“Okay,’” she said weakly. “That was different.’”
“What?’” Claire asked, and jumped to her feet.
“Nothing. Um, nothing at all. Right.’” Eve cleared her throat. “What happened last night? Did you get them to let Shane go?’”
Claire’s throat just locked up on her in misery. She shook her head and looked down. “But it’s no use going out there with stakes and crosses,’” she said. “They’d be ready. We need another plan.’”
“What about Joe? Detective Hess?’”
Claire shook her head again. “He can’t.’”
“Then let’s go talk to some people who can,’” Eve said reasonably. She picked up her coffee and drained it in long, chugging gulps, set the mug aside, and nodded. “Ready.’”
“Who are we going to see?’”
“It may shock you, but living in Morganville my entire pathetic life isn’t a complete waste. I know people, okay? And some of them actually have backbones.’”
Claire blinked. “Um…okay. Two minutes.’”
She dashed upstairs for the fastest shower and change of clothes in her life.
9
It stood to reason that Eve would know places to go that Claire didn’t, but for some reason it surprised Claire where those places were. A Laundromat, for instance. And a photo-processing place. In each case, Eve made her wait in the car while she talked to somebody—a human somebody, Claire was almost sure. But nothing came out of it, either time.
Eve got back in her big, dusty Cadillac looking grim and already wilting in the morning’s heat. “Father Jonathan’s on a trip,’” she said. “I was hoping we could get him to talk to the mayor. They go back.’”
“Father Jonathan? There’s a priest in town?’”
Eve nodded. “The vampires don’t care about whether or not he celebrates Mass, as long as he doesn’t display any crosses. Communion’s kind of interesting; the vamps keep the wafers and wine under guard. Oh, and forget about the holy water. If they ever caught him making the sign of the cross over anything liquid, they’d make sure his next congregation has an address behind the pearly gates.’”
Claire blinked, trying to get her head around it. “But—he’s on a trip? Out of town? What?’”
“Gone to the Vatican. Special dispensation.’”
“The Vatican knows about Morganville?’”
“No, idiot. When he leaves town, he’s like anybody else: no memory of the vamps. So I don’t think we can count on the Vatican Strike Team storming in to save Shane, if that’s what you were thinking.’”
It wasn’t, but it was kind of comforting to imagine paramilitary priests in bulletproof armor, with crosses on the vests. “So what now, then? If you can’t get to Father Jonathan?’”
Eve started the car. They were parked in the tiny photo-store parking lot, next to a big industrial-sized Dumpster. They were the only car in the parking lot, although a white van was just turning into the lot and squealing to a stop in the space next to them. It was still pretty early—before nine a.m.—and what passed for traffic in Morganville was slowly filtering around the streets. The photo-processing place claimed to be open twenty-four hours; now, that was a job Claire figured she didn’t want. Did vampires take pictures? What kind? Maybe the trick was not to look at what came spitting out of the machine, just shuffle the prints into an envelope and hand them over…but then, that was probably the trick outside of Morganville, too.
She checked the clock again. “Eve! What about your job?’”
“I can get another one.’”
“But—’”
“Claire, it wasn’t that good of a job. Look at what I had to put up with. Jocks. Jerks. Monica.’”
Eve started to back out of the parking lot, then slammed on the brakes when another car pulled in behind her, blocking her in. “Dammit,’” she breathed, and fumbled for her cell phone. She pitched it to Claire. “Call the cops.’”
“Why?’” Claire twisted to look out the back, but she couldn’t see who was driving the other car.
She was looking in the wrong place. The threat wasn’t the car behind them; it was the white van next to the passenger side of the Cadillac, and as she started punching 911, a sliding panel came open, and someone reached out and pulled on the handle of Claire’s door.
It was locked. She wasn’t a total idiot. But two seconds later, it didn’t matter, because a crowbar hit the window behind her, smashing it into a million little sparkly pieces, and Claire reflexively jerked forward, hands over her head. She fumbled the phone into the floorboards, and tried frantically to find it. Eve was cursing breathlessly.
“Get us out of here!’” Claire yelled.
“I can’t! We’re blocked in!’”
Claire grabbed the phone triumphantly, finished pushing buttons for 911, and pressed SEND just as a hand reached in from the backseat and slammed her face-first into the dash.
After that, things got a little distant and fluffy around the edges. She remembered being taken out of the car. Remembered Eve yelling and fighting, then going quiet.
Remembered being bundled into the van and the door sliding shut.
And as her head began to clear up again, except for a monster-sized headache centered right over her eyes, she remembered the van, too. She’d seen it before. She’d been in it before.
And just like before, Jennifer was driving, and Monica and Gina were in the back. Gina was holding her down. The girls looked flushed. Crazy. Not good.
“Eve,’” Claire whispered.
Monica leaned closer. “Who, the freak? Not here.’”
“What did you do to her?’”
“Just a little cut, nothing too serious,’” Monica said. “You ought to be worried about yourself, Claire. My daddy wanted to get a message to you.’”
“Your—what?’”
“Daddy. What, you don’t have one of those? Or do you just not know which john was the sperm donor?’” Monica sneered. She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and an orange top, and she looked as glossy as a magazine page. “Oh, don’t bother, mouse. Just stay down—you won’t get hurt.’”
Gina pinched Claire, hard. Claire yelled, and Monica grinned in response. “Well,’” she amended, “maybe hurt a little. But a tough chick like you can take it, right, genius?’”
Gina pinched Claire again, and Claire gritted her teeth and managed to keep it to just a whimper this time. Easier, since she was already prepared for the pain. Gina looked disappointed. Maybe she should scream her lungs out no matter what, save herself the trouble of Gina having to work harder for it….
“You were following us,’” Claire said. She felt nauseated, probably from smacking her head into the dashboard, and she was deeply worried about Eve. A little cut. Monica wasn’t the type to do anything halfway.
“See? I told you she was a genius, didn’t I?’” Monica sat down in one of the padded leather seats that lined the van, and crossed her legs. She had on cute platform shoes that matched her orange tank top, and she inspected her nails—also done in orange—for signs of chipping. “You know what, genius? You’re right. I was following you. See, I wanted to bring you in quietly, but no, you and Zombie Girlfriend had to make it all difficult. Why aren’t you in class, anyway? Isn’t that, like, against your religion or something, cutting class?’”
Claire struggled to sit up. Gina glanced at Monica, who nodded; Claire edged away from Gina and put her back up against the sliding door of the van. She rubbed her stinging arm where Gina had given her pinches. “Shane,’” she said. “That’s what your dad wants to see me about, isn’t it?’”
Monica shrugged. “I guess. Look, I don’t like Shane; that’s no secret. But I never intended for his sister to get killed in that fire. It was a stupid school thing, okay? No big deal.’”
“No big deal?’” Of everything Monica had ever said to her—and there’d been some jaw-droppers—that was maybe the worst. “No big deal? A kid died, and you destroyed their whole family! Don’t you get it? Shane’s mom
