Lord of Misrule

Common Grounds, however, was deserted, and the steel shutters were down. The front door was locked. They drove around back, to the alley. Nothing was there but trash cans, and—

“What the hell is that?” Shane asked. He hit the brakes and put the car in park, then jumped out and picked up something small on the ground. He got back in and showed it to Claire.

It was a small white candy in the shape of a skull. Claire blinked at it, then looked down the alley. “She left a trail of breath mints?”

“Looks like. We’ll have to go on foot to follow it.”

Ha

“Over here!” Ha

After that, they went faster. The skull candies were in plain sight, easy to spot. Claire noticed that they were mostly in the shadows, which would have made sense, if Eve was with Myrnin or the other vampires. Why didn’t she stay? Maybe she hadn’t had a choice.

They ran out of candy trail after a few blocks. It led them into an area where Claire hadn’t really been before—abandoned old buildings, mostly, falling to pieces under the relentless pressure of years and sun. It looked and felt deserted.

“Where now?” Claire asked, looking around. She didn’t see anything obvious, but then she spotted something shiny, tucked in behind a tipped-over rusty trash can. She reached behind and came up with a black leather collar, studded with silver spikes.

The same collar Eve had been wearing. She wordlessly showed it to Shane, who turned in a slow circle, looking at the blank buildings. “Come on, Eve,” he said. “Give us something. Anything.” He froze. “You hear that?”

Ha

“You don’t hear it?”

Claire did. Somebody’s phone was ringing. A cell phone, with an ultrasonic ringtone—she’d heard that older people couldn’t hear those frequencies, and kids in school had used them all the time to sneak phone calls and texts in class. It was faint, but it was definitely there. “I thought the networks were down,” she said, and pulled her own phone out.

Nope. The network was back up. She wondered if Richard had done it, or they’d lost control of the cell phone towers. Either one was possible.

They found the phone before the ringing stopped. It was Eve’s—a red phone, with silver skull cell phone charms on it—discarded in the shadow of a broken, leaning doorway. “Who was calling?” Claire asked, and Shane paged through the menu.

“Richard,” he said. “I guess he really was looking for her after all.”

Claire’s phone buzzed—just once. A text message. She opened it and checked.

It was from Eve, and it had been sent hours ago; the backlog of messages was just now being delivered, apparently.

It read, 911 @ GERMANS. Claire showed it to Shane. “What is this?”

“Nine one one. Emergency message. German’s—” He looked over at Ha

“German’s Tire Plant,” she said. “Damn, I don’t like that; it’s the size of a couple of football fields, at least.”

“We should let Richard know,” Claire said. She dialed, but the network was busy, and then the bars failed again.

“I’m not waiting,” Shane said. “Let’s get the car.”

9

The tire plant was near the old hospital, which made Claire shudder; she remembered the deserted building way too well. It had been incredibly creepy, and then of course it had also nearly gotten her and Shane killed, too, so again, not fond.

She was mildly shocked to see the hulking old edifice still standing, as Shane turned the car down the street.

“Didn’t they tear that place down?” It had been scheduled for demolition, and boy, if any place had ever needed it . . .

“I heard it was delayed,” Shane said. He didn’t seem any happier about it than Claire was. “Something about historic preservation. Although anybody wanting to preserve that thing has never been inside it ru

Claire stared out the window. On her side of the car was the brooding monstrosity of a hospital. The cracked stones and tilted columns in front made it look like something straight out of one of Shane’s favorite zombie-killing video games. “Don’t be hiding in there,” she whispered. “Please don’t be hiding in there.” Because if Eve and Myrnin had taken refuge there, she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to go charging in after them.

“There’s German’s,” Ha

“You ever been inside there?” Shane asked Ha

“Not for a whole lot of years,” she said. “Yeah, we used to hide up in there sometimes, when we cut class or something. I guess everybody did, once in a while. It’s a mess in there, a real junkyard. Stuff everywhere, walls falling apart, ceilings none too stable, either. If you go up to the second level, you watch yourself. Make sure you don’t trust the floors, and watch those iron stairs. They were shaky even back then.”

“Are we going in there?” Claire asked.

“No,” Shane said. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here and getting Richard on the phone and telling him where we are. Me and Ha

There didn’t seem to be much room for argument, because Shane didn’t give her time; he and Ha

Claire watched until they disappeared around the corner of the building, and realized her fingers were going numb from clutching her cell phone. She took a deep breath and flipped it open to try Richard Morrell again.

Nothing. No signal again. The network was going up and down like a yo-yo.

The walkie-talkie signal was low, but she tried it anyway. There was some kind of response, but it was swallowed by static. She gave their position, on the off chance that someone on the network would be able to hear her over the noise.

She screamed and dropped the device when the light at the car window was suddenly blocked out, and someone battered frantically on the glass.

Claire recognized the silk shirt—her silk shirt—before she recognized Monica Morrell, because Monica definitely didn’t look like herself. She was out of breath, sweating, her hair was tangled, and what makeup she had on was smeared and ru

She’d been crying. There was a cut on her right cheek, and a forming bruise, and dirt on the silk blouse as well as bloodstains. She was holding her left arm as though it was hurt.

“Open the door!” she screamed, and pounded on the glass again. “Let me in!”

Claire looked behind the car.

There was a mob coming down the street: thirty, forty people, some ru

They saw Monica and let out a yell. Claire gasped, because that sound didn’t seem human at all—more the roar of a beast, something mindless and hungry.

Monica’s expression was, for the first time, absolutely open and vulnerable. She put her palm flat against the window glass. “Please help me,” she said.