Black Dawn

She hit hard and rolled, and felt the sprinkler head catch the leg of her plastic jumpsuit. It would tear, of course, that wasn’t even a question. She’d probably ripped a hole the size of Kansas in it. But she couldn’t stop, because there was a shadow in the falling drops, man-sized, forming into hands, pale and grubby and boneless, and they reached out for her. There were puddles in the low-lying areas of grass, muddy but filled with shimmering silvery movement as they heaved toward her.

The hands—they felt like cold jelly through the plastic—closed around her ankle, and she felt herself sliding backward, toward the shallow puddle. It can’t be that deep. But she knew it didn’t matter; they could drown her in an inch of water if they held her down. It wouldn’t take long, but worse than that, Michael and Myrnin and Shane wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch her die; they’d come out to the rescue, and that would be the end of it. Nobody to tell the others what they’d discovered.

How they could win.

As she clawed at the wet grass, ripping up fibrous chunks and leaving muddy finger trenches, she saw Michael standing in the open door of the shed. He was tense, staring at her with fierce, angry, horrified focus. About to bolt outside.

“No! Stay there! Don’t let Myrnin come out, either!” she yelled. The draug’s liquid was pounding down on her back, and it felt like fists now, small but growing larger, the blows stinging with force. The pull on her ankle was as irresistible as being caught in a flood tide; she couldn’t kick free of it.

Wait. Wait for it.

She twisted around and saw that the hand was pulling her foot down into the muddy water of the pool.

Now.

Claire pulled out the plastic bag, opened it, and plunged her hand inside to grab up a handful of the flaky white powder. It felt gritty and dry, like bone dust. She flipped over, sat up, and threw the powder into the shallow pool of water.

All hell exploded.

It wasn’t just the puddle that reacted, it was everything, as if it was all one creature, connected. The puddle tried to crawl away, literally flowing out of the hollow and over the grass, but it didn’t have the chance. It was like watching something freeze solid in super fast-forward. The muddy water turned into a muddy, rubbery gelatin, turned solid, and stopped moving.

She watched it turn black, and crumble into black flakes. There was nothing living in that.

The water coming out of the sprinklers stopped acting like water; it rose up, straight up, arrowing directly into the clouds.

Escaping.

The sprinklers kept spinning, hissing out pressure, but only a little water made it out, and it seemed like natural stuff.

Claire yanked her foot free of the gelatinous substance with a squishing, squelching noise, and realized that a lot of the grass had dried off around her—the draug had taken most of the water with them. There was still some moisture, but it was just that. No draug.

They were running away from what she’d used.

She picked up a handy stick and poked at the rubbery mass that had been the draug …. It was heavy, solid, flaking into bits, and it smelled dead and rotten.

She stood up, sealed the bag, and gave Michael a big thumbs-up as she settled the hat at a better angle on her head. “I think that’s proof of concept,” she said. “Now we just have to get the stuff out of here.”

“Turn off the sprinklers!” Myrnin said, elbowing Michael out of the doorway. “Go on, shoo!”

“The draug took off, Myrnin, didn’t you see it? How often do you see drops go straight up?”

“I’m not coming out until you shut the valve.”

Chicken, she thought, but didn’t say. He was right, of course. Maybe they were lying in the pipes, waiting for a delicious bite of vampire. She would have been only a snack, but Michael and Myrnin would be a sixteen-course meal.

“Stay there,” she said, and jogged on around the side of the shed. Finding the valve was surprisingly easy; turning it off wasn’t so much, since she didn’t have vampire strength, but she managed to twist the wrench a couple of times until the valve snugged tight.

Overhead, thunder rumbled.

Claire looked up; the clouds looked dark and heavily loaded now with rain. The draug, back in their transportation, she supposed. They could come down again, anytime.

But what about Magnus? Could he travel that way, or was he different? She felt like he was, somehow … he could transform to liquid but he had more mass to him. He was more there, more real than the others. They were like pieces split off of him, but connected to him. That was how it felt, anyway.

A shadow blocked out her view of the clouds, and she pushed back the awkward cowboy hat to look up. It was Myrnin. He offered her a hand up, and she accepted it. Her gloved hand still felt gritty from the powder. There wasn’t a single speck of moisture on it. Even when she swiped it over the still-moist ground, nothing stayed on the plastic without being absorbed.

“It works,” she said. Somehow she sounded surprised, as if she’d been standing in the doorway watching instead of actually doing it. “Myrnin—it really works.”

“Yes,” he said. There was a look on his face that she couldn’t understand at all. “Take that hat off. It ill becomes you.”

She took that to mean it was stupid, which she agreed with, and tipped it off. It dripped a stream of water off the brim—clean rainwater, not the draug contamination. The cool air hit her damp hair—damp with sweat, she realized—and she shivered.

Michael wasn’t far away. Shane was with him, almost there; she could see the struggle in him when he smiled. “Nice moves,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. “It was my very best muddy crawl.” Her heart ached to see how pale he seemed, how shaky.

Michael seemed to know it, too, because he cut in with the usual banter to take the focus away from Shane. “I agree. You threw that powder like a girl, though.”

She channeled her inner Eve. “Which means what? Awesomely? Because you’d better not mean it any other way, or I might get offended.”

Michael was smiling, but he still looked strained. There was a trace of fright somewhere in it. “Don’t make us do that again,” he said. “Don’t make us stand there while you—take those kinds of risks.”

“I’m okay,” she said. “And we’re going to be all right. Didn’t you say we were, before I came out here?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “But I was kinda lying.”

“I know, stupid.”

Myrnin cleared his throat. “The draug may be gone, but they can return at any time.” He cast an uneasy glance up at the clouds. “We need transportation. I can perhaps fix the car, but—”

“Won’t have to,” Michael said, and nodded toward the corner of the high school, where another car was slowly pulling around the corner. It was a police cruiser, sleek and dangerous, and there were two figures in it. One had a shotgun barrel pointed out the open window. Claire was surprised to realize that it was Richard Morrell.

Hannah Moses was driving.

She stopped the car and stepped out, frowning at them. “What the hell are you fools doing out here?” she asked.

“What brought you?” Shane asked.

Richard answered that one. “All vampire sedans are equipped with GPS and an automatic signal when there’s engine trouble,” he said. “We got an alert over her radio that one was out of service here. There wasn’t any reason for it to be here, so Hannah wanted to check it out.” He stepped out of the car, and seemed to lose his balance for a moment. Hannah gave him a sharp, concerned look, and he caught himself with a hand on the cruiser’s roof. “Damn. Low blood sugar.”

“And no sleep,” Hannah said. “And pushing yourself too hard. Richard—”

“I’m okay, Hannah.” Not, Claire noticed, Chief, or Chief