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"So," Hess said, "any word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?"
"Not so far," Richard said. "Once we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us."
"Aren't they hurt by the sun?" Claire asked. "I mean--"
"They start smoking, not in the Marlboro way, and then they start crisping," Travis Lowe said around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss. "The older ones, they can handle it okay, and anyway, they're not just charging out there anymore. They're putting on hats and coats and blankets. I saw one wrapped up in a SpongeBob rug from some kid's bedroom, if you can believe that. It's the younger vamps that are in trouble. Some of them won't make it to the shade if they're not careful."
Claire thought about Michael, and her stomach lurched. Before she even formed the question, Richard saw her expression and shook his head. "Michael's okay," he said. "Saw to it myself. He's got himself a nice, secure jail cell, along with the other vampires we could catch before it was too late. He's not as strong as some of the others. He can't bend steel with his bare hands. Yet, anyway."
"Any word on--" Claire was wearing out the question, and Richard didn't even let her finish it.
"No sign of Eve," he said. "No word from her. I'd try to put a GPS track on her phone, but we'd have to bring the cell network up, and that's too dangerous right now. I've asked the guys on the street to keep an eye out for her, but we've got a lot of things going on, Claire."
"I know. But--" She couldn't put it into words, exactly. She just knew that somewhere, somehow, Eve was in trouble, and they needed to find her.
"So," Joe Hess said, and stood up to look at a blownup map of Morganville taped to the wall. "This still accurate?" The map was covered in colored dots: blue for locations held by those loyal to Amelie; red for those loyal to Bishop; black for those burned or otherwise put out of commission, which accounted for three Founder Houses, the hospital, and the blood bank.
"Pretty much," Richard said. "We don't know if the vampires are leaving Bishop's locations, but we know they're digging in, just like Amelie's folks. We can verify locations only where Amelie's people were supposed to be, and they're gone from just about every location we've got up in blue."
"Where were they last seen?"
Richard consulted notes, and began to add yellow dots to the map. Claire saw the pattern almost immediately. "It's the portals," she said. "Myrnin got the portals working again, somehow. That's what they're using."
Hess and Lowe looked blank, but Richard nodded. "Yeah, I know about that. Makes sense. But where are they going?"
She shrugged helplessly. "Could be anywhere. I don't know all the places the portals go; maybe Myrnin and Amelie do, but I don't think anybody else does." But she felt unreasonably cheered by the idea that the vampires weren't out wandering out in the daylight, spontaneously combusting all over the place. She didn't want to see that happen to them . . . not even to Oliver.
Well, maybe to Oliver, sometimes. But not today.
The three men stared at her for a few seconds, then went back to studying the map, talking about perimeters and strategies for patrols, all kinds of things that Claire didn't figure really involved her. She finished her sandwich and walked into the living room, where tiny, wizened little Gramma Day was sitting in an overstuffed wing chair with her feet up, talking to Hannah. "Hey, little girl," Gramma Day said. "Sit yourself."
Claire perched, looking around the room. Most of the vampires were gone, either confined to cells or locked away for safety; some, they hadn't been able to stop. She couldn't seem to stop anxiously rubbing her hands together. Shane. Shane was supposed to be here. Richard Morrell had said that they'd arranged for the Bloodmobile to switch drivers, and that meant Shane would be coming soon for his rest period.
She needed him right now.
Gramma Day was looking at her with distant sympathy in her faded eyes. "You worried?" she asked, and smiled. "You got cause, I expect."
"I do?" Claire was surprised. Most adults tried to pretend it was all going to be okay.
"Sure thing, sugar. Morganville's been ruled by the vampires a long time, and they ain't always been the gentlest of folks. Been people hurt, people killed without reason. Builds up some resentment." Gramma nodded toward the bookcase. "Fetch me that red book right there, the one that starts with N."
It was an encyclopedia. Claire got it and set it in her lap. Gramma's weathered, sinewy fingers opened it and flipped pages, then handed it back. The heading said, New York Draft Riots, 1863.
The pictures showed chaos--mobs, buildings on fire. And worse things. Much, much worse.
"People forget," Gramma said. "They forget what can happen, if anger builds up. Those New York folks, they were angry because their men were being drafted to fight the Civil War. Who you think they took it out on? Mostly black folks, of all things. Folks who couldn't fight back. They even burned up an orphanage, and they'd have killed every one of those children if they'd caught them." She shook her head, clicking her tongue in disgust. "Same thing happened in Tulsa in 1921. Called it the Greenwood Riot, said black folks were taking away their business and jobs. Back in France, they had a revolution where they took all those fancy aristocrat folks and cut their heads off. Maybe it was their fault, and maybe not. It's all the same thing: you get angry, you blame it on some folks, and you make them pay, guilty or not. Happens all the time."
Claire felt a chill. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you think about France, girl. Vampires been holding us all down a long time, just like those aristocrats, or that's how people around here think of it. Now, you think about all those folks out there with generations of grudges, and nobody really in charge right now. You think it won't go bad on us?"
There weren't enough shudders in the world. Claire remembered Shane's father, the fanatical light in his eyes. He'd be one of those leading a riot, she thought. One of those pulling people out of their houses as collaborators and turncoats and hanging them up from lampposts.
Hannah patted the shotgun in her lap. She'd put the paintball gun aside--honestly, it wasn't much use now, with the vampires missing in action. "They're not getting in here, Gramma. We won't be having any Greenwood in Morganville."
"I ain't so much worried about you and me," Gramma said. "But I'd be worried for the Morrells. They're gonna be coming for them, sooner or later. That family's the poster children for the old guard."
