Carpe Corpus Page 0,28

car was parked there, door open, engine idling. Nobody around.

Claire hesitated, then looked inside. In the glow of the instrument panel, she couldn't see much: dark upholstery, mainly. She didn't think there was anybody inside, although it was tough to see into the back. She ducked into the cabin and flipped on the overhead light, then bounced back on her heels with the stake held in her most threatening way possible. (Which, she had to admit, probably wasn't very intimidating at all.)

Luckily, nothing lunged at her from the backseat.

Claire threw herself behind the wheel, dumped her backpack on the floorboard of the passenger side, and slammed the door. She leaned on the horn, a long blast, and yelled, "Myrnin! Come on!"

It was a risk. There was every possibility that whoever won that fight back there, it wouldn't be Myrnin opening the car door, but she had to try. He'd taken on another vampire - more than one, she thought - to save her life. The least she could do was give him fair warning that she was about to speed away and leave him behind.

It was impossible to see through the dark tinting on the windshield and windows. Claire counted to ten, slowly and deliberately, and got to a whispered seven before there was a casual knock on the passenger window. She yelped, fumbled, and found the switch that rolled down the glass.

Myrnin leaned in and smiled at her. "Fair lady, may I ride with you in your carriage?"

"God - get in!" He looked . . . messy. Messier than usual, anyway; his coat was shredded in places, he had bloodless scratches on his face, and his eyes were still glowing a dull, muddy red. As he slid into the passenger seat, she caught a sharp scent from him - fresh vampire blood. In the dashboard glow, she saw traces of it around his mouth and smeared on his hands. "Who was it?"

"No idea," Myrnin said, and yawned. His fangs flashed lazily. "Someone Bishop set to spy on me, no doubt. She won't be reporting back. Sadly, her companion was too fast for me. And too frightened."

He was so casual about it. Claire, freaked, made sure all the doors were locked and the windows rolled up, and then realized that they were sitting in an idling car, and she couldn't see a thing ahead of her. Of course. It was a standard-issue vampire-edition sedan. Not meant for humans at all.

Myrnin sighed. "Please, allow me."

"Do you have the faintest idea of how to drive a car?"

"I am a very fast learner."

In fact, he wasn't.

Myrnin dropped Claire off at her parents' house well before dawn, tossed her cell phone out of the car to her, and drove off still bumping into curbs and running over mailboxes with cheerful abandon. He seemed to enjoy driving. That terrified her, but he was officially the Morganville police's problem, not hers.

The weight of the day crashed in on her as she unlocked the front door, and all she wanted to do was crawl onto the sofa in the living room and go to sleep, but she smelled like dirt, old bones, and other things she didn't really want to think about. Shower. Mom and Dad were in bed, she guessed; their door was shut at the top of the stairs. She tiptoed past it to the far end of the hall, dumped her backpack on the bed, and pulled an old thin cotton nightgown from a drawer before heading to the bathroom.

Dej? vu struck her as she locked the door and turned on the water. Mom and Dad's Founder House was the same layout as the Glass House - which still felt more like home, even though she'd been in both houses for about the same amount of time. Even the countertops and flooring were the same. Only the Mom-approved shower curtain and bath towels were different. I want to go back. Claire sat down on the toilet seat and let the sadness well up inside. I want to go back to my friends. I want to see Shane. I want all this to stop.

Not that any genie was going to pop in and grant her wishes, unfortunately. And crying didn't make anything easier, in the end.

After the long, hot shower, she felt a little better - cleaner, anyway, and pleasantly tired. Claire used the dryer on her hair until it was a tousled mop - it was getting longer now, and brushed her shoulders when