Lord of Misrule

“I’ll tell you later,” she said, and realized she was still holding the bloody silver knife. She carefully put it back in her pocket, in the makeshift holster against her leg. It was so dull she didn’t think it would cut anything again, but it made her feel better. “Oliver?”

“Bad.” Shane put his hands around her head and tilted it up, looking her over. “Is everything okay?”

“Define everything. No, define okay.” She shook her head in frustration. “I need to get the radio. I have to talk to Richard.”

Richard wasn’t on the radio. “He’s meeting with the mayor,” said the man who answered. Sullivan, Claire thought his name was, but she hadn’t really paid attention. “You got a problem there?”

“No, Officer, you’ve got a problem there,” she said. “I need to talk to Richard. It’s really important!”

“Everybody needs to talk to Richard,” Sullivan said. “He’ll get back to you. He’s busy right now. If it’s not an emergency response—”

“Yes, okay! It’s an emergency!”

“Then I’ll send units out to you. Glass House, right?”

“No, it’s not—” Claire wanted to slam the radio down in frustration. “It’s not an emergency here. Look, just tell Richard that he needs to clear everybody out of City Hall, as soon as possible.”

“Can’t do that,” Sullivan said. “It’s our center of operations. It’s the main storm shelter, and we’ve got one heck of a storm coming tonight. You’re going to have to give me a reason, miss.”

“All right, it’s because—”

Michael took the radio away from her and shut it off. Claire gaped, stuttered, and finally demanded, “Why?”

“Because if Amelie says Bishop’s got himself installed in City Hall, somebody there has to know. We don’t know who’s on his team,” Michael said. “I don’t know Sullivan that well, but I know he never was happy with the way things ran in town. I wouldn’t put it past him to be buying Bishop’s crap about giving the city back to the people, home rule, all that stuff. Same goes for anybody else there, except maybe Joe Hess and Travis Lowe. We have to know who we’re talking to before we say anything else.”

Shane nodded. “I’m thinking that Sullivan’s keeping Richard out of the loop for a reason.”

They were downstairs, the four of them. Eve, Shane, and Claire were at the kitchen table, and Michael was pacing the floor and casting looks at the couch, where Oliver was. The older vampire was asleep, Claire guessed, or unconscious; they’d done what they could, washed him off and wrapped him in clean blankets. He was healing, according to Michael, but he wasn’t doing it very fast.

When he’d woken up, he’d seemed distant. Confused.

Afraid.

Claire had given him one of the doses she’d gotten from Dr. Mills, and so far, it seemed to be helping, but if Oliver was sick, Myrnin’s fears were becoming real.

Soon, it’d be Amelie, too. And then where would they be?

“So what do we do?” Claire asked. “Amelie said we have to tell Richard. We have to get noncombatants out of City Hall, as soon as possible.”

“Problem is, you heard him giving instructions to the Civil Defense guys earlier—they’re out telling everybody in town to go to City Hall if they can’t make it to another shelter. Radio and TV, too. Hell, half the town is probably there already.”

“Maybe she won’t do it,” Eve said. “I mean, she wouldn’t kill everybody in there, would she? Not even if she thinks they’re working for Bishop.”

“I think it’s gone past that,” Claire said. “I don’t know if she has any choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not in chess,” Claire replied. “Unless your choice is to lie down and die.”

In the end, the only way to be sure they got to the right person was to get in the car and drive there. Claire was a little shocked at the color of the sky outside—a solid gray, with clouds moving so fast it was like time-lapse on the Weather Cha

The only good thing about it was that Michael didn’t have to worry about getting scorched by sunlight. He brought a hoodie and a blanket to throw over his head, just in case, but it was dark outside, and getting darker fast. Premature sunset.

Drops of rain were smacking the sidewalk, the size of half-dollars. Where they hit Claire’s skin, they felt like paintball pellets. As she looked up at the clouds, a horizontal flash of lightning peeled the sky in half, and thunder rumbled so loudly she felt it through the soles of her shoes.

“Come on!” Eve yelled, and started the car. Claire ran to open the backseat door and piled in beside Shane. Eve was already accelerating before she could fasten her seat belt. “Michael, get the radio.”

He turned it on. Static. As he sca

Then one came in, loud and clear, broadcasting on a loop.

Attention Morganville residents: this is an urgent public service a

Michael clicked it off. There was no point in listening to the repeat; it wasn’t going to get any better.

“How many Safe Shelters are there?” Shane asked. “University dorms have them, the UC—”

“Founder’s Square has two,” Michael said, “but nobody can get to them right now. They’re locked up.”

“Library.”

“And the church. Father Joe would open up the basements, so that’ll fit a couple of hundred people.”

Everybody else would head to City Hall, if they didn’t stay in their houses.

The rain started to fall in earnest, slapping the windshield at first, and then pounding it in fierce waves. The ancient windshield wipers really weren’t up to it, even at high speed. Claire was glad she wasn’t trying to drive. Even in clear visibility she wasn’t very good, and she had no idea how Eve was seeing a thing.

If she was, of course. Maybe this was faith-based driving.

Other cars were on the road, and most of them were heading the same way they were. Claire looked at the clock on her cell phone.

Five thirty p.m.

The storm was less than an hour away.

“Uh-oh,” Eve said, and braked as they turned the last corner. It was a sea of red taillights. Over the roll of thunder and pounding rain, Claire heard horns honking. Traffic moved, but slowly, one car at a time inching forward. “They’re checking cars at the barricade. I can’t believe—”

Something happened up there, and the brake lights began flicking off in steady rows. Cars moved. Eve fell into line, and the big, black sedan rolled past two police cars still flashing their lights. In the red/blue/red glow, Claire saw that they’d moved the barricades aside and were just waving everyone through.

“This is crazy,” she said. “We can’t get people out. Not fast enough! We’d have to stop everybody from coming in first, and then give them somewhere to go. . . .”

“I’m getting out of the car here,” Michael said. “I can run faster than you can drive in this. I’ll get to Richard. They won’t dare stop me.”

That was probably true, but Eve still said, “Michael, don’t—”

Not that it stopped him from bailing out into the rain. A flash of lightning streaked by overhead and showed him splashing through thick puddles, weaving around cars.