Midnight Alley

"What are you talking about?"

"When we first looked out, we saw you parked behind Sam's car and we just thought you'd found him there. But you didn't just find him lying in the street —"

Officer Fenton pressed the gas pedal, and the cruiser shot forward at a high rate of speed. He turned on the lights. She heard the harsh clicking sound they made, and the night was flooded with flashes of blue and red strobes.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Shut up."

Claire put her hand on the door handle, but they were going so fast she knew she couldn't jump. She'd be badly hurt, at the very least. "If you hurt me, the Founder — "

"That's what we're counting on," Fenton sneered. "Shut up."

###

Shane would have totally gotten off on the whole vampire-killer-secret-society thing. Claire just wanted to go home. Badly.

In addition to Officer Fenton, the group that gathered in the shed behind the photo processing store included Fenton's wife, the unpleasant nurse, who treated Claire like she was carrying some totally disgusting disease. She even wore latex gloves to tie Claire to the chair.

Claire barely recognized the others. One was a maintenance worker from the university, she'd seen him a few times. One was a bank teller. One was the smooth-faced, unremarkable guy who'd delivered Amelie's note to her this afternoon.

And he was the one who leaned over into her space, hands braced on the arms of the chair, and said, "We don't much care for collaborators. Even little underage ones."

Claire's mouth felt foul and dry, and she was shaking now with the aftereffects of the crystals. Myrnin had been right: the consequences weren't going to be pleasant. "Captain Obvious, I presume," she said.

He laughed. He had nice, white teeth, no sign of vampire fangs. "Aren't you the clever one. Living up to your reputation, I see." He tapped a finger on her gold bracelet. "Not too many breathers have ever seen the Founder, much less become her pet. Sam Glass was the last one, before you. Did you know that? This is his bracelet you're wearing. Probably sized down a little, though."

She squirmed a little, but the ropes were too tight. "What do you want with me?"

"Leverage," said Officer Fenton. "Vamps seem to like you."

"Not all of them," Claire said. If they asked Oliver to come ru

"Michael Glass would," Captain Obvious said. "And he's the one we want." He flipped open the phone and pressed something on speed dial. "Tell him where you are."

Claire glared. "No." She clamped her lips shut as she heard Michael's distant hello on the other end. I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to make a sound ...

The door at the back of the shed opened, and someone came in. Thin, greasy, dressed in a black leather jacket with a hole in the pocket. Crazy eyes. Fang marks on his neck.

Jason.

He took the phone from Captain Obvious. "Hey, Michael, it's Jason. Just shut up and listen. I've got Claire, and I'm thinking about all the things I can do with her until you get here. Better hurry."

"No!" Claire blurted, and realized it was a mistake. She'd just confirmed that she was there, and now Michael wouldn't have any choice, would he? "Michael, don't!"

She could hear the sound of Michael's voice, but not what he was saying. Jason put the phone back to his ear and listened. "Yeah, that's right. You've got half an hour to show, or we'll bring her home in pieces. Oh, and it's not a trap, it's a business proposition. You walk in alone, you both walk out alive."

He snapped the phone shut, tossed it in the air, and caught it, smiling. His eyes never left Claire.

Michael wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't be that stupid, right? But Shane was in the hospital. He didn't have anybody he could turn to for help except the other vampires, and they wouldn't lift a finger to save Claire. She wasn't sure anymore that Amelie would bother, unless she was just saving her as Myrnin's midnight snack.

The door to the shed opened again, and both Captain Obvious and Jason turned to look.

Detective Travis Lowe stepped inside and closed the door, and for a second Claire felt a wild jolt of relief and satisfaction, but it faded just as quickly. Lowe looked at Jason and Captain Obvious like he was expecting to find them there, and when his gaze moved to Claire, he didn't react.

Oh God. He was one of them. Whoever them might be.

"Could you screw this up any more?" he asked, low and vicious. "I told you, Glass isn't important. We don't need to do this."

"He's the youngest. He's a symbol, man," Captain Obvious said. "And he was one of us. He's a traitor."

One of us? Did he mean — no, he couldn't mean that. He couldn't mean that Michael knew these people, that he'd been part of this skanky little conspiracy ...

Nurse Fenton destroyed that hope by saying, "We've already been over this. Michael knows too much. If he decides to talk, we're all dead. We can't take the risk. Not anymore." She shot her husband a dark look. "If you hadn't screwed up — "

"Don't blame me! Vampire car pulling out of the vampire's house, how was I supposed to know it wasn't him?"

Of course. No wonder that had bothered her all along — the house had woken all of them up not because of the threat to Sam, but the threat to Michael, its owner. Even though Michael wasn't there, it was reacting to intent.

Officer Fenton hadn't been the first man on the scene, he'd been the one who staked Sam and left him to die, then pretended to be Joh

Claire swallowed hard and focused on Detective Lowe. "I thought you were a good guy."

Something weary and painful passed across his face. "Claire — " He shook his head. "It's not as simple as that. Not in Morganville. You don't just get to be one thing around here."

"It's not his fault," Jason said, and gri

Detective Hess. They had him. No wonder she hadn't seen him for days — and no wonder Lowe had been acting weird. She looked more closely at Officer Fenton, and found he had a dark bruise on his left cheek that matched the scrapes on Detective Lowe's knuckles. He'd been in the house, maybe with Detective Hess, and Lowe had taken a swing at him.

Lowe's eyes were dark and full of misery, and he looked away from Claire. "The kid's got nothing to do with this," he said.

"The kid hangs with the top-shelf vampires," Nurse Fenton shot back. "How many humans do you know with access to the Founder? She doesn't even let her own kind get close! Of course she's got something to do with this. Probably a lot more than you know."

Truer than Nurse Fenton knew. Claire thought about what she'd learned from Myrnin — the vampire sickness, the wormhole doorways through town, the network of Founder Houses — and realized that she knew enough to destroy Morganville.

Except that destroying it to save it didn't seem like the right idea.

She did her best to look scared and clueless. The first part, at least, wasn't much of a stretch.