by Rachel Caine
She didn’t even see the police cruiser parked in the shadows beneath the sign until it came careening out onto the road behind them, trailing an airborne plume of dust. The flashers popped on, and the howl of a siren split the night.
“Hold on!” Michael said, and the car seemed to go even faster. It hardly mattered, though; the police cruiser was built for intercepts, and it was gaining on them. It was another two miles to the next intersection, but all of the roads out here were straight and boring, with nowhere to hide, no traffic to use for cover.
“You’re going to blow the engine on this thing!” Shane yelled over the roar of the wind. Claire felt like her hair was lashing her face raw. “Mike, you can’t outrun him!”
“Can’t outgun him, either!” Michael shot back. “And I’m not bulletproof anymore. Are you?”
“No, but they are,” Shane said, and pointed behind him at the unresponsive forms of Oliver and Ayesha. “Wake them up.”
“How?” Claire yelled back.
“Have you tried blood?”
Crap. She hadn’t even thought about that, but it made sense. They would be hungry, and maybe, just maybe, they needed a blood catalyst to fight their way out of their comas.
And maybe when they woke up, they wouldn’t stop at just a taste, either. It was risky, but they needed an advantage, fast, and it was the only thing Claire could think of at the moment. “Glove compartment,” she said. “I need something sharp.”
Shane was way ahead of her, pulling a knife from his belt. She hadn’t even known it was there, but of course he was armed. Wasn’t he always? “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t trust them, and use that knife if you have to.”
It was, of course, edged in silver plate. “What about you? Will you be okay? I mean, they’re vampires and you’re . . .”
“A friggin’ werewolf vampire hunter? Yeah, I know. I’m still primed to go after Amelie, not specifically targeted on these two right now, so it should be relatively okay. If it isn’t, I’ll deal with it. Eve has permission to whack me over the head or something.”
“Goody,” Eve said. “Always wanted your permission for that.”
She was not, Claire noticed, looking as bad as she had been, and the nausea seemed to be subsiding. Maybe whatever they’d spiked the blood with was finally starting to dissipate.
They were chattering because they were scared, and Claire knew it because she was scared, too. She was sweating, her heart was hammering, her mouth felt dry, and her tongue scraped like leather. The wind whipping into her face made it hard to focus, and she wished she had glasses to protect her eyes from the blowing, ever-present dust.
Just do it already.
She put the knife to the meaty part of the palm of her hand, below the thumb, and sliced. Fresh blood spurted out, and she gasped at the hot bite of pain, then turned to Oliver and pried his mouth open. Inside, it was dry and pale.
She squeezed blood into his mouth.
Nothing happened.
Dammit. “Come on,” she said under her breath, her words lost in the roar of the wind hammering through the car. “Come on, swallow, just swallow . . .” She milked more blood from the wound until there was a shallow pool of it in his mouth, then closed his jaw and tilted his head back.
She felt a muscle move beneath his skin, just a twitch . . . and then she saw his Adam’s apple jerk as he swallowed.
Oliver’s eyes opened. He looked confused and disoriented, and then the red flecks began to swirl in his eyes. He blinked and held up a hand to shield himself from the wind.
His gaze fell on Claire, slipped down and focused on her bleeding hand. Without permission, without hesitation, he grabbed it and put it to his mouth. She let out a muffled sound of protest, but he didn’t seem wild or out of control. It was a subtle difference, but one she’d learned to distinguish, with vamps.
And he let go after he’d sucked out two or three more swallows.
Oliver licked his lips clean, cleared his throat, and half whispered, “Thank you.” She couldn’t hear him over the road noise, but she understood anyway.
“Welcome,” she shouted back. “Need your help!”
“Of course you do.” He looked deeply cranky, which wasn’t at all strange for him, but he raised his voice so she could hear him. Barely. “It might have escaped your notice, but I very nearly died!”
“That could still happen,” she shot back. “We need to stop the police car behind us. I think they’ve probably got orders to shoot us on sight—and take you back to Fallon so he can finish what he started!”
Oliver still looked cranky, but now he also looked stronger, and resolved. “Tell Michael to slow down.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
She turned to Michael and screamed the instruction in his ear. He didn’t ask any questions; he just hit the brakes, and the sedan decelerated, fast.
Oliver slithered through the broken back window, got to his feet on the trunk lid, and launched himself onto the hood of the onrushing squad car with hardly a pause—but Claire could tell, from the way he moved, that he was weak, and hurting. His lithe grace was gone, leaving a kind of brutally clumsy strength.
He smashed a fist through the windshield and grabbed the driver, and the police car swerved violently, veered off the road into the desert, and was lost in a plume of erupting sand.
Michael stood on the brakes and brought the car to a complete, tire-smoking halt. He and Shane were out in seconds, heading for where the other vehicle had disappeared, and Claire bailed as well, joining Eve at a dead run to catch up. Eve tripped over her too-large men’s boots and almost went down, but Claire caught her arm and kept her upright and moving. She choked and coughed on the drifting sand, and as it cleared she saw Oliver sliding down from the hood of the cruiser. He was scratched and cut from the broken windshield, but he looked otherwise unharmed. Just . . . really, uncomfortably nearly naked, and Claire wished that she could unsee that.
Shane opened the cruiser’s front driver’s-side door. He crouched and checked the man inside. “He’s alive,” he said. “I’m surprised.”
“I haven’t had time to feed,” Oliver snapped. “Get me something to wear.”
Shane popped the car’s trunk, pulled out a blanket, and tossed it to Oliver without moving any closer. Fighting his instincts, Claire thought. He dived back into the police car and grabbed the keys, which he used to unlock the shotgun behind the seat from its rack; he tossed it to Eve, who caught it with perfect ease. He confiscated the man’s handgun, too. By this time the cop was starting to come around, moaning and shifting in his seat, so Shane took the handcuffs from his belt and locked the man’s right hand to the steering wheel, then patted him on the head. “Cheer up, buddy,” he said. “The good news is, you aren’t dead.”
“You will be,” the cop mumbled. “They’ll hunt you down. Kill you.”
“Then we’ll be going,” Michael said. “Everybody, come on. In the car.”
Claire and Eve started back, and so did Shane and Michael. Oliver, on the other hand, didn’t.
“Hey!” Michael said, without stopping. “You’re losing your ride, Oliver, I don’t think you want to be out here by yourself.”
“A moment,” Oliver replied, and stepped over to the cruiser.
Claire turned and ran back as the vampire leaned in, fangs out and gleaming. “Wait!” she shouted. Oliver turned on her, but she’d had plenty of experience with his particular brand of intimidation. “Please, Oliver. Don’t kill him.”
“Would you rather I take it from you?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t bite him, just—be careful.”
“Afraid of more blood on your hands?” His fangs were still down, and they made his grin particularly terrifying. “Unhand me, woman, or I’ll unhand you. I’ll decide how much I need.”
“Kill him and you’re walking,” she said.
He stared at her for a long moment, and his anger turned to something oddly like . . . interes
t. “You know, you are not the mousy little thing I met that morning in Common Grounds,” he said. “You’ve become something else entirely. It’s to your credit, but it’s also extremely inconvenient.”
He raised the policeman’s free arm, ripped the sleeve loose, and pressed the man’s wrist to his mouth. Claire winced at the shriek the cop let out, but it was more surprise than pain. He shut up after that, except for moans of fear, and Oliver ignored him as he continued to draw blood and swallow.
Just when Claire was starting to really worry, he let go of the cop’s arm and stepped back, fastening the blanket around his body. It was one of those soft jersey things, so it looked almost like a toga. She could imagine him back in ancient Rome, presiding over some bloodbath in the Colosseum.
Somehow he made it look like being merciful was his own idea.
“After you, Miss Danvers.”
ELEVEN
The drive to Blacke wasn’t comfortable, but it was less crowded in the backseat, since Oliver had settled himself in and put the limp, still form of Ayesha in his lap. He sat very straight, eyes closed against the rushing wind.
“Eve,” Michael finally said, “why do you have a bandage on your neck? Did someone bite—”
“Can we talk about it later?” she asked.
“What happened to you?”
Eve didn’t seem willing to say, but Claire was still simmering over it, and she thought Michael needed to know. “They started her—what did Fallon call it?—aversion therapy. Which involved a vampire.”
“It’s fine, it’s nothing.” Eve took Michael’s hand in hers. “Look, I don’t even feel sick anymore. It’s just a bite. I’ll live.”
He put the back of her hand to his cheek. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze sought out Claire’s in the rearview mirror, and she knew he would have some questions later. She didn’t blame him. She knew Eve wouldn’t feel like talking about it, and he’d need to know.
Night had fallen, and the air coming in was cold enough to chill Claire to the bone. Michael had rustled up a discarded jacket from the trunk of the car, but by common agreement they’d given it to Eve, who was freezing and shivering in her light hospital clothes. Not that Michael had on much more.
“Mike,” Shane said, and pointed. “Pull in up there.” Up there turned out to be a light shimmering in the distance, off the small farm-to-market road they were following—a single square house out in the middle of nowhere with a porch light glowing yellow, security lights on a barn out back, and the homey glow of lamps behind curtains.
“We’re not going to do anything to those people,” Claire said. “We’re not.”
“Of course we’re not,” Shane said. “Trust me, okay?” He bailed out when Michael stopped the car, and then—inexplicably—took off his jeans. “Keep the lights off. I’ll be right back.”
They all watched him jog away in his Joe Boxers. Claire felt a little dizzy, actually.
“I don’t like this,” Eve said. “What the hell is he doing? What if they just, you know, shoot on sight?”
“He said to trust him,” Claire said. “I do.”
And she was right to do it, because after about ten minutes, he came back with a whole plastic bag full of clothes. “Here,” he said, and began digging out baggy sweatpants, hoodies, jackets, and shirts. “Sorry, ladies, they’re all men’s sizes, but I’m sure you’ll still look awesome.”
“How?” Michael asked. He grabbed a pair of the sweats and ducked out of the car to pull them on, then added a zip-up hoodie. The logo on the faded cotton was—ironically—that of Texas Prairie University. Morganville’s school. Claire’s alma mater, sort of. “How the hell did you get these?”
“Well, I said I was pledging a frat at TPU with a car full of other guys, and we got driven out here and left naked by the side of the road, and the old bastard cackled and thought it was funny as hell. Then he gave me clothes.” Shane put on a hoodie from the bag—another TPU legacy—and snagged his blue jeans from the floor. “Here, put on another layer.” He handed Eve more clothes, and she bundled up gratefully. Claire was doing the same, taking both a T-shirt and a hoodie to add to what she was wearing, and for the first time, she felt something like warm again. “Oliver?” Shane held out something to the vampire, and got a dismissive stare in return. “No? Sticking with the toga look? Well, I always said you were an ice-cold killer.”
That almost woke a smile from Oliver. Almost.
Once they’d donned all the donated layers, they headed out again. “You know, we probably should have jacked that cop car,” Eve said. “At least it had more windshield.”
“Except for where Oliver punched through it, and we couldn’t see to drive?”
“Oh, right. Except for that.”
They passed a deserted, falling-down old diner that had served its last crappy sandwich at least twenty years back, and right on cue, Claire’s stomach rumbled. Loudly.
“Are you hungry?” Michael asked. “Because I’m starving.” He laughed then, as pure and free a sound as Claire had ever heard from him when he wasn’t singing. He sounded . . . whole. “You know, as a vampire I was never really hungry for solid food, even though I could eat it. I didn’t know how much I missed that. I could really kill for a burger right now. And fries. With salt.”
“Stop it, man, you’re killing me,” Shane groaned. “Maybe they’ve got an all-night diner in Blacke.”
Mention of the town—of their destination—brought them back to reality with a crash. This wasn’t some larky road trip. It was a mission.
“You should know something,” Claire said, and swallowed hard when they all turned to look at her. Even Oliver. “I heard Fallon give an order to release some of the vampires tonight from the mall. The hungriest and meanest ones.”
“Of course,” Oliver said. “Fallon does so need his righteous justifications. Once he whips the people of Morganville into a frenzy of fear, he’ll be free to do whatever he likes with us, and no one will stand in his way. He can burn us all on pyres in Founder’s Square if he likes. And he might find that a just punishment.”
“As somebody you once sentenced to that kind of execution, maybe the shoe fits,” Shane said.
“Shane!” Claire said.
He shrugged. “Sorry, but there are plenty of regular people who’ve been hurt in Morganville. Who’ve lost family. That flapping sound? It’s the chickens coming home to roost.”
“He’s right,” Oliver said, which was a little unexpected—even to Shane, as evidenced by the startled look he threw back toward Claire. “The problem with ruling by fear is that eventually, when the fear fades, fury replaces it. That’s a lesson I should have learned in my breathing years, perhaps.”
“Damn straight,” Shane said, but his outrage had lost its force. “So . . . is there anything we can do to stop Fallon tonight? If it’s not too late already?”
“No,” Oliver said. He had turned his head, and was staring out at the desert whipping by beyond the window. “But it’s possible, just possible, that Fallon’s plan might backfire. Most of us older vampires have vast experience in managing our hunger; the poison he put in our blood supplies made us restless and peckish, to be sure, but not uncontrollably so. It’s the younger fledglings who have . . . difficulty. He might have lost enough touch with his vampire roots to think he can drive us so easily into marauding.”
“I thought you were all just waiting for the chance,” Shane said.
“Did you?” Oliver shrugged. “I’m not saying a hunt isn’t something we crave, but to a man, we hate to be manipulated. And this is our town, as much as any human’s. Our home, and our neighbors and perhaps even our friends. You fall into the trap of thinking as Fallon does, that there are only heroes and villains, monsters and victims, and nothing between. We all stand in that space, crossing the line to one side, then the other. Even you.”
That was unusually chatty for Oliver, and strangely lyrical, too. They all sat in silence for a while, until Michael cleared h
is throat and said, “I’m making the turn up ahead. Should take us straight to Blacke.”
“Hope that diner’s open,” Shane said. “Because now you made me think about French fries.”
Claire’s stomach rumbled again, right on cue, but she was watching Oliver. Watching the calm strength with which he cradled Ayesha, still locked in her coma. He hadn’t asked for blood for her, or more for himself, though she could see from the color of his skin and the shine in his eyes that he needed it.
He was teaching them all something about vampires, simply by being who he was. Maybe bad things, maybe good. But that had been his point.
That nothing, absolutely nothing, was all that straightforward.
• • •
Blacke kept its town purposefully dark; it didn’t want casual travelers looking for gas stations, or all-night diners. In fact, if Claire hadn’t known that the town had a population of at least five hundred, she’d have been fooled into thinking it was a ghost town. Only a few cars in sight; and the lights were off inside businesses locked up tight for the evening. It was a tiny little one-stoplight place anyway.
The hulking courthouse was just as Claire remembered it, though the damage to the iron fence had been fixed and the statue of Mr. Blacke, the town’s most eminent (or at least richest dead) citizen, had been restored, except it still leaned a little bit. They’d knocked him down with the school bus, hadn’t they? It seemed like such a long time ago. She swore that Morganville years were worse than dog years. The people of Blacke had boarded up the courthouse windows, though, and a faded red CONDEMNED sign creaked in the night wind. The only light in the place came from the glow from the clock tower, permanently frozen at three a.m. Claire checked her watch to be sure, but her instincts were right; the time was just past midnight.
The witching hour.
“We’re being watched,” Oliver said as Michael eased the car to a halt. “Although I expect it is thoroughly unnecessary to say it. Even a breather ought to be able to feel it.”