'Okay,' he said, 'I can see your point. So where are we going to go? Got any friends who don't mind hiding wanted fugitives? Because it usually takes a little longer than a few days to make those.'
Shane had a point, and she didn't really have an answer, but it didn't really matter. Shane had already pulled out his phone and checked something. He scrolled and hit keys, and put the phone to his ear.
'Who are you calling?' she asked.
'Pete,' he said. 'Look, the guy hangs out with a vampire chick and is some kind of midnight vigilante. He probably isn't too judgemental when it comes to hiding other people's secrets.'
'You think he knows about Jesse?'
'Yeah, I'm sure he does. Hold on ...' Shane turned partially away from her, focusing on the new voice in his ear. 'Hey, man, it's Shane - yeah, I know about the cops. Speaking of that, I need someplace to get out of sight. You got any suggestions?' He listened for a few seconds, then made a scribbling gesture to Claire, and she dug out a pen and paper and handed it over. Shane wrote something down and handed it back to her. It was an address. 'Got it. I owe you, Pete. Big time.'
He hung up and dropped the phone in his hoodie's pocket. Claire held up the address. 'Where's he sending us?'
'His place,' Shane said. 'It's not far.' He offered her his elbow, and she threaded her arm through the crook, and they set off toward the south, down the tree-lined street. Funny how it felt so familiar, too ... just another street in another town, but the two of them were together, and that made it home. Even knowing what she did - Liz missing, the police after Shane - she felt oddly peaceful now. Whatever was coming, they'd be facing it together.
Shane winced and let go of her to rub at his arm beneath the hoodie's sleeve. 'It's nothing,' he said before she could ask. 'Itches like crazy, and it burns. I've never been allergic to anything, but maybe that's what it is. Maybe I'm just allergic to hot, smart college girls.'
'Ha, ha,' she said, and reclaimed his other arm. 'Maybe you're allergic to being in trouble all the time.'
'Nah, I'm completely inoculated against that one. It's in the genes.' Shane checked his piece of paper, then his phone's map, and nodded up the street. 'One block up, then right. His place will be on the left.'
There was no sign of police presence, at least, as they made the final turn and spotted the address on the note. It was a squat brick building dwarfed by the taller, more elegant row houses on either side, and to Claire's eyes it looked more like a storage shed than a home. The front door was a faded green, plain wood, no design. She didn't see any windows on this side of it.
'Is he here?' she asked.
'No, but he told me how to get in.' Shane walked up, counted bricks, and pulled one out. Behind it, he found the key, and used it to open the door. 'After you.'
'No, seriously, you go first. I hardly know this guy. What if he's working with the people who took Liz?'
'Pete?' Shane shook his head, evidently finding the whole thought funny, though Claire felt it had been a pretty reasonable caution. 'Never happen. But okay. I'll protect you.'
She hit him in the shoulder. 'I don't need you to protect me.'
'Then why am I going first?'
'So you can take the first punch while I throw the second?'
'So I'm bait? Ouch. You've been in Morganville way too long, girl.' But he was grinning when he said it, and he went in first, alert and ready for anything. She came in behind him and shut the door - always cut off the ability of an enemy to sneak up behind you, if you can - and locked it. 'Pete? Anybody here?' He shook his head at the continued silence. 'He said he doesn't have any roommates. I think we're good.'
They came down a short, narrow hall into one largish room that served as the entire house. It had been fixed up with some kind of portable dividers on wheels into a sleeping area with a neatly made bed (Pete, Claire thought, was a much better housekeeper than Shane ever had been), a clean little kitchenette with a two-person table, and a small living area with a couch and TV. Not much else, except books. Pete had stunning amounts of them, lining every inch of the walls in custom-built cases. Shane whistled when he looked around, and shook his head. 'Okay, I thought I knew Pete, but I would have pegged him for a magazine guy, at best,' he said. 'And only Sports Illustrated, at that. Think he's read all these?'
'I would have,' Claire said. She wasn't very often jealous, but somehow, this little, neat, clean place seemed perfect to her. The only thing that had its own separate walls was the bathroom, tucked into a corner - it held a toilet, sink, counter, tiled floor, and corner shower. She peeked in, feeling like an intruder and, at the same time, a tourist in somebody else's life. She liked it. Pete looked like an orderly, calm, interesting kind of guy.
'I'm going to have to give him shit for all this,' Shane said, as he wandered around. 'He lives alone and makes his bed? Who does that?'
'People who like things neat?'
'It's not natural.' Shane turned as she walked toward him. The light from the windows on the sides of the house caught his face, and she winced a little at the sight of the bruises - they were getting spectacular now, but probably didn't hurt nearly as much as before. He looked a little tired, she thought, and although he was trying not to show it, a little worried, too. He knew how alone they were here, away from home. And how vulnerable. Plus, he'd be missing his weapons, most likely.
'So,' he said. 'Here we are.'
'Yes. Here we are.' She didn't give him anything more than that, and he continued to watch her warily, as if he was no longer sure what she was thinking. She took a step closer, and then another one, until she had to look up into his face. His brown eyes were half closed, and she knew that look ... sharp with longing.
'Claire - we're both in the same place, but ... are we together?'
It was a brave question. A lot of people wouldn't have asked it, Claire thought; it would have been easier to just assume things, pretend, gloss it over. But that wasn't Shane. And he didn't flinch when she said, 'I want to be. Do you?'
'I can safely say that there is nothing I want more in my life,' he said. 'Problem is, you have to want it too. Both magnets have to attract.'
'Opposite poles,' she agreed, and took that last step forward, until she was pressed against him. His arms slowly went around her ... not like they had on the street, full of confidence and strength, but testing her. Seeing what she was going to do. 'We could talk all day about magnetism and poles and the Pauli exclusion principle and spin glass effect, or I could just do something about it.'
She rose up on tiptoes and kissed him. The second their lips met, she felt his tense muscles go slack, and she could almost feel the relief that washed through him. And the laugh that vibrated against her lips from his. 'I love it when you talk dirty physics,' he said, and then the tension was back in his muscles, but it was the good kind, and he picked her up and collapsed backward to Pete's neatly made bed, which bounced and creaked in protest. Claire let out a surprised burst of laughter, too, and straddled him to lean over and kiss him again, deeply, sweetly, with a core of heat that never failed to scorch but didn't burn. It wasn't that she'd forgotten how amazing this was, but that her body had deliberately hidden the memory from her to protect her from the longing, and now all those nerve endings were awake, remembering, and craving it again. His big hands held her shoulders, then slid up to caress her face in warmth, and as she unzipped his hoodie and pulled his T-shirt up, he shivered and arched against her. He let out a sigh as her own hands moved up over his abdomen and up to his chest. His skin felt amazing - soft and warm as satin against her palms.
He hooked a finger on the collar of her shirt, just about where the buttons started, and as she sat up, he said, 'Mind if I help you with this? Because I think I need to see what you're wearing under there.'
She smiled and moved his hand away, and unbuttoned the first button. 'There,' she said. 'How's that?'
'I think I need at least - how many buttons do you have? Six more.'
She nipped gently at his full lower lip. 'Only if you take off the shirt.'
He sat up as if he'd been jolted with a cattle prod, and the hoodie and T-shirt came off so fast she was afraid he'd pull a muscle. Oh God, he was lovely; even with the bruises, which made her ache inside, he was so incredibly gorgeous. It made her breath catch in her throat. So did the luminous light in his eyes as he settled back down on the pillows.
'Your turn,' he said, and put his hands behind his head. 'Six buttons.'
'Five?'
'Only if you don't want to keep that last one on the shirt.'
She smiled, and started unbuttoning. One at a time, slowly, watching the fire intensify in his eyes, feeling his body tensing under hers even as he tried to look utterly relaxed.
The cool air kissed her shoulders as she slipped off the blouse. 'Pretty,' he said. His voice sounded different now, low and rough as a cat's tongue. 'I guess I have to see if that bra has a matching set of panties.'
It did.
Neither of them stayed on very long, though.
Lying there, drowsy and warm in Shane's arms, Claire couldn't imagine how she'd walked away from him. From this. She'd had lots of frank discussions with the more worldly Eve about sex, about what could be good and bad about it. The worse, Eve had always said, was when the guy was all about getting his own thrills and treated the girl like a posable doll. Sure sign of a going-nowhere relationship.
Shane wasn't like that, not at all. It was a collaboration, and a partnership, and he left her feeling joyous and sated and utterly, utterly calm. They had plenty to worry about, but not here. Not between them. She made a sleepy, happy sound and pressed herself closer to him; his arms were around her waist, and he made a solid, hot blanket that pressed against her back. Sometime during the afternoon they'd managed to pull the covers up over them, which was good, because their clothes were somewhere scattered on the floor in entirely random order.
Shane kissed the back of her neck, drawing a delighted shiver. 'I missed you,' he whispered.
She giggled a little. 'I could tell. That first time was a little bit fast.'
He groaned. 'You're killing me.'
'Only a little. The second was much better.'
He licked her ear, which made her let out a little shriek of protest, and she twisted around to face him. He propped up on one elbow, looking down at her. His hair was a mess, and she pushed it out of his eyes. 'I love you.'
'I know.' He took her hand in his, and kissed the palm; his lips felt warm and damp and soft on her skin. 'And I let you down. I know that. I'm not saying I won't make mistakes; I will. But I promise that I won't make that particular one again.'
'Fair enough,' she said. 'I make plenty of mistakes, too, you know.'
'You mean, besides getting involved with me?'
She shook her head and kissed him. It was a drowsy, lazy kiss this time, full of honey and joy. 'I wish it could be like this. Just ... this. All the time.'
'Life doesn't work that way, you know that.'
'What if it did?'
'We'd be living in a cardboard box and starving to death?'
'Wow, you really know how to take the sexy away, don't you?'
'It's a gift.' Shane's fingers stroked down her back, then up, in a mesmerisingly random pattern. 'We should probably get up and make some dinner. Plus, I guess we should wash the sheets before Pete comes back. Seems like good manners.'
'I'm amazed you even thought of it.'
'I'm on my best behaviour.'
'Mmm, I could easily argue with that. Oh ...' She caught her breath, suddenly, because he tried to prove her right. He kissed her shoulder, then her neck, then her mouth, and then the lazy peace turned intense again, for a while. This time, though, they were truly exhausted, and it took at least another half an hour of sleepily murmuring to each other before Claire finally managed to convince him to get up, dress, and help her strip the sheets and pillowcases from the bed. Pete had one of those tiny little washer/dryer combo units tucked in the corner, and she put everything in with detergent, then showered and left her hair wet as Shane squeezed in after she stepped out. There wasn't room for two, which was probably good, considering how sore her muscles already felt. A good kind of sore, but still.
They were both dressed, if just barely, when the door rattled, the lock turned, and Pete stepped inside. He flipped the deadbolt behind him, and stopped dead at the end of the hall. Claire and Shane were sitting innocently on the couch; she was reading one of Pete's books, a science fiction classic by Isaac Asimov she'd been meaning to find, and Shane was flipping channels on the TV.
Pete said, 'Why are the sheets off my bed?'
'Just trying to help you out, do a little housework,' Shane said blandly. 'Hey, man. Thanks for letting us stay for a while.'
'If by a while you mean until dawn, then yeah, cheers,' Pete said. 'You've got serious heat on you, man. I'm not just talking about the cops. Scary suit-wearing types, you know the ones, Claire. You've seen them before. They were looking for you, and they came looking for Shane, too. Whatever you're in, you're in deep. About my bed, did you two-?'
'Look at it this way, we did laundry,' Shane said. 'If it was the couch ...'
'This is why I hate house guests,' Pete said. 'So. Pizza okay?'
They both nodded. Claire said, 'I'm sorry about the bed, Pete. Thanks.'
'I'm just messing with you. Hell, that's the most fun that bed's had in ages. If you're about to ask if I've heard from Jesse, no, I haven't. She never showed for her shift, which bugged the crap out of Mick, believe me; he was already stressed enough about you and your big bag of fun illegal weapons you were keeping on his property, Shane. Why the hell didn't you tell me about that?'
'What would you have done?'
'Told Mick.'
'That's why I didn't tell you. Look, man, it's not that I'm some nutcase with a gun collection; everything I have in there goes toward keeping me and Claire safe from what you already know is out there.'
Pete wasn't stupid, and his eyes narrowed and turned flinty-dark as he reached for the telephone. 'Jesse's not the problem here.'
'Jesse's a vampire. Whether or not she's trouble, she's proof that there could be others out here who aren't so well behaved. You hang out with her ... you know how dangerous she can be. Right?'
'She's one of the least dangerous people I know, because she does exactly what she means to do, every time. She's never lost control of herself, not even once. Can't say that for a lot of humans.' He held up a finger to pause the conversation, and ordered a pizza delivery. He didn't ask what they wanted, which Claire thought was probably fair enough; they'd abused his hospitality a bit, though he probably hadn't expected anything else. Once he'd hung up, he went right back to the subject at hand. 'I swear to God, if your troubles drag her out into any kind of real trouble, the ass-kicking you got last night will be a love tap, and I will use your skull for a hockey puck.'
Shane considered that for a second in silence. Claire could tell he took Pete seriously, despite the differences in their height. Whatever fighting skills Pete had, clearly Shane had seen them and respected them. 'Understood,' he said. 'But I don't think any of it's Claire's fault. It seems like Jesse's in deep with this Dr Anderson, and the government piece is coming from there. Cops, I've got no idea. I didn't break any laws.'
'She did,' Pete said, and nodded toward Claire. 'They're saying you might have killed your roommate. And that Shane helped you. And by the way, your weapons stash doesn't make you look any less guilty of that.'
'I didn't kill anybody,' Claire said. 'Liz was abducted. Shane saw them. And Jesse's trying to trace the van. Look, Shane's got pictures.'
Shane pulled them up on the phone and held them out, and Pete looked them over. He seemed accepting of that, at least; he handed it back without comment except a nod. Then he went into the kitchenette and got out paper plates. 'Beer?' he asked them. 'I'm not going to card you. That's the day job.'
'I'll have one,' Shane said, just as Claire said no; it wasn't that she was some kind of anti-alcohol crusader, she just didn't like beer, overall. Pete brought her a Coke instead, and then he settled in the small armchair off to the side of the couch. They all watched the TV flicker on in silence, a cold substitute for a fire, and finally Shane said, 'So, I guess you two already know each other, but Pete, this is Claire, my-'
'Fiancee,' Claire said. She wasn't sure why she felt compelled to say it now, of all times and places, but she was. Shane turned his head and stared at her, and the surprise (and pleasure) in his face made her smile. 'Hey, you asked me, remember? And I said yes? Months ago. I just thought it might be time to get on with saying it.'
'Fiancee,' Shane repeated. 'As in, I'm going to marry her.'
'Yeah?' Pete asked. 'Congrats. When?'
'We haven't talked about that yet,' Claire said. 'Soon?'
'Soon,' Shane agreed. Their fingers twined together, and he moved closer to her on the couch. 'Of course, it could be a jailhouse romance if we're not careful. And that would suck. We already did that a whole bunch, early on. Me in a cell, you outside ...'
'Well, for variety, maybe it'd be me in the cell this time, and you out there figuring out how to get me free. Although I'm just afraid that you might do something crazy to make that happen.'
'It might involve illegal activity, yeah,' Shane said. 'I wouldn't even mind ending up in jail with you, but they'd probably separate us. And that wouldn't be what I had in mind. I guess our only option is to stay out of the cage, then.'
'I think it's a goal,' she agreed. 'Did you hear anything at all from Jesse, Pete?'
'I got a text, she said she was following a lead. That was it. I'm hoping she'll end up here soon ... she usually just drops in without notice. Vampires aren't real respecters of personal privacy, seems like.'
The washer dinged to let them know the cycle was done, and Claire quickly rose and took care of loading the wet sheets into the dryer. It seemed like the least she could do. Pete and Shane didn't chat. It wasn't like Shane and Michael, who had an easy, almost unconscious connection that neither of them really had to think about much; Shane had to read Pete, try to figure out what he really meant and felt. Maybe that connection would develop, over time, but for now, Pete just seemed a little guarded, a little wary.
Maybe that was just his default setting.
There was a knock on the front door, and Pete headed for it. Shane got up, too, frowning. 'That was too quick for pizza,' he said. Pete nodded without pausing; he had a baseball bat hidden in the shadows near the doorway, and he grabbed the length of wood on his way. Then he checked the peephole.
'Is it the police?' Claire asked. She felt a little short of breath, suddenly, because if it was, there didn't seem to be an easy way out of this place. Defensible, but limited retreat. And they couldn't fight their way out, not against regular human police. It would be wrong on every level, even if they weren't guilty.
'No,' Pete said. There was an odd tension in his voice, and he stepped back from the door, opened it, and said, 'Get in, quick.'
It happened fast - one second he was standing alone on the doorstep, and the next ... the next, there were three people crowding the hallway with him. Two supporting a limp, maybe unconscious third.
As Pete slammed and locked the door, Claire bolted forward. So did Shane.
And Eve let out a strangled little sound that was half glad cry, half sob.
She and Jesse were supporting the dead weight of a very pale, very still Michael Glass.
With a wooden stake in his heart.
'Christ, is that guy dead?' Pete blurted out, when he saw the stake. Shane ignored him, grabbed Michael's weight by the shoulders, and helped Jesse carry him over to the couch. Eve followed, and Claire hugged her hard when she paused to try to catch her breath. She was shaking all over.
'He's okay,' Claire said, and rubbed her back. 'Eve, it's okay, it'll be okay ...'
'Pull it out,' Shane snapped at Jesse, who had crouched down beside the couch to stare at the stake in Michael's chest. 'Hurry up, he's too young, it could really hurt him.'
'Stop! Don't touch it. It's spring-loaded,' Jesse said, and pointed to a symbol burnt into the side of the wood. 'I know this mark. It's a Daylight Foundation inventory sign. It's got a silver payload built in. If you try to remove it, it'll flood his heart with silver. It'll kill him.'
Shane had reached out for the stake, but now he pulled back, eyes narrowed and simmering with fury. 'Who the f**k is the Daylight Foundation?'
'Trust me, nobody you need to screw around with,' Jesse said. 'There's a method for disarming this thing, but we need to be very careful. I've got some experience. Let me handle it.'
'What the hell happened out there?' Shane demanded. No one answered him, not even Eve; she was staring down at Michael, her face ashen. Claire held on to her, because it seemed that, after having made the single-minded effort to get Michael to safety, Eve had completely lost all strength to keep herself upright. She wasn't crying. She wasn't doing anything, except ... waiting, with a kind of fatal, desperate patience. The ruby wedding ring flashed and trembled on her clenched left hand. 'Claire. Claire. Go check the door, make sure nobody's coming after them.'
She didn't want to leave Eve, but he was right; it was important. Pete seemed rooted to the spot, staring at the completely unexpected second vampire in his living room; he seemed to be rethinking his whole life strategy, in that single moment.
'Go,' Eve whispered. 'I'm okay.' She stood on her own, somehow, and Claire squeezed her arm and rushed to the door to look through the peephole.
There was a streetlight conveniently situated outside that cast a harsh glow over the sidewalk, which seemed deserted except for Jesse's car, parked across the street. The peephole didn't offer much of a glimpse off to the sides, but Claire was pretty certain that everything was clear. She turned back and gave a thumbs-up sign to Shane, who nodded and looked down at Michael again with tense, desperately still silence.
Then the door behind Claire's back vibrated under a sudden, very strong volley of knocking. Too strong. Claire yelped and whipped around to stare out the peephole again, and saw a pallid face under a shock of wildly windblown black hair. No human being was naturally that pale.
She unlocked it and said, 'Get in, quick!' because it was Myrnin ... and behind him, Oliver.
The two vampires entered in a rush of displaced air, and Oliver quickly shut and locked the door again. He leant against it, seeming tired - weirdly - and Claire had a chance to think, Why is Oliver here? Because even though he'd been exiled from Morganville by Amelie, she didn't think he had any reason to be poking around this part of the country. Oliver looked ragged, too - and dressed down, in worn blue jeans grimy with oil, a faded, loose T-shirt with some kind of wolf design on it, and his long, salt-and-pepper curly hair worn in a loose, sloppy ponytail in back. It didn't seem to have had a wash recently. Neither did he.
And Myrnin ... well, at least he wasn't dressed any worse than he usually was, but he seemed very pale, and not any cleaner than Oliver. They'd both been travelling hard, she guessed, although vampires didn't really smell bad, unless they came in contact with things that did. From the general miasma around the two of them, they'd been around rotting garbage for a while.
Myrnin stared at her for a long few seconds, then scraped his disorderly hair back from his face, and said, 'They don't have you, then. But do they have it?'
'It? What does that mean?' Claire asked. He didn't answer her. He just hugged her, suddenly and violently, and before she could even make a surprised sound he was gone. It was like being hugged by a snowman, only less ... moist. And more unpleasantly fragrant.
Oliver said, 'We went to see Irene Anderson. Myrnin has a good relationship with her, even now. However, she was ... unhelpful. She had no idea where you had gone, only that you had taken the device with you from her laboratory.'
'I - wait, what? I didn't take anything!'
'Oh,' Myrnin said, and turned back toward her from where he stood next to Eve. 'Oh, that is such very, very bad news. Because if you didn't, someone did. Someone with laboratory access, since I personally reviewed the records.'
Myrnin sounded ... sane. Despite the tangled hair, the dirty homeless-style clothes, the smell of garbage and the whiff of things much worse. He looked taut, worried and paranoid, but not crazy.
So, things were very, very bad, then. Claire sometimes thought of him as only recreationally crazy; when things were life and death, her boss (and friend) seemed to make a concerted effort to view things with icy precision. He paid for it later, but she'd never been less than grateful to him for making the effort.
'You're saying someone broke into Dr Anderson's lab and took VLAD.'
His eyebrows rose. 'VLAD?'
'The - the device. Vampire Levelling Adjustment Device.' She realised, belatedly, that Oliver, who was decidedly not in her inner circle of people she trusted, was listening, but he refrained from comment. His attention was fixed on Michael, as if he actually cared.
Which, knowing Oliver, he actually might, though he'd no doubt deny it.
She was almost sure Myrnin would glower at her for naming her pet project after a famous vampire - Vlad Tepes, commonly thought to be the historical inspiration for Count Dracula - but he only shook his head in impatience. 'We must go, and quickly. We can't stay here,' Myrnin said. 'Oliver and I are being hunted.'
'By who?'
'Whom, my dear girl, whom, grammar really has descended to the lowest-'
'Myrnin!'
'I have no idea.' His tone was flat, and there were dangerous embers of red in his eyes. 'When I do, there will be reckoning for Michael.'
'He took a blow meant for me,' Oliver said. 'Stupid. I could likely have avoided it if he'd given me the chance.'
That made Eve spin around and level him with a white-hot glare. 'Likely? Likely? You ass**le, he saved your life!'
Normally, having a human use that tone with him would have made Oliver snarl, show fangs and 'teach her a lesson'... but he did none of that. He only looked away, and Eve glared a moment more before kneeling down at Michael's side and taking his limp, pallid hand in hers.
'He feels cold,' she told Jesse. 'Please, if you're going to do something-'
'I'm thinking,' Jesse snapped. 'Just quiet, all of you. I've only seen this twice before.'
'What happened?' Shane asked. 'The other two times?'
She didn't answer, which meant, Claire thought with a cold shiver, that the vampires who'd had those stakes in their hearts likely hadn't survived.
Jesse finally said, 'Right. There's no safe way to disarm it. Oliver, I need you.'
He didn't move until she turned her head, frowning at him, and then moved to Michael's side. 'Yes?'
'You're faster and stronger than I am,' Jesse said. She didn't say it as a compliment, just a simple statement of fact. 'I need you to pull that stake out, straight and as fast as you can. I will put my hand over the wound in case the silver triggers; I may be able to stop it from entering his bloodstream.'
'At the cost of your hand,' he pointed out.
'No other choice,' Jesse said. 'I'm old enough. I can survive. Daylighters haven't killed me yet.'
Claire held her breath as Oliver nodded, reached down, and took hold of the stake. He locked his gaze with Jesse's, and she counted down. Three, two, one.
On one, Oliver moved in a blur, faster than the human eye could catch, and Jesse's hand slapped in place, covering the still-open wound as the wooden stake pulled free. Or at least, that was what Claire presumed happened, because she didn't actually see it, only Jesse's hand on Michael's chest, and the stake moving at bullet speed to hit and shatter on the far brick wall.
It splattered liquid silver all over the wall.
Jesse didn't move, though she made a sound - a small one, in the back of her throat. And then Claire realised why.
Her hand was covered in silver. Dripping with it. And she couldn't move until Michael's wound healed, or he'd be poisoned, and at his young age, likely die quickly.
Her hand was burning. Sizzling. Claire clapped her hand over her mouth to hold in the nausea as she saw skin erode and tendons working beneath, and still Jesse sat very still, unmoving, pale as a marble statue.
'I think it's closed,' Jesse finally whispered, and just ... collapsed. Oliver moved, but - surprisingly, Claire thought - Myrnin was already there, grabbing her as she fell backward and easing her to the colourful area rug beneath.
Eve threw herself forward and frantically checked Michael's pale chest for any sign of damage. 'He's okay,' she said. 'Michael? Michael!'
He opened his blue eyes, blinked, and said, 'Eve?' His voice was shockingly faint, but he was alive.
Myrnin fumbled in the pockets of his oversized coat - there were a lot of pockets, some flapping loose - and brought out a small stoppered vial of powder. He supported Jesse's head and shoulders on his knees as he pulled the cork with his teeth and emptied the powder over her burning hand.
She cried out and arched up into the air, and he held on to her as she writhed and fought. 'Easy, dear lady, easy, it will stop, the pain will stop, it will halt the silver and heal your wound, though the scars may take some time - easy, Lady Grey, be easy ...'
Lady Grey? He knew Jesse - well, of course, he would, wouldn't he? Because she'd been sent by Amelie from Morganville in the first place. Still. Claire blinked, because she'd never seen Myrnin act quite so ... gentle. Or so formal. And Jesse let out a long, trembling breath and smiled up at him. Whatever he'd given her had worked. The damage was still pretty serious, but from the smile, and the way its wattage increased second by second, the pain was subsiding. Myrnin put his hand on her cheek in a small, comforting caress - something Claire couldn't remember him doing before. Not quite that way.
'Well,' Jesse said, with a lilt in her voice that hadn't been there before. 'It's a rare sweet day that brings you out of your cave, little spider.'
'And a rarer one that sees you brought low, Lady Grey. A brave act. Very brave.'
'Foolish, if the boy doesn't make it,' she said. 'Oh, bother it, leave my hand alone. The silver's still burning, but it'll pass. I'm too old for it to do much more damage.'
'You don't look a day over a thousand,' Myrnin said. My God, Claire thought. Was he actually flirting? Well, if he was, she couldn't really blame him. Jesse was ... kind of a stunner.
Michael was trying to sit up on the sofa, something Shane and Eve were trying to prevent; Claire joined them, and when it became clear that 'no' was not a viable option, she helped prop him upright. 'Hey,' she said to him, 'weren't you supposed to stop trouble, and not be so much in the middle of it?'
'Best laid plans,' Michael said, and coughed. It had an alarmingly wet sound. Eve grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the coffee table, and when he stopped coughing and took them away from his mouth, they were soaked in fresh, red blood. But he seemed to be feeling better. 'I think that might have been about as close as I could have come to dead.'
'Just about,' Shane agreed. 'You ever heard of someone putting a silver injector inside a stake before?'
'Never,' Michael said, 'but it seems like a damn great idea, except when it's in my chest.'
'Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking.' Shane squeezed his shoulder and crouched down to eye level. 'You good, bro?'
'I'm good. And it's good to see you've kept up the tradition of getting the holy shit beat out of you, even when you're in a nice, civilised place.'
'It was not my fault.'
Michael just shook his head. He still looked very pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He was holding Eve's hand, and he tugged on it, bringing her down to whisper in her ear. She nodded and turned to Pete - who was still standing exactly where he'd been, looking utterly overtaken by what had crashed in on them. As well he might, Claire thought. He'd been worried about sexed-up sheets, and suddenly there were wounded vampires and a big splash of silver dripping down his brick wall. Even for someone who'd known Jesse, this sudden onslaught of the undead might be a little tough to handle.
'Excuse me,' Eve said to him. 'Do you have any, ah, plasma? In bags?'
Pete gave her a blank look, and finally just turned around and walked to the armchair. He sat down, put his head in his hands and checked out of the current reality.
'Guess that's a no,' Eve said. 'All right. Sorry, you guys, but he needs to feed, and I'm going to volunteer a vein. So if you're squeamish, turn around.'
Claire did, not so much because she was faint at the sight of blood, but because it seemed uncomfortably intimate to her. Shane turned, too, and took a look around the room. Oliver was examining the remains of the wooden stake, though he was being very careful not to touch any of the remaining silver leaking out of it. Myrnin and Jesse seemed to be very cosy. 'Well,' Shane said, 'at least we're not alone on the run any more. Apparently, the cops may be the least of our worries right now.' He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she willingly went. 'You all right?'
'Fine,' she said, and shivered. 'That was sudden. And intense.'
'I think Pete's having a migraine. And I'm not sure the silver's coming out of his rug, either.'
Jesse had climbed to her feet before he'd finished the sentence, and she walked to the small bathroom and came back in a moment with a thick roll of gauze bandage. She carried it to Myrnin and held it out with her eyebrows raised. 'Do you mind?' she asked him.
He bowed a little, took the gauze, and held her hand steady as he wrapped the bandages. He was good at it, Claire realised; he'd definitely had lots of practice at treating injuries, and for this one, it didn't matter whether it was a vampire or human. The bandages were all the same. He ripped one end of the gauze in two, wrapped it snugly, and tied it off; that, Claire was sure, came from experience in eras where such things as sticky tape had yet to be invented. Once he was done, he smoothed the bandages down, and his hand lingered on hers.
Jesse gave him a slow, bright smile, and Myrnin's pale cheeks reddened, just a touch. He let go. 'All better,' he said. 'My lady.'
'My lord,' she said, and did a pretty fair curtsy, considering she was wearing blue jeans and a low-cut black knit shirt. Her dark red braid swung forward over her shoulder in a thick rope, and as she looked up through her eyelashes at him, Claire thought that Jesse had probably practised the art of flirting for at least a few hundred years. Poor Myrnin.
He was definitely outclassed, and way out of practice, because he cleared his throat and turned his back on her - not the most graceful end to that conversation - and said, 'Claire. With me.'
She automatically moved to follow him as he headed for the kitchen, but Shane didn't let go of her; his strong grip pulled her to a halt, and Claire looked up at him, frowning.
'I'll be okay,' she said. What she saw in his face was not jealousy, or worry, or anything like that; it was caution, pure and simple. This was all wildly strange, today. She understood exactly how he felt, wanting to slow it down and make things a little more understandable. 'Let me talk to him and see if I can make sense of any of this.'
'You're talking to Myrnin,' Shane said. 'I think that might be a little too much to ask.' But he let her go, and she followed her friend, her boss and her headache into the little kitchen area. She glanced over at Michael and Eve as she did so; he'd finished drinking from Eve's wrist, and was using the leftover gauze from Jesse to put a neat bandage around the small wound. The look in his eyes as he watched Eve's face was vulnerable, grateful and more than a little heartbreaking.
Anybody who believed vampires couldn't feel things like living people did had never met Michael Glass.
They got as far from the others as it was possible to be, within the walls of Pete's small apartment, and Claire tried to put at least a few feet between her and Myrnin. Ugh. Where had he been hanging out, the city dump? But it was clear that hygiene wasn't his biggest issue at the moment, from the fiery intensity of his gaze on her. 'You and Irene,' Myrnin began. 'What have you done?'
Claire was taken aback, because she hadn't expected him to accuse her like that. 'Nothing!' she said, and crossed her arms over her chest. She knew it looked defensive, and she didn't care. 'You're the one who told me to work with her, Myrnin, so don't blame me if something's gone wrong in all this. I just wanted to come to college!'
'And it's working out so well!' he said. 'I trusted Irene implicitly. She has been my agent here in the world for some time, and she has helped conceal our true nature from those who come looking.'
'Like the government?'
Myrnin didn't answer that. He couldn't stand still, and now he stopped moving uneasily from one foot to another to move toward the counter and restlessly open and close the drawers. Claire caught a glimpse of random junk in one, forks and spoons in another. He wasn't looking for anything, he just needed to fidget. 'Irene has always had ties to the federal government,' he said. 'But that never concerned us directly, until recently.'
'Just tell me what happened! What made you leave Morganville and come all the way out here in the first place? I know Oliver was already on the road - did you run into him, or did he find you?'
'That is a great many questions in a row. Oh, look, he has peanut butter. Do you like peanut butter?'
'Myrnin!'
'But it's crunchy ...' She stared at him with inarticulate frustration, and he put the jar back in the pantry and closed the door. There were some rubber bands dangling from the knob, so he picked a couple off and began playing with them. That was good. It would be less distracting, for both of them. 'I left Morganville because I intercepted a communication that claimed to be able to prove, without any doubt, the existence of vampires in the world.'
'Oh, God, Myrnin, did you find this on the Internet? Because you can't believe everything that's on there.'
'I know that! And no, I did not believe it. Not at first. But this was no excitable fan of films posting to his friends; it was a doctor, who was preparing a scholarly paper. It was a Google alert, by the way.' He seemed ridiculously pleased that he had figured out how to set one. 'He was located in Boston. I felt there had to be some reason that such a revelation would be located so close to Irene, and I phoned her. She did not answer.'
'People do that sometimes. It doesn't mean-'
'I sent you here, Claire. I sent you to Irene, for safety. And I was afraid ... I was afraid that she might have betrayed us. Perhaps even accidentally. If word of vampires was out, and taken seriously, then it would only be a matter of time before word of Morganville would be circulated as well. We control these kinds of events; we must, or be wiped from the earth. Normally Oliver would have dispatched agents to see to it, but Oliver was, ah, indisposed ...'
'Exiled, you mean.'
'Yes, yes, but I couldn't wait for Amelie to decide who best was ready to deal with this crisis. I know Irene, and I had a good sense of where to locate Oliver. I thought the two of us together could easily handle things.'
'And how did that go?'
He snapped one of the rubber bands in a convulsive movement, and dropped it to the floor. The second one was tougher, but he was pulling on it way too hard. 'Not ... very well,' he admitted. 'I still haven't been able to locate this doctor that Google found so easily. The human world is much more confusing than I recall. And Oliver was not terribly cooperative. Then Amelie tried to recall me to Morganville. It's all been very stressful.'
Claire sighed and resisted the almost impossibly attractive impulse to shake him. 'Tell me what happened today.'
He blinked at her and restlessly snapped the rubber band around his wrist. 'Oliver and I attempted to track down this doctor at his offices, but he was not there. Oliver got into a dispute with someone who called us homeless bums and attempted to spit upon us. I managed to prevent him from doing anything too foolish, but it wasn't a very good few moments for our tormentor, I'm afraid. And then we went to the doctor's home, but again, he wasn't there. I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. I'm not generally used to putting out so much effort.' He went to the faucet and turned the taps on and off. Claire had a faint hope that he might use the opportunity to wash up, but evidently it didn't occur to him. 'Michael found us just as we were trying to see Irene; we were again barred entrance to the university because of our clothing and general dishevelment, and he promised to help us get a motel room where we could wash. Eve said she would secure us new things to wear.'
That would have been interesting. Claire would have paid money to see what Eve would have bought for Oliver, much less Myrnin. It would have, at the very least, been crazy amazing.
'I'm guessing things didn't get that far,' Claire said, 'since you're still stinky and wearing rags.'
Myrnin looked down at himself and sighed. 'My apologies. Life can be harsh. Yes, we were followed as we left the university by men in some sort of large vehicle. When we stopped at the motel and obtained our room key, we were attacked without warning. Michael managed to put himself in the way when the one with the stake came for Oliver, who was busy fighting another; we did not immediately know that the stake was anything but wood. But Oliver had seen something like it before, and stopped me before I tried to pull it out. I remembered that Lady Grey was here, watching over Irene, and I begged her help. And she brought us here.'
'And did they follow you?'
'No.' Myrnin seemed very certain of it, and Claire wondered why for a moment, until she knew. They wouldn't have left anybody behind capable of following. 'But we didn't think it wise to wait for the police to arrive. Jesse thought this would be the safest place. I did not expect to find you here.'
'It's been an eventful morning for us, too,' Claire said. 'My friend's been abducted, and the police think Shane and I might have had something to do with it.'
'Really? Did you?'
'No! Why would I?'
Myrnin shrugged. 'I don't know, but it had to be asked. This friend of yours, does she have any knowledge of vampires?'
'Not a bit. She doesn't believe in them. Not even in that "maybe it's real" way that a lot of college kids seem to have.'
'Hmmm. Then her vanishing might have nothing to do with us, and therefore, it's of no concern.'
'Excuse me? No concern? She's my friend!'
That seemed to surprise Myrnin, who frowned at her and stopped stretching the rubber band as if she'd captured his full attention, at least for a moment. 'We stand in danger, Claire. Very real danger. Irene says that your device has disappeared from her lab; someone with real credibility in the world intends to produce evidence of vampirism, perhaps including actual captured specimens. These are things that we can't allow, for our own health and survival. We must locate these people, stop them and erase all knowledge of this event; when these things happen, they are cancers, and must be cut out. You understand?'
'I understand that there's more going on here than just what you're into,' she said. 'Dr Anderson's been dealing with some scary spy people, who have - probably not coincidentally - been in my house when they thought I wasn't there, looking for something that might have been VLAD. And then my friend gets taken by men in a van? Sounds as if they've gone to the next level, to me. Maybe it's connected to your doctor's publication plans.'
'If it is, if there is governmental involvement in all this, it's grave, Claire, grave indeed.'
'So, not like a cancer then.'
'No, still very much like one. But I will need a much larger scalpel.' She hoped he didn't mean it literally; with Myrnin, you could never exactly be certain. 'None of that matters just now. We must leave this place, and find Irene. She is exactly the thing that our enemies, if enemies they intend to be, will need - a human with deep knowledge of all things vampire. One with ties to the community, and credibility. We can take no chance that she falls into the wrong hands.'
Myrnin's logic was often fuzzy, but this time it seemed right on the mark. Dr Anderson was vulnerable; if so many pieces were moving on the board, she needed to be made safe before anything else happened. Before Liz's rescue, part of Claire mourned, but she knew she couldn't help Liz, not immediately.
It occurred to her, then, to ask Myrnin the all-important question. 'What's the name of the doctor? The one who has the proof about vampires?'
'A Dr Patrick Davis,' he said. 'I doubt you'd know anything of him.'
'Well,' Claire said, 'you'd be wrong about that.'
And she began to see how all the disparate pieces of this fit together, to make a not-at-all pretty picture.
Oliver moved toward them, and gave Myrnin an impatient frown. 'If you're done gossiping with your little friend, we need to leave this place,' Oliver said. 'Now. Apparently that idiot boy Shane's gotten himself in trouble with the police. They'll surely track him sooner or later, as they're not the complete fools one might wish.'
'Perhaps we should leave Shane behind, then,' Myrnin said casually. 'It would simplify our troubles considerably.'
'No!' Claire said sharply. 'Leave him, and you leave me. And I don't think Eve and Michael will be too happy with that, either. You're welcome to take it up with them.'
Myrnin looked as if he might be inclined to try, but Oliver shut him down decisively. 'We leave no one behind. And Shane knows as much, if not more, about Morganville than anyone else; we don't dare leave him behind. He'd be a gold mine of information.'
'He'd never talk,' Claire said.
'Everyone talks,' Oliver said. 'The question is, do they tell the truth when they do? I don't trust the boy's lineage. There are glimmers of his father in him, still, and I'm not certain he wouldn't glory a little in bringing Morganville down, once and for all, in his family's memory. So he comes with us, and there's no more on the subject.'
All of a sudden - and Claire had to confess to herself that she'd forgotten all about him - Pete stood up. It was such a sudden move that it drew all their attention to him. He looked pale, tense, and grim, and he said, 'Jesse, I know I said I was down with all this vampire crazy shit, but this is next level. What am I supposed to do, just ... roll with it?'
'Yes,' Jesse said. She sounded gentle about it, but firm. 'I'm sorry, Pete, but you do. I don't want to see you hurt.'
'You think you could hurt me?'
'I think I wouldn't have to,' she said. 'And again, I'm sorry. Come with us. Staying here means that we leave you vulnerable to the people hunting us, and you've already seen the lengths to which they will go. Claire's friend, and the attempt on Michael's life ... their questions to you will not be gentle. If you come along, I will look after you.'
Pete grinned, all of a sudden. It was a bleak sort of amusement, but at least it had some kind of relationship to humour. 'Not used to getting that from a girl, you know.'
'I'm not a girl,' Jesse said, and canted one eyebrow high. 'Am I?'
'Hardly,' Myrnin said. He seemed embarrassed, in the next instant, and strode decisively for the front door. 'Onward.'
Claire paused next to Eve and Michael, and exchanged a quick, warm hug with Eve, and one with Michael too. 'Are you feeling okay?' she asked him. Michael gave her a nod. 'Good enough to keep up?'
'I'm fine,' he said, which was probably as much of an overstatement as the kind of thing Shane was prone to say. 'Shane, dude, who kicked your ass for you?'
'Your grandma,' Shane said. 'Come on.'
Claire had actually forgotten all about her cell phone until it rang - and then she panicked, because if the police were on the lookout for her, a cell phone was as good as a neon sign saying HERE I AM, COME ARREST ME. She grabbed for it and checked the screen, and then answered when the number registered as unknown. 'Hello?'
Any hope it might be a wrong number vanished when she heard the fast, terrified breathing on the other end. 'Claire?' It was a bare whisper, but it was Liz's voice. 'Claire, are you there?' Her friend's voice was thready and shaky, and she was clearly afraid of being overheard.
'Liz? Liz, I'm here! Where are you?' Claire plugged her free ear as Shane started asking her something, and turned away from all of them to concentrate on listening. 'Liz, can you hear me?'
'You have to get me, please, Claire, please come get me ...' Liz's voice was quietly desperate, and full of fear. 'They took me out of the house. Derrick tried to stop them, but-'
'Was Derrick with them?'
'No, no, he saw it and he tried to stop them, but they took him away and they put me in the dark with - with something that - I feel weak, I'm so dizzy, please, you have to come and get me ...' She started to cry, and Claire's heart went out to her. There was something so little-girl desperate in it that it ached.
'I will,' Claire promised. 'Tell me where you are, honey.'
'I-' Liz drew in a sharp, hard breath, and for a long second she was silent. When her voice came back, it was even softer, and the words rushed faster. 'I got the phone from one of the guys who came to check on me, but they'll miss it, they'll know ... I'm in the tunnels, the steam tunnels, under the library storage annex ... oh, God, they're coming ...' That last was said in a breathless whisper, and then Claire heard a sharp cry, and a clatter, and the phone went dead on Liz's end.
When she turned, all of them were looking at her. Shane, Eve and Pete: the humans. Oliver, Myrnin, Michael and Jesse: the vampires. Waiting to hear her news.
She said, 'Library storage annex tunnels. Now. My friend's in real trouble.'
'Have you considered the possibility that it could be a very deliberate trap?'
'Yes,' Claire said. She opened up the back of her phone and took out the SIM card, which she held up. 'If they allowed her the phone to call me, they'll be tracking this. I need to get it as far away from us as possible.'
'One moment,' Myrnin said, and then the door was open and he was gone. They all looked at each other, waiting, and in another moment he was back again. Holding a very pissed-off pigeon. Claire was afraid what he intended to do with the poor thing, but he handed the bird to Eve to hold - she did it at arm's length, grimacing - and he retrieved the gauze that he'd used to wrap Jesse's hand and used the last of it to wrap the SIM card in a snug little packet, which he then tied around the pigeon's scaly leg. 'One does learn something from years of communicating by flying birds.' He retrieved the pigeon and disappeared outside again, then came back in with a self-satisfied smile as he dusted his hands on his pants. Ewww, pigeon crap. 'She'll take it miles to get away from me.'
'You do have that effect upon people, too,' Oliver said. 'Wash your hands.'
Myrnin gave him a narrow look, but Claire mouthed please, and he went to do it after all.
Then, without any more discussion, they headed out.
For the tunnels.
The MIT tunnel system was byzantine, and legendary; students used the wider ones for shelter and travel during the harsh Massachusetts winter, and the roof and tunnel hackers regularly explored and mapped in them. But even so, there were always new areas to be found - some long forgotten and sealed, like the famous bricked-up showers, or the tomb of the forgotten ladder. Claire checked the online maps through Michael's borrowed phone, but didn't find any sign of a tunnel beneath the library storage annex, which was at the far edge of campus ... and that didn't mean there weren't any. Just that they had been cut off from the others.
In short, an ideal place to hide someone, because in her brief visits to the steam tunnels, Claire had quickly learnt that they were noisy. A few random shouts wouldn't be drawing any particular attention, even if there was anyone around to hear.
'Bother this nonsense,' Oliver said, as they stood outside the darkened building; it was late, and little enough was stirring outside. 'False caution breeds failure. Come.' He headed straight for the doorway, which Claire was least inclined to do, but there really wasn't much of a choice - follow, or don't, and Oliver had the gravity trail of a born leader.
Jesse, however, had the brain of a tactician, and she pulled Pete and Michael and Shane aside. 'Back door,' she said. 'Claire, you, me and your strange friend-'
'Eve,' they both said, simultaneously, and Eve held out her fist for a bump. 'Or, you could call me Eve the Great, Mistress of All She Surveys. But Eve for short.'
Jesse smiled at that, a real smile, lively eyes crinkling. 'Very pleased to meet you, Mistress Eve. Ah, you'd be the one who married the vampire, then?'
'Am I that famous?'
'Famous enough, among the undead, we're terrible old gossips. Also, we're terrible gamblers, so it might not surprise you to hear the odds against you making it to an anniversary are not fantastically good. I hope that doesn't bother you.'
'Not much,' Eve said, 'although it will unless I can put down a bet myself. I'd like to make a little money on my own survival for a change.'
'I believe I might just like you, girl.'
'You too, Red. You don't seem to suck fangs as much as some of the others I have to hang around with. Honestly, why are so many young-looking vampires such blue-haired old biddies inside, anyway?'
'Because vampires are born of being selfish, and we only get worse over the years,' Jesse said. 'It leads to a dreadful conservatism.'
'Um - Jesse, about these Daylighters you were talking about earlier ...' Claire said.
'A deep and weighty subject we have no time for right now,' Jesse said. 'And I hope that they are not behind this. But suffice to say that they are a group who believes in the existence of vampires, and believes that we are better off dead. Something they have been quite expert at accomplishing over the past few years.'
'Look, this is interesting, but before we have a pyjama party and braid our hair, maybe we should, y'know, show the boys how this gets done?' Eve suggested.
'Excellent idea.' Jesse reached into her leather jacket, and came out with an astonishingly intimidating knife - about six inches, with a wicked curve to it. It had a distinctively gleaming edge to it that seemed sharp enough to shave titanium ... and it looked very familiar. Claire had one just like it in her backpack. Jesse held it in her unbandaged left hand. 'After you, ladies.'
'Do you have any impressive weapons?' Eve whispered to Claire, as they headed after Oliver.
'Yep,' she said, and grinned. Eve looked crestfallen.
'Well, I can throw a mean comeback, so there's that. I will crush them on wit.'
Oliver was all business at the door, where he opened up the building simply by smashing in the thick glass door with a single punch. Not subtle, but effective enough, and although alarms probably went off somewhere, Claire didn't hear a sound inside in response to the intrusion. Oliver stepped inside, and she followed, shoes grinding raw on the broken pieces. 'Look for some kind of mechanical closet,' she said. 'It might not be marked. Listen for the sound of air handlers, compressors, that kind of thing.'
'This way,' Oliver said, and struck off down the hall in a confident, loose-limbed stride. He found a set of stairs down, and took them; at the end of the concrete landing lay an unmarked set of double doors, painted a dull beige. There wasn't a handle, only an inset keyhole. He frowned at it for a few seconds, then - once again - took the most direct method of dealing with the problem. He punched the door. His fist went entirely through the thin metal, and he took hold of the jagged opening and yanked. Something broke, probably the lock, and the doors sagged open.
All the punching was, Claire realised, not without some cost to him; his hand was bloody, and the knuckles looked misshapen. He winced a little and pressed down on some of the knuckles until bones snapped back into place, then wiped the cuts clean on his filthy clothes. They'd already closed up. He met Claire's wide-eyed stare for a moment, and gave her a sinister little smile. 'Well?' he asked. 'It's your friend we're after. Perhaps you should get on with it.'
'Don't mind him,' Jesse said. 'He's always been a mean, narrow man. I really don't know what anyone sees in him.'
'Quiet. You were only queen for nine days. And you only survived your own execution by Amelie's intervention, or you'd not be here berating me. Beheading is final for humans and vampires.'
That, Claire thought, was the beginning of an interesting story that didn't seem to match with Jesse's vibrant modern outlook, but there wasn