by Rachel Caine
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 Clair
e 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 Gin
a 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?