Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,86
will not be gentle. If you come along, I will look after you.’
Pete grinned, all of a sudden. It was a bleak sort of amusement, but at least it had some kind of relationship to humour. ‘Not used to getting that from a girl, you know.’
‘I’m not a girl,’ Jesse said, and canted one eyebrow high. ‘Am I?’
‘Hardly,’ Myrnin said. He seemed embarrassed, in the next instant, and strode decisively for the front door. ‘Onward.’
Claire paused next to Eve and Michael, and exchanged a quick, warm hug with Eve, and one with Michael too. ‘Are you feeling okay?’ she asked him. Michael gave her a nod. ‘Good enough to keep up?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, which was probably as much of an overstatement as the kind of thing Shane was prone to say. ‘Shane, dude, who kicked your ass for you?’
‘Your grandma,’ Shane said. ‘Come on.’
Claire had actually forgotten all about her cell phone until it rang – and then she panicked, because if the police were on the lookout for her, a cell phone was as good as a neon sign saying HERE I AM, COME ARREST ME. She grabbed for it and checked the screen, and then answered when the number registered as unknown. ‘Hello?’
Any hope it might be a wrong number vanished when she heard the fast, terrified breathing on the other end. ‘Claire?’ It was a bare whisper, but it was Liz’s voice. ‘Claire, are you there?’ Her friend’s voice was thready and shaky, and she was clearly afraid of being overheard.
‘Liz? Liz, I’m here! Where are you?’ Claire plugged her free ear as Shane started asking her something, and turned away from all of them to concentrate on listening. ‘Liz, can you hear me?’
‘You have to get me, please, Claire, please come get me …’ Liz’s voice was quietly desperate, and full of fear. ‘They took me out of the house. Derrick tried to stop them, but—’
‘Was Derrick with them?’
‘No, no, he saw it and he tried to stop them, but they took him away and they put me in the dark with – with something that – I feel weak, I’m so dizzy, please, you have to come and get me …’ She started to cry, and Claire’s heart went out to her. There was something so little-girl desperate in it that it ached.
‘I will,’ Claire promised. ‘Tell me where you are, honey.’
‘I—’ Liz drew in a sharp, hard breath, and for a long second she was silent. When her voice came back, it was even softer, and the words rushed faster. ‘I got the phone from one of the guys who came to check on me, but they’ll miss it, they’ll know … I’m in the tunnels, the steam tunnels, under the library storage annex … oh, God, they’re coming …’ That last was said in a breathless whisper, and then Claire heard a sharp cry, and a clatter, and the phone went dead on Liz’s end.
When she turned, all of them were looking at her. Shane, Eve and Pete: the humans. Oliver, Myrnin, Michael and Jesse: the vampires. Waiting to hear her news.
She said, ‘Library storage annex tunnels. Now. My friend’s in real trouble.’
‘Have you considered the possibility that it could be a very deliberate trap?’
‘Yes,’ Claire said. She opened up the back of her phone and took out the SIM card, which she held up. ‘If they allowed her the phone to call me, they’ll be tracking this. I need to get it as far away from us as possible.’
‘One moment,’ Myrnin said, and then the door was open and he was gone. They all looked at each other, waiting, and in another moment he was back again. Holding a very pissed-off pigeon. Claire was afraid what he intended to do with the poor thing, but he handed the bird to Eve to hold – she did it at arm’s length, grimacing – and he retrieved the gauze that he’d used to wrap Jesse’s hand and used the last of it to wrap the SIM card in a snug little packet, which he then tied around the pigeon’s scaly leg. ‘One does learn something from years of communicating by flying birds.’ He retrieved the pigeon and disappeared outside again, then came back in with a self-satisfied smile as he dusted his hands on his pants. Ewww, pigeon crap. ‘She’ll take it miles to get away from me.’
‘You do have that effect upon people, too,’ Oliver said. ‘Wash your hands.’