But she didn't snarl, glow red eyes, flash fangs, or otherwise try to make a vampiric comeback, so Claire had to be satisfied with that. They waited in silence for a few uncomfortable moments before the growing throb of an engine and a splash of headlights across the pavement signaled the arrival of a massive pickup truck that pulled to a stop neatly ahead of them. It idled slow and deep, and the bed of the thing was approximately the size of a blue whale. The interior of the cab could hold a soccer team. It even had a handy-though empty-gun rack in the back window.
The bumper sticker read: YOU CAN HAVE MY GUNS WHEN YOU PRY THEM FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS. Some joker-possibly the owner of the truck-had added UN before DEAD with a black marker. Claire cast a glance at Naomi, who was focused on the same words. There was an odd, vaguely amused smile on her lips that was not just a little creepy.
Shane leaned out the window of the truck and said, "God, I love rednecks. Who wants to drive this bad boy?"
"Not me," Claire immediately said, at the same time that Naomi said, "I do not know how."
Shane jumped down from the cab, paused, and stared at the two of them with a blank expression. "Don't want to?" he asked Claire, and then swung his attention to Naomi, looking even more stunned. "Can't? Seriously, there's something wrong with the two of you."
"If by wrong you mean sane," Claire said. "That thing is like a tank, only a tank gets better gas mileage."
"This is your biggest concern right now? Gas mileage?"
"No, I don't think I can actually see over the dash! Who drives this thing? Bigfoot?"
"Rad," Shane said. "You know, Rad, who owns the mechanic shop and sells bikes? That guy. C'mon. I'll buy you a booster seat."
Claire gave him a doubtful look, but he pointed to the pale gray sky, at the brightest point. A silent reminder that the day wasn't getting any younger and their chances of finding Theo were dimming with the afternoon sun.
"Fine," she said. Shane had to boost her up to the chrome step, and then she climbed into the cab of the truck itself. There were eighteen wheelers that were lower to the ground, she was convinced. Naomi had no such issues; she made her entrance to the passenger side look graceful. Claire slotted her shotgun into the rack behind them, but Naomi kept hold of hers, eyes distant and watchful.
It turned out she could see over the dash, after all, though she had to pull the seat all the way forward to reach the pedals. Shane vaulted up into the open bed of the truck and slapped the side of the truck in a signal to go.
"Well," Claire muttered, "here goes nothing."
Literally.
She stalled the truck immediately, then leaned out the window to yell at Shane, "Who drives a standard transmission these days?"
"Manly men," he called back. "C'mon, Claire, you can do it!"
She could, but she just hated shifting. Too much to think about, especially in their current, extremely complicated situation. No help for it, though; she gritted her teeth, adjusted the seat even closer, and got familiar, again, with the clutch. It was painful and humiliatingly awkward, but she managed. The truck leaped forward with a low, rumbling growl, and she thought, We could probably pull down a building with this thing. Worth noting, anyway.
Leaving the false circle of safety-false, because Claire knew it was just an illusion, sponsored by all those lights-still felt like a Very Bad Idea. She flipped on the headlights, on bright, even though it was still murky afternoon, and after a moment reached out and turned on the truck's heater as well. The hot, dry blast of air made her shiver in relief. She felt chilled to the bone, and slimy, even though she knew there probably hadn't been any draug in the raindrops that had soaked through her clothes.
What if there had been? How many of those contaminated raindrops does it take to make a whole draug? They knew next to nothing about these things, and lack of knowledge always bugged her. She glanced over at Naomi-or, actually, at the back of Naomi's head, because the vampire was turned to hold her shotgun out of the passenger window, watching for any sign of attack.
"Left," Naomi said in a flat voice. "Then straight ahead." She didn't sound like she was much better than she had been, back on the steps ... coping, but not happy about it. Claire wondered how long it would take for her antibodies-if vampires had such things-to destroy the invading blood ... and what would happen if a lot of foreign vampire blood was introduced, all at once. Her skin prickled, and it wasn't from the chill. It might kill them. It would certainly go a long way toward knocking them down, fast. She wondered how many humans knew that. It was good information, but it made her shudder to have it in her head. They didn't like having their vulnerabilities known.
Claire turned left at the dead stoplight, after a brief pause. Kind of stupid, really, because there wasn't any traffic to worry about. As far as she could tell, they were the only headlights moving in town. The rain had slacked off to a dully falling mist, and she kept the wipers working to clear the windshield. The steady thump-thump-thump had a soothing, normal kind of rhythm.
And then she heard something singing along with it.
At first she thought it was Naomi, unlikely as that was; it was a low hum of sound, elegant and just at the edge of her hearing. Then she thought it was the truck's radio, or maybe a CD playing, but turning the dial didn't bring up the sound.
She should have known it was the draug, but something kept her from remembering that. Instead, she found herself gradually turning the wheel toward the sound, hunting for it, trying to understand what that song was, a song she knew and loved and could almost remember ....
As she was gliding into a slow right-hand drift toward the infected part of town, a drift that would take them on a wide turn into a main street, Naomi suddenly reached out and grabbed the wheel in a bone white hand, wrenching it back the other way. Holding it there.
Claire stomped on the brakes, suddenly and violently aware, and glared at her. From the back of the pickup she heard a metallic clang as Shane's back hit the cab of the truck, and then an outraged, "Hey! Flamethrower!"
"I must adjust frequencies," Naomi said, and twisted knobs on the device she'd taken out of her pocket again; suddenly the faint singing faded into a blessed white-noise silence. "You need to be careful, Claire. If you hear them, then they hear you-sense you, at any rate. Magnus has a taste of you now. He's curious about your return. You don't want to be in his hands again."
Magnus. The head of the draug-their master, as Claire understood it. They all looked identical, but there was something about Magnus that was just more ... there. A kind of density that pulled everyone around him into the dark.
In his hands again. She couldn't help but remember the cold, damp feeling of his hands around her neck, and a violent shiver seized her, as if her whole body wanted to throw off that memory. Deep, calming breaths, and then she nodded at Naomi. "I'm okay," she said. "I know what to listen for now."
"The point is not to listen," Naomi said, but she let go of the wheel. "I assume you may have read a classical text or two, in your education, or is that no longer done?"