"Blacke's never been what you might call a cross-roads," Mrs. Grant said. "Most folks living here were born here. Their families have been here forever; we don't see new people real often out here." That was, in fact, pretty much like Morganville, minus the attraction of Texas Prairie University. It was pretty much like every other small town in the area, too. Claire nodded. "One night, we got us some visitors. An old man in a suit, and his niece and nephew. Foreign people. French, maybe."

Claire looked at Eve and Shane. Eve mouthed Bishop. Confirmation for what they already had guessed-Mr. Bishop had hit Blacke on his way through to Morganville.

And he'd had fun.

"They stayed at the Iron Lily Inn," Mrs. Grant continued. "It's the closest thing we've got to a hotel. Or had, anyway. Mrs. Gonzalez owned it. She made the best apple pie in the world, too." She slowly shook her head. "Next morning, Mrs. Gonzalez was missing; never showed up at the school-she worked in the office up there. Sheriff John went around to the hotel and found her dead. No sign of those ... people."

That couldn't be the whole story, Claire thought; she knew how vampires were made, and if Mrs. Gonzalez had been drained to death, she wouldn't have come back. So she just waited. Mrs. Grant seemed to want to take her time, and Claire was trying hard not to think about what might be happening outside, with Oliver. Morley had run off, she supposed. And she had no idea what would happen to the vampires still in the back of the truck.

"We thought the murder of Mrs. Gonzalez was the end of it-shocking, first serious trouble this town had seen in close to thirty years, but still, the end. And then the next night Miss Hanover just vanished from her store-gas station, right up the street. Best we can tell, those two women were the first victims. We know the three strangers left town that night; somebody saw them driving that big, black car of theirs like a bat out of hell. Didn't matter. They left this behind."

Mrs. Grant looked down at her hands, which were spread out on the table in front of her. Strong and scarred, they suggested she hadn't always been a librarian. "It started slow. People started disappearing, maybe one every few weeks. Disappearing, or dying. Then it got bad, fast, just-in days, it all of a sudden seemed like half the town was gone. Sheriff John didn't call for help soon enough. Next thing we knew, we saw them for the first time, in force. Terrible things, Claire. Terrible things happened. And we had to do terrible things to survive."

"Why didn't you just-," Eve began to ask, but was interrupted as Mrs. Grant's head came up sharply.

"Leave?" she snapped. "Don't you think we tried? Phones were out, landlines and cells. Internet went down with the power the first day; they ripped the power station apart while they were still thinking. We sent everybody we could out of town on the school buses. They never made it. Some kind of trap on the road, blew out all the tires. Some made it back here. Most didn't."

It was like some horror movie come to life. Claire had thought Morganville was bad, but this-this was beyond bad.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "But why stay here? Why don't you just-try again?"

"You know how many people used to be in Blacke?" Mrs. Grant asked. "One hundred seventy-two. What you see here in this building is what's left. What's left still breathing, anyway. You think we can just walk away? These were our friends, our families. And if we leave, what happens? How far does this spread?" Mrs. Grant's eyes hardened until they were like cold green ice. "It stops here. It has to stop here. Now, you explain to me how you're traveling around with one of them."

"What's more important is that Oliver wasn't-like those people you're talking about. They're sick. He's not."

Mrs. Grant let out a sharp laugh. "He's dead. That's as sick as it gets, Claire from nowhere."

"Look," Shane said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table, "I'm not saying the vampires aren't the essence of freaky; they are. But they're not like this. Not-normally. They can be-"

"And how do the four of you know anything at all about vampires?" Mrs. Grant asked. None of them answered, and her eyes narrowed. "There are more out there. More of them. Even if we finish here, there are more."

"Not like these!" Claire said again, desperately. "You have to believe me; they're not all-"

"Not all bad," said Morley, who stepped out of the shadows of one of the racks of books, looking terrifying and bloody and as unreassuring as possible. "No, we're not. Although some of us are no doubt better than others."

And Oliver appeared on top of the bookcase, looking down. In his long black coat, he looked very tall, very strong, and even more intimidating than Morley. More came out of the shadows, too. Claire spotted Patience and Jacob, near the edges of the group.

And Michael, golden Michael, who smiled at Eve as though it would all be all right, somehow.

Mrs. Grant came out of her chair and lunged for the weapons.

Shane slammed his chair backward, throwing the two guards behind him off balance. That was all the time Oliver needed to jump from the bookcase to the table, then to the floor, and take the guns out of their hands.

He didn't hurt them. He didn't have to.

Morley did that way-too-fast vampire thing and was suddenly at the weapons rack ahead of Mrs. Grant, baring his fangs and grinning. He made a little finger-wagging gesture, and she skidded to a stop and backed off, breathing fast. Scared to death, of course, and Claire didn't blame her.

Michael, meanwhile, was already at Eve's side. She threw her arms around his neck. "How did you get out?" she asked, her voice muffled against his shirt. He rubbed her back gently and rested his chin against her hair.

"The building across the way casts a pretty big shadow," he said. "We bailed as soon as we could. From there it wasn't hard. They thought they had everybody they needed to worry about."

"You didn't-"

"No," Michael said. "We didn't hurt anybody. Patience made sure of that."

The townspeople of Blacke-all twenty or thirty of them-were gathering together in a tight block now, with their kids safely in the center. They looked about to make their last stand. Not one of them, Claire realized, thought they were going to live through this.

"Hey," she said to Mrs. Grant. "Please. Don't be afraid. We're not going to hurt you."

Morley laughed. "We're not?"

"No, we're not," Oliver said, and piled the weapons on the table. "Shane, get the silver."

"Can I keep some?"

Oliver smiled grimly. "If it makes you happy."

"You have no idea."

"Distribute the chains to everyone else. Make sure they're wearing silver at their necks and wrists. It'll help protect them, should some of us, Morley, suffer a lapse of character." He checked each shotgun for shells, and tossed them to specific individual vampires, who snatched them out of the air with lazy accuracy. "Right. I'm afraid Mrs. Grant is quite right; we can't allow this infection-and it is an infection-to spread any farther than it has already. We must hunt down and dose everyone who's contracted the disease, or destroy them. That's as much for our kind as yours, you see."

"Dose them?" Mrs. Grant blurted. "What are you-"

Patience Goldman opened up a small black satchel-her father's doctor bag, Claire realized-and inside were dozens of vials of liquid, as well as some bottles of red crystals. Claire herself had helped develop those; the liquid contained a cure for the bloodborne disease that Bishop had spread here, or at least she hoped it did. The crystals would help restore people's sanity, temporarily. It worked best doing the crystals, then giving the shot. It had for the far-gone vampires in Morganville.

"They can be saved," Oliver said. "Your family and friends can be restored to sanity, we believe. But they can't be restored to human. You understand? What's done is done on that score. But you can have them back, if you can adjust to that small difference."

"This is insane," one of the guards said, a little wildly. His crossbow was now in the hands of one of Morley's vampires, a little guy with a lined, twisted face and a limp. "We have to fight! Lillian-"

"We're not here to fight you," Oliver said. "And we're not here to save you. I am here to stop the spread of this infection by any means necessary, which, as I see it, aligns with your goals. My other friends," he said, putting some irony into that last word, "are just passing through your fine town. None of us have any reason to want to harm you."

"You're vampires," Mrs. Grant said blankly.

"Well, obviously. Yes." Oliver snapped another fully loaded shotgun closed and tossed it through the air.

To Mrs. Grant.

"Any questions?" he asked.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked around. There were a lot of vampires-just about as many as there were humans. And none of them were making threatening moves. Shane walked around, handing out silver chairs to people, smiling his best I'm-a-nice-guy smile. Even Jason seemed to be doing his best to be non-threatening, which wasn't exactly easy for him.

"Then let's sit down," Oliver said, and pulled out a chair at the table. "I, for one, have had a very hard day."

12.

Night fell as tensions gradually eased; the people of Blacke never quite got comfortable, but they loosened up enough to put on some stew in the library's small kitchen, which had a miniature stove that ran on gas. Apparently, the gas was still flowing, even though the electricity was out. As the light faded outside the windows, Mrs. Grant and three of her burly cowboy-hatted guards-Claire guessed the cowboy hats were a kind of uniform-made the rounds to barricade the doors and windows.

Morley joined them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, Mrs. Grant decided to ignore his presence. The guards didn't. Their knuckles were white on their weapons.

"May I assist?" he asked, and put his hands behind his back. "I promise not to eat anyone."

"Very funny," Mrs. Grant said. Morley gave her a grave look.

"I wasn't joking, dear lady," he said. "I do promise. And I never make a promise I don't intend to keep. You should feel quite secure."

"Well, I'm sorry, I don't," she said. "You're just-"

"Too overwhelmingly dashing and attractive?" Morley grinned. "A common problem women face with me. It'll pass. You seem like the no-nonsense sort. I like that."

Claire smiled at the look on Mrs. Grant's face, reflected in the white LED light of the lantern she was holding. "You are really-odd," the older woman said, as if she couldn't quite believe she was even having the conversation.

Morley put his hand over his heart and bowed from the waist, a gesture that somehow reminded Claire of Myrnin. It reminded her she missed him, too, which was just wrong. She should not be missing Morganville, or anyone in it. Especially not the crazy boss vampire who'd put fang marks in her neck that would never, ever go away. She was doomed to high-necked shirts because of him.

But she did miss him. She even missed Amelie's dry, cool sense of power and stability. She wondered if this was a kind of vacation for Amelie, too, not worrying about Oliver, or Claire, or Eve, or any of them.

Probably. She couldn't imagine Amelie was losing any sleep over them-presuming she slept, which Claire really wasn't sure was the case, anyway.

"Hey." Shane's hip nudged her chair, and he bent over, putting his mouth very close to her ear. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

"Stop."

"Stop thinking?"

"You're doing way too much of it. It'll make you go blind."

She laughed and turned her face toward his. "I think you're thinking of something else."

"I'm definitely thinking of something else," he said, and bent over to kiss her. It was a long, sweet, slow kiss, full of gentle strokes of his tongue over her lips, which parted for him even though she was sure she hadn't exactly told them to do that. Warmth swept over her, making her oddly shivery, and she grabbed the neck of his shirt when he tried to pull away and kissed him some more.

When she let go, neither of them moved far. Shane sat down in the chair next to her, but scooted it over and leaned in so they were as close together as possible. There weren't many lights here in the corner, where Claire had retreated to eat her cup of stew and think, and it felt wildly romantic sitting together by candlelight. Shane's skin looked golden in the glow, his eyes dark, with only a hint of shimmering amber when the light hit them just right. His chin was a little dark and rough, and she felt it with her palm, then smiled.

"You need a shave," she said.

"I thought you liked me scruffy."

"Scruffy is for good dogs and bad rockers."

"Oh yeah? And which am I, again?" He was so close to her, and in this little bubble of candlelight it felt as if everything happening around them, all the craziness, all the bad things, was taking place a world away. There was something about Shane that just made it all okay, for as long as she was with him, for as long as he was looking at her with that wonderful, fascinated glow in his eyes.

He moved a little strand of hair back from her face. "Some road trip, eh?"

"I've had worse," Claire said. His expression was priceless. "No, really. I have. I went on a trip with my parents all the way to Canada once. A week in the car, with my folks, having educational experiences. I thought I'd go nuts."

"I thought you liked educational experiences."

"Bet you could teach me a few things."

He kissed her again, hungrily, and there was such focus in him that it took her breath away. She wanted-yeah, she knew what she wanted. She knew what he wanted, too. And she knew it wasn't going to happen, not here, not tonight-too bad, because if she got killed before getting some privacy with Shane again, she was going to be really upset with Oliver.

Somebody coughed out in the shadows, at the edges of their candle, and Shane sat back. Claire licked her damp lips, tasting him all over again, and struggled to try to focus on something else, such as whoever was interrupting them. "What?" That came out a little harsh.

"Sorry." That was Jason, and he didn't sound sorry at all. He sounded kind of amused. "If you want to go on with the porn show, please. I'll wait."

"Shut up," Shane growled.

"You know, we could get into this make-me-no-you-make-me kind of thing, but I think we have better things to do," Jason said. "I'm not talking to you, anyway. I need Claire."

She needed a lot of things, all from Shane, and she couldn't think of a blessed thing right now that she needed from Jason Rosser. It made her voice go even colder. "Why?"

He rolled his eyes, just like his sister, which was creepy. She didn't even like to think they came from the same gene pool, much less shared things she thought were cute and funny in Eve. "Because Oliver wants you, and what Oliver wants, Oliver gets, right? So get your sweet little butt up already."

"Hey," Shane said, and stood up. "I'm not telling you again, Jase. Stop."

"What, because I said she had a sweet little butt? You don't think she does? Hard to believe, since you spend so much time staring at it."

Shane's hands closed into fists, and Claire remembered Jason on the street in the dark outside Common Grounds, coming after them-after her and Eve, specifically, at least that was what he'd said to Shane.

Shane didn't forget.

"You and me, man, one of these days, we're going to finish this," he said softly. "Until that day, you stay the hell away from my girl. You understand?"

"Big tough guy," Jason said, and laughed. "Yeah, I understand. Personally, she's too skinny for me, anyway."

He walked off, and Claire saw a tremor go through Shane, something she figured was an impulse to slam into Jason and knock him flat, and then pound him.

But Shane didn't move. He let out a slow breath and turned back to face her. "That guy," he said, "is not normal; I don't care what Eve says. And I don't like him around you."

"I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I know." He forced a smile. "It's just that-" This time, he shrugged and let it go. "Oliver, huh?"

"I guess." Claire picked up the candle and headed through the stacks for the unofficial-or official?-command desk, where Oliver was now sitting, talking to a couple of vampires whose faces glowed blue-white in the light of the fluorescent lamp.

"About time," Oliver said. "I need you to see if you can get a message out on this thing." He nodded to the computer, which sat there dead and unresponsive.

"There's no electricity."

"They've been trying to use this," he said, and pointed toward the pedal generator. "They tell me it should work, but there's some problem with the computer. Fix it."