“Because if Amelie says Bishop’s got himself installed in City Hall, somebody there has to know. We don’t know who’s on his team,” Michael said. “I don’t know Sullivan that well, but I know he never was happy with the way things ran in town. I wouldn’t put it past him to be buying Bishop’s crap about giving the city back to the people, home rule, all that stuff. Same goes for anybody else there, except maybe Joe Hess and Travis Lowe. We have to know who we’re talking to before we say anything else.”
Shane nodded. “I’m thinking that Sullivan’s keeping Richard out of the loop for a reason.”
They were downstairs, the four of them. Eve, Shane, and Claire were at the kitchen table, and Michael was pacing the floor and casting looks at the couch, where Oliver was. The older vampire was asleep, Claire guessed, or unconscious; they’d done what they could, washed him off and wrapped him in clean blankets. He was healing, according to Michael, but he wasn’t doing it very fast.
When he’d woken up, he’d seemed distant. Confused.
Afraid.
Claire had given him one of the doses she’d gotten from Dr. Mills, and so far, it seemed to be helping, but if Oliver was sick, Myrnin’s fears were becoming real.
Soon, it’d be Amelie, too. And then where would they be?
“So what do we do?” Claire asked. “Amelie said we have to tell Richard. We have to get noncombatants out of City Hall, as soon as possible.”
“Problem is, you heard him giving instructions to the Civil Defense guys earlier—they’re out telling everybody in town to goto City Hall if they can’t make it to another shelter. Radio and TV, too. Hell, half the town is probably there already.”
“Maybe she won’t do it,” Eve said. “I mean, she wouldn’t kill everybodyin there, would she? Not even if she thinks they’re working for Bishop.”
“I think it’s gone past that,” Claire said. “I don’t know if she has any choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not in chess,” Claire replied. “Unless your choice is to lie down and die.”
In the end, the only way to be sure they got to the right person was to get in the car and drive there. Claire was a little shocked at the color of the sky outside—a solid gray, with clouds moving so fast it was like time-lapse on the Weather Channel. The edges looked faintly green, and in this part of the country, that was never a good sign.
The only good thing about it was that Michael didn’t have to worry about getting scorched by sunlight. He brought a hoodie and a blanket to throw over his head, just in case, but it was dark outside, and getting darker fast. Premature sunset.
Drops of rain were smacking the sidewalk, the size of half-dollars. Where they hit Claire’s skin, they felt like paintball pellets. As she looked up at the clouds, a horizontal flash of lightning peeled the sky in half, and thunder rumbled so loudly she felt it through the soles of her shoes.
“Come on!” Eve yelled, and started the car. Claire ran to open the backseat door and piled in beside Shane. Eve was already accelerating before she could fasten her seat belt. “Michael, get the radio.”
He turned it on. Static. As he scanned stations, they got ghosts of signals from other towns, but nothing came through clearly in Morganville—probably because the vampires jammed it.
Then one came in, loud and clear, broadcasting on a loop.
Attention Morganville residents: this is an urgent public service announcement. The National Weather Service has identified an extremely dangerous storm tracking toward Morganville, which will reach our borders at six twenty-seven this evening at its present speed. This storm has already been responsible for devastation in several areas in its path, and there has been significant loss of life due to tornadic activity. Morganville and the surrounding areas are on tornado watch through ten p.m. this evening. If you hear an alert siren, go immediately to a designated Safe Shelter location, or to the safest area of your home if you cannot reach a Safe Shelter. Attention Morganville residents—
Michael clicked it off. There was no point in listening to the repeat; it wasn’t going to get any better.
“How many Safe Shelters are there?” Shane asked. “University dorms have them, the UC—”
“Founder’s Square has two,” Michael said, “but nobody can get to them right now. They’re locked up.”
“Library.”
“And the church. Father Joe would open up the basements, so that’ll fit a couple of hundred people.”
Everybody else would head to City Hall, if they didn’t stay in their houses.
The rain started to fall in earnest, slapping the windshield at first, and then pounding it in fierce waves. The ancient windshield wipers really weren’t up to it, even at high speed. Claire was glad she wasn’t trying to drive. Even in clear visibility she wasn’t very good, and she had no idea how Eve was seeing a thing.
If she was, of course. Maybe this was faith-based driving.
Other cars were on the road, and most of them were heading the same way they were. Claire looked at the clock on her cell phone.
Five thirty p.m.
The storm was less than an hour away.
“Uh-oh,” Eve said, and braked as they turned the last corner. It was a sea of red taillights. Over the roll of thunder and pounding rain, Claire heard horns honking. Traffic moved, but slowly, one car at a time inching forward. “They’re checking cars at the barricade. I can’t believe—”
Something happened up there, and the brake lights began flicking off in steady rows. Cars moved. Eve fell into line, and the big, black sedan rolled past two police cars still flashing their lights. In the red/blue/red glow, Claire saw that they’d moved the barricades aside and were just waving everyone through.
“This is crazy,” she said. “We can’t get people out. Not fast enough! We’d have to stop everybody from coming in first, and then give them somewhere to go. . . .”
“I’m getting out of the car here,” Michael said. “I can run faster than you can drive in this. I’ll get to Richard. They won’t dare stop me.”
That was probably true, but Eve still said, “Michael, don’t—”
Not that it stopped him from bailing out into the rain. A flash of lightning streaked by overhead and showed him splashing through thick puddles, weaving around cars.
He was right; he was faster.
Eve muttered something about “Stupid, stubborn, bloodsucking boyfriends,” and followed the traffic toward City Hall.
Out of nowhere, a truck pulled out in front of them from a side street and stopped directly in their path. Eve yelled and hit the brakes, but they were mushy and wet, and not great at the best of times, and Claire felt the car slip and then slide, gathering speed as it went.
Glad I put on my seat belt,she thought, which was a weird thing to think, as Eve’s car hydroplaned right into the truck. Shane stretched out his arm to hold her in place, anyway—instinct, Claire guessed—and then they all got thrown forward hard as physics took over.
Physics hurt.
Claire rested her aching head against the cool window—it was cracked, but still intact—and tried to shake it off. Shane was unhooking himself from the seat belt and asking her if she was okay. She made some kind of gesture and mumbled something, which she hoped would be good enough. She wasn’t up to real reassurances at the moment.
Eve’s door opened, and she got dragged out of the car.
“Hey!” Shane yelled, and threw himself out his own door. Claire fumbled at the latch, but hers seemed stuck; she navigated the push button on her seat belt and opted for Shane’s side of the car instead.
As she stumbled out into the shockingly warm rain, she knew they were really in trouble now, because the man holding a knife to Eve’s throat was Frank Collins, Shane’s father and all-around badass, crazy vampire hater. He looked exactly like she remembered—tough, biker-hard, dressed in leather and tattoos.
He was yelling something at Eve, something Claire couldn’t hear over the crash of thunder. Shane threw himself into a slide over the trunk of the car and grabbed at his dad’s knife hand.