"It should," he said, "because apart from those vampires gathered in Morganville, there shouldn't be more. Amelie, whatever you think of her, is a thorough sort. Those who didn't agree to participate in her social experiment in Morganville were put down. There are no vampires still walking that I don't know." He nudged the boy with one worn boot. "But I don't know him, or his pack of jackals who just ate my supplies!"
"Pack?" Claire looked up, startled, at another thump and crash from upstairs. Morley ignored her and dashed for the stairs, racing in a blur. There was screaming up there. "Hey, wait! Ate your--supplies--you don't mean--" Morley got to the top of the stairs and disappeared before she could manage another word. "My friends?" she finished lamely, and then blinked, because two seconds after Morley had crossed out of sight, Michael emerged from the shadows up there, with Shane beside him. Michael was carrying Eve, who still seemed unconscious. They came down the stairs fast, and Claire didn't like the tense worry she saw on Michael's face--or on Shane's. "We have to go," Michael said. "Now. Right now."
"What about Oliver? And Jason?"
"No time," Michael said. "Move it, Claire."
"My stake--"
"I'll make you a shiny new one," Shane promised. He sounded short of breath, and he grabbed her hand and towed her at a fast limp after Michael, who was heading down the hall for the broken window where they'd entered. "You all right?"
"Sure," she said, and controlled a wince as she came down wrong, again, on her ankle. But in the great scheme of things, yeah, she was all right--more all right than the people upstairs, from what Morley had said. "What is going on up there?"
"Morley's having a very bad day," Michael said. "Tell you later. Right now, we need to get out of here before--"
"Too late," Shane said, in a flat, quiet voice, and the four of them stopped in the middle of the hall as two vampires glided out of the shadows at either end, blocking them in. One was a shuffling, twisted old man with crazy eyes and drifting white hair. The other was a young man, wearing a football jersey--teammate of the vamp Claire had already staked, she guessed. This one was broader than Shane, and taller. Like the old man, he looked ... weird; crazy, even for a vampire. "Give," the old man said in a rusty, strange voice. "Give."
"Holy crap, that's creepy," Shane said. "Okay, plans? Anybody?"
"In here." Michael slammed his foot against the door on the opposite side of the hall and blew it back on the hinges with a splintering crash. Shane hustled Claire ahead of him into the room, and Michael jumped in after, slamming the door in the faces of the two vampires and shoving his back against it. "Barricade!"
"On it!" Shane said, and nodded for Claire to grab the other end of a heavy wooden desk, which they slid across the floor to block the door as Michael, with Eve in his arms, jumped effortlessly up onto the desk's top and then lightly down as it slid past. "Think that'll hold?"
"Hell no," Michael said. "Did you see that guy?" Eve stirred in his arms, murmuring, and he looked down at her, his face going still with concern. As she restlessly turned her head, Claire saw a matted spot in her hair--blood, almost invisible against the black. "What happened?" Claire blurted. Michael shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "She got on Morley's bad side," Shane said. "He backhanded her into a wall. She hit her head on the corner. I thought--" He went quiet for a second. "Scared the shit out of me. But she's okay, right?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "Well, use your superpowers or something!"
"I'm a vampire, idiot. I don't have X-ray vision."
"Some supernatural monster you are," Shane said. "Remind me to trade you in for a werewolf, bro. Probably be more useful right now." Claire ignored the two of them and moved to the other side of the room. There was a window, but as she unlocked it and threw up the sash--which didn't want to move, and was caked with dust and old, dead bugs--she discovered that the grime had disguised a thick set of iron bars on the other side. "Michael," she said, "can you break these?"
"Maybe. Here." Michael handed Eve over to Shane, who balanced her with a lot more difficulty. He looked at the bars, which were in full, blazing sunlight. "That--could be a problem." He was still wearing his leather coat, but his gloves were ripped--it looked as if somebody had shredded them with claws. Pale strips of skin showed through on the backs of his hands. Shane, who was leaning against the desk that blocked the door, was almost knocked over as the vampires on the other side slammed into the barrier, sliding the desk nearly a foot before Shane dug in his feet and shoved back. The desk slid toward the door, inch by slow inch, until he'd jammed it hard against the old vampire's grabbing hands caught in the doorway. "Decide quick!" he yelled. "We're running out of time!" Michael took a deep breath, grabbed one of the ancient, dusty drapes on the side of the window, and yanked it down. He wrapped it over both hands, then grabbed the bars. Even then, the sleeves on his coat rode up, and Claire saw the strips of reddened skin, already burned from before, start to smoke and turn black. Michael shook with effort, but the sun was too much for him. He let go of the bars and stumbled backward, panting, eyes gone red and wild. "Dammit!" he yelled, and tried kicking the bars. That worked better; his booted feet and jeans protected him better, and the first kick landed solidly, bending the bars and rattling the bolts. He didn't have time for another one, because the vampires on the other side of the door hit it again, sliding the desk halfway into the room and sending Shane stumbling into Claire. Michael whirled in time to face the first vamp in, which was the younger one in the ragged football jersey. Michael was fast, but his multiple exposures to the sun had slowed him down, and the other vamp hit first and hard in a blocking tackle, and Michael was thrown all the way into the back wall. He shook it off and rolled back to his feet just as the bloodsucking jock reached out for Claire. Michael wrapped a fist in the back of the boy's jersey and yanked him off his feet, throwing him down with a bang flat on his back. He planted a knee on the guy's chest, holding him down, but that wasn't a permanent solution, and as Claire watched, the other vampire, the twisted old man, shuffled into the room, grinning with one side of his mouth. He looked even more dead than most vampires, and there was something familiar about the disorganized way he was moving, something-- She didn't have time to think about it, because the old man jumped at them like some creepy hunting spider, hands outstretched and hooked into claws. Shane dived one way, burdened by Eve; Claire dived the other. That put Shane and Eve closer to the door, and with a tormented look back, Shane ducked out. "Claire, go!" Michael said. "Run!"
"I can't run," she said, very reasonably. Hobbling wasn't really an option; either one of these vamps could take her down in seconds. One slow, sliding step at a time, she backed away from the approaching old vampire, heading for the window. He didn't seem to get her plan until he'd followed her into the sunlight and begun to burn. Even then, it seemed to take a few seconds to really sink in that he was in trouble. He kept coming in that awkward crab walk even as his clay white skin turned pink, then red, then began to smoke. Then, finally, he howled and ducked away into the shadows. Claire, pressed up against the windowsill and bathed by the hot sun, breathed a sigh of relief. Briefly. "Smart," Michael said. He stayed where he was, holding Vamp Boy down, and watching the older vampire shuffle around and stalk Claire. "Stay where you are. He may try to grab you and pull you out of the sun. If I let this one go--"
"I know," Claire said. "I've got it." She didn't, really, but what choice did she have? She looked around frantically for something, anything, to use, and blinked. "Can you throw that over here?" she asked, and pointed. Michael looked around and picked up something off the floor, frowning. "This?"
"Throw it!" He did, and Claire snatched it out of the air just as the older vampire made his run at her, howling. Claire buried the pencil in his chest. She got lucky, sliding it between his ribs just as Myrnin had taught her to do in his occasional, completely random self-defense classes, and the older vamp's eyes went wide and he fell at her feet, in the sun. Claire rolled him out of the way, but she left the pencil in his chest. "You've got to be kidding," Michael said, and shook his head. "That is just embarrassing."
"Have you noticed something about them?" Claire asked, shaking now that the surge of adrenaline was passing. The vampire Michael was leaning on swiped at him, but Michael easily avoided the blow. "These guys? They're not too smart."
"They're sick," she said. "I recognize the way the older one moved. Notice that they're not really talking? They can't. They've been broken down to basic levels. Hunt and kill. Like the worst-off vampires in Morganville when I got there." Michael clearly hadn't thought of that. His whole body language changed, and for a second Claire thought he was going to get up and move away from the other vampire, but sense won out over fear, and he stayed put. Michael had never gotten sick from the disease the rest of the vampires had carried; as the youngest, he'd never had the chance. But he'd seen what it had done to some of the others in Morganville. He'd seen the creatures they'd become, confined for their own protection in cells in an isolated prison. "It's okay," she said. "You've had the shot, Michael. I don't think you can get it now." She hoped that was true, anyway. If this was some new strain of the disease, then that was worse. Lots worse, especially if--as she suspected, from the condition of these two vampires, and the one she'd staked in the hall--they were actually getting sicker a lot faster than the typical Morganville vampire had. Shane came pelting into the room, almost tripped over the pencil-staked vampire, and looked around, lost. "Uh--what happened?"
"Where's Eve?"
"I left her next door," he said. "She's okay."
"You left her?" Michael snapped. "Oh, you'd better tell me you didn't just say that."
"She's fine, Mike. She's awake, kind of. I left her with a letter opener, hiding under a desk. She's safer than any of us right now." Shane looked down at the staked vamp at his feet. "Claire?"
"Yes?"
"You staked a vampire with a number two pencil."
"I didn't actually check the number."
"Have I told you lately how freaking awesome you are?" She tried to smile, but her heart was fluttering in her chest now, and not in a good way. "Compliments later. We really need to get out of here and get to the car. Any ideas?"