by Rachel Caine
“I sweat perfume. Like all girls.”
He laughed and squeezed her. He smelled good, too—more male, somehow, a little grungy and edgy and sweaty, and although she loved soap and water and shampoo, sometimes this was better—wilder.
Michael was back in—true to his word—just a few minutes, and he didn’t look at all happy. “I found Patience,” he said. “She and Jacob are guarding the doors from the outside. Oliver went out to do a patrol.”
“And everybody else?” Claire asked.
“Morley took everybody else to go after the enemy. He said he wasn’t going to wait for them to come to us. At least, that’s what he said he was doing. For all Patience knows, Morley may be trying to find another truck or bus and get his people out of town.”
“Did Oliver know about this?”
Michael shook his head. “He’s got no idea, although he might now, if he spotted them outside. Don’t know how he’d stop them on his own, though.”
Claire didn’t, either, but it was Oliver. He’d figure out something, and it probably wouldn’t be pretty.
“How long until dawn?”
“A couple of hours,” Michael said. He looked over at Eve, who had finished up the story and was hugging kids who were on their way to their beds. “Mrs. Grant said they always come during the night. That means they’ll be coming soon, if Morley’s people didn’t screw up their whole day. And we’d better be ready.”
When there had been a bunch of vampires running around on their side, Claire hadn’t felt too worried, but now she was. And looking at Michael, at Shane, she knew they were, too.
“So let’s hat up, guys,” Shane said. “Nobody gets fanged tonight. New rule.”
He and Michael did a fast high-low five, and went for the weapons.
Claire got Eve and updated her; then they joined the boys to get their vampire-repelling act together. Mrs. Grant had been dozing in an armchair, shotgun across her lap, but she woke up as soon as the four of them started raiding the weapons pile on the table. Claire was impressed; for an old lady, she woke up fast, and the first thing she did was look for trouble. When she didn’t find any immediately, she looked at the four of them and said, “Are they coming?”
“Probably,” Michael said, and picked up a couple of wooden stakes, leaving the silver-coated ones for the humans to handle. He also grabbed up a crossbow and some extra bolts. “We’re going to help with patrols. Looks like we’re a little light on guards.”
“But Morley—” Mrs. Grant’s mouth slammed shut, into a grim line. She didn’t need to be clued in, obviously. “Of course. I never doubted he’d stab us in the back.”
“I’m not saying he has,” Michael said. “I’m just saying he’s not here. So we need to be sure that if things go wrong ...”
Mrs. Grant rose from her chair, winced, and rubbed at a sore spot on her back. She looked tired, but very focused. “I’ll get my men up,” she said. “Should have known we couldn’t do a whole night without some kind of alert. I just hoped for a miracle.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Claire asked. “Fighting them off?”
“It wasn’t all at once,” the older woman said. “At first we thought the people we couldn’t find were just sick—regular human sick. And they were clever at first, good at hiding out, picking off people who weren’t paying attention. Like wolves, going after strays. By the time we knew, they came in force and took out most everybody who could have gotten things organized against them. All told, I guess we’ve been living out of this library for almost three weeks now.” She almost smiled, but it was just a bitter twist of her lips, really. “It seems longer. I can hardly remember what it was like before. Blacke used to be a real quiet town; nothing ever happened. Now ...”
“Maybe we can get it back to that quiet town it used to be,” Claire said.
Mrs. Grant gave her a long look. “Just you and your friends?”
“Hey,” Shane said, snapping a shotgun closed with a flick of his wrist. “We’re just trying to help.”
“And stay alive,” Eve added. “But trust me, this is not the worst situation we’ve ever been in.” She sounded confident about that. Claire raised her eyebrows, and Eve considered it for a few more seconds. “Okay, maybe tied for worst. But definitely not the Guinness Record for awfulness.”
Mrs. Grant looked at each of them in turn, and then just walked away to rouse her own men.
“Seriously,” Shane said, “this kind of is the worst situation we’ve ever been in, right?”
“Speak for yourself,” Michael said. “I got myself killed last year. Twice.”
“Oh yeah. You’re right—last year really sucked for you.”
“Boys,” Eve interrupted, when Michael started to make some smart-ass comeback. “Focus. Dangerous vampire attack imminent. What’s the plan?”
Michael kissed her lightly on the lips, and his eyes turned vampire-bright. “Don’t lose.”
“It’s simple, yet effective. I like it.” Shane extended his fist, and Michael bumped it.
“I am never taking a trip with either of you ever again.” Eve said. “Ever.”
“Excellent,” Shane said. “Then next trip, we hit the strip bar.”
“I have a gun, Shane.” Eve sighed.
“What, you think I actually loaded yours?”
Eve flipped him off, and Claire laughed.
Even now, things just stayed normal, somehow.
An hour passed, and nothing happened. Eve got anxious about Jason’s absence, but Claire was starting to feel a little confident that nothing would happen tonight at the library, as the minutes clicked by and the night around the library continued quiet, with nothing but the wind stirring outside in the streets.
And then the walkie-talkie Mrs. Grant had given her squawked for attention, making her jump. Claire figured it would be Shane; he’d stationed himself on the other side of the building, apparently because she was so distracting (which really didn’t disappoint her, when she thought about it).
But it wasn’t Shane.
It was Eve. “I’m coming out,” she said. She sounded breathless and worried. “You need to see this.”
“I’m here,” Claire said. “Be careful.”
In under a minute, Eve was beside her, holding out an open cell phone. Not hers—this one, for instance, didn’t have all the usual glow-in-the-dark skulls on it. Eve wouldn’t have a boring cell like this one.
Oh yeah. It was the one Oliver had slipped into her pocket on the bus. The only one they had now, since the rest were probably still dumped in a drawer back in the Durram police station.
There was a text message on the phone. Wounded, it said. Bring help. Garage.
It was from Oliver.
And that was it. Just the four words. Claire had gotten the occasional phone call from Oliver, but never a text.
“Oliver texted me,” Eve said. “I mean really. Oliver texted. That’s weird, right? Who knew he could?”
“Mrs. Grant said the cell phones didn’t work here.”
“No, she said they went out. This one’s working. Kinda, anyway.”
“Michael!” Claire called, and he jumped down from the top of a bookshelf next to the window to land next to her, barely seeming to notice the impact. She didn’t see him coming, either, which made her fumble the phone and almost drop it. “Hey! Scary-monster move! Don’t like it!”
“I’ll try to whistle next time,” he said. “What?”
She showed him. He did whistle, softly, and thought for a few seconds.
“What if it’s not him?” Claire said. “What if it’s, I don’t know, them? They got him, and they’re using his phone to lure us in?”
“They didn’t strike me as particularly clever with the planning, but you’ve got a good point. It could be a trap.” He frowned. “But if Oliver is calling for help, it’s about as bad as it gets.”
“I know.” Claire felt short of breath. “What do we do? He probably thinks Morley’s here!�
�
“Well, Morley’s not.” Michael looked around at the library, at the cluster of kids sleeping on cots in the middle of the room. “I don’t like leaving them, but we can’t just ignore it. Not if there’s a chance he’s really in trouble. It’s close to dawn, at least. That’s good for them, bad for Oliver.”
They found Mrs. Grant, who listened to them, read the text message, and shrugged.
Shrugged.
“You want to go, go,” she said. “We held out before any of you got here. We’ll hang on long after you’re gone, too. This is our town, and we’re going to be the last ones standing around here. Count on it.”
“Yes ma’am,” Claire said softly. “But—the kids—”
Mrs. Grant smiled bleakly. “What do you think we fight so hard for? The architecture? We’ll fight to our last for our kids, every one of us. Don’t you worry about that. You think your friend needs you, go on. Take the weapons—we’ve got plenty. This used to be a big hunting town.” Mrs. Grant paused, eyeing Claire. “In fact, hold on. Got something for you.”
She rummaged in a closet and came up with something that was huge, bulky, and looked very complicated—but once Claire had it thrust into her hands, she realized it wasn’t complicated at all.
It was a bow. One of those with the wheels and pulleys—a compound bow?
Mrs. Grant found a bag stuffed full of arrows, too.
“I don’t know how to shoot it,” Claire protested.
“Learn.”
“But—”
“If you don’t want it, give it back.”
“No,” Claire said, and felt ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I’ll figure it out.”
Mrs. Grant suddenly grinned and ruffled Claire’s hair as one would a little kid’s. “I know you will,” she said. “You got spark, you know that? Spark and grit. I like that.”
Claire nodded, not quite sure what to say to that. She clutched the bow in one hand, the bag of arrows in the other, and looked at Michael. “So I guess we’re—”
“Saving Oliver,” Michael said, straight-faced. “Maybe you’d better try shooting that thing first.”
While Michael, Shane, and Eve straightened out whatever it was they were going to do to get to Oliver—who was, according to the map and Mrs. Grant, at an old adobe building near the Civic Hall called Halley’s Garage—Claire set up a couple of hand-drawn paper targets on pillow-padded chairs, pulled one of the arrows out, and tried to figure out how to put it on the bowstring quickly. That didn’t work so well, so she tried again, taking her time, then pulling back the arrow and sighting down the long, straight line.
It was surprisingly tough to pull the string back, and hold the arrow in place, and not waver all over the place. She didn’t even hit the chair, much less the target, and she winced as the arrow hit the wall at least four feet away. But at least she’d fired it. That was something, right?
She picked out another arrow and tried again.
Twenty arrows later, she’d managed to hit the pillow—not the target, but the pillow—and she was starting to understand how this whole thing worked. It was easier when she thought of it in terms of physics, of potential and kinetic energy, energy and momentum.
As she was working out the calculations in her head, she forgot to really worry about all the physical things that were getting in the way—the balancing of the bow, the aiming, the fear she wasn’t going to get it right—and suddenly it all just clicked. She felt it come into sudden, sharp focus, like a spotlight had suddenly focused on her, and she let go of the arrow.
That instant, she knew it would hit the target. She let the bow rock gracefully forward on the balance point, watching the arrow, and it smacked into the exact center of her crudely drawn paper circle.
Physics.
She loved physics.
Shane arrived just as she put the arrow into the center, and slowed down, staring from the target to Claire, standing straight and tall, bow still held loosely in one hand and ready to shoot again. “You look so hot right now,” he said. “I’m just saying.”
She grinned at him and went to pick up all the arrows. One or two had suffered a little too much from contact with the wall, but the rest were good to reuse, and she carefully put them back into the bag, fletching end up. “You just like me because I might actually be able to be useful for a change.”
“You are always useful,” Shane said. “And hot. I mentioned that, right?”
“You’re mental. I need a shower, clean clothes, and about a year of sleep.”
“Okay, how about a hot mess?”
“Let me be Eve for a minute,” she said, and flipped him off. He laughed and kissed her.
“Not even close,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got some cranky old vampire to rescue.”
13
It was still dark outside, but it felt ... different, as if the world was still dreaming, but dreaming about waking up. The air felt cool and light, and the darkness was just a tiny bit lighter than before.
“Not long until dawn,” Michael said. “Which is good news and bad news.”
“Good news for us,” Shane said. “Present company excepted.”
“You’re such a bro.”
“You start smoking, I’ll roll you into the shade,” Shane said. “Can’t ask for more than my being willing to save your bloodsucking ass.” They stood outside of the doors of the library for a few seconds, getting their bearings. Mrs. Grant had equipped them with sturdy LED lanterns, but it didn’t feel like the light fell very far. There could be anything lurking ten feet away, Claire thought. And there probably was.
Michael shut down his lantern and just ... disappeared. It was startling, but they knew he was going to do it, at least; the plan was that he’d get out ahead of the light and look for trouble. Kind of a cross between a scout and bait. Claire’s walkie-talkie clicked a moment later—no voice message, just the quiet electronic signal. “Go,” she said. “We’re okay.”
The three of them went at a jog, watching their steps as best they could in the confusing jumble of shadows and harsh, flickering light. Blacke looked like a nightmare, or Hollywood’s idea of a disaster movie—cars abandoned, buildings closed and dark, windows shattered. The big, Gothic Civic Hall loomed over everything, but there weren’t any lights showing inside. The statue of Hiram what’s-his-face remained facedown in the thigh-high weeds, which Claire thought really might have been the best place for it. At least it wasn’t leaning over and threatening to fall on people. Especially on her, because that would have been the worst Darwin Award-qualifying death ever.
They made it to the sidewalk beside the Civic Hall. Shane pointed. “That way,” he said. “Should be on that corner, facing the hall.”
Michael suddenly zipped into view at the edge of the light. “They’re coming,” he said. “Behind us and to the left. Back of the Civic Hall.”
“Run! ”Shane said, and they took off, lanterns throwing crazy, bouncing light off broken glass and metal, turning shadows into ink-filled blots. The iron fence around the Civic Hall was leaning outward, into the sidewalk, and Shane had to flinch and duck to avoid a sharp, rusty arrow-point bent low enough to scrape his face. Claire almost tripped over one of the metal bars that had fallen loose from the fence. She kicked it out of the way, then paused and grabbed it, juggling the lantern.
“Don’t stop!” Eve hissed, and pulled her on. The iron bar, with its sharp arrowhead top, was heavy, but straight, like a spear. Claire managed to hang on to it as they ran, but at the next curb she missed her footing and had to scramble. Her lantern broke free of her fingers and smashed on the ground. It flickered, brightened, then faded and died.
Out of nowhere, Michael was next to her, handing her his own switched-off lantern and grabbing the iron bar from her. “Keep going! ” he said, and turned with the iron bar to guard their backs. Eve looked back, her face pale in the white LED lights, and her dark eyes looked huge and terrified.
“Michael?”
�
�Don’t stop!”
He fell behind in the dark after only three or four steps, lost to them. Claire heard something like a snarl behind them, and what sounded like a body hitting the ground.
Then came a scream, high and wild.
Up ahead, she saw a flash of what looked like faded pink. There was a leaning metal sign flapping and creaking in the predawn wind, and Claire wasn’t sure, but she thought the rusty letters might have said GARAGE.
It was a square adobe building with some old-fashioned gas pumps off to the side that looked as if they hadn’t worked since Claire’s mom was a kid. The windows were broken and dark, but they were blocked up with something, so there was no way to see inside.
Shane arrived at the door of the building—abigwooden thing, scarred and faded, with massive iron hinges—and banged on it. “Oliver!” he yelled. “Cavalry!”
Funny, Claire didn’t feel much like the cavalry at the moment. They rode in with guns blazing to save the day, right? She felt more like a hunted rabbit. Her heart was pounding, and even in the cool air she was sweating and shaking. If this is a trap ...
The door opened into darkness, and a hand reached out and grabbed Shane by the shirt front, and yanked him inside.
“No!” Claire charged forward, lantern blazing now and held high, and saw Shane being dragged, off balance, out of the way. Not having time or room for the bow, she dropped it, grabbed an arrow out of the bag, and lunged for the vampire who was taking Shane away.
Oliver turned, snarling, and knocked the arrow out of her grip so hard her entire hand went numb. She gasped and drew back, shocked, because Oliver looked ... not like Oliver, much. He was dirty, ragged, and he had blood all down his arm and the front of his shirt.
There was a raw wound in his throat that was slowly trying to heal.
That was his own blood on his clothes, she realized. Something—someone—had bitten him, nearly killing him, it looked like.
“Inside,” he ordered hoarsely, as Eve hovered in the doorway, peering in. “Michael?”
