She hit the brakes and brought them to a fast, complete stop that tossed Claire painfully against the restraints. Not that Claire noticed all that much, because like Eve, she was pretty much horror-struck by what she was seeing ahead.
“Tell me that’s not the place,’” she said.
Because if it was, the place was on fire.
Richard Morrell’s police cruiser was parked at the wrought-iron gates, its doors hanging open. The guys had bailed out fast. Eve moved the Caddy closer, then shut off the engine, and the two girls looked in dawning horror at the flames shooting out from the windows and roof of the big stone building.
“Where’s the fire department?’” Claire asked. “Where are the cops?’”
“I don’t know, but we can’t count on help. Not tonight.’” Eve opened the door on her side and stepped out. “Do you see them? Anywhere?’”
“No!’” Claire flinched as glass exploded from one of the upper windows. “Do you?’”
“We have to go in!’”
“Go in?’” Claire was about to point out how crazy that was, but then she saw someone inside the gates, lying very still. “Eve!’” She ran to the gate and rattled it, but it was locked tight.
“Up!’” Eve yelled, and scrambled up on the wrought iron. Claire followed. It was slippery and sharp, and cut her hands, but somehow she made it to the top, then dangled from the crossbar and let herself fall on the other side. She hit hard, and rolled clumsily back to her feet. Eve, who’d come down a lot more gracefully, was already moving toward the guy lying on the ground…
…who was one of Frank’s guys. Dead. Eve looked up at Claire wordlessly and showed her the blood on her hand, shaking her head. “He was shot,’” she said. “Oh, God. They’re inside, Claire. Michael’s inside!’”
Only he wasn’t, because between one blink and the next, as Eve tried to rush into the open smoke-filled door, Michael plunged out of it, and he grabbed her and hauled her back. “No!’” he yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?’”
“Michael!’” Eve turned and threw herself into his arms. “Where’s Monica?’”
“In there.’” Michael looked terrible—smoke-stained and red-eyed, with little burned patches in his shirt. “The others went in to get her. I—I had to come out.’”
Vampires could be killed by fire. Claire remembered that from the list she’d made shortly after moving to Morganville. She couldn’t believe he’d risked his just barely begun life to get as far as he’d gone.
“Damn right you can’t!’” Eve yelled. “If you go and get yourself killed for Monica Morrell, I’ll never forgive you!’”
“It wouldn’t be for Monica,’” he said. “You know that.’”
They stared at the flames, waiting. Seconds ticked by, and there was no sign of anyone: no Monica, and no cops, either. The horizon was getting lighter in the east, Claire realized, going from dark blue to twilight.
Dawn was coming, and they were almost out of time to get Monica to Founder’s Square, if they could get her at all.
If she was still alive.
“Sun’s coming!’” Michael shouted over the roar of the fire.
Claire didn’t ask how he knew. He’d known when he was a ghost; she figured it was probably the same time sense as a vampire’s. Made sense. It would be a survival trait, to know when to get under cover. “You need to get out of here!’” she yelled back. A thick, black billow of smoke belched out of the doorway and made her double over, coughing. They all retreated. “Michael, you have to go! Now!’”
“No!’”
“At least get in the police car!’” Eve pointed to it, on the other side of the fence. “Tinted windows! We’ll wait here, I swear!’”
“I’m not leaving you!’”
The sun crested the far horizon in a tiny sliver of gold, and where it touched him, Michael’s pale skin started to sizzle and smoke. He hissed in pain and slapped at it. A pale, licking flame took hold on his hand.
Claire and Eve screamed, and Eve tackled him into the shadows. That helped, but not much; he was still burning, just more slowly. Michael groaned and looked like he was trying not to scream.
“Claire!’” Eve tossed her the car keys. “Ram the gate! Get it open! Do it!’”
“But—your car!’”
“It’s just a freakin’ car! Come on, move it! We’ll never get him over the fence!’”
Claire scrambled back over the slick, warm iron of the fence, slicing her hands in two or three more places, and barely felt the impact when she fell this time. She was up and running for the Caddy—
—and then she changed course, threw herself into the driver’s seat of the police car, and started it with the keys hanging from the ignition.
This had to be some kind of crime, right? But in an emergency…
She backed it up almost to the end of the block, put the car in drive, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
She screamed and managed to hang on to the wheel somehow as the gate rushed up at her; there was a bone-jarring crunch, and she slammed on the brakes. The gates flew open, bent and mangled, and the police car gave a roar and died, sputtering. Claire got out and opened the back door as Eve rushed Michael toward her; Michael dived in, and Claire slammed the door behind him. Eve was right—the windows were heavily tinted, probably to protect vampire cops from the sun. He’d be okay in there.
Claire hoped.
“What about the others?’” she yelled at Eve, who shook her head. They both turned to look at the warehouse, which was fully on fire now, shooting flames twenty or thirty feet into the morning sky. “Oh God. Oh God! We have to do something!’”
Just then, two figures staggered out of the side door, bathed in black smoke, and collapsed to the pavement. Eve and Claire dashed to them. For a second, Claire didn’t even know who they were, so blackened were they by smoke, and then she recognized Joe Hess under the grime.
The other one was Travis Lowe. They were both coughing and retching up black stuff.
“Get up!’” Eve ordered, and grabbed Hess’s arm to drag him away from the building. “Come on, get up!’”
He did, weaving badly, and Claire managed to get Lowe to do the same. They made it about halfway to the police car, and then Lowe sat down in the open parking lot, coughing his lungs out, gasping. Claire crouched down next to him, wishing she could do something, wishing the damn fire department would come, wishing….
“We’re too late,’” Eve said. She was watching the sun climb over the horizon. “It’s dawn. We’re too late.’”
Hess gasped, “No. Not yet. Richard—had Monica—’”
“What? Where?’” Claire spun to look at him. Hess was nearly as bad off as his partner, but he was able to form words, at least. “They’re still alive?’”
“Should have been right behind us,’” Lowe wheezed.
Claire didn’t think about it. If she’d given herself time, she would have talked herself out of it, but her brain was on hold and all that was left was instinct. It wasn’t just that there was still hope to save Shane; it was that she couldn’t leave anybody to die like that.
She just couldn’t.
She heard Eve yelling her name, but she didn’t stop, couldn’t stop; she kept running until she was in the smoke, and then she dropped to her knees and crawled into the hot, suffocating darkness. She flailed with her hands, trying to find something, anything, and kept her eyes tight shut. She could barely breathe, even close to the ground, and every breath she did manage to take was tainted and toxic, more harm than good.
Okay, this was a really bad idea.
She didn’t dare crawl too far; in the chaos and darkness, she’d never find her way out again. Something fell near her with a huge crash, and fire roared overhead. Claire went flat on the floor and curled into a ball, then—when she wasn’t roasted or crushed—forced herself to keep moving. One minute. One minute and then straight back out.
She wasn’t sure she could survive a minute in here.
Her searching fingers brushed cloth. Claire opened her eyes and was instantly sorry, because the smoke
