Lord of Misrule

“Yes, you really are a bad person,” she told Monica, and ducked underneath a low-hanging loop of wire that looked horror-movie ready, the sort of thing that dropped around your neck and hauled you up to be dispatched by the psycho-killer villain. Speaking of which, this whole place was decorated in Early Psycho-Killer Villain, from the vast soaring darkness overhead to the lumpy, skeletal shapes of rusting equipment and abandoned junk. The spray painting—decades of it, in layered styles from Early Tagger to cutting-edge gang sign—gleamed in the random shafts of light like blood. Some particularly unpleasant spray-paint artist had done an enormous, terrifying clown face, with windows for the eyes and a giant, open doorway for a mouth. Yeah, really not going in there, Claire thought. Although the way these things went, she probably would have to.

“Why do you say that?”

“Say what?” Claire asked absently. She was listening for any sound of movement, but this place was enormous and confusing—just as Hannah had warned.

“Say that I’m a bad person!”

“Oh, I don’t know—you tried to kill me? And get me raped at a party? Not to mention—”

“That was payback,” Monica said. “And I didn’t mean it or anything.”

“Which makes it all so much better. Look, can we not bond? I’m busy. Seriously. Shhhh.” That last was to forestall Monica from blurting out yet another injured defense of her character. Claire squeezed past a barricade of piled-up boxes and metal, into another shaft of light that arrowed down from a high-up broken window. The clown painting felt like it was watching her, which was beyond creepy. She tried not to look too closely at what was on the floor. Some of it was animal carcasses, birds, and things that had gotten inside and died over the years. Some of it was old cans, plastic wrappers, all kinds of junk left behind by adventurous kids looking for a hideout. She didn’t imagine any of them stayed for long.

This place just felt . . . haunted.

Monica’s hand grabbed her arm, just on the bruise that Amelie’s grip had given her earlier. Claire winced.

“Did you hear that?” Monica’s whisper was fierce and hushed. She needed mouthwash, and she smelled like sweat more than powder and perfume. “Oh my God. Something’s in here with us!”

“Could be a vampire,” Claire said. Monica sniffed.

“Not afraid of those,” she said, and dangled her fancy, silver Protection bracelet in front of Claire’s face. “Nobody’s going to cross Oliver.”

“You want to tell that to the mob of people chasing you back there? I don’t think they got the memo or something.”

“I mean, no vampire would. I’m Protected.” Monica said it like there was simply no possibility anything else could be true. The earth was round, the sun was hot, and a vampire would never hurt her because she’d sold herself to Oliver, body and soul.

Yeah, right.

“News flash,” Claire whispered. “Oliver’s missing in action from Common Grounds. Amelie’s disappeared. In fact, most of the vampires all over town have dropped out of sight, which makes these bracelets cute fashion accessories, but not exactly bulletproof vests or anything.”

Monica started to speak, but Claire frowned angrily at her and pointed off into the darkness, where she’d heard the noise. It had sounded odd—kind of a sigh, echoing from the steel and concrete, bouncing and amplifying.

It sounded as if it had come out of the clown’s dark mouth.

Of course.

Claire reached into her pocket. She still had the vial of silver powder that Amelie had given her, but she was well aware that it might not do her any good. If her friend-vampires were mixed in with enemy-vamps, she was out of luck. Likewise, if what was waiting for her out there was trouble of a human variety, instead of bloodsuckers . . .

Shane and Hannah were in here. Somewhere. And so—hopefully—was Eve.

Claire eased around a tattered sofa that smelled like old cats and mold, and sidestepped a truly impressive rat that didn’t bother to move out of her way. It sat there watching her with weird, alert eyes.

Monica looked down, saw it, and shrieked, stumbling backward. She fell into a stack of ancient cartons that collapsed on her, raining down random junk. Claire grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, but Monica kept on whimpering and squirming, slapping at her hair and upper body.

“Oh my God, are they on me? Spiders? Are there spiders?”

If there were, Claire hoped they bit her. “No,” she said shortly. Well, there were, but they were little ones. She brushed them off Monica’s back. “Shut up already!”

“Are you kidding me? Did you see that rat? It was the size of freaking Godzilla!”

That was it, Claire decided. Monica could just wander around on her own, screaming about rats and spiders, until someone came and ate her. What. Ever.

She got only about ten feet away when Monica’s very small whisper stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Please don’t leave me.” That didn’t sound like Monica, not at all. It sounded scared, and very young. “Claire, please.”

It was probably too late for being quiet, anyway, and if there were vampires hiding in German’s Tire Plant, they all knew exactly where they were, and for that matter, could tell what blood type they were. So stealth didn’t seem a priority.

Claire cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, very loudly, “Shane! Eve! Hannah! Anybody!”

The echoes woke invisible birds or bats high overhead, which flapped madly around; her voice rang from every flat surface, mocking Claire with her own ghost.

In the whispering silence afterward, Monica murmured, “Wow, I thought we were being subtle or something. My mistake.”

Claire was about to hiss something really unpleasant at her, but froze as another voice came bouncing through the vast room—Shane’s voice. “Claire?”

“Here!”

“Stay there! And shut up!”

He sounded frantic enough to make Claire wish she’d stuck with the whole quiet-time policy, and then Monica stopped breathing and went very, very still next to her. Her hands closed around Claire’s arm, squeezing bruises again.

Claire froze, too, because something was coming out of the mouth of that painted clown—something white, ghostly, drifting like smoke. . . .

It had a face. Several faces, because it was a group of what looked like vampires, all very pale, all very quiet, all heading their way.

Staying put was not such a great plan, Claire decided. She was going to go with run away.

Which, grabbing Monica’s wrist, she did.

The vampires did make sounds then, as their quarry started to flee—little whispering laughs, strange hisses, all kinds of creepy noises that made the skin on the back of Claire’s neck tighten up. She held the glass vial in one hand, running faster, leaping over junk when she could see it coming and stumbling across it when she couldn’t. Monica kept up, somehow, although Claire could hear the tortured, steady moaning of her breath. Whatever she’d done to her right leg must have hurt pretty badly.

Something pale landed ahead of her, with a silent leap like a spider pouncing. Claire had a wild impression of a white face, red eyes, a wide-open mouth, and gleaming fangs. She drew back to throw the vial . . . and realized it was Myrnin facing her.

The hesitation cost her. Something hit her from the back, sending her stumbling forward across a fallen iron beam. She dropped the vial as she fell, trying to catch herself, and heard the glass break on the edge of the girder. Silver dust puffed out. Monica shrieked, a wild cry that made the birds panic again high up in heaven; Claire saw her stumble away, trying to put distance between herself and Myrnin.

Myrnin was just outside of the range of the drifting silver powder, but it wasn’t Myrnin who was the problem. The other vampires, the ones who’d come out of the clown’s mouth, leaped over stacks of trash, running for the