“Does she like it when you set yourself on fire?”
He considered that. “Fair point. I guess I could give up the foam. What do you want it for?”
“I’d . . . rather not tell you. I promise, we’re not looking for a fight,” Claire said. “But people may be coming for us, and we have to fight back, don’t we?”
“Sure,” Rad agreed. “No crime in that. Some of my best fights were self- defense.” He flexed his muscles a little bit, but it wasn’t as if he was trying to show off, more like he was just remembering the good times. Claire supposed Rad would have a top ten list of his best fights. She’d actually be surprised if Shane didn’t, too, and if some of them didn’t match up with Rad’s list, only on opposite sides. “Okay, I’ll hold my grudges against Shane, not you. You’re too pretty, anyway. Let’s get you the car.”
He led her out to the back, which was a dry, cracked dirt lot with occasional struggling weeds poking up through the hard ground; the weeds looked as dry as the dirt they were breaking through. Most had burs, so Claire was careful to avoid them as she helped Rad untie the canvas and fold it back in sharp, dust- raising snaps until it was a neat square that he tucked under his arm.
He stepped back to admire the car. “Love this damn beast,” he said. “Your boyfriend has damn good taste in wheels.”
It was a muscle car of some kind, all matte black, with murdered- out wheels and some shiny chrome here and there, just for empha- sis. It did look powerful, and intimidating. Claire slid behind the wheel into the shiny leather seat and had to immediately rack it forward four notches so her feet could meet the pedals.
Pedals, not just plural, but triple. Gas, brake, and clutch. She’d had lessons in driving a stick shift, but that had been . . . a while ago. And she’d had her dad coaching her patiently through the process. Plus, that had been a nice, tame small car, not Shane’s Detroit- built monster.
She took a deep breath and went through the steps, just as she remembered them. She fumbled the shift from reverse to first, and winced at the grinding of gears; she saw Rad shake his head sadly from where he stood leaning against the wall. That stiffened her resolve, and she accelerated out fast, hitting second gear before she’d reached the end of the lot. She shifted hard enough to scratch rubber.
It felt good. So did seeing the surprised look on Rad’s face. She gave him a quick, jaunty little wave out the window, which was risky but worth it, and she was in third before she hit the end of the block, roaring through a green light and heading for Macom Hardware.
The parking lot was full, which was a very odd sight; she couldn’t remember ever seeing a business with that many custom- ers in town, and yet there they were, whole families out in the daytime, pushing carts into the store, chatting on their cells, living a . . . normal life. She found a spot and shut off the low, growling engine, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to get out of the car just yet. She felt displaced, and sad. If she, Shane, and Eve suc- ceeded in freeing the vampires, these same smiling, happy people would go back to being exactly what they were before— scared and anxious, afraid to leave their homes for anything but necessity, afraid to let their kids run and play. Afraid for a good reason.
How could she really want to bring that back?
But what other choice did she have?
It took her a good minute to get herself together, grab her wal- let, and walk into the store. She got a shopping cart from the small remaining selection— of course it was the one with the wobbly left wheel— and headed for the back corner of the store, where she re- membered seeing fire extinguishers. It wasn’t easy; Macom’s wasn’t built for heavy customer flow, and it was a little like playing one of those traffic games, where one block had to move for another to pass. Fifteen minutes and several apologies later, Claire finally spotted the red cylinders in the corner, and parked her cart as much out of the way as possible while she loaded them into it.
There were six on display, and she took all of them. Next to them was a box of strange- looking oval things, but it had the words fire suppression grenades on it, and that was something she thought Shane would love.
It wasn’t much of a line of defense, but it was pretty much all she could see, given the limited selection available, though on an impulse she grabbed boxes of preloaded rock salt rounds for their shotgun. Not that she wouldn’t shoot someone trying to burn their house down, but she’d rather not shoot them into the hospital, or the graveyard. These might be people she knew, people she cared about, and she couldn’t be their enemy.
Even if she was, at least for now, their villain.
Twenty minutes more to maneuver to the register and check out, and then another five to load everything in the car. Five more minutes of powering the Beast (that was what she decided to call Shane’s car) down the surprisingly busy streets toward the Glass House.
When she got there, Shane was sitting on the front porch in the sun- faded rocking chair that Eve had put out there, half as a joke because none of them were porch- sitting people— and he had a shotgun.
Two uniformed police officers were standing on the steps. The tall blond woman had her hand on her gun, but she hadn’t drawn it; her male partner, also tall, but skeletally thin, hadn’t bothered with his sidearm. He was leaning on the railing and trying to look casual.
In that, Claire supposed he was trying to match Shane, who had broken open the barrel of the shotgun, taken out the rounds, and was cleaning it. She smelled the gun oil as she parked the Beast in the driveway, and instead of unloading the car, she grabbed the box of rock salt shells and walked up the path. The female officer immediately pivoted to watch her with cool, analytical eyes and a blank expression, but she moved aside to let Claire come up the steps.
“Thanks for letting me borrow the car,” she said, and leaned over to kiss Shane on the cheek as if the cops weren’t there. “I brought you a present.”
“Varmint rounds. Cool. Plenty of varmints around these days.” He opened the box, took some out, and began slotting them into the breech of the shotgun. Then he flipped it shut and racked a round, while staring at the cops. Well. That escalated fast.
“I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t get the memo— are we having prob- lems here?” Claire smiled as winningly as she could at the male po- liceman. His name was Charlie, she remembered— Charlie Kentworth. “Officer Kentworth, how are you? Is there something wrong?”
“We just wanted to come in for a minute, but Mr. Collins here didn’t seem too keen on the idea,” Charlie said. “I thought we could have a nice civilized chat, but seems like I interrupted his weekly shotgun cleaning.”
“Well, you know, a man’s got to have routines,” Shane said.
“Cheer up, Charlie, at least it’s only rock salt. It’ll only damage your dignity. Might not even break the skin.” The smiles they exchanged were pure challenge, and Claire resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It definitely wasn’t the time.
“Sorry, why did you want to come in? Not that we don’t love visitors, Officer Kentworth. Just that I only got back in town yes- terday, and I’m still getting settled in.” She switched gears and looked at the woman with him. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”
She offered her hand, but the police officer didn’t move to take it.
“Officer Halling,” the woman said.