Lord of Misrule

“Like you’ve found yours,” Ha

They locked stares for a few seconds, and then Oliver inclined his head just a bit. “If you like.”

“I don’t,” she said, “but I’m used to the front lines. You got to know, others won’t be.”

Claire couldn’t tell anything from Oliver’s expression. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But for now, we can count on our enemies regrouping. We should do the same.”

Ha

Eve nodded, clearly jittery. She took the car keys out of her pocket and held them in her hand, sorting through until she had the right key pointing out.

“One more thing,” Ha

Eve fumbled in her other pocket and came up with a tiny little penlight. When she twisted it, it gave a surprisingly bright glow.

“Good.” Ha

The three of them moved to the exit, and Ha

“Be careful,” Oliver said from the back of the room, which was kind of warmly surprising. He spoiled it by continuing, “We need those radios delivered.”

Should have known it wasn’t personal. Claire resisted the urge to flip him off.

Eve didn’t bother to resist hers.

Then Ha

Behind them, the Common Grounds door slammed shut and locked. When she looked back, Claire saw that they were pulling down some kind of steel shutters inside the glass.

Locking up for dawn.

Claire and Ha

“You okay?” Eve asked her. Claire nodded, still gasping. “Yeah, I know. Terror Aerobics. Just wait until they get it at the gym. It’ll be bigger than Pilates.”

Claire choked on her fear, laughed, and felt better.

“That’s my girl. Locks,” Eve said. “Also, seat belts, please. We may be making some sudden stops along the way. Don’t want anybody saying hello to Mr. Windshield at speed.”

The drive through predawn Morganville was eerie. It was very . . . quiet. They’d mapped out a route, pla

The doors were hanging open, interior lights were still shining.

Eve slowed down and crawled past on the right side, two wheels up on the curb. “See anything?” she asked anxiously. “Any bodies or anything?”

The cars were completely empty. They were still ru

“Those are vampire cars,” Ha

“They needed to pee?” Eve asked. “When you’ve gotta go . . .”

Ha

“Yeah, that is weird,” Eve said more quietly. “Maybe they went to help somebody.” Or hunt somebody. Claire shivered.

They made their first radio delivery to one of the Founder Houses; Claire didn’t know the people who answered the door, but Eve did, of course. She quickly explained about the radio and the code, and they were back in the car and rolling in about two minutes flat. “Outstanding,” Ha

“Hey, you know how it is, Ha

“More cars,” Claire said softly. “You see?”

It wasn’t just a couple of cars, it was a bunch of them, scattered on both sides of the street now, engines ru

Empty.

They cruised past slowly, and Claire took note of the heavy tinting on the windows. They were all the same type of car, the same type Michael had been issued on his official conversion to vampire.

“What the hell is going on?” Eve asked. She sounded tense and anxious, and Claire couldn’t blame her. She felt pretty tense herself. “This close to dawn, they wouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t even be outside. He said both sides would regroup, but this looks like some kind of full-on panic.”

Claire had to agree, but she also had no explanation. She dug one of the radios out of her backpack, typed in the code that Oliver had given her, and pressed the TALK button. “Oliver? Come in.”

After a short delay, his voice came back. “Go.”

“Something strange is happening. We’re seeing lots of vampire cars, but they’re all abandoned. Empty. Still ru

“Keep me informed,” he finally said. “Count the number of cars. Make a list of license numbers, if you can.”

“Er—anything else? Should we come back?”

“No. Deliver the radios.”

That was it. Claire tried again, but he’d shut off or he was ignoring her. She pressed the RESET button to scramble the code, and looked at Eve, who shrugged. They pulled to a halt in front of the second Founder House. “Let’s just get it done,” Eve said. “Let the vamps worry about the vamps.”

It seemed reasonable, but Claire was afraid that somehow . . . it wasn’t.

Three of the Founder Houses were piles of smoking wood and ash, and the Morganville Fire Department was still pouring water on one of them. Eve cruised by, but didn’t stop. The horizon was getting lighter and lighter, and they still had a couple of stops to make.

“You okay back there?” Eve asked Ha

“Fine,” Ha

“Yeah, next on my list.”

“Good. I want to talk to Cousin Lisa.”

Eve pulled up outside of the big Founder House; it was lit up in every window, a stark contrast to its dark, shuttered neighboring residences. As she put the car in park, the front door opened and spilled a wedge of lemon-colored light across the immaculately kept front porch. Gramma Day’s rocker was empty, nodding in the slight wind.

The person at the door was Lisa Day—tall, strong, with more than a slight resemblance to Ha

“They’re all right,” she called, but she didn’t step outside. “Claire, right? And Eve? Hey, Ha

“Hey.” Ha

As soon as they were in the front door, in a familiar-looking hallway, Lisa slammed down locks and bolts, including a recently installed iron bar that slotted into place on either side of the frame. Ha

“I figured it’d come sooner or later,” Lisa said. “Had the hardware in the basement. All we had to do was put it in. Gramma didn’t like it, but I did it, anyway. She keeps yelling about me putting holes in the wood.”