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Monica came through without any comment. The fence snapped back into place. Unless someone was looking for an entrance, it ought to do.
The plant threw a large, black shadow on the weedchoked parking lot. There were a few rustedout trucks still parked here and there; Claire used them for cover from the street as they approached the main building, though she didn't think the mob was close enough to really spot them at this point. Monica seemed to get the point without much in the way of instruction; Claire supposed that running for her life had humbled her a little. Maybe.
"Wait," Monica said, as Claire prepared to bolt for a brokenout bottomfloor window into the tire plant. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for my friends," she said. "They're inside."
"Well, I'm not going in there," Monica declared, and tried to look haughty. It would have been more effective if she hadn't been so frazzled and sweaty. "I was on my way to City Hall, but those losers got in my way. They slashed my tires. I need to get to my parents."' She said it as though she expected Claire to salute and hop like a toad.
Claire raised her eyebrows. "Better start walking, I guess. It's kind of a long way." "But--but--"
Claire didn't wait for the sputtering to die; she turned and ran for the building. The window opened into total darkness, as far as she could tell, but at least it was accessible. She pulled herself up on the sash and started to swing her legs inside.
"Wait!" Monica dashed across to join her. "You can't leave me here alone! You saw those jerks out there!"
"Absolutely."
"Oh, you're just loving this, aren't you?"
"Kinda." Claire hopped down inside the building, and her shoes slapped bare concrete floor. It was bare except for a layer of dirt, anyway--undisturbed for as far as the light penetrated, which wasn't very far. "Coming?"
Monica stared through the window at her, just boiling with fury; Claire smiled at her and started to walk into the dark.
Monica, cursing, climbed inside.
"I'm not a bad person," Monica was saying--whining, actually. Claire wished she could find a twobyfour to whack her with, but the tire plant, although full of wreckage and trash, didn't seem to be big on wooden planks. Some nice pipes, though. She might use one of those.
Except she really didn't want to hit anybody, deep down. Claire supposed that was a character flaw, or something.
"Yes, you really are a bad person," she told Monica, and ducked underneath a lowhanging loop of wire that looked horrormovie ready, the sort of thing that dropped around your neck and hauled you up to be dispatched by the psychokiller villain. Speaking of which, this whole place was decorated in Early PsychoKiller Villain, from the vast soaring darkness overhead to the lumpy, skeletal shapes of rusting equipment and abandoned junk. The spray painting--decades of it, in layered styles from Early Tagger to cuttingedge gang sign--gleamed in the random shafts of light like blood. Some particularly unpleasant spraypaint artist had done an enormous, terrifying clown face, with windows for the eyes and a giant, open doorway for a mouth. Yeah, really not going in there, Claire thought. Although the way these things went, she probably would have to.
"Why do you say that?"
"Say what?" Claire asked absently. She was listening for any sound of movement, but this place was enormous and confusing--just as Hannah had warned.
"Say that I'm a bad person!"
"Oh, I don't know--you tried to kill me? And get me raped at a party? Not to mention--"
"That was payback," Monica said. "And I didn't mean it or anything."
"Which makes it all so much better. Look, can we not bond? I'm busy. Seriously. Shhhh." That last was to forestall Monica from blurting out yet another injured defense of her character. Claire squeezed past a barricade of piledup boxes and metal, into another shaft of light that arrowed down from a highup broken window. The clown painting felt like it was watching her, which was beyond creepy. She tried not to look too closely at what was on the floor. Some of it was animal carcasses, birds, and things that had gotten inside and died over the years. Some of it was old cans, plastic wrappers, all kinds of junk left behind by adventurous kids looking for a hideout. She didn't imagine any of them stayed for long.
This place just felt . . . haunted.
Monica's hand grabbed her arm, just on the bruise that Amelie's grip had given her earlier. Claire winced.
"Did you hear that?" Monica's whisper was fierce and hushed. She needed mouthwash, and she smelled like sweat more than powder and perfume. "Oh my God. Something's in here with us!"
"Could be a vampire," Claire said. Monica sniffed.
"Not afraid of those," she said, and dangled her fancy, silver Protection bracelet in front of Claire's face. "Nobody's going to cross Oliver."
"You want to tell that to the mob of people chasing you back there? I don't think they got the memo or something."
"I mean, no vampire would. I'm Protected." Monica said it like there was simply no possibility anything else could be true. The earth was round, the sun was hot, and a vampire would never hurt her because she'd sold herself to Oliver, body and soul.
Yeah, right.
"News flash," Claire whispered. "Oliver's missing in action from Common Grounds. Amelie's disappeared. In fact, most of the vampires all over town have dropped out of sight, which makes these bracelets cute fashion accessories, but not exactly bulletproof vests or anything."
Monica started to speak, but Claire frowned angrily at her and pointed off into the darkness, where she'd heard the noise. It had sounded odd--kind of a sigh, echoing from the steel and concrete, bouncing and amplifying.
It sounded as if it had come out of the clown's dark mouth.
Of course.
Claire reached into her pocket. She still had the vial of silver powder that Amelie had given her, but she was well aware that it might not do her any good. If her friendvampires were mixed in with enemyvamps, she was out of luck. Likewise, if what was waiting for her out there was trouble of a human variety, instead of bloodsuckers . . .
Shane and Hannah were in here. Somewhere. And so--hopefully--was Eve.
Claire eased around a tattered sofa that smelled like old cats and mold, and sidestepped a truly impressive rat that didn't bother to move out of her way. It sat there watching her with weird, alert eyes.
Monica looked down, saw it, and shrieked, stumbling backward. She fell into a stack of ancient cartons that collapsed on her, raining down random junk. Claire grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, but Monica kept on whimpering and squirming, slapping at her hair and upper body.
