Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

‘Not sure Pete could handle it, honestly. He’s a good guy but he’s a little out of his depth. Being a bouncer never really required a whole lot of stealth. Kind of the opposite, actually.’

She hugged Shane then, and he hugged her back, and then they spun away to collect other things – a flashlight from Eve, and last, Claire got a clip of bullets from Pete. Pete, she couldn’t help but notice, hadn’t volunteered to mount up. Hadn’t even tried. Shane was right – being a bouncer, even in a reasonably tough bar, wasn’t any kind of prep for the kind of industrial-strength risk-taking that was a typical Morganville afternoon.

And then they were on their way. Liz slept on, curled at Pete’s feet; Michael and Eve stayed huddled together. Myrnin waved forlornly, and Oliver … Oliver looked regal, like a king bidding farewell to troops he never expected to see again.

‘I hate that son of a bitch,’ Shane said, and smiled and waved back.

‘I heard that,’ Oliver said, just loudly enough to be heard.

And then they were out, jogging down the alley. Claire said, ‘He’s sending us as bait, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ Shane said. ‘Really, scouting ? He’s not even trying to hide it this time. I think we’re the diversion. Fine. Let’s get to diverting.’

Night was starting to give way to the faint and distant suggestion of morning, but the alleyway was still drowning in oddly shaped shadows. Claire used the flashlight carefully, just quick presses to show them the obstacles, and then Shane led the way through. He had her hold up a couple of times, either out of too much caution or because there really still were minions chasing them … and instead of going back to the run-off tunnels – they had no chance of jumping up the way they’d come down, anyway – he took them the long way around, through mostly deserted streets. When a police car cruised by, headlights splashing over them, Shane casually put an arm around her, and she snuggled into him. It also concealed the weapons they were carrying.

The police moved on.

They arrived back at the front entrance to the Library Annex, and Claire had expected that the cops would be all over it – after all, Oliver had shattered the front door getting in. But instead, a neat plywood replacement had already been installed, the glass swept away, and there was no sign the police had been there at all.

‘Your buddies don’t want company,’ Shane said. ‘Which confirms why there wasn’t any alarm. They’d just kidnapped somebody, and the last thing they wanted was the police busting in on them. Plus, there’s that weird bat-thing and Dead Derrick to explain.’ He tried the door – locked, of course. ‘Hang on a second.’

‘Do you need the flashlight?’

‘Don’t need light to pick locks,’ he said cheerfully. She didn’t know how he did it, but about thirty long seconds later, he gave a satisfied sigh, and she heard the padlock that secured the broken doors click open. ‘New personal best. Okay, inside, but go careful. Enemy territory.’

Inside, the building was silent, just as it had been before; she moved past the offices and storage areas to the door of the mechanical closet, which was tightly closed again.

And a voice – Dr Davis’s voice – said, ‘Nothing to find down there, kids. If you’re looking for your friend, she’s in good hands.’

He was standing at the dog-leg end of the hall, flanked by two men with weapons. And yes, the weapons were aimed straight at Claire and Shane, which didn’t surprise her, but did give her heart a little kick-start of fear.

Dr Davis was holding VLAD. He’d been expecting a vampire rescue. She and Shane, alone, were likely a surprise.

Shane kept his hands down at his sides. ‘Can’t we talk about this?’

‘I don’t see why not, but the fact is, your red-headed friend isn’t going anywhere. Where are the other vampires? The males?’

‘Males,’ Shane repeated. ‘I’m guessing you refer to Jesse as the female .’

‘Well, yes, clinically; they’re very far from human, you know, though they can certainly simulate it easily enough when they wish. Do you have any concept of what you’re involved in, either of you? How dangerous it is to trust these creatures? You can’t. They will kill you.’

‘You’re the ones with guns,’ Claire pointed out. ‘And you’re the one who killed Derrick.’

‘Derrick was none of your concern, and certainly wasn’t mine,’ Davis said. ‘I don’t suppose taking the two of you as hostages will gain me anything from the immortals. They don’t have any regard for humans.’

‘Sure they do,’ Shane said. ‘They regard us as walking meal deals. But don’t worry, they especially wouldn’t come running to rescue me. My dad was a genuine vampire killer.’

‘Really?’ That got Davis’s full attention. ‘I always suspected that there would be such a thing, with its own lore and skills … Stoker’s novel hinted as much. I assume the business was not passed down. You don’t seem terribly motivated.’

Shane gave him a humorless grin. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I have my days.’

‘You came after Liz to get to me,’ Claire said. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘I like redundancy in all that I do,’ he said, and rested a proprietary hand on VLAD. ‘You developed an object we badly needed in order to keep any captives we managed to secure in line. The immortals are very dangerous, as I’m sure you already know. So, I suppose the answer to your question is yes. Liz was a means to an end, the end being your acquisition for our project.’

‘By immortals, you mean vampires.’

‘It’s the common word for them, but the important thing about them from a biological standpoint is that their tissues simply don’t age. They are – petrified, in a sense. And yet also alive. There are a few other organisms capable of this kind of extraordinary behaviour but—’

‘Not really here for the biology lesson, professor,’ Shane said, interrupting what was sure to be a Myrnin-worthy gush of information. Claire was a little disappointed, actually. ‘We want Jesse released. Now. And that thing you’re holding doesn’t belong to you, so we’d like it back, too.’

Dr Davis and his two minions actually exchanged amused glances before he said, ‘You’re playing well out of your league, boy. Please don’t bluff. It’s just embarrassing.’

‘He’s not bluffing, professor,’ Claire said. ‘Really.’

Shane shook his head. ‘Ah, come on, don’t call him professor, he’s got no right to that. He’s a scumbag who gets college girls to bang him for grades. Right, Claire?’

‘Definitely. By the way, Liz cried all night. In case you were interested, professor .’

‘Here’s a tip,’ Shane said. ‘If you leave a girl crying, you’re probably not doing your Don Juan routine right, asshole.’

Dr Davis said nothing, but his expression compressed into an angry mask, and his eyes bored holes into the two of them. His grip tightened on VLAD.

And that was exactly the moment that the two men standing next to him just … vanished. Not literally, in a dramatic puff of smoke, but more of a now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t blur of motion. Davis didn’t even notice for a few seconds, and by then it was too late; Oliver was there, teeth bared, facing him.

Davis’s startled cry and stumbling backward retreat was almost fun to see. Almost … and then Myrnin was behind him, shoving him forward into Oliver’s embrace. Oliver spun the man around, and Myrnin stripped the device from Davis’s hands.

Then Myrnin froze, looking at Claire with a blank, odd expression, and said, ‘Did you build another one already? Because this most assuredly is not the working model.’