Daylighters (15 page)

“Morley has promised me safety in the town of Blacke, if I can reach the borders of Morganville,” Amelie said. “From there, perhaps we can find a way to strike at Fallon. But it’s of no use to speculate. I will never leave this attic except in their hands.”

This, Claire thought, was going to require two things: precision timing and a whole lot of luck. The house was on her side, though; she could feel it anxiously waiting for any chance to help. And Shane would be armed and dangerous and looking for her, very soon.

She heard the shriek of metal warping and being ripped apart, and waited another few seconds, staring at Amelie. She couldn’t hear these creatures, because they moved like ghosts, but in her peripheral vision she saw one of them on the stairs. As it reached the top, she saw the blur of the second one close behind it.

“Sorry,” Claire said. “I’m not giving up on you just yet.”

She rushed forward, and before Amelie could stop her, she wrapped the Founder of Morganville in a hug.

It was weird and nauseating. The blood from Amelie’s dress squelched wetly between them, smearing Claire, and beneath the garment the vampire felt like a cold marble statue, stiffly unyielding. It lasted only a second, and then Amelie’s shock cracked, and she shoved Claire backward. “What are you
doing
?” she demanded, but there wasn’t time to explain, because the hellhounds were coming.

Claire threw herself sideways, across the couch, knocked over the lamp, and jumped the low railing to land awkwardly on the steps below. She lost her footing and fell, tumbling down the rest of the way, and caught herself just before she would have rolled into a nasty jagged metal mess that used to be the hidden panel’s door.

Claire shoved it out of the way, panting with fear and adrenaline, and saw one of the monsters leap down behind her on the stairs. It sniffed the air, and those yellow eyes widened, fixed straight on her, and took on an unholy shimmer as it opened its mouth to snarl.

Then it let out a howl that froze her bones, and Claire didn’t wait to see if it was going to give chase.

She just left Amelie behind, and ran.

S
he was halfway to the stairs when the creature burst out of the door, still giving that eerie, wailing howl, and Claire plunged the rest of the way at a dead run. She couldn’t let it catch her. It was following the scent of Amelie’s blood on her, and it would treat her like a vampire—it would rip her to shreds, assuming that she would heal.

But she wouldn’t, of course. If it caught her, it was all over. Her calculated risk would have failed. She’d thought that if Amelie had only one of these things to deal with, she might be able to fight her way free. That was Claire’s theory, anyway. She hoped she hadn’t just sacrificed herself for nothing.

“Shane!” Claire yelled as she reached the stairs and began racing down them. She didn’t feel the scrapes and bruises and muscle strains she was sure she’d earned with that first tumble down the hidden room’s steps. She’d pay for it later, but for now her panic was overriding all the normal responses. Nothing was broken, at least; she could still put her weight equally on both legs. That was all that mattered.

Shane was at the bottom of the stairs, standing there with the heavy duffel bag of weapons, staring up at her. He wasn’t moving. He looked . . . odd.

“Shane!” she called again, and looked back over her shoulder. She saw the monster coming into view, all yellow eyes and gleaming claws and the remains of that ridiculous sundress. “Shane, I need a weapon!” She didn’t even care what it was, not yet. There wasn’t time to be scientific just now.

But Shane
wasn’t moving.
No. Now he was, to drop the duffel with a crash to the wood floor.

Something was happening to him. His eyes . . .

He was changing.

No.
She’d forgotten in the crush of events, forgotten what the effect could be if he came face-to-face with a vampire . . .

...or someone who smelled like one.

He closed his eyes and when they opened, they gleamed acid yellow, with pupils that shrank into vertical slits.

Claws burst bloodily out of his fingertips, like some nightmare version of a superhero, but what he was becoming was something else, something far worse, and the howl that came out of his throat was nothing but rage and animal fury.

Claire screamed back, a full-throated cry of heartbreak and rage and fury and fear, and did the only thing she could—she rushed down, trying to get past him before he was fully changed. They’d gotten
Shane.
What was even worse was that he was close, he was fast, and she had only the tiniest chance of evading him. The only thing in her favor was that the change had just started on him, and he was still confused and in pain.

She had no choice but to try to get by him.

“Please,” she whispered. There were tears of sheer terror in her eyes, and heartache, because even now she couldn’t help but feel horror at what was happening to him, at the pain he was feeling. “Please, Shane, it’s me. It’s Claire.”

He was changing fast, and there was nothing of Shane left in his eyes, just pure instinct and rage. His clothing hampered his shift, but that wasn’t going to last long; his claws were even now ripping at the tough cloth of his jeans to shred them.

Claire took in a deep breath, grabbed the railing with both hands, and vaulted over it, the way she’d seen Shane do a million times. She landed on the bounce of Michael’s armchair and launched half a dozen feet into the air, to come to an awkward, stumbling landing still on her feet in front of the darkened TV.

Shane howled behind her, and when she looked back she saw he was almost completely hellhound now, muscles bunching and shifting and driving him to all fours. His body didn’t look human anymore.

She saw all that in a rush because then he was on her, leaping the distance to slam into her chest.

She somehow got her hands between them, pressing against skin—no, not skin anymore,
fur
, stiff and harsh against her fingers—and Shane’s mouth—
muzzle
—was opening and the teeth, the teeth were sharp and endless, and she knew she was about to die.

And she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see it coming.

He made a sound that resonated inside her—a high-pitched whine of pain and anguish. She felt the raw heat of his breath on her neck and forced herself to open her eyes again and stare right into his.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “Shane. It’s me.”

He snarled, but it turned into a whine again, and then his body tensed and she thought,
This is it, it’s the end.
She’d risked her life, and this time, finally, she’d lost it on the gamble. She wasn’t afraid exactly—shock had already taken over to protect her from that. But she was sad. Sad that it was going to be Shane, of all people. Sad that this would be another thing he’d have to live with after all the losses he’d suffered in his life.

She felt his body move, and it took her a second to realize that he wasn’t lunging down toward her, but away.

Away, to collide with the second hellhound leaping for her from the stairs.

They tangled up in a snarling, slashing heap on the floor beside the couch.

She didn’t wait to see who won; against all his instincts, all the programming that was running through his veins, Shane had given her a chance, and that was all she could ask. She had to keep moving, no matter what, and draw them away from Amelie if she could.

The house really was on her side, because as she darted through the kitchen door, a spray of water jetted out from the sink as if a pipe had ruptured, and hit her squarely in the face and chest, drenching her and rinsing away most of Amelie’s blood. She paused for a second to scrub frantically at her skin, and then as the water cut off, she grabbed for one of Shane’s beloved extinguisher grenades. She armed it just as the kitchen door smashed open, and Shane and the other hound broke through. She tossed it straight at them as she opened the back door, and it hit the ground right in front of Shane’s feet, then exploded into a choking cloud of white powder that shimmered and billowed in the air.

It made a great distraction, and she took full advantage of it to run, fast, out of the backyard and onto the street.

The pole lights were all on, gleaming golden, and she considered running to a neighbor’s house for help—but she didn’t know which, if any, of her neighbors could be trusted anymore. (Not that they’d been all that trustworthy in the first place, honestly.) Shane’s muscle car must have been stashed somewhere back at Jenna’s house, but she hadn’t asked him where to find it, and she didn’t have time to play hide-and-seek, not tonight. The police were looking for her, and now she had—what
were
they? hellhounds?
werewolves
?—on her trail.

Although they hadn’t followed her out here. Not yet. The quick-rinse solution seemed to have done its job, along with the powder bomb; it must have confused them, and maybe destroyed their sense of smell temporarily.

Claire just picked a direction, ultimately, and began to run. She stayed at the edges of the streetlights, watched her back, and kept an eye out for police cruisers, but it seemed quiet enough. Too quiet, maybe.

The quiet shattered in a rising wail of police sirens, and she took a welcome breather hiding behind a hedge as three cars streaked by, red and blue flashers painting the world in primary colors before it sank back into shades of gray. They were headed toward the Glass House, she thought. She doubted Amelie had dialed 911, but maybe one of the neighbors had gotten too alarmed to ignore all the strangeness. Morganville was, after all, a law-abiding town now.

Or maybe someone had just spotted her and recognized her as Morganville’s Most Wanted. That wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Claire eased out from the bushes again. She was shivering now, since the water she’d been drenched with was slowly drying in the cold desert air, and despite the run she was getting chilled out here, quickly. Normally she’d have run to Myrnin’s lab, but going there would only expose her to more danger. Still, she craved the comfort of someplace familiar, even if it was unwise. Or creepy. The known was always better than the unknown.

Stop it,
she told herself sternly.
You’re a scientist, right? Stop being afraid of the unknown.
That steadied her. Science had helped her think of tainting herself with Amelie’s blood to draw off the attackers, and science had helped her remember the extinguisher grenades. The unknown wasn’t full of terrors, it was full of undiscovered advantages. Better to run toward something than run from something.

The Glass House was in mortal danger now; if Amelie managed to take advantage of the confusion and get out of there, escape to the little town of Blacke, there was no way Fallon was going to allow the Founder Houses to be left standing. He would destroy Amelie’s last refuges, and their home.

Claire knew she couldn’t defend it just by staying and fighting for it; that was defensive, and she needed offense now. She needed to get to Fallon.

She needed to stop this—for Shane, for Michael, for the safety of the Glass House. Besides, she wasn’t alone if she ran toward the center of the danger . . .

Because Eve was already there.

•   •   •

Claire kept to the shadows on the way to the edge of town. She remembered the way, at least, and if nothing else the constant walking she’d done at MIT over the past few weeks had prepared her for the relatively short distances of hiking Morganville. There was no problem with lurking in the darkness these days, no vampires ready to strike at least. Though she had no idea where Myrnin was now, or if Amelie had actually managed to fight her way free of the Glass House. If she had, then Shane would be . . .

Would be hunting Amelie.

That thought crushed her heart. Shane had always, deep inside, loathed the vampires; he’d willingly signed up to find a way to deliver Morganville from their clutches when he’d been with his dad’s crew. But Claire thought that he’d come to accept them, a little—particularly Michael. Having your best friend grow fangs was guaranteed to cause a serious reevaluation of your prejudices.

But it seemed as if the hate had always been thrust upon him, that it wasn’t something he’d chosen for himself—and this was no different. She didn’t want to see Shane like that, lost to bloodlust and rage and violence. He was better than that.

They were all better than that.

Claire stopped at a small, neglected water fountain in one of the few parks along the way, and washed off again, trying to get any trace of Amelie’s blood off of her. She wasn’t sure how good Shane’s senses would be outside, but she suspected that when Fallon created hunting dogs, he did an expert job of it. And as much as she wanted to be with Shane, she never wanted to see him like that again.

The cold, cutting wind felt much worse once she’d dampened her clothes, and she thought grimly that she was bound to come down sick after this—if she survived.

The worst she endured on the way to the Daylight Foundation, though, was the chill, and an attack of a couple of wandering tumbleweeds that—as tumbleweeds did—blew straight for her even when she tried to avoid them. The tiny burrs on the rounded plants made them hard to pry out of her jeans and left itchy places on her fingers where they pierced skin. The tumbleweeds also had a tendency to come blowing across in packs, so she had to play dodge-the-weeds more frequently than she liked . . . and then she saw the glow of a neon sign ahead as she turned the corner. This part of town was still mostly under construction, though the sites lay silent now, workers all gone home and tools left abandoned for the night. The smells of new wood and dust mingled, and made her suppress a sneeze as she paused at the intersection. To her left, a neon sign two stories in the air glowed orange and bright yellow.

The stylized image of the sunrise, worn by the Daylighters as a pin.

Claire moved carefully, but she saw no one, again. There were a few cars still in the parking lot, and as she got closer she spotted Eve’s distinctive black hearse with its elaborate chrome. At first, Claire felt a surge of relief, because it meant that Eve was still here, somewhere, . . . but then she realized that if Fallon had decided to dump her in with the vampires at the mall, he’d hardly have troubled to move her car yet. So the presence of the hearse really didn’t mean anything at all, except that Eve had parked it there. It wasn’t an indicator of where she was.

Claire needed to get inside to find her, and to find a way to get to Fallon.

Doubts had settled in on the walk, and she was trying to ignore them. Eve had come here with the exact same mission—to stop Fallon. How far had she gotten?
How can I be sure I can do any better?

She wished that Myrnin hadn’t gone off with Jenna. She needed him now, more than ever.

The first step—the only step—was to try to find out what was happening inside the Daylight Foundation. If Eve was still there, she had an ally. If she wasn’t, that was one more incentive for Claire to find Fallon and end this, once and for all.

She heard a howl in the distance, long and eerie, and that decided her.

Sometimes the safest place to be was right in the heart of the enemy.

•   •   •

The front door was impossible; there were still lights on in the lobby, and as she positioned herself at the right angle, she could see that a jacketed security guard was sitting behind the desk where the receptionist had been earlier. No sign of Eve, or Fallon, for that matter. Claire went around the building to the side and found windows—all locked. The offices were darkened, though. She wondered about alarms, and went all the way around the perimeter, just in case.

Good thing she did, because she found that one of the windows at the back had been left open. Not much, just a crack, but enough to reassure her that it wasn’t alarmed. She found a rusty piece of rebar on the ground nearby and used it to lever the window up. It must have been stuck, which was why it hadn’t been closed in the first place, and she was afraid she’d shatter it, but it finally came loose and slid upward.

Even fully open, it wasn’t a big opening, and she had to shimmy through carefully. Her hips barely scraped through, and she tumbled head over heels into a dimly lit storage area full of racks of books and bottles. It all looked boringly normal, actually. There was nothing sinister about toilet paper and cleaning sprays, and even the books were all about how to make yourself a better person. This was the public face of the Daylight Foundation. The private face was, of course, that dismal mall and those vampires in their so-called enclave, waiting for—for what?