All of a sudden – and Claire had to confess to herself that she’d forgotten all about him – Pete stood up. It was such a sudden move that it drew all their attention to him. He looked pale, tense, and grim, and he said, ‘Jesse, I know I said I was down with all this vampire crazy shit, but this is next level. What am I supposed to do, just … roll with it?’
‘Yes,’ Jesse said. She sounded gentle about it, but firm. ‘I’m sorry, Pete, but you do. I don’t want to see you hurt.’
‘You think you could hurt me?’
‘I think I wouldn’t have to,’ she said. ‘And again, I’m sorry. Come with us. Staying here means that we leave you vulnerable to the people hunting us, and you’ve already seen the lengths to which they will go. Claire’s friend, and the attempt on Michael’s life … their questions to you will not be gentle. If you come along, I will look after you.’
Pete grinned, all of a sudden. It was a bleak sort of amusement, but at least it had some kind of relationship to humour. ‘Not used to getting that from a girl, you know.’
‘I’m not a girl,’ Jesse said, and canted one eyebrow high. ‘Am I?’
‘Hardly,’ Myrnin said. He seemed embarrassed, in the next instant, and strode decisively for the front door. ‘Onward.’
Claire paused next to Eve and Michael, and exchanged a quick, warm hug with Eve, and one with Michael too. ‘Are you feeling okay?’ she asked him. Michael gave her a nod. ‘Good enough to keep up?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, which was probably as much of an overstatement as the kind of thing Shane was prone to say. ‘Shane, dude, who kicked your ass for you?’
‘Your grandma,’ Shane said. ‘Come on.’
Claire had actually forgotten all about her cell phone until it rang – and then she panicked, because if the police were on the lookout for her, a cell phone was as good as a neon sign saying HERE I AM, COME ARREST ME. She grabbed for it and checked the screen, and then answered when the number registered as unknown. ‘Hello?’
Any hope it might be a wrong number vanished when she heard the fast, terrified breathing on the other end. ‘Claire?’ It was a bare whisper, but it was Liz’s voice. ‘Claire, are you there?’ Her friend’s voice was thready and shaky, and she was clearly afraid of being overheard.
‘Liz? Liz, I’m here! Where are you?’ Claire plugged her free ear as Shane started asking her something, and turned away from all of them to concentrate on listening. ‘Liz, can you hear me?’
‘You have to get me, please, Claire, please come get me …’ Liz’s voice was quietly desperate, and full of fear. ‘They took me out of the house. Derrick tried to stop them, but—’
‘Was Derrick with them?’
‘No, no, he saw it and he tried to stop them, but they took him away and they put me in the dark with – with something that – I feel weak, I’m so dizzy, please, you have to come and get me …’ She started to cry, and Claire’s heart went out to her. There was something so little-girl desperate in it that it ached.
‘I will,’ Claire promised. ‘Tell me where you are, honey.’
‘I—’ Liz drew in a sharp, hard breath, and for a long second she was silent. When her voice came back, it was even softer, and the words rushed faster. ‘I got the phone from one of the guys who came to check on me, but they’ll miss it, they’ll know … I’m in the tunnels, the steam tunnels, under the library storage annex … oh, God, they’re coming …’ That last was said in a breathless whisper, and then Claire heard a sharp cry, and a clatter, and the phone went dead on Liz’s end.
When she turned, all of them were looking at her. Shane, Eve and Pete: the humans. Oliver, Myrnin, Michael and Jesse: the vampires. Waiting to hear her news.
She said, ‘Library storage annex tunnels. Now. My friend’s in real trouble.’
‘Have you considered the possibility that it could be a very deliberate trap?’
‘Yes,’ Claire said. She opened up the back of her phone and took out the SIM card, which she held up. ‘If they allowed her the phone to call me, they’ll be tracking this. I need to get it as far away from us as possible.’
‘One moment,’ Myrnin said, and then the door was open and he was gone. They all looked at each other, waiting, and in another moment he was back again. Holding a very pissed-off pigeon. Claire was afraid what he intended to do with the poor thing, but he handed the bird to Eve to hold – she did it at arm’s length, grimacing – and he retrieved the gauze that he’d used to wrap Jesse’s hand and used the last of it to wrap the SIM card in a snug little packet, which he then tied around the pigeon’s scaly leg. ‘One does learn something from years of communicating by flying birds.’ He retrieved the pigeon and disappeared outside again, then came back in with a self-satisfied smile as he dusted his hands on his pants. Ewww, pigeon crap. ‘She’ll take it miles to get away from me.’
‘You do have that effect upon people, too,’ Oliver said. ‘Wash your hands.’
Myrnin gave him a narrow look, but Claire mouthed
please
, and he went to do it after all.
Then, without any more discussion, they headed out.
For the tunnels.
The MIT tunnel system was byzantine, and legendary; students used the wider ones for shelter and travel during the harsh Massachusetts winter, and the roof and tunnel hackers regularly explored and mapped in them. But even so, there were always new areas to be found – some long forgotten and sealed, like the famous bricked-up showers, or the tomb of the forgotten ladder. Claire checked the online maps through Michael’s borrowed phone, but didn’t find any sign of a tunnel beneath the library storage annex, which was at the far edge of campus … and that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Just that they had been cut off from the others.
In short, an ideal place to hide someone, because in her brief visits to the steam tunnels, Claire had quickly learnt that they were
noisy
. A few random shouts wouldn’t be drawing any particular attention, even if there was anyone around to hear.
‘Bother this nonsense,’ Oliver said, as they stood outside the darkened building; it was late, and little enough was stirring outside. ‘False caution breeds failure. Come.’ He headed straight for the doorway, which Claire was
least
inclined to do, but there really wasn’t much of a choice – follow, or don’t, and Oliver had the gravity trail of a born leader.
Jesse, however, had the brain of a tactician, and she pulled Pete and Michael and Shane aside. ‘Back door,’ she said. ‘Claire, you, me and your strange friend—’
‘Eve,’ they both said, simultaneously, and Eve held out her fist for a bump. ‘Or, you could call me Eve the Great, Mistress of All She Surveys. But Eve for short.’
Jesse smiled at that, a real smile, lively eyes crinkling. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mistress Eve. Ah, you’d be the one who married the vampire, then?’
‘Am I that famous?’
‘Famous enough, among the undead, we’re terrible old gossips. Also, we’re terrible gamblers, so it might not surprise you to hear the odds against you making it to an anniversary are not fantastically good. I hope that doesn’t bother you.’
‘Not much,’ Eve said, ‘although it will unless I can put down a bet myself. I’d like to make a little money on my own survival for a change.’
‘I believe I might just like you, girl.’
‘You too, Red. You don’t seem to suck fangs as much as some of the others I have to hang around with. Honestly, why are so many young-looking vampires such blue-haired old biddies inside, anyway?’
‘Because vampires are born of being selfish, and we only get worse over the years,’ Jesse said. ‘It leads to a dreadful conservatism.’
‘Um – Jesse, about these Daylighters you were talking about earlier …’ Claire said.
‘A deep and weighty subject we have no time for right now,’ Jesse said. ‘And I hope that they are not behind this. But suffice to say that they are a group who believes in the existence of vampires, and believes that we are better off dead. Something they have been quite expert at accomplishing over the past few years.’
‘Look, this is interesting, but before we have a pyjama party and braid our hair, maybe we should, y’know, show the boys how this gets done?’ Eve suggested.
‘Excellent idea.’ Jesse reached into her leather jacket, and came out with an astonishingly intimidating knife – about six inches, with a wicked curve to it. It had a distinctively gleaming edge to it that seemed sharp enough to shave titanium … and it looked very familiar. Claire had one just like it in her backpack. Jesse held it in her unbandaged left hand. ‘After you, ladies.’
‘Do
you
have any impressive weapons?’ Eve whispered to Claire, as they headed after Oliver.
‘Yep,’ she said, and grinned. Eve looked crestfallen.
‘Well, I can throw a mean comeback, so there’s that. I will
crush
them on wit.’
Oliver was all business at the door, where he opened up the building simply by smashing in the thick glass door with a single punch. Not subtle, but effective enough, and although alarms probably went off somewhere, Claire didn’t hear a sound inside in response to the intrusion. Oliver stepped inside, and she followed, shoes grinding raw on the broken pieces. ‘Look for some kind of mechanical closet,’ she said. ‘It might not be marked. Listen for the sound of air handlers, compressors, that kind of thing.’
‘This way,’ Oliver said, and struck off down the hall in a confident, loose-limbed stride. He found a set of stairs down, and took them; at the end of the concrete landing lay an unmarked set of double doors, painted a dull beige. There wasn’t a handle, only an inset keyhole. He frowned at it for a few seconds, then – once again – took the most direct method of dealing with the problem. He punched the door. His fist went entirely through the thin metal, and he took hold of the jagged opening and yanked. Something broke, probably the lock, and the doors sagged open.
All the punching was, Claire realised, not without some cost to him; his hand was bloody, and the knuckles looked misshapen. He winced a little and pressed down on some of the knuckles until bones snapped back into place, then wiped the cuts clean on his filthy clothes. They’d already closed up. He met Claire’s wide-eyed stare for a moment, and gave her a sinister little smile. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘It’s your friend we’re after. Perhaps you should get on with it.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Jesse said. ‘He’s always been a mean, narrow man. I really don’t know what anyone sees in him.’
‘Quiet. You were only queen for nine days. And you only survived your own execution by Amelie’s intervention, or you’d not be here berating me. Beheading is final for humans
and
vampires.’
That, Claire thought, was the beginning of an interesting story that didn’t seem to match with Jesse’s vibrant modern outlook, but there wasn’t time to ask questions.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for the others?’ Claire asked.
‘Do you want your friend alive?’ Oliver asked, which settled the question, pretty much. Pete, Shane and Michael would have to catch up.
The mechanical room was dark and cool, but Eve had handily brought along some small LED flashlights, which she and Claire used to good effect as the vampires went ahead through the dark. The noise from the air handlers, which had been soft outside, rose to a dull roar as they edged past rows of colour-coded pipes and metal conduits; after a brief, burning brush with the uninsulated curve of one of the pipes, Claire got a lot more careful. There were plenty of sharp edges, too. It would be a dangerous place to have a fight – too many things you could bang into, and burn flesh on. Clumsiness would be just as deadly as an opponent.
But no opponents presented themselves. It was just pipes and conduits, control panels, softly glowing indicators and lights, and not much else. It wasn’t even dusty. Claire did spot a rat staring at them in surprise (and probably outrage) from the top of one cluster of conduits; it ran off as soon as she looked at it, probably to spread the word among the Kingdom of Rats that probably existed down here … and her chattering brain was momentarily distracted by the image of a King Rat sitting on a throne, with a giant crown, surrounded by a bunch of other rats all secretly plotting to kill him and take his place. Because if she’d learnt anything from being in Morganville, it was that a ruler could never, ever relax.
Oliver suddenly paused, and so did Jesse, who’d moved up next to him; her pale, slender hand came up in a clenched fist, in a gesture that Claire knew from hanging out with Shane meant
stop right now and hold
. She and Eve paused and stood ready for anything, and after a moment Jesse nodded to Oliver and pointed to her own chest, then off to the right. He nodded back. She flitted away into the shadows.
Oliver turned and pointed to Claire, then gestured imperatively for her to go ahead of him.
As bait?
It didn’t seem like the moment to have an argument, since everything was being done in such silence. Claire edged out ahead of him with her LED light pointed down toward her feet; it served only to make the darkness around her seem more dense and choking. She narrowly avoided a dangerous eye-level collision with a protruding metal corner, ducked, and crept forward. The ceiling was getting lower, it seemed, and she could hear a faint squeaking sound that she assumed was more rats sounding an alarm.
Claire swept the light forward, trying to see where she was going, and … and there was Derrick.
Derrick was dead. Drained white. And there were huge, unreal puncture marks in his neck, and ragged skin around them. One single drop of red had trailed down his neck and dripped on the concrete underneath, and his eyes were open, wide and surprised. They’d gone dull and filmed with grey – dried out from exposure to the air.
Claire gasped and jumped backward. She couldn’t help it; coming up on a dead man here, in the creepy zone, was something that woke instincts she couldn’t control no matter how hard she tried. She almost banged her head on the sharp metal corner she’d avoided, but Oliver’s outstretched hand stopped her cold. ‘Quiet,’ he whispered, and his voice was about as sharp and uncaring as the metal. ‘He’s been dead for hours, beyond anyone’s help. There’s something in here with us.’