Lord of Misrule tmv-5 Page 9

  “Oh man,” Hannah said. As Claire climbed in after her, she saw that most of the tables and chairs were overturned or shoved out of place. Broken crockery littered the floor.

  And people were down, lying motionless among the wreckage. Hannah went from one to the other, quickly assessing their conditions. There were five down that Claire could see. Two of them made Hannah shake her head in regret; the other three were still alive, though wounded.

  There were no vampires in the coffee bar, and there was no sign of Eve.

  Claire ducked behind the curtain. More signs of a struggle. Nobody left behind, alive or dead. She sucked in a deep breath and opened up the giant commercial refrigerator.

  It was full of blood bags, but no bodies.

  “Anything?” Hannah asked at the curtain.

  “Nobody here,” Claire said. “They left the blood, though.”

  “Huh. Weird. You’d think they’d need that more than anything. Why attack the place if you’re not taking the good stuff?” Hannah stared out into the coffee shop, her expression blank and distant. “Glass is broken out, not in. No sign anybody got in the doors, either front or back. I don’t think anybody attacked from the outside, Claire.”

  With a black, heavy feeling gathering in her stomach, Claire swung the refrigerator door shut. “You think the vampires fought to get out.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  “Oliver, too.”

  “Oliver, Myrnin, all of them. Whatever bat signal was calling them got turned up to eleven, I think.”

  “Then where’s Eve?” Claire asked.

  Hannah shook her head. “We don’t know anything. It’s all guesswork. Let’s get some boots on the ground and figure this thing out.” She continued to stare outside. “If they went out there, most of them could make it for a while in the sun, but they’d be hurt. Some couldn’t make it far at all.”

  Some, like the policeman Claire had seen burn up in front of her, would already be gone. “You think it’s Mr. Bishop?” she asked, in a very small voice.

  “I hope so.”

  Claire blinked. “Why?”

  “Because if it’s not, that’s got to be a whole lot worse.”

  8

  Three hours later, they didn’t know much more, except that nothing they tried to do to keep the vampires from leaving seemed to work, apart from tranquilizing them and locking them up in sturdy cells. Tracking those who did leave wasn’t much good, either. Claire and Hannah ended up at the Glass House, which seemed like the best place to gather—central to most things, and close to City Hall in an emergency.

  Richard Morrell arrived, along with a few others, and set up shop in the kitchen. Claire was trying to figure out what to do to feed everybody, when there was another knock at the door.

  It was Gramma Day. The old woman, straight-backed and proud, leaned on her cane and stared at Claire from age-faded eyes. “I ain’t staying with my daughter,” she said. “I don’t want any part of that.”

  Claire quickly moved aside to let her in, and the old lady shuffled inside. As Claire locked the door behind her, she asked, “How did you get here?”

  “Walked,” Gramma said. “I know how to use my feet just fine. Nobody bothered me.” Nobody would dare, Claire thought. “Young Mr. Richard! Are you in here?”

  “Ma’am?” Richard Morrell came out of the kitchen, looking very much younger than Claire had ever seen him. Gramma Day had that effect on people. “What are you doing here?”

  “My fool daughter’s off her head,” Gramma said. “I’m not having any of it. Move out of the way, boy. I’m making you some lunch.” And she tapped her cane right past him, into the kitchen, and clucked and fretted over the state of the kitchen while Claire stood by, caught between giggles and horror. She was just a pair of hands, getting ordered around, but at the end of it there was a plate full of sandwiches and a big jug of iced tea, and everybody was seated around the kitchen table, except for Gramma, who’d gone off into the other room to rest. Claire had hesitantly taken a chair, at Richard’s nod. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were also present, and they were gratefully scarfing down food and drink. Claire felt exhausted, but they looked a whole lot worse. Tall, thin Joe Hess had his left arm in a sling—broken, apparently, from the brace on it—and both he and his rounder, heavier partner had cuts and bruises to prove they’d been in a fight or two.

  “So,” Hess said, “any word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?”

  “Not so far,” Richard said. “Once we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us.”

  “Aren’t they hurt by the sun?” Claire asked. “I mean—”

  “They start smoking, not in the Marlboro way, and then they start crisping,” Travis Lowe said around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss. “The older ones, they can handle it okay, and anyway, they’re not just charging out there anymore. They’re putting on hats and coats and blankets. I saw one wrapped up in a Sponge-Bob rug from some kid’s bedroom, if you can believe that. It’s the younger vamps that are in trouble. Some of them won’t make it to the shade if they’re not careful.”

  Claire thought about Michael, and her stomach lurched. Before she even formed the question, Richard saw her expression and shook his head. “Michael’s okay,” he said. “Saw to it myself. He’s got himself a nice, secure jail cell, along with the other vampires we could catch before it was too late. He’s not as strong as some of the others. He can’t bend steel with his bare hands. Yet, anyway.”

  “Any word on—” Claire was wearing out the question, and Richard didn’t even let her finish it.

  “No sign of Eve,” he said. “No word from her. I’d try to put a GPS track on her phone, but we’d have to bring the cell network up, and that’s too dangerous right now. I’ve asked the guys on the street to keep an eye out for her, but we’ve got a lot of things going on, Claire.”

  “I know. But—” She couldn’t put it into words, exactly. She just knew that somewhere, somehow, Eve was in trouble, and they needed to find her.

  “So,” Joe Hess said, and stood up to look at a blown-up map of Morganville taped to the wall. “This still accurate?” The map was covered in colored dots: blue for locations held by those loyal to Amelie; red for those loyal to Bishop; black for those burned or otherwise put out of commission, which accounted for three Founder Houses, the hospital, and the blood bank.

  “Pretty much,” Richard said. “We don’t know if the vampires are leaving Bishop’s locations, but we know they’re digging in, just like Amelie’s folks. We can verify locations only where Amelie’s people were supposed to be, and they’re gone from just about every location we’ve got up in blue.”

  “Where were they last seen?”

  Richard consulted notes, and began to add yellow dots to the map. Claire saw the pattern almost immediately. “It’s the portals,” she said. “Myrnin got the portals working again, somehow. That’s what they’re using.”

  Hess and Lowe looked blank, but Richard nodded. “Yeah, I know about that. Makes sense. But where are they going?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Could be anywhere. I don’t know all the places the portals go; maybe Myrnin and Amelie do, but I don’t think anybody else does.” But she felt unreasonably cheered by the idea that the vampires weren’t out wandering out in the daylight, spontaneously combusting all over the place. She didn’t want to see that happen to them . . . not even to Oliver.

  Well, maybe to Oliver, sometimes. But not today.

  The three men stared at her for a few seconds, then went back to studying the map, talking about perimeters and strategies for patrols, all kinds of things that Claire didn’t figure really involved her. She finished her sandwich and walked into the living room, where tiny, wizened little Gramma Day was sitting in an overstuffed wing chair with her feet up, talking to Hannah. “Hey, little girl,” Gramma Day said. “Sit yourself.”

  Claire perched, looking around the room. Most of the va
mpires were gone, either confined to cells or locked away for safety; some, they hadn’t been able to stop. She couldn’t seem to stop anxiously rubbing her hands together. Shane. Shane was supposed to be here. Richard Morrell had said that they’d arranged for the Bloodmobile to switch drivers, and that meant Shane would be coming soon for his rest period.

  She needed him right now.

  Gramma Day was looking at her with distant sympathy in her faded eyes. “You worried?” she asked, and smiled. “You got cause, I expect.”

  “I do?” Claire was surprised. Most adults tried to pretend it was all going to be okay.

  “Sure thing, sugar. Morganville’s been ruled by the vampires a long time, and they ain’t always been the gentlest of folks. Been people hurt, people killed without reason. Builds up some resentment.” Gramma nodded toward the bookcase. “Fetch me that red book right there, the one that starts with N.”

  It was an encyclopedia. Claire got it and set it in her lap. Gramma’s weathered, sinewy fingers opened it and flipped pages, then handed it back. The heading said, New York Draft Riots, 1863.

  The pictures showed chaos—mobs, buildings on fire. And worse things. Much, much worse.

  “People forget,” Gramma said. “They forget what can happen, if anger builds up. Those New York folks, they were angry because their men were being drafted to fight the Civil War. Who you think they took it out on? Mostly black folks, of all things. Folks who couldn’t fight back. They even burned up an orphanage, and they’d have killed every one of those children if they’d caught them.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue in disgust. “Same thing happened in Tulsa in 1921. Called it the Greenwood Riot, said black folks were taking away their business and jobs. Back in France, they had a revolution where they took all those fancy aristocrat folks and cut their heads off. Maybe it was their fault, and maybe not. It’s all the same thing: you get angry, you blame it on some folks, and you make them pay, guilty or not. Happens all the time.”

  Claire felt a chill. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you think about France, girl. Vampires been holding us all down a long time, just like those aristocrats, or that’s how people around here think of it. Now, you think about all those folks out there with generations of grudges, and nobody really in charge right now. You think it won’t go bad on us?”

  There weren’t enough shudders in the world. Claire remembered Shane’s father, the fanatical light in his eyes. He’d be one of those leading a riot, she thought. One of those pulling people out of their houses as collaborators and turncoats and hanging them up from lampposts.

  Hannah patted the shotgun in her lap. She’d put the paintball gun aside—honestly, it wasn’t much use now, with the vampires missing in action. “They’re not getting in here, Gramma. We won’t be having any Greenwood in Morganville.”

  “I ain’t so much worried about you and me,” Gramma said. “But I’d be worried for the Morrells. They’re gonna be coming for them, sooner or later. That family’s the poster children for the old guard.”

  Claire wondered if Richard knew that. She thought about Monica, too. Not that she liked Monica—God, no—but still.

  She thanked Gramma Day and walked back into the kitchen, where the policemen were still talking. “Gramma Day thinks there’s going to be trouble,” she said. “Not the vampires. Regular people, like those people in the park. Maybe Lisa Day, too. And she thinks you ought to look after your family, Richard.”

  Richard nodded. “Already done,” he said. “My mom and dad are at City Hall. Monica’s headed there, too.” He paused, thinking about it. “You’re right. I should make sure she gets there all right, before she becomes another statistic.” His face had tightened, and there was a look in his eyes that didn’t match the way he said it. He was worried.

  Given what Claire had just heard from Gramma Day, she thought he probably ought to be. Joe Hess and Travis Lowe sent each other looks, too, and she thought they were probably thinking the same thing. She deserves it, Claire told herself. Whatever happens to Monica Morrell, she earned it.

  Except the pictures from Gramma Day’s book kept coming back to haunt her.

  The front door banged shut, and she heard Hannah’s voice—not an alarm, just a welcome. She spun around and went to the door of the kitchen . . . and ran directly into Shane, who grabbed her and folded his arms around her.

  “You’re here,” he said, and hugged her so tightly that she felt ribs creak. “Man, you don’t make it easy, Claire. I’ve been freaking out all damn day. First I hear you’re off in the middle of Vamptown; then you’re running around like bait with Eve—”

  “You’re one to talk about bait,” Claire said, and pushed back to look up into his face. “You okay?”

  “Not a scratch,” he said, and grinned. “Ironic, because I’m usually the one with the battle scars, right? The worst thing that happened to me was that I had to pull over and let a bunch of vampires off the bus, or they’d have ripped right through the walls. You’d be proud. I even let them off in the shade.” His smile faded, but not the warmth in his eyes. “You look tired.”

  “Yeah, you think?” She caught herself on a yawn. “Sorry.”

  “We should get you home and catch some rest while we can.” He looked around. “Where’s Eve?”

  Nobody had told him. Claire opened her mouth and found her throat clenching tight around the words. Her eyes filled with tears. She’s gone, she wanted to say. She’s missing. Nobody knows where she is.

  But saying it out loud, saying it to Shane, that would make it real, somehow.

  “Hey,” he said, and smoothed her hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? Where is she?”

  “She was at Common Grounds,” Claire finally choked out. “She—”

  His hands went still, and his eyes widened.

  “She’s missing,” Claire finally said, and a wave of utter misery broke over her. “She’s out there somewhere. That’s all I know.”

  “Her car’s outside.”

  “We drove it here.” Claire nodded at Hannah, who’d come in behind Shane and was silently watching. He acknowledged her with a glance; that was all.

  “Okay,” Shane said. “Michael’s safe, you’re safe, I’m safe. Now we’re going to go find Eve.”

  Richard Morrell stirred. “That’s not a good idea.”

  Shane spun on him, and the look on his face was hard enough to scare a vampire. “Want to try and stop me, Dick?”

  Richard stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the map. “You want to go, go. We’ve got things to do. There’s a whole town of people out there to serve and protect. Eve’s one girl.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s our girl,” Shane said. He took Claire’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  Hannah leaned against the wall. “Mind if I call shotgun?”

  “Since you’re carrying one? Feel free.”

  Outside, things were odd—quiet, but with a suppressed feeling of excitement in the air. People were still outside, talking in groups on the streets. The stores were shut down, for the most part, but Claire noticed with a stir of unease that the bars were open, and so was Morganville’s gun shop.

  Not good.

  The gates of the university had opened, and they were issuing some kind of passes to people to leave—still sticking to the emergency drill story, Claire assumed.

  “Oh, man,” Shane muttered, as they turned down one of the streets that led to the heart of town, and Founder’s Square—Vamptown. There were more people here, more groups. “I don’t like this. There’s Sal Manetti up there. He was one of my dad’s drinking buddies, back in the day.”

  “The cops don’t like it much, either,” Hannah said, and pointed at the police cars ahead. They were blocking off access at the end of the street, and when Claire squinted, she could see they were out of their cruisers and arranged in a line, ready for anything. “This could turn bad, any time. All they need is somebody to strike a match out there, and we’re all on fire.”


  Claire thought about Shane saying his father was coming to town, and she knew he was thinking about that, too. He shook his head. “We’ve got to figure out where Eve might be. Ideas?”

  “Maybe she left us some clues,” Claire said. “Back at Common Grounds. We should probably start there.”

  Common Grounds, however, was deserted, and the steel shutters were down. The front door was locked. They drove around back, to the alley. Nothing was there but trash cans, and—

  “What the hell is that?” Shane asked. He hit the brakes and put the car in park, then jumped out and picked up something small on the ground. He got back in and showed it to Claire.

  It was a small white candy in the shape of a skull. Claire blinked at it, then looked down the alley. “She left a trail of breath mints?”

  “Looks like. We’ll have to go on foot to follow it.”

  Hannah didn’t seem to like that idea much, but Shane wasn’t taking votes. They parked and locked Eve’s car in the alley behind Common Grounds and began hunting for skull candies.

  “Over here!” Hannah yelled, at the end of the alley. “Looks like she’s dropping them when she makes a turn. Smart. She went this way.”

  After that, they went faster. The skull candies were in plain sight, easy to spot. Claire noticed that they were mostly in the shadows, which would have made sense, if Eve was with Myrnin or the other vampires. Why didn’t she stay? Maybe she hadn’t had a choice.

  They ran out of candy trail after a few blocks. It led them into an area where Claire hadn’t really been before—abandoned old buildings, mostly, falling to pieces under the relentless pressure of years and sun. It looked and felt deserted.

  “Where now?” Claire asked, looking around. She didn’t see anything obvious, but then she spotted something shiny, tucked in behind a tipped-over rusty trash can. She reached behind and came up with a black leather collar, studded with silver spikes.

  The same collar Eve had been wearing. She wordlessly showed it to Shane, who turned in a slow circle, looking at the blank buildings. “Come on, Eve,” he said. “Give us something. Anything.” He froze. “You hear that?”