“This plan doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Shane said to Claire. “Even with the cool flamethrower.”
Naomi held up a shaking hand, palm out, to signal them to wait, but then the hand curled into a fist before it finally relaxed. She sat back and raised her face to the cold rain, looking … well, not pale, but almost blue. Her lips had taken on a light tint of cyan. She looked like she’d been carved out of cloudy ice.
“Different bloodlines,” she whispered. “It is like different blood types to you.”
“It makes you sick,” Claire said, and got an erratic nod.
“How sick?” Shane asked. “Can you walk?”
“A moment,” Naomi said. She sounded stronger already. “We must go before my bloodline destroys his within me, but the battle between them is … challenging. He comes of strong stock.” She gave them a faded smile, and pushed to her feet; Claire was prepared to prop her up, but she didn’t need it. “He is in that direction.”
“That’s … not so good,” Shane said, because the way Naomi was pointing was toward the interdicted end of Morganville, the one the draug had slowly claimed as their stronghold. “Why would he be staying in there? Why not get out?”
“It’s possible they have him,” Naomi said, but then shook her head to correct herself. “No, I would feel that, through this link. He is alive, and in hiding. But it won’t be easy to get to him, even now.”
“Less talking,” Claire said. “More walking. I mean it, we’re not out here after dark, no matter what happens.”
Naomi’s eyebrows climbed higher. “Even if one of us must be left behind?”
“If one of us is,” Shane said, hefting the flamethrower higher on his shoulders like a heavy backpack, “it’s going to be you. No offense.”
Naomi smiled, very prettily. “Oh, but it is very much taken.” Claire wasn’t actually sure, looking at her, whether she meant it or not, but it was better to be safe with a vampire than really, really sorry. She nudged Shane sharply in ribs that weren’t protected by the flamethrower straps.
“Sorry,” Shane muttered. “I mean, we’ll all come back or none of us. Of course. I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing.”
“Assuredly.” That same sweet, impartial smile, and again, there was just no figuring out if she meant it or not. But it didn’t matter, because they were in it now, together, and they needed to move.
Fast.
Leaving Founder’s Square, with its safe little circle of lights still burning and its cordon of police and vampire guards … That was difficult. Not just because, deep down, Claire didn’t want to go, but also because the guards wouldn’t let them go. As in the Elders’ Council building, everyone had been given strict orders, and Claire imagined they’d been along the lines of Whatever you do, don’t let those bastards in here, or let anybody else go out. Naomi, though, wasn’t taking no for an answer, and there were few human cops who were willing to stand up to a vampire with an attitude, and a gun.
“Nice,” Shane said under his breath as she led them out into the street. The wreckage of cars and dropped weapons had been mostly cleared from that area—residue of the not-so-successful riot that humans had staged the night before against the vamps; it hadn’t been effective, but it had definitely been enthusiastic. “Any idea of how far we have to go?”
“No,” Naomi said, and furrowed her brow. “Why?”
“Just thinking that it might be better to go in a vehicle than on foot. For safety.”
“You,” Naomi said, “have a flamethrower, which is not of much use in the enclosed space of an automobile. Perhaps you might have considered that in your choice of weapons.”
“Not a car. A pickup,” he said without hesitation. “I get the back. Ladies in the front. Maximum speed, minimum exposure, plus a good firing platform for me and Claire, with the shotgun. Or you. Whichever.”
Naomi cocked her head and looked at him in silence for a few seconds, then nodded. “Very well,” she said. “Obtain one, if you please.”
“I always knew hot-wiring skills would come in handy, other than getting me more frequent-flier jail points,” Shane said. “Stay here.” He jogged away, light and lithe even under the weight of the heavy equipment he was carrying, and Claire watched him go with a hungry little stab of anxiety. For all his easy comebacks, Shane was as vulnerable as any of them. Even Naomi, who was also watching her boyfriend with a thoughtful frown grooved between her brows.
“I was told Shane Collins was unreliable,” she said, “but I see little sign of it now. I was also told he loathed my kind and would see us dead if he could. Yet he came with you to rescue us. Odd.”
“People change,” Claire said.
Naomi shrugged, and made it look like some exotic foreign gesture. “Assuredly,” she said. “But mostly I find they change for the worse, not the better. In fact, some who once liked me have changed so much that they tried to burn me as a monster.”
“Well, then you’re even,” Claire shot back, “because Amelie had Shane in a cage and was going to burn him for something he didn’t even do. He’s changed. For the better. And he didn’t have to.”
“Perhaps he has changed for you.”
For some reason the whole idea of that just made Claire … angry. “No. Not for me. He’s a good guy, deep down, and he wants to make things better. Same as me. So just—shut up about it.” She was, she realized, short of sleep, tired, anxious, and scared, and Naomi’s cool analysis of someone she loved made her unreasonably irritated.
Naomi said nothing, just gazed at her with placid, polite interest. There was a lot of frost inside her. She’d been nicer when there hadn’t been lives at stake, Claire thought; now survival was a big and increasing concern for her, and it was testing the limits of her willingness to put up with disrespectful humans.
But she didn’t snarl, glow red eyes, flash fangs, or otherwise try to make a vampiric comeback, so Claire had to be satisfied with that. They waited in silence for a few uncomfortable moments before the growing throb of an engine and a splash of headlights across the pavement signaled the arrival of a massive pickup truck that pulled to a stop neatly ahead of them. It idled slow and deep, and the bed of the thing was approximately the size of a blue whale. The interior of the cab could hold a soccer team. It even had a handy—though empty—gun rack in the back window.
The bumper sticker read: YOU CAN HAVE MY GUNS WHEN YOU PRY THEM FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS. Some joker—possibly the owner of the truck—had added UN before DEAD with a black marker. Claire cast a glance at Naomi, who was focused on the same words. There was an odd, vaguely amused smile on her lips that was not just a little creepy.
Shane leaned out the window of the truck and said, “God, I love rednecks. Who wants to drive this bad boy?”
“Not me,” Claire immediately said, at the same time that Naomi said, “I do not know how.”
Shane jumped down from the cab, paused, and stared at the two of them with a blank expression. “Don’t want to?” he asked Claire, and then swung his attention to Naomi, looking even more stunned. “Can’t? Seriously, there’s something wrong with the two of you.”
“If by wrong you mean sane,” Claire said. “That thing is like a tank, only a tank gets better gas mileage.”
“This is your biggest concern right now? Gas mileage?”
“No, I don’t think I can actually see over the dash! Who drives this thing? Bigfoot?”
“Rad,” Shane said. “You know, Rad, who owns the mechanic shop and sells bikes? That guy. C’mon. I’ll buy you a booster seat.”