Glass Houses

“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 gri

“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.

Chapter 10

S he 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 co

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 co

“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.”