CLAIRE
"Just tell me," Claire said to Shane. She was getting annoyed with him just now; he'd been silent ever since they'd settled the matter of examining the map, determining safe routes, and discussing transportation for the latest mission to Morganville High School.
And, of course, going anywhere with Myrnin, which had been a lively, interesting discussion that had ended with Michael saying that he was coming along and if Myrnin tried anything he'd stake him with silver.
There was absolutely no question that Michael meant it. Even Myrnin figured that out.
"Tell you what?" Shane asked. They were sitting in the backseat of the car, and Michael was driving, which was a huge improvement over the prospect of Myrnin doing it; his modern-vehicle-piloting skills were-to put it mildly-tremendously bad. They were driving a standard-issue black vampire sedan, with tinted windows, although as best she could tell, it was gloomy and cloudy outside. Myrnin was in the shotgun seat in front, which left just the two of them in the back. It felt private, even though it really wasn't.
Why you still sit so stiffly. Why you touch me as if you can't believe I'm really there. Why, when nobody's paying attention, you look so ... lost. She couldn't ask him those things yet. He was supposed to be better; he insisted he was. Michael, when she'd pulled him aside on the way to the car, had said he seemed okay.
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?"
Myrnin stared at him as if he'd gone completely mental. "Excuse me?"
"Figure of speech," Claire said hastily, and rushed over to join Shane. Michael beat her there, but he'd stopped, frowning, looking down into the barrel.
"Sorry, but what the hell?" He'd found a plastic scoop in a holder, and was poking around in the barrel. "What is this stuff?"
Shane took the scoop away and dug it into what looked like ... soap flakes. "You remember in junior high when there was, oh, I don't know, maybe some incident where a boy threw a giant firecracker down in the toilet and blew it up and maybe there was a big flood?"
Michael blinked. "I remember the toilet blew up and the bathroom flooded half the hallway."
"And what happened then?"
"You got detention."
"Before that. The janitor had to clean it up, and I had to help him." He slapped the side of the drum. "Super Slurper. Developed by NASA. Absorbs about two hundred times its weight in water. Sprinkle it on, wait a minute, and scoop it up like powder. Watch."
He walked past Myrnin to the pooling liquid, gave it a little bye-bye wave, and dumped the scoop of powder on top of it.
A high, thin tone ripped through Claire's ears-a tiny bit of the draug scream. And then the powder darkened, and the liquid drew into it, pulled against its will.
Bound up in a chemical matrix and completely, utterly, trapped.
"Oh my God," she whispered, and felt her whole body heat up as the realization spread through her. "Oh my God, Shane!"
Myrnin came a hesitant step closer, staring. His eyes were very wide, fixed on the powder as it absorbed the water. He dropped to his knees to watch, then leaned over it.
Then he poked the remains.
The powder had turned darker, but it was still powdery-a little mealy, maybe. He picked up a sample and rubbed it between his fingers.
Then he sat back and looked up at Shane with an absolutely unreadable expression.
"You," he said, "are a genius."
"Nope," Shane said. "But it turns out my no-good past is good for something after all."
Michael threw his arm around Shane's neck and ruffled his hair. "Good job, bro."
"Dessicants," Myrnin said wonderingly. "A mostly modern invention. We used them before, with very limited success, because they took so long to work; silica was tried, and other minerals, but this ... this is astonishing. How much can a scoop of it absorb?"
"One hell of a lot," Shane said. "Use enough and it turns into a solid, like jelly, and you can just pick it up and toss it out." He had a dark flush in his cheeks, but his eyes were gleaming. He was proud of himself.
Good. He deserved to be.
Myrnin did an absolutely crazy little dance, one that left Claire openmouthed and wishing she'd taken video, because that was something she was sure she'd never see again in her lifetime.
Michael took the rest of the scoop and made a little powdery line across the threshold. The incoming water ran into it and just ... disappeared. "I'll check the perimeter," he said. "Hope you guys brought a deck of cards. We're going to have time to kill in here." He grinned at Shane. "Seriously, man. You're my hero."
Shane still looked happy, but then ... then something happened. His smile faltered, fell away. He stood very still, watching Michael.
"What? What did I say?" Michael asked him. "You okay?"
Shane had just ... shut down. Michael glanced aside at Claire, and she took Shane's hand. No response. "Shane? What's wrong?"
"Hero," he whispered. "Michael said I was his hero."
"Well, you're mine, too."
"Always wanted to be ... but it isn't right, that can't be right. Isn't there a pool inside? We have to get to the pool, put the silver in the pool ...." He squeezed his eyes shut, and he was trembling now. "This is wrong. I can't be the hero. I can't be. That's how I know ... know it's wrong."
"Shane!"
He just ... folded up, suddenly, and collapsed with a hollow boom of his back against the metal wall of the shed as he sat down. His eyes opened, and they were haunted, dark, empty. "This isn't right," he said. He looked at her, but it was as if he didn't really see her. "You can't be here. You weren't here. You were safe. I'd never let you get hurt, Claire. Not again. It was just us, not you ..."
"What in heaven is he talking about?" Myrnin snapped. "We don't have time for this-"
"He's remembering the dreams," Michael said softly. "The draug make humans dream. I don't think he can tell the difference anymore between then and now."
Myrnin considered that for about, oh, a second, and then shook it off. "Irrelevant," he said. "This substance he found changes everything. With this chemical, we can make weapons that will not just weaken but kill them, destroy them utterly, and do no harm to those vampires trapped inside the pools. Thousands of years of terror, death, running-all of it can end. We need to find a way to leave here and kill Magnus. He is the only one who matters now."
Claire watched as Michael's eyes narrowed and turned dangerously red. "Maybe you weren't paying attention, but we're surrounded by entire fountains full of draug. This stuff is awesome, but it's not a magic shield or anything, and the car is dead. We need transportation to get out of here."
"Well, that isn't forthcoming at the moment, now, is it? Perhaps there are other vehicles close by. The boy's fluent in stealing them, isn't he?" Myrnin frowned at Shane. "I understood he had such skills."
"Leave him alone," Michael said, and his fists clenched. "We wait."
"We cannot wait!"
"Hell we can't!"
The argument didn't seem to be going anywhere, and Claire found herself staring at something dimly glimpsed in the shadows. Something pale. For a heart-stopping moment, it resolved into a human shape, and all she could think was that somehow, the draug had found a way inside. Her heart slammed hard in instinctive alarm and shock, and she gasped out loud, but then she realized that it wasn't the draug, or even some weird lurker ... it was a white jumpsuit on a hanger.
A plastic jumpsuit. Suitable, she guessed, for rooting around in mucky landscaping crises or blown-up toilets or whatever.
She dashed for it, grabbed it off the wall, and yelled, "Turn around!" as she unzipped Shane's jacket. She tossed it over her shoulder to Michael, then stepped into the legs of the jumpsuit, careful not to tear it; it was pretty thin stuff, but it ought to be waterproof. Basically, a form-fitting raincoat. It fastened with a plastic zipper up the front, and she hastily finished that and looked around for something for her hands.
Nitrile gloves, a whole box of them. She grabbed two and slid them on.
"Here," Michael said, and handed her a battered, oily cowboy hat. "I think the janitor left it. It should keep the rain off your face and neck." When she put it on, it dropped all the way to her nose. "Or maybe a lot more of you. Wait a second." He scooped a plastic bag full of Super Slurper and handed it to her. "Use it if you have to."
Myrnin shoved in between them and handed her a ... wrench. A big, heavy thing. "There should be an emergency stop for the sprinkler system outside this building," he said. "Shut it down, and we can all get out. If you can't find it, run for help."
For the first time, Claire realized that she was going to run away and leave them all here, trapped. Shane was almost catatonic, shivering, paralyzed by something she didn't fully understand.
She had to do it. For him, if nothing else. She needed to get him out of here.
"Wait," Michael said. "Maybe I should do this."
"Run out into the draug? Are you crazy? If I do it, I'm just a puny little human, right? I get more time than you do. They'd be on you from the first second you step out the door."
Myrnin said, "She's right, boy. But Claire-Magnus will be looking for you. Be careful. You're at risk, too."
Claire held up the brim of the stupidly large cowboy hat and nodded to Michael and Myrnin both. "I'll be back," she said. "And I'm getting you out of here."
Michael didn't look happy, but he nodded. "I know. Just take care of yourself."
Claire crouched down next to Shane and stared into his blank eyes for a long moment. "Can you hear me?" she asked, and put her hands on his face. He still needed a shave. "Sweetie, please, talk to me. Can you?"
"Claire," he said, and a long, agonizing shudder went through him. "Are you really here?" He reached up and touched her fingers. Held them. "Are you?"
"Always," she said. She kissed him, and felt something in him responding, urgent and desperate for reassurance. "You have to stay with me, Shane. I need you." She dropped her voice to a bare whisper, lips right at his ear. "You promised me something, and you'd better not be backing out now."
When she pulled back, though, the panic was worse, not better, and he said, "What's her name? Claire, what's her name?"
He wasn't making any sense at all. She felt tears threaten, but she didn't have time. Get him safe, then get him back. That was all she could do. "I'll be back," she said.
Michael said, "Claire. I'll look after him."
He always does, Claire thought. For all that Shane hated the vampire side of Michael, Michael never let them down. She never doubted that he would protect them, not for a second. She never doubted any of them, really. Eve, Michael, Shane ... they were her family.
Looking at him right now, she felt a surge of breathtaking love, for Michael, and for what the four of them were, together.
"What?" Michael asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I just want to hug you right now," Claire said. "You're the most fantastic-" She couldn't finish that, suddenly, because her throat closed up on her, and her vision dissolved into sparkles, refracted by tears. She cleared her throat, blinked, and said, "Never mind."
He understood. She could see it in his eyes. "Nobody's dying today," he said. "Go."
She ran.
It reminded Claire, stupidly, of running through the sprinklers when she was a little kid, squealing with delight as cold water slapped against her skin; she'd had a sunshine-yellow swimsuit when she was six, she remembered, with a big pink sun on it.
This was not nearly as fun.
The second she'd stepped outside the shed door, she'd had to revise her plan, because the umbrellas she'd left by the entrance were gone-carried off, she assumed, by the draug. She'd been hoping for the extra protection, but that was clearly not happening.
So she gripped the heavy, gritty weight of the wrench in her hand and took off running.
The draug were around her; she could see them in flickers, hidden in the falling streams of water. They weren't quite manifesting in human form; that must take energy, and a lot of it, and they weren't quite as strong now as they'd been before. They weren't singing. We've hurt them, she thought, and felt a fierce surge of pride along with the adrenaline.
And then her running foot hung up on a sprinkler head hidden in a tuft of wet grass, and she lost her balance. Her arms grabbed for some kind of support, and the fall seemed to occur in slow motion, each sticky droplet of liquid shimmering in front of her eyes as she lurched forward, and then she had a close-up, almost microscopic view of the moisture-dewed dead grass and mud.
She hit hard and rolled, and felt the sprinkler head catch the leg of her plastic jumpsuit. It would tear, of course, that wasn't even a question. She'd probably ripped a hole the size of Kansas in it. But she couldn't stop, because there was a shadow in the falling drops, man-sized, forming into hands, pale and grubby and boneless, and they reached out for her. There were puddles in the low-lying areas of grass, muddy but filled with shimmering silvery movement as they heaved toward her.
The hands-they felt like cold jelly through the plastic-closed around her ankle, and she felt herself sliding backward, toward the shallow puddle. It can't be that deep. But she knew it didn't matter; they could drown her in an inch of water if they held her down. It wouldn't take long, but worse than that, Michael and Myrnin and Shane wouldn't be able to stand by and watch her die; they'd come out to the rescue, and that would be the end of it. Nobody to tell the others what they'd discovered.
How they could win.
As she clawed at the wet grass, ripping up fibrous chunks and leaving muddy finger trenches, she saw Michael standing in the open door of the shed. He was tense, staring at her with fierce, angry, horrified focus. About to bolt outside.
"No! Stay there! Don't let Myrnin come out, either!" she yelled. The draug's liquid was pounding down on her back, and it felt like fists now, small but growing larger, the blows stinging with force. The pull on her ankle was as irresistible as being caught in a flood tide; she couldn't kick free of it.
Wait. Wait for it.
She twisted around and saw that the hand was pulling her foot down into the muddy water of the pool.
Now.
Claire pulled out the plastic bag, opened it, and plunged her hand inside to grab up a handful of the flaky white powder. It felt gritty and dry, like bone dust. She flipped over, sat up, and threw the powder into the shallow pool of water.
All hell exploded.
It wasn't just the puddle that reacted, it was everything, as if it was all one creature, connected. The puddle tried to crawl away, literally flowing out of the hollow and over the grass, but it didn't have the chance. It was like watching something freeze solid in super fast-forward. The muddy water turned into a muddy, rubbery gelatin, turned solid, and stopped moving.
She watched it turn black, and crumble into black flakes. There was nothing living in that.
The water coming out of the sprinklers stopped acting like water; it rose up, straight up, arrowing directly into the clouds.
Escaping.
The sprinklers kept spinning, hissing out pressure, but only a little water made it out, and it seemed like natural stuff.
Claire yanked her foot free of the gelatinous substance with a squishing, squelching noise, and realized that a lot of the grass had dried off around her-the draug had taken most of the water with them. There was still some moisture, but it was just that. No draug.
They were running away from what she'd used.
She picked up a handy stick and poked at the rubbery mass that had been the draug .... It was heavy, solid, flaking into bits, and it smelled dead and rotten.
She stood up, sealed the bag, and gave Michael a big thumbs-up as she settled the hat at a better angle on her head. "I think that's proof of concept," she said. "Now we just have to get the stuff out of here."
"Turn off the sprinklers!" Myrnin said, elbowing Michael out of the doorway. "Go on, shoo!"
"The draug took off, Myrnin, didn't you see it? How often do you see drops go straight up?"
"I'm not coming out until you shut the valve."
Chicken, she thought, but didn't say. He was right, of course. Maybe they were lying in the pipes, waiting for a delicious bite of vampire. She would have been only a snack, but Michael and Myrnin would be a sixteen-course meal.
"Stay there," she said, and jogged on around the side of the shed. Finding the valve was surprisingly easy; turning it off wasn't so much, since she didn't have vampire strength, but she managed to twist the wrench a couple of times until the valve snugged tight.
Overhead, thunder rumbled.
Claire looked up; the clouds looked dark and heavily loaded now with rain. The draug, back in their transportation, she supposed. They could come down again, anytime.
But what about Magnus? Could he travel that way, or was he different? She felt like he was, somehow ... he could transform to liquid but he had more mass to him. He was more there, more real than the others. They were like pieces split off of him, but connected to him. That was how it felt, anyway.
A shadow blocked out her view of the clouds, and she pushed back the awkward cowboy hat to look up. It was Myrnin. He offered her a hand up, and she accepted it. Her gloved hand still felt gritty from the powder. There wasn't a single speck of moisture on it. Even when she swiped it over the still-moist ground, nothing stayed on the plastic without being absorbed.
"It works," she said. Somehow she sounded surprised, as if she'd been standing in the doorway watching instead of actually doing it. "Myrnin-it really works."
"Yes," he said. There was a look on his face that she couldn't understand at all. "Take that hat off. It ill becomes you."
She took that to mean it was stupid, which she agreed with, and tipped it off. It dripped a stream of water off the brim-clean rainwater, not the draug contamination. The cool air hit her damp hair-damp with sweat, she realized-and she shivered.
Michael wasn't far away. Shane was with him, almost there; she could see the struggle in him when he smiled. "Nice moves," he said.
"Thanks," she said. "It was my very best muddy crawl." Her heart ached to see how pale he seemed, how shaky.
Michael seemed to know it, too, because he cut in with the usual banter to take the focus away from Shane. "I agree. You threw that powder like a girl, though."
She channeled her inner Eve. "Which means what? Awesomely? Because you'd better not mean it any other way, or I might get offended."
Michael was smiling, but he still looked strained. There was a trace of fright somewhere in it. "Don't make us do that again," he said. "Don't make us stand there while you-take those kinds of risks."
"I'm okay," she said. "And we're going to be all right. Didn't you say we were, before I came out here?"
"Yeah," Michael said. "But I was kinda lying."
"I know, stupid."
Myrnin cleared his throat. "The draug may be gone, but they can return at any time." He cast an uneasy glance up at the clouds. "We need transportation. I can perhaps fix the car, but-"
"Won't have to," Michael said, and nodded toward the corner of the high school, where another car was slowly pulling around the corner. It was a police cruiser, sleek and dangerous, and there were two figures in it. One had a shotgun barrel pointed out the open window. Claire was surprised to realize that it was Richard Morrell.
Hannah Moses was driving.
She stopped the car and stepped out, frowning at them. "What the hell are you fools doing out here?" she asked.
"What brought you?" Shane asked.
Richard answered that one. "All vampire sedans are equipped with GPS and an automatic signal when there's engine trouble," he said. "We got an alert over her radio that one was out of service here. There wasn't any reason for it to be here, so Hannah wanted to check it out." He stepped out of the car, and seemed to lose his balance for a moment. Hannah gave him a sharp, concerned look, and he caught himself with a hand on the cruiser's roof. "Damn. Low blood sugar."
"And no sleep," Hannah said. "And pushing yourself too hard. Richard-"
"I'm okay, Hannah." Not, Claire noticed, Chief, or Chief Moses, which confirmed her intuition that there was more going on between the two of them than just professional courtesy. He even threw her a smile, and it was a sweet one. Hannah didn't smile back. She continued to look concerned. "Everything okay, folks?"
"The car's trashed," Michael said, "but then again, I think it was worth it. We found a way to kill the draug." He said it casually, but the gleam in his eyes gave it away.
Both Richard and Hannah looked at him with identical expressions of What did you just say? "Well," Hannah said, "I know we can hurt them with silver, but-"
"Not silver," Myrnin said. "Silver only wounds them, and it can't kill Magnus, though it can certainly make him very unhappy. No indeed. The boy's right. We can kill them." He dashed off, and came back with his hands full of the blackened mass-well, not his hands, because even Myrnin wasn't nuts enough to actually pick up the draug with his bare skin. It was actually dumped into Claire's abandoned cowboy hat. He shook it, and it jiggled like gelatin.
Lifelessly. Bits of it flaked away.
"What the ...?" Hannah bent forward over the hat, then reeled back, hand to her nose. "Oh, man. That smells like a weeklong floater."
Claire looked at Shane. "What's a floater?"
"Dead body," he said. "You don't want to know, trust me." His gaze lingered on her, as if he was still in doubt that she was okay.
Or there.
She stripped off the nitrile gloves and gripped his hand tight and fast. He sent her a fast, unsteady smile.
"What is it?" Richard asked. He was staying well back from what was in the hat, but he took a pen from his pocket and poked it into the mass. No reaction. "I mean, what caused this?"
"Chemicals. Janitorial chemicals, to be precise. Young Shane here thought of it." That was generous of Myrnin to say so, Claire thought; Shane seemed surprised, too. "It's led me to think of a few other things that might work as well, but this is surprisingly effective."
Shane's pride, however cautious and concealed, was catching; Claire caught the gleam of it in Hannah's face, and Richard's, too. No, not pride. Hope. A rare commodity in Morganville.
"There's a full barrel of it in the trunk of the sedan," Myrnin said. "We'll need to get it in yours, quickly." As if to emphasize that, the clouds overhead gave another ominous rumble; he flinched, moved vampire-speed to the black sedan, and popped the trunk open by breaking the lock with a sharp pull of his fingers. He and Michael wrestled the barrel out, but allowed Shane and Hannah to help him roll it over to the police car.
Richard stayed with Claire. He glanced at her, raised his eyebrows, and said, "What's with the biohazard suit?"
Oh. She'd forgotten about it, actually. "The sprinklers were on," she said. "The draug were waiting out here for us. I had to have some kind of protection."
"Good thinking." Richard wasn't really listening to her, though; he was watching Hannah as she helped Myrnin and Michael muscle the drum into the trunk of the police car. It didn't fit quite as well as it had in the vampmobile. There was something kind of sad about the way he was looking at Hannah ... as if he wanted something he knew he could never really have. Though he did have her, didn't he? Maybe?
People were complicated. Claire couldn't figure out what was in her own head most of the time, much less her friends'. Or Shane's. And she hardly even knew Monica's brother.
"So," she said, "you and Chief Moses-"
"What?" he asked, and suddenly his gaze was focused on her, laser-sharp. "Me and Chief Moses what?"
"Uh ..." Are dating, she was going to say, but she was afraid suddenly that she'd misread all of that. Awkward. "... Make a good team, I guess." Lame. "She's pretty fantastic."
"She is that," he said. Crisis over. He let his attention wander back to focus on Hannah; Claire wondered if he even knew he was doing it. "Did she ever tell you how she got that scar?"
"No." The dark, seamed scar across Hannah's face was dramatic, but somehow it only made her look ... regal. Scarily more beautiful, as if it were a really exotic tattoo.
"She pulled three people out of a burning truck in Afghanistan, under heavy enemy fire," he said. "She was going back for the fourth when the munitions exploded. She got hit by shrapnel. She was a hero. Got decorated for it and everything. And then she came back here." He shook his head. "Why the hell would she come back here?"
Good question. Claire wasn't sure she had any rational answer, either, but she tried. "It's her home. Maybe there was somebody here she wanted to come back for, too. Is that ... you know, possible?"
That startled him, and he was thinking how to answer that when Hannah finally thumped the trunk closed and said, "Right. We're going to get cozy in here. Claire, in the back with Myrnin and Shane. Probably in the middle, knowing how they get along. Richard, Michael, up front with me."
Conversation over. Claire scrambled into the back and was breathlessly jammed between Shane's solid, warm heat, and Myrnin's oddly cool, angular body. Manwich, she could almost hear Eve say, only Eve would never actually count Myrnin as a man, exactly.
"Get us back to Founder's Square," Myrnin ordered. "I have quite a bit of work to do, you know. Quite a bit. This is a very promising beginning, but there is much left to discover. We will need better delivery systems, the ability to distribute the chemicals widely, and-"
"Yeah, we get it," Hannah interrupted. "Faster is better. No problem, we're going right now, just keep your fangs folded."
"That's very rude," Myrnin said. "I haven't brought my fangs out for some time. Not in mixed company, anyway."
Hannah gave him a long look in the rearview mirror, then put the car into reverse and began an expert, smooth job of backing up. Once in the parking lot, she did a wide circle and made for the exit. The boxy shape of the high school, with its faded cartoon snake mascot sign, quickly receded in the distance, and Claire breathed deeply in relief.
Almost there, she thought. We're almost to the end of this.
And then the rain fell. Softly at first, a few fat, pattering drops on the windshield ... then more of them, a bucket being emptied, then a roaring flood. It came shockingly fast. It wasn't like rain at all, really, more like water with a few bubbles of air trapped inside. As if they'd suddenly been plunged into the deep, dark sea.
"Faster," Shane shouted across to Hannah. A flash of lightning from the dark clouds above turned his face into blue-white stone, except for the panic Claire saw in his eyes. "C'mon, drive, lady! We're going to get caught out here!"
She tried, she really did, but the water was rising so fast in the streets that driving faster built up a wave-first in front of the tires, and then at the bumper of the car. It took only a few short minutes for the narrow roads to flood up to the curbs. The drainage wasn't working-no, Claire realized, it was working, just in reverse. Muddy, tainted water was flowing up out of the drains, adding to the rain that was falling.
The draug were trying to drown them fast and hard.
Hannah had to slow the car as it approached the next intersection. There was a dip in the pavement there, a deep one, and there was no telling what would happen if she drove into it. No, there was-Claire remembered what had happened to Eve's hearse, with its burned-out motor.
The draug could disable the car.
"Turning around!" Hannah shouted, and executed a fast, sliding turn that pushed Claire hard against Myrnin. She grabbed for the back of the seat and wished she'd had time to hunt for a seat belt, but there was no room between them to fasten one now. "Going for a side road. Richard, keep your eyes open. You see anything coming, shoot it."
She drove at a probably-too-fast speed down the side road, as closed and lightless buildings flashed past; gutters gushed water in thick, silvery streams, from what Claire could make out. The rain was coming down at a breathless pace, and it sounded like a hail of dropped ball bearings on the roof of the cruiser. They're supposed to be getting weaker, not stronger. Or is this their desperation effort, since they know we can hurt them?
Something hit that was harder than just a raindrop, with a sharp crack, and Claire twisted around to look behind them. There was a draug crouched on the trunk lid, leering in at them, its face smearing and running in the rain. It had a thick chunk of brick in its hand, and slammed it against the back window a second time.
Claire saw the spiderweb fracture form in the safety glass.
"Brake!" she yelled. Hannah didn't hesitate; she hit them hard, sending the front end of the car diving down and the heavily loaded back up, and the draug lost its balance. It rolled forward over the roof, over the front windshield, onto the hood, and suddenly turned liquid and re-formed facing back toward them, snarling.
Hannah hit reverse. It tumbled off into the roiling water in the road with a splash, sank, and was gone. She quickly put the car into drive again, but the next intersection was as bad as the one they'd tried to avoid. There was no telling how deep the water was, but from the current down the middle that Claire could see rippling, it was dangerous.
So was staying in one place. There were more of the draug, and they'd be here soon.
"Got to chance it," Hannah muttered. "It'll be no better on the other streets. This dip runs right through town." It had been part of the original urban planning, Claire thought; they never got much rain. It was supposed to be clever.
Not so much, now.
She grabbed for Shane's hand and held it tight as Hannah eased the cruiser into the intersection. The front tires rolled downward. The muddy, fast-moving water rippled around the bumper as it submerged. Then it rose along the sides of the car.
"It's too deep," Shane said.
"It's too late. We're committed," Hannah said. She kept the accelerator pressed down, neither accelerating nor braking, and the brown water splashed up onto the hood.
Over it.
It was leaking into the door next to Shane. Just a little, but enough to freak Claire out. It can't be this deep, she thought. It can't drown us. But it didn't have to. All it needed to do was drown out the engine. Improbably enough, it hadn't yet. The cruiser was still running, still rolling relentlessly forward through the draug-infested water. Maybe cop cars were built tougher than hearses and vampmobiles.
They hit the bottom of the dip with a little jolt that sent waves of ripples out, and the water sloshed up on the windshield, leaving a thin, silver, unclean film behind it ... and then Claire felt a strong rush of water against Shane's side of the car, and the car began to slip sideways.
"No, no, no," Hannah chanted under her breath. She pushed the gas, just a little, and the tires caught pavement and began to climb up. The water seemed to hold it back, not just in terms of mass but really holding on, clinging. Claire's breath felt hot and ragged in her chest, and she felt utterly terrified and helpless.
Nothing she could do. Nothing any of them could do, except Hannah, and if she made one wrong move, the car would go spinning into the current, carried away.
But she kept hold of it, nudging the gas in careful increments and pushing the cruiser up. The water level fell. The hood broke the surface, and then the bumper, and then they were up and through and moving fast.
Behind them, the current kept roaring, getting stronger. No other cars were going to make it through there. Not right now, anyway.
Richard reached over, took Hannah's free hand in his, and raised it to his lips. "That," he said, "was world-class calm."
"That was luck," she corrected, but flashed him a brilliant and very personal smile, just the same. "And I was freaking the hell out inside."
"Cold as ice, that's my girl."
"Shut up," she said, but she sounded pleased. And then she remembered they weren't alone in the car, and cleared her throat.
Myrnin said, in a weary tone, "I could sincerely not care less who in this town is carrying on secret affairs just now, so please, declare your impassioned desires or be quiet. All of you."
It was a very quiet drive.
Six blocks later, it all changed. They were within sight of Founder's Square's lights, even though they were difficult to see through the smear of pouring rain; the constant hammering of drops on the roof had made Claire wonder if she was going deaf. But there was just barely enough visibility to see the open-bed pickup truck that charged through the intersection, heading at right angles to Founder's Square. It missed hitting the front bumper of the police cruiser by a couple of feet, maybe, and skidded out of control on the wet pavement, going way too fast.
And then it hit the curb, and flipped over twice, shedding metal and glass and making a shrieking noise that was clear even over the roar of the rain.
Hannah didn't hesitate. She turned the patrol car toward the wreck, pulled as close as she could, and yelled, "Stay inside, all of you!" Then she grabbed a yellow rain slicker with a hood, put it on, and plunged out into the storm.
Richard found another raincoat and joined her.
Claire and Shane and Myrnin were locked into the back, like criminals, and Michael sensibly decided to stay where he was, since there wasn't another rain slicker available. Shane tried his door handle, but not in a way that meant he was seriously trying to jump out.
Myrnin didn't bother. He sat in cold silence for a while, and then said, "This is taking too long. We can't afford the distraction."
"People are hurt," Claire said. "It's Hannah's job to help them."
"It's foolish," he said flatly. "More will die every second we delay. If we allow the draug to play this game, we'll lose. Horribly. Get her back inside."
"Great idea!" Shane muttered. "Why don't you go take a dip in the pool, man?"
"I am not your man," Myrnin hissed back. "What pool are you talking about?"
"Hey!" Claire held out both palms, symbolically shoving them apart. "Enclosed space. Let's all get along."
"It's taking too long," Myrnin said.
And he was right.