students, obviously. Apart from the ones Michael and Richard brought in, we have perhaps five in total on the grounds. More were here earlier, but they headed for shelter before sunrise, off campus.” Dean Wallace seemed calm, even in the face of all this. “You’re Claire Danvers?”
“Yes ma’am,” she said, and shook the hand Dean Wallace offered her.
“I had a talk with your Patron recently regarding your progress. Despite your—challenges, you have done excellent course work.”
It was stupid to feel pleased about that, but Claire couldn’t help it. She felt herself blush, and shook her head. “I don’t think that matters very much right now.”
“On the contrary, it matters a great deal, I believe.”
Eve settled herself down next to the sofa, holding Michael’s limp hand. She looked shattered. Hannah leaned against the wall and nodded to the soldier as he exited the office. “So,” she said, “want to explain to me how you can have half the U.S. Army walking the perimeter and not have massive student panic?”
“We’ve told all students and their parents that the university is cooperating in a government emergency drill, and of course that all weapons are nonlethal. Which is quite true, so far as it goes. The issue of keeping students on campus is a bit trickier, but we’ve managed so far by linking it to the emergency drills. Can’t go on for long, though. The local kids are already well informed, and it’s only a matter of time before the out-of-town students begin to realize that we’re having them on when they can’t get word out to their friends and relatives. We’re filtering all Internet and phone access, of course.” Dean Wallace shook her head. “But that’s my problem, not yours, and yours is much more pressing. We can’t knock out every vampire in town, and we can’t
“Not enough happy juice in the world,” Hannah agreed. “We need to either stop this at its source, or get the heck out of their way.”
There was a soft knock on the door, and Ms. Nance stepped in. “Richard Morrell,” she announced, and moved aside for him.
Claire stared. Monica’s brother looked like about fifty miles of bad road—exhausted, red-eyed, pale, running on caffeine and adrenaline. Just like the rest of them, she supposed. As Ms. Nance quietly closed the door behind him, Richard strode forward, staring at Michael’s limp body. “Is he out?” His voice sounded rough, too, as if he’d been yelling. A
“Sleeping the sleep of the just,” Hannah said. “Or the just drugged, anyway. Claire. Radio.”
Oh. She’d forgotten about the backpack still slung over her shoulder. She quickly took out the last radio and handed it over, explaining what it was for. Richard nodded.
“I think this calls for a strategy meeting,” he said, and pulled up a chair next to the couch. Hannah and Claire took seats as well, but Eve stayed where she was, by Michael, as if she didn’t want to leave him even for a moment.
Dean Wallace sat behind her desk, fingers steepled, watching with interested calm.
“I put in the code, right?” He was already doing it, so Claire just nodded. A signal bleeped to show he was logged on the network. “Richard Morrell, University, checking in.”
After a few seconds, a voice answered. “Check, Richard, you’re the last station to report. Stand by for a bulletin.”
There were a few clicks, and then another voice came over the radio.
This is Oliver. I am broadcasting to all on the network with emergency orders. Restrain every vampire allied to us that you can find, by whatever means necessary. Locked rooms, chains, tranquilizers, cells, use what you have. Until we know how and why this is happening, we must take every precaution during the day. It seems that some of us have resistance to the call, and others have immunity, but this could change at any time. Be on your guard. From this point forward, we will conduct hourly calls, and each location will report status. University station, report.
Richard clicked the TALK button. “Michael Glass and all the other vampires in our group are being restrained. We’ve got student containment here, but it won’t last. We’ll have to open the gates no later than tomorrow morning, if we can keep it together until then. Even with the phone and Internet blackout, somebody’s going to get word out.”
“We’re following the plan,” Oliver said. “We’re taking the cell towers down in ten minutes, until further notice. Phone lines are already cut. The only communication from this point forward will be strategic, using the radios. What else do you need?”
“Whip and a chair? Nothing. We’re fine here for now. I don’t think anybody will try a daylight assault, not with as many guards as we have here.” Richard hesitated, then keyed the mike again. “Oliver, I’ve been hearing things. I think there are some factions out there forming. Human factions. Could complicate things.”
Oliver was silent for a moment, then said, “Yes, I understand. We’ll deal with that as it arises.”
Oliver moved on to the next station on his list, which was the Glass House. Monica reported in, which was annoying. Claire resisted the urge to grind her teeth. It was a quick summary, at least, and as more Founder Houses reported in, the situation seemed the same: some vampires were responding to the homing signal, and some weren’t. At least, not yet.
Richard Morrell was staring thoughtfully into the distance, and finally, when all the reports were finished, he clicked the button again. “Oliver, it’s Richard. What happens if
“I won’t,” Oliver said.
“If you do. Humor me. Who takes over?”
Oliver obviously didn’t want to think about this, and Claire could hear the barely suppressed fury in his voice when he replied. “You do,” he said. “I don’t care how you organize it. If we have to hand the defense of Morganville over to mere humans, we’ve already lost. Oliver signing out. Next check-in, one hour from now.”
The walkie-talkie clicked off.
“That went well,” Dean Wallace observed. “He’s named you heir apparent to the Apocalypse. Congratulations.”
“Yeah, it’s one hell of a field promotion.” Richard stood up. “Let’s find a place for Michael.”
“We have some storage areas in the basement—steel doors, no windows. That’s where they’ll take the others.”
“That’ll do for now. I want to move him to the jail as soon as we can, centralize the containment.”
Claire looked at Eve, and then at Michael’s sleeping face, and thought about him alone in a cell—because what else could you call it? Locked away like Myrnin.
She sighed and helped carry Michael down the hall, past the stunned bureaucrats, to his temporary holding cell.
Life went on, weirdly enough—human life, anyway. People began to venture out, clean up the streets, retrieve things from burned and trashed houses. The police began to establish order again.
But there were things happening. People gathering in groups on street corners. Talking. Arguing.
Claire didn’t like what she saw, and she could tell that Hannah and Eve didn’t, either.
Hours passed. They cruised around for a while, and passed bulletins back to Oliver on the groups they saw. The largest one was almost a hundred people, forming up in the park. Some guy Claire didn’t know had a loudspeaker.
“Sal Manetti,” Hannah said. “Always was a trouble-maker. I think he was one of Captain Obvious’s guys for a while, but they had a falling-out. Sal wanted a lot more killing and a lot less talking.”
That wasn’t good. It really wasn’t good how many people were out there listening to him.
Eve went back to Common Grounds to report in, and that was just when things started to go wrong.
Hannah was driving Claire back home, after dropping off a trunk full of blood bags from the university storage vaults, when the radio Claire had in her pocket began to chime for attention. She logged in with the code. As soon as she did, a blast of noise tumbled out of the speaker.
She thought she heard something about Oliver, but she wasn’t sure. Her shouted questions weren’t answered. It was as if someone had pressed the button by accident, in the middle of a fight, and everybody was too
