Rachel Caine: Fade Out

Claire, still trying to control her racing heartbeat, gulped down breaths and grabbed her bathrobe from the chair in the corner of the room.As she yanked it on, it dragged over the backs of her hands and arms, and she almost yelped, again, from the pain. Her face felt as if it were on fire. Literally, with flames. “It’s not a sunburn,” she said. “It was some kind of UV bomb. It was meant for Myrnin.”

“Ouch. Right, so we should get you some of that sunburn cream crap in the gallon size. Note taken.”

Claire belted her robe. “Did you just come to see the freak show?”

“Well . . . entertaining as it is, no. I came to tell you that dinner was ready, but you were all grooved out on tunes.”

Claire considered telling her that she’d been listening to lectures, but decided that in Eve’s world, that was too much information. “Sorry,” she said.

“Hey, I wouldn’t have dared come in except that Shane’s downstairs setting the table.” Eve winked. “And if I’d sent him, well. Dinner would get cold, right?”

Oh God.

Shane.

Shane was going to see her like this, looking like some exile from Planet Magenta. “I—I don’t think I feel well enough to eat,” she lied, even as her stomach rumbled at the thought of food. “Maybe you could bring me—”

“It’s only going to get worse,” Eve broke in with ruthless cheerfulness. “Oh yeah. Big-time worse. First, the red face, then the blisters, then the peeling skin. Trust me, unless you’re going to hide for the next week, minimum, you might as well just get on downstairs. We’re having tacos.”

“Tacos?” Claire repeated wistfully.

“I even made that funky rice stuff you like. Well. I boiled the water and put the funky rice stuff in it, anyway. That’s cooking, right?”

“Close enough.” Claire sighed. Across the room, a mirror reflected someone standing in her clothes that she refused to believe was really her. “Okay. I’ll be right down.”

“Better be.” Eve kissed her fingers at Claire and scooted out the door, slamming it behind her.

Claire was still trying to decide whether her pink shirt made her look marginally better or marginally worse, when she felt an ice-cold sensation travel through her like a wave. No drafts, nothing like that—this was internal. It was a warning, straight from the semi-self-aware house.

Something was wrong in the house .

Claire grabbed her emergency home defense kit on the way out of her room—a bag of everything from pepper spray to silver-plated stakes—and raced down the hall, then down the stairs, and arrived with a jolt to find everybody else, including Michael, calmly sitting down to dinner.

“What?” Eve asked. Michael rose to his feet, evidently reading the look on Claire’s face, if nothing else.

Shane blurted out, “What the hell happened to you?” Under normal circumstances this might have made her feel really bad, but she was off that right now.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Didn’t anybody else feel that?”

They exchanged looks. “Feel what?” Michael asked.

“The—cold. It was like a wave . . . of cold?” Her words slowed down, because she wasn’t getting any reaction from them. “You didn’t feel it. How is that possible? Michael?” Because it was Michael’s house, and technically, she didn’t even live here anymore. Exactly. The house shouldn’t have communicated anything to her before it talked to him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Does it feel the same now?”

“Yes.” Claire still felt cold, cold enough that she had chills running through her body. She was surprised her breath didn’t smoke in the air. “Worse,” she managed to say, and Shane got over his shock about her burn and came to take her hands. She winced as the tender skin complained, but she was grateful for the warmth, too.

“You’re freezing,” he said, and grabbed a fleece blanket from the back of the couch, which he wrapped around her. “Damn, Claire. Maybe it’s the sunburn—”

“Not a—sunburn,” she said through chattering teeth as he led her to the table and sat her down. “It’s the house. It’s got to be the house!”

“I—don’t think it is,” Michael said, and slowly sank back into his chair. “I’d know, Claire; there’s no way I wouldn’t. This is something else.”

She shook her head and hugged the blanket closer, miserable both ways—her face burning hot, her body shaking with cold.

“Try to eat something,” Eve said, and loaded tacos on her plate. “How about something hot to drink?”

Claire nodded. The chill seemed to be sinking in deeper, drilling toward her bones. She had no idea what would happen when it got there, but it didn’t seem good. Not good at all.

She kept the blanket tight with her right hand and reached out for a taco with the left, hoping her shaking hand wouldn’t scatter the contents all over the table . . . and Shane grabbed her arm. “Look,” he said, before she could protest. “Look at the bracelet.”

It was Amelie’s bracelet, the one she wore clasped around her left wrist, the one she couldn’t remove, that reminded people who it was Claire worked for (and reminded Claire, every second).

It was supposed to be gold, but its center was now pale white, as if it had turned to crystal.

Or ice.

It was smoking in the air, so cold it was giving off its own mist.

“We need to get it off,” Shane said, and turned her wrist over, looking for a clasp. Claire tried to tell him there wasn’t one, but he wasn’t listening. “Michael, it’s cold, man. It’s really cold. Something’s really wrong.”

They were all out of their chairs now, gathered around her. Michael touched the bracelet, drew back, and locked gazes with Shane. “It doesn’t come off,” Michael said.

“I don’t give a crap if it’s not supposed to come off!” Shane snapped. “Help me!”

“It won’t do any good. It’s a Founder’s bracelet.” Michael grabbed Shane’s arm when Shane tried to yank on the bracelet. “Dude, listen ! You can’t get it off! All we can do is get to Amelie. She can take it off.”

“Amelie,” Claire repeated, and tried to control her violent shaking so she could get the words out. The whole world seemed to be turning to ice, cold and toxic. “Something—wrong—with—Amelie—”

Shane glared at Michael. “Let go.” When Michael did, he kept on glaring. “Shouldn’t you know if something was wrong with Amelie, you being her demonic spawn and everything?”

“It’s not like that,” Michael said, although anger was starting to build in his blue eyes and in the set of his face. “I’m not her spawn. ”

“Not arguing the demonic part? Whatever you call it. She made you a vampire. Can’t you tell if she’s in trouble?”

“You’re confusing vampires with Spider-Man,” Michael shot back, but he’d already left the fight and was pulling out his cell phone. A one-button press, and he was talking, but not to Shane. “Oliver. Are you with Amelie? No? Where is she?”

Whatever the answer, he snapped the phone shut without answering, locked eyes with Shane, and said, “Let’s go.”

“W-w-wait,” Claire managed to say, and grabbed for Shane’s arm. “Wh-wh-where—”

“My question, too. Where are you going? Because I’m going with,” Eve said, and jumped up to grab her patent leather skull purse.

“No, you’re not. Someone needs to stay with Claire.”

“Then she’s going with. Womenfolk don’t stay behind anymore, Mikey; it’s so last century,” Eve said, and Claire nodded. She thought she did, anyway; it was hard to tell, with all the shaking. “Right. Up you go, kiddo.”