Shane glanced at Monica--whose bruises were living proof that trouble was already under way--and then back at Myrnin. "What are you going to do?"
"Stay here," Myrnin said. "With my friends."
"Friends? Who, the--uh--failed experiments?"
"Exactly so." Myrnin shrugged. "They look upon me as a kind of father figure. Besides, their blood is as good as anyone else's, in a pinch."
"So much more than I wanted to know," Shane said, and nodded to Hannah. "Let's go."
"Got your back, Shane."
"Watch Claire's and Eve's. I'll take the lead."
"What about me?" Monica whined.
"Do you really want to know?" Shane gave her a glare that should have scorched her hair off. "Be grateful I'm not leaving you as an afterdinner mint on his pillow."
Myrnin leaned close to Claire's ear and said, "I think I like your young man." When she reacted in pure confusion, he held up his hands, smiling. "Not in that way, my dear. He just seems quite trustworthy."
She swallowed and put all that aside. "Are you going to be okay here? Really?"
"Really?" He locked gazes with her. "For now, yes. But we have work to do, Claire. Much work, and very little time. I can't hide for long. You do realize that stress accelerates the disease, and this is a great deal of stress for us all. More will fall ill, become confused. It's vital we begin work on the serum as quickly as possible."
"I'll try to get you back to the lab tomorrow."
They left him standing in a fading shaft of sunlight, next to a giant rusting crane that lifted its head three stories into the dark, with pale birds flitting and diving overhead.
And wounded, angry failed experiments lurking in the shadows, maybe waiting to attack their vampire creator.
Claire felt sorry for them, if they did.
The mobs were gone, but they'd given Eve's car a good battering while they were at it. She choked when she saw the dents and cracked glass, but at least it was still on all four tires, and the damage was cosmetic. The engine started right up.
"Poor baby," Eve said, and patted the big steering wheel affectionately as she settled into the driver's seat. "We'll get you all fixed up. Right, Hannah?"
"And here I was wondering what I was going to do tomorrow," Hannah said, taking--of course--the shotgun seat. "Guess now I know. I'll be hammering dents out of the Queen Mary and putting in new safety glass."
In the backseat, Claire was the human equivalent of Switzerland between the warring nations of Shane and Monica, who sat next to the windows. It was tense, but nobody spoke.
The sun was going down in a blaze of glory in the west, which normally would have made Morganville a vampire friendly place. Not so much tonight, as became evident when Eve left the dilapidated warehouse district and cruised closer to Vamptown.
There were people out on the streets, at sunset.
And they were angry, too.
"Shouty," Eve said, as they passed a big group clustered around a guy standing on a wooden box, yelling at the crowd. He had a pile of wooden stakes, and people were picking them up. "Okay, this is looking less than great."
"You think?" Monica slumped down in her seat, trying not to be noticed. "They tried to kill me! And I'm not even a vampire!"
"Yeah, but you're you, so there's that explained." Eve slowed down. "Traffic."
Traffic? In Morganville? Claire leaned forward and saw that there were about six cars in the street ahead. The first one was turned sideways, blocking the second--a big van, which was trying to back up but was handicapped by the third car.
The trapped passenger van was vampiredark. The two cars blocking it in were old, battered sedans, the kind humans drove.
"That's Lex Perry's car, the one turned sideways," Hannah said. "I think that's the Nunally brothers in the third one. They're drinking buddies with Sal Manetti."
"Sal, as in, the guy out there rabblerousing?"
"You got it."
And now people were closing in around the van, pushing against it, rocking it on its tires.
Nobody in their car spoke a word.
The van rocked harder. The tires spun, trying to pull away, but it tipped and slammed over on its side, helpless. With a roar, the crowd climbed on top of it and started battering the windows.
"We should do something," Claire finally said.
"Yeah?" Hannah's voice was very soft. "What, exactly?"
"Call the police?" Only the police were already here. There were two cars of them, and they couldn't stop what was happening. In fact, they didn't even look inclined to try.
"Let's go," Shane said quietly. "There's nothing we can do here."
Eve silently put the car in reverse and burned rubber backing up.
Claire broke out of her trance. "What are you doing? We can't just leave--"
"Take a good look," Eve said grimly. "If anybody out there sees Princess Morrell in this car, we've all had it. We're all collaborators if we're protecting her, and you're wearing the Founder bracelet. We can't risk it."
Claire sank back in her seat as Eve shifted gears again and turned the wheel. They took a different street, this one unblocked so far.
"What's happening?" Monica asked. "What's happening to our town?"
"France," Claire said, thinking about Gramma Day. "Welcome to the revolution."
Eve drove through a maze of streets. Lights were flickering on in houses, and the few streetlamps were coming on as well. Cars--and there were a lot of them out now--turned on their headlights and honked, as if the local high school had just won a big football game.
As if it were one big, loud party.
"I want to go home," Monica said. Her voice sounded muffled. "Please."
Eve looked at her in the rearview mirror, and finally nodded.
But when they turned down the street where the Morrell family home was located, Eve slammed on the brakes and put the car into reverse, instantly.
The Morrell home looked like the site of another of Monica's infamous, unsupervised parties . . . only this one really was unsupervised, and those uninvited guests, they weren't just there for the free booze.
"What are they doing?" Monica asked, and let out a strangled yell as a couple of guys carried a big plasma television out the front door. "They're stealing it! They're stealing our stuff!"
Pretty much everything was being looted--mattresses, furniture, art. Claire even saw people upstairs tossing linens and clothing out the windows to people waiting on the ground.