thing. The tinting on the windows.

âThey needed to pee?â Eve asked. âWhen youâve gotta go . . .â

Hannah said nothing. She was watching out the windows with even more focus than before.

âYeah, that is weird,â Eve said more quietly. âMaybe they went to help somebody.â Or hunt somebody. Claire shivered.

They made their first radio delivery to one of the Founder Houses; Claire didnât know the people who answered the door, but Eve did, of course. She quickly explained about the radio and the code, and they were back in the car and rolling in about two minutes flat. âOutstanding,â Hannah said. âYou girls could give some of my buddies in the marines a run for their money.â

âHey, you know how it is, Hannah: living in Morganville really is combat training.â Eve and Hannah awkwardly slapped palmsâawkwardly, because Eve kept facing front, and Hannah didnât turn away from her post at the carâs back window. She had the window rolled down halfway, and the paintball gun at the ready, but so far she hadnât fired a single shot.

âMore cars,â Claire said softly. âYou see?â

It wasnât just a couple of cars, it was a bunch of them, scattered on both sides of the street now, engines running, lights on, doors open.

Empty.

They cruised past slowly, and Claire took note of the heavy tinting on the windows. They were all the same type of car, the same type Michael had been issued on his official conversion to vampire.

âWhat the hell is going on?â Eve asked. She sounded tense and anxious, and Claire couldnât blame her. She felt pretty tense herself. âThis close to dawn, they wouldnât be doing this. They shouldnât even be outside. He said both sides would regroup, but this looks like some kind of full-on panic.â

Claire had to agree, but she also had no explanation. She dug one of the radios out of her backpack, typed in the code that Oliver had given her, and pressed the TALK button. âOliver? Come in.â

After a short delay, his voice came back. âGo.â

âSomething strange is happening. Weâre seeing lots of vampire cars, but theyâre all abandoned. Empty. Still running.â Static on the other end. âOliver?â

âKeep me informed,â he finally said. âCount the number of cars. Make a list of license numbers, if you can.â

âErâanything else? Should we come back?â

âNo. Deliver the radios.â

That was it. Claire tried again, but heâd shut off or he was ignoring her. She pressed the RESET button to scramble the code, and looked at Eve, who shrugged. They pulled to a halt in front of the second Founder House. âLetâs just get it done,â Eve said. âLet the vamps worry about the vamps.â

It seemed reasonable, but Claire was afraid that somehow . . . it wasnât.

Â 

Three of the Founder Houses were piles of smoking wood and ash, and the Morganville Fire Department was still pouring water on one of them. Eve cruised by, but didnât stop. The horizon was getting lighter and lighter, and they still had a couple of stops to make.

âYou okay back there?â Eve asked Hannah, as they turned another corner, heading into an area Claire actually recognized.

âFine,â Hannah said. âWe going to the Day House?â

âYeah, next on my list.â

âGood. I want to talk to Cousin Lisa.â

Eve pulled up outside of the big Founder House; it was lit up in every window, a stark contrast to its dark, shuttered neighboring residences. As she put the car in park, the front door opened and spilled a wedge of lemon-colored light across the immaculately kept front porch. Gramma Dayâs rocker was empty, nodding in the slight wind.

The person at the door was Lisa Dayâtall, strong, with more than a slight resemblance to Hannah. She watched them get out of the car. Upstairs windows opened, and gun barrels came out.

âTheyâre all right,â she called, but she didnât step outside. âClaire, right? And Eve? Hey, Hannah.â

âHey.â Hannah nodded. âLetâs get in. I donât like this quiet out here.â

As soon as they were in the front door, in a familiar-looking hallway, Lisa slammed down locks and bolts, including a recently installed iron bar that slotted into place on either side of the frame. Hannah watched this with bemused approval. âYou knew this was coming?â she asked.

âI figured itâd come sooner or later,â Lisa said. âHad the hardware in the basement. All we had to do was put it in. Gramma didnât like it, but I did it, anyway. She keeps yelling about me putting holes in the wood.â

âYeah, thatâs Gramma.â Hannah grinned. âGod forbid we should mess up her house while the warâs going on.â

âSpeaking of that,â Lisa said, âyâall need to stay here, if you want to stay safe.â

Eve exchanged a quick glance with Claire. âYeah, well, we canât, really. But thanks.â

âYou sure?â Lisaâs eyes were very bright, very focused. âBecause weâre thinking maybe these vamps will kill each other off this time, and maybe we should all stick together. All the humans. Never mind the bracelets and the contracts.â

Eve blinked. âSeriously? Just let them fight it out on their own?â

âWhy not? Whatâs it to us, anyway, who wins?â Lisaâs smile was bitter and brief. âWe get screwed no matter what. Maybe itâs time to put a human in charge of this town, and let the vampires find someplace else to live.â

Dangerous, Claire thought. Really dangerous. Hannah stared at her cousin, her expression tight and controlled, and then nodded. âOkay,â she said. âYou do what you want, Lisa, but you be careful, all right?â

âWeâre being real damn careful,â Lisa said. âYouâll see.â

They came to the end of the hallway, where the area opened up into the big living room, and Eve and Claire both stopped cold.

âOh, shit,â Eve muttered.

The humans were all armedâguns, knives, stakes, blunt objects. The vampires whoâd been assigned to guard the house were all sitting tied to chairs with so many turns of rope it reminded Claire of hangmanâs loops. She supposed if you were going to restrain vamps, it made sense, butâ

âWhat the hell are you doing?â Eve blurted. At least some of the vampires sitting there, tied and gagged, were ones whoâd been at Michaelâs house, or whoâd fought on Amelieâs side at the banquet. Some of them were struggling, but most seemed quiet.

Some looked unconscious.

âTheyâre not hurt,â Lisa said. âI just want âem out of the way, in case things go bad.â

âYouâre making one hell of a move, Lisa,â Hannah said. âI hope you know what the hell youâre about.â

âIâm about protecting my own. You ought to be, too.â

Hannah nodded slowly. âLetâs go,â she said to Claire and Eve.

âWhat aboutââ

âNo,â Hannah said. âNo radio. Not here.â

Lisa moved into their path, a shotgun cradled in her arms. âGoing so soon?â

Claire forgot to breathe. There was a feeling here, a darkness in the air. The vampires, those who were still awake, were staring at them. Expecting rescue, maybe?

âYou donât want to do this,â Hannah said. âWeâre not your enemies.â

âYouâre standing with the vamps, arenât you?â

There it was, out in the open. Claire swallowed hard. âWeâre trying to get everybody out of this alive,â she said. âHumans and vampires.â

Lisa didnât look away from her cousinâs face. âNot going to happen,â she said. âSo youâd better pick a side.â

Hannah stepped right up into her face. After a cold second, Lisa moved aside. âAlready have,â Hannah said. She jerked her head at Claire and Eve. âLetâs move.â

Outside in the car, they all sat in silence for a few seconds. Hannahâs face was grim and closed off, not inviting any conversation.

Eve finally said, âYouâd better tell Oliver. He needs to know about this.â

Claire plugged in the code and tried. âOliver, come in. Oliver, itâs Claire. I have an update. Oliver!â

Static hissed. There was no response.

âMaybe heâs ignoring you,â Eve said. âHe seemed pretty annoyed before.â

âYou try.â Claire handed it over, but it was no use. Oliver wasnât responding. They tried calling for anyone at Common Grounds instead, and got another voice, one Claire didnât recognize.

âHello?â

Eve squeezed her eyes shut in relief. âExcellent. Whoâs this?â

âQuentin Barnes.â

âTin-Tin! Hey man, how are you?â

âAhâgood, I guess.â Tin-Tin, whoever he was, sounded nervous. âOliverâs kind of busy right now. Heâs trying to keep some people from taking off.â

âTaking off?â Eveâs eyes widened. âWhat do you mean?â

âSome of the vamps, theyâre just trying to leave. Itâs too close to dawn. Heâs had to lock some of them up.â

Things were getting weird all over. Eve keyed the mike and said, âThereâs trouble at the Day House. Lisaâs tied up the vamps. Sheâs going to sit this thing out. I thinkâI think maybe sheâs working with some other people, trying to put together a third side. All humans.â

âDude,â Tin-Tin sighed, âthatâs just what we need, getting the vampire slayers all in the mix. Okay, Iâll tell Oliver. Anything else?â

âMore empty vampire cars. You think theyâre like those guys who were trying to leave? Maybe, I donât know, getting drawn off somewhere?â

âProbably. Look, just watch yourself, okay?â

âWill do. Eve out.â

Hannah stirred in the back. âLetâs move out to the next location.â

âIâm sorry,â Claire said. âI know theyâre your family and all.â

âLisa always was preaching about how we could take the town if we stuck together. Maybe sheâs thinking itâs the right time to make a move.â Hannah shook her head. âSheâs an idiot. All sheâs going to do is get people killed.â

Claire was no general, but she knew that fighting a war on two fronts and dividing their forces wasnât a great idea. âWe have to find Amelie.â

âWherever sheâs gotten herself off to,â Eve snorted. âIf sheâs even stillââ

âDonât,â Claire whispered. She restlessly rubbed the gold bracelet on her wrist until it dug into her skin. âWe need her.â

More than ever, she was guessing.

Â 

By the time theyâd dropped off the next to last radio, at their own home, which was currently inhabited by a bunch of freaked-out humans and a few vampires who hadnât yet felt whatever was pulling some of them off, the dawn was starting to really set in. The horizon was Caribbean blue, with touches of gold and red just flaring up like footlights at a show. Claire delivered the radio, the code, and a warning to the humans and vampires alike. âYou have to watch the vamps,â she pleaded. âDonât let them leave. Not in the daylight.â

Monica Morrell, who was clutching the walkie-talkie in her red-taloned fingers, frowned at her. âHow are we supposed to do that, freak? Give them a written warning and scold them really hard? Come on!â

âIf you let them go, they may not get wherever it is theyâre being called before sunrise,â Hannah said. She shrugged, a fluid flow that emphasized her muscles, and smiled. âHey, no skin off my nose or anything, but we may need âem later. And you could get blamed for not stepping up.â

Monica kept on frowning, but she didnât seem inclined to argue with Hannah. Nobody did, Claire noticed. The former marine had an air about her, a confidence that somehow didnât come off at all like arrogance.

âGreat,â Monica finally said. âWonderful. Like I needed another problem. By the way, Claire, your house really sucks ass. I hate it here.â

It was Claireâs turn to smile this time. âIt probably hates you right back. Iâm sure youâll figure it out,â she said. âYouâre a natural leader, right?â

âOh, bite it. Someday, your boyfriend wonât be around toââ Monica widened her eyes. âOh, snap! Heâs isnât around, is he? Wonât be back, ever. Remind me to send flowers for the funeral.â

Eve grabbed the back of Claireâs shirt. âWhoa, Mini-Me, chill out. Weâve got to get moving. Much as Iâd like to see the cage match, weâre kind of on a schedule.â

The hot crimson haze disappeared from Claireâs eyes, and she took in a breath and nodded. Her muscles were aching. She realized sheâd managed to clench just about every muscle, iron-hard, and tried to relax. Her hands twinged when she stretched them out of fists.

âSee you soon,â Monica said, and shut the door on them. âWait, probably not, loser. And your clothes are pathetic, by the way!â

That last part came muffled, but clearâas clear as the sound of the locks snapping into place.

âLetâs go,â Hannah said, and herded them off the porch and down the walk toward the white picket fence.

Walking on the street, heading vaguely north, was a vampire. âOh, crap,â Eve said, alarmed, but the vamp didnât seem to care about them, or even know they were there. He was wearing a police uniform, and Claire remembered him; heâd been riding with Richard Morrell, from time to time. Didnât seem like a bad guy, apart from the whole vampire thing. âThatâs Officer OâMalley. Hey! Hey, Officer! Wait up!â

He ignored them and kept walking.

Claire looked east. The sunâs golden glow was heating up the sky, fast. It wasnât over the horizon yet, but it would be in a matter of seconds, minutes at most. âWeâve got to get him,â she said. âGet him inside somewhere.â

âAnd do what, babysit him the rest of the day? OâMalleyâs not like Myrnin,â Eve said. âYou canât stake him. Heâs not that old. Seventy, eighty, something like that. Heâs only a little older than Sam.â

âWe could run him over,â Hannah said. âIt wouldnât kill him.â

Eve sent her a wide-eyed look. âExcuse me? With my car?â

âYouâre asking for something nonlethal. Thatâs all Iâve got right now. The three of us arenât any kind of match for a vampire who wants to get somewhere, if he fights us.â

Claire took off running toward the vampire, ignoring their shouts. She looked back. Hannah was after her, and gaining.

She still got to Officer OâMalley first, and skidded into his path.

He paused for a second, his green eyes focusing on her, and then he reached out and moved her aside. Gently, but firmly.

And he kept on walking.

âYou have to get inside!â Claire yelled, and got in front of him again. âSir, you have to! Right now! Please!â

He moved her again, this time without as much care. He didnât say a word.

âOh, God,â Hannah said. âToo late.â

The sun came up in a fiery burst, and the first rays of sunlight hit the parked cars, Eveâs standing figure, the houses . . . and Officer OâMalleyâs back.

âGet a blanket!â Claire screamed. She could see the smoke curling off him, like morning mist. âDo something!â

Eve ran to get something from the car. Hannah grabbed Claire and pulled her out of his way.

Officer OâMalley kept walking. The sun kept rising, brighter and brighter, and within three or four steps, the smoke rising up from him turned to flames.

In ten more steps, he fell down.

Eve ran up breathlessly, a blanket clutched in both hands. âHelp me get it over him!â

They threw the fabric over Officer OâMalley, but instead of smothering the flames, it just caught fire, too.

Hannah pulled Claire back as she tried to pat out the flames. âDonât,â she said. âItâs too late.â

Claire turned toward Hannah in a raw fury, struggling to get free. âWe can stillââ

âNo, we canât,â Hannah said. âThereâs not a damn thing we can do for him. Heâs dying, Claire. You tried your best, but heâs dying. And heâs not going to take our help. Look, heâs still trying to crawl. Heâs not stopping.â

She was right, but it hurt, and in the end, Claire wrapped her arms around Hannah for comfort and turned away.

When she finally looked back, Officer OâMalley was a pile of ash and smoke and burned blanket.

âMichael,â Claire whispered. She looked at the sun. âWe have to find Michael!â

Hannah went very still for a second, and then nodded. âLetâs go.â

7

The gates of the university were shut, locked, and there were paramilitary-style men posted at the gates, all in black. Armed. Eve coasted the big car slowly up to them and rolled down the window.

âDelivery for Michael Glass,â she called. âOr Richard Morrell.â

The guard who leaned in was huge, tough, and intimidatingâuntil he saw Hannah in the backseat, and then he grinned like a kid with a new puppy. âHannah Montana!â

She looked deeply pained. âDonât ever call me that again, Jessup, or I will gut you.â

âGet out and make me stop, Smiley. Yeah, I heard you were back. How were the marines?â

âBetter than the damn rangers.â

âDonât you just wish?â He lost the smile and got serious again. âSorry, H, orders are orders. Who sent you? Whoâs with you?â

âOliver sent me. You probably know Eve Rosserâthatâs Claire Danvers.â

âReally? Huh. Thought sheâd be bigger. Hey, Eve. Sorry, didnât recognize you right off. Long time, no see.â Jessup nodded to the other guard, who slung his rifle and pressed in a key code at the panel on the stone fence. The big iron gates slowly parted. âYou be careful, Hannah. This townâs the Af-Pak border all over again right now.â

Inside, except for the guards patrolling the fence, Texas Prairie University seemed eerily normal. The birds sang to the rising sun, and there were students outâstudents!âheading to class as if there were nothing wrong at all. They were chatting, laughing, running to make the cross-campus early-morning bell.

âWhat the hell?â Eve said. Claire was glad she wasnât the only one freaked out by it. âI know they had orders to keep things low profile, but damn, this is ridiculous. Whereâs the deanâs office?â

Claire pointed. Eve steered the car around the winding curves, past dorms and lecture halls, and pulled it to a stop on the nearly deserted lot in front of the Administration Building. There were two police cruisers there, and a bunch of black Jeeps. Not a lot of civilian cars in the lot.

As they walked up the steps to the building, Claire realized there were two more guards outside of the main door. Hannah didnât know these guys, but she repeated their names and credentials, and after a brief, impersonal search, they were allowed inside.

The last time Claire had been here sheâd been adding and dropping classes, and the building had been full of grumpy bureaucrats and anxious students, all moving at a hectic pace. Now it was very quiet. A few people were at their desks, but there were no students Claire could see, and the TPU employees looked either bored or nervous. Most of the activity seemed centered down the carpeted hall, which was hung with formal portraits of the former university deans and notables.

One or two of the former deans, Claire was just now realizing, might have been vampires, from the pallor of their skins. Or maybe they were just old white guys. Hard to say.

At the end of the hallway they found not a guard, but a secretaryâjust as tough as any of the armed men outside, though. She sat behind an expensive-looking antique desk that had not a speck of dust on it, and nothing else except a piece of paper centered exactly in the middle, a pen at right angles to it, and a fancy, black multiline telephone. No computer that Claire could spotâno, there it was, hidden away in a roll-out credenza to the side.

The room was lushly carpeted, so much so that Claireâs feet sank into the depth at least an inch; it was like walking on foam. Solid, dark wood paneling. Paintings and dim lights. The windows were covered with fancy velvet curtains, and there was music playingâclassical, of course. Claire couldnât imagine anybody would ever switch the station to rock. Not here.

âIâm Ms. Nance,â the woman said, and stood to offer her hand to each of them in turn; she didnât even hesitate with Eve, who intimidated most people. She was a tall, thin, gray woman dressed in a tailored gray suit with a lighter gray blouse under the jacket. Gray hair curled into exact waves. Claire couldnât see her shoes, but she bet they were fashionable, gray, and yet somehow sensible. âIâm the secretary to Dean Wallace. Do you have an appointment?â

Eve said, âI need to see Michael.â

âIâm sorry? I donât think I know that person.â

Eveâs expression froze, and Claire could see the horrible dread in her eyes.

Hannah, seeing it too, said, âLetâs cut the crap, Ms. Nance. Whereâs Michael Glass?â

Ms. Nanceâs eyes narrowed. They were pale blue, not as pale as Amelieâs, but kind of faded, like jeans left in the sun. âMr. Glass is in conference with the dean,â she said. âIâm afraid youâll have toââ

The door at the far end of her office opened, and Michael came out. Claireâs heart practically melted with relief. Heâs okay. Michaelâs okay.

Except that he closed the door and walked straight past them, a man on a mission.

He walked right past Eve, who stood there flat-footed, mouth open, fear dawning in her expression.

âMichael!â Claire yelped. He didnât even pause. âWe have to stop him!â

âGreat,â Hannah said, and the three of them took off in pursuit.

It helped that Michael wasnât actually running, just moving with a purpose. Claire and Eve edged by him in the hall and blocked his path.

His blue eyes were wide-open, but he just didnât see them. He sensed an obstacle, at least, and paused.

âMichael,â Claire said. Dammit, why couldnât I have tranquilizers? Why? âMichael, you canât go out there. Itâs already morning. Youâll die.â

âHeâs not listening,â Hannah said. And she was right; he wasnât. He tried to push between them, but Eve put a hand in the center of his chest and held him back.

âMichael? Itâs me. You know me, donât you? Please?â

He stared at her with utterly blank eyes, and then shoved her out of his way. Hard.

Hannah sent Claire a quick, commanding look. âGet help. Now. Iâll try to hold him.â

Claire hesitated, but Hannah was without any doubt better equipped to handle a potentially hostile Michael than she was. She turned and ran, past startled desk jockeys and coffee-bearing civil servants, and slid to a stop in front of one of the black-uniformed soldiers. âRichard Morrell,â she blurted. âI need him. Right now.â

The soldier didnât hesitate. He grabbed the radio clipped to his shoulder and said, âAdmin to Morrell.â

âMorrell, go.â

The soldier unclipped the radio and silently offered it to Claire. She took itâit was heavier than the walkie-talkiesâand pressed the button to talk. âRichard? Itâs Claire. We have a big problem. We need to stop Michael and anybody else . . .â How could she say vampire without actually saying it? âAnybody else with a sun allergy from going outside.â

âWhy the hell would they beââ

âI donât know! They just are!â The image of Officer OâMalley on fire leaped into her mind, and she caught her breath on a sob. âHelp us. Theyâre going out in the sun.â

âGive the radio back,â he ordered. She handed it to the black-uniformed man. âI need you to go with this girl and help her. No questions.â

âYes sir.â He clicked off the radio and looked down at Claire. âAfter you.â

She led the way back toward the hallway. As they reached it, there was a crash of glass, and Hannah came flying out to land flat on her back, blinking.

Michael walked over her. Eve was hauling on his arm, trying to hold him back, but he shook her off.

âWe canât let him get outside!â Claire said. She tried to grab him, but it was like grabbing a freight train. Sheâd forgotten how strong he was now.

âOut of the way,â the soldier said, and pulled a handgun from a holster at his side.

âNo, donâtââ

The bureaucrats scattered, hiding under their desks, dropping their coffee to hug the carpet.

The soldier sighted on Michaelâs chest, and fired three times in quick succession. Instead of the loud bangs Claire had been expecting, there were soft compressed-air coughs.

And three darts feathered Michaelâs chest, clustered above his heart.

He still took three steps toward the soldier before collapsing in slow motion to his knees, and then onto his face.

âAll clear,â the soldier said. He took hold of Michael, turned him over, and yanked out the darts. âHeâll be under for about an hour, probably no longer than that. Letâs get him to the deanâs office.â

Hannah wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth, coughed, and rolled to her feet. She and Eve helped Claire grab Michaelâs shoulders and feet, and they carried him down the hallway, past paintings that were going to need some major repair and reframing, past splintered panels and broken glass, into Ms. Nanceâs office.

Ms. Nance took one look at them and moved smartly to the door marked with a discreet brass plaque that said DEAN WALLACE. She rapped and opened the door for them to carry Michael through.

Dean Wallace was a woman, which was kind of a surprise to Claire. Sheâd been expecting a pudgy, middle-aged man; this Dean Wallace was tall, graceful, thin, and a whole lot younger than Claire would have imagined. She had straight brown hair worn long around her shoulders, and a simple black suit that was almost the negative image of Ms. Nanceâs, only somehow less formal. It looked . . . lived in.

Dean Wallaceâs lips parted, but she didnât ask a question. She checked herself, then nodded at the leather couch on the far side of the room, across from her massive desk. âRight, put him there.â She had a British accent, too. Definitely not a Texas girl. âWhat happened?â

âWhatever it is, itâs happening all over,â Hannah said as they arranged Michaelâs unconscious body on the sofa. âTheyâre just taking off. Itâs like they donât even know or care the sunâs up. Some kind of homing signal just gets switched on.â

Dean Wallace thought for a second, then pressed a button on her desk. âMs. Nance? I need a bulletin to go out through the emergency communication system. All vampires on campus should be immediately restrained or tranquilized. No exceptions. This is priority one.â She frowned as she got the acknowledgment, and looked up at their little group. âMichael seemed very rational, and there was no warning this would happen. I just thought he had somewhere to go. He didnât seem odd, at least at first.â

âHow many other vampires on campus?â Hannah asked.

âSome professors of course, but theyâre mostly not here at the moment, since they teach at night. No students, obviously. Apart from the ones Michael and Richard brought in, we have perhaps five in total on the grounds. More were here earlier, but they headed for shelter before sunrise, off campus.â Dean Wallace seemed calm, even in the face of all this. âYouâre Claire Danvers?â

âYes maâam,â she said, and shook the hand Dean Wallace offered her.

âI had a talk with your Patron recently regarding your progress. Despite yourâchallenges, you have done excellent course work.â

It was stupid to feel pleased about that, but Claire couldnât help it. She felt herself blush, and shook her head. âI donât think that matters very much right now.â

âOn the contrary, it matters a great deal, I believe.â

Eve settled herself down next to the sofa, holding Michaelâs limp hand. She looked shattered. Hannah leaned against the wall and nodded to the soldier as he exited the office. âSo,â she said, âwant to explain to me how you can have half the U.S. Army walking the perimeter and not have massive student panic?â

âWeâve told all students and their parents that the university is cooperating in a government emergency drill, and of course that all weapons are nonlethal. Which is quite true, so far as it goes. The issue of keeping students on campus is a bit trickier, but weâve managed so far by linking it to the emergency drills. Canât go on for long, though. The local kids are already well informed, and itâs only a matter of time before the out-of-town students begin to realize that weâre having them on when they canât get word out to their friends and relatives. Weâre filtering all Internet and phone access, of course.â Dean Wallace shook her head. âBut thatâs my problem, not yours, and yours is much more pressing. We canât knock out every vampire in town, and we canât keep them knocked out in any case.â

âNot enough happy juice in the world,â Hannah agreed. âWe need to either stop this at its source, or get the heck out of their way.â

There was a soft knock on the door, and Ms. Nance stepped in. âRichard Morrell,â she announced, and moved aside for him.

Claire stared. Monicaâs brother looked like about fifty miles of bad roadâexhausted, red-eyed, pale, running on caffeine and adrenaline. Just like the rest of them, she supposed. As Ms. Nance quietly closed the door behind him, Richard strode forward, staring at Michaelâs limp body. âIs he out?â His voice sounded rough, too, as if heâd been yelling. A lot.

âSleeping the sleep of the just,â Hannah said. âOr the just drugged, anyway. Claire. Radio.â

Oh. Sheâd forgotten about the backpack still slung over her shoulder. She quickly took out the last radio and handed it over, explaining what it was for. Richard nodded.

âI think this calls for a strategy meeting,â he said, and pulled up a chair next to the couch. Hannah and Claire took seats as well, but Eve stayed where she was, by Michael, as if she didnât want to leave him even for a moment.

Dean Wallace sat behind her desk, fingers steepled, watching with interested calm.

âI put in the code, right?â He was already doing it, so Claire just nodded. A signal bleeped to show he was logged on the network. âRichard Morrell, University, checking in.â

After a few seconds, a voice answered. âCheck, Richard, youâre the last station to report. Stand by for a bulletin.â

There were a few clicks, and then another voice came over the radio.

Â 

This is Oliver. I am broadcasting to all on the network with emergency orders. Restrain every vampire allied to us that you can find, by whatever means necessary. Locked rooms, chains, tranquilizers, cells, use what you have. Until we know how and why this is happening, we must take every precaution during the day. It seems that some of us have resistance to the call, and others have immunity, but this could change at any time. Be on your guard. From this point forward, we will conduct hourly calls, and each location will report status. University station, report.

Â 

Richard clicked the TALK button. âMichael Glass and all the other vampires in our group are being restrained. Weâve got student containment here, but it wonât last. Weâll have to open the gates no later than tomorrow morning, if we can keep it together until then. Even with the phone and Internet blackout, somebodyâs going to get word out.â

âWeâre following the plan,â Oliver said. âWeâre taking the cell towers down in ten minutes, until further notice. Phone lines are already cut. The only communication from this point forward will be strategic, using the radios. What else do you need?â

âWhip and a chair? Nothing. Weâre fine here for now. I donât think anybody will try a daylight assault, not with as many guards as we have here.â Richard hesitated, then keyed the mike again. âOliver, Iâve been hearing things. I think there are some factions out there forming. Human factions. Could complicate things.â

Oliver was silent for a moment, then said, âYes, I understand. Weâll deal with that as it arises.â

Oliver moved on to the next station on his list, which was the Glass House. Monica reported in, which was annoying. Claire resisted the urge to grind her teeth. It was a quick summary, at least, and as more Founder Houses reported in, the situation seemed the same: some vampires were responding to the homing signal, and some werenât. At least, not yet.

Richard Morrell was staring thoughtfully into the distance, and finally, when all the reports were finished, he clicked the button again. âOliver, itâs Richard. What happens if you start going zombie on us?â

âI wonât,â Oliver said.

âIf you do. Humor me. Who takes over?â

Oliver obviously didnât want to think about this, and Claire could hear the barely suppressed fury in his voice when he replied. âYou do,â he said. âI donât care how you organize it. If we have to hand the defense of Morganville over to mere humans, weâve already lost. Oliver signing out. Next check-in, one hour from now.â

The walkie-talkie clicked off.

âThat went well,â Dean Wallace observed. âHeâs named you heir apparent to the Apocalypse. Congratulations.â

âYeah, itâs one hell of a field promotion.â Richard stood up. âLetâs find a place for Michael.â

âWe have some storage areas in the basementâsteel doors, no windows. Thatâs where theyâll take the others.â

âThatâll do for now. I want to move him to the jail as soon as we can, centralize the containment.â

Claire looked at Eve, and then at Michaelâs sleeping face, and thought about him alone in a cellâbecause what else could you call it? Locked away like Myrnin.

Myrnin. She wondered if heâd felt this weird pull, too, and if he had, whether or not theyâd been able to stop him from taking off. Probably not, if heâd been determined to go running off. Myrnin was one of those unstoppable forces, and unless he met an immovable object . . .

She sighed and helped carry Michael down the hall, past the stunned bureaucrats, to his temporary holding cell.

Â 

Life went on, weirdly enoughâhuman life, anyway. People began to venture out, clean up the streets, retrieve things from burned and trashed houses. The police began to establish order again.

But there were things happening. People gathering in groups on street corners. Talking. Arguing.

Claire didnât like what she saw, and she could tell that Hannah and Eve didnât, either.

Hours passed. They cruised around for a while, and passed bulletins back to Oliver on the groups they saw. The largest one was almost a hundred people, forming up in the park. Some guy Claire didnât know had a loudspeaker.

âSal Manetti,â Hannah said. âAlways was a trouble-maker. I think he was one of Captain Obviousâs guys for a while, but they had a falling-out. Sal wanted a lot more killing and a lot less talking.â

That wasnât good. It really wasnât good how many people were out there listening to him.

Eve went back to Common Grounds to report in, and that was just when things started to go wrong.

Hannah was driving Claire back home, after dropping off a trunk full of blood bags from the university storage vaults, when the radio Claire had in her pocket began to chime for attention. She logged in with the code. As soon as she did, a blast of noise tumbled out of the speaker.

She thought she heard something about Oliver, but she wasnât sure. Her shouted questions werenât answered. It was as if someone had pressed the button by accident, in the middle of a fight, and everybody was too busy to answer.

Then the broadcast went dead.

Claire exchanged a look with Hannah. âBetterââ

âGo to Common Grounds? Yeah. Copy that.â

When they arrived, the first thing Claire saw was the broken glass. The shutters were up, and two front windows had been shattered out, not in; there were sprays of broken pieces all the way to the curb.

It seemed very, very quiet.

âEve?â Claire blurted, and bailed before Hannah could tell her to stay put. She hit the front door of the coffee shop at a run, but it didnât open, and she banged into it hard enough to bruise.

Locked.

âWill you wait?â Hannah snapped, and grabbed her arm as she tried to duck in through one of the broken windows. âYouâre going to get yourself cut. Hang on.â

She used the paintball gun she carried to break out some of the hanging sharp edges, and before Claire could dart ahead, she blocked the path and stepped over the low wooden sill. Claire followed. Hannah didnât try to stop her, probably because she knew better.

âOh man,â Hannah said. As Claire climbed in after her, she saw that most of the tables and chairs were overturned or shoved out of place. Broken crockery littered the floor.

And people were down, lying motionless among the wreckage. Hannah went from one to the other, quickly assessing their conditions. There were five down that Claire could see. Two of them made Hannah shake her head in regret; the other three were still alive, though wounded.

There were no vampires in the coffee bar, and there was no sign of Eve.

Claire ducked behind the curtain. More signs of a struggle. Nobody left behind, alive or dead. She sucked in a deep breath and opened up the giant commercial refrigerator.

It was full of blood bags, but no bodies.

âAnything?â Hannah asked at the curtain.

âNobody here,â Claire said. âThey left the blood, though.â

âHuh. Weird. Youâd think theyâd need that more than anything. Why attack the place if youâre not taking the good stuff?â Hannah stared out into the coffee shop, her expression blank and distant. âGlass is broken out, not in. No sign anybody got in the doors, either front or back. I donât think anybody attacked from the outside, Claire.â

With a black, heavy feeling gathering in her stomach, Claire swung the refrigerator door shut. âYou think the vampires fought to get out.â

âYeah. Yeah, I do.â

âOliver, too.â

âOliver, Myrnin, all of them. Whatever bat signal was calling them got turned up to eleven, I think.â

âThen whereâs Eve?â Claire asked.

Hannah shook her head. âWe donât know anything. Itâs all guesswork. Letâs get some boots on the ground and figure this thing out.â She continued to stare outside. âIf they went out there, most of them could make it for a while in the sun, but theyâd be hurt. Some couldnât make it far at all.â

Some, like the policeman Claire had seen burn up in front of her, would already be gone. âYou think itâs Mr. Bishop?â she asked, in a very small voice.

âI hope so.â

Claire blinked. âWhy?â

âBecause if itâs not, thatâs got to be a whole lot worse.â

8

Three hours later, they didnât know much more, except that nothing they tried to do to keep the vampires from leaving seemed to work, apart from tranquilizing them and locking them up in sturdy cells. Tracking those who did leave wasnât much good, either. Claire and Hannah ended up at the Glass House, which seemed like the best place to gatherâcentral to most things, and close to City Hall in an emergency.

Richard Morrell arrived, along with a few others, and set up shop in the kitchen. Claire was trying to figure out what to do to feed everybody, when there was another knock at the door.

It was Gramma Day. The old woman, straight-backed and proud, leaned on her cane and stared at Claire from age-faded eyes. âI ainât staying with my daughter,â she said. âI donât want any part of that.â

Claire quickly moved aside to let her in, and the old lady shuffled inside. As Claire locked the door behind her, she asked, âHow did you get here?â

âWalked,â Gramma said. âI know how to use my feet just fine. Nobody bothered me.â Nobody would dare, Claire thought. âYoung Mr. Richard! Are you in here?â

âMaâam?â Richard Morrell came out of the kitchen, looking very much younger than Claire had ever seen him. Gramma Day had that effect on people. âWhat are you doing here?â

âMy fool daughterâs off her head,â Gramma said. âIâm not having any of it. Move out of the way, boy. Iâm making you some lunch.â And she tapped her cane right past him, into the kitchen, and clucked and fretted over the state of the kitchen while Claire stood by, caught between giggles and horror. She was just a pair of hands, getting ordered around, but at the end of it there was a plate full of sandwiches and a big jug of iced tea, and everybody was seated around the kitchen table, except for Gramma, whoâd gone off into the other room to rest. Claire had hesitantly taken a chair, at Richardâs nod. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were also present, and they were gratefully scarfing down food and drink. Claire felt exhausted, but they looked a whole lot worse. Tall, thin Joe Hess had his left arm in a slingâbroken, apparently, from the brace on itâand both he and his rounder, heavier partner had cuts and bruises to prove theyâd been in a fight or two.

âSo,â Hess said, âany word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?â

âNot so far,â Richard said. âOnce we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us.â

âArenât they hurt by the sun?â Claire asked. âI meanââ

âThey start smoking, not in the Marlboro way, and then they start crisping,â Travis Lowe said around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss. âThe older ones, they can handle it okay, and anyway, theyâre not just charging out there anymore. Theyâre putting on hats and coats and blankets. I saw one wrapped up in a Sponge-Bob rug from some kidâs bedroom, if you can believe that. Itâs the younger vamps that are in trouble. Some of them wonât make it to the shade if theyâre not careful.â

Claire thought about Michael, and her stomach lurched. Before she even formed the question, Richard saw her expression and shook his head. âMichaelâs okay,â he said. âSaw to it myself. Heâs got himself a nice, secure jail cell, along with the other vampires we could catch before it was too late. Heâs not as strong as some of the others. He canât bend steel with his bare hands. Yet, anyway.â

âAny word onââ Claire was wearing out the question, and Richard didnât even let her finish it.

âNo sign of Eve,â he said. âNo word from her. Iâd try to put a GPS track on her phone, but weâd have to bring the cell network up, and thatâs too dangerous right now. Iâve asked the guys on the street to keep an eye out for her, but weâve got a lot of things going on, Claire.â

âI know. Butââ She couldnât put it into words, exactly. She just knew that somewhere, somehow, Eve was in trouble, and they needed to find her.

âSo,â Joe Hess said, and stood up to look at a blown-up map of Morganville taped to the wall. âThis still accurate?â The map was covered in colored dots: blue for locations held by those loyal to Amelie; red for those loyal to Bishop; black for those burned or otherwise put out of commission, which accounted for three Founder Houses, the hospital, and the blood bank.

âPretty much,â Richard said. âWe donât know if the vampires are leaving Bishopâs locations, but we know theyâre digging in, just like Amelieâs folks. We can verify locations only where Amelieâs people were supposed to be, and theyâre gone from just about every location weâve got up in blue.â

âWhere were they last seen?â

Richard consulted notes, and began to add yellow dots to the map. Claire saw the pattern almost immediately. âItâs the portals,â she said. âMyrnin got the portals working again, somehow. Thatâs what theyâre using.â

Hess and Lowe looked blank, but Richard nodded. âYeah, I know about that. Makes sense. But where are they going?â

She shrugged helplessly. âCould be anywhere. I donât know all the places the portals go; maybe Myrnin and Amelie do, but I donât think anybody else does.â But she felt unreasonably cheered by the idea that the vampires werenât out wandering out in the daylight, spontaneously combusting all over the place. She didnât want to see that happen to them . . . not even to Oliver.

Well, maybe to Oliver, sometimes. But not today.

The three men stared at her for a few seconds, then went back to studying the map, talking about perimeters and strategies for patrols, all kinds of things that Claire didnât figure really involved her. She finished her sandwich and walked into the living room, where tiny, wizened little Gramma Day was sitting in an overstuffed wing chair with her feet up, talking to Hannah. âHey, little girl,â Gramma Day said. âSit yourself.â

Claire perched, looking around the room. Most of the vampires were gone, either confined to cells or locked away for safety; some, they hadnât been able to stop. She couldnât seem to stop anxiously rubbing her hands together. Shane. Shane was supposed to be here. Richard Morrell had said that theyâd arranged for the Bloodmobile to switch drivers, and that meant Shane would be coming soon for his rest period.

She needed him right now.

Gramma Day was looking at her with distant sympathy in her faded eyes. âYou worried?â she asked, and smiled. âYou got cause, I expect.â

âI do?â Claire was surprised. Most adults tried to pretend it was all going to be okay.

âSure thing, sugar. Morganvilleâs been ruled by the vampires a long time, and they ainât always been the gentlest of folks. Been people hurt, people killed without reason. Builds up some resentment.â Gramma nodded toward the bookcase. âFetch me that red book right there, the one that starts with N.â

It was an encyclopedia. Claire got it and set it in her lap. Grammaâs weathered, sinewy fingers opened it and flipped pages, then handed it back. The heading said, New York Draft Riots, 1863.

The pictures showed chaosâmobs, buildings on fire. And worse things. Much, much worse.

âPeople forget,â Gramma said. âThey forget what can happen, if anger builds up. Those New York folks, they were angry because their men were being drafted to fight the Civil War. Who you think they took it out on? Mostly black folks, of all things. Folks who couldnât fight back. They even burned up an orphanage, and theyâd have killed every one of those children if theyâd caught them.â She shook her head, clicking her tongue in disgust. âSame thing happened in Tulsa in 1921. Called it the Greenwood Riot, said black folks were taking away their business and jobs. Back in France, they had a revolution where they took all those fancy aristocrat folks and cut their heads off. Maybe it was their fault, and maybe not. Itâs all the same thing: you get angry, you blame it on some folks, and you make them pay, guilty or not. Happens all the time.â

Claire felt a chill. âWhat do you mean?â

âI mean, you think about France, girl. Vampires been holding us all down a long time, just like those aristocrats, or thatâs how people around here think of it. Now, you think about all those folks out there with generations of grudges, and nobody really in charge right now. You think it wonât go bad on us?â

There werenât enough shudders in the world. Claire remembered Shaneâs father, the fanatical light in his eyes. Heâd be one of those leading a riot, she thought. One of those pulling people out of their houses as collaborators and turncoats and hanging them up from lampposts.

Hannah patted the shotgun in her lap. Sheâd put the paintball gun asideâhonestly, it wasnât much use now, with the vampires missing in action. âTheyâre not getting in here, Gramma. We wonât be having any Greenwood in Morganville.â

âI ainât so much worried about you and me,â Gramma said. âBut Iâd be worried for the Morrells. Theyâre gonna be coming for them, sooner or later. That familyâs the poster children for the old guard.â

Claire wondered if Richard knew that. She thought about Monica, too. Not that she liked MonicaâGod, noâbut still.

She thanked Gramma Day and walked back into the kitchen, where the policemen were still talking. âGramma Day thinks thereâs going to be trouble,â she said. âNot the vampires. Regular people, like those people in the park. Maybe Lisa Day, too. And she thinks you ought to look after your family, Richard.â

Richard nodded. âAlready done,â he said. âMy mom and dad are at City Hall. Monicaâs headed there, too.â He paused, thinking about it. âYouâre right. I should make sure she gets there all right, before she becomes another statistic.â His face had tightened, and there was a look in his eyes that didnât match the way he said it. He was worried.

Given what Claire had just heard from Gramma Day, she thought he probably ought to be. Joe Hess and Travis Lowe sent each other looks, too, and she thought they were probably thinking the same thing. She deserves it, Claire told herself. Whatever happens to Monica Morrell, she earned it.

Except the pictures from Gramma Dayâs book kept coming back to haunt her.

The front door banged shut, and she heard Hannahâs voiceânot an alarm, just a welcome. She spun around and went to the door of the kitchen . . . and ran directly into Shane, who grabbed her and folded his arms around her.

âYouâre here,â he said, and hugged her so tightly that she felt ribs creak. âMan, you donât make it easy, Claire. Iâve been freaking out all damn day. First I hear youâre off in the middle of Vamptown; then youâre running around like bait with Eveââ

âYouâre one to talk about bait,â Claire said, and pushed back to look up into his face. âYou okay?â

âNot a scratch,â he said, and grinned. âIronic, because Iâm usually the one with the battle scars, right? The worst thing that happened to me was that I had to pull over and let a bunch of vampires off the bus, or theyâd have ripped right through the walls. Youâd be proud. I even let them off in the shade.â His smile faded, but not the warmth in his eyes. âYou look tired.â

âYeah, you think?â She caught herself on a yawn. âSorry.â

âWe should get you home and catch some rest while we can.â He looked around. âWhereâs Eve?â

Nobody had told him. Claire opened her mouth and found her throat clenching tight around the words. Her eyes filled with tears. Sheâs gone, she wanted to say. Sheâs missing. Nobody knows where she is.

But saying it out loud, saying it to Shane, that would make it real, somehow.

âHey,â he said, and smoothed her hair. âHey, whatâs wrong? Where is she?â

âShe was at Common Grounds,â Claire finally choked out. âSheââ

His hands went still, and his eyes widened.

âSheâs missing,â Claire finally said, and a wave of utter misery broke over her. âSheâs out there somewhere. Thatâs all I know.â

âHer carâs outside.â

âWe drove it here.â Claire nodded at Hannah, whoâd come in behind Shane and was silently watching. He acknowledged her with a glance; that was all.

âOkay,â Shane said. âMichaelâs safe, youâre safe, Iâm safe. Now weâre going to go find Eve.â

Richard Morrell stirred. âThatâs not a good idea.â

Shane spun on him, and the look on his face was hard enough to scare a vampire. âWant to try and stop me, Dick?â

Richard stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the map. âYou want to go, go. Weâve got things to do. Thereâs a whole town of people out there to serve and protect. Eveâs one girl.â

âYeah, well, sheâs our girl,â Shane said. He took Claireâs hand. âLetâs go.â

Hannah leaned against the wall. âMind if I call shotgun?â

âSince youâre carrying one? Feel free.â

Â 

Outside, things were oddâquiet, but with a suppressed feeling of excitement in the air. People were still outside, talking in groups on the streets. The stores were shut down, for the most part, but Claire noticed with a stir of unease that the bars were open, and so was Morganvilleâs gun shop.

Not good.

The gates of the university had opened, and they were issuing some kind of passes to people to leaveâstill sticking to the emergency drill story, Claire assumed.

âOh, man,â Shane muttered, as they turned down one of the streets that led to the heart of town, and Founderâs SquareâVamptown. There were more people here, more groups. âI donât like this. Thereâs Sal Manetti up there. He was one of my dadâs drinking buddies, back in the day.â

âThe cops donât like it much, either,â Hannah said, and pointed at the police cars ahead. They were blocking off access at the end of the street, and when Claire squinted, she could see they were out of their cruisers and arranged in a line, ready for anything. âThis could turn bad, any time. All they need is somebody to strike a match out there, and weâre all on fire.â

Claire thought about Shane saying his father was coming to town, and she knew he was thinking about that, too. He shook his head. âWeâve got to figure out where Eve might be. Ideas?â

âMaybe she left us some clues,â Claire said. âBack at Common Grounds. We should probably start there.â

Common Grounds, however, was deserted, and the steel shutters were down. The front door was locked. They drove around back, to the alley. Nothing was there but trash cans, andâ

âWhat the hell is that?â Shane asked. He hit the brakes and put the car in park, then jumped out and picked up something small on the ground. He got back in and showed it to Claire.

It was a small white candy in the shape of a skull. Claire blinked at it, then looked down the alley. âShe left a trail of breath mints?â

âLooks like. Weâll have to go on foot to follow it.â

Hannah didnât seem to like that idea much, but Shane wasnât taking votes. They parked and locked Eveâs car in the alley behind Common Grounds and began hunting for skull candies.

âOver here!â Hannah yelled, at the end of the alley. âLooks like sheâs dropping them when she makes a turn. Smart. She went this way.â

After that, they went faster. The skull candies were in plain sight, easy to spot. Claire noticed that they were mostly in the shadows, which would have made sense, if Eve was with Myrnin or the other vampires. Why didnât she stay? Maybe she hadnât had a choice.

They ran out of candy trail after a few blocks. It led them into an area where Claire hadnât really been beforeâabandoned old buildings, mostly, falling to pieces under the relentless pressure of years and sun. It looked and felt deserted.

âWhere now?â Claire asked, looking around. She didnât see anything obvious, but then she spotted something shiny, tucked in behind a tipped-over rusty trash can. She reached behind and came up with a black leather collar, studded with silver spikes.

The same collar Eve had been wearing. She wordlessly showed it to Shane, who turned in a slow circle, looking at the blank buildings. âCome on, Eve,â he said. âGive us something. Anything.â He froze. âYou hear that?â

Hannah cocked her head. She was standing at the end of the alley, shotgun held in her arms in a way that was both casual and scarily competent. âWhat?â

âYou donât hear it?â

Claire did. Somebodyâs phone was ringing. A cell phone, with an ultrasonic ringtoneâsheâd heard that older people couldnât hear those frequencies, and kids in school had used them all the time to sneak phone calls and texts in class. It was faint, but it was definitely there. âI thought the networks were down,â she said, and pulled her own phone out.

Nope. The network was back up. She wondered if Richard had done it, or theyâd lost control of the cell phone towers. Either one was possible.

They found the phone before the ringing stopped. It was Eveâsâa red phone, with silver skull cell phone charms on itâdiscarded in the shadow of a broken, leaning doorway. âWho was calling?â Claire asked, and Shane paged through the menu.

âRichard,â he said. âI guess he really was looking for her after all.â

Claireâs phone buzzedâjust once. A text message. She opened it and checked.

It was from Eve, and it had been sent hours ago; the backlog of messages was just now being delivered, apparently.

It read, 911 @ GERMANS. Claire showed it to Shane. âWhat is this?â

âNine one one. Emergency message. Germanâsââ He looked over at Hannah, who pushed away from the wall and came toward them.

âGermanâs Tire Plant,â she said. âDamn, I donât like that; itâs the size of a couple of football fields, at least.â

âWe should let Richard know,â Claire said. She dialed, but the network was busy, and then the bars failed again.

âIâm not waiting,â Shane said. âLetâs get the car.â

9

The tire plant was near the old hospital, which made Claire shudder; she remembered the deserted building way too well. It had been incredibly creepy, and then of course it had also nearly gotten her and Shane killed, too, so again, not fond.

She was mildly shocked to see the hulking old edifice still standing, as Shane turned the car down the street.

âDidnât they tear that place down?â It had been scheduled for demolition, and boy, if any place had ever needed it . . .

âI heard it was delayed,â Shane said. He didnât seem any happier about it than Claire was. âSomething about historic preservation. Although anybody wanting to preserve that thing has never been inside it running for their life, Iâll bet.â

Claire stared out the window. On her side of the car was the brooding monstrosity of a hospital. The cracked stones and tilted columns in front made it look like something straight out of one of Shaneâs favorite zombie-killing video games. âDonât be hiding in there,â she whispered. âPlease donât be hiding in there.â Because if Eve and Myrnin had taken refuge there, she wasnât sure sheâd have the courage to go charging in after them.

âThereâs Germanâs,â Hannah said, and nodded toward the other side of the street. Claire hadnât really noticed it the last time sheâd been out hereâpreoccupied with the whole not-dying issueâbut there it was, a four-story square building in that faded tan color that everybody had used back in the sixties. Even the windowsâthose that werenât broken outâwere painted over. It was plain, big, and blocky, and there was absolutely nothing special about it except its sizeâit covered at least three city blocks, all blind windows and blank concrete.

âYou ever been inside there?â Shane asked Hannah, who was studying the building carefully.

âNot for a whole lot of years,â she said. âYeah, we used to hide up in there sometimes, when we cut class or something. I guess everybody did, once in a while. Itâs a mess in there, a real junkyard. Stuff everywhere, walls falling apart, ceilings none too stable, either. If you go up to the second level, you watch yourself. Make sure you donât trust the floors, and watch those iron stairs. They were shaky even back then.â

âAre we going in there?â Claire asked.

âNo,â Shane said. âYouâre not going anywhere. Youâre staying here and getting Richard on the phone and telling him where we are. Me and Hannah will check it out.â

There didnât seem to be much room for argument, because Shane didnât give her time; he and Hannah bailed out of the car, made lock-the-door motions, and sprinted toward a gap in the rusted, sagging fence.

Claire watched until they disappeared around the corner of the building, and realized her fingers were going numb from clutching her cell phone. She took a deep breath and flipped it open to try Richard Morrell again.

Nothing. No signal again. The network was going up and down like a yo-yo.

The walkie-talkie signal was low, but she tried it anyway. There was some kind of response, but it was swallowed by static. She gave their position, on the off chance that someone on the network would be able to hear her over the noise.

She screamed and dropped the device when the light at the car window was suddenly blocked out, and someone battered frantically on the glass.

Claire recognized the silk shirtâher silk shirtâbefore she recognized Monica Morrell, because Monica definitely didnât look like herself. She was out of breath, sweating, her hair was tangled, and what makeup she had on was smeared and running.

Sheâd been crying. There was a cut on her right cheek, and a forming bruise, and dirt on the silk blouse as well as bloodstains. She was holding her left arm as though it was hurt.

âOpen the door!â she screamed, and pounded on the glass again. âLet me in!â

Claire looked behind the car.

There was a mob coming down the street: thirty, forty people, some running, some following at a walk. Some were waving baseball bats, boards, pipes.

They saw Monica and let out a yell. Claire gasped, because that sound didnât seem human at allâmore the roar of a beast, something mindless and hungry.

Monicaâs expression was, for the first time, absolutely open and vulnerable. She put her palm flat against the window glass. âPlease help me,â she said.

But even as Claire clawed at the lock to open it, Monica flinched, turned, and ran on, limping.

Claire slid over the front seat and dropped into the driverâs seat. Shane had left the keys in the ignition. She started it up and put the big car in gear, gave it too much gas, and nearly wrecked it on the curb before she straightened the wheel. She rapidly gained on Monica. She passed her, squealed to a stop, and reached over to throw open the passenger door.

âGet in!â she yelled. Monica slid inside and banged the door shut, and Claire hit the gas as something impacted loudly against the back of the carâa brick, maybe. A hail of smaller stones hit a second later. Claire swerved wildly again, then straightened the wheel and got the car moving more smoothly. Her heart pounded hard, and her hands felt sweaty on the steering wheel. âYou all right?â

Monica was panting, and she threw Claire a filthy look. âNo, of course Iâm not all right!â she snapped, and tried to fix her hair with trembling hands. âUnbelievable. What a stupid question. I guess I shouldnât expect much more from someone like you, thoughââ

Claire stopped the car and stared at her.

Monica shut up.

âHereâs how this is going to go,â Claire said. âYouâre going to act like an actual human being for a change, or else youâre on your own. Clear?â

Monica glanced behind them. âTheyâre coming!â

âYes, they are. So, are we clear?â

âOkay, okay, yes! Fine, whatever!â Monica cast a clearly terrified look at the approaching mob. More stones peppered the paint job, and one hit the back glass with enough force to make Claire wince. âGet me out of here! Please!â

âHold on, Iâm not a very good driver.â

That was kind of an understatement. Eveâs car was huge and heavy and had a mind of its own, and Claire hadnât taken the time to readjust the bench seat to make it possible for her to reach the pedals easily. The only good thing about her driving, as they pulled away from the mob and the falling bricks, was that it was approximately straight, and pretty fast.

She scraped the curb only twice.

Once the fittest of their pursuers had fallen behind, obviously discouraged, Claire finally remembered to breathe, and pulled the car around the next right turn. This section of town seemed deserted, but then, so had the other street, before Monica and her fan club had shown up. The big, imposing hulk of the tire plant glided by on the passenger sideâit seemed like miles of featureless brick and blank windows.

Claire braked the car on the other side of the street, in front of a deserted, rusting warehouse complex. âCome on,â she said.

âWhat?â Monica watched her get out of the car and take the keys with uncomprehending shock. âWhere are you going? We have to get out of here! They were going to kill me!â

âThey probably still are,â Claire said. âSo you should probably get out of the car now, unless you want to wait around for them.â

Monica said something Claire pretended not to hearâit wasnât exactly complimentaryâand limped her way out of the passenger side. Claire locked the car. She hoped it wouldnât get banged up, but that mob had looked pretty excitable, and just the fact that Monica had been in it might be enough to ensure its destruction.

With any luck, though, theyâd assume the girls had run into the warehouse complex, which was what Claire wanted.

Claire led them in the opposite direction, to the fence around Germanâs Tire. There was a split in the wire by one of the posts, an ancient curling gap half hidden by a tangle of tumbleweeds. She pushed through and held the steel aside for Monica. âComing?â she asked when Monica hesitated. âBecause, you know what? Donât really care all that much. Just so you know.â

Monica came through without any comment. The fence snapped back into place. Unless someone was looking for an entrance, it ought to do.

The plant threw a large, black shadow on the weed-choked parking lot. There were a few rusted-out trucks still parked here and there; Claire used them for cover from the street as they approached the main building, though she didnât think the mob was close enough to really spot them at this point. Monica seemed to get the point without much in the way of instruction; Claire supposed that running for her life had humbled her a little. Maybe.

âWait,â Monica said, as Claire prepared to bolt for a broken-out bottom-floor window into the tire plant. âWhat are you doing?â

âLooking for my friends,â she said. âTheyâre inside.â

âWell, Iâm not going in there,â Monica declared, and tried to look haughty. It would have been more effective if she hadnât been so frazzled and sweaty. âI was on my way to City Hall, but those losers got in my way. They slashed my tires. I need to get to my parents.ââ She said it as though she expected Claire to salute and hop like a toad.

Claire raised her eyebrows. âBetter start walking, I guess. Itâs kind of a long way.â

âButâbutââ

Claire didnât wait for the sputtering to die; she turned and ran for the building. The window opened into total darkness, as far as she could tell, but at least it was accessible. She pulled herself up on the sash and started to swing her legs inside.

âWait!â Monica dashed across to join her. âYou canât leave me here alone! You saw those jerks out there!â

âAbsolutely.â

âOh, youâre just loving this, arenât you?â

âKinda.â Claire hopped down inside the building, and her shoes slapped bare concrete floor. It was bare except for a layer of dirt, anywayâundisturbed for as far as the light penetrated, which wasnât very far. âComing?â

Monica stared through the window at her, just boiling with fury; Claire smiled at her and started to walk into the dark.

Monica, cursing, climbed inside.

Â 

âIâm not a bad person,â Monica was sayingâwhining, actually. Claire wished she could find a two-by-four to whack her with, but the tire plant, although full of wreckage and trash, didnât seem to be big on wooden planks. Some nice pipes, though. She might use one of those.

Except she really didnât want to hit anybody, deep down. Claire supposed that was a character flaw, or something.

âYes, you really are a bad person,â she told Monica, and ducked underneath a low-hanging loop of wire that looked horror-movie ready, the sort of thing that dropped around your neck and hauled you up to be dispatched by the psycho-killer villain. Speaking of which, this whole place was decorated in Early Psycho-Killer Villain, from the vast soaring darkness overhead to the lumpy, skeletal shapes of rusting equipment and abandoned junk. The spray paintingâdecades of it, in layered styles from Early Tagger to cutting-edge gang signâgleamed in the random shafts of light like blood. Some particularly unpleasant spray-paint artist had done an enormous, terrifying clown face, with windows for the eyes and a giant, open doorway for a mouth. Yeah, really not going in there, Claire thought. Although the way these things went, she probably would have to.

âWhy do you say that?â

âSay what?â Claire asked absently. She was listening for any sound of movement, but this place was enormous and confusingâjust as Hannah had warned.

âSay that Iâm a bad person!â

âOh, I donât knowâyou tried to kill me? And get me raped at a party? Not to mentionââ

âThat was payback,â Monica said. âAnd I didnât mean it or anything.â

âWhich makes it all so much better. Look, can we not bond? Iâm busy. Seriously. Shhhh.â That last was to forestall Monica from blurting out yet another injured defense of her character. Claire squeezed past a barricade of piled-up boxes and metal, into another shaft of light that arrowed down from a high-up broken window. The clown painting felt like it was watching her, which was beyond creepy. She tried not to look too closely at what was on the floor. Some of it was animal carcasses, birds, and things that had gotten inside and died over the years. Some of it was old cans, plastic wrappers, all kinds of junk left behind by adventurous kids looking for a hideout. She didnât imagine any of them stayed for long.

This place just felt . . . haunted.

Monicaâs hand grabbed her arm, just on the bruise that Amelieâs grip had given her earlier. Claire winced.

âDid you hear that?â Monicaâs whisper was fierce and hushed. She needed mouthwash, and she smelled like sweat more than powder and perfume. âOh my God. Somethingâs in here with us!â

âCould be a vampire,â Claire said. Monica sniffed.

âNot afraid of those,â she said, and dangled her fancy, silver Protection bracelet in front of Claireâs face. âNobodyâs going to cross Oliver.â

âYou want to tell that to the mob of people chasing you back there? I donât think they got the memo or something.â

âI mean, no vampire would. Iâm Protected.â Monica said it like there was simply no possibility anything else could be true. The earth was round, the sun was hot, and a vampire would never hurt her because sheâd sold herself to Oliver, body and soul.

Yeah, right.

âNews flash,â Claire whispered. âOliverâs missing in action from Common Grounds. Amelieâs disappeared. In fact, most of the vampires all over town have dropped out of sight, which makes these bracelets cute fashion accessories, but not exactly bulletproof vests or anything.â

Monica started to speak, but Claire frowned angrily at her and pointed off into the darkness, where sheâd heard the noise. It had sounded oddâkind of a sigh, echoing from the steel and concrete, bouncing and amplifying.

It sounded as if it had come out of the clownâs dark mouth.

Of course.

Claire reached into her pocket. She still had the vial of silver powder that Amelie had given her, but she was well aware that it might not do her any good. If her friend-vampires were mixed in with enemy-vamps, she was out of luck. Likewise, if what was waiting for her out there was trouble of a human variety, instead of bloodsuckers . . .

Shane and Hannah were in here. Somewhere. And soâhopefullyâwas Eve.

Claire eased around a tattered sofa that smelled like old cats and mold, and sidestepped a truly impressive rat that didnât bother to move out of her way. It sat there watching her with weird, alert eyes.

Monica looked down, saw it, and shrieked, stumbling backward. She fell into a stack of ancient cartons that collapsed on her, raining down random junk. Claire grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, but Monica kept on whimpering and squirming, slapping at her hair and upper body.

âOh my God, are they on me? Spiders? Are there spiders?â

If there were, Claire hoped they bit her. âNo,â she said shortly. Well, there were, but they were little ones. She brushed them off Monicaâs back. âShut up already!â

âAre you kidding me? Did you see that rat? It was the size of freaking Godzilla!â

That was it, Claire decided. Monica could just wander around on her own, screaming about rats and spiders, until someone came and ate her. What. Ever.

She got only about ten feet away when Monicaâs very small whisper stopped her dead in her tracks.

âPlease donât leave me.â That didnât sound like Monica, not at all. It sounded scared, and very young. âClaire, please.â

It was probably too late for being quiet, anyway, and if there were vampires hiding in Germanâs Tire Plant, they all knew exactly where they were, and for that matter, could tell what blood type they were. So stealth didnât seem a priority.

Claire cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, very loudly, âShane! Eve! Hannah! Anybody!â

The echoes woke invisible birds or bats high overhead, which flapped madly around; her voice rang from every flat surface, mocking Claire with her own ghost.

In the whispering silence afterward, Monica murmured, âWow, I thought we were being subtle or something. My mistake.â

Claire was about to hiss something really unpleasant at her, but froze as another voice came bouncing through the vast roomâShaneâs voice. âClaire?â

âHere!â

âStay there! And shut up!â

He sounded frantic enough to make Claire wish sheâd stuck with the whole quiet-time policy, and then Monica stopped breathing and went very, very still next to her. Her hands closed around Claireâs arm, squeezing bruises again.

Claire froze, too, because something was coming out of the mouth of that painted clownâsomething white, ghostly, drifting like smoke. . . .

It had a face. Several faces, because it was a group of what looked like vampires, all very pale, all very quiet, all heading their way.

Staying put was not such a great plan, Claire decided. She was going to go with run away.

Which, grabbing Monicaâs wrist, she did.

The vampires did make sounds then, as their quarry started to fleeâlittle whispering laughs, strange hisses, all kinds of creepy noises that made the skin on the back of Claireâs neck tighten up. She held the glass vial in one hand, running faster, leaping over junk when she could see it coming and stumbling across it when she couldnât. Monica kept up, somehow, although Claire could hear the tortured, steady moaning of her breath. Whatever sheâd done to her right leg must have hurt pretty badly.

Something pale landed ahead of her, with a silent leap like a spider pouncing. Claire had a wild impression of a white face, red eyes, a wide-open mouth, and gleaming fangs. She drew back to throw the vial . . . and realized it was Myrnin facing her.

The hesitation cost her. Something hit her from the back, sending her stumbling forward across a fallen iron beam. She dropped the vial as she fell, trying to catch herself, and heard the glass break on the edge of the girder. Silver dust puffed out. Monica shrieked, a wild cry that made the birds panic again high up in heaven; Claire saw her stumble away, trying to put distance between herself and Myrnin.

Myrnin was just outside of the range of the drifting silver powder, but it wasnât Myrnin who was the problem. The other vampires, the ones whoâd come out of the clownâs mouth, leaped over stacks of trash, running for the smell of fresh, flowing blood.

They were coming up behind them, fast.

Claire raked her hand across the ground and came up with a palm full of silver powder and glass shards as she rolled up to her knees. She turned and threw the powder into the air between her, Monica, and the rest of the vampires. It dispersed into a fine, glittering mist, and when the vampires hit it, every tiny grain of silver caught fire.

It was beautiful, and horrible, and Claire flinched at the sound of their cries. There was so much silver, and it clung to their skin, eating in. Claire didnât know if it would kill them, but it definitely stopped them cold.

She grabbed Monicaâs arm and pulled her close.

Myrnin was still in front of them, crouched on top of a stack of wooden pallets. He didnât look at all human, not at all.

And then he blinked, and the red light went out in his eyes. His fangs folded neatly backward, and he ran his tongue over pale lips before he said, puzzled, âClaire?â

She felt a sense of relief so strong it was like falling. âYeah, itâs me.â

âOh.â He slithered down off the stacked wood, and she realized he was still dressed the way sheâd seen him back at Common Groundsâa long, black velvet coat, no shirt, white pantaloons left over from his costume. He should have looked ridiculous, but somehow, he looked . . . right. âYou shouldnât be here, Claire. Itâs very dangerous.â

âI knowââ

Something cold brushed the back of her neck, and she heard Monica make a muffled sound like a choked cry. Claire whirled and found herself face-to-face with a red-eyed, angry vampire with part of his skin still smoking from the silver sheâd thrown.

Myrnin let out a roar that ripped the air, full of menace and fury, and the vampire stumbled backward, clearly shocked.

Then the five whoâd chased them silently withdrew into the darkness.

Claire turned to face Myrnin. He was staring thoughtfully at the departing vamps.

âThanks,â she said. He shrugged.

âI was raised to believe in the concept of noblesse oblige,â he said. âAnd I do owe you, you know. Do you have any more of my medication?â

She handed him her last dose of the drug that kept him saneâmostly sane, anyway. It was the older version, red crystals rather than clear liquid, and he poured out a dollop into his palm and licked the crystals up, then sighed in deep satisfaction.

âMuch better,â he said, and pocketed the rest of the bottle. âNow. Why are you here?â

Claire licked her lips. She could hear Shaneâor someoneâcoming toward them through the darkness, and she saw someone in the shadows behind Myrnin. Not vampires, she thought, so it was probably Hannah, flanking Shane. âWeâre looking for my friend Eve. You remember her, right?â

âEve,â Myrnin repeated, and slowly smiled. âAh. The girl who followed me. Yes, of course.â

Claire felt a flush of excitement, quickly damped by dread. âWhat happened to her?â

âNothing. Sheâs asleep,â he said. âIt was too dangerous out here for her. I put her in a safe place, for now.â

Shane pushed through the last of the barriers and stepped into a shaft of light about fifty feet away. He paused at the sight of Myrnin, but he didnât look alarmed.

âThis is your friend as well,â Myrnin said, glancing back at Shane. âThe one you care so much for.â Sheâd never discussed Shane with Myrninânot in detail, anyway. The question must have shown in her face, because his smile broadened. âYou carry his scent on your clothes,â he said. âAnd he carries yours.â

âEwww,â Monica sighed.

Myrninâs eyes focused in on her like laser sights. âAnd who is this lovely child?â

Claire almost rolled her eyes. âMonica. The mayorâs daughter.â

âMonica Morrell.â She offered her hand, which Myrnin accepted and bent over in an old-fashioned way. Claire assumed he was also inspecting the bracelet on her wrist.

âOliverâs,â he said, straightening. âI see. I am charmed, my dear, simply charmed.â He hadnât let go of her hand. âI donât suppose you would be willing to donate a pint for a poor, starving stranger?â

Monicaâs smile froze in place. âIâwell, Iââ

He pulled her into his arms with one quick jerk. Monica yelped and tried to pull away, but for all his relatively small size, Myrnin had strength to burn.

Claire pulled in a deep breath. âMyrnin. Please.â

He looked annoyed. âPlease what?â

âSheâs not free range or anything. You canât just munch her. Let go.â He didnât look convinced. âSeriously. Let go.â

âFine.â He opened his arms, and Monica retreated as she clapped both hands around her neck. She sat down on a nearby girder, breathing hard. âYou know, in my youth, women lined up to grant me their favors. I believe Iâm a bit offended.â

âItâs a strange day for everybody,â Claire said. âShane, Hannah, this is Myrnin. Heâs sort of my boss.â

Shane moved closer, but his expression stayed cool and distant. âYeah? This the guy who took you to the ball? The one who dumped you and left you to die?â

âWell . . . uh . . . yes.â

âThought so.â

Shane punched him right in the face. Myrnin, surprised, stumbled back against the tower of crates, and snarled; Shane took a stake from his back pocket and held it at the ready.

âNo!â Claire jumped between them, waving her hands. âNo, honest, itâs not like that. Calm down, everybody, please.â

âYes,â Myrnin said. âIâve been staked quite enough today, thank you. I respect your need to avenge her, boy, but Claire remains quite capable of defending her own honor.â

âCouldnât have said it better myself,â she said. âPlease, Shane. Donât. We need him.â

âYeah? Why?â

âBecause he may know whatâs going on with the vampires.â

âOh, that,â Myrnin said, in a tone that implied they were all idiots for not knowing already. âTheyâre being called. Itâs a signal that draws all vampires who have sworn allegiance to you with a blood exchangeâitâs the way wars were fought, once upon a time. Itâs how you gather your army.â

âOh,â Claire said. âSo . . . why not you? Or the rest of the vampires here?â

âIt seems as though your serum offers me some portion of immunity against it. Oh, I feel the draw, most certainly, but in an entirely academic way. Rather curious. I remember how it felt before, like an overwhelming panic. As for those others, well. Theyâre not of the blood.â

âTheyâre not?â

âNo. Lesser creatures. Failed experiments, if you will.â He looked away, and Claire had a horrible suspicion.

âAre they people? I mean, regular humans?â

âA failed experiment,â he repeated. âYouâre a scientist, Claire. Not all experiments work the way theyâre intended.â

Myrnin had done this to them, in his search for the cure to the vampire disease. He had turned them into something that wasnât vampire, wasnât human, wasnâtâwell, wasnât anything, exactly. They didnât fit in either society.

No wonder they were hiding here.

âDonât look at me that way,â Myrnin said. âItâs not my fault the process was imperfect, you know. Iâm not a monster.â

Claire shook her head.

âSometimes, you really are.â

Â 

Eve was fineâtired, shaking, and tear streaked, but okay. âHe didnât, you know,â she said, and made two-finger pointy motions toward her throat. âHeâs kind of sweet, actually, once you get past all the crazy. Although thereâs a lot of the crazy.â

There was, as Claire well knew, no way of getting past the crazy. Not really. But she had to admit that at least Myrnin had behaved more like a gentleman than expected.

Noblesse oblige. Maybe heâd felt obligated.

The place heâd kept Eve had once been some kind of storage locker within the plant, all solid walls and a single door that heâd locked off with a bent pipe. Shane hadnât been all that happy about it. âWhat if something had happened to you?â heâd asked, as Myrnin untwisted the metal as though it were solder instead of iron. âSheâd have been locked in there, all alone, no way out. Sheâd have starved.â

âActually,â Myrnin had answered, âthatâs not very likely. Thirst would have killed her within four days, I imagine. Sheâd never have had a chance to starve.â Claire stared at him. He raised his eyebrows. âWhat?â

She just shook her head. âI think you missed the point.â

Monica tagged along with Claire, which was annoying; she kept casting Shane nervous glances, and she was now outright terrified of Myrnin, which was probably how it should have been, really. At the very least, sheâd shut up, and even the sight of another rat, this one big and kind of albino, hadnât set off her screams this time.

Eve, however, was less than thrilled to see Monica. âYouâre kidding,â she said flatly, staring first at her, then at Shane. âYouâre okay with this?â

âOkay would be a stretch. Resigned, thatâs closer,â Shane said. Hannah, standing next to him with her shotgun at port arms, snorted out a laugh. âAs long as she doesnât talk, I can pretend she isnât here.â

âYeah? Well I canât,â Eve said. She glared at Monica, who glared right back. âClaire, you have to stop picking up strays. You donât know where theyâve been.â

âYouâre one to talk about diseases,â Monica shot back, âseeing as how youâre one big, walking social one.â

âThatâs not pot, kettleâthatâs more like cauldron, kettle. Witch.â

âWhore!â

âYou want to go play with your new friends back there?â Shane snapped. âThe really pale ones with the taste for plasma? Because believe me, Iâll drop your skanky butt right in their nest if you donât shut up, Monica.â

âYou donât scare me, Collins!â

Hannah rolled her eyes and racked her shotgun. âHow about me?â

That ended the entire argument.

Myrnin, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, watched the proceedings with great interest. âYour friends,â he said to Claire. âTheyâre quite . . . colorful. So full of energy.â

âHands off my friends.â Not that that statement exactly included Monica, but whatever.

âOh, absolutely. I would never.â Hand to his heart, Myrnin managed to look angelic, which was a bit of a trick considering his Lord-Byron-on-a-bender outfit. âIâve just been away from normal human society for so long. Tell me, is it usually this . . . spirited?â

âNot usually,â she sighed. âMonicaâs special.â Yeah, in the short-bus sense, because Monica was a head case. Not that Claire had time or inclination to explain all the dynamics of the Monica-Shane-Eve relationship to Myrnin right now. âWhen you said that someone was calling the vampires together for some kind of fightâwas that Bishop?â

âBishop?â Myrnin looked startled. âNo, of course not. Itâs Amelie. Amelie is sending the call. Sheâs consolidating her forces, putting up lines of defense. Things are rapidly moving toward a confrontation, I believe.â

That was exactly what Claire was afraid he was going to say. âDo you know who answered?â

âAnyone in Morganville with a blood tie to her,â he said. âExcept me, of course. But that would include almost every vampire in town, save those who were sworn through Oliver. Even then, Oliverâs tie would bind them in some sense, because he swore fealty to her when he came to live here. They might feel the pull less strongly, but they would still feel it.â

âThen how is Bishop getting an army? Isnât everybody in town, you know, Amelieâs?â

âHe bit those he wished to keep on his side.â Myrnin shrugged. âClaimed them from her, in a sense. Some of them went willingly, some not, but all owe him allegiance now. All those he was able to turn, which is a considerable number, I believe.â He looked sharply at her. âThe call continued in the daytime. Michael?â

âMichaelâs fine. They put him in a cell.â

âAnd Sam?â

Claire shook her head in response. Next to Michael, his grandfather Sam was the youngest vampire in town, and Claire hadnât seen him at all, not since heâd left the Glass House, well before any of the other vamps. Heâd gone off on some mission for Amelie; she trusted him more than most of the others, even those sheâd known for hundreds of years. That was, Claire thought, because Amelie knew how Sam felt about her. It was the storybook kind of love, the kind that ignored things like practicality and danger, and never changed or died.

She found herself looking at Shane. He turned his head and smiled back.

The storybook kind of love.

She was probably too young to have that, but this felt so strong, so real. . . .

And Shane wouldnât even man up and tell her he loved her.

She took a deep breath and forced her mind off that. âWhat do we do now?â Claire asked. âMyrnin?â

He was silent for a long moment, then moved to one of the painted-over first-floor windows and pulled it open. The sun was setting again. It would be down completely soon.

âYou should get home,â he said. âThe humans are in charge for now, at least, but there are factions out there. There will be power struggles tonight, and not just between the two vampire sides.â

Shane glanced at Monicaâwhose bruises were living proof that trouble was already under wayâand then back at Myrnin. âWhat are you going to do?â

âStay here,â Myrnin said. âWith my friends.â

âFriends? Who, theâuhâfailed experiments?â

âExactly so.â Myrnin shrugged. âThey look upon me as a kind of father figure. Besides, their blood is as good as anyone elseâs, in a pinch.â

âSo much more than I wanted to know,â Shane said, and nodded to Hannah. âLetâs go.â

âGot your back, Shane.â

âWatch Claireâs and Eveâs. Iâll take the lead.â

âWhat about me?â Monica whined.

âDo you really want to know?â Shane gave her a glare that should have scorched her hair off. âBe grateful Iâm not leaving you as an after-dinner mint on his pillow.â

Myrnin leaned close to Claireâs ear and said, âI think I like your young man.â When she reacted in pure confusion, he held up his hands, smiling. âNot in that way, my dear. He just seems quite trustworthy.â

She swallowed and put all that aside. âAre you going to be okay here? Really?â

âReally?â He locked gazes with her. âFor now, yes. But we have work to do, Claire. Much work, and very little time. I canât hide for long. You do realize that stress accelerates the disease, and this is a great deal of stress for us all. More will fall ill, become confused. Itâs vital we begin work on the serum as quickly as possible.â

âIâll try to get you back to the lab tomorrow.â

They left him standing in a fading shaft of sunlight, next to a giant rusting crane that lifted its head three stories into the dark, with pale birds flitting and diving overhead.

And wounded, angry failed experiments lurking in the shadows, maybe waiting to attack their vampire creator.

Claire felt sorry for them, if they did.

Â 

The mobs were gone, but theyâd given Eveâs car a good battering while they were at it. She choked when she saw the dents and cracked glass, but at least it was still on all four tires, and the damage was cosmetic. The engine started right up.

âPoor baby,â Eve said, and patted the big steering wheel affectionately as she settled into the driverâs seat. âWeâll get you all fixed up. Right, Hannah?â

âAnd here I was wondering what I was going to do tomorrow,â Hannah said, takingâof courseâthe shotgun seat. âGuess now I know. Iâll be hammering dents out of the Queen Mary and putting in new safety glass.â

In the backseat, Claire was the human equivalent of Switzerland between the warring nations of Shane and Monica, who sat next to the windows. It was tense, but nobody spoke.

The sun was going down in a blaze of glory in the west, which normally would have made Morganville a vampire-friendly place. Not so much tonight, as became evident when Eve left the dilapidated warehouse district and cruised closer to Vamptown.

There were people out on the streets, at sunset.

And they were angry, too.

âShouty,â Eve said, as they passed a big group clustered around a guy standing on a wooden box, yelling at the crowd. He had a pile of wooden stakes, and people were picking them up. âOkay, this is looking less than great.â

âYou think?â Monica slumped down in her seat, trying not to be noticed. âThey tried to kill me! And Iâm not even a vampire!â

âYeah, but youâre you, so thereâs that explained.â Eve slowed down. âTraffic.â

Traffic? In Morganville? Claire leaned forward and saw that there were about six cars in the street ahead. The first one was turned sideways, blocking the secondâa big van, which was trying to back up but was handicapped by the third car.

The trapped passenger van was vampire-dark. The two cars blocking it in were old, battered sedans, the kind humans drove.

âThatâs Lex Perryâs car, the one turned sideways,â Hannah said. âI think thatâs the Nunally brothers in the third one. Theyâre drinking buddies with Sal Manetti.â

âSal, as in, the guy out there rabble-rousing?â

âYou got it.â

And now people were closing in around the van, pushing against it, rocking it on its tires.

Nobody in their car spoke a word.

The van rocked harder. The tires spun, trying to pull away, but it tipped and slammed over on its side, helpless. With a roar, the crowd climbed on top of it and started battering the windows.

âWe should do something,â Claire finally said.

âYeah?â Hannahâs voice was very soft. âWhat, exactly?â

âCall the police?â Only the police were already here. There were two cars of them, and they couldnât stop what was happening. In fact, they didnât even look inclined to try.

âLetâs go,â Shane said quietly. âThereâs nothing we can do here.â

Eve silently put the car in reverse and burned rubber backing up.

Claire broke out of her trance. âWhat are you doing? We canât just leaveââ

âTake a good look,â Eve said grimly. âIf anybody out there sees Princess Morrell in this car, weâve all had it. Weâre all collaborators if weâre protecting her, and youâre wearing the Founder bracelet. We canât risk it.â

Claire sank back in her seat as Eve shifted gears again and turned the wheel. They took a different street, this one unblocked so far.

âWhatâs happening?â Monica asked. âWhatâs happening to our town?â

âFrance,â Claire said, thinking about Gramma Day. âWelcome to the revolution.â

Eve drove through a maze of streets. Lights were flickering on in houses, and the few streetlamps were coming on as well. Carsâand there were a lot of them out nowâturned on their headlights and honked, as if the local high school had just won a big football game.

As if it were one big, loud party.

âI want to go home,â Monica said. Her voice sounded muffled. âPlease.â

Eve looked at her in the rearview mirror, and finally nodded.

But when they turned down the street where the Morrell family home was located, Eve slammed on the brakes and put the car into reverse, instantly.

The Morrell home looked like the site of another of Monicaâs infamous, unsupervised parties . . . only this one really was unsupervised, and those uninvited guests, they werenât just there for the free booze.

âWhat are they doing?â Monica asked, and let out a strangled yell as a couple of guys carried a big plasma television out the front door. âTheyâre stealing it! Theyâre stealing our stuff!â

Pretty much everything was being lootedâmattresses, furniture, art. Claire even saw people upstairs tossing linens and clothing out the windows to people waiting on the ground.

And then, somebody ran up with a bottle full of liquid, stuffed with a burning rag, and threw it into the front window.

The flames flickered, caught, and gained strength.

âNo!â Monica panted and clawed at the door handle, but Eve had locked it up. Claire grabbed Monicaâs arms and held them down.

âGet us out of here!â she yelled.

âMy parents could be in there!â

âNo, theyâre not. Richard told me theyâre at City Hall.â

Monica kept fighting, even as Eve steered the car away from the burning house, and then suddenly just . . . stopped.

Claire heard her crying. She wanted to think, Good, you deserve it, but somehow she just couldnât force herself to be that cold.

Shane, however, could. âHey, look on the bright side,â he said. âAt least your little sister isnât inside.â

Monica caught her breath, then kept crying.

By the time theyâd turned on Lot Street, Monica seemed to be pulling herself together, wiping her face with trembling hands and asking for a tissue, which Eve provided out of the glove box in the front.

âWhat do you think?â Eve asked Shane. Their street seemed quiet. Most of the houses had lights on, including the Glass House, and although there were some folks outside, talking, it didnât look like mobs were forming. Not here, anyway.

âLooks good. Letâs get inside.â

They agreed that Monica needed to go in the middle, covered by Hannah. Eve went first, racing up the walk to the front door and using her keys to open it up.

They made it in without attracting too much attention or anybody pointing fingers at Monicaâbut then, Claire thought, Monica definitely didnât look much like herself right now. More like a bad Monica impersonator. Maybe even one who was a guy.

Shane would laugh himself sick over that if she mentioned it. After seeing the puffy redness around Monicaâs eyes, and the shattered expression, Claire kept it to herself.

As Shane slammed, locked, and dead bolted the front door, Claire felt the house come alive around them, almost tingling with warmth and welcome. She heard people in the living room exclaim at the same time, so it wasnât just her; the house really had reacted, and reacted strongly, to three out of four of its residents coming home.

Claire stretched out against the wall and kissed it. âGlad to see you, too,â she whispered, and pressed her cheek against the smooth surface.

It almost felt like it hugged her back.

âDude, itâs a house,â Shane said from behind her. âHug somebody who cares.â

She did, throwing herself into his arms. It felt like heâd never let her go, not even for a second, and he lifted her completely off the ground and rested his head on her shoulder for a long, precious moment before setting her gently back on her feet.

âBetter see whoâs here,â he said, and kissed her very lightly. âDown payment for later, okay?â

Claire let go, but held his hand as they walked down the hallway and into the living room of the Glass House, which was filled with people.

Not vampires.

Just people.

Some of them were familiar, at least by sightâpeople from town: the owner of the music store where Michael worked; a couple of nurses sheâd seen at the hospital, who still wore brightly colored medical scrubs and comfortable shoes. The rest, Claire barely knew at all, but they had one thing in commonâthey were all scared.

An older, hard-looking woman grabbed Claire by the shoulders. âThank God youâre home,â she said, and hugged her. Claire, rigid with surprise, cast Shane a what-the-hell look, and he shrugged helplessly. âThis damn house wonât do anything for us. The lights keep going out, the doors wonât open, food goes bad in the fridgeâitâs as if it doesnât want us here!â

And it probably didnât. The house could have ejected them at any time, but obviously it had been a bit uncertain about exactly what its residents might want, so it had just made life uncomfortable for the intruders instead.

Claire could now feel the air-conditioning switching on to cool the overheated air, hear doors swinging open upstairs, see lights coming on in darkened areas.

âHey, Celia,â Shane said, as the woman let go of Claire at last. âSo, what brings you here? I figured the Barfly would be doing good business tonight.â

âWell, it would be, except that some jerks came in and said that because I was wearing a bracelet I had to serve them for free, on account of being some kind of sympathizer. What kind of sympathizer, I said, and one of them tried to hit me.â

Shane lifted his eyebrows. Celia wasnât a young woman. âWhat did you do?â

âUsed the Regulator.â Celia lifted a baseball bat propped against the wall. It was old hardwood, lovingly polished. âGot myself a couple of home runs, too. But I decided maybe I wouldnât stay for the extra innings, if you know what I mean. I figure theyâre drinking me dry over there right now. Makes me want to rip my bracelet off, Iâll tell ya. Where are the damn vampires when you need them, after all that?â

âYou didnât take your bracelet off? Even when they gave you the chance?â Shane seemed surprised. Celia gave him a glare.

âNo, I didnât. I ainât breaking my word, not unless I have to. Right now, I donât have to.â

âIf you take it off now, you may never need to put it on again.â

Celia leveled a wrinkled finger at him. âLook, Collins, I know all about you and your dad. I donât hold with any of that. Morganvilleâs an all-right place. You follow the rules and stay out of troubleâabout like anyplace, I guess. You people wanted chaos. Well, this is what it looks likeâpeople getting beaten, shops looted, houses burned. Sure, itâll settle down sometime, but into what? Maybe no place Iâd want to live.â

She turned away from him, shouldered her baseball bat, and marched away to talk with a group of adults her own age.

Shane caught Claire looking at him, and shrugged. âYeah,â he sighed. âI know. Sheâs got a point. But how do we know it wonât be better if the vamps justââ

âJust what, Shane? Die? What about Michael, have you thought about him? Or Sam?â She stomped off.

âWhere are you going?â

âTo get a Coke!â

âWould youââ

âNo!â

She twisted the cap off the Coke sheâd retrieved from the fridgeâwhich was stocked up again, although she knew it hadnât been when theyâd left. Another favor from the house, she guessed, although how it went shopping on its own she had no idea.

The cold syrupy goodness hit her like a brick wall, but instead of energizing her, it made her feel weak and a little sick. Claire sank down in a chair at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands, suddenly overwhelmed.

It was all falling apart.

Amelie was calling the vampires, probably going to fight Bishop to the death. Morganville was ripping itself in pieces. And there was nothing she could do.

Well, there was one thing.

She retrieved and opened four more bottles of Coke, and delivered them to Hannah, Eve, Shane, andâbecause it felt mean to leave her out at a time like thisâMonica.

Monica stared at the sweating bottle as if she suspected Claire had put rat poison in it. âWhatâs this?â

âWhat does it look like? Take or donât, I donât really care.â Claire put it down on the table next to where Monica sat, and went to curl up on the couch next to Shane. She checked her cell phone. The network was back up again, at least for the moment, and she had a ton of voice mails. Most were from Shane, so she saved them to listen to later; two more were from Eve, which she deleted, since they were instructions on where to find her.

The last one was from her mother. Claire caught her breath, tears pricking in her eyes at the sound of Momâs voice. Her mother sounded calm, at leastâmostly, anyway.

Â 

Claire, sweetie, I know I shouldnât be worrying but I am. Honey, call us. Iâve been hearing some terrible things about whatâs happening out there. Some of the people with us here are talking about fights and looting. If I donât hear from you soonâwell, I donât know what weâll do, but your fatherâs going crazy. So please, call us. We love you, honey. Bye.

Â 

Claire got her breathing back under control, mainly by sternly telling herself that she needed to sound together and completely in control to keep her parents from charging out there into the craziness. She had it more or less managed by the time the phone rang on the other end, and when her mother picked it up, she was able to say, âHi, Mom,â without making it sound like she was about to burst into tears. âI got your message. Is everything okay there?â

âHere? Claire, donât you be worrying about us! Weâre just fine! Oh, honey, are you okay? Really?â

âHonestly, yes, Iâm okay. Everythingâsââ She couldnât say that everything was okay, because of course it wasnât. It was, at best, kind of temporarily stable. âItâs quiet here. Shaneâs here, and Eve.â Claire remembered that Mom had liked Monica Morrell, and rolled her eyes. Anything to calm her fears. âThat girl from the dorm, Monica, sheâs here, too.â

âOh, yes, Monica. I liked her.â It really did seem to help, which was not exactly an endorsement of Momâs character-judging ability. âHer brother came by here to check on us about an hour ago. Heâs a nice boy.â

Claire couldnât quite imagine referring to Richard Morrell as a boy, but she let it go. âHeâs kind of in charge of the town right now,â she said. âYou have the radio, right? The one we dropped off earlier?â

âYes. Weâve been doing everything they say, of course. But honey, Iâd really like it if you could come here. We want to have you home, with us.â

âI know. I know, Mom. But I think Iâd better stay here. Itâs important. Iâll try to come by tomorrow, okay?â

They talked a little more, about nothing much, just chatter to make life seem kind of normal for a change. Mom was holding it together, but only barely; Claire could hear the manic quaver in her voice, could almost see the bright tears in her eyes. She was going on about how theyâd had to move most of the boxes into the basement to make room for all the companyâcompany?âand how she was afraid that Claireâs stuff would get damp, and then she talked about all the toys in the boxes and how much Claire had enjoyed them when she was younger.

Normal Mom stuff.

Claire didnât interrupt, except to make soothing noises and acknowledgments when Mom paused. It helped, hearing Momâs voice, and she knew it was helping her to talk. But finally, when her mother ran down like a spring-wound clock, Claire agreed to all the parental requirements to be careful and watch out and wear warm clothes.

Good-bye seemed very final, and once Claire hung up, she sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at the screen of her cell phone.

On impulse, she tried to call Amelie. It rang and rang. No voice mail.

In the living room, Shane was organizing some kind of sentry duty. A lot of people had already crashed out in piles of pillows, blankets, sometimes just on a spare rug. Claire edged around the prone bodies and motioned to Shane that she was going upstairs. He nodded and kept talking to the two guys he was with, but his gaze followed her all the way.

Eve was in her bedroom, and there was a note on the door that said DO NOT KNOCK OR I WILL KILL YOU. THIS MEANS YOU, SHANE. Claire considered knocking, but she was too tired to run away.

Her bedroom was dark. When sheâd left in the morning, Eveâs kind-of-friend Miranda had been sleeping here, but she was gone, and the bed was neatly made again. Claire sat down on the edge, staring out the windows, and then pulled out clean underwear and her last pair of blue jeans from the closet, plus a tight black shirt Eve had lent her last week.

The shower felt like heaven. There was even enough hot water for a change. Claire dried off, fussed with her hair a bit, and got dressed. When she came out, she listened at the stairs, but didnât hear Shane talking anymore. Either he was being quiet, or heâd gone to bed. She paused next to his door, wishing she had the guts to knock, but she went on to her own room instead.

Shane was inside, sitting on her bed. He looked up when she opened the door, and his lips parted, but he was silent for a long few seconds.

âI should go,â he finally said, but he didnât get up.

Claire settled in next to him. It was all perfectly correct, the two of them sitting fully dressed like this, but somehow she felt like they were on the edge of a cliff, both in danger of falling off.

It was exciting, and terrifying, and all kinds of wrong.

âSo what happened to you today?â she asked. âIn the Bloodmobile, I mean?â

âNothing really. We drove to the edge of town and parked outside the border, where weâd be able to see anybody coming. A couple of vamps showed, trying to make a withdrawal, but we sent them packing. Bishop never made an appearance. Once we lost contact with the vampires, we figured weâd cruise around and see what was going on. We nearly got boxed in by a bunch of drunk idiots in pickup trucks, and then the vampires in the Bloodmobile went nutsâthat call thing going off, I guess. I dropped them at the grain elevatorâthat was the biggest, darkest place I could find, and it casts a lot of shadows. I handed off the driving to Cesar Mercado. Heâs supposed to drive it all the way to Midland tonight, provided the barriers are down. Best we can do.â

âWhat about the book? Did you leave it on board?â

In answer, Shane reached into his waistband and pulled out the small leather-bound volume. Amelie had added a lock on it, like a diary lock. Claire tried pressing the small, metal catch. It didnât open, of course.

âYou think you should be fooling with that thing?â Shane asked.

âProbably not.â She tried prying a couple of pages apart to peek at the script. All she could tell was that it was handwritten, and the paper looked relatively old. Oddly, when she sniffed it, the paper smelled like chemicals.

âWhat are you doing?â Shane looked like he couldnât decide whether to be repulsed or fascinated.

âI think somebody restored the paper,â she said. âLike they do with really expensive old books and stuff. Comics, sometimes. They put chemicals on the paper to slow down the aging process, make the paper whiter again.â

âFascinating,â Shane lied. âGimme.â He plucked the book from her hands and put it aside, on the other side of the bed. When she grabbed for it, he got in her way; they tangled, and somehow, he was lying prone on the bed and she was stretched awkwardly on top of him. His hands steadied her when she started to slide off.

âOh,â she murmured. âWe shouldnâtââ

âDefinitely not.â

âThen you shouldââ

âYeah, I should.â

But he didnât move, and neither did she. They just looked at each other, and then, very slowly, she lowered her lips to his.

It was a warm, sweet, wonderful kiss, and it seemed to go on forever. It also felt like it didnât last nearly long enough. Shaneâs hands skimmed up her sides, up her back, and cupped her damp hair as he kissed her more deeply. There were promises in that kiss.

âOkay, red flag,â he said. He hadnât let her go, but there was about a half an inch of air between their lips. Claireâs whole body felt alive and tingling, pulse pounding in her wrists and temples, warmth pooling like light in the center of her body.

âItâs okay,â she said. âI swear. Trust me.â

âHey, isnât that my line?â

âNot now.â

Kissing Shane was the reward for surviving a long, hard, terrifying day. Being enfolded in his warmth felt like going to heaven on moonbeams. She kicked off her shoes, and, still fully dressed, crawled under the blankets. Shane hesitated.

âTrust me,â she said again. âAnd you can keep your clothes on if you donât.â

Theyâd done this before, but somehow it hadnât felt so . . . intimate. Claire pressed against him, back to front under the covers, and his arms went around her. Instant heat.

She swallowed and tried to remember all those good intentions sheâd had as she felt Shaneâs breath whisper on the back of her neck, and then his lips brushed her skin. âSo wrong,â he murmured. âYouâre killing me, you know.â

âAm not.â

âOn this, youâll have to trust me.â His sigh made her shiver all the way to her bones. âI canât believe you brought Monica back here.â

âOh, come on. You wouldnât have left her out there, all alone. I know you better than that, Shane. Even as bad as she isââ

âThe satanic incarnation of evil?â

âMaybe so, but I canât see you letting them get her and . . . hurt her.â Claire turned around to face him, a squirming motion that made them wrestle for the covers. âWhatâs going to happen? Do you know?â

âWhat am I, Miranda the teen screwed-up psychic? No, I donât know. All I know is that when we get up tomorrow, either the vampires will be back, or they wonât. And then weâll have to make a choice about how weâre going to go forward.â

âMaybe we donât go forward. Maybe we wait.â

âOne thing I do know, Claire: you canât stay in the same place, not even for a day. You keep on moving. Maybe itâs the right direction, maybe not, but you still move. Every second things change, like it or not.â

She studied his face intently. âIs your dad here? Now?â

He grimaced. âTruthfully? No idea. I wouldnât be surprised. Heâd know that it was time to move in and take command, if he could. And Manettiâs a running buddy from way back. This kind of feels like Dadâs behind it.â

âBut if he does take over, what happens to Michael? To Myrnin? To any other vampire out there?â

âDo you really need me to tell you?â

Claire shook her head. âHeâll tell people they have to kill all the vampires, and then, heâll come after the Morrells, and anybody else he thinks is responsible for what happened to your family. Right?â

âProbably,â Shane sighed.

âAnd youâre going to let all that happen.â

âI didnât say that.â

âYou didnât say you werenât, either. Donât tell me itâs complicated, because it isnât. Either you stand up for something, or you lie down for it. You said that to me one time, and you were right.â Claire burrowed closer into his arms. âShane, you were right then. Be right now.â

He touched her face. His fingers traced down her cheek, across her lips, and his eyesâsheâd never seen that look in his eyes. In anyoneâs, really.

âIn this whole screwed-up town, youâre the only thing thatâs always been right to me,â he whispered. âI love you, Claire.â She saw something that might have been just a flash of panic go across his expression, but then he steadied again. âI canât believe Iâm saying this, but I do. I love you.â

He said something else, but the world had narrowed around her. Shaneâs lips kept moving, but all she heard were the same words echoing over and over inside her head like the tolling of a giant brass bell: I love you.

He sounded like it had taken him completely by surpriseânot in a bad way, but more as if he hadnât really understood what he was feeling until that instant.

She blinked. It was as if sheâd never really seen him before, and he was beautiful. More beautiful than any man sheâd ever seen in her entire life, ever.

Whatever he was saying, she stopped it by kissing him. A lot. And for a very long time. When he finally backed up, he didnât go far, and this look in his eyes, this intense and overwhelming needâthat was new, too.

And she liked it.

âI love you,â he said, and kissed her so hard he took her breath away. There was more to it than beforeâmore passion, more urgency, more . . . everything. It was as if she were caught in a tide, carried away, and she thought that if she never touched the shore again, it would be good to drown like this, just swim forever in all this richness.

Red flag, some part of her screamed, come on, red flag. What are you doing?

She wished it would just shut up.

âI love you, too,â she whispered to him. Her voice was shaking, and so were her hands where they rested on his chest. Under the soft T-shirt, his muscles were tensed, and she could feel every deep breath he took. âIâd do anything for you.â

She meant it to be an invitation, but that was the thing that shocked sense back into him. He blinked. âAnything,â he repeated, and squeezed his eyes shut.

âYeah. Iâm getting that. Bad idea, Claire. Very, very bad.â

âToday?â She laughed a little wildly. âEverythingâs crazy today. Why canât we be? Just once?â

âBecause I made promises,â he said. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, and she felt a groan shake his whole body. âTo your parents, to myself, to Michael. To you, Claire. I canât break my word. Itâs pretty much all Iâve got these days.â

âBut . . . what ifââ

âDonât,â he whispered in her ear. âPlease donât. This is tough enough already.â

He kissed her again, long and sweetly, and somehow, it tasted like tears this time. Like some kind of good-bye.

âI really do love you,â he said, and smoothed away the damp streaks on her cheeks. âBut I canât do this. Not now.â

Before she could stop him, he slid out of bed, put on his shoes, and walked quickly to the door. She sat up, holding the covers close as if she were naked underneath, instead of fully clothed, and he hesitated there, one hand gripping the doorknob.

âPlease stay,â she said. âShaneââ

He shook his head. âIf I stay, things are going to happen. You know it, and I know it, and we just canât do this. I know things are falling apart, butââ He hitched in a deep, painful breath. âNo.â

The sound of the door softly closing behind him went through her like a knife.

Claire rolled over, wretchedly hugging the pillow that smelled of his hair, sharing the warm place in the bed where his body had been, and thought about crying herself to sleep.

And then she thought of the dawning wonder in his eyes when heâd said, I love you.

No. It was no time to be crying.

When she did finally sleep, she felt safe.

10

The next day, there was no sign of the vampires, none at all. Claire checked the portal networks, but as far as she could tell, they were down. With nothing concrete to do, she helped around the houseâcleaning, straightening, running errands. Richard Morrell came around to check on them. He looked a little better for having slept, which didnât mean he looked good, exactly.

When Eve wandered down, she looked almost as bad. She hadnât bothered with her Goth makeup, and her black hair was down in a lank, uncombed mess. She poured Richard some coffee from the ever-brewing pot, handed it over, and said, âHowâs Michael?â

Richard blew on the hot surface in the cup without looking at her. âHeâs at City Hall. We moved all the vampires we still had into the jail, for safekeeping.â

Eveâs face crumpled in anguish. Shane put a hand on her shoulder, and she pulled in a damp breath and got control of herself.

âRight,â she said. âThatâs probably for the best, youâre right.â She sipped from her own battered coffee mug. âWhatâs it like out there?â Out there meant beyond Lot Street, which remained eerily quiet.

âNot so good,â Richard said. His voice sounded hoarse and dull, as if heâd yelled all the edges off it. âAbout half the stores are shut down, and some of those are burned or looted. We donât have enough police and volunteers to be everywhere. Some of the store owners armed up and are guarding their own placesâI donât like it, but itâs probably the best option until everybody settles down and sobers up. The problem isnât everybody, but itâs a good portion of the town whoâs been down and angry a long time. You heard they raided the Barfly?â

âYeah, we heard,â Shane said.

âWell, that was just the beginning. Dolores Thompsonâs place got broken into, and then they went to the warehouses and found the bonded liquor storage. Those who were inclined to deal with all this by getting drunk and mean have had a real holiday.â

âWe saw the mobs,â Eve said, and glanced at Claire. âUm, about your sisterââ

âYeah, thanks for taking care of her. Trust my idiot sister to go running around in her red convertible during a riot. Sheâs damn lucky they didnât kill her.â

They would have, Claire was certain of that. âI guess youâre taking her with you . . . ?â

Richard gave her a thin smile. âNot the greatest houseguest?â

Actually, Monica had been very quiet. Claire had found her curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, sound asleep. Sheâd looked pale and tired and bruised, and much younger than Claire had ever seen her. âSheâs been okay.â She shrugged. âBut Iâll bet sheâd rather be with her family.â

âHer familyâs under protective custody downtown. My dad nearly got dragged off by a bunch of yahoos yelling about taxes or something. My momââ Richard shook his head, as if he wanted to drive the pictures right out of his mind. âAnyway. Unless she likes four walls and a locked door, I donât think sheâs going to be very happy. And you know Monica: if sheâs not happyââ

âNobody is,â Shane finished for him. âWell, I want her out of our house. Sorry, man, but we did our duty and all. Past this point, sheâd have to be a friend to keep crashing here. Which, you know, she isnât. Ever.â

âThen Iâll take her off your hands.â Richard set the cup down and stood. âThanks for the coffee. Seems like thatâs all thatâs keeping me going right now.â

âRichard . . .â Eve rose, too. âSeriously, whatâs it like out there? Whatâs going to happen?â

âWith any luck, the drunks will sober up or pass out, and those whoâve been running around looking for people to punish will get sore feet and aching muscles and go home to get some sleep.â

âNot like weâve had a lot of luck so far, though,â Shane said.

âNo,â Richard agreed. âThat we havenât. But I have to say, we canât keep things locked down. People have to work, the schools have to open, and for that, we need something like normal life around here. So weâre working on that. Power and waterâs on, phone lines are back up. TV and radio are broadcasting. Iâm hoping that calms people down. Weâve got police patrols overlapping all through town, and we can be anywhere in under two minutes. One thing, though: weâre getting word that thereâs bad weather in the forecast. Some kind of real big front heading toward us tonight. Iâm not too happy about that, but maybe itâll keep the crazies off the streets for a while. Even riots donât like rain.â

âWhat about the university?â Claire asked. âAre they open?â

âOpen and classes are running, believe it or not. We passed off some of the disturbances as role-playing in the disaster drill, and said that the looting and burning was part of the exercise. Some of them believed us.â

âBut . . . no word about the vampires?â

Richard was silent for a moment, and then he said, âNo. Not exactly.â

âThen what?â

âWe found some bodies, before dawn,â he said. âAll vamps. All killed with silver or decapitation. Some of themâI knew some of them. Thing is, I donât think they were killed by Bishop. From the looks of things, they were caught by a mob.â

Claire caught her breath. Eve covered her mouth. âWhoâ?â

âBernard Temple, Sally Christien, Tien Ma, and Charles Effords.â

Eve lowered her hand to say, âCharles Effords? Like, Mirandaâs Charles? Her Protector?â

âYeah. From the state of the bodies, Iâd guess he was the primary target. Nobody loves a pedophile.â

âNobody except Miranda,â Eve said. âSheâs going to be really scared now.â

âYeah, about that . . .â Richard hesitated, then plunged forward. âMirandaâs gone.â

âGone?â

âDisappeared. Weâve been looking for her. Her parents reported her missing early last night. Iâm hoping she wasnât with Charles when the mob caught up to him. You see her, you call me, okay?â

Eveâs lips shaped the agreement, but no sound came out.

Richard checked his watch. âGot to go,â he said. âUsual drill: lock the doors, check IDs on anybody youâre not expecting who shows up. If you hear from any vampire, or hear anything about the vampires, you call immediately. Use the coded radios, not the phone lines. And be careful.â

Eve swallowed hard, and nodded. âCan I see Michael?â

He paused, as if that hadnât occurred to him, then shrugged. âCome on.â

âWeâre all going,â Shane said.

Â 

It was an uncomfortable ride to City Hall, where the jail was located, mainly because although the police cruiser was large, it wasnât big enough to have Richard, Monica, Eve, Shane, and Claire all sharing the ride. Monica had taken the front seat, sliding close to her brother, and Claire had squeezed in with her friends in the back.

They didnât talk, not even when they cruised past burned-out, broken hulks of homes and stores. There werenât any fires today, or any mobs that Claire spotted. It all seemed quiet.

Richard drove past a police barricade around City Hall and parked in the underground garage. âIâm taking Monica to my parentsâ,â he said. âYou guys go on down to the cells. Iâll be there in a minute.â

It took a lot more than a minute for them to gain access to Michael; the vampiresâall five of those the humans still had in custodyâwere housed in a special section, away from daylight and in reinforced cells. It reminded Claire, with an unpleasant lurch, of the vampires in the cells where Myrnin was usually locked up, for his own protection. Had anyone fed them? Had anyone even tried?

She didnât know three of the vampires, but she knew the last two. âSam!â she blurted, and rushed to the bars. Michaelâs grandfather was lying on the bunk, one pale hand over his eyes, but he sat up when she called his name. Claire could definitely see the resemblance between Michael and Samâthe same basic bone structure, only Michaelâs hair was a bright gold, and Samâs was red.

âGet me out,â Sam said, and lunged for the door. He rattled the cage with unexpected violence. Claire fell back, openmouthed. âOpen the door and get me out, Claire! Now!â

âDonât listen to him,â Michael said. He was standing at the bars of his own cell, leaning against them, and he looked tired. âHey, guys. Did you bring me a lockpick in a cupcake or something?â

âI had the cupcake, but I ate it. Hard times, man.â Shane extended his hand. Michael reached through the bars and took it, shook solemnly, and then Eve threw herself against the metal to try to hug him. It was awkward, but Claire saw the relief spread over Michael, no matter how odd it was with the bars between the two of them. He kissed Eve, and Claire had to look away from that, because it seemed like such a private kind of moment.

Sam rattled his cage again. âClaire, open the door! I need to get to Amelie!â

The policeman whoâd escorted them down to the cells pushed off from the wall and said, âCalm down, Mr. Glass. Youâre not going anywhere; you know that.â He shifted his attention to Shane and Claire. âHeâs been like that since the beginning. We had to trank him twice; he was hurting himself trying to get out. Heâs worse than all the others. They seem to have calmed down. Not him.â

No, Sam definitely hadnât calmed down. As Claire watched, he tensed his muscles and tried to force the lock, but subsided in panting frustration and stumbled back to his bunk. âI have to go,â he muttered. âPlease, I need to go. She needs me. Amelieââ

Claire looked at Michael, who didnât seem to be nearly as distressed. âUm . . . sorry to ask, but . . . are you feeling like that? Like Sam?â

âNo,â Michael said. His eyes were still closed. âFor a while there was this . . . call, but it stopped about three hours ago.â

âThen why is Samââ

âItâs not the call,â Michael said. âItâs Sam. Itâs killing him, knowing sheâs out there in trouble and he canât help her.â

Sam put his head in his hands, the picture of misery. Claire exchanged a look with Shane. âSam,â she said. âWhatâs happening? Do you know?â

âPeople are dying, thatâs whatâs happening,â he said. âAmelieâs in trouble. I need to go to her. I canât just sit here!â

He threw himself at the bars again, kicking hard enough to make the metal ring like a bell.

âWell, thatâs where youâre going to stay,â the policeman said, not exactly unsympathetically. âThe way youâre acting, youâd go running out into the sunlight, and that wouldnât do her or you a bit of good, now, would it?â

âI could have gone hours ago before sunrise,â Sam snapped. âHours ago.â

âAnd now you have to wait for dark.â

That earned the policeman a full-out vicious snarl, and Samâs eyes flared into bright crimson. Everybody stayed back, and when Sam subsided this time, it seemed to be for good. He withdrew to his bunk, lay down, and turned his back to them.

âMan,â Shane breathed softly. âHeâs a little intense, huh?â

From what the policeman told themâand Richard, when he rejoined themâall the captured vampires had been at about the same level of violence, at first. Now it was just Sam, and as Michael said, it didnât seem to be Amelieâs summons that was driving him. . . . It was fear for Amelie herself.

It was love.

âStep back, please,â the policeman said to Eve. She looked over her shoulder at him, then at Michael. He kissed her, and let go.

She did take a step back, but it was a tiny one. âSoâare you okay? Really?â

âSure. Itâs not exactly the Ritz, but itâs not bad. Theyâre not keeping us here to hurt us, I know that.â Michael stretched out a finger and touched her lips. âIâll be back soon.â

âBetter be,â Eve said. She mock-bit at his finger. âI could totally date somebody else, you know.â

âAnd I could rent out your room.â

âAnd I could put your game console on eBay.â

âHey,â Shane protested. âNow youâre just being mean.â

âSee what I mean? You need to come home, or itâs total chaos. Dogs and cats, living together.â Eveâs voice dropped, but not quite to a whisper. âAnd I miss you. I miss seeing you. I miss you all the time.â

âI miss you, too,â Michael murmured, then blinked and looked at Claire and Shane. âI mean, I miss all of you.â

âSure you do,â Shane agreed. âBut not in that way, I hope.â

âShut up, dude. Donât make me come out there.â

Shane turned to the policeman. âSee? Heâs fine.â

âI was more worried about you guys,â Michael confessed. âEverything okay at the house?â

âI have to burn a blouse Monica borrowed,â Claire said. âOtherwise, weâre good.â

They tried to talk a while longer, but somehow, Samâs silent, rigid back turned toward them made conversation seem more desperate than fun. He was really hurting, and Claire didnât knowâshort of letting him go for a jog in the noontime sunâhow to make it any better. She didnât know where Amelie was, and with the portals shut, she doubted she could even know where to start looking.

Amelie had gathered up an armyâwhatever Bishop hadnât grabbed firstâbut what she was doing with it was anybodyâs guess. Claire didnât have a clue.

So in the end, she hugged Michael and told Sam it would all be okay, and they left.

âIf they stay calm through the day, Iâll let them out tonight,â Richard said. âBut Iâm worried about letting them roam around on their own. What happened to Charles and the others could keep on happening. Captain Obvious used to be our biggest threat, but now we donât know whoâs out there, or what theyâre planning. And we canât count on the vampires to be able to protect themselves right now.â

âMy dad would say that itâs about time the tables turned,â Shane said.

Richard fixed him with a long stare. âIs that what you say, too?â

Shane looked at Michael, and at Sam. âNo,â he said. âNot anymore.â

Â 

The day went on quietly. Claire got out her books and spent part of the day trying to study, but she couldnât get her brain to stop spinning. Every few minutes, she checked her e-mail and her phone, hoping for something, anything, from Amelie. You canât just leave us like this. We donât know what to do.

Except keep moving forward. Like Shane had said, they couldnât stay still. The world kept on turning.

Eve drove Claire to her parentsâ house in the afternoon, where she had cake and iced tea and listened to her motherâs frantic flow of good cheer. Her dad looked sallow and unwell, and she worried about his heart, as always. But he seemed okay when he told her he loved her, and that he worried, and that he wanted her to move back home.

Just when she thought theyâd gotten past that . . .

Claire exchanged a quick look with Eve. âMaybe we should talk about that when things get back to normal?â As if they ever were normal in Morganville. âNext week?â

Dad nodded. âFine, but Iâm not going to change my mind, Claire. Youâre better off here, at home.â Whatever spell Mr. Bishop had cast over her father, it was still working great; he was single-minded about wanting her out of the Glass House. And maybe it hadnât been a spell at all; maybe it was just normal parental instinct.

Claire crammed her mouth with cake and pretended not to hear, and asked her mom about the new curtains. That filled another twenty minutes, and then Eve was able to make excuses about needing to get home, and then they were in the car.

âWow,â Eve said, and started the engine. âSo. Are you going to do it? Move in with them?â

Claire shrugged helplessly. âI donât know. I donât know if weâre going to get through the day! Itâs kind of hard to make plans.â She wasnât going to say anything, truly, she wasnât, but the words had been boiling and bubbling inside her all day, and as Eve put the car in drive, Claire said, âShane said he loved me.â

Eve hit the brakes, hard enough to make their seat belts click in place. âShane what? Said what?â

âShane said he loved me.â

âOkay, first impressionsâfantastic, good, thatâs what I was hoping youâd said.â Eve took a deep breath and let up on the brake, steering out into the deserted street. âSecond impressions, well, I hope that you two . . . um . . . how can I put this? Watch yourselves?â

âYou mean, donât have sex? We wonât.â Claire said it with a little bit of an edge. âEven if we wanted to. I mean, he promised, and heâs not going to break that promise, not even if I say itâs okay.â

âOh. Oh.â Eve stared at her, wide-eyed, for way too long for road safety. âYouâre kidding! Wait, youâre not. He said he loved you, and then he saidââ

âNo,â Claire said. âHe said no.â

âOh.â Funny, how many meanings that word could have. This time it was full of sympathy. âYou know, that makes himââ

âGreat? Superbly awesome? Yeah, I know. I justââ Claire threw up her hands. âI just want him, okay?â

âHeâll still be there in a couple of months, Claire. At seventeen, youâre not a kid, at least in Texas.â

âYouâve put some thought into this.â

âNot me,â Eve said, and gave her an apologetic look.

âShane? You meanâyou mean you talked about this? With Shane?â

âHe needed some girl guidance. I mean, heâs taking this really seriouslyâa lot more seriously than I expected. He wants to do the right thing. Thatâs cool, right? I think thatâs cool. Most guys, itâs just, whatever.â

Claire clenched her jaw so hard she felt her teeth grinding. âI canât believe he talked to you about it!â

âWell, youâre talking to me about it.â

âHeâs a guy!â

âGuys occasionally talk, believe it or not. Something more than pass the beer or whereâs the porn?â Eve turned the corner, and they cruised past a couple of slow blocks of houses, some people out walking, an elementary school with a TEMPORARILY CLOSED sign out front. âYou didnât exactly ask for advice, but Iâm going to give it: donât rush this. You may think youâre good to go, but give it some time. Itâs not like you have a sell-by date or anything.â

Despite her annoyance, Claire had to laugh. âFeels like it right now.â

âWell, duh. Hormones!â

âSo how old were you whenââ

âToo young. I speak from experience, grasshopper.â Eveâs expression went distant for a second. âI wish Iâd waited for Michael.â

That was, for some reason, kind of a shock, and Claire blinked. She remembered some things, and felt deeply uncomfortable. âUh . . . did Brandon . . . ?â Because Brandon had been her familyâs Protector vampire, and heâd been a complete creep. She couldnât imagine much worse than having Brandon be your first.

âNo. Not that he didnât want to, but no, it wasnât Brandon.â

âWho?â

âSorry. Off-limits.â

Claire blinked. There wasnât much Eve considered off-limits. âReally?â

âReally.â Eve pulled the car up to the curb. âBottom line? If Shane says he loves you, he does, full stop. He wouldnât say it if he didnât mean it, all the way. Heâs not the kind of guy to tell you what you want to hear. That makes you really, really lucky. You should remember that.â

Claire was trying, really, but from time to time that moment came back to her, that blinding, searing moment when heâd looked into her face and said those words, and sheâd seen that amazing light in his eyes. Sheâd wanted to see it again, over and over. Instead, sheâd seen him walk away.

It felt romantic. It also felt frustrating, on some level she didnât even remember feeling before. And now there was something new: doubt. Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I was supposed to do something I didnât do. Some signal I didnât give him.

Eve read her expression just fine. âYouâll be okay,â she said, and laughed just a little. âGive the guy a break. Heâs the second actual gentleman Iâve ever met. It doesnât mean he doesnât want to throw you on the bed and go. Just means he wonât, right now. Which you have to admit: kinda hot.â

Put in those terms, it kind of was.

Â 

As it got closer to nightfall, Richard called to say he was letting Michael go. For the second time, the three of them piled into the car and went racing to City Hall. The barricades had mostly come down. According to the radio and television, it had been a very quiet day, with no reports of violence. Store ownersâthe human ones, anywayâwere planning on reopening in the morning. Schools would be in session.

Life was going on, and Mayor Morrell was expected to come out with some kind of a speech. Not that anybody would listen.

âAre they letting Sam out, too?â Claire asked, as Eve parked in the underground lot.

âApparently. Richard doesnât think he can really keep anybody much longer. Some kind of town ordinance, which means law and order really is back in fashion. Plus, I think heâs really afraid Samâs going to hurt himself if this goes on. And also, maybe he thinks he can follow Sam to find Amelie.â Eve scanned the dark structureâthere were a few dark-tinted cars in the lot, but then, there always were. The rest of the vehicles looked like they were human owned. âYou guys see anything?â

âLike what? A big sign saying This Is a Trap?â Shane opened his door and got out, taking Claireâs hand to help her. He didnât drop it once she was standing beside him. âNot that I wouldnât put it past some of our finer citizens. But no, I donât see anything.â

Michael was being let out of his cell when they arrived, and there were hugs and handshakes. The other vampires didnât have anyone to help them, and looked a little confused about what they were supposed to do.

Not Sam.

âSam, wait!â Michael grabbed his arm on the way past, dragging his grandfather to a stop. Looking at them standing together, Claire was struck again by how alike they were. And always would be, she supposed, given that neither one of them was going to age any more. âYou canât go charging off by yourself. You donât even know where she is. Running around town on your white horse will get you really, truly killed.â

âDoing nothing will get her killed. I canât have that, Michael. None of this means anything to me if she dies.â Sam shook Michaelâs hand away. âIâm not asking you to come with me. Iâm just telling you not to get in my way.â

âGrandpaââ

âExactly. Do as youâre told.â Sam could move vampire-quick when he wanted to, and he was gone almost before the words hit Claireâs earsâa blur, heading for the exit.

âSo much for trying to figure out where she is from where he goes,â Shane said. âUnless youâve got light speed under the hood of that car, Eve.â

Michael looked after him with a strange expression on his faceâanger, regret, sorrow. Then he hugged Eve closer and kissed the top of her head.

âWell, I guess my familyâs no more screwed up than anybody elseâs,â he said.

Eve nodded. âLetâs recap. My dad was an abusive jerkââ

âMine, too.â Shane raised his hand.

âThank you. My brotherâs a psycho backstabberââ

Shane said, âYou donât even want to talk about my dad.â

âPoint. So, in short, Michael, your family is awesome by comparison. Bloodsucking, maybe. But kind of awesome.â

Michael sighed. âDoesnât really feel like it at the moment.â

âIt will.â Eve was suddenly very serious. âBut Shane and I donât have that to look forward to, you know. Youâre our only real family now.â

âI know,â Michael said. âLetâs go home.â

11

Home was theirs again. The refugees were all out now, leaving a house that badly needed picking up and cleaningânot that anybody had gone out of their way to trash the place, but with that many people coming and going, things happened. Claire grabbed a trash bag and began clearing away paper plates, old Styrofoam cups half full of stale coffee, crumpled wrappers, and papers. Shane fired up the video game, apparently back in the mood to kill zombies. Michael took his guitar out of its case and tuned it, but he kept getting up to stare out the windows, restless and worried.

âWhat?â Eve asked. Sheâd heated up leftover spaghetti out of the refrigerator, and tried to hand Michael a plate first. âDo you see something?â

âNothing,â he said, and gave her a quick, strained smile as he waved away the food. âNot really hungry, though. Sorry.â

âMore for me,â Shane said, and grabbed the plate. He propped it on his lap and forked spaghetti into his mouth. âSeriously. You all right? Because you never turn down food.â

Michael didnât answer. He stared out into the dark.

âYouâre worried,â Eve said. âAbout Sam?â

âSam and everybody else. This is nuts. Whatâs going on hereââ Michael checked the locks on the window, but as a kind of automatic motion, as though his mind wasnât really on it. âWhy hasnât Bishop taken over? Whatâs he doing out there? Why arenât we seeing the fight?â

âMaybe Amelieâs kicking his ass out there in the shadows somewhere.â Shane shoveled in more spaghetti.

âNo. Sheâs not. I can feel that. I thinkâI think sheâs in hiding. With the rest of her followers, the vampires, anyway.â

Shane stopped chewing. âYou know where they are?â

âNot really. I just feelââ Michael shook his head. âItâs gone. Sorry. But I feel like things are changing. Coming to a head.â

Claire had just taken a plate of warm pasta when they all heard the thump of footsteps overhead. They looked up, and then at each other, in silence. Michael pointed to himself and the stairs, and they all nodded. Eve opened a drawer in the end table and took out three sharpened stakes; she tossed one to Shane, one to Claire, and kept one in a white-knuckled grip.

Michael ascended the stairs without a sound, and disappeared.

He didnât come back down. Instead, there was a swirl of black coat and stained white balloon pants tucked into black boots; then Myrnin leaned over the railing to say, âUpstairs, all of you. I need you.â

âUm . . .â Eve looked at Shane. Shane looked at Claire.

Claire followed Myrnin. âTrust me,â she said. âIt wonât do any good to say no.â

Michael was waiting in the hallway, next to the open, secret door. He led the way up.

Whatever Claire had been expecting to see, it wasnât a crowd, but that was what was waiting upstairs in the hidden room on the third floor. She stared in confusion at the room full of people, then moved out of the way for Shane and Eve to join her and Michael.

Myrnin came last. âClaire, I believe you know Theo Goldman and his family.â

The faces came into focus. She had met themâin that museum thing, when theyâd been on the way to rescue Myrnin. Theo Goldman had spoken to Amelie. Heâd said they wouldnât fight.

But it looked to Claire like theyâd been in a fight anyway. Vampires didnât bruise, exactly, but she could see torn clothes and smears of blood, and they all looked exhausted and somehowâhollow. Theo was worst of all. His kind face seemed made of nothing but lines and wrinkles now, as if heâd aged a hundred years in a couple of days.

âIâm sorry,â he said, âbut we had no other place to go. AmelieâI hoped that she was here, that she would give us refuge. Weâve been everywhere else.â

Claire remembered there being more of them, somehowâyes, there were at least two people missing. One human, one vampire. âWhat happened? I thought you were safe where you were!â

âWe were,â Theo said. âThen we werenât. Thatâs what wars are like. The safe places donât stay safe. Someone knew where we were, or suspected. Around dawn yesterday, a mob broke in the doors looking for us. Jochenââ He looked at his wife, and she bowed her head. âOur son Jochen, he gave his life to delay them. So did our human friend William. Weâve been hiding, moving from place to place, trying not to be driven out in the sun.â

âHow did you get here?â Michael asked. He seemed wary. Claire didnât blame him.

âI brought them,â Myrnin said. âIâve been trying to find those who are left.â He crouched down next to one of the young vampire girls and stroked her hair. She smiled at him, but it was a fragile, frightened smile. âThey can stay here for now. This room isnât common knowledge. Iâve left open the portal in the attic in case they have to flee, but itâs one way only, leading out. Itâs a last resort.â

âAre there others? Out there?â Claire asked.

âVery few on their own. Most are either with Bishop, with Amelie, orââMyrnin spread his handsââgone.â

âWhat are they doing? Amelie and Bishop?â

âMoving their forces. Theyâre trying to find an advantage, pick the most favorable ground. It wonât last.â Myrnin shrugged. âSooner or later, sometime tonight, theyâll clash, and then theyâll fight. Someone will win, and someone will lose. And in the morning, Morganville will know its fate.â

That was creepy. Really creepy. Claire shivered and looked at the others, but nobody seemed to have anything to say.

âClaire. Attend me,â Myrnin said, and walked with her to one corner of the room. âHave you spoken with your doctor friend?â

âI tried. I couldnât get through to him. Myrnin, are you . . . okay?â

âNot for much longer,â he said, in that clinical way he had right before the drugs wore off. âI wonât be safe to be around without another dose of some sort. Can you get it for me?â

âThereâs none in your labââ

âIâve been there. Bishop got there first. I shall need a good bit of glassware, and a completely new library.â He said it lightly, but Claire could see the tension in his face and the shadow in his dark, gleaming eyes. âHe tried to destroy the portals, cut off Amelieâs movements. I managed to patch things together, but I shall need to instruct you in how itâs done. Soon. In caseââ

He didnât need to finish. Claire nodded slowly. âYou should go,â she said. âIs the prison safe? The one where you keep the sickest ones?â

âBishop finds nothing to interest him there, so yes. He will ignore it awhile longer. Iâll lock myself in for a while, until you come with the drug.â Myrnin bent over her, suddenly very focused and very intent. âWe must refine the serum, Claire. We must distribute it. The stress, the fightingâitâs accelerating the disease. Iâve seen signs of it in Theo, even in Sam. If we donât act soon, Iâm afraid we may begin to lose more to confusion and fear. They wonât even be able to defend themselves.â

Claire swallowed. âIâll get on it.â

He took her hand and kissed it lightly. His lips felt dry as dust, but it still left a tingle in her fingers. âI know you will, my girl. Now, letâs rejoin your friends.â

âHow long do they need to be here?â Eve asked, as they moved closer. She asked not unkindly, but she seemed nervous, too. There were, Claire thought, an awful lot of near-stranger vampire guests. âI mean, we donât have a lot of blood in the house. . . .â

Theo smiled. Claire remembered, with a sharp feeling of alarm, what heâd said to Amelie back at the museum, and she didnât like that smile at all, not even when he said, âWe wonât require much. We can provide for ourselves.â

âHe means, they can munch on their human friends, like takeout,â Claire said. âNo. Not in our house.â

Myrnin frowned. âThis is hardly the time to beââ

âThis is exactly the time, and you know it. Did anybody ask them if they wanted to be snack packs?â The two remaining humans, both women, looked horrified. âI didnât think so.â

Theoâs expression didnât change. âWhat we do is our own affair. We wonât hurt them, you know.â

âUnless youâre getting your plasma by osmosis, I donât really know how you can promise that.â

Theoâs eyes flared with banked fire. âWhat do you want us to do? Starve? Even the youngest of us?â

Eve cleared her throat. âActually, I know where thereâs a big supply of blood. If somebody will go with me to get it.â

âOh, hell no,â Shane said. âNot out in the dark. Besides, the place is locked up.â

Eve reached in her pocket and took out her key ring. She flipped until she found one key in particular, and held it up. âI never turned in my key,â she said. âI used to open and close, you know.â

Myrnin gazed at her thoughtfully. âThereâs no portal to Common Grounds. Itâs off the network. That means any vampire in it will be trapped in daylight.â

âNo. Thereâs underground access to the tunnels; Iâve seen it. Oliver sent some people out using it while I was there.â Eve gave him a bright, brittle smile. âI say we move your friends there. Also, thereâs coffee. You guys like coffee, right? Everybody likes coffee.â

Theo ignored her, and looked to Myrnin for an answer. âIs it better?â

âItâs more defensible,â Myrnin said. âSteel shutters. If thereâs underground accessâyes. It would make a good base of operations.â He turned to Eve. âWeâll require your services to drive.â

He said it as if Eve were the help, and Claire felt her face flame hot. âExcuse me? How about a please in there somewhere, since youâre asking for a favor?â

Myrninâs eyes turned dark and very cold. âYou seem to have forgotten that I employ you, Claire. That I own you, in some sense. I am not required to say please and thank you to you, your friends, or any human walking the streets.â He blinked, and was back to the Myrnin she normally saw. âHowever, I do take your point. Yes. Please drive us to Common Grounds, dear lady. I would be extravagantly, embarrassingly grateful.â

He did all but kiss her hand. Eve, not surprisingly, could say nothing but yes.

Claire settled for an eye roll big enough to make her head hurt. âYou canât all fit,â she pointed out. âIn Eveâs car, I mean.â

âAnd sheâs not taking you alone, anyway,â Michael said. âMy carâs in the garage. I can take the rest of you. Shane, Claireââ

âStaying here, since youâll need the space,â Shane said. âSounds like a plan. Look, if there are people looking for them, you ought to get them moving. Iâll call Richard. He can assign a couple of cops to guard Common Grounds.â

âNo,â Myrnin said. âNo police. We canât trust them.â

âWe canât?â

âSome of them have been working with Bishop, and with the human mobs. I have proof of that. We canât take the risk.â

âBut Richardâ,â Claire said, and subsided when she got Myrninâs glare. âRight. Okay. On your own, got it.â

Eve didnât want to be dragged into it, but she went without much of a protestâthe number of fangs in the room might have had something to do with it. As the Goldmans and Myrnin, Eve and Michael walked downstairs, Shane held Claire back to say, âWeâve got to figure out how to lock this place up. In case.â

âYou mean, againstââ She gestured vaguely at the vampires. He nodded. âBut if Michael lives here, and we live here, the house canât just bar a whole group of people from entry. It has to be done one at a timeâat least thatâs what I understood. And no, before you ask me, I donât know how it works. Or how to fool it. I think only Amelie has the keys to that.â

He looked disappointed. âHow about closing off these weird doors Myrnin and Amelie are popping through?â

âI can work them. That doesnât mean I can turn them on and off.â

âGreat.â He looked around the room, then took a seat on the old Victorian couch. âSo weâre like Undead Grand Central Station. Not really loving that so much. Can Bishop come through?â

It was a question that Claire had been thinking about, and it creeped her out to have to say, âI donât know. Maybe. But from what Myrnin said, he set the doorway to exit-only. So maybe we just . . . wait.â

Robbed of doing anything heroic, or for that matter even useful, she warmed up the spaghetti again, and she and Shane ate it and watched some mindless TV show while jumping at every noise and creak, with weapons handy. When the kitchen door banged open nearly an hour later, Claire almost needed a heart transplantâuntil she heard Eve yell, âWeâre home! Oooooh, spaghetti. Iâm starved.â Eve came in holding a plate and shoveling pasta into her mouth as she walked. Michael was right behind her.

âNo problems?â Shane asked. Eve shook her head, chewing a mouthful of spaghetti.

âThey should be fine there. Nobody saw us get them inside, and until Oliver turns up, nobody is going to need to get in there for a while.â

âWhat about Myrnin?â

Eve swallowed, almost choked, and Michael patted her kindly on the back. She beamed at him. âMyrnin? Oh yeah. He did a Batman and took off into the night. What is with that guy, Claire? If he was a superhero, heâd be Bipolar Man.â

The drugs were the problem. Claire needed to get more, and she needed to work on that cure Myrnin had found. That was just as important as anything else . . . providing there were any vampires left, anyway.

They had dinner, and at least it was the four of them again, sitting around the table, talking as if the world were normal, even if all of them knew it wasnât. Shane seemed especially jumpy, which wasnât like him at all.

For her part, Claire was just tired to the bone of being scared, and when she went upstairs, she was asleep the minute she crawled between the covers.

But sleep didnât mean it was restful, or peaceful.

She dreamed that somewhere, Amelie was playing chess, moving her pieces at lightning speed across a black-and-white board. Bishop sat across from her, grinning with too many teeth, and when he took her rook, it turned into a miniature version of Claire, and suddenly both the vampires were huge and she was so small, so small, stranded out in the open.

Bishop picked her up and squeezed her in his white hand, and blood drops fell onto the white squares of the chessboard.

Amelie frowned, watching Bishop squeeze her, and put out a delicate fingertip to touch the drops of blood. Claire struggled and screamed.

Amelie tasted her blood, and smiled.

Claire woke up with a convulsive shudder, huddled in her blankets. It was still dark outside the windows, though the sky was getting lighter, and the house was very, very quiet.

Her phone was buzzing in vibrate mode on the bedside table. She picked it up and found a text message from the universityâs alert system.

CLASSES RETURN TO NORMAL SCHEDULE EFFECTIVE 7 A.M. TODAY.

School seemed like a million miles away, another world that didnât mean anything to her anymore, but it would get her on campus, and there were things she needed there. Claire scrolled down her phone list and found Dr. Robert Mills, but there was no immediate answer on his cell. She checked the clock, winced at the early hour, but slid out of bed and began grabbing things out of drawers. That didnât take a lot of time. She was down to the last of everything. Laundry was starting to be a genuine priority.

She dialed his phone again after sheâd dressed. âHello?â Dr. Mills sounded as if sheâd dragged him out of a deep, probably happy sleep. He probably hadnât been dreaming about being squeezed dry by Mr. Bishop.

âItâs Claire,â she said. âIâm sorry to call so earlyââ

âIs it early? Oh. Been up all night, just fell asleep.â He yawned. âGlad youâre all right, Claire.â

âAre you at the hospital?â

âNo. The hospitalâs going to need a lot of work before itâs even halfway ready for the kind of work I need to do.â Another jaw-cracking yawn. âSorry. Iâm on campus, in the Life Sciences Building. Lab Seventeen. We have some roll-away beds here.â

âWe?â

âMy wife and kids are with me. I didnât want to leave them on their own out there.â

Claire didnât blame him. âIâve got something for you to do, and I need some of the drug,â she said. âIt could be really important. Iâll be at school in about twenty minutes, okay?â

âOkay. Donât come here. My kids are asleep right now. Letâs meet somewhere else.â

âThe on-campus coffee bar,â she said. âItâs in the University Center.â

âTrust me, I know where it is. Twenty minutes.â

She was already heading for the door.

Â 

With no sounds coming from any of the other rooms, Claire figured her housemates were all crashed out, exhausted. She didnât know why she wasnât, except for a suppressed, vibrating fear inside her that if she slept any more, something bad was going to happen.

Showered, dressed in her last not-very-good clothes, she grabbed up her backpack and repacked it. Her dart gun was out of darts anyway, so she left it behind. The samples Myrnin had prepared of Bishopâs blood went into a sturdy padded box, and on impulse, she added a couple of stakes and the silver knife Amelie had given her.

And books.

It was the first time Claire had been on foot in Morganville since the rioting had started, and it was eerie. The town was quiet again, but stores had broken windows, some boarded over; there were some buildings reduced to burned-out hulks, with blind, open doorways. Broken bottles were on the sidewalks and spots of what looked like blood on the concreteâand, in places, dark splashes.

Claire hurried past it all, even past Common Grounds, where the steel shutters were down inside the windows. There was no sign of anyone within. She imagined Theo Goldman standing there watching her from cover, and waved a little, just a waggle of fingers.

She didnât really expect a response.

The gates of the university were open, and the guards were gone. Claire jogged along the sidewalk, going up the hill and around the curve, and began to see students up and moving, even so early in the morning. As she got closer to the central cluster of buildings, the foot traffic intensified, and here and there she saw alert campus police walking in pairs, watching for trouble.

The students didnât seem to notice anything at all. Not for the first time, Claire wondered if Amelieâs semipsychic network that cut Morganville off from the world also kept people on campus clueless.

She didnât like to think they were just naturally that stupid. Then again, sheâd been to some of the parties.

The University Center had opened its doors only a few minutes before, and the coffee barista was just taking the chairs down from the tables. Usually it would have been Eve on duty, but instead, it was one of the university staffers, on loan from the food service most likely. He didnât exactly look happy to be there. Claire tried to be nice, and finally got a smile from him as he handed her a mocha and took her cash.

âI wouldnât be here,â he confessed, âexcept that theyâre paying us triple to be here the rest of the week.â

âReally? Wow. Iâll tell Eve. She could use the money.â

âYeah, get her in here. Iâm not good at this coffee stuff. Give me the plain stuff. Water, beansâcanât really screw that up. This espresso is hard.â

Claire decided, after tasting the mocha, that he was right. He really wasnât cut out for it. She sipped it anyway, and took a seat where she could watch the majority of the UC entrances for Dr. Mills.

She almost didnât recognize him. Heâd shed his white doctorâs coat, of course, but somehow sheâd never expected to see someone like him wearing a zip-up hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers. He was more the suit-and-tie type. He ordered plain coffeeâgood choiceâand came to join her at the table.

Dr. Mills was medium everything, and he blended in at the university just as easily as he had at the hospital. Heâd have made a good spy, Claire thought. He had one of those facesâyoung from one angle, older from another, with nothing you could really remember later about it.

But he had a nice, comforting smile. She supposed that would be a real asset in a doctor.

âMorning,â he said, and gulped coffee. His eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed. âIâm going back to the hospital later today. Damage assessments, and weâve already reopened the trauma units and CCU. Iâm going to catch some sleep as soon as weâre done, in case any crash cases come in. Nothing worse than an exhausted trauma surgeon.â

She felt even more guilty about waking him up. âIâll make this quick,â she promised. Claire opened her backpack, took out the padded box, and slid it across the table to him. âBlood samples, from Myrnin.â

Mills frowned. âIâve already got a hundred blood samples from Myrnin. Whyââ

âThese are different,â Claire said. âTrust me. Thereâs one labeled B thatâs important.â

âImportant, how?â

âI donât want to say. Iâd rather you took a look first.â In science, Claire knew, it was better to come to an analysis cold, without too many expectations. Dr. Mills knew that, too, and he nodded as he took possession of the samples. âUmâif you want to sleep, maybe you shouldnât drink that stuff.â

Dr. Mills smiled and threw back the rest of his coffee. âYou get to be a doctor by developing immunity to all kinds of things, including caffeine,â he said. âTrust me. The second my head touches the pillow, Iâm asleep, even if Iâve got a coffee IV drip.â

âI know people whoâd pay good money for that. The IV drip, I mean.â

He shook his head, grinning, but then got serious. âYou seem okay. I was worried about you. Youâre just so . . . young, to be involved in all this stuff.â

âIâm all right. And Iâm reallyââ

âNot that young. Yes, I know. But still. Let an old man fret a little. Iâve got two daughters.â He tossed his coffee cup at the trashâtwo pointsâand stood. âHereâs all I could get together of the drug. Sorry, itâs not a lot, but Iâve got a new batch in the works. Itâll take a couple of days to finish.â

He handed her a bag that clinked with small glass bottles. She peeked inside. âThis should be plenty.â Unless, of course, she had to start dosing all over Morganville, in which case, they were done, anyway.

âSorry to make this a gulp-and-run, but . . .â

âYou should go,â Claire agreed. âThanks, Dr. Mills.â She offered her hand. He shook it gravely.

Around his wrist, there was a silver bracelet, with Amelieâs symbol on it. He looked down at it, then at her gold one, and shrugged.

âI donât think itâs time to take it off,â he said. âNot yet.â

At least yours does come off, Claire thought, but didnât say. Dr. Mills had signed agreements, contracts, and those things were binding in Morganville, but the contract sheâd signed had made her Amelieâs property, body and soul. And her bracelet didnât have a catch on it, which made it more like a slave collar.

From time to time, that still creeped her out.

It was getting close to time for her first class, and as Claire hefted her backpack, she wondered how many people would show up. Lots, probably. Knowing most of the professors, theyâd think today was a good day for a quiz.

She wasnât disappointed. She also wasnât panicked, unlike some of her classmates during her first class, and her third. Claire didnât panic on tests, not unless it was in a dream where she also had to clog dance and twirl batons to get a good grade. And the quizzes werenât so hard anyway, not even the physics tests.

One thing she noticed, more and more, as she went around campus: fewer people had on bracelets. Morganville natives got used to wearing them twenty-four/ seven, so she could clearly see the tan lines where the bracelets had been . . . and werenât anymore. It was almost like a reverse tattoo.

Around noon, she saw Monica Morrell, Gina, and Jennifer.

The three girls were walking fast, heads down, books in their arms. There was a whole lot different about them; Claire was used to seeing those three stalking the campus like tigers, confident and cruel. Theyâd stare down anyone, and whether you liked them or not, they were wicked fashion queens, always showing themselves off to best advantage.

Not today.

Monica, who usually was the centerpiece, looked awful. Her shiny, flirty hair was dull and fuzzy, as if she had barely bothered to brush it, much less condition or curl. What little Claire could see of her face looked makeup free. She was wearing a shapeless sweater in an unflatteringly ugly pattern, and sloppy blue jeans, the kind Claire imagined she might keep around to clean house in, if Monica ever did that kind of thing.

Gina and Jennifer didnât look much better, and they all looked defeated.

Claire still felt a little, tiny, unworthy tingle of satisfaction . . . until she saw the looks they were getting. Morganville natives whoâd taken off their bracelets were outright glaring at Monica and her entourage, and a few of them did worse than just give them dirty looks. As Claire watched, a big, tough jock wearing a TPU jacket bumped into Jennifer and sent her books flying. She didnât look at him. She just bent over to pick them up.

âHey, you clumsy whore, what the hell?â He shoved her onto her butt as she tried to get up, but she wasnât his real target; she was just standing between him and Monica. âHey. Morrell. Howâs your daddy?â

âFine,â Monica said, and looked him in the eyes. âIâd ask about yours, but since you donât know who he wasââ

The jock stepped very close to her. She didnât flinch, but Claire could tell that she wanted to. There were tight lines around her eyes and mouth, and her knuckles were white where she gripped her books.

âYouâve been Princess Queen Bitch your whole life,â he said. âYou remember Annie? Annie McFarlane? You used to call her a fat cow. You laughed at her in school. You took pictures of her in the bathroom and posted them on the Internet. Remember?â

Monica didnât answer.

The jock smiled. âYeah, you remember Annie. She was a good kid, and I liked her.â

âYou didnât like her enough to stand up for her,â Monica said. âRight, Clark? You wanted to get in my pants more than you wanted me to be kind to your little fat friend. Not my fault she ended up wrecking that stupid car at the town border. Maybe itâs your fault, though. Maybe she couldnât stand being in town with you anymore after you dumped her.â

Clark knocked the books out of her hand and shoved her up against a nearby tree trunk. Hard.

âIâve got something for you, bitch.â He dug in his pocket and came up with something square, about four inches across. It was a sticky label like a name tag, only with a picture on it of an awkward but sweet-looking teenage girl trying bravely to smile for the camera.

Clark slapped it on Monicaâs chest and rubbed it so it stuck to the sweater.

âYou wear that,â he said. âYou wear Annieâs picture. If I see you take it off today, I swear, what you did to Annie back in high schoolâs going to seem like a CancÃºn vacation.â

Under Annieâs picture were the words KILLED BY MONICA MORRELL.

Monica looked down at it, swallowed, and turned bright red, then pale. She jerked her chin up again, sharply, and stared at Clark. âAre you done?â

âSo far. Remember, you take it offââ

âYeah, Clark, you werenât exactly subtle. I get it. You think I care?â

Clarkâs grin widened. âNo, you donât. Not yet. Have a nice day, Queenie.â

He walked away and did a high five with two other guys.

As Monica stared down at the label on her chest in utter disgust, another girl approachedâanother Morganville native whoâd taken off the bracelet. Monica didnât notice her until the girl was right in her face.

This one didnât talk. She just ripped the backing off another label and stuck it on Monicaâs chest next to Annie McFarlaneâs photo.

This one just said KILLER in big red letters.

She kept on walking.

Monica started to rip it off, but Clark was watching her.

âSuits you,â he said, and pointed to his eyes, then to her. âWeâll be watching you all day. There are a lot more labels coming.â

Clark was right. It was going to be a really long, bad day to be Monica Morrell. Even Gina and Jennifer were fading back now, heading out in a different direction and leaving her to face the music.

Monicaâs gaze fell on Claire. There was a flash of fear in her eyes, and shame, and genuine pain.

And then she armored up and snapped, âWhat are you looking at, freak?â

Claire shrugged. âJustice, I guess.â She frowned. âHow come you didnât stay with your parents?â

âNone of your business.â Monicaâs fierce stare wavered. âDad wanted us all to go back to normal. So people could see weâre not afraid.â

âHowâs that going?â

Monica took a step toward her, then hugged her books to her chest to cover up most of the labels, and hurried on.

She hadnât gotten ten feet before a stranger ran up and slapped a label across her back that had a picture of a slender young girl and an older boy of maybe fifteen on it. The words beneath said KILLER OF ALYSSA.

With a shock, Claire realized that the boy in that picture was Shane. And that was his sister, Alyssa, the one whoâd died in the fire that Monica had set.

âJustice,â Claire repeated softly. She felt a little sick, actually. Justice wasnât the same thing as mercy.

Her phone rang as she was trying to decide what to do. âBetter come home,â Michael Glass said. âWeâve got an emergency signal from Richard at City Hall.â

12

The signal had come over the coded strategy network, which Claire had just assumed was dead, considering that Oliver had been the one running it. But Richard had found a use for it, and as she burst in the front door, breathless, she heard Michael and Eve talking in the living room. Claire closed and locked the door, dumped her backpack, and hurried to join them.

âWhat did I miss?â

âShhh,â they both said. Michael, Eve, and Shane were all seated at the table, staring intently at the small walkie-talkie sitting upright in the middle. Michael pulled out a chair for Claire, and she sat, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Richard was talking.

Â 

âNo telling whether or not this storm will hit us full on, but right now, the Weather Service shows the radar track going right over the top of us. Itâll be here in the next few hours, probably right around dark. Itâs late in the year for tornado activity, but theyâre telling us thereâs a strong possibility of some real trouble. On top of all the other things we have going on, this isnât good news. Iâm putting all emergency services and citizen patrols on full alert. If we get a tornado, get to your designated shelters.

Designated shelters? Claire mouthed to Michael, who shrugged.

Â 

If youâre closer to City Hall, come here; weâve got a shelter in the basement. Those of you who are Civil Defense wardens, go door-to-door in your area, tell people weâve got a storm coming and what to do. Weâre putting it on TV and radio, and the universityâs going to get ready as well.

Â 

âRichard, this is Hector,â said a new voice. âMiller House. You got any news about this takeover people are talking about?â

âWeâve got rumors, but nothing concrete,â Richard said. âWe hear thereâs a lot of talk going around town about taking back City Hall, but weâve got no specific word about when these people are meeting, or where, or even who they are. All I can tell you is that weâve fortified the building, and the barricades remain up around Founderâs Square, for all the good that does. I need everybody in a security-designated location to be on the alert today and tonight. Report in if you see any sign of an attack, any sign at all. Weâll try to get to you in support.â

Michael exchanged a look with the rest of them, and then picked up the radio. He pressed the button. âMichael Glass. You think Bishopâs behind this?â

âI think Bishopâs willing to let humans do his dirty work for him, and then sweep in to make himself lord and master on the ashes,â Richard said. âSeems like his style. Put Shane on.â

Michael held out the radio. Shane looked at it like it might bite, then took it and pressed TALK. âYeah, this is Shane.â

âI have two unconfirmed sightings of your father in town. I know this isnât easy for you, but I need to know: is Frank Collins back in Morganville?â

Shane looked into Claireâs eyes and said, âIf he is, he hasnât talked to me about it.â

He lied. Claireâs lips parted, and she almost blurted something out, but she just couldnât think what to say. âShane,â she whispered. He shook his head.

âTell you what, Richard, you catch my dad, youâve got my personal endorsement for tossing him in the deepest pit youâve got around here,â Shane said. âIf heâs in Morganville, heâs got a plan, but he wonât be working for or with the vamps. Not that he knows, anyway.â

âFair enough. You hear from himââ

âYouâre on speed dial. Got it.â Shane set the radio back in the center of the table. Claire kept staring at him, willing him to speak, to say something, but he didnât.

âDonât do this,â she said. âDonât put me in the middle.â

âIâm not,â Shane said. âNothing I said was a lie. My dad told me he was coming, not that heâs here. I havenât seen him, and I donât want to. I meant what I said. If heâs here, Dick and his brownshirts are welcome to him. Iâve got nothing to do with him, not anymore.â

Claire wasnât sure she believed that, but she didnât think he was intentionally lying now. He probably did mean it. She just thought that no matter how much he thought he was done with his dad, all it would take would be a snap of Frank Collinsâs fingers to bring him running.

Not good.

Richard was answering questions from others on the radio, but Michael was no longer listening. He was fixed on Shane. âYou knew? You knew he was coming back here, and you didnât warn me?â

Shane stirred uneasily. âLookââ

âNo, you look. Iâm the one who got knifed and decapitated and buried in the backyard, among other things! Good thing I was a ghost!â

Shane looked down. âWho was I supposed to tell? The vamps? Come on.â

âYou could have told me!â

âYouâre a vamp,â Shane said. âIn case you havenât checked the mirror lately.â

Michael stood up. His chair slid about two feet across the floor and skidded to an uneven stop; he leaned his hands on the table and loomed over Shane. âOh, I do,â he said. âI check it every day. How about you? You taken a good look recently, Shane? Because Iâm not so sure I know you anymore.â

Shane looked up at that, and there was a flash of pain in his face. âI didnât meanââ

âI could be just about the last vampire around here,â Michael interrupted. âMaybe the others are dead. Maybe they will be soon. Between the mobs out there willing to rip our heads off and Bishop waiting to take over, having your dad stalking me is all I need.â

âHe wouldnâtââ

âHe killed me once, or tried to. Heâd do it again in a second, and he wouldnât blink, and you know that, Shane. You know it! He thinks Iâm some kind of a traitor to the human race. Heâll come after me in particular.â

Shane didnât say anything this time. Michael retrieved the radio from the table and clipped it to the pocket of his jeans. He shone, all blazing gold and hard, white angles, and Shane couldnât meet his stare.

âYou decide you want to help your dad kill some vampires, Shane, you know where to find me.â

Michael went upstairs. It was as if the room had lost all its air, and Claire found herself breathing very hard, trying not to tremble.

Eveâs dark eyes were very wide, and fixed on Shane as well. She slowly got up from the table.

âEveââ he said, and reached out toward her. She stepped out of reach.

âI canât believe you,â she said. âYou see me running over to suck up to my mom? No. And sheâs not even a murderer.â

âMorganville needs to change.â

âWake up, Shane, it has! It started months ago. Itâs been changing right in front of you! Vampires and humans working together. Trusting one another. Theyâre trying. Sure, itâs hard, but theyâve got reason to be afraid of us, good reason. And now you want to throw all that away and help your dad set up a guillotine in Founderâs Square or something?â Eveâs eyes turned bitter black. âScrew you.â

âI didnâtââ

She clomped away toward the stairs, leaving Shane and Claire together.

Shane swallowed, then tried to make it a joke. âThat could have gone better.â Claire slipped out of her chair. âClaire? Oh, come on, not you, too. Donât go. Please.â

âYou should have told him. I canât believe you didnât. Heâs your friend, or at least I thought he was.â

âWhere are you going?â

She pulled in a deep breath. âIâm packing. Iâve decided to move in with my parents.â

Â 

She didnât pack, though. She went upstairs, closed the door to her room, and pulled out her pitifully few possessions. Most of it was dirty laundry. She sat there on the bed, staring at it, feeling lost and alone and a little sick, and wondered if she was making a point or just running like a little girl. She felt pretty stupid now that she had everything piled on the floor.

It looked utterly pathetic.

When the knock came on her door, she didnât immediately answer it. She knew it was Shane, even though he didnât speak. Go away, she thought at him, but he still wasnât much of a mind reader. He knocked again.

âItâs not locked,â she said.

âItâs also not open,â Shane said quietly, through the wood. âIâm not a complete ass.â

âYes, you are.â

âOkay, sometimes I am.â He hesitated, and she heard the floor creak as he shifted his weight. âClaire.â

âCome in.â

He froze when he saw the stuff piled in front of her, waiting to be put in bags and her one suitcase. âYouâre serious.â

âYes.â

âYouâre just going to pick up and leave.â

âYou know my parents want me to come home.â

He didnât say anything for a long moment, then reached into his back pocket and took out a black case, about the size of his hand. âHere, then. I was going to give it to you later, but I guess Iâd better do it now, before you take off on us.â

His voice sounded offhand and normal, but his fingers felt cold when she touched them in taking the case, and there was an expression on his face she didnât knowâfear, maybe; bracing himself for something painful.

It was a hard, leather-wrapped case, on spring hinges. She hesitated for a breath, then pried up one end. It snapped open.

Oh.

The cross was beautifulâdelicate silver, traceries of leaves wrapped around it. It was on a silver chain so thin it looked like a breath would melt it. When Claire picked up the necklace, it felt like air in her hand.

âIââ She had no idea what to say, what to feel. Her whole body seemed to have gone into shock. âItâs beautiful.â

âI know it doesnât work against the vamps,â Shane said. âOkay, well, I didnât know that when I got it for you. But itâs still silver, and silver works, so I hope thatâs okay.â

This wasnât a small present. Shane didnât have a lot of money; he picked up odd jobs here and there, and spent very little. This wasnât some cheap costume jewelry; it was real silver, and really beautiful.

âI canâtâitâs too expensive.â Claireâs heart was pounding again, and she wished she could think. She wished she knew what she was supposed to feel, supposed to do. On impulse, she put the necklace back in the box and snapped it shut, and held it out to him. âShane, I canât.â

He gave her a broken sort of smile. âItâs not a ring or anything. Keep it. Besides, it doesnât match my eyes.â

He stuck his hands in his pockets, rounded his shoulders, and walked out of the room.

Claire clutched the leather box in one sweaty hand, eyes wide, and then opened it again. The cross gleamed on black velvet, clean and beautiful and shining, and it blurred as her eyes filled with tears.

Now she felt something, something big and overwhelming and far too much to fit inside her small, fragile body.

âOh,â she whispered. âOh God.â This hadnât been just any gift. Heâd put a lot of time and effort into getting it. There was love in it, real love.

She took the cross, put it around her neck, and fastened the clasp with shaking fingers. It took her two tries. Then she went down the hall and, without knocking, opened Shaneâs door. He was standing at the window, staring outside. He looked different to her. Older. Sadder.

He turned toward her, and his gaze fixed on the silver cross in the hollow of her throat.

âYouâre an idiot,â Claire said.

Shane considered that, and nodded. âI really am, mostly.â

âAnd then you have to go and do these awesome thingsââ

âI know. I did say I was mostly an idiot.â

âYou kind of have your good moments.â

He didnât quite smile. âSo you like it?â

She put her hand up to stroke the crossâs warm silver lines. âIâm wearing it, arenât I?â

âNot that it means weâreââ

âYou said you loved me,â Claire said. âYou did say that.â

He shut his mouth and studied her, then nodded. There was a flush building high in his cheeks.

âWell, I love you, too, and youâre still an idiot. Mostly.â

âNo argument.â He folded his arms across his chest, and she tried not to notice the way his muscles tensed, or the vulnerable light in his eyes. âSo, you moving out?â

âI should,â she said softly. âThe other nightââ

âClaire. Please be straight with me. Are you moving out?â

She was holding the cross now, cradling it, and it felt warm as the sun against her fingers. âI canât,â she said. âI have to do laundry first, and that might take a month. You saw the pile.â

He laughed, and it was as if all the strength went out of him. He sat down on his unmade bed, hard, and after a moment, she walked around the end and sat next to him. He put his arm around her.

âLife is a work in progress,â Shane said. âMy mom used to say that. Iâm kind of a fixer-upper. I know that.â

Claire sighed and allowed herself to relax against his warmth. âGood thing I like high-maintenance guys.â

He was about to kiss herâfinallyâwhen they both heard a sound from overhead.

Only there was nothing overhead. Nothing but the attic.

âDid you hear that?â Shane asked.

âYeah. It sounded like footsteps.â

âOh, well, thatâs fantastic. I thought it was supposed to be exit-only or something.â Shane reached under his bed and came up with a stake. âGo get Michael and Eve. Here.â He handed her another stake. This one had a silver tip. âItâs the Cadillac of vampire killers. Donât dent it.â

âYou are so weird.â But she took it, and then dashed to her room to grab the thin silver knife Amelie had given her. No place to put it, but she poked a hole in the pocket of her jeans just big enough for the blade. The jeans were tight enough to keep the blade in place against her leg, but not so much it looked obvious, and besides, it was pretty flexible.

She hurried down the hall, listening for any other movement. Eveâs room was empty, but when she knocked on Michaelâs door, she heard a startled yelp that sounded very Eve-like. âWhat?â Michael asked.

âTrouble,â Claire said. âUm, maybe? Attic. Now.â

Michael didnât sound any happier about it than Shane had been. âGreat. Be there in a second.â

Muffled conversation, and the sound of fabric moving. Claire wondered if he was getting dressed, and quickly tried to reject that image, not because it wasnât awesomely hot, but because, well, it was Michael, and besides, there were other things to think about.

Such as what was upstairs in the attic.

Or who.

The door banged open, and Eve rushed out, flushed and mussed and still buttoning her shirt. âItâs not what you think,â she said. âIt was justâoh, okay, whatever, it was exactly what you think. Now, what?â

Something dropped and rolled across the attic floor directly above their heads. Claire silently pointed up, and Eve followed the motion, staring as if she could see through the wood and plaster. She jumped when Michael, whoâd thrown on an unbuttoned shirt, put a hand on her shoulder. He put a finger to his lips.

Shane stepped out of his room, holding a stake in either hand. He pitched one underhand to Michael.

Whereâs mine? Eve mouthed.

Get your own, Shane mouthed back. Eve rolled her eyes and dashed into her own room, coming back with a black bag slung across her chest, bandolier-style. It was, Claire assumed, full of weapons. Eve fished around in it and came up with a stake of her very own. It even had her initials carved in it.

âShop class,â she whispered. âSee? I did learn something in school.â

Michael pressed the button to release the hidden door, and it opened without a sound. There were no lights upstairs that Claire could see. The stairs were pitch-black.

Michael, by common consent, went first, vampire eyes, and all. Shane followed, then Eve; Claire brought up the rear, and tried to move as silently as possible, although not really all that silently, because the stairs creaked beneath the weight of four people. At the top, Claire ran into Eveâs back, and whispered, âWhat?â

Eve, in answer, reached back to grip her hand. âMichael smells blood,â she whispered. âHush.â

Michael flicked on a light at the other end of the small, silent room. There was nothing unusual, just the furniture that was always here. There were no signs anybody had been here since the Goldmans and Myrnin had departed.

âHow do we get into the attic?â Shane asked. Michael pressed hidden studs, and another door, barely visible at that end of the room, clicked open. Claire remembered it well; Myrnin had shown it to her, when theyâd been getting stuff together to go to Bishopâs welcome feast.

âStay here,â Michael said, and stepped through into the dim, open space.

âYeah, sure,â Shane said, and followed. He popped his head back in to say, âNo, not you two. Stay here.â

âDoes he just not get how unfair and sexist that is?â Eve asked. âMen.â

âYou really want to go first?â

âOf course not. But Iâd like the chance to refuse to go first.â

They waited tensely, listening for any sign of trouble. Claire heard Shaneâs footsteps moving through the attic, but nothing else for a long time.

Then she heard him say, âMichael. Oh man . . . over here.â There was tension in his voice, but it didnât sound like he was about to jump into hand-to-hand combat.

Eve and Claire exchanged looks, and Eve said, âOh, screw it,â and dived into the attic after them.

Claire followed, gripping the Cadillac of stakes and hoping she wasnât going to be forced to try to use it.

Shane was crouched down behind some stacked, dusty suitcases, and Michael was there, too. Eve pulled in a sharp breath when she saw what it was they were bending over, and put out a hand to stop Claire in her tracks.

Not that Claire stopped, until she saw who was lying on the wooden floor. She hardly recognized him, really. If it hadnât been for the gray ponytail and the leather coat . . .

âItâs Oliver,â she whispered. Eve was biting her lip until it was almost white, staring at her former boss. âWhat happened?â

âSilver,â Michael said. âLots of it. It eats vampire skin like acid, but he shouldnât be this bad. Not unlessââ He stopped as the pale, burned eyelids fluttered. âHeâs still alive.â

âVampires are hard to kill,â Oliver whispered. His voice was barely a creak of sound, and it broke at the end on what sounded almost like a sob. âJesu. Hurts.â

Michael exchanged a look with Shane, then said, âLetâs get him downstairs. Claire. Go get some blood from the fridge. There should be some.â

âNo,â Oliver grated, and sat up. There was blood leaking through his white shirt, as if all his skin were gone underneath. âNo time. Attack on City Hall, coming tonightâBishop. Using it as aâdiversionâtoââ His eyes opened wider, and went blank, then rolled up into his head.

He collapsed. Michael caught him under the shoulders.

He and Shane carried Oliver out to the couch, while Eve anxiously followed along, making little shooing motions.

Claire started to follow, then heard something scrape across the wood behind her, in the shadows.

Oliver hadnât come here alone.

A black shadow lunged out, grabbed her, and something hard hit her head.

She must have made some sound, knocked something over, because she heard Shane call her name sharply, and saw his shadow in the doorway before darkness took all of it away.

Then she was falling away.

Then she was gone.

13

Claire came awake feeling sick, wretched, and cold. Someone was pounding on the back of her head with a croquet mallet, or at least that was how it felt, and when she tried to move, the whole world spun around.

âShut up and stop moaning,â somebody said from a few feet away. âDonât you dare throw up or Iâll make you eat it.â

It sounded like Jason Rosser, Eveâs crazy brother. Claire swallowed hard and squinted, trying to make out the shadow next to her. Yeah, it looked like Jasonâskanky, greasy, and insane. She tried to squirm away from him, but ran into a wall at her back. It felt like wood, but she didnât think it was the Glass House attic.

Heâd taken her somewhere, probably using the portal. And now none of her friends could follow, because none of them knew how.

Her hands and feet were tied. Claire blinked, trying to clear her head. That was a little unfortunate, because with clarity came the awareness of just how bad this was. Jason Rosser really was crazy. Heâd stalked Eve. Heâdâat least allegedlyâkilled girls in town. Heâd definitely stabbed Shane, and heâd staked Amelie at the feast when sheâd tried to help him.

And none of her friends back at the Glass House would know how to find her. To their eyes, she would have just . . . vanished.

âWhat do you want?â she asked. Her voice sounded rusty and scared. Jason reached out and moved hair back from her face, which creeped her out. She didnât like him touching her.

âRelax, shortcake, youâre not my type,â he said. âI do what Iâm told, thatâs all. You were wanted. So I brought you.â

âWanted?â

A low, silky laugh floated on the silence, dark as smoke, and Jason looked over his shoulder as the hidden observer rose and stepped into what little light there was.

Ysandre, Bishopâs pale little girlfriend. Beautiful, sure. Delicate as jasmine flowers, with big, liquid eyes and a sweetly rounded face.

She was poison in a pretty bottle.

âWell,â she said, and crouched down next to Claire. âLook at what the cat dragged in. Meeow.â Her sharp nail dragged over Claireâs cheek, and judging from the sting, it drew blood. âWhereâs your pretty boyfriend, Miss Claire? I really wasnât done with him, you know. I hadnât even properly started.â

Claire felt an ugly lurch of anger mix with the fear already churning her stomach. âHeâs probably not done with you, either,â she said, and managed to smile. She hoped it was a cold kind of smile, the sort that Amelie usedâor Oliver. âMaybe you should go looking. Iâll bet heâd be so happy to see you.â

âIâll show that boy a real good time, when we do meet up again,â Ysandre purred, and put her face very close to Claireâs. âNow, then, letâs talk, just us girls. Wonât that be fun?â

Not. Claire was struggling against the ropes, but Jason had done his job pretty well; she was hurting herself more than accomplishing anything else. Ysandre grabbed Claireâs shoulder and wrenched her upright against the wooden wall, hard enough to bang Claireâs injured head. For a dazed second, it looked like Ysandreâs ripe, red smile floated in midair, like some undead Cheshire cat.

âNow,â Ysandre said, âainât this nice, sweetie? Itâs too bad we couldnât get Mr. Shane to join us, but my little helper here, heâs a bit worried about tackling Shane. Bad blood and all.â She laughed softly. âWell, weâll make do. Amelie likes you, I hear, and youâve got on that pretty little gold bracelet. So youâll do just fine.â

âFor what?â

âI ainât telling you, sweetie.â Ysandreâs smile was truly scary. âThis townâs going to have a wild night, though. Real wild. And youâre going to get to see the whole thing, up close. You must be all atingle.â

Eve would have had a quip at the ready. Claire just glared, and wished her head would stop aching and spinning. What had he hit her with? It felt like the front end of a bus. She hadnât thought Jason could hit that hard, truthfully.

Donât try to find me, Shane. Donât. The last thing she wanted was Shane racing to the rescue and taking on a guy whoâd stabbed him, and a vampire whoâd led him around by a leash.

No, she had to find her own way out of this.

Step one: figure out where she was. Claire let Ysandre ramble on, describing all kinds of lurid things that Claire thought it was better not to imagine, considering they were things Ysandre was thinking of doing to her. Instead, she tried to identify her surroundings. It didnât look familiar, but that was no help; she was still relatively new to Morganville. Plenty of places sheâd never been.

Wait.

Claire focused on the crate that Jason was sitting on. There was stenciling on it. It was hard to make it out in the dim light, but she thought it said BRICKS BULK COFFEE. And now that she thought about it, it smelled like coffee in here, too. A warm, morning kind of smell, floating over dust and damp wood.

And she remembered Eve laughing about how Oliver bought his coffee from a place called Bricks. As in, tastes like ground-up bricks, Eve had said. If you order flavored, they add in the mortar.

There were only two coffee shops in town: Oliverâs place, and the University Center coffee bar. This didnât look like the UC, which wasnât that old and was mostly built of concrete, not wood.

That meant . . . she was at Common Grounds? But Common Grounds didnât make any sense; there wasnât any kind of portal leading to it.

Maybe Oliver has a warehouse. That sounded right, because the vampires seemed to own a lot of the warehouse district that bordered Founderâs Square. Brandon, Oliverâs second-in-vampire-command, had been found dead in a warehouse.

Maybe she was close to Founderâs Square.

Ysandreâs cold fingers closed around Claireâs chin and jerked it up. âAre you listening, honey?â

âTruthfully, no,â Claire said. âYouâre kind of boring.â

Jason actually laughed, and turned it into a fake cough. âIâm going outside,â he said. âSince this is going to get all personal now.â Claire wanted to yell to him not to go, but she bit her tongue and turned it into a subsonic whine in the back of her throat as she watched him walk away. His footsteps receded into the dark, and then finally a small square of light opened a long way off.

It was a door, too far for her to reachâway too far.

âI thought heâd never leave,â Ysandre said, and put her cold, cold lips on Claireâs neck, then yelled in shock and pulled away, covering her mouth with one pale hand. âYou bitch!â

Ysandre hadnât seen the silver chain Claire was wearing in the dim light, as whisper-thin as it was. Now there were welts forming on the vampireâs full lipsâforming, breaking, and bleeding.

Fury sparked in Ysandreâs eyes. Playtime was over.

As Claire squirmed away, the vampire followed at a lazy stroll. She wiped her burned lips and looked at the thin, leaking blood in distaste. âTastes like silver. Disgusting. Youâve just ruined my good mood, little girl.â

As she rolled, Claire felt something sharp dig into her leg. The knife. Theyâd found the stake, but she guessed their search hadnât exactly been thorough; Jason was too crazy, and Ysandre too careless and arrogant.

But the knife wasnât going to do her any good at all where it was, unless . . .

Ysandre lunged for her, a blur of white in the darkness, and Claire twisted and jammed her hip down at an awkward angle.

The knife slipped and tore through the fabric of her jeansânot much of it, just a couple of inches, but enough to slice open Ysandreâs hand and arm as it reached for her, all the way to the bone.

Ysandre shrieked in real pain, and spun away. She didnât look so pretty now, and when she turned toward Claire again, from a respectful distance this time, she hissed at her with full cobra fangs extended. Her eyes were wild and bloodred, glowing like rubies.

Claire twisted, nearly yanking her elbow out of its joint, and managed to get the ropes around her wrist against the knife. She didnât have long; the shock wouldnât keep Ysandre at bay for more than a few seconds.

But getting a silver knife to cut through synthetic rope? That was going to take a whileâa while she didnât have.

Claire sawed desperately, and got a little bit of give on the bondsâenough to almost get her hand into her pocket.

But not.

Ysandre grabbed her by the hair. âIâm going to destroy you for that.â

The pain in her head was blinding. It felt like her scalp was being ripped off, and on top of that, the massive headache roared back to a new, sickening pulse.

Claire loosened the rope enough to plunge her aching hand into her pocket and grab the handle of the knife. She yanked it out of the tangle of fabric and held it at a trembling, handicapped en gardeâstill tied up, but whatever, she wasnât going to stop fighting, not ever.

Ysandre shrieked and let her go, which made no sense to Claireâs confused, pain-shocked mind. I didnât stab her yet. Did I? Not that she wanted to stab anybody, even Ysandre. She just wantedâ

What was going on?

Ysandreâs body slammed down hard on the wooden floor, and Claire gasped and flinched away . . . but the vampire had fallen facedown, limp, and weirdly broken.

A small woman dressed in gray, her pale hair falling wild around her shoulders, dropped silently from overhead and put one impeccably lovely gray pump in the center of Ysandreâs back, holding her down as she tried to move.

âClaire?â The womanâs face turned toward her, and Claire blinked twice before she realized whom she was looking at.

Amelie. But not Amelie. Not the cool, remote Founderâthis woman had a wild, furious energy to her that Claire had never seen before. And she looked young.

âIâm okay,â she said faintly, and tried to decide whether this version of Amelie was really here, or a function of her smacked-around brain. She decided it would be a good idea to get her hands and feet untied before figuring anything else out.

That took long minutes, during which Amelie (really?) dragged Ysandre, whimpering, into the corner and fastened her wrists to a massive crossbeam with chains. The chains, Claire registered, had been there all along. Lovely. This was some kind of vamp playpen/storage lockerâprobably Oliverâs. And she felt sick again, thinking about it. Claire sawed grimly at the ropes binding her and finally parted one complete twist around her hands. As she struggled out of the loops of rope, she saw deep white imprints in her skin, and realized that her hands were red and swollen. She could still feel them, at least, and the burn of circulation returning felt as if she were holding them over an open flame.

She focused on slicing the increasingly dulled knife through the rope on her feet, but it was no use.

âHere,â Amelie said, and bent down to snap the rope with one twist of her fingers. It was so frustrating, after all that hard work, to see just how easy it was for her. Claire stripped the ties away and sat for a moment breathing hard, starting to feel every cut, bump, and bruise on her body.

Amelieâs cool fingers cupped Claireâs chin and forced her head up, and the vampireâs gray eyes searched hers. âYou have a head injury,â Amelie said. âI donât think itâs too serious. A headache and some dizziness, perhaps.â She let go. âI expected to find you. I did not expect to find you here, I confess.â

Amelie looked fine. Not a prisoner. Not a scratch on her, in fact. Claire had lots more damage, and she hadnât been dragged off as Bishopâs prisoner. . . .

Wait. âYouâwe thought Bishop might have gotten you. But he didnât, did he?â

Amelie cocked an eyebrow at her. âApparently not.â

âThen where did you go?â Claire felt a completely useless urge to lash out at her, crack that extreme cool. âWhy did you do this? You left us alone! And you called the vampires out of hidingââ Her voice failed her for a second as she thought about Officer OâMalley, and the others sheâd heard about. âYou got some of them killed.â

Amelie didnât respond to that. She simply stared back, as calm as an ice sculptureâcalmer, because she wasnât melting.

âTell me why,â Claire said. âTell me why you did that.â

âBecause plans change,â Amelie replied. âAs Bishop changes his moves, I must change mine. The stakes are too high now, Claire. Iâve lost half the vampires of Morganville to him. Heâs taking away my advantage, and I needed to draw them to me, for their own safety.â

âYou got vampires killed, not just humans. I know humans donât mean anything to you. But I thought the whole point of this was to save your people!â

âAnd so it is,â Amelie said. âAs many as can be saved. As for the call, there is a thing in chess known as a blitz attack, you seeâa distraction, to cover the movement of more important pieces. You retrieved Myrnin and set him in play again; this was most important. I need my most powerful pieces on the board.â

âLike Oliver?â Claire rubbed her hands together, trying to get the annoying tingle out of them. âHeâs hurt, you know. Maybe dying.â

âHeâs served his purpose.â Amelie turned her attention toward Ysandre, who was starting to stir. âItâs time to take Bishopâs rook, I believe.â

Claire clutched the silver knife hard in her fist. âIs that all I am, too? Some kind of sacrifice pawn?â

That got Amelieâs attention again. âNo,â she said in surprise. âNot entirely. I do care, Claire. But in war, you canât care too much. It paralyzes your ability to act.â Those luminous eyes turned toward Ysandre again. âItâs time for you to go, because I doubt you would enjoy seeing this. You wonât be able to return here. Iâm closing down nodes on the network. When Iâm finished, there will be only two destinations: to me, or to Bishop.â

âWhere is he?â

âYou donât know?â Amelie raised her eyebrows again. âHe is where it is most secure, of course. At City Hall. And at nightfall, I will come against him. Thatâs why I came looking for you, Claire. I need you to tell Richard. Tell him to get all those who canât fight for me out of the building.â

âButâhe canât. Itâs a storm shelter. There are supposed to be tornadoes coming.â

âClaire,â Amelie said. âListen to me. If innocents take refuge in that building, they will be killed, because I canât protect them anymore. Weâre at endgame now. Thereâs no room for mercy.â She looked again at Ysandre, who had gone very still, listening.

âYâall wouldnât be saying this in front of me if I was going to walk out of here, would you?â Ysandre asked. She sounded calm now. Very still.

âNo,â Amelie said. âVery perceptive. I wouldnât.â She took Claire by the arm and helped her to her feet. âI am relying on you, Claire. Go now. Tell Richard these are my orders.â

Before Claire could utter another word, she felt the air shimmer in front of her, in the middle of the big warehouse room, and she fell . . . out over the dusty trunk in the Glass House attic, where Oliver had been. She sprawled ungracefully on top of it, then rolled off and got to her feet with a thump.

When she waved her hand through the air, looking for that strange heat shimmer of an open portal, she felt nothing at all.

Iâm closing the portals, Amelie had said.

Sheâd closed this one, for sure.

âClaire?â Shaneâs voice came from the far end of the attic. He shoved aside boxes and jumped over jumbled furniture to reach her. âWhat happened to you? Where did you go?â

âIâll tell you later,â she said, and realized she was still holding the bloody silver knife. She carefully put it back in her pocket, in the makeshift holster against her leg. It was so dull she didnât think it would cut anything again, but it made her feel better. âOliver?â

âBad.â Shane put his hands around her head and tilted it up, looking her over. âIs everything okay?â

âDefine everything. No, define okay.â She shook her head in frustration. âI need to get the radio. I have to talk to Richard.â

Â 

Richard wasnât on the radio. âHeâs meeting with the mayor,â said the man who answered. Sullivan, Claire thought his name was, but she hadnât really paid attention. âYou got a problem there?â

âNo, Officer, youâve got a problem there,â she said. âI need to talk to Richard. Itâs really important!â

âEverybody needs to talk to Richard,â Sullivan said. âHeâll get back to you. Heâs busy right now. If itâs not an emergency responseââ

âYes, okay! Itâs an emergency!â

âThen Iâll send units out to you. Glass House, right?â

âNo, itâs notââ Claire wanted to slam the radio down in frustration. âItâs not an emergency here. Look, just tell Richard that he needs to clear everybody out of City Hall, as soon as possible.â

âCanât do that,â Sullivan said. âItâs our center of operations. Itâs the main storm shelter, and weâve got one heck of a storm coming tonight. Youâre going to have to give me a reason, miss.â

âAll right, itâs becauseââ

Michael took the radio away from her and shut it off. Claire gaped, stuttered, and finally demanded, âWhy?â

âBecause if Amelie says Bishopâs got himself installed in City Hall, somebody there has to know. We donât know whoâs on his team,â Michael said. âI donât know Sullivan that well, but I know he never was happy with the way things ran in town. I wouldnât put it past him to be buying Bishopâs crap about giving the city back to the people, home rule, all that stuff. Same goes for anybody else there, except maybe Joe Hess and Travis Lowe. We have to know who weâre talking to before we say anything else.â

Shane nodded. âIâm thinking that Sullivanâs keeping Richard out of the loop for a reason.â

They were downstairs, the four of them. Eve, Shane, and Claire were at the kitchen table, and Michael was pacing the floor and casting looks at the couch, where Oliver was. The older vampire was asleep, Claire guessed, or unconscious; theyâd done what they could, washed him off and wrapped him in clean blankets. He was healing, according to Michael, but he wasnât doing it very fast.

When heâd woken up, heâd seemed distant. Confused.

Afraid.

Claire had given him one of the doses sheâd gotten from Dr. Mills, and so far, it seemed to be helping, but if Oliver was sick, Myrninâs fears were becoming real.

Soon, itâd be Amelie, too. And then where would they be?

âSo what do we do?â Claire asked. âAmelie said we have to tell Richard. We have to get noncombatants out of City Hall, as soon as possible.â

âProblem is, you heard him giving instructions to the Civil Defense guys earlierâtheyâre out telling everybody in town to go to City Hall if they canât make it to another shelter. Radio and TV, too. Hell, half the town is probably there already.â

âMaybe she wonât do it,â Eve said. âI mean, she wouldnât kill everybody in there, would she? Not even if she thinks theyâre working for Bishop.â

âI think itâs gone past that,â Claire said. âI donât know if she has any choice.â

âThereâs always a choice.â

âNot in chess,â Claire replied. âUnless your choice is to lie down and die.â

Â 

In the end, the only way to be sure they got to the right person was to get in the car and drive there. Claire was a little shocked at the color of the sky outsideâa solid gray, with clouds moving so fast it was like time-lapse on the Weather Channel. The edges looked faintly green, and in this part of the country, that was never a good sign.

The only good thing about it was that Michael didnât have to worry about getting scorched by sunlight. He brought a hoodie and a blanket to throw over his head, just in case, but it was dark outside, and getting darker fast. Premature sunset.

Drops of rain were smacking the sidewalk, the size of half-dollars. Where they hit Claireâs skin, they felt like paintball pellets. As she looked up at the clouds, a horizontal flash of lightning peeled the sky in half, and thunder rumbled so loudly she felt it through the soles of her shoes.

âCome on!â Eve yelled, and started the car. Claire ran to open the backseat door and piled in beside Shane. Eve was already accelerating before she could fasten her seat belt. âMichael, get the radio.â

He turned it on. Static. As he scanned stations, they got ghosts of signals from other towns, but nothing came through clearly in Morganvilleâprobably because the vampires jammed it.

Then one came in, loud and clear, broadcasting on a loop.

Â 

Attention Morganville residents: this is an urgent public service announcement. The National Weather Service has identified an extremely dangerous storm tracking toward Morganville, which will reach our borders at six twenty-seven this evening at its present speed. This storm has already been responsible for devastation in several areas in its path, and there has been significant loss of life due to tornadic activity. Morganville and the surrounding areas are on tornado watch through ten p.m. this evening. If you hear an alert siren, go immediately to a designated Safe Shelter location, or to the safest area of your home if you cannot reach a Safe Shelter. Attention Morganville residentsâ

Â 

Michael clicked it off. There was no point in listening to the repeat; it wasnât going to get any better.

âHow many Safe Shelters are there?â Shane asked. âUniversity dorms have them, the UCââ

âFounderâs Square has two,â Michael said, âbut nobody can get to them right now. Theyâre locked up.â

âLibrary.â

âAnd the church. Father Joe would open up the basements, so thatâll fit a couple of hundred people.â

Everybody else would head to City Hall, if they didnât stay in their houses.

The rain started to fall in earnest, slapping the windshield at first, and then pounding it in fierce waves. The ancient windshield wipers really werenât up to it, even at high speed. Claire was glad she wasnât trying to drive. Even in clear visibility she wasnât very good, and she had no idea how Eve was seeing a thing.

If she was, of course. Maybe this was faith-based driving.

Other cars were on the road, and most of them were heading the same way they were. Claire looked at the clock on her cell phone.

Five thirty p.m.

The storm was less than an hour away.

âUh-oh,â Eve said, and braked as they turned the last corner. It was a sea of red taillights. Over the roll of thunder and pounding rain, Claire heard horns honking. Traffic moved, but slowly, one car at a time inching forward. âTheyâre checking cars at the barricade. I canât believeââ

Something happened up there, and the brake lights began flicking off in steady rows. Cars moved. Eve fell into line, and the big, black sedan rolled past two police cars still flashing their lights. In the red/blue/red glow, Claire saw that theyâd moved the barricades aside and were just waving everyone through.

âThis is crazy,â she said. âWe canât get people out. Not fast enough! Weâd have to stop everybody from coming in first, and then give them somewhere to go. . . .â

âIâm getting out of the car here,â Michael said. âI can run faster than you can drive in this. Iâll get to Richard. They wonât dare stop me.â

That was probably true, but Eve still said, âMichael, donâtââ

Not that it stopped him from bailing out into the rain. A flash of lightning streaked by overhead and showed him splashing through thick puddles, weaving around cars.

He was right; he was faster.

Eve muttered something about âStupid, stubborn, bloodsucking boyfriends,â and followed the traffic toward City Hall.

Out of nowhere, a truck pulled out in front of them from a side street and stopped directly in their path. Eve yelled and hit the brakes, but they were mushy and wet, and not great at the best of times, and Claire felt the car slip and then slide, gathering speed as it went.

Glad I put on my seat belt, she thought, which was a weird thing to think, as Eveâs car hydroplaned right into the truck. Shane stretched out his arm to hold her in place, anywayâinstinct, Claire guessedâand then they all got thrown forward hard as physics took over.

Physics hurt.

Claire rested her aching head against the cool windowâit was cracked, but still intactâand tried to shake it off. Shane was unhooking himself from the seat belt and asking her if she was okay. She made some kind of gesture and mumbled something, which she hoped would be good enough. She wasnât up to real reassurances at the moment.

Eveâs door opened, and she got dragged out of the car.

âHey!â Shane yelled, and threw himself out his own door. Claire fumbled at the latch, but hers seemed stuck; she navigated the push button on her seat belt and opted for Shaneâs side of the car instead.

As she stumbled out into the shockingly warm rain, she knew they were really in trouble now, because the man holding a knife to Eveâs throat was Frank Collins, Shaneâs father and all-around badass, crazy vampire hater. He looked exactly like she rememberedâtough, biker-hard, dressed in leather and tattoos.

He was yelling something at Eve, something Claire couldnât hear over the crash of thunder. Shane threw himself into a slide over the trunk of the car and grabbed at his dadâs knife hand.

Dad elbowed him in the face and sent him staggering. Claire grabbed for the silver knife in her jeans, but it was goneâsheâd dropped it somewhere. Before she could look for it, Shane was back in the fight, struggling with his dad. He moved the knife enough that Eve slid free and ran to grab on to Claire.

Frank shoved his son down on the hood of the car and raised the knife. He froze there, with rain pouring from his chin like a thin silver beard, and off the point of the knife.

âNo!â Claire screamed, âNo, donât hurt him!â

âWhereâs the vampire?â Frank yelled back. âWhere is Michael Glass?â

âGone,â Shane said. He coughed away pounding rain. âDad, heâs gone. Heâs not here. Dad.â

Frank seemed to focus on his son for the first time. âShane?â

âYeah, Dad, itâs me. Let me up, okay?â Shane was careful to keep his hands up, palms out in surrender. âPeace.â

It worked. Frank stepped back and lowered the knife. âGood,â he said. âIâve been looking for you, boy.â And then he hugged him. Shane still had his hands up, and froze in place without touching his father. Claire shivered at the look on his face.

âYeah, good to see you, too,â he said. âBack off, man. Weâre not close, in case you forgot.â

âYouâre still my son. Blood is blood.â Frank pushed him toward the truck, only lightly crushed where Eveâs car had smacked it. âGet in.â

âWhy?â

âBecause I said so!â Frank shouted. Shane just looked at him. âDammit, boy, for once in your life, do what I tell you!â

âI spent most of my life doing what you told me,â Shane said. âIncluding selling out my friends. Not happening anymore.â

Frankâs lips parted, temporarily amazed. He laughed.

âDone drunk the suicide cola, didnât you?â When he shook his head, drops flew in all directions, and were immediately lost in the silver downpour. âJust get in. Iâm trying to save your life. You donât want to be where youâre trying to go.â

Strangely enough, Frank Collins was making sense. Probably for all the wrong reasons, though.

âWe have to get through,â Claire shouted over the pounding rain. She was shivering, soaked through every layer of clothing. âItâs important. People could die if we donât!â

âPeople are going to die,â Collins agreed. âOmelets and eggs. You know the old saying.â

Or chess, Claire thought. Though she didnât know whose side Frank Collins was playing on, or even if he knew he was being manipulated at all.

âThereâs a plan,â Frank was saying to his son. âIn all this crap, nobodyâs checking faces. Metal detectors are off. We seize control of the building and make things right. We shuffle these bastards off, once and for all. We can do it!â

âDad,â Shane said, âeverybody in that building tonight is going to be killed. We have to get people out, not get them in. If you care anything about those idiots who buy your revolutionary crap, youâll call this off.â

âCall it off?â Frank repeated, as uncomprehending as if Shane were speaking another language. âWhen weâre this close? When we can win? Dammit, Shane, you used to believe in this. You used toââ

âYeah. Used to. Look it up!â Shane shoved his father away from him, and walked over to Eve and Claire. âIâve warned you, Dad. Donât do this. Not today. I wonât turn you in, but Iâm telling you, if you donât back off, youâre dead.â

âI donât take threats,â Frank said. âNot from you.â

âYouâre an idiot,â Shane said. âAnd I tried.â

He got back in the car, on the passenger-side front seat where Michael had been. Eve scrambled behind the wheel, and Claire in the back.

Eve reversed.

Frank stepped out into the road ahead of them, a scary-looking man in black leather with his straggling hair plastered around his face. Add in the big hunting knife, and cue the scary music.

Eve let up on the gas. âNo,â Shane said, and moved his left foot over to jam it on top of hers. âGo. He wants you to stop.â

âDonât! I canât miss him, noââ

But it was too late. Frank was staring into the headlights, squarely in the center of the hood, and he was getting closer and closer.

Frank Collins threw himself out of the way at the last possible second, Eve swerved wildly in the opposite direction to miss him, and somehow, they didnât kill Shaneâs dad.

âWhat the hell are you doing?â Eve yelled at Shane. She was shaking all over. So was Shane. âYou want to run him over, do it on your own time! God!â

âLook behind you,â Shane whispered.

There were people coming after them. A lot of people. Theyâd been hiding in the alley, Claire guessed. They had guns, and now they opened fire. The car shuddered, and the back window exploded into cracks, then fell with a crash all over Claireâs neck.

âGet up here!â Shane said, and grabbed her hands to haul her into the front seat. âKeep your head down!â

Eve had sunk down on the driverâs side, barely keeping her eyes above the dashboard. She was panting hoarsely, panicked, and more gunshots were rattling the back of the car. Something hit the front window, too, adding more cracks and a round, backward splash of a hole.

âFaster!â Shane yelled. Eve hit the gas hard, and whipped around a slower-moving van. The firing ceased, at least for now. âYou see why I didnât want you to stop?â

âOkay, your father is officially off my Christmas list!â Eve yelled. âOh my God, look at my car!â

Shane barked out a laugh. âYeah,â he agreed. âThatâs whatâs important.â

âItâs better than thinking about what would have happened,â Eve said. âIf Michael had been with usââ

Claire thought about the mobs Richard had talked about, and the dead vampires, and felt sick. âTheyâd have dragged him off,â she said. âTheyâd have killed him.â

Michael had been right about Shaneâs dad, but then, Claire had never really doubted it. Neither had Shane, from the sick certainty on his face. He wiped his eyes with his forearm, which really didnât help much; they were all dripping wet, from head to toe.

âLetâs just get to the building,â Shane said. âWe canât do much until we find Richard.â

Only it wasnât that simple, even getting in. The underground parking was crammed full of cars, parked haphazardly at every angle. As Eve inched through the shadows, looking for any place to go, she shook her head. âIf we do manage to get people to leave, they wonât be able to take their cars. Everybodyâs blocked in,â she said. âThis is massively screwed up.â Claire, for her part, thought some of it seemed deliberate, not just panic. âOkay, Iâm going to pull it against the wall and hope we can get out if we need to.â

The elevator was already locked down, the doors open but the lights off and buttons unresponsive. They took the stairs at a run.

The first-floor door seemed to be locked, until Shane pushed on it harder, and then it creaked open against a flood of protests.

The vestibule was full of people.

Morganvilleâs City Hall wasnât all that large, at least not here in the lobby area. There was a big, sweeping staircase leading up, all grand marble and polished wood, and glass display cases taking up part of one wall. The License Bureau was off to the right: six old-time bank windows, with bars, all closed. Next to each window was a brass plaque that read what the windows were supposed to deliver: RESIDENTIAL LICENSING, CAR REGISTRATION, ZONING CHANGE REQUESTS, SPECIAL PERMITS, TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS, FINE PAYMENTS, TAXES, CITY SERVICES.

But not today.

The lobby was jammed with people. Families, mostlyâmothers and fathers with kids, some as young as infants. Claire didnât see a single vampire in the crowd, not even Michael. At the far end, a yellow Civil Defense sign indicated that the door led to a Safe Shelter, with a tornado graphic next to it. A policeman with a bullhorn was yelling for order, not that he was getting any; people were pushing, shoving, and shouting at one another. âThe shelter is now at maximum capacity! Please be calm!â

âNot good,â Shane said. There was no sign of Richard, although there were at least ten uniformed police officers trying to manage the crowd. âUpstairs?â

âUpstairs,â Eve agreed, and they squeezed back into the fire stairs and ran up to the next level. The sign in the stairwell said that this floor contained the mayorâs office, sheriffâs office, city council chambers, and something called, vaguely, Records.

The door was locked. Shane rattled it and banged for entrance, but nobody came to the rescue.

âGuess we go up,â he said.

The third floor had no signs in the stairwell at all, but there was a symbolâthe Founderâs glyph, like the one on Claireâs bracelet. Shane turned the knob, but again, the door didnât open. âI didnât think they could do that to fire stairs,â Eve said.

âYeah, call a cop.â Shane looked up the steps. âOne more floor, and then itâs just the roof, and Iâm thinking thatâs not a good idea, the roof.â

âWait.â Claire studied the Founderâs glyph for a few seconds, then shrugged and reached out to turn the knob.

Something clicked, and it turned. The door opened.

âHow did you . . . ?â

Claire held up her wrist, and the gold bracelet. âIt was worth a shot. I thought, maybe with a gold braceletââ

âGenius. Go on, get inside,â Shane said, and hustled them in. The door clicked shut behind them, and locked with a snap of metal. The hallway seemed dark, after the fluorescent lights in the stairs, and that was because the lights were dimmed way down, the carpet was dark, and so was the wood paneling.

It reminded Claire eerily of the hallway where theyâd rescued Myrnin, only there werenât as many doors opening off it. Shane took the leadâof courseâbut the doors they could open were just simple offices, nothing fancy about them at all.

And then there was a door at the end of the hall with the Founderâs Symbol etched on the polished brass doorknob. Shane tried it, shook his head, and motioned for Claire.

It opened easily at her touch.

Inside wereâapartments. Chambers? Claire didnât know what else to call them; there was an entire complex of rooms leading from one central area.

It was like stepping into a whole different world, and Claire could tell that it had once been beautiful: a fairy-tale room, of rich satin on the walls, Persian rugs, delicate white and gold furniture.

âMichael? Mayor Morrell? Richard?â

It was a queenâs room, and somebody had completely wrecked it. Most of the furniture was overturned, some kicked to pieces. Mirrors smashed. Fabrics ripped.

Claire froze.

Lying on the remaining long, delicate sofa was FranÃ§ois, Bishopâs other loyal vampire buddy, whoâd come to Morganville along with Ysandre as his entourage. The vampire looked completely at easeâlegs crossed at the ankles, head propped on a plump satin pillow. A big crystal glass of something in dark red rested on his chest.

He giggled and saluted them with the blood. âHello, little friends,â he said. âWe werenât expecting you, but youâll do. Weâre almost out of refreshments.â

âOut,â Shane said, and shoved Eve toward the door.

It slammed shut before she could reach it, and there stood Mr. Bishop, still dressed in his long purple cassock from the feast. It was still torn on the side, where Myrnin had slashed at him with the knife.

There was something so ancient about him, so completely uncaring, that Claire felt her mouth go dry. âWhere is she?â Bishop asked. âI know youâve seen my daughter. I can smell her on you.â

âEwww,â Eve said, very faintly. âSo much more than I needed to know.â

Bishop didnât look away from Claireâs face, just pointed at Eve. âSilence, or be silenced. When I want to know your opinion, Iâll consult your entrails.â

Eve shut up. FranÃ§ois swung his legs over the edge of the sofa and sat up in one smooth motion. He downed the rest of his glass of blood and let the glass fall, shedding crimson drops all over the pale carpet. Heâd gotten some on his fingers. He licked them, then smeared the rest all over the satin wall.

âPlease,â he said, and batted his long-lashed eyes at Eve. âPlease, say something. I love entrails.â

She shrank back against the wall. Even Shane stayed quiet, though Claire could tell he was itching to pull her to safety. You canât protect me, she thought fiercely. Donât try.

âYou donât know where Amelie is?â Claire asked Bishop directly. âHowâs that master plan going, then?â

âOh, itâs going just fine,â Bishop said. âOliver is dead by now. Myrninâwell, we both know that Myrnin is insane, at best, and homicidal at his even better. Iâm rather hoping heâll come charging to your rescue and forget who you are once he arrives. That would be amusing, and very typical of him, Iâm afraid.â Bishopâs eyes bored into hers, and Claire felt the net closing around her. âWhere is Amelie?â

âWhere youâll never find her.â

âFine. Let her lurk in the shadows with her creations, until hunger or the humans destroy them. This doesnât have to be a battle, you know. It can be a war of attrition just as easily. I have the high ground.â He gestured around the ruined apartment with one lazy hand. âAnd of course, I have everyone here, whether they know it or not.â

She didnât hear him move, but flinched as FranÃ§ois trailed cold fingers across the back of her neck, then gripped her tightly.

âJust like that,â Bishop said. âJust precisely like that.â He nodded to FranÃ§ois. âIf you want her, take her. Iâm no longer interested in Amelieâs pets. Take these others, too, unless you wish to save them for later.â

Claire heard Shane whisper, âNo,â and heard the complete despair in his voice just as Bishopâs follower wrenched her head over to the side, baring her neck.

She felt his lips touch her skin. They burned like ice.

âAh!â FranÃ§ois jerked his head back. âYou little peasant.â He used a fold of her shirt to take hold of the silver chain around her neck, and broke it with a sharp twist.

Claire caught the cross in her hand as it fell.

âMay it comfort you,â Bishop said, and smiled. âMy child.â

And then FranÃ§ois bit her.

Â 

âClaire?â Somewhere, a long way off, Eve was crying. âOh my God, Claire? Can you hear me? Come on, please, please come back. Are you sure sheâs got a pulse?â

âYes, sheâs got a pulse.â Claire knew that voice. Richard Morrell. But why was he here? Who called the police? She remembered the accident with the truckâno, that was before.

Bishop.

Claire slowly opened her eyes. The world felt very far away, and safely muffled for the moment. She heard Eve let out a gasp and a flood of words, but Claire didnât try to identify the meaning.

I have a pulse.

That seemed important.

My neck hurts.

Because a vampire had bitten her.

Claire raised her left hand slowly to touch her neck, and found a huge wad of what felt like somebodyâs shirt pressed against her neck.

âNo,â Richard said, and forced her hand back down. âDonât touch it. Itâs still closing up. You shouldnât move for another hour or so. Let the wounds close.â

âBit,â Claire murmured. âHe bit me.â That came in a blinding flash, like a red knife cutting through the fog. âDonât let me turn into one.â

âYou wonât,â Eve said. She was upside downâno, Claireâs head was in her lap, and Eve was leaning over her. Claire felt the warm drip of Eveâs tears on her face. âOh, sweetie. Youâre going to be okay. Right?â Even upside down, Eveâs look was panicked as she appealed to Richard, who sat on her right.

âYouâll be all right,â he said. He didnât look much better than Claire felt. âI have to see to my father. Here.â He moved out of the way, and someone else sat in his place.

Shane. His warm fingers closed over hers, and she shivered when she realized how cold she felt. Eve tucked an expensive velvet blanket over and around her, fussing nervously.

Shane didnât say anything. He was so quiet.

âMy cross,â Claire said. It had been in her hand. She didnât know where it was now. âHe broke the chain. Iâm sorryââ

Shane opened her fingers and tipped the cross and chain into her hand. âI picked it up,â he said. âFigured you might want it.â There was something he wasnât saying. Claire looked at Eve to find out what it was, but she wasnât talking, for a change. âAnyway, youâre going to be okay. Weâre lucky this time. FranÃ§ois wasnât that hungry.â He closed her fingers around the cross and held on.

His hands were shaking. âShane?â

âIâm sorry,â he whispered. âI couldnât move. I just stood there.â

âNo, he didnât,â Eve said. âHe knocked Franny clear across the room and he would have staked him with a chair leg, except Bishop stepped in.â

That sounded like Shane. âYouâre not hurt?â Claire asked.

âNot much.â

Eve frowned. âWellââ

âNot much,â Shane repeated. âIâm okay, Claire.â

She kind of had to take that at face value, at least right now. âWhat timeââ

âSix fifteen,â Richard said, from the far corner of the small room. This, Claire guessed, had been some kind of dressing area for Amelie. She saw a long closet to the side. Most of the clothes were shredded and scattered in piles on the floor. The dressing table was a ruin, and every mirror was broken.

FranÃ§ois had had his fun in here, too.

âThe stormâs heading for us,â Eve said. âMichael never got to Richard, but he got to Joe Hess, apparently. They evacuated the shelters. Bishop was pretty mad about that. He wanted a lot of hostages between him and Amelie.â

âSo all thatâs left is us?â

âUs. And Bishopâs people, who didnât leave. And Fabulous Frank Collins and his Wild Bunch, who rolled into the lobby and now think theyâve won some kind of battle or something.â Eve rolled her eyes, and for an instant was back to her old self. âJust us and the bad guys.â

Did that make Richardâno. Claire couldnât believe that. If anyone in Morganville had honestly tried to do the right thing, it was Richard Morrell.

Eve followed Claireâs look. âOh. Yeah, his dad got hurt trying to stop Bishop from taking over downstairs. Richardâs been trying to take care of him, and his mom. We were right about Sullivan, by the way. Total backstabber. Yay for premonitions. Wish I had one right now that could help get us out of this.â

âNo way out,â Claire said.

âNot even a window,â Eve said. âWeâre locked in here. No idea where Bishop and his little sock monkey got off to. Looking for Amelie, I guess. I wish theyâd just kill each other already.â

Eve didnât mean it, not really, but Claire understood how she felt. Distantly. In a detached, shocked kind of way.

âWhatâs happening outside?â

âNot a clue. No radios in here. They took our cell phones. Weâreââthe lights blinked and failed, putting the room into pitch darknessââscrewed,â Eve finished. âOh man, I should not have said that, should I?â

âPowerâs gone out to the building, I think,â Richard said. âItâs probably the storm.â

Or the vampires screwing with them, just because they could. Claire didnât say it out loud, but she thought it pretty hard.

Shaneâs hand kept holding hers. âShane?â

âRight here,â he said. âStay still.â

âIâm sorry. Iâm really, really sorry.â

âWhat for?â

âI shouldnât have gotten angry with you, before, about your dad. . . .â

âNot important,â he said very softly. âItâs okay, Claire. Just rest.â

Rest? She couldnât rest. Reality was pushing back in, reminding her of pain, of fear, and most important, of time.

There was an eerie, ghostly sound now, wailing, and getting louder.

âWhat is that?â Eve asked, and then, before anybody could answer, did so herself. âTornado sirens. Thereâs one on the roof.â

The rising, falling wail got louder, but with it came something elseâa sound like water rushing, orâ

âWe need to get to cover,â Richard said. A flashlight snapped on, and played over Eveâs pallid face, then Shaneâs and Claireâs. âYou guys, get her over here. This is the strongest interior corner. That side faces out toward the street.â

Claire tried to get up, but Shane scooped her in his arms and carried her. He set her down with her back against a wall, then got under the blanket next to her with Eve on his other side. The flashlight turned away from them, and in its sweep, Claire caught sight of Mayor Morrell. He was a fat man, with a politicianâs smooth face and smile, but he didnât look anything like she remembered now. He seemed older, shrunken inside his suit, and very ill.

âWhatâs wrong with him?â Claire whispered.

Shaneâs answer stirred the damp hair around her face. âHeart attack,â he said. âAt least, thatâs Richardâs best guess. Looks bad.â

It really did. The mayor was propped against the wall a few feet from them, and he was gasping for breath as his wife (Claire had never seen her before, except in pictures) patted his arm and murmured in his ear. His face was ash gray, his lips turning blue, and there was real panic in his eyes.

Richard returned, dragging another thick blanket and some pillows. âEverybody cover up,â he said. âKeep your heads down.â He covered his mother and father and crouched next to them as he wrapped himself in another blanket.

The wind outside was building to a howl. Claire could hear things hitting the wallsâdull thudding sounds, like baseballs. It got louder. âDebris,â Richard said. He focused the light on the carpet between their small group. âMaybe hail. Could be anything.â

The siren cut off abruptly, but that didnât mean the noise subsided; if anything, it got louder, ratcheting up from a howl to a screamâand then it took on a deeper tone.

âSounds like a train,â Eve said shakily. âDamn, I was really hoping that wasnât true, the train thingââ

âHeads down!â Richard yelled, as the whole building started to shake. Claire could feel the boards vibrating underneath her. She could see the walls bending, and cracks forming in the bricks.

And then the noise rose to a constant, deafening scream, and the whole outside wall sagged, dissolved into bricks and broken wood, and disappeared. The ripped, torn fabric around the room took flight like startled birds, whipping wildly through the air and getting shredded into ever-smaller sections by the wind and debris.

The storm was screaming as if it had gone insane. Broken furniture and shards of mirrors flew around, smashing into the walls, hitting the blankets.

Claire heard a heavy groan even over the shrieking wind, and looked up to see the roof sagging overhead. Dust and plaster cascaded down, and she grabbed Shane hard.

The roof came down on top of them.

Â 

Claire didnât know how long it lasted. It seemed like forever, reallyâthe screaming, the shaking, the pressure of things on top of her.

And then, very gradually, it stopped, and the rain began to hammer down again, drenching the pile of dust and wood. Some of it trickled down to drip on her cheek, which was how she knew.

Shaneâs hand moved on her shoulder, more of a twitch than a conscious motion, and then he let go of Claire to heave up with both hands. Debris slid and rattled. Theyâd been lucky, Claire realizedâa heavy wooden beam had collapsed in over their heads at a slant, and it had held the worst of the stuff off them.

âEve?â Claire reached across Shane and grabbed her friendâs hands. Eveâs eyes were closed, and there was blood trickling down one side of her face. Her face was even whiter than usualâplaster dust, Claire realized.

Eve coughed, and her eyelids fluttered up. âMom?â The uncertainty in her voice made Claire want to cry. âOh God, what happened? Claire?â

âWeâre alive,â Shane said. He sounded kind of surprised. He brushed fallen chunks of wood and plaster off Claireâs head, and she coughed, too. The rain pounded in at an angle, soaking the blanket that covered them. âRichard?â

âOver here,â Richard said. âDad? Dadââ

The flashlight was gone, rolled off or buried or just plain taken away by the wind. Lightning flashed, bright as day, and Claire saw the tornado that had hit them still moving through Morganville, crashing through buildings, spraying debris a hundred feet into the air.

It didnât even look real.

Shane helped move a beam off Eveâs legsâthankfully, they were just bruised, not brokenâand crawled across the slipping wreckage toward Richard, who was lifting things off his mother. She looked okay, but she was crying and dazed.

His father, though . . .

âNo,â Richard said, and dragged his father flat. He started administering CPR. There were bloody cuts on his face, but he didnât seem to care about his own problems at all. âShane! Breathe for him!â

After a hesitation, Shane tilted the mayorâs head back. âLike this?â

âLet me,â Eve said. âIâve had CPR training.â She crawled over and took in a deep breath, bent, and blew it into the mayorâs mouth, watching for his chest to rise. It seemed to take a lot of effort. So did what Richard was doing, pumping on his dadâs chest, over and over. Eve counted slowly, then breathed againâand again.

âIâll get help,â Claire said. She wasnât sure there was any help, really, but she had to do something. When she stood up, though, she felt dizzy and weak, and remembered what Richard had saidâshe had holes in her neck, and sheâd lost a lot of blood. âIâll go slow.â

âIâll go with you,â Shane said, but Richard grabbed him and pulled him down.

âNo! I need you to take over here.â He showed Shane how to place his hands, and got him started. He pulled the walkie-talkie from his belt and tossed it to Claire. âGo. We need paramedics.â

And then Richard collapsed, and Claire realized that he had a huge piece of metal in his side. She stood there, frozen in horror, and then punched in the code for the walkie-talkie. âHello? Hello, is anybody there?â

Static. If there was anybody, she couldnât hear it over the interference and the roaring rain.

âI have to go!â she shouted at Shane. He looked up.

âNo!â But he couldnât stop her, not without letting the mayor die, and after one helpless, furious look at her, he went back to work.

Claire slid over the pile of debris and scrambled out the broken door, into the main apartment.

There was no sign of FranÃ§ois or Bishop. If the place had been wrecked before, it was unrecognizable now. Most of this part of the building was gone, justâgone. She felt the floor groan underneath her, and moved fast, heading for the apartmentâs front door. It was still on its hinges, but as she pulled on it, part of the frame came out of the wall.

Outside, the hallway seemed eerily unmarked, except that the roof overheadâand, Claire presumed, all of the next floor aboveâwas missing. It was a hallway open to the storm. She hurried along it, glad now for the flashes of lightning that lit her way.

The fire stairs at the end seemed intact. She passed some people huddled there, clearly terrified. âWe need help!â she said. âThere are people hurt upstairsâsomebody?â

And then the screaming started, somewhere about a floor down, lots of people screaming at the same time. Those who were sitting on the stairs jumped to their feet and ran up, toward Claire. âNo!â she yelled. âNo, you canât!â

But she was shoved out of the way, and about fifty people trampled past her, heading up. She had no idea where theyâd go.

Worse, she was afraid their combined weight would collapse that part of the building, including the place where Eve, Shane, and the Morrells were.

âClaire?â Michael. He came out of the first-floor door, and leaped two flights of stairs in about two jumps to reach her. Before she could protest, heâd grabbed her in his arms like an invalid. âCome on. I have to get you out of here.â

âNo! No, go up. Shane, they need help. Go up; leave me here!â

âI canât.â He looked down, and so did she.

Vampires poured into the stairwell below. Some of them were fighting, ripping at one another. Any human who got between them went down screaming.

âRight. Up it is,â he said, and she felt them leave the ground in one powerful leap, hitting the third-floor landing with catlike grace.

âWhatâs happening?â Claire twisted to try to look down, but it didnât make any sense to her. It was just a mob, fighting one another. No telling who was on which side, or even why they were fighting so furiously.

âAmelieâs down there,â Michael said. âBishopâs trying to get to her, but heâs losing followers fast. She took him by surprise, during the storm.â

âWhat about the peopleâI mean, the humans? Shaneâs dad, and the ones who wanted to take over?â

Michael kicked open the door to the third-floor roofless hallway. The people whoâd run past Claire were milling around in it, frightened and babbling. Michael brought down his fangs and snarled at them, and they scattered into whatever shelter they could reachâinterior offices, mostly, that had sustained little damage except for rain.

He shoved past those who had nowhere to go, and down to the end of the hall. âIn here?â He let Claire slide down to her feet, and his gaze focused on her neck. âSomeone bit you.â

âItâs not so bad.â Claire put her hand over the wound, trying to cover it up. The woundâs edges felt ragged, and they were still leaking blood, she thought, although that could have just been the rain. âIâm okay.â

âNo, youâre not.â

A gust of wind blew his collar back, and she saw the white outlines of marks on his own neck. âMichael! Did you get bitten, too?â

âLike you said, itâs nothing. Look, we can talk about that later. Letâs get to our friends. First aid later.â

Claire opened the door and stepped through . . . and the floor collapsed underneath her.

She must have screamed, but all she heard was the tremendous cracking sound of more of the building falling apart underneath and around her. She turned toward Michael, who was frozen in the doorway, illuminated in stark white by a nearby lightning strike.

He reached out and grabbed her arm as she flung it toward him, and then she was suspended in midair, wind and dust rushing up around her, as the floor underneath fell away. Michael pulled, and she almost flew, weightless, into his arms.

âOh,â she whispered faintly. âThanks.â

He held on to her for a minute without speaking, then said, âIs there another way in?â

âI donât know.â

They backed up and found the next office to the left, which had suspicious-looking cracks in its walls. Claire thought the floor felt a little unsteady. Michael pushed her back behind him and said, âCover your eyes.â

Then he began ripping away the wall between the office and Amelieâs apartments. When he hit solid red brick, he punched it, breaking it into dust.

âThis isnât helping keep things together!â Claire yelled.

âI know, but we need to get them out!â

He ripped a hole in the wall big enough to step through, and braced himself in it as the whole building seemed to shudder, as if shifting its weight. âThe floorâs all right here,â he said. âYou stay. Iâll go.â

âThrough that door, to the left!â Claire called. Michael disappeared, moving fast and gracefully.

She wondered, all of a sudden, why he wasnât downstairs. Why he wasnât fighting, like all the others of Amelieâs blood.

A couple of tense minutes passed, as she stared through the hole; nothing seemed to be happening. She couldnât hear Michael, or Shane, or anything else.

And then she heard screaming behind her, in the hall. Vampires, she thought, and quickly opened the door to look.

Someone fell against the wood, knocking her backward. It was FranÃ§ois. Claire tried to shut the door, but a bloodstained white hand wormed through the opening and grabbed the edge, shoving it wider.

FranÃ§ois didnât look even remotely human anymore, but he did look absolutely desperate, willing to do anything to survive, and very, very angry.

Claire backed up, slowly, until she was standing with her back against the far wall. There wasnât much in here to help herâa desk, some pens and pencils in a cup.

FranÃ§ois laughed, and then he growled. âYou think youâre winning,â he said. âYouâre not.â

âI think youâre the one who has to worry,â Michael said from the hole in the wall. He stepped through, carrying Mayor Morrell in his arms. Shane and Eve were with him, supporting Richardâs sagging body between them. Mrs. Morrell brought up the rear. âBack off. I wonât come after you if you run.â

FranÃ§oisâ eyes turned ruby, and he threw himself at Michael, who was burdened with the mayor.

Claire grabbed a pencil from the cup and plunged it into FranÃ§oisâ back.

He whirled, looking stunned . . . and then he slowly collapsed to the carpet.

âThat wonât kill him,â Michael said.

âI donât care,â Eve said. âBecause that was fierce.â

Claire grabbed the vampireâs arms and dragged him out of the way, careful not to dislodge the pencil; she wasnât really sure how deep it had gone, and if it slipped out of his heart, they were all in big trouble. Michael edged around him and opened the door to check the corridor. âClear,â he said. âFor the moment. Come on.â

Their little refugee group hurried into the rainy hall, squishing through soggy carpet. There were people hiding in the offices, or just pressed against the walls and hoping not to be noticed. âCome on,â Eve said to them. âGet up. Weâre getting out of here before this whole thing comes down!â

The fighting in the stairwell was still going onâsnarling, screams, bangs, and thuds. Claire didnât dare look over the railing. Michael led them down to the locked second-floor entrance. He pulled hard on it, and the knob popped offâbut the door stayed locked.

âHey, Mike?â Shane had edged to the end of the landing to look over the railing. âCanât go that way.â

âI know!â

âAlso, time isââ

âI know, Shane!â Michael started kicking the door, but it was reinforced, stronger than the other doors Claire had seen. It bent, but didnât open.

And then it did open . . . from the inside.

There, in his fancy but battered black velvet, stood Myrnin.

âIn,â he said. âThis way. Hurry.â

Â 

The falling sensation warned Claire that the door was a portal, but she didnât have time to tell anybody else, so when they stepped through into Myrninâs lab, it was probably kind of a shock. Michael didnât pause; he pushed a bunch of broken glassware from a lab table and put Mr. Morrell down on it, then touched pale fingers to the manâs throat. When he found nothing, he started CPR again. Eve hurried over to breathe for him.

Myrnin didnât move as the refugees streamed in past him. He was standing with his arms folded, a frown grooved between his brows. âWho are all these people?â he asked. âI am not an innkeeper, you know.â

âShut up,â Claire said. She didnât have any patience with Myrnin right now. âIs he okay?â She was talking to Shane, who was easing Richard onto a threadbare rug near the far wall.

âYou mean, except for the big piece of metal in him? Look, I donât know. Heâs breathing, at least.â

The rest of the refugees clustered together, filtering slowly through the portal. Most of them had no idea what had just happened, which was good. If theyâd been part of Frankâs group, intending to take over Morganville, that ambition was long gone. Now they were just people, and they were just scared.

âUp the stairs,â Claire told them. âYou can get out that way.â

Most of them rushed for the exit. She hoped theyâd make it home, or at least to some kind of safe place.

She hoped they had homes to go back to.

Myrnin glared at her. âYou do realize that this was a secret laboratory, donât you? And now half of Morganville knows where it is?â

âHey, I didnât open the door; you did.â She reached over and put her hand on his arm, looking up into his face. âThank you. You saved our lives.â

He blinked slowly. âDid I?â

âI know why you werenât fighting,â Claire said. âThe drugs kept you from having to. But . . . Michael?â

Myrnin followed her gaze to where Eve and Michael remained bent over the mayorâs still form. âAmelie let him go,â he said. âFor now. She could claim him again at any time, but I think she knew you needed help.â He uncrossed his arms and walked over to Michael to touch his shoulder. âItâs no use,â he said. âI can smell death on him. So can you, if you try. You wonât bring him back.â

âNo!â Mrs. Morrell screamed, and threw herself over her husbandâs body. âNo, you have to try!â

âThey did,â Myrnin said, and retreated to lean against a convenient wall. âWhich is more than I would have.â He nodded toward Richard. âHe might live, but to remove that metal will require a chirurgeon.â

âYou mean, a doctor?â Claire asked.

âYes, of course, a doctor,â Myrnin snapped, and his eyes flared red. âI know you want me to feel some sympathy for them, but that is not who I am. I care only about those I know, and even then, not all that deeply. Strangers get nothing from me.â He was slipping, and the anger was coming back. Next it would be confusion. Claire silently dug in her pockets. Sheâd put a single glass vial in, and miraculously, it was still unbroken.

He slapped it out of her hand impatiently. âI donât need it!â

Claire watched it clatter to the floor, heart in her mouth, and said, âYou do. You know you do. Please, Myrnin. I donât need your crap right now. Just take your medicine.â

She didnât think he would, not at first, but then he snorted, bent down, and picked up the vial. He broke the cap off and dumped the liquid into his mouth. âThere,â he said. âSatisfied?â He shattered the glass in his fingers, and the red glow in his eyes intensified. âAre you, little Claire? Do you enjoy giving me orders?â

âMyrnin.â

His hand went around her throat, choking off whatever she was going to say.

She didnât move.

His hand didnât tighten.

The red glow slowly faded away, replaced by a look of shame. He let go of her and backed away a full step, head down.

âI donât know where to get a doctor,â Claire said, as if nothing had happened. âThe hospital, maybe, orââ

âNo,â Myrnin murmured. âI will bring help. Donât let anyone go through my things. And watch Michael, in case.â

She nodded. Myrnin opened the portal doorway in the wall and stepped through it, headingâwhere? She had no idea. Amelie had, Claire thought, shut down all the nodes. But if that was true, how had they gotten here?

Myrnin could open and close them at will. But he was probably the only one who could.

Michael and Eve moved away from Mayor Morrellâs body, as his wife stood over him and cried.

âWhat can we do?â Shane asked. He sounded miserable. In all the confusion, heâd missed her confrontation with Myrnin. She was dimly glad about that.

âNothing,â Michael said. âNothing but wait.â

Â 

When the portal opened again, Myrnin stepped through, then helped someone else over the step.

It was Theo Goldman, carrying an antique doctorâs bag. He looked around the lab, nodding to Claire in particular, and then moved to where Richard was lying on the carpet, with his head in his motherâs lap. âMove back, please,â he told her, and knelt down to open his bag. âMyrnin. Take her in the other room. A mother shouldnât see this.â

He was setting out instruments, unrolling them in a clean white towel. As Claire watched, Myrnin led Mrs. Morrell away and seated her in a chair in the corner, where he normally sat to read. She seemed dazed now, probably in shock. The chair was intact. It was just about the only thing in the lab that wasâthe scientific instruments were smashed, lab tables overturned, candles and lamps broken.

Books were piled in the corners and burned, reduced to scraps of leather and curling black ash. The whole place smelled sharply of chemicals and fire.

âWhat can we do?â Michael asked, crouching down on Richardâs other side. Theo took out several pairs of latex gloves and passed one set to Michael. He donned one himself.

âYou can act as my nurse, my friend,â he said. âI would have brought my wifeâshe has many years of training in thisâbut I donât want to leave my children on their own. Theyâre already very frightened.â

âBut theyâre safe?â Eve asked. âNobodyâs bothered you?â

âNo one has so much as knocked on the door,â he said. âItâs a very good hiding place. Thank you.â

âI think youâre paying us back,â Eve said. âPlease. Can you save him?â

âItâs in Godâs hands, not mine.â Still, Theoâs eyes were bright as he looked at the twisted metal plate embedded in Richardâs side. âItâs good that heâs unconscious, but he might wake during the procedure. There is chloroform in the bag. Itâs Michael, yes? Michael, please put some on a cloth and be ready when I tell you to cover his mouth and nose.â

Claireâs nerve failed around the time that Theo took hold of the piece of steel, and she turned away. Eve already had, to take a blanket to Mrs. Morrell and put it around her shoulders.

âWhereâs my daughter?â the mayorâs wife asked. âMonica should be here. I donât want her out there alone.â

Eve raised her eyebrows at Claire, clearly wondering where Monica was.

âThe last time I saw her, she was at school,â Claire said. âBut that was before I got the call to come home, so I donât know. Maybe sheâs in shelter in the dorm?â She checked her cell phone. No bars. Reception was usually spotty down here in the lab, but she could usually see something, even if it was only a flicker. âI think the cell towers are down.â

âYeah, likely,â Eve agreed. She reached over to tuck the blanket around Mrs. Morrell, who leaned her head back and closed her eyes, as if the strength was just leaking right out of her. âYou think this is the right thing to do? I mean, do we even know this guy or anything?â

Claire didnât, really, but she still wanted to like Theo, in much the same way as she liked Myrninâagainst her better sense. âI think heâs okay. And itâs not like anybodyâs making house calls right now.â

The operationâand it was an operation, with suturing and everythingâtook a couple of hours before Theo sat back, stripped off the gloves, and sighed in quiet satisfaction. âThere,â he said. Claire and Eve got up to walk over as Michael rose to his feet. Shane had been hanging on the edges, watching in what Claire thought looked like queasy fascination. âHis pulse is steady. Heâs lost some blood, but I believe he will be all right, provided no infection sets in. Still, this century has those wonderful antibiotics, yes? So that is not so bad.â Theo was almost beaming. âI must say, I havenât used my surgical skills in years. Itâs very exciting. Although it makes me hungry.â

Claire was pretty sure Richard wouldnât want to know that. She knew she wouldnât have, in his place.

âThank you,â Mrs. Morrell said. She got up from the chair, folded the blanket and put it aside, then walked over to shake Theoâs hand with simple, dignified gratitude. âIâll see that my husband compensates you for your kindness.â

They all exchanged looks. Michael started to speak, but Theo shook his head. âThatâs quite all right, dear lady. I am delighted to help. I recently lost a son myself. I know the weight of grief.â

âOh,â Mrs. Morrell said, âIâm so sorry for your loss, sir.â She said it as if she didnât know her husband was lying across the room, dead.

Tears sparkled in his eyes, Claire saw, but then he blinked them away and smiled. He patted her hand gently. âYou are very generous to an old man,â he said. âWe have always liked living in Morganville, you know. The people are so kind.â

Shane said, âSome of those same people killed your son.â

Theo looked at him with calm, unflinching eyes. âAnd without forgiveness, there is never any peace. I tell you this from the distance of many centuries. My son gave his life. I wonât reply to his gift with anger, not even for those who took him from me. Those same poor, sad people will wake up tomorrow grieving their own losses, I think, if they survive at all. How can hating them heal me?â

Myrnin, who hadnât spoken at all, murmured, âYou shame me, Theo.â

âI donât mean to do so,â he said, and shrugged. âWell. I should get back to my family now. I wish you all well.â

Myrnin got up from his chair and walked with Theo to the portal. They all watched him go. Mrs. Morrell was staring after him with a bright, odd look in her eyes.

âHow very strange,â she said. âI wish Mr. Morrell had been available to meet him.â

She spoke as if he were in a meeting downtown instead of under a sheet on the other side of the room. Claire shuddered.

âCome on, letâs go see Richard,â Eve said, and led her away.

Shane let out his breath in a slow hiss. âI wish it were as simple as Theo thinks it is, to stop hating.â He swallowed, watching Mrs. Morrell. âI wish I could, I really do.â

âAt least you want to,â Michael said. âItâs a start.â

Â 

They stayed the night in the lab, mainly because the storm continued outside until the wee hours of the morningârain, mostly, with some hail. There didnât seem to be much point running out in it. Claire kept checking her phone, Eve found a portable radio buried in piles of junk at the back of the room, and they checked for news at regular intervals.

Around three a.m. they got some. It was on the radioâs emergency alert frequency.

Â 

All Morganville residents and surrounding areas: we remain under severe thunderstorm warnings, with high winds and possible flooding, until seven a.m. today. Rescue efforts are under way at City Hall, which was partially destroyed by a tornado that also leveled several warehouses and abandoned buildings, as well as one building in Founderâs Square. There are numerous reports of injuries coming in. Please remain calm. Emergency teams are working their way through town now, looking for anyone who may be in need of assistance. Stay where you are. Please do not attempt to go out into the streets at this time.

Â 

It started to repeat. Eve frowned and looked up at Myrnin, who had listened as well. âWhat arenât they saying?â she asked.

âIf I had to guess, their urgent desire that people stay within shelter would tell me there are other things to worry about.â His dark eyes grew distant for a moment, then snapped back into focus. âIbid nothing.â

âWhat?â Eve seemed to think sheâd misheard.

âIbid nothing carlo. I donât justice.â

Myrnin was making word salad againâa precursor to the drugs wearing offâmore quickly than Claire had expected, actually, and that was worrying.

Eve sent Claire a look of alarm. âOkay, I didnât really understand that at allââ

Claire put a hand on her arm to silence her. âWhy donât you go see Mrs. Morrell? You too, Shane.â

He didnât like it, but he went. As he did, he jerked his head at Michael, who rose from where he was sitting with Richard and strolled over.

Casually.

âMyrnin,â Claire said. âYou need to listen to me, okay? I think your drugs are wearing off again.â

âIâm fine.â His excitement level was rising; she could see itâa very light flush in his face, his eyes starting to glitter. âYou worry over notebook.â

There was no point in trying to explain the signs; he never could identify them. âWe should check on the prison,â she said. âSee if everythingâs still okay there.â

Myrnin smiled. âYouâre trying to trick me.â His eyes were getting darker, endlessly dark, and that smile had edges to it. âOh, little girl, you donât know. You donât know what itâs like, having all these guests here, and all thisââhe breathed in deeplyââall this blood.â His eyes focused on her throat, with its ragged bite mark hidden under a bandage Theo had given her. âI know itâs there. Your mark. Tell me, did FranÃ§oisââ

âStop. Stop it.â Claire dug her fingers into her palms. Myrnin took a step toward her, and she forced herself not to flinch. She knew him, knew what he was trying to do. âYou wonât hurt me. You need me.â

âDo I?â He breathed deeply again. âYes, I do. Bright, so bright. I can feel your energy. I know how it will feel when I . . .â He blinked, and horror sheeted across his face, fast as lightning. âWhat was I saying? Claire? What did I just say?â

She couldnât repeat it. âNothing. Donât worry. But I think weâd better get you to the cell, okay? Please?â

He looked devastated. This was the worst part of it, she thought, the mood swings. Heâd tried so hard, and heâd helped, he really hadâbut he wasnât going to be able to hold together much longer. She was seeing him fall apart in slow motion.

Again.

Michael steered him toward the portal. âLetâs go,â he said. âClaire, can you do this?â

âIf he doesnât fight me,â she said nervously. She remembered one afternoon when his paranoia had taken over, and every time sheâd tried to establish the portal, heâd snapped the connection, sure something was waiting on the other side to destroy him. âI wish we had a tranquilizer.â

âWell, you donât,â Myrnin said. âAnd I donât like being stuck with your needles, you know that. Iâll behave myself.â He laughed softly. âMostly.â

Claire opened the door, but instead of the connection snapping clear to the prison, she felt it shift, pulled out of focus. âMyrnin, stop it!â

He spread his hands theatrically. âI didnât do anything.â

She tried again. The connection bent, and before she could bring it back where she wanted it, an alternate destination came into focus.

Theo Goldman fell out of the door.

âTheo!â Myrnin caught him, surprised out of his petulance, at least for the moment. He eased the other vampire down to a sitting position against the wall. âAre you injured?â

âNo, no, noââ Theo was gasping, though Claire knew he didnât need air, not the way humans did. This was emotion, not exertion. âPlease, you have to help, I beg you. Help us, help my family, pleaseââ

Myrnin crouched down to put their eyes on a level. âWhatâs happened?â

Theoâs eyes filled with tears that flowed over his lined, kind face. âBishop,â he said. âBishop has my family. He says he wants Amelie and the book, or he will kill them all.â

14

Theo hadnât come straight from Common Grounds, of course; heâd been taken to one of the open portalsâhe didnât know whereâand forced through by Bishop. âNo,â he said, and stopped Michael as he tried to come closer. âNo, not you. He only wants Amelie, and the book, and I want no more innocent blood shed, not yours or mine. Please. Myrnin, I know you can find her. You have the blood tie and I donât. Please find her and bring her. This is not our fight. Itâs family; itâs father and daughter. They should end this, face-to-face.â

Myrnin stared at him for a long, long moment, and then cocked his head to one side. âYou want me to betray her,â he said. âDeliver her to her father.â

âNo, no, I wouldnât ask for that. Only toâto let her know what price there will be. Amelie will come. I know she will.â

âShe wonât,â Myrnin said. âI wonât let her.â

Theo cried out in misery, and Claire bit her lip. âCanât you help him?â she said. âThereâs got to be a way!â

âOh, there is,â Myrnin said. âThere is. But you wonât like it, my little Claire. It isnât neat, and it isnât easy. And it will require considerable courage from you, yet again.â

âIâll do it!â

âNo, you wonât,â Shane and Michael said, at virtually the same time. Shane continued. âYouâre barely on your feet, Claire. You donât go anywhere, not without me.â

âAnd me,â Michael said.

âHell,â Eve sighed. âI guess that means I have to go, too. Which I may not ever forgive you for, even if I donât die horribly.â

Myrnin stared at each of them in turn. âYouâd go. All of you.â His lips stretched into a crazy, rubber-doll smile. âYou are the best toys, you know. I canât imagine how much fun it will be to play with you.â

Silence, and then Eve said, âOkay, that was extra creepy, with whipped creepy topping. And this is me, changing my mind.â

The glee faded from Myrninâs eyes, replaced with a kind of lost desperation that Claire recognized all too well. âItâs coming. Claire, itâs coming, Iâm afraid. I donât know what to do. I can feel it.â

She reached out and took his hand. âI know. Please, try. We need you right now. Can you hold on?â

He nodded, but it was more a convulsive response than confirmation. âIn the drawer by the skulls,â he said. âOne last dose. I hid it. I forgot.â

He did that; he hid things and remembered them at odd momentsâor never. Claire dashed off to the far end of the room, near where Richard slept, and opened drawer after drawer under the row of skulls heâd nailed to the wall. Heâd promised that they were all clinical specimens, not one of them victims of violence. She still didnât altogether believe him.

In the last drawer, shoved behind ancient rolls of parchment and the mounted skeleton of a bat, were two vials, both in brown glass. One, when she pried up the stopper, proved to be red crystals.

The other was silver powder.

She put the vial with silver powder in her pants pocketâcareful to use the pocket without a hole in itâand brought the red crystals back to Myrnin. He nodded and slipped the vial into his vest pocket, inside the coat.

âArenât you going to take them?â

âNot quite yet,â he said, which scared the hell out of her, frankly. âI can stay focused a bit longer. I promise.â

âSo,â Michael said, âwhatâs the plan?â

âThis.â

Claire felt the portal snap into place behind her, clear as a lightning strike, and Myrnin grabbed the front of her shirt, swung her around, and threw her violently through the doorway.

She seemed to fall a really, really long time, but she hit the ground and rolled.

She opened her eyes on pitch darkness, smelling rot and old wine.

No.

She knew this place.

She was trying to get up when something else hit her from behindâShane, from the sound of his angry cursing. She writhed around and slapped a hand over his mouth, which made him stop in midcurse. âShhhh,â she hissed, as softly as she could. Not that their rolling around on the floor hadnât rung the dinner bell loud and clear, of course.

Damn you, Myrnin.

A cold hand encircled her wrist and pulled her away from Shane, and when she hit out at it, she felt a velvet sleeve.

Myrnin. Shane was scrambling to his feet, too.

âMichael, can you see?â Myrninâs voice sounded completely calm.

âYes.â Michaelâs didnât. At all.

âThen run, damn you! Iâve got them!â

Myrnin followed his own advice, and Claireâs arm was almost yanked from its socket as he dragged her with him. She heard Shane panting on his other side. Her foot came down on something springy, like a body, and she yelped. The sound echoed, and from the darkness on all sides, she heard what sounded like fingers tapping, sliding, coming closer.

Something grabbed her ankle, and this time Claire screamed. It felt like a wire loop, but when she tried to bat at it, she felt fingers, a thin, bony forearm, and nails like talons.

Myrnin skidded to a halt, turned, and stomped. Her ankle came free, and something in the darkness screamed in rage.

âGo!â He roaredânot to them, but to Michael, Claire guessed. She saw a flash of something up ahead that wasnât quite lightâthe portal? That looked like the kind of shimmer it made when it was being activated.

Myrnin let go of her wrist, and shoved her forward.

Once again, she fell. This time, she landed on top of Michael.

Shane fell on top of her, and she gasped for air as all the breath was driven out of her. They squirmed around and separated. Michael pulled Eve to her feet.

âI know this place,â Claire said. âThis is where Myrninââ

Myrnin stepped through the portal and slammed it shut, just as Amelie had done not so long ago. âWe wonât come back here,â he said. âOut. Hurry. We donât have much time.â

He led the way, long black coat flapping, and Claire had to dig deep to keep up, even with Shane helping her. When he slowed down and started to pick her up, she swatted at him breathlessly. âNo, Iâll make it!â

He didnât look so sure.

At the end of the stone hallway, they took a left, heading down the dark, paneled hall that Claire remembered, but they passed up the door she remembered as Myrninâs cell, where heâd been chained.

He didnât even slow down.

âWhere are we going?â Eve gasped. âMan, I wish Iâd worn different shoesââ

She cut herself off as Myrnin stopped at the end of the hallway. There was a massive wooden door there, medieval style with thick, hand-hammered iron bands, and the Founderâs Symbol etched into the old wood.

He hadnât even broken a sweat. Of course. Claire windmilled her arms as she stumbled to a halt, and braced herself against the wall, chest heaving.

âShouldnât we be armed?â Eve asked. âI mean, for a rescue mission, generally people go armed. Iâm just pointing that out.â

âI donât like this,â Shane said.

Myrnin didnât move his gaze away from Claire. He reached out and took her hand in his. âDo you trust me?â he asked.

âI will if you take your meds,â she said.

He shook his head. âI canât. I have my reasons, little one. Please. I must have your word.â

Shane was shaking his head. Michael wasnât seeming any too confident about this, either, and EveâEve looked like she would gladly have run back the other way, if sheâd known there was any other choice than going back into that darkness.

âYes,â Claire said.

Myrnin smiled. It was a tired, thin sort of smile, and it had a hint of sadness in it. âThen I should apologize now,â he said. âBecause Iâm about to break that trust most grievously.â

He dropped Claireâs hand, grabbed Shane by the shirt, and kicked open the door.

He dragged Shane through with him, and the door slammed behind him before any of them could reactâeven Michael, who hit the wood just an instant later, battering at it. It was built to hold out vampires, Claire realized. And it would hold out Michael for a long, long time.

âShane!â She screamed his name and threw herself against the wood, slamming her hand over and over into the Founderâs Symbol. âShane, no! Myrnin, bring him back. Please, donât do this. Bring him back. . . .â

Michael whirled around, facing the other direction. âStay behind me,â he said to Eve and Claire. Claire looked over her shoulder to see doors opening, up and down the hall, as if somebody had pressed a button.

Vampires and humans alike came out, filling the hallway between the three of them, and any possible way out.

Every single one of them had fang marks in their necks, just like the ones in Claireâs neck.

Just like the ones in Michaelâs neck.

There was something about the way he was standing there, so still, so quiet. . . .

And then he walked away, heading for the other vampires.

âMichael!â Eve started to lunge after him, but Claire stopped her.

When Michael reached the first vampire, Claire expected to see some kind of a fightâsomethingâbut instead, they just looked at each other, and then the man nodded.

âWelcome,â he said, âBrother Michael.â

âWelcome,â another vampire murmured, and then a human.

When Michael turned around, his eyes had shifted colors, going from sky blue to dark crimson.

âOh hell,â Eve whispered. âThis isnât happening. It canât be.â

The door opened behind them. On the other side was a big stone hall, something straight out of a castle, and the wooden throne that Claire remembered from the welcome feast was here, sitting up on a stage. It was draped in red velvet.

Sitting on the throne was Mr. Bishop.

âJoin us,â Bishop said. Claire and Eve looked at each other. Shane was lying on the stone floor, with Myrninâs hand holding him facedown. âCome in, children. Thereâs no point anymore. Iâve won the night.â

Claire felt like sheâd stepped off the edge of the world, and everything was just . . . gone. Myrnin wouldnât look at her. He had his head bowed to Bishop.

Eve, after that first look, returned her attention to Michael, who was walking toward them.

It was not the Michael they knewânot at all.

âLet Shane go,â Claire said. Her voice trembled, but it came out clearly enough. Bishop raised one finger, and Michael lunged forward, grabbed Eve by the throat, and pulled her close to him with his fangs bared. âNo!â

âDonât give me orders, child,â Bishop said. âYou should be dead by now. Iâm almost impressed. Now, rephrase your request. Something with a please.â

Claire licked her lips and tasted sweat. âPlease,â she said. âPlease let Shane go. Please donât hurt Eve.â

Bishop considered, then nodded. âI donât need the girl,â he said. He nodded to Michael, who let Eve go. She backed away, staring at him in disbelief, hands over her throat. âI have what I want. Donât I, Myrnin?â

Myrnin pulled up Shaneâs shirt. There, stuffed in his waistband at the back, was the book.

No.

Myrnin pulled it free, let Shane up, and walked to Bishop. Iâm about to break that trust most grievously, heâd said to Claire. She hadnât believed him until this moment.

âWait,â Myrnin said, as Bishop reached for it. âThe bargain was for Theo Goldmanâs family.â

âWho? Oh, yes.â He smiled. âTheyâll be quite safe.â

âAnd unharmed,â Myrnin said.

âAre you putting conditions on our little agreement?â Bishop asked. âVery well. They go free, and unharmed. Let all witness that Theo Goldman and his family will take no harm from me or mine, but they are not welcome in Morganville. I will not have them here.â

Myrnin inclined his head. He lowered himself to one knee in front of the throne, and lifted the book in both hands over his head, offering it up.

Bishopâs fingers closed on it, and he let out a long, rattling sigh. âAt last,â he said. âAt last.â

Myrnin rested his forearms across his knee, but didnât try to rise. âYou said you also required Amelie. May I suggest an alternative?â

âYou may, as Iâm in good humor with you at the moment.â

âThe girl wears Amelieâs sigil,â he said. âSheâs the only one in town who wears it in the old way, by the old laws. That makes her no less than a part of Amelie herself, blood for blood.â

Claire stopped breathing. It seemed as if every head turned toward her, every pair of eyes stared. Shane started to come toward her.

He never made it.

Michael darted forward and slammed his friend down on the stones, snarling. He held him there. Myrnin rose and came to Claire, offering her his hand in an antique, courtly gesture.

His eyes were still dark, still mostly sane.

And that was why she knew she could never really forgive him, ever again. This wasnât the disease talking.

It was just Myrnin.

âCome,â he said. âTrust me, Claire. Please.â

She avoided him and walked on her own to the foot of Bishopâs throne, staring up at him.

âWell?â she asked. âWhat are you waiting for? Kill me.â

âKill you?â he repeated, mystified. âWhy on earth would I do such a foolish thing? Myrnin is quite right. Thereâs no point in killing you, none at all. I need you to run the machines of Morganville for me. I have already declared that Richard Morrell will oversee the humans. I will allow Myrnin the honor of ruling those vampires who choose to stay in my kingdom and swear fealty to me.â

Myrnin bowed slightly, from the waist. âI am, of course, deeply grateful for your favor, my lord.â

âOne thing,â Bishop said. âIâll need Oliverâs head.â

This time, Myrnin smiled. âI know just where to find it, my lord.â

âThen be about your work.â

Myrnin gave a bow, flourished with elaborate arm movements, and to Claireâs eyes, it was almost mocking.

Almost.

While he was bowing, she heard him whisper, âDo as he says.â

And then he was gone, walking away, as if none of it meant anything to him at all.

Eve tried to kick him, but he laughed and avoided her, wagging a finger at her as he did.

They watched him skip away down the hall.

Shane said, âLet me up, Michael, or fang me. One or the other.â

âNo,â Bishop said, and snapped his fingers to call Michael off when he snarled. âI may need the boy to control his father. Put them in a cage together.â

Shane was hauled up and marched off, but not before he said, âClaire, Iâll find you.â

âIâll find you first,â she said.

Bishop broke the lock on the book that Myrnin had given him, and opened it to flip the pages, as if looking for something in particular. He ripped out a page and pressed the two ends together to make a circle of paper, thickly filled with minute, dark writing. âPut this on your arm,â he said, and tossed it to Claire. She hesitated, and he sighed. âPut it on, or one of the many hostages to your good behavior will suffer. Do you understand? Mother, father, friends, acquaintances, complete strangers. You are not Myrnin. Donât try to play his games.â

Claire slipped the paper sleeve over her arm, feeling stupid, but she didnât see any alternatives.

The paper felt odd against her skin, and then it sucked in and clung to her like something alive. She panicked and tried to pull it off, but she couldnât get a grip on it, so closely was it sticking to her arm.

After a moment of searing pain, it loosened and slipped off on its own.

As it fluttered to the floor, she saw that the page was blank. Nothing on it at all. The dense writing that had been on it stayed on her armâno, under the skin, as if sheâd been tattooed with it.

And the symbols were moving. It made her ill to watch. She had no idea what it meant, but she could feel something happening inside, something . . .

Her fear faded away. So did her anger.

âSwear loyalty to me,â Bishop said. âIn the old tongue.â

Claire got on her knees and swore, in a language she didnât even know, and not for one moment did she doubt it was the right thing to do. In fact, it made her happy. Glowingly happy. Some part of her was screaming, Heâs making you do this! but the other parts really didnât care.

âWhat shall I do with your friends?â he asked her.

âI donât care.â She didnât even care that Eve was crying.

âYou will, someday. Iâll grant you this much: your friend Eve may go. I have absolutely no use for her. I will show I am merciful.â

Claire shrugged. âI donât care.â

She did, she knew she did, but she couldnât make herself feel it.

âGo,â Bishop said, and smiled chillingly at Eve. âRun away. Find Amelie and tell her this: I have taken her town away, and all that she values. Tell her I have the book. If she wants it back, sheâll have to come for it herself.â

Eve angrily wiped tears from her face, glaring at him. âSheâll come. And Iâll come with her. You donât own jack. This is our town, and weâre going to kick you out if itâs the last thing we do.â

The assembled vampires all laughed. Bishop said, âThen come. Weâll be waiting. Wonât we, Claire?â

âYes,â she said, and went to sit down on the steps by his feet. âWeâll be waiting.â

He snapped his fingers. âThen letâs begin our celebration, and in the morning, weâll talk about how Morganville will be run from now on. According to my wishes.â

AUTHORâ€™S NOTE

I had an especially great track list to help me through this book, and I thought you might enjoy listening along. Donâ€™t forget: musicians need love and money, too, so buy the CDs or pay for tracks.

Read on for an exciting excerpt
from Rachel Caineâs next
Morganville Vampires novel,

CARPE CORPUS

Coming in June 2009 from NAL Jam

âClaire,â Bishop said. He didnât sound pleased. âDid I summon you?â

Claireâs heart jumped as if heâd used a cattle prod. She willed herself not to flinch. âNo sir,â she said, and kept her voice low and respectful. âI came to ask a favor.â

Bishopâwho was wearing a plain black suit today, with a white shirt that had seen brighter daysâpicked a piece of lint from his sleeve. âThe answer is no. Anything else?â

Claire wet her lips and tried again. âI wanted to see Shane, sir. Just for a fewââ

âI said no,â Bishop snapped, and she felt his anger crackle through the room. Michael and a strange vamp both looked up at her, eyes luminously threatening. Myrninâdressed in some ratty assortment of Goodwill reject pants and a frock coat from a costume shop, plus several layers of Mardi Gras beadsâjust seemed bored. He yawned, showing lethally sharp fangs.

âOh, donât be so harsh,â Myrnin said, and rolled his eyes. âLet the girl have her moment. Itâll hurt her more in the end. Parting is such sweet sorrow, according to the bards. I wouldnât know, myself.â

Claire forgot to breathe. She hadnât expected Myrnin, of all of them, to take up her causeânot that he had, really. But heâd given Bishop pause, and she kept very still, letting him think it over.

Bishop finally crossed his arms, and Michael and the other vampire relaxed in their seats, like puppets with their strings loosened. âThis will need supervision,â he said. âMyrnin, itâs your pet. Clean up after it.â

Myrnin gave Bishop a lazy salute. âAs my master commands.â He stood with that unconscious vampire grace that made Claire feel heavy, stupid, and slow, and his bright black eyes locked with hers for a long moment. If he was trying to tell her something, she had no idea what it was. âOut, girl. Master Bishop has work to do here.â

Before she could even start to back away, Myrnin crossed the room and closed ice-cold fingers around her arm. She pulled in a breath for a gasp, but he didnât give her time to react; she was yanked along with him down the hall, moving at a stumbling run.

Myrnin stopped only when there were two closed doors, and about a mile of hallway, between them and Mr. Bishop.

âLet go!â Claire spat, and tried to yank free. Myrnin looked down at her arm, where his pale fingers were still wrapped around it, and raised his eyebrows as if he couldnât quite figure out what his hand was doing. Claire yanked again. âMyrnin, let go!â

He did, and stepped back. She thought he looked disappointed for a flicker of a second, and then his loony smile returned. âWill you be a good little girl?â

She glared at him.

âAh. Probably not. All right, then, on your head be it, little Claire. Come. Iâll take you to the boy.â

He turned, and the skirts of his frock coat flared. He was wearing flip-flops again, and his feet were dirty, though he didnât smell bad in general. Layers of cheap metallic beads clicked and rattled as he walked, and the slap of his flip-flops made him just about the noisiest vampire Claire had ever heard.

âAre you taking your medicine?â she asked. Myrnin sent her a glance over his shoulder, and once again she didnât know what his look meant at all. âIs that a no?â

âI thought you hated me,â he said. âIf you do, you really shouldnât care, should you?â

He had a point. Claire shut up and hurried along as he walked down a long, curved hallway to a big wooden door. There was a vampire guard at the door, a tall man whoâd probably been Asian in his regular life but was now the color of old ivory. He wore his hair long, braided in the back, and he wasnât much taller than Claire.

Myrnin exchanged some Chinese words with the other vampireâwho, like Michael, sported Bishopâs fang marks on his neckâand the vampire unlocked the door and swung it open.

This was as far as Claire had ever been able to get. She felt a wave of heat race through her, and then she shivered. Now that she was here, actually walking through the door, she felt faintly sick with anticipation. If theyâve hurt him . . .

Another locked door, another guard, and then they were inside a plain stone hallway with barred cells on the left side. No windows. No light except for blazing fluorescent fixtures far overhead. The first cell was empty. The second held two humans, but neither was Shane. Claire tried not to look too closely. She was afraid she might know them.

The third cell had two small cots, one on each side of the tiny room, and a toilet and sink in the middle. Nothing else. There was an old man with straggly gray hair asleep on one of the beds, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that he was Frank Collins, Shaneâs dad. She was used to seeing him awake, and it surprised her to see him so . . . fragile.

Shane was sitting on the other bed.

He looked up from the book he was reading and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed-in look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.

He dropped the book, surged to his feet, and was at the bars in a little under two seconds. His hands curled around the iron, and his eyes glittered wildly until he squeezed them shut.

When he opened them again, heâd gotten himself under control. Mostly.

âHey,â Shane said, as if theyâd just run into each other in the hallway. As if months hadnât gone by since theyâd parted. âSo . . . happy birthday.â

Claire felt tears burn in her eyes, but she blinked them back and put on a brave smile. âThanks,â she said. âWhatâd you get me?â

âUm . . .â Shane looked around and shrugged. âMust have left it at the club. You know how it is, out all night partying, you get baked and forget where you parked the car.â

She stepped forward and wrapped her hands around his. She felt tremors race through him, and Shane sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against the bars. âYeah,â he whispered. âShutting up now.â

She pressed her forehead against his, and then her lips, and it was hot and sweet and desperate, and the feelings that exploded inside her made her shake in reaction. Shane let go of the bars and reached through to run his fingers through her soft, short hair, and the kiss deepened, darkened, took on a touch of yearning that made Claireâs heart pound.

When their lips finally parted, they didnât pull away from each other. Claire threaded her arms through the bars and around his neck, and his hands moved down to her waist.

âIâm really sick of kissing you through bars,â Shane said. âIâm all for restraint, but self-restraint is so much more fun.â

Claire had almost forgotten that Myrnin was still there, so his soft chuckle made her flinch. âThere speaks a young man with little experience,â he said, yawned, and draped himself over a bench on the far side of the wall. He propped his chin up on the heel of one hand. âEnjoy that ignorance while you can.â

Shane held on to her, and his dark eyes stared into hers. Ignore him, they seemed to say. Stay with me.

She did.

âIâm trying to get you out,â she whispered. âI canât stand knowing youâre in here with him.â

Shaneâs eyebrows rose just a little. âDad? Yeah, well . . . Heâs okay.â

And that, Claire realized, was what she was afraid ofâthat Shane had forgiven his father for all his crazy stunts. That the Collins boys were together again, united in their hatred of Morganville.

Shane read it in her face. âNot like that,â he said, and shook his head. âWe had to either get along in here, or kill each other. We decided to get along, thatâs all.â

âYeah,â said a deep, scratchy voice from the other bunk. âItâs been one big, sloppy bucket of joy, getting to know my son.â

âShut up, Frank,â Shane said.

âThat any way to talk to your old man?â

âThis is the two of you getting along?â Claire whispered.

âYou see any bruises?â

âGood point.â This was not how sheâd imagined this moment to go, except for the kissing. Then again, the kissing was better than her imagination. âShaneââ

âShh.â He kissed her forehead. âHowâs Michael?â She didnât want to talk about Michael, so she just shook her head. Shane swallowed hard. âHeâs not . . . dead?â

âDefine dead around here,â Claire muttered. âNo, heâs okay. Heâs just, you know.â

âBishopâs, yeah.â He knew. âWhat about Eve?â

âSheâs working. I havenât seen her in a couple of weeks.â Eve, like everyone else in Morganville, treated Claire like the enemy these days, and Claire honestly couldnât blame her. Not that she was about to load Shane up with that knowledge, though. âSheâs busted up about Michael.â

âNo doubt,â Shane said softly. He seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat. âHave you heard anything about us? What Bishop has planned?â

Claire shook her head. Even if she knewâand she didnât, in detailâshe wouldnât have told him. âLetâs not talk about it. Shane, Iâve missed you so much.â

He kissed her again, and the world melted into a wonderful spinning blend of heat and bells, and it was only when she finally, regretfully pulled back that she heard Myrninâs mocking, steady clapping.

âLove conquers all,â he said. âHow quaint.â

Claire turned on him, feeling fury erupt like a volcano in her guts. âShut up, Myrnin!â

He didnât even bother to glance at her, just leaned back against the wall and smiled. âYou want to know what heâs got planned for you, Shane? Do you really?â

âMyrnin, donât!â

Shane reached through the bars and grabbed Claireâs shoulders, turning her back to face him. âIt doesnât matter,â he said. âThis matters, right now. Claire, weâre going to get out of this. Weâre going to live through it. Both of us.â

âBoth of us,â she repeated. âWeâre going to live.â

Myrninâs cold hand closed around her wrist, and he dragged her away from the bars. The last thing she let go of was Shaneâs hand.

âHey!â Shane yelled as Claire fought, lost, and was pulled through the door. âClaire! Weâre going to live!â

Myrnin slammed the door, rolled his eyes, and said, âTheatrical, isnât he? Come on, girl. We have work to do.â

âIâm not going anywhere with you!â

Myrnin didnât give her a choice; he half dragged, half marched her away from the first vampire guard, then the second, and then pulled her into an empty, quiet room off the long hallway. He shut the door with a wicked boom and whirled to face her.

Claire grabbed the first thing she sawâit happened to be a heavy candlestickâand swung it at his head. He ducked, rushed in, and effortlessly took it away from her. âGirl. Claire!â He shook her into stillness. His eyes were wide and very dark. Not at all crazy. âIf you want the boy to live, youâll stop fighting me. Itâs not productive.â

âWhy should I help Bishop?â she said, and twisted to throw him off. It was like trying to throw off a granite statue.

âWho says you would be?â Myrnin asked, very reasonably. âWho says I work for him?â

She wouldnât have believed him, not for a second, except that a section of the wall opened, there was a flash of white-hot light, and a woman stepped through, followed by a long line of people.

Amelie, though she didnât look anything like the perfect white queen whom Claire had always seen. Amelie had on black pants, a black zip-up hoodie, and running shoes.

And behind her was the frickinâ vampire army. Led by Oliver, all in black, looking scarier than Claire could remember having ever seen himâhe usually at least tried to look nondangerous, but today he obviously didnât care.

He crossed his arms and looked at Myrnin and Claire as if they were something slimy on his coffee-shop floor.

âMyrnin,â Amelie said, and nodded graciously. He nodded back, as though they were passing on the street. As if it were a normal day. âWhatâs the girl done?â

Myrnin looked at Claire, grinned, and let go of her.

âOh, sheâs been quite difficult,â he said, âwhich helped convince Bishop that I am, indeed, his creature. But I think itâs best if you leave us behind now. We have more work to do here, work that canât be done in hiding.â

Claire opened her mouth, and then closed it without having thought of a single coherent question to ask. Oliver dismissed both of them with a shake of his head and signaled for his vampire shock troops to fan out around the room on either side of the door to the hallway.

âCan you protect her, Myrnin?â Amelie asked, and her pale gray eyes bored into his, colder than marble. âI will hold you to your answer.â

âWith my last breath,â he promised, and clasped his hand dramatically to his ragged frock coat. âOh, wait. That doesnât mean much, does it? Sorry. I mean, yes. Of course. With whatâs left of my life.â

âIâm not joking, jester.â

âAnd Iâm not laughing, my lady.â

Claireâs head was spinning. She looked from Myrnin to Amelie to Oliver, and finally thought of a decent question to ask. âWhy are you here?â

âTheyâre here to rescue your boyfriend,â Myrnin said. âHappy birthday, my dear.â

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to the Morganville Vampires series, Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, Firestorm, Thin Air, and Gale Force. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin; a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) Oâ€™Malley; and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).

Please visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com and her MySpace, www.myspace.com/rachelcaine.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Â 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Â 

TRACK LIST

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

âAddictive and hypnotic. If Rachel Caine is
not on your autobuy list, put her there
immediately, if not sooner.â

âThe Eternal Night

Praise for the Morganville Vampires Series

Â 

Feast of Fools

Â 

âFast-paced and filled with action . . . fans of the series will appreciate Feast of Fools.â

âGenre Go Round Reviews

Â 

âThrilling. . . . In sharing her well-imagined world, Ms. Caine gives readers the danger-filled supernatural moments they crave while adding friendship, romance, and teen issues to give the story a realistic feel. A fast-moving series where thereâs always a surprise just around every dark corner.ââDarque Reviews

Â 

âVery entertaining . . . I could not put Feast of Fools down. . . . There is a level of tension in the Morganville books that keeps you on the edge of your seat; even in the background scenes youâre waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always does.ââFlames Rising

Â 

âI thoroughly enjoyed reading Feast of Fools . . . it was fantastic. . . . The excitement and suspense . . . is thrilling and I was fascinated reading about the town of Morganville. I greatly look forward to reading the next book in this series and catching up with the other books. I highly recommend Feast of Fools to paranormal readers for a delightful and fun read that you wonât want to put down.ââFresh Fiction

Â 

Midnight Alley

Â 

âA fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page. . . . For fans of vampire books, this is one that shouldnât be missed!ââFlamingnet

Â 

âWeaves a web of dangerous temptation, dark deceit, and loving friendships. The nonstop vampire action and delightfully sweet relationships will captivate readers and leave them craving more.ââDarque Reviews

Â 

The Dead Girlsâ Dance

Â 

âIt was hard to put this down for even the slightest break . . . forget what happens to the kid with the scar and glasses, I want to know what happens next in Morganville. If you love to read about characters with whom you can get deeply involved, Rachel Caine is so far a one hundred percent sure bet to satisfy that need. I love her Weather Warden stories, and her vampires are even better.ââThe Eternal Night

Â 

âThrow in a mix of vamps and ghosts, and it canât get any better than Dead Girlsâ Dance.â

âDark Angel Reviews

Â 

Glass Houses

Â 

âRachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.â

âRomance Reviews Today

Â 

âA rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos. . . . [A] heroine the audience will admire and root for as she swallows her trepidations to ensure her friend and roomies are safe. The key to this fine tale is her plausible reactions to living in a town run by vampires that make going to college in the Caine universe quite an experience. Glass Houses is an electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.â

âMidwest Book Review

Â 

Praise for Rachel Caineâs Weather Warden Series

Â 

âYouâll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.ââJim Butcher

Â 

âRachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!ââMary Jo Putney

Â 

âThe Weather Warden series is fun reading . . . more engaging than most TV.ââBooklist

Â 

âA fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.ââLocus

Â 

âAn appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.ââSF Site

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES NOVELS

Glass Houses
The Dead Girlsâ€™ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus

NAL Jam
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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First published by NAL Jam, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Â 

First Printing, June 2009

Copyright Â© Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2009

eISBN : 978-1-101-06007-0

All rights reserved

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NAL JAM and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Â 

PUBLISHERâ€™S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authorâ€™s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Â 

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The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authorâ€™s rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

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Â 

Â 

For absent friends Tim and Ter. I miss you.
For my dear and constant Cat.
And for present friends Pat, Jackie, Jo, Sharon, Heidi,
Bill, and all of ORAC!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There were many people who helped me out with technical review, including:

Amie
Jenn Clack
Stephanie Hill
Alan Balthrop
Loa Ledbetter
CJ
Minde Briscoe
Trisha
Joann Casper
Lisa Lapkovitch
Bethany
Virginia
Sharon Sams

Also, a special note for someone I left out of the dedication for Feast of Fools even though I promised to put her in:

Sarah Magilnick

Sarah, Iâ€™m very sorry for leaving you out. It was completely my fault.

1

âHappy birthday, honey!â

In the glow of the seventeen candles on Claireâs birthday cake, her mother looked feverishly happy, wearing the kind of forced smile that was way too com mon around the Danvers house these days.

It was way too common all over Morganville, Texas. People smiled because they had to, or else.

Now it was Claireâs turn to suck it up and fake it.

âThanks, Mom,â she said, and stretched her lips into something that didnât really feel like a smile at all. She rose from her chair at the kitchen table to blow out the candles. All seventeen of the flames guttered and went out at her first puff. I wish . . .

She didnât dare wish for anything, and that, more than anything else, made frustration and anger and grief roll over her in a hot, sticky wave. This wasnât the birthday sheâd been planning for the past six months, since sheâd arrived in Morganville. Sheâd been counting on a party at her home, with her friends. Michael would have played his guitar, and she could almost see that lost, wonderful smile he had when he was deep in the music. Eve, cheerfully and defiantly Goth, would have baked some outrageous and probably inedible cake in the shape of a bat, with licorice icing and black candles. And Shane . . .

Shane would have . . .

Claire couldnât think about Shane, because it made her breath lock up in her throat, made her eyes burn with tears. She missed him. No, that was wrong . . . missed him was too mild. She needed him. But Shane was locked up in a cage in the center of town, along with his father, the idiot vampire hunter.

She still couldnât quite get her head around the fact that Morganvilleâa normal, dusty Texas town in the middle of nowhereâwas run by vampires. But she could believe that more easily than the idea that Frank Collins was somehow going to make it all better.

After all, sheâd met the man.

Bishopâthe new master vampire of Morganvilleâwas planning something splashy in the way of executions for Frank and Shane, which apparently was the old-school standard for getting rid of humans with ideas of grandeur. Nobody had bothered to fill her in on the details, and she guessed she should be grateful for that. It would certainly be medievally awful.

The worst thing about that, for Claire, was that there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing. What was the use of being a main evil minion if you couldnât even enjoy itâor save your own friends?

Evil minion. Claire didnât like to think of herself that way, but Eve had flung it at her the last time theyâd spoken.

And of course, as always, Eve was right.

A slice of birthday cakeâvanilla, with vanilla frosting and little pastel sprinkles (and the exact opposite of what Eve would have baked)âlanded in front of her, on her momâs second-best china. Mom had made the cake from scratch, even the frosting; she didnât believe in ready-made anything. Itâd be delicious, but Claire already knew that she wouldnât care. Eveâs fantasy cake would have tasted awful, left her teeth and tongue black, and Claire would have loved every bite.

Claire picked up her fork, blinked back her tears, and dug into her birthday treat. She mumbled, âWonderful, Mom!â around a mouthful of cake that tasted like air and sadness.

Her dad seated himself at the table and accepted a slice, too. âHappy birthday, Claire. Got any plans for the rest of the day?â

Sheâd had plans. All kinds of plans. Sheâd imagined this party a million times, and in every single version, it had ended with her and Shane alone.

Well, she was alone. So was he.

They just werenât alone together.

Claire swallowed and kept her gaze down on the plate. She was about to say the honest truth: no. She didnât have any plans. But the thought of being stuck here all day with her parents, with their frightened eyes and joyless smiles, was too much for her. âYeah,â she said. âIâm . . . supposed to go to the lab. Myrnin wants me.â

Myrnin was her bossâher vampire bossâand she hated him. She hadnât always hated him, but heâd betrayed her one time too many, and the last time had been a doozy: heâd turned her and Michael and Shane over to their worst enemy, just because it was easier for him than being loyal to them when things got tough.

She could practically hear Shaneâs voice, heavy on the irony: Well, heâs a vampire. What did you expect?

Something better, she guessed. And maybe that made her an idiot, because, hey, vampire, and Myrnin had never been big on sanity anyway. She would have refused to work for him after that . . . only she couldnât refuse anything Bishop ordered her to do directly. Magic. Claire didnât believe in magicâthat was, as far as she was concerned, just science that hadnât been fully investigated yetâbut this felt uncomfortably close to meeting the standard definition.

She didnât like to think of that moment when she becameâas Eve had so clearly put itâthe pawn of evil, because she was afraid, down in the sickest depths of her nightmares, that sheâd made the wrong choice. As she reached for her glass of Coke, her long-sleeved shirt slipped back on her forearm to reveal what Bishop had done to herâblue ink, like some tribal biker tattoo, only this ink moved. Watching it slowly revolve and writhe under her skin made her sick.

No such thing as magic. No such thing.

Claire tugged her sleeve back down to hide itânot from her parents; they couldnât see anything wrong with her arm at all. It was something only she could see, and the vampires. She thought that it had gotten a little lighter since the day that Bishop had forced it on her, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. If it fades out enough, maybe itâll stop working. Stop forcing her to obey him when he gave her orders.

She had no way of knowing whether it was getting weaker, one way or the other, unless she was willing to risk openly defying Bishop. That was slightly less healthy than swimming in a shark tank, smeared with fish oil and wearing a big Eat Me sign.

Sheâd ransacked Myrninâs library, looking for any hint of what Bishop had done to her, and how to get rid of it, but if the information was there, heâd hidden it away too well for her to find. For your own good, heâd probably have said, but she wouldnât believe him. Not anymore. Myrnin did only what was good for him, and no one else.

At least she could define what the tattoo had done to herâit had taken away her will to say no to Mr. Bishop. Itâs not magic, she told herself for the thousandth time today. Itâs not magic because thereâs no such thing as magic. Everything has an explanation. We just may not understand it yet, but this tattoo thing has rules and laws, and thereâs got to be a way to make it go away.

Claire again tugged down the sleeve over the tattoo, and her fingers skimmed over the gold bracelet she still wore. Amelieâs bracelet, with the symbol on it of the former vampire ruler of Morganville. Before Mr. Bishop had arrived, it had been a mark of Protection . . . it meant she owed Amelie taxes, usually in the form of money, services, and donated blood, and in return Amelieâand the other vampiresâwould play nice. It was sort of like the Mafia, with fangs. And it hadnât always worked, but it had been a lot better than walking around Morganville as a free lunch.

Now, though, the bracelet wasnât such an asset. She hadnât seen or heard from Amelie in weeks, and all of Amelieâs allies seemed to be MIA. The most prominent vampires in Morganville were in hiding, or maybe even dead . . . or else they were under Bishopâs control, and they had no real will of their own. Seemed like that was happening more and more as time went along. Bishop had decided it was more trouble to kill the opposition than to convert them.

Just like heâd converted her, although she was pretty much the only human heâd bothered to put directly under his thumb. He didnât have a very high opinion of people, generally.

Claire finished her cake, and then dutifully opened the birthday presents her parents brought to the table. Dadâs packageâwrapped by Mom, from the neat hospital corners on itâcontained a nice silver necklace with a delicate little heart on it. Momâs package revealed a dressâClaire never wore dressesâin a color and cut that Claire was sure would be drastically unflattering on her smallish frame.

But she kissed them both and thanked them, promised to try the dress on later, and modeled the necklace for her dad when her mom buzzed off to the kitchen to put away the rest of the cake. She put it on over the cross necklace Shane had given her.

âHere,â Dad said, trying to be helpful. âIâll get that other one off.â

âNo!â She slapped a hand over Shaneâs necklace and backed away, eyes wide, and Dad looked hurt and baffled. âSorry. I . . . I never take this one off. It . . . was a gift.â

He understood then. âOh. From that boy?â

She nodded, and tears prickled at her eyes again, burning hot. Dad opened his arms and held her tight for a moment, then whispered, âItâll be okay, honey. Donât cry.â

âNo, it wonât,â she said miserably. âNot if we donât make it okay, Dad. Donât you understand that? We have to do something!â

He pushed her back to armâs length and studied her with tired, faded eyes. He hadnât been in good health for a while, and every time she saw him, Claire worried a little more. Why couldnât they leave my parents out of this? Why did they drag them here, into the middle of this?

Things had been fine beforeâwell, maybe not fine, but stable. When sheâd come to attend college at Texas Prairie University, sheâd had to leave the crazy-dangerous dorm to find some kind of safety, and sheâd ended up rooming at the Glass House, with Eve and Shane and Michael. Mom and Dad had remained safely far away, out of town.

Or they had, until Amelie had decided that luring them here would help control Claire better. Now they were Morganville residents. Trapped.

Just like Claire herself.

âWe tried to leave, honey. I packed your mom up the other night and headed out, but our car died at the city limits.â His smile looked frail and broken around the edges. âI donât think Mr. Bishop wanted us to leave.â

Claire was a little bit relieved that at least theyâd tried, but only for a secondâthen she decided that she was a lot more horrified. âDad! Please donât try that again. If the vampires catch you outside the city limitsââ Nobody left Morganville without permission; there were all kinds of safeguards to prevent it, but the fact that the vampires were ruthless about tracking people down was enough to deter most.

âI know.â He put his warm hands on either side of her face, and looked at her with so much love that it broke her heart. âClaire, you think youâre ready to take on the world, but youâre not. I donât want you in the middle of all this. Youâre just too young.â

She gave him a sad smile. âItâs too late for that. Besides, Dad, Iâm not a kid anymoreâIâm seventeen. Got the candles on the cake to prove it and everything.â

He kissed her forehead. âI know. But youâll always be five years old to me, crying about a skinned knee.â

âThatâs embarrassing.â

âI felt the same way when my parents said it to me.â He watched as she fiddled with Shaneâs cross necklace. âYouâre going to the lab?â

âWhat? Oh, yeah.â

He knew she was lying, she could tell, and for a moment, she was sure heâd call her on it. But instead he said, âPlease just tell me youâre not going out today to try to save your boyfriend. Again.â

She put her hands over his. âDad. Donât try to tell me Iâm too young. I know what I feel about Shane.â

âIâm not trying to do that at all,â her father said. âIâm trying to tell you that right now, being in love with any boy in this town is dangerous. Being in love with that boy is suicidal. I wouldnât be thrilled under normal circumstances, and this is isnât even close to normal.â

No kidding. âI wonât do anything stupid,â she promised. She wasnât sure she could actually keep that particular vow, though. Sheâd happily do something stupid if it gave her a single moment with Shane. âDad, I need to go. Thanks for the necklace.â

He stared at her so hard that she thought for a second heâd lock her in her room or something. Not that she couldnât find a way out, of course, but she didnât want to make him feel any worse than she had to.

He finally sighed and shook his head. âYouâre welcome, honey. Happy birthday. Be careful.â

She stood for a moment, watching him play with his piece of birthday cake. He didnât seem hungry. He was losing weight, and he looked older than he had just a year ago. He caught her look. âClaire. Iâm fine. Donât make that face.â

âWhat face?â

Innocence wasnât going to work on him. âThe my-dadâs-sick-and-I-feel-guilty-for-leaving face.â

âOh, that one.â She tried for a smile. âSorry.â

In the kitchen, her mom was buzzing around like a bee on espresso. As Claire put the plates in the sink, her mother chattered a mile a minuteâabout the dress, and how she just knew Claire would look perfect in it, and they really should make plans to go out to a nice restaurant this week and celebrate in style. Then she went on about her new friends at the Card Club, where they played bridge and some kind of gin rummy and sometimes, daringly, Texas Hold âEm. She talked about everything but what was all around them.

Morganville looked like a normal town, but it wasnât. Casual travelers came and went, and never knew a thing; even most of the college students stayed strictly on campus and put in their time without learning a thing about what was really going onâTexas Prairie University made sure it was a world unto itself. For people who lived here, the real residents, Morganville was a prison camp, and they were all inmates, and they were all too afraid to talk about it out in the open. Claire listened with her patience stretching thin as plastic wrap, ready to rip, and finally interrupted long enough to get in a hasty, âThanks,â and, âBe back soon; love you, Mom.â

Her mother stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. âClaire,â she said in an entirely different toneâa genuine one. âI donât want you to go out today. Iâd like you to stay home, please.â

Claire paused in the doorway. âI canât, Mom,â she said. âIâm not going to be a bystander in all this. If you want to be, I understand, but thatâs not how you raised me.â

Claireâs mom broke a plate. Just smashed it against the side of the sink into a dozen sharp-edged pieces that skittered all over the counter and floor.

And then she just stood there, shoulders shaking.

âItâs okay,â Claire said, and quickly picked up the broken pieces from the floor, then swept the rest off the counter. âMomâitâs okay. Iâm not afraid.â

Her mom laughed. It was a brittle, hysterical little laugh, and it scared Claire down to her shoes. âYouâre not? Well, I am, Claire. Iâm as afraid as Iâve ever been in my life. Donât go. Not today. Please stay home.â

Claire stood there for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and dumped the broken china in the trash.

âIâm sorry, but I really need to do this,â she said. âMomââ

âThen go.â Her mother turned back to the sink and picked up another plate, which she dipped into soapy water and began to scrub with special viciousness, as if she intended to wash the pink roses right off the china.

Claire escaped back to her room, put the dress in her closet, and grabbed up her battered backpack from the corner. As she was leaving, she caught sight of a photograph taped to her mirror. Their Glass House formal pictureâShane, Eve, herself, and Michael, caught mid-laugh. It was the only photo she had of all of them together. She was glad it was such a happy one, even if it was overexposed and a little out of focus. Stupid cell phone cameras.

On impulse, she grabbed the photo and stuck it in her backpack.

The rest of her room was like a time warpâMom had kept all her things from high school and junior high, all her stuffed animals and posters and candy-colored diaries. Her PokÃ©mon cards and her science kits. Her glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars and planets on the ceiling. All her certificates and medals and awards.

It felt so far away now, like it belonged to someone else. Someone who wasnât facing a shiny future as an evil minion, and trapped in Morganville forever.

Except for her parents, the photograph was really the only thing in this whole house that sheâd miss if she never came back.

And that was, unexpectedly, kind of sad.

Claire stood in the doorway for a long moment, looking at her past, and then she closed the door and walked away to whatever the future held.

2

Morganville didnât look all that different now from when Claire had first come to town, and she found that really, really odd. After all, when the evil overlords took over, youâd think it would have made some kind of visible difference, at least.

But instead, life still went onâpeople went to work, to school, rented videos, and drank in bars. The only real difference was that nobody roamed around alone after dark. Not even the vampires, as far as she knew. The dark was Mr. Bishopâs hunting time.

Even that wasnât as much of a change as youâd think, though. Sensible people in Morganville had never gone out after dark if they could help it. Instincts, if nothing else.

Claire checked her watch. Eleven a.m.âand she really didnât have to go to the lab. In fact, the lab was the last place she wanted to be today. She didnât want to see her supposed boss Myrnin, or hear his rambling crazy talk, or have to endure his questions about why she was so angry with him. He knew why she was angry. He wasnât that crazy.

Her dad had been right on the money. She intended to spend the day trying to help Shane.

First step: see the mayor of MorganvilleâRichard Morrell.

Claire didnât have a car, but Morganville wasnât all that big, really, and she liked walking. The weather was still goodâa little cool even during the day now, but crisp instead of chilly. It was what passed for winter in west Texas, at least until the snowstorms. Theyâd had a few days of fall, which meant the leaves were a sickly yellow around the edges instead of dark green. Sheâd heard that fall was a beautiful season in other parts of the country and the world, but around here, it was more or less a half hour between blazing summer and freezing winter.

As she walked, people noticed her. She didnât like that, and she wasnât used to it; Claire had always been one of the Great Anonymous Geek Army, except when it came to a science fair or winning some kind of academic award. Sheâd never stood out physicallyâtoo short, too thin, too smallâand it felt weird to have people focus on her and nod, or just plain stare.

Word had gotten around that she was Bishopâs errand girl. Heâd never made her do anything, really, but he made her carry his orders.

And bad things happened. Making her do it, while she was still wearing Amelieâs bracelet, was Bishopâs idea of a joke.

All the staring made the walk feel longer than it really was.

As she jogged up the steps to Richardâs replacement officeâthe old one having been mostly trashed by a tornado at City Hallâshe wondered if the town had appointed Richard as mayor just so they didnât have to change any of the signs. His fatherâthe original Mayor Morrell, one of those Texas good olâ boys with a wide smile and small, hard eyesâhad died during the storm, and now his son occupied a battered old storefront with a paper sign in the window that read, MAYOR RICHARD MORRELL, TEMPORARY OFFICES.

She would be willing to bet that he wasnât very happy in his new job. There was a lot of that going around.

A bell tinkled when Claire opened the door, and her eyes adjusted slowly to the dimness inside. She supposed he kept the lights low out of courtesy to vampire visitorsâsame reason heâd had the big glass windows in front blacked out. But it made the small, dingy room feel like a cave to herâa cave with bad wallpaper and cheap, thin carpeting.

Richardâs assistant looked up and smiled as Claire shut the door. âHey, Claire,â she said. Nora Harris was a handsome lady of about fifty, neatly dressed in dark suits most of the time, and had a voice like warm chocolate butter sauce. âYou here to see the mayor, honey?â

Claire nodded and looked around the room. She wasnât the only person whoâd come by today; there were three older men seated in the waiting area, and one geeky-looking kid still working off his baby fat, wearing a T-shirt from Morganville High with their mascot on itâa snake, fangs exposed. He looked up at her, eyes wide, and pretty obviously scared, and she smiled slightly to calm him down. It felt weird, being the person other people were scared to see coming.

None of the adults looked at her directly, but she could feel them studying her out of the corners of their eyes.

âHeâs got a full house today, Claire,â Nora continued, and nodded toward the waiting area. âIâll let him know youâre here. Weâll try to work you in.â

âShe can go ahead of me,â one of the men said. The others looked at him, and he shrugged. âDonât hurt none to be nice.â

But it wasnât being nice; Claire knew that. It was simple self-interest, sucking up to the girl who acted as Bishopâs go-between to the human community. She was important now. She hated every minute of that.

âI wonât be long,â she said. He didnât meet her gaze at all.

Nora gestured her toward the closed door at the back. âIâll let him know youâre coming. Mr. Golder, youâll be next as soon as sheâs done.â

Mr. Golder, whoâd given up his place for Claire, nodded back. He was a sun-weathered man, skin like old boots, with eyes the color of dirty ice. Claire didnât know him, but he smiled at her as she passed. It looked forced.

She didnât smile back. She didnât have the heart to pretend.

Claire knocked hesitantly on the closed door as she eased it open, peeking around the edge like she was afraid to catch Richard doing something . . . well, non mayorly. But he was just sitting behind his desk, reading a file folder full of papers.

âClaire.â He closed the file and sat back in his old leather chair, which creaked and groaned. âHow are you holding up?â He stood up to offer her his hand, which she shook, and then they both sat down. Sheâd gotten so used to seeing Richard in a neatly pressed police uniform that it still felt odd to see him in a suitâa nice pin-striped one today, in gray, with a blue tie. He wasnât that oldânot even thirty, sheâd guessâbut he carried himself like somebody twice his age.

They had that in common, she guessed. She didnât feel seventeen these days, either.

âIâm okay,â she said, which was a lie. âHanging in there. I came toââ

âI know what youâre going to ask,â Richard said. âThe answerâs still no, Claire.â He sounded sorry about it, but firm.

Claire swallowed hard. She hadnât expected to get a no right off the bat. Richard usually heard her out. âFive minutes,â she said. âPlease. Havenât I earned it?â

âDefinitely. But itâs not my call. If you want permission to see Shane, you have to go to Bishop.â Richardâs eyes were kind, but unyielding. âIâm doing all I can to keep him alive and safe. I want you to know that.â

âI know you are, and Iâm grateful. Really.â Her heart sank. Somehow, sheâd had her hopes up, even though sheâd known it wouldnât work out, today of all days. She studied her hands in her lap. âHow is he doing?â

âShane?â Richard laughed softly. âHow do you expect him to be? Pissed off. Angry at the world. Hating every minute of this, especially since heâs stuck in there with nobody but his father for company.â

âBut youâve seen him?â

âIâve dropped in,â Richard said. âOfficial duties. So far, Bishop hasnât seen fit to yank my chain and make me stop touring the cells, but if I try to get you in . . .â

âI understand.â She did, but Claire still felt heartsick. âDoes he askââ

âShane asks about you every day,â Richard said very quietly. âEvery single day. I think that boy might really love you. And I never thought Iâd be saying that about Shane Collins.â

Her fingers were trembling now, a fine vibration that made her clench them into fists to make it stop. âItâs my birthday.â She had no idea why she said that, but it seemed to make sense at the time. It seemed important. Looking up, she saw sheâd surprised him with that, and he was temporarily at a loss for words.

âOffering congratulations doesnât seem too appropriate,â he said. âSo. Youâre seventeen, right? Thatâs old enough to know when youâre in over your head. Claire, just go home. Spend the day with your parents, maybe see your friends. Take care of yourself.â

âNo. I want to see Shane,â she said.

He shook his head. âI really donât think thatâs a very good idea.â

He meant well; she knew that. He came around the desk and put his hand on her shoulder, a kind of half hug, and guided her back out the door.

Iâm not giving up. She thought it, but she didnât say it, because she knew he wouldnât approve.

âGo home,â he said, and nodded to the man whose appointment Claire had taken. âMr. Golder? Come on in. This is about your taxes, right?â

âGetting too damn expensive to live in this town,â Mr. Golder growled. âI ainât got that much blood to give, you know.â

Claire hoisted her backpack and went out to try something else that might get her in to see Shane.

Of course, it was something a lot more dangerous.

She tried to talk herself out of it, but in the end, Claire went to the last place she wanted to goâto Founderâs Square, the vampire part of town. In broad daylight, it seemed deserted; regular people didnât venture here anymore, not even when the sun was blazing overhead, although it was a public park. There were some police patrolling on foot, and sometimes she could believe there were shapes flitting through the shadows under the trees, or in the dark spaces of the large, spacious buildings that faced the parklike square.

Those werenât people, though. Not technically.

Claire trudged down the white, smooth sidewalks, head down, feeling the sun beat on her. She watched the grimy, round tips of her red lace-up sneakers. It was almost hypnotic after a while.

She came to a stop as the tips of her shoes bumped into the first of a wide expanse of marble stairs. She looked upâand upâat the largest building on the square: big columns, lots of steps, one of those imposing Greek temple styles. This was the vampire equivalent of City Hall, and inside . . .

âJust go on already,â she muttered to herself, and hitched her backpack to a more comfortable position as she climbed the steps.

Claire felt two things as the edge of the roofâs shadow fell over herârelief, from getting out of the sun, and claustrophobia. Her footsteps slowed, and for a second she wanted to turn around and take Richardâs adviceâjust go home. Stay with her parents. Be safe.

Pretend everything was normal, like her mom did.

The big, shiny wooden doors ahead of her swung open, and a vampire stood there, well out of the direct glare of sunlight, watching her with the nastiest smile sheâd ever seen. Ysandre, Bishopâs token sex-kitten vamp, was beautiful, and she knew it. She posed like a Victoriaâs Secret model, as if at any moment an unexpected photo shoot might begin.

Just now, she was wearing a skintight pair of low-rise blue jeans, a tight black crop top that showed acres of alabaster skin, and a pair of black low-heeled sandals. Skank-vamp casual day wear. She smoothed waves of shiny hair back from her face and continued to beam an evil smile from lips painted with Hooker Red #5.

âWell,â she said low in her throat, sweet as grits and poisoned molasses, âlook what the cat dragged in. Come on, little Claire. Yâall are letting all the dark out.â

Claire had hoped that Ysandre was dead, once and for all; sheâd thought that was pretty much inevitable, since the last time sheâd seen her Ysandre had been in Amelieâs hands, and Amelie hadnât been in a forgiving kind of mood.

But here she was, without a mark on her. Something had gone really wrong for Ysandre to still be alive, but Claire had no real way of finding out what. Ysandre might tell her, but it would probably be a lie.

Claire, lacking any other real choice, came inside. She stayed as far away from the skank as she could, careful not to meet the Vampire Stare of Doom. She wasnât sure that Ysandre had the authority to hurt her, but it didnât seem smart to take chances.

âYou come to talk to Mr. Bishop?â Ysandre asked. âOr just to moon around after that wretched boy of yours?â

âBishop,â Claire said. âNot that itâs any of your business, unless youâre just a glorified secretary with fangs.â

Ysandre hissed out a laugh as she locked the doors behind them. âWell, youâre growing a pair, Bite-size. Fine, you skip off and see our lord and master. Maybe Iâll see him later, too, and tell him youâd be better at your job if you didnât talk so much. Or at all.â

It was hard to turn her back on Ysandre, but Claire did it. She heard the vampireâs hissing chuckle, and the skin on the back of her neck crawled.

There was a touch of ice there, and Claire flinched and whirled to see her trailing pale, cold fingers in the air where the back of Claireâs neck had been.

âWhereâd you learn to be a vampire?â Claire demanded, angry because she was scared and hating it. âThe movies? Because youâre one big, walking, stupid clichÃ©, and you know what? Not impressed.â

They stared at each other. Ysandreâs smile was wicked and awful, and Claire didnât know what to do, other than stare right back.

Ysandre finally laughed softly and melted into the shadows.

Gone.

Claire took a deep breath and went on her wayâa way she knew all too well. It led down a hushed, carpeted hallway into a big, circular atrium armored in marble, with a dome overhead, and then off to the left, down another hallway.

Bishop always knew when she was coming.

He stared right at her as she entered the room. There was something really unsettling about the way he watched the door, waiting for her. As bad as his stare was, though, his smile was worse. It was full of satisfaction, and ownership.

He was holding a book open in his hand. She recognized it, and a chill went down her spine. Plain leather cover with the embossed symbol of the Founder on it. That book had nearly gotten her killed the first few weeks sheâd been in Morganville, and that had been well before sheâd had any idea of its power.

It was a handwritten account, written mostly in Myrninâs code, with all his alchemical methods. All the secrets of Morganville, which heâd documented for Amelie. It had details even Claire didnât know about the town. About Ada. About everything.

It also contained jotted-down notes for what she could think of only as magic spells, like the one that had embedded the tattoo in her arm. She had no idea what else was in it, because Myrnin himself couldnât remember, but Bishop had wanted that book very, very badly. It was the most important thing in Morganville to himâin fact, Claire suspected it was why heâd come here in the first place.

He snapped the book closed and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket, where a religious person might keep a copy of the Bible handy.

The room heâd taken over for his own was a big, carpeted office, with a small, fancy sofa and chairs at one end of it, and a desk at the other. Bishop never sat at the desk. He was always standing, and today was no different. Three other vampires sat in visitorsâ chairsâMyrnin, Michael Glass, and a vamp Claire didnât recognize . . . she wasnât even sure whether it was a man or a woman, actually. The bone structure of the pale face looked female, but the haircut wasnât, and the hands and arms looked too angular.

Claire focused on the stranger to avoid looking at Michael. Her friendâand he was still her friend; he couldnât help being in this situation any more than she couldâwouldnât meet her eyes. He was angry and ashamed, and she wished she could help him. She wanted to tell him, Itâs not your fault, but he wouldnât believe that.

Still, it was true. Michael didnât have a magic tattoo on his arm; instead, he had Bishopâs fang marks in his neck, which worked just as well for the life-challenged. She could still see the livid shadow of the scars on his pale skin.

Bishopâs bite was like a brand of ownership.

âClaire,â Bishop said. He didnât sound pleased. âDid I summon you for some reason Iâve forgotten?â

Claireâs heart jumped as if heâd used a cattle prod. She willed herself not to flinch. âNo, sir,â she said, and kept her voice low and respectful. âI came to ask a favor.â

Bishopâwho was wearing a plain black suit today, with a white shirt that had seen brighter daysâpicked a piece of lint from his sleeve. âThen the answer is no, because I donât grant favors. Anything else?â

Claire wet her lips and tried again. âItâs a small thingâI want to see Shane, sir. Just for a fewââ

âI said no, as I have half a hundred times already,â Bishop said, and she felt his anger crackle through the room. Michael and the strange vamp both looked up at her, eyes luminously threateningâMichael against his will, she was sure. Myrninâdressed in some ratty assortment of Goodwill-reject pants and a frock coat from a costume shop, plus several layers of cheap, tacky Mardi Gras beadsâjust seemed bored. He yawned, showing lethally sharp fangs.

Bishop glared at her. âI am very tired of you making this request, Claire.â

âThen maybe you should say yes and get it over with.â

He snapped his fingers. Michael got to his feet, pulled there like a puppet on a string. His eyes were desperate, but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. âMichael. Shane is your friend, as I recall.â

âYes.â

â âYes, my lord Bishop.â â

Claire saw Michaelâs throat bob as he swallowed what must have been a huge chunk of anger. âYes,â he said. âMy lord Bishop.â

âGood. Fetch him here. Oh, and bring some kind of covering for the floor. Weâll just remove this irritation once and for all.â

Claire blurted out, âNo!â She took a step forward, and Bishopâs stare locked tight onto her, forcing her to stop. âPlease! I didnât mean . . . Donât hurt him! You canât hurt him! Michael, donât! Donât do this!â

âI canât help it, Claire,â he said. âYou know that.â

She did. Michael walked away toward the door. She could see it all happening, nightmarishly realâMichael bringing Shane back here, forcing him to his knees, and Bishop . . . Bishop . . .

âIâm sorry,â Claire said, and took a deep, trembling breath. âI wonât ask again. Ever. I swear.â

The old man raised his thick gray eyebrows. âExactly my point. I remove the boy, and I remove any risk that you wonât keep your word to me.â

âOh, donât be so harsh, old man,â Myrnin said, and rolled his eyes. âSheâs a teenager in love. Let the girl have her moment. Itâll hurt her more, in the end. Parting is such sweet sorrow, according to the bards. I wouldnât know, myself. I never parted anyone.â He mimed ripping someone in half, then got an odd expression on his face. âWell. Just the one time, really. Doesnât count.â

Claire forgot to breathe. She hadnât expected Myrnin, of all of them, to speak up, even if his support had been more crazy than useful. But heâd given Bishop pause, and she kept very still, letting him think it over.

Bishop gestured, and Michael paused on his way to the door. âWait, Michael,â Bishop said. âClaire. I have a task for you to do, if you want to keep the boy alive another day.â

Claire felt a trembling sickness take hold inside. This wasnât the first time, but she always assumedâhad to!âthat it would be the last time. âWhat kind of task?â

âDelivery.â Bishop walked to the desk and flipped open a carved wooden box. Inside was a small pile of paper scrolls, all tied up with red ribbon and dribbled with wax seals. He picked one seemingly at random to give her.

âWhat is it?â

âYou know what it is.â

She did. It was a death warrant; sheâd seen way too many of them. âI canâtââ

âI can order you to take it. If I do, I wonât feel obliged to offer you any favors. This is the best deal you are going to get, little Claire: Shaneâs life for the simple delivery of a message,â Bishop said. âAnd if you wonât do it, I will send someone else, Shane dies, and you have a most terrible day.â

She swallowed. âWhy give me the chance at all? Itâs not like you to bargain.â

Bishop showed his teeth, but not his fangsâthose were kept out of sight, but that didnât make him any less dangerous. âBecause I want you to understand your role in Morganville, Claire. You belong to me. I could order you to do it, with a simple application of will. Instead, I am allowing you to choose to do it.â

Claire turned the scroll in her fingers and looked down at it. There was a name on the outside of it, written in old-fashioned black calligraphy. Detective Joe Hess.

She looked up, startled. âYou canâtââ

âThink very carefully about the next thing you say,â Bishop interrupted. âIf it involves telling me what I can or canât do in my own town, they will be your last words, I promise you.â

Claire shut her mouth. Bishop smiled.

âBetter,â he said. âIf you choose to do so, go deliver my message. When you come back, Iâll allow you to see the boy, just this once. See how well we can get along if we try?â

The scroll felt heavy in Claireâs hand, even though it was just paper and wax.

She finally nodded.

âThen go,â Bishop said. âSooner started, sooner done, sooner in the arms of the one you love. Thereâs a good girl.â

Michael was looking at her. She didnât dare meet his eyes; she was afraid that sheâd see anger there, and betrayal, and disappointment. It was one thing to be forced to be the devilâs foot soldier.

It was another thing to choose to do it.

Claire walked quickly out of the room.

By the time she hit the marble steps and the warm sun, she was running.

3

Detective Joe Hess.

Claire turned the scroll over and over in sweaty fingers as she walked, wondering what would happen if she just tossed it down a storm drain. Well, obviously, Bishop would be pissed. And probably homicidal, not that he wasnât mostly that all the time. Besides, what she was carrying might not be anything bad. Right? Maybe it just looked like a death warrant. Maybe it was a decree that Friday was ice cream day or something.

A car cruised past her, and she sensed the driver staring at her, then speeding up. Nothing to see here but a sad, stupid evil pawn, she thought bitterly. Move along.

The police station was in City Hall as well, and the entire building was being renovated, with work crews ripping out twisted metal and breaking down stone to put in new braces and bricks. The side that held the jail and the police headquarters area hadnât been much damaged, and Claire headed for the big, high counter that was manned by the desk sergeant.

âDetective Joe Hess,â she said. âPlease.â

The policeman barely glanced up at her. âSign in; state your name and business.â

She reached for the clipboard and pen and carefully wrote her name. âClaire Danvers. I have a delivery from Mr. Bishop.â

There were other things going on in the main reception areaâa couple of drunks handcuffed to a huge wooden bench, some lawyers getting a cup of coffee from a big silver pot near the back.

Everything stopped. Even the drunks.

The desk sergeant looked up, and she saw a weary anger in his eyes before he put on a blank, hard expression. âHave a seat,â he said. âIâll see if heâs here.â

He turned away and picked up a phone. Claire didnât watch him make the call. She was too lost in her own misery. She stared down at the writing on the scroll and wished she knew what was insideâbut then, it might make it worse if she did know. Iâm only a messenger.

Yeah, that was going to make her sleep nights.

The desk sergeant spoke quietly and hung up, but he didnât come back to the counter. Avoiding her, she assumed; she was getting used to that. The good people avoided her, the bad people sucked up to her. It was depressing.

Her tattoo itched. She rubbed the cloth of her shirt over it, and watched the reinforced door that led into the rest of the police station.

Detective Hess came out just about a minute later. He was smiling when he saw her, and that hurt. Badly. Heâd been one of the first adults to really be helpful to her in Morganvilleâhe and his partner, Detective Lowe, had gone out of their way for her not just once, but several times. And now she was doing this to him.

She felt sick as she rose to her feet.

âClaire. Always a pleasure,â he said, and it sounded like he actually meant it. âThis way.â

The desk sergeant held out a badge as she passed. She clipped it on her shirt and followed Joe Hess into a big, plain open area. His desk was near the back of the room, next to a matching one that had his partnerâs nameplate on the edge. Nothing fancy. Nobody had a lot of personal stuff on their desks. She supposed that maybe it wasnât a good idea to have breakables, if you interviewed angry people all day.

She settled into a chair next to his desk, and he took a seat, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. He had a kind face, and he wasnât trying to intimidate her. In fact, she had the impression he was trying to make it easy on her.

âHow are you holding up?â he asked her, which was the same thing Richard Morrell had said. She wondered if she looked that damaged. Probably.

Claire swallowed and looked down at her hands, and the scroll held in her right one. She slowly stretched it out toward him. âIâm sorry,â she said. âSir, Iâm . . . so sorry.â She wanted to explain to him, but there really didnât seem to be much to excuse it at the moment. She was here. She was doing what Bishop wanted her to do.

This time, sheâd chosen to do it.

No excuse for that.

âDonât blame yourself,â Detective Hess said, and plucked the scroll from her fingers. âClaire, none of this is your fault. You understand that, right? Youâre not to blame for Bishop, or anything else thatâs screwed up around here. You did your best.â

âWasnât good enough, was it?â

He watched her for another long second, then shook his head and snapped the seals on the scroll. âIf anybody failed, it was Amelie,â he said. âWe just have to figure out how to survive now. Weâre in uncharted territory.â

He unrolled the scroll. His hands were steady and his expression carefully still. He didnât want to scare her, she realized. He didnât want her to feel guilty.

Detective Hess read the contents of the paper, then let it roll up again into a loose curl. He set it on his desk, on top of a leaning tower of file folders.

She had to ask. âWhat is it?â

âNothing you need to worry about,â he said, which couldnât have been true. âYou did your job, Claire. Go on, now. And promise me . . .â He hesitated, then sat back in his chair and opened a file folder so he could look busy. âPromise me you wonât do anything stupid.â

She couldnât promise that. She had the feeling sheâd already been stupid three or four times since breakfast.

But she nodded, because it was really all she could do for him.

He gave her a distracted smile. âSorry. Busy around here,â he said. That was a lie; there was almost nobody in the room. He tapped a pencil on the open file. âIâve got court this morning. You go on now. Iâll see you soon.â

âJoeââ

âGo, Claire. Thank you.â

He was going to protect her; she could see that. Protect her from the consequences of what sheâd done.

She couldnât think how she would ever really pay him back for that.

As she walked out, she felt him watching her, but when she glanced back, he was concentrating on his folder again.

âHey, Claire? Happy birthday.â

She would not cry.

âThanks,â she whispered, and choked on the word as she opened the door and escaped from whatever awful thing sheâd just brought to his desk.

It was nearly one oâclock when she made it back to Bishopâs officeânot so much because it was a long trip as because she had to stop, sit, and cry out her distress in private, then make sure sheâd scrubbed away any traces before she headed back. Ysandre would be all over it if she didnât.

And Bishop.

Claire thought she did a good job of looking calm as Ysandre waved her back to the office. Bishop was just where heâd been, although the third vampire, the stranger, was gone.

Michael was still there.

Myrnin was trying to build an elaborate abstract structure out of paper clips and binder clips, which was one of his less crazy ways to pass the time.

âThe prodigal child returns,â Bishop said. âAnd how did Detective Hess take the news?â

âFine.â Claire wasnât going to give him anything, but even that seemed to amuse him. He leaned on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms, staring at her with a faint, weird smile.

âHe didnât tell you, did he?â

âI didnât ask.â

âWhat a civilized place Morganville is.â Bishop made that into an insult. âVery well, youâve done your duty. I suppose Iâll have to keep my half of the bargain.â He glanced at Myrnin. âSheâs your pet. Clean up after her.â

Myrnin gave Bishop a lazy salute. âAs my master commands.â He stood with that unconscious vampire grace that made Claire feel heavy, stupid, and slow, and his bright black eyes locked with hers for a long moment. If he was trying to tell her something, she had no idea what it was. âOut, girl. Master Bishop has important work to do here.â

What? she wondered. Working on his evil laugh? Interviewing backup minions?

Myrnin crossed the room and closed ice-cold fingers around her arm. She pulled in a breath for a gasp, but he didnât give her time to react; she was yanked along with him down the hall, moving at a stumbling run.

She looked back at Michael mutely, but he couldnât help her. He was just as trapped as she was.

Myrnin stopped only when there were two closed doors, and about a mile of hallway, between them and Mr. Bishop.

âLet go of me!â Claire spat, and tried to yank free. Myrnin looked down at her arm, where his pale fingers were still wrapped around it, and raised his eyebrows as if he couldnât quite figure out what his hand was doing. Claire yanked again. âMyrnin, let go!â

He did, and stepped back. She thought he looked disappointed for a flicker of a second, and then his loony smile was firmly in place. âWill you be a good little girl, then?â She glared at him. âAh. Probably not. All right, then, on your head be it, Claire, and letâs do our best to keep your head attached to the rest of you. Come. Iâll take you to your boy, since evidently our mutual benefactor is in a giving sort of mood.â

He turned, and the skirts of his frock coat flared. He was wearing flip-flops again, and his feet were dirty, though he didnât smell too bad in general. The layers of cheap metallic beads clicked and rattled as he walked, and the slap of his shoes made him just about the noisiest vampire Claire had ever heard.

âAre you taking your medicine?â she asked. Myrnin sent her a glance over his shoulder, and once again, she didnât know what that look meant at all. âIs that a no?â

âI thought you hated me,â he said. âIf you do, you shouldnât really care, should you?â

He had a point. Claire shut up and hurried along as he walked down a long, curved hallway to a big wooden door. There was a vampire guard on the door, a man whoâd probably been Asian in his regular life, but was now the color of old ivory. He wore his hair long, braided in the back, and he wasnât much taller than Claire.

Myrnin exchanged some Chinese-sounding words with the other vampireâwho, like Michael, sported Bishopâs fang marks in his neckâand the vampire unlocked the door and swung it open.

This was as far as Claire had ever been able to get before. She felt a wave of heat race through her, and then she shivered. Now that she was here, actually walking through the door, she felt faintly sick with anticipation. If theyâve hurt him . . . And it had been so long. What if he didnât even want to see her at all?

Another locked door, another guard, and then they were inside a plain stone hallway with barred cells on the left side. No windows. No light except for blazing fluorescent fixtures far overhead. The first cell was empty. The second held two humans, but neither one was Shane. Claire tried not to look too closely. She was afraid she might know them.

The third cell had two small cots, one on each side of the tiny room, and a toilet and sink in the middle. Nothing else. It was almost painfully neat. There was an old man with straggly gray hair asleep on one of the beds, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that he was Frank Collins, Shaneâs dad. She was used to seeing him awake, and it surprised her to see him so . . . fragile. So helpless and old.

Shane was sitting cross-legged on the other bed. He looked up from the book he was reading, and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.

He dropped the book, surged to his feet, and was at the bars in about one second flat. His hands curled around the iron, and his eyes glittered wildly until he squeezed them shut.

When he opened them again, heâd gotten himself under control. Mostly.

âHey,â Shane said, as calmly as if theyâd just run into each other in the hallway at the Glass House, their strange little minifraternity. As if whole months hadnât gone by since theyâd been parted. âImagine seeing you around here. Happy birthday to you, and all.â

Claire felt tears burn in her eyes, but she blinked them back and put on a brave smile. âThanks,â she said. âWhatâd you get me?â

âUm . . . a shiny diamond.â Shane looked around and shrugged. âMust have left it somewhere. You know how it is, out all night partying, you get baked and forget where you left your stuff. . . .â

She stepped forward and wrapped her hands around his. She felt tremors race through him, and Shane sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against the bars. âYeah,â he whispered. âShutting up now. Good idea.â

She pressed her forehead against his, and then her lips, and it was hot and sweet and desperate, and the feelings that exploded inside her made her shake in reaction. Shane let go of the bars and reached through to run his fingers through her soft, short hair, and the kiss deepened, darkened, took on a touch of yearning that made Claireâs heart pound.

When their lips finally parted, they didnât pull away from each other. Claire threaded her arms through the bars and around his neck, and his hands moved down to her waist.

âI hate kissing you through prison bars,â Shane said. âIâm all for restraint, but self-restraint is so much more fun.â

Claire had almost forgotten that Myrnin was still there, so his soft chuckle made her flinch. âThere speaks a young man with little practical experience,â he said, yawned, and draped himself over a bench on the far side of the wall. He propped his chin up on the heel of one hand. âEnjoy that innocence while you can.â

Shane held on to her, and his dark eyes stared into hers. Ignore him, they seemed to say. Stay with me.

She did.

âIâm trying to get you out,â she whispered. âI really am.â

âYeah, well . . . itâs no big deal, Claire. Donât get yourself in trouble. Wait, I forgot who Iâm talking to. What kind of trouble are you in today, anyway?â

âIâm not. Donât worry.â

âIâve got nothing to do but worry, mostly about you.â Shane was looking very serious now, and he tilted her head up to force her to meet his eyes again. âClaire. Whatâs he got you doing?â

âYouâre worried about me?â She laughed, just a little, and it sounded panicked. âYouâre the one in a cage.â

âKind of used to that, you know. Claire, tell me. Please.â

âI . . . I canât.â That wasnât true. She could. She just desperately didnât want to. She didnât want Shane to know any of it. âHowâs your father holding up?â

Shaneâs eyebrows rose just a little. âDad? Yeah, well. Heâs okay. Heâs just . . . you know.â

And that, Claire realized, was what she was afraid ofâthat Shane had forgiven his father for all his crazy stunts. That the Collins boys were together again, united in their hatred of Morganville in general.

That Shane was back in the vampire-slayer fold. If that happened Bishop would never let him out of his cell.

Shane read it in her face. âNot like that,â he said, and shook his head. âItâs pretty close quarters in here. We have to get along, or weâd kill each other. We decided to get along, thatâs all.â

âYeah,â said a deep, scratchy voice from the other bunk. âItâs been one big, sloppy bucket of joy, getting to know my son. Iâm all teary-eyed and sentimental.â

Shane rolled his eyes. âShut up, Frank.â

âThat any way to talk to your old man?â Frank rolled over, and Claire saw the hard gleam of his eyes. âWhatâs your collaborator girl doing here? Still running errands for the vampires?â

âDad, Christ, will you shut up?â

âThis is the two of you getting along?â Claire whispered.

âYou see any broken bones?â

âGood point.â This was not how sheâd imagined this moment going, except for the kissing. Then again, the kissing was better than sheâd dared believe was possible. âShaneââ

âShhhh,â he whispered, and pressed his lips to her forehead. âHowâs Michael?â She didnât want to talk about Michael, so she just shook her head. Shane swallowed hard. âHeâs not . . . dead?â

âDefine dead around here,â Claire said. âNo, heâs okay. Heâs just . . . you know. Not himself.â

âBishopâs?â She nodded. He closed his eyes in pain. âWhat about Eve?â

âSheâs working. I havenât seen her in a couple of weeks.â Eve, like everyone else in Morganville, treated Claire like a traitor these days, and Claire honestly couldnât blame her. âSheâs really busted up about Michael. And you, of course.â

âNo doubt,â Shane said softly. He seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat. âHave you heard anything about me and my dad? What Bishop has planned for us?â

Claire shook her head. Even if she knewâand she didnât, in detailâshe wouldnât have told him. âLetâs not talk about it. ShaneâIâve missed you so muchââ

He kissed her again, and the world melted into a wonderful spinning blend of heat and bells, and it was only when she finally, regretfully pulled back that she heard Myrninâs mocking, steady clapping.

âLove conquers all,â he said. âHow quaint.â

Claire turned on him, feeling fury erupt like a volcano in her guts. âShut up!â

He didnât even bother to glance at her, just leaned back against the wall and smiled. âYou want to know what heâs got planned for you, Shane? Do you really?â

âMyrnin, donât!â

Shane reached through the bars and grabbed Claireâs shoulders, turning her back to face him. âIt doesnât matter,â he said. âThis matters, right now. Claire, weâre going to get out of this. Weâre going to live through it. Both of us. Say it with me.â

âBoth of us,â she repeated. âWeâre going to live.â

Myrninâs cold hand closed around her wrist, and he dragged her away from the bars. The last thing she let go of was Shaneâs hand.

âHey!â Shane yelled, as Claire fought, lost, and was pulled through the door. âClaire! Weâve going to live! Say it! Weâre going to live!â

Myrnin slammed the door. âTheatrical, isnât he? Come on, girl. We have work to do.â

She tried to shake him off. âIâm not going anywhere with you, you traitor!â

Myrnin didnât give her a choice; he half dragged, half marched her away from the first vampire guard, then the second, and then pulled her into an empty, quiet room off the long hallway. He shut the door with a wicked boom and whirled to face her.

Claire grabbed the first thing that came to handâit happened to be a heavy candlestickâand swung it at his head. He ducked, rushed in, and effortlessly took it away from her. âGirl. Claire!â He shook her into stillness. His eyes were wide and very dark. Not at all crazy. âIf you want the boy to live, youâll stop fighting me. Itâs not productive.â

âWhat, I should just stand here and let you bite me? Not happening!â She tried to pull away, but he was as solid as a granite statue. Her bones would break before his grip did.

âWhy on earth would I bite you?â Myrnin asked, very reasonably. âI donât work for Bishop, Claire. I never have. I thought you certainly had enough brains to understand that.â

Claire blinked again. âAre you trying to tell me that youâre still on our side?â

âDefine our, my dear.â

âThe side of . . .â Well, he was right. It was a little tough to define. âYou know. Us!â

Myrnin actually laughed, let go, and stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of his frock coat. âUs, indeed. I understand you might be skeptical. You have reason. Perhaps I should allow someone else to convince youâAh. Right on time.â

She wouldnât have believed him, not for a second, except that a section of the wall opened, there was a flash of white-hot light, and a woman stepped through, followed by a long line of people.

The woman was Amelie, vampire queen of Morganvilleâthough she didnât look anything like the perfect pale princess that Claire had always seen. Amelie had on black pants, a black zip-up hoodie, and running shoes.

So wrong.

And behind her was the frickinâ vampire army, led by Oliver, all in black, looking scarier than Claire could remember ever seeing himâhe usually at least tried to look nondangerous, but today, he obviously didnât care. He wore his graying hair tied back in a ponytail, and it pulled his face into an unsmiling mask.

He crossed his arms and looked at Myrnin and Claire like they were something slimy heâd found on his coffee shop floor.

âMyrnin,â Amelie said, and nodded graciously. He nodded back, like they were passing on the street. Like it was just a normal day. âWhy did you involve the girl?â

âOh, I had to. Sheâs been quite difficult,â he said. âWhich helped convince Bishop that I am, indeed, his creature. But I think itâs best if you leave her behind for now, and me as well. We have more work to do here, work that canât be done in hiding.â

Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without thinking of a single coherent question to ask. Oliver dismissed both of them with a shake of his head and signaled his vampire shock troops to fan out around the room on either side of the door to the hallway.

Amelie lingered, a trace of a frown on her face. âWill you protect her, Myrnin? I was loath to let you lead her this far into the maze; I should hate to think youâd abandon her on a whim. I do owe her Protection.â Her pale gray eyes bored into his, colder than steel in winter. âBe careful what you say. I will hold you to your answer.â

âIâll defend the girl with my last breath,â he promised, and clasped his hand dramatically to the chest of his ragged frock coat. âOh, wait. That doesnât mean much, does it, since I gasped that last breath before the Magna Carta was dry on the page? I mean, of course Iâll look after her, with whatever is left of my life.â

âIâm not joking, jester.â

He suddenly looked completely sober. âAnd Iâm not laughing, my lady. Iâll protect her. You have my word on it.â

Claireâs head was spinning. She looked from Myrnin to Amelie to Oliver, and finally thought of a decent question to ask. âWhy are you here?â

âTheyâre here to rescue your boyfriend,â Myrnin said. âHappy birthday, my dear.â

Amelie sent him a sharp, imperious look. âDonât lie to the girl, Myrnin. Itâs not seemly.â

Myrnin sobered and bowed his head very slightly. Claire could still see a manic smile trembling on his lips.

Amelie transferred her steady gray gaze to Claire. âMyrnin has been helping us gain entry to the building. There are things we are doing to retake Morganville, but it is a process that will take some time. Do you understand?â

It hit Claire a little late. âYouâre . . . youâre not here to rescue Shane?â

âOf course not,â Oliver said scornfully. âDonât be stupid. What possible strategic value does your boyfriend hold for us?â

Claire bit her lip on an instinctive argument and forced herself to think. It wasnât easy; all she wanted to do was scream at him. âAll right,â she finally said. âIâm going to make him strategically valuable to you. Howâs that?â

Myrnin slowly raised his head. He had a warning look on his face, which she ignored completely.

âIf you donât rescue Shane and his father, Iâm not going to help keep Myrnin on track, and Iâll destroy the maintenance drugs and the serum we were working on. Iâm guessing you still want to avoid getting on the crazy train, right?â Because that was where all the vampires were headed, even Oliver and Amelie.

When sheâd first come to Morganville, sheâd thought they were immortal and perfect, but in many ways, that was all just a front. The reason there were no other vampires out there in the worldâor very few, anywayâwas that over the years, their numbers had gradually declined, and their ability to make other vampires had slipped away. It was a kind of disease, something nasty and progressive, although theyâd been in denial about it for a very long time.

Amelie had created Morganville to be their last, best hope of survival. But the disease hadnât gotten better; it had gotten worse, and seemed to be affecting them faster and faster these days. Claire had learned to pick up the subtle signs by now, and they were already visibleâtremors in the pale hands, sometimes up the arms. Soon, itâd be worse. They were all terrified of it. They had good reason to be.

Myrnin had developed a maintenance drug, but they needed a cure. Badly. And with Myrnin slipping fast, Claire was the key to getting that done.

There was a profound silence in the room, and for a second, Claireâs angry resolve faltered. Then she saw the look in Oliverâs eyes. Oh no you donât, she thought. Donât you look smug.

âWe do this my way,â Claire said, âor Iâll destroy all the work and let you all die.â

âClaire,â Myrnin murmured. He sounded horrified. Good. She was glad. âYou canât mean that.â

âI do mean it. All your work, all your research. If you let Bishop kill Shane, none of it matters to me anyway.â She was scared to say this, but in a way, it was a relief. âItâs not all about you and your stupid ancient feuds. There are living people in this town. We have lives. We matter!â Sheâd let the lid off her simmering, terrified anger, and now it was boiling all over the place. She whirled on Myrnin. âYou! You gave us to him! You turned on us when we needed you! And youââAmelie, this timeââyou didnât even care. Where have you been? I thought you were different; I thought you wanted to helpâbut youâre just like the rest of them; youâre justââ

âClaire.â Just the one word, but from Amelie that was all it took to stop Claire in her tracks. âWhat else could I do? Bishop turned enough of my followers that any action I would take would have been against my own people. It would have been a fight to the death, and that fight would have destroyed everyone you or I love. I had to withdraw and allow him to think he had triumphed. Myrnin did what he could to protect you and all your friends, while we found another way.â

Claire snorted out a bitter little laugh. âSure he did.â

âYouâre all alive, I believe, unlike most whoâve crossed Bishop throughout his life. You might think on how unlikely that is, so long after he should have lost interest and torn you and my town apart.â Amelieâs face was as hard as carved marble. âMy father has no interest in administering. Only in destroying. Myrnin has been persuading him to at least try to keep Morganville alive, and putting himself at constant risk to do so.â

Claire didnât want to believe it, but when she actually thought about it, she remembered how often Bishop had ordered people killed, and how often Myrninâor Myrnin and Michael!âhad managed to distract him from carrying it out. âMichael,â Claire said slowly. âYou turned Michael back, didnât you? Heâs not really Bishopâs anymore.â

Amelie and Oliver exchanged looks, and Oliver shrugged very slightly. âShe is a quick study,â he said. âI never said otherwise. Unless the boyâs a bad actor.â

âIf he were a bad actor, heâd be long dead by now,â Amelie said. âClaireâyou must not treat Michael any differently. For his lifeâs sake, you must not. Now, I need you to go with Myrnin. The serum youâve cultured from Bishopâs blood is of vital importance to us now; we need to treat all those we can reach, and we must have enough of a supply to do the job. I rely upon you for that, Claire.â

âWhy should I help you at all?â Claire asked, and felt a tremor of pure chill along the back of her neck when Amelieâs gray eyes sharpened their focus on her. âYou havenât promised me anything. I want you to swear youâll get Shane and his father out of there alive.â

Oliver growled, and from her peripheral vision she saw the ivory flash of his fangs. âYouâre going to permit this puppy to bark at you?â

âWhat I do is my affair, Oliver.â Amelie let a long, long moment pass before she said, âVery well, Claire, you have my word that we will retrieve Shane and his father before they are executed. What else?â

Claire hadnât really been prepared to win that argument. She blinked, searched for another demand, and came up with nothing in particular.

Then she did. âI . . . want you to promise me that when this is over, youâre going to change things in Morganville.â

Amelie looked, for a moment, perplexed. âChange things? What sort of things?â

âNo more hunting humans,â she said. âNo more owning people. Youâll make everybody equal around here.â

âYouâre speaking of things you donât understand. These things are required for us to survive in relative security. I wonât put my people at further risk, nor leave them at the whims and mercies of yours. Iâve seen too many centuries of death and destruction.â Amelie shook her head. âNo, if that is your price, then itâs too high for me to pay, Claire. Do as you will, but I wonât betray all weâve built here to accommodate your sentimental idea of modern life.â

Claire had been raised to be kind, to agree, to help, and for just a second, locked in a stare with the Founder of Morganville, she wanted to give up.

The only thing that stopped her was imagining what Shane would have said, if heâd been standing in her place.

âNo,â she said, and felt her heart flutter madly in panic. Her whole body was shaking, pleading for her to run, avoid the confrontation. âYou hear what youâre saying, right? You want to save your people at the cost of human lives. I wonât agree to that; I canât. Dealâs off. Iâm not helping you anymore. And the first chance I get, I tell Bishop about Myrnin, too.â

Amelie turned on her hard and fast, and before she knew what was happening Claire felt a cold hand around her throat, and she was smashed up against the wall. Claire screamed and slammed her eyes shut, but not fast enough to block out the rage on Amelieâs face, or the wicked-sharp white fangs and staring eyes.

She felt Amelieâs cool breath on her throat, and heard Myrnin murmur something under his breath, something in a language she couldnât understand. He sounded horrified.

Amelieâs hard, cold hands let go of her throat. Instead, they fastened around Claireâs shoulders and shook her. Claireâs skull bounced off of brick, and she winced and saw stars. âOpen your eyes!â Amelie barked. Claire did, blinking away confusion. âI have never met such a vexing, foolish human being in my entire life. There are eight hundred vampires in the world, Claire. In the world. Fewer each day. We are hunted, we are sick, we are dying. There are billions of you! I will not put you first!â That last was a raw, furious hiss, and it sparked something terrible in Amelieâs eyes, something out of control and hungry. âI will save my people!â

Behind her, another vampire stepped out of the shadows and said, very quietly, âAmelie. None of this is Claireâs fault. You know that. And sheâs right. Itâs the same thing I told you fifty years ago. You got mad then, too, as I recall.â

The vampire taking Claireâs side was Sam Glass, Michaelâs grandfather; he still looked college-age, even after all these years. He was probably the only one of the nonbreathing who could have stepped in on Claireâs behalfâor would have.

He touched Amelieâs shoulder.

She turned on him, but he wrapped her in his arms, and for a second, one second, Amelie let herself be held before she pushed him away and stalked to the far corner of the room, agitation in every movement. âOh, just get her out,â she said. âMyrnin, get her out. Now! Before I do something I regret. Or possibly, which I donât.â

Claire could hardly breathe, much less protest. Myrnin took her hand in his and yanked, hard. She brushed by Oliver, whose eyes were flaring in hunting-vampire colors, and felt a low-decibel growl fill the room.

Myrnin shoved her toward what looked like a blank wall, and for an instant of panic Claire thought she was going to hit it face-first . . . and then she felt the telltale tingle of one of Myrninâs stable wormhole portals, his alchemical travel network that led to some of the most dangerous places in Morganville. The wall dissolved in a swirl of mist, and Claire had the feeling of helplessly falling into the dark, with no idea of where sheâd land. It seemed to last forever, but then she was stumbling out . . . into her home.

4

The Glass House was pretty much as sheâd last left it, when sheâd packed her pitifully few belongings and moved in with her parents after theyâd been brought to Morganville. The house seemed quiet, lonely, somehowto sad and colorless. That was just its mood. Shaneâs things were still strewn aroundâa new game console that heâd only just gotten hooked up, games piled in the corners along with his Wii controllers, his ratty old black sweatshirt crumpled on the corner of the couch. Claire walked to it, sat down, and pulled it into her lap like a pet, then held it up to her face and breathed.

Iâm home. It felt wonderful and sad and horrible, all at the same time.

Holding Shaneâs shirt was like having him holding her, just for a moment.

When she looked up, Myrnin was watching her. âWhat?â she demanded. He shrugged and turned away. âWhy did you bring me here?â

âI had to bring you somewhere,â Myrnin said. âI thought perhaps you would enjoy this more than, say, the sewage treatment plant.â

Michaelâs guitar lay in its case on the floor near the bookcases. Some of Eveâs magazines still littered the coffee table, edges curling up from neglect more than use.

It still smelled so familiar, and Claire felt the loss of Shane, of her friends, hit her hard once again.

âIs Eve here?â she asked him, but Myrnin didnât answer.

Eve did, from the kitchen doorway. âWhere else would I be?â she asked. She leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms, staring at them. âWhat are you doing in my house, freaks?â

âHey, itâs my house, too!â Claire knew she sounded defensive, but she couldnât help it. From the very first time theyâd met, Eve had been on her sideâalways in her corner, always believing her. Believing in her, which was even more important.

It hurt that all that had changed now.

Eveâs face was a rice-powder mask, aggressively marked up with black lipstick and way too much eye-liner. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and she was wearing a skintight black knit shirt with a red skull on the front, and oversize cargo pants with loads of pockets and chains. Heavy combat-style boots.

Eve was ready to kick ass, and she wouldnât bother to take names while she was at it.

âIâm serious,â Eve said. âIâm giving you about five seconds to get out of my house. And take your pet leech with you before I play a game of Pin the Stake in the Vamp.â

Claire held Shaneâs sweatshirt in her arms for comfort. âArenât you going to at least ask how they are?â

Eve stared at her with eyes like burned black holes. âIâve got sources,â she said. âMy boyfriendâs still evil. Your boyfriendâs still in jail. Youâre still sucking up to the Dark Lord of Mordor. By the way, Iâm going to start calling you Gollum, you little creep.â

âEve, wait. Itâs not like thatââ

âActually, it is exactly like that,â Myrnin said. âWe should go, Claire. Now.â

He tried to take her hand; she shook him off and moved closer to Eve, who straightened from her slouch and slipped one hand into a pocket on her cargo pants. âIâm not screwing around, Claire. Get out of my house!â

âI live here!â

âNo, you used to live here!â That came out of Eveâs blackened lips in a raw, vicious snarl. âThis is still Michaelâs house, and no matter whatâs happened to him, Iâm going to defend it, do you understand? Iâm not letting youââ

âMichaelâs not evil,â Claire blurted out desperately. âHeâs working for Amelie.â

Eve stopped, lips parted, eyes wide.

âClaire,â Myrnin warned softly from behind her. âSecrets are best kept cold.â

âNot from her.â Claire tried again, desperate to see some of that anger leave her friend. âMichaelâs working for Amelie. Heâs not on Bishopâs side. Heâd want me to tell you that. He never left us, Eve. He never left you.â

Silence. Dead, cold silence, and in it, Claire could hear Eveâs breathing. Nothing else.

Eve took her hand out of her pocket. She was holding a knife.

âSo this is Bishopâs latest game? Taunt the loser? See how crazy you can make me? Because honestly, thatâs not much of a challengeâIâm pretty crazy already.â Her dark eyes sparkled with tears. âRuns in my family, I guess.â

âClaire isnât lying to you,â Myrnin said, and stepped around Claire to block any threatening moves Eve might make. âDo you have to be so full ofââ

Eve lunged at him. Myrnin didnât seem to move at all, but suddenly he had her from behind, arms pinned, and the knife was spinning on the floor and skidding to bump into Claireâs feet. Eve didnât even have time to scream. Once he had her, she wasnât able to, because his hand was across her mouth, muffling any sounds.

Myrninâs eyes sparked an unholy color of red, and he brushed his lips against Eveâs pale neck. ââso full of useless bravado?â he finished, in exactly the same tone as before. âShe didnât lie to you. Sheâs an awful liar, when it comes down to it. Thatâs what makes her so terrifyingly useful to usâwe always know where we stand with little Claire. Now play nicely, make-believe dead girl. Or I will fulfill your darkest wishes.â

He shoved Eve away, toward Claire, who kicked the knife far out of anybodyâs reach. Eve whirled, evidently (and understandably) finding Myrnin more of a threat. Under the rice-powder makeup, her face was flushed, her eyes shining with fear.

Myrnin circled like a hyena. He grinned like one, too.

âCall him off,â Eve said. âClaire, call him off!â

âMyrnin, leave Eve alone. Please?â Which was about the closest Claire dared come to telling Myrnin to do anything, especially when he had that particular glow in his eyes. He was enjoying this. âI need to talk to her, and I canât do that if youâre scaring the crap out of her. Please.â

He paced a few more steps, and she saw him get control of himself with a real physical effort. He sat down in a chair at the dining table and put his dirty feet up. âFine,â he said, and crossed his arms. âTalk. Iâll just wait, shall I? Because my mission to save this town is of no importance whatsoever next to your girl talk.â

Claire rolled her eyes. âOh, shut up, you medieval drama queen.â Now that he was sitting down and the glow was gone from his eyes, she could say it, and he could acknowledge it with a snort and a roll of his shoulders.âEve, I tried to call. I tried to come by and see you.â She was talking to her friend now, and Eve was staring right at her, not at Myrnin, as if Claire were the actual threat in the room. âEve?â

âI heard you.â

âAnd?â

âAnd Iâm thinking,â she said. âBecause youâve been awfully chummy with Fang-Daddy Bishop. Youâre his little pet, scurrying around all over town, delivering his little love notes. Right?â

Claire couldnât really dispute that. âNot like I had a choice,â she said. âBelieve me, Iâd rather not be in the middle of this, but he knew I belonged to Amelie. I was just another thing to take away from her, thatâs all. He likes making her squirm by using me.â

Eve thawed just a tiny bit. âSucks to be the object lesson.â

âYou have no idea.â

âHe hasnât, you know . . . ?â Eve mimed the fang thing, just in case Claire thought she meant something else. Then she looked worried about that, too.

âHeâs not interested in me at all,â Claire assured her. âIâm just some pawn for him to move around on the chessboard. And besides, Myrnin looks after me.â Myrnin waved his hand in the air, halfway between a dismissal and a princeâs lazy wave of acknowledgment. âHe wonât let Bishop hurt me.â Well . . . not much. If he was paying attention. âHow about you?â

âItâs been quiet,â Eve said, and looked away for a moment. âMy brotherâs been coming around to check on me.â

âJason?â Wow, that was not the most comforting thing Claire could think of. âTell me youâre kidding.â

âNo, heâs . . . I think he finally has his head on straight. He seems . . . different. Besides, I need somebody on my side, and heâs the only one still around.â

âJason is the one who sold us out at the feast; do you remember that? He kicked this whole thing off! Talk about me being Bishopâs favoriteâat least I didnât choose it!â Not until today, anyway.

Eve sent her a fierce glare. âJasonâs still my brother. Hey, I wish he wasnât, but itâs not like I got to pick my family!â

âYou sound like Shane talking about his dad.â

âDid you just come here to insult me, or do you have a point? Because if you donât, I need to get to work.â Eve pushed away from the doorway and snatched up a patent-leather backpack and a set of keys, which she rattled impatiently. âThatâs Latin for get the hell out, by the way. Iâd think a college girl like you would know that.â

Myrnin slowly sat up, eyes going wider. âIâm sorry, little pale creatureâdid you just give us an order?â

âNot so much you as her, but yeah, if you want to take it that way. Sure, you knockoff Lestat. Get the hell out of my house.â Eve waited expectantly, but nothing happened. âDamn, that really doesnât work anymore, does it?â

âNot since the owner of the house turned vampire,â Myrnin said, and stood up in that eerie way he had, as if gravity had just been canceled in his neighborhood. âPlease feel free to try to make me leave. Iâd quite enjoy it.â

âMyrnin.â Claire sighed. âEve. Weâre not enemies, okay? Stop poking at each other.â

That got her stares from both of them. Not nice ones.

âWeâre just . . . passing through,â Claire said, and felt a surge of real regret. âOn our way to . . . Where are we going?â

âSomewhere remote,â Myrnin said. âAnd I donât intend to tell your angry little friend about it in any case. Finish your babble. Itâs time to go.â

As if it was his idea, and they werenât getting tossed out. Claire couldnât resist rolling her eyes.

She caught Eve doing the same thing, and they shared sudden, sheepish grins.

âSorry,â Claire murmured. âHonest, Eve. I miss you.â

âYeah,â Eve said. âMiss you, too, freak. Wish I didnât, sometimes, but there you go.â

Claire wasnât sure which of them moved first, but it really didnât matter; they both put their arms out, and the hug felt warm and good and real. Eve kissed her quickly on the cheek, then let go and hurried out, hiding her tears. âIâm leaving!â she shouted back, and disappeared into the hallway. âThat means you should, too!â The front door slammed.

As Myrnin opened the portal in the wall, Claire grabbed up Shaneâs sweatshirt and pulled it on over her clothes. It was huge on her. She rolled up the sleeves, and couldnât resist lifting the neck to smell it one more time.

Myrnin smirked. âThere is no drama so great as that of a teenage girl,â he said.

âExcept yours.â

âDid no one ever teach you to respect your elders?â He grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her through the portal. âMind the gap. Oh, and you have black lipstick on your cheek.â

They came out in a dim, damp basementâa generic sort of place, full of molding boxes. âYou take me to the nicest places,â Claire said, and sneezed. Myrnin shoved boxes out of his way without bothering to answer, uncovering a set of iron steps that looked to be more rust than actual iron. Claire followed him up, testing every tread carefully along the way. The whole thing seemed ready to collapse, but they made it to the top, which featured . . . a locked door.

Myrnin patted his pockets, sighed, and punched the lock with his fist. It shattered. The door sagged open, and he bowed to her like an old-school gentleman. Which he was, she supposed, on his good days.

âWhere are we?â

âMorganville High School.â

Claire hadnât ever set foot in the place. Sheâd started her senior year at the age of fifteen, courtesy of her mutant freak-smart brain, but as they stepped out into the hallway, she felt like sheâd traveled back in time. Only a year, actually, which made it especially weird.

Scarred, polished linoleum floors. Industrial green walls. Battered rows of lockers stretching the length of the hallway, most secured with dial locks. Butcher-paper posters and banners advertising the Drama Clubâs production of Annie Get Your Gun and the band bake sale. The place smelled like industrial cleaners, sweat, and stress.

Claire paused to stare at the oversize painted mascot on the cinder-block wall at the end of the hallway.

âWhat?â Myrnin asked impatiently.

âSeriously. You guys have no sense of subtlety, do you?â It was the same image the boy at Richard Morrellâs office had worn on his T-shirt: a menacing viper lunging, with fangs displayed. Cute.

âI have no idea what you mean. Come on. We have very little time before classes let outââ

A loud bell clattered, and all up and down the hallway, doors banged open, releasing floods of young people Claireâs own age, or close to it. Myrnin grabbed Claireâs arm and yanked her onward, fast.

School. It was surreal how normal it all seemedâlike nobody could handle the truth, so they just kept on with all the surface lies, and in that sense, Morganville High was just like the rest of the town. All the chatter seemed falsely bright, and kids walked in thick groups, seeking comfort and protection.

They all avoided Myrnin and Claire, although everybody looked at them. She heard people talking. Great. Iâm famous in high school, finally.

Another quick left turn led through a set of double doors, and the noise of feet, talk, and locker doors slamming faded behind them into velvety silence. Myrnin prodded her onward. More classrooms, but these were dark and empty.

âThey donât use this part of the building?â Claire asked.

âNo need for it,â Myrnin said. âIt was built with a plan that the human population of Morganville would grow. It hasnât.â

âCanât imagine why,â Claire muttered. âSuch a great place to live and all. Youâd think thereâd be people just dying to get in. Operative word, dying.â

He didnât bother to debate it. There was another door at the end of the hall, and this one had a shiny silver dead-bolt lock on it.

Myrnin knocked.

After a long moment of silence, the dead bolt was pulled back with a metallic clank, and the door swung open.

âDr. Mills?â Claire was surprised. She hadnât heard much about Dr. Mills, ER doctor and their sometime lab assistant, for weeks. Heâd dropped out of sight, along with his family. Sheâd tried to find out what had happened to him, but sheâd been afraid it would be bad news. Sometimes, it was just better not to know.

âClaire,â he said, and stepped back to let her and Myrnin inside the room. He closed and locked the door before turning a tired smile in her direction. âHow are you, kid?â

âUm, fine, I guess. I was worriedââ

âI know.â Dr. Mills was middle-aged and kind of average in every way, except his mind, which wasâeven by Claireâs standardsâpretty sharp. âMr. Bishop got word that I was doing research on vampire blood. He wanted it stoppedâitâs not in his best interest for anyone to get better right now, if you know what I mean. We had to move quickly. Myrnin relocated us.â He nodded warily to Myrnin, who gave him a courtly sort of wave of acknowledgment.

âYour family, too?â

âMy wife and kids are in the next room,â he said. âItâs not what you might call comfortable, but itâs safe enough. We can use the gym showers at night. Thereâs food in the cafeteria, books in the library. Itâs about the best safe haven we could have.â Dr. Mills looked at Claire closely, and frowned. âYou look tired.â

âProbably,â she said. âSo . . . this is the new lab?â

âSeems like we always have a new one, donât we? At least this one has most of what we need.â He gestured around vaguely. The room had clearly been intended to be a science classroom; it had the big granite-topped tables, equipped with sinks and built-in gas taps. At the back of the room were rows and rows of neat shelves filled with glassware and all kinds of bottled and labeled ingredients. One thing about Morganvilleâthe town really did invest in education. âIâve made some unexpected progress.â

âMeaning?â Myrnin turned to look at him, suddenly not at all fey and weird.

âYou know Iâve been trying to trace the origins of the disease?â

âThe origins are not as important as developing an effective and consistent palliative treatment, not to mention mass producing the cure,â Myrnin said. âAs Iâve told you before. Loudly.â

Dr. Mills looked at Claire for support, and she cleared her throat. âI think we can do both,â she said. âI mean, itâs important to know where something came from, too.â

âThatâs the thing,â Dr. Mills said. âIt didnât seem to come from anywhere. There werenât any other vampire diseases; everything I tested within the medium of their blood went down without a fight, from colds and flu to cancer. Granted, I canât get my hands on some of the top-level contagious viruses, but I donât see anything in common between this disease and any other, except one.â

Myrnin forgot his objections and came closer. âWhich one?â

âAlzheimerâs disease. Itâs a progressive degenerative disease ofââ

Myrnin gestured sharply. âI know what it is. You said it had things in common.â

âThe progress of the disease is similar, yes, but hereâs the thing: Bishopâs blood contains antibodies. Itâs the only blood that contains antibodies. That means that there is a cure, and Bishop took it, because he contracted the disease and recovered.â

Myrnin turned slowly and raised his eyebrows at Claire. It was a mild expression, but the look in his eyes was fierce. âInterpret, please.â

âBishop might have done this on purpose,â she said. âRight, Dr. Mills? He might have developed this disease and deliberately spread itâused the cure only for himself. But why would he do that?â

âI have no idea.â

Myrnin stalked away, moving in jerky, agitated strides; when a lab stool got in his way, he picked it up and smashed it into junk against the wall without so much as pausing. âBecause he wants control,â he said. âAnd revenge. Itâs perfect. He can once again decide who lives, who diesâhe had that power once, until we took it from him. We thought he was destroyed. We were sure.â

âYou and Amelie,â Claire said. There was a long, ugly history behind all thisâshe didnât understand it and didnât really want to, but she knew that at some point, maybe hundreds of years ago, Amelie had tried to kill Mr. Bishop once and for all. âBut you failed. And this is his way of hitting you back. Hitting you all back at once.â

Myrnin stopped, facing a blank corner for a moment without replying. Then he slowly walked back toward them and took a seat on one of the lab stools that hadnât been destroyed, flipping back the tails of his frock coat as he sat. âSo it is deliberate, this bane.â

âApparently,â Claire said. âAnd now heâs got you where he wants you.â

Myrnin smiled. âNot quite.â He gestured around the lab. âWe do have weapons.â

Most of the granite-topped tables had metal pans spread with drying reddish crystals. Claire nodded toward them with a frown. âI thought we were going with the liquid version of that stuff?â That stuff being the maintenance drug that she and Myrnin had developedâor at least refined to the point of being usefulâthat acted to keep the vampire diseaseâs worst effects at bay. It wasnât a cure; it helped, but it had diminishing returns, at best.

âWe were,â Dr. Mills said. âBut it takes longer to distill the liquid form than it does to manufacture the crystals, and we need to medicate more and more of the vampiresâso here we are. Two prongs of attack.â

âWhat about the cure?â He didnât look happy, and Claireâs heart shrank down to a small, tight knot in her chest. âWhatâs wrong?â

âUnfortunately, the sample of Bishopâs blood we had degraded quickly,â he said. âI was able to culture a small amount of serum out of it, but Iâm going to need more of the base to really develop enough to matter.â

âHow much more of his blood do you need?â

âPints,â he said apologetically. âI know. Believe me, I know what youâre thinking.â

Claire was thinking of exactly how stupidly suicidal it would be to try to get drops of Bishopâs blood, never mind pints. Myrnin had managed it once, but she doubted even he could pull it off twice without being staked and sunbathed to death. But she wasnât willing to give up, either. âWeâd have to drug him,â she said.

Myrnin looked up from fiddling with glassware on the table. âHow? Heâs not one of those partial to human food and drink. And I doubt any of us could get close enough to give him a shot large enough to matter.â

Claire pulled in a deep breath as it occurred to her in a cold and blinding flash. âWe have to drug him through what it is he does drink.â

âFrom everything Iâve heard about Bishop, he doesnât drink from blood bags,â Dr. Mills said. âHe only feeds from live victims.â

Claire nodded. âI know.â She felt sick saying it, so sick she almost couldnât speak at all. âBut itâs the only way to get to himâif you really want to end this.â

The two men looked at herâone older than her, the other infinitely olderâand for just a moment, they had the same expression on their faces: as if theyâd never seen her before.

Myrnin said thoughtfully, âItâs an idea. Iâll have to give it some thought. The problem is that loading blood with sufficient poison to affect Bishop will certainly kill a human subject.â

Poison. Sheâd been thinking of some kind of knockout drugâbut that wouldnât work, she realized. Doses big enough to affect a vampire would be poison to humans in their bloodstream. âDoes he always drink from humans?â

Myrnin flinched. She knew why; she knew Myrnin had drained a couple of vampire assistants heâd had, which was strictly against the rules. Heâd done it accidentally, kind of, when he was crazy. âNot . . . always,â he said, very quietly. âThere are timesâbut heâd have to be greatly angered.â

âYeah, like thatâs a trick,â Claire said. âWould it kill a vampire to put that amount of poison in his bloodstream?â

âThe drugs would not necessarily kill a vampire,â Myrnin said. âBishop draining him certainly would.â

The silence stretched. Myrnin looked down at his dirty feet in those ridiculous flip-flops. In the other room, Claire heard a child singing her ABCs, and then a womanâs quiet voice hushing her.

âMyrnin,â Claire said. âIt doesnât have to be you.â

Myrnin raised his head and fixed his gaze on hers.

âOf course it doesnât,â he said. âBut it will have to be someone you know. Someone you might perhaps like. Of all the people in Morganville, Claire, I never expected you to turn so cold to that possibility.â

She shivered deep inside from the disappointment in his voice, and fisted her hands in the folds of Shaneâs oversize sweatshirt. âIâm not cold,â she said. âIâm desperate. And so are you.â

âYes,â Myrnin said. âThatâs unfortunately quite true.â

He turned away, clasped his hands behind his back, and began to pace the far end of the room, turn after turn, head down.

Dr. Mills cleared his throat. âIf you have some time, I need help bottling the serum I do have. Thereâs enough for maybe twenty vampiresâthirty if I stretch it. No more.â

âOkay,â Claire said, and followed him to the other side of the room, where a beaker and tiny bottles waited. She poured and handed him bottles to place the needle-permeable caps on with a metal crimper. The serum was milky and slightly pink. âHow long does it take to work?â

âAbout forty-eight hours, according to my tests,â he said. âI need to give it to Myrnin; heâs the worst case we have who isnât already confined in a cell.â

âHe wonât let you,â Claire said. âHe thinks he needs to be crazy so that Bishop canât sense that heâs still working for Amelie.â

Dr. Mills frowned at her. âIs that true?â

âI think he needs to be crazy,â she said. âJust probably not for the reason he says.â

Myrnin refused the shot. Of course. But he took pocketfuls of the medicine and disposable syringes, and escorted Claire back out of the lab. She heard the lock snap shut behind them.

âAre Dr. Mills and his family safe in there?â she asked. Myrnin didnât answer. âAre they?â

âAs safe as anyone is in Morganville,â he said, which really wasnât an answer. He stopped and leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. âClaire. Iâm afraid. . . .â

âWhat?â

He shook his head. âIâm just afraid. And thatâs rare. Thatâs so very rare.â

He sounded lost and uncertain, the way he sometimes did when the disease began to take holdâbut this was different. This was the real Myrnin, not the confused one. And it made Claire afraid, too.

She reached out and took his hand. It felt like a real personâs hand, just cold. His fingers tightened on hers, briefly, and then released.

âI believe that itâs time for you to learn some things,â he said. âCome.â

He pushed off from the wall, and led her at a brisk walk toward the portal, flip-flops snapping with urgency.

5

Myrninâs actual lab was a deserted wreck.

Whether it was Bishopâs goons, vandals, or just Myrnin being crazy, there was even more destruction now than the last time Claire had seen the place. Virtually all the glass had been shattered; it covered the floor in a deadly glitter. Tables had been overturned and floor in a deadly glitter. Tables had been overturned and splintered. Books had been ripped to shreds, with the leather and cloth covers gutted and empty, tossed on piles of trash.

The whole place smelled foul with spilled chemicals and molding paper.

Myrnin said nothing as they descended the steps into the mess, but on the last step, he paused and sat downâmore like fell down, actually. Claire wasnât sure what to do, so she waited.

âYou okay?â she finally asked. He slowly shook his head.

âIâve lived here a long time,â Myrnin said. âMostly by choice, as it happens; Iâve always preferred a lab to a palace, which Amelie never really understood, although she humored me. I know itâs only a place, only things. I didnât expect to feel so much . . . loss.â He was silent again for a moment, and then sighed. âI shall have to rebuild again. But it will be a bother.â

âBut . . . not right now, right?â Because the last thing Claire wanted to do was get a broom and a dump truck to pick up all that broken glass when the fate of Morganville was riding on their staying focused.

âOf course not.â He leaped up andâto her shockâwalked across the broken glass. In flip-flops. Not even pausing when the glass got ankle-deep. Claire looked down at her own shoesâhigh-top sneakersâand sighed. Then she very carefully followed him, shoving a path through the glass as she went while Myrnin heedlessly crunched his way through.

âYouâre hurting yourself!â she called.

âGood,â he shot back. âLife is pain, child. Ah! Excellent.â He crouched down, brushed a clear spot on the floor, and picked up something that looked like a mouse skeleton. He examined it curiously for a few seconds, then tossed it over his shoulder. Claire ducked as it sailed past. âThey didnât find it.â

âFind what?â

âThe entrance,â he said. âTo the machine.â

âWhat machine?â

Myrnin smiled his best, looniest smile at her, and punched his fist down into the bare floor, which buckled and groaned. He punched again, and againâand an entire six-foot section of the floor just collapsed into a big black hole. âI covered it over,â he said. âClever, yes? It used to be a trapdoor, but that seemed just a bit too easy.â

Claire realized her mouth was gaping open. âWe could have fallen right through that,â she said.

âDonât be overly dramatic. I calculated your weight. You were perfectly safe, so long as you werenât carrying anything too heavy.â Myrnin waved at her to join him, but before she got halfway there, he jumped down into the hole and disappeared.

âPerfect.â She sighed. When she finally reached the edge, she peered down, but it was pitch-black . . . and then there was the sound of a scratch, and a flame came to life, glowing on Myrninâs face a dozen feet down. He lit an oil lamp and set it aside. âWhere are the stairs?â

âThere arenât any,â he said. âJump.â

âI canât!â

âIâll catch you. Jump.â

That was a level of trust she really never wanted to have with Myrnin, but . . . there was no sign of mania in him, and he watched her with steady concentration.

âIf you donât catch me, Iâm totally killing you. You know that, right?â

He raised a skeptical eyebrow, but didnât dispute that. âJump!â

She did, squealing as she fellâand then she landed in his strong, cold arms, and at close range, his eyes were wide and dark and almostâalmostâhuman.

âSee?â he murmured. âNot so bad as all that, was it?â

âYeah, it was great. You can put me down now.â

âWhat? Oh. Yes.â He let her slide to the ground, and picked up the oil lamp. âThis way.â

âWhere are we?â Because it looked like wide, industrial tunnels, obviously pretty old. Original construction, probably.

âCatacombs,â he said. âOr drainage tunnels? I forget how we originally planned it. Doesnât matter; itâs all been sealed off for ages. Mind the dead man, my dear.â

She looked down and saw that she was standing not on some random sticks, but on bones. Bones in a tattered, ancient shirt and trousers. And there was a white skull staring at her from nearby, too. Claire screamed and jumped aside. âWhat the hell, Myrnin?â

âUnwanted visitor,â he said. âIt happens. Oh, donât worry; I didnât kill him. I didnât have toâthere are plenty of safeguards in place. Now come on, stop acting like youâve never seen a dead man before. I told you, this is important.â

âWho was he?â

âWhat does it matter? Heâs dust, child. And we are not, as yet, although at this rate we certainly may be before we get where weâre going. Come on!â

She didnât want to, but she wanted to stay inside the circle of the lamplight. Dark places in Morganville really were full of things that could eat you. She joined Myrnin, breathless, as he marched down an endlessly long tunnel that seemed to appear ten feet ahead and disappear ten feet behind them.

And suddenly, the roof disappeared, and there was a cave. A big one.

âHold this,â Myrnin said, and passed her the lamp. She juggled it, careful to avoid hot glass and metal, and Myrnin opened a rusty cabinet on the wall of the tunnel and pulled down an enormous lever.

The lamp became completely redundant as bright lights began to shine, snapping on one by one in a circle around the huge cavern. The beams glittered off a tangled mass of glass and metal, and as Claire blinked, things came into focus.

âWhat is that?â

âMy difference engine,â Myrnin said. âThe latest version, at least. I built the core of it three hundred years ago, but Iâve added to and embroidered on it over the years. Oh, I know what youâre thinkingâthis isnât Bab bageâs design, that limited and stupid thing. No, this is half art, half artifice. With a good dash of genius, if I might say so.â

It looked like a huge pipe organ, with rows and rows of thin metal plates all moving and clacking together in vertical columns. The whole thing hissed with steam. In and around that were spaghetti tangles of cables, tubes, andâin some casesâcolorful duct tape. There were three huge glass squares, too thick to be monitors, and in the middle was a giant keyboard with every key the size of Claireâs entire hand. Only instead of letters on it, there were symbols. Some of themâmany of themâshe knew from her studies with Myrnin about alchemy. Some of them were vampire symbols. A few were just . . . blank, like maybe thereâd been something on them once, but it had worn completely off.

Myrnin patted the dirty metal flank of the beast affectionately. It let out a hiss from several holes in the tubing. âThis is Ada. Sheâs what drives Morganville,â Myrnin said. âAnd I want you to learn how to use her.â

Claire stared at it, then at him, then at the machine once again. âYouâre kidding.â

And the machine said, âNo. Heâs not. Unfortunately.â

Claire had seen a lot of weird stuff since moving to Morganville, but a living, steam-operated Frankenstein of a computer, built out of wood and scraps?

That was just too much.

She sat down suddenly on the hard rocks, gasping for breath, and rested her head on her trembling palms. Distantly, she heard the computerâthat was what it was, right?âask, âDid you break another one, Myrnin?â and Myrnin answered, âYou are not to speak until spoken to, Ada. How many times do I have to tell you?â

Claire honestly didnât even know how to start to deal with this. She just sat, struggling to keep herself from freaking out totally, and Myrnin finally flopped down next to her. He reclined, with his arms folded behind his head, staring straight up.

âWhat do you want to know?â he asked.

âI donât,â she said, and wiped trickles of tears from her face. âI donât want to know anything anymore. I think Iâm going crazy.â

âWell, itâs always a possibility.â He shrugged. âAda is a living mind inside an artificial form. A brilliant womanâa former assistant of mine, actually. This preserved the best parts of her. I have never regretted taking the steps to integrate technology and humanity.â

âWell, of course you wouldnât. I have,â Ada said, from nowhere in particular. Claire shuddered. There was something not quite right about that voice, as if it was coming out of some old, cheap AM radio speakers that had been blown out a few times. âTell your new friend the truth, Myrnin. Itâs the least you can do.â

He closed his eyes. âAda was dying because I had a lapse.â

âIn other words,â the computer said acidly, âhe killed me. And then he trapped me inside this box. Forever. The fact that he doesnât regret it only proves how far from human he is.â

âYou are not trapped in the box forever,â Myrnin said, âas you well know. But I still need you, so you will simply have to stop your endless wailing and get on with things. If you want an escape, research your way out.â

âOr youâll what?â

Myrninâs eyes snapped open, and he bared his fangsânot that he could bite the computer. It was just a reaction of frustration, Claire thought. âOr Iâll disconnect your puzzle sets,â he said, âand you can read the works of Bulwer-Lytton for entertainment for the next twenty years before I take pity on you.â

Ada was notably silent in response to that, and Myrnin folded up his fangs and smiled. âNow,â he said to Claire, âlet me explain Ada. She is the life force that powers the town, of course; without her, we could not operate the portals, and we could not maintain the invisible fields that ensure Morganville residents stay put, and suffer memory loss if they manage to make their way out of town. The drawback is that Ada is a living being, and living beings have . . . moods. Feelings. She has been known to grow fond of people, and to sometimes interfere. Such as with your friend Michael.â

âMichael?â Claire blinked, intrigued despite everything. She didnât want to know more. . . . Oh, hell, yes she did. She really did. âWhat do you mean?â

âI mean that Ada interceded to keep Michael alive, because she could. Adaâs presence is most felt in the Founder Houses, which are closely linked to her; she can, with enough of an effort, manifest in them, or anywhere there is a portal, for short periods of time. In Michaelâs case, she chose to save his life by storing him in the matrix of the Glass House rather than allowing him to die when Oliver attempted, and failed, to turn him into a vampire.â

âShe didnât just save him, she saved him,â Claire said. âLike a computer saving a crashed file.â

âI suppose, if you want to put it in mundane terms.â Myrnin yawned. âI told her to let him go. She ignored me. She does that.â

âFrequently,â Adaâs disembodied voice said. âAnd with great satisfaction. So. You are the girl from the Glass House. Myrninâs new pet.â

âI . . .â Claire wasnât sure how to respond to that, so she settled for a quick shrug. âI guess.â

âYouâve done well,â Ada said. âYou work the portals without much understanding of how they function or how to create them, but I suppose that most modern children couldnât begin to construct the toys with which they play.â

Claireâs cell phone suddenly rang, its cheerful electronic tone startling in the silence. She jumped, flailed, and fished it out of her pocket, only to have it immediately go dark.

âDid you do that?â she asked.

âDo what?â Ada asked, but there was a dark, amused edge to the words. âOh, do forgive. Iâve got little enough to occupy me down here in the dungeon. In my box.â

âAda.â Myrnin sighed. âI brought her here so you could explain to her how to maintain your functions, not to have her listen to your endlessly inventive complaints.â

Ada said nothing. Nothing at all. In the silence, Claire heard the steady whir and click of gears turning, and the hiss of steamâbut Ada stayed quiet.

âSheâs pouting,â Myrnin said, and heaved himself up to a sitting position. âDonât worry, my dear. You can trust Claire. Here, let me introduce you properly.â

Myrninâs idea of a proper introduction was to grab Claire by the arm and haul her over in front of the machine. Before she could yell at him to let go, he slipped back a metal cover and pushed her hand down on a metal plate . . . and something pierced her palm, lightning fast, like a snakebite. Claire tried to snatch her hand back, but somethingâsome forceâheld it in place.

She could feel blood trickling out of the hot, aching wound. âLet go!â she yelled, and kicked the machine in fury. âHey! Hey!â

Ada giggled. It was a weirdly metallic sound; up close, she really didnât sound human at all, more like parts grinding together inside.

The force holding Claireâs hand in place suddenly let go, and she stumbled back, clutching her burning hand to her chest and tryingâwithout much successâto stop herself from gasping for breath. She was afraid to look, but she forced herself to open her left hand.

There was a small puncture wound in the middle of her palm, a red circle about the size of a pencil point; there was a whiter circle all around it, like a target. As Claire watched, the white faded.

Blood trickled out of the hole in her skin in fat red drops. Claire looked at Myrnin, who was standing a few feet away; he was gazing at her hand with fascination.

Ewwwwww.

Claire made a fist, willing the bleeding to stop. âWhat the hell was that?â

âThat?â Myrnin didnât seem to be able to take his gaze off of her fist. âOh, itâs simple enough. Ada needed to know who you were. Sheâll know you now, and sheâll follow your orders.â

Ada made a sound suspiciously like a strangled cough.

âThat doesnât explain why she bit me!â Claire said.

Myrnin blinked. âBlood is the fuel that drives the engine, my dear. As with us all. Ada requires regular infusions of blood to operate.â

âYou never heard of plugging her in? My God, Myrnin, you made a vampire computer?â

âI . . .â He seemed honestly unsure how to answer that, and finally gave up. âShe requires about a pint of blood each monthânot refrigerated blood; it should be warmed to at least room temperature, preferably to body temperature, of course. I generally feed her close to the beginning of the month, though she can, in a pinch, go weeks without nourishment. Oh, and do feed her at night. Blood is less effective when offered under the influence of the sun. We do work according to hermetic rules here, you know.â

âYouâre insane,â Claire said. She backed up against a wall and stood there staring at him. âSeriously. Insane.â

He didnât pay any attention to her at all. âYou also need to recalibrate her once on each solstice day, winter and summer, to accommodate the shifting influences of sun and moon. You do remember the hermetic symbology I taught you, donât you? Well, the formula is quite simple. Iâve noted it down for you, here.â Myrnin patted his jacket pockets, and finally came up with a much-scratched-out, torn scrap of grimy paper, which he offered to Claire.

She didnât take it. âThis is crazy,â she said again, as if it was really important that he understand it. Myrnin slowly raised his eyebrows. âYou built a vampire computer. Out of wood. And glass. Youâre not . . . This isnât . . .â

He patted her gently on the shoulder. âThis is Morganville, dear Claire. You should know by now that it would not be what you expect.â With a sudden burst of energy, Myrnin took Claireâs unwilling hand, slapped the paper into it, and bounced to his feet. âAda!â

âWhat?â The computer sounded surly. Hurt. Sheâs not even real, Claire told herself. Yeah. Sheâs not real, and she drinks blood. She just drank mine.

âYou will accept all commands from Claire Danvers as my own. Do you understand me?â

âAll too clearly.â Ada sighed. âVery well. I shall record her essence for future reference.â

Myrnin turned back to Claire and folded her hand over the scrap of paper. His fingernails were filthy and sharp, and she shuddered at how cold his touch was. âPlease,â he said. âYou must keep this safe. Itâs the only record of the sequence. I made it to remind myself, in case . . . when I forgot. If you get the sequence wrong, you could risk killing her. Or worse.â

Claire shuddered. âWhat could be worse than her being here at all?â

âTurning her against us,â Myrnin said. âAnd believe me, dear, you wouldnât want that to happen.â

6

By the time they made their way out of Adaâs cavern, it was nightâfull, dark night.

Which was a problem.

âWe canât walk,â she told Myrnin, for about the eleven hundredth time. âItâs not safe out there. You really donât get it!â

âOf course I get it,â he said. âThere are vampires a-roaming the dark. Very frightening. Iâm quaking in my beach sandals. Come on; buck up, girl. Iâll protect you.â And then he leered like a total freak show, which made Claire feel not so much reassured. She didnât trust him. He was starting to get that jittery, manic edge she dreaded, and he kept insisting that he couldnât take the serum yetâor even the maintenance drug, the red crystals that Claire kept in a bottle in her backpack.

Past a certain point, Myrnin was crazy enough that he thought he was normal. That was when things got really, really dangerous around him.

âWe could take the portal,â Claire said. Myrnin, halfway up the stairs, didnât so much as pause.

âNo, we canât,â he said. âNot from this node. Iâve shut it down. I donât want anyone else coming here anymore. Theyâll ruin my work.â

Claire took a look around at the wreckageâthe smashed glass, the shredded books, the broken furniture. In her view, there wasnât anything left for vandals to destroy, and even if there was, sealing up the portal wouldnât stop them; it would only inconvenience her (and Myrnin) from getting here.

Only . . . maybe that was what he intended. âWhat about the entrance to the cave?â she asked. He snapped his fingers as if heâd forgotten all about it.

âExcellent point.â

Myrnin dragged the largest, heaviest table over, top down, and covered up with it the hole heâd made in the floor. Then he took handfuls of broken glass and mounded it up on all sides.

âWhat if they move the table?â she asked.

âThen theyâll find Ada, and my countermeasures will likely eat them,â he said happily. âSpeaking of that, I really must find some lunch. Not you, dear.â

Claire would have been happier if heâd had some magical way to repair it, but she supposed that would have to do. It looked like the bad guys had been through this place a dozen times already, anyway; they probably wouldnât be back and in the mood to redecorate.

Claire unzipped her backpack. At the bottom, rattling around loose, were two sharpened wooden stakes. She took one out and slipped it into her pocket. It wouldnât kill a vampire by itself, but it would paralyze one until it was removed . . . and it would weaken one enough to die by other means.

If trouble cameâeven if it was Myrnin himselfâsheâd settle for slowing it down long enough for her to run for her life.

Myrnin artistically sprinkled some more broken glass. âThere,â Myrnin said, and backed off to the stairs again. âWhat do you think?â

âFabulous.â She sighed. âBrilliant job of camouflage.â

âNormally, Iâd add a corpse,â he said, âjust to keep people at bay. But that might be good enough.â

âYeah, thatâs . . . good enough,â she said. âCan we go now?â Before he decided to go with the corpse idea.

As she followed Myrnin out of the wreck of a shack that covered the entrance to his lair, he took the time to carefully close and padlock the door. Which was really ridiculous, because Claire could have kicked right through the rotten old boards, and she wasnât exactly She-Hulk.

Claire pulled her phone out and flipped it open, scrolling for Eveâs number.

Myrnin batted it right out of her hand, straight up into the air like a jump ball, and caught it with ease. He grinned smugly, all sharp teeth at crazy angles, and put the phone in his jacket pocket. âNow, now,â he chided her. âWhereâs your sense of adventure?â

âOff on a beach somewhere with your sanity? We canât do this. You know what happens out on the streets at night.â

âI canât help that. I need some air, and besides, walking is very healthy for humans, you know.â With that, Myrnin dismissed her and started walking down the narrow alley into the dark. Claire gaped for a second, then hurried after him, because the being-left-behind option didnât seem all that fantastic a choice. On her right, over the high wooden fence, she saw the looming dark bulk of the Day House. It was deserted these days. Gramma Day had moved out, temporarily, and her daughter had gone into hidingâprobably for good, considering that sheâd thrown in her lot with the antivampire forces in town, and that had not gone well for anybody.

Claire slowed for a second, staring at the unlit windows of the house. She could have sworn that in the cold star-light sheâd seen one of those white lace curtains move. âMyrnin,â she said. âIs there somebody in there?â

âVery likely.â He didnât slow down. âPeople are hiding out in dozens of places all over Morganville, waiting.â

âWaiting for what?â

âGod to descend from on high and save them? Who knows?â

From the other side of the fence, Claire heard a faint, breathless giggle. She came to a stop, staring at Myrnin, who paused and looked at the fence, shook his head, and shrugged. He moved on.

But Claire was convinced that whatever was on the Day side of the fence was pacing them now, and when they got to the end of the row . . . Bad. That will be bad.

âMyrnin, maybe we should call somebody. You know, get a cab. Or Eve, we could call Eveââ

Myrnin turned on her.

It happened fast, so fast, and she barely had time to gasp and duck as he came at her, a white blur in the star-light. There was a sense of hard impact, of falling, and then everything went a little soft around the edges.

Myrnin was stretched out on top of her, and as the world stopped wobbling, she realized she was flat on her back on the ground. âGet off!â she yelped, and battered at his chest with both fists. âOff!â

He put his cold hand over her mouth and lifted a single finger of his other hand to his lips. She couldnât see his face in the shadows, but she saw the gesture, and it made the panic in her shift directions from oh my God, Myrninâs going to bite me to oh my God, Myrninâs trying to save me.

Myrnin dipped his head low, so low he was well within critical vein range, and she heard him whisper, âDonât move. Stay here.â

Then he was gone, just like that. As noisy as he could be at times, he could also be as silent as a shadow when he wanted.

Claire raised her head just a little to look around, but she saw nothing. Just the alley, the fence, the sky overhead with wispy clouds moving across the stars.

And Myrninâs flip-flops, which heâd left behind, lying sad and abandoned on the ground.

There was a sudden, enraged shriek from the other side of the fence, and something crashed against the wood with enough force to splinter heavy boards. Claire rolled to her feet, heart pounding, and gripped the stake in her hand hard. Funny, I didnât think to use it on Myrnin. . . . Maybe sheâd known, deep down, that he was acting to protect her.

She hoped so. She hoped it wasnât that she couldnât see the threat in him anymore, because that would eventually get her killed.

Whatever was happening on the other side of the fence, it was bad. It sounded like tigers fighting, and as she backed up from the snarls and howls and sounds of bodies slamming around, the boards of the fence broke again, and a white handânot Myrninâs, this was a womanâsâclawed the air.

Reaching for Claire.

âIâve changed my mind,â Myrnin called. He sounded eerily normal. âDo go on and run, Claire. Iâll catch up. This may take a few moments.â

She didnât wait. She grabbed up her fallen backpack and ran for the exit of the alley, where it dumped out into the cul-de-sac next to the Day House.

A vampire car was parked there, door open, engine idling. Nobody around.

Claire hesitated, then looked inside. In the glow of the instrument panel, she couldnât see much: dark upholstery, mainly. She didnât think there was anybody inside, although it was tough to see into the back. She ducked into the cabin and flipped on the overhead light, then bounced back on her heels with the stake held in her most threatening way possible. (Which, she had to admit, probably wasnât very intimidating at all.)

Luckily, nothing lunged at her from the backseat.

Claire threw herself behind the wheel, dumped her backpack on the floorboard of the passenger side, and slammed the door. She leaned on the horn, a long blast, and yelled, âMyrnin! Come on!â

It was a risk. There was every possibility that whoever won that fight back there, it wouldnât be Myrnin opening the car door, but she had to try. Heâd taken on another vampireâmore than one, she thoughtâto save her life. The least she could do was give him fair warning that she was about to speed away and leave him behind.

It was impossible to see through the dark tinting on the windshield and windows. Claire counted to ten, slowly and deliberately, and got to a whispered seven before there was a casual knock on the passenger window. She yelped, fumbled, and found the switch that rolled down the glass.

Myrnin leaned in and smiled at her. âFair lady, may I ride with you in your carriage?â

âGodâget in!â He looked . . . messy. Messier than usual, anyway; his coat was shredded in places, he had bloodless scratches on his face, and his eyes were still glowing a dull, muddy red. As he slid into the passenger seat, she caught a sharp scent from himâfresh vampire blood. In the dashboard glow, she saw traces of it around his mouth and smeared on his hands. âWho was it?â

âNo idea,â Myrnin said, and yawned. His fangs flashed lazily. âSomeone Bishop set to spy on me, no doubt. She wonât be reporting back. Sadly, her companion was too fast for me. And too frightened.â

He was so casual about it. Claire, freaked, made sure all the doors were locked and the windows rolled up, and then realized that they were sitting in an idling car, and she couldnât see a thing ahead of her. Of course. It was a standard-issue vampire-edition sedan. Not meant for humans at all.

Myrnin sighed. âPlease, allow me.â

âDo you have the faintest idea of how to drive a car?â

âI am a very fast learner.â

In fact, he wasnât.

Myrnin dropped Claire off at her parentsâ house well before dawn, tossed her cell phone out of the car to her, and drove off still bumping into curbs and running over mailboxes with cheerful abandon. He seemed to enjoy driving. That terrified her, but he was officially the Morganville policeâs problem, not hers.

The weight of the day crashed in on her as she unlocked the front door, and all she wanted to do was crawl onto the sofa in the living room and go to sleep, but she smelled like dirt, old bones, and other things she didnât really want to think about. Shower. Mom and Dad were in bed, she guessed; their door was shut at the top of the stairs. She tiptoed past it to the far end of the hall, dumped her backpack on the bed, and pulled an old thin cotton nightgown from a drawer before heading to the bathroom.

DÃ©jÃ  vu struck her as she locked the door and turned on the water. Mom and Dadâs Founder House was the same layout as the Glass Houseâwhich still felt more like home, even though sheâd been in both houses for about the same amount of time. Even the countertops and flooring were the same. Only the Mom-approved shower curtain and bath towels were different. I want to go back. Claire sat down on the toilet seat and let the sadness well up inside. I want to go back to my friends. I want to see Shane. I want all this to stop.

Not that any genie was going to pop in and grant her wishes, unfortunately. And crying didnât make anything easier, in the end.

After the long, hot shower, she felt a little betterâcleaner, anyway, and pleasantly tired. Claire used the dryer on her hair until it was a tousled mopâit was getting longer now, and brushed her shoulders when she combed it out. Her eyes looked a little haunted. She needed sleep, and about a month with nobody trying to kill her. After that, she could deal with all the chaos again. Probably.

She touched the delicate cross Shane had given her, and thought about him trapped in a cage halfway across town. Amelie had made her a promise, but it had been significantly light on specifics and timing; she also hadnât really promised to set Shane free, only to keep him from being executed.

Claire was still thinking about that when she turned on the lights in her bedroom and found Michael sitting on the bed.

âHey!â she blurted, and grabbed a fluffy pink robe from the back of her door to cover herself up, suddenly aware of just how thin her nightgown really was. âWhat are you doing?â After the first surge of embarrassment, though, she felt an equally strong wave of delight. She hadnât seen Michaelânot on his own, away from Bishopâsince that horrible day when everything had gone so wrong for all of them.

As she struggled into her robe, he stood up, holding out both hands in a very Michael-ish sort of attempt at calming her down. âWait! Iâm not who you think I am. Iâm not here to hurt you, Claire. Please believe meââ

Oh. He thought she still believed he was Bishopâs little pet. âYeah, youâre working for Amelie, not evil anymore, I get it. That doesnât mean you can show up without warning when Iâm in my nightgown!â

Michael gave her a smile of utter relief and lowered his hands. He looked a million miles tall to her just then, and when he opened his arms, she just about flew into his embrace. She came nearly up to his chin. He was a vampire, so there was no sense of warmth from his body, but there was comfort, real and strong. Michael was his own person. Always.

There was genuine love in him. She could feel it.

âHey, kid,â he said, and hugged her with care, well aware of his strength. âYou doing okay?â

âIâm okay, and man, I wish everybody would stop asking me,â she said, and pulled back to look at him. âWhat are you doing here?â

Michaelâs face took on hard lines, and he sat down on the bed again. Claire climbed up next to him, feeling her happiness bleed away. She picked up a pillow and hugged it absently. She needed something to hold.

âBishop sent me out to run one of his errands,â he said. âHe still thinks Iâm one of his good little soldiers. At least, I hope he does. This is probably his idea of a test.â

âSent you out to do what?â

âYou donât want to know.â Clearly, something that Michael hated. His blue eyes were shadowed, and he didnât seem to want to look at her directly.âThings are getting too dangerous for you to be in the middle of this. Promise me you wonât come back to Bishop. Not even if he uses that tattoo to call for you. Just stay away from him. Handcuff yourself to a railing if you have to, but donât go back.â

âButââ

âClaire.â He took her hand and squeezed it. âTrust me. Please. You have to stay here. Stay safe.â

She nodded mutely, suddenly more afraid than sheâd been all night. âYou know something. You heard something.â

âItâs not that simple,â Michael said. âItâs more of a feeling. Bishopâs getting bored, and when he gets bored with something . . . he breaks it.â

âYou mean me?â

âI mean Morganville,â he said. âI mean everything. Everybody. Youâre just an easy, obvious target.â

Claire swallowed hard. âBut you . . . youâre okay, right?â

âYeah.â He sighed and ran a hand through his curling blond hair. âIâd better be. Not much of a choice anymore. Donât worry about meâif I need to get out, I will. Iâm just trying to stay with it as long as I can.â

Claire hated the sadness in him, and the anger, and she wished she could say something to make him feel better. Anything.

Waitâthere was something. âI saw Eve.â

That got an immediate response from himâhis head jerked up, and his blue eyes widened. âHow is she?â There was so much emotion behind the question it made Claire shiver.

âSheâs good,â Claire said, which wasnât exactly true. âSheâs, uh, kind of pissed, actually. I had to tell her. About you being not really evil.â

Michael sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. âIâm not sure that was a good idea.â

âIt will be if you go see her tonight and tell her . . . well, whatever. Oh, but watch out. Sheâs gone all Buffy with the stakes and things.â

âSounds like what sheâd do, all right.â Michael was smiling now, happier than sheâd seen him in months. âMaybe Iâll try to see her. Thank you.â

âYouâre welcome.â She wasnât sure how much more to say, but she was tired of not telling the truth. âShe really loves you, you know. She always has.â

He sat for a few seconds in silence, then shook his head. âIâd better let you rest,â he said. âRemember what I said. Stay here. Donât go back to Bishop.â

âAye-aye, Captain.â She mock-saluted him. âHey. I missed you, Fang Boy.â

âYouâve been hanging around Eve too much.â

âNot nearly enough. Not recently, anyway.â And she was sad about that.

âI know,â he said, and kissed the back of her hand. âWeâll fix it. Get some sleep.â

âNight,â she said, and watched him walk toward the door. âHey. Howâd you get in?â

He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. âIâm a vampire. I have secret powers,â he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, âActually, your mom let me in.â

âSeriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?â

He shrugged. âMoms like me.â

He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door.

Claire got under the covers and, for the first time all night, felt like it was safe to sleep.

In the morningânot too earlyâClaire found cereal and juice waiting for her downstairs, along with a note from her mother that sheâd gone shopping, and that she hoped Claire would stay home today. It was the same sort of note Mom left every day. At least, the âhope you stay homeâ part.

Claire intended to, this time. She intended to right up until she looked at her calendar, and realized what day it was, and that it was circled in red with multicolored exclamation points all around it.

âOh, crap!â she muttered, and pawed through her backpack, hauling out textbooks, notebooks, her much-abused laptop, floods of colored markers, and assorted change. She found the purple notebook, the one she kept for important test dates.

Today was the final exam for her physics class. Fifty percent of her grade, and no makeup tests for anything less than life support.

Itâs only a test. Michael saidâ

It wasnât only a test; it was her most important final exam. And if she didnât show up for it, sheâd automatically fail a class she had no business not acing. Besides, Michael had said not to hang around Bishopâhe hadnât said anything about going to classes. That was normal life.

She needed normal right now.

After the cereal and juice, Claire packed her backpack and set out in the cool morning for Texas Prairie University. It was a short walk from pretty much anywhere in Morganville; from her parentsâ house, the route took her down four residential blocks, then into Morganvilleâs so-called business district, about six square blocks of stores. Walking in daylight showed just how much Morganville had changed since Mr. Bishop had shown up: burned-out houses on every block, with few attempts to clear them away or rebuild. Abandoned houses, doors hanging open and windows broken. Once she got into the business district, half the stores were shut, either temporarily or permanently. Oliverâs coffee shop, Common Grounds, was shuttered and quiet, with a Closed sign in the dark window.

Everywhere, there was a feeling that the town was holding its breath, closing its eyes, trying to wish away its problems. The few people Claire saw trying to go about their normal lives seemed either jumpy and distracted, or as if they were putting on some false smile and happy face. It was creepy, and she felt a little bit relieved when she passed the gates of the universityâopen, like it was a regular sort of dayâand fell in with the crowds of young people moving around the campus. TPU wasnât a huge school, but it sprawled over a fairly large area, with lots of park spaces and quads. She usually would have made a stop at the University Center for a mocha, but there wasnât time. Instead, she headed for the science building, navigating the crowds piling into Chem 101 and Intro to Geology. The physics classes were held toward the end of the hallway, and they were a lot less well attended. TPU wasnât exactly MIT on the plains; most students just wanted to get their core courses and transfer out to better schools. Most of them never had a single clue about the true nature of Morganville, because they didnât get off campus all that muchâTPU prided itself on its student services.

Of course, there were also local students, destined to stay in Morganville their entire lives. Until a few months ago, she could have identified those people at a glance, because theyâd be wearing identification bracelets with odd symbols on them to identify the vampire they owed their allegiance toâtheir Protector. Only that system had mostly broken down after Bishopâs arrival. The vampires were no longer Protectors; most were out-and-out predators. No more blood banks, at least for those loyal to Bishop; they were all about hunting.

Hunting people.

So far, Bishop had seen the wisdom of keeping his hunting parties out of the TPU campus; after all, the kids here helped fund the town and keep the economy running. Most of them stayed on campus, where they had everything they needed except for the occasional trip to a store or a bar, so they didnât know muchâand couldnât care lessâabout Morganville. Morganville didnât offer much in the way of entertainment, when you came right down to it. Even the shops were boring.

If he started allowing his vampires to hunt students, it would get very, very bad. Claire couldnât even imagine how the fragile system Morganville was built on could survive an exposure like thatâthe press would show up. The government. Not even Amelie could keep control under those kinds of conditions, and Bishop wouldnât even bother to try.

Looking around, all Claire could think about was how precarious it wasâand how oblivious everybody was to the tipping point.

Claire slid into her usual seat in her physics class, two minutes early. There were only about ten other people attending now; theyâd started out with about twenty, but plenty had dropped out, and of those who were left, she thought she was the only one with a solid A. As in most of her classes, nobody made eye contact. Unless you had friends when you came to TPU, you werenât likely to make them casually.

Claireâs professor didnât put in an appearance, but his teaching assistant did, a twenty-two-year-old Morganville native named Sanaj, who handed out sealed tests but told the students not to open them yet. Claire tapped her pen impatiently on the test, waiting for time. She expected this to be over fastâafter all, sheâd mastered most of the basics of this class in the first two weeks. If she was fast enough, she might be able to grab a coffee, say hello to Eve, and get the scoop on whether Michael had dropped in for a visit. She was dying to hear all about it.

The door at the bottom of the lecture hall opened, and in strolled Monica Morrell.

Claire hadnât seen her archenemy much lately, but that had mostly been good luck on her part. Monica had been highly visibleâfirst at her dadâs funeral, then taking her role as Morganvilleâs First Sister as a blanket excuse for any kind of crazy behavior she wanted to try. Most people in town looked worn, tired, and worried, including Monicaâs own brother, the mayor; not Monica, though. She looked like she was deeply enjoying herself these days. Sheâd gone through a bad patch for a while, after losing her status as Oliverâs best girl, but disgrace was something that never seemed to stick, not to her.

Monica walked slowly. She was the center of attention and loving every minute of it. Sheâd gone off blond again; Claire thought the new color suited her better anyway, but she doubted it would last. Monica changed her hair the way she changed her makeupâaccording to mood and trend.

Currently, though, sheâd let her hair grow out, long and lustrous, and it was a dark, bouncy brown. Her makeup wasâof courseâperfect, on a perfect face flawed only by the nasty arrogance that showed in her smile. Claire was wearing blue jeans and a camp shirt over a red tee; Monica was dressed in a flirty little dress, something more suited to Hollywood than Morganville, and some impressively tall shoes in magenta that Claire was sure had come mail-orderâno store in town would have carried those. In short, she looked glossy, perfect, and utterly in command of herself and everything around her.

Behind her trailed her perpetual wingmen, Gina and Jennifer. They looked good, but never as good as Monica. That was how the whole thing worked: the backup singers never took center stage.

Sanaj paused at the top of the terraced classroom in handing out the last couple of tests to look down at Monica and her groupies. âMiss?â he asked. âCan I help you?â

âDoubt it.â Monica sniffed. âIâm not here for you.â Her eyes focused on Claire, and she smiled. She made a little come-here motion.

Claire calmly sent her back a middle finger. Monica pouted, an effect greatly enhanced by her shiny pink lip gloss. âDonât be that way, Claire,â she said. âItâd be a shame if something happened to these nice people.â

The TA looked honestly shocked and offended. âExcuse me; are you threatening my students?â

Monica rolled her eyes. âLook, idiot, just sit down and shut up. This doesnât concern you. If you think it does, Iâll call up my new friend. Maybe you know him?â She pulled out a tiny bejeweled phone and held it at eye level, ready to dial. âMr. Bishop?â

Sanaj handed out the last two tests in silence and looked at Claire apologetically. âPerhaps you should talk with your friend outside,â he said. âSo as not to disturb the other students.â

âBut Iâm taking the test!â

Monica began to slowly dial a number. Sanaj grew pale, watching herâhe was clearly one of those who knew the score. âNo,â he said, and grabbed Claireâs test from her desk. âIâm sorry. You can take the test once youâre finished with them. Please go.â

âButââ

âGo now!â

The other students had their heads down, though they were shooting Claire looks that were sympathetic, scared, or angry. Nobody tried to stand up for her.

Claire put her pen down, looked Sanaj in the eyes, and said, âSave my test. Iâm coming back.â

He nodded and turned away.

She walked down to meet Monica on the stage.

âWell, that was easy,â Monica said, and flipped her phone closed. âHey, loser. How goes the war? Oh, yeah, you lost.â

âWhat do you want?â Claire was determined to get it over with, fast. She wasnât interested in fighting, or spar-ring, or even sarcasming. Monica smiled at her and put her phone in her tiny little purse.

âWalk with me,â she said. âLetâs find out.â

Claire resisted making an Eve-style joke about Monicaâs gaudy shoes, and silently followed Monica out of the classroom. Gina and Jennifer brought up the rear guard.

Outside, the hallway was mostly deserted, except for a few students hurrying late to classes. Monica led the way around the corner to a break area with well-used chairs and study tables. She took a seat, showing off her perfectly waxed legs.

She looked like a queen on a throne. Instead of standing in front of her like some criminal waiting to be judged, Claire moved to a chair off to the side and flopped down. Monicaâs smile curdled. âFine,â Claire said. âYouâve got me. What now? The beatings will continue until my attitude improves?â

âCut the crap,â Monica said. âIâm not in the mood. What did you do to my brother?â

âYour . . .â Claire sat up slowly. âRichard? What happened to Richard?â

âLike you donât know? Please. Heâs missing. He disappeared right after he talked to youâwent out the door and never came back. I know itâs something you said to him. Tell me what you talked about.â Her eyes narrowed at Claireâs silence. âDonât make me say please.â

Claire tried to stand up. Gina, positioned behind her, pushed down on her shoulders and held her in the chair.

Jennifer moved in from the side and took out a folding knife.

âTell me,â Monica said, âor I promise you, this is going to get ugly. And so will you.â

Claire felt a nasty, cold burst of fear. Sure, she could scream the place down, but this was Morganville. She wasnât sure anybody would come. And besides, Monicaâwhoâd had a brief, shining period as the town pariahâhad turned back into her usual glossy, predatory self again. Bishop had interviewed her and found her amusing. Claire figured he thought lots of nasty, stinging things were amusing, too. But heâd given her his official seal of approval and sent her out with a new sense of entitlement, which Monica had promptly translated into a mandate to hurt everyone whoâd kicked her when she was down.

Some of those people were no longer around at all, which put Claire among the lucky ones.

âI went to Richard to ask him for a favor,â Claire said as calmly as she could. âHe tried to help, but he couldnât. So I left. The end. As far as I know, he was having a normal day; I didnât see anything or anybody weird hanging around. Thatâs all I know.â

âWhat kind of favor did you ask him for?â Monica asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw the glitter of the knife as it turned in Jenniferâs fingers. âLet me guess. Loser boyfriend rescue favor?â

Claire didnât answer. There really wasnât any good way to go with that. Monica smiled, but it wasnât a comforting kind of smile.

âSo my brother turned you down when you wanted him to use his influence to spring your skanky boyfriend, and you made him disappear,â she said. âNice. I guess you figure the next mayor might be a bigger idiot and let you have what you want.â

Claire took a deep breath. âWhy would I think that? Since apparently running Morganville is a family business, and youâd be next in line. Oh, I see your point. Youâre definitely the bigger idiot.â

âOoh, she is just begging for it,â Gina said, and pressed cruelly hard down on Claireâs shoulders. âCut her, Jen. Give her something to think about.â

âIâm serious! Why would I think a new mayor would help me any more than Richard? Look, I like your brother. I like him a lot more than I like you. Why would I do anything to hurt him? Am I likely to get anybody more likely to help me?â

Monica didnât move. She didnât say anything. Jennifer took her silence for encouragement, and put the edge of the knife on Claireâs cheek.

It felt hot. Claire stopped breathing.

âYouâre sure,â Monica said. âYou donât know what happened to my brother.â

Now she could breathe, because Monica hadnât nodded a go-ahead on the cutting. âNo. But maybe I could find out. If you donât piss me off.â

The pressure of the knife went away. Claire kept watching Monica, which was where the real threat was coming from.

âWhy would you help me?â Monica asked, which was a pretty reasonable question.

âNot helping you. Iâm looking to help Richard. I like Richard.â

Monica nodded. âYou do that. Iâm going to give you a day. If I donât hear from Richard, or he doesnât show up alive and well, then youâre the next one who disappears. And I promise you, theyâll never find the body.â

âIf I had a nickel for every time somebody said that to me around this town . . .â Claire said, and Monicaâs lips quirked into something that was almost a smile. âCome on; you know itâs true. Morganville. Come for the education, stay for the terrifying drama.â

âTry being born here,â Monica said.

âI know. Not easy.â Claire looked up at Gina, who was still holding her down; Gina exchanged looks with Monica, then shrugged and let go. Claire flexed her shoulders. Sheâd probably have aches later, if not bruises. âHowâs your mom holding up?â

âSheâs . . . not, exactly. Itâs been hard.â Monica actually thawed a little. Not that they would ever like each other, Claire thought; Monica was a bully, and a bitch, and she would always feel entitled to more than anyone around her. But there were moments when Monica was just a girl only a little older than Claireâsomeone whoâd already lost her dad, was losing her mom, and was afraid of losing her brother.

Then she surprised Claire by asking, âYour parents okay?â

âI donât know if okay is the right word for it, but theyâre safe. For now, anyway.â Claire picked up her backpack. âMind if I go finish my test now?â

Monica raised one eyebrow. âYou want to take the test? Seriously? I was giving you an excuse, you know. Theyâd let you make it up. You could probably just buy the answers.â She said that as if she really couldnât imagine wanting to take any test, ever.

âI like tests,â Claire said. âIf I didnât, why would I still be in Morganville?â

Monica smiled this time. âWow. Good point. It is kind of pass/fail.â

Test turned in (and still ahead of everyone else), Claire headed for the University Center. Specifically, she headed for the coffee bar, which was where Eve put in her slave-wage hours pulling espresso shots for the college crowd. There was more of a line than usual; with Common Grounds being âclosed for renovationsâ (according to the sign), more students were settling for the local fare than usual. Behind the hissing machines, Eve worked with silent concentration, barely looking up as she delivered each order, but when she said, âMocha,â and slid it across, Claire touched her on the hand.

âHey,â she said.

Eve looked up, startled, and blinked for a second, as if she had trouble remembering who Claire was, and why she was standing in front of her interrupting the flow of work.

Then she yelled, âTim! Taking five!â

âNo, youâre not!â Tim, who was working the register, yelled back. âDo not take that apron off. Eve!â

Too late. Eveâs apron hit the counter, and she ducked under the barrier to join Claire on the other side. Tim sighed and motioned one of the other register clerks to cover the espresso station as they walked away.

âOne of these days, heâs going to fire you for that,â Claire said.

âNot today. Too busy. And heâll forget by tomorrow. Timâs kind of like a goldfish. Three-second memory.â Eve looked relaxed. In fact, despite the fact that she was typically Gothed up in red and black, with clown-white makeup and bloodred lipstick, Eve looked almost . . . content. âThanks.â

Claire sipped the mocha, which was actually pretty good. âFor what?â

âYou know what.â

âDonât, actually.â

Eveâs smile turned wicked around the edges. âMichael came by.â

âOh?â Claire dumped her backpack on a deserted table. âTell.â

âYouâre too young.â

âSeventeen as of yesterday.â

âOh? Oh. Um . . . sorry.â Eve looked deeply ashamed. âI . . . Happy birthday. Man, I canât believe I forgot that. Well, in my defense, I was kinda pissed at you.â

âYeah, I noticed that. Itâs okay. But you owe me a cake.â

âI do?â Eve flopped into the chair across from her. âOkay. Itâll probably suck, though.â

Claire found herself smiling. âI hope so. Anyway. What happened with Michael?â

âOh, you know. The usual.â Eve traced a black fingernail in some carving on the tabletopâapparently Martin + Mary = HOT, or at least it had once. âWe talked. He played guitar for me. It felt . . . normal for a change.â

âAnd?â

âLike Iâm going to tell you.â

Claire stared at her.

âOkay, Iâll tell you. God, donât nag, okay?â Eve scooted her chair closer. âSo. We kissed for a whileâdid I mention what an awesome kisser he is? I did, right?âand . . .â

âAnd?â

âAnd Iâm not going to end up on Blood Bank Row because I told you dirty little stories about me and Michael, Miss Barely Seventeen. So just, you know, imagine.â Eve winked. âYou can be really vivid if you want.â

âYou suck.â Claire sighed.

Eve opened her mouth, then closed it again without saying a single word. Before either of them could think what to say next, a shadow fell across the table.

Claire had never seen him before, but he had the typical cool-boy-on-campus look . . . a loose black T-shirt over a nice expanse of shoulders, comfortable jeans, the usual pack full of books. Dark hair, kind of an emo cut, and expressive dark eyes beneath his bangs.

âHi,â he said, and shuffled from one foot to the other. âUmm, do you mind if I . . . ?â He pointed to the remaining chair at the table. Claire looked around. All the other tables were full.

âKnock yourself out,â Eve said, and pushed his chair out with her foot. âHope youâre not allergic to girl talk.â

âNot likely. I have four sisters,â he said. âHey. Iâm Dean. Dean Simms.â When he extended his hand for Eve to shake, Claire automatically checked his wrist. Not a Morganville native; there was no bracelet, and no sign that there had ever been one. Even those whoâd gladly ditched the symbols of Protection still had the tan lines.

âEve Rosser.â From the wattage of Eveâs smile, she liked what she saw across the table. âThis is Claire Danvers.â

âHey.â He gravely shook hands with Claire, too; she thought it was a kind of forced, formal thing for him. He seemed a little nervous. âSorry to bust in on you. I just need a place to go over my notes before my test.â He dug around in his backpack and came up with a battered spiral notebook, which had an elaborate ink-pen drawing of some kind of car doodled all over the front. He saw Claire looking at it, and a faint pink blush worked up over his cheeks. âCore classes. You get bored, right?â

âRight,â she said. Sheâd skipped core classesâtested out of themâbut she understood. Sheâd gotten so bored that sheâd read the entire Shakespeare library of plays, and that had been her freshman year in high school. But sheâd never been a doodler. âNice drawing.â

âThanks.â He flipped open the notebook, past pages of tight, neat handwriting.

âWhat class?â Eve asked. âYour test.â

âUm, history. World History 101.â

Claire had easily bypassed that one. âSeems like youâve got all the notes you need.â

He smiled. It was awkward and nervous, and he quickly looked down at his pages again. âYeah, I scribble a lot when Iâm in class. Itâs supposed to help with memory, right?â

âDoes it?â Eve asked.

âIâll tell you after the test, I guess.â He focused on his notes, looking even more uncomfortable. Claire looked at Eve, who gave a tiny little whatever shrug.

âSo,â she said. âPlans for today?â

âApart from . . .â Nothing Claire could say in front of an innocent bystander. âWell, not really. Did you know that Richard Morrellâs gone missing? Monica asked me to find him.â

âBack up. What?â

âMonica asked me toââ

âYeah, thatâs what I thought you said. Now youâre doing favors for the Morrell family? Girlfriend, thereâs nice, and then thereâs utterly dumb. You donât need to do Monica any favors. What has she ever done for you?â

âThatâs why itâs called a favor,â Claire pointed out. âNot an evening of the score. Itâs something you do before they owe you one.â

âYouâre just asking for it. Stay out of trouble, okay? Just keep your head down. I know thatâs what Michael told you. If Shane was here, thatâs what heâd say, too.â

Dean was doing a very good imitation of studying, but the tips of his ears had been turning pink, and now, he looked up and stage-whispered, âYeah, about that. I kind of know Shane.â

Which brought the conversation to a quick halt. Dean looked around and lowered his voice even more. âI also know his dad.â

âOh God, please. Tell me youâre not one of Frank Collinsâs lame-ass vampire hunters.â Eve sighed. âBecause if you are, dude, way to go low-profile. Buy some life insurance today, and please, make me the beneficiary.â

âNot exactly a vampire hunter, but . . . I do work for Frank Collins, sort of.â

Eve looked at Claire. âI think we found a good choice to replace Captain Obvious.â Captain Obvious had been part of the secret vampire-hating underground when Claire had first arrived in Morganville; heâd ended up being a little too obvious toward the end. Obviously dead.

âBecause heâd be dead before he got his first sentence out when he came face-to-face with a vampire?â Claire asked, deadpan.

âI was thinking just put him in a custom T-shirt that says, âHello, my name is Dean and Iâm here to kill you, evil bloodsucking creatures of the night.â With an arrow pointing at his neck that says, âBite here.â â

Dean was flipping his attention back and forth between them in obvious consternation. âOkay, let me start over. Iâve been trying to find out where Shane and his father are. Do you have any idea?â

âFriend,â Eve said, and pointed toward her skull-graphic-covered self. âGirlfriend.â The black fingernail turned toward Claire. âHousemates.â The finger gestured to include them both. âSo yeah, we know. How exactly do you know Shane?â

âI . . . I met him when he and his mom and dad were on the run. Did he tell you about that?â

Both girls nodded. Shaneâs sister had been killed in a house fire; the Collins family had done the forbidden in responseâtheyâd packed up and fled Morganville . . . with some kind of vampire help, because that was the only way to get past the barriers if you were wearing a Protection mark. Out in the world, though, things hadnât gone well. Shaneâs parents had each gone crazy in their own special way: his dad had become a cold, hard, vampire-hunting drunk, and his mom had turned into a depressed, possibly suicidal drunk, leaving Shane to make his way as best he could.

âI was there,â Dean said. âWhen Mrs. Collins died. I mean, I was in the motel court. I saw Shane after he found her. Man, he was totally fucked-up.â

âYou were there?â Claire repeated.

âMy brother was running with his dad by then, so yeah. I was around. Me and Shane kind of hit it off, because we were both getting dragged around without any say in what was happening.â

âWait a minute. Shane never said anything about coming back to Morganville with a friend,â Eve said.

âYeah, he wouldnât, because he doesnât know Iâm here. Mr. CollinsâShaneâs dadâsent me after him. I was supposed to stay to keep an eye on Shane, kind of watch his back.â Dean shook his head. âExcept nothing was the way he said it would be. I didnât know where to hide, so I enrolled at TPU because it gave me an excuse to hang around. Then I kind of lost track of everybody a few weeks ago.â He looked at them hopefully. âSo? What do I do now?â

Claire and Eve stared at him in silence for a moment, and then Eve said, very seriously, âLook. We know Frank Collinsâknow, hate, whatever. And you need to give up on that evil old loser. You seem like kind of a sweet kid. Pack it in and go away. Get out while you still can.â

âIt wasnât supposed to be like this,â Dean said. âIt was supposed to be easy. I mean, the good guys were supposed to win, you know? The vampires were supposed to die.â

âAnd then what, you guys take over and run the town?â Claire sighed. âNot likely. And Iâve met Mr. Collins. Not a good idea to give him the keys to the city, either.â

Dean looked at her like he thought she was crazy, and that it really was a pity. âAt least heâs not a vampire.â

âTheyâre not all bad,â Claire said.

For a split second, she thought she saw an altogether different Dean watching herâsame guy, same emo haircut, but his eyes were weird. Not vampire weird. Odd weird.

Then he blinked, and it was gone, and she thought it was just her imagination. If you couldnât be paranoid in Morganville, though, where could you?

âWell, thatâs new to me,â Dean said. He smiled, and it was a real smile. A warm one, not at all nervous. âI just always thought the whole bloodsucking thing made being bad a lock.â

âWhat you know about vampires could fit into a mosquitoâs ass,â Eve said, irritated. âAll you know is what you grew up seeing on TV. You ever actually meet one?â

Dean didnât answer that, but the tips of his ears grew red and his smile disappeared as he faced Eve directly. âYeah, well, Iâm not some collaborator whoâs willing to apologize for what these monsters do. Maybe thatâs the point. Anywayâit wasnât really my choice. I just came because Frank asked, and I didnât have anyplace else to go. My brother was running with Frank, and he was all I had.â

Eveâs eyes remained watchful. âSo whereâs Big Scary Bro now?â

âDead,â Dean said softly. âHe got killed in the fighting. Iâm all alone.â

Claire stared down at the table, suddenly not interested at all in her mocha, no matter how delicious. The truth was that some of those guysâthe foot soldiers, the ones whoâd come along to Morganville with Frank Collins as his shock troopsâwell, some of those guys hadnât fared well, either in the fight or in jail. She didnât know who they were, not by name. Up until this moment, theyâd just been labeled in her head as Frank Collinsâs minions. But they all had names, friends, lives. They all had families. Claire wouldnât know Deanâs brother from any of his fellow muscle-bound biker dudes, but that didnât mean Dean didnât mourn him.

That led Claire to a terrifyingly real waking nightmareâBishop summoning her, telling her that heâd decided to let Shane go. Shane lying there, not moving . . .

âHey, Claire?â Eve snapped her fingers under Claireâs nose, and Claire jerked so hard she slopped coffee onto the table. âDamn, girl. You space so hard, you ought to look into a career at NASA. So. We agree that Mr. Dean here is a terrible excuse for a vampire hunter, is in a whole lot of trouble if he doesnât keep his head down, and he should head for the hills if he knows whatâs good for him?â

âSure,â Claire said, but Dean was already looking oddly stubborn.

âIâm not going anywhere,â he said. âMy brother would have wanted me to finish what I started. I told Frank Collins Iâd look out for Shane. Iâm staying until I know theyâre okay.â

âThatâs sweet, but how exactly are you going to look out for him, seeing that heâs in jail?â Eve said. âUnless you want to look after his girl instead.â She winked at Claire.

The tips of Deanâs ears turned even redder. âThatâs not what I meant.â

Except that Claire had the funny feeling that he did.

She avoided Eveâs gaze for another few seconds, then pulled out her cell phone and checked the time. She had nowhere to be, but this was turning weirdly uncomfortable all around.

âGotta go,â she said, and grabbed up her backpack. Sheâd had about all the Dean time she wanted.

Eve blinked. âYou barely touched the mocha!â

âSorry. You have it.â

âI work in a coffee bar. No. Here, Dean. Knock yourself out.â

The last she saw before she ducked off into the crowds, heading for nowhere in particular, was Eve handing Dean her abandoned drink, and chatting like old friends.

Claire really didnât have a lot of ideas about what to do for the rest of the day, but one thing she did not intend to do was go against Michaelâs instructions. No way was she going anywhere near Vampire Central today. Going home didnât have much appeal, either, but it seemed the safest thing to do. As she walked, she dialed Richard Morrellâs cell phone number. It went to voice mail. She tried the new chief of police next.

âHannah Moses, go,â said the brisk, calm voice on the other end.

âHey, Hannah, itâs Claire. You know, Claire Danvers?â

Hannah laughed. She was one of the few people Claire had ever met in Morganville who wasnât afraid to really laugh like she meant it. âI know who you are, Claire. How are you?â

âFine.â That was stretching the truth, Claire supposed, but not according to the standards of Morganville, maybe. âHow does it feel to be in charge?â

âIâd like to say good, but you know.â Claire could almost hear the shrug in the older womanâs voice. âSometimes being a know-nothing spear carrierâs comforting. Donât have to know about how the warâs going, just the battle in front of you.â Hannah was, in real-world terms, a soldierâsheâd just come back from Afghanistan a few months ago, and she was as badass a fighter as Claire could even imagine, outside of ninja TV stars. She might not do the fancy high kicks and midair spins, but she could get the job done in a real fight.

Even against vampires.

Hannah finally said, âIâm guessing you didnât call just because you missed me.â

âOh. No . . . I just . . . Did you know Richard Morrell is missing?â

âAll over it,â Hannah said, without a change at all in her tone. âNothing to be concerned about. Let me guess, Monica put you onto it. I already told her itâs handled.â

âI donât think she believes you.â

On the other end of the phone, Hannah was probably grinning. âNo shit? Well, sheâs bad; sheâs not stupid. But her brotherâs safe enough. Donât worry. Richard can take care of himself, always has.â

âIs something going on? Something I should know about?â Hannah said nothing, and Claire felt a hot prickle of shame. âRight. I forgot. Iâm wearing the wrong team jersey, right?â

âNot your fault,â Hannah said. âYou were drafted; you didnât join up. But I canât talk strategy with you, Claire. You know that.â

âI know.â Claire sighed. âI wish . . . you know.â

âI really do. You go home, and stay there. Understand?â

âOn my way,â Claire promised, and hung up.

On the other side of the street, college-adjacent businesses were starting to close up shop, even though it was still early. Nobody liked to be caught outside as night approached; it was unsafe during the day, but it was a hell of a lot worse at twilight, and after.

Claire slowed as she passed Common Grounds. The security shutters were still down, the door was closed, but there was something . . . something . . .

She crossed the street, not really sure why she did, and stood there for a few seconds, staring like an idiot at the locked door.

Then she heard the distinct, metallic sound of a dead bolt snapping back, and in slow motion, the door sagged open just a bare inch. Nothing showed but darkness.

I am not going to say, âHello, is anyone there,â like some stupid, too-dumb-to-live chick in a movie, Claire thought. Also, I am not going in there.

Iâm really not.

The door opened another inch. More darkness. âYouâve got to be kidding,â Claire said. âHow stupid do you really think I am?â

This time, the gap opened to about a foot. Standing well back from any hint of sunlight was someone she knew: Theo Goldman, vampire and doctor.

âIâm sorry,â he said. âI couldnât come to you. Will you do me the honor . . . ?â

There were a lot of vampires in Morganville who scared Claire, but Theo wasnât one of them. In fact, she liked him. She didnât blame him for trying to save his family, which included both humans and vampires. Heâd done what he had to do, and she knew it hadnât been for any bad motives.

Claire stepped inside. Theo shut the door and locked it securely after her. âThis way,â he said. âWe keep all the lights off in the front, of course. Here, allow me, my dear. I know you wonât be able to see your way.â

His strong, cool hand closed around her upper arm in a firm, but not harsh grip, and he guided her through blind darkness, zigzagging around (she assumed) tables and chairs. When he let go, she heard a door close behind them, and Theo said, âShield your eyes. Lights coming on.â

She closed her eyes, and a flare of brightness reddened the inside of her lids. When she looked, Theo was stepping away from the light switch and moving toward the group of people sitting at the far end of the room. His dark-haired wife rose from her chair, smiling; except for her generally pale skin, she didnât look much like a vampire, really. Theoâs kids and grandkidsâsome physically older than Claire, some youngerâsat in a group playing cards. In the dark, because all the ones playing were vampires. The humans werenât here at all.

âClaire,â Patience Goldman said, and extended her hand. âThank you for coming inside.â

âUm . . . no problem,â she said. âIs everything okay?â It hadnât been for a while. Bishop had been thinking of killing all the Goldmans, or making them leave Morganville. Something about their being Jews. Claire didnât really understand all the dynamics of it, but she knew it was an old anger, and a very old feud.

âYes, we are fine,â Theo said. âBut I wanted to tell you that we will be leaving Morganville tonight.â

âYou . . . what? I thought Bishop said you could stayââ

âOh, he did,â Theo said, and his kindly face took on a harder look. âPromises were made. None that I believe, of course. Itâs no sin for a man like him to break a promise to a man like me; after all, I am hardly better than a human to him.â His wife made a sound of protest, and Theo blinked. âI did not mean that to slight you, Claire. You understand what I mean.â

âYeah.â Bishop had carried over some prejudices from his human days, and a big one had to do with a dislike of Jewish people, so maybe he didnât look at Jewish vampires as being any differentâany betterâthan mere humans, who werenât real to Bishop, anyway. âBut . . . why tell me? You canât trust me, you know.â She rubbed her arm under the long-sleeved T-shirt, feeling ashamed all over again. âI canât help it. If he asks me, I have to tell him about you.â

Theo and his wife exchanged a look. âActually,â Patience said, âyou donât. I thought you knew.â

âKnew what?â

âThat the influence of the charm he used on you is fading.â Patience stepped forward. âMay I?â

Claire had no idea what she was asking for, but since Patience was holding out her cool white hands, Claire hesitantly extended hers. Mrs. Goldman pushed the shirt sleeve up to expose the tattoo, turning it this way and that, studying it.

âWell?â Theo asked. âCan you tell?â

âItâs definitely significantly weakened,â his wife said. âHow much, itâs hard to tell, but I donât think he can compel her without a large effort. Not anymore.â

That was news to Claire. Good news, actually. âDoes he know what Iâm thinking?â

âHe never did, my dear,â Patience said, and patted her hand before releasing it. âMr. Bishopâs skills are hardly all-powerful. He simply uses our fear to make them seem so.â She nodded to her husband. âI think I can safely mask her from him, if he should look for her.â

âWait, what?â Claire asked.

Their eldest son, Virgil, threw down a handful of cards in annoyance and crossed his arms. âOh, just tell her,â he said. âThey want to take you with us.â

âWhat?â

âItâs for the best,â Theo said quickly. âWe can escort you safely out of town. If you stay, heâll kill you, or turn you vampire so he can control you better. You simply have no options here, my dear. We only want to help you, but it has to be now. Tonight. We canât risk waiting any longer.â

âThatâs . . . kind of sweet,â Claire said carefully, and measured the distance between where she stood and the door. Not that she could outrun one vampire, much less six. âBut Iâm okay here. Besides, I really canât leave now. Shaneââ

âAh.â Theo snapped his fingers, and his smile took on a wicked sort of tilt around the edges. âYes, of course. The boy. As it happens, I did not forget young Mr. Collins; Clarence and Minnie have gone to fetch him. Once they arrive here, we will make sure you both are safely away.â

Claireâs eyes widened, and suddenly she couldnât get a breath. Her heart started to pound, first from anticipation, then from outright fear. âYou . . . you decided to break Shane out of jail?â

âCall it our last good act of charity,â Theo said. âOr our revenge on Mr. Bishop, if you like. Either way, itâs of benefit to you, I think.â

âDoes Amelie know what youâre doing?â

Theoâs expression smoothed out into a frighteningly blank mask. âAmelie finds it better to skulk in the shadows, while people die for her lack of courage. No, she does not know. If she did, sheâd no doubt have a dozen reasons why this was a mistake.â

It was a mistake. Claire couldnât say why, but she knew it, deep down. âShe promised me sheâd take care of him,â Claire said. âSheâs got a plan, Theo. You shouldnât have interfered.â

âAmelieâs plans are subject to her own needs, and she never bothered to include me,â Theo said. âI am offering you and your boy a way out of Morganville. Now. Tonight. And you need never return here again.â

It wasnât that simple. âMy parents.â

âWe can take them with us as well.â

âBut . . . Bishop can find us,â Claire said. âVampires found Shaneâs family when they left town before. They killed his mother.â

âShane and his father blame vampires for what was only a very natural human despair. Shaneâs mother took her own life. You see that, donât you? Claire?â Theo seemed to want her to agree, and she wasnât sure why. Maybe he doubted it himself. When she didnât, he looked disappointed. âWell, itâs too late now, in any case. We can discuss this once weâre safely away. We will help you find a place well beyond Bishopâsâand Amelieâsâreach before we move on ourselves.â

One of the grandsonsâthe middle one, Claire couldnât remember his nameâmade a rude sound and threw down his cards. âGrandpapa, we donât want to leave.â The other children tried to shush him, but he stood up. âWe donât! None of us do! We have lives here. We stopped running. It was safe for us. Now you want us to go out there again, start over againââ

âJacob!â Theoâs wife seemed shocked. âDonât talk to your grandfather so!â

âYou never ask us. You want us all to pretend that weâre still children. Weâre not, Grandmother. I know you and Grandpapa canât accept that; I know you donât want to let us go, but we can make our own decisions.â

Mrs. Goldman seemed not to know what to say. Theo looked very thoughtful, and then nodded. âAll right. Iâm listening. What decision have you made?â

âTo stay here,â Jacob said. âWeâre staying here.â He looked down at his brothers and sisters, who all noddedâsome reluctantly, though. âYou can go if you want, but weâre not letting Bishop drive us out. And no matter what you say, thatâs what youâre doing. Youâre just saving him the trouble of exiling us.â

âIf exile was what I was worried about, I would agree with you. It isnât.â

âYou think heâll try to kill us?â Jacob shook his head. âNo. Itâs not the old days, Grandpapa. Nobodyâs hunting us here.â

âIf I have learned anything in my long life, it is that someone is always hunting us,â Theoâs wife said. âNow sit down, Jacob. The rest of you, sit down. Weâll have no more of this. Youâre being rude in front of our friend.â

Claire wanted to apologize, somehow; Jacob shot her a borderline-angry look, but he dropped back in his place on the floor, shoulders slumped. Sheâd never thought about it, but she supposed for a lot of vampires Morganville was about as good as it could getâno looking over your shoulder, waiting to be discovered. No worrying about putting down roots, making friends, having some kind of a life.

âTheo,â Mrs. Goldman said, and nodded toward the door where theyâd come in. âI hear someone coming.â

âShe has better ears than I do,â Theo confessed to Claire. âStay here. I will let them in.â

âButââ

âStay here. Thereâs nothing to fear. Youâll be with your young man soon.â

He left, shutting the door behind him. Mrs. Goldman drifted quietly over to speak to her children and grand-children in a low, urgent voiceâthe way moms always talked to kids who were throwing tantrums in front of companyâand Claire was left not quite knowing what she ought to do. If they had managed to bust Shane out of jail, well, that was good, wasnât it? Maybe not according to Amelieâs plan, but that didnât make it a bad thing. Not automatically.

Claire took her cell phone out and speed-dialed the Glass House. No answer, at least not on the first three rings.

On the fourth ring, she thought she heard someone pick up, but it was drowned out by a warning cry from Mrs. Goldman from behind her.

The door smashed open, and Theo came flying through, crashing into Claire and sending her to the floor. The phone skittered out of her hands and underneath the shadowy bottom of an old, upholstered chair. She couldnât breathe; Theoâs shoulder had hit her in the stomach, and as she struggled to get her muscles working again, she saw black spots swimming at the edge of her vision. Her whole body felt liquid and hot, and she wasnât sure what had just happened, except that it was bad. . . .

Mrs. Goldman vaulted over Claireâs body and grabbed Theo, who was feebly trying to right himself. She pulled him back into the corner, with the children, and fearlessly stood in front of all of them, fangs flashing white as she faced their enemies.

âNow, donât be doing that,â said a honey-dark voice from the doorwayâs shadows. âThereâs no need for violence, is there?â The light caught on the vampireâs face, and Claire felt sick. Ysandre, Bishopâs icky little pet slut. She was dressed for business just now, in black leather pants and a long-sleeved heavy jacket with a hood. She could have been drawn in black and white, except for the slash of red that was her mouth. âGot something for you, missus.â

She reached back, grabbed two people by the hair, and propelled them both inside. It was the Goldmansâ other son and daughter, Clarence and Minnie. Vampires didnât often look beaten up, but these two did, and Claire felt a little sick at the sight of the fear on Mrs. Goldmanâs face.

âLet them go,â she said. âChildren! Come here!â

âNot so fast,â Ysandre said, and yanked on the hair she was holding. âLetâs talk about this first. Mr. Bishop is not too pleased with your family breaking its word to him. He allowed you to stay here, alive and free, and in return you were supposed to stay out of his business. Did you stay out of his business, sugar? Because it really doesnât look like you did, since you sent these two fine children of yours to try to break his enemies out of jail.â

Claire stopped moving at all. She was curled on her side, still struggling to breathe, shaking, and now it felt like the whole world was crashing in on her. Try. Try to break his enemies out jail.

They hadnât done it. Shane was still a prisoner.

Ysandre hadnât come alone. She shoved the Goldman boy and girl over into the arms of their mother, and behind her a solid army of vampires filled the darkness. âDidnât know about this place,â Ysandre remarked. âDidnât know it had a tunnel going right up under it, anyway. Thatâs real convenient. Didnât even have to take a sunburn to get to you.â She brushed her shiny hair back, and as she did, her gaze fell on Claire. She gave her a slow, deadly smile. âWhy, lookit. Itâs little Miss Perfect. Oh, I think Mr. Bishop is going to be very disappointed in you.â

Claire tried to get up and almost fell. She wasnât hurting yet, but she knew she would be. Bruises, mostly, maybe a couple of strained muscles.

Theo Goldman caught her. Heâd gotten to his feet when she wasnât looking, and now he helped her stand up. At close range, she saw the misery in his eyes before he put on a fake smile for Ysandreâs benefit.

âI suppose we will be going with you,â he said. âFor another interview with our benevolent master.â

âSome of you will,â she agreed. âAnd some of you wonât.â She snapped her fingers and pointed at Claire. Two big, muscular vampire guys lunged from behind her and grabbed Claire by the arms to haul her off. When Theo protested, they shoved him back with his family. âI want to introduce you to an old friend of Mr. Bishopâs. This is Pennywell. I believe you may already be acquainted, though.â

As she was dragged out of the room, into the dark open area of Common Grounds, Claire passed the stranger sheâd seen in Bishopâs office on her birthday. Heâshe? it was hard to tellâwalked past Claire as if she didnât exist, heading into the room where the Goldmans were being held.

âWait!â Claire yelled. âWhat are you going to do?â

Pennywell didnât even pause. Ysandre looked back and winked at her.

âDonât you worry about any of this, now,â she cooed with false sympathy. âYouâve got plenty of your own problems to worry about. Good-bye, Claire.â

7

There was a hidden ladder down to a surprisingly large, well-lit tunnel underneath Common Grounds. It had a false brick wall that led into one of the maze of tunnels that was big enough for carsâand there was one waiting, a big idling limousine. One of Claireâs vampire captors opened the back and pushed her inside before getting in with her. The other one took the front seat, and before more than a few seconds passed, they were driving on into the hidden world underneath Morganville. âHey,â Claire said. The vampire sitting next to her in the back glanced at her, then away. He was about twice her size, and she had a feeling that he could have broken her in half with a harsh word and his little finger. âWhatâs going to happen to them?â

He shrugged, not like he didnât knowâmore like he just flat didnât care enough to tell her. The Goldmans didnât mean much to him. Claire meant even less.

âWhatâs your name?â she asked, and surprised herself. But for some reason, she wanted to know. Deanâs brotherâhe hadnât been just some nameless Bad Guy Number Four. This vampire wasnât, either. He had a name, a history, maybe even people who cared what happened to him.

âMy name is none of your business,â he said, and continued to stare out the window, even though there was nothing but blurry brick out there.

âCan I call you None for short?â It was an Eve joke, but Claire didnât think she delivered it very well, because the vampire didnât even blink. He just shut her out.

She concentrated on not thinking about what might have happened to Shane.

The car burst out of the tunnel at a high rate of speed, rose up a ramp, and exited from what looked like an industrial buildingâanother of Morganvilleâs secret roads. They turned onto a residential street near Claireâs parentsâ houseâshe recognized two of the burned-out homes and the carefully clipped hedge animals in front of the yellow clapboard house on the corner. Sheâd always thought the squirrel looked kind of crazy.

They didnât slow down as the limousine sped through the streets. People got out of the wayâbikes, cars, even one or two pedestrians hurrying home into the sunset. The vampire driver had a blacked-out windshield, but he was still wearing sunglasses, gloves, and had most of his face covered as well. Young, Claire thought. Older vampires wouldnât care about the sun that much. It hurt them, but it wouldnât kill them. So maybe Bishop had recruited some new guys.

Before she could think of anything else to say that wouldnât get her killed, the limousine took a turn down a shaded wide street. At the end of it, Claire saw familiar buildings, and the big green expanse of Founderâs Square.

They were taking her to Bishop.

She slid over to the far side, taking her time about it, and as the car slowed for the next turn, she tried to open the door and throw herself out.

Locked. Of course. The vampire in the back didnât even bother to look at her.

Another ramp, this one leading down under the streets, and thirty seconds later they were parked underground. Claire tried to come up with a plan, but honestly, she didnât have much. Sheâd lost her cell phone when Theo had crashed into her, not that she had even a vague idea of who she could call, anyway. There was a stake hidden at the bottom of her backpack that maybe, maybe she could useâbut only if it was one-on-one, and the one was a lot less scary than the two currently escorting her around.

âGet out,â the vampire in the back said, as the door locks clicked open. âDonât try to run.â

She didnât want to. She wanted to save her strength for something more useful.

Whatever that useful thing was, it didnât become clear as they headed for the elevator and crowded inside. Phony not-really-music was piped into the steel-and-carpet box, making it seem that much more like a nightmare.

The elevator doors opened in a big formal room, the round one where she and Myrnin had circulated in their costumes before Mr. Bishopâs welcome feast, the one that had been the starting point for everything going so wrong in Morganville. The doors to the banquet hall were closed, and her vampire guards marched her up the hallway to Bishopâs office instead.

Michael opened the door. He hesitated, and almost lost his cool, then nodded and stepped aside for the three of them to come inside. There was nobody else in the room.

Not even Mr. Bishop.

âWhatâs going on?â Claire asked. âI thought . . . Where is he?â

âSit down and shut up,â her vampire backseat guardian snarled, and shoved her into a chair. Michael looked like he might have been tempted to come to her defense, but she shook her head. Not worth it. Not yet, anyway.

The office door opened, and Mr. Bishop came in, wearing what looked like the same black suit and white shirt heâd been wearing the day before. There was something savage in the look he threw Claire, but he didnât pause; he walked to his desk and sat down.

He never did that. She couldnât imagine it was a good sign.

âCome here,â he said. Claire didnât want to, but she felt the power woven into the tattoo on her arm snap to life. It responded to Bishopâs voiceâonly to hisâand the harder she tried to resist it, the worse it was going to hurt. But Patience Goldman was right . . . it hurt a lot less than it had before. Maybe it really was fading.

Better not to fight it and tip him off, if that was the case. She took a deep breath and let it pull her closer, right in front of his desk. Bishop leaned forward, staring up at her with cold, empty eyes, elbows braced on the polished wood surface. âDid you know what Goldman was going to do?â he asked. âDid you put him up to it?â

âNo,â she said. She wasnât sure whether it would help Theo if she took the blame, anyway.

Bishop stared a hole into her, then sat back and let his eyes drift half closed. âIt hardly matters,â he said. âI knew those people could not be trusted for any length of time. I kept watch on them. And youâI know you canât be trusted, either, little girl. I tethered you, but I didnât tame you. Youâre harder than you look, like my daughter, Amelie. No wonder she took you under her Protection.â

âWhat are you going to do to the Goldmans?â

Bishop slapped his palm down on the desk, hard enough to leave his imprint half an inch deep in the wood. âI am done with restraint. This town will learn I am not to be taunted, not to be toyed with, not to be mocked. You will learn.â

Claire wanted to shoot back some smart-ass remark, but she could see the vicious anger in him, and knew it was just waiting to pounce. She stood there, silent, watching him, and then he slowly relaxed. When she started to back away, he said, âStay there. I have something for you.â

He snapped his fingers, and when the door opened, Shane walked in. She hadnât noticed it in the cell, but he was thinner than heâd been a few months agoâand he was also bruised and simmering with fury. When he saw Bishop, he lunged for him.

âNo!â Claire yelled. âShane, stop!â

He didnât, but he also didnât have to. Michael flashed across the room and got in his way, wrapping Shane in a bear hug and bringing him to a sudden halt.

âLet go!â Shaneâs voice was ragged, splitting and tearing under the strain of his anger. âScrew you, Michael; let go!â

He tried to break free. Michael didnât let him. He pushed him back, all the way to the wall, and held him there. Claire couldnât see Michaelâs face, but she could see part of Shaneâs, and she saw something change in it. Shane stopped fighting, as if heâd received some message she hadnât seen.

âI am a good master,â Bishop said, as if none of that had happened. âYou asked me for a birthday favor, Claire. I granted you a visit. Today, I have decided that it was a poor gift. I will give you what you want. Shane will be free to go.â

Claire didnât dare to breathe, blink, move. She knew this was a trick, a cruel way to crush her hopes, and Shaneâs, too. âWhy?â she finally said. Her lips felt numb. âWhy now?â

âBecause I intend to teach you both what it means to defy me, once and for all, and let you carry the tale for me,â Bishop said. âMichael. Hold them, but make sure the two of them see everything. I wonât have my students failing their lessons.â

Bishopâs control let go, and Claire stumbled backward into Michael. His arm went around her waist, and she felt the pressure of his lips close to her ear. âStay still,â he whispered. âNo matter what happens, just stay still. Please. Iâll protect you.â

On Michaelâs other side, Shane was very, very quiet. He wasnât looking at Bishop. He was looking across at Claire, and he was scaredâscared that something was going to happen to her, she realized. She tried for a smile, but wasnât sure how it came out.

Shane opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, a vampire guard came in, bringing a thin, scraggly man with a mess of graying, curling hair and a nasty scar down his face.

Shaneâs dad. He looked older, thinner, and even more vulnerable than he had back in his cellânothing like the big, scary monster whoâd terrified her when sheâd first met him.

âAre you watching, Shane?â Bishop asked. âI want you to learn, so that you donât make the same mistakes again.â

âDad,â Shane said. âDad?â

Frank Collins put his hand out to stop Shane from trying to break free. âItâs all right. Nothing he can do to me now.â He faced Bishop straight on. âBeen there, done that, not scared of anything you can bring to this party, bloodsucker. So just kill me and get it over with.â

Bishop slowly rose from his chair, staying behind the desk.

âBut, Mr. Collins, you mistake me. Iâm not going to kill you. Iâd never do such a thing. Youâre far too valuable to me.â

His pale hands flashed out, grabbed Shaneâs dad, and jerked him forward over the desk. Claire shut her eyes as the fangs came out, and Bishopâs eyes flashed red. She didnât see the actual biting, but she heard Shane screaming.

It was over in about thirty seconds. Shane never stopped fighting to get free of Michaelâs hold.

Claire didnât fight at all. She just couldnât.

She heard a thud as Mr. Collinsâs body hit the floor, and when she opened her eyes she realized that sheâd been wrong about everything. Very wrong.

Bishop wasnât finished.

He gnawed at his wrist, pried open Frank Collinsâs mouth, and poured blood into it as he spread his other hand over the top of the manâs head. Claire had seen this beforeâAmelie had done it to Michaelâbut Amelie had found it difficult and exhausting to make a new vampire.

For Bishop, it seemed easy.

âNo,â Shane said. âNo, stop.â

Right there, right in front of them, Frank Collins coughed, choked, and came back to life. It looked painful, and it seemed to take forever for the thrashing and screaming to stop.

When it did, he wasnât Frank Collins. Not anymore.

He opened his eyes, and they were red.

âYou see?â Bishop said, and wiped excess blood from his wrist on his black jacket. âI am not cruel. Youâll never lose your father, Shane. Never again.â

Claire could hear Shaneâs breath coming fast and raggedâmore sobbing than gaspingâbut she couldnât look at him. She knew him; she knew he wouldnât want her to see him like this. Thatâs Shane. Always trying to protect me.

Michael let Claire go. After a quick glance at her, he turned to Shane. âDonât freak out on me,â he said. âDonât. This isnât the time, and it isnât the place.â

Shane wasnât even looking at him. He was looking at his dad.

Frank Collins, standing next to Bishop, kept staring back at his son, and Claire didnât think that look was concern.

More like hunger.

âI hope everyone learned something today,â Mr. Bishop said. âFirst, I know everything that goes on in Morganville. Second, I donât tolerate foolish attempts at rebellion. Third . . . well. I am so kind and merciful that no one else will die for it today. No, not even the Goldmans, before you bleat the question at me. They have been confined somewhere safe, for now, until I decide on a fitting punishment.â He flicked his fingers at Michael. âSee your friends home, boy. It would be a dreadful irony if they should be drained along the way by some passing stranger. Or relative.â

Emphasis on the dreadful, Claire thought. She grabbed Shaneâs cold, shaking hand and forced him to look at her.

âLetâs go,â she said. âWe have to go, Shane. Right now.â

She wasnât really sure he understood her, but Michael helped nudge him along when he slowed down.

It was a long ten seconds until they were on the other side of the closed door, being eyed by Bishopâs vampire guards. Claire felt like the last sandwich on the lunch counter.

Shane broke out of his trance when they got into the elevator.

Unfortunately.

Michael was pushing the garage button on the elevator panel, and he didnât quite see it coming. Shane got in a lucky shot to his face, fast and vicious, as Michael turned. It was hard enough that Michael, even with vampire strength, felt it, and crashed back against the wall, denting it in an uneven outline of his shoulders.

When Shane tried to follow up with a second punch, Michael caught his fist in an open palm. âThere was nothing I could do, Shane,â he said, but there was something behind the words. Something far kinder. âLetâs wait to do the cage match when Claire isnât trapped in the middle, all right?â

She wasnât exactly in the middle, but close enough. No way could she come out of it unbruised if Shane and Michael decided to really go at it in a small, enclosed space.

Shane stopped, and, as if heâd forgotten that she was there at all, he turned to look at her. For a second there was no expression on his face, and then it all flooded inâpain, fury, relief.

And then horror.

He lowered his fist, gave Michael a look that pretty clearly said, Later, and turned toward Claire. There were two feet of space between them, and about a mile of separation.

âIâm so sorry,â she whispered. âGod, Shane, I am so sorry.â

He shuddered and stepped forward to put his arms around her. As hugs went, it was everything wrapped together in a tangled messâtight, a little desperate, filled with need. He needed her. He really did.

He didnât say anything as the elevator slowly descended. She listened to his breathing, and finally, he made a faint, wordless sound of pain, and pulled away from her. She held on to his hand.

âCome on,â she said, and Michael held the door as the two of them stepped out into the darkened garage. Claire knew there were probably threats out there in the dark, but she didnât care. She was tired, and right now, she hated all of them so much for hurting Shane that she would have staked anybody. Amelie. Sam. Michael. She couldnât believe he hadnât done anything to stop it from happening. She was just now realizing that heâd stood by and . . . watched.

Shane was eerily quiet. Michael moved around them and opened the back door of his Morganville-standard vampmobile; Claire climbed in with Shane, leaving Michael alone in the front seat.

If he had any objections to the seating arrangements, he kept them to himself.

Shane held her hand tightly all the wayâthrough the dark tunnels, then as they traveled the darkened streets. She didnât pay attention to where they were going. Right now, one place was as good as the next, as long as she still had his hand in hers. As long as they stayed together. His misery was a thick black cloud, and it felt like it was smothering them both, but at least they could cling to each other in the middle of it. She couldnât imagine what it would be like all alone.

When Michael braked the car and opened the back door, though, Claire realized that heâd taken Bishopâs instructions literally.

Heâd brought them home.

The decaying Victorian glory of the Glass House stretched up into the night. Live oaks fluttered their stiff little leaves in the breeze, and in the distance black, shiny grackles set up a loud racket of shrieks and rattles in a neighborâs tree. Grackles loved dusk, Claire remembered. It was their noisiest time of the day. The whole neighborhood sounded like broken glass in a blender.

She got Shane out of the car and opened the front gate. As they moved up the steps, the front door opened, and there stood Eveânot in black tonight, but in purple, with red leggings and clunky black platform shoes. She had a stake in one hand and a silver knife in the other, but as she saw them coming up the steps, she dropped both to the floor and lunged to throw herself on Shane.

He caught her in midair, out of self-defense.

âYouâre out!â she cried, and gave him an extra-hard squeeze before jumping back to the top of the steps and doing a victory dance that was a cross between something found in an end zone and a chorus line. âI knew youâd beat the rap, Collins! I just knew it! High five . . . â

She held up her hand for him to smack, but he just looked at her. Eveâs smile and upraised palm faltered, and she looked quickly at Claire, then Michael.

âOh God,â she said, and lowered her hand. âWhat is it? What happened?â

âNot out here. Letâs get inside,â Michael said. âNow.â

Shane didnât make it very far. In fact, five steps down the hallway, he gave up and just . . . stopped. He put his back to the wall, slid down to a sitting position, and sat there, staring down at his hands.

Claire didnât know what she ought to do, other than stay with him. Before she could sit down next to him, though, Eve grabbed her by the elbow and shook her hard. âHey! What happened? You called the house but you got cut off. Iâve been out looking for you ever since, calling everybody I could think of. Hannahâs out looking for you, too. What is it?â

âItâs Shaneâs dad,â Claire said. Eve let go and covered her mouth with one hand, eyes wide. She already had a sense of what was coming. âBishop . . . he . . . he turned him into a vampire. Right in front of us.â Claire looked down at Shane. âRight in front of him.â

Eve didnât know what to say. She just looked at them, and finally at Michael. âYou couldnât do anything about it?â

He kept his head down. âNo.â

âNothing? Nothing at all?â

Michael turned and slammed his fist into the wall with so much violence the whole house seemed to shake. Eve yelped and jumped back, and almost tripped over Shane in her stacked heels.

âNo,â Michael said, with a kind of forced calm that made Claire ache inside. âNothing at all. If I had, Bishop would have known he didnât have me anymore, and that was what he was waiting for. This wasnât about Shane and Claire, or about Shaneâs dad. This was more about finding out if I was still his bitch.â

Shane slowly raised his head, and the two boys stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.

Michael crouched down. âIâd have killed him if I could have,â he said. âIâm not strong enough, and he knows it. Thatâs why he likes to keep me right there, because he knows that deep down I want to rip his head off. Itâs fun for him.â

âSo my dad was just your object lesson,â Shane said. âIs that it?â

Michael reached out and put his hand on Shaneâs knee. Heâd split the skin over his knuckles, and there was plaster dust all over his skin.

It wasnât bleeding.

âWeâre going to get him, Shane. We will.â

âWhoâs we?â Shane asked wearily, and let his head fall back against the wall as he shut his eyes. âJust leave me alone, man. Iâm tired. I just canât . . . Iâm tired.â

Eve put her hand on Michaelâs shoulder. âCome on,â she said. âLeave him alone. He needs time.â

Shane laughed dryly. It was a rattle in his throat, like the sound the grackles were making outside. âYeah. Time. Thatâs what I need.â He didnât sound like himself. Not at all.

Michael didnât want to go, but Eve insisted, tugging on his hand until he stood up and followed her out into the living room.

Leaving Shane sitting alone on the floor.

âHey,â Claire said, and sat down beside him, arms wrapped around her knees. âYou going to sit here all night?â

âMaybe.â

âI just thoughtââ

âWhat? Iâd snap out of it and go play some video games? Eat a taco? Itâs not that easy, Claire. Heâs myââ Shaneâs voice broke, then got stronger. âHe was my dad. There was one thing in the world he was afraid of, and I just watched it happen to him. I canât even think about this right now.â

âI know,â she said, and leaned her head on his shoulder. âIâm so sorry.â

They sat there together for a long time. Eve and Michael looked in on them from time to time. After a while, they quit looking, and Claire saw them head upstairs.

The house grew quiet.

âItâs cold,â Shane finally said. She was getting a little drowsy, despite the discomfort; his voice shocked her back upright again.

âYeah, kinda. Well, itâs the floor.â Although it wasnât really the floorâs fault, Claire supposed.

He considered that in silence for a few long seconds. âI guess itâs pretty stupid to sit here all night.â

âMaybe not. If it makes you feel better . . .â

He stretched out his legs with a sudden thump and sighed. âI donât see how getting cold and losing feeling in my body is going to help. Also, I need a bed that isnât a bunk, and hasnât been the previous property of some dude named Bubba with a farting problem.â

That wasâalmostâthe old Shane. Claire sat up straight and looked up at him. After a second, he met her eyes. He didnât look happy, but he looked . . . better.

He was trying to be better.

âI forgot to say hello,â he said. âBack in Bishopâs office, when I saw you.â

âGiven the circumstances, I think we can let that slide.â She swallowed, because he wasnât looking away. âItâs been a while. Since . . . you know. Bishop put you behind bars.â

âI did notice,â he said, deadpan. âAre you asking if I have any wild men-behind-bars stories to tell you?â

âWhat?â She felt a blush start to burn along her jaw-line, then spill over her cheeks. âNo! Of course not! I just . . . I donât know ifââ

âStop stammering.â

âYou make me stammer. You always have, when you look at me like that.â

âLike what?â

âLike Iâm dessert.â

He licked her on the nose. She squealed and pulled back, swiping at the moisture, but then he was holding her, and his lips were warm and soft and damp, pressing on hers with genuine urgency. He didnât taste like dessert, not at all; he tasted like she imagined really good wine would taste, dark and strong and going straight to her head. Her muscles warmed and purred where he touched her, and it felt like, just for a moment, there was nothing in the world.

Nothing but this.

He broke off the kiss and pressed his hot cheek against her burning one; she felt his breath fluttering the hair above her ear. She felt him draw in a breath to say something, but she got there first.

âDonât,â she whispered. âDonât tell me all the reasons why this isnât a good time, or a good idea. Donât tell me we ought to be thinking about your dad or my parents or what Bishop is doing right now. I want to be here with you. Just . . . here.â

Shane said, âWell, I donât want to be here.â

The world went out of focus, and her heart shattered. Sheâd known it was coming; sheâd known that heâd changed his mind, that all that time apart had given him time to think about what he wouldnât like about her. . . . Why would somebody like Shane love her, anyway? Heâd dated other girls. Better girls. Prettier and smarter and hotter. It had just been a matter of time before he noticed that she was a skinny geek.

But it hurt; oh God, it hurt so badly, like sheâd been stabbed with a dagger made of ice.

She couldnât help the tears that flooded her eyes, and she couldnât hold back the sob. Shane went tense, and pushed her back to armâs length. âWhat?â he asked. âWhat did I say?â

She wanted to tell him it was all right, but it wasnât, it just wasnât, and it never would be. She felt like half of her was dying, and he looked at her in confusion and acted like he didnât understand what heâd done to her.

Claire scrambled away from him and bolted. It was usually Shane who ran away, but this time, she couldnât stay. She couldnât stand to be here, humiliated and stupid and hurting, and try to be nice to him, even though he needed it. Maybe even deserved it.

âClaire!â Shane tried to get up, but his feet wouldnât stay under him. âDammit, waitâmy legs went to sleep; wait! Claireââ

She didnât wait, but somehow, he managed to follow her, lunging after her with feet that must have been like running on concrete blocks. He tripped into her and they fell onto the couch. Claire smacked at him and tried to struggle free. âLet go!â she said around her sobs. âJust let go!â

âNot until you tell me what just happened. Claire, look at me. I donât understand why youâre upset!â

He really didnât know. He was all but begging her to tell him. All right, then, fine. âFine,â she said aloud, in a voice that trembled more than she wanted. âI get it. You donât want to be with me right now. Maybe not ever. I understand, itâs been a long time, and . . . your dad . . . I just . . . I canât . . . Oh, just let me go!â

âWhat in the hell are you talking about?â And then he got it. She saw him run it through his head, and his eyes widened. âOh my God. Claire, you thought I meant I didnât wantâNo. God, no. When I said, âI donât want to be here,â I meant I didnât want to be there. You know, sitting on the cold floor with my ass turning into an ice-berg. I wanted you. I just wanted you somewhere else.â He shook his head. âI meant it as a joke. I was going to say, âI want to be on the couch.â Okay, it was stupid, I know. Sorry. I never meant you to thinkâWait. Why would you think Iâm not into you, anyway?â

Because Iâm a girl, Claire thought. She was barely able to contain the relief welling up inside her. Because weâre all stupid and insecure and think that weâre never, ever good enough. She didnât say that, though. Some things it was better for boys not to know. âI just . . . Itâs been a tough day.â She was still crying, and she couldnât seem to stop. âIâm sorry, Shane. Iâm sorry your dadââ

âHey.â He touched her cheek. âItâs bad, but I can deal. Iâm more worried about you.â

He always was. âWhy?â

He wiped away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. âBecause Iâm not the one doing the crying, for one thing.â

She nodded, shuddered, and started to gulp back the sobs. He waited, holding her, until she was finally quietârelaxed in a way she hadnât been before.

Weirdly happy just to be here, with him, no matter what had happened or would happen. This moment, she thought. This moment is perfect.

âShane?â she asked. She felt drowsy now, lazy in the warmth of his body.

âYes?â

âDo you have any wild men-behind-bars stories?â

âNot really. Sorry to tease you,â he said, and traced his finger down her cheek and over her lips. Slowly. âYou know I spent a lot of time thinking about you, donât you? About how you look, how you smell, how you taste . . .â

âCreepy stalker boy.â

He kissed her. There was something new in it, something fierce and hot and wild, and she felt needs explode inside her she didnât even recognize. Her whole body lifted, like sheâd become metal to his magnet. Shane groaned and rolled her over on her back, his weight on top of her, and kept on kissing her like it was the most important thing in his world.

His lips left hers gasping for air, and traveled down her neck, around the collar of her T-shirt, and his hand dragged the fabric down to expose more skin to his kisses.

Off, Claire thought incoherently, and tried to pull the hem of her shirt up.

Shaneâs hand stopped hers. She looked up at him.

âNot here,â he said. She waited. He looked wary. âWhat?â

âI was just waiting for you to say, âNot now,â too. You know, like always.â

He smiled, and it was pure Shaneâfull of edges and yet oddly sweet.âClaire, I just got out of jail. Do you honestly think Iâm bucking for sainthood or something?â

Her whole body burned with a sudden burst of furious energy. He just said yes. Oh my God. All she could think of to say was, âTell me how much you missed me.â

âNot everything needs a speech.â He was right about that. She could feel the wild energy in him, trembling right under his skinâa match for hers. âBut I have to know, do you want to do this? Really?â

Sheâd been trying not to think about the scary mechanics of the moment. Sheâd asked Eve once, in that conspiracy-whisper voice girls used when they were embarrassed not to already know, whether or not the first time really hurt. Eve had said, very matter-of-factly, yes, and gone on to tell her all about her horrible first-time guy. So part of Claireâs body was dreading the unknown, and part of it was screaming to jump in, no matter what happened.

âYes,â she said, and her whole body went quiet, stunned into silence. âYes, Shane. I want to do this. I want to do it with you.â

He let out his breath in a shaky laugh. âNobody else? Not even the hot nude guy from that movie? No? Okay. No pressure.â He gave her another kiss, this one fast and warm. âUpstairs?â

They slid off the couch together, hand in hand, and he led her up the stairs, looking back at her in warm glances, stopping every few steps to kiss her. By the time they made it to the top, she was tingling and shaking all over.

Shane pointed questioningly at his own door, but she shook her head. Her room was bigger, and it was at the end of the hall. More private.

He pulled in a quick, shaking breath. âFive minutes,â he said. âI need a shower.â

She nodded, although somehow being parted from him made it feel risky. They could change their minds at any second.

She opened her bedroom door as Shane went into the bathroom.

It hadnât occurred to Claire, but she supposed that Eve could have turned her former bedroom into anythingâa Goth wardrobe warehouse, for instance, filled with skull- themed outfits. Or storage for her growing collection of vampire-slaying implements. Instead, the room was just the way Claire had left itâneat, kind of sterile, no trace of her own stuff left behind. There was a layer of dust on the sparse furniture, and the air felt cold for a few seconds, then began to warm up, as if the house sensed her presence and was eager to make her welcome again.

The big, soft bed still had sheets and layers of blankets and comforters.

She closed and sat down on the bed. Her hands were cold and shaking, and now that Shane wasnât here, she felt sense trying to knock itself back into her head.

No, she thought stubbornly. No, not this time.

It was less than five minutes before he came in, hair damp around his face, beads of water on his skin and dampening his shirt.

He leaned against the door after closing it, watching her.

âSo,â he said. âMaybe I should justââ

âShut up, Shane,â she said, and went to kiss him for a long, warm, lingering moment.

Then she reached behind him and locked the door. Just her and Shane, no friends banging on the door, no family ready to drag them apart. Not even a single vampire hiding in the shadows to spoil things.

For once, nothing to make either of them change their minds.

âDonât you dare ask me again if Iâm sure,â Claire said, and raised the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it off. The cold air glided over her flushed skin and made her shiver. She knew she was blushing, and she couldnât stop trembling, but that was all right, somehow. As she dropped the shirt to the floor, she thought, Heâs seen me like this before. Itâs okay.

Shane sat down on the edge of the bed, watching her with absolute concentration. She toed off her shoes, stripped away her socks, unbuttoned her jeans and unzipped them, and kicked them off into the same pile.

Heâs seen me like this before, too.

She reached behind her for the clasp of her bra. But not like this.

âWait,â he said, and pulled his own shirt off. Beneath it, his skin was paler than she remembered, his muscles more defined underneath. âI just want to keep it even.â

She swallowed a nervous laugh. âThen you have to get rid of the pants.â

Shane grinned at her and leaned back to work the button and zipper. âDonât blame me for the underwear,â he said. âItâs prison-issue.â

âI am so glad you didnât say that before. Oh, and donât say that to my parents, ever.â

Shaneâs pants hit the floor, along with his shoes and socks. Claireâs gaze skimmed over him, and she felt dizzy at the sight of so much exposed skin.

âCome over here,â he said. âItâs cold.â

He folded back the covers and slid in. She followed, feeling awkward and made of angles that didnât quite seem to know how to fit together.

Lying beside him felt strange and, at the same time, completely right. They lay inches apart, turned toward each other on their sides. Yearning, and not touching.

Shane lost his smile for a second. âYou can tell me to stop anytime. Always.â

âI know.â

âI wonât be angry about that.â

âShaneââ

âAnyway, I just wanted to tell you something.â

âWhat?â

He reached out and touched the back of his hand to her face. âI love you.â

Somehow, she managed not to cry, although she knew heâd see the glitter of tears in her eyes. âYou said it first this time.â

He looked relieved. âYeah. Finally, huh?â

âFinally,â she whispered. âI love you, too.â

His arms pulled her against him, and she felt small and breathless and utterly secure. It was just a hug, a hug like all the other hugs . . . but it was different, too.

âGod, youâre beautiful,â he said, and she felt his fingers press on her back. Ohâhe was working the hooks on her bra. Heâd had practice, some part of her noticed; the rest was too busy screaming in utter joy.

Then she wasnât able to think about much at all.

It wasnât like in the movies. In the movies, it was all graceful, pretty people and hot camera angles; in real life, it was a weird mix of tremendously exciting and totally awkward. Shane still had condoms in the wallet that he retrieved from his jeans. That was something they never showed in the movies (at least the ones Claire watched). He was kind of embarrassed about it, too. It made it feel real to herâa lot more real than all her old fantasies.

Shane asked a lot of questions, which felt odd at first, but then she realized that he was nervous, just as nervous as she was, and that was all right. He wanted to make her happy.

He did make her happy.

Despite what Eve had told her, the pain still came as a shock, leaping in an electric current through her entire body. If Shane hadnât held her and helped her through it, Claire didnât know how she would have felt about it later . . . but he did, and it got better.

And then it was all right.

And then it was amazing. She cried a little, and she didnât even know why, except that the emotions were just too big for her. Too overwhelming.

âItâs different,â Claire whispered to him in the dark, as they lay there wrapped up together, warm and content. âItâs different from what I thought.â

âDifferent how?â He sounded suddenly worried. Claire kissed him.

âGood different. Different like it means something. Like right nowâit doesnât feel like weâre naked at all, does it?â She didnât know why she said that, but it was true; she didnât feel exposed with him. Just . . . accepted. âIâm not afraid with you. You know what I mean?â

He made a lazy uh-huh sound that meant he might possibly not be listening. âSo it was okay.â

âOkay?â She rose up on one elbow to look down on him. âIs this you fishing for compliments on your hotness?â

âWhy? Did I catch one?â

âIdiot.â She flopped back down and cuddled up against him. His hand caressed the small of her back in tiny circles. âI wonât lie to you: that was intense. And it hurt. But . . . yeah. It was . . . amazing.â

âI hate that it hurt,â he said. âNext timeââ

âI know. It wasnât so bad, though. Donât worry.â The warm cushion of his arm under her head felt like the best pillow in the world. âI feel different. Do I look different?â

Shane brushed hair back from her face. âItâs pretty dark in here, but yeah, I can see it.â

She felt her eyes widen. âYou can?â

âSure.â He traced a finger over her forehead. âClaire is not a virgin. Says so right there.â

She felt her cheeks and forehead heat up, and smacked his arm. âYou are awful.â

âAh, the truth comes out.â

âSeriously. I just feel . . . I do feel different. I feel like Iâm someone else than I was before. You know?â

âYeah,â he said somberly. âI know. But I feel like that every day I wake up in Morganville.â

She kissed him, and tasted the sadness in him. His sigh seemed to come all the way from his toes. âGod, I needed you,â he murmured. âI canât even tell you how many times I thought about this. The funny thing is, I donât need you any less now. I think I need you more.â

That, Claire thought, was a pretty good definition of love: needing someone even after you got what you thought you wanted.

After a long moment, he said, âYour dad is going to kill me. And heâs probably got a right to.â

She hadnât thought about her parents, but now it flooded in with a vengeance. This was going to get messy. And complicated. âItâll be okay,â she whispered, and spread her hand out over his chest. He put his own hand over hers. âWeâll be okay.â

They fell asleep in each otherâs arms, and woke up late in the morning to the sound of birds.

Not grackles.

Songbirds.

8

âYou are so busted,â Eve said, as Claire, fresh from a shower, ran down the steps shouldering her book bag.

Eve was sitting at the dining table, sipping a Coke and reading a Cosmo article with great concentration. She was wearing pink todayâor, as Eve liked to call it, Ironic Pink. Pink shirt with poison skull and bones logo. Matching pink pedal-pushers with skulls embossed at the hems. Little pink skull hair ties on her pigtails, which stood out from her head aggressively, daring someone to mock them.

âExcuse me?â Claire kept moving. Eve barely glanced up from the article.

âDonât even try,â she said. âI know that look.â

âWhat look?â Claire shoved open the kitchen door.

âThe now-I-am-a-woman look. Oh God, donât tell me, please, because then I have to feel guilty that youâre seventeen and I should have been more of a den mom, right?â Claire couldnât think of anything to say. Eve sighed. âHeâd better have been a good, sweet boy to you, or I swear, Iâll kick his ass from here toâHey, is that Shaneâs shirt?â

It was. âNo.â Claire hurried into the kitchen.

Michael was standing at the coffeepot, pushing buttons. He looked over at her and raised his eyebrows, but he didnât say anything.

âWhat?â she demanded, and dumped her book bag on the table as she poured herself a glass of orange juice. âDo I owe back rent?â

âWeâve got some things to talk about other than the rent.â

âLike what?â She kept her stare focused on her OJ.âLike how far youâre going to take this whole undercover-cop thing with Bishop, and whether or not youâre going to get yourself killed? Because Iâm wondering, Michael.â

He took in a deep breath and ran his hands through his curly golden hair as if he wanted to rip a handful out in frustration. The cut on his hand, Claire noticed, was neatly healed without any trace of a scar. âI canât tell you anything else. I already took a huge risk telling you what I did, understand?â

âAnd did I rat you out? No. Because according to Patience Goldman, thisââshe yanked back her sleeve and showed him the tattoo, which was barely a shadow now under her skin, and hardly moving at allââthis thing is running out of juice. I donât think heâs noticed yet, but he probably will soon.â

âThatâs why I told you to stay away from him.â

âNot like I came on my own! Theo . . . â It struck her hard that she hadnât even asked, and she felt all of her good vibes of the morning flee in horror. âOh God. Theo and his familyââ

âTheyâre okay,â Michael said. âThey were taken to a holding cell. I checked on them, and I told Sam. Heâll get word to Amelie.â

âThatâll do a lot of good.â

Michael glanced up at her as he poured his coffee. âYou seem different today.â

She was struck speechless, and she felt a blush burn its crimson onto her face. Michaelâs eyebrows rose, slowly, but he didnât say anything.

âOkay, thatâs . . . not what I meant. And donât ever play poker.â He gave her a half smile to show her he wasnât going to harass her about it. Yet. âYou moving back in?â

âI donât know.â She swallowed and tried to get her racing heartbeat under control. âI need to talk to my parents. Theyâre really . . . Iâm just scared for them, thatâs all. I thought that maybe if I stayed with them, it would make things better, but I think itâs made it worse. I wish I could just get them out of Morganville. Somehow.â

âYou can,â said a voice from the kitchen doorway. It wasâof all people!âHannah Moses, looking tall, lean, and extremely dangerous in her Morganville police uniform, loaded down with a gun, riot baton, pepper spray, handcuffs, and who knew what else. Hannah was one of those women who would command attention no matter what she was wearing, but when she put on the full display, it was no contest at all. âMind if I come in?â

âI think youâre already in,â Michael said, and gestured to the kitchen table. âWant some coffee to go with that breaking and entering?â

âItâs not breaking and entering with a badge, especially if someone lets you in.â

âAnd that would be . . . ?â

âEve. Actually, Iâll have some orange juice, if youâve got more,â Hannah said. âAll coffeed out. Iâve been patrolling all night.â She did look tired, as she settled in a chair and stretched her legs out, although tired for Hannah just looked slightly less focused. She was wearing her cornrowed hair back in a complicated knot at the nape of her neck; having it away from her face emphasized the scar sheâd gotten in Afghanistan, a seam that ran from her left temple over to her nose. On some women it might have been disfiguring. On Hannah, it was kind of a terrifying beauty mark. âItâs getting nasty out there.â

For Hannah to say that, it had to be worse than nasty. Claire poured some orange juice into a Scooby-Doo cup and handed it over before sitting down herself.

Michael said, âYouâre talking about getting Claireâs parents out of town? How is that possible, without tipping off Bishop?â

âOh, thereâs no doubt heâll know,â Myrnin said, from right behind Claireâclose enough that his cool breath touched the back of her neck, and she squealed and spilled her drink all over the table. âWhat he knows no longer matters. We want him to know.â

âHow did you get in here?â Michael asked, and from the shock on his face, he clearly hadnât seen Myrnin make his appearance, either. Myrnin, when Claire turned to look at him, was smirking. Heâd had a bath; his hair, face, and hands were clean, although his clothes still held on to their well-lived-in filth.

âYouâd hardly understand it if I told you. But to answer your question, Chief Moses has complete cooperation from me in bypassing the safeguards around the town. We need to get specific groups of people out of Morganville, and among those people are your parents, Claire.â

She wet her lips. âAny special reason weâre moving so fast now?â

âYes,â he said, and Hannah sent him a sharp look that would have stopped anybody sane. Didnât work on him, of course. âWe are ready. Once Bishop starts killing, he will start with the ones we love first. That includes your parents, Claire, who will have no way to defend themselves.â

He knew something. She could see it, and it scared her to death. âWhen?â

He spread his hands. âUnknown. But I can tell you that itâs coming. Michael knows this as well.â

Michael didnât say anything, but he studied the table very hard. Claire resisted an urge to fling some orange juice his way. âWhen can we get them out of town?â

âIâll handle getting them packed and ready to go,â Hannah said. âIâm filling two buses with the most likely targets, and those are getting a mandatory evac out of Morganville in the next two hours.â Claire saw a movement at the door, and noticed that Eve had slipped inside the kitchen, but was standing silently against the wall. As she watched, Shane came in, too, fresh from a shower, hair sparkling with drops. His gaze locked with hers, but he didnât come to her; he took up wall space next to Eve.

Hannah noticed them, too. âYou two,â she said. âYouâre on the bus today. Grab a bag. Pack for a couple of days. If you need more, weâll get it for you.â

Eve and Shane both talked at once, an out-of-tune duet of angry denials. Eve slapped Shane on the shoulder and shut him up so she could go first. âNo way. Iâm not going anywhere, Hannah. End of story.â

Shane added, âIâm not going anywhere if Claire stays here.â

âThen she goes, too,â Hannah said. âI was going to do that anyway.â

But both Michael and Myrnin were shaking their heads. âShe canât,â Michael said. âFaded or not, that tattoo links her directly to Bishop. Heâd still be able to track her downâand all the others who went with her.â

âNot necessarily,â Myrnin said. âThere are vampires who could block his perception of her, if they traveled with her. But they are not available at present.â

âPatience Goldman,â Claire said. âRight?â

âIf Theo had only waited one more day, this could have been avoided. I had planned to use her for that very purpose. But I suppose the fault is ours; if weâd kept him closer in our plans, he would not have acted so stupidly.â Myrnin shrugged.

âI still wouldnât have gone,â Claire said. âIâm not leaving Michael all by himself, pretending to be Bishopâs best friend.â

âOh, thanks for that. Glad I inspire such confidence.â

âWell, you donât. Youâre not a spy, Michael. Youâre a musician.â

âThe two,â Myrnin said dryly, âare not mutually exclusive. But Michael is right. Our little Claire cannot leave the boundaries of Morganville, as matters stand just now. Besides, I need her at my side.â

âWell, if sheâs not going,â Shane said, âcount me out of the running away party.â

âDitto,â from Eve.

Hannah gave them both looks that should have made suitcases magically appear in their hands, but then she gave up and shook her head. âI canât promise you Iâll be able to keep you safe. Understand?â

Eve rolled her eyes. âHave we ever asked for that? Like, ever? You know us, Hannah. We all went to the same high schoolâwell, except for Claire. We Morganville kids have dodged vamps our whole lives. Not like itâs new territory.â

âNot true,â Myrnin said, very soberly. âYou might have played games with Morganvilleâs tamed vampires, restrained by rules and laws. Youâve never really faced someone like Bishop, who has no conscience and no restraint.â

âDonât care,â Eve shot back. âThat just means itâs more important that we all stick together.â

âAlways some crazy fool who stays with a hurricane coming. Canât save everybody.â Hannah drained her orange juice down to a pale froth on the bottom of the glass. âAll right. Iâm moving on. Weâre pulling people from the Founder Houses first, then anybody who has ties to Amelie, then people who were in the old Morrell administration. And yeah, the Morrells, too.â

âIsnât Richard missing?â

âNo,â Hannah said. âRichardâs just been working with us to get people lined up for evacuation. I told his damn sister to cool it, but sheâs still ringing every alarm bell she can find. Wish I could find a special bus just for her. A stinky, slow one. Preferably with a backed-up toilet.â

Claire smiled at that, then remembered someone else. âThe Goldmans,â she said. âThey need help, too. Can you get them?â

âNo idea where they are,â Hannah said.

âI know.â Myrnin looked thoughtful.âIâm not sure, but I can try,â he said. âThey have no blood ties to Amelie or to Bishop, so they would be safe enough if we could get them on their way. But itâs a risk including vampires in your evacuation.â

âThen again, it means that we have some vampires fighting on our side if things go wrong outside of town,â Hannah pointed out. âNot a bad thing.â

âProvided the Goldmans will alight.â He seemed about to say something else, but then he shook his head and made his hands into fists. âNo, that isnât what I meant. Will fight. No. Provided that . . . provided . . . â

He was losing it. Claire got up and opened her backpack. She took out a small box of red crystals and handed it over; for most vampires, it would have been a massive dose. For a human, it was certain, gruesome death.

For Myrnin, it was like taking a handful of candy. He choked, swallowed, and nodded as he tossed the empty box back to her. Then he turned away, face to the corner, and braced himself with outspread arms, head down. His whole body shook.

Thatâs not supposed to happen.

Then he spasmed so badly she thought he was going to fall. âMyrnin!â Claire touched his shoulder; sheâd never seen this happen beforeânot this bad, anyway. âWhatâs wrong?â

He whispered, âGet away. Get them all away from me, now.â

âButââ

âEverything smells like blood. Get them away.â

Claire let go and backed up, gesturing for Hannah and even Michael to follow. Nobody said a word. Shane held open the kitchen door, and they all left.

All except Claire, who stayed at the exit, watching Myrnin fight for his life and sanity, one slow second at a time.

She saw his shoulders relax, and felt her tide of worry begin to recedeâuntil he turned toward her.

His eyes werenât red. They were white. Just . . . white, with the faint shadow of an iris and pupil showing through. The eyes of a corpse.

âClaire,â he said, and took a step toward her.

Then he fell, hit the ground, and went completely limp.

âWe could take him to the hospital,â Hannah said, but not as if she thought it was a good idea. Claire was kneeling next to Myrnin, with Michael hovering near her, ready to yank her out of the way if Myrnin should suddenly surge back to bloodsucking life.

He was quiet. He looked dead.

âI think this is a little beyond the hospital,â Claire said. âItâs part of the disease. Itâs in his notesâhe charted the progress; sometimes this happens. They just . . . collapse. They revive, but usually when they do, theyâre notââ Her voice failed her, and she had to clear her throat. âNot the same.â Myrninâs notes, what she could remember of them, seemed to indicate that whenâor ifâthe vampire recovered from the coma, he didnât have much left of his original personality.

Myrnin had been sick a long time. Heâd lost the ability to create other vampires more than a hundred years ago; heâd begun behaving weirdly about another fifty years after, and from there it had progressed rapidly. Amelie, by contrast, was just now getting to the early physical symptomsâthe occasional loss of emotional control, and the shakes. Oliver . . . well. Who knew if Oliverâs problem was the disease or just a bad attitude?

The fact that Myrnin had held out longer than at least thirty other vampires confined underground in cells was either proof that the disease didnât work the same way in everyone, or that Myrnin was incredibly determined. He hadnât wanted to take the cure . . . but there wasnât a choice now. He had to take it.

And she had to get him to Dr. Mills.

They carried him through the portalâwell, Michael and Hannah carried him; Claire concentrated on getting them to their target location, the basement of Morganville High. âStay here,â Claire said. âIâm going to get the doctor.â

âWe can carry him up,â Michael said. He was being charitable; he could have done it on his own, no problem, but he was letting Hannah take half the weight.

âI know,â Claire said. âI just donât want to lead a really obvious parade to a secret hideout.â

She didnât wait for an answer, just dashed up the steps, through the broken-locked door, and out into the hallways, dodging around oblivious teens her own age who were hustling to and from class. It was early morning, but Morganville High was in full session, and Claire had to shove her way through the crowd with a little more force than usual.

Somebody grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hauled her to a sudden stop. She flailed for escape, but it was just like alwaysâshe was too small, and he was way too big.

Her captor was wearing a shirt and tie, and had the drill sergeant hairstyle of school officials everywhere. He glared at her as if she was some bug heâd caught scurrying across his dinner table. âWhat do you think youâre doing?â he demanded. âNo shoving in the halls!â

âIâm not a student!â she yelled. âLet go of me!â

He got a glance at the gold bracelet on her wrist, and his eyes went wide; he quickly focused back on her face. âYouâre that girlâClaire. Claire Danvers.The FounderâsâSorry.â He let her go so suddenly she almost toppled over. âMy apologies, miss. I thought you were just another of these rude punk kids.â

There were a few moments in her new, weird life when it was all worth itâworth being the freak of nature with all the baggage that had been loaded on her in Morganville.

This was one of them. She braced herself, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him with the kind of icy calm that she imagined Amelie would have brought down like a guillotine blade. âI am a rude punk kid,â she said. âBut Iâm a rude punk kid you donât get to order around. Now, Iâd like you to leave me alone and go to your office. And shut the door. Now.â

He looked at her as if he couldnât quite believe his ears. âExcuse me?â

âYou heard me. I donât need you out here causing trouble right now. Go!â

He looked confused, but he nodded reluctantly and headed for a door marked ADMINISTRATION farther down the hall.

âEat your heart out, Monica,â Claire murmured. âThanks for the bitch lessons.â She broke into a full run, leaving him and his petty kingdom behind.

Myrnin had taken her through darkened corridors, but she remembered the turns; she also remembered a little too late that the way was dark, and wished sheâd thought to grab a flashlight somewhere along the way. There was little light coming into the hall during the last leg, and desks and chairs stacked randomly in her path; she had to slow down or end up taking an epic spill.

Finally, she saw the locked doors at the end of the hallway, and lunged around a dusty teacherâs desk to batter at the heavy wood panel.

âHey!â No answer. She knocked again. âDr. Mills! Dr. Mills, open up; itâs Claire! I need your help!â

There was no answer. She tried the door handle.

âDr. Mills?â

The door opened without the slightest resistance.

The room was empty. No sign of a struggleâno sign of anything, actually. It looked like nobody had ever been here. All of the equipment was back on the shelves, sparkling and clean; there was no sign of the production of serum and crystals that had been going on here. The only thing that gave it away was the lack of a coating of dust.

Claire dashed for the room behindâthe teacherâs office and locked storage, where the Mills family had been living.

Same story. Nothing there to show theyâd ever been here, not so much as a scrap of paper or a lost toy. âOh God, they were moved,â Claire whispered, and turned to run back to where sheâd left her friends. She hoped the Mills family had been moved, at least. The alternative was much, much worse, but she couldnât see Bishopâor his henchmenâtaking the time and energy to clean up after themselves. They certainly hadnât in Myrninâs lab.

Claire let out an involuntary yell because a ghostly womanâblack and white, shades of gray, no color to her at allâblocked the way out.

She looked like sheâd stepped right out of a photograph from the Victorian ages. Big full skirts, hair done up in a bun, body slender and graceful. She stared straight at Claire, hands clasped in front of her. There was something so creepy and aware about her that Claire skidded to a sudden halt, not sure what she should do, but absolutely sure she didnât want to go anywhere near that image.

Claire could see the room behind right through her body. As she watched, the ghost broke up into a mist of static, then re-formed. She put a finger to her lips, gestured to Claire, and glided away.

âGhosts,â Claire said. âGreat. Iâm going crazy. Thatâs all there is to it.â

Only, when she checked the other room, the ghost was still there, hovering a couple of inches above the floor. So at least she was consistently crazy.

The phantom beckoned for Claire to follow, and turnedâgetting thinner and thinner, disappearing, then widening again to show a back view. Not at all like a real person, more like a flat cardboard cutout making a one-eighty. It was startling and eerie, and Claire thought, Iâm not hallucinating this, because Iâd never imagine that on my own.

She followed the ghost back out into the science lab, then out into the hallway. Then into another classroom, this one empty except for desks and chalkboards. The same dusty sense of disuse lay over everything. It didnât feel like anyone had been here in years.

The ghost turned to the chalkboard, and letters formed in thin white strokes.

AMELIE HAS WHAT YOU NEED, it wrote. FIND AMELIE. SAVE MYRNIN.

âWho are you?â Claire asked. The ghost gave her a very tiny smile. It seemed annoyed, and more than a little superior.

Three letters appeared on the chalkboard. ADA.

âYouâre the computer?â Claire couldnât help it; she laughed. Not only was she talking to a blood-drinking computer, but it liked to think of itself as some gothic-novel heroine. Plucky Miss Plum the governess. âHow do youâOh, never mind, I know itâs not the time. How can I find Amelie?â

USE BRACELET. Adaâs black-and-white image flickered again, like a signal getting too much interference. When she re-formed, she looked strained and unhappy. HURRY. NO TIME.

âI donât know how!â

Ada looked even more annoyed, and wrote something on the boardâbut it was faint, and faded almost before Claire could read it. B-L-O . . . âBlood?â Claire asked. Ada herself was fading, but Claire saw her mouth the word yes. âOf course. What else? Why canât any of you guys ever come up with something that uses chocolate ?â

No answer from the computer/spirit world; Ada disappeared in a puff of white mist and was gone. Claire looked around and found a thumbtack pressed into the surface of a bulletin board. She hesitated, positioned the thumbtack over her finger, and muttered, âIf I get tetanus, Iâm blaming you, Myrnin.â

Then she stabbed the sharp point in, and came up with a few fat drops of red that she dripped onto the surface of the symbol on Amelieâs bracelet.

It glowed white in the dim light. The blood disappeared into the grooves, and the whole bracelet turned warm, then uncomfortably hot against her skin. Claire gritted her teeth until she felt a scream coming on, and finally, the burning sensation faded, leaving the metal oddly cold.

And that was it. Amelie didnât magically appear. Claire wasnât sure what sheâd expected, but this seemed really anticlimactic.

She stuck the thumbtack back on the board and went back to tell Hannah and Michael that sheâd completely failed.

Dejected, she headed back to the basement. The hallways were deserted now, since classes were back in session. As she passed the administration office door, it opened, and the man sheâd sent to his room like a little kid looked out. âMiss Danvers?â he asked. âIs there something I can do for you?â

This was every high school kidâs fantasy, Claire thought, and she was tempted to tell him to do something crazy, like strip naked and run around the auditorium. But instead she just shook her head and kept on walking.

He came out of the door and got in her way.

âCould you put in a good word for me?â he asked, and when she tried to go around him, he grabbed her by the arm. He lowered his voice to a fast, harsh whisper. âTell Mr. Bishop I can help him. I can be of use. Just tell him that!â

The big double doors leading out into the sunlight at the end of the hall crashed open, and a whole troop of people came flooding in. They all wore long, dark hooded coats, and they moved fast, with a purpose.

Faster than humans.

The two in the lead threw back their hoods, and Claire was relieved to see that one of them was Amelie, perfectly composed and looking as in charge as ever, even if she wasnât queen of Morganville anymore.

The other leader of the pack was Oliver, of course. Not so comforting.

âMilton Dyer,â Amelie said. âPlease take your hand off of my friend Claire. Now.â

The man went about as pale as his white shirt, and looked down at Claire, and his hand wrapped around her arm. He let go as if sheâd suddenly become electrified.

âNow go away,â Amelie said to him in that same calm, emotionless voice. âI donât wish to see you again.â

âI . . . â He wet his lips. âIâm still loyal to my Protector... â

âYour Protector was Charles,â Amelie said. âCharles is dead. Oliver, do you have any interest in picking up Mr. Dyerâs contract?â

âI really donât,â Oliver said. He sounded bored.

âThen that settles things. Leave my sight, Mr. Dyer. The next time you cross my path, Iâll finish you.â She said it without any particular sense of menace, but Claire didnât doubt for an instant that she meant it. Neither did Mr. Dyer, who quickly retreated to his office. He didnât even dare to slam the door. It closed with a soft, careful click.

Leaving Claire in the hallway with a bunch of vampires. Old ones, she thoughtâAmelie and Oliver were obviously old, but the others seemed to have come through their sunlight stroll without a mark, too. Ten of them in total. Most of them didnât bother to put their hoods back and reveal their faces.

âYou used the bracelet in a way that I did not teach you,â Amelie said. âWho showed you how to use it to summon me?â

âWhy?â

âDonât play games with me, Claire. Was it Myrnin?â

âNo. It was Ada.â

Amelieâs gray eyes flickered, just a little, but it was enough to tell Claire that she had knowledge that Amelie wished she didnât. âI see. Weâll talk of that later,â she said. âWhy did you use the blood call? Itâs intended to alert me only if you are seriously injured.â

âWell, someone is. Myrninâs very sick. Heâs downstairs. I need to get him some help. I came to find Dr. Mills, butââ

âDr. Mills has been relocated,âAmelie said.âI thought it best, after Myrninâs ill-advised visit here. I canât tell you where he is. You understand why.â

Claire knew. And she felt sick and a little angry, too. âYou think I might give him away. To Bishop. Well, I wouldnât. Myrnin knew that.â

âWhatever Myrnin believes, I canât take the risk. We are close to the endgame, Claire. I risk only what I must.â

âYouâre not happy that Myrnin introduced me to Ada, are you?â Claire asked.

âMyrninâs judgment has been . . . questionable of late. As you say, he is ill. Where can we find him?â

âDownstairs, by the portal,â Claire said. Amelie nodded a brisk dismissal and turned to go, along with all of her followers. âWait! What do you want me to do?â

Amelie said nothing. Oliver, lingering behind for just a moment, said, âStay out of our way. If you value your friends, keep them out of our way, too.â

Then they were gone, moving fast and silently through the basement doorway.

Claire stood in the empty hallway for a few deep breaths, hearing the sounds of lectures continuing on inside of classrooms, student voices raised in questions or answers.

Life went on.

So weird.

She started to go down to the basement, but a vampire she didnât know blocked the entrance. âNo,â he said flatly. âYou donât go with us.â

âButââ

âNo.â

âHannah and Michaelââ

âThey will be taken care of. Leave.â

There wasnât any room for negotiation. Claire finally got the hint, and turned away to walk out of the high school the old-fashioned way . . . into the sunlight, the way Amelie and her gang had come. She had no idea where theyâd come from, or where they were going.

Amelie wanted it that way.

Claire sat down on the steps of the high school for a few long minutes, shivering in the cold wind, not much warmed by the bright sun in a cloudless sky. The street outside the school looked emptyâa few cars making their way around Morganville, but not much else going on.

She heard the door behind her open, and Hannah Moses clumped down in her heavy boots and offered Claire a big, elegant hand. Claire took it and stood. âAmelieâs taking care of him?â she asked. Hannah nodded. âMichael went with?â

âHeâll see you later,â Hannah said. âImportant thing is to get you out of here. I need you to help me get your parents on that bus.â

âBishopâs going to find out,â she said. âYou know that, right? Heâs going to find out what youâre doing.â

Hannah nodded. âThatâs why weâre doing it fast, girlfriend. So letâs move.â

Mom and Dad were having an argument; Claire could hear it from where she and Hannah stood on the front porch of their house, ringing the doorbell. Claire felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her parents didnât fight very often, but when they did, it was usually over something important.

The shouty blur of voices broke off, and about ten seconds later, the door whipped open. Claireâs mom stood there, color burning high in her cheeks. She looked stricken when she caught sight of Claire, very obviously a guilty-looking earwitness to the fighting, but she rallied and gave a bright smile and gestured them both inside.

âSheriff Hannah Moses, maâam,â Hannah said without waiting for introductions. âI donât think weâve met in person before. Iâve known your daughter for a while now. Sheâs good people.â

She offered her hand, and Claireâs mother took it for a quick shake as her eyes darted anxiously from Claire to Hannah, then back. âIs there some kind of problem, Sheriff Moses?â

âHannah, please.â Hannah really was turning on the charm, and she had an awful lot of it. âMay I talk with you and your husband at the same time? This concerns both of you.â

With only a single, worried look over her shoulder, her mother led the way down the long hallway and into the living room area. Same floor plan as the Glass House, but so wrenchingly different, especially now. Claire got mental whiplash from expecting to see the familiar battered couch and Michaelâs guitar and the cheerful stacks of books against the wall; instead, her motherâs ruthlessly efficient housekeeping had made this room magazine-feature-ready, everything carefully aligned and straightened.

The only thing that wasnât ready for the photo shoot was Claireâs father, who sat in one of the leather armchairs, face flushed. He had a stubborn set to his jaw, and an angry fire in his eyes that Claire hadnât seen in, well, forever. Still, he got to his feet and shook hands with Hannah, politely gesturing her to the couch while Claireâs mom sank down on the other end, with Claire left to take the middle seat. Normally, her mom would have been fluttering around offering coffee and cookies and sandwiches, but not this time. She just took the other armchair and looked worried.

Hannah said, âLetâs put all our cards on the table. Thereâs a town emergency. Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, you are going to need to come with us. Pack a bag for a few nights, take whatever you need that you canât live without. I can give you about fifteen minutes.â

That was . . . blunt. Claire blinked. She expected a flood of questions from her parents, but she was surprised by the silence.

Claireâs parents looked at each other, and then her father nodded. âGood,â he said. âIâve wanted to do this for a while. Claire, go with your mother and pack. Iâll be up in a second.â

âUm . . .â Claire cleared her throat and tried not to look as awkward as she felt. âIâm not going, Dad.â

They both looked at her as if sheâd spoken in Chinese. âOf course you are,â her mom said. âYouâre not staying here alone. Not with what we know about how dangerous it is.â

âIâm sorry, but you know just enough about Morganville to get yourselves in trouble,â Hannah said. âThis really isnât up for discussion. You have to pack, and you have to go. And Claire canât come with you, at least not yet.â

One thing about Hannah: when she said something like that, she clearly meant it. In the silence that fell, Claire felt the weight of both her parentsâ stares directly on her, so she looked down at her clasped hands instead. âI canât,â she said. âItâs complicated.â

âNo, itâs not,â her dad said, with a steely undertone in his voice she couldnât remember hearing before. âItâs absolutely simple. Iâm your father, youâre under eighteen, and youâre coming with us. Iâm sorry, Chief Moses, but sheâs too young to be here on her own.â

âDad, you sent me here on my own!â Claire said.

âWhy do you think we were fighting, Claire?â her mom replied. âYour father was just reminding me that I was the one who thought sending you to a school close by, just to get some experience with it, would be a good idea. He wanted you to go straight to MIT, although how we were going to pay for that, I really donât have anyââ

Dad interrupted her. âWeâre not going to start this up again. Claire, we were wrong to let you go off on your own here in the first place, no matter how safe we thought it would be. And weâre fixing that now. Youâre coming with us, and things will be better once weâre out of this town.â

Claireâs hands formed into fists as frustration boiled up inside her. âAre you listening to me? Itâs too late for all that stuff! I canât go with you!â

She should have guessed that theyâd make the wrong assumptions . . . and, in a way, the right one. âItâs the boy, isnât it?â Claireâs mother said. âShane?â

âWhat? No!â Claire blurted out a denial that, even to her own ears, sounded lame and guilty. âNo, not really. Itâs something else. Like I said, itâs complicated.â

âOh my God . . . Claire, are you pregnant?â

âMom!â She knew she looked as mortified as she felt, especially with Hannah looking on.

âHoney, has that boy taken advantage of you?â Her father was charging full speed down the wrong path; he even stood up to make it more dramatic. âWell?â

Claire stared at him, openmouthed, unable to even try to speak. She knew she should lie, but she just couldnât find the words.

In the ringing silence, her father said, âI want him arrested.â

Hannah asked, âOn what charge, sir?â

âAre you kidding? He had sex with my underage daughter!â He gave Claire a look that was partly angry, partly wounded, and all over dangerous. âGo ahead, tell me Iâm wrong, Claire.â

âIt . . . wasnât like that!â

Her dad transferred his glare over to Hannah. âYou see? Iâll swear out a complaint if I need to.â

Hannah looked perfectly comfortable. âSir, thereâs no complaint to be sworn out here. Fact is, Claire is seventeen years old, which by Texas law makes her able to give consent on her own. Shaneâs only a year older than she is. Thereâs no laws being broken here, beyond maybe the law of good sense, which I think youâll admit is often a casualty of our teen years. This is a family matter, not a matter for the police.â

Her father looked shocked, then even angrier. âThatâs insane! It has to be illegal!â

âWell, itâs not, sir, and it has nothing to do with why Iâm telling you Claire needs to stay in Morganville. That has to do with the vampires.â Hannah had deftly moved the whole thing off the subject of Shane and sex, for which Claire was spine-meltingly grateful. âIâm telling you this for your own good, and for Claireâs own good: she stays here. She wonât be unprotected; I promise you that. Weâre committed to keeping her safe.â

âWhoâs we?â Claireâs dad wasnât giving up without a fight.

âEverybody who counts,â Hannah said, and raised her eyebrows. âTimeâs a-wastinâ, Mr. Danvers. We really canât debate this. You need to go right now. Please go pack.â

In the end, they did. Claire went to help her mother, reluctantly; she didnât want the subject to come back to her and Shane, but it did as soon as the door was closed. At least her father wasnât in the room. God, that had been awkward.

âHoney.â Claire paused in the act of dragging a suitcase out from under her parentsâ bed, took one look at the serious expression on her motherâs face, and kept on with what she was doing. âHoney, I really donât like your getting involved with that boyâthat man. And itâs not appropriate for you to be living in that house with him. I just canât allow that.â

âMom, could we please focus on not getting killed today? I promise, you can give me the Iâm-so-disappointed-in-you speech tomorrow, and every day after, if you will just pack!â

Her mother opened a drawer of the dresser by the window, grabbed a few handfuls of things at random, and threw them into the open suitcase. Not normal. Mom made those people who worked retail clothing stores look sloppy about how they folded things. She moved on to the next drawer, then the next. Claire struggled to neaten up the mess.

âJust tell me this,â her mother said as she dumped an armload of clothes from the closet onto the bed. âAre you being safe?â

Oh lord, Claire did not want to have the birds-and-bees part two conversation with her mother. Not now. Not ever, to be honest; theyâd suffered through it once, awkwardly, and once was enough. âYes,â she said, with as calm and decisive a tone as she could manage. âHe insisted.â She meant that to reflect well on Shane. Of course, Mom took it the wrong way.

âYou mean you didnât? Oh, Claire. Itâs your body!â

âMom, of course Iââ Claire took a deep breath. âCan we just pack? Please?â

She winced as a rain of shoes descended on the bed.

Hannah was waiting when she finally dragged the suitcase downstairs. Claireâs father had come in for a few minutes, just long enough to add his few things to the pile, and then heâd tried to tote the bag himself, but Claire had insisted on doing it. The thing was fifty pounds, at least.

Hannah raised her eyebrows at Claire. What happened?

Claire rolled her eyes. Donât ask.

It was a cold, silent ride to the bus.

Richard Morrell had commandeered two genuine Grey-hound buses, with plush seats and tinted windows. According to the hand-lettered sign in the front window, it was a charter heading to Midland/Odessa, but Claire suspected theyâd go somewhere else as a destination.

The first bus was already being loaded by the time Claire arrived with her parents; in line to board were most of the town officials and Founder House residents, including the Morrells. Eve was there, too, holding a clipboard and checking people in at a folding table.

âOh, look, thereâs your friend,â Claireâs mom said, and pointed. âShe doesnât look very happy.â

She wasnât pointing at Eve, but at Monica. Monica definitely wasnât happy. She had to be forced onto the bus, arguing the entire time with her brother, who looked harassed and angry. Sheâd somehow managed to shoe-horn her two friends into the evacuation along with her, although Gina and Jennifer looked a lot more relieved at being given a chance to leave town. Monica was probably thinking that she stood a better chance of social queen bee-ness with Bishop than if Amelie was in charge, but she was thinking short-term; if what Myrnin said was right, and Claire had no reason to think it wasnât, then the entire social order of Morganville was about to get shattered, and being the most popular wouldnât get you anything but more face time with the firing squad.

The argument with Monica came from the fact that Richard Morrell refused to get on the bus. Well, Claire had seen that coming. He wasnât the type to run. âThereâs a whole town here that canât get out,â he snapped at his sister, who was stubbornly resisting getting pushed toward the idling bus. âPeople who need looking after. Iâm the mayor. I have to stay. Besides, since Dadâs gone, Iâm on the town council. I canât just go.â

âYou have got such an ego, Richard! Nobodyâs counting on you. Most of the stupid people in this town would claw one another apart to get out, if they thought they could.â

âThatâs why Iâm staying,â he said. âBecause those people need order. But I need for you to go, Monica. Please. You need to look after our mom.â

Monica wavered. Claire, looking up, could see Mrs. Morrell sitting on the bus, looking out the window with a distant, remote expression. Monica had said her mother wasnât dealing very well, and she did look thin and frail and not entirely in this world.

âThat is such emotional blackmail!â Monica spat. Behind her, Gina and Jennifer looked at each other, took a few quiet steps back, and mounted the stairs to board the bus, leaving Monica on her own. âSeriously, Richard. I canât believe youâre sending me away like this!â

âBelieve it. Youâre getting on, and getting out of here. Now. I need you to be safe.â He hugged her, but she stiff-armed him with an angry glare, and turned and boarded without another word. She slumped into the seat behind Jennifer and Gina, next to her mother, and folded her arms in silent protest.

Richard breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Claireâs parents. âPlease,â he said. âWe need to get these buses moving.â

Claireâs father shook his head.

âDad,â Claire said, and tugged on his arm. âDad, come on.â

He still hesitated, staring at Hannah, then Richard, then Claire. Still shaking his head in mute refusal.

âDad, you have to go! Now!â Claire practically shouted. She felt sick inside, worried for them and relieved to think theyâd be safe, finally, somewhere outside of Morganville. Somewhere none of this could touch them. âMom, please. Just make him go! I donât want you here; youâre just in the way!â

She said it in desperation, and she saw it hurt her parents a little. Sheâd said worse to them over the years; sheâd had her share of I hate you and I wish you were dead, but that had been when she was just a kid and thought she knew everything.

Now, she knew she didnât, but in this case, she knew more than they did.

Frustrating, because theyâd never see it that way.

âDonât you talk to us like that, Claire!â her mother snapped. Her dad put a hand on her shoulder and patted, and she took a deep breath.

âAll right,â Dad said, âI can see youâre not going to come without a fight, and I can see your friends here arenât going to help us.â He paused, and Claire swallowed hard at the look in his eyes as he locked stares with Hannah, then Richard. âIf anything happens to our daughterââ

âSir,â Richard said. âIf you donât get on the bus, something is going to happen to all of us, and itâs going to be very, very bad. Please. Just go.â

âYou need to do it for your daughter,â Hannah added. âI think you both know that, deep down. So you let me worry about taking care of Claire. You two get on the bus. I promise you, this will be over soon.â

It was a sad sort of farewell, full of tears (from Mom and Claire) and the kind of too-strong hug that meant Claireâs father felt just as choked up, but wasnât willing to show it. Her mother smoothed her hair, just like sheâd done since Claire was a little girl, and kissed her gently on the cheek.

âYou be good,â she said, and looked deep into Claireâs eyes. âWeâre going to talk about things later.â

She meant about Shane, of course. Claire sighed and nodded, and hugged her one last time. She watched them walk up the stairs and onto the bus.

Her parents took a seat near the front, with her mom next to the window. Claire gave a sad little wave, and her mom waved back. Mom was still crying. Dad looked off into the distance, jaw set tight, and didnât wave back.

The bus closed its doors with a final hiss and pulled away from the deserted warehouse that served as a dropoff point for the departures. Three police cars fell in behind it, driven by people Hannah had handpicked.

Claire shivered, even though she was standing in the sun. Theyâre leaving. Theyâre really leaving. She felt very alone.

The bus looked so vulnerable.

âCold?â A jacket settled around her shoulders. It smelled like Shane. âWhat did I miss?â

She turned, and there he was, wearing an old gray T-shirt and jeans. His leather jacket felt like a hug around her body, but it wasnât enough; she dived into the warmth of his arms, and they clung together for a moment. He kissed the top of her head. âItâs okay,â he said. âTheyâll be okay.â

âNo, itâs not okay,â she said, muffled against his chest. âItâs just not.â

He didnât argue. After a moment, she turned her head, and together they watched the caravan stream away toward the Morganville city limits.

âWhy is it,â she asked in a plaintive little voice, âthat I can fight vampires and risk death and they can accept that, but they canât accept that Iâm a woman, with my own life?â

Shane thought about that for a second; she could see him trying to work it out through the framework of his own admittedly weird childhood. âMust be a girl thing?â

âYeah, must be.â

âSo Iâm guessing you told them.â

âUm . . . not on purpose. I didnât expect them to be so . . . angry about it.â

âYouâre their little girl,â Shane said. âYou know, when I think about it, Iâd feel the same way about my own daughter.â

âYou would?â There was something deliciously warm about the fact that he wasnât afraid to say that to her. âSo,â she said, with an effort at being casual that was probably all too obvious. âYou want to have a daughter, then?â

He kissed the top of her head. âHit the brakes, girl.â

But he didnât sound angry about it, or nervous. Justâas was usual with Shaneâfocused on what was in front of them right now. A sense of calm was slowly spreading through her, sinking deeper with every breath. It felt better when she was with him. Everything felt better.

Shane asked, âWhat about the Goldmans? Were they on the bus, too?â

âI didnât see the Goldmans,â Claire said. âHannah?â

Hannah Moses was still standing nearby, signing papers on a clipboard that another uniformed Morganville cop had handed her. She glanced toward the two of them. âCouldnât get to them,â she said. âMyrnin was going to arrange that, but weâve got no way to get them out of Bishopâs control right now. The clockâs running, and itâs only a matter of minutes before Bishop finds out what we just did, if he hasnât already.â

Richard Morrellâs phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt and checked the number, then flipped it open and walked away to talk for a moment. Claire watched him pace, shoulders hunched, as he had his conversation. When he folded up the phone and came back, his face was tense. âHe knows,â he said. âBishopâs calling a town hall meeting for tonight at Founderâs Square. Everybody must attend. Nobody stays home.â

âOh, come on. You canât get everybody in town to a meeting. What if they donât get the message? What if they just donât want to do it?â Claire asked. Even in Morganville, making people stick to rulesâwhatever the rules wereâwas like herding cats.

Richard and Hannah exchanged a look. âBishopâs not one for taking excuses,â she said. âIf he says everybody has to be at the meeting, heâll make it open season on anybody who isnât there. Thatâs his style.â

Richard was already nodding his agreement. âWe need to get word out. Knock on every door, every business. Lock off the campus and keep the students out of this. Weâve got six hours before sundown. Letâs not waste one minute.â

Shane was drafted into helping a whole crowd of people load supplies into the warehouseâfood, water, clothing, radios, survival-type stuff. Claire wasnât sure why, and she didnât think she really wanted to know; the atmosphere was quiet, purposeful, but tense. Nobody asked questions. Not now.

The first of Bishopâs vampires showed up about two hours later, driving slowly past the perimeter in one of the city-issued cars with tinted windows. Hannahâs strike team stopped the car, and Claire was surprised to see them fling a blanket over the vampire as he was dragged out of the shelter into the sun, and hauled off to be confined under cover.

âMost of Bishopâs people are really Amelieâs,â Hannah explained. âAmelie would like us to keep them alive, if we can. She can turn them back, once Bishopâs gone. Call it temporary insanityânot a killing kind of offense, even for vampires. We just need to keep them out of commission, thatâs all.â

Well, that sounded deceptively easy to Claireâs ears; she didnât think Bishopâs convertsâeven the unwilling onesâwould be all that eager to be put on the bench. Still, Hannah seemed to know what she was doing. Hopefully. âSo thatâs the plan: we just grab every vamp who comes looking?â

âNot quite.â Hannah gave her a slight smile. âYou do know Iâm not telling you the plan, right?â

Right, Claire was still on the wrong side. She glared down at her much-faded tattoo, which was still moving under her skin, but weakly, like the last flutters of a failing butterfly. It itched. âI wish this thing would just die already.â

âHas Bishop tried to reach you through it?â

âNot recently. Or if he has, I canât feel it anymore.â That would be excellent, if it really was a bad connection. Maybe she was in a no-magic-signal dead zone. âSo what can I do?â

âGo knock on doors,â Hannah said. âWeâve got a list of names that weâre still looking for, for the second bus. You can go with Joe Hess.â

Claireâs eyes widened. âHeâs okay?â Because she had an instant sense memory of the feeling of that death warrant in her hands, the one sheâd given to him.

âSure,â Hannah said. âWhy wouldnât he be?â

Claire had no idea what had happened, but she liked Detective Hess, and at least riding around with him would give her a feeling of forward motion, of doing something useful. Everyone else seemed to have a purpose. All she could think about was that her parents were on a bus heading out of town, and she didnât know what was going to happen to them. Or could happen to them.

She wished sheâd said a better good-bye. She wished they hadnât been so upset with her about Shane. Well, theyâre going to have to get used to it, she thought defiantly, but even to herself, it felt weak and a little selfish.

But being with Shane wasnât a mistake. She knew it wasnât.

Joe Hess was driving his own car, but it had all the cool cop stuff insideâa radio, one of those magnetic flashing lights to go on the roof, and a shotgun that was locked into a rack in the back. He was a tall, quiet man who just had a way about him that put her at ease. For one thing, he never looked at her like some annoying kid; he just looked at her as a person. A young person, true, but someone to take seriously. She wasnât quite sure how sheâd earned that from him, considering the death warrant delivery.

âIâm locking the doors,â he told her as she climbed into the passenger seat, half a second before the click-thump sound echoed through the car. âNice to see you, Claire.â

âThanks. Itâs good to see you, too. What about the buses?â she said. âAre they out of town yet?â

âAmelie herself escorted them through the barrier a few minutes ago,â he said. âThere was a little bit of trouble at the border, nothing we couldnât handle. Theyâre on their way. Nobody was hurt.â

That eased a tight knot in her chest that she hadnât even known was there. âWhere are they goingâNo, donât tell me. I probably donât need to know, right?â

âProbably not,â he agreed, and gave her a sidelong look. âYou okay?â

She looked out the car window and shrugged. âMy parents are on one of those buses, thatâs all. Iâm just worried.â

He kept sending her looks as he drove, and there was a frown on his face. âAnd tired,â he said. âWhen you left me, did you go back to Bishop? Did he hurt you?â

There really wasnât an easy answer to that. âHe didnât hurt me,â she finally said. âNot . . . personally.â

âI guess thatâs part of what I was asking,â he said. âBut that doesnât answer my question, really.â

âYou mean, am I in need of serious therapy because of all this?â Another shrug seemed kind of appropriate. âYeah, probably. But this is Morganville. Thatâs not exactly the worst thing that could happen.â She turned her head and looked directly at him. âWhat was on the scroll I gave you?â

He was quiet for so long she thought he was blowing off the question, but then he said, âIt was a death warrant.â

She already knew that. âNot yours, though.â

âNo,â he said. âSomeone elseâs.â

âWhose?â

âClaireââ

âIt doesnât matter. We got it reversed. Itâs not an issue anymore.â

âI delivered it. I have a right to know.â

For answer, Joe dug into the pocket of his sports jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, still curling at the edges, with fragments of wax clinging to the outside. He held it out to her.

Claire unfolded it. The paper was stiff and crackly, old paper, with a faintly moldy smell to it. The handwritingâBishopâsâwas spiky and hard to read, but the name was done larger and underlined.

Eve Rosser.

âThatâs not happening,â Joe said. âI just wanted you to know that. If he tells you about it, I wanted you to understand that Eve is perfectly safe, all right? Nothing will happen to her. Claire, do you understand me?â

Sheâd carried an order to him to kill her best friend.

Claire couldnât think. Couldnât feel anything except a vast, echoing sense of shock. She tried to read the rest of the paper, but her eyes kept moving back to Eveâs name, going over and over it.

She folded up the paper and held it clutched tightly in one hand. Breathe. She felt light-headed and a little sick.

âWhy you?â she asked faintly. âWhy give it to you?â

âThatâs Bishopâs style. He picks out people least likely to do what he wants, so he can punish them when they refuse to carry out the order. Object lessons for the rest of Morganville. He knew I wouldnât kill Eve. Not a chance. This was less about his wanting to get rid of Eve than to get rid of me.â

She still felt cold. Sure, Detective Hess wouldnât have done it, but what if sheâd been told to take it to someone else? Monica, maybe?

Eve might be dead right now, and it would have been all her fault.

She felt the death warrant being tugged out of her fingers. When she opened her eyes, fighting back tears, Detective Hess was slipping it back into his pocket. âI just wanted you to understand what weâre up against,â he said. âAnd to understand that no matter what happens, some of us will never do what he wants.â

Claire realized that she couldnât count herself in that club. Sheâd already done what Bishop wanted.

More than once.

God, she really didnât want to think about how far sheâd wandered into that swamp, but she was definitely up to her butt in alligators.

âAll right, back to business.â Hess handed her a piece of paper. âThese are the people we still need to find,â he said. âI heard about what happened with Frank Collins. You and Shane were there?â

She really wasnât up to talking about that. âDr. Mills is with Amelie,â she said. âYou can cross him off this list. She isnât going to send him out of town.â

All around Morganville, as they drove, there were signs things were happeningâpeople gathering in groups, whispering at fences, and pausing to stare hard at the passing car. No vampires in sight, but then Claire wouldnât expect there to be so close to noon. âWhat is this?â she asked. Hess shook his head.

âThereâs still a pretty strong antivampire movement in town,â he said. âIt got stronger these last few months. Iâve been trying to keep them calmed down, because if they start this now, theyâll just get themselves killed. And most of them arenât looking at Amelieâs side as anything but another target. We canât afford that until Bishopâs gone.â

âSo what do we do about it?â

âNothing. Nothing we can do right now. Bishopâs the one pushing the agenda, not us. If he wants a fight tonight, heâs going to get one. Maybe bigger than he wants.â

The fourth address on the list was an apartmentâthere werenât many apartment buildings in Morganville, since most people lived in single-family houses, but there were a few. Like in any small town, the complexes varied from crappy to less crappy; there was no such thing as luxury multifamily housing.

The apartment complex they stopped at was on the crappy end of the short spectrum. It was stucco over brick, painted a sun-faded pink, with two stories of apartments built into an open square on a central . . . well, Claire guessed you could call it a courtyard, if you liked a view that included a dry swimming pool with dark scum at one end, some spiky, untrimmed bushes, and an overflowing trash can.

Joe Hess checked apartment numbers. If the run-down appearance of the place bothered him, he didnât show it. When they reached number twenty-two, he banged loudly on the door. âPolice, open up!â he yelled, and pushed Claire out of the way when she tried to stand next to him. He gave her a silent stay there gesture, and listened. She couldnât hear a thing from inside.

Neither could he, apparently. He shook his head, but as they turned to go, Claire clearly heard someone inside the apartment say, âHelp.â

She froze, staring at Detective Hess. Heâd heard it, too, and he gestured her even farther back as he pulled his gun from the holster under his jacket. âWillie Combs? You okay in there? Itâs Joe Hess. Answer me, Willie!â

âHelp,â the voice came again, weaker this time.

Hess tried the door, but it was locked. He took in a deep breath. âClaire, you stay right there. Do not come in. Hear me?â

She nodded. He whirled and kicked into the door, and the cheap hollow wood splintered and flew open on the second try, sending wood and metal flying.

Detective Hess disappeared inside. Claire saw curtains fluttering and blinds tenting as people looked out to see what was going on, but nobody came outside.

Not even in the middle of the day.

It seemed like a very long time until Detective Hess came out with someone held in his arms. It was a girl about Claireâs age, pretty, dressed in a Morganville High T-shirt and sweatpants, like sheâd just dropped in from gym class.

She wasnât moving, and he was holding a towel on her neck.

âCall an ambulance,â he ordered Claire. âTell them itâs a rush, and bring the bite kit.â

âIs sheââ

âSheâs alive,â he said, and stretched her out on the concrete, still holding the towel in place. Hess looked up at her with fury shining in his eyes. âHer name is Theresa. Theresa Combs. Sheâs the oldest of the three kids.â

Claire went cold, and looked at the doorway of the apartment. âTheyâre notââ

âLetâs focus on the living,â he said. âHold this on her throat, just like this.â She knelt beside him and pressed her small fingers where his larger ones were. It felt like she was pressing too hard, but he nodded. âGood. Keep doing that. Iâm going to make one more sweep inside, just to be sure.â

As he stepped over the girl and back into the apartment, Theresaâs eyes fluttered, and she looked at Claire. Big, dark eyes. Desperate. âHelp,â she whispered. âHelp Jimmy. Heâs only twelve.â

Claire took her hand. âShhhh. Just rest.â

Theresaâs eyes filled up with tears. âI tried,â she said. âI really tried. Why is this happening to us? We didnât do anything wrong. We followed all the rules.â

Claire couldnât do anything to help her, except hold her hand and keep the towel over her throat, just like Detective Hess said. When he came back to the doorway, drawn by the distant howl of an approaching siren, she looked up at him in miserable hope.

He shook his head.

They didnât speak at all until the paramedics took Theresa away. Claire stayed where she was, on her knees, staring at the blood speckling her trembling fingers. Detective Hess crouched down and handed her a moist wipe, with the attitude of somebody whoâd done that sort of thing a lot. He patted her gently on the shoulder. âDeep breaths,â he said. âIâm sorry you had to see that. Good job taking care of Theresa. You probably saved her life.â

âWho did that to them?â Once she started wiping her hands, she really couldnât stop. âWhy?â

âItâs been happening all over town,â Hess said. âPeople whose Protectors went over to Bishop. People who lost their Protectors in the fight. People whose Protectors never cared enough in the first place. Half of this town is nothing but a mobile blood supply right now.â The look on his face, when she glanced up, was enough to make her shiver. âMaybe the crazies are right. Maybe we should kill all the vampires.â

âYeah,â Claire said, very softly. âBecause people never kill people, right?â

He had Eveâs death warrant in his pocket.

He didnât argue about it.

They found another five people on Hannahâs list, all safe and aliveâwell, one of them was drunk off his butt at the Barfly, one of the scarier local watering holes, but he was still breathing and unfanged. One by one, they were put on the bus.

By four p.m., the last bus was motoring out of Morganville, heading for parts unknown (to Claire, at least), and she was left standing with those who were left. Richard Morrell. Hannah Moses. Shane and Eve, standing there together, whispering. Joe Hess, talking on the police car radio. There were other people around, but they stayed in the shadows, and Claire had the strong suspicion that they were vampires. Amelieâs vampires, getting organized for something big.

Without warning, Claire felt a burning sensation on her arm.

When she pulled back her sleeve, she saw the tattoo was swirling, like a pot of stirred ink under her skin. Bishop was trying to pull her in. She could feel the impulse to walk out of the warehouse and head for Founderâs Square, but she resisted.

When she was afraid she couldnât hold back anymore, she told Shane. He put his arms around her. âIâm not letting you go anywhere,â he promised. âNot without me.â

The impulse felt like a string tied around her guts, pulling relentlessly. It was annoying at first. Then it hurt. Finally, she pulled free of Shaneâs embrace and walked in circles around the open space of the warehouse theyâd used for the bus staging area, making wider and wider arcs. He intercepted her when she came close to the door, and she looked at him in silent misery. âI hate this!â she blurted. âI want this thing out!â And she burst into tears, because it felt overwhelming to her, this feeling of despair and anguish, of not being where she was supposed to be. This time, even Shaneâs presence couldnât help. The misery just came in waves, crushing her underneath. She heard Shane yelling at Richard Morrell, and then Hannah was there, saying something about helping.

Claire felt a hot sting in her arm, and then calm spread like ice through her veins. It was a relief, but it didnât touch the burning on her arm, or the anxiety boiling in her stomach. Her body still wasnât her own.

âSheâll sleep for a while,â Hannah said, from a long way off. âShane, I need you.â

Claire couldnât open her eyes, or tell them that she wasnât really asleep at all. She seemed to beâshe got thatâbut she was desperately awake underneath. Painfully awake.

Shane kissed her, warm and gentle, and she felt his hand smooth her hair and trace down her cheek. Donât leave me, she wanted to tell him, but she couldnât make herself move or speak.

Her heartbeat thudded, slow and calm, even though she felt the panic building inside her.

She felt herself carried somewhere, tucked into a warm bed and piled with blankets.

Then silence.

Her eyes opened, as if someone else was controlling them, and as she sat up, she saw someone standing in the corner of the darkened room where theyâd left her.

Ada.

The ghost put a pale, flickering finger to her lips and motioned for Claire to sit up. She did, although she had no idea why.

Ada drifted closer. Once again, she wasnât three-dimensional at all, just a flat projection on the air, like a TV character without the screen. She didnât really look human; in fact, she looked more like a game character, all smoothness and manufactured detail.

Somewhere in the dark, a cell phone rang. Claire walked over to a pile of boxes labeled EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT and ripped away tape to retrieve a cell phone. Fully charged, from the battery icon on the display. She lifted it to her ear.

âBishop is trying to pull you to him,â Adaâs tinny, artificial voice said. âBut I need you elsewhere.â

âYou need me.â

âOf course. With Myrnin deactivated, I require someone to assist me. Take the portal to reach me.â

âThereâs a portal?â Claire felt slow and stupid, and she didnât think it was the drugs that Hannah had given her. Adaâs ghostly representation gave her a scorching look of contempt.

âI have made a portal,â she said. âThatâs what I do, you silly fool. Take it, now. Six steps forward, four to your right. Go!â

The connection died on Claireâs borrowed phone with a lost-signal beep. She folded the clamshell and slid it back in her pocket, and realized that someoneâShane, she guessedâhad taken her shoes off for her. She put them on and walked six paces forward into the dark, then four steps to the right.

Her fourth step sent her falling through freezing-cold blackness, and then her foot touched ground, and she was someplace she recognized.

She came out in the cells where Myrnin and Amelie had confined the vampires who had become too sick to function on their own. It was an old prison, dark and damp, built out of solid stone and steel. The tornado that had raged through Morganville a few months back had damaged part of the building; Claire hadnât been involved in tracking down the escaped patients, but she knew it had been done, and the place repaired. Not that Bishop had cared, of course. Amelie had done that.

But all the cells were empty now.

Claire stumbled to a halt and wrapped her arms around her stomach, where the tug from Bishopâs will felt like a white-hot wire being pulled through her skin. She braced herself against the wall, breathing hard. âIâm here,â she said to the empty air. âWhat do you want me to do, Ada?â

Adaâs ghost glided down the corridor ahead of herâstill two-dimensional, but this time the view was from the back. Her stiff belled skirts drifted inches above the stone floor, and she looked back over her shoulder toward Claire in unmistakable command. Great, Claire thought. Itâs not bad enough that Bishop has his hooks in me; now itâs Myrninâs nutty computer, too. I have way too many bosses.

Eve would have told her she needed a better job, which would include sewage treatment.

âWhere are we going?â she asked Ada, not that she expected an answer. She wasnât disappointed. The prison was laid out in long hallways, and the last time Claire had been here, most of the cells had been filled with plague victims. Sheâd delivered their foodâwell, bloodâto them to make sure they hadnât starved. Some had been violent; most had just been lying very still, unable to do much at all.

Where were they now?

At the end of the line was the cell where Myrnin had spent his days, off and on, when he was too dangerous to be in the lab or around anybodyâeven other vampires. It had been furnished with his home comforts, like a thick Turkish rug and a soft pile of blankets and pillows, his ragged armchair, and stacks of books.

No sign of Myrnin, either.

Ada glided to the end of the hall, then turned to face Claire, flickering from a back view to a front view like a jump cut in a movie.

âThatâs really creepy,â Claire said. âYou know that, right?â

Her phone rang. She opened the clamshell. âYou were seeking Dr. Mills,â Ada said. âHe is here.â

âWhere?â

âFollow. He requires assistance.â

Claire kept the phone to her ear as Ada turned around again and misted right through the stone wall. Claire stopped, her nose two inches away from the surface of the barrier. She slowly reached out, and although the stone looked utterly realâit even smelled real, like dust and moldâthere was nothing under her hand but air. Still, her brain stubbornly told her not to take another step, or sheâd end up with a bruised face at the very least. In fact, her whole body resisted the order to walk on.

Claire forced her foot to rise, inch forward, and step into the stone. Then the other foot, shuffling forward to match it. It didnât get any easier, not for five or six tor-turous inches, and then suddenly the pressure was gone, and she stepped through into a large, well-lit room.

A room full of vampires.

Claire froze as dozens of pallid faces turned toward her. Sheâd never gotten to know the inmatesâtheyâd mostly been anonymous in the shadowsâbut she recognized a few of them. What were they doing out of their cages?

The voice on the phone at her ear snapped, impatiently, âWould you come, then?â

Claire blinked and saw that Ada was drifting in the middle of the room, staring at her in naked fury. âTheyâre not going toââ

âThey will not hurt you,â Ada said. âDonât be absurd.â

It really wasnât all that absurd. Claire had seen some of these same vampires clawing gouges in stone with their fingernails, and gnawing on their own fingers. She was like a doggie treat in a room full of rabid rottwei lers.

None of them lunged at her. They stared at her as if she was a curiosity, but they didnât seem especially, well, hungry.

She followed Adaâs image across the room to a small stone alcove, where she saw Dr. Mills lying very still on a cot.

âOh no,â Claire whispered, and hurried over to him. âDr. Mills?â

He groaned and opened reddened eyes, blinking to focus on her face. âClaire,â he croaked, and coughed. âDamn. What time is it?â

âUhâalmost five, I think. Why?â

âI just went to sleep at four,â he said, and flopped back to full length on his cot. âGod. Sorry, Iâm exhausted. Forty-eight hours without more than a couple of hours down. Iâm not a med student anymore.â

She felt a wave of utter relief. âThey didnât, you knowââ

âKill me? Other than by working me half to death?â Dr. Mills groaned and sat up, rubbing his head as if he was trying to shove his brains back inside. âAmelie wanted to use the serum to treat the worst cases first. I got everyone housed here, except for Myrnin. I have two doses left. There wonât be any more if we donât get blood from Bishop to culture.â

Sheâd almost forgotten about that. âHave you seen Myrnin?â

âNot since Amelie brought me here,â Dr. Mills said. âWhy?â

âHeâs sick,â Claire said. âVery sick. I was looking for you to try to help him, but I donât know where he is now. Amelie took him, too.â

He was already shaking his head. âShe didnât bring him here. I havenât seen them.â

Claire sensed a shadow behind her and, turning, came face-to-face with a vampire. A smallish one, just a little taller than her own modest height. It was a girl barely out of her teens, with waist-length blond hair and lovely dark eyes, who smiled at the two of them with an unsettlingly knowing expression.

âI am Naomi,â she said. âThis is my sister Violet.â Just behind her was a slightly older girl, same dark eyes, only a little stronger in the chin, and with midnight-black hair. âWe wish to thank you, Doctor, for your gift. We have not felt so well in many years.â

âYouâre welcome,â Dr. Mills said. He sounded tense, and Claire could understand why; the vamps were all on their best behavior, but that could change, and she saw a shadow of it in Naomi. âIâm sure Amelie will be along to get you soon.â

The two vamps nodded, bobbed an old-fashioned curtsy, and withdrew back into the main room. There was a soft buzz of conversation building out there, a kind of whisper that sounded like a calm sea on the shore. Vampires didnât have to speak loudly to be heard, at least by one another.

âIs Amelie coming?â Dr. Mills asked. âBecause Iâm starting to feel like the special of the day around here.â

Oh. He thought Claire was the scout riding ahead of the vampire cavalry. She looked around for Ada, but she didnât see any sign of her now. Sheâd just faded out. Claire folded up the phone and put it back in her pocket, feeling a little stupid. âI donât know,â she said. âI was told you needed help.â

He gave a jaw-cracking yawn, murmured an apology, and nodded. âIâve got sacks of crystals, and some of the liquid. We need to distribute it all over town, make sure everybody who needs it gets medicated. It wonât last for long, and it isnât the cure, but until I can get Bishopâs blood, itâll have to do. Can you help me measure it into individual doses?â

Claire realized, as she was scooping measuring spoons of red crystals and putting them in bottles, that the burning urgency in her guts had finally, slowly faded away.

She pulled up her sleeve.

The tattoo was barely a shadow under her skin.

As she stared at the place where it had been, Naomi the vampire leaned over her shoulder and studied it with her. Claire flinched, which was probably what the vamp had intended, and Naomi chuckled. âI see Bishop marked you,â she said. âDonât fear, child. Itâs almost gone now. He marked my sister once.â The smile left her face, and it set in hard, cold lines. âThen he marked us both forever. Sister Amelie told us he was dead, long ago, but he isnât, is he?â

Claire shook her head, unable to say anything with fangs so close to her neck. Naomi didnât seem to be threatening, but she didnât seem to be comforting, either.

âThen itâs come to it,â Naomi said. âItâs time for us to fight him. Good. For my sisterâs sake, Iâll be happy to face him again.â Naomiâs cool hand stroked Claireâs cheek. âPretty child. You smell warm.â

Claire shuddered. âYeah, well, I, uh, am. I guess.â

âWarm as sunlight. So was I, once.â Naomiâs sigh brushed Claireâs skin, and then the vampire was gone, moving in a blur. The vampires were all moving faster nowârecovering, Claire guessed. Growing stronger.

Dr. Mills was looking at them in satisfaction, but Claire couldnât quite get there from here. Great, they were feeling better; she could get behind that.

But now they were healthy vampires. Which meant they could make more vampires, and that changed everything. It changed the entire dynamic of Morganville.

Didnât it?

Her phone rang. No number displayed on the caller ID. Claire flipped it open and said, âWhat, Ada?â

âYou must take Dr. Mills and leave,â Ada said. âI will dial the portal for you. Go now.â

âWould you mind telling me whatââ

âDo as I say or I will leave you both alone in a room full of vampires who may crave an instant hot meal.â

Myrninâs computer was such a bitch.

Claire snapped the phone shut. âGrab what you need,â she said. âItâs time to go.â

Dr. Mills nodded. Heâd loaded the individual doses into a couple of duffel bags, and he handed one to her as he hefted the other. He opened up a padded silver box and checked the contents.

Two syringes.

âThose are the last two doses of the serum, right?â Claire asked. âMaybe Iâd better . . . ?â

He handed them over. âMake sure Myrnin gets one, and Amelie gets the other,â he said. âOliver will try to hijack one for himself. Donât let him.â

Like she stood a chance of saying no to Oliver on her own, but she nodded anyway. Dr. Mills seemed relieved to have the stuff out of his hands. He looked around at the vampires, who were all turning toward them. âMaybe we should be going,â he said. âIâm sure theyâre all grateful, butââ

âYeah,â Claire said. âLetâs.â

Walking through the crowd was like walking through a giant pride of lions. They might be calmly observing, but there was no mistaking the predatory gleam in their eyes as they did it. Claire caught the glitter of fangs in one or two mouths, and made sure not to make eye contact.

Naomi stepped into her path. The young vampireâwell, young-lookingâblocked the way out. âMay I beg a favor?â she asked. âA small one, I assure you.â

Claire licked her lips. âSure.â

âGive this to my sister Amelie,â she said, and lifted a silver necklace off of her alabaster neck. It was a beautiful little thing, thin as a whisper, and it had a white cameo dangling from it. âTell her that we are with her if she requires it.â

Claire put the necklace in her pocket, and nodded. âIâll tell her.â Naomi didnât move. âDid you want something else?â

âOh, yes,â Naomi said faintly. âVery badly. But you see, I know my sister. I know she would not forgive me if I did anything untoward. So you and your kind doctor must go, before we forget our promises.â

Still, she didnât move.

Claire went around her. Naomi turned to watch her.

Stepping through the stone illusion seemed a whole lot easier this time, maybe because she knew staying was definitely not a good idea at all.

Adaâs ghost stood in the hallway, looking furiously out of sorts with the delay. She turned and glided away at top speed. Claire broke into a run to keep up, and Dr. Mills kept pace. Ada suddenly stopped and spun her image to face them like a flat cardboard cutout, and the speaker on Claireâs phone shrieked with static.

Dr. Mills went down.

âRun!â Ada screamed through the speakerphone, but Claire couldnât. She couldnât leave him behind.

Claire stopped to reach down to help him up, but he wasnât moving. There was a cut on his head, and although he was breathing, he was completely unconscious.

The cut was on the back of his head. He hadnât fallen that way.

Someone had hit him.

Ada tried to tell her to run away, but she stayed where she was. Adaâs ghostly image screamed silently in frustration and burst into a storm of misty static.

Gone.

In the darkness, Claire felt fingers brush her hair.

âNaomi?â she asked in a faint whisper.

A dry chuckle sounded next to her ear, shockingly close. âNever met the lady. You know who I am,â a male voice said. âDonât you, Claire?â

She closed her eyes.

âHello,â she said, âMr. Collins.â

9

Shaneâs dad turned on an electric light overhead, and the sudden glare made Claire wince and blink. She looked down quickly at Dr. Mills to confirm that he was still breathing, and not moving. Good. She needed all her concentration right now.

Frank Collins looked the same as he had the last time sheâd seen him alive, there in Bishopâs officeâthin, lean, with his long graying hair down around his face, only now he was paler. He looked like a man whoâd lived hard and died the same wayâand there was definitely a shadow in him that hadnât been there before. A crazy, scary shine in his eyes, like a silver film. He had a few things in common with Oliver, but where Oliver came across as tough, frightening, and ultimately rational, Collins missed that last one entirely.

He was way too close. Claire stayed very still, trying not to let her pulse pound too hard.

âI see what my son likes about you,â Frank Collins said. âYouâre tougher than you look.â

âThanks,â she said. âNow back off.â

He laughed again. It echoed off of the stone, as if heâd brought three or four copies of himself to enjoy the show. âNo,â he said. âI donât think so. Never done it before. Never will.â He paused âIâd like to talk to my son.â

âNever going to happen,â Claire said. âHe doesnât want to talk to you.â

Mr. Collinsâs smile showed more than teeth. His fangs slowly unfolded, and the edges caught the dim light. âYou think heâd want you sucking plasma, too, sweet-heart? It would kill him if something like that happened. So you might try to be a little more polite.â

She wanted to vomit at the thought of Frank Collins biting her. âHeâll kill you,â she said. âYou know he would.â

âMaybe heâd try.â Frank shrugged. âHe wouldnât hurt you, though. I know my boy well enough to know how head over heels he is for you. Heâd never touch a hair on your pretty little head. Youâre his weakness, Claire.â

That was sickeningly true. Shane would do anything to save Claire. Heâd even let his father turn him into a vampireâwhich might be what Freaky Frank was thinking about.

She couldnât let that happen. No way.

Claire slowly let the duffel bag she was holding thump down to the floor, and took stock of what she had to work with. Not much. Frank Collins had been turned by Bishop; he wasnât sick. She had no hope of curing him, or even treating him. This was his natural state of crazy.

Her backpack.

Claire let it slide down her arm, hoping that heâd think she was getting ready to make a run for it. Itâd be useless to do that; sheâd never make it.

Plus, heâd enjoy the chase.

As her backpack caught in the crook of her elbow, she grabbed the front zipper. Gravity helped her pull it down as the weight sagged forward.

Oh, crap.

The stakes werenât in the front pocket. Sheâd put them in the bigger interior, with her books. There was nothing in the front pocket but some paper clips, a highlighter, and half a candy bar. She didnât think bribing him with chocolate would get it done.

âRelax,â Shaneâs dad said. âIâll let you go.â

That seemed . . . too good to be true, but Claire was willing to take it and run. âThanks,â she said, and bent to grab Dr. Mills to pull him toward the portal.

âI didnât say he could go,â Frank said, his smile full-tilt crazy. âI deserve a little bonus for being so accommodating.â

Claire could feel her heart pounding now, even through the layers of calming drugs that Hannah had dosed her with before. Everything seemed to slow down. She didnât pause to think. She threw all her strength into grabbing the pack in both hands, twirling in place like a shot-putter, and slamming the pack into Frank Collinsâs back.

There were a lot of books in there, and physics was something not even vampires could ignore, especially when it hit them full force. Frank went sprawling. Claire grabbed Dr. Mills by one arm and dragged him toward the spot where Ada had been standing.

Ada flickered back into existence as she approached. The speaker in Claireâs phone activated and Ada shouted, âLeave the man; get the bags!â

âBite me,â Claire snapped. She heaved, got Dr. Mills up to a sitting position, and rolled him through the portal.

Then she dashed back for the duffel bags.

Frank Collinsâs pale hand grabbed her wrist. She looked up, right into his scarred face and silvery eyes, and screamed. There was no way she could break free, not without leaving her hand behind. He was just that strong.

Shaneâs dad yanked her down to her knees on the floor. He pulled the strap of her backpack off her shoulder and ripped the tough fabric open, spilling the contents all over the floor. Advanced Particle Physics slipped off into the dark, along with Fundamentals of Matrix Computations . Out spilled two sharp-pointed wooden stakes. Out of sheer desperation, she made a grab for them, but his foot came crashing down to pin them to the floor before she could get there.

He stood there, staring at the stakes, and she saw something move over his face, like a ripple of real human pain. âChrist,â he murmured. âI used to carry some just like that when I was starting out hunting them. What the hell am I doing?â

She knew what that pain was, and all of a sudden she knew how to hurt him. âYouâre hunting,â Claire said. Her heart was beating so hard, it felt as if it would break her ribs. âThatâs what vamps do. Hunt people.â

He shook his head silently, then looked up at her. He almost looked sane again, or as sane as Shaneâs father ever got. âIâve been fighting vampires a long time,â he said. âKilled a couple; did you know that?â

She knew. He and Shane had almost been executed for killing Brandon, even though Shane hadnât had anything to do with it. He stared down again at the hand-carved stakes sticking out from under his big, scuffed boot.

âNever ended up using stakes all that much,â he said, and looked her right in the eyes. âYou know why?â

She was afraid to ask.

âBecause if you donât kill a vampire, it just makes them angrier,â he said. âYou think you can kill me with something like this?â

She swallowed hard. âSure. Not that youâre going to let me try.â

âTruth is, the worst thing I ever feared was this. Being this. Shane tell you that?â She slowly nodded. âIâm sorry he had to see what happened to me. Iâm sorry for all the things I did to make his life hell over the years. You understand?â

She shook her head, because she really didnât.

âYou tell Shane I love him,â Frank said. âI always did. Didnât show it right, I know that, but that was never his fault. Iâm glad he found you. He deserves something good in his life.â

And then he lifted up his boot and picked up the stakes. Claire opened her mouth, but her voice caught in her throat.

He didnât hurt her.

âYou go home,â he said. âYou tell my son his father says good-bye. Wish Iâd gotten to see him one more time, but youâre right. Itâs probably not a good idea.â

He turned away toward the darkness, with the stakes in his hand.

âI guess you should know that he loves you, too. He canât help it.â Her voice echoed from the stone. She didnât know why she said it, except that she knew, with sad certainty, that she wouldnât see him again.

She thought Shaneâs dad hesitated, but then he shuffled on, until he was out of sight.

The instant he was gone, Claire grabbed the duffel bags, and lunged to her feet, heading for the open portal.

She stumbled out on the other side, tripped over Dr. Millsâs motionless body, and fell into Oliverâs arms.

He looked at her with an absolutely disgusted expression, and dropped her on her butt on the plushly carpeted floor of Amelieâs study.

âItâs gone,â Claire said for the four hundredth time, as Oliver turned her arm this way and that, holding it under a light so bright it felt like a laser cutting into her skin. âHey! I said itâs gone!â

Oliver held her in place with a grip so hard she knew it would leave its own kind of tattooing. In blue, purple, and black. âAnd I said that Bishop would very much like us to think that itâs gone,â he snapped. âYou were told to stay where you were. As usual, you ignored that instruction, and now youâve placed us all at extreme risk ofââ

âLet her go, Oliver,â Amelie said from the other side of the vast, polished desk. She drummed her perfect fingernails on the surface, making a light, dry tapping sound like bones dropped on marble. âThe girl could have betrayed us a dozen times or more by now. She hasnât. I believe we can give her the benefit of the doubt, for now.â

He let Claire go and stalked away, arms folded. This, Claire thought, was Amelieâs war councilâSam Glass sat next to her in a side chair, looking more like Michael all the time as his red hair grew out into a mess of waves and curls. Oliver paced. Richard Morrell stood nearby, looking as if he wanted to pace, but was too tired to make the attempt.

Michael moved up next to Claire, put his hand on her shoulder, and led her off to the side, near where Hannah Moses leaned against the wall, looking fascinated and worried. Claire knew just how she felt. Being plunged into the deep endâand this was itâmeant swimming for your life, with sharks. Even the supposedly friendly ones could turn and take your leg off when they felt like it.

âWhereâs Myrnin?â Claire whispered. Michael shook his head. âIsnât he here? Somewhere?â

âNo idea,â Michael whispered back. âAmelie stashed him someplace; I just donât know where. Heâs notââ

âMichael,â Amelie said, âI said I would give her the benefit of the doubt, not the full story. Please be quiet.â She stood up, and Claire saw that sheâd changed clothes again, this time to a flawless pale pink suit, something that looked like it belonged on a runway in Paris. Not what Claire would have thought youâd wear to a show-down. âClaire. Thank you for bringing the supplies that I requested from Dr. Mills. Thank you also for retrieving the good doctor. I am told that he will recover from his wound.â Her light-colored, cool eyes focused on Claire, and shot right through her. âMay I also see your arm?â

Always polite. That was when Amelie was the most dangerous, Claire knew. She slowly extended her arm, still holding Michaelâs hand on the other side for comfort. Amelieâs touch was cold and light. She didnât study the skin, like Oliver had; she ran her fingertips over the surface, and then lowered Claireâs arm back to her side.

âMichael,â she said,âplease take Claire to your friends. I am sure you would both prefer to be with them now.â

âBut . . .â Claire licked her lips. âDonât you want me here? To help?â

âYouâll help when itâs needed,â Amelie said. âFor now, you should be elsewhere. We will be bringing in some of my people to remove them from Bishopâs influence. The process can be somewhat unsettling to witness.â

Oliver made a rude noise as he continued his relentless pacing. âItâs far worse when it fails,â he said. âI hope youâre not fond of this carpet.â

Amelie ignored that. âMyrnin and Dr. Mills had told me that the work could not continue on the serum without more of Bishopâs blood. Is that correct?â Claire nodded. âDifficult to achieve, Iâm afraid, but I will include that in our calculations.â

âWe talked about drugging him.â

âSo Myrnin said.â Amelie wasnât going to tell her anything. âItâs no longer your concern. I will rely on you and your friends to be in attendance this evening. You should come prepared.â

âPrepared for what?â Claire asked.

Amelieâs eyebrows rose. âAnything. We are no longer following a plan. We are facing the final moves on the chessboard, and who wins will very much depend on nerve, skill, and the ability to do the unexpected. You may count on my father being ready to do his worst. We must be just as ruthless.â

Claire thought about that moment in the tunnels, with Frank Collins. She hadnât felt ruthless at the end. Sheâd felt sad.

She didnât suppose Amelie, Oliver, or any of the rest of them would have hesitated for a second. Frank Collins was a bad guy. Heâd been a bad guy as a human, right? But still . . . there was just that one moment when sheâd seen him as a man who loved his son.

Maybe everybody had those moments. Even the worst people.

Maybe it didnât matter, except to her.

The door opened at the far end of the room, and two of Amelieâs favorite vamp bodyguards came in, dragging a beat-up human. At least, Claire thought he was human; it was hard to tell, under all the dirt and bruises.

Oh. She knew him. It was Jason Rosser, Eveâs crazy-ass brother. He looked like heâd been living in a garbage dump for monthsâfor all Claire knew, he had been. Eve had said heâd been coming by the house, maybe even acting less insane, but right now, Claire couldnât see it. He looked like a rabid sewer rat, and as he scanned the room, he was all gleaming, crazy eyes and bared teeth.

When the guards let him go, at a nod from Amelie, Jason lunged for the Founder of Morganville. She didnât raise a hand to defend herself. She didnât have to.

Oliver met him halfway, grabbed Jason by the throat, and slammed him down onto the carpet flat on his back.

âYou see?â Oliver said, and gave Amelie a freakishly calm smile. âYou really should have thought about the carpet; youâll never get the smell of him out of it. Really, Amelie, you do insist on bringing home strays.â

âI also put them down when necessary,â she said. âThis one happens to be yours, Oliver, yes? So I leave him to you for proper judgment.â

Nobody said a word in protest to that. Not even Claire. Jason was nobodyâs friend; Claire would never, ever forget the night heâd almost killed Shane, for nothing. She wasnât about to speak up on his behalf.

Oliver stared deep into Jasonâs eyes and said, âYou deserve to die, you know. Not only for the fact that you reek of guilt; Iâm partial to a bit of mayhem now and then. No, you deserve to die because you broke the laws of Morganville without my permission.â Oliverâs smile widened into something out of a bad-clown nightmare. âSo what then am I to do with you? You broke your word to Brandon. You broke your word to me. You had the bad taste to betray Amelie, in full public view. You took the side of that ancient reptile Bishop.â

Jason laughed. It sounded like breaking ice. âYeah, I did,â he said. âVamps are getting a break for doing the same thing. I get to die. Perfect. Nothing ever changes around here, does it? If a vampire does it, they canât help it. If a human does it, theyâre lunch meat.â

Amelie said, âIs there anyone who will speak for him?â Claire knew it was a pro forma kind of question, like, Speak now or forever hold your peace, but she was thinking about Eve. About how she was ever going to tell her that sheâd watched her brother die, and hadnât said a word . . .

But as it happened, she didnât have to.

âI will,â Michael said.

There was a collective intake of breath. NobodyâClaire includedâcould quite believe heâd spoken up. It even made Oliver turn and lose his bitch face.

âDonât do me no favors, Glass Ass,â Jason snapped.

âIâm not.â Michael turned to Amelie. âHeâs a pathetic little worm, but heâs just a criminal. He deserves to be punished. Not killed like some rabid dog.â

âHeâs a killer,â she said.

âWell, if he is, heâs not the only one in this room, is he?â

Amelie showed her teeth briefly in a smile. âWill you take his parole, Michael? Will you put him into your own household and shelter him with those you love?â

Michael didnât answer. He wanted toâClaire could see itâbut he just . . . couldnât.

Finally, he shook his head.

âIf you wonât trust him with those you love, how can I trust him with anyone elseâs family?â Amelie said, and nodded to Oliver.

Claire blurted, âWait!â

âMay we please have done with interruptions from the childrenâs section?â Oliver said.

âWhy is he here?â Claire asked, talking so fast that she stumbled over the words. âWhy is he here? Who brought him here?â

âWho cares?â

Amelie held up a warning hand. âItâs a reasonable question. Who brought him to us?â

âNobody,â one of the guards said from the door. âHe came through the portal.â

âWhat?â Amelie crossed to Jason in a flash, knocked Oliver out of the way, and slammed the boy back against the closest wall. âTell me how you came to work the portals.â

âSomebody showed me,â Jason said. âHe showed me a lot of things. He showed me how to kill. How to hide. How to get around town without anybody knowing.â

âWho?â

Jason laughed. âNo way, lady. Iâm not telling. Thatâs all Iâve got left to bargain with, right?â

Amelieâs face twisted with anger, and she was about two seconds from snapping some bones for him. âThen you have nothing, because I will have it out of you one way or another.â

Sam Glass, who hadnât said a thing, slowly rose to his feet. âAmelie. Amelie, stop.â

âNot until this worm tells me who showed him the portals!â

âThen Iâll tell you,â Sam said. âI showed him. I showed him everything you showed me.â

Silence. Even Oliver looked as if he didnât quite understand what heâd just heard. Amelie stood there like an ivory statue, holding Jason in place with one flattened hand on his chest.

âWhy?â she whispered. âSam, why would you do such a thing?â

It felt, to Claire, like suddenly the room was empty and theyâd all turned to ghosts, except for Amelie and Sam. There was something so powerful in the stare between them that it just vaporized the rest of the world. âI did the best I could,â he said softly. âYou left me no choice. You wouldnât see me. You wouldnât speak to me, all those years. I was alone, and IâI wanted to do something good.â He took in a deep breath and walked toward her, coming close enough to touch, although he didnât reach out. âJason was a victim. Brandon brutalized him, and no one did anything to stop it. So yes, I taught the boy to fight, to defend himself from Brandon. I taught him to use the portals to help him escape when he needed to get away. I couldnât stop Brandon, not without you, but I could try to save his victims. I thought I was helping.â

âDonât worry, man; I wasnât going to throw you under the bus.â Jason laughed. âFuck it, you were the only one who was ever good to me. Why should I?â

âThe boy rewarded you by showing my father everything you taught him,â Amelie said softly. She broke the stare with Sam and looked at Jasonâs face. âDidnât you?â

âIt was what I had to trade. You set up the rules, lady. I just followed them.â

Amelie grabbed Jason by the hair and shoved him at Sam, who caught him in surprise, and then held him when Jason tried to break free. âHeâs yours,â she snapped at Sam. âYou created this. Deal with it.â She spun to Oliver. âYou were right. Bishop does know how to use the network.â

âThen we can take advantage of that,â Oliver said. âSince he assumes we do not know that he does.â

Theyâd effectively dismissed Sam and Jason. Sam stared at Amelie with so much pain in his face that it made Claire hurt to look at it, then shook his head. âLetâs go,â he said, and nodded to Michael and Claire. âAll of us. Now.â

No one tried to stop them. When Jason tried to make one last clever little comment, Sam slapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him out. âShut up,â he said. âYouâre still alive. Thatâs a better outcome than you deserve.â

Claire portaled them directly into the Glass House. She breathed an involuntary sigh of relief at finding Shane sitting on the couch, staring at a flickering TV screen like it held the secrets of the universe, and Eve pacing the hallway in her clumpy boots.

Eve spotted them first, screamed, and threw herself on Claire like a warm Goth blanket. âOh God, everybody thought you were dead! Or, you know, Bishoped, which would have been worse, right? What happened? Where did you go?â

Over Eveâs shoulder, Claire saw that Shane had gotten to his feet. âYou all right?â he asked. She nodded, and he closed his eyes in sudden relief. Claire patted Eveâs back, in thanks, love, and a little bit of get-the-hell-off-me . Eve got the message. She backed up, sniffling a little, and couldnât keep a smile from ruining her sad-clown makeup.

âSorry about that,â Claire said. âI . . . well. It wasnât exactly my idea, and I canât really explain. . . .â

âBut youâre okay. No fang marks or . . . â Eveâs gaze darted past Claire, and she stopped talking. Stopped moving, too.

Shane, on the other hand, moved fast, putting himself between Claire and Jason. âWhat the hell is he doing here?â

âFuck you too, Collins.â

âShut up,â Sam said, and gave Jason a warning shake that must have rattled his bones. âHeâs here because I didnât want to kill him. Any other questions?â

Eve still wasnât saying anything. Claire couldnât blame her; she had the same kind of conflicted emotions passing over her face that Shane had when he thought about his dad. Love/hate/loss. That sucked, when Jason was standing right there. She hadnât really lost him. Not yet.

Michael went to her, the same way Shane had gone to Claireâto get between her and her brother. âHeâs not welcome here,â Michael said, and that put the force of the Founder House behind it. Claire felt a pressure building, getting ready to evict Jason andâpresumablyâSam, if Sam didnât let go of him.

âWait,â Sam said. âYou send him out there, heâs dead from all sides, and you know it. Bishop has no use for him, hasnât since Jasonâs assassination attempt failed. Amelie would kill him without blinking. You really want to do that to your girlfriendâs brother?â

âMichael, donât,â Eve said. âHe wonât hurt us.â And everyone rolled their eyes at that. Even Jason, which was borderline hilarious.

âLook,â Jason said, âall I want is a way out of this stupid town. You arrange that, and Iâll never show my face around here again. You can keep your stupid hero life-style. I just want out.â

âToo late,â Shane said. âLast bus already left, man. And weâre thirty minutes away from Bishopâs big town hall meeting. You can run, but you canât hide. Anybody who isnât there is dead. Heâs going to send out hunters. Itâll be open season.â

âI could stay here,â Jason said quickly. âUpstairs. In the secret room, right?â

They all looked at one another.

âOh, come on, itâs not like Iâm going to run up your phone bill and watch pay-per-view. Besides, if I was going to kill you in your sleep, I would have already done it.â He made a kissy-face at Shane. âEven you, asswipe.â

âJesus, Jason.â Eve sighed. âDo you want to end up in the landfill, or what?â She touched Michael on the arm, and he glanced back at her and took her hand. âCan you tell if he lies to us?â

âUh, no. Drinking blood doesnât make me a lie detector.â

Sam spoke up somberly. âI can.â He shrugged when Michael gave him an odd look. âItâs just a skill. You pick it up, over time. People canât control their bodies the way vampires can. I can usually tell when theyâre lying.â

âNo offense, but youâve been wrong plenty of times, Sam. Like, deciding that you could trust this little weasel as far as you can throw him,â Michael said, then caught a devastating pleading look from Eve. âAll right. Go ahead. Ask him whatever you want.â

Eve took in a deep breath, looked her brother in the eyes, and said, âPlease tell me the truth. Did you kill those girls?â

Because that had been Jasonâs rep. Murdered girls, dumped all over town, a string of killings that had begun right after Jason had gotten out of jail, just about the time Claire had moved to Morganville. One body had been put here in their own house, in an attempt to implicate Shane and Michael.

Jason blinked, as if he somehow hadnât really expected her to ask. âThe truth?â

âOf course, the truth, idiot.â

âIâve done bad things,â he said. âIâve hurt people. I need help.â

Eveâs face fell. âYou really did do it.â

âIt wasnât my fault, Eve.â

âNever is, is it? I really thoughtââ

âHeâs lying,â Michael said. He sounded as surprised as Claire felt. âRight, Sam?â Sam nodded. âMy God. You really didnât do it, did you?â

Jason looked away from them. âMight as well have.â

âWhat the hell does that mean?â Eve snapped. âEither you did, or you didnât!â

âNo,â her brother said. âEither I did, I didnât, or I was there when it happened and didnât stop it. Figure it out.â

âThen whoââ

âIâm not saying. People think Iâm a killer; they leave me the fuck alone. They think Iâm just some sad-ass ride-along clown. Theyâll kill me quick.â Jason looked up now, right at Eve, and for the first time, Claire thought he looked sincere. âI never killed anybody. Not on my own, anyway. Well, I came close with you, Collins.â

âBut you wonât tell us who did kill them?â

He shook his head.

âAre you afraid?â Eve asked, very gently.

Silence.

âYou know what?â Shane said. âDonât care. Street him before we wake up with our throats cut by him or his imaginary playmate.â

And they might have, except that the doorbell rang. Michael flashed to the window and looked out. âCrap. Our rideâs here. We donât have time for this.â

âMichael,â Eve said. âPlease. Let him stay, at least for now. Please.â

âAll right. Get him upstairs and lock him in. Sam, can you stay with him?

âNo,â Sam said. âI have to go back to Amelie.â

âWe have to leave. Claire, can you shut down the portal that leads here?â

âI can try, sure.â

As Sam hustled Jason up the stairs to the second floor, Claire touched the bare wall at the back of the living room, and felt the slightly pliable surface of the portal lying on top of it. It was invisible, but definitely active.

âAda,â she whispered, and felt the surface ripple.

Her phone rang. Claire answered it. No incoming caller ID had appeared on the display, just random numbers and letters. She answered.

âWhat?â the computer snapped. âIâm busy, you know. I canât just be at your constant beck and call.â

âShut down the portal to the Glass House.â

âOh, bother. Do it yourself.â

âI donât know how!â

âI hardly have time to school you,â Ada said primly. God, she reminded Claire of Myrninânot in a good way. âVery well. I shall do it for you this one time. But youâll have to turn it on again yourself. And stop calling me!â

The phone clicked off, and under Claireâs fingers, the surface turned cold and still, like glass.

Blocked. Quantum stasis, she thought, fascinated, and wondered how that worked, for about the millionth time. She wanted to take Ada apart and figure it out. Yeah, if you live long enough. It had taken Myrnin three hundred years to put Ada together; it might take her that long just to figure out the basic principles heâd used.

Michael came back into the living room, leading two other vampiresâYsandre, that smug little witch, and her occasional partner FranÃ§ois, an equally nasty reject from some Eurotrash vampire melodrama.

They were walking clichÃ©s, but they were also deadly. Claire couldnât even look at FranÃ§ois without remembering how heâd ripped the cross off of her neck and bitten her. She still had the scarsâfaint, but theyâd always be there. And she couldnât forget how that had felt, either.

A hot flood of emotion came over her when she saw him smirking at herâhate, fear, loathing, and fury. She knew he could feel it coming off of her in sick waves.

She also knew he enjoyed it.

FranÃ§ois gave her an elaborate bow and blew her a kiss. âChÃ©rie,â he said. âThe exquisite taste of you still lingers in my mouth.â

Shaneâs hands closed into fists. FranÃ§ois saw that, too. Claire touched Shaneâs arm; his muscles were tensed and hard. âDonât let him bait you,â she whispered. âI was a snack. Not a date.â

FranÃ§ois closed his eyes and made a point of sniffing the air. âAh, but you smell so different now,â he said, with elaborate disappointment. âRich and complex, not simple and pure anymore. Still, I was the first to taste your blood, wasnât I, little Claire? And you never forget your first.â

âDonât!â she hissed to Shane, and dug her fingernails in as deep as she could. It was all she could do. If Shane decided to go for him, she knew how it would end.

Luckily, so did Shane. He slowly relaxed, and Claire saw Michaelâs tension ease as well. âWe talking, or are we walking?â Shane asked. âI thought we had someplace to be.â

Claire felt a sunburst of pride in him, and a longing that came with itâshe wanted all of this to just stop; she wanted to go back to the night, the silence, the touch of his skin and the sound of his whispers. That was real. That was important.

It was a reason to live through all this.

She took Shaneâs hand and squeezed it. He sent her a look. âWhat?â

She whispered, âYouâre just full of awesome; did you know that?â

FranÃ§ois made a face. âFull of something. In the car, fools.â

Founderâs Square at twilight was full of peopleârock-concert full. Claire didnât even know this many people lived in Morganville. âDid they grab the students, too?â she asked Michael.

âBishopâs not quite that stupid. Itâs residents only. University gates were closed. The place is under lock-down.â

âWhat, again? Even the stoners are going to figure out somethingâs going on.â Claire certainly would have, and she knew most of the students werenât that gullible. Then again, knowing and wanting to push the status quo were two very different things. âYou think theyâll stay on campus?â

âI think if they donât, the problemâs going to solve itself,â Michael said somberly. âAmelie will try to protect them, but weâve got a much bigger issue tonight.â

Technically, that challenge was saving Morganville, and everybody in it.

There were no chairs down on the grassy area, but Bishopâs vampires were out and about, and they were separating people at the entrances to the park and sending them to special holding areas. Or, Claire, thought, pens. Like sorting cattle. âWhat are they doing?â

âDividing people according to their Protectors,â FranÃ§ois said. âWhat else?â

Bishop had kept the Protection system, thenâor at least, he hadnât bothered to really dismantle it. People were being questioned at the gate. If they didnât name a Protector, they got slapped with a big yellow sticker and herded into a big open area in the middle. âWhat if their Protector is one of Amelieâs rebels?â She knew the answer to that one. âThen theyâre no longer Protected. They go in the middle, too?â

Michael looked pallidânot just vampire-pale, really stressed and upset, as if he knew what was coming before she did. Claire didnât get it until FranÃ§ois said, âJust like your friends,â and he grabbed Shane. Ysandre took hold of Eve. They both fought and cursed and tried to get free, but it was no useâthey were shoved apart from Michael and Claire.

They were both dragged away to the big cordoned- off area in the center of the square. Claire tried to follow them, but Michael held her back. âDonât,â he said. âBishop may not know youâre out of his control yet. Tell him you were drugged by Hannah to keep you out of the way. Itâs the truth; heâll probably sense that.â

âWhat about Shane? Eve? God, how can you just stand there?â

âI donât know,â he admitted. âBut I know I have to. Claire, donât screw this up. You wonât help them, and youâll only get yourself killed.â He gave her a grim smile. âAnd me, because Iâd have to get in the middle.â

Claire stopped fighting him, but she still couldnât accept it. She saw why Richard had wanted people out of town who were at the highest risk; Bishop intended this to be a public spectacle.

His final act to make himself the undisputed ruler of Morganville. In the bad old days, that meant executing lots of people.

FranÃ§ois took Claireâs arm and marched her up to the front, past angry, scared men and women she knew by sight, and some sheâd never seen before. That section had a symbol taped to the barrier that surrounded itâ she vaguely recognized it as the symbol for a vampire named Valerie, whoâd joined Bishop in the first round of fighting. And yes, there was Valerie, standing inside the barricade with her humans, but looking very much as if she wished she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Past Valerieâs barricades was a big raised stage, at least twenty feet off the ground, with steps leading up to it. There were plush chairs, and carpet, and a red velvet backdrop behind it. Spotlights turned the sunset pale in contrast. The stage was empty, but there was a knot of people standing at the foot of the steps.

Richard Morrell was there, dressed in a spotless dark blue suit, with a sky blue tie. He looked like he was running for office, not about to fight for his life; apparently, he and Amelie had the same philosophy on looking good for the Apocalypse. Next to him, Hannah still wore her police uniform, but no beltâand no gun, handcuffs, baton, stakes, or pepper spray. Theyâd taken away the human copsâ weapons. There were other people, tooâmostly vampires, but Claire recognized Dean Wallace, the head of TPU, and a few of the other prominent humans in town, including Mr. Janes, who was the CEO of the biggest bank in town. Mr. Janes had decided to stay. Sheâd seen his name on Richardâs evac list, and sheâd seen him driving away from the warehouse instead of getting on the bus.

She wondered how Mr. Janes was feeling about that decision right now. Not too good, she was guessing. He kept looking out at the crowd, probably trying to find friends and family.

She knew how he felt.

Richard Morrell nodded to her. âYou okay?â

Why did everybody always ask that? âSure,â she lied. âWhatâs going to happen?â

âWish I knew,â Richard said. âStay close to Michael, whatever happens.â

She was going to do that regardless, but she appreciated that he cared. He patted her on the back, and under cover of shaking her hand, he pressed something into her hand.

It was a silver knife, no bigger than her finger. Razor-sharp, too. She tried not to cut herselfâthe last thing she wanted was for the vamps around her to smell bloodâand managed to get it in the pocket of her hoodie without stabbing herself. From Richardâs warning look, she got that it was a weapon of last resort.

She nodded to let him know she understood.

A cordon of vampires closed in around them, including the tall, thin, sexless dude whom sheâd last seen with the Goldmans. What was his name? Pennywell. Ugh. He had a thin smile, like he knew what was going to happen, and it wasnât going to be pretty.

âUp,â he said, and jerked his chin to indicate that they were supposed to climb the steps. Richard went firstâtrying to set a good example, Claire supposedâand she followed, along with Hannah and Michael. It seemed like a long climb, and it reminded her of nothing else than those old stories about people getting hanged, or walking the last mile to the electric chair.

Up on the stage, it was a whole lot worse. There were hisses and boos from the crowd, quickly hushed, and Claire was blinded by the white spotlights, but she could feel thousands of people staring at her. Iâm nobody, she wanted to shout. I donât want to be up here!

They wouldnât care about her motives, or her choices, or anything else. She was working for Bishop. That made her the enemy.

Richard took one of the chairs, and Dean Wallace sat next to him. Hannah stayed standing next to Richardâs chair, arms folded. Claire didnât quite know what to do, so she stuck close to Michael as Mr. Janes claimed the last plush chair.

Two vampires came up the steps carrying Bishopâs massive carved throne, which they set right in the exact center of the carpeted stage.

Mr. Pennywellâif he was a he; Claire still couldnât really tellâstood next to the throne, along with Ysandre and FranÃ§ois. The old friends, Claire thought. The clique.

Bishop came through the curtains at the back of the stage. He was wearing a black suit, white shirt, black tie, and a colorful red pocket square. In fact, he was dressed better than Mr. Janes. No ornate medieval robes, which was kind of what Claire had expected. He didnât even have a crown.

But he had a throne, and he settled into it. His three favorite henchpersons knelt in front of him, and he gave them a lazy blessing.

Then he said, âI will speak with the townâs mayor.â

Claire didnât know how it was possible, but Bishopâs voice echoed from every corner of the squareâa pocket microphone, she guessed, broadcasting to amplified speakers hidden in the trees. It was eerie, though. She squinted. Out behind the lights, she saw that Shane and Eve had squeezed their way through the crowd and were standing at the front of the group in the center of the square. Shane had his arm around Eve, but not in a boyfriend wayâjust for comfort.

The way Michael had his arm around Claire.

Richard Morrell got up and walked over to stand in front of Bishop.

âI demanded loyalty,â Bishop said. âI received defiance. Not just from my daughter and her misguided followers, but from humans. Humans under your control, Mayor Morrell. This is not acceptable. It cannot continue, this blatant defiance of my rule.â

Richard didnât say anything, but then, Claire had no idea what he really could say. Bishop was just stating the obvious.

And it was just a warm-up to what was coming.

âToday, I learned that you personally authorized the removal from our town of several of our most valued citizens,â Bishop said. âMany members of your own town council, for instance. Leaders of industry. People of social standing. Tell me, Mayor Morrell, why did you spirit these people away, and leave so many of your common citizens here to bear the punishment? Were you thinking only of the rich and powerful?â

Clever. He was trying to make the town think that Richard was like his dadâcorrupt, in it for his own sake.

It would probably work, too. People liked to believe that sort of thing.

Richard said, âI donât know what youâre talking about. If anyone left town, Iâm sure they must have had your permission, sir. How could they have left if you didnât authorize it?â

Which was a direct slap in the face for Bishop on the subject of his authority. And his power.

Bishop stood up.

âI will find out the secrets of this town if I have to rip them bloody from every one of you,â he said, âand when I do have my answers, you will pay a price, Richard. But to ensure that we have a loyal and stable government, I must ask you to appoint a new town council now. Since you so carelessly allowed the last one to slip away.â

âLet me guess. All vampires,â Richard said.

Bishop smiled. âNo, of course not. But if they are not vampires, I will, of course, make them vampires . . . simply to ensure fairness. . . .â

His voice trailed off, because someone was coming up the steps. Someone Bishop hadnât summoned.

Myrnin.

He looked half-dead, worse than Claire had ever seen him; his eyes were milky white, and he felt blindly for each slow step as he climbed. He looked thinner, too. Frail.

She felt sick when she saw the manic smile on his face, so out of touch with the exhaustion of his body.

âSo sorry, my lord,â he said, and tried to make one of his usual elaborate bows. He staggered, off balance, and settled for a vague wave. âI was detained. I would never miss a good party. Is there catering? Or are we dining buffet?â

Bishop didnât look at him with any favor. âYou might have dressed for the occasion,â he said. âYouâre filthy.â

âI dress as nature wills me. Oh, Claire, good. So glad to see you, my dear.â Myrnin grabbed Claire and dragged her away from Michael, wrapped her in a tight embrace, and waltzed her in an unsteady circle around the stage while she struggled.

There was nothing vague about his voice when he whispered, âDo nothing. Something is about to happen. Keep your wits, girl.â

She nodded. He kissed her playfully on the throatânot quite as innocently as she would have likedâand reeled away to lean on the back of Bishopâs chair. âBeg pardon,â he said. âDizzy.â

âYouâre drunk,â Bishop said.

âThatâs what happens when you are what you eat,â Myrnin agreed. âI stopped off for a bite. Unfortunately, all that was left in town were pathetic alcoholics, and criminals too fast for me to catch.â

Bishop ignored him. He turned his attention back to Richard. âWill you name your town council, Mayor? Or must I name them for you?â

âYouâll do what you want.â Richard shrugged. âIâm not going to enable you.â

âThen Iâll have to remove those of your appointees who remain.â Bishop snapped his fingers, and Ysandre and FranÃ§ois moved to grab Mr. Janes and Dean Wallace. When Hannah Moses tried to interfere, she ended up facedown on the carpet, held there by Pennywell. âAnd Iâll allow my hunters to relieve us of any of your citizens who remain unclaimed, or are loyal to my enemy. There. That should clear the air a great deal.â

The screaming started down in the crowd as the people in the center of the square realized theyâd been put there to die.

Shane and Eve . . .

Claire grabbed the silver knife in her pocket and tried to get to Bishop. Michael tackled her, probably for her own good.

Myrnin lunged for Bishop. Bishop caught him easily, laughing at Myrninâs flailing attempts to fight, and snapped his fingers at Ysandre. She reached in her pocket and took something out that Claire recognized.

A syringe. From the color of the liquid, it was Dr. Millsâs cure.

Bishop plunged the needle into Myrninâs heart and emptied the contents, then dropped Myrnin to lie on the carpet, writhing, as the cure raced through his body.

When he opened his eyes, the white film was gone from them.

He was healing.

But he was also in horrible pain.

âI know your plans,â Bishop said, and smiled down at him. âI know you filled yourself with poison before coming here. I know you planned to have me drain you and cripple myself so your mistress could finish me off. Unfortunately, itâs wasted effort, my dear old friend.â

He gestured, and the curtain at the back opened.

Amelie was dragged out, bound in silver chains. She was still wearing her perfect pink suit, but it wasnât so perfect nowâfilthy, ripped, bloody. Her pale crown of hair had come down in straggles all around her face.

She had a silver leash around her neck, and Oliver was holding it.

Oliver.

Claire felt hot, then cold, then very still inside. Sheâd come to believe he wasnât as bad as sheâd thought; sheâd actually started to think he really was almost . . . trustworthy.

Obviously, Amelie had thought so, too. And Michael, because he went for Oliver in a big way, and was brought down by Pennywell and two others.

Worse, though, was the next prisoner, also wrapped in silver chains, and suffering a lot worse than Amelie from the touch of the poisonous metal. His skin smoked and blackened where it touched him, because he was younger and more fragile than she was.

Sam Glass.

Amelie cried out when she saw him, and closed her eyes. Sheâd lost her careful detachment, and now Claire could see in her how much she cared. How much she wanted Sam.

How much she loved him.

Bishop smiled, and in that smile, Claire saw everything. He didnât want to just destroy Morganville; he wanted to destroy life, and hope, and reasons for living at all. He could win only if he was the last vampire standing, no matter how many people that meant he had to kill along the way.

âYou couldnât have won, Amelie,â he said, and the tattoo on Claireâs arm flared back into view, weaving its way up from a single spot of indigo on her wrist until it covered her arm. Then her chest. She felt it spreading like poison through her whole body, burning, and then it flared out like a brush fire. Gone for real, this time. âThere, you can have your little pet back now. I no longer have need for her. She helped me learn everything I needed to know.â

âI doubt that,â Amelie said. Her voice was ragged with emotion, but she held her fatherâs stare. âI was careful to keep things from her.â

âNot so careful to keep them from Oliver, though. And that was a mistake.â He tipped her chin up to meet her eyes. âMorganville is mine. You are mine. Again.â

âThen take whatâs yours,â Amelie said. She seemed weak now. Defeated. âKill, if you wish. Burn. Destroy. When itâs over, what do you have, Father? Nothing. Exactly what youâve always had. We came here to build. To live. Itâs not something you would ever understand.â

âOh, I do understand. I just despise it. And here,â Bishop said, âis where you die.â

He yanked Amelieâs head to the side, and for a horrible second Claire thought she was going to see him kill her, right there, but then he laughed and kissed her on the throat.

âThough, of course, not at my hands,â he said. âIt wouldnât be moral, after all. We must set a good example, or so you like to tell me, child. Iâll let your humans kill you, eventually. Once youâve begged for the privilege.â

He shoved Amelie aside, into Pennywellâs hands, and instead, he grabbed Sam Glass.

âNo!â Michael shouted, and leaped to his feet to stop it.

He couldnât. Claire caught sight of Samâs pale, set face, of a determination she couldnât understand, and of Michael being brought down ten feet away, as Bishop exposed Samâs throat and bit him.

Amelieâs scream tore through the air. Myrninâstill shaking and weakâcrawled toward her. Ysandre kicked him aside, laughing.

Oliver just stood there, like an ice sculpture. Only his eyes were alive, and even they didnât show Claire anything she understood.

Michael wasnât there to hold Claire down anymore. She scrambled to her feet, clutched the silver knife, and plunged it into Ysandreâs back as deeply as she could. It dug into bone.

âOh,â Ysandre said, annoyed. She tried to get at the knife, but it was out of her reach. She turned on Claire with a snarl, then staggered. Shock blanked her pretty face, and then worry.

Then fear, as the burning started.

She fell, screaming for help. Claire vaulted over her to kneel next to Myrnin. He was fighting his way back through the pain, panting, and his eyes were bright crimson from the stress, and probably hunger.

He wasnât out of control, though. Not anymore. âGet me up,â he demanded. âDo it now!â

She offered him a hand, and he used it to haul himself to his feetâunsteady, but stronger than sheâd ever seen him. This was a different Myrnin . . . sleek, glossy, dark, and dangerous, with his glowing, angry eyes fixed on Bishop.

âStop him!â Claire yelled at Myrnin, as he just stood there. Sam was dying. Myrnin was letting it happen. âItâs Sam! You have to stop him!â

Instead, Myrnin turned and attacked Pennywell.

âNo! Myrnin, no! Sam!â

Oliver still wasnât moving. He was staring at Bishop. Waiting.

They were all waiting.

Down in the crowd, screaming had started, and as Claire looked out she saw that people were trying to run. There were vampires moving through the crowdâhunters, taking victims. The Morganville humans were fighting for their lives. A lot of people had shown up armed to their own funerals, including Shane and Eve; Claire caught glimpses of them down there, and all she could do was pray theyâd be okay. They had each other for protection, at least.

She had to help Michael. Claire didnât dare grab the knife from Ysandreâs backâit was the only thing keeping her out of the fightâbut she couldnât just stand there, either.

Luckily, she didnât have to. Hannah Moses shouted her name, and as Claire turned, she saw Hannah throwing something at her. She instinctively reached up to catch it.

It was a sharp wooden stake. Hannah didnât wait to see what she was going to do with it; she was already heading for FranÃ§ois, who was trying to get hold of Richard Morrell. Hannah leaped on the nasty little vampire, pinned him with an expert shift of her weight, and plunged her own wooden stake through his heart. It wouldnât kill him, probably, but he was out of the struggle until somebody removed it.

Michael had already won his fight by the time Claire got there; he was bloodied and a little unsteady, but he grabbed her arm and yelled, âGet out of here!â

âWe have to save Sam!â she protested.

But it was too late for that.

Bishop dropped Sam limply to the carpeted floor, and Claire could see that if Sam was still alive, he wouldnât be for long. The holes in his throat were barely leaking at all, and he wasnât moving.

Fury whited out her good sense.

Claire ran at Bishop as he turned, and rammed the stake at his chest, right on target for where his heart would be, if he had one at all.

He caught her wrist.

âNo,â he said gently, like someone with a pet whoâd piddled on the good furniture. âIâll not be taken by the likes of you, little girl.â

She tried to get away, but she knew it was over; there was just no way she was getting out of this. Michael had gotten into a fight along the way to reach Sam. Amelie was down on her knees, still bound by all the silver chains. Hannah and Richard were back-to-back, defending themselves against three vampire guards.

Myrnin was fighting Pennywell, and destroying half the stage along the way. There was some old hate there. History.

Oliver had drifted closer to Amelie, although Claire couldnât see any change in him at all. He still wasnât fighting, for or against, and he certainly wasnât making any heroic effort to save her.

âClaire!â

Shane. She heard him scream her name, but he was too far awayâtwenty feet down, at the foot of the stage, looking up.

He had a knife in his hand. As she looked down to meet his eyes, he flipped it, grabbed it by the blade, and threw it.

The knife grazed her cheek, but it hit Mr. Bishop right in the center of his chest.

He laughed. âYour young man has quite the throwing arm,â he said, and pulled the knife out as casually as a splinter. Not silver. It wouldnât do a thing to him. âYour friends like to think they still have a chance, but they donât. Thereâs no . . . â

Then the oddest thing happened. . . . Bishop seemed to hesitate. His eyes went blank and distant, and for a second Claire thought he was just savoring his victory.

âThereâs no chance,â he started again, and then stopped. Then he took an unsteady step to the side, like heâd lost his balance.

Then he let her go altogether, to brace himself on the arm of his throne. Bishop looked down at the knife in his handâShaneâs knifeâin disbelief. He couldnât hold on to it. It slipped out of his fist, hit the seat of the chair, and bounced off to the floor.

Bishop staggered backward.As he did, his coat flapped open, and Claire saw that the wound was bleeding.

Bleeding a lot.

âGet the book!â Amelie suddenly screamed, and Claire saw it, tucked in the breast pocket of Bishopâs jacket. Amelieâs book, Myrninâs book. The book of Morganville, with all the secrets and power.

Seemed only right that it ought to be the thing he lost tonight, even if he won everything else.

Claire darted in, grabbed the book, and somehow ducked his clutching hands.

Bishop lunged after her as she danced backward, but he seemed confused now. Slower.

Sicker?

As if sensing some signal, Oliver finally moved. He took a pair of leather gloves from his pocket, calmly put them on, and snapped the silver chains holding Amelie prisoner. He picked up the end of the silver leash and held it for a second, looking into her eyes.

He smiled.

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

Amelie surged to her feetâwounded, 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.

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

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

. . . and he was gone. Claire could see his lifeâor whatever it was that animated a vampireâslip 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 armâthat was the only way Claire could tell that Amelie wasnât herself, because she seemed to be more alive than ever.

More motivated, anyway.

Bishop was seriously hurt, although Claire couldnât figure out how; Shaneâs knife couldnât 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 distanceâall 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 FranÃ§oisâs 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 heâd removed from Amelieâs neck. In a single, smooth motion, he wrapped it around FranÃ§oisâs throat and tied him to the arm of Bishopâs heavy throne. âStay,â he snapped, and, just to be sure, wrapped another length of heavy silver chain around his ankle. FranÃ§ois howled in pain.

Oliver plucked the wooden stake out of Claireâs hand, removed the silver knife from Ysandreâs 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.

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

âYouâre . . . youâre notââ

âOn Bishopâs side?â He smiled thinly. âHe certainly has thought so, since I sold myself to him the night he came to Morganville. But no. I am not his beast. Iâve always been my own.â

Amelie took a step toward her father. âItâs over,â she said. âYouâve done your worst. Youâll do no more.â

He looked desperate, confused, andâfor the first timeâreally afraid. âHow? How did you do this?â

âThe key was not in guessing whom you would choose to kill,â she said, and her voice was light and calm and ice cold. âYou 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 youâd kill at least one of us personally; you enjoy it far too much. You couldnât resist.â

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

Bishopâs face went blank. âYou . . . you poisoned me. Through Myrnin. But I didnât drink.â

âI poisoned Myrnin,â she said. âAnd myself. And Sam. The only one who didnât 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 weâd planned, at least insofar as she witnessed it.â A pawn. Claire had always been a pawn.

And SamâSam had been a sacrifice.

Amelie looked unsteady now, and Oliver put an arm around her shoulders. It looked like comfort, but it wasnât; he took a syringe from his pocket, uncapped it with a flick of his thumb, and drove it into the side of Amelieâs neck. He emptied the contents in, and she shuddered and sagged against him for just a moment, then drew in a deep breath and straightened.

She nodded to Oliver, who took out another syringe, which he pitched to Claire. âGive it to him.â

For a second she thought he meant to Bishop, but then she realized, as Myrninâs strength failed and he went to his knees, who it was really meant to help. She swallowed hard, looking at Myrnin uncertainly, and he moved his hair aside to bare the side of his pale neck. âHurry,â he said. âNot much time.â

She did it, somehow, and helped him back to his feet.

When he looked up, she could see that he was better. Much better.

Amelie said, âIn case you have any doubt, Father, that was an antidote to the poison that is taking hold inside you. Without the antidote, the poison wonât kill you, but it will disable you. You canât win against us. Not now.â

Down among the crowds, the fights were dying down. There were casualties, but many of them were Bishopâs people; the humans of Morganville werenât quite as easy to lead to slaughter as heâd expected. All their anger and vampire-slaying attitude had helped, after all.

And now, pounding up the steps on the side of the stage, came Shane and Eve, backed by a party of grim-looking humans, including Detective Hess and several other cops. All held weapons. Eve had a crossbow that she aimed at Bishopâs chest.

Michael took an extra stake from Hannah.

All of Morganville on one side, and Bishop alone on the other.

He backed up, toward the back of the stage.

Behind him, the curtain took on a silvery shimmer.

âPortal!â Claire yelled, but it was too late; Bishop had activated an escape hatch, and in the next second he stumbled through it and was gone. Amelie was too far away, and too weak to go after him anyway.

Claire didnât think; she just jumped forward, put her hand on the portalâs surface, and yelled Adaâs name.

âWhat?â the computer asked. The sound this time boomed out of the portal.

âI need to track Bishop!â Claire said.

âI donât work for you anymore, human,â Ada said, and shut down the portal with a snap. Claire turned to look at Myrnin, who was watching a few feet away, eyes fading back to his normal black. He walked toward her, bare feet gliding over the carpet, and studied the empty space where the portal had been.

Then he reached out and drew a wide circle with a sweep of his arm, and the silver shimmer flickered back into view.

âDonât be rude, Ada,â he said. âNow, I know you can hear me. Where did our dear Mr. Bishop take himself off to?â

âI canât tell you,â Ada said primly. âI donât work for you, either.â

Myrnin placed his palm flat on the surface of the shimmer and looked at Claire. âHeâs reprogrammed her,â he said. âHe must have gone to her and given her his blood while we were making our own plans. I didnât expect him to move so quickly. I wasnât thinking as clearly as I should have been.â He removed his palm, and Claire realized heâd done it as a kind of mute button, so Ada wouldnât hear what they had to say. âAda, my darling, I put you together from scraps and my own blood. Are you really going to say you donât love me anymore?â Claire had never heard him sound that way beforeâso in control of himself, so assured and darkly clever. It made her shiver somewhere deep inside. âLet me come to you. I really want to see you, my love.â

Ada was silent for a moment, and then her ghostly image appeared on the surface of the portalâa Victorian woman, dressed in the big skirts and high collar of the times. She smoothed her pale hands over the fabric of her dress. âVery well,â she said. âYou may call on me, Myrnin.â

âExcellent.â He grabbed Claire by the hand and stepped through the portal.

Her foot came down on something soft that ran off with a shrill squeak, and she jumped and gave out a squeal of her own. Rats. She hated rats. It was too dark to see, but in the next second the lights flickered on around the cavern, and there was the monster tangle of pipes and elaborate bracing that was Ada.

Her ghost stood in front of the clumsy giant typewriter-style keyboard, smiling at Myrnin like a lovesick girl, but the smile faltered when she saw Claire. âOh,â she said, through the tinny speakers of the computer. âYou brought her.â

âDonât be jealous, love. Youâre the only girl for me.â Myrnin strode up to the keyboard, through Adaâs two-dimensional form, and Claire saw Ada make a startled face and turn toward him.

âWhat are you doing?â she demanded. âMyrnin!â

âFixing you, hopefully,â he said. âClaire.â

She headed for his side, but Ada turned on her, and the prim Victorian image turned into . . . something else. Something dark and corrupt and horrible, snarling at her.

She flinched and veered off, but Myrninâs hand reached out and grabbed her to drag her in, past Ada. âIgnore her,â he said. âSheâs in a mood.â Myrnin tapped symbols, then uncovered the sharp needle on the control panel, and slammed his hand down on the point. âAda. You will no longer accept commands from Mr. Bishop; do you understand me?â

âHe was nicer to me,â Ada said sulkily. âHe gave me better blood.â

âBetter than mine? I believe Iâm offended.â

Adaâs giggle sounded like a rattle of tinfoil. âWell, you havenât been yourself, you know. But you taste much better now, Myrnin. Almost like your old self.â

âImagine that. Well, then, I promise that youâll get all the lovely sweet blood youâd like from me, if you will block Bishop from access, my sweet.â

Ada made a long, drawn-out humming sound, as if she was thinking, and then she finally said, âWell . . . all right. But you have to give me a full pint.â

âI havenât moved my hand at all, my dear. Drink away.â He let almost a minute go by, then gestured to Claire to come closer. âNearly done, Ada?â

âMmmmmm.â Ada sighed. âYes. Delicious. I feel ever so muchâWhat are you doing?â

He yanked his hand off the panel, grabbed Claireâs, and slammed it down on the needle. She knew better than to try to fight him this time, just winced and bit her lip and tried not to wonder if, say, having Myrninâs blood infecting hers would have any nasty side effects, like a sudden craving for blood and an allergy to the sun.

âSorry,â he said, not as if he was, and altered his voice again to that velvety, dark, seductive tone. âAda, my love?â

No answer.

âAda, Claire is my very good friend, and I really must insist that she have the same access I do.â

Ada made a retching sound.

âAda.â

âNo.â

He sighed. âList for me who has access to the system, please.â

Ada said, âThere are currently six individuals with full access to the portals, not including you. I have removed Mr. Bishop, because you asked so very nicely. That leaves Amelie, Oliver, Michael, Claire, Jason, and Dean. Although Claire is no good for you, Myrnin. You should eat her immediately.â

âThank you, I shall think that over.â He frowned down at the console. âJason. Jason Rosser? Why did I not know this? And who is Dean?â

âThatâs for me to know and you to find out,â Ada said, and laughed. Myrnin blinked.

âSheâs not supposed to do that, right?â Claire asked.

âRight. Oh dear. I think that my blood might have carried an infection deep into her systems. This may be a very bad thing.â

âCanât you give her the cure?â

âItâs not quite that simple,â Myrnin said, and shifted his focus again. âAda, my love? Can you tell me how Jason and Dean have access to the system?â

âSam Glass gave it to Jason,â she said. âBut not full access, of course. Just to use open portals. Dean is Jasonâs friend. I revoked Samâs access, obviously. Because heâs no longer functional.â

Claire fidgeted uncomfortably. The white-hot pain in her hand was starting to eat away at her calm. âUmâMyrnin, can I please stop now?â She figured that Ada must have drained at least a pint by now.

âPlease,â Ada said. âI donât like your blood anyway.â She made a computerized spitting sound. Claire yanked her hand away in relief and cradled it against her chest, squeezing her fist tight to stop the bleeding. âDisgusting. Too sweet.â

Claire stuck her tongue out at the computer.

âI saw that.â

âGood,â she snapped. âWhere did Bishop go?â

âWhy should Iââ

âAda!â Myrninâs voice cracked across the computerâs sulky response, and she went quiet. âI want you to block access to the portals for anyone except me, Amelie, Oliver, Michael, and Claire. Do you understand?â

âIâm not your slave.â Adaâs image flickered, then went out completely.

âIâm sorry,â Myrnin said, and put his hands on the machine, almost like a caress. âMy dear, I will come back and talk to you soon, and weâll work all this out. But you must promise me this. Itâs important.â

Adaâs sigh echoed through the speakers. âI can never say no to you,â she said. âAll right. Iâve locked out Dean and Jason, too.â

âI guess thatâs it,â Claire said, and felt a little bubble of relief that quickly popped when Myrnin shook his head.

âOne more thing. I need to know where Bishop went when he traveled the last portal. Ada, love, can you do that for me?â

Behind them, Claire felt the subtle warping of a portal forming. She and Myrnin both turned to look. Adaâs ghost reappeared, and then drifted off to the side, hands clasped behind her back. Definitely sulking.

Michael stepped through, holding Eveâs hand. Behind him came Shane.

âReally.â Ada sighed. âThereâs just no getting rid of any of you, is there?â

âAda! Tell me where Bishop is!â Myrnin was out of patience, and she must have heard it in his voice. She shrugged.

âThe university,â she said. âI expect he can hide there for some time without detection. Plenty of snacks, after all.â

If by snacks she meant students, then Claire supposed she was right. And the university was full of cavernous buildings, many of which were deserted at night. She was right. It was the perfect hiding place for Bishop, if he wanted to regain his strength and regroup.

They had to get him before that happened.

Myrnin was already on it. He stepped up to the portal Michael and the others had come through, tapped the surface, and listened. Claire heard it, too, faintlyâa kind of ringing sound. A frequency. Of course. The portal worked on frequencies, like a radioâtune in to the right one, and you arrived at the correct destination. Sheâd been doing it without understanding consciously how, but now that she focused, she could hear the tone clearly.

âHere,â Myrnin said, and stepped through. Claire reached back for Shaneâs hand, and walked into the unknown with him.

10

They came out in the Administration Building, in a deserted room that Claire remembered. Myrnin was already gone, but the door was still swinging on its hinges from where heâd headed through it. Claire made sure everybody was through, then took a second to look at the other three.

âYou guys sure you want to do this?â she asked them. Michael looked more adult than sheâd ever seen himâand more like Sam. Heâd lost his grandfather, she realizedâsomeone who wasnât supposed to be lost, ever. And that had fired up something in him that made him different.

More like Sam than ever.

Eve was still unmistakably Eve. She twirled the stake in her fingers, lifted the crossbow in her right hand. âHow often do I get to go vamp stalking?â she asked, and smiled. âLetâs do it.â

âShane?â

Heâd been uncharacteristically quiet. Now, he just nodded. âWatch yourself,â he said, and brushed the back of his hand gently across her cheek. âYou scare me.â

She burst out laughing, shakily. âYouâre insane.â

There was a short hallway outside of the room, deserted and dark; at the end of the hallway was a fire door, and one of the doors was still open a little. Myrnin had gone that way, Claire figured.

She set out after him.

As she stepped outside into the cool evening air, something grabbed her. Not Myrnin.

Bishop.

He looked badâunsteady, but still stronger than a mere human. He fumbled at her clothes; for a second she thought, Oh my God, heâs going to rape me, and then his flailing hand brushed the book sheâd shoved into her pocket. Sheâd forgotten about it.

Now, as he tried to pull it away from her, she fought back. Hard. Bishop was weaker than heâd ever been, and she was panicked. Bishop heard Shane calling her name, and pulled her farther into the darknessâthen he headed for a nearby building, and dragged her up as he climbed. They ended up on the flat roof of the maintenance shed.

âOver there!â she heard Michael shout, and then he was heading toward them in a blur, with Shane and Eve in hot pursuit.

Bishop had his fingers on the book. No! She couldnât let it happen. Claire didnât fully understand what was in those pages, but sheâd seen how he could use it. She felt it, in that tattoo.

She wasnât going to take the chance there was more he could do with it.

Bishop screamed something at her, and his fangs came down. Claire planted both feet in his chest and heaved with all her strength.

Bishop tumbled away from her, skidding on the loose roof gravel. Claire flipped over and scrambled to her feet, running for the edge. She had no idea what sheâd do when she got there. Fly, maybe. Or take the fall, no matter how hard it was.

She didnât have to. Michael swooped in, grabbed her by the waist, and jumped with her. He landed lightly on the ground, let her slide down him, and looked up.

Bishop was leaning over, breathing hard. His fangs and crazy eyes caught the moonlight.

âOh, crap,â Eve said. âHeâs still not exactly Mr. Fluffy.â

Shane summed it up. âRun!â

They did. Shane took Claireâs hand; she had the shortest legs, but the most motivation, and she kept up with them as they raced out into the open green soccer field in front of the Admin Building.

Bishop landed on the grass behind them and began to chase them.

âHeâs going to catch us!â Eve yelled. âHead for the library!â

The TPU library was a big, columned building catty-corner to the Administration Building. It had its lights on, and there were still students coming and going up the steps, oblivious to what was coming their way. âGet out of here!â Claire shouted, and ran full speed to the top of the stairs. Shane was just ahead of her, Eve somewhere behind.

Michael had stopped at the foot of the steps, and was turning to face Bishop. When Claire hesitated, Eve grabbed her by the collar of her T-shirt and yanked her forward. âDonât stop!â she said, panting. âDamn, I need more exercise. Head into the stacks. Donât stop for anything, Claire!â

As they blew through the metal detectors, sirens went off. Students popped out of study carrels and up from tables like prairie dogs, then yelped and scattered as they realized something bad was heading their way, leaving a trail of notebooks and open computers. As they flashed past rows of library books, Shane skidded to a halt, grabbed two volumes with black covers, and tossed one to Eve. She nodded and shoved it in the waistband of her pants.

There was a crash somewhere behind them, and the glass doors blew into a million jagged pieces that flew across the marble floor. Students scrambled for cover. Somebody yelled to call the campus cops; somebody smarter yelled to shut up and hide.

Michael hit the marble floor and rolled, leaving trails of blood. He landed on his hands and knees, facing Claire, Shane, and Eve, whoâd paused halfway down the stacks. âGo!â he told them, and got to his feet as Bishop stepped inside. He didnât seem as unsteady now.

The poison was wearing off, way too fast.

Shane pushed Claire into a run. Eve stumbled after them, looking over her shoulder to see if Michael was going to follow.

He didnât.

The aisle ended in a brick wall, with windows way up high, but there was an exit sign pointing to the left. The three of them turned the corner and headed for it, dodging past students wearing headphones, oblivious to the trouble in the stacks.

Shane hit the fire door first, setting off another alarm, and they raced down another flight of concrete steps.

This side of the library faced the big fountainâonly the fountain was gone, and had been for a couple of months. What was in its place, at the center of six converging sidewalks, was the big concrete rim of what had been the pool, and in the center, a bronze statue of Mr. Bishop, holding a book in his hand.

There was one of those eternal flames burning in front of his statueâthe light of knowledge, or something stupid like that. Claire had been revolted by the statue when it went up.

Now, she had an idea.

âSplit up!â she yelled. âMake sure he sees that you have the books!â

Shane and Eve peeled off, heading right and left.

Claire went straight for the statue.

When Bishop emerged from the library, there was no sign of Michael. He paused on the steps, and he must have realized that two of the three of them were obvious decoysâbut which two? Claire was betting that heâd assume sheâd switched books with Shane.

She guessed right. Bishop jumped off of the stairs to the grass, and headed at a run after Shane. That gave Claire precious time to reach the stone rim of the fountain, climb over, and get to the eternal flame of knowledgeâwhich was just a gas jet, really.

That was all she needed.

Claire pulled the book from her pocket and held it over the flame. Yes. Finally.

âHey!â she distantly heard Eve shouting. âHey, Bishop! Tag!â When she looked up, Eve was jumping up and down, waving her leather-bound book like a demented Goth cheerleader.

Bishop ignored her.

Shane zigzagged, doing the best broken field running Claire had seen outside of a football field, but Bishop was faster and more agile, and he cut him off and bowled Shane over.

Claire looked at the book in her hand.

It wasnât burning. She frantically turned it, trying the side with the gilded pages. âYouâve got to be kidding me!â she yelped, and kept trying.

It wouldnât even scorch.

Bishop took the book from Shane, examined it, and flung it away in disgust. He headed straight for Claire. Eve saw him coming, and got to Claire first, leaping over the rim of the fountain and skidding to a halt. âWhat are you waiting for?â she asked, panting. âBurn the damn thing already!â

âTrying!â Claire gritted out, and out of desperation, grabbed a handful of paper in the middle of the book and twisted.

The pages ripped out. When she held them out over the flames, they immediately caught like flash paper.

âYes!â Eve cheered and jumped up and down, pumping her fists. âGo!â

Claire tore loose more pages and flung them into the fire.

Bishop landed flat-footed in front of her, red-eyed and growling, and backhanded Eve as she tried to get between him and Claire.

Claire ripped more pages and burned them. Sheâd done about half the book.

âYou evil little beast,â Bishop said, and held out his hand. âGive it to me.â

She ripped pages and backed away, dodging around the other side of the brazier. Most of the paper made it to the fire. What didnât drifted lazily around her feet in the breeze. Sparks drifted on the wind and landed on her clothes.

Bishop lunged for her as she tore more pages free. She thrust the handful into the fire a second before he hit her, driving her back against his bronze statue. She landed hard enough to make the metal ring, not to mention her ears.

Bishop reached out to take the ragged remains of his book.

A shadow flashed by them, barely visible in the moonlight, and then Claire felt the statue shake as something leaped on top.

Myrnin, sitting on the shoulders of Bishopâs statue, reached down and plucked the book from Claireâs hand an instant before Bishop grabbed it. âAh, ah, ah,â he said. âDonât be rude, old man. This was never yours in the first place.â He ripped loose a page, balled it up, and pitched it neatly into the brazier, where it burst into flame and was consumed. âLeave the girl alone. Youâre finished now.â

Bishop grabbed Claire and pulled her against his chest, claws out and at her throat. âGive me the book or I kill her!â

âOh, go ahead, then,â Myrnin said, and ripped loose the last handful of pages. He studied the writing on them and smiled. âI remember this. Good times. Ah, well.â He flung them toward the fire. Bishop desperately grabbed at one of the fluttering leaves and managed to pluck it out of the air before it caught fire. âOh, dear. Now you have a memoir of my secret relationship with Queen Elizabeth. The first one. I hope it does you a lot of good, Bishop. If youâre seeking spells and magic, you wonât find it on that page. Now, this one . . .â Myrnin produced, by sleight of hand, another sheet, neatly folded. âThis one could easily give you rule of Morganville. Maybe even the entire human world. I promised Amelie I would never let it fall into evil hands, but then again, itâs in mine already, isnât it? So that might already be a moot point.â He lost his smile. âLet the girl go, and you shall have it.â

âMyrnin, donât,â she whispered.

âIâm not doing it for you,â he said. He quickly folded the paper into a toy airplane and sailed it toward Bishop, who snatched it out of the air with a greedy cry.

Myrninâs eyes flickered bright red. âOh dear,â he said. âI might have given you the wrong page. Ardentia verba!â

The page burst into purple fire, and it traveled from the page through Bishopâs skin, over his hand, onto his clothes. The paper was ash in seconds. Bishop staggered back, engulfed in fire.

Myrnin reached down and grabbed Claire. He pulled her up and settled her safely on the metal arm of Bishopâs statueâthe one holding the open book.

âThe goal of the wise,â Myrnin said softly, âis good works. Here endeth your lesson, old man.â

Claire swallowed. She couldnât stand to watch him burn, and shut her eyes. âI thought . . . I thought we needed his blood for the cure,â she said. She didnât want to save him. She just hated to see anyone suffer.

âWhy, youâre rightâwe do.â Myrnin snapped his fingers, and the purple fire went out. Bishop toppled to the stone floor of the empty fountain, too weak to escape.

Myrnin jumped down from the statue, pinned Bishop to the ground, and bit him. He didnât drain himânot quiteâand rose, wiping blood from his lips. âIâve got all his blood I need,â he said. âNow I have something for you, Bishop. Donât worryâI wonât kill you. I wonât even allow you to die.â He reached into his pocket and pulled out another syringe, this one filled with blood. He injected Bishop with it, straight into the heart. âMy blood,â Myrnin said. âBefore you cured me. Now I hope you can enjoy a long, slow decline into madness, just like mine. I wish you the joy of it.â

Bishop didnât move. He blinked up at the moon, the cold stars, and finally closed his eyes.

Not dead, though.

Claire wasnât sure that was a great idea.

âHey,â Eve said, and sat up, holding her head. âOw. What is that smellâOh. Is heââ

âNo,â Michael said, and stepped over the rim to help Eve to her feet. âHeâs alive.â He looked up at Claire and smiled, and it was a full-on Michael Glass special smile, one that turned on the sun and made the stars dance. âWeâre all alive.â

âRelatively speaking,â Myrnin said. âAh. Your white knight has arrived. A bit dinged, but intact.â

Shane. He was more than a little dinged, but Claire knew heâd be okay with that. Theyâd all given up hope of coming out of this alive, at some point; she could see in his smile, like Michaelâs, the joy of being wrong.

âWish I had a camera,â Shane said, staring up at her. âIs this some kind of college thing? Like flagpole sitting or something?â

âShut up,â she said, and jumped.

He caught her.

The kiss was worth the fall.

Two days passed in a blur. Claire spent most of it sleeping; sheâd never felt so exhausted, or so glad to simply be alive.

On the third day, when she came down for dinner, she found the others sharing a massive platter of chili dogs and looking somber. Shane stood up when he saw her, which made her heart turn cartwheels, and he pulled out her chair. Eve and Michael shared an amused look.

âSo cute,â Eve said. When Shane glared, she smiled. âNo, really. It is. Dude, chill.â

There was something forced about it, and Claire didnât know why; she didnât get the sense that sheâd walked in on an argument or anything like that. âWhatâs going on?â she asked as she loaded her plate with a couple of hot dogs. She wasnât sure she really wanted to know. Sheâd just gotten used to the idea of not being marked for death. Please donât let it be about Bishop escaping, or something horrible like that . . .

It wasnât. Michael took a shallow sip of whatever was in his coffee mug and said, âSamâs funeral is tonight.â

Oh God. Somehow, she hadnât expected that, and she really didnât even know why. The chili dog lost its taste, and she had to work to swallow it.

âThey havenât had one before,â Eve put in. âA funeral, I mean. For a vampire. At least, not one thatâs been open to the public. But this one was posted in the newspaper, and they ran it on the nightly news, too. Everybodyâs invited.â

Most people would come out of curiosity, but for the four of them, it would be real loss. Under the table, Claire saw that Eve was holding Michaelâs hand. He was taking care not to look at any of them.

âItâs in a couple of hours,â Eve continued. âThe three of us were going to go . . .â

âSure,â Claire said. âI want to go.â She didnât, because it already hurt to think about it, but she thought they ought to be there for Michael. âI should find something to wear.â

âYou should finish your dinner first,â Eve said. âOne bite does not equal a balanced meal.â

âNeither does a whole chili dog,â Claire said.

âDo not diss the dog,â Shane said. âItâs right up there with mom and apple pie when it comes to cultural icons.â

âYou forgot Chevrolets,â Eve said.

âNever been a Chevy man, myself.â

âHeretic.â Eve broke off to give Claire a fierce look. âEat. Iâm not kidding.â

Claire managed to choke down the rest of her chili dog, but one was all she could manage. Despite Shane and Eveâs bantering, there was a sadness that hung around Michael like a second skin. He didnât say much, except, âMy parents are here. They flew in to El Paso and drove from there.â

Wow. Claire had never heard much about Michaelâs parents, except that theyâd moved away, and heâd never expected to see them back in town again. She finally said tentatively, âI guess thatâs good . . . ?â

âSure,â he said, and got up from the table. âIâm going to get ready.â He walked out, and the rest of them watched him leave. Eve looked very sad, suddenly. And very adult.

âHis mom had cancer, you know,â she said. âThatâs why they got to leave Morganville. Because she needed serious treatments. Sam made sure she got them. This is the first time theyâve been back.â

âOh,â Claire said. âIs Michael okay?â

âHe just wonât let it out,â she said. âGuys. What is it with you and emotions, anyway?â

âTheyâre like Kryptonite,â Shane said. âHeâll deal. Just give him time.â

Claire wasnât too sure about that.

Michael drove, and nobody had much to say, really. It felt sad and uncomfortable.

As soon as the car stopped at the church, vampire escorts were at the doors to open them. The undead valet service. Under normal circumstances that might have been creepy, but there was something almost comforting about it tonight. Claire looked up and realized that the vampire offering a hand to her was, of all people, Oliver. She froze, and his eyebrows tilted sharply upward.

âToday, if you please,â he said. âIâm here as a courtesy. Donât take it personally.â

âOh, I donât,â she promised, and accepted his strong, ice-cold touch to help her out of the car. Shane quickly took her arm, giving Oliver a go-away glare, which was a little funny, and then they fell in behind Michael and Eve.

It was bizarre, Claire thought. The church was full, standing room only to the back, but the crowd parted as they walked in, led by Oliver. And every head turned to follow them.

âOkay, this is weird,â Claire whispered. She felt like she had a target painted on her back at first, but then she realized that most of the people looking at them werenât angryâthey were interested. Or sympathetic. Or even proud.

âVery weird,â Shane whispered back.

The front row held Amelie, sitting alone, dressed in a white suit so cold and perfect that it made her look like an ice sculpture, head to toe. Behind her sat a man and woman in their late forties, and as soon as she saw them, Claire saw the family resemblance. The woman must have been really beautiful when she was younger; she was now very handsome, the way older women got, and her hair was a faded shade of gold with red highlights. They both stood up as Michael let go of Eve and came toward them.

âHoney,â Michaelâs mother said, and Michael fell into a three-way embrace with both of his parents. âOh, honeyââ

âMom, Iâm so sorry, I couldnâtâI couldnât do anything . . .â Michaelâs voice failed, and Claire saw his shoulders shake. His mother smoothed his hair gently, and the smile she offered him was kind and full of understanding.

âJust like him,â she said. âJust like your grandfather. Donât you apologize, Michael. Donât you dare. I know you did everything you could. Heâd never blame you, not for a second.â

Claire hadnât realized that Michael felt guilty, but looking back on it now, she couldnât imagine he wouldnât. His mom was rightâhe was just like Sam, really.

Heâd feel responsible.

Mrs. Glass looked past Michael, and her eyes focused on the rest of them. Claire first, then Shane, then Eve. She took a deep breath, moved toward them, and held out her hands to Eve for a hug. âI havenât seen you in years, Eve. You look wonderful. And Shane . . .â She moved on to him. Shane wasnât a hugger, not like Eve, but he tried his best. âIâm so glad youâre here for Michael.â

He looked down. Claire knew he was thinking about how angry heâd been with Michael over the past few monthsâtoo angry, sometimes. âHeâs my best friend,â Shane said, and finally met Michaelâs eyes. âVampire or not. He always will be.â

Michael nodded.

Mrs. Glass hugged Claire, too. âAnd youâre Claire. Iâve heard so much about you. Thank you for all youâve done for my son.â

Claire blinked. All sheâd done? âI think itâs the other way around,â she said softly. âMichaelâs a hero. Heâs always been there for me.â

âThen youâve been there for each other,â Mrs. Glass said. âTrue friends.â

The crowd was parting again, letting more people pass, and as Claire looked around, she saw her own mother and father. âOh no,â she whispered. âI didnât know they were back yet.â

âYour parents?â Michaelâs mom asked, and Claire nodded. Mrs. Glass quickly moved to greet them, gracious and sad, and then they closed in on Claire.

And Shane.

She winced at the icy stares her parents gave Shane, but they knew better than to start that here, now. They took seats to Claireâs right, with Shane, Eve, Michael and his parents stretching out to her left.

And directly ahead, Amelie.

At the front of the church, surrounded by a blizzard of flowers of all colors, was a shiny black coffin with silver trim. The lid was closed. The discreet sound of organ music got louder, and the whispering buzz of the crowd in the church quieted as the door opened off to the side, and Father Joe came out, dressed in a blinding white cassock and a purple stole. He mounted the steps and looked out at the crowd with quiet authority. For a young priest, he had a lot of presence, but then Claire expected heâd have to, to serve a Morganville congregation that was composed equally of vampires and humans.

âWe come to celebrate a life,â he said. âThe life of Samuel Glass, a son of Morganville.â

Claireâs eyes blurred under a wash of tears. She couldnât imagine Sam would have wanted to be remembered any other way, really. She barely heard the rest of what Father Joe said about Samâshe found that she was watching Amelie, or at least the very still back of Amelieâs head. Not a hair out of place, not a whisper of motion.

So quiet.

And then, suddenly, Amelie was getting up, in absolute silence, and walking up the steps. She stopped not at the podium, but at the coffin, and opened the hinged cover. It clicked into place, and Amelie stayed there for a moment, staring down at Samâs face.

Then she turned and faced the hundreds of people gathered in the church.

âI met Samuel Glass here in this church,â Amelie said. Her tone was soft, but it carried. No one moved. No one coughed. As far as Claire could tell, no one breathed. âHe came here to demandâdemandâthat I right some wrong he imagined I had done. He was like an angel with a flaming sword, full of fury and righteousness, with absolutely no fear of the consequences. No fear of me.â She smiled, but there was something broken in it. âI think I fell in love with him in that moment, when he was so angry with me. I fell in love with his fearlessness first, and then I realized that it was more than mere courage. It was a conviction that life must be made fair. That we must be better. And for a time . . . for a time I think we were.â

She paused, and looked again at Samâs pale, still face.

âBut I was weak,â she said. âWeak and afraid. And I let him slip away from me, because I didnât have his courage, or his conviction. This moment, this loss, is my fault. Sam gave himself, again, to save lives. To save me. And I have never deserved it.â

There were tears running down her cheeks now, and her voice was trembling. Claire couldnât breathe because of the weight of emotion in her chest.

âSomeone else recently demanded that I change the rules of Morganville,â Amelie continued. âJust as Sam demanded it fifty years ago, and continued to demand it of me at every opportunity.â

Claire realized, with a shock, that Amelie was talking about her. As if what sheâd said was somehow brave.

Amelie reached up and pulled pins from her hair, one after another. Her icy crown of pale hair began to unravel and fall loose around her shoulders.

âI have decided,â she said, âthat changes must be made. Changes will be made. Sam earned the right for humans to stand as equals in this town, and it will be done. It will be painful, it will be dangerous for us all, but it will be done. In Samâs memory, I make it so.â

She leaned over, and very gently, placed a kiss on Samâs lips, then closed the coffin. No one spoke as she walked away, down the steps and out through the side door. Oliver and a few of the other vampires exchanged silent looks, then moved to follow her.

Father Joe spoke over the rising tide of whispers. âLet us pray.â

Claire clasped her hands and looked down. Next to her, Shane was doing the same, but he whispered, âAm I crazy, or did we just win?â

âNo,â Claire whispered back. âBut I think we just got a chance to.â

Four weeks later.

âChaos, disorder, mayhem,â Shane said. âSituation normal in Morganville.â He took a drink of his coffee and pushed the other one across to Claire.

Common Grounds was holding a grand reopening, with half-priced coffee, and the place was packed. Everybody loved a bargain. It wasnât exactly normal for the two of them to be sitting in Oliverâs territory like this; Claire never thought Shane would do it voluntarily, but the lure of cheap caffeine proved powerful.

Heâd further surprised her by exchanging some semi-civil words with Oliver himself as heâd claimed the coffee. Speaking of which . . . âWhat did Oliver say to you?â Claire asked.

Shane shrugged.

âI asked Oliver if theyâd found my father, but he was his usual douchey self. Told me to forget about my dad. I donât know if that means they found him, they killed him, or they just donât care. Dammit, I just want someone to tell me.â

Claire looked up at him, struck into silence. I need to tell him, she thought. I really do.

She just couldnât quite think of the words.

Life was getting back to normal in Morganville. Amelie had declared an absolute ban on hunting. The blood banks had reopened, and the people of Morganville had been given a choiceâstart over, or start running. Plenty had taken the second option. Claire figured that half the town had decided to seize the chance to leave . . . but she also knew that some of them would come back. After all, some of their families had never been out of town at all. It was a whole new world out there. For some, it would be too much.

Common Grounds had renovated in record time, and was open to students once more. Oliver was behind the bar, wearing his nice-guy face and pulling espresso shots like nothing had ever changed.

The bronze statue of Bishop was gone from the university. In fact, all traces of Bishop were gone. Claire didnât know where FranÃ§ois and Ysandre had ended up, but Myrnin assured her, with a perfectly straight face, that she didnât want to know. Sometimes, she was content to be ignorant. Not often, true. But sometimes.

Shane, however, needed to know about his father. Frank Collins, as far as Claire knew, had just vanished into thin air. If Amelie knew, she wasnât saying.

This was a moment that Claire actually had wanted to avoid, in a way. Sheâd put it off as long as she could, but Shane was getting more aggressive about asking people if there was any sign of Frank Collins in Morganville, and she really couldnât put it off any longer.

âI have something to tell you about that,â she said, and cleared her throat. âYour dadâI . . . I saw him.â

He froze, coffee cup halfway to his lips. âWhen?â

âA while ago.â She didnât want to be too specific. She hated that sheâd hidden it from him for so long. âHe . . . ah . . . he could have killed me, but he didnât. He said to tell you that . . . that he loved you. And he was sorry.â

Shane blinked at her, as if he couldnât quite believe what she was saying. âWhere did you see him?â

âIn the cells where the sick vampires were being kept. Heâs not there anymore. I looked. Heâs just . . . gone.â She swallowed hard. âI didnât want to tell you, but I think . . . I think he was going to kill himself, Shane.â

Something changed inside of Shane for a long secondâshe didnât recognize the look in his eyes or on his face. And then she did. It was his dadâs look, the one that came before he lashed out at someone.

Shane closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and bowed his head. She didnât dare move for a few seconds, then carefully reached out and put her hand on the table, just a few inches from his.

His fingers twined with hers.

âDammit,â he whispered. âNo, Iâm not mad. I just feel . . . I guess I feel relieved. I wanted to know. Nobody would talk to me.â

âI should have said something,â she said. âI know. Iâm so sorry. I just didnât know how. But I didnât want you to hear it from Oliver or something, because that would just . . . bite.â

âNo kidding.â He took another deep breath, then raised his head. His dark eyes were glittering with un-shed tears, but he blinked them back. âHe wouldnât have wanted to go on like that. He made a choice. I guess thatâs something.â

She nodded. âThatâs something.â

Sheâd ripped off the bandage, and now at least he could start healing.

It was the same everywhere. Healing. All over Morganville, burned buildings were being demolished and rebuilt. City Hall, destroyed by a tornado, was getting a municipal makeover, with plenty of marble and fancy new furniture. All of the surviving Founder Housesâeven the Glass Houseâwere getting repaired and repainted. The ones that hadnât survived were being rebuilt from the ground up.

In an amazingly short time, Morganville life had gone back to normal. As normal as it ever was, anyway. And if the vampires werenât happy about things changing, well, they wereâso farâkeeping their objections on their side of the fence.

Shane sipped his coffeeâplain coffee, not the fancy milky stuff she likedâand watched people go by outside the front windows. She let him sit in silence and come to terms with what sheâd said; he was still holding her hand, and she figured that had to be a good sign.

âOh, great,â Shane said, and nodded to the door. âTrouble, twelve oâclock. Just what we needed.â

Monica Morrell posed in the doorway, making sure the light caught her best side. Sheâd returned to town, along with her BFFs, and slipped right back into her role as Morganvilleâs queen bitch without a pause. It helped that Richard Morrell was still mayor, of course, and that Monicaâs family had always been rich.

Monica surveyed the busy room disdainfully, snapped her fingers, and sent Gina to stand in the coffee line. Then she and Jennifer made a beeline for the table where Claire and Shane sat.

Nobody spoke. It was a war of stares.

âBitch, please,â Shane said finally. âYou canât be serious. Out of all the people in here, you pick us to evict? Really not in the mood today.â

âIâm not evicting you,â Monica said, and slid into the chair next to him. Jennifer looked deeply shocked, then put out, but she bullied some poor freshman out of his chair at the next table, and yanked it over to plop down as well. âI thought since you had extra chairs, you wouldnât be a complete dick about it. Should have known youâd be a bad winner or something.â

He blinked.

âNot that you won,â she said quickly. âJust that youâre, you know, still here. Which is a form of winning. Not the best one.â

Shane and Claire exchanged looks. Claire shrugged. âOliver take you back?â she asked. Monica traced some old carving on the tabletop with a perfectly manicured fingernail, and then flipped her still-dark hair over her shoulders.

âOf course,â she said. âWhat would Morganville be without the Morrell family?â

âWouldnât I like to know?â Shane muttered. Monica sent him a freezing glare. âKidding.â Not.

âI heard youâre working,â she said. âWow. Good for you. Shane Collins, actually earning a paycheck. Somebody should alert the press.â

He flipped her off, then checked his watch. âSpeaking of the job, damn,â he said. âClaireââ

âI know. Time to go.â

He leaned over and kissed her. He made it extraspecial good, with Monica watching, which made Claire warm all the way down to her toes; he took his time, to the extent that people at other tables started clapping and hooting.

âWatch your back,â he murmured, his lips still against hers. âLove you.â

âWatch yours,â she said. âLove you, too.â

She watched him walk away with an expression she was sure made her look like a total fool, and she didnât care. Other girls watched him go, tooâthey always did, and he rarely noticed these days.

Monica made a retching noise into the coffee that Gina thumped down in front of her. âGod, you two are disgusting. You know itâs not going to last, right?â

âWhy, because youâre going to take him away?â Claire asked, and smiled slowly. âToo much car for you, rich girl.â

âIs that a challenge?â

âSure. Knock yourself out. No, really. Hammer to the head, works every time.â Claire drained the rest of her mocha as Gina settled into Shaneâs vacated chair. âHey, kid. Here.â Claire scooted her chair back over to the bewildered freshman Jennifer had bullied out of a seat; he settled gratefully into it, nodded, and put his headphones back on. Studying.

Claire had a stack of that to do, too. Sheâd aced the semester, but that was just the beginning of her challenges. Ada had a lot to teach her, although the computer still hated her and probably always would. Myrnin . . . Myrnin had absorbed so much of Bishopâs blood that he was a walking serum factory, to Dr. Millsâs delight; the vampires of Morganville were being cured, one by one.

All except Sam. Samâs absence was a hole in everyoneâs life. Amelie hadnât left her home except for official appearances; sheâd become a hermit again, dressed in formal white, back to being the ice queen Claire had first met. If she grieved, she didnât show it to the unwashed public.

But Claire knew she did.

She knew Amelie always would.

As Claire headed for the door, someone caught the strap on her backpack. âHey, Claire!â The voice wasnât familiar, but it seemed cheerful and happy to see her. She turned. It took her a few seconds to place the face barely visible over a pile of books.

It was the awkward boy with the emo haircutâthe one she and Eve had met at the University Center before everything had blown up in Morganville. The one whoâd once been friends with Shane.

âItâs Dean, remember? Do you have a minute?â

She wasnât too sure it was a good idea. There was something odd about him, something sheâd filed away in her memory . . . Oh yeah. âBefore we get into that, how do you know Jason Rosser?â she asked.

Dean froze in the act of clearing his backpack from the chair next to him. âOh. Uh . . . busted, I guess. When I moved here, me and Jason hung out when he got out of jail. I mean, my theory was his sister was living in the house with Shane, so heâd be a way to keep track. Only he was kind of nuts, you know?â

Claire kept watching him. He seemed honest enough. âHe must have shown you some things. Secrets, I mean. About the town.â

Deanâs ears turned red. âYou meanâyeah. The short-cuts ? The ones that take you from one place to another? Honestly, I never used them except that once. Scared the holy crap out of me.â

He sounded ashamed of himself, but Claire could fully get behind the concept of finding Morganville terrifying. Granted she thought it was kind of fascinating, but then, she was a freak of nature.

Dean looked pathetic. âLet me guess. I blew it, right? Youâll never talk to me again.â

âNo, itâs okay.â She sighed and slid into the chair. âItâs just that Jasonâs not what I would call a great character reference.â

âI hear you. But then, I was working for Frank Collins, and my brother was a crazy biker dude, so it really wasnât that much of a stretch.â He shrugged. âThanks for cutting me some slack, Claire.â

âEverybody deserves a second chance. Hey, did you see Shane? I thought you wanted to talk to him.â

âI did. Where is he?â

âGone to work. He just left.â

âI missed him?â Dean looked around, as if Shane would just materialize out of thin air. He looked disappointed when that didnât happen. âDamn.â

âWell, itâs pretty busy in here. If you didnât see him, he probably didnât see you, either. Itâs not like heâs avoiding you or anything.â

âYeah, probably. So. Youâre, ah, staying on? In Morganville?â

âYes.â She left it at that. Between her new, completely amazing relationship with Shane, and the fact that Myrnin was teaching her physics so advanced that most Nobel Prize-winners would weep, no way was she leaving now. âYou?â

He shrugged. âGot no place else to be. You still living at the Glass House?â

âUh, no. I made a deal with my parents. I have to live at home with them until Iâm eighteen, and then I can move back. Eve promised that theyâd keep my room for me, though.â The truth was, she pretty much still lived there, and she looked forward to the time she spent with her friendsâshared dinners, board games, zombie-smashing video games, and Wii tennis . . . And Eve doing dramatic readings from her favorite vampire books as Michael squirmed in embarrassment.

She looked forward to everything.

Morganville wasnât perfect. It would never be perfect. But Amelie had kept her promise, and humans were starting to feel like equal citizens, not possessions. Not walking blood banks.

It was a start. Claire had plans for more, in time.

âHey,â she said. âMaybe you could come over tonight, to the Glass House? Have dinner with us? Iâm sure Shane would love to see you. Itâd be a great surprise.â

âIt would,â Dean said, and gave her a matching grin. âYeah, okay. Seven oâclock?â

âFine,â she said. âListen, I have to get to work. See you then!â

He hastily stood up and shoveled his books and papers into his backpack. âIâm going too,â he said. âJust a sec.â

Is he hitting on me? Claire wondered. She knew what Eve would say, but she couldnât quite believe it. Dean seemed like a nice guyâbut there was a glint in his eye when he looked at her.

She wondered if she should just take off, but that seemed rude.

Oliver was watching her from his place at the bar. She nodded to him, and he gave her a cool look that told her just what he thought of her. No, they were never going to be friends. And that was fine with Claire. She still thought he was a creep.

Dean stumbled over his own feet getting up, jostled the arm of a jock at the next table, and had to apologize his way out of trouble, backing into Claire as he did so. She sighed, grabbed his backpack, and towed him toward the door.

She was surprised he didnât fall over the cracks in the sidewalk, but once he was out of public view, he seemed to straighten up and be a little more coordinated. Huh. He was taller than sheâd thought. Broader, too. Not Shane-broad, but solid, after all. It was the hair that fooled herâemo hair always made guys look kind of wimpy.

âWhere are you heading?â she asked Dean. He adjusted the weight of his backpack on his shoulder.

âOh, you know,â he said vaguely, and pointed down the street. She was starting to think that he really was trying to hit on her. The going-my-way routine must have been old when Rome was still building roads. âYou all done with classes and stuff?â

âMostly. I have a couple of labs still to finish out, extra credit stuff, really. You looked like you were studying hard.â

âNot really,â Dean said. âI mostly carry the books around just to make stupid girls like you think Iâm safe to be around.â

She blinked, not sure sheâd heard that right. Heâd said it exactly the same way heâd said everything else. Like a nice, normal guy.

They were just passing an alley between the buildings. Nobody in sight.

âWhatââ

She turned her head toward him, and the last thing she saw was his backpack, full of books, heading at full speed toward her head.

Claire woke up not really sure she was waking up at allâeverything seemed weird, smeared, dreamlike. She couldnât move, and her head hurt so bad she started to cry.

She heard voices.

â. . . canât believe you brought her here,â one saidâshe knew the voice, but she couldnât place it; the headache was too huge to think around. âAre you mental? Thatâs not just anybody. Sheâs going to be missed, Dean!â

âThatâs the point.â Dean. That was Deanâs voice. âI want them to miss her. I want them to look all over. They wonât find her until I want them to. Come on, Jason. Man up, already.â

âDude, I knew you were crazy. I didnât know you were stupid, too. We have to let her go.â

Sound of scuffling. Feet on wood. Grunts. Two men fighting.

One went down.

âShut up,â Dean snapped. âYouâre always whining. All you ever had to do was carry the bodies. Iâm not even asking you to get your hands dirty.â

âNo! Look, I know her. You canâtââ

âThatâs why sheâs perfect. Everybody knows her. Câmon, man, get it together. Sheâs just a girl. Worse, sheâs a vamp lover. Weâre making the world a better place, and having fun while we do it.â Dean laughed. It was the worst sound sheâd ever heard from a humanâand a good match for the worst sound sheâd ever heard, period.

Jason must be Jason Rosser, Eveâs brother. The one Dean said he barely knew. Maybe this was some horrible dream. It made sense that sheâd put Jasonâs brother in a dream about being abducted and tied up, right? Because Jason had been accused of those murders . . .

Claire opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of what looked like an old, abandoned house. Spackle was peeling off in sad sheets, hanging down, waving in a slight breeze through a broken window.

Jason had been accused of those murders. But heâd told Amelie, straight up, that he hadnât killed anybody.

Heâd just seen it happen. Heâd never said who was behind it. Dean.

Claire felt short of breath. This is bad; this is really, really bad. . . . Her head felt like it had been smashed with a brick. She felt sick enough to barf, and when she tried to move, the pain got worse. She couldnât do much, anyway. She was tied up, ankles and wrists.

There was sunlight coming in the window, but it was at a low angle. Sheâd been out for hours, and there was a bitter, nasty taste in her mouth. Theyâd given her something, on top of knocking her in the head. Maybe chloroform.

By twisting her wrist, she could see her watch.

Five oâclock.

The sun would be down soon. Nobody would have missed her yet; it wasnât dinnertime, and sheâd been casually intending to drop in at Myrninâs lab to see how far heâd gotten with setting it back up. But he hadnât been expecting her.

Nobody had been expecting her. Shane had gone to work, and wouldnât be home until dark.

Phone.

It wasnât in her pocket. Theyâd taken it.

She blinked, and she must have lost time, because when she opened her eyes again, Dean Simms was sitting next to her, staring down. In the doorway of the decaying room stood Jason Rosser, looking sick and ill at ease.

Dean was smiling like he owned the world.

âHey,â he said. âSo, youâre up and around, right? Good. I thought youâd be tougher. I mean, they all talk about you like youâre something special, but you went down just like the others. No problem at all.â

âI . . . â Nausea boiled up inside when she tried to talk, and she stopped and swallowed helplessly until she could talk again. âMy friends will look for me.â

âYeah, thatâs what I figured. So when they find you drained like some sad little vamp quickie outside of Oliverâs back door . . . well. They wonât be real happy, will they?â Deanâs eyes practically glowed. âMan, you were so easy. Frank thought you had backbone. Guess not.â

âWhy?â she whispered. âWhy are you doing this?â She really wanted to know. Somehow, if she had to die, she felt like she wanted to understand. She wanted it to make sense.

âLook, itâs not personal.â Dean dragged a fingernail down her cheek, scratching her. âWell, maybe a little personal, because, you know, fun. But this is about setting this town free. Fighting evil. Itâs what Frank Collins wanted. Itâs what I want. Itâs what you want, right, Claire? I know itâs what Shane wants, too. So youâre doing everybody a favor by dying.â

Dean hadnât come to Morganville just to have Shaneâs back; heâd come to have his fun. If he even knew Frank Collins at all, heâd just been using Frank. Once heâd come to Morganville, heâd realized it was open season, and he could do whatever he wanted.

Still could, Claire realized sickly. Nobody suspected him at all.

She certainly hadnât.

âWhat?â he asked her. âYouâre not going to tell me Iâm making a mistake? Beg me not to do it?â

âWhy bother?â she whispered. âYouâll do what you want, right?â

âAlways do.â Dean leaned back. âJase. Hold her feet. I donât want her kicking me.â

âItâs not right. This isnât right, man.â

âShut up or Iâll make it two bodies tonight. It just makes my point better.â

Claire kicked out, but it was no use; Jason leaned on her ankles and held them down. Dean forced her arm down and opened up a rusting medical kit. He took out one of those hollow needles doctors used to draw blood, but instead of connecting it to a sample tube, he stuck on some rubber tubing.

The rubber tubing ended in a big empty gallon jug that had once held milk.

âLittle stick.â He smirked and slid the needle into her vein.

Claire screamed. Jason looked away, guilt written all over his face, but Dean just kept on smiling. Red flooded out into the tube, ran along the coils, and began pumping out into the milk jug.

âHowâs it feel?â he asked her. âYou like vampires. Howâs it feel to have your life drained out of you, just like they do it? I hate vampires. I really, really do. And if I can get this town to rise up and kill even one more by doing you, itâs a bargain.â

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something she could do.

Blood.

A black-and-white ghost flickered into view at the far end of the room. Adaâs image looked quiet and composed, and just a little bit pleased. Sheâd come to watch Claire die.

âGet help,â Claire whispered. âPlease, go get help!â

Jason and Dean, at least, had no idea who she was talking to, since Ada had manifested behind them. âWho are you talking to, idiot? Jasonâs not on your side. Jesus, Jason, hold her feet! Come on, man! Iâm not asking you for much, here!â

Ada raised thin eyebrows. Her image flickered. Claire didnât want to look at the red line rising in the milk jug; she could feel herself getting weaker, her heart pounding harder to keep up.

âMyrnin,â Claire panted. âI need Myrnin.â

Ada flickered out. Claire had no idea whether or not sheâd even make the effort.

Outside, the sun settled below the window.

Twilight.

Jason jumped up at a sound from outside. âWhat the hell is that?â

âNothing,â Dean said. He was watching Claireâs face. She was breathing too fast, and she tried to slow down; her heart was racing, and she was losing too much blood. Ada, please. Please. âDonât worry about it. Itâs the wind.â

Jason let go of Claireâs feet. She was too weak to move much, anyway. âNo, itâs not. Thereâs somebody out there. Dude, leave her. Letâs go!â

âNo frickinâ way. Weâre almost done here. Five more minutes. Keep it together, bro.â

âIâm not your bro!â Jason snarled. âYouâre on your own, asshole!â

He took off. Noâplease wait. Claire tried not to cry, but she was losing track of why she ought to be strong. Was somebody coming? No, she had to save herself. Nobody was coming to save her.

âDean,â she said. âYou know about the portals, donât you?â

That got his attention. Full on.

âI can tell you something about them you donât know. If you stop this.â

His dark eyes took on a strangely stubborn look; he didnât like being robbed of his pleasure. âWhat kind of something? Because itâd have to be really good.â

âOh, it is,â she said. âI can tell you how to make your own portals. How to go anywhere. Do anything. Imagine what you could do with that, Dean.â

He was imagining it, all right, and she could see color rising in his cheeks. He liked it.

He liked it a lot.

Dean glanced over at the milk jug, which was shimmering with her blood. A steady stream flowed out of the tube to patter down inside. âStart talking,â he said. âIf I like what you say, Iâll turn it off.â

He was lying to her; she could feel it. âYou can stop pretending youâre killing me for a cause. Youâre not. Youâre killing me because you like it, Dean. Youâre not a vampire; youâre worse. Theyâre like tigers. Youâre a cannibal.â

His eyes flickered, and he leaned forward. âMaybe Iâll try that, too,â he said. âMaybe Iâll start on you.â

She blinked, light-headed. The world seemed to shift in front of her. She had a vision, and it was so real.

She was looking past him into the living room at home, just like through a tunnel. The TV was on. Eve was singing along to some obnoxious commercial, shim- mying her hips as she put a plate full of hot dogs on the table. It was Eveâs night to cook. Michael was tuning his guitar, intent on frets and strings and sounds.

Shane walked in from the front hall, dropped his keys on the table, and said, âWhereâs Claire?â

âNot here yet,â Eve said. âProbably on her way.â

Iâm not. Iâm not coming. Iâm sorry.

Shane dug his cell phone out and dialed.

Somewhere in another part of the abandoned house, Claire heard her ring tone echoing. The odd thing was, Shane seemed to hear it, too. He looked around, raised his eyebrows at Eve, and Eve shrugged. âMaybe she left it.â

They could hear the phone. But the phone was here.

Claire pulled in a breath to scream, but she didnât have to.

Shane looked right at her, and for a second, she realized what that tunnel was, that silvery shimmer at the edges.

She realized that Ada hadnât let her down, after all. It was a portal, and Shane was going to save her.

He saw her.

His eyes widened.

âClaire!â he screamed, and lunged at the portal.

It closed right before he got there.

âOh, man,â Dean breathed. âClose. You can do that thing, too? The portal thing? Comes in handy; am I right?â He waved his arm, and the portal shimmered back into existenceâbut in place of the tunnel that had led to the Glass House, there was one leading into darkness. Noânot quite darkness. It was the old prison, the one where the sick vampires had been kept. âAda locked me out for a while, and man, I was starting to sweat. But I promised her some fresh blood if sheâd just let me have it for a couple more days.â

Heâd been using the network to kill, and Jason had helped himâprobably just because Jason was a joiner, and lonely, and Dean knew how to make people feel wanted. Even Claire had felt it, and she should have known better.

Her heart was racing so fast now.

âSee?â he said. âI can do it from anywhere. Just like you. Guess that makes us special.â

He was smart, she realized. Clever and cold. Like Myrnin.

Only Myrnin had a conscience.

Something moved on the other side of the portal. A ghost. Ada?

No, although Claire saw the flicker of her black-and-white image for a second standing in the portal, facing away from her. Beckoning to someone else on the other side.

Then misting out of the way.

Ada had brought help, after all, but it wasnât Myrnin.

It was Frank Collins.

Shaneâs dad stood on the other side of the portal, staring through at them, looking more like a ghost than Ada had. Claire must have made some sound, because Dean turned to look, and his face went completely slack with surprise. âFrank?â he asked. âFrank, waitâlet me explain . . .â

Frank Collins reached through, grabbed Dean, and dragged him through the portal.

Dean screamed, once, and then there was silence. Just . . . nothing.

Claire felt herself getting cold. This is how it feels, she thought. Becoming a vampire. Except I wonât wake up.

Frank stepped through the portal.

âKeep breathing,â he told her, and crouched next to her as he took the tube out of her arm and tossed it away. He wadded up a piece of bandage and stuck it in the bend of her arm, then bent it back to add pressure. âSorry about Dean. I always knew he wasnât good in the head, but I never thought heâd go this crazy.â

He looked at her for a few seconds, then pushed to his feet and headed for the portal.

Along the way, he grabbed the milk jug, and then he was gone.

Adaâs ghost misted back into view, staring at Claire. She was smiling.

âHelp,â Claire whispered.

âI did.â Adaâs prim voice came out of the distant, tinny speaker of the cell phone. âHe promised me blood, but I donât want yours. I donât like it.â

Ada disappeared.

She was alone, and cold. For a little while, that was all there was.

Then hands were lifting her, and she felt a tiny sting in her numb arm, and there were voices.

Light.

Then a different kind of nothing.

The hospital room was dark in the middle of the day, out of courtesy to the visitors. The overhead fluorescent lights bleached everybody, but at least nobody burst into flame.

That was Morganville in a nutshell. Compromise.

âIâm told that youâre doing well,â Amelie said, and pulled up a chair at Claireâs bedside. Her bodyguards had taken up posts at the door. One of them winked at Claire, and she smiled back. âI feel I must apologize for my lack of care for your safety.â

âYou couldnât have known I was in trouble,â Claire said.

âYou wear my mark on your bracelet, and that makes you my dependent.â That seemed to settle everything for Amelie. âThat does not reflect well upon my stewardship. Luckily, Dr. Mills believes you will make a complete recovery. You may thank your friends for being so quick to act on your behalf.â

Claire felt pleasantly warm, safe, and a little drugged. âYeah, about the rescue,â she said. âWhat happened?â

âSeveral things. First, Eve called me and demanded my help.â Amelie nodded to Eve, who managed to look simultaneously smug and embarrassed as she leaned against the wall. âAlthough Eve presumed a great deal about my willingness to help, I decided to speak with Ada.â Claire bet that had been an interesting, scary conversation. âShe admitted that she knew where you were. From there, it was a simple enough matter to open a portal to you and bring you help.â

âWho was it?â she asked. Her eyelids felt heavy. âShane?â

âIn fact, no,â Oliver said, from the darkest corner of the room. âI carried you. Donât get sentimental; the doctors saved you, not me. I simply moved you from one place to another.â He sounded as if he deeply wished to be out of the round of thanks at all costs. Claire was happy to oblige him.

âThe blood bank came in handy,â Dr. Mills said cheerfully, leaning over her to check her tubes and wires. âAbout time it did humans some good, too.â He didnât seem shy about saying it in front of Amelie and Oliver, either. âYou owe us about four pints, kiddo. But later, I promise. No rush at all.â

âThanks,â she said, and gave him a drowsy thumbs-up.

âJust doing my job,â he said. âOf course, some days itâs a pleasure. Rest. Youâre going to be here for a few days. Oh, and I hope you enjoy off-brand flavors of Jell-O.â

She thought he was kidding about that last part, but she absolutely couldnât be sure. Before she could ask, he scribbled something on her chart and hurried off to the next patient. Jell-O victim.

Amelieâs cool fingers adjusted the covers minutelyâfor Amelie, that was positively fussy. âI am pleased youâll be working with us a while longer, Claire,â she said. âSleep now.â

Claire badly wanted to, but she had another question. âDid you get him?â Claire asked, and opened her eyes again. âDid you find Dean?â

âYes,â Amelie said. Her expression was absolutely unreadable. âWe found Dean.â She rose, nodded to her bodyguards, and left without an explanation or a backward glance. Oliver pushed off and followed, but he made it look like it was his own idea.

Oh, that was going to be trouble, if Oliver kept up with the attitude. But it was trouble that Claire didnât have to worry about. The only thing she had to worry about, in fact, was choking down horrible, weird flavors of gelatin.

About a minute after the departure of the vampires, the door opened again, and Shane came in juggling a handful of drinks. Coffee, it smelled like. The sight of him made Claire feel like a sun had exploded inside herâso much happiness she was surprised it wasnât leaking out of her skin, like light.

His smile was amazing.

âHope you brought some for me,â Claire said, as he handed Eve and Michael their cups. There was one left over.

âYouâre kidding, right?â Shane asked. âYou donât need caffeine. You need sleep.â He held out the last cup, and Claire realized sheâd been wrong; there was someone else in the shadows. Deeper in the shadows even than Oliver had been.

Myrnin.

He looked completely different to her now, and not just because he wasnât crazy anymore. Heâd remembered how to dress himself, for one thing; gone were the costume coats and Mardi Gras beads and flip-flops. He had on a gray knit shirt, black pants, and a jacket that looked a bit out of period, but not as much as before.

All clean. He even had shoes on.

âYes, you must sleep,â he agreed, as he accepted the cup and tried the coffee. âIâve gone to far too much trouble to train up another apprentice at this late date. We have work to do, Claire. Good, hard work. Some of it may even earn you accolades, once you leave Morganville.â

She smiled slowly. âYouâll never let me leave.â

Myrninâs dark eyes fixed on hers. âMaybe I will,â he said. âBut you must give me at least a few more years, my friend. I have a great deal to learn from you, and I am a very slow learner.â

Claire laughed at that, because it was just silly. At least, she thought she did. She felt pleasantly floaty, and so very tired.

Her parents dropped in and evicted everyone, for a while. Even Myrnin. She supposed that was all right, in her dreamy haze. It was nice, being loved like that.

When she opened her eyes again, it was night. Her parents were gone, and Eve was asleep in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs, curled up with her head on her arms and a hospital blanket covering up her pink Goth bowling shirt. Michael had his guitar, and he was playing very quietlyâsomething slow and sweet and peaceful. When he saw Claireâs eyes flutter open, he stopped, looking guilty.

âNo, go on,â she murmured. âItâs really beautiful.â

âIâm supposed to play at Common Grounds later,â he said. âI can blow it off if you need me to stay, though.â

âNo, you go. Donât rob Morganville of the amazing Michael Glass comeback tour.â

âYeah, like anybody will care,â Michael said, but he smiled in that way that meant he was kind of embarrassed about it. And delighted. âI wouldnât leave, but it looks like youâve got a permanent bodyguard already.â

Shane was asleep, too, head down on the edge of her bed. She longed to run her fingers through his hair, but she didnât want to wake him up.

She didnât have to. Shaneâs breathing changed, and he sat up, blinking, as if heâd gotten some invisible signal. He focused on her instantly. âHey,â he said, and she saw him relax as relief rolled through him. âSleepyhead.â He reached out and took her hand in his, then leaned forward and kissed her. It felt warm and drowsy and sweet, like a promise. âWelcome back.â

She felt like sheâd never take her life for granted again. âDid you talk to my parents?â

âI did. Man, my ears are still burning. Itâs all my fault, apparently.â Shane smiled, but she could see he really did feel that way, about his guilt. âI canât believe I wasnât there for you, Claire. I canât believe I couldnât get to youââ

She put a finger on his lips. âYouâve always been there when I needed you,â she said. âYouâre here now, right?â

âYou know what I mean.â

She thought about telling him about Frank, about how heâd saved her. But she wasnât sure, really sure, that she hadnât just imagined it.

And if Frank Collins was around, he could show up and tell his son himself.

âI know,â she said. Something Monica said back at Common Grounds haunted her, especially in this weakened state: You know itâs not going to last, right? Things changed. People changed. Even Morganville changed. âDonât go.â She hadnât meant to say it out loud. Needy much, Claire?

Shane took her hand and raised it to his lips in an old-fashioned kiss worthy of Myrnin at his best. âIâm not going anywhere,â he said. âNot even to take a shower. And youâre really going to regret that, by the way.â

âDude,â Michael said. âI already regret it.â

âShut up, man.â

Michael threw a box of tissues at him. Shane fielded it and fired it back, which wasnât much of a challenge to Michaelâs vampire reflexes.

Eve woke up, wiped drool from her chin, and yawned. âYou jerks want to take the Super Bowl outside? Some of us need our beauty restâdonât say it, Collins.â

Shane caught the tissue box. âSay what?â he asked, and tossed the box underhanded in Eveâs direction. âFetch!â

She came out of the chair, picked up the tissue box, and whacked him over the head with it. Several times.

Claire couldnât stop laughing. Tears burned in her eyes, and she loved them so much.

She loved them all so much.

Michael rescued Eve from a tissue paper war and towed her toward the door with his guitar case in the other hand. âIâm calling a truce,â he said, and looked back at Claire from the door. âWeâll come back after the show.â

None of them were letting her stay the night alone; she got that. She supposed later, that might annoy her, but tonight, it just felt . . . great. She loved being looked after.

Then the door shut, and it was just her and Shane.

âSo,â she said. âWhatâs on TV tonight?â

âHockey.â

âIâm pretty sure thereâs something other than hockey.â

âNope. Just hockey. Itâs on every channel. Better complain to the cable company.â He kicked back in the chair and settled in with the remote.

âJerk.â She sighed. âIâm the one with low blood pressure, here. Shouldnât I get the remote?â

âIâm thoughtful. Look, I brought you a present.â He pulled a wooden stake out of his pocket and put it next to her hand, on top of the blankets.

âWhatâs this for?â

âEmergencies,â he said. âMorganville emergencies.â

She examined the stake. It looked like it might have been one of Eveâs, at least originally. âI hate to break it to you, but Dean wasnât a vampire.â

âBet it would have worked good on him, too.â

She spotted some writing on the side. âYou put my name on it!â Hand-carved. That must have taken a while.

âI had time, sitting around here waiting for you to wake up. Anyway, Amelie just issued a new law. All humans are allowed to carry stakes for self-defense. See? Progress.â

âOr mutually assured destruction.â

âWell, whatever works.â

Claire held up the stake. âSome girls get jewelry. But theyâre such losers.â

He reached in his pocket, came out with a small velvet box, and set it next to her pillow. She took a deep, sudden breath, and felt her whole body go a little bit woozy around the edges.

âWhat is it?â she asked softly.

âItâs . . . kind of for later,â he said. âI just didnât want you to think Iâm not well-rounded or anything.â

He kissed her, and she felt everything melt away. All the pain, the fear, the worry. It was all just going to be . . . okay.

Somewhere, Michael Glass was playing to a packed house at Common Grounds.

Amelie was sitting alone in her study.

Myrnin was writing down secrets in a leather-bound book.

Monica Morrell was sneering at a blushing freshman girl.

And Claire Danvers was . . . happy.

At least for tonight.

TRACK LIST

In celebration of reaching book six, Iâ€™d like to share with you a list of some songs that have kept me going through the writing process! As always, if youâ€™ve got suggestions, Iâ€™d love to hear them (rachel@rachelcaine.com).

Look for me on MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Twitter!

www.rachelcaine.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to the Morganville Vampires series, Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor , Windfall, Firestorm, Thin Air, and Gale Force. Her eighth Weather Warden novel, Cape Storm, will be released in August 2009. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin; a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) Oâ€™Malley; and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).

Please visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com and her MySpace, www.myspace.com/rachelcaine.

Donâ€™t miss Rachel Caineâ€™s next thrilling book about
the Morganville vampires,

Â 

FADE OUT

Â 

In Morganville, Texas, someone is always watching. . . .

Â 

Without evil vampire Bishop ruling the town of
Morganville, life has changedâ€”dramatically. The
resident vampires have made major concessions
to the human population. With their newfound
freedoms, Claire Danvers and her friends are
almost starting to feel comfortable againâ€”almost.

Â 

Now Claire can actually concentrate on her
studies again, and her friend Eve joins the local
theater company. Yet when one of Eveâ€™s
castmates goes missing after starting work on a
short documentary, Eve suspects the worst. But
Claire and Eve soon realize that this film project
is a whole lot biggerâ€”and way more dangerousâ€”
than anyone suspected. . . .

Â 

Available from NAL Jam in November 2009.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Â 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Â 

TRACK LIST

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

âAddictive and hypnotic.â âThe Eternal Night

Praise for the
Morganville Vampires Series

Â 

Lord of Misrule

âMs. Caine uses her dazzling storytelling skills to share the darkest chapter yet. . . . In the midst of death and destruction brought to this well-built world, thereâs always strong friendship and the touch of romance to add light and warmth to the story line. . . . An engrossing read that once begun is impossible to set down.ââDarque Reviews

âFilled with delicious twists that the audience will appre ciatively sink their teeth into. . . . Rachel Caine provides a strong young-adult vampire thriller, and not a Weather Warden in sight.ââGenre Go Round Reviews

Â 

Feast of Fools

âFast-paced and filled with action . . . fans of the series will appreciate Feast of Fools.ââGenre Go Round Reviews

âThrilling. . . . In sharing her well-imagined world, Ms. Caine gives readers the danger-filled supernatural moments they crave while adding friendship, romance, and teen issues to give the story a realistic feel. A fast-moving series where thereâs always a surprise just around every dark corner.â

âDarque Reviews

âVery entertaining . . . I could not put Feast of Fools down. . . . There is a level of tension in the Morganville books that keeps you on the edge of your seat; even in the background scenes youâre waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always does.ââFlames Rising

âI thoroughly enjoyed reading Feast of Fools . . . it was fantastic. . . . The excitement and suspense . . . is thrilling and I was fascinated reading about the town of Morganville. I greatly look forward to reading the next book in this series and catching up with the other books. I highly recommend Feast of Fools to paranormal readers for a delightful and fun read that you wonât want to put down.â

âFresh Fiction

Â 

Midnight Alley

âA fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page. . . . For fans of vampire books, this is one that shouldnât be missed!ââFlamingnet

Â 

Â 

âWeaves a web of dangerous temptation, dark deceit, and loving friendships. The nonstop vampire action and delightfully sweet relationships will captivate readers and leave them craving more.ââDarque Reviews

Â 

The Dead Girlsâ Dance

âIt was hard to put this down for even the slightest break. . . . Forget what happens to the kid with the scar and glasses, I want to know what happens next in Morganville. If you love to read about characters with whom you can get deeply involved, Rachel Caine is so far a one hundred percent sure bet to satisfy that need. I love her Weather Warden stories, and her vampires are even better.â

âThe Eternal Night

Â 

âThrow in a mix of vamps and ghosts, and it canât get any better than Dead Girlsâ Dance.ââDark Angel Reviews

Glass Houses

âRachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.â

âRomance Reviews Today

Â 

âA rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos. . . . [A] heroine the audience will admire and root for as she swallows her trepidations to ensure her friend and roomies are safe. The key to this fine tale is her plausible reactions to living in a town run by vampires that make going to college in the Caine universe quite an experience. Glass Houses is an electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.ââMidwest Book Review

Â 

Praise for Rachel Caineâs Weather Warden Series

âYouâll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.ââJim Butcher

Â 

âRachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!ââMary Jo Putney

Â 

âThe Weather Warden series is fun reading . . . more engaging than most TV.ââBooklist

Â 

âA fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.ââLocus

Â 

âAn appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.ââSF Site

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES NOVELS

Glass Houses
The Dead Girlsâ€™ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out

SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
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Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
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Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, November 2009

Copyright Â© Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2009

eISBN : 978-1-101-14925-6

All rights reservedREGISTERED TRADEMARKâ€”MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this pub
lication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copy
right owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHERâ€™S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the authorâ€™s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any re
sponsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any
other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by
law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate
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http://us.penguingroup.com

To Alan Hanna, who got me going.
To Nina Romberg, who got me out there.
To P. N. Elrod and Carole Nelson Douglas, who showed
me the ropes.
To my dear friends Jackie and Bill Leaf,
Heidi Berthiaume, Glenn Rogers, Sharon Sams,
Christina Radish, ORAC, and so, so many
more, who keep me climbing.
To my dear husband, Cat, whoâ€™s always there when I
come back.
Special thanks to Aviva and Aziza, who helped me with
specific issues.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my wonderful bosses, Sondra and Josefine, who truly make this whole balancing act work.

To my fantastic agent, Lucienne Diver.

To Excellent Editor Anne and the entire staff of NAL, who make these books a delight to write.

INTRODUCTION

WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE. YOUâ€™LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.

So, youâ€™re new to Morganville. Welcome, new resident! There are only a few important rules you need to know to feel comfortable in our quiet little town:

â€¢ Â  Obey the speed limits.

â€¢ Â  Donâ€™t litter.

â€¢ Â  WÂ hatever you do, donâ€™t get on the bad side of the vampires.

Yeah, we said vampires. Deal with it.

As a human newcomer, youâ€™ll need to find yourself a vampire Protectorâ€”someone willing to sign a contract to keep you and yours safe from harm (especially from the other vampires). In return, youâ€™ll pay taxes . . . just like in any other town. Of course, in most other towns, those taxes donâ€™t get collected at the blood bank.

Oh, and if you decide not to get a Protector, you can do that, too . . . but youâ€™d better learn how to run fast, stay out of the shadows, and build a network of friends who can help you. Try contacting the residents of the Glass Houseâ€”Michael, Eve, Shane, and Claire. They know their way around, even if they always end up in the middle of the trouble somehow.

Welcome to Morganville. Youâ€™ll never want to leave.

And even if you do . . . well, you canâ€™t.

Sorry about that.

1

Eve Rosserâs high-pitched scream rang out through the entire house, bouncing off every wall, and, like a Taser applied to the spine, it brought Claire out of a pleasant, drowsy cuddle with her boyfriend.

âOh my God, what?â She half jumped, half fell off the couch. Mortal danger was nothing new around their unofficial four-person frat house. In fact, mortal danger didnât even merit a full-fledged scream these days. More of a raised eyebrow. âEve? What?â

The screaming went on, accompanied by thumping that sounded like Eve was kickboxing the floor.

âDamn,â Shane Collins said as he scrambled to his feet, as well. âWhat the hell is wrong with that girl? Was there a sale at Morbid R Us and nobody told her?â

Claire smacked him on the arm, but only out of reflex; she was already heading for the hallway, where the scream echoed loudest. She would have moved faster, but there wasnât panic in that scream after all.

It was more like . . . joy?

In the hallway, their roommate Eve was having a total fitâscreaming, bouncing in hoppy little circles like a demented Goth bunny. It was made especially strange by her outfit: flouncy black sheer skirt, black tights with neon pink skulls, a complicated-looking corset with buckles, and her clunky Doc Martens boots. Sheâd worn her hair in pigtails today, and they whipped wildly around as she jumped and spun and did a wiggling victory dance.

Claire and Shane stood without saying a word, and then exchanged a look. Shane silently raised a finger and made a slow circle at his temple.

Claire, eyes wide, nodded.

The screaming dissolved into excited little yips, and Eve stopped randomly bouncing around. Instead, she bounced directly at them, waving a piece of paper with so much enthusiasm that Claire was lucky to be able to tell it was a piece of paper.

âYou know,â Shane said in an entirely too-calm voice, âI kind of miss the old Morganville, when it was all scary monsters and dodging death. This would never have happened in the old Morganville. Too silly.â

Claire snorted, reached out, and grabbed Eveâs flailing wrists. âEve! What?â

Eve stopped bouncing and grabbed Claireâs hands, crushing the paper in the process. From the jittery pulse of her muscles, she still wanted to jump, but she was making a great effort not to. She tried to say something, but she just couldnât. It came out as a squeal that only a dolphin would have been able to interpret.

Claire sighed and took the paper from Eveâs hand, smoothed it out, and read it aloud. âDear Eve,â she began. âThank you for auditioning for our production of A Streetcar Named Desire. We are very pleased to offer you the role of Blanche DuBoisââ

She was interrupted by more bouncing and screaming. Defeated, Claire read the rest silently and handed it on to Shane.

âWow,â he said. âSo, thatâs the town production, right? The annual?â

âIâve been auditioning forever,â Eve blurted out, dark eyes as wide as an animÃ© characterâs. âI mean, forever. Since I was twelve. Best I ever got was one of the Russian dancers for the Christmas performance of The Nutcracker.â

âYou?â Shane said. âYou dance?â

Eve looked offended. âYouâve been to parties with me. You know I dance, jackass.â

âHey, thereâs a difference between shaking your ass at a rave and ballet.â

Eve leveled a black-nailed finger in his direction. âIâll have you know I was good on pointe, and, anyway, that isnât the issue. I got the part of Blanche. In Streetcar. Do you know how wicked huge that is?â

âCongratulations,â Shane said. He actually sounded like he meant it, to Claireâs ears at least, and she was pretty sure he really did. He and Eve yanked each otherâs chains hard enough to leave marks, but they really did care. Of course, Shane was a guy, and he couldnât leave it at that, so he continued. âMaybe I should go out for it. If they picked you, theyâll love my Marlon Brando impression.â

âHoney, nobody likes your Brando. He sounds like your Adam Sandler. Which is also terrible, by the way.â Eve was calming down, but she was smiling like a lunatic, and Claire could tell she was on the trembling verge of another jumping fitâwhich was okay, really. Eve excited was quite a show. âOh my God, Iâve got to find out about rehearsals. . . .â

âPage two,â Claire said, and pointed at the paper. On the back was a neatly printed schedule of what looked like an awful lot of dates and times. âWow, theyâre really working it, arenât they?â

âOf course they are,â Eve said absently. âThe whole town turns out forâoh, damn, Iâm going to have to call my boss. Iâm going to have to switch shifts for some of these. . . .â

She hustled off, frowning at the paper, and Claire sighed and leaned her back against one wall of the hallway while Shane took the other. He raised his eyebrows. She did, too.

âIs it really that big a deal?â she asked him.

Shane shrugged. âDepends,â he said. âEverybody does go, even most of the vampires. They like a good play, although theyâre usually not so hot on the musicals.â

âMusicals,â she repeated blankly. âLike what? Phantom of the Opera?â

âLast one I saw was Annie Get Your Gun. Hey, if theyâd put on Rocky Horror Picture Show, Iâd definitely go, but somehow I donât think theyâd have the guts.â

âYou donât like musicals? Unless they involve transvestites and chain saws?â

Shane pointed both thumbs back toward his chest. âGuy? In case you forgot.â

That made Claire smile and tingle in deep, secret places. âI remember,â she said, as indifferently as she could, which was not very. âAnd Iâm changing the subject, because I need to get to work.â A glance at the window told her that it was an ice-cold spring afternoon, with the freezing Texas wind whipping old leaves down the street in miniature tornadoes. âAnd so do you, soon.â

Shane pushed off and crossed the distance fast, pinning her in place with his hands flat against the wall on either side of her. Then he bent his elbows and leaned in and kissed her. The warmth spread from his lips to hers, then out in a rushing summer heat that moved over her entire body in a wave, and left her feeling as if she were glowing inside.

It went on a long time, that kiss. She finally put her palms flat against his chest with a wordless (and mostly weak) sound of pleading.

Shane backed off. âSorry. I just needed something to get me through another eight hours of the exciting world of food service.â He was working at Bryanâs Barbecue, which wasnât a bad gig as jobs in Morganville went. He got all the barbecue he wanted, which meant a lot of free brisket and ham and sausage for the rest of them when he carted home a goody bag. The job also brought decent money, according to Shane, and as a plus, he got to use a sharp knife most of the day, carving meats. Apparently that was cool. He and some of the other guys practiced throwing them at targets in the back when the boss wasnât looking.

Claire kissed him on the nose. âBring home some brisket,â she said. âAnd some of that sauce. Iâve had enough chili dogs this week to last me a lifetime.â

âHey, my chili dogs are the best in town.â

âItâs a really small town.â

âHarsh,â he said, but he was smiling. The smile faded as he said very seriously, âYou be careful.â

âI will,â she promised.

Shane played with knives, but she had the dangerous job.

She worked with vampires.

Â 

Claireâs job was lab assistant to a vampire mad scientist, which never made sense when she thought of it that way, but it was still accurate. She hadnât meant to become Igor to Myrninâs Frankenstein, but she supposed at least it was a paying, steady job.

Plus, she learned a lot, which meant more to her than the money.

Sheâd been on job leave, with permission, for a couple of months while the vampires got themselves back together and fixed the damage that had been doneâat least the physical damageâby the tornado that ripped through town. Or by the vampire war that had burned down part of it. Or by the rioting by the human population, which had left some scars. Come to think of it, the construction was going pretty well, all things considered. So she hadnât been to the lab for a whileâtoday was, in Myrninâs words from his note, the âgrand reopening.â Although how you had a grand reopening of a hidden lair beneath a tumbledown shack, Claire had no idea. Was there cake?

The alley next to the Day Houseâa virtually identical twin to the Glass House where Claire lived, only with different curtains and nicer porch furnitureâlooked the same. The Day House was a shining white Victorian structure, and the alley was narrow, dark, and seemed to get narrower as you went along, like a funnel.

Or a throat. Ugh. She wished she hadnât thought of that.

The shack at the end of the alleyâa leaning, faded wreck, tired and abandonedâdidnât look any different, although there was a shiny new lock on the door. Claire sighed. Myrnin had forgotten to give her a key, of course. That didnât present much of a problem, though; she tested a couple of boards and found one that easily slid aside enough for her to crawl through.

Typical Myrnin planning.

Inside, most of the space was taken up by a set of stairs that went down, like a subway station. There was a bright glow coming up from it.

âThereâd better be cake,â she said, mostly to herself, and hitched her backpack higher on her shoulder as she headed down into the lab.

The last time sheâd been here, it had been totally destroyed, with hardly a stick of furniture or a piece of glass left intact. Someoneâmost likely Myrnin himselfâhad gotten busy with a broom and maybe a dump truck to sweep out the mounds of shattered glass, scrapped lab equipment, broken furniture, and (worst of all, to Claireâs mind) ravaged books. The place had always had a mad scientist-meets-Jules Verne flair to it, but now it really didâin a totally good way. There were new worktables, many of them wood and marble, and a few shiny metal ones. New electric lights had been installed to replace the odd collection of oil lamps, candles, and bulbs that Thomas Edison might have wired together; now they had indirect lighting behind elegant fan-shaped shields. Modern, but retro-cool.

The floor was still old flagstone, but the hole Myrnin had punched in it the last time sheâd been here had also been repaired, or at least covered with a rug. She hoped there was something under the rug, but with Myrnin, you really could never tell. She made a mental note to poke it before she stepped on it.

Myrnin himself was shelving things in a new bookcase that must have been ten feet tall, at least. It came with its own little rolling ladderâno, as Claire looked around, she realized that the entire room was surrounded by the same tall bookcases, and the ladder was on a metal rail so it could slide all around. Neat. âAh,â her boss said, and looked down at her through the little square antique glasses perched on the end of his long, straight nose. âYouâre late.â He was five feet up in the air, on the top step of the ladder, but he hopped off as if it were pretty much nothing, landed light as a cat on his feet, and straightened his vest with an absentminded little tug.

Myrnin wasnât especially tall, but he was just . . . strangely cool. Long, curling, lush black hair that fell to his shoulders. His face was vampire-pale, but it suited him, somehow, and he had the kind of sharp features that would have made him a star if heâd wanted to be in the movies. Big, expressive dark eyes and full lips. Definitely cover-model material.

If the lab was neater, so was Myrnin. He was still favoring old-timey clothes, so the coat was black velvet, and flared out and down to his knees. The ensemble also included a white shirt, bright blue vest, a pocket watch chain gleaming against the tight black satin pants, and . . .

Claire found herself staring at his feet, which were in bunny slippers.

Myrnin looked down. âWhat?â he asked. âTheyâre quite comfortable.â He lifted one to look at it, and the ears wobbled in the air.

âOf course they are,â she said. Just when she thought Myrnin was getting his mental act together, heâd do something like that. Or maybe he was just messing with her. He liked to do that, and his dark eyes were fixed on her now, assessing just how weirded-out she was.

Which, on the grand scale of zero to Myrnin, wasnât much.

âI like a good bunny slipper. Iâm surprised you didnât get the ones with fangs,â she said, and scanned the room. âWow, the place looks fantastic.â

Myrninâs eyes brightened. âThey have some with fangs? Excellent.â He got a faraway look for a moment, then snapped back to the here and now. âThank you. Iâve had quite a time ordering all the instruments and alembics I need, but did you know that you can find almost anything on the new computer network, the Inter-web? I was quite amazed.â

Myrnin hadnât paid much attention to the past hundred years or so. Claire wasnât too surprised heâd discovered the Internet, though. Wait until he finds the porn. That would be a very uncomfortable conversation. âYeah, itâs great; we like it a lot,â she said. âSo, you said you needed me today . . .â

âYes, yes, of course,â he said, and walked over to one of the tidy lab tables, one laden with boxes and wooden chests. âI need you to go through these, please, and see what we can use here.â

âWhatâs in them?â

âNo idea,â he said as he sorted through a stack of ancient-looking envelopes. âTheyâre mine. Well, I think they are. They might have once belonged to someone named Klaus, but thatâs another story, and one you donât need to worry about just now. Go through them and see if thereâs anything useful. If not, you can throw it all away.â

He didnât seem to care one way or another, which was another odd mood swing from him. Claire almost preferred the old Myrnin, when the illness he (and the other vampires) suffered from had made him genuinely loony, and desperate to regain control of himself. This version of Myrnin was both more in control, and less predictable. Not violent or angry, justânever quite where she expected him to be. For instance, Myrnin had always struck her as a keeper, not a tosser. He was sentimental, mostlyâmore than a lot of the other vampsâand he seemed to really enjoy having his things around him.

So what was this sudden impulse for spring cleaning?

Claire dumped her battered canvas backpack in a chair and found a knife to slide through the ropes that held the first box closed. She immediately sneezed, because even the rope was dusty. It was a good thing she took the time to grab a tissue and blow her nose, because as she was doing that, a fat, black spider crawled out from under the cardboard flap and began to scuttle down the side of the box.

Claire gave out a little scream and jumped back. In the next fast heartbeat, Myrnin was there, bending over the table, examining the spider with his face only inches from it. âItâs only a hunting spider,â he said. âIt wonât hurt you.â

âSo not the point!â

âOh, pish. Itâs just another living creature,â Myrnin said, and put his hand out. The spider waved its front legs uncertainly, then carefully stepped up on his pale fingers. âNothing to be frightened of, if handled properly.â He lightly stroked the furry back of the thing, and Claire nearly passed out. âI think Iâll call him Bob. Bob the spider.â

âYouâre insane.â

Myrnin glanced up and smiled, dimples forming in his face. It should have looked cute, but his smiles were never that simple. This one carried hints of darkness and arrogance. âBut I thought that was part of my charm,â he said, and lifted Bob the spider carefully to take him off to another part of the lab. Claire didnât care what he did with the thing, as long as he didnât wear it as an earring or a hat or something.

Not that sheâd put that past him.

She was very careful as she folded back the old cardboard. No relatives of Bob appeared, at least. The contents of the box were a tangle of confusion, and it took her time to sort out the pieces. There were balls of ancient twine, some coming undone in stiff spirals; a handful of what looked like very old lace, with gold edging; two carved, yellowing elephants, maybe ivory.

The next layer was paperâloose paper made stiff and brittle and dark with age. The writing on the pages was beautiful, precise, and very dense, but it wasnât Myrninâs hand; she knew how he wrote, and it was far messier than this. She began reading the first paper.

My dear friend, I have been in New York for some years now, and missing you greatly. I know that you were angry with me in Prague, and I do not blame you for it. I was hasty and unwise in my dealings with my father, but I honestly do believe that he left me little choice. So, dear Myrnin, I beg you, undertake a journey and come to visit. I know travel no longer agrees with you, but I think if I spend another year alone, I will give up entirely. I would call it a great favor if you would visit.

It was signed, with an ornate flourish, Amelie. As in, Amelie, Founder of Morganville, and Claireâs ultimateâalthough she didnât like to think of it this wayâboss/owner.

Before Claire could open her mouth to ask, Myrninâs cool white fingers reached over her shoulder and plucked the page neatly from her hand. âI said determine if we can use these things, not read my private mail,â he said.

âHeyâwas that why you came to America? Because she wrote to you?â

Myrnin looked down at the paper for a moment, then crumpled it into a ball and threw it in a large plastic trash bin against the wall. âNo,â he said. âI didnât come when she asked me. I came when I had to.â

âWhen was that?â Claire didnât bother to protest how unfair it was that he wanted her to not read things to figure out if they needed them. Or that since heâd kept the letter all this time, he should think before throwing it away.

She just reached for the next loose page in the box.

âI arrived about five years after she wrote to me,â Myrnin said. âIn other words, too late.â

âToo late for what?â

âAre you simply going to badger me with personal questions, or are you planning to do what I told you to do?â

âDoing it,â Claire pointed out. Myrnin was irritated, but that didnât bother her, not anymore. She didnât take anything he said personally. âAnd I do have the right to ask questions, donât I?â

âWhy? Because you put up with me?â He waved his hand before she could respond. âYes, yes, all right. Amelie was in a bad way in those daysâshe had lost everything, you see, and itâs hard for us to start over and over and over. Eternal youth doesnât mean you donât get tired of the constant struggles. So . . . by the time she wrote to me again, she had done something quite insane.â

âWhat?â

He made a vague gesture around him. âLook around you.â

Claire did. âUm . . . the lab?â

âShe bought the land and began construction on the town of Morganville. It was meant to be a refuge for our people, a place we could live openly.â He sighed. âAmelie is quite stubborn. By the time I arrived to tell her it was a foolâs errand, she was already committed to the experiment. All I could do was mitigate the worst of it, so that she wouldnât get us all slaughtered.â

Claire had forgotten all about the box (and even Bob the spider), so focused was she on Myrninâs voice, but when he paused, she remembered, and reached in again to pull out an ornate gold hand mirror. It was definitely girly, and besides, the glass was shattered in the middle, only a few silvery pieces still remaining. âTrash?â she asked, and held it up. Myrnin plucked it out of her hand and set it aside.

âMost definitely not,â he said. âIt was my motherâs.â

Claire blinked. âYou had aââ Myrninâs wide stare challenged her to just try to finish that sentence, and she surrendered. âWow, okay. What was she like? Your mother?â

âEvil,â he said. âI keep this to keep her spirit away.â

That made . . . about as much sense as most things Myrnin said, so Claire let it go. As she rummaged through the stuff in the boxâmostly more papers, but a few interesting trinketsâshe said, âSo, are you looking for something in particular, or just looking?â

âJust looking,â he said, but she knew that tone in his voice, and he was lying. The question was, was he lying for a reason, or just for fun? Because with Myrnin, it could go either way.

Claireâs fingers closed on something smallâa delicate gold chain. She pulled, and slowly, a necklace came out of the mess of paper, and spun slowly in the light. It was a locket, and inside was a small, precise portrait of a Victorian-style young woman. There was a lock of hair woven into a tiny braid around the edges, under the glass.

Claire rubbed the old glass surface with her thumb, frowning, and then recognized the face staring back at her. âHey! Thatâs Ada!â

Myrnin grabbed the necklace, stared for a moment at the portrait, and then closed his eyes. âI thought Iâd lost this,â he said. âOr perhaps I never had it in the first place. But here she is, after all.â

And just like that, Ada flickered into being across the room. She wasnât alive, not anymore. Ada was a two-dimensional image, a kind of projection, from the weird steampunk computer located beneath Myrninâs lab; that computer was the actual Ada, including parts of the original girl. Adaâs image still wore Victorian skirts and a high-necked blouse, and her hair was up in a complicated bun, leaving wisps around her face. She didnât look quite rightâmore like a really good computer generation of a person than a person. âMy picture,â she said. Her voice was weirdly electronic because it used whatever speakers were around; Claireâs phone became part of the surround sound experience, which was so creepy that she automatically reached down and switched it off.

Ada sent her a dark look as the ghost swept through things in her wayâtables, chairs, lights.

âYes,â Myrnin said, as calmly as if he spoke to electronic ghosts every dayâwhich, in fact, he did.âI thought Iâd lost it. Would you like to see it?â

Ada stopped, and her image floated in the air in the middle of an open expanse of the floor without casting a shadow. âNo,â she said. Without Claireâs phone adding to the mix, her voice came out of an ancient radio speaker in the back of the lab, faint and scratchy. âNo need. I remember the day I gave it to you.â

âSo do I.â Myrninâs voice remained quiet, and Claire couldnât honestly tell if what they were talking about was a good memory, or a bad one.

âWhy were you looking for it?â

âI wasnât.â That, Claire was almost sure, was another lie. âAda, I asked you to please stop coming here, except when I call you. What if Iâd had other visitors?â

Adaâs delicate, not-quite-living face twisted into an expression of contempt. âWho would visit you?â

âAn excellent point.â His tone cooled and hardened and took on edges. âI donât want you coming here unless I call you. Are we understood, or do I have to come and alter your programming? You wonât thank me for it.â

She glared at him with eyes made of static and ice, and finally turnedâa two-dimensional turn, like a cardboard cutoutâand flashed at top speed through the solid wall.

Gone.

Myrnin let out a slow breath.

âWhat the heck was that?â Claire asked. Ada creeped her out, and besides, Ada really didnât like her. Claire was, in some sense, a rival for Myrninâs attention, and Ada . . .

Ada was kind of in love with him.

Myrnin looked down at the necklace and the portrait lying flat in his palm. For a moment, he didnât say anything, and Claire honestly thought he wouldnât bother. Then, without looking up, he said, âI did care for her, you know.â She thought he was saying it to himself more than to her. âAda wanted me to turn her, and I did. She was with me for almost a hundred years before . . .â

Before he snapped one day, Claire thought. And Ada died before he could stop himself. Myrnin had told her the first day sheâd met him that he was dangerous to be around, and that heâd gone through a lot of assistants.

Ada had been the first one heâd killed.

âIt wasnât your fault,â Claire heard herself saying. âYou were sick.â

Myrninâs shoulders moved just a little, up and downâa shrug, a very small one. âItâs an explanation, not an excuse,â he said, and looked up at her. She was a little startled by what she sawâhe almost looked, well, human.

And then it was gone. He straightened, slid the necklace into the pocket of his vest, and nodded toward the box. âContinue,â he said. âThere may yet be something more useful than sentimental nonsense in there.â

Ouch. She didnât even like Ada, and that still stung. She hoped the computerâthe computer that held Adaâs still-sort-of-living brainâwasnât listening.

Fat chance.

The afternoon passed. Claire learned to scan the sheets of paper instead of read them; mostly, they were just letters, an archive of Myrninâs friendship with people long gone, or vampires still around. A lot were from Amelie, over the yearsâinteresting, but it was all still history, and history equaled boring.

It wasnât until she was almost to the bottom of the second box that she found something she didnât recognize. She picked up the odd-shaped thingâsculpture?âand sat it on her palm. It was metal, but it was surprisingly light. Kind of a faintly rusty sheen, but it definitely wasnât iron. It was etched with symbols, some of which she recognized as alchemical. âWhatâs this?â

Before the words were out of her mouth, her palm was empty, Myrnin was across the room, and he was turning the weird little object over and over in his hands, fingers gliding over every angle and trembling on the outlined symbols. âYes,â he whispered, and then louder, âYes!â He bounced in place, for all the world like Eve with her Blanche DuBois note, and stopped to wave the thing at Claire. âYou see?â

âSure,â she said. âWhat is it?â

His lips parted, and for a second she thought he was going to tell her, but then some crafty little light came into his eyes, and he closed his hand around the sharp outlines of the thing. âNothing,â he purred. âPray continue. Iâll beâover here.â He moved to an area of the lab where he had a reading corner with a big leather armchair and a stained-glass lamp. He carefully moved the chair so its back was toward her, and plunked himself down with his bunny-slippered feet up on a hassock to examine his find.

âFreak,â she sighed.

âI heard that!â

âGood.â Claire sawed through the ropes on the next-to-last box.

It exploded.

2

When Claire opened her eyes again, she saw three faces looming over her. One was Myrninâs, and he looked concerned. One was the shining blond head of her housemate Michael GlassâMichael had her hand in his, which was nice, because he was sweet, and he had beautiful hands, too. The last face took her a moment, and then recognition clicked into place. âOh,â Claire murmured. âHello, Dr. Theo.â

âHello, Claire,â said Theo Goldman, and put a finger to his lips. He was a kind-looking older man, a bit frayed around the edges, and he had an antique black stethoscope in his ears. He was listening to her heart. âAh. Very good. Your heart is still beating, Iâm sure youâll be very pleased to hear.â

âYay,â Claire said, and tried to sit up. That was a bad idea, and Michael had to support her when she lost her balance. The headache hit a moment later, massive as a hurricane inside her skull. âOw?â

âYou struck your head when you fell,â Theo said. âI donât believe thereâs any permanent damage, but you should see your physician and have the tests done. I should hate to think I missed anything.â

Claire pulled in a deep breath. âMaybe I should see Dr. Mills. Just in caseâhey, wait. Why did I fall?â

They all exchanged looks. âYou donât remember?â Michael asked.

âWhy? Is that bad? Is that brain damage?â

âNo,â Theo said firmly, âit is quite natural to have some loss of memory around such an event.â

âWhat kind of event?â There it was again, that silence, and Claire raised her personal terror alert from yellow to orange. âAnybody?â

Myrnin said, âIt was a bomb.â

She blinked, not entirely sure sheâd heard him right. âA bomb. Are you sure you understand what that is? Becauseââ She gestured vaguely at herself, then around at the room, which looked pretty much untouched. All glassware intact. âBecause generally bombs go boom.â

âIt was a light bomb,â Myrnin said. âTouch your face.â

Now that she thought about it, her face did feel a bit hot. She put her fingers on her cheeks. Burning hot. âWhat happened to me?â She couldnât keep the fear out of her voice.

Theo and Michael both tried to talk at once, but Michael won. âItâs like a sunburn,â he said. âYour face is a little pink, thatâs all.â

Michael wasnât a very good liar. âGreat. Iâm red as a cherry, right?â

âNot at all,â Myrnin said cheerfully. âYouâre definitely not as red as a cherry. Or an apple. Yet. That will take some time.â

Claire tried to focus back on what wasâhopefullyâmore important. âA light bomb?â

Myrnin looked suddenly a great deal more serious. âItâs an inconvenience for a human,â he said. âIt would have been extremely damaging to me, or to any vampire, had I been the one to open the box.â

âSo who sent you a bomb?â

He shrugged. âEh, it was so long ago. Might have been Klaus. But I might have actually sent it to myself. Iâm not always that rational, you know. Mind you, I wouldnât open the last box if I were you.â

Claire sent him a long, wordless look, then accepted the hand Michael extended to help her to her feet. She felt dizzy andâyesâsunburned, and a whole lot filthy. âGreat. You might have booby-trapped your own boxes. Why would you do a thing like that?â

âExcellent question.â Myrnin left her and went to the table, where he lifted from the open box a complicated-looking tangle of metal and wiresâthe kind of bomb an insane Victorian inventor might have madeâand set it very carefully to one side. âI can only think that I meant it to protect what else was in the container.â

He stood there staring into the box, not moving, and Claire finally rolled her eyes and said, âWell?â

âWhat?â

âWhatâs in the box, Myrnin?â

In answer, he tipped it over in her direction. A cloud of dust fogged the air, and when it cleared, Claire saw that there was nothing in the box.

Nothing at all.

âIâm going home,â she sighed. âThis job sucks.â

Â 

Michael gave her a ride back to the Glass House, which was what she meant when she said home, although technically she didnât live there. Technically, her parents had a room for her in their house, and her stuff was there. Mostly. Well, partly. And, according to the agreement sheâd reached with them, she slept there most every nightâfor a few hours, anyway.

It was all part of her parentsâ grand scheme to keep her and Shaneâwell, maybe apart was too harsh. Casual. They didnât want their little girl shacking up with the town bad boy, even though Shane was not the town bad boy, and he and Claire were in love.

In love. That still gave her a delicious little tingle every time she thought about it.

âParents,â Claire said aloud. Michael sent her a look.

âAnd?â

âThey bring the crazy,â she said. âIs Shane home?â

âNot yet. I dropped Eve off at her first rehearsal.â He smiled slowly. âWas she that excited when she got the letter?â

âDefine excited. You mean, did she look like a cartoon character on crack? Yes. I never knew she was all into acting and stuff.â

âShe loves it. Sheâs always acting out scenes from movies and TV shows in her room. When we were in high school, she used to organize these little plays in study hall, give us all parts sheâd written out on little pieces of paper, and the teacher never knew what the hell was going on. Insane, but fun.â Michael braked his car; Claire couldnât see beyond the tinted windows, but she assumed there was some kind of red light. Good thing Michael had special vampire vision, or theyâd be exchanging insurance with some other driver right about now. âSo this is a big deal for her.â

âYeah, I got that. Speaking of big deals, I heard that youâre playing at the TPU theater tomorrow.â

The tips of his ears got a little pink, which (even in a vampire) was adorable. âYeah, apparently they heard about the last three sets at Common Grounds.â Those had been pretty spectacular events, Claire had to admitâpeople jammed in shoulder to shoulder, including an impressive number of vampires all playing nice, at least for the evening. âNot a big deal.â

âI heard the tickets were sold out,â Claire said smugly. âSo there. It is a big deal, dude. Deal with it.â

There was a complicated expression on Michaelâs faceâpride, nerves, outright fear. He shook his head and sighed. âYou ever feel like your life is kind of out of control?â

âI just went to work for a vampire, was scared by a spider, and got knocked down by a tanning bomb. And thatâs just my day, not my week.â

âOkay, yeah. Point.â Michael turned the wheel and hit the brakes again. âYouâre home, Pinky.â

âDonât even think about calling me that.â

Except, when she got upstairs and in front of a mirror, she realized that Michael wouldnât be the only one calling her that, or worse. Her face was shiny pink. As if sheâd been dipped in blush and then wrapped in plastic. Ugh. When she pressed her fingers against her skin, she left dramatic white spots that slowly filled in again. âIâm going to kill him,â she muttered, and slammed the bathroom door, locked it, and flipped on the shower as she glared at her hot pink reflection. âLock him in a tanning bed. Drive him out in the desert with the top down. Myrnin, you are toast. Burned toast.â

It was worse when she had her clothes off; her naturally pale skin was a violent, gut-wrenching contrast to the sunburn on her face. She hadnât realized it before, but she had burns on the tops of her hands and arms, tooâanywhere that had been exposed to the blast of light.

Radiation. UV radiation. It didnât really hurt yet, but Claire knew it would, and soon. She showered fast, already uncomfortable with the sting of water on shocked flesh, and then searched her closet in vain for something that wouldnât clash with her new, hot pink color scheme.

Oh, Monica was going to love this like a new puppy. Finally, she put on her bra and panties and flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She knew she should dry her hair, but she was in too bad of a mood to care. Shiny, pretty hair wasnât going to help at all. And tangled, ratty hair would at least fit her current mood.

After spending a solid fifteen minutes of glum broodingâwhich was pretty much her limitâClaire grabbed her headphones and loaded up the latest lecture from Myrnin on string theory. Well, she assumed it was string theory, although Myrnin had a tendency to confuse science with mythology and alchemy and magic and who knew what. Pieces of it still made more sense than anything sheâd heard from a tenured professorâand pieces of it were complete gibberish.

The trick was figuring out which were which.

She didnât even know that anyone was in the room until the bed tilted to one side. Claire opened her eyes on near-complete darknessâwhen had that happened?âand instinctively grabbed for the covers, then remembered she was on top of them, and nearly naked, and panic went nuclear. She yanked off her headphones and slithered off her side of the bed, away from whatever weight had settled on the other side. . . .

The bedside light snapped on, revealing Eve sitting there in all her Gothy glory. Purple was still the color of the day, but sheâd gone informalâpurple tights, some baggy black shorts, a purple tee with Gothic lettering all over it.

Eve tilted her head to one side, staring at Claire. âWow,â she said. âRespect, girl. That is one hell of a sunburn. I havenât seen one that bad since my cousin fell asleep in a deck chair on the Fourth of July at nine a.m. and nobody woke her up until four.â

Claire, still trying to control her racing heartbeat, gulped down breaths and grabbed her bathrobe from the chair in the corner of the room.As she yanked it on, it dragged over the backs of her hands and arms, and she almost yelped, again, from the pain. Her face felt as if it were on fire. Literally, with flames. âItâs not a sunburn,â she said. âIt was some kind of UV bomb. It was meant for Myrnin.â

âOuch. Right, so we should get you some of that sunburn cream crap in the gallon size. Note taken.â

Claire belted her robe. âDid you just come to see the freak show?â

âWell . . . entertaining as it is, no. I came to tell you that dinner was ready, but you were all grooved out on tunes.â

Claire considered telling her that sheâd been listening to lectures, but decided that in Eveâs world, that was too much information. âSorry,â she said.

âHey, I wouldnât have dared come in except that Shaneâs downstairs setting the table.â Eve winked. âAnd if Iâd sent him, well. Dinner would get cold, right?â

Oh God. Shane. Shane was going to see her like this, looking like some exile from Planet Magenta. âIâI donât think I feel well enough to eat,â she lied, even as her stomach rumbled at the thought of food. âMaybe you could bring meââ

âItâs only going to get worse,â Eve broke in with ruthless cheerfulness. âOh yeah. Big-time worse. First, the red face, then the blisters, then the peeling skin. Trust me, unless youâre going to hide for the next week, minimum, you might as well just get on downstairs. Weâre having tacos.â

âTacos?â Claire repeated wistfully.

âI even made that funky rice stuff you like. Well. I boiled the water and put the funky rice stuff in it, anyway. Thatâs cooking, right?â

âClose enough.â Claire sighed. Across the room, a mirror reflected someone standing in her clothes that she refused to believe was really her. âOkay. Iâll be right down.â

âBetter be.â Eve kissed her fingers at Claire and scooted out the door, slamming it behind her.

Claire was still trying to decide whether her pink shirt made her look marginally better or marginally worse, when she felt an ice-cold sensation travel through her like a wave. No drafts, nothing like thatâthis was internal. It was a warning, straight from the semi-self-aware house.

Something was wrong in the house.

Claire grabbed her emergency home defense kit on the way out of her roomâa bag of everything from pepper spray to silver-plated stakesâand raced down the hall, then down the stairs, and arrived with a jolt to find everybody else, including Michael, calmly sitting down to dinner.

âWhat?â Eve asked. Michael rose to his feet, evidently reading the look on Claireâs face, if nothing else.

Shane blurted out, âWhat the hell happened to you?â Under normal circumstances this might have made her feel really bad, but she was off that right now.

âSomethingâs wrong,â she said. âDidnât anybody else feel that?â

They exchanged looks. âFeel what?â Michael asked.

âTheâcold. It was like a wave . . . of cold?â Her words slowed down, because she wasnât getting any reaction from them. âYou didnât feel it. How is that possible? Michael?â Because it was Michaelâs house, and technically, she didnât even live here anymore. Exactly. The house shouldnât have communicated anything to her before it talked to him.

âI donât know,â he said. âDoes it feel the same now?â

âYes.â Claire still felt cold, cold enough that she had chills running through her body. She was surprised her breath didnât smoke in the air. âWorse,â she managed to say, and Shane got over his shock about her burn and came to take her hands. She winced as the tender skin complained, but she was grateful for the warmth, too.

âYouâre freezing,â he said, and grabbed a fleece blanket from the back of the couch, which he wrapped around her. âDamn, Claire. Maybe itâs the sunburnââ

âNot aâsunburn,â she said through chattering teeth as he led her to the table and sat her down. âItâs the house. Itâs got to be the house!â

âIâdonât think it is,â Michael said, and slowly sank back into his chair. âIâd know, Claire; thereâs no way I wouldnât. This is something else.â

She shook her head and hugged the blanket closer, miserable both waysâher face burning hot, her body shaking with cold.

âTry to eat something,â Eve said, and loaded tacos on her plate. âHow about something hot to drink?â

Claire nodded. The chill seemed to be sinking in deeper, drilling toward her bones. She had no idea what would happen when it got there, but it didnât seem good. Not good at all.

She kept the blanket tight with her right hand and reached out for a taco with the left, hoping her shaking hand wouldnât scatter the contents all over the table . . . and Shane grabbed her arm. âLook,â he said, before she could protest. âLook at the bracelet.â

It was Amelieâs bracelet, the one she wore clasped around her left wrist, the one she couldnât remove, that reminded people who it was Claire worked for (and reminded Claire, every second).

It was supposed to be gold, but its center was now pale white, as if it had turned to crystal.

Or ice.

It was smoking in the air, so cold it was giving off its own mist.

âWe need to get it off,â Shane said, and turned her wrist over, looking for a clasp. Claire tried to tell him there wasnât one, but he wasnât listening. âMichael, itâs cold, man. Itâs really cold. Somethingâs really wrong.â

They were all out of their chairs now, gathered around her. Michael touched the bracelet, drew back, and locked gazes with Shane. âIt doesnât come off,â Michael said.

âI donât give a crap if itâs not supposed to come off!â Shane snapped. âHelp me!â

âIt wonât do any good. Itâs a Founderâs bracelet.â Michael grabbed Shaneâs arm when Shane tried to yank on the bracelet. âDude, listen! You canât get it off! All we can do is get to Amelie. She can take it off.â

âAmelie,â Claire repeated, and tried to control her violent shaking so she could get the words out. The whole world seemed to be turning to ice, cold and toxic. âSomethingâwrongâwithâAmelieââ

Shane glared at Michael. âLet go.â When Michael did, he kept on glaring. âShouldnât you know if something was wrong with Amelie, you being her demonic spawn and everything?â

âItâs not like that,â Michael said, although anger was starting to build in his blue eyes and in the set of his face. âIâm not her spawn.â

âNot arguing the demonic part? Whatever you call it. She made you a vampire. Canât you tell if sheâs in trouble?â

âYouâre confusing vampires with Spider-Man,â Michael shot back, but heâd already left the fight and was pulling out his cell phone. A one-button press, and he was talking, but not to Shane. âOliver. Are you with Amelie? No? Where is she?â

Whatever the answer, he snapped the phone shut without answering, locked eyes with Shane, and said, âLetâs go.â

âW-w-wait,â Claire managed to say, and grabbed for Shaneâs arm. âWh-wh-whereââ

âMy question, too. Where are you going? Because Iâm going with,â Eve said, and jumped up to grab her patent leather skull purse.

âNo, youâre not. Someone needs to stay with Claire.â

âThen sheâs going with. Womenfolk donât stay behind anymore, Mikey; itâs so last century,â Eve said, and Claire nodded. She thought she did, anyway; it was hard to tell, with all the shaking. âRight. Up you go, kiddo.â

3

The ride in Michaelâs 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 sheâd been trying to look where they were going, it wouldnât have done any good; Michaelâs car was vampire-standard, with ultratint on the windows. Human eyes couldnât get anything but murky hints of lights through it, so she just kept her attention on taking another breath, and another.

âHey, Michael?â she heard Eve say. âLike, soon, okay?â

âIâm already breaking the speed limit.â

âGo faster.â

A surge of acceleration pressed Claire back in her seat. Shane was holding her, but she couldnât feel it. Sheâd 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.

âHey!â She felt something, a flash of heat against her skin, and opened her eyes to see Shaneâs face inches away. He looked scared. His hands were on her cheeks, trying to force heat into her. âClaire! Donât close your eyes. Stay with me. Okay?â

âOkay,â she whispered. âTired.â

âI see that. But donât you go away from me, you hear me? Donât you even think about it.â He stroked her skin, her hair, with hands that shook almost as much as she had before. âClaire?â

âHere.â

âI love you.â 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. âYou hear me?â

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 theyâd arrived at their destination. âHey!â Eve protested, and scrambled out after him. Shane opened the back and lifted Claire out in his armsâor 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 Morganvilleâs official cemeteryâRestland. âCrap,â Shane breathed. âNot my idea of a great night out, you know? Claire? Still with us?â

âYes,â she said. She actually felt a little better, and didnât 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 werenât going that wayâthey veered off to the right.

Claire thought she knew where they were heading. âSam,â she whispered. Shane pulled in a breath, let it out, and headed in that direction, too.

It had been months since Sam Glass, Michaelâs 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; heâd 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 heâd been loved, tooâby Amelie. By vampire standards, Amelie and Samâs had been a whirlwind relationship; heâd been born in Morganville, hadnât even been a hundred years old when heâd died, but from what Claire had seen, it had been an old-style, intense love affair, and one theyâd tried to deny themselves more than once.

They found Amelie kneeling at his grave.

From a distance, she looked like one of the marble angelsâpale, 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 nothingâjust . . . nothing. She didnât seem to see them as the four stopped near her; she didnât move, or speak, or react in any way.

âHey,â Shane said. âStop it, whatever youâre doing. Youâre hurting Claire.â

âAm I?â Amelieâs voice came slowly, and it seemed somehow distant, too, as if she were miles away but speaking through the body in front of them. âYour pardon.â

She didnât move. She didnât say anything else. Shane and Michael exchanged looks, and Michael clearly got the message that if he didnât do something, Shane would, and it wouldnât 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. âDo not touch me, boy!â

He stepped off, holding up both hands in surrender. Amelie glared at himâat all of themâfor 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.

Amelieâs surge of rage had burned through Claire like summer, driving off the chill for a moment. She squirmed in Shaneâs 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.

Amelie looked right through her, even when Claire lifted her wrist and showed her the bracelet. The gold was frosting over again, already, and Claire felt the insidious chill coming back.

âYouâre a coward,â Claire said.

Amelieâs eyes snapped into focus on her. No other reaction, but that alone was enough to make Claire want to shut up and take it all back.

She didnât. Instead, she took a deep breath and forged on. âYou think Sam wants you to sit here and wish yourself to death? I mean, I get that youâre hurting. But itâs just so high school.â

Amelie frowned, very faintlyâjust a tiny wrinkle of her brow. âWhat happened to your face?â

Oh. The burns. âForget about me. Whatâs going on with you? It feelsâso cold.â

While she was talking, she realized there was something strange about Amelieâs hands. She was wearing gloves . . . dark ones. No, that wasnât it. There were spots of white skin showing through the . . .

The blood. Her hands were covered with blood. And there were slashes on her wrists, deep ones. Those should have healed, Claire thought as her skin tightened all over her body, and she shivered in panic-shock. She had no idea why Amelieâs wounds stayed open, and kept on bleeding; vampires just didnât do that.

But Amelie had found a way. And that meant she was trying to kill herself, for real. This wasnât some melodramatic cry for help. She hadnât expected help, or looked for it.

That was why sheâd been angry.

Claire felt a burst of absolute terror. What do I do? What do I say? She looked up at Michael, but he was standing behind and away from Amelieâhe couldnât see what she saw.

Eve, though, did. And unlike Claire, she didnât hesitate. She flopped down on her knees on the cold grass next to Amelie, grabbed the vampireâs left arm, and turned it so her wrist faced upward. There was something sticking out of the cut, and Claire might have gone a little faint when she realized that Amelie had stuck a silver coin into the wound to keep it from healing.

Eve pulled it out. Amelie shuddered, and in seconds, the cut sealed itself, and the blood stopped flowing.

âIdiot child!â she snarled, and shoved Eve back as she reached for the other arm. âYou donât know what youâre doing!â

âSaving your life? No, I pretty much get the concept. Now behave. Bite me and I swear Iâll stake you.â

Amelieâs eyes swirled red, then went back to their normal, not-quite-human gray. âYou have no stake.â

âWow, youâre literal. Maybe I donât have one now, but just wait. You bite me, and it is on, bitch. . . . I donât mean youâre a bitch; itâs just an expression. You know?â Eveâs chatter was only meant to distract. While she was talking, she took Amelieâs right arm and pulled the silver coin out of that cut, too.

The flow of blood from Amelieâs hands into the dirt of the grave slowed to a drip, then stopped.

And Claire felt the chill inside her own body fade, too, as Amelie healed. Finally, she could feel her life againâthe heat in her body, the beating of her heart. She wondered if that was how Amelie felt all the timeâthat icy winter silence inside.

If it was, she understood why Amelie was here.

The night rattled through the branches of the trees and swirled Amelieâs pale hair around her face, hiding her expression. Claire watched the wounds on the vampireâs arms fade from red slashes to pale lines, then to nothing.

âWhat the hell were you doing?â Michael asked.

Amelie shrugged. âItâs an old custom,â she said. âOffering blood to the lost. It takes will and ingenuity to do it properly.â

âDonât forget stupidity,â Eve said. âThat kind of thing would kill most people, never mind most vampires.â

Amelie slowly nodded. âIt might have.â Michael, whoâd been more appalled than any of them, from the look on his face, finally found something to say. âWhy?â he asked. âWhy would you do this? Because of Sam?â

That actually got a smile, or at least a suggestion of one, on her pale lips. âYour grandfather would be very angry with me if he thought he was the cause. Heâd think me a helpless romantic.â

Eve snorted.âThereâs romantic, then thereâs dramatic, and then thereâs moronic. Guess which this would be.â

Amelieâs smile faded, and some of the spark came back into her eyes. She lifted her chin, staring down her nose at Eve. âAnd you do not wake up daily and paint on your clown makeup, knowing it sets you apart from your fellows? Whatâs the phrase your generation uses? It takes one to know one?â

âIâm pretty sure that phrase was hot about fourteen generations back, but yeah, I get your point. And I may be into drama, but hey, at least Iâm not a cutter.â

âA what?â

âA cutter.â Eve pointed to Amelieâs bloody wrists. âYou know, bad poetry, emo music, I have to hurt myself to feel, because the worldâs so awful?â

âThat isnât whyââ Amelie fell silent a moment, then slowly nodded. âPerhaps. Perhaps that is how I feel, yes.â

âWell, too damn bad,â Eve said, and there was some freaky chill in her voice that made Claire blink. âYou want to waste away by your loverâs grave, go for it. Iâm Goth; I get it. But donât you dare drag Claire along with you, or Iâll chase you down in hell and stake you there.â

Even Shane was staring at Eve now as if heâd never seen her before. Claire opened her mouth to say something, and couldnât for the life of her figure out what it would be. The silence went on, and on, and finally Amelie turned her head toward Claire and said, âThe bracelet. It warned you of myâsituation.â

âWarned her? It almost killed her,â Shane said. âYou were taking her with you. But you knew that, right?â

Amelie shook her head. âI did not.â She sighed, and she looked very young, and very human. And, Claire thought, very tired. âI had forgotten that such a thing could happen, though now I think on it, it is very possible. I must apologize to you, Claire. You are feeling better now?â

Claire was still cold, but figured that it had more to do with the icy wind and the cold ground than any magic. She nodded and tried not to show any shivers. âIâm fine. But you lost a lot of blood.â

Amelie shrugged, just a tiny roll of her shoulders, as if it didnât matter. âI will recover.â She didnât sound overly thrilled about it. âLeave me now. I have amends to make to Samuel.â

âYou can bleed all over his grave some other time,â Eve said. âCome on, lady. Up. Letâs get you home.â

She reached out, and once again, Amelie let herself be touched. Odd, Claire thought; Michael was the vampire, but Amelie trusted Eve more right now. Michael was feeling that, too; there was a complicated look on his face, mostly worry.

âNo biting,â Eve said, as she helped Amelie to her feet. The vampire gave her a withering look. âHey, all my teachers said that repetition was the only way to learn. You got a car or something?â

âNo.â

âUm . . . what about your people? Lurking in the shadows, preferably with a limo?â

Amelie raised a single white eyebrow. âIf I had brought an entourage, surely they might have objected to my purpose here.â

âThe dramatic death scene? Yeah, guess so. Okay, then, weâll give you a ride. Blood bank first, right?â

âUnless you are offering a donation.â

âUgh. No. And donât even look at Claire, either.â

âMe neither,â Shane put in. âHomie donât play that.â

âI wonder, sometimes, if your generation speaks English at all,â Amelie said. âBut yes, if you would drive me to the blood bank, you may leave me there safely enough. My peopleââshe gave it just enough of an ironic edge to let them know she found it as funny to say as they didââwill find me there.â

They were walking away from Samâs grave, moving slowly and in a tight group, when a shadow stepped out from behind the big marble mausoleum at the top of the hill. It was a vampire, but not the kind Claire was used to seeing around Morganville; this one looked like he lived rough, and without access to showers or personal-grooming equipment.

He also didnât look quite sane.

âAmelie,â the man saidâat least Claire thought it a man, but it was tough to be sure with the tangle of hair that hadnât been combed since the last century, and the shapeless mass of dirty clothes, topped by a filthy raincoat. âCome to visit your peasants and distribute charity, like olden times?â He had a thick accent, English maybeâbut rough, too, not like Oliverâs refined voice. âOh, please, mistress, alms for the poor?â And he laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound, and it grew . . . until it came from all around them, from out of the darkness.

There were more of them out there.

Michael turned, staring into the night; maybe he could see something, but to Claire it was all just shadows and tombstones, and that laughter. Shane put his arm around her.

Amelie shook off the support of Eveâs arm and stepped out from their little group. âMorley,â she said. âI see you crawled out of your sewer.â

âAnd youâve come down from your ivory tower, my lady,â he said. âAnd here we are, meeting in the midden where humans discard their trash. And you brought lunch. How kind.â

Ghostly chuckles came from the dark. Michael turned, tracking something Claire couldnât see; his eyes were turning red, and she could see him shifting away from the Michael she knew into something else, something scarierâthe Michael she didnât know. Eve sensed it, too, and stepped back, closer to Shane. She looked calm, but her hands were balled into fists at her sides.

âDo something,â she said to Amelie. âGet us out of here.â

âAnd how do you imagine I will do that?â

âThink of something!â

âYou really are a very trying child,â Amelie said, but her eyes stayed fixed on Morley, the scarecrow next to the marble tomb. âI donât know why I bother.â

âI donât know why you do, either,â Morley said. âConfidentially, your dear old da had the right idea. Kill them all, or pen them up for their blood; this living as equals is nonsense, and you know it. Theyâll never be our equals, will they?â

âRight back atcha,â Eve said, and shot him the finger. Shane quickly grabbed her arm and forced it down. âWhat, youâre Mr. Discretion now? Is it Opposite Day?â

âJust shut up,â Shane whispered. âIn case you havenât noticed, weâre outnumbered.â

âAnd? When are we not?â

Claire shrugged when Shane looked at her. âShe does have a point. We usually are.â

âYouâre not helping. Michael?â Shane asked. âWhat cha got, man?â

âTrouble,â Michael said. His voice sounded different, tooâdeeper than Claire was used to hearing it. Darker. âThere are at least eight of them, all vampires. Stay with the girls.â

âI know you didnât mean that how it came out. And you need me. Amelieâs weak, and youâre way outgunned, bro.â

âAm I?â Michael flashed them a disconcerting smile that showed fang. âJust stay with the girls, Shane.â

âIâd say you suck, but why state the obvious?â Shaneâs words were banter, but his tone was dead serious, tense, and worried. âGo careful, man. Real careful.â

Amelie said, âWeâre not fighting.â

At the top of the hill, with the big white mausoleum glowing like bone behind him, Morley cocked his head and crossed his arms. âNo?â

âNo,â she said. âYou are going to walk away, and take your friends with you.â

âAnd why would I do that, when you have such delicious company with you? My people are hungry, Amelie. The occasional rat and drunken stranger really donât make a well-balanced diet.â

âYou and your pack of jackals can come to the blood bank like any other vampire,â she said, just as if she were in charge of the situation, even though Claire could see she was weak and exhausted. âAll thatâs stopping you is your own stubbornness.â

âI wonât bend my neck to the likes of you. I have my pride.â

âThen enjoy your rats,â Amelie said, and cast a commanding look at the rest of them. âWeâre going.â

Morley laughed. âYou really think so?â

âOh yes.â Amelie smiled, and it felt like the temperature around them dropped by several degrees. âI really do. Because you may like your games and your displays, Morley, but you are hardly so stupid to think that crossing me comes without a price.â

This time, it wasnât laughter coming from all around them; it was a low rumble of sound, picked up and carried all around the circle.

Growling.

âYouâre threatening us,â the ragged vampire said, and leaned against the tomb behind him. âYou, who reeks of your own blood and weakness. Who stands with a newborn vampire as your only ally, and three juicy snacks to defend. Truly? Youâve always been bold, my highborn lady, but there is a boundary between bold and foolhardy, and I think that if you look, youâll find itâs just behind you.â

Amelie said nothing. She just stood there, silent and icy calm, and Morley finally straightened up.

âIâm not your vassal,â he said. âTurn over the prey, and Iâll let you and the boy walk away.â

Claire guessed, with a sick sensation, that the prey meant her, Eve, and Shane. Shane didnât like it, either; she felt him tense at her side.

âWhy would you think Iâd do such a thing?â Amelie asked. She sounded only vaguely interested in the whole problem.

âYouâre a chess master. You understand the sacrifice of pawns.â Morley smiled, revealing brown, crooked fangs that didnât look any less lethal for never having seen a toothbrush. âItâs tactics, not strategy.â

âWhen I want to be lectured on strategy, Iâll consult someone who actually won battles,â Amelie said. âNot one who ran away from them.â

âSnap,â Eve said.

âYou know what theyâre talking about?â Shane asked.

âDonât need to know to get that one. She smacked him so hard his momma felt it.â

Morley felt it, too; he took a step toward them, and this time when he bared his teeth, it wasnât a smile. âLast chance,â he said. âWalk away, Amelie.â

âI can open a portal,â Claire whispered, trying to make it quiet enough that Morley, twenty feet away, couldnât hear. Amelie shot her a look, one of those looks.

âIf I simply leave in that fashion, even with all of you, he can claim to have driven me away in defeat,â she said. âIt isnât enough to simply escape.â

âExactly,â Morley said, and clapped. The sound was shocking and loud as it echoed off the tombstones. A flock of birds took off from the trees, twittering in alarm. âYou must show me the error of my ways. And that, my dear liege lady, will be difficult. Youâre all hat and no cattle, as they like to say in this part of the world. Unless you count the three with you as cattle, of course. In which case you are short a hat.â

âIâm bored with this. Attack, or do nothing as you always do,â Amelie said. âWe are leaving, regardless.â She turned to the rest of them and said, in exactly the same cool, calm voice, âIgnore him. Morley is a posturing coward, a degenerate, a liar. He skulks here because he is afraid that standing with the rest of us will only show him for the sad, lacking beggar that heââ

âKill them all!â Morley shouted, and blurred into motion, heading for Amelie.

Michael hit him head-on, and the two of them tumbled over headstones. Claire whirled as shadows appeared out of the darkness, moving too fast to see clearly. Her pulse jumped wildly, and she tried to get ready to fight.

And then Amelie said, âOliver, please demonstrate to Morley why he has been so badly mistaken.â

One of the shadows came forward into the moonlight, and it wasnât a stranger at all. Oliver, Amelieâs second-in-command in Morganville, was in his kindly shopkeeper disguiseâthe tie-dyed shirt with the Common Grounds logo on the front, and a pair of blue jeansâand with his graying hair clubbed back in a ponytail, he looked like a typical coffeehouse radical.

Except for his expression, which looked like he was not pleased to be here at Amelieâs beck and call, and even less pleased to be dealing with Morley. The shapes coming out of the darkness behind him werenât Morleyâs people after all, but Oliverâs . . . neatly groomed, polished vampires with an edge of chill and distance that made Claire shiver. They were polite, but they were killers.

âMichael,â Oliver said. âLet that fool go.â Michael seemed just as surprised as Morleyâor as Claire feltâbut he let go of the other vampire and backed off. Morley lunged to his feet, then paused as he took in the sight of Oliver and all his backup. âYour followersâif one can dignify a starving pack of dogs by such a nameâhave been persuaded to leave. Youâre alone, Morley.â

âCheckmate,â Amelie said softly. âStrategy, not tactics. I trust you see the point.â

Morley did. He hesitated a moment, then darted between the cover of tombstones and shadows, and then he was just . . . gone.

Crisis over.

âWell,â Eve said. âThat was disappointing. Usually in the movies thereâs kickboxing.â

Oliver turned his head slightly, looking at Amelie in a fast, comprehensive glance that fixed on the blood on her hands. His mouth tightened in what looked like disgust. âAre you finished here?â he asked.

âI believe so,â Amelie said.

âThen may I offer you an escort home?â

Her smile turned cynical. âAre you worried for me, my friend? How kind.â

âNot at all. I am so gratified that I could be of use to defend your honor.â

âMichael defended me,â Amelie said. âYou showed up.â

Claire thought, Snap, again. She could see Eve thinking the same thing. Neither of them was quite brave enough to say it, though.

Oliver shrugged. âStrategy, and tactics. I do know the difference. And I have won battles, unlike Morley.â

âWhich is why I rely on you, Oliver, for your counsel. I trust I can continue to count on you for that.â

Their gazes locked, and Claire shivered a little. Morley was bluff; Oliver wasnât. He was the kind of guy whoâd do what he said, if he thought he could get away with it. He also wanted Morganville. Maybe not quite enough to kill Amelie to get it, but the line was pretty thin.

In fact, Claire could see the line right now, in the faint and fading scars on Amelieâs wrists.

âMichael and his friends were kind enough to offer me an escort to the blood bank,â Amelie said. âI will go with them. Perhaps you can summon my car to meet me there.â

Oliverâs smile was sharp as a paper cut. âAs ever, I exist to serve.â

âI sincerely doubt that.â

Michael fell in next to Amelie, and the five of them moved down the rambling path toward where theyâd left the car. When Claire looked back, there was no sign of Oliver and his people, or of Morley. There was just the silent cemetery, and the gleaming mausoleum at the top of the hill.

âAnybody else think that was weird?â Shane asked as they got into the car. Eve sent him an exasperated glance; the three of them were, of course, in the backseat. Amelie had the front, with Michael.

âYa think? In general, or in particular?â

âWeird that we got through the entire thing, and I didnât have to hit anybody.â

There was a moment of silence. Michael said, as he started the car, âYouâre right, Shane. That is strange.â

Â 

When Michael parked at the blood bank, Amelieâs security detail was already in place, with the limousine parked at the curb. Claire half expected to see those little devices the Secret Service wore curved around their pale ears, but she supposed the vampires didnât really need technology to hear one another. They did wear snappy black suits and sunglasses, though, and the second Michaelâs car came to a stop, one of them was opening the passenger-side door and offering Amelie a hand. She took it without a bit of awkwardness, graceful as water, and looked back before the door closed to say, âI thank you. All of you.â

That was it. From Amelie, though, that was kind of a lot.

âShotgun,â Eve and Shane said at the same time, and promptly launched into rock-paper-scissors to settle things. Shane won, then got an odd look on his face.

âYou take it,â he said to Eve, who was still holding her scissors position, which had lost to his rock.

âSeriously?â Her eyes widened. âYouâre giving up shotgun? I mean, you did win.â

âI know,â he said. âIâd rather stay back here.â

Meaning, with Claire. Eve didnât waste any time; she bailed and slipped into the front passenger seat, wiggling in satisfaction. Michael smiled at her, and she took his hand.

Shane put his arm around Claire, and she rested her head on his chest. Warm, finally. Warm, safe, and loved. âMan, dinner must be cold,â he said. âSorry. I know how much you like tacos.â

âCold tacos are good, too.â

âSick.â He meant that in a good way. âSo, after the tacos, you want to watch a movie or something?â

Claire made a vague sound of agreement, closed her eyes, and without any conscious decision to do it, fell asleep in his arms. She remembered waking up, vaguely, to Shane saying, âBetter take her home,â and then another very fuzzy memory of his lips pressed against hers. . . .

Then, nothing.

Â 

Morning dawned, and she woke up in her twin bed, at her parentsâ house. The first few seconds she felt nothing but a vague sense of disappointment that sheâd wasted the opportunity to stay with Shane, but then all that was wiped out by the incredible heat she felt on her face. It was as if sheâd fallen asleep under a sunlamp, except the room was pleasantly dim.

Claire slid out of bed, stumbled over the pile of clothes on the floorâshe didnât remember taking them off, but she was wearing a mom-approved cotton nightgown, which meant Shane hadnât taken them offâand made her way into the bathroom.

The blinding lights came on, and they were cruel. Claire whimpered as she stared at the red blotch of her face, with white patches that must have been forming blisters underneath the first layers of skin. She pressed on her face, tentatively; it hurtâa lot. âReally going to kill you, Myrnin,â she said. âAnd laugh, too.â

The shower was horrible; hot water turned nuclear when it hit the burns, and she got through it mainly by gritting her teeth and chanting a variety of gruesome and creative ways she could kill her boss. Afterward she felt a little better, but she thought she looked worse. Not a great exchange, really.

She ran into her mother in the hallway, as Mom climbed the last few steps with a neatly folded stack of sheets and towels in her arms. âOh, youâre up, sweetie,â Mom said, and flashed her a distracted smile. âWant me to change yourâoh lord, what happened to your face?â

Mom fumbled the laundry, and Claire caught the toppling stack. âItâs not that bad,â she lied. âI, ah, fell asleep. In the sun.â

âHoney, thatâs dangerous! Skin cancer!â

âYeah, I know. Sorry. It was an accident. These go in the linen closet?â

âOhâwait, let me take those. I have a system.â The threat to take her motherâs neatly folded laundry and mess it up had the desired effect; Mom left the subject of Claireâs sunburn and focused on the task at hand. âBreakfast is ready downstairs, honey. Oh, dear, your faceâcan I get you some lotion?â

âNo, Iâve got it already. Thanks.â Claire went back to her room, finished dressing, and opened up her backpack. Truthfully, the backpack itself had seen better days; the nylon was ripped and frayed in places, there were stains that Claire was queasily sure were blood over part of the back, and the straps were starting to work their way loose, too. Probably that was because of the amount she crammed into it. She wiggled the books until she was able to pull out her Advanced Particle Physics and the sadly lame Fundamentals of Matrix Computations, which was just about the worst text ever on the subject. Behind that was the giant, backbreaking book of English lit, and all her color-coded notebooks. Behind that was the other stuff. Alchemy and the Hermetic Arts, which wasnât so much a textbook as an analysis of why the whole field was crap. Myrnin hadnât recommended it; Claire had ordered it off the Internet from a Web site run by a guy who was creepily paranoid. Of course, if he knew what she knew, heâd probably run screaming, so maybe paranoia was the right attitude.

At the back, in a special Velcro pocket, were her special suppliesâthe vampire-related ones: a couple of heavy, silver-plated stakes that she hoped never to have to use; a couple of injectable pens that she and Myrnin had rigged up with the serum Dr. Mills had developed, just in case there were still a few vampires around who hadnât gotten the shot and might beâto put it kindlyâunstable. And she wasnât sure Morley from the cemetery didnât qualify, but she was glad she hadnât gotten close enough to use the pen, either.

Folded and shoved all the way to the back was the piece of paper Myrnin had given her with a sequence scribbled on it in symbols. As she did daily, Claire memorized it. Sheâd test herself later, drawing out the symbols and comparing them against the original. Myrnin had said the reset sequence was only to be used in emergencies, but she had the feeling that if it really got to that point, the last thing sheâd have time for would be to try to figure out his sloppy drawing.

She repacked her bag, making sure she could easily slide the books in and out this time, and hefted it experimentally. The strap creaked, and she heard another thread snap. Really need a new one. She wondered where Eve picked up her cute patent leather ones, embossed either with the pink kitty or cute skulls; probably not in town, Claire guessed. Morganville wasnât exactly Fashion Central.

Breakfast was a family thing in the Danvers house, and Claire actually kind of looked forward to it. She didnât often make it back for lunch or dinner, but every morning she sat with her mom and dad. Mom asked her about classes; Dad asked her about her job. Claire didnât know how other families in Morganville worked, but hers seemed pretty . . . normal. At least in the abstract. The specifics were bound to be freaky.

Breakfast over (and, as always, delicious), Claire headed out for school. Morganville was a small-enough town that walking was easy, if you liked that sort of thing, and Claire didâusually. Today, with her gross-looking face throbbing with the heat of the sun, she wished sheâd taken up her dadâs offer of buying her a car, even if it had come with the attached strings of also seeing a lot less of her boyfriend. She hadnât told Shane that he meant more to her than having a car. That seemed like commitment any guy would find scary.

Claire stopped in at the first open storeâPabloâs Market, near the university districtâand found a black cloth cap with a brim that shaded her face. That helped, and it made her feel a bit less obviously disfigured . . . until she heard a horn honk behind her, and looked over her shoulder to see a red convertible gliding up next to her on the street.

Claire turned face-forward and kept walking. Faster.

âWhat is it?â she heard a voice ask from the backseat of the car. Gina or Jennifer; Claire could never tell their voices apart. âIt looks kind of human.â

âI donât know. Zombie? Weâve had zombies here, right?â Gina (or Jennifer)âs vocal twin said. âCould be a zombie. Hey, how do you kill a zombie?â

âCut its head off,â a third voice said. There was no doubt about whom that voice belonged to, no doubt at all: Monica. It was cool, confident, and commanding. âLetâs find the brain-freak and ask herâsheâd know. Hey, zombie chick. Have you seen Claire Danvers, Girl Brain?â

Claire flipped her off and kept walking. Monicaâblack-haired again, no doubt looking shiny and prettyâwas just a vague shadow in her peripheral vision, and Claire wanted to keep it that way.

And she knew, fatalistically, that it was never going to happen.

In fact, Monica didnât like being flipped off. She accelerated the sports car, whipped it around the corner, and came to a hard stop to block Claireâs progress across the street. Monica and Gina snapped at each other, probably arguing about the specifics of how to kick Claireâs ass without breaking a nail or scuffing a shoe.

Claire gave it up and crossed the street.

Monica threw the car into reverse, and blocked her there, too.

They played the game two more times, back and forth, before Claire finally just stopped and stood there, staring at Monica.

Who laughed. âOh my God, it is the brain-freak. You know freak is only an expression, right? You didnât actually have to become a circus attraction just for me.â

âItâs the new thing. High-speed tanning. Iâm on the way to an awesome summer glow; you should try it,â Claire said. Jennifer actually laughed. She looked immediately guilty. âIâm going to be late for class.â

âGood. Thatâll move the bell curve back toward the middle.â

âOnly if you actually attended to drag it down.â

âOoooh, zing,â Monica said. âIâm crushed, because brains are my only asset. No, waitâthat would be you, right?â

Claire sighed. âWhat do you want?â Because it was kind of obvious they wanted somethingâand probably something other than just the daily harassment. Monica had worked at cutting her off, after all, and Monica just didnât do work.

âI need a tutor,â Monica said. âI donât get this economics bullshit. There are fractions and stuff.â

Economics, in Claireâs opinion, was voodoo science, but she shrugged. Math was math. âOkay. Tomorrow. Fifty bucks, and before we get into it, I wonât take a test for you, steal the answers, or come up with some high-tech way for you to cheat.â

Monica raised her perfect eyebrows. âYou do know me.â

âYes or no.â

âFine.â

âCommon Grounds, three oâclock. You buy the mocha.â

âGreedy little bitch,â Monica said. Business deal concluded, she flipped Claire off with a perfectly manicured finger, smiled, and said, âYou look like shit. Love the hatâwhereâd you get it, Cousin Cletus on the short bus?â

Their laughter lingered, along with the exhaust, as the three girls sped off on their usual mission of chaos and destruction.

Claire took a deep breath, pulled the hat down lower over her face, and went across the street to enter the gates of Texas Prairie University.

Â 

Claire loved classes. Oh, not the actual lectures, reallyâprofessors were, as a rule, not that exciting in person. But the knowledge. That was right there for the taking, as much as you could grab and hold on toâmore than you ever wanted, in some classes.

Like English Lit, which she still didnât know why she had to take, and which was her last class of the day. It wasnât as if the BrontÃ« sisters were going to make a difference in her daily life, right? Not like math, which was underneath everything from cooking to construction to going to the moon. No, science was definitely cooler.

At least until today, when her attention was temporarily pulled in by the class assignment.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

Â 

It was the strangest thing to read those words of Oscar Wilde at the beginning of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and think of Myrnin saying them, because it was eerily like the kind of explanation heâd give. It gave Claire a strange little lurch, wondering if Myrnin had ever met Oscar Wilde, who had been quite a partyer, apparently. Sheâd never really considered the lives of vampires much, but now reality set in, and it was strange.

For Myrninâand Oliver, and Amelie, and most of the vampires sheâd ever metâhistory wasnât just stuff written in a book, or sometimes captured in an old, stiff photo. For them, history happened day after day after day. Oscar Wilde had just happened a whole lot of days ago.

She bet Myrnin had met him. Probably borrowed his hat or something.

That thought distracted her so much, she didnât hear her phone ring at first; sheâd set it to ultrasonic, so the professor rambled on down on the stage of the stadium-seating room without noticing a thing. Those around her did, though, and she smiled an apology, switched it to silent, and checked the name on the tiny screen. It was Eve. Claire texted her backâIC for in class. It was their standard code. Eve texted CG ASAP OMG. Meaning, get to Common Grounds as soon as she could.

911?

No.

Shane?

No.

Tell!

No!

Claire smiled and folded up the phone, and refocused on the professor, who hadnât noticed a thing. The last ten minutes of class seemed to crawl by, but she did try to pay close attention. If she was going to seriously ask Myrnin about Oscar Wilde, it might help to actually know something about the dude. Something other than he was snarky, and more or less gay.

After class, Claire jogged through the campus quad, across the grass, and out to the gates. It was still midaft ernoon, so there was loads of time left before sunset. That was a good thing, because it was kind of nice to be out in the fresh air before it got, as Eve liked to title it, THTLâtoo hot to live, which lasted from about June through October. It didnât take long to make the trip to Common Grounds. Claire kept her head down, mostly using the cap shading her face to keep passersby from staring at her in horror.

She got to Common Grounds, and for the first time it occurred to her that the place might very well be totally packed, and she might really get stared at, for real. Wonderful. Well, nothing she could do about that.

Claire took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. The interior was dim after the brilliant sunlight, and she blinked away glare and looked around the room. It was crowded, all rightâmaybe forty people clustered around small cafÃ© tables, drinking their mochas and lattes and espresso shots. Students, at this hour. The mix of caffeine enthusiasts changed after dark.

Everybody stared as she passed. Claire tried to pretend it was because of how fabulously cute she was, but that was a leap of faith she really couldnât make, and now her sunburn was worse because she was blushing on top of it, and also, ow.

Eve was all the way toward the back, jammed into a corner and defending an empty chair across the table with sharp glares and careful deployment of harsh words. She looked relieved as Claire dropped into the seat, leaned her heavy backpack against the table leg, and sighed, âI really need coffee.â

Eve stared at her face for a few long seconds, then said, âAnd I can see why. Yo! Mocha!â

She snapped her fingers.

She snapped her fingers at Oliver, who was behind the counter pulling espresso shots. He looked up at her with blank contempt. âYo,â he repeated with poisonous sarcasm. âI am not your waitress.â

âReally? Because we tip, if that helps. And youâd look really good in a frilly apron.â

Oliver slammed back the pass-through hinged section of the bar and came out to stand over their table, giving them the full benefit of his presence. And that, to put it mildly, was intimidating. âWhat do you want, Eve?â

âWell, Iâd like the blue-plate special of you thrown out of Morganville, with a side order of dead, but Iâll settle for a mocha for my friend.â Eve tapped purple metallic fingernails against the china of her coffee cup, and didnât look away from Oliverâs glare. âWhat you going to do, Oliver? Ban me for life from your crappy shop?â

âIâm considering it.â Some of the aggression faded out of him, replaced by curiosity. âWhy are you challenging me, Eve?â

âWhy shouldnât I? Weâre not exactly besties,â Eve said. âAnd besides, youâre a jerk.â

He smiled, but it wasnât a nice sort of smile. âAnd how have I offended you recently?â

âYou were totally going to screw us over last night, werenât you?â

Oliverâs smile faded. âI came when Amelie called. As I always do.â

âUntil you donât, right? Sooner or later, sheâs going to ring the little bell and faithful servant Ollie isnât going to show up to save her ass. Thatâs the plan. Death by slacking, and you donât even get your hands dirty.â

âAnd how is that any business of yours, in any case?â Oliverâs eyes were dark, very dark, and full of secrets that Claire wasnât sure she wanted to know.

âItâs not. I just donât like you.â Eve tapped her talons again. âMocha?â

He glanced at Claireâs blistered face and said, without too much sympathy, âThatâs quite disfiguring.â

âI know.â

âA week should see it right.â Which was, weirdly, kind of comforting in its dismissal of her problems. âVery well, mocha.â But he didnât leave. Eve widened her eyes and looked irritated.

âWhat?â

âItâs customary to pay for things you buy.â

âOh, come on. . . .â

âFour fifty.â

Claire dug a five-dollar bill from the pocket of her jeans and handed it over. Oliver left.

âWhy are you doing that?â she asked Eve, a little anxiously. Because hey, it was cool and everything, to get in Oliverâs face, but it was also not exactly safe.

âBecause they cast him as Mitch, which means I have to pretend to actually like the dude. Ugh.â

âOh, the play. Right. I, uh, looked it up. Looks interesting.â Claire said that kind of halfheartedly, because it didnât, at least to her. It sounded like a lot of middle-aged people having melodrama.

âIt is interesting,â Eve said, and brightened up immediately. âBlanche is sort of really the symbol of the way women oppress themselves; she just canât live without a man. Come to think of it, based on that, I guess Oliverâs casting was genius.â

âSo . . . youâre playing a woman who canât live without a man?â

âItâs a stretch, but the director wanted to do this post-modern kind of take on it, so he went with Goth girls for Blanche and Stella.â

âGoth girls, plural,â Claire repeated. âI kind of thought you were the only one in town.â

âNot quite.â

âEve? You 911ed me?â

âOhâuh, yeah, I did. I wanted you to meetâoh, there she is! Kim!â

Claire looked around. A girl had just come in the door of the coffee shop, not quite as Goth as Eve, but quite a bit farther down the curve than anybody else in the room. She had long black hair, dyed jet-black, with bubble-gum pink stripes. Her makeup was mostly eyeliner. She wore less-outrageous stuff, but what she did wear seemed kind of grimâblack cargo pants, plain black shirt,black leather wristband, which had (of course) a vampire symbol on it.

Kim had signed up with a vampire named Valerie, apparently. Claire didnât know much about her, but she supposed that was a good thing. If nobody was talking about her, Valerie was probably playing by the rules. Mostly.

âHey, Eve,â Kim said, and slid into the third chair at the small table. âWhoâs the burn victim?â

Claire felt herself stiffen, she just couldnât stop herself. âIâm Claire,â she said, and forced a smile. âHi.â

âHey,â Kim said, and dropped Claire like a bad boyfriend to focus on Eve. âOh my God, did you hear they cast Stanley?â

âNo! Who?â Eve leaned forward, wide-eyed. âGod, tell me itâs not that kid from high school.â

âNo. Guess again.â

âUm . . . no clue.â

âRadovic.â

âGet out!â Eve jiggled in her chair, grabbed Kimâs hands, and then they both let out a wild, high-pitched scream of excitement.

Claire blinked as a mocha was thumped down in front of her. She looked up at Oliver, who was studying her with cool, distant eyes. He raised his eyebrows, didnât speak, and went back to his job.

âWhoâs Radovic?â Claire asked, since he seemed to be the most exciting thing since indoor plumbing. She couldnât remember which character Stanley was, but she thought he was the wife-beating rapistânot somebody she felt inclined to squeal over.

âHe runs the motorcycle shop,â Eve said. âBig biker dude, shaved head, muscles TDF.â

âTDF?â Claire cocked her head. âOh. To die for.â She lowered her voice. âSo, is he . . . you know?â She mimed fangs. Both of the Goth girls laughed.

âHell no,â Kim said. âRad? Heâs just cool, thatâs all. In that dangerous kind of way. I think heâs way more scary than any of them I ever met.â By which she meant vampires.

âI guess we donât meet the same ones,â Claire said.

âBecause mine? Plenty scary.â And . . . she knew that all of a sudden, she was trying to one-up Kim, and she didnât like that about herself. She also didnât like Eve and Kim being besties all of a sudden while she was sitting like a poor, pathetic lump on the sidelines with her disfigured face, with Oliver bringing her sympathy mocha.

That was just sad.

Kim barely glanced at her. âYeah?â She sounded totally uninterested. âHey, E, can I catch a ride to rehearsal tonight? Would you mind?â

âNope. Hey, can I come in and see what youâre working on?â Eve threw Claire a quick smile. âKimâs kind of an avant-garde artist. Sheâs really cool; I love her stuff.â There was a real glow in Eveâs eyes, an excitement that made Claire feel cold and a little pissed off. Iâm your friend, she wanted to say. Iâm cool, too, right? So she wasnât some weird artist type who made art out of used toilet paper rolls and chicken bonesâso what? What made that cool, anyway?

Eve didnât hear all the mental arguments. Kim said something about the script, and they both got out their copies and flipped pages, talking about theme and motif and things Claire honestly couldnât care less about, because she was now officially in a miserable mood.

She gulped the mocha as fast as humanly possible, given that Oliver had heated it up to the surface temperature of lava. She felt truly betrayed, not just because Eve had dragged her into the middle of Common Grounds with her face looking like undercooked hamburger, but because she was sitting there chattering away with Kim, ignoring Claireâs presence entirely now.

As Claire got up, though, Eve blinked and looked at her. âYouâre leaving?â

âYeah.â Claire couldnât bring herself to sound too apologetic. âI need to get home.â

âOh. Iâm sorry, I just thoughtâI thought youâd like to meet Kim, thatâs all. Because sheâs cool.â

âItâs nice to meet you,â Kim said. She didnât sound all that sincere about it, but more like she wished Claire would hurry up and hit the bricks so she could get back to her BFF-fest with Eve. âHey, you guys live in that house with Michael Glass and Shane Collins, right? What a couple of hotties!â

Claire didnât like that Kim had even noticed Shane, much less knew his last name. Eve didnât seem to mind at all. She just nodded, eyes wide. âThey are, right? Man candy. We know!â

Claire grabbed her backpack. âI really have to go.â

âClaireâyou okay?â

âIâm fine,â she said. Kim was kind of smirking at her behind her drink, and Claire had a wild impulse to dump that coffee all over her.

But she didnât.

âBye?â Eve said, and made it a kind of pathetic question. Claire didnât answer. She just pushed past Kimâs chair, not being too careful about it, and headed for the door.

Behind her, she heard Kimâs clear, carrying voice say, âWow, what crawled up her ass and didnât die?â

Claire threw a venomous look back over her shoulder, and saw Oliver watching her with a very slight frown grooving his forehead. Eve looked stricken, clearly surprised at Claireâs departure. Kim . . . Kim wasnât even watching her. She just lifted one shoulder in an I-canât-be-bothered shrug.

Then Claire was outside, taking deep breaths of the dry air and lifting her face to the sudden, swirling push of the wind. Sand hissed over the sidewalk, blown in from the desert.

Claire, miserably aware that she was in a horrible mood, walked home with the feeling that everyone, absolutely everyone, was watching her.

4

Michael was playing guitar in the living room of the house when Claire stomped down the hall, dumped her backpack without much care for the electronic feelings of the laptop inside, and threw herself full length down on the sofa. Michael stopped in mid-chord, and she sensed he was staring at her, but she didnât look. Eventually, he started up again. The music spilled over her, beautiful and complicated, and as Claire lay there and just concentrated on breathing, she felt some of the awful tension inside her start to ease up. Still a horrible day, but she could never feel too angry when Michael was playing.

âSo,â he said, not looking up from the frets as he tried out a complicated new flood of sound, âIâm thinking of going electric. What do you think?â

âEve dumped me. Iâve been best-friend dumped.â

Michaelâs playing stuttered, then smoothed out again. âHuh. Iâm guessing thatâs a no?â

âThereâs this girl, Kim? You know who she is?â Michael nodded, but didnât say anything. Claire felt her hands curl into fists, and deliberately, carefully straightened them out. âSo this Kim, sheâs like perfect and all. Ooooh, sheâs an artist. And all of a sudden she and Eve have everything in common and Iâm justâthe stranger who doesnât get the jokes.â

âIâve met Kim,â Michael said. His voice was neutral, and he kept his gaze on his guitar. âSheâs like a black hole; she just pulls people right out of their orbits. Eveâs still your friend. Sheâs just crushing on Kim because Kim never wanted to hang with her before.â

âSo whatâs the story of the fantastic Kim, anyway?â

He shrugged, and shot her a quick, unreadable look. âShe went to OLOM, so I didnât know her all that well.â

âOLOM?â Claire repeated.

âI forget you didnât grow up here. Our Lady of Mystery. Catholic school across town run by the scariest nuns youâve ever seen. Anyway, Kim bailed on school when she was fourteen, I think. Sheâs our resident funky-artist type, I guessâmore likely to flip you off than shake your hand.â

âIâll bet she sucks.â

It looked like Michael was trying hard to hide a smile. âArtâs always subjective. She may suck to you.â

âShe doesnât to you?â Claire felt a little sinking sensation. Oh, great, of course Michael would like Kim, too. Shane probably not only liked her, but had dated her, and was secretly still in love with her. Claire Danvers, New Girl, was probably the only person in Morganville who didnât think Kim was all that, supersized.

Michael stilled the strings on his guitar with the flat of his palm and sat back, finally looking right at her. âYou should get to know her,â he said. âSheâsâinteresting. Just donât get too close.â

âShe treated me like crap.â

âShe does that,â he agreed. âDid you know she survived a vampire attack when she was homeless and sixteen?â

Claire swallowed whatever sheâd been about to say, which would have been snarky and sarcastic. Instead, she said, âSurvived how?â

âKilled the vamp trying to drain her. She could have been executedâtown rules. Instead, she was acquitted. No jail time. Brandon wasnât happy about itâhe was Amelieâs second-in-command at the timeâbut he had to swallow it. So really, there are only two humans in Morganville whoâve ever killed a vampire and gotten away with it.â

âKim and who else?â

Michael raised his eyebrows. âYou didnât know?â

âKnow what?â

âRichard Morrell,â he said.

âSeriously?â Because Richard Morrell was now the mayor of Morganville, one of the three most important people in town, and it boggled Claireâs mind to think that the vamps had allowed him to just . . . walk away from that. âWhen?â

Michael didnât have time to answer, because his cell phone started playing âBorn to Be Wild,â and he pulled it to check the screen. âGot to get ready,â he said. âSorry. Story time later. Hey, trust me, Kimâs a force of nature, but like a storm, she moves on. Eve will be fascinated for a while, but Kim will find somebody else soon enough. Itâs how she rolls.â

Claire had the really strong impression that he wasnât telling her everything. Or anything, really. But he didnât give her time to go into it, either, just storing his guitar in the case and heading upstairs.

âGet ready,â she repeated, still simmering. âYeah, everybodyâs got somewhere to be but me. You should get to know Kim; sheâs interesting.â Claire put a load of mockery into her Michael impression. âYeah right.â

The back door opened and closed, floorboards creaked in the kitchen, and Claire smelled the delicious wood-smoke aroma of barbecue. She couldnât help but smile, because heyâbarbecue.

And, of course, the one bringing it.

âHey,â Shane said, and leaned over the couch to stare down at her. His hair was getting longer, and even more slacker-messy, as if heâd gone after the most annoying bits with a pair of scissors. Or garden trimmers. It should have looked horrible, but on him, somehow . . . it looked hot.

Not that she was in any way prejudiced.

âHey,â she replied, and held up her hand for him to smack. Instead, he took it and kissed it lightly.

âWhy the mopey face? Did I forget to say something?â

âFrom you, hey is good enough.â She sighed. Complaining about Kim hadnât been the great release sheâd thought it would be; Michael had been on the fence, at best, and she had no reason to think Shane would be any different. âIâm just in a terrible mood.â

âThis Iâve got to see.â Shane leaned over and stared into her eyes. âWow. Yeah, thatâs terrifying. I can see that youâre one second from snapping, Hannibal Lecter.â

She sighed. âNobodyâs scared of me.â

âNope. Nobody. Thatâs a good thing, Claire.â

âSays the guy who scares everybody.â

Shane considered that and smiled slowly. She loved the way one side of his smile pulled higher than the other, and the little dimple that formed there. âI donât scare you.â

âWell. Only a little, maybe.â

âIâll have to work on getting rid of that little bit,â he said. âSpeaking of scary, howâs your freaky boss?â

âDonât know, didnât go, donât care,â she said. âMy face hurts.â

âSo youâre moping because your face hurts?â

âIâm ugly and nobody loves me.â

âWrong,â he said, âand really wrong.â He kissed her fingers again, and this time, his lips stayed warm on her skin for a long time. âMichaelâs getting ready?â

Claire let out an annoyed breath. âYeah. Everybodyâs got somewhere to go but me, andâwhat?â Because she was getting an odd look.

âThe theater at TPU? Heâs playing tonight? Packed house? Remember?â

Oh crap. No, sheâd forgotten all about it, and now she feltâif possibleâeven worse. âIâm an idiot,â she said. âOh man. Iâve been whining like a two-year-old about Kim. I forgot he was trying to get himself together for the show.â

âKim?â Shaneâs attention snapped into bright focus. âKim. Goth Kim?â

âYeah, whatâs her last name, anyway? Weird Kim. That one.â

âWhereâd you meet Kim?â

âEve. I guess theyâre in the play together?â

âOh, crap,â Shane said. His expression changed, went guarded. âSo you talked to her.â

âI wasnât worth talking to.â

Was she wrong, or was that a little flicker of relief? âProbably a good thing. Sheâs kind of a flake.â

âKind of?â Claireâs eyes narrowed. âDid you date her?â

His eyes went wide, and there was a fatal second of silence before he said, âNotâexactly. No. Iâno.â

âDid you hook up?â

He started to answer, then shook his head. âIâve got no good options here,â he said. âWhatever I say, youâre going to believe I did, right? But even if I did, it was a long time ago, and anyway, Iâm with you now. All right?â

âAll right,â she said. She felt as if pieces of herself were breaking off, and somehow, it was all Kimâs fault. Iâm an adult, she told herself. Adults donât get stressed out about ex-girlfriends or ex-hookups or whatever. Except she wanted to go find Kim and punch her out, which was not good, because she was pretty sure Kim would punch back, and harder. âSure. Itâs all good.â

Shane didnât believe that for a second, but she saw him decide to fake it. âRight,â he said. âSo. Barbecue. You in?â

âI canât believe you eat barbecue after you serve it all day long. Doesnât that get old?â

âItâs barbecue,â he said. âWhatâs your point? Come on, mopey. Come eat.â

He half dragged her off the couch, tickled her into giggles, and chased her into the kitchen.

He was right. Barbecue really was kind of a magic cure for the mopeys.

Â 

Claire dressed up for Michaelâs show at TPU, but given the state of her sunburn, she wasnât sure it was worth the effortâat least, until she got downstairs. Shane and Michael were standing together, talking, and wow. Claire lingered on the stairs, admiring.

âWhat?â Shane asked, catching her.

âNothing. You guys look great.â

Michael shrugged, as if it were no big thing. So did Shane, even though heâd taken the time to put on his good black shirt and black leather jacket, and even sort of comb his hair.

Michael, thoughârock star. Not in the glam hair-band sense, no, but he just looked . . . important. Claire wondered if Eve had picked his clothes for him; if she had, she really loved him, because they were completely perfect. Speaking of whichââWhereâs Eve?â

âRunning late,â Michael said. âSheâs meeting us there.â

Eve passed up barbecue? That was odd. Claire came down the rest of the steps and did a little inspection twirl for Shane. âOkay?â

âSpectacular,â he said, and kissed herâcarefully, because of the sunburn. âYou know I love that skirt.â

She blushed under the burn. âYes. I know.â It was a short, pleated skirt. Plaid. The shoes she had on with it were the ones that Eve had bought for her last Halloweenâfunky, but cool and kind of sexy. Claire still felt a little uncomfortable with her body in general, but there was something about the signals Shane was giving her that made her feel less awkward. Moreâconfident.

âYou guys going with me?â Michael asked, juggling his car keys. âIf so, the bus is leaving.â

They were, of course; with Eve MIA, they had no other car, and walking in the dark was still not the best idea in the world, even in the new, calmer Morganville. It wasnât a long trip, and Michael drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as if he were practicing fingerings for his guitar; nobody said much. Claire leaned against Shane in the back, her head on his shoulder, and his presence went a long way toward making her forget about how bad her day had been.

At least, until she remembered that heâd once sat like this with Kim, back in undefined olden times. âHey,â she said. âAbout Kimââ

âOh man, I knew it. Youâre not letting it go, are you?â

âI just want to knowâdid you guys date, orââ

âNo,â Shane said, and looked away. Heâd have been staring out the window, except that the dark tinting prevented him from actually seeing anything out there. âOkay, I took her bowling once. She was pretty good at it. Does that count as a date?â

âIt does if you hooked up after.â

He hesitated, and finally sighed. âYes,â he said. âGuilty. Dated. Hooked up. She moved on to the next guy. Anything else?â

Claire was totally unprepared for how awful that made her feel. âDid youâdid you really like her?â

âDo we need to have this talk now, with witnesses?â Michael held up his hand. âI want it on the record that Iâm not paying attention.â

âAnd . . . yet.â

âDude, you got yourself into this; donât blame me.â Michael sounded definitely amused, which didnât make Claire feel any better.

âIâm sorry,â Claire said miserably. âI guessâwe can talk about it later. It doesnât matter, anyway.â Except it did. A lot.

Shane turned back to look into her eyes. His pupils were huge in the faint glow of the dashboard. âI was looking for a girl,â he said. âKim wasnât it. You are, so stop worrying about that. But to answer the question, yeah, I liked her. Really liked her? Probably not. I wasnât exactly brokenhearted when she moved on. More like relieved.â

Claire blinked. âOh.â She didnât know what to do with that. It made her feel better, and also, a little confused and childish and ashamed. Being jealous of a girl heâd been happy to let go? It seemed wrong, somehow.

âHey,â he said, and carefully traced the line of her cheek, avoiding the burned spots. âI like that you care. I do.â

She pulled in a deep breath. âI just donât want to share you,â she said. âNot ever. Even before I met you. I know that doesnât make sense, butââ

âIt does,â he said, and kissed her. âIt really does.â Michael was smiling, she could see it in the rearview mirror. He caught her watching him, and shook his head.

âWhat?â she challenged.

âItâs a good thing Iâve got to live with the two of you,â he said, âor Iâd be putting this on YouTube later. And mocking you.â

âAss.â

âDonât forget bloodsucking ass.â

âAlso, undead bloodsucking ass,â Shane said. âThatâs kind of critical, too.â

Michael stopped the car. âWeâre here.â He grabbed his guitar case and got out, looked in on them, and flashed them a knowing grin. âLock it when you leave. Oh, and rememberâvampires can see through the tinting. Iâm just saying.â

âUgh,â Claire sighed. âAnd there goes the mood.â

Â 

Michael disappeared into the artistsâ entrance, walking as if he owned the stage already; Claire and Shane walked, hand in hand, through the parking garage toward the front. There were a lot of other people parking, talking, walking in groups toward the entrance to the theater. Like most of TPUâs buildings, it wasnât exactly prettyâa product of the blocky 1970s, glass and concrete, solid and plain and functional, at least on the outside.

The lobby was warmer, with dark red carpet and side drapes that looked only about ten years out of fashion. Claire saw people staring at her and wished sheâd worn her cap, but since she hadnât, she held her chin up and clasped Shaneâs hand more tightly as he checked their tickets and led her up to the balcony. On the way, Claire spotted a lot of familiar facesâFather Joe, from the church, standing out in his black shirt, white collar, and red hair. People she recognized from classes, who probably had no idea they were coming to hear a vampire play guitar. Oh, and a ton of vamps, blending in except for the glitter in their eyes and the slightly hungry way they scanned the crowd. Some of them even dressed pretty well.

She didnât see Amelie anywhere, or Myrnin, or Oliver, and they were all pretty notable by their absence. She did see the unpleasant Mr. Pennywell, though, looking smug and remote and sexless in his plain black jacket and pants. He was sitting at a small table near the stairs, watching everyone pass. She had the strong feeling he was like those people who stood in front of the lobster tank to choose what was going on their plate.

Ugh.

âEverything okay?â Shane asked her, and she realized that he wasnât talking about the vampires or anything else like that. He quickly amended, âYou know, between us?â

âOh. Uhâyeah. I guess so.â She must not have seemed too confident, because he stopped climbing the stairs, looked around, and headed her toward a small group of chairs off to the side at the landing. Nobody near them. It was a darker corner, kind of intimate in the glow of the light on the wall. People moved past in a stream, but nobody seemed to look.

âI need to be sure,â he said. âBecause I donât want you to think Kim is competition. Sheâs not. Until today, I hadnât thought about her twice.â

But, by implication, he was thinking about her nowâcomparing her to Claire. And Claire couldnât be totally sure she was winning, either. âItâs just that everybody thinks sheâs so interesting. And Iâm justâyou know.â

âA supersmart apprentice to a bipolar vampire, not to mention just about the only person in town Amelie listens to these days? Yeah. Youâre dead boring.â Shaneâs warm hands cupped her face and tilted her chin up so he could meet her eyes in the dim light. âThere. Thatâs better.â

âWhy?â The word trembled on her lips, a restrained wail of bitterness. âSo you can see how ugly I look, compared to Kim?â

âYou got some layers of skin burned off,â he said. âBig freaking deal. In a week youâll have a killer tan, and everybody will be wondering where you got the spray-on stuff. It doesnât matter. Not even a little. Get me?â

She didnât want to cry, and for a wonder, she didnât. She gulped in one hitching breath, held it, and let it slowly out, and that was it.

Then she smiled. âI get you.â

âAll right then. Because I love you. Remember?â

Warmth zipped through her nerves and took up a hot glowing spot somewhere just below the pit of her stomach. âI remember,â she said. âI love you, too.â

He kissed the tip of her nose. âJealous. I kind of like it.â

Hand in hand, they headed for the concert hall.

Mr. Pennywell blocked their path.

Â 

There was something really, unpleasantly wrong about Pennywell, in ways Claire couldnât put her finger on; the vampire looked awkwardly built, female in one light, male in another, but that wasnât the thing that made him frightening.

It was the complete, soulless absence of feeling in his expression and eyes. Even when he smiled, nothing happened in the top half of his face. It was just muscles, not emotion.

âMove,â Shane said, and Claire felt his hold on her hand unconsciously tighten. âDude, you are not crazy enough to go after us in the middle of neutral ground, in front of witnesses. Right?â

âThat would entirely depend on what I planned to accomplish,â Pennywell said. âBut I am not here to threaten you. I am here to summon you.â

âTo our seats? Thanks. Donât need an usher.â Pennywell stayed right in their path. The crowd was thinning out around them. The last thing Claire wanted was to be alone out here with him, everyone else inside and cheering and clapping and covering up her all-too-likely screams. She traded a look with Shane.

âOliver would like a word,â Pennywell said, and made a graceful gesture to his left. âIf you please.â

âNow?â

âHe is not taking appointments. Yes. Now.â

There didnât seem to be many options available, but Claire could see that Shane was tempted to tell Pennywell to beat it. That would be bad. Pennywell wasnât someone who took rejection well.

It didnât come to that, and for the worst possible reason.

âShane? Shane Collins? Are you kidding me?â A girlâs voice came from over Pennywellâs shoulder, and was followed by the girl sliding around the vampire and throwing herself all over Shane. He dropped Claireâs hand in surprise, and to catch the girl before they both toppled over.

It took a second to put the dyed-black-and-pink hair and voice together, but Claire knew even before her brain supplied the name.

Kim. Oh, perfect.

And Kim was kissing Shane.

It wasnât like he was kissing her back . . . more like he was trying to push her off his lips. But still. Her lips. Touching Shaneâs.

Even Pennywell looked thrown.

âHey!â Claire protested, not sure what she ought to do, but she wanted very badly to grab a handful of that black hair and yank, hard. She didnât need to. Shane picked Kim up, bodily, and set her at armâs lengthâand held her there.

âKim,â he said. âUhâhi.â

âHowâs it going, Collins? Wow, itâs been a while, huh? Sorry about the family stuff, that sucks, man. Oh, did you hear Iâve got a loft now? Iâm selling on the Internet. Very cool.â Kimâs wide eyes were fixed on Shaneâs face, and there was a sickeningly delighted expression on her face. âI just canât believe itâs you, Shane. Wow. So great to see you.â

âYeah,â he said, and looked at Claire, just a quick (and panicked) glance. âThis is Claire. My girlfriend.â He stressed the word. It didnât seem to register, or if it did, Kim shrugged it off. She barely glanced at Claire at all.

âCool,â she said. âHey, youâre the one from the coffee shop. Eveâs friend. Small world, right?â

âClaustrophobic,â Claire said. âWhat are you doing here?â She knew she sounded angry; she just couldnât help it. Pennywell looked from her to Kim, clearly trying to decide whom he should kill first. From his expression, he was leaning toward Kim, which didnât distress Claire much at all.

âI came to hear Michael Glass,â Kim said. âI mean, Eve told me all about it. Michaelâs always been the coolest guy in townâpresent company excepted.â She winked at Shane. Winked. Claire wanted to vomit. âI just wanted to show my support.â

âIâm not interested in you,â Pennywell said to her. âGo away.â

Kim blinked and turned to look at the vampire for the first time. Then she reacted as if she hadnât even known he was there. Seriously? She got a part in the play? Because that was the worst reaction Claire had ever seen, outside of really old silent movies. âOh my God! What the hell are you? I mean, yes, obviouslyââ She held up two fingers in what Claire thought was a peace sign before realizing it was probably a Vâfor vampire. âBut damn, youâre freaky.â

Pennywell had no idea what to do, from the frown that grooved that smooth, high forehead. He cocked his head and looked at Kim without saying a word, just studying her.

Then he said, âYou are the historian.â

Kim smiled. âBingo, dude. Iâm the historian. And youâre kinda new, am I right? I have got to get you on camera. Make an appointment, okay? Here. Hereâs my number.â She dug in the small black bag strapped to her wrist, came out with some kind of business card, and handed it to him. Pennywell took itâmostly in self-defenseâand tucked it in his coat pocket. âWord of advice? Nehru jackets went out with the groovy sixties. Go for Brooks Brothers. You do not want to be preserved for posterity in a bad look, right? Also, maybe some work with the hair, butch you up some. Think about it.â

While she was talking, Shane took Claireâs elbow and quietly hustled her around Pennywell, whose eyes remained fixed on Kim as she chattered. By the time the vampire realized what was happening and thrust Kim aside, Shane and Claire were slipping through the door into the hall, out of his reach.

Hopefully.

âDid she do that on purpose?â Claire asked.

âDonât know,â Shane said. âBut I wasnât about to waste the chance. Call Oliver. Find out if he was really wanting to see us.â

Claire nodded. The crowd in the hall was still buzzing around, and the noise level was high. Nobody would notice her on the phone; there had to be a hundred or more of them glowing like jewels in the tiers of seats as people caught up with their friends, gossiped, made dates.

Claire speed dialed a vampire and got voice mail. Oliver didnât bother to identify himself, but just told the caller to leave a message, which she did, and then she put her phone on vibrate.

Shane kept looking at the closed doors theyâd come through. Claire suppressed the urge to grit her teeth. âYouâre worried about her?â she asked, and tried to keep her voice neutral.

âWe left her alone with Pennywell,â he said. âDammit. I thought she was following us.â

Well, Kim hadnât followed them. Claire tried to be more worried, but the best she could really summon up was a dim sense of annoyance. And that really wasnât like her; she was always trying to find excuses for the worst people, and somehow, she just couldnât get on Kimâs side, no matter what.

But she knew the right thing to do. âWe should go look for her.â

âNo,â Shane said. âYou stay here. Iâm just going to see if sheâs out there. I just want to be sure sheâs all right.â

Because you donât at all care, Claire thought, but had enough sense to keep it to herself. She just nodded. Shane let go of her hand and moved to the doors, which he eased open and looked out. After a moment of hesitation, he let it close and came back. âNot there,â he said.

âWhich one?â

âBoth.â Shane sounded tense, and she couldnât blame him. He tended to take a lot on himself, and if something ended up going badly with Kim, heâd see it as his failure, which was nonsense, but it was how Shane rolled. âI need toââ

âNeed to what?â

Kim again, coming up from right behind Claire. Claire squeezed her eyes shut and almost screamed in frustrationânot reliefâbut she managed to control herself, turn, and say, very calmly, âNeed to be sure you were okay. Which you are. Obviously.â

Kim looked at her for a moment; then a knowing smile slowly spread over her lips. âObviously,â she almost purred. She transferred the look to Shane. And the smile. âYou were worried about me? Thatâs sweet, but gender-bender vamp back there wasnât about to hurt me.â

âWhy not?â Claire asked.

Kim shrugged. âEh, you know. Damn, I really havenât seen you in forever, Collins. What you been up to?â

âNot much,â he said, and reached out for Claireâs hand again. âWeâve got seats down there. Sorry. Thanks for the intervention out there.â

âSure,â Kim said. âCatch you later, then.â

Their seats were close to the front, and by the time theyâd reached them, the lights were going down. Claire looked back, but couldnât see Kim anywhere in the shadows.

âI think I might really hate that girl,â she said.

Shane kissed her fingers lightly. âDonât be jealous. Iâm not into her. Now or later.â

Claire wished she could believe that, but there was still some small, difficult part of herself that was too aware of her own flaws.

Then the spotlights came up, the house lights went down, and Michael walked onto the stage, to a sudden rush of applause, and he wasnât the Michael Claire knewâhe wasnât the one who hung out in the living room and played video games and noodled around on his guitar and picked terrible Westerns for movie night.

This was someone else.

Someone almost frightening, the way he grabbed and held the spotlight. Heâd looked good earlier, but now Claire saw him the way that Michael Glass had always been meant to be seen . . . center stage. The light turned his hair brilliant gold, made his pale skin glow like moon-stone, turned him into something exotic and fabulous and untouchableâand, at the same time, something you wanted to touch. Badly.

Someone pushed into the chair next to Claire. Eve. Sheâd put on her best, mostly backless black velvet gown, fixed her hair into a chic, gleaming black cap, and when she crossed her legs, the slit in her dress revealed an acre of leg and stiletto heels.

She was out of breath.

âOh God, I thought Iâd never make it,â she whispered to Claire, and snapped open a black silk fan, which she fluttered to cool herself off. âThatâs my boyfriend, you know.â

âI know,â Claire said. Sheâd been prepared to not talk to Eve, but in two sentences, she found herself smiling. There was something so happy in sharing her joy. âHeâs okay, I guess.â

Eve smacked her with the folded-up fan. âBite your tongue. My boyfriend is a rock god, baby.â

And this, with the first few notes of his song, Michael Glass proved vividly to the entire hall.

Â 

The concert was great. The after-party was overwhelming, mostly because Claire hadnât really known there would be one, and she wasnât up for being stared at by a few hundred strangers who were all pressing around, trying to get to Michael and wondering why she was so special that she got to be behind the autograph table, instead of in front of it. Michael had barely had time to say hi since heâd come out the stage door into the lobby; heâd been mobbed, and not even Eve, standing there looking gorgeous and movie-star sleek, could get private time with him while the fans circled. There was no sign of Kim. The vampires didnât bother to mix with the crowd, but as each of them left the building, they stopped to look at Michael, and nod. Claire supposed that was their version of a standing ovation.

As the number of autograph seekers finally died down, there were only a few people left. One was Pennywell, leaning against a marble pillar a hundred feet away, looking bored but eternal, as if he could wait another ten thousand years if necessary without a change of underwear. One was Kim, who was locked in animated conversation with a couple of TPU guys who looked, to Claireâs eyes, like liberal arts students. She kept casting glances at their little group, and Claire figured that any minute sheâd kick her holding-pattern boys to the curb and make straight for Shane.

The last person, though, was a humanâan older guy dressed in a black tailored leather jacket and jeansâkind of like business tough, if there was such a thing. He had great hair, and one of those nice, even, white smiles people had on TV showsâand a tan.

âMichael, great show,â the man said, and leaned over to shake Michaelâs hand. âSeriously, that was out of the park. My name is Harry Sloan, my daughter, Hillary, goes to school here. She wanted me to come and check you out, and I have to say, I was very impressed.â

âThanks,â Michael said. He looked a little tired, no longer the mighty god of guitar that heâd been onstage, and Claire thought he just wanted to get this done and get home. âI appreciate that, Mr. Sloan.â

Mr. Sloan produced a business card, which he slid across the table toward Michaelâs hand. âYeah, hereâs the thing. I think youâve got real potential, Michael. I work for a major recording company, and I want to take a demo CD back with me.â

There was a moment where they all stared at him, and then Michael said, blankly, âDemo CD?â

âYou donât have one?â

âNo. Iâve beenââ Michael didnât know how to finish that sentence. âBusy.â Busy getting killed, then being made into a ghost, then turning into a vampire. Fighting wars. Et cetera.

âYou really have to get in the studio, man, right now. Iâll set it upâthereâs a good place in Dallas. Iâll book the time for you if you tell me dates. But I want to take your stuff into our next discovery meeting. I think we can really do some business. Think about it, will you? First thing is to get that demo CD done. Call me.â

He held out his hand again, and Michael shook it. He looked pale, and a little vacant, Claire thought. Mr. Sloan flashed them all that Hollywood smile again, slid on a very expensive pair of sunglasses, and left.

âHe canât be,â Eve said. âItâs a joke, right? Monicaâs idea of a joke or something.â

Michael held up the business card. Eve examined it, blinked, and passed it to Shane, who passed it on to Claire.

âVice president,â Claire read. âOh. Wow.â

âItâs not a joke,â Michael said. âThere was an article about this guy in Rolling Stone about six weeks ago.â Michael slowly got to his feet, and it really hit home. âHe wants to sign me. As a musician.â

Shane held up his hand, palm out, and Michael slapped it, then grabbed Eve and spun her around in a rush of velvet and squeals. He went still, buried his face in the soft shine of her hair, and just held her. âAll my life,â he said. âIâve been waiting for this all my life.â

âI know,â Eve said, and kissed him. âIâm so proud of you.â

Across the gap of a hundred feet of outdated carpet, Mr. Pennywell started clapping. It had the crisp, startling sound of gunshots. The two boys Kim was chatting with discovered they had places to be, and hit the doors to flee into the night; Kim, just as Claire had feared, walked back over toward them. Pennywell finished clapping and said, âYou do realize, of course, that theyâll never allow you to leave?â

Michael raised his head, and it felt to Claire like the rest of them faded out of the world. It was just Michael and Pennywell.

âThey?â Michael said. âYou mean Oliver and Amelie.â

âThey want all vampires here, under their control. Under their care.â Pennywellâs sneer was like a slap across the face. âTwo frightened little pups trying to control a pack of wolves. Are you a pack animal, Michael? I myself am not.â

âWhat do you want?â Michael asked.

âOf you? Nothing. You are only a dog running to heel.â His empty gaze moved away from Michael and fixed with a snap onto Claire. âI want her.â Shane, Michael, and Eve closed ranks in front of her before Claire could draw a breath. Pennywell clicked his tongue. âNo, no, no, children. This is a waste of blood. I will kill you allâyes, even you, fledglingâand take what I want in any case. You, girlâdo you want to see your friends dead on this rather unpleasant carpet?â

âFat chance,â Shane said. âWe already fought your punk ass once, remember? Go ask Bishop how that went for him if youâre scared to think about it.â

Pennywell sent him a scorching look of contempt. âYou were not alone, boy. You had allies. Here, you haveââ He turned a slow circle, and focused on Kim. âHer. Perhaps not your most persuasive argument.â His tone went eerily quiet, and very serious as he moved his gaze back toward Claire. âI have been alive seven hundred years, and I have been a killer since I was old enough to hold a sword. I have hunted witches and heretics down across Europe. I have destroyed stronger than you, in harder times. Do not mistake me when I tell you that I will not give you another chance.â

Claire swallowed and stepped out from behind Shane. He tried to grab her arm, but she twisted away, never taking her eyes off Pennywell. âDonât hurt them,â she said. âWhat do you want?â

âI want you to come with me,â he said, âand I am entirely out of patience. Now.â

Claire held out her hands, palm out, to her friendsâMichael, in his rock-star clothes, looking pale and focused and dangerous; Eve, dressed in a fall of black velvet, looking like a silent film star, right down to the look of fear on her face.

Shane was practically begging her not to go. His need to protect her pulled at her like gravity.

She said, âHe wonât hurt me. Iâll call as soon as I can. You guys go home. Please.â

âClaireââ

âShane, go.â

To her utter dismay, she saw Kim move over to her friends and stand next to Shane. Kim put a hand on his arm, and he looked down at her. âLet her go,â she told him. âSheâll be fine.â

Claire knew that this was not the right time to be wanting to scream, Take your hands off my boyfriend, bitch, but it was all she could do to hold the words inside. Pennywellâs hand closed around her wrist, cold and strong as a handcuff, and as he began to pull her away, Claire met Shaneâs eyes one last time.

âIâll be back,â she said. âDonât do anything crazy.â

He probably thought she meant fighting vampires.

What she really meant, deep down, was Donât fall in love with Kim.

5

Pennywell marched her outside of the concert hall, into the chilly night. There was a smell of rain in the air, and thunder rumbling far off in the distance. Lightning shattered across the sky, briefly turning Pennywell almost luminous, and as Claire blinked away the glare, she saw that he was pulling her in the direction of an idling limousine parked at the curb.

âIn,â he barked, and shoved her at the open back door. She stumbled, caught herself, and crawled in. It was dark, of course. And it smelled like cigar smoke. Pennywell clambered in behind her, agile as a spider, and slammed the door behind him. The big car accelerated away from the curb.

âWhere are we going?â Claire asked.

âNowhere,â said a voice out of the darkâOliverâs voice. The lights in the back slowly came up, revealing him sitting on the bench seat opposite her. Next to him was the source of the smoke, who smirked at her as he took a long pull on his cigar. Myrnin had put on a wine red jacket for the evening, something with elaborate embroidery on it. He looked almost normal, actually. He was even wearing the right shoes.

There was nothing normal about his smile, though.

âCohiba?â he asked, and took an unlit cigar out of his pocket to offer it to her. She shook her head, violently. âPity. You know, daring women used to smoke.â

âCancer isnât sexy.â

He raised his shoulders in a lazy shrug. âYou all die of something,â he said. âAnd we all pay for our pleasures, one way or another.â

âMyrnin, what the hell is going on? You send this freak to abduct me. . . .â

âActually,â Oliver said, âI sent Pennywell. It seemed to me he would be the one of us you and your friends would be least likely to argue with.â

Pennywell laughed. âThere you are wrong.â

âI never said it would be easy.â Oliver slammed the door on that conversation, and focused back on Claire. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and she tried not to be intimidated. âMyrnin and I wish to ask you about Amelie.â

âAmelie.â Claire stared back at him blankly, and then she felt the first tinglings of alarm. âWhat about her?â

âThat display of foolishness last night. How did you know what she was doing? I didnât.â

âI think itâs the bracelet. I donât know. Maybeââ Maybe itâs Ada, she thought, but didnât say. Myrnin stared at her thoughtfully through half-lidded eyes and blew smoke in a cloud at the roof. âMaybe she wanted me to know. Deep down. Maybe she wanted someone to stop her.â

âWas she surprised to see you?â Myrnin asked. Claire slowly nodded. âThen she didnât summon you, consciously or unconsciously. Interesting.â

âTheories?â Oliver asked.

âNot at present.â Myrnin shrugged; then he spoiled his cool by catching sight of something outside of the limousine windows and brightening like a three-year-old with a new toy. âOh, an all-night drive-through! I could murder a cheeseburger. Donât you just love this century?â

âFocus, you fool,â Oliver growled. âWhat is Amelie up to? Is she fit to remain in control?â

âWhat makes you think she is in control?â Myrnin asked absently, then shot Claire a frown. âWhat happened to your face?â

âYou,â she snapped. âRemember?â

âI certainly did not order you to stand out in the sun. What possible good would that do?â

âBox? UV bomb? Ringing any bells?â

âOh.â Myrnin considered this carefully, then sighed.

âYes. Quite my fault. So sorry. What were we talking about?â

âAmelie,â Oliver said, almost growling. âIs she fit to lead?â

Myrnin stubbed out his cigar in the wineglass. âCareful, my old friend,â he said.âYou come very close to saying something you would regret. Iâm not your creature.â

âNo,â Oliver agreed. âYouâre her creature to the bone. You built her this madhouse of a town. I would assume you could destroy it, if you chose.â

Myrninâs attention seemed to be focused on crushing the cigar into submission. âYour point?â

âAmelie said herself that Morganville was built as an experiment, to see if it was possible for vampires and humans to live openly, and in peace. Well, I think that after all this time, we know the answer to that question. The only way to control humans is through fear, intimi dation, and appeals to their greed. This exercise hasnât made us stronger; itâs made us weaker.â

âWe were dying already,â Myrnin said. âOut in the world.â

Pennywell, who hadnât spoken since entering the limo, let out a derisive laugh. âSome of us,â he said. âAnd some of us were killing.â

âAny fool can kill. It takes genius to create.â

âHey!â Claire broke in. âWhy me? Why grab me?â

âWeâre still debating that,â Myrnin said.

Oliver looked frustrated enough to claw steel. âNo, we are not debating it. The girl clearly has a connection to Amelie. Itâs the one way we can guarantee she will come to us.â

âDonât be stupid. Amelie may have a connection to her, but Claire is eminently replaceable,â Myrnin said. âNo offense, my dear, but youâre human. Humans are, by definition, replaceable.â

âSo are vampires,â Pennywell said. âIncluding you, you bedlamite wretch.â

âI was never in Bedlam,â Myrnin said. âAlthough I hear you picked off inmates there when the rats ran scarce.â

That must have been a serious vampire insult or something, because Pennywell launched himself across the space to latch his hands around Myrninâs throat.

Myrnin didnât even bother to react. He yawned. âOliver,â he said, âcontrol your beast before I am forced to.â

Pennywell snarled. His fangs snapped down.

Myrninâs eyes sparked red, and he grabbed Pennywellâs wrist in his hand and twisted.

Bones snapped. Pennywell howled, clearly shocked at Myrninâs strength. From the look on his face, Oliver hadnât exactly expected it, either. Myrnin shoved Pennywell back to his place, pointed a finger at him, and smiled. âNext time, I will take your fangs,â he said. âThen youâll be a toothless tiger. I donât think youâd enjoy it. Play nicely, witchfinder.â

âBoys,â Oliver said coolly, âthe question at hand is an important one: Do we allow Amelie to continue to run Morganville? Or do we use the girl to take it from her control, once and for all?â

Myrnin sighed. âYou do understand that Amelie is aware of your intentions? That sheâs planned for your eventual rebellion? Because it was plain as the moon that youâd betray her, sooner or later.â

âIâd hate to disappoint,â Oliver said. âAnd she has become weak. The weak canât lead.â

âIâve known Amelie a very long time, and I would never describe her as weak.â Myrnin lit up another cigar, with much puffing and use of a lighter with a hot blue flame. Claire almost choked on the smoke. Her eyes burned and teared, and she had to wipe them clear. âWounded, perhaps. Less certain of herself than before. But not weak, which you will discover if you think to push her.â

Oliver frowned at him. âI thought you were with me in this.â

âDid I say that? Well, Iâm not very reliable, as you know.â Myrnin closed his eyes in delight as he drew in the smoke from the cigar. âYou very nearly succeeded in bribing me with these excellent Cubans. I havenât had the like since Victoria was still Queen of England. But in the end, I must remain loyal to my lady. And I really canât allow you to torment my apprentice. After all, thatâs my job.â

âI thought that might be the case,â Oliver said.

He pulled a stake from inside his coat and slammed it into Myrninâs chest.

Â 

Claire screamed and lunged for Oliver, or at least she started toâthe limousine violently swerved, sending them all flying, and Claire ended up on the carpeted floor with Myrninâs deadweight on top of her. Something hit them, hard, and Claire felt the car lift, twist in the air, and slam down on its top, sending her and Myrnin in a tangle to the roof of the limo.

Oliver and Pennywell had somehow stayed in their seatsâholding themselves in by main force, apparently. Claire fought free of Myrninâs body, panting and disoriented. She wasnât hurt, or at least she didnât feel hurt, but everything seemed a little odd. Too bright. Too sharp. Pennywellâs eyes were bright red, and his fangs were out.

Oliver was looking at her like lunch, too.

The side window had broken out when the car rolled. Claire grabbed Myrninâs shoulders, crawled backward through the wrecked window, and dragged him along with her. As soon as she had his chest clear of the limo, she wrapped both hands around the stake and yanked it free with a wrench.

âAhhhhhh!â Myrnin screamed, and came bolt upright, both hands slapping at his chest. âMy God, I hate that!â

Pennywell dropped down onto his legs like some pale jumping spider. Myrnin slammed a boot into his face and crawled free of the wreckage, grabbing Claire as he rose to his feet. There was blood staining his shirt, and some on his face where heâd been cut by flying glass, but he looked fine, really.

Angry as hell, though.

Pennywell crawled out of the limo. His expression was no longer empty; it was full of hate. âHeretic,â he hissed. âWitch. Iâll see you burn, you and your familiar.â He cast a venomous look at Claire, too, and she swallowed hard.

âWhatâs a familiar?â she asked Myrnin.

âA demonic spirit who aids a witch,â he said. âUsually in the form of a black cat, but I suppose youâd do. Although in my experience you are not nearly demonic enough.â

âThanks.â

âDonât mention it.â Myrnin raised his eyebrows and thrust his chin at Pennywell. âWell? Are you waiting for your lynch mob to bring your spine?â

Claire had a very nasty flash of intuition. âWhereâs Oliver?â

And then a cold hand closed around her neck, choking off her breath and igniting blind panic inside. She was pulled away, completely off balance and out of control, and saw Myrnin spinning toward her but not quickly enough; she was moving away from him, off into the dark. . . .

It all freeze-framed for her: Myrnin, bloody and wide-eyed, reaching out for her. Pennywell smirking from where he stood near the wreckage of the limo. The smoking sedan that had sent the limo rollingâhood crumpled like used tinfoil.

That was a vampire car.

And the driverâs side door was open.

Claire choked, gasped for breath, and tore at the hand holding her throat closed. No good. Her fingernails didnât concern him any more than her heels when she kicked backward.

âHush,â Oliver chided her, and squeezed harder. âIâd like to say this will hurt me more than you, but that wouldnât be strictly trueââ

He broke off with a stunned gasp, and his hand slid away from Claireâs throat. She stumbled forward two steps, both hands holding her aching neck, and then looked back.

Oliver was staring down at his chest, where the point of a stake had emerged from his rib cage.

âDamn,â he said, and pitched down to his knees, fighting it all the way.

Michael was behind him.

Michael had just staked Oliver.

He dashed around the older vampire and grabbed Claire. âYou okay?â

She couldnât get words out through her bruised throat, but she nodded, eyes wide. In seconds Myrnin was there, too, picking her up and dumping her unceremoniously into Michaelâs arms. âTake her,â he said. âOliver is not going to be pleased, boy. Better go.â

âI had to,â Michael said. âI had to stake him. He was going to kill her.â

âIn point of fact, he wasnât; he was going to hurt her so badly that Amelie would feel it, thatâs all. But thatâs not what I meant. You crashed a car into the limousine. Oliver loves his limousine.â

Michael opened his mouth, then closed it without thinking of anything to say to that.

Myrnin, watching Pennywell, said, âMichael, take the girl and go. I have things to do here. Do leave the stake where it isâI canât have Oliver interfering just yet. The witchfinder and I have old debts to settle.â When Michael hesitated, Myrninâs dark eyes flashed toward him in command. âTake her.â

Michael nodded, and Claire lost all sense of where she was, except that she was held firmly in his arms, and moving fast. Lights flashed by, moving too quickly for her to focus on. The burning in her throat died down from a bonfire to a slow broil, and she tried clearing it. It felt like gargling with glass, but she got a weak sound out.

Michael slowed to a normal human-speed run, then a walk, and Claire saw that they were back at the TPU theater. Eve, Shane, and Kim were standing in front of Eveâs car. Two of them looked shocked; Kim just looked like none of it was much concern of hers.

âClaire!â Shane got there first, taking her out of Michaelâs arms and easing her to her feet. When she faltered, he held on to her, anxiously looking her over. âWhat the hell happened, Michael?â

âCrash,â Claire whispered. âCar crash. Hi.â

âHi,â Shane said. âWhat do you mean, car crash? Jesus, Michael, you crashed your car?â

âInto the limo,â Claire said. It seemed important to get it right, for some reason. âSaved me.â

Sort of, anyway. She really wasnât sure what would have happened to her if Oliver had managed to take Myrnin out and had time to do whatever unpleasant thing heâd had planned, or if Pennywell had gotten hold of her. There were so many nasty possibilities.

âWe need to get out of here,â Michael said. âRight now. Eve?â

She pulled her car keys out of her tiny black purse, hiked up her velvet skirt, and climbed behind the wheel of her big boxy sedan. Kim smoothly claimed the front passenger seat, leaving Claire in the back, sandwiched between Shane and Michaelâwhich was not at all a bad place to be. She was shaking, she realized. She supposed that was shock or something. Shane held her left hand, and Michael her right, and she closed her eyes as Eve peeled rubber out of the parking lot, heading home.

6

âMom?â Claire looked at the clock, bit her lip, and prepared for the worst. âHey. Sorry to be calling so late. We just got out of the concertâyou know Michael was playing tonight, right? So Iâm at the Glass House. Iâm going to stay over tonight; Iâll see you in the morning, okay? Bye. Love you.â

She hung up and gave a long sigh, leaning back against Shaneâs chest. âThank God for voice mail,â she said. âI donât think I could have done that if sheâd picked up.â

He kissed her neck gently. âI donât care what your parents say; Iâm not letting you out of my sight. Not tonight.â

They were home, safe in the warmth of the Glass House. Michael had gone upstairs to change, but Eve was still there, slinking around in her glam-rags. Also, ugh, Kim was still with them.

But somehow it felt like the two of them were all alone.

Shane wrapped his arms around her, and she relaxed, all her fear bleeding away. Her small hand wrapped around his forearm, she felt so safe as she sensed his muscles moving underneath his velvety skin.

Even if she wasnât really safe, ever.

âI need to thank Michael,â she said, and stopped to clear her throat. It didnât make it feel much better. âHe didnât have to come after me.â

âIâd have killed his ass if he didnât,â Shane said, and there was a grimness behind it that made her wince. âHe wouldnât let me come with him.â

âYou could have gotten hurt in the crash.â

âHe wasnât worried about you.â

âHe was. I was about to be dinner.â

Shane sighed and dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. âAnd heâd have a point.â

âHe saved my life.â

âI get that. Could we stop talking about Michael for a second?â He sounded actually pained.

âYou are not jealous.â

Shane held up two fingers pinched almost together. âThat much, maybe. And only because heâs got that rock-star thing going on. You girls get into that.â

âShut up!â

âSeriously, you throw panties and stuff. Iâve heard.â

She turned in the circle of his arms to face him, staring up into his face. No words. He was drawn down to her like gravity, lips warm against hers, lazy at first, then getting hotter, breath coming faster. Her brain exploded in a thousand thoughts and memories . . . the soft skin at the back of his neck, the way he said her name in that sweet, hushed whisper, the sheer heat of him against her.

âHey.â Eveâs voice, mostly amused, made Claire jump. âI know, mad love, et cetera, but could you please not make out in the living room? I really want to be able to tell your parents Iâve never seen anything going on when they bring the Inquisition over for lunch.â

Shane kissed her one more time, lightly and softly, and fluffed her hair back from her face. âTo be continued,â he said.

âI hate cliff-hangers.â

âBlame Eve.â

Claire stepped back from him, and the world came back to life around herâfunny how it all seemed to disappear when she was with him. Eve was sitting on the couch, flipping channels on the TV. Kim was cross-legged on the floor reading the backs of game cases. âHey,â Kim said. âWho plays the zombie game?â

âUgh,â Eve said. âNo.â

âI have, a little,â Claire admitted.

âSo thatâs a no, a maybeâcome on, somebody must be game master around here?â

Shane finally held up his hand. Kim smiled.

âRock on, Collins,â she said. âLetâs see what youâve got.â

Claireâs lips still tingled from the kisses, and her whole body from anticipation, but the gleam in Kimâs eyes made her tense up. She could tell Shane was reluctant, but also, Shane wasnât really in the habit of passing up a challenge, either.

Except that this time, he did. âCanât,â he said. âGot to check on Michael.â

âI already did,â Eve said, âwhich youâd have known if you werenât on Planet Wonderful, the two of you. And heâs fine. Heâs on the phone with Amelie. I wouldnât go there.â

âOh.â Shaneâs excuse had just vanished, and Claire could tell he wasnât quite up to outright telling Kim no. He went to the couch; Eve scooted over and handed him a game controller. Kim snagged the other one from the side table. âLock and load, I guess.â

Claire left him to go upstairs. The bathroom was free, and she used the facilities, cleaned up, mourned the state of her face and the fast-emerging bruises around her neck, then went to her bedroom and found a pair of comfortable jeans and a top. A cute top. And she made sure it showcased the cross Shane had bought her. She also put on a little lip gloss. Just a little.

She could hear the shouts and smack talk from downstairs when she opened her bedroom door; Kim and Shane were all about the competition, which did not make her feel less left out. âCome on, suck it up,â she told herself in a harsh, hoarse whisper, plastered a smile on, and started down the hall.

The hidden door opposite Eveâs bedroom opened with a soft click, and in the dim reflected light, Claire saw the flicker of a black-and-white image of a woman in full Victorian-style skirts. It looked like a spec ter, which anywhere but in Morganville would have made Claire scream and make a run for the local ghostbusters.

But this was Morganville, and Claire knew Ada all too well. âWhat?â she demanded. Adaâor Adaâs image projection, anywayâmade a hushing motion of a finger to her lips. She turned, the way a two-dimensional cardboard cutout turns, disappearing in the middle and then expanding again to a back view, and glided up the stairs beyond the hidden door without touching the wood.

âSeriously?â Claire sighed. âWonderful. Just great.â She followed Ada up. Behind her, the door shut with the same hushed click. Upstairs the lights blazed on, a kaleidoscope of color through Tiffany glass lamps, and Claire saw Adaâs imageâface forward againâstanding against the wall near the old red velvet sofa. âOkay, Iâm here,â she said. âWhat do you want?â

Ada made the shushing motion again, which was deeply annoying. Ada was a computerâa smart one, and arguably kind of human, but still . . . She was acting all secretive and clever, and Claire really didnât like the rather cruel smile on those smooth dark gray lips.

Ada touched the wall, and it shimmered, taking on the darkness of one of the portals that Ada controlled through town . . . a kind of magic tunnel, although Claire hated to call it magic. It was physics, that was all. Scary advanced physics. That meant it was the ultimate fast lane, but dangerous. . . . Claire frowned at the opening, trying to feel where the destination might be on the other end. Nothing. And it looked way too dark to be safe.

âNo,â she said. âI donât think so. Sorry.â

Why she was apologizing to a crazy computer lady, she didnât know. Ada wasnât her friend. Ada didnât even like her very much, althoughâby Myrninâs ordersâAda kind of had to obey her.

Ada lost her smile. She shrugged, turned, and glided through the portal.

She vanished into the dark. After a few seconds, a slender gray hand came out of the shadows and made a Come on impatient gesture.

âNo,â Claire said again, and this time, sat down on the couch. âNo way. Iâve had way too much today. You have your little weird crisis on your own, Ada.â

Her cell phone rang, and the sound of the song echoing through the hidden room made Claire jump and dig the phone out of her pocket. The screen read Shane Calling. She flipped it open.

âShane?â

Static, and then came Adaâs weird machine-flat voice. âMyrnin needs you. Now. Come!â She sounded angry, and cold, but she usually did unless she was simpering at Myrnin. Claire slapped the phone shut, blew hair off her forehead, and stared at the darkness. It could be Myrninâs lab. She just couldnât tell. Myrnin had a vampireâs habit of forgetting to turn on lights, which sucked.

âI really need to start carrying flashlights,â she muttered, and then had an inspiration. There was a Tiffany-style pole lamp in the corner by the sofa; Claire lifted off the heavy glass shade, set it aside, and rolled the base to the limit of its electrical cord, then lowered it across the threshold of the portal, into the darkness on the other side.

She saw Ada standing there, hands clasped in front of her, cold and expressionless, surrounded by at least ten albino-pale vampires, who cried out and flinched back at the touch of the light. They had oversized fangs and sharp talons, and they werenât like the regular vamps. . . . These were tunnel rats, the ones who stalked the dark places, keeping out of the light and existing just to kill. Failures, Myrnin had called them.

Ada had meant for her to walk right into the middle of them.

Claire yelled in shock, and slammed the portal closed in her mind, then put her hand on the blank wall of the room as it took on weight and reality again. There was a way to lock itâmaybeâand she searched for the right frequency to trigger the security. It was like a deadbolt, and it would hold against Ada or anyone else who wanted to come through.

She hoped.

Closing the portal had chopped the pole lamp in half, and she dropped the base part as it sputtered and sparked, then kicked the plug out of the wall. Claire stood there staring at the wall, and the mutilated lamp, for a long moment with her hands curled into fists, then took out her phone and dialed Myrninâs lab.

âHow kind of you to check up on me,â he said. âIâm fine, as it happens.â

âWeâve got a problem.â

âReally? The stake in my chest didnât indicate that at all. I must send Oliver a bill for a new shirt.â

âAda just tried to kill me.â

Myrnin was silent for a moment. Claire could almost see him, hunched over the old-fashioned wired phone that looked like it had come from a Victorian junk shop. âI see,â he said, in an entirely different tone. âAre you certain?â

âShe told me you needed to see me, and opened a portal into a nest of hungry vamps. So, yes. Iâm pretty sure.â

âOh my. I will have a talk with her. Iâm sure it was a misunderstanding.â

âMyrninââ Claire squeezed her eyes closed, counted to five, and started over. âSheâs not listening to you anymore. Donât you get that? Sheâs doing her own thing, and her own thing means getting rid of the competition.â

âCompetition for what?â

âFor you,â Claire said. âNot that I am. But she thinks I am. Because you havenât killed me.â

She was babbling, because saying this was making her feel a little sick and giddy. She wasnât in love with Myrnin, but she did love him, a little. He was crazy; he was dangerous ; he was a vampireâand yet, he was somehow not any of those things, in his better moments.

âClaire.â He sounded wounded. âI do not find you attractive, except for your mind. I hope you know that. I would never take such advantage of you.â He paused, and thought about it for a second. âExcept if I was hungry, of course. But probably not. Most likely.â

âYeah, thatâs comforting. The point is, Ada thinks you care for me, and she wants me out of the way so youâll care more for her. Right?â

âRight. Iâll go have a talk with her.â

âYou need to pull her plug, Myrnin.â

âOver that? Pshaw. Itâs merely a flaw in her programming. Iâll take good care of it.â He paused, then said, âOf course, in the meantime, I wouldnât follow her anywhere if I were you.â

âNo kidding. Thanks.â

âOh, donât mention it, my dear. Enjoy your evening. Oh, and tell Michael that I enjoyed his concert.â

âYou were there?â

She heard the smile in Myrninâs voice. âWe were all there, Claire. All the vampires. We do so enjoy our entertainments.â

That was ever so slightly creepy, and Claire hung up without saying good-bye.

Downstairs, the video game raged on; Kim was as good a player as Shane, apparently, which didnât surprise Claire but depressed her kind of a lot. Shane didnât even notice her reappearance; he was wiggling around on the couch, putting body language into his shooting as his game character ducked zombie attacks and kicked, punched, and shot his way out of trouble.

Kimâs character was a slinky-looking girl with black hair in a ponytail, and half a costume. She fought in high heels.

Great.

Claire sat down on the stairs, watching through the railing, and hugged her knees to her chest. Eve was gone, probably to change clothes, so it was just Shane and Kim.

They looked oblivious to everything but the drama on the screen.

She was developing some kind of sixth sense where Michael was concerned; he didnât make any noise coming down the steps, but she knew he was coming, and turned her head to see that heâd switched out his rock-star gear for a faded, old gray T-shirt and, like her, jeans. He took a look at what was happening in the living room, then crouched down next to her. âHey,â he said. âYou all right?â

âI wouldnât have been if you hadnât crashed into us,â Claire said. âThank you.â

He looked ashamed. âYeah, well, that wasnât quite the plan. I was just trying to make him stop. I didnât think heâd actually hit me.â

She almost laughed, because he sounded so sad about it. She took his cool hand and squeezed. He squeezed back. âIt was still a good plan.â

âExcept for the part where I nearly killed you, destroyed Amelieâs limo, and my own car? Yeah. It rocked the house.â

âAre they going to get you a new one? A car, I mean?â

âAmelie said they would.â

âI shut all the portals to the house,â Claire said. âAdaâs acting weird.â

âI thought that was normal.â

âWeirder.â

âAh. Okay.â Michael looked past the railings, at Kim and Shane. âAre you freaking out about Kim?â Claire made the same little-bit mime with her finger and thumb that Shane had earlier. âYeah, well donât. Kimâs not his type.â

âIâm not sure Iâm his type.â Okay, that sounded really, really whiny. Claire bit her lip. âSheâs just soâmuch.â

âYep. She is that.â He rose to his feet and padded down the last few steps silently, came up behind Kim, and leaned over her to say, âI vant to drink your bloodâ in a heavy, fake Dracula accent. She shrieked, flailed, and a zombie ate her brains on-screen.

âYou bastard!â Kim yelled, dropped the controller, and smacked him hard on the chest. âI canât believe you just totally sabotaged me!â

âCanât let him lose,â Michael said, as Shane hit the high score and the victory music sounded. âGotta live with the dude.â

They high-fived.

âYouâre seriously going to take that as a win,â Kim said. âWhen he totally cheated for you.â

âYes,â Shane said. âI seriously am.â He canceled the game, put the controller down, and rose to stretch and yawn. âDamn. Itâs late. Donât you have someplace to go or something?â

Kim looked actually hurt for a second, and Claire felt a twinge ofâsomething. Maybe pity. She hoped not.

âSure,â she said. âJohnny Deppâs waiting for me back home. Guess Iâd better blaze. Hey, whereâs Eve?â

âWhat, youâre going?â Eve called from the top of the stairs, and jumped down past Claire in her eagerness to get to the bottom. âYou canât! Kim, we need to run lines and stuff!â

âNo, Shaneâs right. Itâs really late. How about tomorrow? I can meet you at Common Groundsâhow about three? Youâre working until about then, right?â

âYeah,â Eve said. She still sounded disappointed.

âSure, thatâs okay. Heyâyou want to go out tomorrow night? Maybe catch a movie? UmâClaire, you want to go, too?â

Great. She was officially an also-invited. âNo thanks,â she said. âIâve got plans.â

âSeriously? What?â

Claire looked at Shane, and he took one for the team. âDinner with me,â he said. âItâs kind of an anniversary.â

âAwwww, really? Thatâs so sweet!â Eve leveled a finger at him. âDo not take her to the chili dog place.â

âA real restaurant. With tablecloths. Hey, Iâm not a complete idiot.â

Kim stared at Shane, and in that moment, Claire realized this wasnât just an act. . . . Kim really did like Shaneâa lot.

She recognized pain when she saw it.

âSo,â Eve said, and turned to Kim. âMovies, right? Something scary?â

Kim got herself together before Eve could see the same thing Claire had noticed. âSure,â she said. âWhat ev. You pick. No girly movies.â

Eve looked deeply offended. âMe? Girly movies? Bite your tongue off. No, seriously. Right now.â

Kim laughed, and Eve walked her to the door. Claire said to Shane, âAnniversary?â

He raised his eyebrows. âDepends on how you count things,â he said. âYeah. Itâs got to be some kind of anniversary. Probably of one of us not getting killed.â

Michael said, âSpeak for yourself, man.â He picked up the controller and restarted the game. âI canât believe you almost let her win.â

âMan, I almost let you win sometimes,â Shane said, and dropped into his spot on the other end of the couch. âGame on.â

7

The next day, Claire sat through classes without any real sense of accomplishment, took a quizâwhich she acedâand dropped in on Myrninâs lab around noon. It looked neat and clean again, which was two miracles in a row as far as she was concerned. She went to the bookshelves and started looking over journals, trying to find the most recent ones, although those would be the most difficult to figure out, given that most of his notes would have been taken when he was sick, and mostly crazy.

But she was curious.

She was struggling through last summerâs book when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragonâs head on it.

And on his lapel was a button that said, IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK A TEACHER.

It was typical Myrnin, really. She was surprised the bunny slippers were absent.

âI didnât know you were coming today,â he said, and draped his hat, coat, and cane on a nearby coat rack. âAnd I assume it isnât just a random occurrence, like gravity.â

âGravity isnât random.â

âSo you say.â He came to the opposite side of the table and looked at the book, then turned his head weirdly sideways to read the title. âAh. Some of my best work. If only I could figure out what it actually meant.â

âI was trying to figure out if you ever met a girl named Kim. Kimââ What the hell was her last name? Had anybody even told her? âKim, something. Kind of Goth?â

âOh, her,â Myrnin said. He didnât sound too impressed, which made Claire just a little happy. âYes, Kimberlieâs known to us. She asked permission to film some of us, for the archivesâa sort of permanent record of our histories. As you know, we do value that sort of thing. Many have agreed. Sheâs been named our video historian, I believe.â

âYou havenât done it, though?â

âI write my own history. I see no reason to entrust it to a human with a video camera. Paper and ink, girl. Paper and ink will always survive, when electronic storage becomes random impulses lost to the ages.â

âBut the vampires do know her.â

âYes. Sheâs a bit of a pet for the older ones. Besides me, of course. I donât like pets. They biteâah! I almost forgot! Time to feed Bob.â And Myrnin bustled off to another part of the lab, where presumably heâd stashed Bob the spider.

Or possibly Bob the auto mechanicâClaire wouldnât put anything past him. He seemed slightly manic today, from the glitter in his eyes. It made her nervous.

She was about to close the book, when she saw, in his spiky black handwriting, something about her:

New girl. Claire something. Small and fragile.
No doubt they believe that will make me protec
tive of her. It only makes me think how easy it is to
destroy her. . . .

She shuddered, and decided she didnât really want to read the rest.

She left Myrnin making little weird kissy faces to Bob the spider as he shook a container of flies into Bobâs plastic case, and went to the archives.

Since the first time sheâd seen the Vampire Archivesâwhich had been on the run, in a time of war, and it had been a place theyâd hit up for weaponsâsheâd been fascinated by the idea. The vampires were packrats, no doubt about it; they loved thingsâhistorical things. Alsoâapparentlyâjunk, because there were entire vaults of stuff that nobody had gotten around to categorizing yet, and probably never would. But the upper floors were amazing. The library was meticulous, and there was an entire section that contained every known book, magazine, and pamphlet with anything about vampires in it, cross-referenced by accuracy. Dracula scored only about a six, apparently.

Apart from that, the vampires had donated, bought, or stolen six floors of historical texts, in a wide variety of languages. There were even ancient scrolls that looked too delicate to properly handle, and a few wax tablets that Amelie had told her dated from Roman times.

The audiovisual area was new, but it contained everything from samples of the flickers made for penny arcades in the early 1900s to silent film, sound film, color film, all the way up to DVDs. Again, most of it was concerned somehow with vampires, but not everything. There seemed to be an awful lot of costume drama. And, for some reason, musicals.

Claire found the digital video interviews on the computer kiosk, listed by the vampireâs name and date ofâbirth? Making? What did they call it? Anyway, the date they got fanged.

The newest one was Michael Glass.

Claire brought up the player and blinked as Michael fidgeted in front of the camera. He wasnât comfortable. This wasnât being onstage for him, obviously. He messed with the clip-on microphone until Kimâs off-screen voice told him to cut it out, and then he sat, looking like he wished heâd never agreed to any of this, until the questions started. The first ones were obviousâname, current age, age at death, original birthplace.

Then Kim asked, âHow did you become a vampire?â Michael thought about his answer for a few seconds before he said, âTotal stupidity.â

âYeah? Tell me.â

âI grew up in Morganville. I knew the rules. I knew how dangerous things were, but when you grow up with Protection, I think you get careless. Iâd just turned eighteen. My parents had already left town, my mom was sick and needed cancer treatments, so I was on my own. I wanted to sell the house and get on with my life.â

âHowâs that going for you?â

Michael didnât smile. âNot like Iâd hoped. I got careless. I met a guy who wanted to buy the house, somebody new in town. It never occurred to me he was a vampire. Heâdidnât come across that way. But the second he crossed the threshold, I knew. I just knew.â

He shook his head. Kim cleared her throat. âCan I ask who . . . ?â

âOliver,â Michael said. âHe killed me his first day in town.â

âWow. That sucks completely. But you didnât become a vampire then, right?â

âNo. I died. Sort of. I remember dying, and then . . . then it was the next night, and I couldnât remember anything in between. I was fine. No holes in the neck, nothing. I figured maybe Iâd dreamed it, but thenâthen I tried to leave the house.â

âWhat happened?â

âI started to drift away. Like smoke. I got back inside before it was too late, but I realized after a few more tries that I couldnât leave. Didnât matter which door, or how I did it. I justâstopped being me.â Michaelâs eyes looked haunted now, and Claire saw a shiver run through him. âThat was bad enough, but then morning came.â

âAnd what happened?â

âI died,â Michael said. âAll over again. And it hurt.â

Claire turned it off. There was something wrong about hearing this, seeing him let down his guard so completely. Michael had always tried to make it all okay, somehow. She hadnât known how much it had freaked him out. And, she found, she didnât really want to know how it had felt when heâd been made a real vampire by Amelie, in order to be able to live outside of the house.

She knew too much already.

There were about twenty other video interviews in the folder, but there was one that made Claire hesitate, then double-click the icon.

The camera zoomed in, steadied focus, and then the lights came up. âPlease give us your name, the date you became a vampire, your birthplace, and your death age.â It was Kimâs voice, but this time she sounded nervous, not at all the smart-ass Claire knew. âPlease.â

Oliver leaned back in his chair, looking like heâd smelled something nasty, and said, âOliver. I will keep my family name to myself, if you please. I was made vampire in 1658. I was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, England, in 1599. So as you see, I was not a young man when I was turned.â

âWas it your choice?â

Oliver stared at Kim, off camera, for so long that even Claire felt nervous. Then he said, âYes. I was dying. It was my one chance to retain the power Iâd attained. The thieving trick of it was that once Iâd made my devilâs bargain, I couldnât hold the power I sought to keep. So I gained new life, and lost my old one.â

âWho made you?â

âBishop.â

âAhâdo you want to say anything about Bishopââ

âNo.â Oliver suddenly stood up, fire in his eyes, and stripped the microphone off in a hail of static. âIâll do no more of this prying. Past is past. Let it die.â

Kim, very quietly, said, âBut you killed him. Didnât you? You and Amelie?â

Oliverâs eyes turned red. âYou know nothing about it, little girl with your foolish toys. And pray to God you never will.â

Oliver knocked the camera over, and Kim yelped, and that was it.

Fade to black.

âEnjoying yourself?â Oliverâs voice said, and for a second Claire thought it was on the computer screen, then realized that it came from behind her. She turned her head, slowly, to find him standing near the door of the small room, leaning against the wall. He was wearing a T-shirt with the Common Grounds logo on it, and cargo pants, and he didnât look like a five-hundred-year-old vampire. He even had a peace-sign earring in one ear.

âIâwanted to know about the historical interview project, thatâs all. Sorry.â Claire shut down the kiosk and stood up. âAre you going to try to kill me again?â

âWhy? Do you want to be prepared?â He cocked his head at her.

âIâd like to see it coming.â

That got her a thin smile. âNot all of us have that luxury. But no. I have been schooled by my mistress. I wonât raise a finger to you, little Claire. Not even if you ask me to.â

Claire edged slowly toward the door. He smiled wider, and his gaze followed her all the way . . . but he let her go.

When she looked back, he was at the kiosk, clicking the mouse. She heard his interview start, and heard his nonrecorded voice murmur a curse. The recording cut off.

Then the entire kiosk was ripped out and smashed on the floor with enough force to shatter a window three feet ahead of her.

Somebody wasnât happy with how he looked on camera.

Claire broke into a run, dodged around another row of books, turned left at the German books to make for the exitâ

And tripped over Kim, who was sitting on the floor of the library, staring down at the screen of her cell phone as if it held the secrets of the universe.

âHey!â Kim protested, and Claire pitched headlong to the carpet. She caught herself on the way down, kicked free of Kimâs legs, and crawled backward. âYou okay?â

âFine,â Claire said, and got up to dust herself off. âWhat the hell are you doing?â

âResearch,â Kim said.

âIn German?â

âI didnât say I was looking at the books, dummy. But I could read German. Itâs possible.â

âDo you?â

Kim grinned. âJust curse words. And whereâs the bathroom, in case I get stuck in Berlin. Hey, what was the crash?â

âOh. Oliver. He just found the interview you did with him.â

Kimâs grin left the building. âHe killed my computer, right? He just went all Hulk Smash on it.â

âHe wasnât happy.â

âNo,â Oliver said, and rounded the corner of the aisle. There were flickers of red in his eyes, and his bone-pale hands were curled into fists. âNo, Oliver isnât happy at all. You told me youâd destroyed the interview.â

âI lied,â Kim said. âDude, I donât work for you. I was given a job to do by the council, with a grant and everything. Iâm doing it. And now you owe me for a new computer. Iâm thinking maybe a laptop.â

She looked way too calm. Oliver noticed it, too. âThat wasnât the only copy.â

âDigital age. Itâs a sad, sad world, and itâs just full of downloadable copies.â

âYouâre going to bring them all to me.â

âDuh, no,â Kim said, and closed up her phone. âIâm pretty sure Iâm not. And Iâm pretty sure youâre going to have to just get over it, because this is Amelieâs pet project. We didnât even get that far, anyway. Itâs not like you told me you collect Precious Moments figures or something embarrassing. Get over it.â She checked the big, clunky watch on her wrist, and rolled to her feet. âWhoops, time to go. I have rehearsal in half an hour. And hey, so do you, Mitch. No hard feelings, okay?â

Oliver said nothing. Kim shrugged and headed for the exit.

âI donât like her,â Claire offered.

âAt last, we have something in common,â Oliver said. âBut she is right about one thing: I have to get to rehearsal.â

That sounded veryânormal. More normal than most things Oliver said. Claire felt some of her tension slip away. âSo howâs that going? The play thing?â

âI have no idea. I havenât done a play in a hundred years, and the idea of Eve and Kim being our leading ladies doesnât fill me with confidence.â That just dripped with sarcasm, and Claire winced a little.

âA hundred years. What was the last thing you performed?â

âHamlet.â

Of course.

Â 

How rehearsal went Claire didnât know; she headed for Common Grounds, where she was set to meet up with (ugh) Monica. At least it was profitable.

âMoney up front,â she said, as she slid into the seat across from the mayorâs favoriteâand onlyâsister. Monica had done something cute with her hair, and it framed her face in feathered curves. For once, she was alone; no sign of Gina and Jennifer, not even as coffee fetchers.

Monica sent Claire a dirty look, but she reached into her designer backpack, got out her designer wallet, and counted out fifty dollars that she shoved across the table. âBetter be worth it,â she said. âI really hate this class.â

âThen drop it.â

âCanât. Itâs a core class for my major.â

âWhich is?â

âBusiness.â

It figured. âSo where do you want to start? Whatâs giving you the most trouble?â

âThe teacher, since he keeps giving these stupid pop quizzes and I keep flunking them.â Monica dug in her backpack and tossed over three stapled tests, which were marked up in greenâthe teacher must have read somewhere that red made students nervous or something, but Claire thought that with this many marks, the color of the pen was the least of Monicaâs problems.

âWow,â she said, and flipped the pages. âSo you really donât get economics at all.â

âI didnât pay fifty dollars for the pleasure of hearing you state the obvious,â Monica pointed out. âSo yeah. Donât get it, donât really want to, but I need it. So give me my fifty bucksâ worth of a passing grade already.â

âWellâeconomics is really game theory, only with money.â

Monica just stared at her.

âThat was going to be the simple version.â

âGive me my money back.â

Actually, Claire needed itâwell, she needed to have had Monica pay it to her, reallyâso she came up with a few kind of cool explanations, showed Monica the way to memorize the formulas and when to use them . . . and before it was done, there were at least ten other students leaning in to listen and take notes at various points. That was cool, except that Monica kept demanding five bucks from each one of them, which meant that she got a free lesson.

Still, not a bad afternoonâs work. Claire finished feeling a little happier; teachingâeven teaching Monicaâalways made her feel better.

She felt much better when she saw that Shane had come to walk her home.

âHey,â he said as she fell in beside him. âGood day?â

She considered exactly how to answer that, and finally said, âNot bad.â Nobody had gotten killed so far. In Morganville, that was probably a good day. âMonica paid me fifty for a private lesson.â Shane held up his hand, and she jumped up to smack it without breaking stride. âAnd yours?â

âThere was meat. I sliced it with a big, sharp knife. Very manly.â

âIâm impressed.â

âOf course you are. So, itâs our anniversaryââ

âItâs not!â

âWell, I told Kim it was, and then I promised to take you out to a nice restaurant.â

âWith tablecloths,â Claire agreed. âI distinctly remember tablecloths.â

âThe point is, Iâm taking you out. Okay?â

âI donât think so. My face is just starting to heal. Iâve got bruises all over my throat. The last thing I want to do is go to a nice restaurant and have everybody stare at us and wonder if youâre abusing me. I wouldnât enjoy my food at all.â

âYou think too much.â

She took his hand. âProbably.â

âOkay then. How about a sandwich offered up on a nice, clean napkin, in my room?â

âYouâre such a romantic.â

âItâs in my room.â

They were about two blocks along from Common Groundsâabout halfway homeâwhen the streetlights began to go out, one after another, starting behind them and zooming past as each clicked off. It wasnât quite full dark yet, but it was getting there fast as the last hints of red sunset faded from the horizon.

âClaire?â Shane looked around, and so did she, feeling her instincts start to howl a warning.

âSomethingâs wrong,â she said. âSomethingâs here.â

A bloody form lurched out of the darkness toward them, and Shane shoved Claire behind him. It was a vampireâred eyes, fangs down, blood splashed on the pale face and hands.

Claire knew him, she realized after a second of pure adrenaline and shock. He was wearing the same ragged, greasy clothes from the last time sheâd seen him: Morley, the graveyard vampire whoâd tried to ambush Amelie.

He saw Claire and gasped out, âFair lady, tell your mistressâtell herââ

He lunged for Claire, off balance, and Shane stiff-armed him away. Morley went sprawling on the pavement, and rolled up into a ball.

Afraid.

âItâs okay,â Claire said, and put a hand on Shaneâs arm. She carefully crouched down near Morleyâs bloodstained body. âMr. Morley? What happened?â

âRuffians,â he whispered. âTormentors. Hellhounds.â Something made him flinch, and he listened for a second, then rolled painfully to his feet. Claire jumped backward, just in case, but Morley didnât even look at her. âTheyâre coming. Run.â

Something was coming, all right. Morley stumbled away, moving at a fraction of normal vampire speed, and Claire heard the distant sound of running feet, voices calling to one another, and excited whoops.

In a few more seconds, she saw themâsix young men, most no older than Shane. Two wore TPU jackets. They were all drunk, mean, and looking for trouble, and they all were armedâbaseball bats, tire irons, stakes. They slowed when they caught sight of Claire and Shane, and changed course to come toward them.

âHey!â one of them yelled. âYou seen an old dude running through here?â

âWhy? What did he do, steal your purse?â Shane shot back. Claire dug her fingernails into his arm in warning, but he wasnât paying attention. âJesus, you idiots, what do you think youâre doing?â

âCleaning up the streets,â another one said, and twirled his bat as if he really knew how to use it. âSomebodyâs gotta. The cops donât do it.â

âWe heard that one killed a kid,â said the first manâthe least drunk, as far as Claire could tell, and, also, maybe the meanest. She didnât like the way he was watching Shane, and her. âDrained her dry, right on the playground. We donât let that pass, man. He has to pay.â

âYou have any proof?â

âScrew your proof. These monsters have been running around killing for a hundred years. We catch them, we teach them a lesson they donât forget.â He laughed, dug in his pocket, and pulled out something. He tossed it on the ground in front of Shaneâs feet. Claire couldnât tell what the scattered pieces were at first, and then she knew.

Teeth: vampire fangs, pulled out at the root.

Shane said, âKnock yourself out, man. He went that way.â He nodded in a direction Morley hadnât gone. âKeep up the good work.â

âItâs Collins, right? Your dad was one hell of a guy. He stood up for us.â

Shaneâs father had been an abusive asshole who didnât care about anyone, as far as Claire had been able to tell; he certainly hadnât cared about Shane. The idea that Frank Collins was becoming the underground hero of Morganville made Claire want to puke.

âThanks,â Shane said. His voice was neutral, and very steady. âIâm taking my girl home.â

âHer? Sheâs one of them. One of the Renfields. Works for the vamps.â

âNo better than the vamps,â another put in.

âI heard she worked for Bishop,â said a third, who had a tire iron resting on his shoulder. âCarrying around his death warrants. Like one of those Nazi collaborators.â

âYou heard wrong,â Shane said. âSheâs my girl. Now back off.â

âLetâs hear from her,â said the leader of the pack, and locked stares with Claire. âSo? You working for the vamps?â

Shane sent her a quick, warning glance. Claire took in a deep breath and said, âAbsolutely.â

âAh hell,â Shane breathed. âOkay, then. Run.â

They took off, catching the minimob by surprise; alcohol slowed them down, Claire thought, and an argument broke out behind them over whom they should be chasing, humans or vampires. Shane grabbed Claireâs hand and pulled her along, running as if their lives depended on it. The streetlights were all out, and Claire had trouble seeing curbs and cracks in the pavement in the dim starlight.

They made it almost a block before she heard a howl behind them. The pack was following.

âCome on,â Shane gasped, and pushed her faster. It was harder for Claire; she was a bookworm, not a runner, and besides, her legs were about six inches shorter than his. âCome on, Claire! Donât slow down!â

Her lungs were already on fire. Need to exercise more, she thought crazily. Note to self: practice wind sprints.

Something hit her in the back, and Claire lost her balance and hit the pavement hard. Shane yelled, stopped, and turned to cover her. In seconds, the pack of guys was on them, and Claire saw Shane taking a bat away from one guy and using it to smack the tire iron away from another attacker.

A shadow loomed over her, and she looked up to see a guy who looked about ten feet tall raise a baseball bat over his head, aiming straight for hers.

Claire grabbed him around the knees and yanked, hard. He yelled in surprise as his legs folded, and he fell backward. The bat hit the ground with a clatter, and Claire picked it up as she climbed to her feet. Shane was swinging with precision, taking out weapons and maybe breaking an arm here and there if he had to. All she had to do was stand there and look threatening.

It was over in a few seconds. Something turned for the pack, and theyâd had enough. Claire stood there shaking, bat still cocked in the ready position, as the last guy scrambled up off the pavement and lurched away.

Shane dropped his bat and put both hands on her shoulders. âClaire? Look at me. Are you all right? Anybody hit you?â

âNo.â She felt shaky, and she had some skinned knees and palms from her fall, but that was all. âMy God. They were going to kill us. Humans were going to kill us. Because of me.â

âIt wouldnât have mattered,â Shane told her, and kissed her forehead with burning hot lips. âThey were going to go after anybody they came across. The vampire thing is just an excuse. God, Claire. Good job.â

âAll I did was hold the bat.â

âYou held it like you meant it.â He put his arm around her and picked up both bats, slinging them over his left shoulder. âLetâs get home.â

Â 

When they got home, after getting the third degree from Michael, then Eve, they had to answer to the Founder. Not by choice; Claire was all for making a quick phone call to the police and letting it go through channels, but Michael thought Amelie might want to ask more questions.

He must have been right, because as soon as he hung up the phone, a wave of sensation swept through the houseâlike a gust of wind, only psychic. Claire actually felt the locks sheâd put on the portals snap, and the connection open.

Amelie was coming in person.

Michael realized it, tooâhe and Claire seemed to be more connected to the house than Shane and Eve, generally. âThat was fast,â he said. âI guess weâd better go up.â

âUp where?â Shane asked, frowning.

âAmelie,â Claire sighed. âI was hoping for a hot bath, too.â

The four of them, in the spirit of solidarity, trudged upstairs to the hidden room. The Tiffany lampsâminus that one pole lamp casualtyâwere blazing, filling the walls with color and light, but somehow none of it fell on Amelie, who looked pale as bone and just as hard. She was wearing pure, cold white, and her lips seemed almost blue. Her eyes looked more silver than gray, but maybe that was because of the metallic shine of her shirt under the tailored jacket.

Claire wondered why she bothered with the meticulous dressing, when Amelie rarely seemed to leave her home these days; she supposed that growing up as royalty in the distant past had made looking perfect a habit she couldnât seem to shake.

Amelie received the news of the gangs beating up on her vampires without much shock, Claire thought; she sat there looking cool and calm, hands folded, and listened to Shane and Claireâs experience without any flicker of expression. There was something in her face when Claire described the handful of pulled vampire fangs that sheâd seen, but what it was, Claire couldnât guess. Disgust, maybe, or pain. âIs that all?â Amelie asked. She sounded way too distant. âWhat of Morley? Did you see where he went?â

âWe donât know,â Claire said. âHe lookedâhurt. A lot hurt, maybe.â

âI was afraid of this,â Amelie said, and got up to pace the floor.

âAfraid of what?â Michael asked. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking very serious. âLosing control?â

Amelie stopped to frown at the broken pole lamp, trailing pale fingers over the neat slice through the metal. âAfraid that humans might lose their fear of reprisals if I offered too much leniency,â she said. âThe rules of Morganville existed for a reason. They were meant to protect the strong few from the fragile many. Even a giant may be destroyed by the stings of insects, if there are enough of them.â

âThatâs not what your rules did,â Shane said. âThey just made it easier for vampires to kill us without letting humans hit them back.â

Amelie sent him a cool glance, but didnât otherwise react. âIâve received reports of other incidents, less serious than this. It seems these gangs of thugs are growing bolder, and that must be stopped.â

âThey said something about Morley killing a kid,â Shane said. âAnything to that?â

âI doubt it.â Amelie met his eyes for a few seconds, then continued to pace. âIâve had no reports of children being victimized. As you know, that is strictly against all our laws, human or vampire. I canât say it never happens, but it happens in human society, as well. Yes?â

âMaybe, but why did they take it out on Morley?â She shrugged. âMorley is an easy target, like all the vampires who choose not to declare an allegiance. They are powerful in themselves, but vulnerable. Morleyâs lived rough and alone for some time. Itâs not surprising that humans are taking vengeance on those easiest to hunt. In other towns, they target the homeless, as well, do they not?â

âArenât you going to do anything about it?â Claire asked.

âThere are laws. I assume they will be enforced. Until these thugs are caught and punished, I will caution all vampires to be careful.â Amelie smiled slowly. âAnd I will allow them latitude in matters of self-defense, of course. That should put a stop to things quickly.â

Claire wasnât so sure of that. First, Morley and his vamps had gotten all pushy with Amelie, and then Oliver had seemed about to bolt from her camp and set up as a pretender to the throne. Now, there were humans roaming around looking for trouble, too. And Amelie just seemed . . . disconnected.

It seemed that, as much as theyâd tried to pull Morganville together, it was unraveling all around them.

âI believe I have heard enough,â Amelie said. âYou may go. All of you.â

She kept on pacing, as if she didnât intend to leave. Claire hung back, watching her, as the others descended the stairs, and finally said, âAre you okay?â

Amelie stopped, but didnât look at her. âOf course,â she said. âI amâtroubled, but otherwise fine. Why do you ask?â

Because you tried to kill yourself two nights ago? Claire didnât think it would be smart to bring that up. âJustâif you need anything . . .â

Amelie did look at her this time, and there was something warm and almost human in her expression. âThank you.â Amelieâs personal winter closed in again, leaving her face still and cold. âThereâs nothing you can do, Claire. Nothing any of you can do. Now go.â

That last thing wasnât a request, and Claire took it for dismissal. Shane was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, looking up with a worried not-quite-frown that smoothed away in relief when he saw her coming to join him. âDonât do that,â he said.

âDo what?â

âThereâs something off about her right now. Donât you see that? Donât try to help. Just walk away.â

Claire tapped the gold bracelet on her wrist. âYeah, thatâll work.â

He pulled her out of the stairwell and shut the hidden door. Michael and Eve were already going downstairs, hand in hand. âItâs getting late,â he said. âYou going or staying?â

âDoes it have to be one or the other? Maybe I stay for an hour, then go?â

âWorks for me,â he said, and took her hand. âIâve got a surprise for you.â

The surprise was that heâd cleaned his room. Not just randomly picked up a few things, but really cleaned itâeverything put away, bed made, everything. Unless . . . âWhat did you trade with Eve?â

He looked wounded and way too innocent. âWhat do you mean?â

âOh, come on. You totally traded with Eve to clean your room for you.â

He sighed. âShe needed some cash for something, so yeah. But itâs good, right? Youâre impressed I thought of it?â

Claire suppressed a laugh. âYes, Iâm impressed that a boy thought about spending money on a clean room.â

âWorth it, as long as youâre impressed.â He flopped on the bed, leaving space for her, and she curled up next to him in the circle of his arm. Her head rested on his chest, and she listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart. I wonder if Eve misses that, Claire suddenly wondered. I wonder if she forgets, and then . . .

âHey,â Shane said, and tickled her. She squirmed. âNo thinking. This is the no-thinking zone.â

âI canât help it.â

âGuess Iâll have to distract you, then.â

She was going to say, Yes, please, but he was already kissing her, and his big hands slid around her waist, and all she could think was yes as her blood surged faster, hotter, and stronger.

It was more like two hours before she could even stand to think about going home. The temptation to stay here, curled in Shaneâs arms forever, was almost overwhelming, but she knew she had to keep her promises.

Shane knew it, too, and as he gently combed the hair back from her face with his fingers, he sighed and kissed her forehead. âYouâve got to go,â he said. âOtherwise, itâs parents with pitchforks and torches.â

âSorry.â

âHey, me, too. Iâll get the keys.â He slid out of bed, and she watched the light gleam off his skin as he picked up his T-shirt and pulled it on. It was all she could do not to reach out and pull it off again. âAnd you really need to get dressed, because if you keep looking at me like that, weâre not going anywhere.â

Claire retrieved her pants and shirt and put them on, and caught sight of herself in the mirrorâfor once, in Shaneâs room, not obscured by random piles of stuff. She looked . . . different. Adult. Flushed and happy and alive, and not really geeky at all.

He makes me better, she thought, but she didnât say it, because she was afraid heâd think that was weird.

Shane borrowed Eveâs car to run her back to her parentsâ houseâher home?âand by midnight she was at her bedroom window watching the big, black sedan pull away from the curb and accelerate away into the night.

Mom knocked on the door. Claire could tell her parents apart by their knocks. âCome in!â

When her mom didnât say anything, Claire turned to look at her. She looked tired, and worried, and Claire wondered if she was getting enough sleep. Probably not.

âI just wanted to tell you that I left you a plate in the fridge if youâre hungry,â Mom said. âDid you have a good day?â

Claire had no idea how to answer that in a way that wouldnât sound completely insane, and finally settled for, âIt was okay.â She hoped the scarf sheâd wrapped around her throat covered up the bruises, which were turning rich sunset colors.

Mom knew that was a nonanswer, but she just nodded. âAs long as youâre being safe.â Which was less about the vampires than about Shane. Claire rolled her eyes.

âMom.â

âIâm serious.â

âI know.â

âThen stop looking like Iâm being an idiot. Iâm worried about you getting hurt. I donât doubt Shane means well, but youâre just soââ Mom looked for another word, but settled for the obvious one. âSo young.â

âNot as young as I was when this conversation started.â

âClaire.â

âSorry.â She yawned. âTired.â

Mom hugged her, kissed her cheek, and said, âThen get some rest. Iâll let you sleep in.â

Â 

The next day Claire missed her first class, because Mom was true to her word and the alarm clock failed in its duty, or at least Claire turned it off before she really woke up. She finally got up around ten oâclock, feeling happy and humming with energy. It might have been the sleep, but Claire knew it wasnât.

She was running on pure Shane sunlight.

Walking to the campus was a delightâthe sun was out, warming up the streets and waking a soft breeze that smelled like new grass. The trees were all full of new green leaves, and in the gardens flowers were blooming.

Claire was in such a good mood that when she saw Kim, armed with a video camera, she didnât actually wince.

Much.

Kim wasnât paying attention to her, which wasnât much of a change; she was focused on a guy in a TPU jacket tossing a football, who laughed at her jokes as she filmed. Kim circled around him, waved, and kept filming as she approached a group of girls camped out on the lawn under a spreading live oak tree. More laughter, and smiles all around.

Am I really the only one who doesnât like her?

Apparently.

Kim noticed her about the same time that Claireâs phone rang. She turned her back on Kimâand the cameraâand answered without checking the screen, because she was rattled. âHello?â

âYou bitch.â It was Monicaâs voice. âWhere are you?â

âExcuse me?â

âAre you on campus?â

Claire blinked and stepped out of the way of a crowd of students heading out from the English Building. âUh, no. And why exactly am I a bitch, again?â

âI got that wrong. You are a lying bitch. I can hear the bells!â Monica meant the schoolâs carillon, the tower bells that chimed out a silvery melody at the hour change. For some weird reason, it was playing Christmas music. Maybe somebody had forgotten to change overâor just really liked âO Holy Night.â âWhere are youânever mind, I see you. Stay right there.â

Monica hung up. Claire looked around and saw that Kim was filming herâand Monica was charging down the steps of the English Building, heading her way and trailed by an entourage like a cometâs tail. It wasnât just Gina and Jennifer this time; sheâd picked up two strange girls wearing designer spring dresses and cute shoes, and a couple of big football-type guysâbland and handsome and not too smart, just the way Monica liked them.

Claire considered running, but not if Kim was planning on gleefully filming the whole thing. She could live with the shame. She just didnât think she could live with the reruns on YouTube.

Monica had gone with a floral pattern minidress, and it looked great on her; she hadnât let her tan go during the winter, and her skin looked healthy and glowy and toned. She strode up to Claire and came to a halt a couple of feet away, surrounded by her fashion army.

It was like being menaced by a gang of Barbie and Ken dolls.

âYou,â Monica said, and leveled an accusatory, perfectly manicured finger at her. Claire focused on the hot pink nail, then past it to Monicaâs face.

âYes?â

âCome here.â

And before Claire could even think about protesting, Monica had her wrapped up in a hug.

A hug.

With Monica.

Claire got control of herself, at least enough to grab Monica by the arms and push her back to a safe distance. âWhat the hell?â

âBitch, you are the best. Seriously, I cannot believe it!â

Monica was . . . excited. Happy. Not about to beat her up.

Wow. âDonât take this the wrong way, but what are you on?â

Monica laughed, reached into her messenger bag, and pulled out a stapled two-page paper. It was an economics test.

And it had, written in the corner in red, A.

âThatâs what Iâm on,â she said. âDo you know how long itâs been since I got an A? Like, ever? My brother is going to fall over.â

Claire handed the paper back. âCongratulations.â

âThanks.â Monicaâs good mood faded, replaced by her more-normal bitch face. âI guess I got my moneyâs worth, anyway.â

For some reason, Claire thought about Shane paying Eve to clean his room. âThereâs a lot of that going around, trust me. Okay then. Weâre good?â

âFor now,â Monica said. âStay available. Iâve got other classes I suck at.â

Claire bit her tongue before she could say, I donât doubt it, and watched Monica and her swirl of hangers-on sweep away, laughing and talking as if they were in their own private shampoo commercial.

Sheâd almost forgotten about Kim, and when she caught sight of the cold gleam of the camera lens out of the corner of her eye she turned and said, âCut it out, will you?â

âNot a chance,â Kim said cheerfully, camera still running. âNot until I run out of tape.â

âItâs digital!â

âThatâs the point. Hey, so, tell me about you and Monica. Secret love affair? Mortal enemies? Are you each otherâs evil twins? Come on, you can tell me; I wonât tell anybody!â

âExcept everybody on Facebook?â

âWell, obviously, yeah. Come on, youâre wasting my minutes. Talk!â

âI have two words for you,â Claire said, âand the second one is off. Fill in the blank.â

Kim lowered the camera and switched it off, shaking her dark hair out of her face. âWow. Who got up on the grumpy side of breakfast?â

âI donât like being on camera.â

âNobody does. Thatâs the whole point. I want to catch people as they really are. That guy, for instance, Mr. Football Dude? Heâs a douche. I got him to talk long enough that you could actually see he was a douche. Itâs fun. You should try it.â

âNo thanks.â Claire didnât think the powers that be in Morganville would take especially well to guerrilla film-making, and she wondered if anybody had told Oliver. He didnât seem to like Kimâs little projects much.

Maybe it was time for a mocha.

âHey,â Kim said, as Claire started to walk on. âAbout Shane.â

That pulled her to a full stop. âWhat about him?â

âI just wanted to knowâso, are you guys serious or something?â

âYeah, weâre serious.â Claire said it flatly, trying not to imagine what Shane might say to the same question. He didnât like to commit. He was committed; he just didnât like to go on the record. âYou been filming anywhere else?â

âSure, all over,â Kim said. âWhy, you want to see?â

âNo. Just curious. What are you planning to do with it?â

âYouâve seen Borat? Yeah, kind of like thatâsort of a mockumentary.â Kim gave a one-shoulder shrug, focused on whatever was playing on the tiny screen of her camcorder. âOnly with vampires.â

âYouâre filming the vampires.â

âWell, not officially. Itâs a hobby.â

It was a dangerous hobby, but Claire guessed Kim knew that. âJust donât film me, okay?â

âSeriously? Iâll make you a star!â

âI donât want to be a star.â

As she walked away, Kim said plaintively, âBut everybody wants to be a star!â

8

The rest of the day passed quietly enough. Claire dropped in to see Eve at the coffee shop, but all Eve could talk about was the play, how cool it all was, how she was so going to rock as Blanche DuBois, and how she had this plan to wear a black skull-patterned slip instead of the white one that the costume people wanted . . . and when she wasnât enthusing about the play, she was all about Kim. Kim, Kim, Kim.

âCool necklace,â Claire said, out of desperation, and pointed at the one around Eveâs neck. It was coolâkind of a tribal dragon thing, full of angles and sinister curves. Eve touched it with her fingertips and smiled.

âYeah,â she said. âMichael got it for me. Not bad, right?â

âNot bad at all. Hey, did you clean Shaneâs room?â

âActually? I just vacuumed and dusted. He picked it up himself. Why, did he tell you it was all me? Boys lie.â

âAbout cleaning?â

Eve ate a bite of blueberry muffin and swallowed some coffee. âWhy not? They think cleaning makes them look non-manly. Eek, sorry Claire Bear, gotta motor. Boss-man, he no like breaks. See you later?â

âSure.â Claire slid out of her seat and picked up her book bag. âSee you at home.â

âOh, you should totally swing by rehearsal! Three oâclock at the auditorium. You know where it is?â

Claire knew, although sheâd never been thereâit was kind of a town civic center, and it was off Founderâs Squareâaka, Vamptown. Like most humans in Morganville, sheâd never been really interested in traveling there at night.

Three in the afternoon, though . . . that sounded reasonable. âIâll try,â Claire said. âSoâI know you were worried about Oliver. Is that going okay, having him in the play?â

âOh, actually, yeah. Heâs not bad! I almost believe he isnât a controlling jerk. Most of the time.â Eve looked over her shoulder, made a scared face when the boss beckoned her, and waved good-bye.

Claire decided she couldnât put it off any longer, and pulled out her cell phone. Sheâd written and uploaded a program that allowed her phone to track and display available portals; according to the theory sheâd been reading up on in Myrninâs lab recently, it wasnât such a good thing for humans to force a portal open, the way vampires could without too much effort. Over time, things happenedâto the human. And Claire decided she liked her normal arrangement of eyes, ears, and noseâshe liked Picasso okay, but she didnât want to become one of his paintings.

So she looked for a portal that was openâopen meant that it was at a low level of availability, not active. The one open at the university just now was in the Administration Building.

She headed over there, blending in with all the other students, and as usual, the part of the Administration Building where the portal was located was empty. The chain-smoking dragon lady secretary at the front desk nodded her in without argument; apparently thereâd been some kind of memo since Claire had begun doing this kind of thingâa convenient development.

Moving through the portal was a little like taking a microsecond-long ice bath; it felt like every cell in her body received a shock, woke up, screamed, and then went immediately back to normal. Not exactly pleasant, but . . . memorable. It didnât usually feel that way, and Claire felt some distinct uneasiness. If the portal system went out of balance . . .

âMyrnin?â She stepped away from the portal door of the lab, shoving aside a box of books heâd left lying around, probably for her to shelve. No sign of him here just now. The lab still looked clean and moderately organized, which wasnât like Myrnin at the best of times; she wondered if heâd gotten some kind of maid service. Who cleaned mad scientist lairs, anyway? The same people who did villain lairs and bat caves?

No Myrnin, but heâd left her a note, written in his spiky antique hand, that asked her toâwait for itâsort the box of books heâd left to trip her up. And to feed Bob the spider. Ugh. Why was she even surprised? Claire began unpacking, sorting, and shelving the books, which was surprisingly fun, in the hopes that the universe would end before she had to actually feed a spider.

She was in the middle of doing that when Adaâs two-dimensional ghost formed in front of her. Claireâs heart rate doubled, and she wondered if she ought to just make a dash for the portal . . . but Ada made no threatening moves. In fact, Ada was being politeâshe rang Claireâs cell phone. She didnât actually have to do that before using the speaker. It was her version of knocking.

Claire swallowed an acidic mouthful of fear, and peered at the fading spine of the heavy book in her hand. German. She wasnât sure what it said. âDo you know German?â

Ada raised her chin and gave her a haughty look, smoothing down the front of her gray scale gown. âOf course,â she said. âItâs hardly a vanishing tongue.â

I have to feed spiders and put up with a bitchy, homicidal computer. My job really does suck. Claire didnât say that out loud, and as far as she knew, Ada couldnât read minds. Yet. âGood. Can you tell me what this means?â She held out the book, spine toward Ada. The ghost leaned forward.

âAlchemical Experiments of the Great Magister Kleiss,â she read, and the tinny voice sounded a little sad as it vibrated from Claireâs cell phone speaker. âMyrnin already has a copy. I remember buying it for him in a little market outside Frankfurt.â

Claire put it aside. Ada seemed to be in an odd moodâfragile, confrontational, and oddly nostalgic. âYou tried to kill me,â Claire said. âYou lied to me, and tried to get me to step through the portal to get eaten. Why?â

A very odd expression fluttered over Adaâs smooth, not-quite-human face. If Claire hadnât known better, sheâd think it was . . . uncertainty? âI did not,â she said. âYou are mistaken.â

âItâs not the kind of thing you get wrong,â Claire said. âIâve got a pole lamp that got cut in half when I had to slam the portal closed for proof. Remember now?â

Ada justâshut down. Not literally: her ghost still hung there in the air, bobbing ever so slightly as if gravity were just a bothersome suggestion, not the law. A flicker like static ran through her image, then another one.

Then she smiled. âYou should see a doctor,â she said. âI believe youâre ill, human.â

âYou donât remember.â Claire heard the flat disbelief in her voice, but what she really was feeling was . . . fear. Pure, cold fear. Ada could lieâshe had beforeâbut this didnât feel like deception.

It felt like something was very, very wrong. And if something was wrong with Ada, it was wrong with Morganville.

âThereâs nothing to remember,â Ada said coolly. âDo you wish more translation done, or may I get on with my duties now?â

âNo, Iâm good. Whereâs Myrnin?â

Ada paused in the act of turning her backâstopping edge-on, almost disappearing from Claireâs perspectiveâand slowly rotated in place. Her dark eyes looked like burned holes in her pale face.

âThatâs none of your business,â she said.

âWhat?â

âMyrnin is mine. And you canât have him. Iâll kill you first!â

And then she justâvanished.

Claire gaped at the space where sheâd been, half expecting her to show up again, but Ada stayed gone. Claire replaced the book she was holding back on the worktable, and walked around toward the rear of the lab. The thick Persian carpet had been rolled back there, and the trapdoor Myrnin had installedâa clever job of painting the door to match the stone floorâwas closed. Claire gritted her teeth and clicked the release, which was a book on frogs in the nearby bookcase. The lock released with a snap, and Claire hauled the trap to the catch position.

Myrnin never kept any lights on down there, in the basement/cave where Ada really lived. Claire grabbed a flashlight, checked the batteries, and then looked down into the darkness. âMyrnin?â she asked. No reply. She heard water dripping in the distance. âMyrnin, where are you?â

Great. This made feeding Bob the spider look like a day at the park.

No way am I going down there alone, she thought, and flipped open her cell phone. Michael answered on the second ring. âYo,â he said. âIâm guessing you donât want to go to a movie, or anything fun like that.â

âWhy would you say that?â

âBecause that would be Shaneâs job. When you call me, itâs usually an emergency.â

âWellâokay, fair point. But this isnât. Not an emergency, anyway. I just needâsome hand-holding. Can you come to Myrninâs lab?â

Michaelâs voice turned a lot more serious. âIs this crazy maintenance, or is something really wrong?â

Claire sighed. âI donât know, actually. I just donât want to go down into the dark without a big, strong vampire.â

âYou mean you canât get down there without my help.â

âWell, actually, I canât get out without your help, since Adaâs not letting me do the portal thing near her. Itâs still a compliment, right?â

âExcept the part where you drag me into potentially deadly trouble? Yes. Stay put. Iâll be there in ten minutes.â

âBe careful,â she said. She had no idea why she did; it wasnât as if Michael had anything much to be scared of, especially in Morganville. But it was something her mother always said, and it made her feel better to express a little concern for her friends.

âNo exploring on your own, Dora,â he said.

She felt lonely and exposed, even here with all the lights burning brightly, once his voice was gone from the call. She considered calling Shane, but honestly, what good would it do? Heâd come running, but he needed his job, and Michael was already on the way.

Ten minutes.

Claire decided to get the Bob thing over with. Bobâs terrarium sat on Myrninâs rolltop desk, amid stacks of books and some pensâquills, fountains, and rollerballs. Bob looked bigger than she remembered. And blacker. And hairier. Claire shuddered, looking in at him; all eight of his beady eyes looked back. He stayed very still.

There was a small bottle on the table that contained insectsâlive ones. Claire made a retching sound and tried not to look too hard; she just opened the top of the terrarium and tipped the contents of the jar into the cage.

Bob leaped on her hand.

Claire shrieked, and the bottle went flying to shatter against the wall. Bob didnât budge when she violently shook her hand, trying to get rid of him; he clung to her like Velcro, and he felt different, somehowâheavier. Yes, he was larger. Claire batted at him with her right hand, and his fangs glittered as he lunged for her, skittering up her left arm.

She grabbed a book in her right hand.

Bob leaped from her arm, headed to her face.

She smacked him out of the air with the book, and he landed on his back, all eight legs wriggling in the air. Before she could slam the book down on top of him, Bob flipped himself over and skittered underneath the table.

It was not her imagination. Bob was getting bigger. In the space of just a few seconds, heâd gone from the size of a walnut to her palm, and now he was almost as big as the book sheâd used to smash him out of the air.

âAda!â she screamed. âAda, I need you!â

Her cell phone came on, and gave an unearthly screeching noise . . . and then a soft, ghostly laugh.

Something knocked over a pile of papers at the edge of the table, and Claire saw a long black leg waving in the air. She backed away, fast.

When Bob climbed up on top of the table, he was the size of a small dog. His fangs were clearly visible, and if sheâd thought he was ugly at small size, he was terrifying now.

âHiâBobâ,â Claire said. Her voice was shaking, and sounded very small. âNice Bob. Heel?â

Bob bounced off the table, landed lightly on the floor, and skittered toward her, racing incredibly fast. Claire screamed and ran, knocking over anything she could behind her to slow him down. Not that it did, but when she looked back as she reached the stairs, Bob had stopped chasing her.

He was sitting on a table in the center of the lab, trembling. She could actually see him shaking, as if he were having some kind of a fit . . . and then he rolled over on his back, and his legs curled in, and . . .

And he was dead.

âBother,â Ada said. Claire jumped in reaction, bit back a curse, and saw Ada glide out of a solid wall to her left. Adaâs image went right up to Bobâs motionless body, leaning over him, and shook her head. âSo disappointing. I truly thought heâd be able to sustain the change.â

âChange?â Claire swallowed hard. âAda, what are you doing? What did you do to Bob?â

âUnfortunately, I believe I exploded his organs. So fragile, living things. I forget sometimes.â

âYou did this. Made him grow.â

âIt was an experiment.â Adaâs image slowly revolved toward Claire, and her smile was small and cold and terrifying. âWeâre both scientists, are we not?â

âYou call that science?â

âDonât you?â Her hands folded primly at her waist, Ada was the image of one of those schoolteachers from the old days. âAll science requires sacrifice. And you didnât even like Bob.â

Well, that was true. âJust because I donât like something doesnât mean I want to see it die horribly!â

âReally? I find that . . . not very interesting at all, actually. Sentimentality has no place in science.â

Just like that, poof, Ada was pixels and vapor, gone. Claire ventured slowly forward, to where Bob the Giant Spider was curled up on the table. She half expected him to suddenly flip upright in true horror-movie style, but he stayed still.

Claire wasnât falling for it. No way. She backed up to the steps that led out of the lab, and sat down on the cold stone, wrapping her arms around her for warmth.

Minutes ticked by.

The dead spider didnât move, which meant that either he wasnât faking it, or he was really, really good at it.

âClaire?â

She shrieked and jumped, and Michael, standing about a foot behind her, jumped backward, as well. Being a vampire, he somehow made it look cool. She, not so much. âGod, donât do that! Warn me!â

âI did!â He sounded wounded. âI said your name.â

âSay it from across the room next time.â

But Michael wasnât looking at her anymore; he was staring past her, at the dead spider. âWhat the hell is that?â

âBob,â she said. âIâll tell you later. Come on.â

âWhere?â

âAdaâs cave.â

Which was why sheâd called him, because, of course, there were no stairs. Vampires didnât need them. They could jump twelve feet onto solid stone and not even feel a twinge; Claire figured she was sure to have a broken bone, at the very least. She wasnât a superhero, a magical vampire slayer, or even a particularly coordinated athlete. Michael was her way inâand, hopefully, out.

Of course, having a friend with her going down into the dark, that was a plus, too.

Luckily, Michael didnât seem too bothered at being asked to stand in for a ladder; he looked down into the darkness for a few moments, craning to see every detail of what, to Claire, was pitch-blackness. âLooks clear,â he said. âYouâre sure you want to do this?â

âShe wonât say where Myrnin is. Well, heâs not up here, and the carpet was rolled back. He must have gone down there.â

âAnd thereâs a reason why we canât just wait for him to come back?â

âYeah. Adaâs tried to kill me twice now, and who knows what sheâs tried to do to him. Thereâs something wrong with her, Michael.â

âThen maybe we should call somebody for help.â

Claire laughed a little wildly. âLike who, Amelie? You saw her at the cemetery. You really think we should rely on her right now?â

Whether Claire had a point or not, Michael must have realized that debating wasnât getting anything done. He shrugged and said, âFine. If you get me killed, Iâm haunting you.â

âWouldnât be the first time.â

He winked at her, and stepped off the edge, dropping soundlessly into the dark. Claire rushed forward, grabbing up the flashlight along the way, and shone its glow down into the trapdoor. A dozen feet below, Michaelâs pale face looked up. His blue eyes looked supernatu rally bright as his pupils contracted in the glare.

âRight,â he said. âJump.â

Sheâd been through this with Myrnin, but it still never felt exactly comfortable. Still, it was Michael, and if any vampire was trustworthy . . .

She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and plummeted, straight into his cool, strong arms. Michael let her slide down, already looking past her into the dark. âThere are things down here,â he said.

âVampires.â

âNotâsure Iâd call them vampires. Things is pretty accurate.â Michael sounded a little nervous. âTheyâre justâwatching us.â

âTheyâre sort of guard dogs. Watch them right back, okay?â

âDoing that, yeah. Which way?â

âThis way.â It was easy to get turned around in the dark, but Claire had a pretty good memory, and there were enough strange shapes in the rocks of the walls that sheâd picked some out as signposts. Her flashlightâs beam bounced and glittered on granite edges, and pieces of broken glass scattered on the floor. There were some bones. She didnât think these were human, though that was probably wishful thinking.

âWhoa,â Michael said, and held her shoulder as the room opened up. She knew what he was seeingâthe big cavern where Ada was housed. Heâd been here before, but not through the tunnel; it was kind of a shock, the way it opened up into this vast, echoing space.

âLights,â Claire said. âTo the left, on the wall.â

âI see them. Stay here.â

She did, clutching the metal of the Maglite more tightly, until a sudden hum of power accompanied the dazzling arrival of lights overhead. Claire blinked away glare and saw that Adaâthe computer, not the flat, generated image she liked to presentâwas in full-power mode, gears clanking like giant teeth, steam hissing from pipes, liquid bubbling here and there in huge glass retorts.

Myrnin was slumped against the giant keyboard, face-down.

âOh no,â Claire breathed, and raced to his side. Before she could touch him, Michael flashed to her and caught her hand.

âNo,â he said, and picked up a stray piece of metal from the floor, which he flicked at Myrninâs back, where it landed, electricity arcing, and sizzling. âI can smell the ozone. Sheâs got him wired. If you touch him, itâll kill you.â

9

âIs he dead?â Claireâs heart was racing, and not just because sheâd nearly gotten herself barbecued. . . . Myrnin was just getting better, just becoming himself again. For Ada to do this to him, now . . .

But Michael was shaking his head. âMore like heâs unconscious. I donât think heâs hurt too badly. We just have to break the circuit.â

Claire hunkered down, trying to get a look at Myrninâs face; his head was turned to the side, but his black hair had fallen over his eyes, so she couldnât see if they were open or closed. He wasnât moving. âWe need something wood or rubber to push him off the metal,â she said. âSee if you can find something.â

And with a snap, the lights went off. Claireâs breath went out of her, and she felt her heart accelerate to about two hundred beats a minute when she heard Adaâs cell-phone-speaker voice whisper, âI donât think you should do that.â

âMichael?â

âRight here. The circuitâs still on to the keyboard; I can feel it.â His hand touched her shoulder, and even though she flinched, she felt reassured. âHere. Take this.â

He handed her something. It took her a second to figure out what it wasâa hunk of wood? It felt odd. . . . âOh God,â Claire blurted, âis that a bone?â

âDonât ask,â Michael said. âItâs sharp on one end. Organic, like wood, so it makes a good weapon against vampires. Just donât stab me, okay?â

She wasnât making any promises, really. âHelp me with Myrnin.â She carefully reversed the bone in her hands to the non-sharp end, and used the flashlight to check that Michael had something nonconductive, as well. He did, and it was more bone. It might have been a rib. She tried not to think about that too much. âYou push from that side; Iâll push from here. Push hard. We need to knock him completely away from the panel.â

Claireâs cell phone screamed so loudly that it seemed like the speaker was melting from the force of it; the sound dissolved into high-pitched static, and Claire took a deep breath and put the end of the bone against Myrninâs shoulder. He was wearing a black velvet jacket, and the bone looked very white against it, almost blue in the Maglite beam.

She saw Michael as a shadow in the backwash of the light. âReady,â Michael said.

âGo!â

They pushed. Michael, of course, had vampire strength, so it was over in a flashâMyrninâs body flying backward from the console, crashing on its back in the darkness. A glittering, frustrated arc of blue sparks from the keyboard snapped toward Claire and fell short.

Claire almost dropped the bone as she turned it in her hand so the sharp end was ready to use, then got on one knee next to Myrninâs motionless body. She carefully brushed hair away from his marble-pale face. His eyes were open, and fixed. They looked dry, but as she watched, moisture flooded over them, and he blinked, blinked again, gasped, and came bolt upright. His gaze fixed on Claireâs face, and he grabbed her arm in a tight, grinding grip.

âLet go,â she said. He didnât. âMyrnin!â

âHush,â he whispered. âIâm thinking.â

âYeah, greatâcan you do it without breaking my arm?â

âNo.â He didnât even try to explain that, but just got to his feet while still clamped on to her wrist like a person-sized handcuff. âThat hurt.â

âYou need to shut her down; she just tried to kill you!â

Myrninâs eyes flashed a bloody red. âYou will not tell me what to do!â He shoved her abruptly at Michael, and the glare was even angrier for him. âWhat are you doing here?â

âTalk later. Go now,â Michael said, and grabbed Claire up in his arms before she could protest. âThose things are coming for us.â

Myrnin looked around into darkness that hid whatever it was that scared Michael so much. Claire didnât think she wanted to know; she put her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life as she felt his muscles tense. Things moved past, and she noticed a sense of air pressing against her. The tunnel, she thought, because things felt closed in, sounds seemed muffled and strange. âMyrnin?â she called behind them, but got no reply. Then she felt Michael jump, and for a breathless second she was weightless, suspended in midair as the light seemed to rush over her.

Michael landed perfectly just beyond the trapdoor set into the labâs concrete and stone, and quickly spun around, backing away at the same time.

Myrnin seemed to almost levitate up out of the hole in the floor, graceful as a cat. As his coat swirled like black fog, he turned in midair, reached out, and slammed the trapdoor shut.

Then he landed on it, light and perfectly balanced, and leaned over to slam his palm down on a red panel on top. It lit up, and a metallic clunk echoed through the lab. Myrnin stepped off the door, stared at it for a second, and then carefully unrolled the carpet and smoothed it back over the entrance to Adaâs cave.

Claire let go of Michael and slid to her feet. She was still gripping her sharp-pointed bone weapon, and she didnât really feel inclined to put it down. Not yet. âWhat just happened?â

âI set the lock,â Myrnin said, and tapped a toe on the carpet, in case sheâd missed the point. âItâs quite clever, you know. Electromagnetic. Keyed to my own handprint.â

âYeah, thatâs great. Why were you down there in the first place? You know sheâs notâwell.â

Myrnin fussily adjusted the lapels of his velvet coat, frowned at his bright blue vest as if he didnât remember wearing it, and shrugged. âSomething to do with adjusting her emotional responses. Unfortunately, she was ready for me, it seems. Sheâs quite clever, you know.â He seemed almost proud. âNowâwas there something you wanted, Claire?â

âA thank-you might be nice.â

He blinked. âWhatever for? Oh, that. The electricity was only to keep me immobilized. Sheâd have had to let me go, eventually.â

âNot really. She could have just kept you like that until you starved, right?â

âI canât die. Not like that. I can be made very uncomfortable, and very hungry, and quite a bit mad, but not dead. Sheâd have to have one of her creaturesâcut my headâoff. . . .â Myrninâs voice trailed away, and he seemed very distant for a few seconds; then he said, âI see. Yes, youâre quite correct. She would have options. But she wouldnât kill me.â

âWhy not?â

âI think we both know why, Claire.â

âYou mean, because she loves you? Iâm not really seeing it right now.â

âAda needs me as much as I need her,â Myrnin snapped, suddenlyâand very un-Myrnin-likeâoffended. âYou know nothing about her, or me, and I am ordering you to stay out of my affairs where they concern Ada.â He suddenly staggered, and had to put out a hand to steady himself against the nearest lab table. âAnd fetch me some blood, Claire.â

âGet it yourself.â She couldnât believe sheâd said it, but heâd really stung her. âAlso, your precious Ada killed Bob by supersizing him and trying to get him to bite me. So maybe you donât know anything about Ada.â

âGet me blood, or Iâll have to take whatâs available,â Myrnin said softly. He didnât seem dramatic about it, and it wasnât a threat. He raised his head and looked at her, and she saw that shine thereâlunatic and focused and very, very scary. âIâm very hungry.â

âClaire, go,â Michael said, and moved to stand between her and Myrnin. âHeâs not faking it.â

He really wasnât, because Myrnin lunged for her. He was faster than she or Michael could have expected, and Michael was off balance and nowhere near the right place as Myrnin shoved him out of the way and sent him crashing into the nearest stone wall. . . .

Then he grabbed Claire by her shoulder and a fistful of hair. He wrenched her head painfully to the side, exposing her neck, and she felt the cool puff of his breath against her skin, and she knew she had only one move left.

She touched the tip of the bone stake to his chest, right over his heart, and said, âI swear to God Iâll stake you and cut your head off if you bite me.â Her hands were shaking, and so was her voice, but she meant it. She couldnât live in fear of him; it hurt her to see him lose control like this. There was something shining and good in Myrnin, but there were times it just drowned in the darkness. âIf I let you do this, youâll never forgive yourself. Now let go, and get yourself a bag of blood.â

She could actually feel his fangs pressing dimples into her skin. And Myrnin himself was trembling now, a very fine vibration that told her just how much he was in troubleâwell, that and the fact he was about to kill her.

She pressed harder with the stake, and felt the blue satin tapestry vest give way to the point.

She didnât see Michael move, but in only a few breathless seconds he was at her side, carefully putting in her free hand a squishy bag of blood. It was straight out of the refrigeration; he hadnât taken time to warm it, which was probably lifesaving.

âLet go,â Claire said.

And Myrnin did, loosening his hands just enough to let her step back. His eyes were wild and desperate, and his fangs stayed down like glittering exclamation points.

Claire held out the blood bag.

After a secondâs hesitation, Myrnin grabbed it,brought it to his mouth, and bit down so hard, blood squirted over his face, the way a really juicy tomato would.

Claire shuddered. âIâll get you a towel.â

She went to the small bathroomâso well hidden, it had taken her forever to find itâand turned on the rusty tap to moisten a towel marked PROPERTY OF MORGANVILLE; it was probably hospital supply, or from a prison. She splashed some water on her face, too, and looked at herself in the mirror for a few seconds. A stranger looked back at herâsomeone who didnât look that frightened. Someone who had just faced down a vampire intent on feeding.

Someone who could handle that kind of thing, and still be his friend.

The towel was soaked through. Claire squeezed to wring out the excess warm water, then went back to help her boss get cleaned up.

Â 

She knew heâd say how sorry he was, and he didâfirst thing, as she sponged the splatter off his face. Tomato juice, she told herself when what she was doing hit home. Itâs just tomato juice. Youâve cleaned up after exploded catsup bottles; this is nothing.

âClaire,â Myrnin whispered. She glanced into his face, then away as she tried to scrub the worst of the stain off his vest. He seemed tired, and he was sitting in his big leather wing chair. âIt came on me so suddenly. I couldnâtâyou understand? I never meant it.â

âIs this what happened to Ada when she was alive?â Claire asked. There was blood on his long white hands, too. She gave him the warm towel, and he wiped his fingers on it, then found a clean spot and scrubbed his face again, although sheâd gotten the blood off already. He held the warm towel there, covering up whatever his expression was doing. When he lowered it, he was completely in control of himself. âAda and I were complicated,â he said. âThis situation is nothing like that one. For one thing, Ada was then a vampire.â

âWell, things have changed,â Claire said. Myrnin meticulously folded the towel and handed it back to her. âYou know sheâs going to kill you? You get it now?â

âIâm not yet prepared to make any such claim.â He looked down at his vest and sighed. âOh dear. Thatâs never coming out.â

âThe stain?â

âThe hole.â He continued to stare at the hole her bone stake had made, and said, âYou really would have killed me, wouldnât you?â

âIâwish I could tell you it was a bluff. But I would have. I canât bluff with you.â

âYouâre correct. If you do, Iâll know, and youâll be dead. Iâm a predator. Weakness is . . . seductive.â He cleared his throat. âMutually assured destruction was good enough for the United States and the Soviet Union; I believe it will be good enough for us. Iâd have preferred it not to come to that, but itâs hardly your faultââ He broke off, because as he looked up, his gaze fell on the motionless corpse lying on the table in the middle of the lab. âOh dear. What is that?â

âThat would be Bob. Remember Bob? Thatâs what Ada did to him.â

âImpossible,â Myrnin said, and rose out of his chair to stalk to the table and lean over alarmingly close, poking at the spiderâs body with curious fingers. âNo, quite impossible.â

âExcuse me? I was here! He grew, just like in a monster movie!â

âOh, I can see that. Clearly, that isnât impossible. No, what I meant was your identification of him as Bob.â

âWhat?â

âThis isnât Bob,â Myrnin said.

Claire rolled her eyes. âHe came out of Bobâs cage.â

âAh, that explains it. I found a companion for Bob. I thought it was likely theyâd try to eat each other, but they seemed content enough. So this must have been Edgar. Or possibly Charlotte.â

âEdgar,â Claire repeated. âOr Charlotte. Right.â

Myrnin left the dead spider and went to Bobâs container. He rooted around in it for a few seconds, then triumphantly held out his palm toward Claire.

Bobâpresumablyâsat crouched there, looking as confused and frightened as a spider could.

âSo it was only Edgar,â Myrnin said. âNot the same thing at all.â

âWas Edgar always the size of a dog?â

âOh, of course not, heâoh, I see your point. Regardless of which spider it is, there are some mysteries to be solved.â Myrnin carefully nudged Bob off his palm, back into the container, and then rubbed his hands together eagerly. âYes, thereâs definitely work to be done. Ada must have made tremendous strides recently in her research, for her to be able to create this kind of effect. I must know how, and what went wrong.â

âMyrnin. Ada made a spider grow into a monster and tried to kill me with it. This isnât about how she did it. Itâs why.â

âWhy is for other people. I am much more concerned with the method, and Iâm surprised, Claire; I thought you would be the same. Well, not surprised, perhaps. Disappointed.â He carefully uncurled one of the spiderâs long legs. Claire shuddered. âIâll need a corkboard. A large one. And some very large pins.â

Claire and Michael exchanged a look. Heâd been standing there, a fascinated but disgusted observer to all this, and now he just shook his head. âIf all he wants is for you to fetch and carry, maybe you should just leave him to it.â

âSheâs my assistant; itâs her job to fetch and carry,â Myrnin snapped, and then looked sorry. âButâperhaps youâve done enough for one day.â

Claire ticked them off on her fingers. âSurvived spider attack. Rescued you. Got you blood. Cleaned up blood leftovers.â

âI shall therefore fetch my own corkboard. Claire?â She turned and looked at him as she and Michael headed for the exit. Myrnin looked back in control again, and except for the bloodstain on his vest, youâd never have known heâd been anything less.

âThank you,â he said softly. âI shall consider what you said. About Ada.â

She nodded, and escaped.

Â 

Michael, as it turned out, was headed for the rehearsal of the play Eve was in, and Claire belatedly remembered that sheâd been invited, too. His car was parked at the end of the alley, on the cul-de-sac, and he had an umbrella with him to block the sun. It looked kind of funny, but at least it was a giant golf umbrella, very manly. It had a duck carved into the handle.

Michael even opened the passenger door for her, like a gentleman, but instead of getting in, she reached for the umbrella. âYouâre the one who combusts,â she said. âYou get in first.â He gave her a funny look as she walked him to the driverâs side, and shaded him as he sat. âWhat?â

âI was thinking how different you are,â he said. âYou really stood up to Myrnin in there. Iâm not sure a lot of vampires could have done that. Including me.â

âIâm not different. Iâm the same Claire as ever.â She grinned, though. âOkay, fewer bruises than when you first met me.â

He smiled and closed the car door; she folded the umbrella and got in on the shotgun side. She was careful to open the door only enough to get in; the angle of the sun was cutting uncomfortably close to reaching Michaelâs side of the car. Inside, the tinting cut the light almost completely. It was like being in a cave, again, only she hoped this one didnât house giant mutated spiders andâwhat had Michael called them? Things.

âSome people come to Morganville and collapse,â Michael said as he put the car in motion. âIâve seen it a dozen times. But there are a few who come here and justâbloom. Youâre one of those.â

Claire didnât feel especially bloomy. âSo youâre saying I thrive on chaos.â

âNo. Iâm saying you thrive on challenge. But do me a favor, okay?â

âConsidering you came running and jumped into a cave to help me out? Yes.â

He shot her a smile so sweet it melted her heart. âDonât ever let him get that close to you again. I like Myrnin, but he canât be trusted. You know that.â

âI know.â She took his hand and squeezed it. âThanks.â

âNo problem. You die, I have to call your parents and explain why. I really donât want to do that. Iâve already got the whole vampire thing against me.â

That took up the entirety of the short drive to the rehearsal hall, which of course had underground parking, being in the vampire part of town. It also had security, Claire was interested to noteâa vampire on duty in a blacked-out security booth whom she thought she remembered as being from Amelieâs personal security detail. Hard to tell when they all wore dark suits and looked like the Secret Service, only with fangs. Michael showed ID and got a pass to put in his windshield, and within five minutes, they were heading up a sweeping flight of stairs into the Civic Centerâs main auditorium.

There they found the director having a total YouTube moment.

âWhat do you mean, not here?â he bellowed, and slammed a clipboard to the stage floor. He had an accentâGerman, maybeâand he was a neat little man, older, with thinning gray hair and a very sharp face. âHow can she not be here? Is she not in this play? Who is responsible for the call sheet?â

One of the other people standing in a group around the director onstage waved her hand. She had a clipboard, a microphone headset, and a tense, worried expression. Claire didnât recognize her. âSir, I tried calling her cell phone six times. It went to voice mail.â

âYou are the assistant director! Find her! I donât want to hear about this voice mail nonsense!â He dismissed her with a flip of his hand and glared at the rest of the group. âWell? We must shift the schedule, then, until she gets here, yes? Script!â

He held out his hand; some quick thinker slapped a bundle of paper into his hand. He flipped pages. âNo, no, noâah! Yes, we will do that. Is our Stanley here?â

A big, tattooed guy shouldered through the crowd. âHere,â he said. That, Claire guessed, was Rad, the one Eve and Kim were going gaga over. He lookedâbig. And tough. She didnât see the appeal; for one thing, he wasnât anything like Shane, who was almost as big, and probably just as tough. Shane wore it like part of his body. This guy made a production out of it.

âGood, weâll do the bar scene. We have Mitch? Yes? And all the others?â

Claire stopped listening and glanced at Michael. âWhereâs Eve? Theyâre missing a her.â

âI donât know.â He looked at the crowd of people rushing around the stage, resetting the scenery, going over lines, arguing with one another. âI donât see her anywhere.â

âYou donât thinkââ

Michael was already walking down the aisle, heading for the stage.

âI guess you do think.â Claire hurried after him.

Michael put himself directly in front of the frazzled-looking assistant director, who had a cell phone to one ear, and a finger jammed in the other. She turned a shoulder toward him, clearly indicating she was busy, but he grabbed it and swung her around to face him. Her eyes widened in shock. Michael took the phone from her hand and checked the number. âItâs not Eveâs,â he told Claire, and she saw the intense relief that flooded over his face. âSorry, Heather.â

âItâs okay, itâs still voice mail.â Heather, the assistant director, looked even more worried. She was biting her lip, gnawing on it actually, and darting her eyes toward the livid director, who was stomping around the stage throwing pages of the script to the floor. âEveâs in the dressing room. Man, I am so fired.â

Michael zipped off, ruffling their hair with the speed of his passage, leaving Claire standing with Heather. After a hesitation, she stuck out her hand. âHi,â she said. âClaire Danvers.â

âOh, thatâs you? Funny. I thought youâd beââ

âTaller?â

âOlder.â

âSo whoâs missing?â

Heather held up a finger to silence her, tapped the device strapped to her belt, and spoke into her headset mike. âWhatâs the problem? Well, tell him that the director wants it that way, so just do it, okay? I donât care if it looks good. And quit complaining.â She clicked it to OFF and wiped sweat from her forehead. âI donât know whatâs worse, having a crew whoâs a bunch of newbies, or having a crew whoâs been doing this kind of thing since they still used gas in footlights.â

Claire blinked. âYouâve got vampires on the crew.â

âOf course. Also in the cast, and of course, Mein Herr, there.â Heather jerked her chin at the director, who was lecturing some poor sap trying to position a potted plant. âHeâs kind of a perfectionist. He imported the costumes from vintage shops. You tell me, who worries about authentic fabrics when youâve just cast two Goth girls as the leads?â

Heather wasnât so much talking to her as at her, Claire decided, so she just shrugged. âSo, whoâs missing?â

âOh. Our second female lead. Kimberlie Magness.â

Kim. Claire felt a slow roll of irritation. âDoes she usually show up on time?â Because that would be a surprise.

Heather raised her eyebrows. âIn this production, everybody shows up on time. According to Mein Herr, to be early is to be on time, and to be on time is to be late. Sheâs never been late.â

Still. Kim. Probably nothing at all.

âWhere is my Stella?â the director bellowed suddenly, and the sound bounced around the stage and also out of Heatherâs earpiece. She winced and turned down the volume. âStella!â He drew it out, Brando-style.

And in the wings of the stage, Eve stepped out from behind the curtains, tightly holding Michaelâs hand. She was dressed in tight black jeans, a black baby-doll shirt with a pentagram on it, and lots of chains and spikes as accessories.

From the directorâs sudden silence, and Heatherâs intake of breath, Claire figured that wasnât what Eve was supposed to be wearing. âOh no,â Heather whispered. âThis isnât happening.â

âWhat?â

âHe insists on rehearsal in costume. Something about getting inside the characters. Sheâs supposed to be in her slip.â

The director stomped to Eve, stopping inches away from her. He looked her up and down, and said coldly, âWhat do you think you are doing?â

âI have to go,â she said. Her knuckles were white where she gripped Michaelâs hand, but she stared the director right in the eyes. âIâm sorry, but I have to.â

âNo one leaves my rehearsals except in a body bag,â he said. âIs that how youâd prefer it?â

âIs that really how you want this to go?â Michael asked quietly. âBecause somebody could leave in a body bag, but it wonât be her.â

The director showed teeth in a grimaceâit actually looked painful for him to smile. âAre you threatening me, boy?â

âYes,â Michael said, completely still. âI know Iâm new at this. I know Iâm not a thousand years old with a pile of bodies behind me. But Iâm telling you that she has to go, and youâre going to let her.â

âOr?â

Michaelâs eyes took on a shineânot red, but almost white. It was eerie. âLetâs not find out. You can spare her for the day.â

The director hissed, very softly, and held the stare for so long, Claire thought things were about to go very, very wrong . . . and then a mild-looking man in a retro bowling shirt stepped up and said, âIs there a problem? Because I am responsible for these two in Amelieâs absence.â

And Claire blinked, and realized it was Oliver. Not really Oliver, because he looked . . . differentânot just the clothes, but his whole body language. Sheâd seen him do that before, but not quite this dramatically. His accent was different, tooâmore of a flat Midwest kind of sound, nothing exotic about it at all.

The director threw him a look, then blinked and seemed to reconsider his position. âI suppose not,â he finally said. âI canât have this kind of disruption, you know. This is serious business.â

âI know,â Oliver said. âBut a day wonât matter. Let the girl go.â

âWeâre going to find Kim,â Eve said. âSo really, weâre still on company business, right?â

The directorâs face tensed again, on the verge of an outburst, but he swallowed his words and finally said, âYou may tell Miss Magness that she may have one rehearsal as a grace period. If she is late one second to any other time I call, she will be mine.â He didnât mean fired. He meant lunch.

Claire swallowed. Heather didnât seem surprised. She made a note on her clipboard, shook her head, and then cocked her head again as a burst of words came out of her headphone. âDammit,â she sighed. âAre you kidding me? Great. No, I donât care how you do it; just make it happen.â She clicked off and looked at Claire. âWish me luck.â

âUm, luck?â

Heather mounted the stairs to the stage and approached the director to whisper something to him. He shouted in fury and stomped away, waving his arms.

Michael and Eve took the chance to escape down to where Claire waited.

Oliver followed them.

âNice shirt,â Claire said, straight-faced.

He glanced down at it, dismissed it, and said, âNow tell me whatâs going on. Immediately.â

âKimâs missing,â Eve said. âI tried to find her before the rehearsal; we were supposed to get togetherâanyway, she didnât show. I was really worried. I was almost late, and I couldnât find her. Sheâs not answering her phone, either.â

âKim,â Oliver said. âValerie owns her contract. Her unreliability is very much Valerieâs problem.â He didnât sound overly bothered about it. Claire guessed Kim hadnât made friends there, either.

âWe need you to call the police. Tell them to look for her.â

âNo.â

âNo?â

âKim has a Protector, who is responsible for her,â he repeated. âI will not order town resources to be spent chasing down someone who is, in all likelihood, a victim of her own folly in one way or another.â

âWait a minute. According to the Morganville rules, sheâs got rights,â Claire said. âWhether sheâs got a vampire Protector or not, sheâs still a resident. You canât just abandon her!â

âIn fact, I can,â Oliver said. âI am neither required to help nor harm. Kim Magness is no concern of mine, or any other vampire except Valerie, whom I will inform in due course. If you wish to call Chief Moses and explain the situation, you are free to do so. She and the mayor have jurisdiction over the humans. But I sincerely doubt that a human well known to be unstable, whoâs been missing only a few hours, will be a top priority.â He dismissed the whole thing, and walked away, back up the steps. By the time heâd reached the stage, he was back in his meek, mild persona.

That was just weird.

âSon of a bitch,â Eve hissed through clenched teeth.

âCome on, we donât need him,â Michael said. âWhere first?â

Eve took a deep breath. âI guess her apartment.â She cast an almost apologetic look at Claire. âIâm sorry. I know you guys donât exactly, ah, click, butââ

âIâll help,â Claire said. Not because she cared so much about Kim, but because she cared about Eve. Eve gave her a quick hug. âWant me to call Shane?â

âWould you?â Eve was making puppy-dog eyes now, really pitiful. âAny help we can getâIâm really worried, Claire. This isnât like Kim. It really isnât.â

Claire nodded, took out her phone, and dialed Shaneâs number. He didnât seem to need a lot of encouragement to yell to his boss that he had to go, family emergency. Claire told him theyâd swing by to pick him up.

By the time the call was over, they were heading down into the darkened parking garage again. âI canât believe I did that,â Eve said. âI just totally blew my shot at the play, forever. Heâs going to replace me. Iâll never get a part in anything, ever again. My life is over.â

âBlame Kim,â Claire said. âYouâre a good friend.â

Eve looked miserable anyway. âNot good enough, or sheâd be here, right?â

âSo not your fault.â

Eve raised her eyebrows. âWhat if it were me missing? Wouldnât you guys feel guilty, somehow?â

That shut Claire up, because she would, and she knew it. Even if sheâd had nothing to do with it, sheâd feel she should have done something.

She was still thinking that over when she felt the tingle of a portal opening nearby. Claire felt a spike of alarm drive deep, and grabbed her phone to look at the tracking app sheâd loaded on it. Yes. An unplanned portal was getting forced open, right here, in the shadows about a dozen feet away.

âGet to the car!â she yelled, and sprinted for it. Eve didnât ask why, thankfully; she just tore off in pursuit, and Michael bounded ahead to jump in the driverâs side.

A flood of spiders poured out, skittering across the concrete floorâbouncing, as if they were being poured out of a giant bucket.

Thousands of Bobs, only larger, the size of small Chi huahuas. Eve shrieked and threw herself into the backseat, slamming the door as one launched itself toward them; it hit the glass and bounced off. Claire kicked one away as she jumped in the passenger seat, and Michael locked the doors. âWhat the hell?â Eve yelled. âOh my God, itâs like Attack of the Giant CGI!â

âItâs Ada,â Claire said. She and Michael exchanged a look. âSheâs tracking me. Sheâs got to be.â

âWhy?â

Symbols flashed in front of Claireâs eyes, the symbols she reviewed and committed to memory every single morning. âBecause I know her secret,â she said. âI know how to reset her, kind of like wiping her memory. Myrnin wonât do it, but I will. And she canât have that.â

âGreat,â Michael said. âAnd where do you have to go to reset her?â

âGuess.â

âYou are just all kinds of fun right now.â He fired up the engine and hit the gas. Claire hid her eyes as they drove over spiders, because that was just sick and kind of sad. The spiders chased them for a while, then milled around in the distance and one by one, turned up their legs and died.

Ada hadnât been able to keep them alive for long, which was great news for the next person in the parking garage.

âKim first,â Claire said. âEveâs right. Something could have happened to her.â

âYouâre sure.â

âIâm sure Ada would expect me to come running. Iâd rather let her wait. And worry.â

10

Kimâs loft was a crime scene. Maybe not literally, but Claire thought if the police had roped it off, nobody would disagree. . . . Things were tossed everywhere, broken junk was piled in the corners, clothes were tossed on every flat surface. It smelled of old Chinese food, and the at-least-month-old trash was overflowing with cartons and pizza boxes. One pizza carton lay on the floor with a couple of slices of sausage withered inside.

âNice,â Shane said, and looked around. âWell, we know sheâs not a closet neat freak.â There was paint all over the walls, tooânot paintings, just paint, thrown on in sprays as if Kim had taken a few gallons and spun around in a circle, splashing it all over. It was probably still art, just not Claireâs favorite kind.

âSheâs busy,â Eve said, and cleaned up the pizza box and a few other Chinese food cartons, which she jammed into a plastic trash bag. âSheâs an artist.â

âSheâs a slob,â Shane said. âIâm not judging, though. So, whatâs the plan? We look around? Can I have dibs on the underwear drawer?â

Claire winced. âI canât believe you just said that.â

Shane took on an angelic look. âSomebodyâs got to do it.â

âThen that somebody will be me.â

Shane lost his smile and got serious. âHey. Iâm sorry. I didnât meanââ

âI know.â It still hurt. She avoided his eyes and started rummaging through things. It wasnât as if Kim actually had an underwear drawerâshe didnât seem bothered by leaving her bras and panties all over the place. Claire grabbed a bag and started stuffing the clothes into it, just because.

âGirls,â Michael said. âWeâre here for clues, right? Not cleanup?â

âRight.â Eve took a deep breath. âIâll check the bedroom.â

âBathroom,â Shane volunteered.

âYouâre brave. All right, you keep going in here,â Michael told Claire. âIâll take the kitchen.â

âGood luck.â She meant it. She bet mold had formed its own civilization in the refrigerator.

That left Claire on her own in the big, trashed-out room. She had no idea where to even start looking, but when she let herself ignore the trash, strewn clothes, and general mess, she found herself focusing on the walls. One of them had a mural painted on it, creepy elongated faces and staring eyes.

Staring eyes. They glittered. For a frozen second, Claire thought there was someone behind the wall, watching her, and then she got her head together. It was just glass, reflecting; it wasnât real eyes. But why would Kim put glass on the eyesâno, on only one eye?

Oh.

âGuys?â Claire opened the closet beside the mural, shoved through piles of crap and boxes, and found the camera that looked out through the eyehole. It was a small high-tech thing, wireless. So there had to be some kind of receiver, somewhere. She ducked out of the closet to yell, âAny computers around here?â

âIn here,â Eve said. There was a Mac set up on a rickety table in the corner of the bedroom, jammed in next to a sagging, unmade bed. It had a screen saver on it, and when Claire tapped the space bar, it asked for a password. She looked at Eve, who raised her shoulders in a clear no-idea shrug.

Claire typed in Eveâs name. Nothing. She tried Morganville, but again, nothing.

On a wildly unpleasant hunch, she typed in Shane.

The screen cleared, and Claire was looking at herself. She recoiled in surprise, and the screen image did the same, leaning back from the camera. Oh. The built-in camera was on. Claire clicked it off and looked at what was on the desktop, which was where she personally put things she wanted to use quickly . . . and there it was. It was a folder, marked Reality Project Cam #72.

There were video files there. Claire clicked one, and instantly, Kim was there, filling the screen, leaning in dramatically toward the computerâs lens. âDay twenty-two of the project,â she said in a loud whisper. âStill not sure whether or not any of the extra sites have been discovered, but Iâll run it as long as I can. Great stuff so far. The official history project is still going, but most of the vamps wonât talk. It doesnât matter anyway; this is going to be so much better. The Oscars are going to be kissing my ass.â She grabbed a handy bottle of soda and held it in both hands, looking over-the-top happy. âOh, thank you so much; I just canât believe this honor. Iâd like to thank the Academyââ

Claire paused it and looked at Eve, and Shane, whoâd come out of the bathroom to watch. Michael joined, too.

âWhat is this?â Claire asked. Eve was shaking her head, eyes fixed on the screen. âSeriously, you donât know?â

âNo. Whatâs she talking about?â

Claire fast-forwarded until Kim finished her acceptance speech, then clicked PLAY again. Kimâs image was glowing with glee. Whatever she was talking about, to her, it was major.

âI canât believe it; I finally got to put some in the last Founder House. Connections look good, stream is starting up. God, why do people always fall for the stu pidest things? The old bathroom trick? She didnât even worry when I was gone for ten minutes, poking around. Sweet.â Kim leaned in, close and confidential. âI may have to keep some of this for myself. Shane, undressed. Oh yeah.â

âExcuse me?â Shane blurted. âWhat the hell?â

Eveâs eyes widened, and she licked her black-painted lips and said, âWhen was this?â

Claire checked the date. âEarly last week.â

âOh God,â Eve said. âIâI met Kim at the auditions. I mean, I already knew her, but not like close friends or anything, and she just seemed reallyâinteresting. She came over after we got done. You were at school, Michael was out, Shane was just leaving.â

âAnd she asked to use the bathroom?â Claire prodded.

Eve looked miserable. âYeah. She was gone awhile, but you donât ask, right? Youâre not supposed to hover, I mean, come on. Besides, she was so cool.â

âShe is cool,â Shane agreed. âSheâs also a raving bitch manipulator. I dated her, remember? Once. You should have asked me. And what is this crap about seeing me naked? I wasnât even there!â

Eve covered her mouth with both hands. âWhat did she do? Oh my Godâshe used me, right? She used me.â

âShe uses everybody,â Shane said. âTwenty-four, seven. Iâm sorry, but I was kind of worried when you got so head over heels with her. Sheâs not . . . yeah. Sheâs just not.â

Claire wondered if she should feel some kind of vindication, but she didnât. She felt nervous. âWhat did she do in our house?â

âWhat do you get Oscars for?â

Shane and Michael both said, at the same time, âMovies.â

And the four of them looked at one another in silence for a moment. Claire didnât know how they felt, but her stomach seemed to be in free fall, and no end in sight.

She slowly turned back to the screen, shut down the video, and looked at the folder.

âWhat?â Shane asked. She pointed at the screen.

âThis is Kimâs personal video journal,â she said. âItâs where she recorded all her personal stuff.â

âSo?â

âLook at the number.â

âReality project cam . . . number . . .â Eve drew in a sharp breath. âOh, holy crap.â

âThere are seventy-one other cameras out there in Morganville,â Claire said. âSomewhere.â

âAnd at least one of themâs in our house,â Shane finished.

Â 

There was no sign on the Mac in Kimâs apartment as to where the video was streaming to. . . . Sheâd need more computing power than a laptop to run seventy-one other cameras, especially if she was saving terabytes of data. âSheâd need a server array,â Claire concluded, after doing the math. âOr off-line storage dumps. Maybe she only records during certain hours, then dumps everything to DVD-ROM or something.â

âWhat about the university?â Eve asked. âPlenty of servers there, right?â

Claire considered it, then shook her head. âYeah, thereâs available space, but how would she get to it without somebody noticing? Sheâs not even an enrolled student. And the TPU computer securityâs pretty tightâit would have to be, because the vamps monitor it to prevent anybody from sending compromising information out.â That led her to another, badder place in her mind. âKim thinks of herself as some kind of renegade indie filmmaker, right?â

âRight,â Eve said. âShe talks about that a lot. About TV, cable shows, all that kind of thing. Sheâs kind of obsessed with it. The acting thing was really so she could see all the backstage stuff, the technical parts.â

Shane lowered himself onto Kimâs sagging bed, which gave Claire unpleasant associations she wished she hadnât made. âSheâs bugged the town,â Shane said. âSheâs got it rigged up with surveillance. And sheâs going to cut it all into, what, some kind of Ã¼ber-documentary about vampires?â

âWorse,â Claire said. âSeventy-two cameras, all running at once? Sheâs cutting together episodes. She wants a reality show. A Morganville reality show.â She spun back toward the keyboard and brought up Kimâs e-mail. As far as Claire could tell, the built-in in-box had never been used. âSheâs got to have e-mail.â

âWeb mail,â Michael said. âIf she wanted to cover her tracks, sheâd do it that way. You think sheâs in communication with someone outside?â

Claire brought up the browserâs history, but it had been cleared. âThereâs some kind of maintenance app running. It wipes out her temp files and history every twenty-four hours.â

âSomebodyâs working with her,â Shane said, and shrugged when they all looked at him. âMakes sense. Webcams donât fall off trees, right? Buying that many takes funding, and Kim isnât making that off her spare-parts art.â

âSomebody outside Morganville knows,â Claire said. âDo you think the vampires found out? That theyâre behind Kimâs disappearing?â

âOliver didnât seem bothered. If we knew, I guarantee you that this wouldnât still be here,â Michael said, and nodded at the computer. We, not they. Claire didnât miss that, and she saw it register on Eve, too. âWeâd have taken it.â

Shane exchanged a look with both the girls. He hadnât missed the us-versus-them implications, either. âWhatâs with the we, man?â

âWhat?â

âYou counting yourself on the vampire team now?â

Michael sighed. âDo we need to have this fight right now? Because I think weâve got bigger problems.â

âNo, we donât,â Eve said. âKimâs disappeared. Sheâs doing something really dangerous, and a lot of peopleâincluding the vampiresâmight want her stopped, or just gone. But I need to know where you are, Michael. Are you with the vampires? Or are you with us?â

âUs meaning what? Humans? Eveââ

âUs meaning me, Shane, and Claire,â Eve said flatly. âAre you? Or are you going to tell Amelie and Oliver what Kimâs doing and make this an all-out witch hunt?â

He didnât answer for a few seconds. Shane got up off the bed, which groaned as the old springs adjusted. âMichael?â

âDonât do this,â Michael said, straight to Eve. âItâs not a choice. I donât have a choice.â

âYou always have one, you know that. You had one when you let Amelie turn you, and youâve got one now. Sam didnât run with the crowd. You donât have to, either. You canâdo good things.â

âNot everything vampires do is bad.â

Shane slapped his hand on the wall, a sharp gunshot of impact, and they all jumped and looked at him. âAre you going to help us stop this, or are you going to run off and snitch?â he asked. âItâs a simple question, man.â

âItâs not about you three. This is about Kim trying to destroy all of us, make herself some kind of reality TV diva, and get rich.â

âMaybe,â Shane said. âAnd maybe it doesnât have to be. The videoâs streaming somewhere. She must still be trying to cut it together. We can still find her and put a stop to it. Nobody else has to know.â

âWhy do you want to protect her?â Michael asked. Shane glanced quickly at Claire, just a flash, but she saw the guilt in it. âOld-girlfriend blues?â

âOh man, youâd better shut up.â

âEve wants to save her because they were friends; I get that. Claire just wants to save everybodyââ

âNot everybody,â she muttered.

âBut you, you hold grudges. Youâd throw Monica under the bus in a hot second, but you donât want Kim to get hurt.â

âSeriously,â Shane said. âShut up. Now.â

âSee how it feels?â Michael said softly. âI donât like people questioning my motives, either. Iâm a vampire. I canât help that. I drink blood. Get the fuck over it and donât make this about me. You want to save Kim? Fine. But if we donât find her in the next twenty-four hours, Iâve got to tell someone, and then itâs on.â

âItâs all on,â Eve agreed. There were tears in her eyes, shining like silver, but she blinked them away. âAnd itâs all over. You bet your life on it, Michael.â

She turned on her heel and walked out, shoving crap out of her way as she went. Claire looked after her, then began unhooking the computer. âShane,â she said. âGet the camera from the closet in the next room. Maybe we can trace the IP and see where sheâs sending the video.â

Michael went after Eve, but Shane lingered as she stuffed the computer and power cord into the laptop bag. âHey,â he said. His fingers touched her hair lightly, then her shoulder. âIâm notâlook, itâs not like Iâm in love with her. Iâm not. Itâs justââ

âYou slept with her once. Yeah, I heard.â She snapped the catches closed on the bag and slung it over her shoulder. âShe makes a hell of an impression.â

Shane got in her way, and despite everything, all her best intentions, she looked up into his eyes, and the light in them took her breath away. His fingertips touched her face, and then he bent down and kissed her. âNo,â he murmured into her mouth. âShe doesnât. You do.â

Before she could think of anything to say, he turned and left to grab the camera from the closet. In the other room, Claire saw Michael talking to Eveâwell, Eveâs rigid back. He turned when he saw her and Shane coming.

Eve opened the front door and slammed it back, charging down the stairs and leaving them all far, far behind. By the time they caught up, she was already in the passenger seat up front, face turned toward the tinted window. If she was crying, Claire couldnât tell. Sheâd put on a gigantic pair of mirrored sunglasses that she absolutely did not need inside a vampireâs car.

âRight,â Michael said, and climbed behind the wheel. âWhere to?â

âTake me home,â Claire said. âIâll work on the technical stuff.â

âDrop me off at Common Grounds,â Eve said. âI need to talk to some people.â

Michael cleared his throat. âWant company?â

âNo.â Her voice was flat and cool, and Claire winced and looked at Shane. In the dimness, she could only see the broad strokes of his expression, but it looked like a yikes. âYouâve got things to do, right?â

She must have been right, because Michael didnât exactly deny it.

Shane said, âSoâIâll stay home and watch TV. Critical job, too. Not everybody can do that under pressure.â

âYou should come with me,â Eve said. âI could use some help.â Even though sheâd just flatly turned down Michaelâs offer. Ouch.

Shane must have thought that, too; he flashed a look at Michael, clearly apologizing, and Michael nodded slightly.

âOkay, sure,â Shane said. âOutstanding.â Shane held out a fist, and Eve tapped it. âClaire? Youâll be okay alone?â

âSure,â she said, and hugged the laptop bag closer. âWhat could go wrong?â

Michaelâs eyes flashed to meet hers in the rearview mirror.

âBesides everything, I mean,â she said.

11

At homeâmeaning, at the Glass House; the last thing she wanted to do was put her parents in the middle of all thisâClaire unloaded Kimâs laptop, set up the webcam, and started trying to access the data stream. That wasnât especially hard, because she knew the IP address of the camera; Kim had helpfully put the info right on a label. The problem was that the other end was on a randomizer, a special program that shifted the signal and rerouted it across the Internet every few minutes. It was right in Morganville; it had to be, because of the packet times, but Claire had no real idea where to start looking. She wasnât especially computer savvy, although she knew her way around; Kim obviously had taken some precautions.

But Claire wasnât giving up that easily, either. She didnât like Kim, but there was a lot at stake here: the vampiresâ lives, including Michaelâs; Kimâs life; maybe everything theyâd built here, at whatever cost.

Michael was right: they couldnât just let Kim sacrifice it all for her own ambition. The truth might come out, but it shouldnât come out like this, as some kind of horrible exercise in voyeurism.

She finally reran the video of Kim theyâd watched at her loft. I canât believe it; I finally got to put some in the last Founder House. Connections look good; stream is starting up.

Claire went in search of cameras in the Glass House.

She found the first one in an air vent in Shaneâs room, and had to sit down, hard, on his bed with her head in her hands. It was focused right on his bed.

Oh my God. Oh no. At first she was sick with the thought of Kim combing through hours of video of Shane, invading his privacy, watching him get undressed . . . and then she remembered.

We were in here. Together. And she saw it.

Claire lifted her head and looked right up at the camera. She had no idea what was on her face, but if it was any match for the rage burning inside her, the feeling of total betrayal and exposure, she couldnât imagine Kim was having any fun seeing it. âI hope thereâs sound on these,â she said. âYou bitch. I officially hope you rot in hell, and I swear, if you post any of this online, I will find you.â

Then Claire dragged a chair over, stood on the seat, and yanked the vent screen out of the wall. Behind it, the little webcam blinked its light and stared at her with a glass eye every bit as emotionless as Bob the spiderâs.

Claire picked it up, carried it into her bedroom, and put it next to the first one theyâd found in Kimâs apartment. Then she started searching the other rooms. She found two moreâone hidden on top of a bookshelf, barely visible, in the living room, providing a birdâs-eye view of the whole space, and another in Michaelâs room, focused on his bed.

âPervert,â Claire muttered, grabbed it out of the fake plant on top of his dresser, and carried it back to set it with the others. The IP addresses were consistent. Claire tried entering them into the web browser, and the signal was there, but it just displayed as gibberish.

Encrypted, which went along with the randomizer program that Kim was using.

She was just starting to backtrace the signals when she felt that familiar tingle along the back of her neck, a feeling that the world had just shifted.

Portal.

Claire slid out of her chair and grabbed weapons, then waited. It had felt like the portal had opened upstairs, in the attic, and as she waited she heard faint creaks and pops from the old wood floor overhead. Not spiders, she thought. Spiders wouldnât be that heavy.

God, she hoped spiders wouldnât be that heavy. That was a terrifying thought. She was already entering B-movie horror territory . . . alone in the house! With a giant spider!

And a vampire, maybe.

Which could be worse.

Long minutes passed, and nothing came to eat her. Claireâs hand had gotten sweaty, and her muscles hurt from the strength of her grip on the silver knife in her hand. Come on, she thought. Just get it over with already. It could have been somebody with a lot of powerâMyrnin, or Oliver, or Amelie. In which case sheâd put the knife down and apologize.

But she thought it was probably Ada, making another run at her.

The creaks overhead paused, and she heard them retreat.

Then she felt the portal activate again, and slam closed. All her protections snapped back into place, as if theyâd never been broken. If she hadnât been here . . . sheâd never have even known someone had been inside.

Claire edged out into the hall, staring at the hidden door up to the secret room. It was shut, and she heard nothing at all. She wouldnât, of course, it being sound-proofed, but still . . . She felt as if she ought to be able to feel something . . . and the house usually conveyed a feeling of danger. When it didnât, it was usually because Amelie . . .

Amelie.

Claire opened the hidden door and went up the stairs, and found the lights on at the top. The soft glow thrown through colored glass painted the walls, and on the couch, Amelie lay full length, one white hand pressed to her forehead.

She was wearing a flowing white dress, like a very fancy nightgown, and there were flecks of blood on it. Not as if sheâd been hurtâmore as if sheâd been standing near someone else who had been. As Claire entered the room, Amelieâs eyes opened and focused on her, but the Founder didnât move.

âWe have a problem. Ada,â Amelie said. âYou know, donât you?â

âThat sheâs crazy? Yeah. I figured that.â Claire realized she was still holding the knife, and put it down. âSorry.â

âA reasonable precaution in uncertain times,â Amelie said softly. Nothing else. Claire waited, but Amelie was as still as one of those marble angels on top of a tomb.

âWhat happened?â Claire finally asked.

âNothing you would understand.â Amelie closed her eyes. âIâm tired, Claire.â

There was a simple kind of resignation to the way she said it that made Claire shiver. âShould Iâis there somebody I should call, orââ

âI will rest here for now. Thank you.â It was a dismissal, one Claire was a little relieved to get. Amelie just seemedâabsent. Empty.

âOkay. ButâI guess if you need somethingââ

Amelieâs eyes snapped open, and Claire felt it at the same time: a surge of powerâthe portal reopening.

Amelieâs will slammed it closed.

âSomeoneâs looking for you,â Claire said. âWho is it?â

âNone of your affair.â

âIt is if theyâre coming here! Is someone after you?â

âItâs my guards,â Amelie said. âTheyâll find me, sooner or later, but for now, I want to be here. Here, where Samââ She stopped again, and silvery tears pooled in her eyes and ran down into her unbound pale hair. âWhere Sam told me he would never leave me. But he did leave me, Claire. I knew he would, and he did. Everyone leaves. Everyone.â

This time, when the portal flared, Amelie didnât try to keep it shut. In seconds, the attic door flew open, and it wasnât the guards after all, in their black Secret Service suits.

It was Oliver, still wearing his bowling shirt, graying hair pulled tight into a ponytail. For a second, as his gaze fell on Amelie, he looked like a different person.

No, that wasnât possible. He couldnât really feel something for her. Could he?

âYou,â he said to Claire. âLeave us. Now.â

âStay,â Amelie said. There was an unmistakable thread of command in her voice. âYou donât order my servants in my house, Oliver. Not yet.â

âYouâre hiding behind children?â

âIâm not hiding at all. Not even from you.â She slowly sat up, and in the multicolored glow of the lamps she looked young, and very tired. âWeâve played our games, havenât we? The two of us, weâve schemed and cheated and used each other all these centuries, for our own purposes. What did it bring us? Peace? Thereâs never peace for us. There canât be.â

âI canât talk of peace,â he said, and went to one knee, looking up into her face. âAnd neither can you. Morley tried to kill you out there in the graveyard the other evening, and still you wander alone, looking for your own destruction. You must stop.â

âSpeaking as my second-in-command.â

âSpeaking as your friend,â he said, and took her hand. âAmelie. We have our differences, you and I. We always will. But I would not see you suffer so. Morganville is too much for you right nowâthere are too many vampires here with too much ambition. Control must be maintained, and if you wonât do it, you must put it in stronger hands. My hands.â

âHow kind of you, to keep the best interests of others so close to your heart,â she said. She didnât try to remove her fingers from his, but her tone had taken on a remote kind of chill. âSo what do you propose?â

âUntil you can put aside your mourning, give me the town,â he said. âYou know I can keep order here. Iâll act as your regent. When you are ready, Iâll give it back to you.â

âLiar.â She said it without particular emphasis, or blame, and Claire saw Oliverâs hand tighten on hers. Amelie smiled, just a little. âLiar, and bully. Do you really think such tactics could work, against the daughter of Bishop? You would have done well to pretend to a little more sympathy, or less. Half measures never work for you, Oliver.â

âYouâre losing the town by inches now,â he said. âMorleyâs only the first of the vampires to make a move against youâmore will come. The humans, too; there are gangs of them attacking us in the night. Iâve already been approached to stop it.â

âSo now itâs a plot. A plot to remove me from control. And you are my faithful servant, coming to warn me.â Her teeth flashed as she laughed softly. âOh, Oliver. The only reason you didnât betray me to my father when you had the chance was because the odds were even. Had he courted you for even a moment, youâd have yielded like a lovesick girl. Youâd have planted the knife in my back yourself.â

âNo,â he said, and pulled her off balance, down to her knees on the floor across from him. âI wouldnât. Youâre not a queen anymore, Amelie. Donât presume to sit on your throne and judge me!â

She wrenched a hand free and slapped him hard across the face, and Claire backed up as the two vampires locked red stares. âIâll judge as I see fit,â Amelie said. âAnd Iâll have none of your insolence. Scheme all you want, but it doesnât matter. Morganville is mine, and it will never be yours. Never. Iâm on my guard now. You may be assured that whatever plots exist against me will be uncovered and destroyed. Even yours.â

She shoved him back, and Oliver fell full length on the floor. In a flash, Amelie reached out for the silver knife that Claire had put on the table, and before Claire could blink, that knife was at Oliverâs throat. âWell?â she demanded. âWhat say you, my servant?â

He spread his hands wide in mute surrender.

Amelie stared down at him, then looked at Claire. âSummon my car,â she said. âI believe I will go for a drive in Morganville. Itâs time my people see me, and know Iâm not to be underestimated.â

She slammed the knife into the floor next to Oliverâs head, close enough that the edge left a bloody streak down his cheek, then rose to her feet and swept out of the room and down the stairs. Claire dug her cell phone out and called the number to Amelieâs security, and told them to meet her downstairs.

By the time she was done, Oliver was sitting on the sofa. He dabbed at the cut on his face, looking a lot less upset than Claire expected him to be.

âWow, you planned that,â she said. âRight?â

He shrugged. âShe loved Sam. She needs someone to fill the void inside herâeither a lover, or an enemy.â

âAnd youâre the enemy.â

Oliver dusted himself off. âThrough all the long, long years, itâs what weâve always had between us. Anger, and respect.â He smiled a little. âAnd sometimes a glimmer of something else, not that we would ever admit it to each other. No, enemies are easier. She likes being my enemy. And I rather enjoy being hers.â

Claire really, really didnât get it, but she didnât think that either one of them would care.

âHey,â she said. âYou came through the portal. Did anything weird happen?â

âWeird?â He frowned. âI donât understand.â

âI meanânever mind. Iâm just kind of worried about the portals. I want to recalibrate the system.â

âI was planning to walk in any case. Itâs just as important for the residents of Morganville to see me afoot as for them to see Amelie in her queenâs black coach.â Oliver straightened his shirt and stood up. âIt gives us . . . balance.â

âOliver?â

He stopped at the head of the stairs.

âWhat would happen if someone got word out about the town?â

âOut?â

âOut in the world. You know.â

âOh, itâs happened before. But no one believes. No one ever believes.â

âWhat ifâwhat if they had proof?â

âThe only possible proof would be a genuine vampire, and that will never happen. Short of that, any proof can be denied easily enough.â

âWhat aboutâvideo?â

âClaire. You go to the cinema, donât you? Do you imagine, in this age of digital trickery, that anyone would believe video of vampires?â He shook his head. âThey would believe it now less than ever. The very popularity of vampires in your stories protects us.â He sent her a sharp glance. âWhy?â

âJust wondering,â she said.

âStop wondering. Itâs not healthy.â

Then he was gone. Claire sat down on the couch and smoothed her palms over her jeans.

Oliver was right; people probably wouldnât believe it. Most people didnât believe all the ghost reality shows, either. The problem was that these days, reality didnât have to be real to be a hitâand Morganville couldnât stand up to real scrutiny.

They had to stop Kim, before it all fell apart.

Plus, as a bonus, they had to really kick her ass about the cameras, because that was just wrong.

Â 

Eve and Shane got home first, while Claire was devouring a peanut butter sandwich. She didnât tell them about the visit from Amelie and Oliver, and besides, they looked pretty grim. She was sure they wouldnât really care.

âWhat?â she asked. Shane snagged half her sandwich from her plate as he passed. âHey!â

âWorked up an appetite, watching Miss Bad Attitudeâs back,â he said around a mouthful of bread. âShe goes to the most interesting places. I mean interesting in terms of scary as hell.â

âDo not tell Claire about that club,â Eve said, and took off her metallic sunglasses. Behind them, her mascara was smeared, and her eyes were redânot vampire red, but more like an overdose of tears. âBesides, itâs not like I just randomly decided to go there. Itâs where Kim liked to hang out.â

âWhat kind of club?â Claire whispered to Shane.

âLeather,â he whispered back. âSheâs right; you really donât want to know.â

âKim hasnât been there in a couple of days,â Eve said. âBut we found a few vampires who did interviews with her recently, for her history project.â

From the expression on Shaneâs face, there was more to the story. Claire said, doubtfully, âAnd they just told you? Just like that?â

âI had to make some deals to get the details.â Eve avoided making eye contact on that. She shed her black leather jacket, the one with all the buckles, and snagged a corner of Claireâs leftover half sandwich. âHmm, this is good; did you put honey on it?â

âYou did what?â Making any kind of deal with any kind of vampire in Morganville was crazy. Making deals with the kind of vampires hanging out in a leather bar was . . . suicidal. Claire rounded on Shane. âYou let her do that?â

âSeriously, you canât even think about blaming me when she gets like this. Iâm the bodyguard. Unless you wanted me to tie her up and gag her . . .â

âTheyâd probably have gotten into it there,â Eve said. âLook, I can get out of the deals. Amelieâs our get-out-of-deals-free card. But I needed to find Kim, and to do that, we needed information. Unless you waved your magic techno-wand and . . . ?â

Claire had to shake her head.

âOkay then, quit looking at me like I broke house training or something.â Eve, Claire realized, was really uncomfortable about this. Sheâd probably had to force herself to talk to these vamps, and the last thing she needed was the postgame analysis on what sheâd done wrong.

Claire cleared her throat. âWhat did you get?â

âI found four vamps that Kim either talked to on camera, or set up interviews with in the next week or so, which means she wasnât planning on leaving town just yet. And a couple of human guys who, ah, visited Kim at her place.â

âHookups,â Shane confirmed. âWhich is Kimâs style. Although I canât say much for her taste. Itâs kind of gone downhill.â

âSo, waitâwhat does that tell us that we didnât already know? And what did you promise these vamps, anyway?â

âThings,â Eve said, without adding any details. Shane looked away. âNot important right now. The point is, two of the vamps she interviewed she filmed at Common Grounds, but the other vamps said she took them to a kind of studio.â

âA studio,â Claire repeated. âThat sounds promising.â

âThought so. It wasnât knee-deep in crap, so it couldnât have been her apartment, right?â

âDid they tell you where?â

âNo,â Shane said, leaning over Eveâs shoulder. âThey wanted more for that little gem. And I told them to stuff it sideways.â

Claire blinked. Vampires. Leather bar. âAnd they just thought that was okay?â

âHonestly? Not so much. They mostly decided weâd make good chew toys.â

âShane!â Claire looked at him with pleading eyes. âYou didnâtââ

âFight? Didnât have to,â he said. Before he could explain, the front door opened and closed, and Claire heard the locks clicking shut again. Eve stiffened and looked down, burying her black-painted fingernails in her palms as she made fists.

Michael lookedâlike heâd been through a rough night in a bad bar, Claire guessed. Mussed, clothes torn at the seams. Something dark on his shirt that could have been blood.

âAre you okay?â Claire came to her feet, staring at him. He wasnât bruised or anything, but he looked tired. There was a little flush of red in his eyes, and his hands were shaking.

âIâm fine,â he said. âI just needâsomething to drink. Be right back.â

He disappeared into the kitchen. The silence in the room was sharp and uncomfortable, and Claire looked at Eve, who folded her arms across her chest.

âI didnât ask him to come rescue us,â she said, and looked down. âI didnât want him to come at all.â

Michael came back carrying a black sports bottle. They all knew what he had in it, but nobody mentioned it as he sipped through the built-in straw.

âI had my reasons for going,â Michael said. And didnât look at Eve. And Eve didnât look at him. âThanks for getting her out of there when you did, Shane.â

Shane nodded. âNo problem. What happened?â

That was a question Michael wasnât going to answer, evidently, because he just shrugged. âFight.â One hell of one, from the state of his clothes and his hunger for blood. âIt was worth it. One of them told me where Kim took him to interview, and it wasnât any of the places you already had.â

Eve slowly raised her head, and her eyes narrowed. âYou followed us. You thought we couldnât handle it.â

âI knew where you were going. And I was right, wasnât I?â

âNo, you were not right! Michaelââ

He put the bottle down, stepped forward, and caught her hands in his. Eve started to try to pull free, but he held on, willing her to look at him. It seemed really personal, somehow.

âIâm a vampire,â he said. âIâm never going to be anything else. You need to decide if youâre okay with that, Eve. I am.â

âWhat if Iâm not?â Her voice sounded really small and wounded. âWhat if I just want you to be Michael, notânot Vampire Michael of the Clan, or whatever?â

âI canât,â he said. âBecause Iâm not just Michael anymore. I havenât been since before you moved in. You just didnât know it.â

He let go of her hands, uncapped the sports bottle, and drank the blood down in long, thirsty gulps, making sure she was watching. His eyes turned ruby red, and he licked the drops from his lips. He put the empty bottle down, watching her.

She crossed her arms and turned away from him, and Michael closed his eyes in pain. When he opened them again, they were just human, and sad.

Claire wondered if sheâd actually just witnessed a breakup. She hoped not.

Shane cleared his throat. âSo. You turned up at a place where Kim goes, right? Letâs talk about that. Please.â

Michael walked over to the chair, where his guitar lay across the seat. He picked it up and cradled it in his arms, still watching Eve. After a few seconds, he began to softly play a series of chords. It was an aching kind of sound, gentle and full of emotion, and Claire saw Eveâs shoulders tense and shake as she suppressed tears.

âKim used to work at KVVV,â Michael said. âShe was an intern there before it shut down. The vampire said she interviewed him in a booth there at the old studios at the edge of town, by the transmission tower.â

Claire couldnât help feeling a little spike of excitement. âThatâs it. Thatâs got to be it, right? You said it was shut down?â

âYeah, Amelie shut it down a few years back afterâthere was an incident,â Michael said. âThe town council decided we didnât need another radio station. Itâs been locked up since then.â

âWe need to go look!â Claire bounced to her feet, but Shane caught her shoulder and guided her back into the chair.

âCool it. Not at night, we donât. The last thing we need to do is go poking around an abandoned building in the middle of the night in a town full of vampires.â

âBut what if she decides to close up shop? Cut her losses, take her goodies, and try to leave?â Eve said. âShe could get killed. We have to warn her.â

âWarn her?â Claire felt short of breath, ready to burst out into wild laughter. âEve, donât you get it? She rigged our house. She was watching us. Watching everything, every private thingââ

âNo,â Eve said. âNo, she wouldnât do that. Youâre wrong.â

âI found cameras in the bedrooms!â

Eveâs mouth opened and closed, and Claire didnât think sheâd ever seen her look quite so devastated. She slumped down on the couch and covered her rice-powder-pale face with both hands.

Shane was staring at Claire with a frozen expression. âWhich bedrooms?â

âYours,â she said softly. âAnd Michaelâs.â

For a second Shane didnât move, and then he reached out, picked up the nearest thingâa DVD caseâand hurled it across the room so hard that it dented the wall. âSon of a bitch,â he muttered. âThat littleââ

Michaelâs face had gone completely still, and he wasnât playing anymore. He held the guitar as if heâd forgotten he had it. âShe was recording us. Her own little Big Brother reality show, with vampires.â

Eve said nothing. Claire couldnât even imagine what she was thinking, but she looked utterly miserable.

âWe have to go,â Eve finally said. âWe need to find where she keeps the recordings, and wipe them out. Every little bit. This canât happen. She canât do this.â

âI just hope she hasnât already done it,â Claire said. âSheâs been putting this together for almost a month. Sheâs got to be almost done by now. If weâre right about her having some kind of sponsor outside of town . . .â

âThen we really have to go. Now. Tonight.â

âNo,â Michael said. âNot at night.â

âSheâs going to get away with it!â

âThatâs a chance weâre going to have to take,â Michael said. âShaneâs right. No charging off into the dark. It has to wait until morning.â He started playing again. His head was down, as if he were concentrating on his music, but Claire didnât think he was. There was something a little wrong with the way he said it, the way he wouldnât look at them. âHow about more of those sandwiches?â

Eve raised her head and stared at him, tears smearing her mascara into clown makeup. âUnbelievable,â she said. âYou know whatâs on those recordings. You know, Michael. Youâd let her take that and sell it?â

âWe need to be smart about this. If we go running off without a planââ

âScrew your plans!â she shouted, and jumped off the couch, then pounded up the stairs, chains jingling. âScrew you, too!â

Michael looked at Claire, then Shane.

âSheâs not wrong,â Shane said. âSorry, man.â

Â 

Michael had lied to them, and Claire caught him at it.

She was on her way to the bathroom with her tank top and pajama bottoms over one arm, thinking about curling up warm in Shaneâs arms, when she heard Michael talking in his room. The door was open a crack. Shane and Eve were still downstairs, cleaning up the kitchen.

He was on his cell phone. âNo,â he was saying. âNo, Iâm sure. I just need to go check it out, tonight. Make sure nobody is using the facility withoutââ

Claire pushed the door open, and Michael twisted around to look at her. So busted. He froze for a second, then said, âIâll call you back,â and hung up.

âLet me guess,â she said. âOliver. Youâre telling him everything, arenât you?â

âClaireââ

âWe asked you. We asked you if you were with us, and you said you were. You promised.â

âClaire, please.â

âNo.â She stepped back when he stretched out a hand. âEve was right. Youâre not Michael anymore. Youâre Vampire Michael. Itâs really us and them, and youâre with them.â

âClaire.â

âWhat?â

âThat wasnât Oliver.â

âThen who was it?â

âDetective Hess. He was going to meet me at the station and check it out, tonight. Eve was right. We really canât wait, not even for morning.â Michaelâs expression took on a dangerous edge. âKim crossed the line. She tricked her way in here, and she screwed us over. I can forgive a lot of things, Claire, but I canât forgive her for this.â

âSo you were going to leave us behind.â

His eyes flared hot. âBecause I care about you. Yes. Do you know how close Eve came to getting herself killed tonight? And Shane? No more. Iâm not risking you guys, not for this. Not for her.â

âHey! Youâre not our father! You canât just decide we need protectingâweâre all in this together!â

âNo,â he said. âWeâre not. Some of us get hurt a lot easier than others, and I love you guys. Iâm not going to lose you. Not like this.â

He stripped off his ripped shirt and pulled on another one, grabbed his keys from the table, and very gently picked Claire up and moved her when she tried to block his path. âDonât,â he said. âClaire, I mean it. Donât tell them where I went. Let me handle this.â

She didnât say anything.

She didnât want to lie to him.

Michael stared at her for a few long seconds, long enough that she was almost sure he could read her mind, and then he shoved his keys in his pocket and moved off down the stairs.

She sat down on his bed, staring up at the vent where sheâd found the camera. Claire didnât actually know what she was going to do until she heard Michaelâs new replacement car starting up outside, and then she stood, walked down to the kitchen, and interrupted an intense conversation between Shane and Eve at the sink to say, âMichaelâs gone to get Kim, and we need to go, right now.â

They both stopped and looked over their shoulders at her. Eve had her arms elbow-deep in soapy water. Shane held a dish towel and a plate.

âRight now,â Claire repeated. âPlease.â

Eve yanked the plug on the sink, grabbed the towel from Shaneâs hands, and wiped her hands and arms. She three-pointed the towel onto the counter. âIâll drive,â she said, and ran to grab her keys. Shane stayed where he was, still holding the plate in one hand, watching Claire. He opened his mouth.

âDonât you dare tell me I canât go,â she said. âDonât even, Shane. Iâm on those videos, too. You know I am.â

He put the plate down. âMichael went alone?â

âMr. Vampire Superhero doesnât need backup.â Well, that wasnât quite fair. âHeâs meeting Detective Hess there. But still.â

The kitchen door swung open, and Eve blazed back in, vivid in black and white, a mime on a mission. She tossed her keys in a nervous jingle of metal and said, âWeapons.â

Nobody argued that it would only be Kim they were going up against. Shane grabbed a black nylon bag from under the counterâin other towns, people might keep emergency supplies of food and water, maybe a medical kit, but in Morganville, their emergency readiness kit consisted of stakes and silver-coated knives. âGot it,â he said, and tossed it over one shoulder. âClaireââ

âDonât even!â

He grinned and tossed her a second bag. âSilver nitrate and water in a Super Soaker,â he told her. âMy own invention. Ought to be good at twenty feet, kind of like wasp spray.â

Oh. âYou get me the nicest things.â

âAnybody can get jewelry. Posers.â

Eve rolled her eyes. âLetâs go, comedian.â

As she tossed the keys again, Shane grabbed them in midair. âI may be a comedian, but you look like a mime, anybody ever tell you that?â

He dashed for the door. Eve followed. Claire shouldered the nylon bag and prepared to shut the door of the house; as she did, she felt a wave of emotion sweep through her. The house, Michaelâs house, was worried. It was almost alive, some of the time. Like now.

âItâll be okay,â she told it, and patted the countertop. âHeâll be okay. Weâll be okay.â

The lights dimmed a little as she shut the door.

Â 

Eveâs car wouldnât start.

âUm . . . this isnât good,â Eve said as Shane cranked the engine again. There was a click, and nothing. âYouâve got to be kidding me. This is not the time, stupid evil hunk of junk!â She slapped the dashboard, which had zero effect. âCome on, work!â

It was very dark outsideâno streetlights on, and the moon and stars were veiled by thick, fast-moving clouds. In the glow of the dashboard, Shane and Eve looked worried. Shane pulled the old-fashioned lever under the dash, and the hood of the car popped up with a thick clunk of metal. âStay inside,â he said. âIâm going to take a look.â

âBecause youâve got guy parts, youâre automatically a better mechanic than me? I donât think so,â Eve said, and bailed out of the passenger side. Shane banged the back of his head against the seat.

âSeriously,â he said. âWhy is it always so hard with her?â

âSheâs worried,â Claire said.

âWeâre all worried. You stay in the car.â

âI donât know anything about cars. I will.â

âFinally, a girl with some sense.â He leaned over the seat to kiss her, then got out to join Eve as she hauled the giant, heavy hood of the car upward. From that point on, Claire had a limited view of what was going onâthe hood, the dark night outside, some lights glowing in nearby houses. . . .

A car turned the corner, and its headlights swept color over darkness, lighting up the Glass House in all its decaying Victorian glory, then the sun-faded picket fence, the spring crop of weeds along the curb. . . .

And then came a group of vampires out of the darkness, heading for Shane and Eve. One of them was Morley, the skanky homeless dude from the cemetery. She supposed the others were his friends; they didnât look as polished and well-groomed as most of the other vamps seemed to be. These looked hungry, mean, and dirty.

Claire lunged across the big bench seat from the back and slammed her hand down on the horn. It was as loud as a foghorn, and she heard a sharp bang as either Eve or Shane hit their head on the hood of the car as they straightened up.

âGuys!â she yelled. âTrouble!â

Shane, one hand held to the top of his head, opened the back door and pulled her out. âDoor,â he said. âGet back inside. The car thing isnât happening.â

Claire didnât argue. She dug her front door key out of her jeans pocket as she ran, banged open the front gate, and skidded to a halt in front of the door. The porch light flickered on.

âThanks,â she told the house absently, jammed the key into the lock, and opened the door.

Shane was at the foot of the steps, but heâd stopped, looking back.

Eve was trapped between the car and the house, and she was surrounded by vampires. Claire gasped, and saw that neither Shane nor Eve had had time to grab the weapons bag out of the car.

She still had hers.

Morley lunged forward, slamming Eve against the rounded fender of her car, and Eveâs scream of panic split the night. Shane rushed toward her, pulling a stake from his jacket, but it wasnât going to help. There were six of them, all with vampire strength.

Heâd get himself killed.

Claire zipped open the bag and pulled out the big plastic Super Soaker. It was a totally absurd color of neon, and it was heavy with a full load of water.

God, please work. Please work.

Claire moved forward at a run, and pressed the trigger. A shockingly thick spray shot out, hit the sidewalk, and splashed; she quickly angled it up, over the fence, and sprayed it in an arc across Shaneâs back, the vampires turning to meet him, Morley, Eve.

Where it hit exposed vampire skin, the solution of silver powder and water lit them up like Christmas trees. The bony woman with long dark hair heading for Shane broke off with a yelp, slapped at her burning face, and then gaped at the burns on her hands as the solution began to eat away at her flesh.

Claire pumped the toy gun again, building up pressure, and put it to her shoulder as she came to a flat-footed stop. âBack off!â she yelled. âEverybody just stop! You, let her go!â That last was directed at Morley, who had Eve by the shoulder and was holding her in front of him. He was wearing a filthy old raincoat, and it had protected him from the spray; she could see a livid burn spreading across his cheek, but nothing that would really hurt him.

Shane backed up next to Claire, breathing hard. She aimed the Super Soaker directly at Morley and Eve. âLet her go,â she repeated. âWe didnât do anything to you.â

âNothing personal,â Morley said. âWeâre starving, love. And youâre so juicy.â

âEwww,â Eve said faintly. âHas anybody ever told you that you smell like tombstones?â

He glanced at her and smiled. âYouâre the first,â he assured her. âWhich is a bit charming. Iâm Morley. And you are . . . ? Ah yes. Amelieâs friend. I remember you from the cemetery. Sam Glassâs grave.â

âNice to meet you. Donât eat me, âkay?â

He laughed and combed her hair back from her pale face. âYouâre cute. I might have to turn you and keep you as a pet.â

âHey!â Claire said sharply, and took a step forward. âDidnât you hear me? Let her go! Sheâs under Amelieâs protection!â

âI see no bracelet.â Morley grabbed Eveâs arm and lifted it to the dim light, turning it this way and that. âNo, definitely nothing there.â He kissed the back of her hand, then extended his fangs and prepared to munch out on the pale veins at her wrist.

Eve twisted and punched him in the mouth.

Morley stumbled backward against the car, and Claire triggered the sprayer, coating him in silver spray. This time, he screamed and flapped his arms and lunged away from Eve, toward the darkness. Claire sprayed the rest of his crew again as they followed, waking howls of pain and anger.

Shane dashed forward, vaulted the gate, and helped Eve stand up from where Morley had shoved her. âThat went well,â he said. His voice was shaking. âNo fang marks, right?â

âLucky me,â Eve said, and laughed wildly. âGet the weapons bag. I canât believe you left it in the car; what was that? What town did you grow up in?â

âI was trying to help you fix the car!â

âBozo.â She hugged him, hard, and smacked him on the back of the head; then she took a deep breath as Shane left her to retrieve the black nylon bag out of the car. âAnd you.â

Claire lowered the Super Soaker. âWhat? What did I do?â

âSaved my life? Redefined awesome in our time?â

âOh. Okay.â She felt a smile bloom from deep inside, and for a moment, it was all good.

Really good.

âLadies,â Shane said, and slammed the car door. âLetâs have the champagne inside, okay? And talk about who pulled the wires in the engine, and how weâre planning to back Michael up with no wheels?â

He had a point. Claire covered their retreat with the Super Soaker, feeling kind of like a neon-gunned Rambo, and Eve slammed and locked the door, then put her back to the wood and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

The second Claire put the water gun down, Shane wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, really tender and sweet and a little bit desperate. Hot.

âHey,â Eve said. âMichael, remember? What are we doing for transpo, cabbing it?â

There was exactly one taxicab in Morganville, and he didnât work at night, so that wasnât much of an option. They didnât even bother to discuss it. âWell,â Claire said, very reluctantly, âthereâs another way. But you wonât like it.â

âIâll like it less than getting molested by a vampire in a flasher raincoat who smells like graveyards? Try me.â

âI could open a portal,â Claire said. âBut Iâve never been to the radio station, so I canât risk doing it blind. I have to go someplace close that I know. Whatâs around it?â

âHang on a second,â Shane said, and dropped the weapons bag to the wood floor with a thump. âWhat about Ada? You said she was out for blood, right?â

âI said you wouldnât like the idea.â

âSo just to recapâAda wants to kill you, and youâre going to walk through a portal she controls?â

âWellââ

âNo, Claire. Next.â

âButââ

âNot happening.â

She sighed. âWhat if I get Myrnin to open it for us? Heâs better at it. I donât think she dares mess with him directly.â

âAnd tell Myrnin whatâs happening? Bad idea. The dude is half crazy all the time.â

âSo whatâs your bright idea?â Claire asked. Shane spread his hands out. âThatâs what I thought.â

She pulled her cell phone out and checked the screen. Her battery was getting low; she hadnât had a chance to charge it up recently, although that was Morganville Survival 101. She picked up the old-fashioned landline phone on the hall table and dialed Myrninâs lab.

It rang, and rang, and rang, and finally, Myrnin picked up. âWhat?â he snapped. âI was in the middle of dinner.â

Claire was afraid to ask who that was. âI need help,â she said.

âClaire, you are my assistant. Not the other way around. Perhaps it would be helpful if I prepared an organizational chart you could keep on your person. Possibly tattooed on your arm.â

He was in a mood. Claire bit her lip. âPlease,â she said. âItâs a little favor.â

âOh, all right. What?â

âYou know the old radio station outside of town? KVââ Her mind blanked. She looked at Eve, who mouthed the answer. âKVVV. Could you open me a portal?â

âHmmm,â he said. She heard the sound of liquid being poured in the background, and him swallowing it, and him smacking his lips. âWell, I suppose I could get you close, if not inside the building. Would that do?â

âSure. Anything.â

âAnd why can you not do this yourself?â

âAda . . . ?â

Myrnin was silent for a long few seconds. âSheâs better,â he said. âI donât know what got into the old girl. But Iâve had a talk with her, and really, sheâs much better now. Much better.â

âThatâs good.â It would be, if it were true, but Claire didnât trust Myrninâs judgment when it came to Ada. âUm, about that portalââ

âYes, fine, coming right up. I will be there in a moment.â

âNo, Myrninââ

He hung up before she could explain that she didnât actually need him to come along. Not that he was going to listen to her, anyway. Claire replaced the phone on its cradle.

âCrazy boss is coming,â Shane interpreted, just from the expression on her face. âLovely. This ought to be fun.â

About five seconds later, Claire felt a psychic wave sweep through the house, so strong she was surprised neither Shane nor Eve seemed to feel it, and then a dark opening formed in the far wall of the living room, and Myrnin stepped over the threshold.

âI so want his wardrobe,â Eve sighed. âIs that shallow, or just strange?â

âDonât sell yourself short. Itâs both,â Shane said, and cocked his head to take in Myrninâs latest effort at blending in. It was . . . interesting. Claire couldnât decide if it was some deliberate, unholy mix of Victorian lord and hippie, or just what had been on the floor of his closet.

He had on his bunny slippers.

These had fangs.

They all stared at them in silence for about a heartbeat, and then Shane said, âThat is impressively wicked. Crazy, but wicked.â

Myrnin frowned at him, then looked down at his shoes. He seemed genuinely surprised. âOh. Those. I thoughtâwell, theyâre appropriate, I suppose.â

âWouldnât want to be inappropriate,â Claire said. âYou really didnât have to come. Iâm sorry.â

âI did, in fact. I tried to open the portal to the radio station, and I couldnât do so.â Myrninâs dark eyes were wide and gleaming, clearly fascinated. âClaire, do you know what this means?â He paced, the bunny slippers flopping their ears in a very distracting way. âSomeone locked down the area. And it wasnât me.â

âWho else could?â

âNo one.â

âButââ

âExactly!â He smacked his hands together in glee. âA mystery! Thank you for calling and imposing on me for a favor; this is very exciting stuff, you know. Chaos, mayhem, someone stealing a march against meâah, Iâve missed it these past few months, havenât you?â

âNo,â they all said, exactly together. Claire took Shaneâs hand and said, âMyrnin, who else could lock down areas of town and freeze out portals?â

âAmelie,â he said, âbut itâs not her. Thereâs a certain signature to her work, and by the way, sheâs been here recently, did you know? She reeks of pain these days. Itâs most disturbing.â

âDude, focus,â Eve said. âWho else?â She threw Claire a why-am-I-even-asking look, but Myrnin got hold of himself and nodded as he thought about it.

âThere have been a total of six others in the history of Morganville,â he said. âBut theyâre all dead. All but you, Claire.â

They all looked at her. She blinked. âWell, I didnât do it!â

âOh. Pity. Then I have no idea.â

She cleared her throat. âWhat about Ada?â

âAda is not the boogeyman behind every shadow, my dear,â Myrnin said, and flopped himself down in Michaelâs chair, taking hold of the acoustic guitar and picking out a surprisingly competent series of chords. âAda does as sheâs told. Unlike you, I might add, which is not an attractive quality in a lab assistant.â

âCould she do it?â

He stilled the strings with one hand, and looked up. His dark hair fell back from his pale face, and for a moment, he looked entirely serious. âAda can do anything,â he said. âI donât think even she understands that. But I find it highly unlikelyââ

âYouâre a vampire wearing bunny slippers with fangs. Highly unlikely kind of goes with the territory,â Eve said. âHow close can you get us? To the radio station?â

âWhy do you want to go there? Itâs hardly safe for untagged blood donors to roam around out there after dark. Even Claire would be at risk, and sheâs wearing the strongest protection available. I donât advise it.â He put the guitar aside and steepled his fingers together. âBut youâre not quite foolish enough to be doing it for the thrill, I think, so you do have a reason. Tell me.â

Claire exchanged a quick look with her friends, and then said, âMichael went alone out there. We need to help him.â

âMichael is a vampire. Vampires go out at night.â Myrnin shrugged and dusted a bit of fluff from his black velvet jacket, which was pretty elegant, if you were heading off to a costume party. âWhy concern yourself, unless you think there will be trouble? Stop lying by omission, Claire. Tell me everything. Now.â

Eve shook her head, a tiny spasm that was probably involuntary. Even Shane looked like he thought it was a terminally bad idea. Claire said, âWe can trust him. We have to trust him.â

âOh, this sounds interesting,â Myrnin said, and leaned forward in Michaelâs chair. âPlease continue.â

She did. She even brought down one of the wireless cameras, showed it to him, and explained how it worked, which was a complete delight to his obsessively scientific side. âBut this is amazing,â he said, turning the little device over in his nimble fingers. âThis girl, sheâs quite the enterprising little thing. How many of these, you say?â

âWe think seventy-two.â

He lost his smile, focused on the object in his hand. âShe canât be doing it alone, then. There must be a larger purpose. A larger plan. Still, this Kim, she may be using it for her own purposes; have you thought about that?â

âWe know sheâs getting her own thing out of it,â Claire said. âBut youâre saying . . . she didnât come up with it in the first place?â

âExactly.â

So, maybe Kim had been recruited to put cameras out, and then hijacked it for her own reality-show dream project . . . but that meant someone else was in charge.

Someone smart enough to not get caught. Or even suspected.

âYou really should tell Oliver,â Myrnin said. âI know heâs not the most pleasant of allies, but he is effective in the right circumstances. Rather like one of those nuclear bombs.â

âIf we tell Oliver, Kimâs dead,â Eve said. âShe may be an epic bitch, but I donât want her executed, either.â

âValid,â Myrnin agreed. âHowever, if this goes wrong, sheâs dead in any case. I will come along. You need an adult chaperone.â

âOnce again, bunny slippers,â Shane said. âIâm just pointing that out.â

âI suppose they would get dirty. Iâll be right back.â Myrnin jumped out of the chair and dashed for the portal. It snapped shut behind him with a flare of energy.

âDo you thinkââ

Before Shane could finish the question, the portal opened again, and Myrnin hopped out on one foot, pulling on serious pirate boots, the knee-high kind with the cuff of leather. He finished tugging the left one on and did a runway pose for Claire. âBetter?â

âUm . . . yeah. I guess.â He now looked like a demented version of that pirate captain from the rum bottles.

âThen letâs go.â

As he turned to concentrate on the portal, Eve tugged on Claireâs shirt.

âWhat?â

âAsk him where he got the boots.â

âYou ask.â Personally, Claire wanted the vampire bunny slippers.

12

The closest Myrnin could get them was a few blocks away. Claire was glad, actually, that he hadnât warned her where they were going; she wasnât sure sheâd have been able to step through if he had.

Germanâs Tire Plant had closed at least thirty years ago, and the gigantic, multi-story facility was basically one big gold mine of creepy. Claire had been in it exactly twice before, and neither visit held pleasant memoriesâand those had been daytime excursions. At night, the terror level went way, way up.

The only reason she knew they were at Germanâs Tire Plant was that the weapons bag Shane had brought contained flashlights, and one of the first things Claireâs lit up was the spooky clown face graffitied around a big open maw of a doorway. Sheâd never forget that stupid clown face. Ever.

âOh man,â Shane breathed. He wasnât fond of this place, either.

âBuck up,â Eve said. âAt least you didnât get locked in a freezer here like next monthâs entrÃ©e. I did.â

Myrnin, blue-white in the flashlight beams, looked offended. âYoung lady, I put you there for safekeeping. If I had meant to eat you, I would have.â

âThatâs comforting,â Eve said. And then, under her breath, âNot.â

âThis way.â Myrnin put out his hand to shield his eyes from their flashlights, and picked his way around a pile of tottering, empty beer cans left by adventurous high schoolers, a stained, torn mattress, and some empty crates. âSomeoneâs been here.â

âNo kidding?â

âI mean, recently,â he said. âNot humans. Vampires. Many of them.â He sounded a little puzzled. âNot my creatures, either. They all died, you know. The ones I turned.â

Back in his crazy (crazier?) days, Myrnin had experimented on some hapless victims, trying to turn them into vampires but failing as his illness took hold. The results hadnât been prettyâmore like zombies than vampires, and not focused on anything but killing. Claire wondered how theyâd died, and decided she really didnât want to know. Myrnin was a scientist. He was used to putting down lab animals at the end of a test.

âAre these vampires hanging around now?â Shane asked. He had a stake in his left hand, and a silver-coated knife in the otherâa steak knife heâd used a car battery and a fish tank full of chemicals to electroplate. Stinky, but cheap and effective. âBecause a heads-up would be nice.â

âNo, theyâre gone.â Myrnin continued to hesitate, though. âI wonder. . . .â

âWonder later. Move now,â Eve said. She sounded nervous, and she kept shining the light around erratically, reacting to every rustle in the dark. There were a lot of those. Rats, birds, batsâthe place was full of wildlife. Claire kept her own light trained on the path ahead of her, making sure she didnât trip or cut herself on rusty juts of metal as Myrnin led the way. Shaneâs warmth behind her felt good. So did the weight of the Super Soaker in her arms.

Myrnin threw open a metal door with a snap, shattering the lock and scattering links of the big chain that had secured it all over the pitted concrete outside. âThere,â he said, and pointed as they gathered around him. The clouds thinned a little, allowing some diffuse moonlight to paint the ground with cool blue and silver, and a mile or so away sat a concrete block of a building, and a tall, skeletal metal tower. Big white letters on the tower said KV V; one of the Vs was long gone, and the other was tilting drunkenly to one side, not far from dropping off entirely to join its missing mate. The place looked deserted. Wind rattled over the flat landscape, whipping up dust and scattering trash, and made an eerie whistling sound through the metal of the tower.

âI donât see Michaelâs car.â

âOne way to be sure,â Myrnin said. âLetâs go.â

Â 

The closer they came, the creepier the place was. Claire wasnât a fan of blighted industrial buildings, and Morganville was full of themâthe half-destroyed hospital, Germanâs Tire Plant, even the old City Hall had its decaying side.

This one looked so . . . grim. It was just a cinder block building, not very large, and the one window in front had been long ago broken out and boarded over. Someone had spray-painted KEEP OUT on the bricks, and part of it was heavily decorated in multicolored swirls of graffiti. Beer cans, cigarette butts, empty plastic bagsâthe usual stuff.

âI donât see a way in,â Eve whispered.

âWhy are you whispering?â Myrnin whispered back. âVampires can hear us, anyway.â

âIs there a vampire in there?â Claire asked.

âIâm not psychic. I have no idea.â

âYou could tell in the tire plant!â

He tapped his nose. âFive senses. Not six. Itâs not so easy to sniff them out standing outside the building.â He gently moved the business end of her Super Soaker away from himself. âPlease. I bathed already, and Iâd rather not do it in the vampire equivalent of pepper spray.â

âSorry.â

They made their way around the side of the building, closer to the tower, and there they found Michaelâs dark sedan sitting in the shadows.

Empty.

âMichael?â Eve called. âMichael!â

âHush,â Myrnin said sharply, and flashed supernatu rally fast across the open space to grab the knob of a door Claire could barely see. It sagged open, and he disappeared inside.

âWait!â Claire blurted, and darted after him. She switched on the flashlight as soon as she reached the door, but all it showed her was an empty hallway, with peeling paint and a floor covered in mud from some old flood. âMyrnin, where are you?â

No answer. She yelped when Shaneâs hand closed over her shoulder; then she pulled in a breath and nodded. Eve crowded in behind them.

Down the hallway was a dead end, with more hallways stretching left and right. The fading paint had some kind of mural on it, something West Texas-y with cows and cowboys, and the letters KVVV in big block capitals.

The whole place smelled like mold and dead animals. âThis way,â Myrninâs voice said quietly, and with a hum, electricity turned on in the hall. Some of the bulbs burned out with harsh, sizzling snaps, leaving parts of the space in darkness.

Claire followed the hall to the end, which took a right turn into a small studio with some kind of engineering board. The equipment looked ancient, but clean; somebody had been hereâpresumably Kimâand had taken care to put everything in working order. Microphones, a chair, a backdrop, lighting . . . everything in the studio needed for filming, including a small digital video camera on a tripod.

On the other side of the room was a complicated editing console, which had a bank of monitors set up. They obviously werenât original to the setupâdecades more modern than the soundboardâand Claire identified different components that had been Frankensteined into the system.

These included an array of fat black terabyte drives, all portable.

Michael was sitting at the console. âMichael!â Eve blurted, and threw herself on him; he stood up to catch her in his arms, and hugged her close. âYou incredible jerk!â

He kissed her hair. âYeah, I know.â

She smacked his arm. âReally. You are a jerk!â

âI get that.â He pushed her off a little, to look at her. âYouâre okay?â

âNo thanks to you. You had to go running off in the middle of the night and not even say boo . . .â

âI should have known you guys wouldnât stay put.â

âWhereâs Detective Hess?â Claire asked. âI thought you were meeting him here.â

âYeah, I did.â

âWhere did he go?â

âIâll tell you that in a minute.â Michael seemed preoccupied, as if he were trying to figure out how to tell them something they werenât going to like at all. âThis is Kimâs data vault. At least, most of it. Claire, thatâs a router, right? I think this is her receiving station for the signals.â

âSheâs using the tower to amplify the signals,â Claire said. âDid you findâ?â She didnât want to get more specific than that. Michael shook his head, and her heart fell. âWhat about the other ones?â

âSheâs been a busy girl,â Michael said. âThere are video files there from City Hall, Common Grounds, spots all over town. It will take hours, maybe weeks, to look at everything, but sheâs done a rough cut.â He hit some controls, then pointed at the central monitor. âThis is the raw file.â

After some old-fashioned leader signals, there was a shot of the Morganville town limits sign, creaking in the wind . . . and then, in special effects, the word Vampires appeared in bloody streaks right below the sign.

âSubtle.â Eve snorted. âSheâs got a future in Hollywood.â

Kimâs voice came on, breathlessly narrating. âWelcome to Morganville, the town with bite. If youâve ever driven across the barren landscape of West Texas, you may wonder why people live out here in the middle of nowhere. Well, wonder no more. Itâs because they canât live anywhere else without people knowing what they are.â

The visuals cut to a montage of Morganville daily lifeânormal, boring stuff.

And then a night-vision shot of a vampireâMorley, Claire realized with a shockâsucking the blood out of someoneâs neck. It was an extreme close-up. His eyes were like silver coins, and the blood looked black.

Cut to Eve, working the counter at the coffee shop in all her Goth glory. Eve sucked in a quick breath, but said nothing. More shots of Morganville, some handheld. Claire saw footage of students, and remembered Kim running around the campus with her digital camera, asking people stupid questions.

It was in there, and so was Claire, saying, âI have two words for you, and the second one is off. Fill in the blank.â

Claire covered her mouth with both hands. God, she looked so angry. And kind of bitchy.

It got worse, with the voice-over. âEven the normal people of Morganville arenât so normal. Take my friends who live in this house.â

A shot of the Glass House, full daylight. Then some kind of hidden-camera thing of Kim knocking on the door, Eve answering.

A shot of Shane. One of Michael.

âLiving in a town full of terror doesnât mean you canât find true loveâor at least, real sex.â

The video morphed into Claire and Shane in his bedroom. Oh God no . . . Claire felt sick and hot and breathless, full of horror at seeing herself there on that screen. She stumbled away and almost threw herself into Shaneâs arms. He, lips parted, was staring at the picture, looking just as horrified as she felt. But he couldnât look away, while she simply couldnât watch.

âGoodness,â Myrnin said quietly. âI donât think I should be watching this. I donât think Iâm old enough.â

âTurn it off,â Shane said. âMichael.â

Instead of turning it off, Michael hit FAST FORWARD. He slowed it down as the scene changed. More Kim voyeur porn, this time Michael and Eve. No voice-over. Claire couldnât imagine what she was intending to say, but it couldnât have been good.

âIâll kill her,â Eve said. It sounded calm, but it really wasnât. âWhy are you showing me this?â

Michael looked at her, and Claireâs stomach did a little flip at the grimness in his expression. âSit down,â he said, and wheeled the chair closer to Eve. She looked at it, then at him, frowning. âTrust me.â

She did, still frowning, as the scene changed on-screen.

It was some dark-paneled room, with a big wooden round table, an ornate flower arrangement in the middle. Of the several people around the table, Claire recognized three immediately, with a shock. âAmelie,â she blurted. Amelie clearly had no idea she was being filmed; the camera was high up, at an angle, but it caught their faces clearly. Next to her at the table was Richard Morrell, the mayor, neat and handsome in a dark suit. At his right sat Oliver, lookingâas usualâangry. Several other people around the table were talking at once, arguing, and finally Oliver slammed his hand down on the wood with so much force it silenced them all.

Then came Kimâs voice-over. âMorganville is ruled by a town council, but one not like any other. Nobody elects these people. Thatâs Amelie, Founder of Morganville. Sheâs more than a thousand years old, and sheâs a ruthless killer. Oliverâs not much younger, and heâs even meaner. The mayor, Richard Morrell, heâs new, but his family has ruled the humans of Morganville for a hundred years. Richardâs the only human on the council. And he gets outvoted . . . constantly.â

She cut back to the sound as Richard was saying, â. . . want to revisit the decision we made earlier, about Jason Rosser.â

âWhat about him?â Oliver asked irritably. âWeâve heard your arguments. Letâs move on.â

âYou canât execute him. He gave himself up. He tried to save the girl.â

âHe did not try to save Claire,â Amelie said. âHe left her to die. Granted, he did turn himself in to the police and told us about his accomplice in these murders, but we must be clear: he is far from innocent, and his history tells us he canât be trusted.â

âHeâs still a kid,â Richard said, âand you canât just arbitrarily decide to execute him. Not without a trial.â

âWith a majority vote, we can,â Oliver said. âTwo for, one against. I believe that is a majority. It wonât be a public event. Heâll just quietlyâdisappear.â

Eveâs mouth dropped open. She leaned forward, frantically searching the screen for a clue. âWhen was this? Michael? When did she record this?â

âI donât know,â he said. âI thought you should know. Your brotherâs been sentenced to death.â

âOliverâhe didnât evenâhe didnât say anything.â

âWell,â Myrnin said, âI donât suppose he felt it was necessary. I expect they were planning to arrange something quiet, perhaps an accident. Or suicide.â

Eve fell into the chair, and blindly reached out for Michael, who took her hand. âThey canât just kill him. Not like someârat in a cage. Oh God, Michael . . .â

âI told you Detective Hess was here. He left right after we found that. Heâs going straight to the jail to be sure Jasonâs okay. Heâll put him in protective custody, okay? Donât worry.â

She gave out a breathless, broken laugh.âDonât worry? How do I not worry after you show me things like this?â

âGood point,â Shane said. âMichael, Kim bugged the council meeting. How could she possibly do that?â

âShe couldnât,â Myrnin said. âThe human parts of town, yes, of course, but not the vampire parts. She has no excuse to be there, and sheâd be caught if sheâd gone anywhere near the official chambers. Or Amelieâs house.â He held up another black hard drive, which was clearly labeled in silver ink. âOr Oliverâs, for that matter.â

Claire caught her breath. âYour lab?â

âNo. Oddly enough, nothing. But the evidence she has here is damning enough, I would say.â

âBut nobody would believe it,â Eve said. âI mean, sure, she might get some off-brand cable station to air it, but everybody would think it was some kind of hoax.â

âDoesnât matter,â Claire said. âEven if nobody does, tourists will come flocking to town, and how long do you think things will hold together once that happens?â

âIâd give it a week,â Myrnin said. He sounded quiet, and not at all amused. âThis is our refuge, Claire. Our last safe place in this world. Donât be fooled; we might be willing to compromise, but we are territorial. Kim has violated the deepest covenant of Morganville. She canât survive this.â

âShe didnât do it alone; you said so yourself. It took a vampire to bug the council, let alone Amelieâs house.â

âAnd we will find them,â Myrnin said. âAnd we will destroy them. There are rules to Morganville, and Kim and this vampire have shattered them beyond all repair. Amelie must never know of this. Iâm afraid what she would do.â

That seemed a strange left turn. âWhy? Weâre going to catch them, right? Weâve got the video.â

âDo we?â Myrnin looked at the array of hard drives. âYou spoke of more than seventy cameras, but I see only sixty or so hard drives. Whatâs missing, Claire? You know Amelie. You know that her first concern is for her people. If she believes that weâve been compromised here, she will cut our losses.â

âLosses being humans,â Shane said.

âSheâd rather move us and destroy all evidence we were ever here. Itâs always been her final option. You have no idea how many times sheâs come close recently.â

Claire swallowed. âWe canât let her do that.â

âWe cannot stop her,â Myrnin said. âNot even I can do that. But what we can do is remove the evidence.â

He crushed the hard drive he was holding into junk and dropped it to the floor, then moved on to the next, and the next.

Michael helped Eve out of the chair, picked it up, and smashed it into the editing station. He ripped out the hard drive from the video editing system and smashed it against the wall.

Claire and Eve backed up against the wall, holding hands, as the two vampires systematically destroyed every bit of data storage in the place. It took a while, but they were thorough, and when the last piece of equipment was broken into random parts, Shane said, âI thought that would feel better, somehow.â

âWeâre not finished,â Myrnin said. âWe need to find every camera and destroy those, as well. And we must find Kim and force her to tell us who helped her. This is not negotiable. A vampire traitor is far too dangerous to live.â

Kim had kept recordsâa hard copy printout stuffed in a cabinet drawer next to the wrecked editing machine. It listed a total of seventy-four cameras, all over Morganville. âShe must have added a couple at the last minute. This is going to take hours,â Eve said. âWeâll have to split up, each take ten or so. Myrnin and Michael, youâve got the Vamptown cameras. Claire, Shane, here you go. Knock yourselves out.â

âWhat about Kim?â Claire asked, taking the page of locations. âWe still need to find her.â

âI will ask Ada to locate her,â Myrnin said.

âShe can do that?â Claire asked, and then blinked. âOf course she can. Will she do that?â

âPossibly. If sheâs in a good mood, which is never certain, as you know. But I assure you, Ada is no longer angry at you, so donât be worried about that.â Myrnin checked a gleaming gold pocket watch he kept in his vest pocket, some complicated dragon-shaped thing. âWe must meet back before sunrise. Where?â

âSomeplace deserted,â Claire said. âMuch as I hate it, how about Germanâs? I donât want anybody overhearing us.â

âParanoid much?â Eve asked. âYeah, me too. Iâm never taking my clothes off again, I swear.â

âGermanâs it is,â Myrnin said. âYou know the portal frequency. Be there before sunrise, and do try to avoid getting yourself killed, if at all possible.â

He led them out of the studio, out into the night. Michael took his car, heading off with his list of camera locations. At Germanâs, Myrnin stepped through the dark clown-mouth doorway and was gone on his own errands, leaving Shane, Eve, and Claire standing there in the dark, in a fragile circle of flashlight.

âSo?â Eve prodded. âFire it up, Teleport Girl. I want this over with.â

Claire checked the list. âRight. The first twenty are easyâall in common areas. Eve, Iâll send you and Shane to the alley behind Common Grounds. Iâll take the university.â

âHey,â Shane said. âWait a minute. I donât want you out there alone.â

âUniversity,â Claire reminded him. âProtected ground. Besides, Iâm the one with the bracelet.â She flashed the gold at him, and he didnât look happy, but he did look resigned. âAlso, weâve got no time to argue. Go.â

Shane looked back at her before he stepped through the portal, and Claire felt a momentâs sick fear that sheâd never see him again. Morganville was a dangerous place. Every good-bye could be the last.

Weâll get through this.

She focused on the portal, shifted frequencies, and started on her camera-destroying mission.

She hoped Myrnin was right about Ada.

Â 

Four hours later, it was approaching sunrise, Claire was bone-tired, and sheâd bagged all of the cameras on her list, including the one in the football teamâs shower room, which was an interesting experience. Kim had clearly been combining business with personal pleasure. She took the portal back to the alley behind Common Grounds, intending to pick up Shane and Eve, but they were nowhere in sight. She called Shaneâs cell, and heard it ringing, but it was distant and muffled.

She found him standing braced against the wall, holding Eveâs ankles as she stood on his shoulders to reach a camera set on top of the roof of a shed. âGot it!â Eve called, and nearly overbalanced. Shane staggered around, got his equilibrium again, and helped her down to the pavement. âWe should totally join the circus.â

âOne of us already looks like a clown.â

âHi guys,â Claire said, and they both jumped and turned her way. âSorry. Didnât mean to scare you.â

Shane hugged her. âHowâd you do?â

âTwenty cameras. There was one missing. I think somebody found it and swiped it from the University Center. You?â

âThat was the last one on the list,â he said. âGuess itâs time to see how Team Vampire did.â

Claire opened the portal to Germanâs Tire Plant, and stepped through, with Shane and Eve right behind her. The portal snapped shut as soon as they were inside, and Claire flipped on her flashlight.

âUm . . .â Eve turned on her light, as well. âOkay. Wrong number, Claire.â

âNo,â Claire said. âThat canât happen. I mean, itâs the right frequency. I donât know what happened, but we should be at Germanâs.â

âWell, weâre not,â Shane said, and shone his light around. They were in an underground tunnel. It was damp and dark and it smelled really foulâmuch worse than most of the vampire highway tunnels under Morganville. This one didnât look like it had been used for a road, either. âWrong turn.â

Eve said, in an entirely different voice, âReally wrong turn.â She pointed off down the tunnel, and Claire saw shapes moving in the darkness. Pale skin. Shining red eyes. âOh man. Dial us out, please.â

The only problem was that the portal system refused to pick up. They were locked out.

Claire looked at Shane and Eve and shook her head. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute, and she could see the light trembling from the force of her pulse beats. âWeâre stuck,â she said.

Shane dropped the bag he was carrying, unzipped it, and passed weapons to Eve, then took out a wicked-lethal crossbow with silver-tipped bolts. âSomebody up there doesnât like you, Claire.â

Claire primed the Super Soaker. âItâs Ada,â she said. âThis time, Iâm not letting Myrnin talk me out of it.â

The vampiresâwell, vampirelike things, sort of like Myrninâs experimental attempts to turn humans back in his crazy daysâhurled themselves out of the darkness with high-pitched, batlike squeals. Claire resisted the urge to scream, and let loose with the water gun. A blast caught three of them in midleap, and they shrieked even louder, hit the ground, rolled, and kept rolling. She could see the ghostly blue flare of flames around them as the silver ate into their exposed skinâwhich was most of it, because these things were more like tunnel rats than anything approaching human. Giant undead tunnel rats.

Only in Morganville . . .

Shane aimed and fired, taking one of them out just as it was preparing to leap, and reloaded with an ease that told Claire heâd been practicing. Eve had a handful of what looked like dartsâregulation darts, the kind you threw at a target in a bar. She was dead-on accurate with them, too, as soon as any tunnel rat came within ten feet of her.

By the time Claire was starting to worry about her water reservoir, and Shane was running low on crossbow bolts, the attacking forces were running. âLetâs go,â Eve said, tossing another dart that landed in the ass of a retreating vampire. âOoooh, trip twenty!â

âYouâre enjoying this way too much,â Shane said. âDarts? When did you come up with that?â

âI was playing with your electroplating thingy. After I did all my jewelry, I started in on pointy things.â Eve held out a dart for inspection. It hadâof courseâa skull on the fletching. âSweet, right?â

âCute. Time to run now.â

Claire slung the Super Soaker around her back and ran up the hill, chasing Shane, who was, as always, fasterâthe result of longer legs, not really dedicated practice. Shane only ran when someone chased him; he was more of a weights kind of guy.

The fact that the tunnel tilted uphill was a good signâit was basically an entrance ramp, which meant theyâd come up to ground level soon enough. Then Claire could figure out where they were, how to find a working portal, and get back to the business at handâfind Kim, beat Kim like a taiko drum to find out who her vampire coconspirator was, and then hit Adaâs RESET button.

Simple.

Except, of course, it wasnât.

Shane slowed, and Claire almost crashed into him. He dashed over to the side of the tunnel, hugging the wall, and Claire and Eve piled in next to him. âWhat?â Eve asked around breathless pants. She wasnât much for running, either.

âSomeoneâs coming,â Shane said. âShhhh.â

Eve choked and strangled on a cough, and muttered, âGot to cut down on the cigarettes.â

âYou donât smoke,â Claire whispered.

âThen Iâm completely screwed.â

Shane whirled toward them and put hands over both their mouths. His face looked fierce. They nodded.

It was dark where they were, but not dark enough. A shape appeared ahead of them, coming down the tunnel . . . then another. Then more. Sixâno, ten. Claire lost all will to snark, and she was pretty sure, from Eveâs wide-eyed look, that she felt the same. Theyâd done pretty well against the tunnel rats, but these were real vampires.

Hunters.

Morley stopped about twenty feet away, still facing straight ahead, and held up a hand to stop the group of vampires following him. Claire recognized some of them from earlier. Some of them were still healing from the burns left by her water gun.

âLook whoâs come to visit,â he said, and turned his head in their direction at the side of the tunnel. âClaire and her friends. I wonder if they want to stay for dinner.â

Shane snapped the crossbow up and took aim on Morley. âDonât even think about it.â

Morley stuck his hands in the pockets of his dirty raincoat. âI tremble in fear, boy. Obviously, in all my long life, no one has ever threatened me with a weapon before.â His tone changed, took on edges. âPut it down if you want to live.â

âDonât,â Eve whispered.

Morley smiled. âThe boyâs got two arrows left,â he said. âYou have a handful of darts. Little Claireâs water weapon is almost empty. And by the way, I am aware of your strategic position. I hate to repeat myself, but I will: put down your weapons if you want to live.â

âNo choice,â Shane said, and swallowed hard. He crouched down and put the crossbow on the concrete, then rose with his hands up.

I could get in one good spray, Claire thought, but she knew it was a terrible idea. She lifted the strap of the toy gun over her head and let it fall. It sounded empty.

âShit,â Eve said, and threw down her darts. âAll right. What now? You get all Nosferatu on our asses? If you make me a vampire, Iâll make you eat those fangs.â

Morley eyed her with a bit of a frown. âI believe you might,â he said. âBut Iâm not interested in converts. Iâm much more interested in allies.â

âAllies,â Claire repeated. âYouâve tried to kill us a whole bunch.â

âThat wasnât about you,â he said. âThe first time, you were simply with Amelie. The next, well, I was doing a favor for someone else. Another ally, as it happens.â

âWhat do you want?â

âWe want freedom,â Morley said. âWe want to live as God meant us to do. Is that such a terrible thing?â

There were a few vampires in his group that Claire recognized with a nasty jolt of surprise. âJacob,â she said. âJacob Goldman? Patience?â Two of Theo Goldmanâs familyâand Theo was the last vampire sheâd expect to be in the middle of this. His kids, though . . . she really didnât know them very well.

Jacob looked away. Patience, on the other hand, stared right back, and lifted her chin as if daring Claire to say anything else. From her last encounter with the Goldmans, Claire had been aware the younger generation was starting to hate the whole philosophy of their parents; it made sense that theyâd found someone here in Morganville more like-minded.

âAmelie and Oliver are trying to make us into something we never were,â Patience said. âTame tigers. Performing bears. Toothless lions. But we canât be those things. Vampires are not caretakers of humanity. Iâm sorry, but it will never be true, however much we wish it could be.â

âYouâre not making much headway on this Letâs be friends argument,â Eve said. âIâm just saying.â

Morley let out an impatient sigh, and looked back at the other vampires. âSurely you want us out of your town,â he said. âAs much as weâd like to go. But Amelie wonât allow us to leave. We have only two choices: destroy Morganville, or destroy her. Destroying Morganville seems easier, in many ways.â

The light dawned. âYou were working with Kim. She suggested the cameras, didnât she?â

âIt seemed a way to achieve what she wanted, and what we wanted,â he agreed. âThe end of Morganville. The beginning of her career. Granted, spying is an unseemly way to go about it, but itâs probably less objectionable than murder.â

âUntil the cameraâs on you,â Eve shot back.

âA valid point.â Morley bowed slightly in her direction.

âYouâre the one who put the cameras in Vamptown for her.â

âMe?â His thick eyebrows climbed into his tangled hair. âNo. Iâm hardly welcome there, you know. Nor are any of my people. I know nothing about how she managed that.â

âThen let us go find out who did.â

âYou know, I donât have to bargain with you. I could just distribute you among my followers as a treat if youâd prefer that.â

âNo,â Jacob Goldman said. He and Patience exchanged a look that was more like a silent argument, and then he stepped forward. âNot her. Morley, if you hurt her, we walk away.â

âPatience?â

She sighed and shook her head. âThe girl helped, before,â she said. âTheo wouldnât want us to hurt her.â

âThe girl left you in a cell to die at Bishopâs hands!â

âThat was my fatherâs mistake, not hers,â Jacob said. âI will do many things to get our freedom. I wonât do this.â

The tension was ramping up fast. Claire swallowed. âThen letâs make a deal,â Claire said. âWe want Kim, and whatever video she turned over to you.â

Morley frowned at her. âIn exchange for . . . ?â

âIâll ask Amelie to let you all leave.â

âAsking is an easy task; thereâs no commitment required. Doing is accomplishment. So you will get Amelie to let us leave. Here is my incentive: if you donât manage to secure her permission, your two friends here sign lifetime contracts to me.â Morley turned to Jacob and Patience, who nodded. âYou see? Even they agree with that.â

âOh hell no,â Eve said.

âAnd you are in a position to bargain . . . how?â Shane held out a hand toward Eve, trying to restrain her a little. âNo lifetime contracts,â he said. âOne pint a month, blood bank only. Ten percent of our income.â

âHmmmmmm.â Morley dragged the sound out, still staring through half-lidded eyes. âTempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now.â

âYou wonât,â Shane said. That made Morleyâs eyes open wide.

âWhy not? Jacob and Patience were quite specificâtheyâre concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy.â

âBecause if you kill me and Eve, youâll make her your enemy. This girl wonât stop until she sees you all pay.â

Claire had no idea whom he was talking aboutâshe didnât feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.

Then she understood. âIâd hunt you down,â she said quietly. âIâd use every resource I have to do it. And you know Iâd win.â

Morley seemed impressed. âShe is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test. Very well. Limited contract, one year, one pint per month at the blood bank, ten percent of your income payable to me, in cash. I will not hunt, bite, or trade your contracts. But I insist on standard punishment clauses.â

âHey,â Eve said. âDonât I get a vote?â

âAbsolutely,â Morley assured her. âYour thoughts?â

âIâd rather die,â she said flatly. Shane turned toward her, and from the look on his face, that was not at all what heâd expected her to say. âDonât look at me like that. I told you, Iâll never sign a contract. Never. If Mor lock here wants to kill me, well, I canât stop him. But I donât have to die by inches, either, and thatâs what this town does to us, Shane; it takes little pieces of us away until thereâs nothing left and I wonât sign!â Eveâs eyes flooded with tears, but she wasnât scared; she was angry. âSo bite me, vampire. Get it over with. But itâs a one-time thrill.â

Morley shrugged. âAnd you, boy?â

Shane pulled in a deep breath. âNo deals if Eve doesnât buy in.â

Claireâs mouth tasted like ashes, and she was trying frantically to think of something, anything to do. She tried to build a portal behind them, but the system bounced her back, wouldnât let her so much as begin the process.

Ada.

She took Shaneâs hand in hers. âYouâll have to kill me, too,â she said. âAnd you canât. Not without consequences.â

Morley looked positively unhappy now. âThis is getting far too complicated. Fine, then we do it this way. I give you the video youâre looking for, and if you donât manage to secure Amelieâs permission within, letâs say, a month, your friendsâ lives are forfeit. Yes?â When she hesitated, he bared his stained teeth. âItâs not a question, really. And my patience is wearing thin. In fact, itâs positively threadbare.â

âYes,â Claire said.

He spit on his palm and held it out. They all just looked at him. âWell?â he demanded.

âIâm not shaking that,â Shane said. âYou just spit on it.â

âItâs the way deals are sealedââ Morley made a sound of frustration and wiped his palm against his filthy clothes. âPerhaps not anymore. Better?â

âNot really,â Shane said.

Claire stepped forward and shook Morleyâs hand. Sheâd done worse.

He turned, dirty raincoat flapping, and the other vampires fell in behind him. Jacob Goldman held back, staring at Claire. He looked unhappy and tormented.

âI wouldnât have let him do it,â he said. âNot to any of you. But you understand why I have to do this? For myself, and Patience?â

âI understand,â Claire said. She didnât, really, but it seemed to make him feel better.

Claire, Eve, and Shane picked up their weapons and followed them into the dark.

Â 

Morleyâs hideout was a series of what looked like limestone caves, hollowed out into actual rooms, with doors and windowsâa city, underground. Not fancy, but it was definitely livable, if you were sunlight averse. There were more vamps here, living rough, hiding out. Claire figured a lot of those whoâd decided not to take sides during the Amelie and Bishop fight had fled down here, taken up with Morleyâs crew.

âI guess this means you arenât really homeless,â she said. Morley looked back at her as he opened up the ancient, cracked door of one of the rooms. âIâd still look into running water.â Because the place stank, bad. So did the vampires.

âWe grew up in ages when running water meant streams and rivers,â he said. âWeâve never been overly comfortable with modern luxuries.â

âLike baths?â

âOh, we had baths in the old days. We called them stews, and they caused diseases.â He shoved open the door and lit a row of candles set into a kind of shelf along the side of the room, which gave off just enough light to make Claire feel she could turn her own portable lamp off. âWhat youâre looking for is here, in the box.â

The box was a rickety-looking crate with rope handles. Inside were more hard drivesâthe ones that had been missing from the radio stationâand some DVDs. One was labeled, in black Sharpie, MICHAEL & EVE. Claire choked a little at the sight of it. She frantically combed through the others, but there was nothing marked SHANE & CLAIRE.

âDonât worry,â Shane said. âThe lighting was terrible on ours, anyway.â

âNot funny.â

âI know.â He put his arm around her. âI know. Speaking of not funny, whereâs Kim? Iâd like to tell her just how much I appreciate all she did to make us stars.â

Morley nodded. âFollow me.â

Three doors down was a much smaller caveâmore like a cellâand Morley combed through an ancient ring of ancient keys until he found one to fit the huge rusty lock. âI keep her here for her own safety,â he said. âYouâll see.â

He opened the door, and Kim cowered back from the wash of the flashlightsâbut not Kim. The face was the same, but all the Goth had been scrubbed off except the dyed hair. She was dirty, dressed in filthy clothes, and there was zero bad attitude left.

Claire had been prepared to let loose a flood of anger, but this was just . . . pathetic. âKim?â No response. âKim! What did you do to her?â

âNothing. She doesnât respond to her name,â Morley said. âIt seems sheâs lost her mind.â

âBullshit,â Eve snapped. âSheâs an actress.â

âIâve seen rehearsals,â Morley responded. âSheâs not that good.â

Eve shoved past him to crouch down next to Kim, who covered her face and tried to curl into a ball. âHey!â Eve said, and shook her, hard. âKim, snap out of it! Itâs Eve! Look at me!â

Kim screamed, and Claire caught her breath at the sound of it; there was real terror in it, and pain, and horror. Eve let her hand fall away, and she leaned back against the nearest wall, frowning.

âWhat happened to her?â Shane asked. Morley shrugged.

âSomething bad,â he said. âSomething permanent, as far as I can tell. She crossed someone who didnât take well to her initiative.â

âYou said you keep her locked up for protection.â

He flashed Claire a dark smile. âConsider it locking up the wine cellar. The girlâs still a good vintage, if not a brilliant conversationalist.â

Ugh. âI need her,â Claire said. âI need to take her with me.â

Morleyâs vampire followers didnât seem especially happy about her act of kindness. âSheâs got no family,â Patience said. âNo one is going to miss her. No one was even looking for her.â

âWe were.â

âTo punish her! We will do that for you.â

Even Shane looked a little sick at that. âWeâll do our own punishing, thanks,â he said. âHumans, I mean. Not me, personally.â

Morleyâs eyes narrowed, but he shrugged as if he didnât really care. âTake her,â he said. âTake the black boxes she thought were so important. Take it all, and remember your promise, Claire: you have one month to secure Amelieâs permission for us to leave Morganville. If you donât get it, Iâll be paying your friends a visit.â

Kim was too scared to fight, but Shane took some strips of cloth and wrapped her wrists and ankles tight before slinging her over his shoulder. Eve took the box with the hard drives and DVDs.

Morley and his vampires stood in their way.

âOne month,â he said. âRemember what I said.â

Then they parted ranks, and the three of them, carrying Kim, walked uphill toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ada was standing right at the very edge of the darkness, hands clasped before her, eyes like burned paper holes.

âI see you found her,â Ada said. âGood. I want her.â

âWhy? Why did you bring us here?â

âMorley was supposed to kill you. I suppose one must do everything oneâs self these days.â

Claire felt a sick wave of understanding flood over her. âYou,â she said. âYou would have known all about the cameras. You probably found out the first time Kim placed one.â

Ada smiled.

âYou let her do it.â

âOh no,â Ada said. âI helped her do it. The girl told me she would use the video sheâd collected to rid me of Amelie and Oliver, and I gave her access. I helped her place her cameras. But she was a liar. A cheat. A thief.â Adaâs image contorted, taking on a monsterâs shape for a flicker, then smoothed back to her Victorian disguise. âShe was going to cheat me out of my revenge and destroy Morganville altogether. I wonât have that. Unlike Morley and his rabble, I canât simply leave. I am Morganville. I must survive.â

âYouâre not Morganville,â Claire said. Kim, draped over Shaneâs shoulder, had caught sight of Ada, and she was thrashing wildly, screaming. It was all Shane could do to hold on to her. âYouâre just a science project. One that doesnât work right.â

âI am the force that holds this lie of a town together,â Ada said, and glided closer, so close Claire could feel the cold chill generated by her image projection. âAs far as Morganville is concerned, I am its goddess.â

âWord of advice,â Eve said. âItâs time for a change of religion.â

Adaâs image became distorted again, and she stretched out a hand. Claire controlled the natural impulse to flinch. Sheâs not real. Sheâs just a ghostâ

Adaâs fingers touched her face. Not quite real, but almost.

Claire jumped back. âOutside!â she yelled. âGet outside!â

Ada smiled. âIâll see you soon.â

Â 

They made it outside, into the faint hint of sunrise, without anyone jumping them again.

Claire flagged down a passing police cruiser and got them to take Kim, who shrieked and fought so hard they had to use a taser on her. Eve winced, and so did Shane.

Claire didnât. She felt bad about it, but she just couldnât bring herself to really feel sorry for Kim. Karma, she thought. Theyâd end up putting her in a padded cell, and eventually maybe Kim would recover enough to function as a normal person. Maybe even a better one. Claire didnât even resent that, so long as she never, ever had to talk to her again.

Ever.

By ten a.m. they were back at the Glass House, and Michael was waiting. âWhere were you?â he demanded as soon as they opened the door. Claire said nothing; he was focused on Eve, anyway. âIâve been calling; it went straight to voice mail.â

âI turned it off,â Eve said. âWe were kind of being stealthy.â

âSince when do you turn off a phone?â Michael put his arms around her, and Eve relaxed against him, and for just a moment, it looked like everything was the same again.

Then Eve pulled free and walked away down the hall, head down.

Michael looked awful. âWhat do I have to doâ?â

Shane slapped his shoulder as he passed. âGive her space,â he said. âItâs been a hard couple of days. Whereâs Myrnin?â

âHe never showed at the rendezvous,â Michael said. âI wasnât really worried about him. More about you.â

âYeah, about thatâwe kind of had to make a deal with Morley. You know, Graveyard Guy?â

âWhat kind of deal?â

âThe kind where we donât want to pay up,â Shane said. âAsk Claire.â

She shook her head, walking on. âAsk Shane,â she said. âIâm not done yet.â

âWhat?â Shane grabbed her wrist, pulling her to a stop. His face was tense and pale. âYou canât be serious. Not done with what? Weâve got the videos, the cameras, Kim. What else?â

âMyrnin,â she said. âHe didnât show up at the rendezvous.â

âAnd? Dudeâs crazy, in case you didnât notice recently. He probably went off to chase butterflies or somethingâ

âHeâd have been there. Something happened to him.â Claire knew already, knew it all the way down to her bones. âAda did something. She sent us to Morley, thinking heâd kill us. Sheâd go after Myrnin, too. I have to find him.â

âNot by yourself.â

âNo,â Michael agreed.

âDitto,â Eve said, and picked up a fresh weapons bag from the closet to sling over her shoulder. âDefinitely not by yourself.â

Claire looked at each of them in turn, saving Shane for last. âYouâre sure. Because itâs going to be dangerous.â

âYouâre going after Ada, right?â Eve put stakes in her pockets, then tossed a crossbow to Shane, who caught it in midair. âYouâre going to need backup. Especially if sheâs got Myrnin. Besides, if we just sit here and wait, she can get us anytime she wants.â

âWe should take the car,â Claire said, heading toward the closet to get her own weapons stash. âItâs not safe now going through the portals anymore. . . .â

A black hole formed in the wall next to her, and Claire felt the storm of force rip through the house. The portal wavered as the house itself fought back, trying to heal the rift, but whatever was tearing the entrance held firm. Ada.

Claire didnât have time to run.

Adaâs blue-white hands came out of the darkness, grabbed Claire by the shirt, and dragged her into the portal.

It snapped shut on the shocked, angry faces of her friends.

She heard Shane scream her name.

Â 

So, Ada really could touch things. Claire kind of wished sheâd taken that idea more seriously.

Claire woke up lying on cold, damp stone, feeling damp little feet skittering over her armârats, probably. She hoped it wasnât roaches. Sheâd just die if it was roaches.

She was in the darkâutter, velvety darkness that pressed in on her like smothering cloth. When she moved, she heard the scrape of her shoes echo off into the distance.

Cave. Probably not Adaâs cave, because Claire couldnât hear the distinctive hissing and clanking that came from Adaâs gears and pipes. It doesnât have to be her cave, Claire reminded herself. Ada could open any portal, anywhere within Morganvilleâor under it. From the ragged, crude way sheâd done it at the Glass House, though, she might not be able to keep up that sort of thing for long.

She was unraveling in control, even while she was getting stronger in raw power.

âAda,â a voice said in the distanceâweak and faint. âAda, you must let me go. I order you to let me go.â

âNo.â Adaâs voice came from nowhere, and everywhere ; not out of Claireâs speakerphone this time. Claire slapped at her pockets, but she had nothingâno weapons, no phone; Ada had taken everything. âYouâre going nowhere. Iâve waited all these years, you know. So many years for you to love me.â

âAda, please.â Myrnin sounded very weak; Claire could hardly believe it was really him. âI do love you. I always have. Please stop this. You donât know what youâre doing. Youâre not well. Let me helpââ

He broke off with a strangled gasp. Sheâd hurt him, and it took a lot to hurt Myrnin.

Claire slowly climbed to her feet, put her hands on the nearest stone wall, and began to feel her way through the darkness.

âGoing somewhere?â Adaâs voice asked from right behind her, as if the computer was leaning over her shoulder. Claire yelped and flailed out a hand, but there was nothing there. âI brought you here so that I can get rid of you once and for all, and you can help me make Myrnin better at the same time. Isnât that clever of me?â

Her voice was breaking up into strange harmonics, not really a voice at allâmere noise. âHow are you talking?â Claire asked. âYouâre not using my phone.â

âDoes it matter?â

âNo,â Claire said. She sounded a lot less scared than she actually was, which she supposed was a good thing. âIâm just curious.â

âYouâd be curious at your own autopsy,â Ada said, and broke into distorted laughter that reeled wildly out of control. âIâd like to see that.â

âWhereâs Myrnin?â

âDonât you dare try to take him away from me!â Ada shrieked. The echoes filled the cave, bounced, magnified until Claire had to clap her hands over her ears. She could feel the sound waves on her skin, like speakers booming at a rave. âHe is mine; heâs always been mine; I will never give him up, never!â

âIâm not trying to take him away!â Claire shouted. âI just want to be sure heâs all right!â

The sound cut off, just like that. Even the echoes. Claire slowly lowered her hands and touched the wall again; she was afraid to try to move without keeping it under her fingers, because there was no possibility of seeing a thing. Not with human eyes.

âClaire?â Myrninâs voice again, coming from ahead of her and to the right. He sounded weak, and concerned. âYou have to get out of here. Please go away.â

âKind of not an option,â she said. âUnless Ada wants to open me a portal . . . ?â

Ada laughed softly.

âGuess not.â Claire took a couple of more steps forward, but it took her off the angle toward Myrninâs voice. âMyrnin, I canât see. Iâm going to try to get to you, but you have to keep talking, okay?â

âDonât,â he said. âDonât try to reach me. Claire, Iâm asking you, please stay where you are. Get out if you can. Do not come near me.â

She was ignoring that, mostly because the idea of staying alone in this darkness, listening to Ada do bad things to him, was worse than anything he could do to her himself. âKeep talking,â she said. She heard him take in a deep breath, then let it out. He didnât say a word. She guessed he thought that if he didnât encourage her, maybe sheâd give up.

He should have known better.

âStop!â Myrninâs voice suddenly rang out of the black, urgent and sharp, and Claire paused with her right foot still raised. âBack up. Slowly. Two steps. Do it, Claire!â

She did, putting one foot carefully behind the other, and stopped. âWhat is it?â

âThe floor isnât stable. If you try to cross that way, itâll break through under your weight. You must stay where you are!â

âSo concerned for the new girl,â Adaâs voice said, vibrating out of the cave walls. âNever so concerned for me, were you? Even though you always knew how much I loved you. How much I wanted to be with you. I let you drink my blood, Myrnin. I let you take everything. And then you did this to me.â

âOh, stop whining,â Myrnin snapped. âYou were grateful enough to become a vampire, and it had nothing to do with your being a lovesick schoolgirl. You wanted a thousand lifetimes to explore the world, to discover, to learn. I gave you that, Ada.â

âYou were supposed to take care of me.â

âAccording to whom?â

âAccording to me!â The echoes built again, bouncing wildly, and Claire crouched down in place, hands firmly over her ears again. This time, the echoes died gradually. Once it was quiet, Claire rose to her feet and started moving carefully forward at an angle to her original course, testing the floor before putting her full weight on the stone.

It felt solid.

âClaire, please stop,â Myrnin said raggedly. âYou canât see. You donât know how dangerous this is.â

âDescribe it to me. Help me! If you donât, Iâll just keep walking.â

âThatâs exactly what she wants. She wants you to try to reach meââ Myrnin broke off with a small cry of pain.

âMyrnin?â Claire forgot all about being careful, and took a step forward. Too fast. She felt the stone snap and crumble and fall away, dark on dark, and she teetered off balance over the edge of a hole that led to the center of the world, apparently. She didnât even hear the falling rocks hit bottom.

Claire slowly shifted her weight to her back foot and stepped back to solid stone again. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and she couldnât seem to slow down her panicked breathing.

âMyrnin, you have to help me,â she said. âTell me which way to go. We can do this.â

âEven if you reach me, itâs no help to either of us,â he said. âShe has me. Thereâs no point in your dying, as well.â

âJust tell me how to get there.â

After a few silent seconds, Myrnin said, âTwo steps to your right, then one forward.â As she accomplished that, he said, âClaire, sheâs right. I did take advantage of her. She did love me. I used that to get what I wanted from her.â

âYou mean, like a guy?â Claire counted steps carefully, then stopped. âNext.â

âOne step forward, then one diagonally to your left. What I did was considerably worse than you think. I made her a vampire so I could have a reliable assistant, one who loved me and would never betray me. I made her a slave.â

âNext. And one thing I can tell you about Ada, she was never a slave, not to you or anybody else. And you really did love her, or you wouldnât have kept her locket all these years.â

âAnother step straight to your left, then six forward. And donât be daft. I keep gum wrappers. It doesnât mean I love the gum that was once in them.â

She counted. He didnât say anything else. Once she got to the end of the directions, she said, âNext. Iâm not wrong about Ada. You did love her.â

âStraight ahead, one step.â

âYouâre not going to tell me Iâm wrong?â

âWhatâs the point? Three steps to your right.â

âThe point is to keep us talking so Iâm not so terrified out of my mind,â she said. âWhat are we going to do about her?â

âNothing. Thereâs nothing we can do.â

âIâm there. Next? Also, thereâs got to be something. What aboutââ She was about to say the reset code, and he must have known it, because he let out a sharp hiss for silence. She swallowed the words.

âFocus,â Myrnin said. âForward three small steps. Be careful not to overshoot.â

She found out why when she took the steps; her toes overhung what felt like another sinkhole.

Myrninâs voice was close now, very close. âNext,â she said.

âThis is the difficult part,â he said. âYouâre going to have to jump.â

âJump?â She wasnât sure he was thinking straight. âI canât jump. I canât see!â

âYou wanted to get to me, and this is what it takes. If you want to stay where you areââ

âNo. Tell me.â

âTwo steps to your left, and jump straight forward, hard. Iâll catch you.â

âMyrninââ

âIâll catch you,â he whispered into the dark. âJump.â

She took two running steps and before she could let herself think about what she was doing, dug in her toes and leaped forward.

She crashed into Myrninâs solid body, his cold arms wrapped around her, and for a few breaths he held her close as she shivered. He smelled like metal. Like cold things.

He didnât let go.

âMyrnin?â

âIâm sorry,â he said.

And then he bit her.

13

When Claire came awake again, there were lights in the caveâdiffuse and dim, but enough to make things out. Like Myrnin, sitting huddled against the cave wall. She must have made some noise, because his head came up, and he looked straight at her.

She didnât think sheâd ever seen anybody look so miserable in her life, and for a moment she couldnât think why he would look that way, and then it all came crashing back.

The throbbing in her neck.

The hollow, disconnected feeling inside her.

The panicked thudding of her heart trying to speed too little blood through the racetrack of her veins. Yeah, she recognized that feeling all too well.

âYou bit me,â she said. It came out surprised, and a little sad. She started to sit up, but that didnât go so well; she sank back to the cold stone floor, feeling sick and vague, as if she were fading out of the world.

âDonât move,â he said softly. âYour pressure is very low. I triedâI tried to stop, Claire. I did try. Please give me the credit.â

âYou bit me,â she said again. It still sounded surprised, although she really wasnât anymore. You canât trust him. Shane had said that. And Michael. And Eve. Even Amelie.

You canât trust me.

Myrnin had told her that, too, from the very first. Sheâd just never really, really believed it. Myrnin was like a thrill ride, one of those dark carnival tracks where scary things swooped in close but never quite touched you.

Now she knew better.

âI told you Iâd kill you if you did that. I promised.â

âI am so sorry,â Myrnin said, and lowered his head.

âLie still. It wonât be so bad if you keep yourself flat.â He sounded tired and defeated. Claire blinked back gray fog, fighting her way back into the world, and almost wished she hadnât when he shifted a little, and she sawâreally sawâwhat had happened to him.

There was a silver bar through his left arm, driven in between the two bones. On either side of it hung silver chains that rattled on the stone and were fixed to a silver-plated bolt. The wound continued to drip red down his arm and hand, to patter into a large puddle around him.

Claire had a flash of Amelie at Samâs grave, silver driven into the wounds to keep them from closing. But Amelie had chosen to do that. This had been done to keep Myrnin here, pinned and helpless.

He shuddered, and the chains rattled. Even as old as he was, the silver must have been horribly painful to him; she could see tendrils of smoke coming from his arm, and he was careful to keep his hand away from the chains. His skin was covered with thick red burns.

âIâm sorry,â he said again. âI tried to warn you, but I couldnâtâI neededââ

âI know,â Claire said. âItâsââ What was it? Not okay, okay would be a real stretch. Understandable, maybe. âItâs not so bad.â It was, though. Still, Myrnin looked a little relieved. âWho did this to you?â

The relief faded from his face, replaced with a blank, black rage. âWho do you think?â he asked.

And from all around them, from the faint shimmer of crystal embedded in the walls, came a soft, smoky laugh.

âShe touched me,â Claire said, remembering. âShe dragged me here. I didnât think she could do that.â

âNo,â Myrnin agreed. âI didnât think she could do a great many things, although she was capable of them on a purely theoretical level. Iâve been a fool, Claire. You tried to warn meâeven Amelie warned me, but I thoughtâI thought I understood what Iâd created. I thought she was my servant.â

âAnd now,â Ada said, gliding out of the wall in cold silver and black, âyou belong to me. But am I not a generous master? You starved me for so long, barely giving me enough blood to survive. Now I give you a feast.â Her cutout image turned toward Claire, and she folded her hands together at her waist, prim and perfect. âOh, Myrnin. You didnât finish your dinner. Donât let it go bad.â

Myrnin stripped his black velvet coat off his right arm, then shrugged it down his left until it was covering the chain. He took hold of it, right-handed, and pulled. Claire tried to get up to help, but her head went weird again, and she had to rest. She rolled on her side and watched Myrninâs right arm tremble as he tried to exert enough pressure to snap the chain, and then he sat back against the wall, panting.

He stared at Ada as if he wanted to rip her into confetti.

âDonât pout,â she said. âIf youâre good, Iâll let you off the chain from time to time. In a few years, perhapsâ

Claire blinked slowly. âSheâs sick,â she said. âIsnât she?â

âSheâs insane,â Myrnin said. âAda, my darling, this would be amusing if you werenât trying to kill us. You do realize that if I die, you waste away down here. No more blood. No more treats. No more anything.â

In answer, Adaâs image reached out and grabbed Claire by the hair, dragging her up to a sitting position. âOh, I think I can hunt up my own blood,â Ada said. âAfter all, I control the portals. I can reach out and snatch up anyone I wish. But youâre right. It would be terribly boring, all alone in the dark. Iâll have to keep you all to myself, the way you kept me all to yourself, all these years.â She dropped Claire and wiped her hand on her computer-generated gown. âBut I canât share you with her, my love.â

Myrninâs eyes flared red, then smoothed back to black, full of secrets. âNo indeed,â he said. âWhy, sheâs in the way. I see that now. Send her out of here, lock her out of the portals. I never want to see her again.â

âEasily done,â Ada said, and grabbed Claireâs hair again. She dragged her backward, and Claire flailed weakly, grabbing at loose stones and breaking nails on sharp edges of rock.

She looked over her shoulder in the direction they were going.

Ada was dragging her to the edge of the sinkhole.

âNo!â Myrnin said, and got to his feet. He lunged to the end of his chain, reaching out; his clawing fingers fell short of Claireâs foot by about two inches. âNo, Ada, donât! I need her!â

âThatâs too bad,â Ada said. âBecause I donât.â

Claireâs hand fell on a sharp, ancient boneâa rib?âand she stabbed blindly behind her head. A second later it occurred to her that she was trying to stab an image, a hologram, an empty spaceâbut Ada let out a yell and the pressure on Claireâs hair eased.

Adaâs pressed both hands over her midsection, which slowly spread into a black stain.

She was bleeding.

Where the blood hit the stone, it vanished in a curl of smoke.

But the wound didnât heal.

âYes!â Myrnin cried out. âYes, by manifesting enough to touch you, she makes herself vulnerableâClaire! Here! Come here!â Myrnin cried, and Claire crawled back in his direction. The second she was within reach, he dragged her toward him, putting her against the wall.

Ada was still standing where sheâd been, looking down at her and the spreading dark stain on her dress. Her image guttered, flared, sparked, and then stabilized again.

She flashed toward them, screaming that awful, echoing shriek from all the walls. Myrnin pivoted gracefully and hooked the slack of his chain around her silver, two-dimensional throat. Where it touched her, it burned black holes, and her scream grew louder, until it was cracking stone in the walls. She tried to pull free, but the silver wouldnât let her go. âIâve got her!â he said, although Claire could see that his whole body was trembling from the strain, and the burn of silver on his hands must have been horrible. âGo, Claire! Get out of here! You have to go!â

She was too weak, too dizzy. The room was a minefield of sinkholes and false floors, and even if sheâd known where to step, chances were sheâd simply collapse halfway across and disappear into one of those deep, dark chasms . . . .

And she couldnât just leave him.

âClaire!â His voice was desperate. âYou have to go. Go now.â

Now that the lights were on, she could see a clear trail that looked solid, leading all around the roomâs edge. Claire stumbled out onto it, guiding herself with both hands on the stone wall, and took one torturous step after another. The lights flickered, and the screaming suddenly cut off behind her.

Claire didnât dare look back. She was at the door, a black unknown facing her.

Portal.

She couldnât think. Couldnât get her head together. Couldnât remember all the frequencies to align to take her where she needed to go.

Behind her, she heard Ada laugh.

You have to do this. You can do this!

Claireâs eyes snapped open, and without thinking about it, without even meaning to do it, she threw herself forward into the darkness.

And fell out on the other side, into the tunnel beneath Myrninâs lab. Overhead, the trapdoor was open, letting in streams of pale lamplight. Claire staggered into a wall, bounced, and ran away from the light, into the damp chill of the tunnel.

Twelve long steps, and she heard the cavern echoing overhead. She slapped the wall until she found the lights, flipped them on, and ran toward the keyboard at the center of Adaâs hissing, steaming, clanking metal form.

A cable slithered across the stone, trying to trip her, but she stumbled on, caught herself against the giant keyboard, and took a second to gasp for breath. Her body was shaking all over, cold as a vampireâs, and she just wanted to fall down, fall and sleep in the dark.

Claire closed her eyes, and the symbols began to burn against her eyelids. The symbols sheâd memorized every day since Myrnin had given her the sketch on paper of the order. She knew this.

She had this.

She opened her eyes . . . and gasped in utter anguish, because the keys were all blank.

Somewhere in the darkness, Adaâs tinny voice scratched out a contemptuous laugh. âSurprised, little wretch? Whatâs wrong, not as easy as youâd thought?â

Youâve got this. Claire chanted that to herself, and closed her eyes again. This time, she didnât just imagine the symbols she wanted to push, but with a huge effort, she imagined the keyboard as it had been the last time sheâd seen it. She fixed the image in her mind, opened her eyes, and touched the first key.

Yes. Yes, that was right.

The force required to push the key down seemed enormous, like trying to squeeze a boulder. She got the first symbol pressed, then pushed her palm down on the second and leaned her whole weight against it. It slowly, reluctantly clicked and locked.

Adaâs laughter died away.

The third symbol was Amelieâs Founderâs Symbol, the same as on Claireâs gold bracelet, and Claire clearly remembered its position right in the center of the keyboard. She put her palm on it and pushed until it locked down. As she reached for the fourth key, she lost her balance and almost fell.

Behind her, Adaâs voice came out of the scratchy, ancient speakers. âStop. Youâre going to make a mistake.â

âI wonât,â Claire gasped, and pushed the fourth key down. Two more to go.

She couldnât remember the fifth symbol. She knew it was there, but somehow, her mind wouldnât focus. Everything seemed blurry and odd. She closed her eyes again and concentrated, concentrated very hard, until she remembered that it had been hidden down on the bottom-left side.

When she opened her eyes, Ada was right there, inches from her face. Claire shrieked and jumped back, slamming her fist forward.

It went right through Adaâs form. She wasnât able to stay physical anymore. Myrnin had really hurt her. She hadnât fixed the damage to her image, eitherâthere were black wounds on her throat and hands, and a black stain covering most of her dress.

Her eyes were glowing silver.

âStop,â Ada said.

âNo,â Claire panted, closed her eyes, and stepped through her image. She found the key she was looking for, and pushed it.

One more.

âAll right,â Ada said. âThen Iâll stop you.â

Claire felt cold against her skin, and heard the hiss and clank of the computer grow loud, almost like chatter.

The lights went out, but the noise got louderâand louder.

Adaâs cold fingers brushed the back of her neck.

Claire turned toward the darkness behind her. âSo thatâs it?â she yelled. âThatâs all youâve got? Turn off the lights? Scary! Iâm totally shaking, you freak! What do you think I am, five and scared of the dark?â

âI think youâre defeated,â Ada said. âAnd I think I will kill you, when and how I wish.â Ada had made herself physical again, but it wouldnât last. It couldnât. She was still bleeding from where Claire had hurt her, and now her neck and face were scarred and burned from the chain. Her head was at a strange angle, but she was still alive. She glowed a very faint, phosphorous kind of silver.

âYouâll never find the key in the dark,â Ada almost purred. âYouâre defeated. And now you die.â

âYou first,â Claire said.

Claire reached behind her from blind instinct and memory, and slammed her palm down on a key. It almost went down, but then it popped up again.

Wrong.

Adaâs ice-cold handsânot really hands anymoreâclosed around her neck. âStupid girl,â she said. âSo close.â

Adaâs fingers squeezed, locking the breath in her throat, and Claire wildly hammered her palm down on the next key to the right.

It locked down with an almost physical snap.

As Claireâs fingers slipped off the key, it clicked into place, and the clattering of the machine . . .

. . . stopped.

For a breathless second those cold fingers kept on strangling her, and then they softened, turned to mist . . .

And then they were gone.

A steady, quiet glow came up around her.

Lights.

Claire sank down, back to the keyboard, gasping in breaths through her bruised throat, and watched a silvery light flicker in midair, then take on form.

Ada, but not Ada.The same image, but immaculate, perfectly groomed, and with an entirely blank expression.

âWelcome,â Ada said. âMay I ask who you are?â

âClaire,â she said. âMy name is Claire.â

âMy name isââ Ada cocked her head and frowned. âIâm not quite sure. Addy?â

âAda.â

âAh yes. Ada.â Adaâs flat image smiled, but it was a fake kind of smile, with nothing behind it. âIâm not feeling very well.â

âYou just got reset.â

âNo, I know all about that. I donât feel at all well, quite beyond that. Thereâs something very wrong with my mind.â Her image flickered, and a spasm of emotion flared across her perfect, blank face. âIâm scared, Claire. Can you fix me?â

âIââ Claire coughed. She was so tired, and she really, really hurt. âI donât know.â She knew she sounded discouraged. âMaybe I donât want to.â

âOh,â Ada said softly. âI see. I really am broken, arenât I?â

âYes.â

âAnd I canât be fixed.â

âNo,â Claire said softly. âIâm sorry. I thinkâI think youâve got brain damage. I donât think youâre ever going to be right.â

Ada was silent for a moment, watching her, and then she said, âI loved him, you know. I really did.â

âI think he really loved you, too. Thatâs why he tried to hang on to you all these years.â

Ada nodded. âPlease tell him that I still love him. And because I love him, I canât take the risk that I might hurt him again.â

Claire had a very bad feeling. âWhat are youââ

âJust tell him.â Ada smiled, and it was a real smile. A sweet one. âGood-bye, Claire.â

And the panel at the wall blew up in arcs of electricity and flames and shredded metal, and Claire ducked and covered her head.

The lights went out.

Adaâs image flickered in place for a moment, and then she said, very quietly, âTell Myrnin Iâm sorry I hurt him.â

Then she was gone, and the low-level hum of the computer just . . . died.

Claire crouched there, trembling in the dark for a while and listening to the escaping hiss of steam. On one of the round screens on the computer, she saw Adaâs image appear. It moved to the next screenâand then to the next. It grew a little fainter every time.

Then Adaâs image faded to a single dot of white, and the screen went totally black.

Silence. Real, total silence.

Claire put her head on her upraised knees.

Iâll just take a nap, she thought, and then it all just went away for a while.

Â 

When she woke up, Amelie was standing in front of the silent, dead computer, one pale hand on the keyboard touching the metal and bone.

âWeâll have to get this running again as soon as possible,â she said, and then turned toward Claire. âI see youâre awake.â

âNot really,â Claire said. âI donât know what I am right now.â

âYour friends are coming.â Amelieâs tone was cool, and her face was a mask. Claire couldnât tell anything about what she was feeling. âI called them.â

âWhereâs Myrnin?â

Amelieâs gray eyes focused on her neck. âHe bit you.â

âWellâa little.â Claire put her hand to the wound, and winced when it throbbed. âIs it bad?â

âYouâll live.â Amelie turned back to the keyboard. âIâm afraid Ada is beyond help. When the electrical power failed, the nutrients that sustained her organic remnants turned toxic.â

âSheâs dead?â

âShe was always dead, Claire. Now she is well beyond our attempts to revive her.â Amelie looked at her with cool, calm eyes. âDid you kill her?â

Claire swallowed. âNo. I reset her, and she figured out that she couldnât be fixed. She did it herself.â That seemed . . . sad, somehow. And a little bit brave. âWhereâs Myrnin?â

âHere,â he said, and crouched down next to her, all long arms and legs, awkward and graceful at the same time. He was still wearing his black velvet coat. Claire fixed her gaze on the bloodstained, ragged hole in his left sleeve. Under it, the skin still looked red and torn. âIâm all right now. Donât worry.â

âIâm not,â she lied. âDoes it hurt?â she asked, because he was holding his arm at an odd angle.

âA little.â He was lying, tooâa lot. âClaireââ

âNo, donât say youâre sorry. I know, you had to do it.â

âI was going to say thank you for stopping Ada. She always knew you would be the one to destroy her, you know.â

âWhat?â Claire rubbed at the headache forming between her eyes. âWhat are you talking about?â

âShe had taken it into her head that you were going to kill her,â Amelie said. âShe believed it. So she tried to kill you first, and in doing so, she forced you to this. Unfortunately, it is a great deal of trouble for me; Ada was very valuable. Without her, we cannot maintain many of the less scientific measures of security and travel in the town.â

âNo more portals,â Myrnin said, and sighed.âNo more barriers to keep people from leaving. And we wonât be able to track those who leave, at least for now.â

He turned away, looking at the computer, and for a momentâjust a momentâClaire saw the agony clearly visible on his face. His hand was clenched, and as he opened it, she saw the locket sheâd found in the box. Adaâs portrait. âOh my dear,â he said, very softly. âWhat we did to each other . . . I am so very sorry.â

Amelie watched him and said nothing. Myrnin closed his eyes for a moment, then slipped the locket into his vest pocket and turned toward her, clearly making an effort to make himself seem normal again. As normal as Myrnin ever got. âRight. Iâll need a viable candidate to replace Ada. Do you have someone in mind?â

Amelie was still watching Claire. Claire swallowed.

âI do,â Amelie said softly. âBut I think not quite yet. Letâs see where this takes us, Myrnin.â

Myrnin said, âI believe it will take us straight into trouble, if experience is any guide at all. Ah, there they are. Claire, your friendsââ

She hardly had time to turn before Shane had her and was smothering her in a hug, then devouring her in a kiss, and even though she wasnât exactly in the best possible shape, she felt a hot flush race through her veins to warm her whole body. âHey,â Shane said, then gently combed her hair back from her face. âYou lookââ

He saw the bite mark, and froze.

Michael and Eve were right behind him, and Claire heard Eve make a funny, strangled noise. Michaelâs head snapped toward Myrnin.

âIâm okay,â Claire said. âA little juice, a steakâIâll be fine. Itâs just like the blood bank. Right?â

Amelie exchanged a glance with Myrnin, then turned away. He said, âAbsolutely,â and bounced to his feet to join Amelie at the hissing hulk of the computer. âTake a few days off. With pay.â

Shaneâs face turned red. âYou son of aââ

âDonât,â Claire said, and put her hand on his cheek. âShane. I need you. Donât do that.â

âI need you, too,â he said. âI love you. And it is not okay.â

Myrnin didnât look at either of them again. After a moment, though, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and came up with a small, portable hard drive.

SHANE & CLAIRE, it read in silver Sharpie.

âI think this is yours,â he said.

Claire felt a wave of weakness that had nothing to do with loss of blood. âWhere did you get it?â

âAda,â Myrnin said. âShe was planning to do something creative with it, I expectâput it on the Internet, or send it to your parents. Her idea of a prank. You can thank me later.â

She stopped, staring at his back. âYou didnât watch it, did you?â

He didnât turn around. âOf course not.â

It even sounded as if he might be telling the truth.

âMy carâs outside,â Michael said. âCome on. Letâs get you home.â

âIn a moment,â Amelie said, and turned to face them. In that moment, with her hands clasped at her waist, she looked very much like Ada, which gave Claire a severe attack of the terrors. âIâve made a decision. About the three of you.â

That didnât sound good. They all exchanged looks.

Claire felt something odd happen inside her, like a flash of heat, followed by one of cold . . . and then the bracelet on her wrist, a constant, heavy presence, clicked, and fell off to roll away on the stone floor.

Claire cried out and rubbed at her wrist. It was dead white where the bracelet had been, and indented with the shape of gold.

âIâve decided to record you as Neutrals,â Amelie said. âFriends of Morganville. You will be issued special pins, which you must wear at all times. Your names will be recorded in the archives. You are not to be menaced or hunted by any vampire from this point onward. In return, I will require services from you, as I do from other Neutrals, from time to time. You will be listed as employees of the town.â

Even Myrnin seemed surprised, Claire thought. âGenerous,â he said.

âPragmatic,â Amelie said. âLess trouble for me. The four of them are stronger together, and less vulnerable. And Iâm well aware that there are those within Morganville who would prefer to split them apart, for their own uses. I can hardly have people with such intimate knowledge of us running around without . . . restrictions.â

Claire licked her lips. âAbout thatâI kind of made a deal with Morley. That youâd let him and his people leave Morganville, or else Eve and Shane get hunted.â

âWhy on earth would you do such a thing?â Amelie shook her head. âI canât protect you from deals made prior to the announcement. If Morley can make a claim, he can register the hunt. It would be legal, according to law. It would be up to you to protect yourselves.â

âBut you could let Morley and his people leave, right? Thatâs all they want. To be set free, to go where they want.â

Amelie was silent for a moment, and then she said, âNo.â That was all. No Sorry or Hope you donât die.

She turned back to the dead computer.

âButââ

Shane shook his head. âLetâs go home. Come on, we have a month. Weâll work it out.â

Claire didnât think so, but she shut up and let Michael ferry them, one by one, out of the trapdoor and up to the lab. As they headed for his car, Eveâs cell phone rang.

âHello? Oh, hi, Heather.â Eve sighed. âDonât tell me, Iâm fired, right?â

Heather? Claire remembered, finally, that Heather was the assistant director for the play. It was the last possible thing Claire could think of, importance-wise, but Eveâs face gradually lit up with a smile. âIâm not? Seriously? He didnâtâoh wow. Okay. Yes. Iâll be there. Yes, of course! . . . Oh, sure, hang on.â She handed the phone to Claire. âShe says she wants to talk to you.â

Claire carefully put the phone to her ear. âYes?â

âClaire, look, we need a new Stella. Mein Herr says youâre perfect. Heâs already cleared it with your boss.â

âHe what?â And how did Myrnin get to make that kind of call, anyway? âIâm not an actress! I donât know anythingââ

âThatâs what he likes,â Heather said. âYouâre cast. Be at rehearsal tomorrow. Eve will tell you when.â

She hung up.

Claire stared at the dead phone, then handed it back.

âI guess Iâm in the play,â she said.

âGood news,â Eve said. âYouâve already got on-camera experience.â

âYeah, speaking of that, whatâs going to happen with Kim? Not that I care,â Shane said quickly when Claire looked at him. âJust curious.â

âI asked,â Eve said. âChief Moses says theyâll keep her in the nuthouse for a while, see if she gets better. But even if she does, sheâll be in jail a long time.â

âYou okay with that?â

Eve took in a deep breath. âYeah,â she said. âYeah, I guess I am.â

Claire looked down at the hard drive in her hand, the Sharpie-marked evidence, took it out, and handed it to Shane. âYou do the honors,â he said.

One smash against the bricks, and it shattered. He kept on smashing it, just to be sure, and then tossed the remains into a handy trash can at the end of the alley.

âThe end,â Shane said.

It wasnât. Michael and Eve were walking together, but not touching; Claire could see the tension between them. Ada was dead, and that meant the vampires were risking everything, at least for a while. As for Amelieâs âgift,â Claire knew there had to be a catch, and a big one.

It wasnât the end at all . . . but Claire was content to pretend for now. With Shane warm at her side, and the future stretching out in front of them, she could pretend for today that it was happily ever after.

Of course, tomorrow was another day.

TRACK LIST

In case you want to listen along to the songs I used to help me write this book, here they are! Buy the tracks, please. Donâ€™t be a vampire preying on the artists.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel Caine is the author of the New York Times best-selling Morganville Vampires series as well as the best-selling Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, Firestorm, Thin Air, Gale Force, and Cape Storm. Her ninth Weather Warden novel will be released in August 2010. She also recently started another series, Outcast Season, with the release of the first novel, Undone. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their igua nas, Popeye and Darwin.

Web site: www.rachelcaine.com

Myspace: www.myspace.com/rachelcaine

Livejournal: rachelcaine.livejournal.com

Twitter: @rachelcaine

Look for Rachel Caine on Facebook.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

EPILOGUE

TRACK LIST

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

"Nonstop vampire action ... will captivate readers and leave them craving more.”—Darque Reviews

Praise for the Morganville Vampires Series

Carpe Corpus

“Ms. Caine offers readers an intriguing world where vampires rule, only the strongest survive, and romance offers hope in the darkest of hours. Each character is brought to life in superb detail, with unique personality quirks and a full spectrum of emotions. Carpe Corpus is well described, packed with action, and impossible to set down.”

—Darque Reviews

“Rachel Caine has carved out a unique niche in the urban fantasy subgenre with her super young-adult Morganville Vampires. The latest thriller contains plenty of action, but as always in this saga, Carpe Corpus is character driven by the good, the bad, and the evil.”

—Midwest Book Review

“The pace is brisk and a number of loose ends are tied up as one chapter on the town of Morganville closes and a new one begins.”

—Monsters and Critics

Lord of Misrule

“Ms. Caine uses her dazzling storytelling skills to share the darkest chapter yet ... an engrossing read.”

—Darque Reviews

“Filled with delicious twists that the audience will appreciatively sink their teeth into.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

Feast of Fools

“Fast-paced and filled with action.... Fans of the series will appreciate Feast of Fools.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

“Thrilling ... a fast-moving series where there’s always a surprise just around every dark corner.”

—Darque Reviews

“Very entertaining ... I could not put Feast of Fools down....There is a level of tension in the Morganville books that keeps you on the edge of your seat; even in the background scenes you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always does.”

—Flames Rising

“Fantastic.... The excitement and suspense in Feast of Fools is thrilling, and I was fascinated reading about the town of Morganville. I greatly look forward to reading the next book.”

—Fresh Fiction

Midnight Alley

“A fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page.”

—Flamingnet

“Weaves a web of dangerous temptation, dark deceit, and loving friendships. The nonstop vampire action and delightfully sweet relationships will captivate readers and leave them craving more.”

—Darque Reviews

The Dead Girls’ Dance

“If you love to read about characters with whom you can get deeply involved, Rachel Caine is so far a one hundred percent sure bet to satisfy that need.”

—The Eternal Night

“Throw in a mix of vamps and ghosts and it can’t get any better than Dead Girls’ Dance.”

—Dark Angel Reviews

Glass Houses

“Rachel Caine brings her brilliant ability to blend witty dialogue, engaging characters, and an intriguing plot.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“A rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos ... Glass Houses is an electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale.”

—Midwest Book Review

“A solid paranormal mystery and action plotline that will entertain adults as well as teenagers. The story line has several twists and turns that will keep readers of any age turning the pages.”

—LoveVampires

Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden Series

“You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again.”

—Jim Butcher

“Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!”—Mary Jo Putney

“The Weather Warden series is fun reading ... more engaging than most TV.”

—Booklist

“A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather.”

—Locus

“An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humor that enlivens even the darkest encounters.”

—SF Site

THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES

Glass Houses
The Dead Girls’ Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, May

Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2010

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

eISBN : 978-1-101-19773-8

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To the wonderful people in Des Moines, Carroll, Fort Dodge, Rockwell City, and Clive for making me welcome in the great state of Iowa! To my wonderful friends at Legacy Books (Dallas), the Mystery Bookstore (LA), Murder by the Book (Houston), and Borders Express (Exton, PA) for all your support and enthusiasm. See you soon, I hope!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Far too many awesome people have made it possible for this book to be in your hands today, but I must send extraspecial thanks to my Sunday Night pals (Pat, Jackie, Bill, Heidi, J.T., and Joanne), who make even the worst weeks bearable. Also, Joe Bonamassa, Lucienne Diver, Anne Sowards, Jim Suhler, Felicia Day, Jim Conrad, and M. Conrad—all of whom make my days a little brighter. Bless.

INTRODUCTION

WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE. YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.

So, you’re new to Morganville. Welcome, new resident! There are only a few important rules you need to know to feel comfortable in our quiet little town:

• Obey the speed limits.

• Don’t litter.

• Whatever you do, don’t get on the bad side of the vampires.

Yeah, we said vampires. Deal with it.

As a human newcomer, you’ll need to find yourself a vampire Protector—someone willing to sign a contract to keep you and yours safe from harm (especially from the other vampires). In return, you’ll pay taxes ... just like in any other town. Of course, in most other towns those taxes don’t get collected by the Bloodmobile.

Oh, and if you decide not to get a Protector, you can do that, too ... but you’d better learn how to run fast, stay out of the shadows, and build a network of friends who can help you. Try contacting the residents of the Glass House—Michael, Eve, Shane, and Claire. They know their way around, even if they always end up in the middle of the trouble somehow.

Welcome to Morganville. You’ll never want to leave.

And even if you do ... well, you can’t.

Sorry about that.

1

The way the Glass House worked, on a practical level, was that there was a schedule for the stuff that had to be done—cooking, cleaning, fixing things, laundry. Technically, they were all on every housemate’s list. In practice, though, what happened was this: the boys (Michael and Shane) bribed the girls (Eve and Claire) to do the laundry, and the girls bribed the boys to fix things.

Claire glared at her new iPod—which was actually really nice—and put it on shuffle as she looked at the mess she’d made of her latest laundry effort. And there was the problem: she loved the hot pink iPod, which had been a heck of a good bribe, and she really didn’t deserve it, because the laundry was ... also pink—which would have been almost fine if it had been a load full of girls’ underwear or something.

But not so much with guy clothes; she could not even imagine what kind of screaming that was going to bring.

“Yeah.” She sighed, staring at the very definitely pink piles of shirts, socks, and underwear. “Not going to be a good afternoon.” It was amazing what one—one—stupid red sock could do. She’d already tried running it all through the washer again, hoping the problem would just go away. No such luck.

The basement of the Glass House was big, dark, and creepy, which wasn’t really such a surprise. Most basements were, and this was Morganville. Morganville went in for dark and creepy the way Las Vegas went in for neon. Apart from the area Claire was in, with a battered washer and dryer, a table that had once been painted some kind of industrial green, and some shelves filled with unidentifiable junk, the rest of the basement was dim and quiet. Hence the iPod, which pumped cheery music through the headphones and made the creepy retreat a little less creepy.

Creepy, she could fight.

Pink underwear ... apparently not.

She had the music cranked up so high that she failed to hear steps coming down the stairs. In fact, she had no clue she wasn’t completely alone until she felt a hand touch her shoulder and hot breath against her neck.

She reacted as any sensible person living in a town full of vampires would. She screamed. The shriek echoed off the brick and concrete, and Claire whirled, clapped her hands over her mouth, and backed away from Eve, who was collapsing in laughter. The Goth look usually didn’t go well with hysterical giggles, unless they were evil giggles, but somehow Eve managed to pull it off.

Claire ripped the headphones out of her ears and gasped. “You—you—”

“Oh, spit it out already,” Eve managed to say. “Bitch. I am. I know. That was evil. But, oh my God, funny.”

“Bitch,” Claire said, late and not at all meaning it. “You scared me.”

“Kind of the point,” Eve said, and got herself under control. Her mascara was a little smeared, but Claire supposed that was all part of the Goth thing, anyway. “So, what’s up, pup?”

“Trouble,” Claire replied with a sigh. Her heart was still pounding from the scare, but she was determined not to let it show. She pointed at the laundry on the table.

Eve’s eyes went wide, and her black-painted lips parted in horrified fascination. “That’s not trouble; that’s fail. Tell me that isn’t all the whites. Like, Michael’s and Shane’s, too.”

“All the whites,” Claire said, and held up the guilty red sock. “Yours?”

“Oh, damn.” Eve snatched it out of Claire’s fingers and shook the sock like a floppy rattle. “Bad sock! Bad! You are never going anywhere fun ever again!”

“I’m serious. They’re going to kill me.”

“They’ll never get the chance. I’m going to kill you. Do I look to you like someone who rocks pastel?”

Well, that was a definite point. “Sorry,” Claire said. “Seriously. I tried washing them again, without the sock, but—”

Eve shook her head, reached down to the lowest level of the shelf, and pulled out a bottle of bleach, which she thumped down on the table next to the laundry. “You bleach; I’ll supervise, because I’m not taking the chance of getting a drop on this outfit, ‘k? It’s new.”

The outfit in question was hot pink—it matched Claire’s new iPod, actually—with (of course) black horizontally striped tights, a black pleated miniskirt, and a blazing magenta top with a skull all blinged out in crystal on it. Eve had done up her dyed black hair in a messy pile on top of her head, with stray bits sticking up in all directions.

She looked creepy/adorable.

As Claire reloaded the laundry, with a shot of bleach, Eve climbed up on the dryer and kicked her feet idly. “So, you heard the news, right?”

“What news?” Claire asked. “Do I do hot? Is hot good?”

“Hot is good,” Eve confirmed. “Michael got another call from that music producer guy. You know, the one from Dallas? The important one, with the daughter at school here. He wants to set Michael up with some club dates in Dallas and a couple of days at a recording studio. I think he’s serious.”

Eve was trying to sound excited about it, but Claire could follow the road signs. Sign one (shaped like an Exit sign): Michael Glass was Eve’s serious, longtime crush/boyfriend. Sign two (DANGER, CURVES): Michael Glass was hot, talented, and sweet. Sign three (yellow, CAUTION): Michael Glass was a vampire, which made everything a million times more complicated. Sign four (flashing red): Michael had begun acting more like a vampire than the boy Eve loved, and they’d already had some pretty spectacular fights about it—so bad, in fact, that Claire was not sure Eve wasn’t thinking about breaking up with him.

All of which led to sign five (STOP).

“You think he’ll go?” Claire asked, and concentrated on setting the right temperature on the washer. The smell of the detergent and bleach was kind of pleasant, like really sharp flowers, the kind that would cut you if you tried to pick them. “To Dallas, I mean?”

“I guess.” Eve sounded even less enthusiastic. “I mean, it’s good for him, right? He can’t just hang around playing at coffee shops in Jugular, Texas. He needs to ...” Her voice faded out, and she looked down at her lap with a focus Claire thought the skirt really didn’t deserve. “He needs to be out there.”

“Hey,” Claire said, and as the washer began chugging away, washing away the stains, she put her hands on Eve’s knees. The kicking stopped, but Eve didn’t look up. “Are you guys breaking up?”

Eve still didn’t look up. “I cry all the time,” she said. “I hate this. I don’t want to lose him. But it’s like he just keeps getting farther and farther away, you know? And I don’t know how he feels. What he feels. If he feels. It’s awful.”

Claire swallowed hard. “I think he still loves you.”

Now she got Eve to look at her—big, vulnerable dark eyes rimmed by all the black. “Really? Because ... I just ...” Eve took a deep breath and shook her head. “I don’t want to get dumped. It’s going to hurt so bad, and I’m so scared he’ll find somebody else. Somebody, you know, better.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Claire said. “Not ever.”

“Easy for you to say. You haven’t seen how the girls throw themselves at him after shows.”

“Yeah, you’d never do that.”

Eve looked up sharply, smiled a little, then looked back down. “Yeah, okay, whatever. But it’s different when he’s my Michael and they’re the ones who are all, you know ... Anyway, he’s just always so nice to them.”

Claire jumped up next to her on the dryer and kicked her feet in rhythm with Eve’s. “He has to be nice, right? That’s his job, kind of. And we were talking about whether you guys were breaking up. Are you?”

“I ... don’t know. It’s weird right now. It hurts, and I want the hurt to be over, one way or another, you know?” Eve’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug that somehow managed to be depressed at the same time. “Besides, now he’s running off to Dallas. They won’t let me go, if he does. I’m just, you know. Human.”

“You’ve got one of the cool frat pins. Nobody would stop you.” The cool frat pins were a gift from Amelie, the town’s Founder, one of the most frighteningly quiet vampires Claire had ever met, and Claire’s boss, technically. They worked like the bracelets most people in town wore, the ones that identified individuals or families as being Protected by a specific vampire, only these were better.... People who wore these pins didn’t have to give blood or take orders. They weren’t owned.

As far as Claire knew, there were fewer than ten people in all of Morganville who had this kind of status, and it meant freedom—in theory—from a lot of the scarier elements of town.

This was all because they’d gotten in over their heads, had to fight their way out of it, and done some good for Amelie in the process. It was heroism by accident, in Claire’s opinion, but she definitely wasn’t turning down the pin or what the pin represented.

“If they decide Michael can go, I’ll still have to file an application for temporary leave,” Eve said. “So would you, or Shane, if you wanted to tag along. And they could turn us down. They probably would.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re mostly asshats? Not to mention bloodsucking vampire asshats, which doesn’t exactly make them fair from the beginning.”

Claire could see her point, actually, which was depressing. The air filled with the smells of laundry, which was homey and didn’t go too well with depressing. Claire remembered her iPod, which was still blaring away at her headphones, and clicked it off. They sat in silence for a while, and then Eve said, “I wish the dryer were running, because man, I could use a good ... tumble dry.”

Claire burst out laughing and, after a second, Eve joined her, and it was all okay.

Even in the dark. Even in the basement.

In the end, the laundry was only a little pink.

Dinner was taco night, and it was Claire’s turn for that, too, which somehow seemed wrong, but she’d switched with Michael when she’d been staying late at the university library, so she was stuck with Chore Day. Not that she minded making tacos; she liked it, actually.

Shane blew in the door just as she was chopping the last of the onions, which was typical Shane timing; five minutes earlier, and she’d have made him do the chopping. Instead, he arrived just as she was wiping tears away from her stinging eyes. Perfect.

He didn’t care that her eyes were red, apparently, because he kicked the kitchen door shut, slammed the dead bolt with a gesture so smooth it looked automatic, set a bag on the counter, and leaned over to kiss her. It was one of those hi-I’m-home kisses, not one of his really good ones, but it still made Claire’s heart flutter a little bit in her chest. Shane looked ... like Shane, she guessed, which was fine with her. Tall, broad, he had sun-streaked slacker hair and a heartbreaker’s smile. He was wearing a Killers T-shirt that smelled like barbecue, from his job.

“Hey!” she protested—not very sincerely—and waved the knife she’d been using to chop onions. “I’m armed!”

“Yeah, but you’re not very dangerous,” he said, and kissed her again, lightly. “You taste like tacos.”

“You taste like barbecue.”

“And that’s a win-win!” He grinned at her, reached over, and rattled the paper bag he’d set on the counter. “How about some brisket tacos?”

“That is so wrong, you know. Brisket does not go in tacos.”

“Twisted, yet delicious. I say yes.”

Claire sighed and dumped the chopped onions into a bowl. “Hand me the brisket.” Secretly, she liked brisket tacos; she just liked giving him a hard time more.

“You know,” Claire said as she got the barbecue out of the bag, “you really ought to talk to Michael.”

“About what?”

“What do you think? About what’s going on with him and Eve!”

“Oh hell no. Guys don’t talk about that crap.”

“You’re serious.”

“Really.”

“What do you talk about?”

Shane looked at her as if she were insane. “You know. Stuff. We’re not girls. We don’t talk about our feelings. I mean, not to other guys.”

Claire rolled her eyes and said, “Fine, be emotionally stunted losers; I don’t care.”

“Good. Thanks. I’ll do that.” The door opened, and Michael shuffled in, rocking the worst bed head Claire had ever seen him with. “Whoa. Dude, you look like crap. You getting enough iron in your diet?”

“Screw you, and thanks. I just woke up. What’s your excuse?”

“I work for a living, man. Unlike the nightwalking dead.”

Michael went straight past them and from the refrigerator took a sports bottle, which he stuck in the microwave for fifteen seconds. Claire was grateful the smell of the onions, brisket, and taco meat covered the smell of what was in the bottle. Well, they all knew what it was, but if she pretended really hard, it didn’t have to be quite as obvious.

Michael drank from his sports bottle, then wandered over to look at what they were doing. “Cool, tacos. How long?”

“Depends on whether or not she lets me do the chopping,” Shane said. “Five minutes, maybe?”

The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Eve yelled, and there was something in her voice that really didn’t sound quite right. More ... desperate than eager, as if she wanted to stop them from getting to it first. Claire glanced over at Shane, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Either she’s finally dumping you, Mikey, and her new boy’s coming for dinner, or—”

It was the or, of course. After a short delay, Eve opened the swinging door just wide enough to stick her face inside. She tried for a smile. It almost worked. “Uh—so I invited someone to dinner,”

“Nice time to tell us,” Shane said.

“Shut up. You’ve got enough food for the Fifth Armored Division and all of us. We can fill one more plate.” But she was having trouble keeping eye contact, and as Claire watched, Eve bit her lip and looked away completely.

“Crap,” Michael said. “I’m not going to like this, am I? Who is it?”

Eve silently opened the door the rest of the way. Behind her, standing with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans jacket, head down, was her brother, Jason Rosser.

Jason looked—different, Claire thought. For one thing, he usually looked strung out and dirty and violent, and now he looked almost sober, and he was definitely on speaking terms with showers. Still skinny, and she couldn’t say much for the baggy clothes he was wearing, but he looked ... better than she’d ever seen him.

And even so, something inside her flinched, hard, at the sight of him. Jason was associated with several of her worst, scariest memories, and even if he hadn’t actually hurt her, he hadn’t helped her, either—or any of the girls who’d been hurt, or killed. Jason was a bad, bad kid. He’d been an accomplice to at least three murders and to an attack on Claire.

And neither Shane nor Michael had forgotten any of that.

“Get him out of here,” Shane said in a low, dangerous-sounding tone. “Now.”

“It’s Michael’s house,” Eve said, without looking at any of them directly. “Michael?”

“Wait a second—it’s our house! I live here, too!” Shane shot back. “You don’t get to drag his low-life ass in here and act as if nothing happened with him!”

“He’s my brother! And he’s trying, Shane. God, you can be such a—”

“It’s okay,” Claire said. Her hands were shaking, and she felt cold, but she also saw Jason lift his head, and for a second their eyes met. It was like a physical shock, and she wasn’t sure what she saw, or what he saw, but neither one of them could hold it for long. “It’s just dinner. It’s not a big deal.”

Shane turned toward her, eyes wide, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Claire, he hurt you. Hell, he hurt me, too! Jason is not some stray mutt you can take in and feed, okay? He’s psycho. And she knows it better than anybody.” He glared at Eve, who frowned but didn’t glare back as she normally would have. “You expect us all to just play nice with him now that he figures out the bad guys aren’t winning, so he cranks out a quick apology? Because it’s not happening. It’s just not.”

“Yeah, I figured it would go this way. Sorry I bothered you,” Jason said. His voice sounded faint and rusty, and he turned and walked away, toward the front door and out of their line of sight. Eve went after him, and she must have tried to stop him, because Claire heard his soft voice say, “No, he’s not wrong. I’ve got no right to be here. I did bad things, sis. This was a mistake.”

Of all of them, only Michael hadn’t spoken—hadn’t moved, in fact. He was staring at the swinging door as it swayed back and forth, and finally he took a deep breath, set down his sports bottle, and went out into the hallway.

Claire smacked at Shane’s arm. “What the hell was that, macho man? You have to come to my rescue all the time, even when nobody’s trying to hurt me?”

He seemed honestly surprised. “I was just—”

“I know what you were just doing. You don’t speak for me!”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes, you were. Look, I know Jason’s no saint, but he got himself together, and he stuck with Eve when all of us were—out of commission, when Bishop was in charge. He protected her.”

“And he let his crazy buddy Dan grab you and almost kill you, and he didn’t do anything!”

“He did,” Claire said flatly. “He left me to find help. I know because Richard Morrell told me later. Jason went to the cops and tried to tell them. They didn’t believe him or they’d have gotten help to me a lot earlier.” Earlier would have meant a lot less terror and pain and despair. It wasn’t Jason’s fault that they’d figured him for crazy.

Shane was thrown, a little, but he came back swinging. “Yeah, well, what about those other girls? He didn’t help them, did he? I’m not friending up somebody like that.”

“Nobody said you had to,” Claire shot back. “Jason’s done his time in jail. Sitting at the same table isn’t like swearing eternal brotherhood.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, very tightly, “I just wanted to make sure he didn’t have a chance to hurt you again.”

“Unless he uses a taco as a deadly weapon, he hasn’t got much of a shot. Having you, Michael, and Eve here is about the best protection I could want. Anyway, would you rather have him where you can see him, or where you can’t?”

Some of the fire faded out of his eyes. “Oh. Yeah, okay.” He still looked uncomfortable, though. “You do crazy crap, you know. And it’s contagious.”

“I know.” She put her hand on his cheek, and got a very small smile in return. “Thanks for wanting to keep me safe. But don’t overdo it, okay?”

Shane made a sound of frustration deep in his throat, but he didn’t argue.

The kitchen door swung open again. It was Michael, looking fully awake and very calm, as if bracing for a fight. “I talked to him,” he said. “He’s sincere enough. But if you don’t want him here, Shane—”

“I damn sure don’t,” Shane said, then glanced at Claire and continued. “But if she’s willing to give it a shot, I will.”

Michael blinked, then raised his eyebrows. “Huh,” he said. “The universe explodes, hell freezes, and Shane does something reasonable.”

Shane silently offered him the finger. Michael grinned and backed out of the kitchen again.

Claire handed Shane the biggest knife they had. “Chop brisket,” she said. “Take out your frustrations.”

The brisket didn’t stand a chance.

Jason didn’t say much at dinner. In fact, he was almost completely silent, though he ate four tacos as if he’d been starving for a month, and when Eve brought out ice cream for dessert, he ate a double helping of that, too.

Shane was right. The brisket was delicious in the tacos.

Eve, compensating for her brother, chattered like a magpie on crack the whole time—about dumb-asses at the coffee shop where she worked, Common Grounds; about Oliver, her vampire boss, who was a full-time jerk, as far as Claire was concerned, although apparently he was a surprisingly fair supervisor; gossip about people in town. Michael contributed some juicy stuff about the vampire side of town (Claire, for one, had never considered that vampires could fall in and out of love just like regular people—well, vampires other than Michael, and maybe Amelie.) Shane finally loosened up on his glares and brought up some embarrassing stories from Michael’s and Eve’s pasts. If there were embarrassing stories he knew about Jason, he didn’t get into telling them.

It started out deeply uncomfortable, but by the time the ice cream bowls were empty, it felt kind of—normal. Not great—there was still a cautious tension around the table—but there was guarded acceptance.

Jason finally said, “Thanks for the food.” They all stopped talking and looked at him, and he kept his own gaze down on the empty dessert bowl. “Shane’s right. I got no right to think I can just show up here and expect you not to hate my guts. You should.”

“Damn straight,” Shane muttered. Claire and Eve both glared at him. “What? Just sayin’.”

Jason didn’t seem to mind. “I needed to come and tell you that I’m sorry. It’s been—things got weird, man. Real weird. And I got real screwed up, in all kinds of ways. Until that thing happened with Claire ... Look, I never meant—she wasn’t part of it. That was all on him.” Him meant the other guy, the one none of them mentioned, ever. Claire felt her palms sweating and wiped them against her jeans. Her mouth felt dry. “But I’m guilty of other stuff, and I confessed to all of it to the cops, and I did time for it. I never killed anybody, though. I just—wanted to be somebody who got respect.”

Michael said, “That’s how you think you get respect around here? As a killer?”

Jason looked up, and it was eerie, seeing eyes exactly like Eve’s in such a different face, simmering with anger. “Yeah,” he said. “I did. I still do. And I don’t need a frigging vampire to set me straight about that, either. In Morganville, when you’re not one of the sheep, and you’re not one of the wolves, you’d better be one mean-ass junkyard dog.”

Claire glanced over at Shane and was surprised to see that he wasn’t hopping on the angry train. In fact, he was looking at Jason as if he understood what he was saying. Maybe he did. Maybe it was a guy thing.

Nobody spoke, and finally Jason said, “So anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for helping get me out of jail. I’d be dead by now if you hadn’t. I won’t forget.” He scraped his chair back and stood up. “Thanks for the tacos. Dinner was real good. I haven’t—I haven’t sat at a table with people for a really long time.”

Then, without making eye contact with any of them, he walked away, down the hall. Eve jumped up and ran after him, but before she got to him, he was out the front door and slamming it behind him. She opened it and looked out, but didn’t follow. “Jason!” she called, but without any real hope he’d come back. Then, finally, hopelessly, she called again, “Be careful!”

She slowly closed the door again, locked it, and came back to flop in her chair at the dinner table, staring at the remains of their taco feast.

“Hey,” Shane said. “Eve.”

She looked up.

“It took guts for him to come here and try to apologize. I respect that.”

She looked surprised, and for a second she smiled. “Thanks. I know Jason’s never going to be ... well, a good guy in any kind of way, but he’s—I can’t just turn my back on him. He needs somebody to keep him from going off the rails.”

Michael took a drink from his sports bottle. “He’s the train,” he said. “You’re on the tracks. Think about what’s going to happen, Eve.”

Her smile faded. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that your brother is a junkie and one sick dude even if he’s feeling sentimental right now. That’s probably not really his fault, but he’s trouble, and now we sat down with him and he apologized and it’s all done, okay? He’s not coming back. He’s not family. Not in this house.”

“But—”

When Claire had first met Michael Glass, he’d been cold and kind of harsh to her, and now that Michael came out again.

At Eve.

“Eve, we’re not going to argue about it,” Michael said flatly, and he looked like an angry, angry angel, the smiting kind. “House rules. You don’t bring that kind of trouble in the door.”

“Oh, please, Michael, don’t even think about pulling that crap. If that’s the rule, are you throwing Claire out now? Because I’m betting she is the most trouble that ever walked in here on two feet. You and Shane drag your own hassles in all the time. But I don’t get to have my own brother over for dinner?” Eve’s voice was shaking, she was so angry now, and she was trying not to cry, but Claire could see the tears welling up in her dark eyes. “Come on! You’re not my dad!”

“No, I’m your landlord,” he said. “Bringing Jason in here puts everybody at risk. He’s going to go back to the dark side on us, if he ever left in the first place. I’m just trying to keep things sane around here.”

“Then try talking to me instead of just ordering me around!” Eve shoved dishes off onto the floor, spilling the remains of tacos everywhere, and dashed for the stairs.

Michael got there first, easily; he moved in a blur, vampire speed, and blocked her access. Eve came to a skidding halt, pale even underneath her rice-powder makeup. “So you’re proving your point by going all vamp on me?” she said. “Even if Jason was still here, you’d be the most dangerous thing in the room and you know it!”

“I know,” Michael said. “Eve. What do you want? I’m trying, okay? I sat down with Jason. I’m just saying once was enough. Why am I the bad guy?”

Shane muttered, loud enough for only Claire to hear, “Good question, bro.” She hissed at him to be quiet. This was private, and she was feeling bad for both Eve and Michael, having witnesses to all this. It was bad enough to be fighting and worse to have Shane making snarky comments from the sidelines.

“I don’t know, Michael. Why are you the bad guy?” Eve shot back. “Maybe because you’re acting as if you own the world!”

“You’re being a brat.”

“A what?”

“You’re going to dump crap all over the floor and walk away? What else do you call it?”

Eve looked so shocked, it was as if he’d hit her. Claire winced in sympathy. “It’s okay; we’ll do it,” Claire said, and started picking up plates and piling them up. “It’s not a big deal.” Shane was still staring at their friends as if they were some kind of sideshow exhibit; she kicked him in the shin and shoved plates at him. “Kitchen,” she said. “Go.”

He raised his eyebrows, but he went. She began cleaning up the mess on the floor. In Shane’s absence, it felt as if things changed, as if the balance shifted again. Claire kept herself small, quiet, and invisible as she worked at scraping up the spilled food into a pile with napkins.

“Eve,” Michael said. He wasn’t angry anymore, Claire realized. His voice had gone soft and quiet. She glanced up and saw that Eve was silently crying now, tears dragging dirty trails of mascara down her cheeks, but she didn’t look away from him. “Eve, what is it? This isn’t about Jason. What?”

She threw herself into him, wrapping her arms around him. Even with vampire reflexes, Michael was surprised enough to rock backward, but he recovered in just a second, holding her, stroking her back with one hand. Eve put her head down on his shoulder and cried like a lost little girl. “I don’t want to lose you,” she finally snuffled. “God, I really don’t. Please. Please don’t go.”

“Go?” Michael sounded honestly baffled. “What? Where would I go?”

“Anywhere. With anyone. Don’t—I love you, Michael. I really do.”

He sighed and held her even more tightly. “I’m not going anywhere with anyone else,” he said. “I swear. And I love you, too. Okay?”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah, I mean it.” He seemed almost surprised and let out a slow breath as he hugged her tighter. “I mean it, Eve. I always have, even when you didn’t believe it.”

Eve dabbed at her running mascara, hiccuping little breaths, and then looked past Michael to Claire, who was getting all the mess put onto one plate for disposal. Eve looked stricken. “Oh God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—Here, let me. I’ll get it.”

And she pulled free of Michael and got down on her hands and knees to clean up the rest.

And Michael got down there with her. Claire backed through the kitchen door with a load of stuff, and as it swung closed, she saw Michael lean over and kiss Eve. It looked sweet and hot and absolutely real.

“Well?” Shane asked. “World War Fifteen over out there, or what?”

“I think so,” she said, and hip-bumped him out of the way at the sink to dump her armload of plates. “You’re washing, right?”

“I’ll play you for it.”

“What?”

“Best high score wins?”

That was the same basic thing as doing it herself now and saving herself the humiliation, Claire thought. “No bet,” she said. “Wash, dish boy.”

He flicked suds at her. She shrieked and laughed and flipped more at him. They splashed water. It felt ... breathlessly good, when Shane finally captured her in his soapy hands, pulled her close to his wet T-shirt, and kissed her.

“And that’s World War Sixteen,” he said. “Officially over.”

“I’m still not playing Dead Rising with you.”

“You’re no fun.”

She kissed him, long and sweet and slow, and whispered, “You sure?”

“Well, I’m certainly changing my mind,” Shane said, straight-faced, at least until he licked his lips. His pupils were large and dark and completely fixed on hers, and she felt as if gravity had reversed, as if she could fall up into his eyes and just keep on going.

“Dishes,” he reminded her. “Me dish boy. And I can’t believe I just said that, because that was lame.”

She kissed him again, lightly this time. “That’s for later,” she said. “By the way? You look really hot with suds all over you.”

The kitchen door opened, and Eve walked in, dumped a plateful of trash in the can, and practically danced her way over to the sink. She still had smeared mascara, and her tears weren’t even dry, but she was smiling, and there was a dreamy, distant look in her eyes.

“Hey,” Shane said. “How about you? Want to play Dead Rising?”

“Sure,” Eve said. “Fine. Absolutely.”

She wandered out. Shane blinked. “That was not what I expected.”

“She’s floating,” Claire said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. But she didn’t even insult me. That’s just wrong. It disturbs me.”

“I’m taking advantage of all this calm,” Claire said. “Study time.”

“Bring it downstairs,” Shane said. “I need a cheering section, because she is going to suck at zombie killing tonight. Just way too happy.”

Claire laughed, but she dashed upstairs and grabbed her book bag, which promptly ripped right down the seam, spilling about twenty pounds’ worth of texts, supplies, and junk all over the wooden floor. “Great,” she said with a sigh. “Just great.” She gathered up what she needed in an untidy armload and headed back downstairs.

She was halfway down the stairs when someone knocked at the front door. They all stopped what they were doing—Michael, in the act of picking up his guitar; Shane and Eve, taking seats on the couch with game controllers. “Expecting anybody else?” Shane asked Eve. “Is your distant cousin Jack the Ripper dropping in for coffee?”

“Screw you, Collins.”

“Finally, the world is back to normal. Still not up to the usual Rosser Olympic-level insult standards, there, sunshine. Never mind. I’ll get it.”

Michael didn’t say anything, but he put down the guitar and followed Shane to the end of the hall, watching. Claire descended the rest of the steps quickly, trying to keep her pile of stuff from tottering over, and dumped it on the dining table before hurrying over to Michael’s side.

Shane checked the peephole, stepped back, and said, “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Trouble?”

Michael crossed the distance in a flash, looked out, and bared his teeth—all his teeth, including the vampiry ones, which didn’t exactly bode well. Claire sucked in a deep breath. Damn stupid book bag, picking a bad time to break; usually, she’d have brought all the stuff down, but she’d left her antivamp supplies upstairs in the ruined bag’s pocket.

“It’s Morley,” Michael said. “I’d better go out and talk to him. Shane, stay here with them.”

“Word of advice—stop telling me to stay with the girls,” Shane said, “or I will seriously bust you in the mouth one of these days. Seriously. I could break one of those shiny fangs.”

“Today?”

“Ah ... probably not.”

“Then shut up.” Michael opened the door just wide enough to slide out, looked back, and said, “Lock it.”

Shane nodded, and as soon as the wood thumped closed, he shot all the bolts and glued his eye to the peephole.

Claire and Eve, by common silent decision, dashed to the living room window, which gave them an angled view of the porch—not perfect, but better than nothing.

“Oh no,” Eve whispered.

Michael was standing in a wash of moonlight, facing not just one vampire, but three. Morley—a ragged, rough vampire who rocked the homeless look, although Claire knew he actually did have a home—was standing there, with two of his crew. He had quite a number of them, disaffected vampire youth, although youth was a relative term when you talked about vampires. It was mostly a matter of status, not just age; the have-nots, or the ones feeling squeezed by those who had power over them.

They also had a human with them.

Jason.

And he wasn’t there voluntarily, as far as Claire could tell. One of the vampires had a hand around his arm in what looked like a friendly grip but was probably bone-crushing hard.

“Jase,” Eve whispered. “Oh God. I told you to be careful! ”

Shane left the door, came into the living room, and dragged a black canvas bag out from under a chair. He unzipped it and took out a small crossbow, cranked it back, and loaded it with an arrow. He tossed silver-coated stakes to Claire and Eve, then joined them at the window. “So,” he said, “your brother’s already said he was a vampire wannabe. Does he need rescuing, or is this his idea of a really great date?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Eve said, and gripped the stake so hard her whole hand turned paler than normal. “They wouldn’t turn him, anyway. They’ll just drain him.” It was a lot of work for a vampire to turn a human, and from what Claire had seen, they didn’t seem all that eager to go through it themselves. It hurt. And it took something out of them. The only one she’d ever seen take any real pleasure out if had been Mr. Bishop, Amelie’s vile, old vampire father. She’d seen him turn Shane’s father, and that had been—horrible. Really horrible.

This was why Shane, however he felt about Jason Rosser, was loading up a crossbow, and was more than prepared to use it.

“What’s Michael doing?”

“Talking sense,” Shane said. “It’s always his A game. For him, it usually works. Me, I’m usually Plan B, all the time.”

“B for brute force?” Eve said. “Yep, that’s you.”

Shane slotted the arrow in place and raised the window sash. He kicked out the screen on the other side and aimed the crossbow right at Morley.

Morley, who was dressed in clothes that seemed pieced together out of rags, except for one brand-new Hawaiian shirt in disgustingly bright shades of neon, looked straight at the window, smiled, and tipped his head just a little in acknowledgment.

“Just so we’re clear, bloodsucker,” Shane said.

“Can he hear you?”

“He hears every word. Hey, Morley? I will put this right between your ribs, you got me?”

Once again, Morley nodded, and the smile stayed in place.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Eve whispered. “Threatening him, I mean?”

“Why not? Morley speaks fluent threat.”

It went on for a while, all the talking; Shane never took his eyes off Morley. Claire kept her hand on him, somehow feeling as if that were helping—helping them both—and finally Morley made some polite little bow to Michael, then waved at the other vampire, who was holding Jason.

The vampire let go. Jason stumbled backward, then took off at top speed, running flat out down the street. The vampires watched him. Nobody followed.

Eve breathed a slow sigh of relief and leaned against the wall.

Shane didn’t move. He still had the crossbow aimed at Morley’s chest.

“Emergency’s over,” Eve said. “Stand down, soldier.”

“Go open the door. I stand down when Michael’s back inside.” Shane smiled, all teeth. Not quite as menacing as a vampire smile, but it got the point across. Eve nodded and ran to the door. Once it was open, Michael—still looking cool and calm—backed in, said good night, and shut the door. Claire heard him shooting the locks, and still Shane kept his aim steady until Morley, touching a finger to his brow, turned and walked off into the dark with his two followers.

Claire slammed down the window, locked it, and Shane let out his breath in a slow sigh, removing the arrow from the bow. “Nothing like a little after-dinner terrification,” he said, and gave Claire a quick kiss. “Mmmm, you still taste like brisket tacos.”

She would have called him a jerk, but she was shaking, and she was too short of breath, anyway. He was already down the hall by the time she pulled in enough air, and she used it to follow him. Michael was standing beside Eve, an arm tight around her waist.

“So?” Shane asked. “What’s Morley hanging around for? Waiting for us to get ripe?”

“You know what he was here for,” Michael said. “We haven’t gotten his people passes to leave town yet, which is what you promised him in return for not killing you three when he had the chance. He’s getting impatient, and since you three are on the hook as his own personal blood donors, I think we need to get serious about making that happen.”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

“No? Can’t say that I agree with you. Morley isn’t afraid of much that I can tell, including Amelie, Oliver, or a wooden arrow in the heart.” Michael nodded at Shane. “Still. Thanks. Nice.”

“Brute force. It’s what I do.”

“Just keep it aimed the right way.”

Shane looked as innocent as Shane ever could and put his hand over his heart. “I would never. Unless you flash fang at me again, or ever tell me to stay with the girls. Except for that.”

“Cool. Let’s go shoot some undead things on the TV, then.”

“Loser.”

“Not if I win.”

“Like that ever happens.”

2

The next day, Claire had classes at Texas Prairie University, which was always a mixture of fascinating and annoying; fascinating, because she’d managed to finagle her way into a lot of advanced classes she really didn’t have the prerequisites for, and annoying because those not in the know about Morganville in general—which was most of the students at the school—treated her like a kid. Those who didn’t, and knew the score about the vampires and the town of Morganville itself, mostly avoided her. It occurred to her, the second time somebody tried to buy coffee for her but not make eye contact, that some people in town still looked at her as important—as in Monica Morrell-level important.

This seriously pissed off Monica, Queen Bee of the Morganville Under-Thirty set. Still, Claire had come a long way from the clueless early-admission freshman she’d been last year. When Monica tried to bully her—which was virtually certain to happen at least a couple of times every week—the outcome wasn’t usually in Monica’s favor, or always in Claire’s, either. But still, a draw was better than a beat-down, in Claire’s view. Everybody was left standing.

Claire’s first stop was at the campus student store, where she bought a new backpack—sturdy, not too flashy, with lots of pockets inside and out. She ducked into the next bathroom she found to transfer the contents of her taped-together book bag to the new one, and almost threw the old one away ... but it had a lot of sentimental value, somehow. Ripped, scuffed, stained with all kinds of things she didn’t want to remember, but it had come with her to Morganville, and somehow she felt that throwing it away would be throwing away her chance of ever getting out of here.

Crazy, but she couldn’t help it.

In the end, she stuffed the rolled-up old backpack into a pocket of the new one, hefted the weight, and jogged across campus to make her first class of the day.

Three uneventful (and mostly boring) hours later, she ran into Monica Morrell, who was sitting on the steps of the Language Arts building, sunglasses on, leaning back on her elbows and watching people go by. One of her lipstick mafia girls was with her—Jennifer—but there was no sign of the other one, Gina. As always, Monica looked expensive and perfect—Daddy’s estate must be holding up well no matter what the economy dudes were saying on TV—and Jennifer looked as though she shopped the cheap knockoffs of what Monica bought for full price. But they both looked good, and about every thirty seconds some college boy stopped to talk to them, and almost always got shot down in flames. Some of them took it okay. Some of them looked as if they were one more rejection from ending up on a twenty-four-hour channel as breaking news.

Claire was heading up the steps, ignoring them, when Jennifer called out brightly, “Hey, Claire! Good morning! ”

That was creepy enough to stop Claire right in her tracks. She looked over, and Jennifer was waving.

So was Monica.

This, from the two girls who’d punched and kicked her, thrown her down a flight of stairs, abducted her at least twice, threatened her with knives, tried to set her house on fire ... yeah. Claire didn’t really feel like redefining the relationship on their new buddy-buddy terms.

She just gave the two of them a long look, and kept on up the stairs, trying to focus on what it was she was supposed to remember today about early American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne? So last week ...

“Hey!” Monica grabbed her two steps from the top, yanking on the strap of her new book bag to drag her to a halt. “Talking to you, bitch!”

That was more like it. Claire glanced down at Monica’s hand and raised her eyebrows. Monica let go.

“I figured it couldn’t be me,” she said. “Since you were acting so nice and all. Had to be some other Claire.”

“I just thought since the two of us are more or less stuck with each other, we might as well try to be friendly, that’s all. You didn’t have to act as if I stole your boyfriend or something.” Monica smiled slowly and pulled her sunglasses down to stare over the top. Her big, lovely blue eyes were full of shallow glee. “Speaking of that, how is Shane? Getting bored with the after-school special yet?”

“Wow, that’s one of your better insults. You’re almost up to junior high level. Keep working on it,” Claire said. “Ask Shane yourself if you want to know how he’s doing. I’m sure he’d be glad to tell you.” Colorfully. “What do you want?”

“Who says I want something?”

“Because you’re like a lion. You don’t bother to get up unless you’re getting something out of it.”

Monica smiled even wider. “Hmmm, harsh, but accurate. Why work harder than you have to? Anyway, I hear you and your friends made a deal that’s getting you into trouble. Something with that skanky homeless Brit vamp—what’s his name? Mordred?”

“Mordred is from the King Arthur stories. It’s Morley.”

“Whatever. I just wanted to tell you that I can take care of it for you.” Her smile revealed teeth, even and white. “For a price.”

“Yeah, I didn’t see that coming,” Claire said with a sigh. “How are you going to take care of it, exactly?”

“I can get him the passes out of town he wants. From my brother.”

Claire rolled her eyes and adjusted her book bag a little more comfortably on her shoulder. “Meaning what? You’re going to forge his signature on a bunch of photocopies that will get everybody thrown in jail except you? No thanks. Not interested.” Claire had no doubt that whatever Monica was offering, it wasn’t real; she’d already talked to Monica’s brother, Mayor Richard Morrell, several times about this and gotten nowhere. But Monica liked to pretend she had “access”—with full air quotes. “If that’s all, I’ve got class.”

“Not quite,” Monica said, and the smile vanished. “I want the answers to the final exam in Lit 220. Get them.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding? Get them, or—well, you know what kind of or there is, right?” Monica pushed the sunglasses back up. “Get them to me by Friday or you’re fried, special needs.”

Claire shook her head and took the last two steps, walked to her class, dumped her bag at her lecture hall seat, and sat down to think things over.

By the time class began, she had a plan—a warm, fuzzy plan.

Some days, it was absolutely worth getting out of bed.

When Claire got home, the sun was slipping fast toward the horizon. It was too early for most vampires to be out—not that they burst into flames that easily; most of the older ones were sort of flame-retardant-but she kept a sharp lookout, anyway. Instead of going straight to the Glass House, she turned at the cross street and went a few more blocks. It was like déjà vu because her parents’ house looked almost exactly like the Glass House; a little less faded, maybe. The trim had been painted a nice dark green, and there were fewer bushes around the windows, different porch furniture, and a couple of wind chimes; Claire’s mom loved wind chimes, especially the big, long ones that rang those deep bell sounds.

As Claire climbed the steps to the porch, a gust blew by her, sounding the bells in a chorus. She glanced up at the sky and saw clouds scudding by fast. The weather was changing. Rain, maybe. It already felt cooler.

She didn’t knock, just used her key and went right in, dumping her backpack in the entry hall. “Hey, I’m home!” she yelled, and locked the door behind her. “Mom?”

“Kitchen,” came the faint yell back. Claire went down the hall—same as in the Glass House, but Mom had covered this version with photos, framed ones of their family. Claire winced at her junior high and high school photos; they were unspeakably geeky, but she couldn’t convince Mom to take them down. Someday, you’ll be glad I have them, Mom always said. Claire couldn’t imagine that would ever be true.

The living room was, again, disorientingly familiar; instead of the mismatched, comfortable furniture of the Glass House, the stuff from Claire’s childhood occupied the same space, from the old sofa to her dad’s favorite leather chair. The smells coming from the kitchen were familiar, too: Mom was making stuffed bell peppers. Claire fortified herself, because she couldn’t stand stuffed bell peppers, but she almost always ate the filling out of them, just to be nice.

“Why couldn’t it be tacos?” She sighed, just to herself, and then pushed open the door to the kitchen. “Hi, Mom, I’m—”

She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide, because Myrnin was sitting at her mother’s kitchen table. Myrnin the vampire. Myrnin her boss. Crazy mad scientist Myrnin. He had a mug of something that had better not be blood in front of him, and he was almost dressed like a sane person—he had on frayed blue jeans, a blue silk shirt, and some kind of elaborate tapestry vest over it. He wore flip-flops for shoes, of course, because he seemed to really love those. His hair was long around his shoulders, black and glossy and full of waves, and his big, dark eyes followed Claire’s mother as she busied herself at the stove.

Mom was dressed the way Mom usually dressed, which was way more formal than people Claire’s era would ever think was appropriate for lounging around the house. A nice pair of dress pants, a boring shirt, mid-heeled shoes. She was even wearing jewelry—bracelet and earrings, at least.

“Good evening, Claire,” Myrnin said, and transferred his attention over to her. “Your mother’s been very kind to me while I waited for you to get home.”

Mom turned, and there was a false brightness to her smile. Myrnin made her nervous, although Myrnin was obviously making a real effort to be normal. “Honey, how was school?” She kissed Claire on the cheek, and Claire tried not to squirm as her mom rubbed at the lipstick mark left on her skin. At least she didn’t use spit.

“School was great,” Claire said, which completed the obligatory school conversation. She got a Coke from the fridge, popped the top, and settled in across the table from Myrnin, who calmly sipped from his coffee cup. “What are you doing here?”

“Claire!” her mother said, sounding a little scandalized. “He’s a guest!”

“No, he’s my boss, and bosses don’t drop in on my parents without an invitation. What are you doing here?”

“Dropping in on your parents without an invitation,” Myrnin said. “I thought it would be good to get to know them better. I’ve been telling them how satisfied I am with the work you’ve been doing. Your research is some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

He really was on his best behavior. That didn’t even sound a little crazy; overdone, maybe, but not crazy.

“I’m off today,” Claire pointed out. Myrnin nodded and rested his chin on his hand. He had a nice smile, when he chose to use it, as he did now, mostly directed at Claire’s mother, who brought over a coffeepot and refilled his cup.

Oh, good. Not anything red being served, then.

“Absolutely. I know you had a full class schedule today,” he said. “This is a purely social call. I wanted to reassure your parents that all was going well for you.” He looked down into his coffee. “And that what happened before would never happen again.”

What happened before was code for the bite marks on her neck. The wounds were healed, but there was a scar, and as she thought about it, her hand went up and covered the scar, on its own. She forced it back down. Her parents didn’t have any idea that Myrnin was responsible for that; they’d been told that it had been some other random vamp, and that Myrnin had helped save her. It was partly true, anyway. Myrnin had helped save her. He’d just also been the one to bite her.

Not that it had really been his fault. He’d been hurt, and desperate, and she’d just been there. At least he’d stopped himself in time.

She certainly hadn’t been able to stop him.

“Thanks,” she said. She couldn’t really be mad at him, not for any of it. It would have been easier if she could have. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Me? Delicious as it smells, I fear I’m not one for bell peppers,” he said, and stood up with one of those graceful moves vampires seemed so good at pulling off. They moved like humans, but better. “I’d better take my leave, Mrs. Danvers. Thank you so much for your hospitality, and the delicious coffee. Please tell your husband I thank him as well.”

“That’s it?” Claire asked, mystified. “You came to talk to my parents, and now you’re leaving?”

“Yes,” he said, perfectly at ease, and perfectly weird. “And to drop this off for you, from Amelie.” He patted his vest pockets, and came up with a cream-colored envelope, which he handed over to her. It was heavy, expensive paper, and it was stamped on the back with the Founder’s Seal. It was unopened. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Claire. Don’t forget the donuts.”

“I won’t,” she said, all her attention on the envelope in her hands. Myrnin said something else to her mother, and then the kitchen door opened and closed, and he was gone.

“He has such beautiful manners,” her mother said, locking the back door. “I’m glad you work for someone so—civilized.”

The scar on Claire’s neck throbbed a little. She thought of all the times she’d seen Myrnin go off the rails—the times he’d curled up weeping in a corner; the times he’d threatened her; the times he’d raved like a lunatic for hours on end; the times he’d begged her to put him out of his misery.

The time he’d actually given her samples of his own brain—in a Tupperware container.

“Civilized,” she repeated softly. “Yeah. He’s great.” He was; that was the awful thing. He was great until he was horrible.

Kind of like the world in general.

Claire slit open the envelope with a kitchen knife, slipped out the heavy folded paper inside, and read the beautiful, looped handwriting—Amelie’s, without a doubt.

In accordance with recent requests, I hereby am providing you with passes to exit and return to Morganville. You must present these to the checkpoints at the edge of town. Please provide them to your party and give them the same instructions. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Coordinate with Oliver to arrange your exit time.

Claire’s breath left her in a rush. Morley’s passes! Perfect timing, too; she didn’t know how much longer any of them could keep Morley and his people from losing patience, and coming to take it out in blood. They wanted out of Morganville.

She could give it to them.

She realized immediately, however, as she took the passes out of the envelope, that there weren’t nearly enough. Morley’s people would need about thirty passes in total. Instead, there were only four in the envelope.

The names read Michael Glass, Eve Rosser, Shane Collins, and Claire Danvers.

What the hell was going on?

Claire pulled out her cell phone and hit SPEED DIAL. It rang, and rang, but there was no answer. She hung up and tried another number.

“Oliver,” said the voice on the other end.

“Um, hi, it’s Claire? Is—is Amelie there with you?”

“No.”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up! You’re on the town council—I just got a letter that has some passes in it, but it’s not enough for—”

“We turned down Morley’s request for emigration out of Morganville,” Oliver said. He had a low, even tone to his voice, but Claire felt herself go cold anyway. “He has a philosophy that is too dangerous to those of us who wish to remain ... What’s the phrase? Under the radar.”

“But—we made a deal. Me, Shane, Eve, and Michael. We said we’d get them passes.”

“I’m aware of your deal. What is your question?”

“It’s just—Morley said he’d kill us. If we didn’t get the passes for him. We told you that.”

Oliver was silent for a long second, then said, “What part of I’m aware did you not comprehend, Claire? You and your friends have passes out of Morganville. As it happens, Michael requested leave to travel to Dallas for his recording and concert session. We’ve decided to allow that, under the condition that all of you travel together. With escort.”

“Escort?” Claire asked. “You mean, like police?” She was thinking of Sheriff Hannah Moses, who would be good company in addition to a bad-ass bodyguard; she’d liked Hannah from the moment she’d met her, and she thought Hannah liked her, too, as much as a tough ex-soldier could like a skinny, geeky girl half her age.

“No,” Oliver said, “I don’t mean police.” And he hung up. Claire stared at the screen for a moment, then folded the phone closed and slipped it back in her pocket. She looked down at the passes, the envelope, the letter.

Amelie had decided to really piss off Morley, but at least she’d also decided to get Claire and her friends out of town.

With an escort.

Somehow, Claire knew it wouldn’t be as simple as just picking a responsible adult to go with them.

“Go get your father,” her mom said, and began setting dishes on the table. “He’s upstairs on the computer. Tell him dinner’s ready.”

Claire gathered up everything and put it in her backpack before heading upstairs. Another wave of same-but-not-quite washed over her; her mother and father had reserved the same room for her here that she had over in the Glass House, though the two were nothing alike. Home—in name, anyway—had her frilly white bed and furniture, stuff she’d gotten when she was ten. Pink curtains. Her room at the Glass House was completely different—dark woods, dark fabrics. Adult.

Dad’s computer room would have been Shane’s bedroom in the other house, which woke all kinds of thoughts and memories that really weren’t appropriate right now and caused her face to heat up as she poked her head in the room and quickly said, “Dad, dinner’s ready! Help me eat the stuffed bell peppers before I gag and die?”

Her father looked up from the computer screen with a surprised, guilty jerk, and quickly shut down what he was doing. Claire blinked. Dad? Her dad was ... normal. Boringly normal. Not an activist, not a freak, not somebody who had to hide what he was doing on the computer from his own daughter. “Tell me you weren’t looking at porn,” she said.

“Claire!”

“Well, sorry, but you did the guilty dance. Most people I know, that means porn.”

Her dad pulled in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said, “I was playing a game.”

That made her feel oh-so-much better. Until he said, “It’s one of those online multiplayer games.”

“Yeah? Which one? One of the fantasy ones?”

He looked mortally embarrassed now. “Not—not really.”

“Then what?”

In answer, he brought up the screen. On it was a night scene, a castle, a graveyard—typical horror fare, at least if you were from the 1950s.

A character appeared on the screen—pale, tall, dressed in a Dracula cape and tuxedo.

With fangs.

Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at her father, her normal, boring father. “You’re playing a vampire game?”

“It’s called Castlemoor. I’m not just playing it. I get paid to be there, to watch what people are doing online.”

“You—get paid—to play a vampire? By who?” Her father sat back in his chair, and he slowly shook his head. “That’s my business, Claire.”

“Is it Amelie? Oliver?”

“Claire.” This time, his voice had the parental ring of authority. “Enough. It’s a job, and I get paid well enough to do it. We both know it’s the best thing I can find, with all my restrictions. The doctors don’t want me exerting myself too much.”

Her dad wasn’t well, and hadn’t been for a while now. He was frail, fragile, and she worried about him more and more. About her mother, too. Mom looked frayed around the edges, with a kind of suppressed panic in her eyes.

“You’ll be okay?” Claire said. Somehow she made it a question, although she didn’t mean to. “Did they find anything else?”

“No, honey, everything’s fine. I just need time to get stronger.”

He was lying to her, but she could tell that he didn’t want her to pursue it. She wanted to; she wanted to yell and scream and demand to know what was going on.

But instead, she swallowed and said, “Playing a vampire online. That’s a pretty wild career move, Dad.”

“Beats unemployment. So, stuffed bell peppers, huh? I know how much you love those.” Claire made a gagging sound. Her dad reached over and ruffled her dark hair. “Why don’t you just tell her you don’t like them?”

“I did. I do. It’s a mom thing. She just keeps telling me I used to like them.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s a mom thing.”

Dinner passed the way it normally did, with Claire picking out edible parts of the bell pepper and her mother holding forth about whatever she was doing for the week. Claire contributed when direct questions came her way; otherwise, she just stayed out of it. She always knew what Mom was going to say, anyway. And she knew Dad wouldn’t say much, if anything.

What he did say was, “Why don’t you bring Shane over some night for dinner?”

It was as if time stopped. Her mother froze, fork halfway to her mouth; Claire froze, too, but unfortunately she was in the process of gulping down a mouthful of Coke at the time, which meant coughing and sputtering, watering eyes, the whole embarrassing bit.

“Honey, I’m sure Shane’s very busy,” her mother said, recovering. “Right, Claire?”

“I’d like to talk to him,” her father said, and right now there wasn’t any warm-and-fuzzy daddy vibe. It was more PARENT, in big, flashing red letters. “Soon.”

“Uh—okay, I’ll see if—Okay.” Claire frantically cut up a piece of stuffed bell pepper and ate it, bell pepper and all. She nearly choked again, but she managed to get it down. “Hey, I might be taking a trip.”

“What kind of a trip?”

“To Dallas. With my friends.”

“We’ll see,” Dad said, which meant no, of course. “I’d need to talk to Shane first.”

Oh God, now they were bargaining. Or she was being blackmailed. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. Claire mumbled that she’d try, or something like that, choked down another bite of food that no longer tasted even a little good, and jumped up to clear her plate. “Claire!” her mother called after her as she dashed into the kitchen. “You’re not running off tonight, are you? I was hoping we could spend some time with you!”

“You just did,” Claire muttered as she rinsed the plate and put it in the dishwasher. She raised her voice and yelled back, “Can’t, Mom! I’ve got to study! All my books are over at the Glass House!”

“Well, you’re not walking over there in the dark,” Mom said. “Obviously.”

“I told you, I’ve got a pin from Amelie! They’re not going to bother me!”

Her dad opened the door of the kitchen. “And what about just garden-variety humans? You think that little pin protects you from everything that could hurt you?”

“Dad—”

“I worry about you, Claire. You take these risks, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why you think it’s okay.”

She bit her lip. There was something in his voice, a kind of weary disappointment that cut her to the core and nearly brought tears to her eyes. She loved him, but he could be so clueless.

“I didn’t say I’d walk, Dad,” she said. “I make mistakes, sure, but I’m not stupid. ”

She took out her cell phone, dialed a number, and turned her back on her father. When Eve answered with a bright, chirping, “Hit me!” Claire said, “Can you come get me? At my house?”

“Claire,” her father said.

She turned to look at him. “Dad, I really have to study.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.” He said it with a funny little smile, sad and resigned. And it wasn’t until she smiled that she realized what he’d really said.

Home. The Glass House.

“It’s hard for us to let go,” he said. “You know that, right?”

She did. She hesitated for a second, then said into the phone, “Never mind, Eve. Sorry. Dad’s bringing me.”

Then she hugged her father, and he hugged her back, hard, and kissed her gently on the forehead. “I love you, sweetie.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“But not enough to eat more stuffed bell peppers and play Jenga with your folks.”

“No more bell peppers, but I’d completely play Jenga,” she said. “One game?”

He hugged her even harder. “I’ll get the game.”

Three games of Jenga later, Claire was tired, happy, and a little bit sad. She’d seen her mom laugh, and her dad look happy, and that was good, but there’d been something odd about it, too. She felt like a visitor, as if she didn’t fit here anymore, the way she once had. They were her family, but seen from the outside. She had too many experiences now that didn’t include them.

“Claire,” her dad said as he drove her home through the darkened streets of Morganville. It was quiet out, only a few cars moving about. Two of them were white police cruisers. At least three other cars they passed had heavy tinting, too heavy for humans to see through. “Your mom had a talk with me, and I’m not going to insist you keep on living at home with us. If you want to live with your friends, you can.”

“Really?” She sat up straight, looking at him. “You mean it?”

“I don’t see how it makes much difference. You’re seventeen, and a more independent seventeen than I ever was. You’ve got a job and responsibilities beyond anything I can really understand. It doesn’t make much sense for us to keep trying to treat you like a sheltered little girl.” He hesitated, then went on. “And I sound like the worst dad in the world, don’t I?”

“No,” she said. “No, you don’t. You sound like—like you understand.”

He sighed. “Your mother thinks if we just put more restrictions on you, things would get back to normal. You’d go back to being the same little girl she knew. But they won’t, and you won’t. I know that.”

He sounded a little sad about it, and she remembered how she’d felt at the house—a little out of place, as if she were a visitor in their lives. Her life was splitting off on its own.

It was such a strange feeling.

“But about Shane—,” her father continued.

“Dad!”

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m not saying Shane is a bad guy—I’m sure he’s not, at heart—but you really need to think about your future. What you want to do with your life. Don’t get in too deep, too fast. You understand what I’m saying?”

“You married Mom when you were nineteen.”

He sighed. “I knew you’d bring that up.”

“Well? It’s okay for you to make decisions before twenty, but not me?”

“Short answer? Yes. And we both know that if I really wanted to, I could make Shane’s life a living hell. Dads can do that.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“No, I won’t, because I do think he really loves you, and he really wants to protect you. But what Shane may not get at that age is that he could be the worst thing in the world for you. He could completely derail you. Just—keep your head, okay? You’re a smart girl. Don’t let your hormones run your life.”

He pulled the car to a stop at the Glass House, behind Eve’s big monster of a car. There were lights blazing in the windows—warmth and friendship and another life, her life; one her parents could only watch from the outside.

She turned to her father and saw him watching her with that same sad, quiet expression. He moved a strand of hair back from her face. “My little girl,” he said, and shook his head. “I expect you for dinner soon.”

“Okay,” she said, and kissed him quickly. “Bye, Daddy. I love you.”

He smiled, and she quickly got out of the car and ran up the cracked walk, jumped up the steps to the porch, and waved at him from the front door as she got out her keys. Even so, he waited, watching until she’d actually opened the door, stepped in, and closed it. Only then did she hear the engine rev as his car pulled out.

Michael was playing in the living room. Loud. That wasn’t normal at all for him, and as Claire came around the comer, she found Eve and Shane sitting on the floor, watching the show. Michael had set up an amplifier, and he was playing his electric guitar, which he rarely did at home, and damn. That was impressive stuff. She sank down next to Shane and leaned against him, and he put his arm around her. The music was like a physical wall pushing over her, and after the first few seconds of fighting it, Claire finally let herself go; she was pulled away on the roaring tide of notes as Michael played. She had no idea what the song was, but it was fast, loud, and amazing.

When it was over, her ears were left ringing, but she didn’t care. Along with Shane and Eve, she clapped and whooped and whistled, and Michael gravely took a bow as he shut down the amp and unplugged. Shane got up and high-fived, then low-fived him. “Nothing but net, man. How do you do that?”

“No idea, really,” Michael said. “Hey, Claire. How are the folks?”

“Okay,” she said. “My dad says I can officially move back in.” Not that she’d ever really moved out.

“I knew we’d wear them down,” Eve said. “After all, we really are amazingly cool.” And now it was Eve’s turn for the high five with Shane. “For a bunch of misfit geeks, slackers, and losers.”

“Which one are you?” Shane asked. She flipped him off. “Oh, right. Loser. Thanks for reminding me.”

Claire dug in her backpack and came out with the passes Myrnin had delivered. “Uh—I got these today. Somebody want to fill me in?”

Michael, at vampire speed, crossed the distance and snatched the paper out of her hand. He spread out the individual passes and stared at them with a blank, shocked expression. “But—I didn’t think—”

“Apparently, somebody agreed,” Claire said. “Eve?”

Eve frowned. “What? What is it?”

“Passes,” Michael said. “To leave town, to go to Dallas. To do the demo.”

“For you?”

“For all of us.” Michael looked up and slowly smiled. “You know what this means?”

Shane threw back his head and let out a loud wolf howl. “Road trip!” he yelled! “Yes!”

Michael put his arms around Eve, and she melted against him, her pale-painted face against his chest, hands around his waist. Claire saw her dark eyes flutter closed, and a kind of peaceful happiness came over Eve’s face—and then her eyes snapped open. “Wait,” she said. “I’ve never—I mean—outside? Of Morganville? To Dallas? You can’t be serious. Michael?”

He held up a pass with her name on it. “It’s signed. Official.”

“They’re letting us leave town? Are they insane? Because once I hit the shops in Dallas, I don’t think I’m ever coming home.” Eve made a face. “And I can’t believe I just thought of Morganville as home. How much of a saddie am I?”

“Eight out of ten,” Shane said. “But we do have to come back, right?”

“Right,” Michael said. “Well, I have to come back. I’ve got nowhere else to go. You guys ...”

“Stop,” Eve said, and put a hand over his mouth to enforce the order. “Just stop there. Please.”

He looked down at her, and their eyes locked. He took her hand away from his mouth, and then lifted the backs of her fingers to his lips for a long, slow kiss. It was just about the sexiest thing Claire had ever seen, full of sweetness and love and longing. From the expression on Eve’s face, it was just about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, too. “We’ll talk about it on the road,” Michael said. “The passes are good for a week. I’ll make some calls and see when they need me in the studio there.”

Eve nodded. Claire doubted she could put any words together, right at that moment.

“Hey,” Shane said, and tapped Claire on the nose. “Snap out of it.”

“What? What!”

“Seriously. You’ve got this chick flick hit-by-the-romance-hammer look. Stop it.”

“Ass.”

He shrugged. “I’m not one of those romantic guys,” he said. “Hey, date Michael if you want that.”

“No, don’t,” Eve said dreamily. “Mine.”

“And there goes my blood sugar level,” Shane said. “It’s getting late, Claire has school tomorrow, I’ve got a long day of chopping fine barbecue—”

“I think we’ll stay down here,” Michael said. He and Eve still hadn’t blinked or looked away from each other.

“I am really not sticking around for that.” Shane took Claire’s hand in his. “Upstairs?”

She nodded, hitched her bag on her other shoulder, and followed him up. Shane opened the door of his room, turned, and lifted her hand up to his lips. He didn’t quite kiss it. His dark eyes were wicked with laughter.

“Ass,” she said again, more severely. “You couldn’t be romantic if your life depended on it.”

“You know what’s lucky? Most bad guys don’t ask you to be romantic on command, so that probably won’t matter.”

“Only girlfriends do that.”

“Well, they can qualify as supervillains. But only if they have a secret underground base. Wait—you’ve got a mad scientist for a boss, and a lab—”

“Park it,” she said, and smacked his arm. “Are you going to kiss me good night, or what?”

“Romantic on command. See?”

“Fine,” Claire said, and this time she actually did feel a little annoyed. “Then don’t. Good night.”

She pulled away from him and walked away the few steps to her own room, opened the door, slammed it, and flopped on her bed without bothering to turn on the lights. After a few seconds she remembered that in Morganville that was never a smart choice, and switched on the bedside Tiffany lamp. Rich colored light threw patterns on the wood, the walls, her skin.

No monsters were hiding in the shadows. She was too tired to check under the bed or in the closet.

“Ass,” she said again, and put her pillow over her face to scream her frustration into it. “Shane Collins is an ass!”

She stopped at the sound of a soft knock on the door. She put the pillow aside and waited, listening.

The knock came again.

“You’re an ass,” she yelled.

“I know,” came Shane’s voice through the door. “Let me make it up to you?”

“As if you can.”

“Try me.”

She sighed, slid off the bed, and went to open up.

Shane was standing there, of course. He came inside, closed the door behind him, and said, “Sit down.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just sit down.”

She did, perching on the edge of the bed and already frowning. There was something really different in the way he was acting now—the flip side of how he’d been just a few moments ago, teasing and teen-boy.

This seemed much more ... adult.

“When you were in the hospital, after Dan ... well, you know.” He shrugged. “You were kind of drugged up. I’m not sure what you remember.”

She didn’t remember all that much, really. A boy had abducted her and hurt her pretty badly. She’d lost a lot of blood, and they’d given her something for the night-mares. She remembered everybody coming to see her—Mom, Dad, Eve, Michael, Shane. Even Myrnin. Even Amelie and Oliver.

Shane ... he’d stayed with her. He’d said...

She couldn’t really remember what he’d said.

“Anyway,” Shane said, “I told you this was for later. I guess it’s kind of later, so, anyway.”

He took out a small velvet box from his pocket, and Claire’s heart just ... stopped. She thought she might faint. The top of her head felt very hot, and the rest of her felt very cold, and all she could look at was the box in his hand.

He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

Was he?

Shane was looking at the box, too. He turned it in his fingers restlessly. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “It’s not—look, it’s a ring, but I don’t want you to think—” He opened the box and showed her what was inside.

It was a beautiful little ring, silver, with a red stone in the shape of a heart, and hands holding it on either side. “It’s a claddagh ring,” he said. “It belonged to my sister, Alyssa. My mom gave it to her. It was in Alyssa’s locker at school when she—when the house burned.” When Alyssa died. When Shane’s life completely collapsed around him.

Tears burned in Claire’s eyes. The ring glittered, silver and red, and she couldn’t look at Shane’s face. She thought that might destroy her. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “But you’re not asking—”

“No, Claire.” He suddenly sank to his knees, as if the strength had just gone out of him. “I suck, I know, but I can’t do something like that, not yet. I’m ... Look, family doesn’t mean to me what it means to you. Mine fell apart. My sister, my mom—and I can’t even think about my dad. But I love you, Claire. That’s what this means. That I love you. Okay?”

She looked up at him then, and felt tears break free to run hot down her cheeks. “I love you, too,” she said. “I can’t take the ring. It means—it means too much to you. It’s all you have left of them.”

“That’s why it’s better if you have it,” he said, and held out the box, cupped in one hand. “Because you can make it a better memory. I can barely look at this thing without seeing the past. I don’t want to see the past anymore. I want to see the future.” He didn’t blink, and she felt the breath leave her body. “You’re the future, Claire.”

Her head felt light and empty, her whole body hot and cold, shaking and strong.

She reached out and took the velvet box. She pulled the ring out and looked at it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Are you sure—”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

He took the ring from her and tried it on her right hand. It fit perfectly on the third finger.

Then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, and it was definitely better than Michael had done it, definitely sexier, and Claire dropped to her knees with him; then he was kissing her, his mouth hot and hungry, and they fell back together to the throw rug next to the bed, and stayed there, locked in each other’s arms, until the chill finally drove them up to the bed.

3

Of all the mornings Claire didn’t want to get up, the next one was the worst. She woke up warm and drowsy, cuddled like a spoon against Shane, their hands clasped even in sleep. She felt great. Better than any day, ever, in her whole life.

In the still hush of early morning, she tried to freeze the moment, the sound of his soft, steady breathing, the feel of him relaxed and solid next to her.

I want this, she thought. Every day. For life. Forever.

And then her alarm clock went off, shrieking.

Claire flailed and slapped at it, then succeeded in knocking it to the floor. She dived for it and finally got it switched off, feeling like a complete fool that she’d ever left it on in the first place. She twisted around and saw Shane had opened his eyes, but hadn’t otherwise moved. He looked drowsy and sweet and lazy, hair mussed, and she leaned back down to kiss him, sweet and slow.

His arms went around her, and it felt so natural, so perfect, that she felt that glow again, that feeling of absolute rightness.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re cute when you’re panicked.”

“Just when I’m panicked?”

“Ouch. Yeah, that didn’t come out as absolutely complimentary as I’d planned. And you hang around Eve way too much.” His fingers drew lazy circles on her back, which felt like trails of sunlight. “What’s the plan for today? Because I’m in favor of nothing but this.”

She so wanted that, too. But there was a reason her alarm had gone off. “I have class,” she said with a sigh.

“Skip it.” He kissed her bare shoulder.

“I—you’ve got work! Remember? Sharp pointy knives and beef to chop?”

“Fun as that is, this is better.”

Well, his arguments were persuasive. Really persuasive. For about another thirty minutes, and then Claire forced herself to get up, grab the shower before Shane could get to it, and try to get her mind off the fact that he was lying in her bed.

And he still was when she came back in to grab her backpack. His hands were behind his head, and he looked ridiculously satisfied with the world—and with himself.

She smacked his bare foot, which was sticking out from under the sheet. “Get up, Lord of the Barbecue.”

“Ha. Don’t have to yet. You’re the one who had the bad idea to sign up for seven a.m. classes. Me, I go to work at a sensible hour.”

“Well, you’re not lying around in my bed all day, so get up. I don’t trust you alone in here.”

His smile was wicked and really, really dangerous. “Probably a good idea,” he said. “Not that you can exactly trust me in here when you’re with me.”

Oh, she was not going to climb back in bed with him. She was not. She had things to do. After gulping in a few deep breaths, she leaned over, gave him a quick kiss, avoided his grabby hands, and dashed to the door. “Out of my bed,” she said. “I mean it.”

He yawned. She grinned and shut the door on her way out.

Downstairs, the coffeepot was already brewing, and Michael was sitting at the table, a laptop computer open in front of him. She was a little surprised; Michael wasn’t really the computer type. He had one, and she supposed he had e-mail and stuff, but he wasn’t always on it or anything. Not like most people their age. (Not like her, honestly.)

He looked up at her, then down at the screen, and then back up, to stare at her as if he’d never seen her before.

“What?” she asked. “Don’t tell me some of Kim’s skanky home video made YouTube.” That was something she really didn’t ever want to think about again. Kim and her little sneaky spying habits. Kim and her plans to make herself a star with all her hidden video cameras recording every aspect of life in Morganville.

Yeah, that hadn’t gone so well for Kim, in the end.

He shook his head and went back to the computer. “I’ve been checking about the studio, the recording session, you know? They’re serious, Claire. They want me in there on Thursday.”

“Really?” She grabbed a cup of coffee and slid into a chair across from him, then doctored up her drink with milk and sugar. “So we have to leave Thursday morning?”

“No, I’m thinking we leave tonight. Just in case. And besides, it gives us some time to get used to Dallas, and I don’t want to travel during the day.” Right. Vampires. Road trip. Sunlight. Probably not the best idea.

“We can’t take your car, can we? I mean, the tinting’s not legal outside of Morganville.”

“Yeah. Which is another reason for night driving. I figure we can take Eve’s car. It’s roomy and it’s got a big trunk, in case.”

In case they got caught in the sun, he meant. Claire tapped her fingers on the coffee cup, thinking. “What about supplies?” she said. “You know.”

“I’ll stop at the blood bank and pick up a cooler,” he said. “To go.”

“Seriously? They do that?”

“You’d be surprised. We can even put Cokes in there, too.”

That didn’t seem too sanitary, somehow. Claire tried not to think about it. “How long are we going to be gone?”

“If we leave tonight and I do the demo on Thursday during the day, we could be back on Friday night. Or Saturday, depending on what kind of stuff you guys want to do. I’m easy.”

That made Claire remember something. “Uh—you know we’re going to have an escort, right?”

“Escort?” Michael frowned. “What kind of escort?” Claire mimed fangs. Michael rolled his eyes. “Perfect. Who?”

“No idea. All I know is Amelie’s letter said we had to clear our departure time with Oliver.”

Michael kept on frowning. He reached for his cell phone and dialed as he sipped more coffee. “It’s Michael,” he said. “I hear we have to clear leaving town with you. We’re planning on going tonight, around dusk.”

His face went entirely blank as he listened to whatever Oliver said on the other end. Michael didn’t say anything at all.

Finally, he put the coffee cup down and said, “Do we have a choice?” Pause. “I didn’t think so. We’ll meet you there.”

He hung up, carefully laid the cell phone down on the table next to his coffee, and sank back in his chair, eyes closed. He looked—indescribable, Claire decided. It was as if there were so many things inside him fighting to come out that he couldn’t decide which one to let off the leash first.

“What?” she finally asked, half afraid to even try.

Eyes still shut, Michael said, “We’ve got an escort, all right.”

“Who?”

“Oliver.”

Claire set down her own coffee cup with a thump that slopped brown liquid over the rim. “What?”

“I know.”

“We have to be trapped in a car with Oliver?”

“I know.”

“So much for the fun. Fun all gone.”

He sighed and finally opened his eyes. She knew that look; she remembered it from when she’d first met him. Bitter and guarded. Hurt. Trapped. Then, he’d been a ghost, unable to leave this house, caught between human and vampire.

Now he was just as trapped, only instead of the house, his boundaries were the town limits. He’d felt, for the last few hours, as if he could break free, be someone else.

Oliver had just taken that away from him.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. He shut the computer, unplugged it, and stood up. He didn’t meet her eyes again.

“Be ready at six,” he said. “Tell Shane. I’ll tell Eve.”

She nodded. He kept his head down as he walked toward the kitchen door. When he got there, he stopped for a few seconds without turning back to look at her. “Thanks,” he said. “Sucks, you know?”

“I know.”

Michael laughed bitterly. “Shane would have said, And so do you. ”

“I’m not Shane.”

“Yeah.” He still didn’t turn around. “I’m glad you’re happy with him. He’s a good guy, you know.”

“Michael—”

He was already gone by the time she said his name, just the swinging door left behind. There was no sense chasing him. He wanted to brood in private.

She called Shane to tell him what time they were leaving, but not about Oliver. Frankly, she didn’t want to have that grief just yet. She went on to class. After her early ones, she had a two-hour break, which meant she had things to do, so she could leave town with a clear conscience.

And besides, she’d been looking forward to this since she’d first thought of it.

First step—she walked the few blocks from campus to Common Grounds, Oliver’s coffee shop, and ordered up a mocha. He was behind the bar—a tall older man, with hippie hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt under his coffee-stained apron. When he was serving customers, you’d never know he was a vampire, much less one of the meanest she’d ever met.

Mocha in hand, Claire texted Monica’s cell. Meet me at Common Grounds ASAP.

She got back an immediate Btr B good.

Oh, it would be.

Claire sipped and waited, and Monica eventually rolled up in her hot red convertible; no Gina and Jennifer this time. Monica seemed to be getting out more and more without her backup singers, which was interesting. Claire supposed even they were getting tired of providing constant on-demand validation.

Monica blew in the front door of the shop in a dress that was too short for her, but showed off her long tanned legs; the swirl of wind almost made it illegal. She shoved her expensive sunglasses up on top of her glossy black hair and scanned the room. The sneer that twisted her full lips was probably mostly reflex.

After putting in her coffee order, Monica slipped into a chair across from Claire. “Well?” she said, and dropped her tiny purse on the table. “Like I said, this had better be good.”

When Oliver brought over Monica’s coffee, Claire said, “Would you mind staying for a minute?”

“What?”

“As a moderator.” Oliver was a broker of deals in Morganville. Common Grounds was a key place where humans and vampires could meet, mingle in safety, and reach all kinds of agreements that Oliver would witness and enforce.

Pretty rarely between humans, though.

Oliver shrugged and sat down between the two girls. “All right. Make it quick.”

Monica already looked thunderously angry, so Claire spoke first. “Monica made a deal with me for test answers. I want you to witness me handing them over.”

Oliver’s eyebrows twitched up, and the look on his face was bitterly amused. “You’re asking me to witness a schoolyard transaction for cheating. How ... quaint.”

Claire didn’t wait. She pushed over a thumb drive toward Monica. “There’s an electronic file on there,” she said. “It’s password protected. If you can figure out the password, you can have the answers.”

Monica’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You said I had to give them to you. I did. That’s what I wanted Oliver to see. Now you have them, so we’re done. No comebacks. Right?”

“You put them under a password?”

“One you can guess,” Claire said. “If you did the homework. Or can read fast.”

“You little bitch.” Monica’s hand flashed out—not for the thumb drive, but for Claire’s arm. She crushed it to the table, her nails digging in deep enough to draw blood. “I told you, I’ll fry your ass.”

“With you, I know that’s not an empty threat,” Claire said. “Alyssa Collins is proof of that.”

Monica went very still, and something flickered across her eyes—shock? Maybe even regret and guilt. “I’m not taking this thing. You give me the answers without the password.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “Did you specify how she had to give you the answers?”

“No,” Claire said. “She just said I had to. I did. Hey, this is the nicest way I could have done it. I could have given it to her in Latin or something.”

“Let go of her,” Oliver said mildly. When Monica didn’t, his tone turned icy. “Let. Go.”

She pulled her hand back and folded her arms over her chest, glaring at Claire, her jaw set hard. “This isn’t over.”

“It is,” Oliver said. “Not her fault you made a poor definition of what it was you wanted from her. She satisfied all requirements. She’s even given you a reasonable chance of discovering the password. Take it and walk away, Monica.”

“This isn’t over,” Monica repeated, ignoring him. When she reached for the thumb drive, Oliver’s pale, strong hand slapped down over it, and over her fingers, holding her in place. Monica yelped. It must have hurt.

“Look at me,” he said. Monica blinked and focused on his face, and Claire saw her pupils widen. Her lips parted a little. “Monica Morrell, you are my responsibility. You owe me respect, and you owe me obedience. And you will leave Claire Danvers alone. If you have cause to attack her, you will tell me first. I will decide whether or not you can take action. And you do not have my permission. Not for this.” He let go. Monica yanked her hand back and cradled it against her chest. “Now, take your business and your coffee elsewhere. Both of you.”

Monica reached out and snatched up the small memory stick. As she did, Claire said, “The thumb drive cost me ten bucks.” Monica’s glare reached nuclear levels, but since Oliver was still sitting there, she dug in her tiny purse, found a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and flung it over the table to Claire. She smoothed it out, smiled, and put it in her pocket.

“If you’re quite finished,” Oliver said. “Leave. Monica, go first. I won’t have you doing anything messy. I’m not your maid.”

Monica sent him a look that was definitely not a glare; it was much more scared than angry. She picked up her purse, the coffee, and stalked to the door. She didn’t look back as she piled into her convertible and burned rubber pulling out.

“One of these days,” Oliver said, still looking toward the street, “you’re going to be too clever for your own good, Claire. You do realize that.”

She did, actually. But sometimes, it was just impossible to do anything else.

“I guess you’re coming with us tonight?”

Oliver turned his head to look at her this time, and there was something so cold and distant in his eyes that she shivered. “Did you hear me when I told you to leave? I don’t like being used to settle your problems.”

She swallowed, picked up her stuff, and left.

The afternoon was spent with Myrnin at his freaky mad-scientist lab, which was actually much nicer after the renovations he’d done: new equipment; computers; nice bookcases; decent lighting instead of crazy turn-of-last-century things that emitted sparks when you tried to turn them off or on.

Still, no matter how nice the decor, Myrnin was never less than half crazy. He was under pressure from Amelie, Claire knew; with the death—could computers die?—of Ada, the town’s master computer; he was struggling to figure out a way to make a replacement, but without putting a human brain into it, which Claire strongly discouraged, seeing how well that had worked out with Ada, and the fact that Claire herself was almost certainly the next candidate.

“Computers,” Myrnin said, then shoved the laptop she’d put out for him aside and glared at it as if it had personally insulted him. “The technology is entirely idiotic. Who built this? Baboons?”

“It works fine,” Claire said, and took command of the computer to bring up the interface she’d designed. “All you have to do is explain to me how Ada was connected into the portal and security systems, and I can build some kind of connector. You can run it right from this screen. See?” She’d even gotten an art student at the school to design the interface in a steampunky kind of way, which she thought would make him feel more at home. Myrnin continued to frown at it, but in a less aggressive way. “Try it. Just touch the screen.”

He reached out with one fingertip and pressed the screen over the icon of the shield. The security screen came up, all rusted iron and ornamental gears. He made a humming sound in the back of his throat and pressed again. “And this would control the programming.”

“Yeah, it’s GUI—a graphic user interface.”

“And this program would be able to detect vampires and humans, and treat them differently?”

“Yeah. We just use heat-sensing technology. Vampires have a lower body temperature. It’s easy to tell the difference.”

“Can it be cheated?”

Claire shrugged. “Anything can be cheated. But it’s pretty good.”

“And the memory alteration?”

That was a problem—a big problem. “I don’t think you can actually do that with a computer. I mean, isn’t that some kind of vampire mind thing?” Because Ada had, in fact, been a vampire. And the machine that Myrnin had built to keep her brain alive had somehow allowed her to broadcast that vampire power on a wide field. Claire didn’t really understand it, but she knew it worked—had worked.

“That’s a rather large failure. What’s this?” Myrnin tapped an icon that had a radar screen icon. Nothing happened.

“That’s an early-warning system, to monitor approaches to town. In case.”

“In case what?”

“In case someone like Mr. Bishop decides to visit again.”

Myrnin smiled and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “There is no one like Mr. Bishop,” he said. “Thank the most holy. And this is excellent work, Claire, but it doesn’t solve our fundamental problem. The difference engine needs programming to allow for removal of dangerous memories. I know of no other way to achieve what we need than to interface it with a biological database.”

“A brain.”

“Well, if you want to be technical.”

Claire sighed. “I am not getting you a brain, because I am not that kind of lab assistant, Dr. Frankenstein. Can we go through the map again?”

The map was a giant flowchart that stretched the length of the lab, on giant notepads. She had painstakingly mapped out every single if, then, and and/or that Myrnin had been able to describe.

It was huge. Really huge. And she wasn’t at all sure it could be done, period—except that he had done it, once, to Ada.

She just wanted to take the icky brain part out of the equation.

“It’s so much easier,” Myrnin insisted as they walked the row of pages. “The brain is capable of processing a staggering number of calculations per second, and is capable of incorporating variables and factors that a mere computer cannot. It’s the finest example of a calculating machine ever developed. We’re fools not to use it.”

“Well, you’re not putting my brain into a machine. Ever.”

“I wouldn’t.” Myrnin picked a piece of lint from his shiny vest. “Unless it was the only answer, of course. Or, of course, unless you weren’t using it anymore.”

“Never. Promise.”

He shrugged. “I promise.” But not in any way that mattered, Claire thought. Myrnin’s promises were kind of—flexible. “You’re leaving town the rest of the week?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving tonight. You’ll be okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He clasped his hands behind him and paced back and forth, staring at the charts. He was wearing shorts today, and flip-flops, of course—like some homeless surfer from the waist down, some Edwardian lord from the waist up. It was strange, and ridiculously Myrnin. “I’m not an infant, Claire. I don’t need you to take care of me. Believe me.”

She didn’t, really. Yes, he was old. Yes, he was a vampire. Yes, he was crazy/smart—but the crazy part was always as strong as, or stronger than, the smart part. Even now.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” she asked him. He turned and looked at her, and looked utterly innocent.

“Why in the world would I do that?” he asked. “Have a good time, Claire. The work will still be here when you return.”

She shut down the laptop and closed the lid, packing it up to put it away. As she did, he finally nodded at the machine. “That’s not bad,” he said. “As a start.”

“Thanks.” She was a little surprised. Myrnin didn’t often give out random compliments. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Certainly. Why wouldn’t I be?”

There was just something off about his mood. From visiting her parents to the way he was restlessly prowling the lab—he just wasn’t his usual, unsettlingly manic self. He was a different manic self.

“I wish I were going with you,” he finally said. “There. I’ve said it. You may mock me at your will.”

“Really? But—we’re just going for Michael, really.” That wasn’t true. It was a chance to get out of Morganville, experience life out in the real world. And she knew it would be amazing to feel free again, even for a little while. “Couldn’t you go if you wanted?”

He sat down in his leather wing chair, put on his spectacles, and opened a book from a pile next to it. “Could I?” he asked. “If Amelie didn’t wish me to leave? Not very likely.”

She’d never considered that Myrnin, of all people, could be just as trapped in Morganville as everybody else. He seemed so ... in control, somehow, at the same time he was wildly out of control. But she could see that of everyone in town, Amelie would trust Myrnin the least in terms of actually exiting the town limits. He had too much knowledge, too much insanity brewing around in that head of his.

As careful as Amelie was, she’d never take the risk. No, Myrnin, of everybody in Morganville, would be the next to last to leave, right before Amelie herself. He was her—pet? No, that wasn’t right. Her asset.

It had never really occurred to Claire that he might not altogether like that.

“Sorry,” she said softly. He waved at her, a shooing motion that left her feeling a little lost. She genuinely liked Myrnin, even though she was always intensely aware, these days, of the limits of that friendship—and of the dangers. “Call me if you—”

“Why? So you’ll come running back to Morganville?” He shook his head. “Not likely. And not necessary. Just go, Claire. I’ll be here.”

There was a grim sound to that she didn’t like, but it was getting late. Michael had said to be ready at six, and she needed to pack for the trip.

When she looked back, Myrnin had given up the pretense of reading and was just staring off into the distance. There was something horribly sad about his expression, and she almost turned back....

But she didn’t.

4

The Glass House was chaos when Claire opened the door. Mostly that was Eve and Shane, fighting stereo wars and yelling at each other upstairs. Eve was favoring Korn; Shane was fighting back by blasting “Macarena” at the limit of the boom box knob. There was no sign of Michael, but his guitars were cased and sitting in the living room, along with a duffel bag and a rolling cooler that looked like it could hold any normal drinks. Claire just wasn’t sure what it did hold, and she didn’t open it to find out.

She dropped her backpack, which she figured she’d take anyway, and jogged upstairs. Eve was standing in a pile of clothes, an open suitcase on the bed, holding two identical-looking shirts and frowning at them. Terminal fashion indecision. Claire dashed in, tapped her right hand, and Eve gave her a grateful grin and tossed the shirt into the suitcase. The music was so loud, conversation was impossible.

As she passed Shane’s door, she saw him sprawled on his bed. He had a duffel bag, like Michael’s but brown instead of blue. He looked bored, but he brightened up when he saw her.

“Seriously?” she yelled. “‘The Macarena’?”

“It’s war,” he yelled back. “I had to bring out the heavy artillery. Next up, Barry Manilow!”

Claire hit the POWER button on the stereo, leaving Korn thundering victoriously through the house. After a second or two, Eve turned it down. “See how easy that was?” Claire said.

“What, giving up? Giving up is always easy. It’s the peace that follows that sucks.” Shane slithered off the bed and followed her as she headed for her room. “How was it?”

“What?”

“Everything.”

“You know.” She shrugged. “Normal.” Yeah. She’d manipulated the second most powerful vampire in town into taking her side against a psycho bitch-queen sorority girl. She’d talked rationally about putting people’s brains into computers. This was a normal day. No wonder she was screwed up. “How was yours?”

“Brisket. Chopping block. Cleaver. It’s all good. You packed yet?”

“Did you just see me walk in?”

“Oh. Yeah. Guess not, then.”

He parked himself on her bed, flopped out again as she opened up her one battered suitcase and began filling it. That wasn’t tough; unlike Eve, she wasn’t a clothes fanatic. She had a couple of decent shirts, a bunch of not-so-great ones, and some jeans. She put in her one skirt, along with the shoes that matched it, and the fishnet tights. Shane watched, hands laced behind his head.

“You’re not going to try to tell me what to take?” she asked. “Because I figured that was why you followed me.”

“Do I look crazy? I followed you because your bed is more comfortable.” His smile widened. “Wanna see?”

“Not right now.”

“Last chance before we hit the road.”

“Stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Looking so ...” She couldn’t think of a word. He looked just as ridiculously hot to her now as he had this morning, when it had been so tough to leave. And that was a good thing. “I’ve got to get stuff out of the bathroom.”

“Good luck. I think Eve took everything already except the aftershave.”

Actually, Eve hadn’t; it was just that Claire didn’t have a whole lot. Shampoo and conditioner, all in one bottle. A little makeup bag. A razor. She didn’t really need a blow-dryer, but if she did, Eve would have packed one—or two. From the size of the suitcase, Eve was planning to take everything she’d ever owned.

Back in the bedroom, Claire almost shut her suitcase, then stopped and frowned. “What did you take?” she asked. “For, you know, protection?”

Shane lifted himself up on his elbows. “What, like, uh, protection?”

“No!” She felt her face flush, which was pretty ridiculous, considering what they’d done this morning. “I mean, against any vampire things that might happen. You know.”

“Stakes in the bottom of the duffel bag,” he said.

“Brought some extra silver nitrate in bottles, too. We should be okay. It’s not as if there’s a big vampire problem where we’re going.”

Maybe not, but living in Morganville had made it a reflex. Claire couldn’t honestly imagine not planning for it, and she hadn’t been raised here, in the hothouse. She was surprised Shane seemed so ... calm.

But then, Shane had been outside of Morganville, for two years. And they hadn’t been a good two years, either, but at least he knew something about what it was going to be like; more than Michael and Eve, anyway.

Claire dug in her underwear drawer, came up with four silver-coated stakes, and dumped them in on top of her clothes. Just in case. Shane gave her a thumbs-up in approval. She slammed the bag shut and locked it, then wrestled it off the bed. It was heavier than she’d expected, and it wasn’t one with wheels and a handle. Shane, unasked, slid off the bed and took it from her. He lifted it as if it were the weight of a bag of feathers, went into his room, grabbed his duffel, and headed toward the stairs. As he passed Eve’s room he looked in, shook his head, and yelled, “You are totally on your own for that one!”

Claire saw why, as she looked in. Eve had closed the suitcase and somehow gotten it to the floor, but it was the size of a trunk.

At least it had wheels.

Michael was downstairs when Shane and Claire came down; Shane thumped their bags down and said, “You’d better wrangle your girlfriend’s bag, man. I would, but I don’t want to spend the entire trip in traction.”

Michael grinned and zoomed upstairs. He came down carrying the suitcase as if it were nothing. Claire noticed it was new and shiny, and had hand-applied death’s-head stickers and biohazard marks. Yeah, that was definitely Eve’s. Oh, and it was black. Of course.

“Snacks!” Eve yelped, and dashed into the kitchen. She came back with a bag full of things. “Road food. Trust me. Totally necessary. Oh, and drinks—we need drinks.” She caught sight of the cooler. “Okay, not you, Michael. The rest of us.”

They were loading the second cooler with non-blood-related drink items when the doorbell rang. Claire opened it to find Oliver standing on the doorstep. The sun was still up, but he was wearing a hat and a long black coat, which didn’t in any way make him less sinister. His hair was tied back and must have been tucked up under his hat. She wondered if it was flammable, like the rest of him. Age had made him flame-retardant, but he’d still suffer out in the sun, and eventually burst into flames, if he couldn’t get out of it.

He came in without waiting for an invitation. “Yeah, welcome.” Claire sighed and shut the door. “We’re getting stuff together. Uh, is that all you brought?” It was one bag, smaller even than Michael’s or Shane’s.

Oliver didn’t bother to answer her. He walked past, into the living room, and straight for Michael. Eve and Shane, who were bickering over the placement of the Cokes versus the bottled iced coffees, fell silent, and Claire joined them.

“You’re surely not taking all this,” Oliver said, looking at the pile of stuff on the floor. It was, Claire had to admit, a lot—mainly because Eve’s suitcase was the size of Rhode Island, but they’d all contributed. “Is there room?”

“I have a major trunk,” Eve said. “It’ll fit.”

Oliver shook his head. “I hate traveling with amateurs,” he said. “Very well. Get the car loaded. Michael and I will wait inside until the sun is down.”

He acted as if he were the boss, which was annoying, but the truth was, he was the boss. Amelie had assigned him as escort, and that meant he could boss them around all he wanted. Heaven, for Oliver. Hell, for everybody else.

Claire shrugged silently, then picked up her suitcase and backpack and led the way.

Packing the car was hilariously awful, because trying to get Eve’s suitcase wedged in was a drama nobody needed. It finally worked, and everything else fit in, including the guitars and the coolers. It left the three of them sweaty, annoyed, and exhausted, but by the time they’d worked it all out, the sun was safely down.

Nobody tried to call shotgun. Oliver took the front seat, Michael got in the driver’s seat, and Eve, Claire, and Shane took the back. It wasn’t even all that crowded.

“Passes,” Oliver said, and held out his hand. Michael handed them over, and Oliver examined them as if he didn’t know they’d already been cleared to leave town. “Very well. Proceed.”

“Tunes!” Eve said. “We need—”

“No music,” Oliver said. “I will not be subjected to what you consider tunes.”

“FYI, I know it’s a disguise, but you even suck at being a hippie,” Eve muttered. “At least like the Beatles or something.”

“No.”

“It’s going to be a really long trip,” Shane said, and put his arm around both Claire and Eve, since he was in the middle. “But at least I’ve got all the babes. Backseat, for the win.”

“Shut up,” Michael said.

“Come back here and make me, Dad.”

Michael and Shane exchanged rude gestures, and then Michael started up the car and pulled away from the curb. Eve squirmed in her seat and clapped her hands.

Oliver turned and glared at her. He took off his black hat and set it on the dashboard, next to Eve’s nodding skeletal figurine. “Enough of that,” he said. “It’s bad enough I have to be trapped in a car with you children. You’ll do your best not to act like children.”

“Oliver,” Michael said, “back off. It’s our first time out of town. Let us enjoy it a little.”

“The first time for some of you,” Oliver said, and looked out the window as the houses of Lot Street began to roll by, one after another. “For some of us, this is not quite as life-changing an event.”

That was kind of true, but still, Claire felt Eve’s excitement was contagious. Michael was smiling. Shane was enjoying being the dude in the backseat. And she was ... leaving Morganville behind, at least for a little while.

At the town limits, Claire watched the WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE sign approach. This side said PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US SO SOON!

They rocketed past it doing at least seventy, maybe eighty miles an hour. Beyond the sign sat a police cruiser—one of Hannah Moses’s crew. Claire felt her breath rush out, but the cop behind the wheel just waved them on, and Michael didn’t even slow down.

Morganville, in the rearview mirror.

Just like that.

It shouldn’t have been so easy, Claire thought. After all that, all the fighting and the terror and the threats.

They just ... drove away.

Michael switched on the radio and found a scratchy rock ‘n’ roll station, and although Oliver kept glaring, he turned it up, and before long they were all singing “Born to Be Wild,” out of tune and at the top of their lungs. Oliver didn’t, but he didn’t pitch an übervamp fit, either. Claire was almost certain that once or twice, she saw his lips moving with the lyrics.

The sunset was glorious, spilling colors all over the sky in shades of orange and red and gold, fading into indigo blue. Claire rolled down the window and smelled the cool, crisp air, flavored with dust and sage. Outside of Morganville there was scrub desert, and a lot of it. Nothing to see for miles except flat, empty land, and the two-lane blacktop road stretching into the distance, straight as an arrow.

“We have to do some jogging around on farm roads,” Michael said, once the song was over and the music shifted to something not as karaoke worthy. “Should be on the interstate in about two hours or so.”

“You’re sure you know where you’re going?” Shane asked. “Because I don’t want to wake up in the Gulf of Mexico or something.”

Michael ignored that, and Claire slowly settled into her seat, feeling relaxed and light. They’d left. They’d actually left Morganville. She could feel the same suppressed thrill and relief in Shane, and, on his other side, from Eve, whose dark eyes just glowed with excitement. She’d been dreaming of this her whole life, Claire realized. Maybe not being trapped in a car with Oliver, or that Michael would be a vampire, but leaving town with Michael had always been one of Eve’s top-ten fantasies.

And here they were, more or less, anyway, which just went to show you that your top-ten fantasies might turn out to be completely different experiences than you’d ever thought.

“We’re out,” Eve said, almost to herself. “We’re out, we’re out, we’re out.”

“You’ll go back,” Oliver said, and turned his head to stare out the side window. “You all go back, eventually.”

“Even for a vampire, you’re a ray of sunshine,” Shane said. “So, we should probably talk about what we’re going to do in Dallas.”

“Everything!” Eve said, instantly. “Everything, everything, everything. And then everything else.”

“Whoa, hit the brakes, girl. We’ve got, what, a hundred bucks between the two of us? I’m pretty sure the all-inclusive everything party package costs more.”

“Oh.” Eve looked surprised, as if she hadn’t even thought about money at all. Knowing Eve, she likely hadn’t. “Well, we have to at least go to some of the good clubs, right? And shopping? Oh, and they have some really good movie theaters.”

“Movies?” Michael repeated, looking in the rearview mirror. “Seriously? Eve.”

“What? Stadium seating, Michael. DigitaL With three-D and everything.”

“You’re going to waste your first trip outside of Morganville inside a movie theater?”

“No, well, I—stadium seating! Okay, okay, fine. Museums. Concerts. Culture. Better?”

Shane just shook his head. “Not really. Where’s the fun, Eve?”

“That is fun!”

Oliver sighed and let his head fall against the window glass with a soft thump. “One of you is going to be left to walk to Dallas if you don’t shut up.”

“Wow. Who got up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening?” Eve shot back. “Well? You’re the expert. Where would you go?”

Oliver straightened up and looked back at her. “Excuse me?”

“I’m asking your opinion. You probably know where the best places are to go.”

“I—” Oliver seemed at a loss for words, which was pretty funny; Claire couldn’t imagine the last time that had happened to him. Probably not in the last couple of centuries, she guessed. “You’re asking for my recommendations. Of things to do in Dallas.”

“Yep.”

He stared at Eve for a long, silent, chilly moment, then turned back, face forward. “I doubt our tastes have anything in common. You’re too young for the bars, and too old for the playgrounds. I know nothing of what you’d like.” Then, after a second’s pause, he continued. “Perhaps the malls.”

“Malls!” Eve almost shrieked it, then clapped both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God, I forgot about the malls. With actual stores. Can we go to the mall?”

“Which one?”

“There’s more than one! Okay, uh—one with a Hot Topic store.”

Oliver was—from Claire’s point of view—almost smiling. “I believe that could be arranged.”

“Great.” Shane sighed, and let his head drop back against the seat. “The mall. Just what I always wanted.”

Claire reached up and threaded her fingers through his. “We can do other stuff.” When he glanced over at her, and she realized that everybody else was looking at her, too, she colored and added, “Cultural stuff. You know. Bookstores. Museums. There’s a cool science museum I’d like to see.”

“Is there not a video game store in this entire town?”

“Let’s just get there first,” Michael said.

That was good advice, Claire thought as the last colors faded from the sky and night took over. That was really good advice.

She dozed a little bit, but she woke up when the car jerked violently, veered, and she heard the tires squeal. She was still trying to understand what had happened when Oliver snapped, “Pull over.”

“What?” Michael, in the glow of the dashboard, looked like a ghost, his eyes wide and his face tense.

“You’ve never driven outside of Morganville. I have. Pull over. Vampire reflexes will put you into an accident, not save you from one. Humans can’t react in the same way you can. It takes practice to drive safely around them on the open road.”

So Michael must have tried to dodge a car.Wow. Somehow, Claire had never considered that vampire reflexes could be a downside. Michael must have felt spooked enough to agree with Oliver, because he pulled the car off to the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires, and got out. He and Oliver changed places. Oliver checked the car’s mirrors with the ease of long practice, eased the car back on the road, and the whole thing settled into a steady, rolling rhythm. Claire looked over at the other two in the backseat. Eve had her headphones on and her eyes closed. Shane was sound asleep. It was ... peaceful, she supposed. She looked out at the night. There was a quarter moon, so it wasn’t all that bright out, but the silver light gilded sand and spiky plants. Everything in the wash of the car’s headlights was vivid; everything else was just shadows and smoke.

It was like space travel, she decided. Every once in a while you could see an isolated house, far out in the middle of nowhere, with its lights blazing against the night. But mostly, they were out here alone.

Oliver took a turn off the two-lane highway, heading for the interstate, she supposed. She didn’t ask—not until they passed a road sign that had an arrow pointing to Dallas.

The arrow pointed left. They headed straight on.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, Oliver? I think you missed your turn.”

“I don’t need advice,” Oliver said.

“But the sign—”

“We have a stop to make,” he said. “It won’t take long.”

“Wait, what? What stop?” It was news to Michael, apparently. That didn’t ease the sudden anxiety in Claire’s chest. “What’s this about, Oliver?”

“Be still, all of you. It’s none of your affair.”

“Our car,” Michael pointed out. “And we’re in it. So it looks like it is our affair. Now, where are you taking us, and why?”

Shane woke up, probably sensing the tension in Michael’s voice. He blinked twice, swiped at his face, and leaned forward. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “We’re getting hijacked.”

Shane sat up slowly, and Claire could feel the tension coiling in him.

“Easy, all of you,” Oliver said. “This is a directive from Amelie. There’s a small issue I need to address. It won’t take long.”

Eve, who’d removed one earphone, gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “I could stretch my legs,” she said. “Also, bathroom would be good.”

“What kind of small issue?” Shane asked. He was still tense, watchful, and not buying Oliver’s no-big-deal attitude. Oliver’s cold eyes fixed on him in the rearview mirror.

“Nothing of consequence to you,” he said. “And this isn’t a debate. Shut up, all of you.”

“Mikey?”

Michael gazed at Oliver for a long few seconds before he finally said, “No, it’s okay. A short stop would do us all good, probably.”

“Depending on where,” Shane said, but shrugged and sat back. “I’m cool if you are.”

Michael nodded. “We cool, Oliver?”

“I told you, it’s not a debate.”

“Four of us, one of you. Maybe it could be.”

“Only if you want to answer to Amelie in the end.”

Michael said nothing. They drove on through the inky night, surrounded by a bubble of backwashed headlights, and finally a faded sign glowed green in the distance. Claire blinked and squinted at it.

“‘Durram, Texas,”’ she read. “Is that where we’re going?”

“More importantly, does it have an all-night truck stop?” Eve groaned. “Because I was serious about that bathroom thing. Really.”

“Your bladder must be the size of a peanut,” Shane said. “I think I see a sign up there.”

He did, and it was a truck stop—not big, not very clean, but open. It was crowded, too—six big rigs in the lot, and quite a few pickup trucks. Oliver took the exit and pulled off into the truck stop, edging the car to a halt at a gas pump. “Top off the tank,” he told Michael. “Then park it and wait for me inside. I’ll be back.”

“Wait, when?”

“When I’m done. I’m sure you can find something to occupy yourselves.” And then the driver’s side door opened, and Oliver walked away. As soon as he was outside of the wash of the harsh overhead lights, he vanished.

“We could just leave,” Shane pointed out. “Fill up and drive off.”

“And you think that’s a good plan?”

“Actually? Not really. But it’s a funny plan.”

“Funny as in getting us killed. Some more than others, I might add.”

“Fine, rub the resurrection in our faces. But seriously.

Why are we doing this? We ditch Oliver; we never have to go back to Morganville. Think about it.”

Claire licked her lips and said, softly, “Not all of us can walk away, Shane. My parents are there. Eve’s mom and brother. We can’t just pick up and leave, not unless we want something bad to happen to them.”

He looked actually ashamed of himself, as if he’d really forgotten that. “I didn’t mean—” He gave a heavy sigh. “Yeah, okay. I see your point.”

“Added to that, I’m Amelie’s blood now,” Michael said. “She can find me if she wants me. If you want to include me in the great escape, I’m like a giant GPS tracking chip of woe.”

“Whoa.”

“Exactly.”

Eve said, plaintively, “Bathroom?”

And that closed the discussion of running away.

At least, for the moment.

The Texas Star Truck Stop was worse on the inside than the outside.

As Claire pushed open the door—with Shane trying to open it for her—a tinny bell rang, and when she looked up, Claire found herself being stared at—a lot.

“Wow,” Shane murmured, close behind her as he entered the store. “Meth central.”

She knew what he meant. This was a scary bunch of people. The youngest person in the place, apart from them, was a pinched, too-tanned skinny woman of about thirty wearing a skimpy top and cut-off shorts. She had tattoos—a lot of them. Everybody else was older, bigger, meaner, and uncomfortably fixed on the newcomers.

And then Eve stepped in, in all her Goth glory,bouncing from one Doc Marten-booted foot to the other. “Bathroom?” she asked the big, bearded man behind the counter. He frowned at her, then reached down and came up with a key attached to a big metal bar. “Thank you!” Eve seized the key and dashed off down the dark hall marked as RESTROOMS; Claire wasn’t sure she’d have the guts, no matter how much she had to pee. That did not look safe, never mind clean.

Michael stepped in last, and took it all in with one quick, comprehensive look. He raised his eyebrows at Shane, who shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Fun, huh?”

“Let’s get a table,” Michael said. “Order something.” Under the theory, Claire guessed, that if they spent money, the locals would like them better.

Somehow, she didn’t think that was going to work. Her gaze fell on signs posted around the store: YOU DRAW YOUR GUN, WE DRAW FASTER. GUN CONTROL MEANS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT. NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT; SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.

“I don’t think I’m going to be hungry,” she said, but Michael was right. This really was their only option, other than sitting outside in the car. “Maybe something to drink. They have Coke, right?”

“Claire, people in Botswana have Coke. I’m pretty sure Up the Road Apiece, Texas, has Coke.”

By the time they’d gotten seated at one of the grungy plastic booths, still being stared at by the locals, Eve finally joined them. She looked more relaxed, bouncy, and more—well, Eve. “Better,” she announced, as she slipped into place next to Michael. “Mmm, much better now.”

He put his arm around her and smiled. It was cute. Claire found herself smiling, too, and snuggled up against Shane. “How was the bathroom?”

Eve shuddered. “We shall never speak of it again.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“You want a menu?”

“Absolutely. They might have ice cream.”

The last thing bouncy, happy Eve needed was a sugar rush, but ice cream did sound good.... Claire looked around for a waitress and found one leaning against the cracked counter, whispering to the man on the other side. They were both staring straight at Claire and her friends, and their expressions weren’t exactly friendly.

“Uh, guys? Maybe ixnay on the ice cream-ay. How about we wait in the car?” she asked.

“And miss ice cream? Hella don’t think so,” Eve said. She waved at the waitress and smiled. Claire winced. “Oh, relax, CB. I’m a people person.”

“In Morganville!”

“Same thing,” Eve said. She kept on smiling, but it started getting a little strained as the waitress continued to stare but didn’t acknowledge the wave. Eve raised her voice. “Hi? I’d like to order something? Hellooooooo?”

The waitress and the guy behind the counter seemed frozen in place, glaring, but then they were blocked out by someone stepping into Claire’s line of sight—more than one someone, in fact. There were three men, all big and puffy, and with really unpleasant expressions.

Shane, who’d been slumped lazily next to her, straightened up.

“Don’t y’all got no manners where you come from?” the first one asked. “You wait your turn. Sherry don’t like being yelled at.”

Eve blinked, then said, “I wasn’t—”

“Where you from?” he interrupted her. The men formed a redneck wall between the table and the rest of the room, pinning the four of them in place. Shane and Michael exchanged a look, and Michael took his arm away from Eve’s shoulders.

“We’re on our way to Dallas,” Eve said, just as cheerfully as if the situation hadn’t gone from inhospitable to ominous. “Michael’s a musician. He’s going to record a CD.”

The three men laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound, and it was one Claire recognized all too well—it was deeper in register, but it was the same laugh Monica Morrell and her friends liked to give when stalking their prey. It wasn’t amusement. It was a weird sort of aggression—laughing at you, not with you; sharing a secret.

“Musician, huh? You in one of those boy bands?” The second man—shorter, squattier, wearing a dirty orange ball cap and a stained University of Texas sweatshirt with the arms cut off. “We just love our boy bands out here.”

“I ever meet those damn Jonas Brothers in person, I’ll give ‘em what for,” the third man said. He seemed angrier than the others, eyes like black little holes in a stiff, tight face. “My kid can’t shut up about ’em.”

“I know what you mean,” Eve said with a kind of fake sweetness that made Claire wince, again. “Nobody’s really been worth listening to since New Kids on the Block, am I right?”

“What?” He fixed those dead, dark eyes on her.

“Wow, not a New Kids on the Block fan, either. I’m shocked. Okay, I’m thinking not Marilyn Manson, then.... Jessica Simpson? Or...” Eve’s voice faded out, because Michael’s hand had closed over her arm. She looked over at him, and he shook his head. “Right. Shutting up now. Sorry.”

“What do you want?” Michael asked the men.

“Your little freak vampire girlfriend needs to learn how to keep her mouth shut.”

“Who you calling little?” Eve demanded.

Shane sighed. “Wrong on so many levels. Eve. Shut up.”

She glared at him but made a little key-and-lock motion at her lips, folded her arms, and sat back.

Michael had locked gazes with the third man, the angry one, and they were staring it out. It went on for a while, and then Michael said, “Why don’t you just let me and my friends have our ice cream, and then we’ll get back in our car and leave? We don’t want a problem.”

“Oh, you don’t, you whiny little bitch?” The angry man shoved the other two aside and slapped his palms flat against the table to loom over Claire and her friends. “Why’d you come in here, then?”

Eve said, in a very small voice, “Ice cream?”

“Told you to shut the hell up.” And he tried to hit her with a backhanded smack.

Tried because Michael leaned forward in a flare of motion, and had hold of the man’s wrist in a flicker of time so fast Claire didn’t even see it. Neither did the angry man, who looked just kind of confused by being unable to move his hand, then put it all together and looked at Michael.

“Don’t,” Michael said. It was soft, and it was a warning, through and through. “You try to hurt her again and I’ll pull your arm off.”

He wasn’t kidding, but the problem was, none of them was kidding. While he was holding the angry one, the guy in the orange cap reached in his pocket, flicked open a big, shiny knife, and grabbed Eve by the hair. She squeaked, raised her chin, and tried to kick him. He was good at avoiding her. It looked as if he’d had practice. “Let Berle go,” Orange Cap said. “Or I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than slap this one. I can get me real creative.”

Shane was cursing softly under his breath, and Claire knew why; he was stuck in the corner, she was in front of him, and there was no way he could be effective in helping Michael out from that angle. He had to just sit there—something he wasn’t very good at doing. Claire stayed very still, too, but she looked Orange Cap in the eyes and said, “Sir?” She said it respectfully, as her mom had taught her. “Sir, please don’t hurt my friend. She didn’t mean anything.”

“We don’t like smart-mouthed freaks around here,” he said. “We got our ways.”

“Yes sir. We understand now. We were just trying to have a little fun. We won’t be any trouble, I promise. Please let my friend go.” She kept her tone calm, sweet, reasonable—all the things she’d learned to do when Myrnin was running off his rails.

Orange Cap blinked, and she thought he was seeing her for the first time. “You need better friends, little girl,” he said. “Shouldn’t be running around with a bunch of freaks. If you was my daughter—” But he’d lost his edge, and he let go of Eve’s hair and wiped his hand on his greasy jeans as he folded up his knife. “You get on up out of here. Right now. You let Berle go, and we’ll let this pass. Nobody gets hurt.”

“We’re going,” Claire said instantly, and grabbed Shane’s hand. Michael let go of the angry guy, Berle, who snatched his arm back and rubbed at his wrist as if it hurt. It probably did. Claire could see white marks where Michael had held him. That was restraint, for Michael; he probably could have broken the bone without much effort. “Sir?” She spoke again to Orange Cap, treating him like the man in charge, and he nodded and clapped his friends on the shoulders.

They all stepped back.

Claire slipped out of the booth and squeezed by the men, practically dragging Shane with her. Eve and Michael followed. They walked away from the table, into the store, and Claire pushed open the door and led them all outside, into the harsh white light near the gas pumps and the car.

She looked back at the store. The three men, the people working the restaurant, and practically everyone else were looking out the windows at them.

Claire turned on Eve first. “Are you crazy?” she demanded. “Just couldn’t shut up, could you? And you!” She pointed at Michael. “You’re not in Morganville anymore, Michael. Back there you were a big dog. Out here, you’re what we were back there. Vulnerable. So you need to stop thinking that people owe you respect just because you’re a vampire.”

He looked stunned. “That’s not what I—”

“It was,” she said, interrupting him. “You acted like a vamp, Michael. Like any vamp getting back-talked by a human. You could have gotten us hurt. You could have gotten Eve killed!”

Michael looked at Shane, who lifted his shoulders in a tiny, apologetic shrug. “She’s not wrong, bro.”

“That’s not what it was,” Michael insisted. “I was just trying to—look, Eve started it.”

“Hey! That thump you heard was me under the bus, there! ”

Shane shrugged again. “And now Michael’s not wrong. Hey, I like this game. I don’t have to be the wrong one for once in my life.”

“Shut up, Shane,” Eve snapped. “What about you, Miss Oh, sir, please let my friends go; I’m such a delicate little flower? What a crock of shit, Claire!”

“Oh, so now you’re mad because I got you out of it?” Claire felt her cheeks flaming, and she was literally shaking now with anger and distress. “You started it, Eve! I was just trying to keep you from getting killed! Sorry you didn’t like how I pulled that off!”

“You just—can’t you stand up for yourself?”

“Hey,” Shane said softly, and touched Eve’s arm. She whirled toward him, fists clenched, but Shane held up both hands in clear surrender. “She stood up for you. Might want to consider that before you go calling Claire a coward. She’s never been that.”

“Oh, sure, you take her side!”

“It’s not a side,” Shane said. “And if it is, you ought to be on it, too.”

Michael had been watching, calming down (or at least shutting down), and now he reached out and put his hands on Eve’s shoulders. She tensed, then relaxed, closed her eyes, and blew out an impatient breath. “Right,” she said. “You’re going to tell me I can’t be upset about nearly getting my face cut off.”

“No,” Michael said. “But don’t take it out on Claire. It’s not her fault.”

“It’s mine.”

“Well...” He sighed. “Kind of mine, too. Share?”

Eve turned to face him. “I like my blame. I keep it close like a warm, furry blanket.”

“Let go,” he said, and kissed her lightly. “You’re taking my side of the blame blanket.”

“Fine. You can have half.” Eve was calmer now, and relaxed into Michael’s embrace. “Damn. That was stupid, wasn’t it? We nearly got killed over ice cream.”

“Another thing I don’t want on my tombstone,” Shane said.

“You have others?” Claire asked.

He held up one finger. “I thought it wasn’t loaded,” Shane said. Second finger. “Hand me a match so I can check the gas tank.” Third finger. “Killed over ice cream. Basically, any death that requires me to be stupid first.”

Michael shook his head. “So what’s on your good list?”

“Oh, you know. Hero stuff that gets me rerun on CNN. Like, I died saving a busload of supermodels.” Claire smacked his arm. “Ow! Saving them! What did you think I meant?”

“So,” Claire said, taking the high ground, “what now? I mean, I guess ice cream is kind of off the table, unless you’re okay with random violence as a topping.”

“Got to be something else in town,” Michael said. “Unless you just want to sit here and take up a gas pump until Oliver gets his act together.”

“He told us to wait here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m with Michael on this one,” Shane said. “Not really into doing what Oliver wants, you know? And this is supposed to be our trip, not his. He’s just along for the ride. Personally, I like moving the car. Even if we’re not leaving him behind.”

“You really do have a death wish.”

“You’ll save me.” He kissed Claire on the nose. “Mikey, you’re driving.”

5

Durram, Texas, was a small town. Like, really small. Smaller than Morgan ville. There were about six blocks to it, not really in a square; more like a messy oval. The Dairy Queen was closed and dark; so was the Sonic. There was some kind of bar, but Michael quickly vetoed that suggestion (from Shane, of course); if they’d gotten into trouble asking for ice cream, asking for a beer would be certain doom.

Claire couldn’t fault his logic, and besides, none of them was actually bar-legal age, anyway. Though she somehow doubted the folks in Durram really cared so much. They didn’t seem like the overly law-abiding types. Cruising the streets seemed like a big, fat waste of time; there weren’t any other cars on the streets, really, and not even many lights on in the houses. It seemed like a really boring, shut-up town.

Shades of Morganville, though in Morganville at least you had a good reason to avoid being out after dark.

“Hey! There!” Eve bounced in the front seat, pointing, and Claire squinted. There was a tiny, dim sign in a window, a few lights were on, and the sign might have said something about ice cream. “I knew no self-respecting small Texas town would shut down ice cream service at night.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Shut up, Shane. How can you not want ice cream? What is wrong with you?”

“I guess I was born without the ice cream gene. Thank God.”

Michael pulled the car to a stop in front of the lonely little ice cream parlor. When he switched off the engine, the oppressive silence closed in; except for street signs creaking in the wind, there was hardly a sound at all in downtown Durram, Texas.

Eve didn’t seem to care. She practically flung herself out of the car, heading for the door. Michael followed, leaving Claire and Shane behind in the backseat.

“This isn’t going at all how I’d thought,” Claire said with a sigh. He laced their fingers together and raised hers to his lips.

“How’d you think it would go?”

“I don’t know. Saner?”

“You have been paying attention this last year, right? Because saner isn’t even in our playbook.” He nodded toward the ice cream parlor. “So? You want something?”

“Yes.” She made no move to get out of the car.

“Then what—oh.” He didn’t sound upset about it. He’d been telling the truth, Claire thought. He really didn’t have the ice cream gene.

But he did have the kissing gene and didn’t need that much of a hint to start using it to both their advantages. He leaned forward, and at first it was a light, teasing brush of their lips, then soft, damp pressure, then more. He had such wonderful lips. They made her ignite inside, and it felt like gravity increased, all on its own, dragging her back sideways on the big bench seat; pulling him with her.

Things might have really gone somewhere, except all of a sudden there was a loud metallic knock on the window, and a light shined in, focusing on the back of Shane’s head and in Claire’s eyes. She yelped and flailed, shoved Shane away, and he scrambled to get himself together, too.

Standing outside of the car was a man in a tan shirt, tan pants, a big Texas hat.... It took a second for Claire’s panicked brain to catch up as her eyes fastened on the shiny star pinned to his shirt front.

Oh. Oh, crap.

Local sheriff.

He tapped on the window again with the end of a big, intimidating flashlight, then blinded them again with the business end. Claire squinted and cranked down the window. She licked her lips nervously, and tasted Shane. Inappropriate!

“Let’s see some ID,” the man said. He didn’t sound like the Welcome Wagon. Claire searched around for her backpack and pulled out her wallet, handing it over with trembling hands. Shane passed over his own driver’s license. “You’re seventeen?” The sheriff focused the beam on Claire. She nodded. He shifted the light to Shane. “Eighteen?”

“Yes sir. Something wrong?”

“Don’t know, son. You think there’s something wrong about taking advantage of a girl who’s under eighteen on a public street?”

“He wasn’t—”

“Sure looked that way to me, miss. Out of the car, both of you. This your car?”

“No sir,” Shane said. He sounded subdued now. Reality was setting in. Claire realized they’d just made the same mistake that Michael had—they’d acted as if they were home in Morganville, where people knew them. Here, they were a couple of troublemaking teenagers—one underage—making out in the back of a car.

“You got any drugs?”

“No sir,” Shane repeated, and Claire echoed him. Her lips, which had felt so warm and lovely just a minute ago, now felt cold and numb. This can’t be happening. How could we be this stupid? She remembered Shane’s list of ways not to die. Maybe this ought to be number four.

“You mind if I search the car, then?”

“I—” Claire looked at Shane, and he looked back at her, his eyes suddenly very wide. Claire continued. “It’s not our car, sir. It’s our friend’s.”

“Well, where’s your friend?”

“In there.” Claire’s throat was tight and dry, and she was holding Shane’s hand now in a death grip. If he searches the car, he’ll open the coolers. If he opens the cooler and finds Michael’s blood ...

She pointed to the ice cream shop door. The sheriff looked at it, then back at her, then at Shane. He nodded, switched off his flashlight, and said, “Don’t you go nowhere.”

Through all of that, Claire had only a blurry impression of him as a person—not too young, not too old, not too fat or thin or tall or short—just average. But as he walked away, his belt jingling with handcuffs and keys and his gun strapped down at his side, she felt cold and short of breath, the way she had when she’d faced down Mr. Bishop, the scariest vampire of all.

They were in trouble—big trouble.

“Fast,” Shane said, as soon as the door started to close behind the sheriff. He yanked open the door, grabbed Michael’s cooler, and looked around wildly for someplace to put it. “Go to the door. Cover me.”

Claire nodded and walked up to the door, looking in the grimy glass, blocking any view past her of the street. She made little blinders out of her hands as if it were hard to see in. It wasn’t. The sheriff had walked straight up to Michael and Eve, who were still standing at the counter of the ice cream shop. Eve had an ice cream cone in her hand, fluorescent mint green, but from the look on her face, she’d forgotten all about it.

Claire glanced back. Shane was gone. When she looked back into the store, the sheriff was still talking to Michael, Michael was answering, and Eve had a terrified look in her eyes.

Claire nearly screamed when someone touched her shoulder, and jumped back. It was Shane, of course. “I put it in the alley, behind a trash can. Covered it with a stack of newspaper,” he said. “Best I could do.”

The sheriff had finished his conversation, and he, Eve, and Michael were heading for the door. Claire and Shane backed up to the car. Claire leaned against him and felt his heartbeat thudding hard. He looked calm. He wasn’t.

Eve didn’t even look calm. She looked, well, distressed. “But we didn’t do anything!” she was saying, as they came outside. “Sir, please—”

“Got a report of trouble up at the Quik-E-Stop,” the sheriff said. “People fitting your description threatening folks. And to be honest, you kind of stand out around here.”

“But we didn’t—” Eve bit her lip on blurting that out, because in fact they had. Michael had, for sure. “We didn’t mean anything. We just wanted to get some ice cream, that’s all.”

Hers was starting to leak in thin green streams. Eve, startled, looked down and licked the melted stuff off her fingers.

“Better eat that before it’s all over you,” the cop said, sounding relaxed and almost human this time. “Do I have your permission to search your vehicle, ma’am?”

“I—” Eve’s eyes fixed on Shane, behind the sheriff, who was giving a thumbs-up. “I guess so.”

He seemed surprised; maybe even a little disappointed. “Sit down over there, on the curb. All of you.”

They did. Eve had trouble doing it gracefully in the poofy black skirt she was wearing, but once she was down, she started wolfing down her ice cream. Halfway through, she stopped and pounded her forehead with an open palm. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Ice cream headache?” Claire asked.

“No, I’m just wondering how the hell we could be so bad at this,” Eve said. “All we were supposed to do was drive to Dallas. It shouldn’t be this hard, right?”

“Oliver made us stop.”

“I know, but if we can’t stay out of trouble on our own—”

“That was an ice cream headache, right? Not an aneurysm?”

“That’s where things explode in your brain? Probably that last thing.” Eve sighed and bit into the cone part of her dessert. “I’m tired. Are you tired?”

Michael wasn’t saying anything. He was staring at the car, and the cop searching it—going through bags, purses, glove box, even under the seats. He finally glanced over at Shane. “What about the weapons?”

Shane’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Uh—”

Right at that moment, the cop opened Claire’s suitcase and pulled out a sharp silver stake. He held it up. “What’s this?”

None of them answered for a few seconds; then Eve said, “It’s for the costumes. See, we’re going to this convention? And I’m playing the vampire, and they’re playing the vampire hunters? It’s really cool.”

That almost sounded real.

“This thing’s sharp.”

“The rubber ones looked really fake. There’s a prize, you know? For authenticity?”

He gave her a long look, then dropped it back into Claire’s bag, rummaged around, then closed it. He left the suitcases and bags outside the car, scattered around, and after checking in the wheel wells and in the spare tire section, he finally shook his head. “All right,” he said. “I’m going to let you all go, but you need to go right now.”

“What?”

“I need to see your taillights disappearing over the town limits. And I’m going to follow to make sure you get there nice and safe.”

Oh crap. “What about Oliver?” Claire whispered.

“Well, we can’t exactly give him as an excuse,” Eve whispered back fiercely. She ate the last bit of ice cream cone and smiled at the cop. “We’re ready, sir! Just let us get loaded up.”

Michael grabbed Shane, and they had an urgent conversation, bent over Eve’s giant suitcase. Eve leaped up, tripped over a random bag, and went down with a yelp that turned into a howl.

The sheriff, proving he wasn’t a total jerk, immediately came to bend over her and see if she was okay.

This gave Michael enough vampire-speed time to retrieve the cooler from the alley, put it back in the car, and be innocently reaching for the next bag before the sheriff helped flailing, clumsy Eve up to her feet.

“Sorry,” Eve said breathlessly, and gave Michael a trembling little smile and wave. “I’m okay. Just bruised a little.”

“That’s it,” Shane said. “No more ice cream for you.”

They finished loading things in the car, and Claire took a last look at the deserted streets, the flickering, distant, dim lights. There was no sign of Oliver; none at all.

“Well?” the sheriff said. “Let’s go.”

“Yes sir.” Eve slid into the driver’s side, closed her eyes for a second, then fumbled for her keys and started the car. Michael took the passenger seat in front, and Claire and Shane climbed in the back.

The sheriff, true to his word, got in his cruiser, parked across the street, and turned on the red and blue flashers; no siren, though.

“Thanks,” Michael said, and sent Eve a quick smile. “Good job with the tripping. It gave me time to get the blood.”

“Wish I’d meant it, then.” She put the car in reverse. “And could we please have another word for blood, outside of Morganville? Something like, oh, I don’t know. Chocolate? Red velvet cake?”

“Why is it always sugar with you?” Shane asked.

“Shut up, Collins. This one was all on you, you know.”

He shrugged and put his arm around Claire’s shoulders. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“What are we going to do?” Claire asked. “About Oliver?”

Nobody had an answer.

The sheriff’s cruiser let loose a shocking little whoop of siren, just to let them know he meant business. Eve swallowed, put the car in reverse, and backed the sedan onto the street. “Guess we’ll figure it out as we go,” she said. “Anybody got his cell number?”

“I do,” Michael and Claire said, simultaneously, and exchanged guilty looks. Michael took out his phone and texted something as Eve drove—staying well under the speed limit, which Claire thought was very smart—and as they passed a sign announcing the town limit, the sheriff’s car coasted to a stop. The lights were still flashing.

“Keep going?” Eve asked. She kept looking in the rearview mirror. “Guys? Decision?”

“Keep going,” Shane said, leaning forward. “We can’t get back as long as he’s watching. If we’re going back at all. Which I don’t vote for, by the way.”

“Better idea,” Michael said, and pointed up ahead, on the left side of the narrow, very dark road. “There’s a motel. We check in, wait for Oliver to join us. We’re going to have to sit the day out somewhere, anyway.”

“There?” Eve sounded appalled, and Claire could see why. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz. It wasn’t even as good as that motel in the movie Psycho. It was a little, straight line of cinder-block rooms with a neon sign, a sagging porch, and one big security light for the parking lot.

And the parking lot was empty.

“You can’t be serious,” Eve said. “Guys. People get eaten in places like this. At the very least, we get locked in a room and terrible, evil things get done to us and put on the Internet. I’ve seen the movies.”

“Eve,” Michael said, “horror movies are not documentaries.”

“And yet, I really think a serial killer owns this place. No. Not going to—”

Michael’s phone buzzed. He flipped it open and read the text. “Oliver says to stop here. He’ll join us in about another hour.”

“You are kidding.”

“Hey, you’re the one who had to have the ice cream. Look what kind of trouble we got ourselves into. At least this way we’re safe in a room with a door that locks. And the sign says they have HBO.”

“That stands for Horrible Bloody Ohmygod,” Eve said. “Which is the way they kill you. When you think you’re safe.”

“Eve! ” Claire was starting to get creeped out, too. Eve put her hands up, briefly, then back down to the wheel.

“Fine,” she said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, while we’re all screaming and crying. And I’m sleeping in my clothes. With a stake in both hands.”

“It’s probably not run by vampires.”

“First, you wanna bet?” Eve hit the brakes and put the car in park. “Second, sharp pointy things tend to work on everything else, too. Including cannibals running creepy motels.”

They sat in silence as the engine ticked and cooled, and finally Shane cleared his throat. “Right. So, we’re going in?”

“We could stay in the car.”

“Yeah, that’s safe.”

“At least we can see them coming. And also run.”

Claire sighed and got out of the car, walked into the small office, and hit the bell on the counter. It seemed really, really loud. She heard doors slamming behind her—Shane, Michael, and Eve finally bailing out. The office was actually nicer than the outside of the building, with carpet that was kind of new, comfortable chairs, even a flat-screen TV playing on the wall with the sound turned off. The place smelled like ... warm vanilla.

Out of the back room came an older lady with graying hair tied back in a ponytail. Claire couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a serial killer, actually—she looked like a classic grandma, even down to the small, round glasses. She was wiping her hands on a dish towel and was wearing an apron over blue jeans and a checked shirt. “Help you, honey?” she asked, and put the towel down. She looked a little nervous as the others came in behind her. “Y’all need a room?”

“Yes ma’am,” Claire said softly. Michael and Shane were doing their best to look like nice boys, and Eve was, well, Eve. Smiling. “Maybe two, if they’re not too expensive?”

“Oh, they’re not expensive,” the lady said, and shook her head. “Ain’t exactly the Hilton, you know. Thirty-five dollars a night, comes with breakfast in the morning. I make biscuits and sausage gravy, and there’s coffee. Some cereal. Ain’t fancy, but it’s good food.”

Michael stepped up, signed the book, and counted out cash. She read the register upside down. “Glass? You from around here?”

“No ma’am,” he said. “We’re just passing through. Heading for Dallas.”

“What the hell possessed you to come all the way out here?” she asked. “Never mind; glad you did. Fresh sheets and towels in the rooms, soaps, some complimentary shampoo. You need anything, you just call. You kids have a good night. Oh, and no hell-raising. We may be outside of town, but I know the sheriff personally. He’ll make a special trip.”

“Why does everybody think we’re so insane?” Eve asked, and rolled her eyes. “Honestly, we’re nice. Not everybody our age rolls with anarchy.”

“You would, if anarchy offered free ice cream,” Michael said. He accepted the two keys and smiled. “Thank you, ma’am—”

“Name’s Linda,” the lady interrupted. “Ma‘am was my mother. Though I guess I’m old enough now to be ma’am to you folks, more’s the pity. You go on. Let me finish up my baking. You stop back later. I’ll have fresh chocolate chip cookies.”

Eve’s mouth dropped open. Even Michael looked impressed. “Uh—thanks,” he said, and they retreated out to the parking lot, staring at one another. “She’s making cookies.”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Terrifying. So, how are we doing this thing?”

“Girls get their own room,” Eve said, and plucked one of the keys out of Michael’s hand. “Oh, come on, don’t give me that face. You know that’s the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, I know,” Michael said. “Looks like they’re right next door to each other.”

They were, rooms one and two, with a connecting door between. Inside, the rooms—like Linda’s office—were really pretty nice. Claire checked out the bathroom; it was nicer than the one at home—and cleaner. “Hey, Eve?” she called, sticking her head around the door. “Should I be terrified now, or later?”

“Shut up,” Eve said, and flopped on one of the two beds, crossing her feet at the ankles as she reached for the remote on the TV. “Okay, it’s not Motel Hell. I admit it. But it could have been.... Hey, check it out—there’s a Saw marathon on HBO!”

Great. Just what they needed. Claire rolled her eyes, went out to the car, and helped the boys unload the stuff they needed—which was, actually, pretty much everything by the time they finished. Eve remained loftily above it all, flipping channels and searching for the most comfortable pillow.

Shane dragged her suitcase into the room and dumped it on the floor beside her bed. “Hey, Dark Princess? Here’s your crap. Also, bite me.”

“Wait, here’s your tip—” She flipped him off, without taking her eyes off the TV. “Nice to know we can still be just the same even outside of Morganville, right?”

He laughed. “Right.” He looked at Claire, who leaned her own suitcase against the wall and looked around. “So I guess this is good night?”

“Guess so,” she said. “Um, unless you guys want to watch movies?”

“I’ll bring the chips.”

Two hours later, they were lying on the beds, propped up, groaning and wincing and yelling stuff at the screen. The sound was turned up loud, and what with all the screaming and chain saws and such, it took a few seconds for the sound outside the room to filter through to any of them. Michael heard it first, of course, and nearly levitated off the bed to cross the room and pull back the curtains. Eve scrambled to mute the TV. “What? What is it?”

Out in the parking lot, Claire could now hear hoots, drunken laughter, and the crash of metal. She and Shane bounced off the bed, too, and Eve came last.

“Hey!” she screamed, and Claire winced at the rage in her voice. “Hey, you assholes, that’s my car!”

It was the three jerks from the truck stop, only about a case of beer more stupid, which really didn’t seem possible, in theory. But they were going after Eve’s car with a great big sledgehammer and two baseball bats. The glass in the front window shattered at a blow from the sledgehammer, which was swung by Angry Dude. Orange Cap swung a baseball bat and added another deep dent to the already horribly damaged hood. The last guy knocked off the side mirror, sending it to left field with one hard blow.

Orange Cap blew Eve a gap-toothed kiss, reached in his back pocket, and pulled out a glass bottle filled with something that looked faintly pink, like lemonade....

“Gas,” Michael said. “I have to stop them.”

“You’ll get your ass killed,” Shane said, and flung himself in the way. “No way. This ain’t Morganville, and if you end up in a jail cell, you’ll die. Understand?”

“But my car!” Eve moaned. “No no no ...”

Orange Cap poured gas all over the seats inside, then tossed in a match.

Eve’s car went up like a school bonfire at homecoming. Eve shrieked again and tried to lunge past Shane, too. He backed up to block the door and dodged a slap from her. “Claire! Little help?” he yelped, as Eve actually connected. Claire grabbed her friend’s arms and pulled her backward. It wasn’t easy. Eve was bigger, stronger, and more than a little crazy just now.

“Let go!” Eve yelled.

“No! Calm down. It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do!”

“I can kick their asses!”

Michael had already come to the same conclusion as Shane, and as Eve broke free from Claire, he got in her way and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her to a fast stop. “No,” he said, “no, you can’t.” His eyes were shimmering red with fury, and he blinked and took deep breaths until he was himself again, blue-eyed Michael, under control—barely.

The three men in the parking lot whooped and hollered as Eve’s car burned, then scrambled for their big pickup truck as the motel’s office door slammed open.

Grandma Linda stood there, looking like the wrath of God in an apron. She had a shotgun, which she pointed at an angle at the sky and fired. The blast was shockingly loud. “Get lost, you morons!” she yelled at the retreating three men. “Next time I see your taillights I’ll give you a special buckshot kiss!”

She racked another shell, but she didn’t need to reload; the truck was already peeling out, spitting gravel from tire treads as it flew out of the parking lot, did a quick, drunken U-turn, and headed back inside Durram’s town limits.

Grandma Linda shouldered the shotgun, frowned at the burning car, and went back into the office. She returned with a fire extinguisher, and put the blaze out with five quick blasts of white foam.

Shane opened the door and got immediately mowed down by Eve, who blew past him, with Michael right behind. Shane and Claire followed last. Claire felt physically sick. The car was utterly trashed. Even with the fire put out, the windows were shattered, the bodywork dented and twisted, the headlights broken, tires flat, and the seats were burned down to the springs in several places.

She’d seen better wrecks at the junkyard.

“Those three ain’t got the sense God gave a virus,” Linda said. “I’ll call the sheriff, get him out here to write up a complaint. I’m sorry, honey.”

Eve was crying, violent little jerks of sobs that came with shudders as she stared at the wreckage of the car she’d loved. Claire put her arm around her, and Eve turned and buried her face in Claire’s shoulder. “Why?” she cried, full of rage and confusion now. “Why did they follow us? Why’d they do that?”

“We scared them,” Michael said. “Scared people do stupid things. Drunk, scared bullies do even stupider things.”

Linda nodded. “You got that right, son. It’s a damn shame, though. Hate to see something like this happen to nice kids just minding their own business. People like that, they just got to pick on somebody, and everybody around here’s had enough of ’em. Guess they figured you for the new toys.”

“They figured wrong,” Michael said. His eyes glittered briefly red, then faded back to blue. “But we’ve got problems. What are we going to do for a car?”

“Just be glad we got our stuff out of it,” Shane said, and Michael, knowing what he was getting at, looked briefly sick, then nodded. “Eve and I will do some shopping tomorrow. See what we can get in town.”

Eve sniffled and wiped at her eyes, which made a mess of her mascara. “I don’t have the money for a new car.”

“We’ll find a way,” Shane said, as if it made sense and happened to him on a regular basis. Claire guessed, with his history, it probably had. “Come on, moping around out here isn’t fixing anything. Might as well go in for the night. We’re not going anywhere.”

Linda sighed. “Hate to see this kind of thing happen,” she said again. “Damn fools. You wait here a second.”

She went back into the office, carrying the fire extinguisher, and came back out with a small ceramic bowl full of...

“Cookies,” Shane said, and accepted it from her. “Thanks, Linda.”

“Least I can do.” She kicked a rock, frowning, and shook her head. “Damn fools. I’ll sit up the rest of the night, make sure they don’t come back here.”

Somehow, Claire didn’t think they’d take the chance. Linda had looked pretty serious with that shotgun.

The joys of the movie party were over, but the cookies were warm, fresh, and delicious. Eve’s tears dried up and left a feverish anger in their place. She took a long shower to burn it off, and when she came out of the bathroom, wreathed in steam, she looked small and vulnerable, stripped of all her Goth armor.

Claire hugged her and gave her a cookie. Eve munched it and hugged her black silk kimono around herself as she climbed onto the bed. “Boys gone?” she asked.

“Yeah, they’re gone,” Claire said. “Mind if I—?”

“No, go ahead. I’ll just sit here and watch my car smoke.” Eve stared moodily at the curtains, which were closed, thankfully.

Claire shook her head, grabbed her stuff, and went in to take her own bath. She did it at light speed, half convinced that Eve would find some way to get herself in trouble while she was gone, but when she emerged pink and damp and glowing from the hot water, Eve was exactly where she’d left her, flipping channels on the TV.

“This is the worst road trip ever,” Eve said. “And I missed the end of the movie.”

“Jigsaw always wins. You know that.”

There was a soft sound at the motel room door. Something like a scratching sound; then a thud. Eve came bolt upright in bed. “What the hell was that? Because I’m thinking serial killer! ”

“It’s Shane, trying to freak you out. Or maybe it’s those guys again,” Claire said. “Shhh.” She went to the curtains and peeked out, carefully. The light was dim in front of the door, but she saw someone slumped against the wall. Alone. “Just one guy—I can’t really see him.”

“So the serial killer option’s still on the table? New rule. The door doesn’t open.”

They both jumped as a fist thudded once on the door. “Let me in,” Oliver’s voice commanded. “Now.”

“Oh,” Eve said. “In that case, new rule. Also, technically, he is a serial killer, right?”

Claire didn’t really want to think too much about that one, because she was afraid Eve might have a point on that.

She slipped back the locks and opened the door, and Oliver came into the room. He made it two steps before his knees gave out on him, and he fell.

“Don’t touch him!” Claire said as Eve slipped off the bed to approach him. She could see cuts and blood on him. “Get Michael. Hurry.”

That wasn’t a problem; Michael and Shane were already opening their own door, and the four of them were standing together when Oliver rolled over on his side, then to his back, staring upward.

He looked bad—pale, with open wounds on his face and hands. His clothes were cut, too, and there was blood soaked into them. He didn’t speak. Michael dashed back into his room and came back with the cooler. He knelt next to Oliver and looked over his shoulder at the three of them. “You guys need to leave. Go next door. Now. Hurry.”

Shane grabbed the two girls and steered them out, closing the door behind him and leaving Michael alone with Oliver.

Claire tried to turn around.

“No, you don’t,” Shane said, and shepherded them into his room. “You know better. If he needs blood, let him get it from the cooler. Not from the tap.”

“What happened to him?” Eve asked the logical, scary question, which Claire had been at some level trying not to face. “That’s Oliver. Badass walking. And somebody did that to him. How? Why?”

“I think that’s what we have to ask him,” Shane said. “Providing he’s not having a serious craving for midnight snacks.”

“Damn,” Eve said. “Speaking of that, I left the cookies. I could use another cookie right now. How screwed are we, anyway?”

“Given the car and whatever trouble Oliver stirred up? Pretty well screwed. But hey. That’s normal, right?”

“Right now, I wish it really, really wasn’t.”

They sat around playing poker until Michael came back, with Oliver behind him. He was upright and walking, though he looked as if he’d put his clothes through a shredder.

He didn’t look happy. Not that Oliver ever really looked happy when he wasn’t playing the hippie role, but this seemed unhappy, plus.

“We need to leave,” he said. “Quickly.”

“Well, that’s a problem,” Shane said, “seeing how our transpo out there is not exactly lightproof anymore, even if we didn’t mind sitting on half-burned seats.” Not even the trunk, anymore, thanks to the sledgehammer’s work. “Plus, we’ve got t-minus two hours to sunrise. Not happening, anyway.”

Michael said, “Oliver, it’s time to tell us why we came here in the first place. And what happened to you.”

“It’s none of your business,” Oliver said.

“Excuse me, but since you dragged us into it with you, I’d say it is our business now.”

“Did my business destroy your car? No, that was your own idiocy. I say again, you don’t need to know, and I don’t need to tell you. Leave it.” He sounded almost himself, but subdued, and he sat down on the edge of the bed as if standing tired him—not like Oliver.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked. He looked up and met her eyes, and for a second she saw something terrible in him: fear—overwhelming, tired, ancient fear. It shocked her. She hadn’t thought Oliver could really be afraid of anything, ever.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m all right. Wounds heal. What won’t is what will happen if we remain trapped here. We can’t wait for rescue from Morganville. We must get on our way before the next nightfall.”

“Or?” Claire asked.

“Or worse will happen. To all of us.” He looked... haunted. And very tired. “I need to rest. Find a car.”

“Ah—we’re not exactly rolling in cash.”

Without a word, Oliver took out a wallet from his pants, grimaced at the scratches and tears in the leather, and opened it to reveal a bunch of crisp green bills.

Hundreds.

He handed over the entire stack. “I have more,” he said. “Take that. It should be enough to buy something serviceable. Make sure it’s got sufficient trunk space.”

After a second’s hesitation, Eve’s fingers closed around the money. “Oliver? Seriously, are you okay?”

“I will be,” he said. “Michael, do you suppose there is another room in this motel I can occupy until we are ready to leave?”

“I’ll get one,” Michael said. He slipped out the door and was gone in seconds, heading for the office. Oliver closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. He looked so utterly miserable that Claire, without thinking, reached out and, just being kind, put her hand on his arm.

“Claire,” Oliver said softly, without opening his eyes, “did I give you permission to touch me?”

She removed her hand—quickly.

“Just—leave me alone. I’m not myself at the moment.”

Actually, he was pretty much like he always was, as far as Claire could tell, but she let it go.

Eve was fanning out the money, counting it. Her eyes were getting wider the higher she went. “Jeez,” she whispered. “I could buy a genuine pimped-out land yacht with this. Wow. I had no idea running a coffee shop was this good a job.”

“It’s not,” Shane said. “He probably has piles of gold sitting under his couch cushions. He’s had a long time to get rich, Eve.”

“And time enough to lose everything, once or twice,” Oliver said. “If you want to be technical. I have been rich. I am currently ... not as poor as I once was. But not as wealthy, either. The curse of human wars and politics. It’s difficult to keep what you have, especially if you are always an outsider.”

Claire had never really thought about how vampires got the money they had; she supposed it wouldn’t have been easy, really. She remembered all the TV news shows she’d seen, with people running for their lives from war zones, carrying whatever they could.

Oliver would have been one of those people, once upon a time. Amelie, too. And Myrnin. Probably more than once. But they’d come through it.

They were survivors.

“What happened out there?” Claire asked, not really expecting him to answer.

He didn’t disappoint her.

6

Once Oliver had his own room—room three, of course—at the motel, Claire, Eve, and Shane set out lightproofing the rooms Michael and Oliver would be staying in during the day. That wasn’t so hard; the blackout curtains in the windows were pretty good, and a little duct tape around the edges made sure the room stayed dim—that and a DO NOT DISTURB sign on each knob.

“Dead bolt and chain,” Shane told Michael as the three of them left the room. Dawn was starting to pink up on the eastern horizon. “I’ll call when we’re at the door again, on your cell. Don’t open for anybody else.”

“Did you tell that to Oliver?”

“Do I look stupid? Let him figure out his own crap, man.”

Michael shook his head. “Be careful out there. I don’t like sending the three of you out by yourselves.”

“Linda’s riding shotgun with us,” Eve said. “Literally. With an actual, you know, shotgun.”

“Actually, Linda’s driving us. We said we’d buy her breakfast and haul some heavy stuff for her at the store. Kind of a good deal, plus I think everybody likes her. Nobody’s going to come after us while she’s with us.”

It might have been wishful thinking, but Michael seemed a little relieved by it, and he knocked fists with Shane as they closed the door. They heard the bolts click home.

“Well,” Eve said, “it’s the start of a beautiful day in which I have had no sleep, had my car burned, and can’t wear makeup, which is just so great.”

The no-makeup thing was Shane’s idea, and Claire had to admit, it was a good one. Eve was, by far, the most recognizable of their little group, but without the rice powder, thick black eyeliner, and funky-colored lipsticks, she looked like a different person. Claire had lent her a less-than-Gothy shirt, although Eve had insisted on purple. With that and plain blue jeans, Eve looked almost... normal. She’d even pulled her hair back in a single ponytail at the back.

Not a skull in sight, although her boots still looked a little intimidating.

“Think of it as operating in disguise,” Shane said. “In a hostile war zone.”

“Easy for you to say. All you had to do was throw on a camo T-shirt and find a ball cap. If we can find you some chewing tobacco, you’re gold.”

“I’m not in disguise,” Claire said.

Eve snorted. “Honey, you live in disguise. Which is lucky for us. Come on, maybe Linda’s still got some cookies left.”

“For breakfast?”

“I never said I was the Nutrition Nazi.”

Linda was up—yawning and tired, but awake—when they opened up the office door. She was sipping black coffee, and when Eve said good morning, Linda waved at the plate of cookies on the counter. Eve looked relieved. “Ah—could I have some coffee, too?”

“Right there on the pot. Pour yourself a big one. It’s already a long day.” Linda had put on another shirt—still checked, but different colors—but otherwise, she looked pretty much the same. “So, you kids get any sleep at all?”

“Not much,” Shane mumbled around a mouthful of cookie as Eve poured a chunky white mugful of coffee. He held out his hand in a silent demand for her to get him some, too. She rolled her eyes, put the pot back on the burner, and walked past him to the cookie tray. “Hence, Miss Attitude.”

“The attitude comes from someone not even wanting to fetch his own coffee.”

Shane shrugged and got his own, as Eve raided the cookie tray and Claire nibbled on part of one, too. She supposed she ought to feel more tired. She probably would, later, but right now, she felt—excited? Maybe nervous was a better term for it. “So,” she ventured, “where do you go to buy a car here?”

“In Durram?” Linda shook her head. “Couple of used places, that’s all. Any new cars, we go to the city for them. Not that there’s many new cars round here these days. Durram used to be an oil town, back in the boom days, pumped a lot of crude out of the ground, but when it folded, it hit the ground hard. People been leaving ever since. It never was huge, but what you see now ain’t more than half what it was fifty years ago, and even then a lot of those buildings are closed up.”

“Why do you stay?” Shane asked, and sipped his coffee. Linda shrugged.

“Where else I got to go? My husband’s buried here; came back dead from the war in Iraq, that first one. My family’s here, such as they are, including Ernie, my grandson. Ernie runs one of the car lots, which is why I figure we can find you what you want at a good deal this early in the morning.” She grinned. “If an old woman can’t make her own grandson get out of bed before dawn to do her a favor, there’s no point in living. Just let me finish my coffee and we’ll be on our way.”

She drank it fast, faster than Shane and Eve could gulp their own, and in about five minutes the four of them were piling into the bench seat of Linda’s pickup truck, with more rust than paint on the outside, and sagging seats on the inside. Claire sat on Shane’s lap, which wasn’t at all a bad thing from her perspective. From the way he held her in place, she didn’t think he objected, either. Linda started up the truck with a wheezing rattle of metal, and the engine roared as she tore out of the gravel parking lot and onto the narrow two-lane road heading toward Durram.

“Huh,” she said as they passed the town limits sign, barely readable from shotgun blasts. “Usually there’s a deputy out here in the mornings. Guess somebody overslept. Probably Tom. Tom likes those late nights at the bar, sometimes; he’s gonna catch hell for blowing it again.”

“You mean fired?”

“Fired? Not in Durram. You don’t get fired in Durram ; you get embarrassed.” Linda drove a couple of blocks, past some empty shops and one empty gas station, then took a right turn and then a left. “Here it is.”

The sign said HURLEY MOTORS, and it was about a million years old. Somebody had hit it with buckshot, too, once upon a time, but from the rust, it had been a while ago—maybe before Claire was born; maybe before her mother was born. There was a small, sad collection of old cars parked in front of a small cinder-block building, which looked like it might have been built by the same guy who’d built Linda’s motel.

Come to think of it, it probably had.

The cinder blocks were painted a pale blue with dark red trim on the roof and windows, but the whole thing had faded to a kind of pale gray over time. As Linda stopped the truck with a squeal of brakes, the front door of the shack opened, and a young man stepped out and waved.

“Oooh, cute,” Eve whispered to Claire. Claire nodded. He was older, maybe twenty or so, but he had a nice face. And a great smile, like his grandma.

“Oh, he is cute!” Shane said in a fake girly voice. “Gee, maybe we can ask him out!”

“Shut up, you weasel. Claire, hit him!”

“Pretend I did,” Claire said. “Look, he’s bleeding.”

Shane snorted. “Not. Okay, out of the truck before this gets silly.”

Linda, ignoring them, had already gotten out on the driver’s side and was walking toward her grandson. As they hugged, Claire scrambled down from Shane’s lap to the pavement. He hopped down beside her, and then Eve slithered out as well. “Wow,” she said, surveying the cars on the lot. “This is just—”

“Sad.”

“I was going more for horrifying, but yeah, that works, too. Okay, can we agree on nothing in a minivan, please?”

“Yep,” Shane said. “I’m down with it.”

They wandered around the lot. It didn’t take long before they’d looked at everything parked in front, and from Eve’s expression, Claire could tell there wasn’t a single thing she’d be caught dead driving—or, more accurately, caught with the dead, driving. “This sucks,” Eve said. “The only thing that has decent trunk space is pink.” And not just a little pink, either; it looked like a pink factory had thrown up all over it.

Linda’s grandson wandered over, trailed by her. He caught the last bit of Eve’s complaint, and shook his head. “You don’t want that thing, anyway,” he said. “Used to belong to Janie Hearst. She drove it fifteen thousand miles without an oil change. She thinks she’s the Paris Hilton of Durram. Hi, I’m Ernie Dawson. Heard you’re looking for a car. Sorry about what happened to yours. Those fools are a menace—have been since I was a kid. Glad nobody was hurt.”

“Yeah, well, we just want to get the heck out of town,” Eve said. “It was my car. It was a really nice old classic Caddy, you know? Black, with fins? I was hoping maybe somebody could tow it in, fix it up, and I could pick it up later on, maybe in a couple of weeks?”

Ernie nodded. He had greenish eyes, a color that stood out against his suntanned skin; his hair was brown, and wavy, and got in his face a lot. Claire liked him instinctively, but then she remembered the last cute stranger she’d liked. That hadn’t turned out so well. In fact, that had turned out very, very badly, with her blood getting drained out of her body.

So she didn’t smile back at Ernie-much.

“I think I can set that up,” he said. “Earle Weeks down at the repair shop can probably work some magic on it, but you’d have to leave him a pretty good deposit. He’ll have to order in parts.”

“Hey, if you can make me a good deal on a decent car that isn’t pink, I’m all good here.”

“Well, what you see is pretty much what you get, except—” He gazed at Eve for a few long seconds, then shook his head. “Nah, you won’t be interested in that.”

“In what?”

“Something that I keep out back. Nobody around here will buy it. I’ve been trying to make a trade with a company out of Dallas to get it off my hands. But since you said big classic Caddy—”

Eve jumped in place a little. “Sweet! Let’s see it!”

“I’m just warning you, you won’t like it.”

“Is it pink?”

“No. Definitely not pink. But”—Ernie shrugged—“okay, sure. Follow me.”

“This ought to be good,” Shane said, and reached into his pocket for a cookie he’d hidden there. He broke it in half and offered it to Claire.

“Can’t wait,” she said, and wolfed it down, because Linda was world-class with the cookies. “I can’t believe I’m eating cookies for breakfast.”

“I can’t believe we’re stuck in Durram, Texas, with a burned-out car, two vamps, and the cookies are this good. ”

And... he had a point.

Eve had a look on her face as if she’d just found the Holy Grail, or whatever the Gothic equivalent of that might be. She stared, eyes gone wide and shiny, lips parted, and the glee in her face was oddly contagious. “It’s for sale?” she asked. She was trying to play it cool, Claire thought, although she was blowing it by a mile. “How much?”

Ernie wasn’t fooled even a little bit. He rubbed his lips with his thumb, staring at Eve, and then at the car. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I guess I could go to three thousand. ’Cause you’re a friend of Grandma’s.”

Linda said, “Don’t you go cheating this gal. I know for a fact you paid Matt down at the funeral parlor seven hundred dollars for the damn thing, and it’s been sitting for six months gathering dust. You ought to let her have it for a thousand, tops.”

“Gran!”

“Don’t Gran me. Be nice. Where else in this town are you going to sell a hearse?”

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been working on making it more of a party bus.”

It was gigantic. It was gleaming black, with silver trim and silver curlicues on the same, and faded white curtains in the windows at the back. Grandma Linda was right—it was covered in desert dust, but underneath it looked sharp—really sharp.

“Party bus?” Eve said.

“Yeah, take a look.”

Ernie opened the back door, the part where the casket would have gone... and there was a floor in there, with lush black carpet, not metal runners or clamps as there would have usually been for coffins. He’d built in low-riding seats down both sides, two on each side, facing each other.

“I put in the cup holders,” he said. “I was going for the fold-down DVD screen, but I ran out of money.”

Eve, as though in a trance, reached in her pocket and pulled out the cash. She counted out three thousand dollars and passed it over to Ernie.

“Don’t you want to drive it first?” he asked.

“Does it run?”

“Yeah, pretty well.”

“Does it have air-conditioning?”

“Of course. Front and back.”

“Keys.” She held out her hand. Ernie held up one finger, ran back to the shack, and returned with a set dangling from one finger. He handed them to her with a smile.

Eve opened the front door and started up the hearse. It caught with a cough, then settled into a nice, even purr.

Eve stroked the steering wheel, and then she hugged it—literally. “Mine,” she said. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Okay, this is starting to seriously creep me out,” Shane said. “Can we move past the obsessive weird love and into the actually driving it part?”

“You guys go on and take it out for a spin,” Ernie said. “I’ll get the paperwork ready for you to sign. Be about fifteen minutes.”

“Shotgun!” Shane said, one second before Claire. He winked at her. “And you get the Dead Guy Seat.”

“Funny.”

“Wait until there are actual dead guys sitting back there.”

It wasn’t safe to say that, not in front of Ernie and Linda; after a second, Claire saw Shane realize that. He blinked and said, “Well, maybe not. But it would be funny.”

“Hilarious,” Claire agreed, and went around to the back. Getting in was a bit of a challenge, but once she was sitting down, it felt kind of like what she imagined a limo would be. She looked around for a seat belt and found one, then strapped herself in. No sense dying in a car crash in a hearse. That seemed a little too tragically ironic even for Eve. “Hey, there really are cup holders.”

“Fate,” Eve said with a sigh.

“I’m not sure fate had to burn up your car to get the point across,” Shane said, buckling his own seat belt.

“No, not that. The hearse. I’m going to name it Fate.”

Shane stared at Eve for a long, long few seconds, then slowly shook his head. “Have you considered medication, or—”

She flipped him off.

“Ah. Back to normal. Excellent.”

Eve pulled the hearse around carefully, getting used to the size of the thing. “It probably gets crap gas mileage,” she said. “But damn. It’s so dark!”

Claire moved aside the white curtains to look out the back window as they drove past the front of the used car lot. Linda and Ernie were standing in front of the shack, waving, so she waved back. “I’m probably the first person to wave from back here,” she said. “That’s weird.”

“No, that is awesome. Awesome in the deliciously creepy sense. Okay, here we go, hold on...” Eve hit the gas, and the hearse leaped forward. Shane braced himself against the dash. “Wow. Nice. I thought it might only go, you know, funeral speed or something.”

“You’re not seriously naming this thing.”

“I am. Fate.”

“At least call it Intimidator. Something cool.”

“My car,” Eve said, and smiled. “My rules. You can go buy the pink one if you want.”

He shuddered and shut up.

Eve made the block without incident, and pulled the hearse back into the car lot about five minutes later, bumping it carefully up the drive and parking in front of the shack. As she switched the key off, she sighed and wiggled in the big leather seat in satisfaction. “This is the best road trip ever.”

Shane bailed out. Claire scrambled to slide out the back and found him waiting for her, grabbing her around the waist and helping her out. He didn’t let go immediately, either. That was nice, and she felt herself sway toward him, as if the world had tilted his direction. “I guess we’d better go in and make sure she doesn’t pay him even more money,” Shane said, “because you know she would, for this thing.”

“She’s a giver,” Claire agreed. “Also, maybe Linda’s got more of those cookies.”

“That’s a good point.”

Inside, they found Eve already signing the papers. Her driver’s license and proof of insurance were already on the table, and as Ernie said hello to the two of them, he gathered up her information and made a copy at the back of the office. It was small, and crowded, and pretty dusty. It looked as though Ernie was the only one who worked here, at least most of the time. Linda was leaning against the wall, staring out at the car lot through the big glass window. She looked pensive.

“Is there something wrong?” Claire asked her. Linda glanced at her, then shook her head.

“Probably nothing,” she said. “I just wonder why the sheriff hasn’t been around yet. He’s usually circling the town pretty regular, and he hasn’t been here yet. Deputy wasn’t at the sign, either. Strange.”

Ernie filled out the title and handed it over, along with the paperwork and Eve’s driver’s license and insurance. Eve juggled all the paper to shake hands with him, and he gave her a smile that was definitely flirting. “Thanks,” he said. “You staying in town long?”

“Oh—ah, no, I’m—we’re heading out. To Dallas. With my boyfriend.” Eve said it without too much emphasis, which was good; Claire didn’t think Ernie was a bad person or anything. And Eve was cute, even when she hadn’t made an effort to dress herself up Goth-style.

Ernie winced. “Should’ve seen that coming,” he said. “Well, enjoy the new ride, Eve. And don’t be a stranger.”

“No stranger than I am already,” she promised, straight-faced, and then they went out to admire the big black hearse again.

Linda moved straight past them to her own truck. “Hey,” Shane called. “How about breakfast? We were going to buy—”

“No need,” she said, and climbed into the cab. Through the open window she said, “I’m going to go see the sheriff, see if I can find out what the heck’s going on today. If I don’t see you kids before you go, have a safe trip. And thanks for livening up my week. Hell, my whole month, come to that.”

“No, thank you,” Shane said. “Your motel is great.”

She gave him a tight, quiet smile. “Always thought so,” she said. “Good-bye, now.”

She took off in a spray of gravel, raising plumes of dust as she skidded back onto the road. Ernie, who’d come out with them, sighed. “My grandma, the race car driver,” he said. “Have a good trip, now.”

They said their thanks, got into the hearse, and headed back to the motel.

They never got there. As they passed the town limits sign, and the road rose up a little in a mini-hill, Claire caught sight of flashing red and blue lights up ahead. “Uh oh,” she said. Eve hit the brakes, and she and Shane exchanged a look. “That’s the motel, right? They’re at the motel.”

“Looks that way,” Shane said. “This is not good.”

“Ya think?” Eve chewed her lip. “Call Michael.”

“Maybe they’re—”

“What, hanging out there looking for somebody else? Call him, Shane!”

Shane dialed the number of Michael’s cell phone, listened for a second, then closed his phone. “Busy,” he said. “We need to get in there.”

“And do what, exactly?”

“I don’t know! You want your boyfriend dragged out to french fry in the sun?”

Eve didn’t answer that. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, looking agonized, and then said, “I’ll apologize later, then.”

She hit the gas, and the hearse picked up momentum coming down the hill. It zipped past the motel, doing way past the speed limit.

One of the police cars—there were two in the parking lot—backed out and raced after them. Eve didn’t slow down. She hit the gas.

“Eve, what the hell are you doing? We can’t outrun them in a hearse, in the middle of the desert!”

“I’m not trying to,” she shot back. “Claire, look out the back. Tell me if the other car joins in.”

It took a few seconds, but then Claire saw another flare of red and blue flashers behind them. “They’re both following,” she called back. “And how is this good, exactly?”

“Text Michael,” Eve told Shane. “Tell him the coast is clear and to get his butt out of there.”

“What about Oliver?”

“Michael’s too much of a Boy Scout not to tell him, too. Don’t worry about that.”

Shane texted fast. “It’s still kind of sunny out, you know.”

“Oliver’s older,” Claire said. “He can stay out in the sun a lot longer than Michael. Maybe he can lead the police away, or something.”

“That’s up to them,” Eve said. “I just need to keep driving as long as I can before we give up. The more we piss these guys off, the more chance Michael and Oliver have of getting away.”

It turned out, as the police cars cranked it up, that Eve’s hearse really wasn’t made for car-chase speeds. They were overtaken in about another mile, and boxed up in another two.

Eve, surrendering, eased off the gas and hit the brakes to slow down and pull over.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Shane said. “Keep your hands up, and play nice. You panicked, that’s all. We were telling you to pull over, but you locked up. Got it?”

“It’s not going to help.”

“It will if you play the ditz. Better sell it, Eve. We’re in enough trouble already.”

The rest of it went straight out of the reality-TV-show playbook. The police ordered them out of the car, and before she knew it, Claire was being thrown up against the back of the hearse and searched. It felt humiliating, and she heard Eve crying-whether that was acting or not remained to be seen; Eve cried over smaller things. Shane was answering questions in a quiet, calm voice, but then, he’d spent a lot of time getting hassled by the Morganville police. For Claire, it was kind of a new experience, and not at all a good one. She had the deputy, she supposed; he was a tall, skinny guy whose uniform didn’t fit very well, and he seemed nervous, especially when he put handcuffs on her.

“Hey,” Shane called as his own hands were secured behind his back. “Hey, please don’t hurt her. It wasn’t her fault!”

“Nobody’s hurting anybody,” said the sheriff from the night before. “Okay, let’s just calm down. Now, let’s have some names. You?” He pointed at Claire.

“Claire Danvers,” she said. Oh man, there went any chance at all of ever getting into MIT. She was going to have a mug shot that got pasted all over Facebook. People were going to mock her. It would be high school all over again, times a million.

“Address?”

She gave him the address in Morganville, on Lot Street. She didn’t know what the others would have done; maybe she ought to have lied, made something up. But she didn’t dare. Like Shane had said—they were in enough trouble already.

Eve gave her name in a trembling, small voice, and then Shane finished things up. They both gave the Glass House address.

“So, you’re all, what, sharing a house?” the sheriff asked. “Where’s the blond kid from last night?”

“I—” Eve bit her lip and closed her eyes. “We had a fight. A big one. He—he left.”

“Left how? Seeing as the car you came in is still smoking in the parking lot back there, and it ain’t going anywhere. There’s no bus coming through here, young lady.”

“He hitched a ride,” Eve said. “With a truck. I don’t know which one. I just heard it on the road.”

“A truck,” the sheriff repeated. “Uh huh. And he wouldn’t be back there in Linda’s place with the door all locked up, then.”

“No sir.”

That, Claire reflected, might be almost true, because if Eve’s gamble had paid off, Michael and Oliver weren’t there any longer. Where they were was another story.

“Well, we’re waiting for Linda to get back; then we’ll open up those doors and see what’s going on. Sound okay to you?”

“Yes sir,” Eve said. “Why the handcuffs?”

“You three are a bunch of desperate characters, way I see it,” the sheriff said. “I find you causing trouble last night, get a report your car’s been trashed by the very same boys who say you threatened them, and next thing you know, I’ve got one man dead and two men missing this morning. The dead one got found in his pickup truck just about a mile up the road from your motel.”

“I—” Eve stopped, frozen. “Sorry, what?”

“Murder,” the sheriff repeated, slowly and precisely. “And you were the last ones to see them alive.”

7

For a long, long moment, nobody moved, and then Shane said, “You don’t think we killed—”

“Let’s just stop right there, son. I don’t want to be making any mistakes about how we do this.” The sheriff cleared his throat and recited something about rights and remaining silent. Claire couldn’t make sense out of it. She felt sick and horribly faint.

She was being arrested.

She was being arrested for murder.

Eve’s crying was uncontrollable now, but Claire couldn’t help her. She couldn’t help herself.

Shane stayed uncharacteristically silent as they loaded him into the back of the squad car, then put Claire and Eve in with him. The sheriff leaned in before he closed the door to look at them. He almost looked kind now. That didn’t make Claire feel any less sick.

“I’m going to have the deputy drive your, ah, vehicle back into town,” he said. “Can’t leave it out here. Might get stolen, and you folks already lost one car in Durram. Don’t want it happening again.”

He slammed the door on them. Claire felt Eve flinch all over at the boom of solid metal.

“Deep breaths,” Shane said softly. “Eve. Sack up. You can’t go to pieces like this. Not now.”

The sheriff got in the front, on the other side of a wire mesh screen. He put on his seat belt, looked in the rearview mirror, and said, “No talking.”

Then they drove back to the motel, where Linda’s truck had just pulled in. She looked pale and worried, but she didn’t betray much of anything at the sight of her three former guests in the back of a squad car. She listened to the sheriff, nodded, and went into the office to get master keys.

She opened up all three rooms they’d rented. Shane let out a sigh of relief even before the sheriff went in to look around. “They’re gone,” he said. “They got out. Somehow.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because Michael’s smarter than me, and he’d have found a way. Ow, Eve, stop squirming. Not like there’s a lot of room in here!”

“Sorry,” Eve said. She sniffled uncomfortably. Her eyes were red and puffy, and so was her nose, and in general she looked pretty miserable. Claire bumped shoulders with her gently.

“Hey,” she said. “It’ll be okay. We didn’t do this.”

“Yeah, they never put innocent people on death row in Texas,” Eve said. “Don’t kid yourself. We’re in big trouble. Big trouble. Like, not-even-Amelie-can-get-us-out-of-it trouble.”

Her eyes started to tear up again. Claire repeated the shoulder bump. “Don’t. We’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

Sniffle. “You’re just Little Miss Optimist, aren’t you? Do you come with accessories, like a glass half full and lemons to make into lemonade, too?”

“I’m not an optimist,” Claire said. “I just know us.”

“Damn straight,” Shane said. “Look, they’ll separate us at the station. Don’t say anything about anything. Just watch and listen, okay? No matter what they say, just stay quiet.”

“I’ve seen cop shows,” Eve said, offended. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

Shane leaned forward and looked across her at Claire. “Okay, Eve’s going to spill her guts the first time they look at her harshly. What about you?”

“Quiet as a mouse,” Claire said. Her heart was pounding, and she wasn’t sure she could keep that promise, but then again, she’d kept secrets from Mr. Bishop.

This wasn’t nearly as bad.

Was it?

The sheriff’s station in Durram, Texas, was basically two rooms, if you didn’t count the bathroom; there was a small open area with a couple of desks and computers, some cork boards on the walls full of notices and pictures, and behind that, a door with iron bars. But first, before they got to the iron bar part, Claire and Shane were seated on a wooden bench—it was a lot like a church pew, only with big bolts drilled into it on either side—and cuffed to the bench; too far apart, for Claire’s comfort. She really ached to be held by him right now.

“Hey, sir? Could I use the bathroom?” Shane asked.

“Not until you’re processed.”

“I’m not kidding. I really need to go. Please? Or would you rather clean it up?”

The deputy stared at him, harassed and doubtful, and Shane did a convincing squirm that Claire wasn’t absolutely sure was fake. The deputy finally sighed and unhooked him to escort him to the small bathroom off the main room.

Eve, meanwhile, had been taken straight to the sheriff’s desk, where he offered her a big box of tissues and a glass of water.

Claire was wondering what the heck to do, when she saw a flash of a face in the window of the station, behind the sheriff’s back. A tall, lean figure in a long black coat, hat, and gloves.

Oliver. Dressed for the sun. Out and moving, getting an assessment of where they were and what had happened. He saw her watching him and gave her a quick nod that told her nothing at all, not even, Don’t worry. Then he vanished.

Her phone gave out an ultrasonic ringtone. She blinked and looked around, but neither the sheriff nor the deputy had noticed it at all. Eve had, but after that first involuntary glance, she kept her back turned and stared off into space, Kleenex crumpled in both hands.

Claire squirmed and managed to get her phone out of her pocket without attracting attention.

She had a text message, from Michael. It read, We’ll get you guys out of there soon. Meanwhile, stay quiet.

It was pretty much the same advice Shane had given. She wanted to believe it, but her insides were still shaking. She was definitely not meant to be a career criminal.

Right. She should just sit here, then, and—think of something else. Like science. Some people recited baseball scores to distract themselves; Claire liked to go through the entire periodic table of elements, and once she’d finished with that, she started on all of the alchemical symbols and properties Myrnin had taught her. That helped. It made her remember that there was something out there beyond this room, this moment, and that there were people out there who might actually care if she didn’t come back.

Shane came back from the toilet and was cuffed in place again. He edged over a little closer to her and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, head hanging down so his hair covered his face.

“There’s a window in the bathroom,” he said. “Not very big, but you could get out of it. Doesn’t open, though. You’d have to break it out, and that would be noisy.”

Claire coughed and covered her mouth. “I’m not breaking out of jail! Are you crazy?”

“Well, it was a thought. I mean, seemed like a good idea at the time.” Shane sat back up and looked at her, forehead crinkling in a frown. “I just don’t want you here. It’s not—” He shook his head. “It’s just not right. Me and Eve, well, yeah, she piled into it head-on, and I’m always in trouble. But you ...”

“I’m okay.” She reached out and put her palm against his cheek, feeling the slightly rough stubble there. It made her steadier. It made her want to be somewhere else, like in the motel room, with the door closed. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“I am such a bad influence on you.”

“Trying to get me to stage a jailbreak? Yeah. You really are.”

“Well, at least you didn’t do it. There’s that.”

The deputy got up from his desk and came to unlock Shane from the bench. “Let’s have a talk, Mr. Collins,” he said.

“Oh, let’s,” Shane said, with totally fake enthusiasm. He winked at Claire, which made her smile for a second, until she remembered there really was something tragic here—one man dead; two missing. Granted, they hadn’t been the nicest people, but still...

She realized, with a grim, cold, drenched feeling down her spine, that she had no idea what Oliver had been doing when those men were being killed.

No idea at all.

The sheriff kept them talking for hours, then locked them in the cell in the back. Shane went in one cell; Eve and Claire together in the other. All of their stuff was taken away, of course, including cell phones. Claire had erased the text messages, but she figured it was only a matter of time before the sheriff got them, anyway. And then he’d know for sure that Michael was out there, a fugitive from justice.

That sounded romantic, but probably wasn’t, especially since he was a vampire caught without shelter in the daytime.

She hoped he and Oliver had remembered to take the cooler of blood with them. They might really need it, especially if they got burned.

And here I am, worrying about a couple of vampires who can take care of themselves, she thought. I ought to be worrying a lot more about what’s going to happen when they call my parents. They would—and that would make it just about a million times worse.

“Hey,” Shane said from the other side of the bars. “Trade you cigarettes for a chocolate bar.”

“Funny,” Eve said. She was almost back to her old un-Gothed self again, though there were still red splotches on her cheeks and around her eyes. “How come you’re always behind bars, troublemaker?”

“Look who’s talking. I didn’t try to outrun the cops in a hearse.”

“That hearse had horsepower.” Eve got that moony look in her eyes again. “I love that hearse.”

“Yeah, well, I hope it loves you back, because otherwise, that’s just sad. And a little sick.” Shane drummed his fingers on the bars. “This isn’t so bad. At least I’ve got better company this time around.” And he wasn’t scheduled to be turned into a vampire, or burned alive, but that kind of went without saying. “And they even have toilet paper.”

“Oh, I really didn’t need to hear that, Collins.” Eve sighed and paced around the cell again, hugging herself tight. “It tells me way too much about your past.”

Claire leaned into the bars. Shane leaned in from the other side, and their fingers brushed, then intertwined. “Hey,” he said. “So, this is familiar.”

“Not for me,” she said. “I’m usually outside the bars.”

“You’re doing fine.”

Claire smiled at him, then drew in a quick, shaking breath. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “It’s important.”

Shane’s fingers tightened on hers, and his index finger stroked gently over the silver claddagh ring, with its bright stone. “I know.”

“No, you don’t. I saw Oliver,” she whispered, quickly and as softly as she could. Clearly, that was not what Shane was expecting to hear, and she watched him go through a whole list of reactions before he finally settled on annoyed.

“Great,” he said. “When?”

“Outside the windows while they were talking to you,” Claire said.

“Was he barbecued?”

“No, he was wearing a big coat and hat. I don’t guess he was any too excited about being out in the daytime, though.”

“I guess barbecued was too much to hope for.” Shane fell silent as he thought about it, then finally shook his head. “They’ll wait for dark,” he said. “They’ll have to, whatever they plan to do; Michael’s just too vulnerable out there in the day. I wish we knew what they were doing.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re thinking the same thing about us,” Claire said. “Since they probably have no idea what happened. As far as they know, this hassle is all about Eve’s bad driving.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Eve said.

Shane smiled, but it was brief, and his dark brown eyes never left Claire’s. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like seeing you two in here.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to my world,” Claire said. “I haven’t enjoyed it much seeing you behind bars, either.” She laughed sadly. “This was supposed to be a fun little trip, remember? We should be in Dallas by now.”

“My dad used to say that life’s a journey, but somebody screwed up and lost the map.”

Claire wasn’t sure she wanted to think about his father right now. Frank Collins wasn’t the kind of ghost she wanted drifting around between them, especially since being in jail—again—probably made Shane think a lot about his dad. Not that Frank was a ghost. Unfortunately. He’d been a terrible, abusive father, and now he was a vampire, and she couldn’t really imagine that it had improved him all that much.

Even if he had saved her life once.

“As long as we’re together,” she said. “That’s what matters.”

“Speaking of that,” Shane said, “we could be together and headed anywhere when we get out of this, you know. I’m just putting that on the table.”

He was talking about not going back; about leaving Morganville. She’d been contemplating it, and she knew he had, too. “I—I can’t, Shane. My parents ...”

He bent his head closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you really think they want you to be there? Risking your life, every day? Don’t you think they want you out, and safe?”

“I can’t, Shane. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Shane was silent a moment, then let out a long breath. “I bet I could convince you if I could get through these bars....”

“You’d get arrested all over again.”

“Well, you’re just that tempting. Jailbait.” He kissed her fingers, which made her shiver all over; his lips lingered warm on her skin, reminding her of what it felt like to be alone with him, in that timeless, special silence. “Not a lot we can do until—” He stopped, then, frowning, looked over at the barred door that led into the sheriff’s office. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Even as she asked it, Claire heard the growl of an engine outside—a big one. It had to be some kind of truck, maybe, but not just a pickup—a big delivery van, or an eighteen wheeler. The brakes sighed, and the roar of the engine cut out. “I guess they’re getting some sort of delivery, maybe?”

Maybe, but somehow, Claire didn’t think so. She had a bad feeling. From the way Shane was staring at the jail door—which wasn’t telling them anything—he was feeling the same thing.

And then in the outer office, glass crashed, someone yelled, and Claire heard laughter.

Then more crashing. More yelling.

Shane let go of her. “Claire, Eve—get to the back of the cell.” When they hesitated, he snapped, “Just go!”

They did it, not that there was anywhere in particular to go, or to hide. They sat together on one of the two small cots, close together, watching the jail door to see what would come through.

What came through wasn’t Oliver. It wasn’t even Michael.

It was Morley, the vampire from Morganville, in all his homeless-bum glory. He was dressed in layers of threadbare clothes, and he had a large, floppy black hat on his head over his straggly graying hair.

He looked at the bars on the jail cell door, sneered, and snapped the whole thing off its hinges with a heave. He tossed the iron aside as if it weighed next to nothing.

Morley stepped through the open space, surveyed the three of them, and swept off his hat in a low, mocking bow. He was good at the bowing thing. Claire supposed he’d probably had a lot of practice. He seemed old enough to have lived in a time when bowing well got you somewhere.

“Like lobsters in a tank,” he said. “I know we agreed you’d give up your blood to me, but really, this is just too easy.”

He smiled.

With fangs.

Claire got up and walked toward the bars. She didn’t like letting Morley—or any vampire—see she was afraid of him; from working with Myrnin in his crazy days—crazier?—she’d realized that showing fear was an invitation to them. One they found really hard to resist.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Because for a confusing few seconds, she thought that maybe Oliver had teamed up with Morley to rescue them. But that was flat-out impossible. The idea of Oliver and Morley ever being able to have a civilized conversation, much less actually work together, was completely ridiculous. “You’re not supposed to leave Morganville!”

“Ah, yes. Amelie’s rules.” He said that last word with a lot of relish, and there was a muddy red flare in his eyes to match. “Poor, dear Amelie is operating at a disadvantage these days. Rumors said she was unable to keep the boundaries of the town in quite the same condition they had been. I decided to test the theory, and behold. I am free.”

That was really, really not a good thing. Claire didn’t know a whole lot about Morley, but she knew he tended more to the bad-old-days model of vampire—take what you want, when you want, and don’t care about the consequences. The opposite of how Amelie—and even Oliver—ran things. To Morley, people were just blood bags that could talk—and sometimes outrun him, which only made it more exciting.

“They’ll come after you,” Claire said. “Amelie’s people. You know that.”

“And I look forward to seeing how that turns out for her.” Morley paced back and forth in front of the bars, humming a song Claire didn’t recognize. In the net of his wild hair, his eyes glittered with a kind of silvery light. They expressed not exactly hunger, but more like amusement. “You look cramped in there, my friends. Shall I get you out?”

“Actually, it’s pretty roomy,” Shane said. “I’m feeling better about it all the time.”

“Perhaps ...” Morley turned. “Ah, you’re playing the gentleman, I see. Of course, by all means. Ladies first.”

“No!” Shane lunged at the bars. Morley had his eyes fixed on Eve and Claire now, and Claire thought, with a sinking sensation, that putting on a brave face wasn’t going to get her very far—not with him. “Changed my mind. Sure. I’ll go first.”

Morley shook his finger gently in Shane’s direction, but without taking those shining eyes off the girls. “No, you had your chance. And I despise those who think themselves gentlemen in any case. You’re not making friends that way.”

“No!” Shane yelled, and slammed his hand into the bars, which rattled uneasily. “Over here, you ratty flea-bag! Come and get it!”

“Fleas suck blood,” Morley said mildly. “Quite the cousin of the vampire, those clever little creatures, so why should I find that insulting? You really must find more interesting ways to bait me, boy. Tell me my beard would better stuff a butcher’s cushion. Or that I have more hair than wit. Live up to your heritage, I beg you.”

Shane had no idea what to say to that. Claire cleared her throat. “Like ... you’re... an inhuman wretch, void and empty from any dram of mercy?” She hated Shakespeare. But she’d had to memorize lines back in high school for a production of The Merchant of Venice.

And it had finally paid off, from the surprise in Morley’s face. He actually took a step back.

“It speaks!” he said. “And in lilting, glorious words. Though I am not so partial to the Bard, myself. He was a pitiful man to drink with, always dashing off to scribble away in the dark. Writers. Such a boring lot.”

“What are you doing here? Because I know you didn’t come to get us,” Claire said. She advanced and wrapped her hands around the bars, as though she wasn’t at all afraid of him. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heartbeat, but she knew he could. “We’re not important enough.”

“Well, that’s certainly true. You’re entirely incidental. Actually, we’re in search of a town. Something small, remote, easily controllable. This seemed a good possibility, but it’s rather too large for our purposes.”

We. Morley hadn’t just slipped out of Morganville alone. Claire remembered the big, throbbing engine outside. Might be a big truck. Might be a bus. Either way, it would probably hold a lot of vampires—like the ones Morley had applied to be allowed to leave Morganville with in the first place.

Oh, this just got better and better.

“You can’t just move in here,” Claire said, trying to sound reasonable, as if that would do any good. She let go of the bars and backed away as Morley took a step toward her again. “People live here.”

“Indeed, I’m not planning on it. Too much trouble to subdue such a large population. However, we’re in need of supplies, and this town’s quite well stocked. Couldn’t be better.” Morley suddenly lunged forward, grabbed the bars of their cell, and ripped the door off—just like that, with a shriek of iron and sharp snapping sounds.

Eve, behind Claire, screamed, and then the sound went muffled, as if she’d covered her mouth.

Claire didn’t move. There didn’t seem to be much point. Shane was yelling something, and for some odd reason the place on her neck hurt, the place where Myrnin had bitten her, where there was still a nasty scar.

Morley stood there for a moment, hands on both sides of the doorway, and then stepped inside. He glided, like a tiger. And his eyes turned red, the irises lighting up the glittering color of blood.

“Get down!” somebody yelled from behind him, and Claire hit the floor, not daring to hesitate even for a second. There was a loud roar that it took her a second to identify as gunfire, and Morley staggered and went down to one knee.

The sheriff looked dazed, and there was blood on the side of his head, but he held his gun very steady. “Get down, mister,” he said. “Don’t make me shoot you again.”

Morley slowly toppled forward, face-forward, on the floor. The sheriff breathed a sigh of relief and gestured for Eve and Claire to come out. Claire did, jumping over Morley’s outstretched hand and expecting that any second, any second at all, he’d reach up and grab her, just like in the movies.

He didn’t. Eve hesitated for a few seconds, then jumped for it, clearing Morley by at least a couple of feet, straight up. The sheriff grabbed them and hustled them off to the side, then unlocked Shane’s cell. “Out,” he said. “Help me get him inside.”

“It won’t do any good to lock him up,” Shane said. “He already ripped off two of your doors. You want him to go for three?”

The sheriff had clearly been trying not to think about that. “What the hell are these people?” he snarled. “Some kind of damn monsters?”

“Some kind of,” Shane said. He’d put his hands on Claire, and now he wrapped his arms around her, and after a second, included Eve in the hug, too. “Thanks. I know you don’t believe us, but we’re not the bad guys here.”

“I’m starting to think you might be right about that.”

“What gave you your first clue? The fangs, or the door ripping?” Shane didn’t wait for an answer. “He’s not dead. He’s playing with you.”

“What?”

“You can’t kill him with that thing,” Eve said. “Can’t even slow him down, really.”

The sheriff whirled to stare at Morley, who was still facedown on the floor. He aimed his gun at the body again and kept it there.

Morley didn’t move.

“No, he’s down,” the sheriff said, and walked over to press fingers to Morley’s dirty neck. He yanked his hand away quickly, stumbling back. “He’s cold.”

Morley laughed, rolled over, and sat up, doing his very best risen-from-the-grave imitation. It helped that he was filthy and looked kind of crazy scary.

The sheriff backed away, far away, all the way to the wall, then aimed his gun at Morley and pulled the trigger, again.

Morley brushed his clothes lightly, dismissing the bullet even before the echoes from the shockingly loud gunshot stopped ringing in Claire’s ears. “Please,” he said, and practically levitated to his feet. He reached out and took the sheriff’s gun from him, then tossed it in the corner of the cell where Eve and Claire had been kept. “I hate loud noises. Unless it’s screaming. Screaming’s all right. Let me demonstrate.”

He reached out and grabbed the sheriff around the neck.

Something pale and very fast flashed through the doorway, and suddenly another vampire was there—Patience Goldman, with her slender hand wrapped around Morley’s wrist. She was a dark-haired young woman, pretty, with big dark eyes and skin that would have probably been olive had she still been alive. It added a honey undertone to her pallor.

“No,” Patience said. Claire had met her—and the entire Goldman family—more than once. She liked them, actually. For vampires, they had real concern for other people-as demonstrated by Patience’s trying to keep Morley from killing the sheriff. “There’s no need for this.”

Morley looked offended, and shoved her back with his free hand. “Do not lay hands on me, woman! This is none of your concern.”

“We came to—get supplies,” Patience said. She seemed uncomfortable with that, and Claire immediately realized that supplies was code for people-to eat. “We have what we need. Let’s go. The longer we delay, the more attention we attract. It’s unnecessary risk!”

Patience and Jacob, her brother, had been hanging out with Morley for a while, and they’d wanted to break out of Morganville, and their parents’ restrictions—Theo Goldman was a good guy, but kind of strict, as far as his family went, or at least that had been Claire’s impression. Claire could easily believe that Morley had convinced Patience and Jacob to come along, since he was leaving, anyway, but she also didn’t believe they’d go along with killing people.

Not unnecessarily, anyway. Vampires in general were a little shaky on the details of morality in that area—a hazard of being top predator, Claire guessed.

“Hmmm,” Morley said, and turned his gaze back to the sheriff. “She does have a point. Fortunately for you.” He released the man, who slammed back against the wall, looking sick and shaky. “Stay. If you move, speak, or in any way irritate me, I’ll snap your neck.”

The sheriff froze in place, clearly taking it all very seriously. Claire didn’t really blame him. She remembered her first encounter with vampires, her first realization that the world wasn’t the neatly ordered place she’d always been told it was. It could really mess up your head.

In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure hers had ever recovered, come to think of it.

She was just starting to relax when Morley reached out and grabbed her and Eve by the arms. When Shane yelled a protest, Morley squeezed, and Claire felt agony shoot in a white bolt up her arm. Yeah, that was almost broken.

“Don’t cause a fuss, boy, or I’ll be forced to shatter bones,” Morley said. “The girls come with us. If you want to run, you may. I won’t stop you.”

Like Shane would. Or even could, being Shane. He fixed Morley with a bleak, grim stare and said, “You take them, I’m coming, too.”

“How gentlemanly of you,” Morley said, smiling. “I believe I already told you how I feel about gentlemen. But suit yourself.”

He hustled Claire and Eve out into the open room that was the police bullpen. Desks had been shoved around, papers littered the floor, and Deputy Tom was lying half hidden behind one of the chairs. Claire was glad she couldn’t really see him. She hoped he was just... knocked out.

Somehow, though, she really didn’t think so.

Shane followed behind Morley. Patience walked next to him, but she didn’t try to touch him—which was probably smart, given the fiery look in Shane’s eyes. His muscles were tight, his hands bunched into fists, and the only thing holding him back from punching Morley was the certain knowledge that it would be Claire and Eve who’d get hurt.

Morley shoved open the glass outer door with a booted foot, and glanced up at the blazing sun. “Quickly, if you please,” he said, and dragged Eve and Claire across the open ground at a stumbling run to an idling bus.

It was an old passenger bus, with darkened windows, and the next thing she knew, Claire was being shoved up the steep, narrow steps ahead of Morley, with Eve being dragged along behind him. It was dark inside, with only a few overhead reading lights on to show her the interior. There were worn, fraying velvet seats, and in almost every one sat a vampire, at least in the front two-thirds of the bus.

In the back were mostly humans—tied up, gagged, and looking desperate. There were no Morganville residents, at least that Claire could spot offhand, but she saw two immediately familiar faces—Orange Cap and Angry Guy, from the diner, who’d trashed Eve’s car. The sheriff had said they’d disappeared; she’d assumed they were dead, like their friend who’d been left with his pickup truck.

Morley had grabbed them. Claire thought that the other one, the one who’d died, had been more of an accident than deliberate murder, although maybe he’d done something to make Morley angry, too. There was no way to tell, really.

The two bullies weren’t looking quite so in control now. Their eyes were wide, their noses were running, and they kept wrestling against the ties that held them in place.

“Friends of yours?” Morley asked, seeing her expression. “I’ll see if I can seat you in the same section. Aisle or window?” He shoved Eve into a seat next to a window, across from Orange Cap, and then slung Claire into the empty chair beside her, on the aisle. Then he turned to Shane.

Shane sat down silently in the chair in front of Claire. Patience, watching this, bit her lip and shook her head, but when Morley snapped the orders, she broke out some plastic cable ties and fastened Claire and Eve to the seats, then turned to Shane.

“I’m sorry for this,” she said softly. “You should have gone. Gotten help. I would have made sure no harm came to them.”

“I don’t trust their lives to anybody but me,” he said. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Patience said with a sigh. “But Morley will require you to provide blood. He’s promised not to drain any of our captives, but I’m sure you understand his temper. Resistance would not be wise.”

Shane shuddered and looked away. He didn’t like giving blood, even at the Bloodmobile or the blood bank, and that was a lot more removed from having a vampire taking it, no matter whether they used medical equipment or went the old-fashioned way. Claire wasn’t too cool with it herself, and she knew Eve well enough to know she’d fight it, hard.

“Let us go,” Claire blurted. Morley had wandered away toward the front of the bus now, talking to someone else, and Patience was leaning over her, checking her bonds, which were very tight. “Patience, please. You know this isn’t right. Just let us go.”

“I can’t do that.”

“But—”

“I can’t,” Patience said, with soft but unyielding emphasis. “Please don’t ask again.”

She straightened and walked away without another glance, leaving them in the back, pinned like the other UnHappy Meals. At least she hadn’t gagged them. Claire supposed she would, if they started screaming. Note to self: don’t scream. Good advice.

Shane twisted around in his seat to peer at her over the top of the seat. “Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Eve?”

Eve was fuming, her cheeks bright, her eyes hot with fury. “Fine,” she snapped, biting off the word and leaving a sharp, broken silence. After a second, she softened a little. “Pissed off. Really pissed off. What kind of stupid trip is this? So far, I’ve been assaulted, insulted, arrested, and now I’m tied to a chair by a bunch of vampires in case they crave a little O negative at lunch. And my boyfriend is out there somewhere, dodging sunbeams. This sucks! ”

“Ah—” Claire didn’t quite know how to answer that. She looked at Shane, who shrugged. “He’ll be okay.”

“I know,” Eve said with a sigh. “I’m just—I need him right now, you know? Shane was all gallant and came with you. I feel... abandoned, that’s all.”

“You’re not abandoned,” Shane said. “Dude, don’t bag on Michael. It’s a whole different problem when you’re flammable.”

Eve turned her face away, toward the window, and said, “I know. I’m just—Gah, seriously, I hate being helpless! We have to do something,” she said. “We have to get out of this.”

But, as Morley dropped into the driver’s seat of the bus, slammed the doors closed, and put the beast in gear, Claire wasn’t at all sure what options they really had. Morley wasn’t interested in bargains, and they had nothing to trade, anyway. No way they could threaten him, not even with Amelie; he’d already given Amelie the finger on his way out of Morganville, and he clearly wasn’t worried about her coming after him—or, if so, what would happen when she did. Claire didn’t have anything else in her bag of tricks; nothing at all.

“Wait it out,” Shane said, as though he knew what she was thinking—and he probably did, actually. He was starting to get really good at that. “Just wait and watch. Something will happen. We just need to be ready to move when it does.”

“Fantastic,” Eve muttered sourly. “Waiting. My favorite. Next to skinny-dipping in acid and having vampires suck my blood. ”

“Sorry,” Shane said to Claire.

“For what?”

“That you’re sitting next to Little Miss Sunshine. It’s not going to be a fun trip.”

He was right about that. It wasn’t.

8

Eve mostly sat in silence, but she was just crackling with anger. Claire could feel it coming off her like static electricity. She wasn’t cooling off anytime soon, either; Claire thought she was being angry to keep from being scared, which wasn’t a bad choice. Being scared under these circumstances wasn’t going to get them anywhere. It certainly hadn’t helped Orange Cap and Angry Guy much, or the five other people Claire could spot who were bound and gagged, waiting for a vamp to get hungry.

She saw it happen once, but in the medically approved way; Jacob Goldman—Patience’s vampire brother, and under other circumstances kind of an okay guy—had fixed somebody up with a tourniquet and drawn out about ten tubes of blood from one of the men sitting two rows up. He was good at it. Theo, his dad and a doctor, had probably taught him how to do it. She supposed there was one advantage to having a vampire draw your blood—he wasn’t likely to miss a vein and have to try again.

Jacob looked unhappy about what he was doing, and at the end, even patted his victim on the shoulder in a gentle, reassuring way. Claire half expected him to hand over a lollipop-although since the man was gagged, that probably wouldn’t make much sense.

“Not happening,” Eve whispered next to her. “No, not happening. This cannot be happening. Where the hell is Oliver? Isn’t he supposed to be our chaperone?”

Claire didn’t know and couldn’t begin to reassure Eve, because there was a creeping sense of doom coming over her, too. Michael wasn’t showing up, and neither was Oliver, and that had to be bad. It just had to be, somehow. Oliver, at least, could stand the sun; she’d seen him outside the jail before Morley had made his dramatic entrance. So why wasn’t he stepping in?

Because you’re not important, Claire’s little, traitorous voice whispered. Because you’re just human. Fast food on legs.

No, that wasn’t true. Even Oliver had treated them—well, not exactly nicely, but he had developed a kind of basic respect for them. Maybe, in Eve’s case, even a little liking.

He wouldn’t just stand by and watch things happen.

Unless he thought he couldn’t win, the little voice responded, and ugh, the little voice was way too logical for Claire to argue with. Oliver wasn’t the self-sacrificing type, except maybe—maybe—where it applied to Amelie—and only in little glimpses.

But Michael was, and Michael would have shown up unless something had stopped him.

Or someone.

Claire cleared her throat. “Jacob? Can I ask you something?”

Jacob slipped the blood vials into a pocket of his jacket and came back down the aisle of the bus. He swayed gracefully with the motion of the road, not even bothering to check his balance against the tops of the seats, the way a human probably would have. He crouched down next to Claire, bringing them to eye level.

“I’m so sorry,” he said immediately. “This was not what we’d planned. We never intended to do it this way, but we couldn’t get to either the blood bank or the Bloodmobile—they were both well guarded. We had to choose—leave without supplies, or ...”

“Or pick them up at the convenience store?” Claire tried to keep the judgy tone out of her voice, but it was hard. “That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

Jacob nodded, waiting.

“Have you seen Michael?”

Jacob’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, and he was an even worse liar than Claire expected. “No, did he come with you?”

“Jacob, you know he did.” Claire said it softly, and hoped that Eve couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Did something happen to him?”

Jacob stared at her for a few long, sick seconds, then said, “I don’t know.”

He stood up and walked away. Claire bit her tongue on an almost-overpowering urge to yell something after him; it probably would have just gotten her gagged, anyway.

Shane was turned in his seat, as much as his bonds would allow, and he was staring at her. He knew, too.

Claire risked a glance over at Eve, but she was staring out the window. Not crying, not anymore. She just looked... distant, as if she’d removed herself from everything happening around her.

Shane was right. There was nothing to be done now except wait.

Claire was bad at it, but she spent the time trying to think through the problem. What would Myrnin do? Probably invent some device made out of fingernails and coat threads that would cut through plastic handcuffs. Then again, Myrnin would be cheerfully chugging down the blood, so maybe he was not such a good example to follow. Sam. What would Michael’s grandfather have done? Still a vampire, but he’d never have gone along with this stuff. He’d have stood up for people. He had his whole life, both as a human and a vampire.

And he’d have never been handcuffed to a seat, genius, Claire’s little voice reminded her. How about Hannah Moses? That was a good suggestion, for once. Claire couldn’t imagine how Hannah, who’d been a big-time soldier, would have gotten out of this, but it probably would have involved a concealed knife—which, of course, Claire didn’t have.

The steady throb of the road was hypnotic, and since the windows were blacked out, there wasn’t much to see out there except some passing shadows. The vampires were mostly whispering among themselves, and she could feel their suppressed excitement. It was strange, but the vampires seemed to feel they’d been prisoners in Morganville, too—mostly prisoners of its strict rules of conduct, but Claire knew they hadn’t been allowed out of town freely any more than the human residents.

It was odd that the vampires would now be feeling that same freedom that she, Eve, Michael, and Shane had felt leaving the town borders. It seemed ... wrong.

“Eve?” Claire tried bumping Eve’s shoulder with her own. She did it often enough to finally pull Eve out of her staring trance and get her attention. “Hey. How you doing?”

“Fantastic,” Eve said. “Adventure of a lifetime.” She dropped her head back against the seat’s built-in pillow and closed her eyes. “Wake me for the massacre, okay? Don’t want to miss it.”

Claire had no idea what to say to that, so she just settled her own head back, closing her eyes, too. The road hiss became a kind of white noise in her head, and then ...

She was asleep.

When she woke up, the bus was pulling to a stop. Claire flinched, tried to lift her arms, and immediately was reminded that plastic handcuffs hurt as they cut into her skin. She took a deep breath and relaxed, deliberately, looking around. Eve was awake, too, her dark eyes narrow and glittering in the dimness. In the row ahead, Claire could see the back of Shane’s head as he tried to make sense of whatever was outside the window.

“Where are we?” Claire asked. Shane’s head shook.

“No idea,” he said. “Can’t really see a whole lot. It looks like maybe some little town, but I can’t tell.”

“They don’t need more, uh, supplies. No empty seats.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Shane said. There was nothing in his voice, but Claire knew he was feeling just as worried as she was about this development.

Morley brought the bus to a stop with a hiss of air brakes and a lurch, then opened the door and descended the steps. It was still daylight out there; the light spilling in from the opened accordion doors was milky white and intense.

None of the other vampires tried to follow. They just waited. Morley came back, stood at the front of the bus, and grinned. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “I have stopped for gas. Feel free to snack while I attend to the fuel.”

“Oh no,” Eve whispered. “No no no.”

Claire tried to get her hands free, again. The plastic handcuffs cut deep, almost drawing blood, and she had to stop; the smell of blood wouldn’t be a good thing, just now.

The vampires were turning to look at those in the back of the bus, and their eyes were glowing.

Patience and Jacob Goldman weren’t among them. They were closer to the back, and they had their heads bent together, whispering. Patience seemed upset at something Jacob was saying, but he was insistent, and as the first vampire got up to get his snack, Jacob suddenly flashed out of his seat and stood in the way.

The vampire was a woman, nobody Claire had ever met; she looked older, and not very nice. She also didn’t like Jacob’s getting in her face, and she said something in a language Claire didn’t recognize. Jacob must have, because he spouted something right back.

Patience finally got out of her seat and stood nearby, clearly backing him up.

Jacob reached into his pocket and handed over two blood vials. He switched to English to say, “This will hold you for now. There’s no need for anyone to be killed, and you know what will happen if we allow feeding in here. Take it and sit down.”

“Who do you think you are, Amelie?” The woman bared her fangs in a mocking laugh. “I left Morganville to escape these stupid rules. Give me what I want, or I’ll take it.”

“The rules are not stupid,” Patience said. “The rules are sensible. If you want to alert humans to our presence and restart the bad old times, the times when we ran for our lives, owned nothing, were nothing—then wait until we have reached our destination. You can go off on your own and do what you will. But while Jacob and I are here, you will not feed directly from these people. I will not see them dead because you can’t control yourself.”

She sounded absolutely sure about what she was doing, and very matter-of-fact, as if only an idiot would argue with her. The other vampire frowned, thought about it, and then made a sound of frustration. She grabbed two vials from Jacob’s outstretched hand. “I’ll expect more,” she snapped. “You’d better start draining them. You have a lot of mouths to feed.”

Jacob ignored her. “Who else? I can give out four more....”

Four more vampires got up and accepted the vials. Jacob took out his medical kit and handed it to Patience. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “Draw the blood.”

“Yeah, don’t make any of them short ! one of the other vampires called, and there was a ripple of laughter.

“Enough,” Jacob said, and there was a hint of relaxed humor in his voice. “You’ll all get what you want. Just not now. And not here.”

He looked over his shoulder at Patience, who was strapping a tourniquet around the first human she’d found—a woman, this time. There was a little resistance, but not much, and Patience proved herself to be just as good at drawing blood as her brother. She filled ten more vials, which she handed over to Jacob for distribution as she moved on to the next donor.

So it went, even after Morley came back inside after fueling up the bus. He saw what was going on, and shook his head. “You can take the vampire out of Morganville ... ,” he said, and left the rest unsaid as he dropped into the driver’s seat. “Right, young ones, bloodbath later. First, we drive.”

Claire half hoped that the vamps would be done with lunch before Patience worked her way back to her row, but no such luck. However, she turned left, and started with Angry Guy, whose bug eyes and muffled shrieks seemed to make no impression on her at all. She did the blood draw quickly and easily, pocketed the vials, and moved on to Orange Cap, who’d lost his cap now and was crying wet, messy tears. His nose was dripping, too.

When Patience was finished tapping him, she turned to Claire. She looked at her for a long moment, then said, “I will not take your blood. Nor that of your friends. Not yet.”

Next to Claire, Eve let out a little sigh of relief. Shane, who’d been sitting tensely in the row ahead, relaxed as well.

Claire didn’t. “Why?”

“Because—we owe you a favor, I think. Let this be payment.” She started to move on to the next row.

“Wait,” Claire said. Patience’s dark, strange eyes returned to her face. “They’re going to kill us all. You don’t want that, you and Jacob.”

“Jacob and I are outnumbered,” Patience said softly. “I am sorry, but there is little we can do more than we are doing now. Forgive me.”

“There has to be something—” Claire bit her lip. Eve was paying attention now, and Shane, although Claire was trying to keep the whole conversation to a whisper. “Can’t you maybe let us loose? We promise, we won’t tell Morley.”

“Child, you have no idea what you’re saying,” Patience said, a little sadly. “He’ll catch you, and then Morley will find out what he wants to find out. He has no reason not to rip this information from you, and it would be suspicious enough that I haven’t drawn blood. He already thinks Jacob and I are too weak. You put us at risk, as well as yourselves.”

“So what’s our choice?” Eve hissed, leaning over as far as she could. “Getting fanged to death? No, thank you. Pass. If I’d wanted that kind of gruesome, horrible horror-movie ending, I could have stood on a street corner in Morganville and saved myself the trouble!”

Patience looked even more uncomfortable. “I can’t help you,” she said again. “I’m sorry.”

That was her final answer, apparently. Claire watched her continue on with her blood work, apparently satisfied that she’d done her good deed for the day.

“We’re screwed,” Shane said, in a matter-of-fact voice, and turned back, face forward. “Still want to go back to Morganville? Because every day is pretty much just like this, one way or another.”

Eve sighed, slumped against the window, and looked as if she was close, again, to bursting into tears. She didn’t. Claire almost wished she would. It wasn’t like Eve, all this nervous anger. It made her nervous, and the last thing she needed right now was more to raise her pulse rate.

“Michael will find us,” Eve said. “They’ll come for us.”

Claire wished she felt that sure about it.

Patience and Jacob distributed all of the collected blood, two vials per vampire, and gave the rest to Morley, who chugged it back like shots at happy hour. It was disgusting, watching all the vampires having their snack; Claire’s stomach turned, and she found it was easier staring down at her feet than actually paying attention.

Some of the blood donors had actually passed out, though whether that was just sleep, low blood pressure, or panic, Claire wasn’t sure. It was quieter, at least. Morley kept driving, and it seemed like hours before he slowed the bus again. He didn’t stop, just geared down and beckoned to a vampire sitting behind him. The vampire nodded, pointed to three others, and gestured for them to follow.

“What’s going on?” Shane asked. “Can you tell?”

“No,” Claire said, and then gasped as Morley opened the bus doors. The bus was still rolling along at maybe thirty-five or forty miles an hour. The four vampires up front put on coats, hats, gloves-sunny-day wear—and lined up on the stairs.

One by one, they bailed out.

“What the hell?” Shane twisted around awkwardly to the limit of his ability. “Eve, can you see anything? What’s going on?”

“I can’t—wait, I think—” Eve squinted, leaned her head against the window, and finally continued. “I think they’re going after something behind us. A car, maybe.”

Four vampires had just bailed out of a moving bus, in broad daylight, to attack a car that was behind them. Following them?

Claire gasped as an electric shock zipped up her spine. Michael. Oliver. It had to be! They’d figured it out. They were right behind them.

Yeah, her tragic, pessimistic little voice said in her head. They’re right behind us, and four vampires are about to drag them out of the car and leave them to fry.

“Can you see—” Claire’s voice was shaking now. Eve didn’t answer. “Eve!”

“I’m trying!” Eve snapped. “It’s all just shadows out there, okay? I can barely tell there’s a car! Oh no ...”

“What?” She and Shane blurted it out together, leaning toward Eve as if somehow they could make things out any better.

“The car,” Eve said. “I think—I think it crashed. It’s not behind us now.” She sounded dull again; defeated. “It’s gone.”

“Dammit,” Shane said. “Probably was some farmer driving to market. Didn’t have anything to do with all this crap.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Eve whispered. “They’re not coming now.”

She began to cry, producing wrenching sobs that made her whole body vibrate, and banged her forehead against the window glass—hard. Claire instinctively tried to reach out for her, and came up against her restraints, again. “Hey,” she said, trying hard to sound compassionate and soothing. Her heart just ached for Eve, who sounded so ... lost. “Eve, please don’t. Please don’t do that. It’s going to be okay; it’s all—”

“No, it’s not!” Eve screamed, and turned toward Claire in a tearful fury. “It’s not okay! Michael! Michael!”

She started thrashing against her restraints. Shane tried to calm her down, too, but Eve wasn’t listening anymore—not to anybody.

Patience came and, with a sad but determined look at Claire, leaned over and gave Eve a quick injection in her shoulder. It was so fast Claire couldn’t react to try to stop her, and Eve stopped thrashing to say, in blank surprise, “Ow!”

Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went completely limp in her chair, her head tilting toward the window, wild strands of hair covering her face.

“What did you do?” Claire demanded, and tried not to scream it. She’d just seen what screaming got you.

“She’ll sleep,” Patience said. “She’s not injured. It’s better this way. She could hurt herself, otherwise.”

“Yeah, can’t have that,” Shane said bitterly. “Gotta save that for you guys. What was that, with the vamps getting off the bus?”

Patience put the cap back on the needle she’d used to inject Eve and put it in her pocket. “Someone was following,” she said. “They’re not now. That’s all you need to know.” The bus changed its pitch again, air brakes sighing, and slowed to a relative crawl. The doors banged open again, and two vampires got on, wearing hats and gloves and long coats against the sun.

One of them was smoking, even with all the protective gear.

The other one, a little taller and thinner, grabbed Morley by the neck, dragged him out of the driver’s seat, and tossed him right out the door.

“Go!” he shouted, and stripped off his hat.

The tall one was Oliver.

Michael—who was the incoming vampire trailing wisps of smoke—raced down the aisle, slammed into Patience and Jacob, and knocked them out of the way. Nobody else had time to stand up, although a few vampires lunged and caught pieces of his coat as he ran toward the back of the bus. Oliver was right behind him, and as they reached the rows where the humans were, Oliver turned and snarled at the other vampires, who were starting to get to their feet. They were hampered by close quarters, but there were a lot of them.

Jacob bounded up, gave Oliver a second’s dark look, and then jumped up on top of the headrest of the seat next to him, crouching like a bird of prey. Patience did the same on Oliver’s other side.

“No,” she said flatly, as the vampires started to move toward them. “Stay where you are.”

Michael reached them and snapped Claire’s bonds first. It took him a precious few seconds, because the plastic was tougher than he’d thought, and he had to try not to hurt her. As soon as she was free, he leaned over Eve and pushed out the side window with one powerful punch. Metal bent and shrieked, glass shattered, and the whole window assembly fell out onto the road.

Light streamed in, pure and white-hot, and hit him full in the face. Michael jerked back into the shadows with a choked cry. Claire had a blurred impression of burns, but he didn’t give her time to worry about him. “Out!” he yelled, and grabbed her by the waist to boost her toward the window. The inch of skin exposed between his coat and gloves sizzled like frying bacon. Claire grabbed hold of the jagged edge of the window and looked down. The bus was still rolling, and it was picking up speed as it started down the hill. “Claire, jump!”

She didn’t really have a choice.

Claire jumped, hit the hard pavement with a stunning thump, and rolled. She managed to protect her head and curled up in a ball on the white-hot surface.

The bus kept on rolling. She could hear screaming—and fighting. Another window broke, next to Shane.

“Come on,” Claire whispered, and clambered to her feet. She hurt all over, and her ankle felt as if she’d sprained it, but that didn’t matter right now.

She watched the bus.

Nobody came out the window.

Claire started to run after the bus—limped after it—and had to stop when her ankle folded under her after a dozen steps. “Shane!” she screamed. “Shane, come on! Get out!”

Her attention was completely fixed on the bus, but she had good survival instincts, thanks to Morganville’s harsh training; she sensed a shadow behind her, and dropped just in time.

Morley. He was baking in the blazing day—not sizzling like Michael, but definitely turning toxic-sunburn red. And he was angry. His hand blurred through space where she’d been, and if she’d been in the way, he would have broken her neck. She rolled and stumbled back to her feet, felt the left one give way again, and hopped backward.

Morley gave her a feral, awful grin. “Nobody leaves the tour,” he said. “Especially not you, little girl. Amelie wants you back. I’m certain of that. You’re my insurance. No fair limping off on your own.”

He reached for her, and out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw a black shape hurl itself from the shattered bus window and streak toward them. At first she thought it was Michael, but no—Oliver.

He hit Morley like a brick wall and threw him fifty feet down the road in a rolling, slapping mess. Then, after an irritated look at her hopping on one foot, he scooped Claire up in his arms, then turned back to shout, “Michael, leave it! Get out!”

A car was roaring over the hill behind them—a police car, with half the light gear ripped off and dangling, and holes punched in the doors and windows. It had clawlike scrapes in the hood.

It didn’t slow down for Morley, who scrambled to his feet and dived out of the way as the cruiser rocketed past. It screeched to a sliding halt, crossways in the road, and the driver threw the passenger door open, then the back. Oliver tossed Claire into the back of the car, left the door open, and raced back to the bus. He leaped up, clinging to the open window, reached in, and grabbed something—a handful of black coat—and dragged.

Michael toppled out the window and fell heavily on the road. Oliver dropped down, cat-steady, and reached down to pull Michael to his feet. He took off his own hat and jammed it down on Michael’s bare blond head, stripped off his own long black coat, and flung it over him as additional protection.

Michael fought to get free, but as Claire flailed and struggled to sit up, Oliver dragged her friend all the way to the police car, shoved him in the back door, and slammed it, hard, penning Michael inside. The handles didn’t work, of course. Michael landed half on top of her, heavy and smelling like burning hair, but he quickly rolled up and tried to smash out the window glass—which, Claire realized with a shock, was painted over black—spray painted. Only the driver’s side part of the front window was left unaltered.

Oliver got in the front, turned, and drove a fist through the metal grating that separated the back of the squad car from the front. He peeled back the metal, grabbed Michael’s arm, and said, “You can’t help them by dying. You tried. We’ll try again. This isn’t over.”

“Eve’s still in there! I can’t leave her there!” Michael yelled, and yanked free.

Oliver, with a weary, impatient sigh, grabbed him by the neck this time, and pinned him back against the stained vinyl seat. “Listen to me,” he said, and peeled back more of the grate so their eyes could meet, and hold. “Michael, I swear to you that we will not abandon your friends. But you must stop this nonsense. It’s doing nothing to help them, and everything to destroy your usefulness to me and everyone you love. Do you understand?”

Michael was still tense, ready to fight, but Oliver held him there, staring him down, until Michael finally let go of Oliver’s arm and held up both hands in surrender. His whole body slumped. Defeated.

Still, Oliver didn’t let go. “Drive,” he told the man behind the wheel. “Follow the bus. Morley’s already back on board. He’ll keep driving, but we should hang back out of sight.”

“I can’t follow it if I can’t see it!” the driver protested, and Claire knew that voice, but it didn’t sound like the sheriff from Durram, or even his deputy. It sounded ...

No way.

Claire leaned forward and peered through her half of the grate, which was still in place. “Jason?” Jason Rosser? Eve’s brother? “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oliver needed some support that wouldn’t combust,” Jason said. “Besides, that’s my sister in there, right?”

Eve. Eve was still in the bus—that was why Michael was fighting so hard. Claire felt strangely behind the curve right now; maybe she’d banged her head harder than she’d thought. It ached on the right side. She was starting to feel a whole lot of aches, as the adrenaline started to recede a little.

Shane. Shane was still on the bus, too. Why was he still on the bus?

“Jason. Use this to track them,” Oliver said, and pulled something out of the glove compartment of the cruiser. It looked like a GPS navigation device. “It’s been keyed to follow the bus.”

“You bugged the bus?”

“I bugged your sister. I slipped a cell phone into her pocket during the confusion. Hopefully she’ll have an opportunity to use it.”

He handed the device over to Jason, who stuck it up on the dashboard, angled so he could see the colored road-map display. “Nice,” he said. “Hey, if you could unlock the shotgun, that would be good, too.”

“No,” Oliver said flatly. “The last thing I trust you with is a firearm. Just drive.”

Claire was having trouble focusing, she realized. “You gave Eve a phone?”

“I put it in her pocket,” Oliver said. “Unless they search her again, I doubt they’ll find it. There were plenty of distractions.”

“What about Shane? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.” Oliver kept staring at Michael. “Was he?”

“I got one of his hands free,” Michael said. “I could have gotten them both out. You just had to give me one more—”

“One more second and you’d have been pulled to pieces, which would have done me no good at all,” Oliver said. “Patience and Jacob were stepping aside. They know a lost cause when they see one, and you couldn’t have gotten Eve and Shane both out in any case. It’s better to leave them together, where they can protect each other. Now, are you going to behave yourself? Or do I need to prove to you, again, who is master here?”

Michael didn’t answer, but he dropped his hands to his sides.

Oliver let him go. “How do you feel?”

Michael let out a brittle little laugh. “What, you’re concerned?” He looked bad, Claire realized, even in the dim light bouncing in from Jason’s side of the front window. He was burned red, his face swollen.

“Not really,” Oliver said. “I’m concerned you’ll be a liability. Which is almost certainly going to be the case, if you continue to act like some lovesick boy instead of a thinking man. Are we understood? If you want to save your fragile little friends, you must be a great deal smarter about when you risk your own safety.”

It was hard to tell what the expression on Michael’s swollen face was, but there was no mistaking the flash of hate in his eyes. Claire swallowed, hard. Michael took a deep breath and turned toward her. “You’re okay?” he asked, and stripped off his gloves. His hands were pale, but just above the line where the gloves had been were vivid black and red burns. He gently touched her face, turning it to one side, then the other. “You’re going to have some action-star bruises, tough girl.” But she knew what he was looking for, really.

“No fang marks,” she said. “Well, none that weren’t already there, from before, you know. Look, not even any needle marks.”

“Needle marks?”

“Patience and Jacob, they insisted that all blood get drawn with a needle. I think they were trying to sort of ration it out.”

“They were trying to keep you alive,” Oliver said, turning back to face the front. “That many vampires in an enclosed space, a feeding frenzy would be inevitable. None of you would have survived it, especially not restrained as you were.”

As Eve and Shane still were. Claire felt sick. She also felt horribly, horribly guilty. “Why me?” she asked. “Why save me, not Eve? Or Shane?”

“You were the closest,” Michael said. “And—you’re the youngest. Eve and Shane would both kick my ass if I tried to save them ahead of you.” But he looked sickly guilty, too, and she knew he was thinking, just as she was, of Eve. “I heard her screaming for me. That was why we—why we decided to go in.”

“It was that or listen to his yowling the rest of the drive,” Oliver said. “I’ve never been in love, and more and more, I’m glad I haven’t. It seems to make you foolish, as well as very tiresome.”

Jason snorted; it might have been a choked laugh. “Yeah, you got that right.”

Oliver smacked Jason in the back of the head. “I don’t need your agreement. Drive.”

Claire tried to pull her head back together. “Wh-what are we going to do?” she asked. “Just follow them? What if—what if something happens on the bus? Are we just going to sit here?”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “Because going back now, we’ve lost the element of surprise, and Morley will be ready for us. In fact, he may try to engineer a provocation, to force us to do something stupid. We follow them until they stop. Once they’re off the bus, we have a much better chance.”

Jason said, “What about, you know, ramming the bus? Out here in the sun, they can’t really chase us down on foot. Not for long.”

“Ramming a bus will simply yield us a car that will no longer drive, and will not ensure the bus is disabled,” Oliver said. “It would take something larger. Much larger. In any case, it’s not prudent. Too much risk of damage to your delicate little humans on board.”

“But—”

“Oh, just shut up and follow,” Oliver snapped. “I am tired of debate. There will be no more.”

Claire knew a door slamming when she heard it. She twisted around a little and pulled up the pant leg over her left ankle. It was puffy and starting to bruise. Yep. That was sprained. “Do we have any first aid stuff in here?”

Oliver dug out a box and passed it through the torn grate on Michael’s side. She found some of that rubberized wrapping bandage stuff, and tried to do it herself, but Michael took it away from her, removed her shoe and sock, and wrapped it for her without saying a word.

“Thanks,” she said softly. It felt better, once that was done, although there was still a dull red ache that flared up every time she moved. “Is there anything—”

“I’m healing,” Michael said. He put the medical kit down and let his head fall back against the seat. “Man. This has not been the trip I planned.”

“Really?” Oliver’s voice was dry. “It’s exactly what I expected. Sadly.”

9

They drove for what seemed like a very long time, but according to the clock built into the cruiser’s dashboard, it was only a couple of hours. The bus kept taking crazy back-road turns, as if they were searching for something. Finally, though, the dot stopped moving. “What is that?” Jason asked, and tapped the screen. It magnified. “Is that a town?” Claire couldn’t see through the grate, other than a dot on a map. “It’s tiny, if it is. Smaller than that last place where you got yourselves jacked.”

“No other roads in,” Oliver said, looking at the display. “They’ll see us coming in any case. The land is as flat as a griddle. And just as hot.”

“Yeah, who ever decided to locate Vampireville in Texas, anyway? Whose good idea was that?” Jason asked.

“Amelie’s,” Oliver said. “And none of your business why she chose it. It’ll do us no good to wait until dark—they will only have sharper senses with which to detect us. Better to strike in the day, if we can. Unfortunately, my army consists of one unreliable criminal, one girl with a disability, and one incredibly foolish young vampire with a tanning issue. I am not confident.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Claire said. “We have to go. Eve and Shane—”

“I am more concerned with what Morley is doing,” Oliver interrupted. “He’s defying Amelie. Defying me. I can’t allow that to go unanswered.”

It boiled down to the same thing, luckily—they didn’t have a choice, and Oliver had to help. He thought about it in silence for a few minutes as the cruiser continued on its path to the dot on the map, then nodded sharply. “All right,” he said. “We go in. Now. But when we do, you must be fast, and you must be ruthless. Michael, since you’re so hell-bent on saving the girl and your friend, that will be your mission. Claire, Jason, you will stay with me. I may require someone to act as distraction.”

“He means bait,” Michael said. “You’re not using Claire.”

“She’s a wounded deer,” Oliver said. “She’s perfect.”

“You’re not using Claire. And that’s not optional. I don’t care if you think you’re the boss; you’re not using her.” Michael sounded utterly, completely dedicated to that proposition, and Oliver, after a second’s frozen silence, nodded.

“Very well. I’ll use the criminal. He’s serviceable, I suppose.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Do I get the shotgun if you’re staking me out for bait?”

“No,” Oliver said. “Not ever.”

Claire was struck by a random thought, which was proof her brain was finally shaking off the effects of bailing out of the bus at speed. “Hey,” she said. “It takes hours to get here from Morganville. How did Jason—”

“Jason says shut up,” Eve’s brother snapped. “It’s none of your business, okay? Let’s just say I was in the neighborhood.”

Oliver said nothing. That meant that either Jason had tried to get out of Morganville and managed to get himself caught, by Oliver—or he’d been on Oliver’s business errands. Either way, there was some kind of relationship there that Claire was sure hadn’t been in force a month ago. In fact, Oliver had been pretty definitely on the “Let’s execute the jerk” team. So why was Jason suddenly part of his crew—and a trusted part, if Jason had gotten some kind of permission to leave Morganville?

Claire figured she would probably never know. Jason was angrily not talking; Oliver was never Mr. Great Communicator even when he was in a good mood, and this wasn’t one.

He looked angry, focused, and very, very dangerous.

“Take us in,” Oliver said. “You all know what’s required. Do it. Get allies from Morley’s people if you can, by whatever means you can. Intimidate if you can’t persuade. Don’t allow yourself to be surrounded. Arm your friends, destroy your enemies, and whatever the cost, win. Are we understood? I will take care of Morley.”

Michael nodded. His face was healing faster than Claire had expected, but she guessed it wouldn’t last, not if they were going out in the daylight again. She wondered how much he could really take, before the pain and damage got too much and just overwhelmed him.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to find out.

Jason drove way too fast, gunning the engine to race-car levels, chasing dust devils down the road, and grinning like the maniac he was, from Claire’s glimpses of his expression. He looked more than ready for a fight. She’d never exactly seen him like this, and it was more than a little frightening.

Next to her, Michael was closed off, focused on controlling the pain he had to be feeling, and the worry. Oliver probably didn’t feel anything. He’d sneer at the idea of being worried.

Claire wanted to throw up, but she was determined to hang on and be as strong as she could. She rooted through the first aid box and found a couple of extra-strength pain relievers, not that they would help much. She also asked Michael, quietly, if he had any kind of weapon he could give her.

He silently dug a silver-coated stake out of his pocket and handed it to her. It had a wicked-sharp tip, enough to slice as well as stab, and it felt cold and solid in her hand as she gripped it hard enough to leave sweat prints on the shiny surface. “Last resort,” he told her. “Don’t get close enough to need it, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, and tried for a smile. She thought she actually managed to pull one off. “Does it hurt? Never mind; stupid question. Of course it hurts. I’m sorry.”

His pale hand, with its vivid red burns at the wrist, gripped hers tightly for a few seconds. “You’re a good person, Claire. You know that, right?”

“So are you.”

“Technically not really a person anymore, as Shane likes to remind me.”

“Shane can be an idiot.”

“But a good friend.”

“That, too.” She sighed. “We have to get them back, Michael. We have to.”

“And we will,” he said. “I promise.”

He might have said more, but just then the car’s acceleration slowed. Jason eased off the gas and said, “Okay, we’re here. Looks like about three blocks’ worth of town, if that. Maybe thirty buildings total? What’s the plan?”

“Find the bus,” Oliver said. “They won’t have gone far.”

“Why not?”

“Because Morley is a lazy sod, and he won’t want to put himself out. Look for the biggest building, and you’ll likely find the bus parked right in front of it.”

Sure enough, as Jason turned the sharp corner into town—if you could call it a town; it was more like a random collection of buildings—the bus was immediately and obviously parked right in front of what looked like a miniature version of the Morganville Courthouse—sort of Gothic, with towers and peaked roofs, and constructed of gray stone blocks. It looked about twenty years out from any kind of maintenance work; the iron fence around the place was leaning, rusted through, and the grass inside was ragged and overgrown.

The sign said BLACKE TOWNSHIP CIVIC HALL AND COURTS. In front of the entrance sat some kind of civic monument—a big, not very good greenish bronze statue of an old man wearing an antique suit, looking very self-satisfied. The plaque at his feet, visible even from the street, said HIRAM WALLACE BLACKE. Hiram hadn’t fared too well. There were dents in his bronze form, and the whole thing leaned a little to the left, as though built on unsteady ground. Another few inches, and the whole thing was going to do a faceplant of Hiram into the overgrown grass.

The bus looked deserted. The doors were wide-open. There was no sign of Morley, his people, or anybody else.

“How do you blow this screen up? Oh yeah, I see,” Jason said. “Okay, the phone is inside the building. That’s where they’ve got Eve, anyway.”

“You know what to do. Michael, when you find your friends, bring them back here if you can. If you can’t, find a defensible position and hold it, and wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find Morley,” Oliver said. “And explain to him why it is a terrible idea to make me come after him. This will be over quickly. Morley’s not a brave man, and he’ll order his people to comply. The only risk is that something could happen before I find him and ... convince him.”

The way he said that last part made Claire shiver. Oliver was capable of a lot of things, and some of them were really not very civilized. She’d seen some of it. It still woke her up at night, heart pounding.

But right now, at least he was pointed in the right direction. Kind of like a cannon.

“Go,” Oliver said. He didn’t yell it, and there wasn’t any special emphasis to it, but Claire heard the absolute flat command in the word. He flung open his door, opened Michael’s side in the back, and then he was moving toward the door, walking, not running, moving with deliberate speed, as if he had all the time in the world, and couldn’t be stopped by anything or anyone. Jason scrambled out and scurried to keep up. He forgot to open Claire’s side, but that was okay; Michael zipped around in less than two seconds, opened it, and flung Oliver’s extra coat over his head to give himself extra protection from the fierce afternoon sun. “Check the bus!” he ordered.

“Wait, where are you—”

Too late. Michael was gone, racing at an angle across the overgrown grass, heading for the leaning shadow of the building. He got there and slammed his back against the stone, bent over and shaking, and finally stripped off the coat and shattered one of the windows that led into the courthouse.

It was odd, Claire thought, that there wasn’t a single person coming out of the buildings to see what was going on—not even out of the Civic Hall and Courts. There wasn’t a soul anywhere in sight. Blacke couldn’t have very many people in it, but it must have at least a hundred or so.

They couldn’t all be completely clueless, especially if Morley had been his usual obnoxious self.

Claire lurched for the bus, hobbled up the steps, and found the whole thing deserted. None of the prisoners were still in their seats, and the floor was littered with cut plastic ties in the back.

She left the bus at a limping run, crossed to the broken window—Michael hadn’t waited—and groaned when she realized it was almost head-high for her. With no time to complain about it, she jumped, grabbed the sill, and ignored the cuts she got from the broken glass. Michael had swept away most of it; what was left was irritating, that was all. Her arms trembled with the strain, but she managed to lift herself up, get the toes of her right foot into one of the cracks in the stone, and boost up onto the window’s broad ledge. From there it was easy enough to swing her legs in, but it was a longer drop to the floor than she’d thought, and she hit too hard. Her left ankle let out a fiery burst of pain, and she paused to brace herself against the cold stone wall, panting and waiting for the agony to subside.

She was in some kind of office, but it hadn’t been used in recent years; the desks looked like something left over from the turn of the century, but these weren’t antiques; they were junk. The wood was rotten, drawers were cracked and hanging loose, and in some cases the legs had actually broken off.

She surprised a mouse in one of the broken drawers, and nearly screamed as it zipped across the dirty floor in her path. Deep breaths. Come on, keep it together; they need you. Shane needs you.

Claire pulled the heavy silver-coated stake out of her pocket and held it in her left hand as she opened the door with her right, ready to attack if she had to ... but the hallway was empty.

She could hear running footsteps, though. Noise upstairs. That didn’t mean there weren’t bad guys down here, however. Thanks to a thorough education in Morganville—Survival 101—she always assumed there were bad guys around every corner.

There was a lot of chaos going on upstairs—furniture crashing, thumping, running feet. People yelled—Claire tried not to think of it as screaming—and it sounded like that might be where Oliver had chosen to go after Morley.

But where was Michael?

Claire opened another door and found an office, with a desk and a computer and an old cup of molding coffee sitting on top of some papers. Nobody there. She tried the next door—same result, only no coffee.

In the third one, she found a woman slumped in the corner. She was unconscious, not dead, thankfully, as Claire discovered on checking her pulse, which proved to be strong. Claire moved the woman into a more comfortable position, rolled over on her side; recovery position, it was called. Shane had taught it to her—he was good at first aid.

The woman was older, kind of heavy, and she looked tired and pale.

Pale.

Claire checked her neck on both sides, but found nothing. Then she checked the woman’s wrists and found a slowly bleeding wound, and not a neat one, either. Claire shuddered, breathed in a few times to steady herself, and then looked around for something to use to tie up the wound. There was a scarf on the woman’s desk; Claire carefully wrapped it around her wrist and tied it tight, and checked the woman again. She was still unconscious, but didn’t seem to be in any trouble.

“It’ll be okay,” Claire promised, and went on. The thing that was worrying her now was that while she certainly wouldn’t put it past Morley and his crew to be snacking on random people, this hadn’t just happened. The blood streaking the woman’s hand had been mostly dried and flaking off, the wound had been half healed, and Morley’s party bus had only just arrived in town.

That didn’t sound right at all.

Out in the hall, the fight was still going on upstairs, and as Claire carefully edged toward the stairs, trying to get a look, there was a sudden thump-rattle-crash, and a body came flying into view, hit the wall, and tumbled down the big, scarred wooden steps to sprawl at her feet.

It was a vampire.

It was not one of Morley’s vampires. She’d gotten a look at every one of them on the bus, and they’d all been typical Morganville folks. None of them had looked Shane’s age, or been wearing a bloodstained, tattered old football jersey that smelled like dead feet even from twenty yards away.

This was not a Morganville vampire.

This was something else.

And it rolled up, bared terrifying lengths of fangs, and came after her with a roar full of fury, hunger, and delight.

10

Claire yelped, backed up, and got the stake level just in time to bury it in his chest. His momentum drove him onto the silver-coated wood, and pushed her into the wall behind her with a bruising slam. Her head hit the bricks, and she felt a hot yellow burst of pain, but she was more concerned by his bloody red eyes, crazy with rage, and those sharp, sharp fangs....

Then he slumped against her; she shoved, and he toppled off her and down to the floor with a crash, hands thumping out to either side. Man, he really stank, as if he hadn’t bathed or washed his clothes in a year. And he smelled like old blood, which was sick.

His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, but Claire knew he wasn’t dead—not yet. The silver in the stake was hurting him, and the stake itself was keeping him immobilized for now. Whether or not the silver would kill him was a question of how old he was, but somehow she didn’t think he was one of the ancient ones, like Amelie and Oliver and Morley. He was more like some bully who’d turned vamp a few years back, if that.

The silver was burning him. She saw black around the wound now.

He tried to kill me. She swallowed hard, her hand tentatively touching the stake, then dropping away. I should let him die.

Except she really needed that stake. Without it, she was unarmed. And she knew—because Michael had told her—that getting staked was painful. Getting staked with silver was agony.

Claire reached for the stake to pull it out. She’d just grabbed hold when a voice behind her said, in a rich, rolling English accent, “You don’t want to be doing that.”

Morley. He must have come down the stairs while she was otherwise occupied. He was bloody, clothes ripped even worse than they had been before, and he had open scratches across his pale face that were healing even as Claire turned to stare at him.

She tightened her grip on the stake and yanked it free as she rose out of her crouch, turning to fully face him.

Morley sighed. “Do any of you fools actually ever listen? I said don’t do that!”

“He’s hurt,” Claire said. “He’s not getting up any time soon.”

“Wrong,” Morley said. “He’s not getting up at all. But then, he doesn’t really have to.”

She felt something cold brush her aching ankle, then wrap hard around it. The teen vamp had grabbed her and was pulling himself toward her.

Morley reached out, grabbed the stake from her hand, and stabbed the vampire again, with easily three times the strength Claire had used. She heard the crunch as the stake pushed through bones and into the wooden floor beneath.

The boy, no older than Shane, went limp again. His skin started to smolder from the silver.

“You can’t—,” she began, and Morley turned on her, his face hard.

“It might have dawned on you by now that I can,” he snapped. “It might also have occurred to you that this boy is not one of my little flock. Doesn’t that make you at all alarmed, Claire?”

“I—”

“It should,” he said, “because apart from those vampires gathered in Morganville, there shouldn’t be more. Amelie, whatever you think of her, is a thorough sort. Those who didn’t agree to participate in her social experiment in Morganville were put down. There are no vampires still walking that I don’t know.” He nudged the boy with one worn boot. “But I don’t know him, or his pack of jackals who just ate my supplies!”

“Pack?” Claire looked up, startled, at another thump and crash from upstairs. Morley ignored her and dashed for the stairs, racing in a blur. There was screaming up there. “Hey, wait! Ate your—supplies—you don’t mean—”

Morley got to the top of the stairs and disappeared before she could manage another word. “My friends?” she finished lamely, and then blinked, because two seconds after Morley had crossed out of sight, Michael emerged from the shadows up there, with Shane beside him.

Michael was carrying Eve, who still seemed unconscious.

They came down the stairs fast, and Claire didn’t like the tense worry she saw on Michael’s face—or on Shane’s. “We have to go,” Michael said. “Now. Right now.”

“What about Oliver? And Jason?”

“No time,” Michael said. “Move it, Claire.”

“My stake—”

“I’ll make you a shiny new one,” Shane promised. He sounded short of breath, and he grabbed her hand and towed her at a fast limp after Michael, who was heading down the hall for the broken window where they’d entered. “You all right?”

“Sure,” she said, and controlled a wince as she came down wrong, again, on her ankle. But in the great scheme of things, yeah, she was all right—more all right than the people upstairs, from what Morley had said. “What is going on up there?”

“Morley’s having a very bad day,” Michael said. “Tell you later. Right now, we need to get out of here before—”

“Too late,” Shane said, in a flat, quiet voice, and the four of them stopped in the middle of the hall as two vampires glided out of the shadows at either end, blocking them in. One was a shuffling, twisted old man with crazy eyes and drifting white hair. The other was a young man, wearing a football jersey—teammate of the vamp Claire had already staked, she guessed. This one was broader than Shane, and taller. Like the old man, he looked ... weird; crazy, even for a vampire.

“Give,” the old man said in a rusty, strange voice. “Give.”

“Holy crap, that’s creepy,” Shane said. “Okay, plans? Anybody?”

“In here.” Michael slammed his foot against the door on the opposite side of the hall and blew it back on the hinges with a splintering crash. Shane hustled Claire ahead of him into the room, and Michael jumped in after, slamming the door in the faces of the two vampires and shoving his back against it. “Barricade!”

“On it!” Shane said, and nodded for Claire to grab the other end of a heavy wooden desk, which they slid across the floor to block the door as Michael, with Eve in his arms, jumped effortlessly up onto the desk’s top and then lightly down as it slid past. “Think that’ll hold?”

“Hell no,” Michael said. “Did you see that guy?” Eve stirred in his arms, murmuring, and he looked down at her, his face going still with concern. As she restlessly turned her head, Claire saw a matted spot in her hair—blood, almost invisible against the black.

“What happened?” Claire blurted.

Michael shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

“She got on Morley’s bad side,” Shane said. “He backhanded her into a wall. She hit her head on the corner. I thought—” He went quiet for a second. “Scared the shit out of me. But she’s okay, right?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said.

“Well, use your superpowers or something!”

“I’m a vampire, idiot. I don’t have X-ray vision.”

“Some supernatural monster you are,” Shane said. “Remind me to trade you in for a werewolf, bro. Probably be more useful right now.”

Claire ignored the two of them and moved to the other side of the room. There was a window, but as she unlocked it and threw up the sash—which didn’t want to move, and was caked with dust and old, dead bugs—she discovered that the grime had disguised a thick set of iron bars on the other side. “Michael,” she said, “can you break these?”

“Maybe. Here.” Michael handed Eve over to Shane, who balanced her with a lot more difficulty. He looked at the bars, which were in full, blazing sunlight. “That—could be a problem.”

He was still wearing his leather coat, but his gloves were ripped—it looked as if somebody had shredded them with claws. Pale strips of skin showed through on the backs of his hands.

Shane, who was leaning against the desk that blocked the door, was almost knocked over as the vampires on the other side slammed into the barrier, sliding the desk nearly a foot before Shane dug in his feet and shoved back. The desk slid toward the door, inch by slow inch, until he’d jammed it hard against the old vampire’s grabbing hands caught in the doorway. “Decide quick!” he yelled. “We’re running out of time!”

Michael took a deep breath, grabbed one of the ancient, dusty drapes on the side of the window, and yanked it down. He wrapped it over both hands, then grabbed the bars. Even then, the sleeves on his coat rode up, and Claire saw the strips of reddened skin, already burned from before, start to smoke and turn black. Michael shook with effort, but the sun was too much for him. He let go of the bars and stumbled backward, panting, eyes gone red and wild. “Dammit!” he yelled, and tried kicking the bars. That worked better; his booted feet and jeans protected him better, and the first kick landed solidly, bending the bars and rattling the bolts.

He didn’t have time for another one, because the vampires on the other side of the door hit it again, sliding the desk halfway into the room and sending Shane stumbling into Claire. Michael whirled in time to face the first vamp in, which was the younger one in the ragged football jersey.

Michael was fast, but his multiple exposures to the sun had slowed him down, and the other vamp hit first and hard in a blocking tackle, and Michael was thrown all the way into the back wall. He shook it off and rolled back to his feet just as the bloodsucking jock reached out for Claire.

Michael wrapped a fist in the back of the boy’s jersey and yanked him off his feet, throwing him down with a bang flat on his back. He planted a knee on the guy’s chest, holding him down, but that wasn’t a permanent solution, and as Claire watched, the other vampire, the twisted old man, shuffled into the room, grinning with one side of his mouth. He looked even more dead than most vampires, and there was something familiar about the disorganized way he was moving, something—

She didn’t have time to think about it, because the old man jumped at them like some creepy hunting spider, hands outstretched and hooked into claws. Shane dived one way, burdened by Eve; Claire dived the other. That put Shane and Eve closer to the door, and with a tormented look back, Shane ducked out.

“Claire, go!” Michael said. “Run!”

“I can’t run,” she said, very reasonably. Hobbling wasn’t really an option; either one of these vamps could take her down in seconds. One slow, sliding step at a time, she backed away from the approaching old vampire, heading for the window.

He didn’t seem to get her plan until he’d followed her into the sunlight and begun to burn. Even then, it seemed to take a few seconds to really sink in that he was in trouble. He kept coming in that awkward crab walk even as his clay white skin turned pink, then red, then began to smoke.

Then, finally, he howled and ducked away into the shadows.

Claire, pressed up against the windowsill and bathed by the hot sun, breathed a sigh of relief. Briefly.

“Smart,” Michael said. He stayed where he was, holding Vamp Boy down, and watching the older vampire shuffle around and stalk Claire. “Stay where you are. He may try to grab you and pull you out of the sun. If I let this one go—”

“I know,” Claire said. “I’ve got it.” She didn’t, really, but what choice did she have? She looked around frantically for something, anything, to use, and blinked. “Can you throw that over here?” she asked, and pointed. Michael looked around and picked up something off the floor, frowning.

“This?”

“Throw it!”

He did, and Claire snatched it out of the air just as the older vampire made his run at her, howling.

Claire buried the pencil in his chest. She got lucky, sliding it between his ribs just as Myrnin had taught her to do in his occasional, completely random self-defense classes, and the older vamp’s eyes went wide and he fell at her feet, in the sun. Claire rolled him out of the way, but she left the pencil in his chest.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Michael said, and shook his head. “That is just embarrassing.”

“Have you noticed something about them?” Claire asked, shaking now that the surge of adrenaline was passing. The vampire Michael was leaning on swiped at him, but Michael easily avoided the blow.

“These guys? They’re not too smart.”

“They’re sick,” she said. “I recognize the way the older one moved. Notice that they’re not really talking? They can’t. They’ve been broken down to basic levels. Hunt and kill. Like the worst-off vampires in Morganville when I got there.”

Michael clearly hadn’t thought of that. His whole body language changed, and for a second Claire thought he was going to get up and move away from the other vampire, but sense won out over fear, and he stayed put. Michael had never gotten sick from the disease the rest of the vampires had carried; as the youngest, he’d never had the chance. But he’d seen what it had done to some of the others in Morganville. He’d seen the creatures they’d become, confined for their own protection in cells in an isolated prison.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’ve had the shot, Michael. I don’t think you can get it now.”

She hoped that was true, anyway. If this was some new strain of the disease, then that was worse. Lots worse, especially if—as she suspected, from the condition of these two vampires, and the one she’d staked in the hall—they were actually getting sicker a lot faster than the typical Morganville vampire had.

Shane came pelting into the room, almost tripped over the pencil-staked vampire, and looked around, lost. “Uh—what happened?”

“Where’s Eve?”

“I left her next door,” he said. “She’s okay.”

“You left her?” Michael snapped. “Oh, you’d better tell me you didn’t just say that.”

“She’s fine, Mike. She’s awake, kind of. I left her with a letter opener, hiding under a desk. She’s safer than any of us right now.” Shane looked down at the staked vamp at his feet. “Claire?”

“Yes?”

“You staked a vampire with a number two pencil.”

“I didn’t actually check the number.”

“Have I told you lately how freaking awesome you are?”

She tried to smile, but her heart was fluttering in her chest now, and not in a good way. “Compliments later. We really need to get out of here and get to the car. Any ideas?”

“Find another pencil and I’ll pin this one down, too,” Michael said.

“You know how weird that sounds, right?” Shane said. “Right, never mind. Number two pencil, coming up. Why do I feel like we’re taking a test?”

“Claire.” Michael looked past Shane, at her. “Go to Eve. Make sure she’s okay.”

Claire nodded and hobbled out the door, across the hall. The door was shut but not locked, and she pushed it open ...

Only to have to duck an awkward lunge from Eve, who was standing up, clinging to a chair and holding a glittering silver letter opener in one deathly tight-gripped hand. Eve yelped and opened her fingers to drop the knife when she saw what she’d almost done, and fell into Claire’s arms with a sob of relief. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” Eve whispered, and hugged her with feverish, shaking strength. “God, so sorry. I thought you were one of the creeps.”

“Not today,” Claire said, and winced at the blood trickling down the side of Eve’s face. “That must hurt.”

“Not so much now.” Eve’s eyes looked kind of vague and unfocused, but she was staying on her feet. That had to be a good sign. “I thought—I thought I saw Michael. But then Shane was here, and—”

“Michael’s here,” Claire said. “He was carrying you, but he had to fight. He’s coming, Eve. I told you he would.”

Eve squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, breathing deep. “Okay,” she said then, and her voice sounded stronger. “Okay. We’ll be okay.”

From the other room, Claire heard the sound of metal bending, and then a loud clang. “Yo!” It was Shane’s voice, ringing off stone and wood. “Girls, the party’s over. We are leaving!”

“Come on,” Claire said, and put her arm under Eve’s shoulders to keep her upright. “Time to go.”

“Where’s Jason?” Eve almost sounded in focus now, and on just the wrong topic. “We have to find him! ”

“He’s with Oliver,” Claire said. “We’ll find him. First, we have to make sure we stay alive, okay? Very important.”

The two of them staggered together across the hall into the room where two vampires were lying on the floor, pinned by pencils, and Michael and Shane were standing at the window. The bars were broken out. Michael was sensibly off to the side, away from the sun, and he’d draped one of the thick, dusty curtains over his shoulders. Claire supposed he was going to use it to cover his head.

But neither he nor Shane was moving.

“What?” Claire asked, and as she came to the window and looked out, she realized what the problem was.

The police car was on fire.

And so was the bus, with big, crackling, very public flames.

And nobody, nobody had come out to gawk. No police had come running. Not even the volunteer fire department.

Blacke was a dead town—literally.

“We are screwed,” Shane said, very matter-of-factly. “Plan B?”

“There isn’t one,” Michael said.

“You know, I kind of saw that one coming,” Eve said. “Even with a concussion.”

They stood there for a moment, watching the car and bus burn, and for a few seconds nobody said anything. Then Michael said, “Morley didn’t do that. Morley isn’t that stupid.”

“It damn sure wasn’t Oliver,” Shane added. “So what the hell is going on around here?”

“You should tell us. You were riding with Morley; we just got here.”

“Yeah, funny thing, getting tied up and hustled around by hungry vampires made me not notice the little things. All I know is that we got into the building, Morley was making some speech, and next thing I knew, one of Morley’s crew was yelling that we were being attacked. I grabbed Eve and tried to get her under cover, but she got clocked by Morley when she got between him and some guy he was fighting. She hit her head.” Shane paused and glanced at Michael. “What’s your excuse?”

“I lost track a while ago,” Michael said. “Right about the time Oliver detoured us into Crazytown for no good reason. Unless this is what he was looking for all along.”

“What, a town full of sick vampires?” When Claire said it, suddenly it made sense. “He was. He knew they were here. Somewhere, anyway. He was looking for them!”

“He thought they were in Durram,” Michael agreed. “That’s why he went off in the middle of the night searching. But if they ever were there, they moved on, to here. Smaller town. Easier to control, before they got too sick to care.”

“But these dudes are not exactly historical,” Shane said, and nodded toward the kid in the football jersey. “That’s not some vintage outfit he’s wearing; he can’t have been vamped more than a few months ago, a year at the most. So how did he—”

“Bishop!” Claire interrupted. “Bishop was looking for Amelie. And he was making new vampires all the time, just making them and leaving them.” She shuddered. “He must have come through here, or someplace close.” Bishop was Amelie’s father—both physically, and in a vampire sense, apparently. And in neither sense was he going to win a Father of the Year award. Or get a humanitarian plaque, either. He’d snacked on necks, and this was what he’d left behind him.

Scary, and disgusting.

“If Oliver was looking for them, he must have some kind of plan,” Eve said. She was leaning against the wall now, holding one hand to her must-be-aching head, and she still looked kind of vague and unfocused. “Find him. He’ll know what to do.”

“He might have had a plan, but that was before Morley and his merry bunch of idiots crashed into it,” Shane said. “Now we’re in the middle of a three-sided vampire war. Which would be an awesome video game, but I’m really not interested in playing for real. I like my reset buttons.”

“Then we have to find another car,” Michael said. “One that runs.”

“No, man, I have to find another car,” Shane said. “And black out the windows. And get it back here so you don’t combust strolling around town shopping for one. So here’s an idea: You take care of the girls; I’ll get the wheels.”

“Did you just tell me to stay with the girls?” Michael said, and grinned. Shane did, too.

“Yeah,” he said. “In your face, man. How does it feel?”

They tapped fists. Eve sighed. “You are both morons and we’re all going to die, and my head hurts like crazy,” she said. “Can we please just get out of here? Please?”

Michael went to her and put his arms around her, and Claire heard her let out a little, sad sob as she melted against him. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s okay, baby.”

“So not,” Eve said, but she’d lost her edge. “And where the hell were you while I was getting dragged along on the party bus, nearly getting fanged?”

“Racing after you,” he said. “Jumping onto the bus? Breaking out windows? Almost rescuing you?”

“Oh yeah,” Eve said. “But I was unconscious for all that part, so I couldn’t really appreciate how brave you were. This is all right, though. Being with you.”

Shane exchanged a look with Claire, made a gagging sound, and got her to laugh. Then he took her hand, held it for a second, then lifted it to his lips. His mouth felt so warm, so soft, that she felt every muscle in her body shiver at the touch. His thumb brushed over the claddagh ring, their secret little promise.

“Wait for me,” he said. “Any requests on the kind of car?”

“Something with armor?” she said. “Oooh, and headrest DVD. Bonus for surround sound.”

“Rocket launchers,” Michael said.

“One hot yellow Hummer with optional mass destruction package, coming up.” Shane squeezed her fingers lightly, one more time, then ducked out the window. Claire watched him drop to the grass, roll to his feet, and take off at an angle through the afternoon glare.

The glare, she realized, was at a lower level than before.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was heading west, fast.

“Nightfall,” she said. Michael stepped up near her, out of range of the sun still flooding the window. “We don’t have too long before it gets dark, right?”

“Right,” he said. “But if we stay here in this building, I think we’re going to have even less time. There are a lot of these... other vampires. And they’re not exactly shy.”

He grabbed the two fallen vampires and dragged them out into the hallway, where he dumped them next to the one still decorated with Claire’s silver stake—that one was definitely dead now, burned by the silver. She tried not to look too closely.

Michael barricaded the doors again and sat Eve down in a somewhat-secure chair, in the corner. “Stay,” he told her. “Rest.” He ripped down the other half of the dusty, thick curtain and wrapped it around Eve; one of those cute romantic gestures that was a little spoiled by her bout of uncontrollable sneezing as a gray cloud floated up around her face.

Claire stayed by the window, staring out. Not that it would help; even if she saw Shane, even if she saw he needed help, what was she going to do? Nothing, because she was human, slow, and had a torn-up ankle on top of all that.

But somehow, it was important that she stand there and watch for him, as though it were some agreement they’d made, and if she didn’t keep it, something bad would happen.

Superstition. Well, I’m standing in some kind of pseudo-Gothic castle thingy with a bunch of vampires fighting in the halls. Maybe superstition just makes sense.

“Did you see Jason?” Eve was asking Michael. “Was he okay?”

Michael acted as if he didn’t hear her. He came to join Claire at the window, although just to the dark side of the sunlight. “Anything?”

“Nothing yet,” she said. “Did you see him? Jason?”

“Not really.”

“That’s not really an answer, is it?”

Michael shot her a look. Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a thump from overhead—a hard one, followed by what sounded like scratching. Lots of scratching, like very sharp claws. Maybe knives.

Like something was digging down through the floor-boards from the second floor.

“Okay, that’s not a good sound,” Eve said. “Michael?”

He was standing very still, staring upward, his face marble white in the shadows.

Dust filtered down from the ceiling. Pieces of old plaster rained down in flakes, like snow. Claire backed away from the window, away from that sound—all the way back to the heavy desk blocking the door leading into the room.

Suddenly the door shoved against her, as someone outside the room hit the door with a shocking crash and howled. More scraping, this time at the wooden door. Michael lunged forward and slammed the desk back in place and held it there as the door shook under the force of the battering. “Dammit,” he hissed. “Where is he?”

Overhead, something snapped with a dry crack—boards, being broken and peeled away, ripped free, and tossed aside.

They were digging through.

Eve stood up, bracing herself on the wall, and kicked loose the leg of a rickety smaller table lying near her chair. It broke loose with a splintered end, not as sharp as a spear, but not as blunt as a club, either. She gripped it in both hands, dividing her attention between the ceiling, which was now snowing plaster like a blizzard, and Michael, who was struggling to hold the desk in place as a barricade at the door.

We’re going to die here, Claire thought. It came to her with terrifying clarity, as if she’d already seen the future through an open window in time. Eve would be lying there, her eyes wide and empty, and Michael would die trying to protect her. Her own body would be a small, broken mess near the window, where Shane would find it....

No.

The thought of Shane’s finding her, more than just the dying itself, made Claire refuse to accept it. He’d seen enough; suffered enough. Adding this on top of it—no. She wouldn’t do it to him.

“We have to live,” she said out loud. It sounded half crazy. Michael glanced at her, and Eve outright stared.

“Well, duh,” Eve said. “And I’m the one who got clocked today.”

The ceiling gave way with a low groan of wood and a flood of plaster and debris, and three bodies, covered in blood where they weren’t white with plaster dust, dropped through the opening. They looked like monsters, and as the taller one turned to Claire and she caught the glint of fangs, she screamed.

The scream lasted for about a heartbeat, and then recognition flooded in—and relief. “Oliver?” Great. She was relieved to see Oliver. The world was officially topsy-turvy, cats were living with dogs, and life as she knew it was probably over.

Oliver looked ... well, like a monster—like a monster who’d fought his way out of hell, inch by inch, actually, and, weirdly, loved every minute of it. He grinned at Claire, all wickedly pointy fangs, and whirled toward Eve as she lunged at him with the business end of her broken stick. He took it away from her with contemptuous ease and shoved her into Michael, who had checked himself before attacking, but was clearly just as stunned as Claire felt.

“At ease, soldiers,” Oliver said, and it was almost a laugh. Next to him, Morley slapped white dust from his clothes, raising a choking cloud that made Claire’s eyes water as she coughed. “I think we’re still allies. At least for now.”

“Like Russia and England during the Second World War,” Morley agreed, then looked thoughtful. “Or was that the first? So difficult to remember these things. In any case, enemies with a common worse foe. We can kill each other later.”

The third person in the group was Jason, who looked just as bad as the other two, and not nearly as fine with it. He was shaking, visibly shaking, and there were rough bandages wrapped around his left wrist and hand that were soaked through with blood.

Eve finally, belatedly, recognized her brother, and reached out to grab him into a hug. Jason stayed frozen for a moment, then patted her on the back, awkwardly. “I’m okay,” he said. That was a lie, Claire thought, but a brave one. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

“Hit my head,” Eve said.

“Oh, so, no damage, then,” Jason said, which was such a brother thing to say that Claire smiled. “Seriously, that looks bad, Eve.”

“No broken bones. My head hurts, and I feel dizzy. I’ll live. What the hell happened to you?”

“Don’t ask,” Jason said, and stepped away. “Need some help, man?”

Michael had grabbed hold of the desk and shoved it back against the door again, and he was now struggling to keep it in place. “Sure,” he said. Not that Jason’s muscle power was going to work any miracles, Claire thought; he was stringy and strong, but not vamp-strong.

“Let them in,” Morley said, and finished redistributing dust from his clothes to the rest of them with a final slap. “It’s my people. Unless you don’t trust us?”

“Now, why wouldn’t we?” Eve said sweetly, and turned to Michael. “Don’t you dare!”

“You’d rather leave them out there to be torn apart?” Morley asked, without any particular emphasis, as though it didn’t really matter to him one way or the other. “I would have thought someone with so much compassion would be less judgmental.”

“Excuse me, but you tied us to seats. And put needles in our arms. And drank our blood. So no, I’m not really seeing any reason to get all trusty with you!”

Morley shrugged. “Then let them die. I’m sure you’ll have no problem listening to their screams.”

Someone was, in fact, shouting on the other side of the door now, not so much battering on it as knocking. “Michael! Michael, it’s Jacob Goldman! Open the door! They’re coming!”

Michael exchanged a quick look with Claire, then Eve, then Oliver. Oliver nodded briskly.

Michael grabbed the desk and pulled it backward, nearly knocking Jason to the ground in the process. “Hey!” Jason protested. “A little warning next time, man!”

“Shut up.” Michael shoved him back as the door pushed open from the outside, and vampires started flooding into the room.

Morley’s people. They, like Morley, hadn’t come through this unharmed; every one of them, including Jacob and Patience Goldman, looked as if they’d fought for their lives. A few were wounded, and Claire knew from experience that it took a lot to hurt a vampire, even temporarily.

Jacob was cradling his right arm, which was covered in blood. Patience was supporting him from the other side. Even Eve looked a little concerned at the sight of his ice white face and blind-looking eyes. He seemed to be in serious pain.

Patience settled him against the wall and crouched next to him as Morley and Oliver, with Michael’s help, engineered some kind of barrier for the door when the last of Morley’s people were crammed into the small room.

There weren’t nearly so many as before.

“What happened?” Claire asked Patience. The vampire girl looked up at her, and there was a shadow of fear in her face that turned Claire cold inside.

“They wouldn’t stop,” Patience said. “They came for our prisoners. They wouldn’t—we couldn’t make them stop. Even when we destroyed one, two came out of the shadows. It was—we couldn’t stop them.” She looked down at Jacob, who had closed his eyes. He looked dead—more dead than most vamps. “Jacob almost had his arm torn off trying to protect them. But we couldn’t help.”

She sounded shocked, and deeply distressed. Claire put a hand on her shoulder, and Patience shuddered.

“You’re okay,” Claire said. “We’re okay.”

“No, we’re not,” she said. “Not at all. These are not vampires, Claire. They are animals—vicious beasts. And we—we are just as much prey for them as you are.”

“Right,” Morley said, raising his voice over the rising babble of conversation. “Everybody, shut it! Now, we can’t stay here—”

“The bus is burning,” someone said from near the window. Morley seemed to pause, obviously not expecting that, but he moved past it at light speed.

“Then we don’t use the bus, clot-for-brains. We find another way out of this accursed graveyard of a town.”

“In the sunlight?” Jacob asked. His voice was soft and thready with pain. “Not all of us will survive for long, and those who do will suffer. You know that.”

“Your choice—go and burn; stay and be torn apart.” Morley shrugged. “For my part, burns heal. I’m not sure that my disconnected pieces would, and I’d prefer not to find out.”

“Something’s coming,” a voice called from the window. “A truck. A delivery van!”

Claire shoved through the crowd of vampires, ignoring the cold touch of skin and the hisses of annoyance, and managed to get a clear space right in front of the window, where a solid couple of feet were still bathed in sunlight. Eve had already claimed it, but she let Claire squeeze in beside her.

The van was a big yellow thing, some kind of bread truck, with a boxy, windowless back. As Claire watched, it jumped the curb and bounced up onto the lawn, charged forward, and knocked down the leaning iron fence around the Civic Hall. It missed the statue of what’s-his-name, the town’s patron saint, but the vibrations caused the whole thing to wobble uncertainly, and as Claire watched, it toppled over that last couple of inches, and gravity took over, slamming the smug statue’s face into the grass once and for all.

Thankfully, not in the way of the van.

The van reversed, turned, and then backed up fast toward the window. It stopped a few feet away, and Shane hopped down from the driver’s side. He ran to the window and grinned at Eve and Claire.

His grin faded fast as his eyes adjusted to the shadows, and he saw all the vampires in the room. “What—”

“Morley’s people,” Claire said. “I guess we’re all in this together right now.”

“I’m ... not loving that.”

“I know. But we all need to get out of here.”

Shane shook his head, shaggy hair sticking in damp points to his face, but he turned and opened up the back doors of the van. Inside, there wasn’t much space, but there was enough to hold all the vamps—maybe. “I’ll take as many as can fit,” he said. “But seriously, once they’re out of here, all bets are off.”

“Agreed,” Morley said, and stepped forward into the sun. If it bothered him, it was only to make him narrow his eyes a little. He grabbed the frame of the window and, with one hard pull, ripped it right out of the stone and tossed it out into the overgrown grass. “Right, youngest first. Go, now.”

There was a hesitation, until Morley gave a low-decibel growl, and then vampires started stepping up, quickly throwing themselves out into the sunlight and moving fast to the sheltering darkness of the van. In only a few seconds it was just her, Michael, Jason, Eve, Morley, and Oliver, with Shane standing outside the window.

“I said youngest first,” Morley said, glowering at Michael. Michael raised pale eyebrows at him. “Idiot.”

“I stay with my friends.”

“Then it would appear you get to tan with them, as there’s no more room in the back.”

“No,” Oliver said. “Michael goes in the back. You and I ride outside.”

Morley let out a black bark of a laugh. “Outside?”

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.” Oliver, without even looking at him, grabbed Michael by the shoulder and almost threw him across the open space to the back of the van. Michael crashed into the small open space left and was pulled inside by Patience Goldman, who looked anxious, almost frightened. Shane slammed the back doors of the truck and ran to the front. “Right. Move it, ladies.”

Jason didn’t wait for girls first; he jumped out and went. Oliver boosted Eve up to the window, and she ran for the cab of the truck, where Jason was already climbing inside. Claire followed, avoiding any help from Oliver, and as she pulled herself up on the truck’s mounting step, she saw Oliver and Morley jump out of the building and flatten themselves on top of the truck, in full sun, arms and legs spread wide for balance. She banged the door shut behind her and squeezed in next to Eve, with Jason on the other side next to Shane.

“We couldn’t have done this boy/girl?” Shane complained, and started up the car. “Back off, freak!” That last was for Jason, who was pushing too close for Shane’s comfort, evidently. Claire tried wiggling closer to the passenger door, but the cab wasn’t made for four, no matter how relatively skinny they might be. And Shane wasn’t small.

“Just drive, smart-ass,” Jason snapped. Shane looked like he was considering hitting him. “Unless you want the two on top baked golden brown.”

“Crap,” Shane spat, and glared at the steering wheel as if it had personally offended him. He put the truck in gear, ground the gears, and got it roaring through the grass. It bumped hard over the curb, sending Claire into the dashboard, and she flailed to regain her balance as the truck slewed back and forth, got traction, and roared off down the street.

“Where the hell are you going?” Jason yelled.

“Your sister gets to talk. You don’t.”

“Fine,” Eve said. “Where the hell are you going, Shane?”

“The library,” he said. “I promised I’d bring the truck back.”

Claire blinked, looking over at him, and Eve, wide-eyed, shook her head.

“You know it’s desperate,” she said. “Shane is going to the library. ”

And in spite of everything, that was actually funny.

11

The library was about a block down, on the left. They passed a lot of empty, blank buildings, broken windows, destruction that seemed like the aftermath of a good looting. It didn’t seem recent, though.

The library’s windows were all intact, and there were people patrolling outside it—the first living people Claire had seen in Blacke, actually. She counted four of them, armed with shotguns and crossbows.

“My kind of library,” Shane said. “What with all the weapons and everything. I tried to boost the truck, and they finally let me have it, but I had to bring it back. This looks like the place to be. At least we can find out what the hell is going on, maybe get a bus or something.”

The guards outside the library were certainly paying attention. The guys with shotguns tracked the truck as it approached, and they looked really serious about firing, too. Claire cleared her throat. “Uh, Shane—?”

“I see it,” he said. He slowed the truck to a crawl. “So, I’m guessing, Hi, we’re friendly strangers with a bunch of vampires in your bread truck probably isn’t the way to go here.” He put the truck in reverse. “Guess this wasn’t as good an idea as it looked at a distance.”

“Maybe we should—”

Whatever Eve was about to suggest became useless, because two police cruisers, carrying more armed bubbas, came screaming out of alleys on either side of the library building and blocked Shane’s exit. Shane hit the brakes. In seconds, Claire’s door was yanked open, and a huge man with a shotgun glared at her, grabbed her, and dragged her out onto the hot pavement. He pressed fingers to her throat for a second, then yelled, “Live one!”

“This one, too!” yelled his buddy, who was pulling a fighting, screaming Eve out of the cab. “Watch it, girl!”

“You watch it, you pervert! Hands!”

“Hey, leave her alone!” That was Jason, flinging himself out after Eve, looking every bit the feverish little maniac Claire remembered from the first time she’d seen him. Maybe a little cleaner. Maybe.

He must have moved too fast for the armed guard’s comfort, because he got hit in the guts with the stock of the shotgun, and collapsed to the street. Eve screamed his name, and got picked up and bodily carried into the library, along with Claire. “No!” Claire screamed, and looked back at the truck. Shane was getting wrestled out of the driver’s side, and Jason was being dragged to his feet.

This was not going well. And where the hell were Oliver and Morley? They weren’t on top of the van anymore....

Oliver dropped from the overhanging roof of the library and drop-kicked the bubba holding Claire. He shoved Claire out of the way as the one holding Eve aimed a crossbow and fired; Oliver snatched the arrow right out of the air and snapped the thick shaft with a twist of his fingers, grinning. “Let the girl go,” he said. “I’ve played this game with many better than you. And they all died, friend.”

He was looking pink from exposure to the sun, but not burned. Not yet. Uncomfortable, maybe. The guard’s eyes darted around, looking for support, and found it in the form of two more cowboy-hatted men racing to the rescue.

With shotguns.

Claire threw herself forward, throwing her arms wide. Eve let out a warning cry, but Claire stepped in front of Oliver as the shotguns came up. “Wait! ” she yelled. “Just wait a second! He’s with us!”

The shotguns focused on her.

Oh, crap.

“You’re running with the bloodsuckers?” one of them said in a soft, dangerous voice. “Little girl like you?”

“He’s not like—like those things at the courthouse,” she said. She put her hands up in the surrender position and took a step toward them. “We’re not supposed to be here. We just want to leave, okay? All of us. We want out of town.”

“Well, you ain’t leaving town,” the guy holding Eve said. “You or any of your fanged little friends. We’re not letting this thing spread any farther. Blacke is under quarantine.”

The heavy library doors opened, and a small, gray-haired woman stepped out. She didn’t look much like a leader—Claire wouldn’t have picked her out of a crowd at first glance—but immediately, everybody looked toward her, and Claire felt the gravity of the scene shift in her direction.

“Charley?” the woman asked. “Why are you pointing a shotgun at this pretty little girl? I heard somebody say she was a live one.”

“She’s with them!”

“There are no collaborators, Charley. You know that. Either she’s infected, or she’s not.There’s no in-between. Now lower your gun, please.” The woman’s pleasant voice took on a steely undertone. “Lower it. Now.”

“That one behind her, he’s infected,” Charley said. “Guaranteed.”

“Actually,” Oliver said, “in the sense you mean it, I’m not infected. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

The older woman, without so much as a pause, un-slung a strap from her shoulder, loaded a crossbow bolt, and fired it right into Oliver’s chest.

He toppled over and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Claire screamed and ran to his side. When she reached for the bolt to pull it out, the woman grabbed her arm and pulled her back, struggling. She shoved Claire at one of her guards, who held her securely. “You know what to do,” she said to another one of them, nodding toward Oliver. “Let’s get these kids inside. I don’t want them to see this.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Claire shouted. “You can’t—”

“I understand that he’s a vampire, and for whatever twisted reason, you want to protect him,” the woman said. “Now be quiet. You’re not in any danger here.”

Claire thought about all the vampires locked in the back of the truck. Michael.

She couldn’t tell them about that. If they were going to kill Oliver, just like that, she couldn’t imagine what they might do to a whole, confined load of vampires. It’d probably be way too easy. The sun was sliding steadily toward the horizon. Maybe, when it was blocked by the eastern buildings and there was enough shadow, they could get out of the truck and scatter.

The woman looked at her sharply. “You seem to be thinking very hard,” she said. “About what?”

“Nothing,” Claire said.

“I see. What’s your name?” When Claire didn’t answer, the woman sighed. “All right. I’m Mrs. Grant. I’m the librarian. I’m what passes for authority in Blacke these days, since all our peace officers and elected officials are dead. Now, let’s be friendly. I’ve told you my name. What’s yours?”

“Claire,” she said.

“And where are you from, Claire?”

Claire looked her right in the eyes and said, “None of your business.”

Mrs. Grant’s graying eyebrows hitched up, but under them, her faded green eyes didn’t seem surprised. “All right. Let’s get you and your friends inside, and you can tell me why you thought that vampire was someone you ought to be caring about.”

Claire looked back over her shoulder as she was pushed/pulled along. Oliver was being carried away, limp as a bag of laundry.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

The inside of the library was cool and dark, lit mostly by the natural sunlight trickling in the windows, although there were some camp-style fluorescent and LED lanterns scattered around, and even some old-fashioned oil lamps on the tables. The Blacke library was larger than Claire would have expected, with rows and rows of books, and lots of rooms off to the sides. In the middle was a kind of command center, with a small desk, a laptop computer, and some kind of small pedal-powered generator. Ranked on the shelves nearby were weapons, including a pile of silver chains—jewelry, Claire guessed, ransacked from all over town. There were a lot of first aid supplies, too.

Inside the library there were about twenty or thirty people; it was hard to see, because they were scattered around on cots between the aisles of books. Claire heard a small voice, then someone crying; it sounded like a little kid, maybe four or five. “What is this?” she asked, looking around. Mrs. Grant led her over to a long reading table and pulled out a chair for her.

“This is what’s left of our town,” she said. “The survivors. We’re a tough bunch, I’ll tell you that.”

“But”—Claire licked her lips and settled into the seat—“what happened here?”

Mrs. Grant waited while the others—Eve, Shane, and Jason—were deposited in chairs around the table, with varying degrees of gentleness. Shane was furious, and he looked as if he were seriously thinking of grabbing a fistful of weapons from the racks. Mrs. Grant evidently saw that, because she pointed at two of her burly cowboy guards and had them stand behind Shane, blocking him in at the table.

“Blacke’s never been what you might call a cross-roads,” Mrs. Grant said. “Most folks living here were born here. Their families have been here forever; we don’t see new people real often out here.” That was, in fact, pretty much like Morganville, minus the attraction of Texas Prairie University. It was pretty much like every other small town in the area, too. Claire nodded. “One night, we got us some visitors. An old man in a suit, and his niece and nephew. Foreign people. French, maybe.”

Claire looked at Eve and Shane. Eve mouthed Bishop. Confirmation for what they already had guessed—Mr. Bishop had hit Blacke on his way through to Morganville.

And he’d had fun.

“They stayed at the Iron Lily Inn,” Mrs. Grant continued. “It’s the closest thing we’ve got to a hotel. Or had, anyway. Mrs. Gonzalez owned it. She made the best apple pie in the world, too.” She slowly shook her head. “Next morning, Mrs. Gonzalez was missing; never showed up at the school—she worked in the office up there. Sheriff John went around to the hotel and found her dead. No sign of those ... people.”

That couldn’t be the whole story, Claire thought; she knew how vampires were made, and if Mrs. Gonzalez had been drained to death, she wouldn’t have come back. So she just waited. Mrs. Grant seemed to want to take her time, and Claire was trying hard not to think about what might be happening outside, with Oliver. Morley had run off, she supposed. And she had no idea what would happen to the vampires still in the back of the truck.

“We thought the murder of Mrs. Gonzalez was the end of it—shocking, first serious trouble this town had seen in close to thirty years, but still, the end. And then the next night Miss Hanover just vanished from her store—gas station, right up the street. Best we can tell, those two women were the first victims. We know the three strangers left town that night; somebody saw them driving that big, black car of theirs like a bat out of hell. Didn’t matter. They left this behind.”

Mrs. Grant looked down at her hands, which were spread out on the table in front of her. Strong and scarred, they suggested she hadn’t always been a librarian. “It started slow. People started disappearing, maybe one every few weeks. Disappearing, or dying. Then it got bad, fast, just—in days, it all of a sudden seemed like half the town was gone. Sheriff John didn’t call for help soon enough. Next thing we knew, we saw them for the first time, in force. Terrible things, Claire. Terrible things happened. And we had to do terrible things to survive.”

“Why didn’t you just—,” Eve began to ask, but was interrupted as Mrs. Grant’s head came up sharply.

“Leave?” she snapped. “Don’t you think we tried? Phones were out, landlines and cells. Internet went down with the power the first day; they ripped the power station apart while they were still thinking. We sent everybody we could out of town on the school buses. They never made it. Some kind of trap on the road, blew out all the tires. Some made it back here. Most didn’t.”

It was like some horror movie come to life. Claire had thought Morganville was bad, but this—this was beyond bad.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But why stay here? Why don’t you just—try again?”

“You know how many people used to be in Blacke?” Mrs. Grant asked. “One hundred seventy-two. What you see here in this building is what’s left. What’s left still breathing, anyway. You think we can just walk away? These were our friends, our families. And if we leave, what happens? How far does this spread?” Mrs. Grant’s eyes hardened until they were like cold green ice. “It stops here. It has to stop here. Now, you explain to me how you’re traveling around with one of them.”

“What’s more important is that Oliver wasn’t—like those people you’re talking about. They’re sick. He’s not.”

Mrs. Grant let out a sharp laugh. “He’s dead. That’s as sick as it gets, Claire from nowhere.”

“Look,” Shane said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table, “I’m not saying the vampires aren’t the essence of freaky; they are. But they’re not like this. Not—normally. They can be—”

“And how do the four of you know anything at all about vampires?” Mrs. Grant asked. None of them answered, and her eyes narrowed. “There are more out there. More of them. Even if we finish here, there are more.”

“Not like these!” Claire said again, desperately. “You have to believe me; they’re not all—”

“Not all bad,” said Morley, who stepped out of the shadows of one of the racks of books, looking terrifying and bloody and as unreassuring as possible. “No, we’re not. Although some of us are no doubt better than others.”

And Oliver appeared on top of the bookcase, looking down. In his long black coat, he looked very tall, very strong, and even more intimidating than Morley. More came out of the shadows, too. Claire spotted Patience and Jacob, near the edges of the group.

And Michael, golden Michael, who smiled at Eve as though it would all be all right, somehow.

Mrs. Grant came out of her chair and lunged for the weapons.

Shane slammed his chair backward, throwing the two guards behind him off balance. That was all the time Oliver needed to jump from the bookcase to the table, then to the floor, and take the guns out of their hands.

He didn’t hurt them. He didn’t have to.

Morley did that way-too-fast vampire thing and was suddenly at the weapons rack ahead of Mrs. Grant, baring his fangs and grinning. He made a little finger-wagging gesture, and she skidded to a stop and backed off, breathing fast. Scared to death, of course, and Claire didn’t blame her.

Michael, meanwhile, was already at Eve’s side. She threw her arms around his neck. “How did you get out?” she asked, her voice muffled against his shirt. He rubbed her back gently and rested his chin against her hair.

“The building across the way casts a pretty big shadow,” he said. “We bailed as soon as we could. From there it wasn’t hard. They thought they had everybody they needed to worry about.”

“You didn’t—”

“No,” Michael said. “We didn’t hurt anybody. Patience made sure of that.”

The townspeople of Blacke—all twenty or thirty of them—were gathering together in a tight block now, with their kids safely in the center. They looked about to make their last stand. Not one of them, Claire realized, thought they were going to live through this.

“Hey,” she said to Mrs. Grant. “Please. Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Morley laughed. “We’re not?”

“No, we’re not,” Oliver said, and piled the weapons on the table. “Shane, get the silver.”

“Can I keep some?”

Oliver smiled grimly. “If it makes you happy.”

“You have no idea.”

“Distribute the chains to everyone else. Make sure they’re wearing silver at their necks and wrists. It’ll help protect them, should some of us, Morley, suffer a lapse of character.” He checked each shotgun for shells, and tossed them to specific individual vampires, who snatched them out of the air with lazy accuracy. “Right. I’m afraid Mrs. Grant is quite right; we can’t allow this infection—and it is an infection—to spread any farther than it has already. We must hunt down and dose everyone who’s contracted the disease, or destroy them. That’s as much for our kind as yours, you see.”

“Dose them?” Mrs. Grant blurted. “What are you—”

Patience Goldman opened up a small black satchel—her father’s doctor bag, Claire realized—and inside were dozens of vials of liquid, as well as some bottles of red crystals. Claire herself had helped develop those; the liquid contained a cure for the bloodborne disease that Bishop had spread here, or at least she hoped it did. The crystals would help restore people’s sanity, temporarily. It worked best doing the crystals, then giving the shot. It had for the far-gone vampires in Morganville.

“They can be saved,” Oliver said. “Your family and friends can be restored to sanity, we believe. But they can’t be restored to human. You understand? What’s done is done on that score. But you can have them back, if you can adjust to that small difference.”

“This is insane,” one of the guards said, a little wildly. His crossbow was now in the hands of one of Morley’s vampires, a little guy with a lined, twisted face and a limp. “We have to fight! Lillian—”

“We’re not here to fight you,” Oliver said. “And we’re not here to save you. I am here to stop the spread of this infection by any means necessary, which, as I see it, aligns with your goals. My other friends,” he said, putting some irony into that last word, “are just passing through your fine town. None of us have any reason to want to harm you.”

“You’re vampires,” Mrs. Grant said blankly.

“Well, obviously. Yes.” Oliver snapped another fully loaded shotgun closed and tossed it through the air.

To Mrs. Grant.

“Any questions?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked around. There were a lot of vampires—just about as many as there were humans. And none of them were making threatening moves. Shane walked around, handing out silver chairs to people, smiling his best I’m-a-nice-guy smile. Even Jason seemed to be doing his best to be non-threatening, which wasn’t exactly easy for him.

“Then let’s sit down,” Oliver said, and pulled out a chair at the table. “I, for one, have had a very hard day.”

12

Night fell as tensions gradually eased; the people of Blacke never quite got comfortable, but they loosened up enough to put on some stew in the library’s small kitchen, which had a miniature stove that ran on gas. Apparently, the gas was still flowing, even though the electricity was out. As the light faded outside the windows, Mrs. Grant and three of her burly cowboy-hatted guards—Claire guessed the cowboy hats were a kind of uniform—made the rounds to barricade the doors and windows.

Morley joined them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, Mrs. Grant decided to ignore his presence. The guards didn’t. Their knuckles were white on their weapons.

“May I assist?” he asked, and put his hands behind his back. “I promise not to eat anyone.”

“Very funny,” Mrs. Grant said. Morley gave her a grave look.

“I wasn’t joking, dear lady,” he said. “I do promise. And I never make a promise I don’t intend to keep. You should feel quite secure.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t,” she said. “You’re just—”

“Too overwhelmingly dashing and attractive?” Morley grinned. “A common problem women face with me. It’ll pass. You seem like the no-nonsense sort. I like that.”

Claire smiled at the look on Mrs. Grant’s face, reflected in the white LED light of the lantern she was holding. “You are really—odd,” the older woman said, as if she couldn’t quite believe she was even having the conversation.

Morley put his hand over his heart and bowed from the waist, a gesture that somehow reminded Claire of Myrnin. It reminded her she missed him, too, which was just wrong. She should not be missing Morganville, or anyone in it. Especially not the crazy boss vampire who’d put fang marks in her neck that would never, ever go away. She was doomed to high-necked shirts because of him.

But she did miss him. She even missed Amelie’s dry, cool sense of power and stability. She wondered if this was a kind of vacation for Amelie, too, not worrying about Oliver, or Claire, or Eve, or any of them.

Probably. She couldn’t imagine Amelie was losing any sleep over them—presuming she slept, which Claire really wasn’t sure was the case, anyway.

“Hey.” Shane’s hip nudged her chair, and he bent over, putting his mouth very close to her ear. “What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“Stop.”

“Stop thinking?”

“You’re doing way too much of it. It’ll make you go blind.”

She laughed and turned her face toward his. “I think you’re thinking of something else.”

“I’m definitely thinking of something else,” he said, and bent over to kiss her. It was a long, sweet, slow kiss, full of gentle strokes of his tongue over her lips, which parted for him even though she was sure she hadn’t exactly told them to do that. Warmth swept over her, making her oddly shivery, and she grabbed the neck of his shirt when he tried to pull away and kissed him some more.

When she let go, neither of them moved far. Shane sat down in the chair next to her, but scooted it over and leaned in so they were as close together as possible. There weren’t many lights here in the corner, where Claire had retreated to eat her cup of stew and think, and it felt wildly romantic sitting together by candlelight. Shane’s skin looked golden in the glow, his eyes dark, with only a hint of shimmering amber when the light hit them just right. His chin was a little dark and rough, and she felt it with her palm, then smiled.

“You need a shave,” she said.

“I thought you liked me scruffy.”

“Scruffy is for good dogs and bad rockers.”

“Oh yeah? And which am I, again?” He was so close to her, and in this little bubble of candlelight it felt as if everything happening around them, all the craziness, all the bad things, was taking place a world away. There was something about Shane that just made it all okay, for as long as she was with him, for as long as he was looking at her with that wonderful, fascinated glow in his eyes.

He moved a little strand of hair back from her face. “Some road trip, eh?”

“I’ve had worse,” Claire said. His expression was priceless. “No, really. I have. I went on a trip with my parents all the way to Canada once. A week in the car, with my folks, having educational experiences. I thought I’d go nuts.”

“I thought you liked educational experiences.”

“Bet you could teach me a few things.”

He kissed her again, hungrily, and there was such focus in him that it took her breath away. She wanted—yeah, she knew what she wanted. She knew what he wanted, too. And she knew it wasn’t going to happen, not here, not tonight—too bad, because if she got killed before getting some privacy with Shane again, she was going to be really upset with Oliver.

Somebody coughed out in the shadows, at the edges of their candle, and Shane sat back. Claire licked her damp lips, tasting him all over again, and struggled to try to focus on something else, such as whoever was interrupting them. “What?” That came out a little harsh.

“Sorry.” That was Jason, and he didn’t sound sorry at all. He sounded kind of amused. “If you want to go on with the porn show, please. I’ll wait.”

“Shut up,” Shane growled.

“You know, we could get into this make-me-no-you-make-me kind of thing, but I think we have better things to do,” Jason said. “I’m not talking to you, anyway. I need Claire.”

She needed a lot of things, all from Shane, and she couldn’t think of a blessed thing right now that she needed from Jason Rosser. It made her voice go even colder. “Why?”

He rolled his eyes, just like his sister, which was creepy. She didn’t even like to think they came from the same gene pool, much less shared things she thought were cute and funny in Eve. “Because Oliver wants you, and what Oliver wants, Oliver gets, right? So get your sweet little butt up already.”

“Hey,” Shane said, and stood up. “I’m not telling you again, Jase. Stop.”

“What, because I said she had a sweet little butt? You don’t think she does? Hard to believe, since you spend so much time staring at it.”

Shane’s hands closed into fists, and Claire remembered Jason on the street in the dark outside Common Grounds, coming after them—after her and Eve, specifically, at least that was what he’d said to Shane.

Shane didn’t forget.

“You and me, man, one of these days, we’re going to finish this,” he said softly. “Until that day, you stay the hell away from my girl. You understand?”

“Big tough guy,” Jason said, and laughed. “Yeah, I understand. Personally, she’s too skinny for me, anyway.”

He walked off, and Claire saw a tremor go through Shane, something she figured was an impulse to slam into Jason and knock him flat, and then pound him.

But Shane didn’t move. He let out a slow breath and turned back to face her. “That guy,” he said, “is not normal; I don’t care what Eve says. And I don’t like him around you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I know.” He forced a smile. “It’s just that—” This time, he shrugged and let it go. “Oliver, huh?”

“I guess.” Claire picked up the candle and headed through the stacks for the unofficial—or official?—command desk, where Oliver was now sitting, talking to a couple of vampires whose faces glowed blue-white in the light of the fluorescent lamp.

“About time,” Oliver said. “I need you to see if you can get a message out on this thing.” He nodded to the computer, which sat there dead and unresponsive.

“There’s no electricity.”

“They’ve been trying to use this,” he said, and pointed toward the pedal generator. “They tell me it should work, but there’s some problem with the computer. Fix it.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “Just like that. Whine about it quietly, to yourself.”

She seethed, but Shane just shrugged and looked at the pedal generator, which was sort of like an exercise bike. “This thing could be a real workout,” he said. “Tell you what: I’ll pedal; you do the magic. Sound fair?”

She liked that he was willing to help. Their fingers intertwined, and he kissed her again, lightly.

“Sounds fair,” she agreed.

She turned the laptop over and took a look at it. Nothing obviously wrong jumped out—nothing cracked or broken, anyway. Shane climbed on the seat and started turning the pedals—which must have been harder than it seemed, because even he seemed to be working at it. The resistance built up energy, which translated into electricity, which went into a power strip with some kind of backup battery built into it. Immediately, the battery began beeping and flickering a red light. “Right, that’s working,” Claire said. “It’ll probably take a while to recharge the backup, though.”

“How much time are we talking?” Shane asked.

She grinned. “Slacker.”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

In a few moments, the computer’s power light finally came on, and she booted up and started looking into the computer problem. It took her thirty minutes of diagnostics before she located the problem and got the operating system booted up.

Shane, poor thing, kept pedaling. He stopped wasting his breath with quips after a while. When the power strip’s battery finally clicked over to green, he stopped, gasping for breath, slumped over the handlebars. “Okay,” he panted, “let’s not screw it up, shall we? Because I do not want to do that again. Next time, get a vamp. They don’t need to breathe.”

Claire looked over at Oliver, who was ignoring them and jotting down notes on a map of Blacke.

But he was smiling a little.

“It’s booting up,” she said, watching the lines scroll by. “Here goes....”

The Windows tones sounded, and it felt like everybody in the library jumped. Mrs. Grant and Morley abandoned their security sweep and came back to stand by Claire’s elbow as the operating system load finished, and the desktop finally appeared. She let it finish, then double-clicked the Internet icon.

“Four oh four.” She sighed.

“What?” Morley peered over her shoulder. “What does that mean?”

“Page not found,” she said. “It’s a four oh four error. Let me try something else.” She tried for Google. Then Wikipedia. Then Twitter. Nothing. “The ISP must be down. There’s no Internet service.”

“What about e-mail? It is e-mail, yes?” Morley asked, leaning even closer. “E-mail is a kind of electronic letter. It travels through the air.” He seemed very smug that he knew that.

“Well, not exactly, and would you please either back off or go find a shower? Thanks. And to send e-mail you have to have Internet service. So that doesn’t work.”

“I pedaled for nothing,” Shane said mournfully. “That deeply bites.”

“Does anyone else think it’s too quiet?” Oliver asked, and looked up from the map.

There was a moment of silence, and then Mrs. Grant said, “Sometimes they don’t come at us for a few hours. But they always come. Every night. We’re all there is for them.”

Oliver nodded, stood up, and gestured to Morley. The two vampires stalked off into the dark, talking in tones too quiet for human ears to catch at all.

Mrs. Grant stared after them, eyes narrowed. “They’ll turn on us,” she said. “Sooner or later, your vampires will turn on us. Count on it.”

“We’re still alive,” Claire said, and pointed to herself, Shane, Jason, and Eve. Eve was sitting a few feet away, curled in Michael’s arms. “And we’ve been at this a whole lot longer than you.”

“Then you’re deluded,” Mrs. Grant said. “How can you possibly trust these—people?” She acted as if that wasn’t the word she wanted to use.

“Because they gave you back your guns,” Claire said. “And because they could have killed you in the first couple of minutes if they’d really wanted to. I know it’s hard. It’s hard for all of us, sometimes. But right now, you need to believe what they’re telling you.”

Mrs. Grant frowned at her. “And when exactly do I stop believing them?”

Claire smiled. “We’ll let you know.”

There weren’t a lot of kids in the library, but there were a few—seven total, according to Claire’s count, ranging from babies who were still being bottle-fed to a couple of trying-to-be-adult kids of maybe twelve. Nobody was too close to Claire’s own age, though. She was kind of glad; it would have been just too creepy to see the kind of blank fear in their faces that she saw in the younger kids. Too much like seeing herself, in the beginning of her Morganville experience.

She wound up thinking about the kids because Eve had brought over a lantern, gotten them in a circle, and started reading to them. It was something familiar, from the few words Claire could hear; it finally clicked in. Eve was reading Where the Wild Things Are. All the kids, even the ones who would probably have said they were too old for it, were sitting quietly, listening, with the fear easing away from their expressions.

“She’s got the touch, doesn’t she?” That was Michael, standing behind Claire. He was watching Eve read, too. “With kids.” There was something quietly sad in his voice.

“Yeah, I guess.” Claire glanced over at him, then away. “Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? Just another day for us Morganville brats.” Now the smile was quietly sad, too. “I wish I could take her away from all this. Make it all—different.”

“But you can’t.”

“No. I can’t. Because I am who I am, and she is who she is. And that’s it.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug so small it almost didn’t even qualify. “She keeps asking me where we’re going.”

“Yeah,” another voice said. It was Shane, pulling up a chair beside Claire. “Girls do that. They’ve always got to be taking the relationship somewhere.”

“That’s not true!”

“It is,” he said. “I get it; somebody’s got to be looking ahead. But it makes guys think they’re—”

“Closed in,” Michael said.

“Trapped,” Shane added.

“Idiots,” Claire finished. “Okay, I didn’t really mean that. But jeez, guys. It’s just a question.”

“Yeah?” Michael’s blue eyes were steady on Eve, watching her read, watching her smile, watching how she was with the kids clustered around her. “Is it?”

Claire didn’t answer. Suddenly, she was the one who felt closed in. Trapped. And she understood why Michael was feeling so ... strange.

He was watching Eve with kids, and he was never going to have kids with Eve. At least, she didn’t think vampires could.... She’d never really asked. But she was pretty sure she was right about that one. He looked like someone seeing the future, and not liking his place in it one bit.

“Hey,” Shane said, and nudged Claire’s shoulder. “You noticed what’s going on?”

She blinked as she realized that Shane wasn’t figuring out Michael—that he hadn’t even really noticed all the personal stuff at all. He was, instead, looking out into the shadows, where there had been vampires patrolling at the edges.

“What?” she asked. She couldn’t see anyone.

“They’re gone.”

“What?”

“The vampires. As in, no longer in the building. Unless there’s a big line for the bathroom, all of a sudden. Even Jason’s gone.”

“No way.” Claire slid off her chair and went to the desk. There was no sign of Oliver, or Morley. The map of Blacke was still spread out on the table, anchored with weights on the corners, marked in colored pencils with things she didn’t understand. She grabbed the lantern and went to the library doors, where Jacob Goldman had been standing.

He wasn’t there.

“See?” Shane said. “They’ve bailed. All of them.”

“That’s impossible. Why would they just leave us?”

“You have to ask?” Shane shook his head. “Claire, sometimes I think your head’s not really in the survival game. Think: why would they leave us? Because they can. Because as much as you want to believe the best about everybody, they’re not the good guys.”

“No,” she blurted. “No, they wouldn’t. Oliver wouldn’t.”

“The hell he wouldn’t. Oliver is a rock-solid bastard, and you know it. If he added up the numbers and it looked like it might benefit him by adding even a second or two to his life, he’d be out of here, making up some sad story. It’s how he survives, Claire.” Shane hesitated for a second, then plunged on. “And maybe this is a good thing. Maybe if he’s taken off, we should, too. Just—run. Get as far away, as fast as we can.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying ... ,” he began with a sigh. “I’m saying we’re out of Morganville. And Oliver is all that’s stopping us from heading anywhere in the world, other than there.”

She really didn’t want to believe that Oliver was gone. She wanted to believe that Oliver was, like Amelie, someone who took his word seriously, who, once having granted his protection, wouldn’t just walk away because the going got tough.

But she really, really couldn’t be sure. She never was, with Oliver. She had absolutely no doubts about Morley; he was all vampire, all the time. He’d smile at you one minute and rip out your throat the next, and wouldn’t see any contradiction in that at all.

He was right, though. Oliver was all that stood between them and a life out in the world; a life free of Morganville.

Except for the people they’d leave behind.

She glanced back at Eve, surrounded by the kids in a circle of light, and at Michael, watching her from the shadows with so much longing and pain in his face.

And it hit her.

“Michael,” she blurted. “Whatever Oliver might do to us, he can’t leave Michael behind to die. He can’t. Amelie would kill him.”

No doubt about that. Amelie had deeply loved Sam, Michael’s grandfather, and when she’d turned Michael into a vampire, she’d considered him family—her family. If Oliver planned to throw them to the infected wolves, he was going to have to figure out how to do it and somehow save Michael, without letting Michael know what had happened to the rest of them.

Michael must have heard her say his name, because he looked over at her. Shane crooked a finger at him. Michael nodded and walked over.

He was much more observant than Claire was, because before he ever reached them, Michael looked around and said, “Where are they?”

“Thought maybe you knew,” Shane said. “They being your fellow fanged ones. Isn’t there some kind of flock instinct?”

“Bite me, blood bank. No, they didn’t tell me anything.” Michael frowned. “Stay here. I’m going to check the rest of the building. Be right back.”

He was gone in a whisper of air, hardly making any sound at all, and Claire shivered and leaned against Shane’s solid, very human warmth. His arms went around her, and he touched his lips lightly to the back of her neck. “How can you smell this good after the kind of crappy day we’ve had?”

“I sweat perfume. Like all girls.”

He laughed and squeezed her. He smelled good, too—more male, somehow, a little grungy and edgy and sweaty, and although she loved soap and water and shampoo, sometimes this was better—wilder.

Michael was back in—true to his word—just a few minutes, and he didn’t look at all happy. “I found Patience,” he said. “She and Jacob are guarding the doors from the outside. Oliver went out to do a patrol.”

“And everybody else?” Claire asked.

“Morley took everybody else to go after the enemy. He said he wasn’t going to wait for them to come to us. At least, that’s what he said he was doing. For all Patience knows, Morley may be trying to find another truck or bus and get his people out of town.”

“Did Oliver know about this?”

Michael shook his head. “He’s got no idea, although he might now, if he spotted them outside. Don’t know how he’d stop them on his own, though.”

Claire didn’t, either, but it was Oliver. He’d figure out something, and it probably wouldn’t be pretty.

“How long until dawn?”

“A couple of hours,” Michael said. He looked over at Eve, who had finished up the story and was hugging kids who were on their way to their beds. “Mrs. Grant said they always come during the night. That means they’ll be coming soon, if Morley’s people didn’t screw up their whole day. And we’d better be ready.”

When there had been a bunch of vampires running around on their side, Claire hadn’t felt too worried, but now she was. And looking at Michael, at Shane, she knew they were, too.

“So let’s hat up, guys,” Shane said. “Nobody gets fanged tonight. New rule.”

He and Michael did a fast high-low five, and went for the weapons.

Claire got Eve and updated her; then they joined the boys to get their vampire-repelling act together. Mrs. Grant had been dozing in an armchair, shotgun across her lap, but she woke up as soon as the four of them started raiding the weapons pile on the table. Claire was impressed; for an old lady, she woke up fast, and the first thing she did was look for trouble. When she didn’t find any immediately, she looked at the four of them and said, “Are they coming?”

“Probably,” Michael said, and picked up a couple of wooden stakes, leaving the silver-coated ones for the humans to handle. He also grabbed up a crossbow and some extra bolts. “We’re going to help with patrols. Looks like we’re a little light on guards.”

“But Morley—” Mrs. Grant’s mouth slammed shut, into a grim line. She didn’t need to be clued in, obviously. “Of course. I never doubted he’d stab us in the back.”

“I’m not saying he has,” Michael said. “I’m just saying he’s not here. So we need to be sure that if things go wrong ...”

Mrs. Grant rose from her chair, winced, and rubbed at a sore spot on her back. She looked tired, but very focused. “I’ll get my men up,” she said. “Should have known we couldn’t do a whole night without some kind of alert. I just hoped for a miracle.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Claire asked. “Fighting them off?”

“It wasn’t all at once,” the older woman said. “At first we thought the people we couldn’t find were just sick—regular human sick. And they were clever at first, good at hiding out, picking off people who weren’t paying attention. Like wolves, going after strays. By the time we knew, they came in force and took out most everybody who could have gotten things organized against them. All told, I guess we’ve been living out of this library for almost three weeks now.” She almost smiled, but it was just a bitter twist of her lips, really. “It seems longer. I can hardly remember what it was like before. Blacke used to be a real quiet town; nothing ever happened. Now ...”

“Maybe we can get it back to that quiet town it used to be,” Claire said.

Mrs. Grant gave her a long look. “Just you and your friends?”

“Hey,” Shane said, snapping a shotgun closed with a flick of his wrist. “We’re just trying to help.”

“And stay alive,” Eve added. “But trust me, this is not the worst situation we’ve ever been in.” She sounded confident about that. Claire raised her eyebrows, and Eve considered it for a few more seconds. “Okay, maybe tied for worst. But definitely not the Guinness Record for awfulness.”

Mrs. Grant looked at each of them in turn, and then just walked away to rouse her own men.

“Seriously,” Shane said, “this kind of is the worst situation we’ve ever been in, right?”

“Speak for yourself,” Michael said. “I got myself killed last year. Twice.”

“Oh yeah. You’re right—last year really sucked for you.”

“Boys,” Eve interrupted, when Michael started to make some smart-ass comeback. “Focus. Dangerous vampire attack imminent. What’s the plan?”

Michael kissed her lightly on the lips, and his eyes turned vampire-bright. “Don’t lose.”

“It’s simple, yet effective. I like it.” Shane extended his fist, and Michael bumped it.

“I am never taking a trip with either of you ever again.” Eve said. “Ever.”

“Excellent,” Shane said. “Then next trip, we hit the strip bar.”

“I have a gun, Shane.” Eve sighed.

“What, you think I actually loaded yours?”

Eve flipped him off, and Claire laughed.

Even now, things just stayed normal, somehow.

An hour passed, and nothing happened. Eve got anxious about Jason’s absence, but Claire was starting to feel a little confident that nothing would happen tonight at the library, as the minutes clicked by and the night around the library continued quiet, with nothing but the wind stirring outside in the streets.

And then the walkie-talkie Mrs. Grant had given her squawked for attention, making her jump. Claire figured it would be Shane; he’d stationed himself on the other side of the building, apparently because she was so distracting (which really didn’t disappoint her, when she thought about it).

But it wasn’t Shane.

It was Eve. “I’m coming out,” she said. She sounded breathless and worried. “You need to see this.”

“I’m here,” Claire said. “Be careful.”

In under a minute, Eve was beside her, holding out an open cell phone. Not hers—this one, for instance, didn’t have all the usual glow-in-the-dark skulls on it. Eve wouldn’t have a boring cell like this one.

Oh yeah. It was the one Oliver had slipped into her pocket on the bus. The only one they had now, since the rest were probably still dumped in a drawer back in the Durram police station.

There was a text message on the phone. Wounded, it said. Bring help. Garage.

It was from Oliver.

And that was it. Just the four words. Claire had gotten the occasional phone call from Oliver, but never a text.

“Oliver texted me,” Eve said. “I mean really. Oliver texted. That’s weird, right? Who knew he could?”

“Mrs. Grant said the cell phones didn’t work here.”

“No, she said they went out. This one’s working. Kinda, anyway.”

“Michael!” Claire called, and he jumped down from the top of a bookshelf next to the window to land next to her, barely seeming to notice the impact. She didn’t see him coming, either, which made her fumble the phone and almost drop it. “Hey! Scary-monster move! Don’t like it!”

“I’ll try to whistle next time,” he said. “What?”

She showed him. He did whistle, softly, and thought for a few seconds.

“What if it’s not him?” Claire said. “What if it’s, I don’t know, them? They got him, and they’re using his phone to lure us in?”

“They didn’t strike me as particularly clever with the planning, but you’ve got a good point. It could be a trap.” He frowned. “But if Oliver is calling for help, it’s about as bad as it gets.”

“I know.” Claire felt short of breath. “What do we do? He probably thinks Morley’s here!”

“Well, Morley’s not.” Michael looked around at the library, at the cluster of kids sleeping on cots in the middle of the room. “I don’t like leaving them, but we can’t just ignore it. Not if there’s a chance he’s really in trouble. It’s close to dawn, at least. That’s good for them, bad for Oliver.”

They found Mrs. Grant, who listened to them, read the text message, and shrugged.

Shrugged.

“You want to go, go,” she said. “We held out before any of you got here. We’ll hang on long after you’re gone, too. This is our town, and we’re going to be the last ones standing around here. Count on it.”

“Yes ma’am,” Claire said softly. “But—the kids—”

Mrs. Grant smiled bleakly. “What do you think we fight so hard for? The architecture? We’ll fight to our last for our kids, every one of us. Don’t you worry about that. You think your friend needs you, go on. Take the weapons—we’ve got plenty. This used to be a big hunting town.” Mrs. Grant paused, eyeing Claire. “In fact, hold on. Got something for you.”

She rummaged in a closet and came up with something that was huge, bulky, and looked very complicated—but once Claire had it thrust into her hands, she realized it wasn’t complicated at all.

It was a bow. One of those with the wheels and pulleys—a compound bow?

Mrs. Grant found a bag stuffed full of arrows, too.

“I don’t know how to shoot it,” Claire protested.

“Learn.”

“But—”

“If you don’t want it, give it back.”

“No,” Claire said, and felt ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I’ll figure it out.”

Mrs. Grant suddenly grinned and ruffled Claire’s hair as one would a little kid’s. “I know you will,” she said. “You got spark, you know that? Spark and grit. I like that.”

Claire nodded, not quite sure what to say to that. She clutched the bow in one hand, the bag of arrows in the other, and looked at Michael. “So I guess we’re—”

“Saving Oliver,” Michael said, straight-faced. “Maybe you’d better try shooting that thing first.”

While Michael, Shane, and Eve straightened out whatever it was they were going to do to get to Oliver—who was, according to the map and Mrs. Grant, at an old adobe building near the Civic Hall called Halley’s Garage—Claire set up a couple of hand-drawn paper targets on pillow-padded chairs, pulled one of the arrows out, and tried to figure out how to put it on the bowstring quickly. That didn’t work so well, so she tried again, taking her time, then pulling back the arrow and sighting down the long, straight line.

It was surprisingly tough to pull the string back, and hold the arrow in place, and not waver all over the place. She didn’t even hit the chair, much less the target, and she winced as the arrow hit the wall at least four feet away. But at least she’d fired it. That was something, right?

She picked out another arrow and tried again.

Twenty arrows later, she’d managed to hit the pillow—not the target, but the pillow—and she was starting to understand how this whole thing worked. It was easier when she thought of it in terms of physics, of potential and kinetic energy, energy and momentum.

As she was working out the calculations in her head, she forgot to really worry about all the physical things that were getting in the way—the balancing of the bow, the aiming, the fear she wasn’t going to get it right—and suddenly it all just clicked. She felt it come into sudden, sharp focus, like a spotlight had suddenly focused on her, and she let go of the arrow.

That instant, she knew it would hit the target. She let the bow rock gracefully forward on the balance point, watching the arrow, and it smacked into the exact center of her crudely drawn paper circle.

Physics.

She loved physics.

Shane arrived just as she put the arrow into the center, and slowed down, staring from the target to Claire, standing straight and tall, bow still held loosely in one hand and ready to shoot again. “You look so hot right now,” he said. “I’m just saying.”

She grinned at him and went to pick up all the arrows. One or two had suffered a little too much from contact with the wall, but the rest were good to reuse, and she carefully put them back into the bag, fletching end up. “You just like me because I might actually be able to be useful for a change.”

“You are always useful,” Shane said. “And hot. I mentioned that, right?”

“You’re mental. I need a shower, clean clothes, and about a year of sleep.”

“Okay, how about a hot mess?”

“Let me be Eve for a minute,” she said, and flipped him off. He laughed and kissed her.

“Not even close,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got some cranky old vampire to rescue.”

13

It was still dark outside, but it felt ... different, as if the world was still dreaming, but dreaming about waking up. The air felt cool and light, and the darkness was just a tiny bit lighter than before.

“Not long until dawn,” Michael said. “Which is good news and bad news.”

“Good news for us,” Shane said. “Present company excepted.”

“You’re such a bro.”

“You start smoking, I’ll roll you into the shade,” Shane said. “Can’t ask for more than my being willing to save your bloodsucking ass.” They stood outside of the doors of the library for a few seconds, getting their bearings. Mrs. Grant had equipped them with sturdy LED lanterns, but it didn’t feel like the light fell very far. There could be anything lurking ten feet away, Claire thought. And there probably was.

Michael shut down his lantern and just ... disappeared. It was startling, but they knew he was going to do it, at least; the plan was that he’d get out ahead of the light and look for trouble. Kind of a cross between a scout and bait. Claire’s walkie-talkie clicked a moment later—no voice message, just the quiet electronic signal. “Go,” she said. “We’re okay.”

The three of them went at a jog, watching their steps as best they could in the confusing jumble of shadows and harsh, flickering light. Blacke looked like a nightmare, or Hollywood’s idea of a disaster movie—cars abandoned, buildings closed and dark, windows shattered. The big, Gothic Civic Hall loomed over everything, but there weren’t any lights showing inside. The statue of Hiram what’s-his-face remained facedown in the thigh-high weeds, which Claire thought really might have been the best place for it. At least it wasn’t leaning over and threatening to fall on people. Especially on her, because that would have been the worst Darwin Award-qualifying death ever.

They made it to the sidewalk beside the Civic Hall. Shane pointed. “That way,” he said. “Should be on that corner, facing the hall.”

Michael suddenly zipped into view at the edge of the light. “They’re coming,” he said. “Behind us and to the left. Back of the Civic Hall.”

“Run! ”Shane said, and they took off, lanterns throwing crazy, bouncing light off broken glass and metal, turning shadows into ink-filled blots. The iron fence around the Civic Hall was leaning outward, into the sidewalk, and Shane had to flinch and duck to avoid a sharp, rusty arrow-point bent low enough to scrape his face. Claire almost tripped over one of the metal bars that had fallen loose from the fence. She kicked it out of the way, then paused and grabbed it, juggling the lantern.

“Don’t stop!” Eve hissed, and pulled her on. The iron bar, with its sharp arrowhead top, was heavy, but straight, like a spear. Claire managed to hang on to it as they ran, but at the next curb she missed her footing and had to scramble. Her lantern broke free of her fingers and smashed on the ground. It flickered, brightened, then faded and died.

Out of nowhere, Michael was next to her, handing her his own switched-off lantern and grabbing the iron bar from her. “Keep going! ” he said, and turned with the iron bar to guard their backs. Eve looked back, her face pale in the white LED lights, and her dark eyes looked huge and terrified.

“Michael?”

“Don’t stop!”

He fell behind in the dark after only three or four steps, lost to them. Claire heard something like a snarl behind them, and what sounded like a body hitting the ground.

Then came a scream, high and wild.

Up ahead, she saw a flash of what looked like faded pink. There was a leaning metal sign flapping and creaking in the predawn wind, and Claire wasn’t sure, but she thought the rusty letters might have said GARAGE.

It was a square adobe building with some old-fashioned gas pumps off to the side that looked as if they hadn’t worked since Claire’s mom was a kid. The windows were broken and dark, but they were blocked up with something, so there was no way to see inside.

Shane arrived at the door of the building—abigwooden thing, scarred and faded, with massive iron hinges—and banged on it. “Oliver!” he yelled. “Cavalry!”

Funny, Claire didn’t feel much like the cavalry at the moment. They rode in with guns blazing to save the day, right? She felt more like a hunted rabbit. Her heart was pounding, and even in the cool air she was sweating and shaking. If this is a trap ...

The door opened into darkness, and a hand reached out and grabbed Shane by the shirt front, and yanked him inside.

“No!” Claire charged forward, lantern blazing now and held high, and saw Shane being dragged, off balance, out of the way. Not having time or room for the bow, she dropped it, grabbed an arrow out of the bag, and lunged for the vampire who was taking Shane away.

Oliver turned, snarling, and knocked the arrow out of her grip so hard her entire hand went numb. She gasped and drew back, shocked, because Oliver looked ... not like Oliver, much. He was dirty, ragged, and he had blood all down his arm and the front of his shirt.

There was a raw wound in his throat that was slowly trying to heal.

That was his own blood on his clothes, she realized. Something—someone—had bitten him, nearly killing him, it looked like.

“Inside,” he ordered hoarsely, as Eve hovered in the doorway, peering in. “Michael?”

Michael appeared out of the darkness, racing fast. He stopped to grab up Claire’s fallen bow, and then practically shoved Eve inside the building as he slammed the door and turned to lock it. There were big, old-fashioned iron bolts, which he slid shut. There was also a thick old board that Oliver pointed toward; Michael tossed Claire her bow and slotted the bar in place, into the racks on either side of the door.

As he did, something hit the door hard enough to bend the metal bolts and even the thick wooden bar. But the door held.

Outside, something screamed in frustration, and Claire heard claws scratching on the wood.

Michael wasn’t hurt, at least not that Claire could see; he hugged Eve and kept one arm around her as they came toward Claire, who was still in a standoff with Oliver.

And Oliver was still holding Shane with a white, clenched fist twisted in the fabric of his shirt.

“Hey,” Shane said. “Off! Let go!”

Oliver seemed to have forgotten he was even holding him, but as he turned to look at Shane, Claire saw his eyes turn muddy red, then glow hotter when Shane tried to pull away.

“Don’t,” she said softly. “He’s lost a lot of blood; he’s not himself. Stay still, Shane.”

Shane took a deep breath and managed to hold himself steady, but Claire could tell it really cost him. Everything in him must have been screaming to fight, rip free, run away from that glowing red hunger in Oliver’s eyes.

He didn’t. And Oliver, after a few eternal seconds, let go of him and stepped back, then suddenly turned and stalked away.

Shane looked over at Claire, and she saw the real fear in his eyes, just for a second. Then he pushed it away, and smiled, and held up his thumb and index finger, pushed about an inch apart. “Close,” he said.

“Maybe you’re not his type,” Michael said.

“Oh, now you’re just being insulting.” Shane reached out for Claire’s hand, and squeezed it, hard. He didn’t mind letting her feel the nerves that still trembled in him, but he wasn’t going to let Michael see it, obviously. “So what the hell is going on in here?”

A vague shape loomed up behind him out of the shadows. Then another one. Then another. Shane and Claire quickly moved to stand back to back. So did Eve and Michael. Among the four of them, they were covering every angle.

“Lurking isn’t answering,” Shane said. “Oliver? Little help?”

Instead, one of the shapes stepped forward into the light. Morley. Claire felt relieved, and annoyed. Of course it was Morley. Why had she ever doubted it? He was the champion lurker of all time.

“What did you bring?” Morley rasped.

“Besides charm and beauty?” Eve said. “Why? What did you need? What are you doing here?”

“They’ve been helping us,” whispered someone out of the dark. Eve turned up the power on her lantern to max, and the dim, cold light finally penetrated the shadows enough to show the people lying crumpled on the dirty floor of the garage. Well, people might have been a little bit misleading, because Claire realized they were all vampires; their eyes caught the light and reflected it back.

She didn’t recognize them. And then it finally occurred to her why she wouldn’t.

These were the vampires of Blacke. The sick ones. And there must have been at least ten of them, in addition to another ten or fifteen of Morley’s crew, crammed into the small adobe building.

“We went after them one by one,” Morley said. “We’ve been at it for hours now. Some of them were a damn nuisance to bring here, let alone dose. But your witch potion does seem to work, little Claire. If we can get some of the crystals in them, they become rational enough to accept the cure.”

Claire was stunned. Somehow, having seen how far gone things were, she’d never really expected them to be able to save people—but here they were, lying exhausted on the floor, shaking and confused. Unlike the vampires Claire had dealt with in Morganville, these were newbies, like Michael; people who’d been turned against their will in the first place, and made sick at the same time. For some reason, they’d been more susceptible to getting on the crazy train than Michael; maybe that was because he was originally from Morganville, and had some kind of better resistance. But they’d certainly gotten sick a lot faster, and a lot worse, than any vampires she’d ever seen.

Consequently, they were healing a whole lot more slowly. It hadn’t taken Myrnin and Amelie and Oliver long to recover after taking their doses when Bishop was safely out of the way, but then, they were far older, and had already coped with being vampires.

Claire focused on a boy about her own age. He looked scared, devastated, and alone. He looked guilty, as if he couldn’t forget how he’d been surviving these past few weeks or what he’d done.

“They’re coming around,” Morley continued. “But the more we get of them, the more vulnerable we are; they can’t get up and fight yet, even if we’d trust them to do so. And the others over there, they’ve tracked us here. Oliver did a gallant job, but they’re no doubt on their way here now.”

“Uh, I think we might have pretty much led them straight over,” Eve said. “Sorry. Nobody specified stealthy in the message.”

“I was hoping one would take it as implied,” Oliver snapped. “I should have known better.”

“And where the hell is my brother, you jerk?”

“He has orders,” Oliver said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Children, children, this anger gets us nowhere,” Morley said, in a mocking, motherly tone. “There are about fifteen of them left we haven’t been able to catch and give the cure, and sadly, we have very little left at this point. The ones we can’t cure, we must confine, until we can get the drugs from Morganville.”

Funny, Claire had never really thought of him as being a humanitarian—vampiritarian? Anyway, someone who put the best interests of others first. But getting out of Morganville—and away from Amelie—seemed to have done something good for Morley. He seemed to almost care.

Almost.

“Confine, not kill,” Oliver said, and turned to come back toward them. His eyes had gone safely dark again, although Claire could see how tired and hungry he was in the sharp moves he made, and the tense set of his muscles. “And how precisely do you think we should do that, Morley? It’s been difficult enough to trap these creatures singly and pacify them. Morning isn’t far away, and in case you have failed to notice, you’re down quite a few followers on your side.”

Morley shrugged. “Some stayed near the library. Some simply wanted to go, so I let them. The whole purpose of this exercise was to earn our freedom, Oliver. Even if you don’t understand the concept of freedom in the slightest—”

“Freedom?” Oliver barked out a laugh. “Anarchy is what you want, Morley. It’s what you always wanted. Don’t dare to—”

“Hey!” Claire said, and stepped away from Shane, facing both vampires. “Politics later! Focus! What are we going to do, if they’re coming? Can we hold them off?”

“This is the most defensible position in town, other than the library,” Morley said, suddenly all business. “We can hold it with the men we have, even against the local talent.”

“I’m sensing a but coming up soon,” Shane said.

“But,” Morley said, “we failed to bring much in the way of supplies. In fact, most of ours ended up stuck between the teeth of our friends across the way. And those who are recovering will need to feed, quickly.”

There was a short, deadly silence. Oliver said nothing, but he looked drawn and weary.

“Wait,” Eve said slowly. “What are you saying?”

More silence. Claire felt cold trickle down her spine. “You’re saying we just volunteered to be blood donors.”

“You are not serious,” Shane said. “You are not snacking on us.”

“Not all of you, obviously,” Morley said. “The girl’s exempt; she’s Amelie’s toy, and I wouldn’t harm her for the world. Michael, of course, isn’t the appropriate meat for our table. But you and our lovely living dead girl—”

“No,” Claire said. “Never going to happen. Back off.”

“My dear, do you think I’m actually offering you a choice? It’s an explanation. An apology, of sorts. Oliver didn’t send you the message. I held him down, took his telephonic device, and used it myself. Why do you think he’s so badly mussed?”

It was weird, Claire thought, to feel so clear at this moment. So calm. “You’re telling me you’re going to take Eve and Shane and drain them.”

“I could make them vampires when we’re done, if you just can’t face losing them. I’m terribly progressive that way. Then you would be the only breather in your little pack, Claire. How long do you imagine you’d last, especially if your boyfriend there declared his undying love?” Morley fluttered his eyelashes like a cartoon character and put both hands over his heart. “If I were you, I’d volunteer to join them. Being human is not precisely a clever plan.”

“Yeah? How’s this?” Claire, in one smooth, fast motion, pulled an arrow from the bag on her shoulder, slotted it home on the string, and pulled the compound bow back to full extension. She was aiming the arrow straight at Morley’s crossed hands, over his heart.

He laughed. “You aren’t serious—”

She fired.

The arrow went through both of Morley’s hands, pinning them to his chest with the fletching at the end. He stared down in shock at the wood piercing his chest, stumbled, and went down to his knees.

Then just down, face forward. The arrow stuck up out of his back, like an exclamation point.

“I will,” Claire said softly, and let the bow rock forward as she reached one-handed for another arrow and notched it home. “I’m not a really good shot, but this is a really small room, so let me make this very clear: the first vampire who tries to lay a hand on either of my friends gets a new piercing, just like Morley. Now, if you need food, I will figure it out. But you don’t get to use my friends like vending machines. Are we clear?”

Around the room, vampires nodded, casting disbelieving looks at Morley. Even Oliver was staring at her as if he’d never really seen her before. She didn’t know why; he’d known she could do it—hadn’t he?

Or was she different, somehow?

“Shane?” Claire asked. He stepped up to her side. “Use Eve’s phone. Call Mrs. Grant at the library. We need to organize something.”

“What?”

“A blood drive,” she said.

“Hang on—”

“Shane.” Claire tilted her head up to look at him, and didn’t smile. “They’ll do it. These are their friends and family. They’ll do it to save them. I’d do it to save you.”

He touched her cheek gently. “I think you would,” he said. “Crazy girl.”

“Ask Morley how crazy I am,” she said. “Oh, wait. You’ll have to take the arrow out, first.”

“Maybe later. Facedown is a good look for him.” Shane gave her a quick, beautiful smile, and turned away to make the call.

Michael was shaking his head. Claire, without loosening her draw on the bow, gave him a quick, nervous look. “What?”

He laughed. “You,” he said. “Jeez, Claire. If I didn’t love you, you’d scare me.”

“I don’t love her,” Oliver said acidly. “And if you ever point that arrow anywhere near me, Amelie’s pet or no, I will take it away from you and introduce you to the sharp end, with great pleasure. Are we clear, girl?”

“Yeah,” she said, and kept the arrow pointed away from him. “You got your butt kicked by Morley, and you’re threatening me because I actually solved your problem for you. I think we’re very clear. But don’t worry. I won’t hurt you, Oliver.”

For a brief, deadly second, there was utter silence.

Then Oliver laughed.

It wasn’t the bitter, angry, terrible laugh she expected. Oliver actually sounded almost human. He sagged back against the wall, still laughing, and sank down to a crouch, hands loosely braced on his knees. It sounded as if he hadn’t laughed that much, or that deeply, for a very long time. It was weirdly infectious; Eve giggled in little hiccups, trying not to; Michael started laughing at her struggle not to laugh. Before too long, even Claire was fighting to keep her aim steady on the arrow.

“Ease up,” Michael said, and touched her arm, which was trembling with effort. “You made your point. Nobody’s coming after us. Not in here.”

She sighed, finally, and loosened the draw on the bow. Her shoulders were aching, and her arms felt like raw meat. She hadn’t even felt the strain until it was gone.

“Claire,” Oliver said. She looked over at him, suddenly alarmed and wondering if she had the strength to try to draw the bow again, but he was smiling. It gave his sharp face a relaxed look she wasn’t really used to seeing, and his eyes held what looked like genuine warmth. “It’s too bad you’re not a vampire.”

“I guess that was a compliment, so thanks, but no thanks.”

He shrugged and left it at that. Still, Claire had a second’s flash of temptation. All those years. All those things to learn, to feel, to know ... Myrnin lived for the excitement of knowledge; she knew that. The only difference between the two of them, really, was that he could go on forever learning.

But despite all of that, despite all the shiny immortality and the fact that there were a few vamps she didn’t actually hate—even Oliver now—Claire knew she was meant to be human. Just plain Claire.

And that was really okay.

As if to prove it, Shane slid his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. “You rock, you know that?”

“I’m a rock star,” she said, straight-faced. “I’m probably the saddest little rock star ever, though. What did Mrs. Grant say?”

“She says they’ll set up a donation center there and bring it over in bottles. She’s not risking her people to bring it over. Somebody has to go pick up and deliver.”

“Does she believe us?”

“She wants to,” Shane said. “Her husband’s in here, somewhere. So’s her son.”

And that, Claire thought, was why Morley had been right about this, even if he was a complete vampire about it.

You had to save what you could.

Amelie had understood that all along, Claire realized. That was why Morganville existed. Because you had to try.

Oliver ended up doing the blood pickup himself, maybe as a kind of offhand apology for putting Eve and Shane at risk in the first place, though that of course went unsaid. As the stuff was being passed around—one small plastic cup per vampire, to start—Claire knelt beside Morley’s still body, rolled him on his side, and snapped the arrow off just below the point. Then she pulled it out of his chest and hands with one sharp tug, dropping it to the concrete.

Morley took in a huge gasp of air and let it out in a frustrated shout. He held up his hands and stared at the holes punched through them until the flesh and bone started to knit itself again.

He rolled over on his back, staring up at nothing, and said, “I was going to say you aren’t a killer. And I still stand by that statement, because evidently I’m not dead. Only very upset.”

“Here.” Claire handed him a cup of blood. “You’re right. I’m not a killer. I hope you’re not, either.”

Morley sat up and sipped, eyes narrowed and fixed on her. “Of course I’m a killer, girl,” he said. “Don’t be stupid. It’s my nature. We’re predators, no matter what Amelie likes to pretend in her little artificial hothouse of Morganville. We kill to survive.”

“But you don’t have to,” Claire pointed out. “Right now, you’re drinking blood someone gave you. So it doesn’t have to be kill-or-be-killed. It can be different. All you have to do is decide to be something else.”

He smiled, but not with fangs this time. “You think it’s so simple?”

“No.” She got up, dusting her knees. “But I know you’re not as simple as you like people to think you are.”

Morley’s eyebrows went up. “You know nothing of me.”

“I know you’re smart, people follow you, and you can make something good happen for the people who trust you. People like Patience and Jacob, who’ve got good instincts. Don’t betray them.”

“I wouldn’t—” He stopped, and looked away. “It doesn’t matter. I promised to get them all out. They’re out. What they do now is up to them.”

“No, it’s not,” Oliver said. He was standing near them, leaning on a stack of old tires as he sipped from his own plastic cup. “You made yourself responsible for them when you left Morganville, Morley. Like it or not, you’re now the patriarch of the Blacke vampires. The question is, what are you going to do with them?”

“Do?” Morley looked almost panicked. “Nothing!”

“Not an answer. I suggest you devote some thought to it.” Oliver smiled, eyes unfocused as he drank with evident pleasure. “Blacke could be an ideal location, you know. Remote, isolated, little traffic in or out. The humans remaining have a vested interest in keeping your secrets, since their own have been turned. It could be the start of something quite ... interesting.”

Morley laughed. “You’re trying to make me Amelie.”

“Goodness, no. You’d look terrible in a skirt.”

Claire shook her head and left them arguing. Dawn was rolling over the town’s sky in waves of gold, pink, and soft oranges; it was beautiful, and it felt ... new, somehow. The destruction was still there; Hiram’s statue was still facedown in the weeds; there were still a dozen feral vampires hiding out somewhere in the shadows.

But it felt as if the town had just come alive again. Maybe that was because across the square, the Blacke library doors were wide-open, and people were coming outside into the cool morning air.

Coming across the square to see those they’d thought they’d lost forever.

Shane was sitting on the curb next to the old, cracked gas pumps, eating a candy bar. Claire plopped down next to him. “Half?” she asked.

“And now I know you’re my girlfriend, since you’re not afraid to demand community property,” he said, and pulled off the uneaten half to hand it over. “Look. We’re alive.”

“And we have chocolate.”

“It’s not just a miracle; it’s a miracle with chocolate. Best kind.”

Eve emerged from the garage doorway and settled down next to Claire, leaning her chin on her fists. “I am so tired, I could throw up,” she said. “What’s for breakfast ? Please don’t say blood.”

Claire separated her half of the candy bar into two pieces and gave Eve one. “Snickers,” she said. “Breakfast of—”

“Champions?” Eve mumbled around a mouthful of sticky goodness.

“Not unless it’s competitive eating,” Shane said. “So, Morley’s staying? He’s becoming King of Blacke?”

“I think it’s more like Undead Mayor, but yeah. Probably.”

“So can we ditch Oliver now?”

“Don’t think so,” Claire said. “He says we leave soon.”

“How are we planning to do that, exactly?”

“No idea—”

She heard the engine first as a faint buzz, like a stray but persistent mosquito; then it built into a roar.

A big, black hearse slewed around the corner from the highway and skidded to a stop in front of the garage.

The window rolled down, and Jason Rosser looked out. He grinned. “Anybody need a ride? I figured I’d head back to Durram and grab yours, sis. Since it’s officially legal and all. Oh, and I got your cell phones, too.”

“Bro, you rock.” Eve lunged up to her feet and ran possessive hands over the paint job. “Okay, creep, out of my driver’s seat. Now.”

Jason held the door open for her. As she started to get in, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, hard, even with the door between them. He looked surprised.

And so relieved, it hurt Claire a little to see it.

“Come on,” Eve said. “We have to lightproof the back.”

“Give me a sec,” Jason said. “I need a bathroom.”

“There’s one in the library,” Shane said. “Hey, how’d you get out of town?”

“I stole a tractor,” Jason said.

“What?”

“A tractor. It took me all night to get to Durram. Wasn’t sure if I’d ever make it, either. I ran out of gas two miles from where they’d towed the car.”

“Huh.” Claire could tell Shane was grudgingly impressed. “So you walked?”

“No, I flew on angel wings.”

“Ass.”

“How’d you get it out of impound?”

“Trade secret,” Jason said. “But it involves not actually asking. Same with the phones. Speaking of which ...” He dug in the pocket of his hoodie and came up with them, which he handed over to Shane. They didn’t tap fists or high-five or anything, but Shane nodded, and Jason nodded back.

“No signal,” Claire said, checking hers. “Man, the Morganville provider network sucks.”

“It works when Amelie wants it to work,” Shane said. “Apparently, she doesn’t want it working right now.”

“Michael needs to call the guy in Dallas. You know, let him know we’re on the way.”

“Let him know we got trapped in a vampire town and fought off a vampire zombie army, you mean?”

“I was thinking maybe car problems.”

“Boring, but effective,” Shane said. “I’ll go see if we can make it work. Maybe cell phone wastage doesn’t apply to vampires.”

As they were talking, Jason walked across to the library, head down, looking like a thin stick in blue jeans. Claire wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for Eve’s brother.

Not much of one, but ... maybe.

EPILOGUE

“It’s you,” Eve said, and gave the wig a final tug on Claire’s head, setting it just right. All of a sudden, it looked right-not just some random collection of plastic threads stuck on top of her scalp, but ... hair. Pretend hair, sure, but, it looked ...

Claire couldn’t decide how it looked. She cocked her head first one way, then the other. Tried a pose.

“Is it cool? I think it’s cool. Maybe?” The girl looking back at her wasn’t just a mousy, skinny girl anymore. The new, improved Claire Danvers was taller, a little more filled out, and she was wearing a new hot pink shirt layered over black, a pair of low-rise jeans with skulls on the pockets, and pink and white hair. She was rocking the streaked wig. It flowed down over her shoulders in careless waves, and made her look mysterious and fragile and smoky, and Claire just knew she had never been smoky or mysterious in her entire life.

“That is absolutely so you,” Eve said with a happy sigh, and jumped around in hoppy circles in her new patent leather black shoes with red skull imprints. “You have got to get it. And wear it. Trust me, Shane will go nuts. You look so dangerous!”

“Shane’s already nuts.” Claire laughed. “Did you see him in the T-shirt aisle? I thought he was going to cry. So many sarcastic sayings; so few days of the week to wear them. And I’m not sure I really feel comfortable looking, y’know, dangerous. ”

Eve gave her a long, serious look. “You are, you know. Dangerous.”

“Am not.”

“It’s not the hair. You just—you’re something else, Claire. It’s like when all the rest of us don’t know where to go, you ... just go. You’re not afraid.”

“That is so not true,” Claire said with a sigh. “I’m scared all the time. Down to my bones. I’m lucky I don’t run away like a little screaming girl.”

Eve smiled. “That’s my job. You’re the heroic one.”

“Not!”

“Oh, just shut up and get the wig already,” Eve said.

“No.”

“Get it get it get it!”

“Okay! Jeez, you’re scaring the other freaks!”

They both broke into manic giggles, because it was true; a couple of very Gothy Goths were edging away, casting them both odd, apprehensive little looks. Being from Morganville gave you an attitude, Claire guessed. And that wasn’t a bad thing, especially when you were in a scary-big city like Dallas, where everything seemed to move ten times faster than she was used to, including the traffic. She didn’t know how Eve had managed to get them to the hotel, or get Michael to his studio appointment after dark, but she had, and it was fabulous.

The hotel rooms had free soaps and shampoos and robes. It was amazing. And they were all modern, with flat-screen, high-definition TVs, and beds so soft that sleeping on them was like sleeping on angel wings.

It was so not like the life she was used to living, which was, she supposed, what made it extra special cool.

“I am a rock star,” Claire said to her reflection. Her reflection seemed to agree, although it still made her laugh inside to think it. She remembered Morley’s surprise when she’d actually shot him, and Oliver’s laughter, his genuine approval.

Maybe she was, a little tiny bit.

She flipped the hair over her shoulders and thought about makeup. “What do you think about heavy eyeliner?” Claire asked, which was totally redundant, because Eve never went anywhere without heavy eyeliner. It was her number one fashion tool.

Instantly, Eve whipped out her Mac tools and began doing Claire’s eyes for her. When she checked again, Claire looked ... really mysterious. Her face had taken on depth, shadows, secrets.

Wow. It was amazing what a little change could do.

And a little sleep, Claire thought. She felt better than she had in months, knowing there was nobody lurking around the corner to kidnap her, munch her neck, or otherwise present a serious danger.

“You look absolutely fantastic,” Eve said. “Drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Not literally, hopefully.”

“The idea is to knock other people dead, sweetie. I didn’t think I really had to explain that part.”

Shane rounded the corner of the aisle with a double armload of T-shirts, every one of them bound to offend someone in Morganville, and skidded to a stop at the sight of the two of them. His mouth opened and closed. Eve stepped away, but Shane didn’t notice; his eyes were fixed on Claire, and he looked as if he’d been hit in the forehead with a two-by-four.

“How do I look?” she asked, which was a completely ridiculous question, given how he was staring at her.

He dropped the T-shirts and kissed her, long and sweet and hard, and she felt a fierce kind of joy blow into a storm inside, wild and crazy and free.

The Gothy McGoth twins, in their leather and spikes and dyed hair, sniffed and walked off, clearly offended by the sight of so much happiness in one place.

When Shane let her up for air, Claire said, “Maybe we should actually buy the stuff before we celebrate?”

“Why wait?”

And he kissed her again.

Dallas was amazing. All the lights, the dizzying buildings, the crazy amounts of traffic, the noise, the people. After a long morning of shopping, Claire was dog-tired, too tired and dazed to even properly admire how awesome their hotel was, with all the glass and marble and fancy furniture. Michael wasn’t due to be in the studio until eight p.m., so she fell into bed and slept in her clothes, for a long time. When she woke up, Eve was just finishing her makeup—back to Goth Girl Gone Wild—and checking her lace skull-patterned minidress in the mirror. Her legs looked taller than Claire’s entire body.

“Wow,” Claire mumbled, and sat up. The mirror showed her just how horrible her bed head could be. “Ack.”

“The shower is amazing,” Eve said, and turned to the side, smoothing down her dress. “Is it too much?”

“For Morganville? Yeah. For Dallas? No idea. But you look fantastic.”

Eve smiled, that secret little smile, and her eyes glittered brightly.

She was thinking about Michael, obviously.

Claire yawned, slipped off the bed, and went to try the shower. Thirty minutes later, her hair fluffed into relative cuteness, she was clean, dry, and dressed in jeans and her best cute blue top, the one Shane said he liked. She even stopped for a little makeup, although she knew it was a lost cause, considering Eve’s outfit.

Shane rapped on their door ten minutes later, and when she answered, he looked sleepy but relaxed. Freshly showered, which was always a look she loved on him; his hair was even more insane than usual, as if he’d toweled it dry and then forgotten about it. She smoothed it down. He kissed her and called, “Yo, Eve? Crazy train’s leaving the station!”

“I’m coming!” Eve yelled breathlessly, and came out of the bathroom, again, smoothing down her dress.

Shane blinked, but he didn’t say anything. “Michael’s waiting. He’s freaking out that he’s going to be late.”

“Well, he won’t be,” Eve said. “Do I look okay? Like a rock star’s girlfriend?”

“No,” Shane said, and when she looked hurt, he laughed. “You look much better than that, scary girl.”

She blew him a kiss and set off down the hall. Michael was pacing next to the elevators, crackling with nervous energy; his gear was piled next to the wall, and he had a strange, closed expression on his face that disappeared the second he saw Eve.

Claire sighed in sympathetic happiness as Michael kissed his girlfriend and leaned over to whisper something in her ear—something that made Eve laugh and cuddle even closer.

Shane rolled his eyes. “I thought you were in a hurry, man.”

“Never in that much of a hurry,” Michael said, and picked up one of the guitars.

Shane picked up the other and offered him a fist to bump. “Let’s go rock it, Mikey.” Michael just looked at him for a second. Shane held steady, and said, “Michael. You can do it. Trust me.”

Michael took a deep breath, returned the fist bump, and nodded as he pushed the elevator call button.

There was a car downstairs—a big black town car, like a limousine only not as fancy—with a driver in a black jacket. He gave Eve a hand in, then Claire; Michael and Shane took the facing bench seat. The guitars, Claire assumed, went in the trunk.

Michael was looking pale, but then, when didn’t he? He reached across the open space and took Eve’s hand as the car began to roll. “Love the dress,” he said.

“Love you,” she said, very simply. His eyebrows rose a little, and he smiled.

“I was getting to that part.”

“I know.” Eve patted his hand. “I know you were. But you’re a boy. I thought I’d just cut to the chase. You’re going to be great, you know.”

They didn’t say anything the rest of the short drive; the roof overhead was clear, and it gave them an amazing view of the tall buildings and the colored lights. Claire felt her heart pounding. This was really happening. She couldn’t imagine what was going on in Michael’s head—or heart. It seemed like a dream. Morganville seemed like a dream, one that had happened to someone else, and the idea that they’d leave this reality and go back to that one...

Shane didn’t have to, Claire thought again. Of the four of them, he was the one who could walk away, and there was nothing in Morganville to hold him.

Nothing but her, anyway.

At the studio, which was in a plain-looking industrial building at the edge of downtown, the driver unloaded the guitars and saw them inside, where two people waiting immediately focused on Michael. Claire, Eve, and Shane suddenly became his entourage, which was funny and kind of awesome, and trailed along as the two recording people explained the process to Michael.

Shane carried both the guitars. He did it with a smile, too, that said clearly how proud he was of his friend. Michael looked fierce—he was concentrating on every word, and Claire could see him already putting himself into performance mode, that place that made him so different when he was onstage.

At the studio door, one of the two studio guys turned and held out a hand to Eve, Claire, and Shane. “You guys need to wait in the box,” he said. “Through that door.” He pointed to a thick metal door with a window inset, and took the guitars from Shane. Then he flashed them a quick grin. “He’ll be great. Trust me, he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”

“Damn right,” Shane said, and led the two girls into the box—which, it turned out, was the recording studio’s control room. A big man with frizzy hair was sitting at the mixing board, which looked more complicated than the inside of the Space Shuttle. He said hello and gestured for them to take a seat on the big, plush couch at the back of the room.

It was an amazing place, the studio, full of people who were all just really, really great at their jobs. The engineer behind the giant, complicated mixing board was relaxed, calm, and very easygoing, and the two on the other side of the glass helped Michael get set up, did some sound checks, and then left him alone to join the rest of them in the control room.

“Right,” the engineer said, and nodded to his two assistants—if that was what they were; Claire wasn’t sure. “Let’s see what he’s got.” He flipped a switch. “Michael ? Go ahead, whenever you’re ready.”

He started out playing a slow song, head down, and Claire felt the mood in the room change from professional to really interested as he settled into the music. It flowed out of him, silky smooth, beautiful, as natural as sunshine. It was an acoustic guitar thing, and it put tears into Claire’s eyes; there was something so soft and sad and aching about it. When he finished, Michael held the chord for a long moment, then sighed and sat back on his stool, looking through the glass toward them.

The engineer’s mouth was open. He closed it, cleared his throat, and said, “What’s that called, kid?”

“‘Sam’s Song,”’ Michael said. “It’s for my grandfather.”

The engineer closed the microphone, looked at the other two, and said, “We’ve got a live one.”

How darkly hilarious, Claire thought. If only he knew.

“He’s great,” Shane said softly, as if he’d never actually realized it before. “Seriously. He’s great. I’m not crazy, right?”

“You’re not crazy,” the engineer said. “Your buddy has insane skills. They’re going to love him out there.”

Out there. In the world.

In the real world.

Where Michael couldn’t really go for long.

The booth door opened, and Oliver walked in. He was in a normal human mode, looking fatherly and inoffensive. The aging hippie, complete with tie-dyed T-shirt and faded jeans and sandals. Claire bet that if she’d told the engineer Oliver was a vampire, he’d have laughed and told her to lay off the crack.

Oliver perched on the arm of the sofa, listening. They all scooted over, because even Claire didn’t really want to lean against him, no matter how nice he was apparently being. He said nothing at all. After a while, they all relaxed a little, as Michael continued to pour out the amazing rivers of music on the other side of the studio glass. Fast, slow, hard rocking—he could do it all.

When the last song was over, two hours later, the engineer hit the microphone into the studio and said, “Perfect. That was perfect; that’s a keeper. Okay, I think we’re done. Congratulations. You are officially on your way, my man.”

Michael stood up, smiling, holding his guitar in one hand, and caught sight of Oliver watching him.

His smile almost faded, but then he moved his gaze over to Eve, who was on her feet, blowing him kisses. That made him laugh.

“Rock star!” Eve yelled, and clapped. Claire and Shane stood up and clapped, too.

Oliver sat quietly, no expression at all on his face, as they celebrated Michael’s success.

It was their last night in Dallas.

Oliver had allowed them to have a nice dinner out, at a fantastically expensive restaurant where all the waiters were better dressed than Claire ever had been. He didn’t go, of course, but somehow Claire could feel his presence, feel him watching.

It was still an amazing meal. She tried everything on her plate, on Shane’s, even off Michael’s and Eve’s. They laughed and flirted, and after the dinner—which went on Oliver’s credit card—they went to a dance club across the street, full of beautiful people and spinning lights. No liquor allowed for them, thanks to the glowing wristbands they didn’t get, but they danced. Even Shane, although he mainly held on to Claire as she danced—which was fantastic. Hot, sweaty, exhausted, happy, the four of them piled into a cab and headed back to the hotel.

It was on the elevator ride up when Shane asked, “Are we really going back?”

It was a long ride; their rooms were on the very top floor of a very tall building. Nobody spoke, not even Michael. He rested his chin on top of Eve’s head and held her close, and she put her arms around him.

Shane looked at Claire, the question plain in his eyes. She felt the heavy weight of it, the absolute vital importance of it.

The claddagh ring on her right hand felt cold, suddenly.

“Seriously,” Shane said. “Can you leave all this? Just go back to that? Michael, you’ve got a future out here. You really do.”

“Do I?” Michael asked. He sounded tired and defeated. “How long do you think I could last before something went wrong, man? Morganville’s safety. This is—beautiful, but it’s temporary. It has to be temporary.”

“It doesn’t,” Shane insisted. “We can figure it out. We can. ”

Before Michael could answer, the floor dinged arrival, and they had to get out.

Oliver was standing in the hallway, wearing his leather coat and serious expression. No more Mr. Nice Hippie, obviously. He was standing as if he’d been waiting for them for a while.

Creepy.

All four of them came to a sudden halt, staring at him; Claire felt Shane’s arm tighten around her waist, as if he was considering moving in front of her. To protect her from what?

There was something odd about the way Oliver was looking at them—because he wasn’t looking at them, exactly. It was not his normal direct stare at all.

Instead, he silently dialed a number on the cell phone in his hand and put it on speaker, right there, standing in the middle of the hotel hallway. All the plush carpet and lights and normal life seemed to fade away as Claire heard a calm voice on the other end of the phone say, “Do you have them all?” Amelie. Cool, precise, perfectly in control.

“All except Jason,” Oliver said. “He’s on an errand. He’s not involved in this in any case.”

Silence for a few seconds, and then Amelie said, “I want you to know I take no pleasure in this. I have made it clear to you, Claire, that I value your service to me and to Morganville; that you are important to us. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Her throat felt dry and tight, and her skin cold.

“Michael,” Amelie continued, “I have spoken with you in private, but I will make this public: you must return to Morganville. This goes equally for Claire. You must return. There is no argument, no mitigation. Oliver understands this very well, and he is standing as my enforcer in this matter. No doubt the lights are very bright in Dallas, and Morganville seems far away. I assure you it is not. I don’t doubt you have spoken of running away, of securing your freedom, but you must understand: my reach is long, and my patience is not infinite. I would much rather your parents continue in blissful ignorance of their danger, Claire. And yours, Eve. And even yours, Michael—even though they have left Morganville, they remain under my control, and always will.”

“You bitch,” Shane muttered.

“Mr. Collins, I will tolerate much from the four of you, including your occasional rudeness. I will allow you a great deal of freedom and latitude. But make no mistake: I will not let you go free. Make your peace with it as you can. Hate me if you must. But you will come back to Morganville, or suffer the consequences. You of all people know that I am quite serious about that.”

Shane went pale, and Claire felt every muscle in his body draw tighter. “Yeah, I know,” he said hoarsely. “Found my mom floating in a bathtub full of her own blood. I know how serious you can get.”

Amelie was silent again, and then she said, “Morganville may not be paradise, and it may not be the future you believe you deserve. But in Morganville, you and your families will remain safe and alive while it is within my power to ensure it. I give you my word, as Founder, that this will be so. Is this understood?”

“You’re holding our families hostage,” Claire said. “We already knew that.”

“And I wanted you to hear it from my lips, so there would be no mistakes,” Amelie replied. “And now you have. I will expect you back tomorrow. Good night.”

Oliver shut the phone off and put it away. He said nothing to them, just moved out of the way. For a few seconds the four of them just stood there, and then Shane said, “So that’s it.”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “Tomorrow, we return. I suggest you make the most of the time you have tonight.” He turned to leave, and then looked back over his shoulder—just one, fast glance. “And I am sorry.”

Shane, without another word, took Claire’s hand and led her to his room.

In the morning, with the sunlight falling over the two of them as dawn rose on their last day of freedom, Shane rolled over to look at her, propped himself up on an elbow, and said, “You know I love you, right?”

“I know.”

“Because I suck at saying it,” he said. “It’s a work in progress, all this relationship stuff.”

She hadn’t really slept all night. She’d been too busy thinking, worrying, wondering. Imagining all kinds of futures. Imagining this moment. And she felt as if she were falling from a very tall building as she asked, “Shane? Are you—are you going to come back? To Morganville?”

Apart from Frank, his now-vampire dad, there was nobody Amelie could hold over his head ... nobody but Claire and Eve and Michael, and, anyway, Amelie had never really needed Shane. Claire needed him, though. With every heartbeat she needed him more.

He looked at her, holding the stare for so long it felt as if the fall would go on and on, falling forever....

And then he said, very quietly, “How can I not go back? How can I let you go, Claire? We all stay, or we all go back. I’m not letting you go on your own.” He touched a fingertip to her nose, startling a laugh out of her. “Somebody’s got to be your bodyguard.”

She kissed him, and their skins warmed together in the sunlight; silently, Shane raised her right hand to his lips, and kissed her fingers and kissed the claddagh ring glittering there, that promise of the future that had so much meaning for him, in the past.

And then, one more time, while they were still completely free, he told her how much he loved her.

Afterward, going back to Morganville didn’t seem so dark.

TRACK LIST

As always, music drives the creative bus for me, so here are some songs that rocked this little road trip. Feed the artists, please. They deserve your support.

“Good 2 U”
“Fire”
“Guilty as Charged”
“Call in the Cavalry”
“Troubled Land”
“Luisa’s Bones”
“Looking Pretty, Pretty”
“Post Blue (Dave Bascombe Mix)”
“Running up that Hill”
“Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit)”
“Circle the Fringes”
“Nighttiming”
“I Can’t Do It Alone”
“Wish We Were Older”
“That Dress Looks Nice on You”
“Kill Kill”
“I Love You Good-bye”
“Prime Mover”
“I Don’t Live in a Dream”
“Down Boy”
“People C’mon”
“The Future’s Nothing New”
“Snakes and Lions”
“Gift”
“World Can’t Have Her”
Dave Mason
Daniel Lanois
Gym Class Heroes
The Shys
John Mellencamp
Crooked Fingers
TAB The Band
Placebo
Placebo
Noisettes
The Gutter Twins
Coconut Records
30H!3
Metro Station
Sufjan Stevens
Lizzy Grant
Thomas Dolby
Steve Stevens
Jackie Greene
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Delta Spirit
The Alternate Routes
Melpo Mene
Curve
Cobra Verde
“Go My Way (The iPod Song)”
“Don’t Let the Devil Take Your Mind”
“Keeper”
“Lonely Ghosts”
“Mama Told Me (Not to Come)”
“2080”
“Wild Life”
“Architeuthis”
“On Fire”
“I’m Good, I’m Gone”
“Disappearing”
Bacon Brothers
Jackie Greene
Butterfly Boucher
O+S
Three Dog Night
Yeasayer
Bacon Brothers
Bacon Brothers
JJ Grey & Mofro
Lykke Li
Simon Collins

More playlists at www.rachelcaine.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In addition to the Morganville Vampires series, Rachel Caine is the author of the popular Weather Warden series, which includes Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, Firestorm, Thin Air, Gale Force, and Cape Storm. Her ninth Weather Warden novel will be released in August 2010. She also writes the Outcast Season series, which currently includes Undone and Unknown. Rachel and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin.

Web site: www.rachelcaine.com

Social networks: MySpace, LiveJournal, Facebook, and Twitter