Ghost Town

hands. “Does Eve keep any weapons in here?”

“Probably in the back. Wait—check the glove box.”

Claire opened it and found two silver-coated, sharp-tipped stakes. They weren’t her favorite vampire-fighting accessory, only because they weren’t something she could use at a distance, but the heavy, cool feel of them eased a tight, anxious knot in her stomach. But there was something odd about the way they felt. . . . Claire turned the stakes over in her fingers until she saw what that roughness in the surface was, and almost laughed.

“What?” Shane asked. Claire showed him the stake. The dashboard lights caught the silver surface and shone red from a skull design blinged out in fake rubies on it.

“She BeDazzled her stakes,” Claire said.

“Yeah, she would.” He almost smiled, but his eyes were wild, and he couldn’t seem to get his face to relax. “Get Chief Moses on the phone; get her to send the marines.”

Claire nodded and speed-dialed Hannah’s number. Hannah sounded cheerful and alert, but on guard when she answered. “Moses.”

“Hannah, it’s Claire. Eve’s in trouble—well, a lot of people sound like they’re in trouble. You know about the rave tonight?”

“I had some plainclothes officers there making sure the kids didn’t get into trouble. Except they did, right?”

“Eve called me, and there was screaming. I think you’d better send everybody. Just in case.”

“Done. And, Claire, don’t you go running in there.”

“But Eve’s in there! ”

“And we’ll get everybody out.”

Hannah hung up on her. “Hannah says not to go there,” Claire said.

“Well, I like the lady, but screw that,” Shane said. “Call Michael. Eve probably did, but just in case; he’d rip my ears off if I didn’t let him know what was up.”

Besides which, Michael’s vampire strength wouldn’t be at all a liability right now. Claire tried his phone, but it went to voice mail. She left a message with the address, and texted him, too. That was all she had time for, because Shane skidded the hearse around the last corner and onto a street that should have been deserted after dark—well, was deserted most of the time—but was parked up with cars on both sides.

There were people boiling out of the doorway of one of the big, rickety warehouses on the left, and Claire had a blurry impression of open mouths and panicked faces as the hearse hurtled toward them.

Shane blurted out a curse that normally would have made her blush and slammed on the brakes. Somehow, he managed not to hit any of the running, screaming crowd, which just parted and flowed around the car, scattering into the dark in all directions. Shane threw the hearse in park and took his hands off the wheel. They were shaking. He stared at them a second, then snapped out of it and grabbed one of the stakes from Claire. “Stay with me,” he said. “I mean it. Right with me.”

She nodded. Shane took a deep breath and got out of the car, and she slid out after him as he ran to the back and opened up the hatch to grab a black canvas bag. “Hope this isn’t her makeup,” he said as he shouldered the strap and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”

People were still coming out. Claire noticed that most of them seemed okay, just freaked-out, but there were a few who seemed like they might be injured. Maybe that was just from the general crowd panic—hard to tell. She hoped so. She heard the wail of sirens approaching, and had time to think, Hannah’s going to be really angry at us, but then it was too late to have second thoughts. Shane was moving against the flow of people, heading inside, and she’d promised to stay with him.

She kept her promises.

Someone smacked into Shane as he started through the doorway, and he staggered back a step, then grabbed whoever it was and yanked her out into the street.

Monica Morrell. She looked just as scared as everyone else running from the building, and then, as she realized who it was who had hold of her arm, she looked . . . relieved. Relieved? Claire thought. Really? Because Shane and Monica made cats and dogs look like besties. “Collins,” Monica said, and looked back. “Jennifer’s still in there. I think . . . I think she’s still in there.” She was trembling, and she looked cold in her red and white minidress.

No, it wasn’t red and white. It was white. Claire parted her lips, realizing what all the red was, and looked sharply at Shane. He was staring at Monica with a very odd expression—pity, mixed with distaste. But mostly pity. It was almost concern.

“What happened?” he asked. She didn’t answer, so he shook her, not too gently. “Monica, snap out of it. What happened?”

“It was all going okay, and then the Epsilon Epsilon Kappa guys showed up. They were all drunk and crazy, started yelling about being in a fight and how they kicked somebody’s ass. They busted stuff up.”

Shane went from concerned to pissed. “That’s it?”

“No! No, they . . . they were followed.” Monica swallowed. She looked pale and shaky. “The vamps came. I guess the ass they kicked belonged to one of them. It got ugly. It’s getting worse.” She looked down at Shane’s hand around her arm, and got a little of the old Monica ’tude back. “Who said you could go all bad-cop on me, Collins? Back your wannabe ass off!”

He didn’t let go. “Did you see Eve?”

“Little Miss Goth Princess had some boring chick with her. She’s—” Monica looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Everybody was running. I didn’t see where she went.” Shane let go of her. Monica grabbed him instead. “Hey,” she said. “Look for Jennifer. I didn’t see her come out. She was right behind me. I think.”

Shane said, “Let go or lose the fingers,” and she did, instantly, stepping back and wrapping her arms around her torso—for warmth, not in defiance. Shane looked back and held out his hand. Claire took it. “Ready?”

“I guess.”

“Watch your back.”

The oncoming wail of sirens meant help was coming, but Claire knew Shane wasn’t going to wait. She didn’t want to, either. That had been real fear in Eve’s scream.

They plunged onward, into the warehouse.

The place smelled like smoke—not burning-insulation smoke, but the kind of bong smoke college students liked a lot better. It made Claire’s eyes water. The rave lights were still on, cycling through all kinds of colors and patterns, strobing white every few seconds. The music was still thundering, too—the deejay had left tracks running and bugged out from behind the console in the corner. Claire could feel the vibrations in her bones, and her ears went instantly into shock. She could still hear, but it was like hearing through earmuffs.

A few people were too scared to make a break for the door; she could see them hiding behind the speakers, or pressed against the walls in a huddle, trying to pretend it all wasn’t happening. The usual Morganville strategy. It was hard to make out details in the weird lights, but none of them had Eve’s Goth style. Mostly college kids, Claire thought. Well, they’d gotten their tuition’s worth tonight.

There were bodies on the warehouse floor. They weren’t moving. Some of them had very, very pale faces, and wide eyes, and mouths still open in silent screams. Bite marks on their throats.

There were also a couple of vampires down—also pale, but with stakes in their chests; that didn’t necessarily mean they were dead, just wounded. There was one who was definitely dead, because—and Claire had to control an urge to retch—his head was missing. There was still a stake in his heart, too.

She thought she saw the head a few feet away in the corner, but no way was she going to go take a closer look. She was thankful Shane turned away from all that, heading into a hallway that channeled the thundering music into waves. It was still too loud to talk. In strobe flashes, Claire saw blood on the walls in smears.

The hallway opened into another big room, and the music wasn’t quite loud enough here to cover the screams. Or the sound of fighting.

Shane stopped, zipped open the bag, and pulled out a crossbow. He stuck the silver stake he’d been gripping into a pocket of his jeans, loaded the crossbow, put another bolt between his teeth, and nodded to Claire to follow. She nodded back.

When they came around the corner, they saw where the noise was coming from. A group of people were hemmed tightly into a corner, mostly cowering, but some were big, drunk-looking frat dudes who were yelling challenges and smashing wooden crates over the heads of the vampires who were closing in on them. The lights in