Rachel Caine - Glass Houses

She shoved her again. Lillian tottered down the steps, and shrieked once more before leaving the building at speed, propelled by Michael-power.

“Check the rooms,” Shane panted. “If one got in, there are probably more. Don’t take chances. Yell for help.”

Claire nodded and hurried to her room. It looked quiet, thank God—the windows were unbroken, and there was no sign of anybody hiding in the closets or under the bed. Same for the bathroom, although she had a bad shower-curtain moment. She heard crashing from down the hall. Shane had found somebody. She ran out into the hall and started to come to his defense, then hesitated when she saw that Eve’s door was now open a crack.

She’d left it closed.

She opened it slowly, as silently as she could, and peeked around the edge…

…and saw Eve up against the wall, and Miranda holding a knife at Eve’s throat. She recognized the bruises and bite marks on her neck first, then the faded blue eyes as the girl’s head turned toward her.

“Don’t,” Miranda said. “I have to do this. Charles says I need to. To make the visions stop. I want it to stop, Claire. You understand, right?”

“Let her go, Miranda, okay? Please?” Claire swallowed hard and stepped into the room. She could hear fighting from down the hall. Shane and Michael were busy. “You don’t want to hurt Eve. She’s your friend!”

“It’s too much,” Miranda said. “So many people dying, and I can’t do anything. Charles said he’d make it go away. All I have to do is—”

“What? Kill Eve? Really, don’t—you don’t want to—to do anything—” Panicked, she looked to Eve for help. One thing was for sure: the pallor in Eve’s face wasn’t makeup.

“Yeah,” Eve said faintly. “I’m your friend, Mir. You know that.”

Miranda shook her head so hard her dark hair flew. The knife trembled against Eve’s throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut, whispering something that sounded like, “Charles,” and when she opened her eyes again she looked different. Not scared. Focused.

She’s going to do something. I need to— Claire didn’t have time to figure it out; she just moved, because Eve was moving, her arm flashing up and smacking Miranda’s elbow. In the second that the knife was away from Eve’s throat, Claire grabbed a thick handful of Miranda’s hair and yanked, hard, dragging her backward. Miranda shrieked and slashed wildly at them. Eve’s upraised arm got a bloody cut, and Claire moved backward, gasping, holding on to Miranda’s hair and trying to stay out of cutting range.

Miranda swept the knife around and cut off the clump of hair a couple of inches away from Claire’s knuckles. Ohno…

Miranda lunged at her, knife held out, and Claire ran into the black bedside table, toppled over onto the black satin comforter, and saw the knife coming for her.

“Hey!” Eve screamed, and spun Miranda around and slapped her, hard, across the face. Twice. When Miranda tried to stab her, Eve smacked the girl’s hand into the wall and twisted her wrist until Miranda’s fist opened and the knife dropped to the wood floor.

Miranda started crying. It was a hopeless, helpless sound, and if Claire hadn’t been angry-scared, she might have actually felt sorry for her. “No, no, I don’t want to see it anymore, I don’t want to—he said he’d make it stop—”

Eve grabbed her by the arm, opened up the closet door, and stuffed Miranda inside, then jammed a wooden chair under the door handle to hold it shut. She looked furious and really, really hurt. Her arm was bleeding all over the place—not spurting, but flowing pretty freely. Claire grabbed up a black towel lying on the bureau and pressed the makeshift bandage to the wound; Eve blinked, like she’d forgotten all about it, and held it in place.

“Maybe she was just under his spell. Like you were, when you—” Okay, maybe it hadn’t been smart to bring that up, Claire thought.

“That’s why I slapped her,” Eve said. “But I don’t think that’s it. Miranda’s always been crazy. I just thought—well, I thought she wasn’t that crazy.”

Eve looked better. More color in her face, anyway…and then Claire thought, no, she looked too good.

Claire’s eyes turned to the broken window. Outside, there was a slight edge of sunlight climbing above the horizon, and the sky had turned a deep blue gray.

“Michael!” she blurted. “Oh my God!”

She left Eve and ran into the hall. Shane was just coming out of his room, shaking out his right hand. His knuckles were bloody. “Where’s Michael?” she yelled.

“Downstairs,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

Claire realized with a shock that somehow she was still holding the handful of Miranda’s severed hair. She made a face and let go, then fluttered her hand to shake off the clingy strands. “You don’t even want to know. Oh, Miranda’s locked in Eve’s closet, by the way.”

“Well, that’s a bonus. Sorry, but I really don’t like that kid.”

“She’s not growing on me, either,” Claire admitted. “Come on, we need to get to Michael.”

“Trust me, he’s doing okay without us.”

“No, he’s not,” she said grimly. “The sun’s coming up.”

He didn’t get it for a second, and then he did, and oh, boy. He was gone before she could yell at him to wait for her.

She reached the bottom of the staircase a few seconds behind, and saw him race across to where Michael was grabbing another—presumably, human—intruder on his way in through the broken-down front door.

“I don’t need you!” he yelled at them both, and tossed the guy halfway to Kansas. “Get upstairs! Shane, show her where!”

Shane ignored him, plunged past him and into the hallway. Guarding the front door. Michael started to follow him, and stepped into the growing light from the back window.

He spun to look at it, then wordlessly at Claire. She saw the outright fear in his eyes. “No,” he said. “Not now !”

She couldn’t say or do anything to help, and she knew it. “How long…?”

The terrible look on his face pretty much answered the question, but he said it anyway. “Five minutes. Maybe less. Dammit! ”

As if the vampires knew, there was a rattle at the window behind the bookcase blocking it. It heaved uneasily, then started to topple forward. Michael got in between it and the floor, caught it, and flung it back upright, then braced it again with the sofa.

“Back up!” Michael ordered her, and she retreated to the stairs. She could hear Shane fighting in the hall again. “Claire, you and Eve need to find a way to block everything. Seal it up. Don’t let Shane—”

She wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but just then he gasped and doubled over, and she knew that it was lost. He looked pale. Paler.

Mist.

Gone, along with a fading ghost of a scream.

Eve skidded to a stop beside her, eyes wide. “He’s gone,” she whispered, as if she really couldn’t believe it. “He left us.”

“He couldn’t help it.” Claire took her hand. “Come on, Eve, let’s get the bookcase down the hall. We need to wedge it in the doorway.”

Eve nodded numbly. It was like all the fight had gone out of her, and Claire understood why…. What hope was there now? Michael had been handling things, but without him…?

“Help me,” she said to Eve, and she meant it in every way she could.

Eve gave her a tiny little smile and squeezed her fingers. “You know I will.”

Between the three of them, they managed to block the front door pretty thoroughly, wedging the bookcase in place and bracing it with two more at an angle. Sweaty, panting, scared, they looked at each other.