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“Not far,” he agreed, and hit the gas, speeding toward the exit past rows of parked cars with fogged-over windows. “Keep her talking.”
“Eve? Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” Eve’s voice suddenly came through the background noise loud and clear. “We’re okay for now, but we need backup, big-time.”
“What’s going on? Vampires?”
“Oh, you’d think, but no. Some jackass jocks started tearing up the place. They’ve been rampaging around through half the town. . . . Oh, shit!” There was a rise in screaming and confused sounds. When Eve came back, she was out of breath. “Now there’re vamps. And they are pissed.”
“Is Oliver there?”
“Didn’t stop to read name tags. Oh, man—seriously not good here. People are dying—Cory! Cory, no, don’t—Cory!” Eve’s last word was a scream of utter horror, and then the phone just . . . died. Claire hung up and tried calling back. Eve’s cheery voice mail took the call. She looked over at Shane, who was staring straight ahead with an expression as hard as stone. He shook his head.
“Hurry,” Claire whispered. She realized her shirt was still open, and quickly buttoned it up with trembling hands. “Does Eve keep any weapons in here?”
“Probably in the back. Wait—check the glove box.”
Claire opened it and found two silver-coated, sharp-tipped stakes. They weren’t her favorite vampire-fighting accessory, only because they weren’t something she could use at a distance, but the heavy, cool feel of them eased a tight, anxious knot in her stomach. But there was something odd about the way they felt. . . . Claire turned the stakes over in her fingers until she saw what that roughness in the surface was, and almost laughed.
“What?” Shane asked. Claire showed him the stake. The dashboard lights caught the silver surface and shone red from a skull design blinged out in fake rubies on it.
“She BeDazzled her stakes,” Claire said.
“Yeah, she would.” He almost smiled, but his eyes were wild, and he couldn’t seem to get his face to relax. “Get Chief Moses on the phone; get her to send the marines.”
Claire nodded and speed-dialed Ha
“Ha
“I had some plainclothes officers there making sure the kids didn’t get into trouble. Except they did, right?”
“Eve called me, and there was screaming. I think you’d better send everybody. Just in case.”
“Done. And, Claire, don’t you go ru
“But Eve’s in there! ”
“And we’ll get everybody out.”
Ha
“Well, I like the lady, but screw that,” Shane said. “Call Michael. Eve probably did, but just in case; he’d rip my ears off if I didn’t let him know what was up.”
Besides which, Michael’s vampire strength wouldn’t be at all a liability right now. Claire tried his phone, but it went to voice mail. She left a message with the address, and texted him, too. That was all she had time for, because Shane skidded the hearse around the last corner and onto a street that should have been deserted after dark—well, was deserted most of the time—but was parked up with cars on both sides.
There were people boiling out of the doorway of one of the big, rickety warehouses on the left, and Claire had a blurry impression of open mouths and panicked faces as the hearse hurtled toward them.
Shane blurted out a curse that normally would have made her blush and slammed on the brakes. Somehow, he managed not to hit any of the ru
She nodded. Shane took a deep breath and got out of the car, and she slid out after him as he ran to the back and opened up the hatch to grab a black canvas bag. “Hope this isn’t her makeup,” he said as he shouldered the strap and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”
People were still coming out. Claire noticed that most of them seemed okay, just freaked-out, but there were a few who seemed like they might be injured. Maybe that was just from the general crowd panic—hard to tell. She hoped so. She heard the wail of sirens approaching, and had time to think, Ha
She kept her promises.
Someone smacked into Shane as he started through the doorway, and he staggered back a step, then grabbed whoever it was and yanked her out into the street.
Monica Morrell. She looked just as scared as everyone else ru
No, it wasn’t red and white. It was white. Claire parted her lips, realizing what all the red was, and looked sharply at Shane. He was staring at Monica with a very odd expression—pity, mixed with distaste. But mostly pity. It was almost concern.
“What happened?” he asked. She didn’t answer, so he shook her, not too gently. “Monica, snap out of it. What happened?”
“It was all going okay, and then the Epsilon Epsilon Kappa guys showed up. They were all drunk and crazy, started yelling about being in a fight and how they kicked somebody’s ass. They busted stuff up.”
Shane went from concerned to pissed. “That’s it?”
“No! No, they . . . they were followed.” Monica swallowed. She looked pale and shaky. “The vamps came. I guess the ass they kicked belonged to one of them. It got ugly. It’s getting worse.” She looked down at Shane’s hand around her arm, and got a little of the old Monica ’tude back. “Who said you could go all bad-cop on me, Collins? Back your wa
He didn’t let go. “Did you see Eve?”
“Little Miss Goth Princess had some boring chick with her. She’s—” Monica looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Everybody was ru
Shane said, “Let go or lose the fingers,” and she did, instantly, stepping back and wrapping her arms around her torso—for warmth, not in defiance. Shane looked back and held out his hand. Claire took it. “Ready?”
“I guess.”
“Watch your back.”
The oncoming wail of sirens meant help was coming, but Claire knew Shane wasn’t going to wait. She didn’t want to, either. That had been real fear in Eve’s scream.
They plunged onward, into the warehouse.
The place smelled like smoke—not burning-insulation smoke, but the kind of bong smoke college students liked a lot better. It made Claire’s eyes water. The rave lights were still on, cycling through all kinds of colors and patterns, strobing white every few seconds. The music was still thundering, too—the deejay had left tracks ru
A few people were too scared to make a break for the door; she could see them hiding behind the speakers, or pressed against the walls in a huddle, trying to pretend it all wasn’t happening. The usual Morganville strategy. It was hard to make out details in the weird lights, but none of them had Eve’s Goth style. Mostly college kids, Claire thought. Well, they’d gotten their tuition’s worth tonight.