“So,” Hess said, “any word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?”
“Not so far,” Richard said. “Once we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us.”
“Aren’t they hurt by the sun?” Claire asked. “I mean—”
“They start smoking, not in the Marlboro way, and then they start crisping,” Travis Lowe said around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss. “The older ones, they can handle it okay, and anyway, they’re not just charging out there anymore. They’re putting on hats and coats and blankets. I saw one wrapped up in a Sponge-Bob rug from some kid’s bedroom, if you can believe that. It’s the younger vamps that are in trouble. Some of them won’t make it to the shade if they’re not careful.”
Claire thought about Michael, and her stomach lurched. Before she even formed the question, Richard saw her expression and shook his head. “Michael’s okay,” he said. “Saw to it myself. He’s got himself a nice, secure jail cell, along with the other vampires we could catch before it was too late. He’s not as strong as some of the others. He can’t bend steel with his bare hands. Yet, anyway.”
“Any word on—” Claire was wearing out the question, and Richard didn’t even let her finish it.
“No sign of Eve,” he said. “No word from her. I’d try to put a GPS track on her phone, but we’d have to bring the cell network up, and that’s too dangerous right now. I’ve asked the guys on the street to keep an eye out for her, but we’ve got a lot of things going on, Claire.”
“I know. But—” She couldn’t put it into words, exactly. She just knew that somewhere, somehow, Eve was in trouble, and they needed to find her.
“So,” Joe Hess said, and stood up to look at a blown-up map of Morganville taped to the wall. “This still accurate?” 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.
“Pretty much,” Richard said. “We don’t know if the vampires are leaving Bishop’s locations, but we know they’re digging in, just like Amelie’s folks. We can verify locations only where Amelie’s people were supposed to be, and they’re gone from just about every location we’ve got up in blue.”
“Where were they last seen?”
Richard consulted notes, and began to add yellow dots to the map. Claire saw the pattern almost immediately. “It’s the portals,” she said. “Myrnin got the portals working again, somehow. That’s what they’re using.”
Hess and Lowe looked blank, but Richard nodded. “Yeah, I know about that. Makes sense. But where are they going?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Could be anywhere. I don’t know all the places the portals go; maybe Myrnin and Amelie do, but I don’t think anybody else does.” But she felt unreasonably cheered by the idea that the vampires weren’t out wandering out in the daylight, spontaneously combusting all over the place. She didn’t 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 didn’t 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. “Hey, little girl,” Gramma Day said. “Sit yourself.”
Claire perched, looking around the room. Most of the vampires were gone, either confined to cells or locked away for safety; some, they hadn’t been able to stop. She couldn’t seem to stop anxiously rubbing her hands together. Shane. Shane was supposed to be here. Richard Morrell had said that they’d 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. “You worried?” she asked, and smiled. “You got cause, I expect.”
“I do?” Claire was surprised. Most adults tried to pretend it was all going to be okay.
“Sure thing, sugar. Morganville’s been ruled by the vampires a long time, and they ain’t always been the gentlest of folks. Been people hurt, people killed without reason. Builds up some resentment.” Gramma nodded toward the bookcase. “Fetch me that red book right there, the one that starts with N.”
It was an encyclopedia. Claire got it and set it in her lap. Gramma’s weathered, sinewy fingers opened it and flipped pages, then handed it back. The heading said, New York Draft Riots, 1863.
The pictures showed chaos—mobs, buildings on fire. And worse things. Much, much worse.
“People forget,” Gramma said. “They 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 couldn’t fight back. They even burned up an orphanage, and they’d have killed every one of those children if they’d caught them.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue in disgust. “Same 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. It’s 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.”
Claire felt a chill. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you think about France, girl. Vampires been holding us all down a long time, just like those aristocrats, or that’s 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 won’t go bad on us?”
There weren’t enough shudders in the world. Claire remembered Shane’s father, the fanatical light in his eyes. He’d 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. She’d put the paintball gun aside—honestly, it wasn’t much use now, with the vampires missing in action. “They’re not getting in here, Gramma. We won’t be having any Greenwood in Morganville.”
“I ain’t so much worried about you and me,” Gramma said. “But I’d be worried for the Morrells. They’re gonna be coming for them, sooner or later. That family’s the poster children for the old guard.”
Claire wondered if Richard knew that. She thought about Monica, too. Not that she liked Monica—God, no—but still.
She thanked Gramma Day and walked back into the kitchen, where the policemen were still talking. “Gramma Day thinks there’s going to be trouble,” she said. “Not 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.”
Richard nodded. “Already done,” he said. “My mom and dad are at City Hall. Monica’s headed there, too.” He paused, thinking about it. “You’re right. I should make sure she gets there all right, before she becomes another statistic.” His face had tightened, and there was a look in his eyes that didn’t 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 Day’s book kept coming back to haunt her.
The front door banged shut, and she heard Hannah’s voice—not 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.
“You’re here,” he said, and hugged her so tightly that she felt ribs creak. “Man, you don’t make it easy, Claire. I’ve been freaking out all damn day. First I hear you’re off in the middle of Vamptown; then you’re running around like bait with Eve—”
“You’re one to talk about bait,” Claire said, and pushed back to look up into his face. “You okay?”
“Not a scratch,” he said, and grinned. “Ironic, because I’m 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 they’d have ripped right through the walls. You’d be proud. I even let them off in the shade.” His smile faded, but not the warmth in his eyes. “You look tired.”
“Yeah, you think?” She caught herself on a yawn. “Sorry.”
“We should get you home and catch some rest while we can.” He looked around. “Where’s Eve?”
Nobody had told him. Claire opened her mouth and found her throat clenching tight around the words. Her eyes filled with tears. She’s gone, she wanted to say. She’s missing. Nobody knows where she is.
But saying it out loud, saying it to Shane, that would make it real, somehow.
“Hey,” he said, and smoothed her hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? Where is she?”
“She was at Common Grounds,” Claire finally choked out. “She—”
His hands went still, and his eyes widened.
“She’s missing,” Claire finally said, and a wave of utter misery broke over her. “She’s out there somewhere. That’s all I know.”
“Her car’s outside.”
“We drove it here.” Claire nodded at Hannah, who’d come in behind Shane and was silently watching. He acknowledged her with a glance; that was all.
“Okay,” Shane said. “Michael’s safe, you’re safe, I’m safe. Now we’re going to go find Eve.”
Richard Morrell stirred. “That’s not a good idea.”
Shane spun on him, and the look on his face was hard enough to scare a vampire. “Want to try and stop me, Dick?”
Richard stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the map. “You want to go, go. We’ve got things to do. There’s a whole town of people out there to serve and protect. Eve’s one girl.”
“Yeah, well, she’s our girl,” Shane said. He took Claire’s hand. “Let’s go.”
Hannah leaned against the wall. “Mind if I call shotgun?”
“Since you’re carrying one? Feel free.”
Outside, things were odd—quiet, 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 Morganville’s gun shop.
Not good.
The gates of the university had opened, and they were issuing some kind of passes to people to leave—still sticking to the emergency drill story, Claire assumed.
“Oh, man,” Shane muttered, as they turned down one of the streets that led to the heart of town, and Founder’s Square—Vamptown. There were more people here, more groups. “I don’t like this. There’s Sal Manetti up there. He was one of my dad’s drinking buddies, back in the day.”
“The cops don’t like it much, either,” 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. “This could turn bad, any time. All they need is somebody to strike a match out there, and we’re all on fire.”
Claire thought about Shane saying his father was coming to town, and she knew he was thinking about that, too. He shook his head. “We’ve got to figure out where Eve might be. Ideas?”
“Maybe she left us some clues,” Claire said. “Back at Common Grounds. We should probably start there.”
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, and—
“What the hell is that?” 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. “She left a trail of breath mints?”
“Looks like. We’ll have to go on foot to follow it.”
Hannah didn’t seem to like that idea much, but Shane wasn’t taking votes. They parked and locked Eve’s car in the alley behind Common Grounds and began hunting for skull candies.
“Over here!” Hannah yelled, at the end of the alley. “Looks like she’s dropping them when she makes a turn. Smart. She went this way.”
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 didn’t she stay? Maybe she hadn’t had a choice.
They ran out of candy trail after a few blocks. It led them into an area where Claire hadn’t really been before—abandoned old buildings, mostly, falling to pieces under the relentless pressure of years and sun. It looked and felt deserted.
“Where now?” Claire asked, looking around. She didn’t 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. “Come on, Eve,” he said. “Give us something. Anything.” He froze. “You hear that?”
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. “What?”
“You don’t hear it?”
Claire did. Somebody’s phone was ringing. A cell phone, with an ultrasonic ringtone—she’d heard that older people couldn’t 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. “I thought the networks were down,” she said, and pulled her own phone out.
Nope. The network was back up. She wondered if Richard had done it, or they’d lost control of the cell phone towers. Either one was possible.
They found the phone before the ringing stopped. It was Eve’s—a red phone, with silver skull cell phone charms on it—discarded in the shadow of a broken, leaning doorway. “Who was calling?” Claire asked, and Shane paged through the menu.
“Richard,” he said. “I guess he really was looking for her after all.”
Claire’s phone buzzed—just 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. “What is this?”
“Nine one one. Emergency message. German’s—” He looked over at Hannah, who pushed away from the wall and came toward them.
“German’s Tire Plant,” she said. “Damn, I don’t like that; it’s the size of a couple of football fields, at least.”
“We should let Richard know,” Claire said. She dialed, but the network was busy, and then the bars failed again.
“I’m not waiting,” Shane said. “Let’s get the car.”
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.
“Didn’t they tear that place down?” It had been scheduled for demolition, and boy, if any place had ever needed it . . .
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“I heard it was delayed,” Shane said. He didn’t seem any happier about it than Claire was. “Something about historic preservation. Although anybody wanting to preserve that thing has never been inside it running for their life, I’ll bet.”
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 Shane’s favorite zombie-killing video games. “Don’t be hiding in there,” she whispered. “Please don’t be hiding in there.” Because if Eve and Myrnin had taken refuge there, she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to go charging in after them.
“There’s German’s,” Hannah said, and nodded toward the other side of the street. Claire hadn’t really noticed it the last time she’d been out here—preoccupied with the whole not-dying issue—but there it was, a four-story square building in that faded tan color that everybody had used back in the sixties. Even the windows—those that weren’t broken out—were painted over. It was plain, big, and blocky, and there was absolutely nothing special about it except its size—it covered at least three city blocks, all blind windows and blank concrete.
Rachel Caine - [The Morganville Vampires 05] Page 10