“Right,” she said. “We’ve got the blood. Here’s how this will work. I go in and recover the controller for the collars. I shock the vampires down— for their safety as well as ours. Your job is to take down the Daylighter guards— but be careful. They won’t hes- itate to fight back. While you’re taking them down, the kids and I will be piling all the blood in the center square of the atrium. By preference, most of the vamps will go for it when I free them, but I warn you: some will come for you or the Daylighters. Be prepared to defend yourselves there, too, and get out of the building while they feed.”
It sounded like a solid plan, and Claire swallowed hard as Han- nah ordered her into the backseat. Hannah drove slowly to the edge of the building, and watched as Mrs. Grant’s people followed on foot, keeping to the edge of the wall.
Hannah turned the corner. “Both of you, get down and stay down until I come out,” she said. “I don’t want them seeing you or this could all go bad.”
They followed instructions. Claire had a clear view of the blood bags stacked on the floor beside her, the thick dark- red liquid shifting inside the bags as Hannah got out of the car and walked away, toward the entrance. The morning heat was starting to make itself felt, and Claire felt sweat forming on her back, where the sun shone brightly. Without the AC running in the car, it would get uncomfortable quickly.
But it wasn’t long before the radio in the car crackled to life, and Hannah’s voice said, “Give the signal to Mrs. Grant.”
Claire wasn’t sure what the signal was, but Shane rose up from behind the dashboard and gave Mrs. Grant, staring into the wind- shield from a few feet away, a big thumbs- up.
The people from Blacke— thirty strong, at least— rushed into the building.
No need to hide now, Claire thought, and she sat up to try to see what was going on. Which was useless, since there wasn’t much of a view inside. But after a few long minutes of silence, Hannah’s voice came over the radio again. “Pop the trunk. Bring it in.”
Shane opened her door on the way to the back of the car, and they grabbed full armloads of the squishy bags and ran for the en- trance. Hannah opened the door for them. In her right hand, she was holding the controller box for the shock collars, and Claire saw that there were vampires down on the floor, still convulsing.
She was holding them that way.
The Daylighters were mostly down, too, being tied up by the folks from Blacke, but not all of them had fallen into the trap. In fact, one was leaning over the second- floor balcony, aiming a handgun at them. Claire would have missed him, except that she heard Myrnin shout, “Claire, get down!” and she obeyed without ques- tion, dragging Shane with her.
The gun went off, and the bullet went over their heads to shat- ter one side of the entry doors into an explosion of glass shards.
Then Myrnin rose up pale behind the shooter, and sank his fangs into the man’s neck.
Claire watched, horrified, because in that moment her gentle, sweet, goofy boss became Vampire, with a capital V. She remem- bered moments like this, when all his humanity stripped away, but this time it seemed even more frightening— mainly because he was angry. Really, really angry.
He drained the man dry, and snapped his neck when he was done, simply out of sheer fury . . . and then he tossed him over the railing, to smack like a rag doll onto the tile floor.
That made everyone stop what they were doing for an instant— even the other Daylighters who were still fighting.
Myrnin, Claire realized, was still getting shocks from the col- lar. He was just . . . ignoring them. Hannah realized it, too, and she didn’t like it; she unsnapped the fastener on her sidearm as Myrnin leaped over the balcony’s edge and landed catlike beside the body of his victim.
“You can stop that now,” he said to Hannah. His voice was un- even and ragged, and his eyes were burning red, but she still shook her head.
“I can’t,” she said. “The others are starving. If I release them, they’ll rip us apart. We’ve got blood. We’re bringing it in. Myrnin, back off. Don’t make me have to hurt you.”
He laughed, in a tense and wildly crazy way that made Claire get a very bad feeling in her stomach. “Hurt me?” he asked. “How would you do that? By taking away everything I love? Everything I honor? You’re too late, Hannah. Far too late. Fallon already did that.”
Claire’s terrible feeling suddenly condensed into a heavy, sick- ening weight. “He took Jesse,” she said. “Fallon took Jesse.”
“Because he knew it would hurt me,” Myrnin said. “Fallon likes to pretend his crusade is to save us, but in the end it’s about me. He wants to see me suffer, for turning him vampire so long ago.
For abandoning him once I did. It is my fault, you know. All my fault. But Lady Gray shouldn’t pay the price.”
“We have to save her,” Claire said, and turned to Hannah. “We have to.”
“Never thought I’d say that, but, yeah, she’s our friend, too,”
Shane agreed. He dumped the armload of blood bags on the floor next to the fountain, and Claire added her own to the pile.
“Then the faster we get the blood in, the faster you can go find her,” Hannah said. “Help move it.”
Myrnin, despite the shock collar still crackling around his neck, despite the intense sunlight outside, helped them carry the rest of the blood into the atrium, running back and forth, until the pile of bags was waist- high, and the trunk and backseat of the cruiser were empty.
Claire remembered, despite the frantic pace, that they still had a problem— a big one. “The hellhounds,” she said. “Fallon could activate them at any time. If Hannah turns against us—”
“I’ve been working on adapting Fallon’s filthy cure to the pur- pose,” Myrnin said. “During my time outside this prison. I have a small supply made up in my lab. It’s hidden in the back by my arm- chair, behind a pile of books. Enough for three more doses, if you’re careful. Oh, and while you’re there, do feed Bob. He’s been hunting on his own lately, but he does enjoy being shown a little kindness.”
And that, Claire thought, was Myrnin in a nutshell. He was ca- pable of wild mood swings that went from murder to concern for a spider in under five minutes. In the end, loving Myrnin, real y loving him, would be like living with an unexploded bomb— sooner or later it was bound to go off, and for someone fragile and hu- man, it would be fatal.
It didn’t make her love him any less, but she knew better than to think that she could fix him . . . or survive him, if she let him get too close.
“Mrs. Grant,” Hannah said, “get your folks out of here. Take the prisoners with you. I’m going to release them.”
Mrs. Grant nodded and gave quick instructions. Each team of four took one of the guards and escorted them out. Most looked relieved to be going, honestly.
“We’re going to wait the rest of this out in Blacke,” Mrs. Grant said. “Morganville’s your town, not ours. We said we’d help free the vampires, and we have. Now it’s up to you.” She looked at Claire and Shane, and for a moment she looked as if she was going to reverse that, or at least regret it. She came to Shane and gave him a hug, then embraced Claire. “You two, you take care. I’ve gotten fond of you.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Grant,” Shane said. “You’ve done enough.
You’re right. This is Morganville business now.”
Then they were headed out, back to their bus. Knowing Mrs.
Grant and Morley, Claire was pretty sure that Blacke would al- ready be prepared for an all- out war with the Daylighters, just in case. Armed to the teeth.
She and Shane looked at Hannah, who nodded and backed up toward the doorway. “You two, get in the car,” she said. “Once I hit the releases for their collars, they’ll be shaking it off and getting up fast.”
Myrnin didn’t follow them. He stood where he was, staring blindly at the pile of blood bags. Claire didn’t think he was really seeing them, though. “Find her,” he said. “Find Jesse. I’ll lead the rest of them once they’re fed. Leave Fallon to me.”
“Myrnin— Fallon’s a zealot. He played on people’s fears. He made them believe that killing all of you was the only way to stay safe. Don’t prove him right,” Claire said. “Please. Don’t prove him right.”