Myrnin rose to his feet in a smooth, effortless motion, and whipped a black handkerchief out of the pocket of his shorts. She took it without a word, wiped away the blood, and gave it back. He cleaned the red from his neck. The wounds had already closed.
“That’s the second time I’ve spilled my blood for you tonight,” he said. “I believe I’ve made my point, and you’ve made yours, most graphically. So I’ll be taking my leave. Oh, and Claire. I’ll be taking Claire.”
Amelie nodded. There was a slight groove between her eyebrows—the ghost of a frown. As Myrnin and Claire—who’d finally dared to breathe again—headed for the outer door, Amelie said, “You’re right. My father’s escape has…unsettled me.”
“Couldn’t tell,” Myrnin said. “My advice is sound. Don’t punish him. Don’t make an example of him. When you find him, kill him quickly and quietly. It’s the only peace you can hope for. You can’t afford to allow him to become a power in this town again. Someone is working with him, helping him, or you’d have him by now. He wouldn’t dare to be out there, hunting. This is going to go bad, quickly. Act.”
She nodded slightly, still frowning.
And Myrnin grabbed Claire’s arm and propelled her fast, outside, down the steps, and into the dark. This time, he ordered one of Amelie’s cars.
Armored.
The fact that Myrnin had actually been scared enough to be careful with her…that said more about the danger than anything else.
SIX
The ladder was still in place when she got home. Myrnin, in typical Myrnin fashion, delivered her to the base of the ladder, and by the time she’d climbed three steps and looked back, he was gone. Of course. She pulled herself up the rest of the way, carefully, trying not to notice how the ladder shivered and rocked around as she shifted her weight.
Achieving the open window was a massive relief, and she wriggled through and landed with an unbalanced thump on the floor. It was still dark outside, but not for too much longer—another hour and a half, max, from her glance at the glowing digital clock on the bedside table.
God, this was terrible. Just when she’d thought things in Morganville might be stabilizing, just a little bit…now Bishop was on the loose again. He’d come so frighteningly close to bringing it all down once; he considered Amelie and everyone in town his rightful property. His playthings.
What he’d do this time now that he was actually angry….…. Myrnin was right. Claire wasn’t one to yell for anybody to die, but for Bishop, she’d make an exception. He needed killing, quickly.
Why was he still here? Why hadn’t he blown out of Morganville first thing?
Revenge. He was the kind who lived for it. And what had Jason said that Bishop had said to Stinky Doug? Did you think you could threaten me?
How could a mere human ever hope to threaten Bishop enough to draw his full, personal attention, in broad daylight, in a public place?
Doug had something. The blood—sure, that was bad enough, but he’d had other things. Papers. Bishop had taken them.
Doug had been blackmailing Bishop. Not only Bishop, though—because Bishop couldn’t be out on his own. He’d have been caught already.
Claire sank down on the bed, rested her head in her hands for a moment, and then began to untie her shoes.
Then she heard something.
Voices. Low voices, coming from down the hall. Michael, probably, talking to Shane or Eve…but it didn’t sound right, somehow.
She took off her shoes and walked to the door in her socks. It wasn’t locked; she hardly ever locked it. The knob was cold in her hand but turned easily, and she pulled back until there was a narrow crack of light coming through from the hallway, and she could see……
Nothing. No sign of anybody in the hallway. She opened the door wider, slowly, and edged out. This is stupid. It’s my own house. I should be able to just walk right down there…….
Except it didn’t feel that way. It was, she realized, the house itself. The Glass House had always been a little bit alive, and just now it felt…anxious. Worried, maybe. And that was making her move quietly and cautiously.
The voices were muffled, but they were coming from down the hall.
From Shane’s room.
Maybe he’s watching TV. But he didn’t usually watch TV. She supposed he could have turned it on and fallen asleep, but…no, she was almost sure that one of those voices was Shane’s.
And the other one was a girl’s.
And then the girl laughed. And it wasn’t a friendly laugh; it was a low-in-the-throat, teasing laugh, a flirting laugh.
Oh, hell, no, that wasn’t going to happen.
Seeing red, Claire gritted her teeth and grabbed the handle of the door, staring at the rusted metal of the trespassers will be shot sign that Shane had nailed up on his door.
She was not going to take this lying down. Or at all.
SHANE
I couldn’t sleep after Michael and the broken controller and Claire. I felt restless and weird and wired, like I’d drunk about fifteen cups of coffee and chased it with Red Bull. Not a good feeling. I tried the headphones, but blasting speed metal through my skull didn’t help, either. I had a heavy bag in the basement, and I could have gone down there to work off some frustration, but it seemed like the wrong thing. Just…wrong.
Finally, I got up and prowled the house. Michael was still up, strumming his guitar downstairs. That was usually cool—I liked his music, always had—but tonight I just wanted him to shut up. I didn’t want to be reminded of him, of having a vampire living a few feet away and pretending to pass for human. It hadn’t bothered me so much recently, but now all that discomfort was back with a vengeance.
I thought I heard whispers coming from Claire’s room, but they were faint and my ears were still buzzing from the headphones. I thought about her, and the next thing I knew I wanted…Well, I’m a guy. You know what I wanted. If she was awake, maybe she felt the same way.
Maybe being so close together would make both of us feel less…trapped.
I knocked, the quiet way I always had, and maybe I had imagined it, because there wasn’t any sound at all, nothing. She’s asleep, I told myself. Chill out. Go take a cold shower. Or I could work my sore fists against the heavy bag; that would do the same thing—wear me out, drain the adrenaline out of my overactive body.
Instead, I went back to roaming the house.
I don’t know when exactly I noticed the ladder; about two hours later, probably. I had wandered down to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. Michael had bagged his rehearsal and gone upstairs to bed, so I had the darkness and shadows to myself. I thought about practicing for the rematch on Dead Rising, but even that didn’t have any appeal.
As I passed the window at the back, I saw a glint of silver outside where it shouldn’t have been. I backed up, and, dammit, there was a ladder leaning up against the side of the house. A big silver ladder that didn’t belong to us.
I stared at it for a few seconds, then realized that it was leading up to Claire’s window, and my stomach went cold and twisted and I ran up the stairs, three at a time, down the hall, and threw open her door, ready to attack whatever was in the room with her, ready to kill or die, and……
….. and she wasn’t there. Nobody was there. Her bed was rumpled, but when I touched the mattress it was cold. She’d been gone a while.
Ladder. Open window. I tried to imagine Claire being abducted without making a sound, and I just couldn’t. She’d have found a way to fall off the ladder, if nothing else, or bang it against the house.