by Rachel Caine
Page 25
The pole lights were all on, gleaming golden, and she consid- ered running to a neighbor’s house for help— but she didn’t know which, if any, of her neighbors could be trusted anymore. (Not that they’d been all that trustworthy in the first place, honestly. ) Shane’s muscle car must have been stashed somewhere back at Jenna’s house, but she hadn’t asked him where to find it, and she didn’t have time to play hide- and- seek, not tonight. The police were looking for her, and now she had— what were they? hellhounds? werewolves?— on her trail.
Although they hadn’t followed her out here. Not yet. The quick- rinse solution seemed to have done its job, along with the powder bomb; it must have confused them, and maybe destroyed their sense of smell temporarily.
Claire just picked a direction, ultimately, and began to run. She stayed at the edges of the streetlights, watched her back, and kept an eye out for police cruisers, but it seemed quiet enough. Too quiet, maybe.
The quiet shattered in a rising wail of police sirens, and she took a welcome breather hiding behind a hedge as three cars streaked by, red and blue flashers painting the world in primary colors before it sank back into shades of gray. They were headed toward the Glass House, she thought. She doubted Amelie had dialed 911, but maybe one of the neighbors had gotten too alarmed to ignore all the strangeness. Morganville was, after all, a law- abiding town now.
Or maybe someone had just spotted her and recognized her as Morganville’s Most Wanted. That wouldn’t be nearly as good.
Claire eased out from the bushes again. She was shivering now, since the water she’d been drenched with was slowly drying in the cold desert air, and despite the run she was getting chilled out here, quickly. Normally she’d have run to Myrnin’s lab, but going there would only expose her to more danger. Still, she craved the comfort of someplace familiar, even if it was unwise. Or creepy.
The known was always better than the unknown.
Stop it, she told herself sternly. You’re a scientist, right? Stop being afraid of the unknown. That steadied her. Science had helped her think of tainting herself with Amelie’s blood to draw off the attackers, and science had helped her remember the extinguisher grenades. The unknown wasn’t full of terrors, it was full of undiscovered advan- tages. Better to run toward something than run from something.
The Glass House was in mortal danger now; if Amelie man- aged to take advantage of the confusion and get out of there, es- cape to the little town of Blacke, there was no way Fallon was going to allow the Founder Houses to be left standing. He would destroy Amelie’s last refuges, and their home.
Claire knew she couldn’t defend it just by staying and fighting for it; that was defensive, and she needed offense now. She needed to get to Fallon.
She needed to stop this— for Shane, for Michael, for the safety of the Glass House. Besides, she wasn’t alone if she ran toward the center of the danger . . .
Because Eve was already there.
Claire kept to the shadows on the way to the edge of town. She re- membered the way, at least, and if nothing else the constant walk- ing she’d done at MIT over the past few weeks had prepared her for the relatively short distances of hiking Morganville. There was no problem with lurking in the darkness these days, no vampires ready to strike at least. Though she had no idea where Myrnin was now, or if Amelie had actually managed to fight her way free of the Glass House. If she had, then Shane would be . . .
Would be hunting Amelie.
That thought crushed her heart. Shane had always, deep in- side, loathed the vampires; he’d willingly signed up to find a way to deliver Morganville from their clutches when he’d been with his dad’s crew. But Claire thought that he’d come to accept them, a little— particularly Michael. Having your best friend grow fangs was guaranteed to cause a serious reevaluation of your prejudices.
But it seemed as if the hate had always been thrust upon him, that it wasn’t something he’d chosen for himself— and this was no different. She didn’t want to see Shane like that, lost to bloodlust and rage and violence. He was better than that.
They were all better than that.
Claire stopped at a small, neglected water fountain in one of the few parks along the way, and washed off again, trying to get any trace of Amelie’s blood off of her. She wasn’t sure how good Shane’s senses would be outside, but she suspected that when Fal- lon created hunting dogs, he did an expert job of it. And as much as she wanted to be with Shane, she never wanted to see him like that again.
The cold, cutting wind felt much worse once she’d dampened her clothes, and she thought grimly that she was bound to come down sick after this— if she survived.
The worst she endured on the way to the Daylight Foundation, though, was the chill, and an attack of a couple of wandering tum- bleweeds that— as tumbleweeds did— blew straight for her even when she tried to avoid them. The tiny burs on the rounded plants made them hard to pry out of her jeans and left itchy places on her fingers where they pierced skin. The tumbleweeds also had a tendency to come blowing across in packs, so she had to play dodge- the- weeds more frequently than she liked . . . and then she saw the glow of a neon sign ahead as she turned the corner. This part of town was still mostly under construction, though the sites lay si- lent now, workers all gone home and tools left abandoned for the night. The smells of new wood and dust mingled, and made her suppress a sneeze as she paused at the intersection. To her left, a neon sign two stories in the air glowed orange and bright yellow.
The stylized image of the sunrise, worn by the Daylighters as a pin.
Claire moved carefully, but she saw no one, again. There were a few cars still in the parking lot, and as she got closer she spotted Eve’s distinctive black hearse with its elaborate chrome. At first, Claire felt a surge of relief, because it meant that Eve was still here, somewhere, . . . but then she realized that if Fallon had decided to dump her in with the vampires at the mall, he’d hardly have troubled to move her car yet. So the presence of the hearse really didn’t mean anything at all, except that Eve had parked it there. It wasn’t an indicator of where she was.
Claire needed to get inside to find her, and to find a way to get to Fallon.
Doubts had settled in on the walk, and she was trying to ig- nore them. Eve had come here with the exact same mission— to stop Fallon. How far had she gotten? How can I be sure I can do any bet er? She wished that Myrnin hadn’t gone off with Jenna. She needed him now, more than ever.
The first step— the only step— was to try to find out what was happening inside the Daylight Foundation. If Eve was still there, she had an ally. If she wasn’t, that was one more incentive for Claire to find Fallon and end this, once and for all.
She heard a howl in the distance, long and eerie, and that de- cided her.
Sometimes the safest place to be was right in the heart of the enemy.
The front door was impossible; there were still lights on in the lobby, and as she positioned herself at the right angle, she could see that a jacketed security guard was sitting behind the desk where the receptionist had been earlier. No sign of Eve, or Fallon, for that matter.
Claire went around the building to the side and found windows— all locked. The offices were darkened, though. She wondered about alarms, and went all the way around the perimeter, just in case.
Good thing she did, because she found that one of the win- dows at the back had been left open. Not much, just a crack, but enough to reassure her that it wasn’t alarmed. She found a rusty piece of rebar on the ground nearby and used it to lever the win- dow up. It must have been stuck, which was why it hadn’t been closed in the first place, and she was afraid she’d shatter it, but it finally came loose and slid upward.
Even fully open, it wasn’t a big opening, and she had to shimmy through carefully. Her hips barely scraped through, and she tum- bled head over heels into a dimly lit storage area full of racks o
f books and bottles. It all looked boringly normal, actually. There was nothing sinister about toilet paper and cleaning sprays, and even the books were all about how to make yourself a better per- son. This was the public face of the Daylight Foundation. The pri- vate face was, of course, that dismal mall and those vampires in their so- called enclave, waiting for— for what?
Extinction.
Claire tried the supply closet door. It opened from the inside— a safety precaution against getting locked in, she supposed— but when she tried the outer handle it didn’t move, so she found a piece of tape and secured the lock so it didn’t engage. She and Eve might need a fast way out. Hopefully not, but smart people planned for contingencies along the way.
The hallways were silent, just as normal and boring as the sup- ply closet had been— carpeted, blank, peppered with wooden doors and nameplates. It still smelled of fresh paint. Hannah Mo- ses had her own office, and Claire felt a tingle of alarm when she saw it, but luckily it was after hours; the door was locked, and no lights showed beneath. How did that work, exactly? Did the chief of police have to actually split her time between working for the city and working for Fallon, or was it— at least on paper— more of a volunteer kind of thing? Hannah didn’t have a choice, no more than Shane had, but Claire supposed Fallon would want to make it look aboveboard. At least for now.
She was halfway to the lobby when she heard the sound of voices. At the intersection of another hallway she turned right, following the sound, because one of the voices was Eve’s. She recog- nized the tones easily, but the words were smeared and indistinct.
There was only one door on that hallway, and it was at the end.
Fallon’s office.
Claire moved closer, trying to hear what they were saying, but she caught only random words. Michael’s name was mentioned— not a surprise— but what worried her was the way Eve was talking.
It sounded . . . relaxed. Calm. Almost drowsy. Had he done some- thing to her? Drugged her?
She was about three steps from the door when she heard Fal- lon’s voice very clearly. He’d moved closer on the other side, and he said, “I know it seems strange to you, but I do admire you, you know. I admire your audacity in coming here. I admire the strength of your conviction that there’s something of the young man you loved left buried inside the monster. Maybe there is, because he’s so very young. I hope so, for your sake. ”