CLAIRE
By the time they were halfway to Founder's Square, Claire wished the shotgun seat actually came with a shotgun, because Monica was killing her slowly, with her incessant chatter. That was funny, because Monica normally wasn't talkative, at least not to them, but it seemed like her shut-up circuit had fried.
". . . I went to DeeDee's to pick up my new dress, and it was closed. Not even a note in the window. I was so pissed off! I actually had to wear this thing. . . ." Monica plucked at the fabric of what she was nearly wearing in disgust. Claire didn't see how that was really possible, since it fit like skin. ". . . Which all the guys have seen about a dozen times now, not to mention Janis Taylor was there and wearing her new dress, which was skanky, and I know she was talking about me recycling the look - "
Shane, from the back, said, "I'm really trying to swear off the random fighting, Monica, but I swear to God that if you don't shut up, I'm going to go back to Step Zero on my twelve-step program. We don't give a shit about your dress or your club or Janis Taylor. Michael's in trouble."
Monica sent him a hard look in the rearview mirror, and said, "And when is one of you losers not in trouble, anyway? Not that Michael is a total waste of genetics; I'll give you that. So . . . what's happening? You seem to always know."
Claire said, "There's something new in town, and it's bad. It's taking vampires and humans and - " What was it doing, exactly? She didn't know, but whatever it was, there was no doubt it was pure evil. "Amelie's scared enough to shut up the town and run."
"Shut up the town?" Monica's glossy lips pressed flat. "Are you kidding me? I put a lot of work into living here. I have roots."
"Here I thought you stopped dyeing your hair," Shane said. Monica flipped him off.
"Shouldn't that be Eve's line?" she shot back. "Or has Goth Princess finally learned to shut up?"
Eve leaned forward. As Claire looked back at her, she felt a little shocked at her friend's set, serious expression. "I've learned a lot of things, Monica," she said, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the wind and the music. "Michael is missing. He may be dying. I am not in the mood for your shallow bullshit right now. If you get in my way, I will cut you, because you are nothing but a speed bump on my way to saving him. Are we clear?"
Monica's lips parted, and she stared straight ahead for a few silent seconds before she said, "Clear." That was all. She shifted the car into a higher gear, and the engine growled hard. "I know you won't believe this, but I do care. He's not bad, your boyfriend. And we have a drastic shortage of hotties in this town. Can't really afford to waste one."
Eve eased back into her seat without another word. She stared off to the side, at the darkened streets, the empty stores and houses.
The Morganville that was.
Shane said, "It's about to rain again. You should put the top up."
"I have to slow down to do that," Monica said. "You want that?"
"Good point. I don't mind getting wet if you don't."
"Oh, I mind, hot pants; you think all this didn't take work?" She indicated, well, all of herself.
"Hot pants?" Claire said, choking on a sudden and inappropriate laugh, because she just knew what Shane's face would look like without having to turn around. "Do you have any survival instinct at all?"
Monica smiled, one of those cruel, evil smiles that had always heralded trouble. "What do you think?" she almost purred, and shook her long hair back over her shoulders, where it snapped like a flag in the wind. "I'm still alive. And I'm still fabulous. Unlike, well, everybody else in this car." Her smile faded, and she downshifted. "Company."
The convertible took a corner hard, tires squealing, and ahead Claire saw the glow of flashing police-car lights. They'd blocked off the street - and probably every approach to Founder's Square.
"Look, I've done my bit, but I'm not running roadblocks for you," Monica said, and slowed the convertible to an easy rumble.
"Try another route."
"Don't be stupid - they're all blocked. If you want to get in, you're going to have to get stealthy, and trust me, my shiny red four-wheeled baby is many things, but stealthy she is not."
That was true, and Monica wasn't exactly subtle, either. Claire nodded grudgingly. Monica pulled the convertible over to the curb, and the three of them unbuckled and got out.
"Here," Monica said, and reached under her driver's-side seat. She pulled out some kind of designer bag - Claire had no idea how to tell one from another - and opened it up, and pulled out . . .
. . . A handgun. Not an automatic, like the one Shane had held while sitting on her bedroom floor.... This was a classic revolver.
For a wild second, Claire thought that Monica might actually shoot her; she wouldn't have been all that surprised, really. There was a lazy, cruel pleasure in Monica's eyes as she held the gun, and one eyebrow went up. . . .
. . . And then she swung it around and held it butt out toward Claire.
Shane intercepted it, frowned, and said, "Okay, how come you're carrying around a thirty-eight?"
"It's Texas," Monica said. "I have rights. Oh, and check the bullets." She pressed a button on the dash with a slender, perfectly manicured finger, and checked her windblown hair as the black canvas top began to rise up with a whine. "Ciao, losers."
She pulled a U-turn and hit the gas.
Shane broke open the cylinder on the gun and whistled. "Okay, interesting . . . hollow points, filled with silver. All the punch, none of the problems. My dad had some of these."
"Did they work?" Eve asked.
He snapped the cylinder back in with a flick of his wrist, and put the small gun in the pocket of his coat. "Hell yeah, they work. But you'd better mean it, because it'll kill what you're shooting at, human or vamp."
"Will it kill those . . . things?" Eve asked.
"It's just a guess, but probably not. The caliber is a thirty-eight, which means it's a lower-velocity round, but plenty enough to punch through one of those - sacks of skin - front to back without bouncing around inside. I'm not sure how much damage it'll do to them, really. Your knife worked better. And your sword." He tapped his pocket. "But if any vampire wants to take us on, it'll be a pretty good deterrent."
She nodded and shouldered the strap on the equipment bag. "Then let's go."
"Wait," Claire said. "We need a plan. We can't just walk straight up to the police line and say, Hello, let us in, please. We're heavily armed and desperate!"
"Why not?" Claire really didn't like the gleam in Eve's eyes, or her stiff body language. "Amelie doesn't mind dumping Michael and running away. She's leaving him to die, right? Well, if she needs a reminder of why that's a very bad idea, I'm happy to be her wake-up call."
"Take a breath, Eve. Let's do this smart, okay? There's a lot of muscle standing between us and Amelie, and some of it's human cops who don't know what's going on. We need to find a way that doesn't involve grievous bodily harm."
"All right," Eve said. "We'll try it your way. Once." She looked over at Shane, and got a small, unwilling nod from him. "Then we do it our way. The Morganville way."
Maybe her ears were supersensitive now, courtesy of either Myrnin's blood exchange or the lingering fear of that high-pitched, seductive music, but Claire heard something in the distance. A rumble. It sounded like a whole lot of cars or trucks, and it was coming closer.
Voices, too. Shouts.
She turned, trying to find the direction, and realized it was coming from around the corner, the same way Monica had gone in her getaway.
It wasn't Monica.
What came around the corner was a streetwide growling wall of pickups, cars, delivery vans . . . all kinds of vehicles. And behind them was a crowd of people, maybe a hundred or so.
"Ah," Shane said, "maybe we should . . . ?"
Claire's eyes fixed on a man who was standing up in the bed of one of the lead pickups. He was facing toward the cops. It took her a second, but she recognized him - the man from the camera store, the one with the stake tattoo.
"Crap," Shane said. "Captain Obvious."
"What? Captain Obvious is dead!" Eve said.
"Long live Captain Obvious. He's the replacement. He's the one who's been getting people to sign on."
"The tattoos," Claire put in. "The resistance symbol. He's leading the charge."
"Yep. Don't know if this is a good time, but he's decided to go for it," Shane said. "Like I said, maybe we should hang back, Claire. . . . Claire!"
He grabbed for her, but she still had at least some residue of vampire speed, and it was enough to leap off the curb, race at an angle toward the trucks, and leap up into the bed of the one holding Captain Obvious. Shane was running after her, and so was Eve, but her attention was fixed on the man in the truck, who was turning toward her like he intended to throw her back.
She held up her hand, palm out, and said, "Wait. I just want to talk."
Captain Obvious, the new leader of the human resistance in Morganville, laughed. He had a knife. It was held at his side, but she saw the edge glittering in a passing streetlight. "Amelie's little pet wants to talk? How stupid do you think we are?"
"I know you don't believe me, but believe this: it isn't the right time for fighting back. Even if you win, you lose. You're not going to have a revolution. You're not going to have a town. You're not going to be alive!"
"I'm willing to die to set people free," he said. "Are you?" He raised the knife. What was in his eyes was a little bit crazy, and very serious.
"Do you know what's out there?" Claire asked, and pointed out toward the edge of town. Toward the nightmare. "Because it's worse than Amelie. Way, way worse. I've seen it."
"If it scares the vamps, I'm all for it," he said.
"It's taking humans, too," Claire said. "And you need to help them, not waste your time with this. If you want to fight, fight what's really going to kill this town." She pointed again. "It's out there, at the Morganville Civic Pool. Stock up on earplugs and silver-coated weapons, and if you hear the music, don't give in. You'll be dead if you do."
"What in the hell are you trying to sell me, kid? You really think I'm believing any of this?"
She shook her head. "You're wasting your time here. All you're doing is getting your people hurt, for nothing. Turn around. If you want a fight, the pool is where you'll find it!"
He hesitated, frowning, and for a second she thought he might actually believe her . . . and then he said flatly, "Get off or get hurt. Your choice."
He wasn't going to listen, not to her. No matter what she said. Claire stepped to the back of the open bed of the truck, and jumped down as he advanced, looking as if he very much wanted to bury that knife in her.
Shane caught her, grabbed her hand, and dragged her off to the side before the yelling crowd caught up and swept past them. "Well," he said, "I think we've found our way in. We just wait until they're duking it out, but trust me, these Humans First types don't have a lot of staying power or they'd have been at the gym with me before. I doubt Grandma Kent there is going to do a lot of damage." He pointed at a gray-haired, hunched lady in a shawl, carrying what looked like a gardening tool. "It's like Plants Versus Zombies, and I'm not rooting for the zombies, weirdly enough."
Eve came off the curb and joined them, hefting the heavy equipment bag. "So let's go," she said. "Enough with the talking."
And that, from Eve, was a sign of just how serious this had gotten.
The mob attacked the police line, and it wasn't - as Shane had guessed - much of a fight, really. The cops shot the engines out of the trucks, and when the crowd swarmed in, they were met with nonlethal Tasers and some kind of beanbag guns. It looked painful, but Claire didn't pause to watch, because Shane led them to a weak spot in the police line, and they got down and crawled under one of the SUVs, coming out on the other side behind the lines.
Then it was just a matter of sprinting for the town square.
Avoiding vampires was easy, because there weren't any. Not a one out on the streets, or, once they'd climbed the closed wrought-iron fence, out on the gracious sidewalks of Founder's Square. All of the square's businesses were shuttered and dark. Even the streetlights seemed faint, as if they were in a power-saving mode.
There were still lights on in the big main building, with its giant marble columns and sweeping steps, and they headed that way.
"Okay," Claire said as they stopped in the shadows of the trees, staring up at it. "Let me do the talking, please. And try not to do any fighting unless we have to."
"Who, me?" Shane said, with a bitter twist to his smile. "I'm a lover, not a fighter."
"I don't think the two are exactly mutually exclusive as far as you're concerned," Claire said. "Promise?"
"I promise not to pound anybody who doesn't need pounding," Shane said. "That's about the best you're going to get out of me today. It's been tough enough."
Eve said quietly, "If somebody tells me we're not going to get Michael out of this, then I'll pound them. I mean it."
"I know," Claire said. "And I don't mean to hold you back, but the less of that we do up front, the better. Amelie's wired tight right now. Let's not push too hard. We need her."
"Need her for what?" said a cold, quiet voice from behind them.
Claire whipped around, and so did her friends, and there, standing in the shadows not five feet away, was Amelie.
She wasn't sporting her usual entourage of guards, or hangers-on; she wasn't even wearing one of her usual retro-sixties pale suits. She was dressed in a plain pair of blue jeans and a black shirt, and her soft golden hair was down and tied back in a ponytail.
She looked even younger than Claire.
"You were looking for me," Amelie said. "Congratulations on your initiative; you've found me."
"What are you doing out here?" Claire blurted; she hadn't expected this, and wasn't prepared. Shane was busy searching the darkness for approaching vampires; Amelie basically never went anywhere without some kind of
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