Daylighters

FIVE

It took half an hour for her head to clear, and by that time she’d been taken in the back of a squad car from the house to City Hall. The jail was one floor down in the basement of the Gothic castle structure, where they booked her with calm efficiency. She didn’t talk. She didn’t really think she could, honestly. There was no one else in the cells with her, but Simonds posted a uniformed guard outside her bars anyway—as a precaution, he said, though he wasn’t specific about what he was expecting.

“I didn’t do anything,” she finally told him, as he got ready to leave her. “Detective, I didn’t. None of us even knew that man was down there!”

“I’ll take your statement later,” he told her. It wasn’t unkind, just calm and brisk and a little disinterested, as if he’d already written her off as a lost cause. “Tell me where your boyfriend and Eve have gone, and we can talk about how I can help you out.”

“I don’t know where they are.” She didn’t, actually. The police had taken her cell, and she hoped Shane had heeded her text, run for cover, and turned off his phone. She desperately hoped he’d thought to warn Eve, too. Miranda could conceal herself easily, but Eve stood out like a sore thumb, and so did Shane in his muscle car. Both knew Morganville well, so they’d have places to go to ground. But still—she worried.

Simonds said, “I hope you think hard about telling me where they are, because if we can’t find them, you’re on the hook by yourself, Claire. I don’t want to see that happen any more than you do. Fact is, you saw the victim alive, and just a few hours later he was stabbed, moved, and dumped in your own basement. Seems pretty straightforward. Maybe you thought you could smuggle Eve’s husband out of the mall and something went wrong. . . . Look, it’s perfectly okay to want to save your friend. Maybe you thought he was in real danger. Maybe Mr. Thackery—that’s his name, by the way, the dead man in your basement—maybe he tried to stop you. Could have been self-defense, I know that.”

She shut up, because his calm, friendly tone frightened her. He was good at drawing things out of people, even things that they didn’t mean; she knew too many things that implicated her already, and one wrong statement could bring Shane and Eve into it, too. Better to be silent until she could figure out what the hell was going on.

He took her silence well enough, brought her some bottled water, promised some food, and left. The policewoman stationed outside the door—not Halling, thankfully, because Claire honestly couldn’t stand the sight of her—had a Daylighter symbol on her collar, but she didn’t seem inclined to chat or judge. She dragged a chair over and sat down to read a magazine instead.

Claire drank her water without tasting it, then stretched out on the narrow, hard bunk. After a few moments, she wrapped the blanket around her shivering body and finally closed her eyes. Just to think.

She woke up in the dark.

Her breath stopped in her throat, because it was too dark, even if she’d slept through sunset. All the lights were off in the hall beyond her cell, and she heard something metallic scrape just before the cell door swung open with a horror-movie creak. Claire fought her way free of the rough blanket and stood up, ready to fight. But she didn’t need to.

She had a visitor.

It was Myrnin.

He was dressed in clean clothes that were at least two sizes too large for him, and probably scavenged from a clothesline or an unattended Laundromat dryer. Even picking from someone else’s clothes, he’d managed to make it a peculiarly Myrnin ensemble of a tie-dyed T-shirt under a bright orange hoodie and khaki cargo shorts. Evidently nobody had been washing shoes, because he was wearing a pair of plastic flip-flops that he must have found in the trash; they looked like they’d seen better days in the previous decade, and they were also too large for his feet. On the plus side, he was at least wearing shoes.

“Well,” he said, and gave her a slow, delighted smile. “This is something I didn’t expect. You, behind bars. What a turnaround.”

“How did you get out?” Her eyes widened, because he was still wearing the shock collar around his neck, like a particularly ugly statement necklace. “Didn’t they stun you?”

“Oh, yes, many times,” he said. “Some of us don’t really mind that sort of thing as much. If they’d been equipped with your devious little invention, then that would have been a different story altogether.” The weapon he was talking about had the ability to destroy a vampire’s ability to fight back, and she hated the thought that she was responsible for creating it. She was, and she had to own it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I presume Fallon is still having our traitorous friend Dr. Anderson construct new models, so they haven’t had a chance to fully outfit their guards quite yet. Lucky for me.”

“Are you—are you the only one who—”

“Got out?” Myrnin finished. He leaned against the bars as if they had all the time in the world. She remembered the cop stationed outside the door, and in the faint emergency lighting she made out the shape of the woman crumpled on the floor next to her overturned chair. “I fear so. Oliver has made several brave attempts, but he doesn’t really have the skill at ignoring pain that I do. I think it’s bothering him a delightful amount. He did cover for my escape, though, for which I suppose I have to be grateful.”

She couldn’t really keep track of what he was saying, because she was now worried about the policewoman. He’d moved so fast and decisively, and the woman wasn’t moving. “Did you—is she—?”

“Oh, bother, don’t make that face, Claire. No, I didn’t kill the wretched woman, I only knocked her out. I know how you feel about such things. Though she does smell delicious.”

“No biting,” she warned him.

“As always, I am at your command.” He said it in a way that made it very clear he wasn’t, not at all. “Come on, then, unless you enjoy being put on trial for a murder you did not commit.”

“How do you know about the murder?”

There was a tiny shift of his balance, but his expression didn’t change. “I’ve spoken to Shane. He witnessed you being taken away by our overenthusiastic detective. Lucky for your young man, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor.”

“Is he okay?”

“Well, I’m fairly sure our definitions of that word vary considerably, dear Claire, but he seemed to be breathing and ambulatory, though understandably angry.”

She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of the ugly, blocky shock collar around his neck. “Does it hurt?”

“This?” He touched the shock collar, eyebrows raised. “I’m out of range. It does chafe a bit, if that doesn’t make me seem pathetic.”

“Do you want me to—take it off?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll need it later, and if you break the seal it will sound a very noisy alert and activate an explosive that would remove both my head and your hands, which I think we can both agree would be undesirable.”

“Wait, what? Explosives?”

“Don’t worry, they won’t go off unless they’re triggered by someone trying to remove it without the appropriate tools. Besides, I must go back tonight before they miss me, which means the collar must be intact. Oh, and my head. They’d notice.”

“But—”

“We are in the middle of a prison break! Come on, now, don’t dally. Do you have any baggage?”

“It’s a prison, Myrnin, not a hotel.”

“Well, modern prisons are so much nicer these days, one never knows,” he said, and marched out of the cell and down the corridor, stepping over the fallen policewoman with his oversized flip-flops dangling precariously. “Come on, then.”

She hesitated for a second, because as bad as her situation was, she wasn’t sure that going with Myrnin wouldn’t end up worse . . . but there wasn’t much choice, really.

She stepped outside the cell, and became a fugitive.

Myrnin led her to the stairs, bypassing the elevator. As they jogged up, he said, “I’ve cut the power to the building, by the way. Oh, come now, move along—your somewhat strange little friend is anxiously waiting.”

“My—wait, who?”

He shrugged. “The ghost girl. She seems to find me quite alarming, and she was hardly able to manifest herself at all to explain to me where to find you. I think she’s afraid I’ll try to bite her. I believe she may have, you know, mental issues.” He made an unmistakable circle at his temple, and Claire just stared at him in dumb amazement. That isn’t just pot, meet kettle, she thought. That’s the whole chef’s rack. “Oh, and I also knocked out several people on several different floors, including Mayor Ramos and her assistant. I thought that might nicely confuse the issues while we make our clever escape.”

“About that. Exactly what is the plan for our clever escape?”

“Front door,” he said cheerfully.

Of course.

There wasn’t any chance of talking him out of it, sadly, and she had no choice but to follow close behind him as he shoved open the fire exit door at the top of the stairs, with a fine disregard for whether there might be an ambush waiting beyond. There wasn’t. There were, however, two armed police officers standing outside the front doors, but Myrnin hit them with the force of a neon-colored hurricane and left them unconscious in his wake. “See?” he said as he marched on in his flip-flops. “Successful plan. And I’m being extreme humane. You really can’t fault me.”

A car was idling at the curb, and through the open passenger-side window, she saw Miranda’s pale, anxious face; the girl was gesturing frantically. Next to her, painted an eerie shade of green from the dashboard light’s glow, Claire glimpsed Jenna—the psychic who’d become Miranda’s foster mother, in a way, and from whom Miranda pulled the power to stay alive and together outside the boundaries of the Glass House. She looked tense and very worried.

As she should have been.

Sirens howled, and behind them, the lights suddenly flared on inside City Hall. Their grace period was officially over—and they were too far from the safety of Jenna’s car.

Jenna made a split-second decision and hit the gas, hard. Miranda let out a cry of protest, but it was too late; a few seconds later, Jenna’s car was taking a right turn out of the City Hall parking lot and speeding away.

“Well,” Myrnin said, “that wasn’t in my plan. I suppose it’s time to run.”

He yanked her into a full-tilt race.

It was getting dark, and between gasps for air Claire managed to say, “That hoodie kind of glows in the dark. You might want to take it off!”

“My skin is even more reflective,” he said. “And I quite like the color, don’t you? So festive.”

“Where are we going?”

“Clearly not that way,” Myrnin said, and made an instant course correction when he spotted a police cruiser’s lights heading toward them. He grabbed Claire’s arm and dragged her over the lawn to the shadows of some evergreen trees. “Hush.” He didn’t take the chance she might not agree; he grabbed her and slapped a hand over her mouth. Her protest—faint as she’d meant it to be—disappeared entirely. He was holding her way too tightly against him to break free.

A searchlight from the police car slid over the trees, but they were well concealed by the thicket of branches. Myrnin waited until the danger had passed, then let her loose, and towed her back out onto the open lawn. “Where are we going?” she asked him in an urgent whisper. “Because I am not feeling good about this! We’re both fugitives now, you know!”

“Duly noted. Save your breath now—we have to run. Do keep up.”

She didn’t think she could. Myrnin did hold back a little from genuine vampire speed, but even so, she felt as if she was running faster than was safe in the dim, failing light. Streetlights flickered on as they made it to the shops across the street from City Hall. They ducked into an alley as more police cars moved past and swept the bricks with searchlights. Myrnin didn’t seem bothered by the nasty puddles soaking his feet, but Claire tried to avoid the worst of it. It definitely wasn’t clean water. She wasn’t sure it was water. “Where are we going?”

He hadn’t answered that question the first time, but as he watched the street outside, he said, “Your friend Jenna seems to have offered us some form of safe haven. Pity we missed the ride. I mistrust her, but both Steve and Shane—”

“Eve! Honestly, Myrnin, how long have you known her?”

“It’s a very odd name, you know. Efa, now, that’s a proper sort of name. Or even Aoife,” he said. “Fine. Eve and Shane assure me it is the best we can do at the moment. I believe their alternative was that we’d end up dead in a ditch, which doesn’t sound attractive.”

“Probably wasn’t meant to. Are we clear?”

“Apparently.” Myrnin snatched her hand and dragged her into another flat-out run. This one wasn’t as hard, simply because they were on sidewalks, though when he veered sharply down an alley, that was frankly terrifying, and she decided she’d better just commit to trusting him not to smash her face-first into hidden obstacles.

There were a few worrying moments where she brushed past things that would have definitely been painful, but overall, they emerged into the street on the other side unscathed.

And there were people out on the streets. Myrnin skidded to a stop and backed her up into the shadows. “Damn,” he said. “I had forgotten that the residents here had lost all their well-taught caution. What is the world coming to?”

“Safety?”

He let out a disbelieving, humorless laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. They are full of the flush of victory just now, and brotherly love, but human nature inevitably asserts itself. Criminals will take advantage of all this newfound trust to commit crimes, righteous men will stumble and fail their ideals, all manner of chaos will come; men have ever been their own nightmares. It’s how the world works, and while vampires certainly don’t help matters, they’re hardly the root of evil. There is no safety, Claire, and there never can be—it’s only an illusion. But that is as it should be, don’t you think?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. She watched the people strolling on the streets, enjoying a failing sunset. Trusting each other’s better natures. Some of them might be genuinely good people who would never hurt anyone, but some of them weren’t. And it chilled her to realize what Myrnin was telling her—that with or without vampires, Morganville would always be dangerous. Just dangerous in an entirely different way. A less obvious way.

A lull came as true dark fell and the last remnants of orange slipped away. Myrnin, without a sound, grabbed her hand and urged her into another run down the sidewalk. He didn’t pause when the sidewalk came to a sudden end but darted into a deserted lot, then through to another sidewalk, a sharp left turn, then a right, and she was lost, entirely lost, and everything was moving too fast for her to get her bearings. Her heart was beating so fast she thought she’d collapse, and air burned hot and thick in her lungs. She didn’t even have time to consider the pain in her legs and feet until, suddenly, it was over. He had stopped so quickly that the momentum sent her crashing hard into him. He hardly even wavered.

For a moment, they were pressed together, and she knew he could hear her too-fast heartbeat drumming in his ears, smell her sweat and blood, and she saw his pupils slowly expand to drink all that sensation in . . . and for a moment, she saw the hunger. It was dark and desperate, and she wondered just how far she could trust him.

But then Myrnin gently pushed her back as she struggled for balance, held her until she found it, and said, “I do believe we’ve arrived.”

The house was like many others around it—small, faced with clapboard, built into a square. It had a little character because of the dark blue trim on the windows and front door, and a little pride in its new Daylighters-approved paint job, but all in all it was Morganville through and through—a little lopsided, a bit run-down, a shade odd. Myrnin led her up the cracked sidewalk to the front porch, and before he could reach for the iron door knocker, the door opened.

Jenna stood there—tall, blond, with piercing pale eyes. She just looked the part of a psychic, somehow, even to the faraway expression on her face . . . but there was nothing psychic or dreamy about the consternation, as she saw Myrnin.

There was just worry, and calculation.

He waited a second, then made an abrupt flapping motion with his hands. “Well?” he demanded. “I’m a vampire, you silly woman. Ask me in! We’re wanted felons, you know!”

She didn’t seem convinced that was a good idea, but she stepped back and said, “Please come in, both of you.” He rushed in, bringing Claire with him, and Jenna swung the door shut behind them.

Claire had just begun to catch her breath when suddenly Miranda appeared out of thin air, rushing at her, and her solid body crashed against Claire’s as she wrapped her arms around her. “You made it!” she said. “I didn’t know if you could. I’m so sorry we left you there. I’m so sorry, but I was scared to leave Jenna for long . . .”

“It’s okay,” Claire said. She was still gasping for air, and she felt sweaty and horrible, but there was something good about seeing Miranda. The girl backed away, and Jenna put her arm around her; that, too, was good, the motherly vibe from the psychic for the ghost girl. Jenna had, from the beginning, felt protective of Miranda, and it looked as if that relationship had gotten closer—something Miranda desperately needed, because she’d been basically abandoned by her own family. Something good had happened in Morganville for a change, after all: two sad people had found each other, and made each other better.

Shane was standing in the doorway, patiently waiting for her to notice him. She knew that expression—or lack of one—on his face. It was specific to situations where Myrnin was involved, and Shane was trying very hard not to let his jealousy show. He had nothing to be jealous about, and he knew it, but seeing her clutching Myrnin’s hand probably hadn’t been his most favorite moment ever.

That, and Shane’s anti-vampire instincts were probably churning, being so close to one of them now.

“Hey,” Shane said, and raised his chin. His most neutral greeting. She came to him and hugged him, then kissed him. That broke through the wall he’d put up between them, and his arms went around her to hold her tight. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t let them keep you there. You’re not exactly built for jail.”

“Well, you have to admit, it was probably my turn to get handcuffed and thrown in the hole,” she said. Her smile didn’t have much strength, though, and faded quickly. “The man in the basement—he was killed with one of our knives, Shane.” She managed not to quite make it a question.

He got the message anyway, though, and responded with a frown. “Well, it wasn’t me. Wasn’t Eve, I guarantee you. She’d at least have moved the body someplace else. She’s no dummy.”

“Where is Eve, exactly?”

“Out,” Jenna said. She sounded very blunt, and very disapproving. “I warned her, but she said she couldn’t stay. She went back to try to see Fallon.”

“I thought she went to see him when she left our house!”

“They wouldn’t let her in. She came back to find me, and we both saw you get taken to jail. Not sure which one of us held the other back, actually, but maybe your good sense is starting to rub off on us. We didn’t jump in and get ourselves arrested, at least,” Shane said. Claire swung around to stare at him, wide-eyed; so many questions ran through her mind that she couldn’t pick a single one out of the blur.

“But—” Claire couldn’t express how much she didn’t like the idea of Eve—angry and frustrated even more than she had been—heading at Fallon like a guided missile. It was pretty obvious, though, that there wasn’t much either one of them could do about it at this point.

“Look, it makes sense. It’s pretty clear he’s running the show here; if she can get in to see him—and I really don’t see anybody stopping her—then nobody’s going to storm Fallon’s office to march her out in cuffs. And if she can really intimidate him into letting her see Michael, maybe she can give him a chance to get away, or bust Amelie out. She’s the only one who’s got a shot at being our inside man. Woman. Whatever. Let’s face it—none of us is exactly in a mastermind position right now.”

“Does she know even about the dead guy?”

“Oh, she knows,” Jenna said. “Eve thinks the guard was killed at the prison and moved to your house, and she thinks she might be able to find out who did it, and why. I think her exact phrase was, I’m going to Nancy Drew this crap.”

“Bet she didn’t say crap,” Shane said.

“I’m paraphrasing.”

Eve’s plan was dangerous, and Claire immediately felt a rush of adrenaline, thinking of her trapped alone without anybody to trust. Michael, sure, but Michael couldn’t help—not unless something changed drastically.

Myrnin had been uncharacteristically quiet since they’d arrived, and she glanced over to see him frowning down at his flip-flops. He probably missed his vampire bunny slippers.

“Do the guards at the mall know you’re out?” she asked Myrnin. He didn’t look up.

“That’s very doubtful,” he said. “I did kill the guard who spotted me, after all.”

They all stopped what they were doing, and there was a second or two of silence.

Shane’s head suddenly snapped around, and he turned his whole body after it, facing Myrnin.

And took a step toward him. He said, in a voice tight with fury, “Would that be the dead guard in our damn basement?”

“Well, of course, how many dead guards could there be? Why, did you kill one, too? Wasteful.”

Shane snarled. It came from somewhere deep in his chest, a wet animal sound that Claire had never heard before, and hoped she’d never hear again. He took another step toward Myrnin, and Myrnin’s eyes flared an immediate, alarmed crimson. “Claire,” he called sharply. “Mind your young man. Do you really want me to have to kill him?”

It was the offhanded way he said it that terrified Claire. She forgot sometimes, despite her best efforts, that Myrnin was only mostly sane, and only mostly human.

And she wasn’t sure what Shane was right now, either.

Jenna and Miranda instinctively got out of the way, and even though every instinct in her body screamed at her to do the same, Claire stepped in the middle, faced Shane, and met his eyes squarely. They didn’t look right. Not right at all. The color—the blankness—it was all wrong.

He lunged forward, staring past her at Myrnin, and she could have sworn she saw a poisonous spark of yellow in his eyes.

She didn’t move. She lifted both hands, palms out, and he ran into them, jolting her hard and driving her back a step—but it shifted his focus away from Myrnin and onto her.

And the alien look in his eyes flickered, and died away, leaving just Shane. Angry, yes, amped up well beyond where he ought to be, but whatever had been set in motion, she’d stopped it.

For now, anyway.

Shane held up both hands, backed up a step, and then spun around and stalked away, breathing hard. “Why are you protecting him?” He didn’t quite yell it at Claire, and she knew it cost him to hold it down to just an angry accusation.

“Good question,” she said, and turned to Myrnin. “You killed a man,” she said. “And you brought him to our house?”

“In all fairness, I was looking for you,” he said, “but you weren’t yet home. I had to do something with him. Normally I would have taken him to the graveyard—by the by, it’s a great place to dispose of an excess corpse, one just digs up an old grave and—”

There were parts of him that she just would never reach, and knew she should never, ever try, for both their sakes.

Shane turned around, and Claire instinctively grabbed hold of his arm, because she still sensed the suppressed violence in him. He was under enough control not to lunge at Myrnin—which would end badly anyway—but she also knew sometimes he just couldn’t quite control those impulses, and she didn’t want to see anyone hurt. “You dumped a dead man in our house, and what? Just forgot about it?”

“I was busy, and how in the world would I have known you’d be stupid enough to allow the constables to roam freely through—”

“They had a warrant, and we are not your temporary storage for murdered bodies!” Claire said, and realized that she was a little too upset about things, too. Almost as much as Shane, and without the excuse of the dog bite’s infection. “You killed him. Where did you get a knife? Our knife?”

Myrnin shrugged, clearly not taking any of it too seriously. “You’re quite careless with those things,” he said. “I believe I originally got it from you. The guard in question had confiscated it from me when I was arrested, and I decided that I wanted it back. But I let him keep it in the end.” He grinned, and his vampire teeth looked long and terrifyingly sharp. “Oh, don’t frown at me so, Claire. He had it coming, you may be assured of that. He was a brutal thug of a man. I was defending a lady’s honor, in fact.”

“Jesse’s, maybe?” Claire asked. Because Jesse—the red-headed bartender that both he and Claire had made fast friends with—was not just a vampire but one that Myrnin had surprising affection for. “What happened?”

Myrnin didn’t answer, not directly. “Enough of this. Time is wasting. The Lady Grey will ensure that no one notices my absence for now, but I’ll need to be back in time for their nightly audit of their prisoners. Before then, I have things to obtain. I’ve stripped the building of all materials that might be of use, but I shall need some things that simply aren’t available in that place.”

“Materials for what?” Claire asked.

“Never you mind,” he said. “But these followers of Fallon’s madness have started a war, and I intend to finish it.” Myrnin’s eyes seemed to flare red for a second, alarmingly bright, and she remembered the hunger she’d sensed in him before, and the frightening sharpness of his teeth. He didn’t seem to be himself just now, and she realized, with a creeping sense of alarm, that they almost certainly wouldn’t have bothered with his usual medications at the prison—and in this state, he might not be willing to take them on his own.

There were a few things scarier than a bipolar vampire off his meds, but to be honest, not that many.

“Myrnin,” she said, and drew his instant attention. Unsettlingly. “You can’t go out there again. It’s too dangerous for you.” Too dangerous for innocent people wandering around thinking it’s safe.

“If you’re implying it would be better for you to go in my place, it’s certainly far too dangerous for you, Claire, seeing as you are a half-convicted murderess.” He said it with entirely too much relish. “And before you offer your boy’s services—he’s in no better shape, is he? No, it’s best I go alone, and quickly. I’ve been in this town for too many of your short lifetimes to be caught by the likes of Fallon and his Daylighters when I have some warning of their intentions.”

Jenna exchanged a quick look with Miranda, and said, “I’ll drive you. Where are you going?”

“To my lab, of course.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

Myrnin sighed. “I can drive, you know.”

Claire flinched and made a quick throat-cutting gesture behind his back to Jenna. Myrnin on his best days was not a good driver. Her eyes widened, but Jenna caught herself, smiled, and said, “I’m sure you can, but it’s much safer if you’re out of sight, don’t you think?”

“Ah, perhaps so,” he said. “Let’s crack on, then. The night won’t last forever.”

Jenna pointed at Miranda. “You’re staying here,” she said. “I know you want to go, but stay with these two. Promise me.” Miranda nodded soberly. Claire grabbed Jenna before they headed out and whispered quick instructions on where to find Myrnin’s medications.

Shane let out a slow breath as the door shut and locked behind them. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded exhausted, and he sank down into a crouch against the wall and cradled his head in both hands. “God, I’m sorry. What the hell was that?”

“I think—I think it was just the stress, and him being so close,” Claire said. “You’re okay now.” She said it with confidence, but in truth, she really wasn’t as sure as she pretended, and after a few seconds of silence, she bent her head and half whispered, “Please, tell me you’re okay.”

“He killed someone, and he doesn’t seem to care much,” Shane said. “I don’t think I’m your biggest problem right now.”

“What do you think he’s planning to do?”

“Whatever it is, I guarantee you that it’s not going to be safe for anybody near him.”

“I wish Jenna hadn’t gone,” Miranda said. She looked paler now, and a little translucent. Without the Glass House sustaining her, it was hard for her to stay visible and solid, and with her connection to Jenna fading through distance, she probably couldn’t manifest a body much longer. “What about the house? Who’s going to protect it now? We’re all here!”

“Eve’s not,” Claire said.

“Eve’s with the Daylighters. She can’t help the house from there.”

Miranda was right, and Claire felt a surge of anxiety when she thought about the house all alone, vulnerable, and still under threat—maybe more now than before, since everyone knew they were on the run.

It was the perfect time to strike.

“We need to go,” she told Shane. “We need to get there in case they try something.”

Miranda was thin as glass now, her eyes huge and dark in that ghostly face. “You need to go now,” she said, and it seemed as if her voice, like the body she inhabited, was growing hollow and faint. “Now! Go now!”

And then Claire felt it, too . . . a sense of something shivering inside her, a vibration almost like an earthquake, not physical but emotional, mental, psychic.

The house was crying out.