by Rachel Caine
“That’s where?” Claire murmured. Eve laughed.
“I don’t know myself, because I never got out of town, but Shane says that once you get about ten miles outside of Morganville, you get this terrible headache, and then you just…start to forget. First you can’t remember what the name of the town was, and then you can’t remember how to get there, and then you don’t remember that the town had vampires. Or the rules. It just—doesn’t exist anymore for you. It comes back if you return to town, but when you’re out, you can’t run around telling all about Morganville because you just don’t remember.”
“I heard rumors,” Eve said. “Some people start remembering, but they get—” She made a graphic throat-cutting gesture. “Hit squads.”
Claire tried to think of things that would cause that kind of memory loss. Drugs, maybe? Or…some kind of local energy field? Or…okay, she had no idea. But it sounded like magic, and magic made her nervous. She supposed vampires were magic, too, when you got right down to it, and that made her even more nervous. Magic didn’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. It was just…wrong. It offended her scientific training.
“So where does all that leave us?” Michael asked. It was a reasonable question.
Claire flipped another page, wrote down memory loss aft. depart, and said, “I’m not sure. I mean, if we’re going to put together any kind of a plan, we have to basically know as much as we can to make sure it’s a good enough approach. So keep talking. What else?”
It went on for hours. The grandfather clock solemnly announced the arrival and departure of nine o’clock, then ten, then eleven. It was nearly midnight, and Claire had scribbled up most of the ledger pages, when she looked at Michael and Eve and asked, “Anything else?” and got negative shakes of their heads in reply. “Okay, then. Tell me about the book.”
“I don’t know a lot,” Eve said. “They just put out a notice about ten years ago that they were looking for it. I heard they have people all over town going through libraries, bookstores, anyplace it could be hidden. But the weird thing is that vamps can’t actually read it.”
“You mean it’s in some other language?”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think it’s that easy. I mean, every one of these suckers has got to speak a dozen languages, at least.”
“Dead languages,” Eve said. When they looked at her, she grinned. “What? Come on. Funny!”
“Maybe they can’t read it for the same reason people can’t remember anything outside of town,” Claire said slowly. “Because something doesn’t want them to.”
“That’s kind of a leap, but the Russian judge gave you a nine point five for style, so okay,” Eve said. “The important thing is that we know what it looks like.”
“Which is?” Claire put her pencil to paper.
“A book with a brown leather cover. Some kind of symbol on the front.”
“What kind?” Because brown leather cover didn’t exactly narrow things down when it came to books.
Eve pushed up the sleeve of her skintight black mesh top, and held out her forearm. There, tattooed in plain blue, was a symbol that looked kind of like an omega, only with some extra waves in it. Simple, but definitely nothing Claire could remember seeing before. “They’ve been searching for it. They gave everybody growing up in a Protected family the tattoo so that we remember what to look for.”
Claire stared for a couple of seconds, wanting to ask how old Eve was when she got the tattoo, but she didn’t quite dare. She dutifully marked the symbol down in her notebook. “And nobody’s found it. Are they sure it’s here?”
“They seem to think so. But I’ll bet they’ve got their sources searching all over the world for it. Seems pretty important to them.”
“Any idea why?”
“Nobody knows,” Michael said. “I grew up asking, believe me. Nobody has a clue. Not even the vampires.”
“How can they be looking for something and not even know why?”
“I’m not saying somebody doesn’t know why. But the vampires have ranks, and the only ones I’ve ever really talked to aren’t exactly in charge. Point is, we can’t find out, so we shouldn’t waste time worrying about it.”
“Good to know.” Claire put contents unknown next to the symbol of the book, then valuable!!!!! underneath, underscored with three dark lines. “So if we can find this book, we can trade it to get Monica off my back, and make sure Shane’s deal is called off.”
Michael and Eve looked at each other. “Did you miss the part where the vamps have been turning Morganville upside down trying to find it?” Eve asked.
Claire sighed, flipped back a page, and pointed at a note she’d made. Eve and Michael both craned over to read it.
Vampires can’t read it.
They looked blank.
“I’m going to need to spend some time at the library,” Claire said. “And we’re going to need some supplies.”
“To do what?” Eve still wasn’t catching on, but Michael was.
“Fake the book?” he asked. “You really think that’ll work? What do you think happens when they figure out we cheated?”
“Bad idea,” Eve said. “Very bad idea. Honest.”
“Guys,” Claire said patiently. “If we’re careful, they’ll never suspect we’re smart enough to do something like that. Not to mention brave enough. So we give them a fake—it’s still more than anybody else has. They may be pissed, but they’ll be pissed that somebody faked it. We just found it.”
They were both looking at her now like they’d never seen her before. Michael shook his head.
“Bad idea,” he said.
Maybe so. But she was going to try it anyway.
10
She was too wired to sleep, and besides, her back hurt, and she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting even one more night to get started. Brandon hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy to wait for his revenge, and Shane—Shane wasn’t the kind of guy to not hold up his end of a deal, either.
If he’s stupid enough to want to get bitten, fine, but he’s not using me for an excuse.
Shane hadn’t come out of his room all night. She hadn’t heard a thing when she’d listened—carefully—at his door. Eve had mimed headphones and turning up an invisible stereo. Claire could understand that; she’d spent lots of hours trying to blow out her own eardrums to avoid the world.
Eve lent her a laptop—a retro thing, big and black and clunky, with a biohazard-symbol sticker on the front. When Claire plugged it into the broadband connection and booted it up, the desktop graphic was a cartoon Grim Reaper holding a road sign instead of a scythe—a road sign that read MORGANVILLE, with an arrow pointing down.
Claire clicked on a couple of folders—guiltily, but she was curious—and found they were full of poetry. Eve liked death, or at least, she liked to write about it. Florid romantic stuff, all angst and blood and moonlit marble…and then Claire noticed the dates. The last of the poetry had been done three years ago. Eve would have been, what, fifteen? She’d been starry-eyed about vampires back then, but something had changed. No poetry at all for the past three years…
Eve walked in the open door. “Working okay?” she asked. Claire jumped, guilty, and gave her the thumbs-up as she clicked open the Internet connection. “Okay, I called my cousin in Illinois. She’s going to let us use her PayPal account, but I have to send her cash, like, tomorrow. Here’s the account.” She handed over a slip of paper. “We’re not going to get her killed, right?”
“Nope. I’m not buying much from any one place. A lot of people buy leather and tools and stuff. And paper—how old is this book supposed to be?”
“Old.”
“Was it on vellum?”
“Is that paper?”
“Vellum is the oldest kind of paper they used in books,” Claire said. “It’s sheepskin.”
“Oh. I guess that, then. It’s really old.”
Vellum would be hard. You could get it, but it was easy to trace. But it wasn’
t any good being freak smart if you couldn’t get around things like that…. Oh, yeah, she needed to think about using somebody else to do the research, too. Too dangerous having tracks that led right back here to the Glass House…
Claire went to work. She didn’t even notice Eve going and shutting the door behind her.
For four days, Claire studied. Four solid days. Eve brought her up soup and bread and sandwiches, and Shane dropped by once or twice to tell her she was crazy and he wanted her to stay the hell out of his business; Claire didn’t pay any attention. She got like that when she was completely inside of something. She heard him, and she said something back, but no way was she listening. Like her parents, Shane eventually gave up and went away.
Michael came to her room just a little before dawn. That one surprised her long enough to drag her out of her trance for a while. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Mission Save Shane? Yeah, it’s going,” she said. “I have to work the long way around. No traces. Don’t worry—even if the vamps get angry, they won’t be able to prove we did anything but bring them what we thought they were looking for.”
Michael looked pleased, but worried. He worried a lot. She supposed that being trapped the way he was, that was really all he could do—fight anything that got inside to hurt them, and worry about everything else. Frustrating, she guessed.
“Hey,” she said, “when does Eve go to work?”
“Four o’clock.”
“But that’s—”
“The night shift. I know. She’s safe enough there, though, and I don’t think any vamp is stupid enough to try to get in the way of that damn car. It’s like being run over by a Hummer. I made her promise that Oliver would walk her to the car, and Shane’s going to get her from the sidewalk inside.”
Claire nodded. “I’m going with her.”
“To the coffee shop? Why?”
“Because it’s anonymous,” she said. “Every college student in there has a laptop, and the place has free wireless. If I’m careful, they won’t be able to trace who’s looking up how to fake-age a book.”
He gave her an exasperated look. On him, it looked cute. God. She was still noticing. She really needed to stop that, but hey. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed…
“I don’t like Eve out there at night. You’re definitely not going.”
“If I do it here, everybody could be in danger. Including Eve.”
Oh, low blow—she saw his eyes shift, but he toughed it out. “So your answer is that I let you go out there, risk your life, sit in a coffee shop with Brandon, and pretend like that’s safer? Claire. In no way does that equal safer.”
“Safer than the vampires deciding that everybody in this house deliberately set out to cheat them out of the thing they want most,” Claire said. “We’re not playing, are we? I mean, I can stop if you want, but we don’t have anything else we can trade for Shane’s deal. Nothing big enough. I’d let Brandon—you know—but somehow I don’t think—”
“Over my—” Michael stopped and laughed. “I was going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ but—”
Claire winced.
“No,” he said.
“You’re not my dad,” she pointed out, and all of a sudden…remembered.
Shane, at the hospital, when she’d been drugged up, had said, They called your parents. Also, she distinctly remembered the words freaked out.
Oh, crap!
“Dad,” she said aloud. “Oh no…um, I need to use the phone. Can I?”
“Calling your parents? Sure. Long distance—”
“Yeah, I know. I pay for it. Thanks.”
She picked up the cordless phone and dialed her home number. It rang five times, then flipped over to the machine. “Hello, you’ve reached Les and Katharine Danvers and their daughter, Claire. Leave us a message!” It was her mom’s bright, businesslike voice. When the beep sounded, Claire had a second of blind panic. Maybe they were just out shopping. Or…
“Hi, Mom and Dad, it’s Claire. I just wanted to—um—say hi. I should have called you, I guess. That lab accident thing, that was nothing, really. I don’t want you to be worried about me—everything’s just fine. Really.”
Michael, leaning against the doorframe, was making funny faces at her. That seemed like Shane’s job, somehow. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“I just—I just wanted to say that. Love you. Bye.”
She hung up. Michael said, “You ought to get them to come and take you home.”
“And leave you guys in this mess? You’re in it because of me. Shane’s in it because of me. Now that Monica knows he’s back…”
“Oh, believe me, I’m not underestimating how much trouble we’re in, but you can still go. And you should. I’m going to try to convince Shane to get out, too. Eve—Eve won’t go, but she should.”
“But—” That leaves you alone, she thought. Really alone. There was no getting out for Michael. Not ever.
Michael looked up and out the window, where the sky was gradually washing from midnight blue to a paler dawn. “My time’s up,” he said. “Promise me you won’t go with Eve tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Claire.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t have time to argue, though she could see he wanted to. He walked down the hall; she heard his bedroom door close, and thought about what she’d seen downstairs in the living room. She wasn’t sure how she’d handle that if she had to face it every day—it looked really painful. She supposed the worst of it, though, was his knowing that if he’d been alive, been able to walk around in the daylight, he’d have been able to stop Shane from doing what he’d done.
I wouldn’t have to if you’d step up and watch my back! Shane had yelled at him, and yeah, that must have hurt just about worse than dying.
Claire went back to work. Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn’t just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.
If it worked.
The strange thing was, she just knew it would. She knew.
She really was a freak, she decided.
Claire woke up at three thirty, bleary-eyed and aching, and struggled into a fresh T-shirt and a pair of jeans that badly needed washing. One more day, she decided, and then she’d brave the washing machine in the basement. She had monster bed-head, even though she’d barely slept for three hours, and had to stick her head under the faucet and finger fluff her hair back to something that wasn’t too puke-worthy.
She stuck the laptop into the messenger-bag case and dashed downstairs; she could hear Eve’s shoes clumping through the house, heading for the door.
“Wait up!” she yelled, and pelted down the stairs and through the living room just as the front door slammed. “Crap…”
She opened it just before Eve succeeded in locking it. Eve looked guilty. “You were going to leave me,” Claire said. “I told you I wanted to go!”
“Yeah, well…you shouldn’t.”
“Michael talked to you last night.”
Eve sighed and fidgeted one black patent leather shoe. “Little bit, yeah. Before he went to bed.”
“I don’t need everybody protecting me. I’m trying to help!”
“I get it,” Eve said. “If I say no and drive off, what are you going to do?”
“Walk.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Eve shrugged. “Get in the car.”
Common Grounds was packed with students reading, chatting, drinking chai and mochas and lattes. And, Claire was gratified to see, working on laptops. There must have been a dozen going at once. She gave Eve a thumbs-up, ordered a cup of tea, and went in search of a decent spot to work. Something with her back to the wall.
Oliver brought her tea himself. She smiled uncertainly at him and minimized the browser window; she was reading up on famous forgeries and techniques. Dead giveaway, with emphasis on d
ead. Not that she disliked Oliver, but any guy who seemed to be able to enforce rules on the vampires was somebody she couldn’t trust real far.
“Hello, Claire,” he said. “May I sit?”
“Sure,” she said, surprised. Also, uncomfortable. He was old enough to be her dad, not to mention kind of hippie-dippie. Though, being a fringer herself, she didn’t mind that part so much. “Um, how’s it going?”
“Busy today,” he said, and settled into the chair with a sigh of what sounded like gratitude. “I wanted to talk to you about Eve.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I’m concerned about her,” Oliver said. He leaned forward, elbows on the table; she hastily closed the cover of the laptop and rested her hands protectively on top of it. “Eve seems distracted. That’s very dangerous, and I’m quite sure that by now you understand why.”
“It’s—”
“Shane?” he asked. “Yes. I thought that was probably the case. The boy’s gotten himself into a great deal of trouble. But he did it with a pure heart, I believe.”
Her pulse was hammering faster, and her mouth felt dry. Boy, she really didn’t like talking to authority figures. Michael was one thing—Michael was like a big brother. But Oliver was…different.
“I might be able to help,” Oliver said, “if I had something to trade. The problem is, what does Brandon want that you, or Shane, can give? Other than the obvious.” Oliver looked thoughtful, and tapped his lips with a fingertip. “You are a very bright girl, Claire, or so Eve tells me. Morganville can use bright girls. We might be able to bypass Brandon altogether, perhaps, and find a way to make a deal with someone…else.”
Which was pretty much exactly what they’d already talked about, only without the Oliver part. Claire tried not to look horribly guilty and transparent. “Who?” she asked. It was a reasonable question. Oliver smiled, and his dark eyes looked sharp and cool.
“Claire. Do you really expect me to tell you? The more you know about this town, the less safety there is for you. Do you understand that? I’ve had to create my own peace here, and it only works because I know exactly what I’m doing, and how far I can go. You—I’m afraid your first mistake might be your last.”
