Black Dawn

Eve were asleep on their feet, too. I don’t think any of us expected it to be quite that … fast.

Claire and I zipped our sleeping bags together and fell asleep spooned together. I thought I’d sleep soundly; I had good reason to, but instead I kept feeling the sharp, digging stings, needles burrowing and probing inside me, and even though I knew it was a dream, just a dream, nothing, it kept me awake.

Whimpering.

Afraid.

Something’s eating you, Shane.

No. I was fine. Everything was fine.

I finally dozed, and woke up to find Amelie standing in the doorway. I’m not big on impressing the vamps, but there was something a little unfair about facing the Queen Bee with bed-head and morning breath. I guess the most important thing, though, was that she was awake, and standing up, and actually seemed better. Oliver was with her, looking like a scowling black crow, but I think that was mostly because he was still spoiling for a fight.

Evidently, he wasn’t going to get it.

“Magnus is injured,” Amelie told us. She sat, gracefully, on a chair and made it look as if it was her own idea instead of something to prevent herself from collapsing in a heap. She had her hair down, which made her look almost our age, though there’s nothing about the Founder’s eyes that reminds me of youth. “He hides now, and his draug thralls are dying quickly. Your actions may have turned the tide. I will not forget that.”

“You,” Oliver said, and pointed to me. “And you.” Michael. “Come with me.”

I traded a look with my best friend, and he shrugged, and we got up and followed the two vampires out of the hall. Claire wanted to come along, but I promised her I wouldn’t do anything stupid—though she probably knew that was a nutty promise, coming from me.

The voice inside my head rose to a deafening shriek. You’re breaking all your promises. You’re giving up, you asshole. Wake up! It felt like being plunged into ice water, and for a breathtaking second I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t live with the stinging pain of it.

Michael grabbed my shoulder. “You okay, man?”

Yes. Of course I was. I was always okay, right? Everything was fine.

“I am leading a group to take Magnus,” Oliver told me and Michael out in the hallway; he supported Amelie with an arm under hers, as if he were escorting her to some fancy dance, but it was obvious he was keeping her upright. “I want the two of you with us.”

“Good,” I said. I was always up for a good fight, even against the draug—maybe especially against the draug. I would never get the images of Claire lying so still and broken on the floor of the Glass House out of my head, even though she was okay now. It had been the lowest moment of my life, in a life with plenty of cellar-diving events. I tried hard not to relive how I’d felt, seeing her that way. “Where are we going?”

Oliver didn’t bother to give info, but that was typical. He did arm us up, which was nice—shotguns, which felt solid and deadly in my hands. Then we fell into line with a bunch of vampires and even a dozen humans— surprisingly, the new leader of the human resistance (all the resistance leaders were named Captain Obvious) was one of them, sporting his I-hate-vamps stake tattoo but carrying a shotgun all the same. He nodded to me guardedly; I nodded back. That was like an entire conversation for somebody like him.

“How’d they talk you into this?” I asked him under my breath as we started moving toward the exit. Amelie was watching us go, like a queen sending her troops off to battle—back straight, hand raised, shining and pale and hard as diamond.

“Temporary,” the captain said. His eyes kept darting around at the vampires, never trusting for a second; I knew that feeling—hell, I lived it. “Common enemy and all that crap, but it ain’t like I’m signing up to be best friends. These vermin kill people, too. That’s all I care about.” He gave me a longer glance. “You?”

“The draug hurt somebody I care about,” I said. “And they’re going to answer for that.”

It was an acceptable reply, and he jerked his chin in approval—but his eyes went flat and cold when he looked past me at Michael. For him, Michael was the Enemy. I wondered whether that was ever going to change. Probably not, not until the vampires themselves changed it. And let’s face it, the chances of that were slim. Nobody likes giving up power, especially the kind that keeps them rich and safe and well fed.

Captain Obvious looked back, straight into my eyes, and said, “Something’s eating you. Wake up.”

Something’s eating you! Listen!

I struggled against that wave again, this time hot and red instead of icy cold, and came out the other side of it, into calm, still waters. “I’m fine,” I told him. “Everything’s just fine. We’re all okay.”

“Sure we are,” he said, and smiled. “Damn straight.”

The vamps had appropriated more buses for troop transport; these happened to be Morganville school buses. Ah, the memories. The cheap, shiny leatherette seats smelled like melted crayons, piss, and fear; I’d gotten the snot beaten out of me a couple of times on a bus just like this, before I’d taken charge of that. It had been righteous, though; I’d jumped in when ninth-grade Sammy Jenkins was slapping sixth-grade Michael around. Good times.

The vampires obviously didn’t care for the nostalgic ambience, because they slammed the windows down and let the cold, moist air roll through the bus. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were thinning and blowing away to reveal a clear blue sky. It might even warm up a little, burn off the thin puddles standing on the asphalt.

The desert was sluicing off the water as fast as it had fallen. Within a day, rain would be a distant memory. That was why the vamps had moved here—because water wouldn’t stand. It gave the draug fewer and fewer places to hide.

You’re drowning, Shane. Wake up. Something’s eating you. WAKE UP!

This time, I could almost ignore it. Almost. Except for the horrible, burning pain that wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t let me think.

I could feel the tension and the anticipation in the vamps around me. For the first time in a long time, they were going to war—against an enemy who’d been hunting them, killing them, for ages. And they were ready. The violence in the air was thick, and every single one of them looked as hard as a bone knife. When Michael glanced at me, his eyes had gone bloodred. Usually that would have scared me, or at least disgusted me, but not now.

Right now, I wished mine could do the same, because what was burning inside me was just as bright, and just as crimson. I wanted to hurt the draug for what they’d done to Claire.

To all of us. To me.

This isn’t right. …

Shut up, I told whatever it was in my head. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.

Nobody talked. Not even the other humans. Not even Michael. We just concentrated on what was ahead of us.

A fight, a real, genuine, straight-up fight. I was scared on some level, scared in a way I’d never been before, but I was part of something bigger now. Was this what it felt like to be in the army, to put on a uniform and all of a sudden be brothers (and yeah, sisters) with people you might not even like in private life? I imagined it was, because right now, in this moment, I would kill or die for anyone on this bus. Even the vamps. Somehow that felt wrong, but it also felt right. A better version of the life I’d been struggling to lead these past few years.

I would even fight and die for Myrnin, who was sitting up toward the front. He’d changed clothes. I liked him better when he was dressed crazy, but he’d gone black leather now, and that looked damn dangerous. I was glad Claire wasn’t there to see it. Some part of me was always going to worry about how she felt about him, so it was best she didn’t see him looking all tough. That was my job.

As the clouds parted, the vamps snapped the windows back up, and the tinting—why the hell was there vampire-quality tinting on a school bus, anyway? That made no sense …

Wake up, Shane!

The tinting cut off my view of where we were going. Not that it mattered. I had my shotgun, and I was ready to rock. It was so much easier to do something than to just … think.

Because when I stopped to think, everything fell apart. Shattered. Melted.