by Rachel Caine
But she knew he wasn’t. No idea how she knew, but she just … did. He wasn’t right, though he was faking it really well. It wasn’t the kind of discussion they should have in front of Myrnin. Or maybe even Michael. There was something way too personal, private, intimate about those questions.
So instead she said, “Tell me what we’re supposed to be out at Morganville High School looking for, because I know it’s not their amazing chem lab.”
“You’d be right about that,” Shane said. “Although to be fair, chem class did turn out some would-be meth cookers—right, Michael?”
“Would-be is right. They blew themselves up in a trailer at the edge of town,” Michael said. “Not exactly an endorsement of our fine public school system.”
“Which way?”
“Either way.”
“Good point.”
God, Shane sounded fine, but when she touched his fingers she felt him shiver, then grab hold tight, as if he was clinging to a life raft in a stormy ocean. The question he’d asked last night kept haunting her. Are you really here?
Was he?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Claire said. “What are we looking for?”
“Let me have my moment,” he said. There was something weird in his voice now. “Always dreamed of being the one to come up with the answer.”
She suddenly didn’t want to push him anymore. Instead, she just held his hand and scooted over close. He put his arm around her, holding her closer.
As if she might just … fade away.
Michael rolled the car to a stop and said, “We’re here, guys. Shane, gonna need a plan now, please.”
“Wait,” Myrnin said, staring intently through the window. He had brought along his giant boom box thing, and now he clicked the switch on it and turned it off, and Claire heard the faint, whispery sound of the draug singing. It wasn’t much, but it was there. Myrnin hastily flipped the machine on again. “We’re too close to the infected side of town; they still have enough numbers to call, at least for now. We should be quick about this. Shane, I do hope you know where we are going …?”
“Sure,” Shane said. “It’s a shed at the back, near the field house. Michael, you know where it is. You can drive around there. Just go around the building and park right there in front of it. I think it has a storage sign on it.”
“Locked?” Myrnin asked, as Michael put the car in gear again.
“Yep,” Shane said. “Big chain with a padlock. But I’m pretty sure you strong vampire types can take care of that, right?”
Michael maneuvered the car through some twists and turns, then hit the brakes and brought them to a movie-worthy skidding stop, throwing gravel in a wave ahead. “Stay in the car until I open the doors,” he told Shane and Claire. “Myrnin, you get the lock and open the shed. Anything else?”
“Open the trunk,” Shane said. “What we’re looking for is pretty big. We’ll need vamp muscle to move it.”
He’d never asked for that, as far as Claire could remember …. Shane, saying he needed more muscle for something? Sometimes he accepted help, but he rarely asked. Even Myrnin seemed to recognize that. He didn’t make any quips or taunts, just leveled a sober look at her boyfriend, nodded, grabbed the boom box, and left the car, fast, on the passenger side. As Michael swung open the car door beside Shane, Claire heard the snap of metal breaking, which must have been Myrnin snapping the chain, the lock, or the door itself; there was a dry, high-pitched squeal of hinges as her own car door popped open. Claire stepped out, and saw that Michael had also opened the trunk, as Shane had asked.
The shed they were facing was really that—a shed, sheet metal, nothing fancy. The ancient cigarette butts littering the gravel around the side showed it was the smokers’ hangout. Probably the stoners’ as well; those groups usually shared space away from everybody else, since both things were illegal. She headed for the open, gaping metal door, and stopped, because Shane had stopped.
He was staring at the school.
Morganville High was a not-so-big brick building that had that early-sixties uncomfortable architecture to it—boxy, intimidating, more like a prison than anything else. Even the fence around the perimeter was high enough to qualify as escape-proof. The faded sign towered over the school, with a really quite scary rendering of the high school mascot. Of course Morganville High’s team symbol would be a viper, showing fangs.
“Shane?” Michael was at the shed door, looking back at them. “Faster is better, man.”
“I know,” Shane said softly, but he kept staring at the brick bulk of the main MHS building. “Hey. Is there still a pool inside?”
“A pool?” Michael frowned, and for a second he looked … worried. “No. You remember, there was some kind of accident and they closed it down, drained it, filled it in right before you left town. It’s a gym now.”
“I was thinking that the draug …” Shane’s voice died out. It was too quiet out here, and Claire felt clumsy and awkward as she moved toward him. “I thought there was a pool.”
“Hey,” she said, and took his hand. “Stay with us, okay? I don’t know what’s wrong, but just … stay focused. We need you.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. There was a dark, damp chill in the air, and overhead the clouds rumbled. “Right. I’m here. You’re here. We’re okay.” He turned a smile on her, and it almost felt right.
But not quite.
“Come on,” Michael said, more urgently. “Let’s go, guys, now. We’re in neutral territory, but it’s too close to them for comfort. Move.”
Claire led Shane across the gravel and into the shed, where Michael clicked a light switch that threw a bright, industrial glow over the contents. It smelled of chemicals and rust and oil in here, and there were industrial-sized drums, boxes, cans, all kinds of things that looked like they might be used by janitorial or groundskeeping staff.
“Claire, you’re not going to be of any help with this,” Myrnin said. “Get shotguns from the trunk, please. One each for you and Shane, I think. I assume Michael and I will be lifting and carrying. And what exactly is it we are to be carrying, if you would be so kind …?”
Shane looked around, and pointed to a big industrial drum painted shiny black. It was covered with labels, but Claire didn’t recognize any of them; none seemed to have to do with flammability or toxicity, at least. She wasn’t actually sure what it was, other than big and very bulky.
She ducked out and ran to the car. The trunk was mostly empty, but there were three shotguns stored in the wheel well area; she grabbed two, then added a third, because … well, because. Besides, they were going to need the space, it seemed.
She heard a grinding metallic noise, then a hollow boom—the drum tipping over on its side, she guessed. In another second or two, she saw Shane leading the way out as Michael and Myrnin rolled it over the gravel to the open trunk of the car, and then each grabbed an end, lifted, and dumped it into the space.
Vampire sedans had incredibly large trunks. They doubled, Claire guessed, as sunlight protection for the younger vamps who might be caught outside in the sun. This one could have fit four or five, at least.
Of course, there were other, less generous interpretations that she didn’t really want to consider.
The drum settled the car down on the back tires, and slightly lifted the front. Myrnin slammed the trunk lid. He was carrying his boom box in one hand, and now he zipped around to the driver’s side, loaded it into the car, and said, “Quickly now. I think we’re safe enough, but there’s no reason to—”
He didn’t have time to finish, because the sprinkler system went off. It happened with a click, as the metal heads pushed up through the grass, and then a cough and hiss as water started spraying out in all directions. A lot of water. Much more, and more pressurized, than a normal sort of system. Fat drops hit the windshield of the car, and Claire felt them slap against her skin as well—not water, or not completely, because it had a different, thicker consistency.
And it burned.
Shane reacted fast. He grabbed a shotgun from her and pushed her toward the car; she dived in, and he got in after, rolled down the window and put the barrel out as he tried to pick out targets through the artificial rain. It was the draug; it had to be. Michael took the third shotgun and mirrored him on the other side of the car. The downpour of sprinklers—mixed with actual rain now— sounded like hail as it hit the roof and hood of the car, and Myrnin cranked up a dial on the boom box. Claire heard it as a thick mist of static.
“Get us out of here,” Myrnin said grimly. “Quickly.”
Michael tried. He put the shotgun in his lap, rolled up the window, and started the car.
It caught, roared, sputtered, and died with a rattle of broken metal.
There was a second of silence, with only the static and rain to fill it, and then Myrnin said, with soft viciousness, “Damn.”
“So? What are we doing?” Shane asked, without taking his eyes off the constant artificial rain pouring down outside the car, running in rivulets, dripping down the paint. It was splashing in on him, and when he wiped the drops off, Claire could see the red welts that were left. “This is not the time to freeze, man. I’ll take any kind of plan.”
Myrnin hesitated, then … grabbed at Claire. He was fumbling at her, and she was so stunned that she started hitting him—with no result, of course—as he patted down her pockets and shirt, quick light touches as he muttered, “Sorry, sorry, beg pardon, sorry …” And then he pulled back with her cell phone in his hand. He squinted at the screen, awkward still with the technology.
There was a shadow forming in the rain outside, dark and ominous. A human-shaped shadow that took on form and substance.
It smiled at them.
“Yeah, happy to see you too,” Shane said, as he aimed. The stunning smash of the shotgun’s roar whited out Claire’s hearing for a moment, and she missed what Myrnin was doing until the keening noise in her ears began to subside again.
“—School,” he was saying, or at least she thought he was. “What? Yes, Shane is target shooting, and we are going to die. I just thought you should know.” He listened for a moment, then said, “That is not comforting, you know.” Then he hung up the call and handed the phone back to her.
Shane, and now Michael, were still focused on the shapes forming outside. More than one this time. Shane had exploded the first one, but they’d responded by making more.
“Why are the sprinklers on?” she asked. “We shut off the water! The cutoff valves!”
“Except one,” Shane pointed out. “That’s right, isn’t it? We left one open.”
“You what?” Myrnin whipped around in the seat to look at him with a wide-eyed stare.
“Partly open,” Shane clarified. “At least, I think—” He looked uncertainly at Claire. She nodded. “Yeah. Partly open.” Why didn’t he remember that clearly? She saw growing panic in his eyes. “There’s no pool in the building, is there?”
Michael exchanged a long, significant look with Claire. Something’s wrong, it said. No kidding. “No, bro,” he said gently. “No pool.”
“Because they could be coming out of the pool.”
“Shane. There’s no pool.”
Shane huffed in a deep breath, and nodded, visibly getting a grip. “Right. They filled it in. I know. It just seems—doesn’t that seem convenient for us right now? That they filled it in?”
He wasn’t making any sense, and this was the worst possible time. Claire swallowed and switched her focus to Myrnin. “Who were you calling?” she asked.
“Oliver,” Myrnin said. “He’s sent some of his forces out to attack the draug in the heavily infected area. No rescue will be forthcoming from Founder’s Square at the moment. We’re quite on our own.”
Claire watched as other figures appeared beyond the heavy drops slamming down on their car and smearing the windshield.
All Magnus. All not Magnus. She could tell the difference. He’d sent his creatures, but he hadn’t come himself.
Yet.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. Shane had no answer for her. Neither did Myrnin, or Michael. “Guys, we need something!”
Shane pulled his shotgun back in and rolled up the window, sealing out most of the sound of the pounding drops hitting glass, metal, ground. “We’re going to have to run for the shed, or stay here sealed up.”
“They will find a way inside here,” Myrnin said. “Look.” He pointed to the air-conditioning vents, and Claire saw there was now a thin, silvery stream of liquid pouring down from each of them. Not a lot, but enough. It was starting to pool on the floor mats.
She pulled her feet up with a sound of raw disgust.
“So we run,” Michael said. “The shed must be built watertight, because of the chemicals stored inside. We should be okay there for a while.”
A while. Not permanently. But there was no such thing as safe now, only … not yet caught. This cat-and-mouse game could end only one way: the cat’s way.
But the mice had a trick or two left yet, and even a cat could get hurt if the mice bit hard enough.
“Did you bring the iron hydroxide?” Claire asked Myrnin; he nodded, gaze fixed outside the car windows. His face looked still, pale and empty, but his eyes were full of shadows. And fear. “Don’t use it until you have to. They adapt.”
“I know,” he said. “But we have another secret weapon we should use first.” Michael looked pleased with that … until Myrnin handed him an umbrella and said, “Don’t open it in the car. It’s terribly unlucky.” He passed out more to Shane and Claire.
“I told you,” Claire said as she threw open the passenger door on the roaring downpour. “Humans are more ingenious than vampires. We invented umbrellas.”
And, for once, she got the last word.
They probably should have died running for the shed, and likely they would have if Shane and Michael hadn’t been so fast and so good with their weapons. She gave her gun to Myrnin and held the umbrellas for them, which left her half uncovered and drenched in draug-infected water by the time they gained the shelter of the shed. She dumped the dripping umbrellas outside, and Shane pulled her inside as Myrnin slammed the door and bent the steel frame to lock it firmly closed.
“Crap, Michael, she’s soaked,” Shane said, pulling his hand back from her wet skin. She was trying not to scream in horror from the tingle—rapidly turning to pinprick bites—all over her body. “Stay calm, baby, just stay calm—” He stripped off his jacket and tossed it to Myrnin, who caught it out of the air, frowning. “Hold that up in front of your face. If I see you drop it even half an inch, I’m blowing you in half.”
“What?”
“Just do it. Michael—”
“Yeah,” Michael said, and turned his back. “Got it.”
Shane grabbed Claire’s shirt from the hem and stripped it up over her head. She squeaked in protest, but it was too late. Myrnin had done as asked; his face was hidden behind the upheld leather jacket. Shane skinned off his own shirt, beaded with drops of water but far less compromised, and wiped her down with it to dry her off. Then he walked her over to stand behind a pile of boxes and went back to retrieve his jacket.
She stood there half-naked and shivering, feeling utterly exposed, until he came back and settled his jacket around her, then zipped it up. “There,” he said. He spread their shirts over a box to let them dry. “All better?”
It was. The warmth of Shane’s skin settled around her along with the fabric, and she hugged it close, breathing him in. “Yes,” she said, finally getting her head back together. “You’re cold, though.”
“Not that cold,” he said. “I’ll be okay.”
“No, you won’t,” Michael said, and stripped off his own jacket to toss it to Shane as he turned around. “Put that on. I won’t exactly catch my death.” The sound of the water droplets slamming down on the tin roof and walls was relentless, like a hail of marbles, and he had to raise his voice to
be heard over the roar. “Myrnin! Do we have any leaks in here?”
“Yes,” Myrnin said. He seemed quite calm. “Several. Substandard construction, unquestionably. I believe there might be cause for a lawsuit.”
That should have put them all on edge, and it certainly raised shivers on Claire’s nerves, but Shane shook his head. “Trust me. We’re okay.”
“Shane—we’re not okay!”
“Want to see a magic trick?” he asked her, and kissed her, quick and light. For the moment at least, he was almost himself. “Come with me.”
Myrnin was standing well back from the door, frowning at the silvery trickles that had wormed their way through cracks and were blending together into a shallow little pool. Some of it was watershed that had come off the umbrellas, and their clothing; the rest was liquid forcing its way past the gaps. It wasn’t fast, but it didn’t have to be. It was relentless. Anyone who’d ever seen a flood understood how terrifying that could be.
“If you have more brilliant ideas, this would be an excellent time to divulge them,” Myrnin said. “Otherwise, I will do you the kindness of snapping your necks before Michael and I take silver.” He was very matter-of-fact about it, but when Claire looked closely she saw the wild, trapped, horrified look in his eyes, the rigid set of his body. This was, very literally, his worst nightmare. How long had he been fighting and fleeing the draug? Ages.
And Michael. Michael had been trapped by them before. She looked at him now, and saw how sharp and focused his expression was, how tense the muscles cording his arms and chest. He was struggling to control his own fear.
The sprinklers were firing off everywhere around the building; running would just send them straight into the arms of their enemies, but hiding wouldn’t do, either. Not for long.
“Move,” Shane said. Myrnin did, backing up a few more feet, which allowed Shane to push past him to another barrel sitting on a pallet behind him. It had the same paint scheme as the barrel the two of them had rolled out to the car. Claire watched as Shane hunted around and came up with a small crowbar, which he used to lever open the seals on the top of the barrel. The top was hinged in the middle, Claire realized, and he flipped that part over. “Score,” he said, and raised the crowbar in triumph. “Who’s your daddy?”
