Chapter 12

E ve was so intense about it that not even Shane, three beers down, was able to exactly say no. Michael didn’t say anything, just watched Miranda with eyes that were way too clear for somebody who’d had the same amount to drink as Shane. As Eve cleared stuff off the dining room table and set up a single black candle in the center, Claire wrung her hands nervously, trying to get Michael’s attention. When she did, she mouthed, What do we do?

He shrugged. Nothing, she guessed. Well, nobody but Eve believed in it, anyway. She supposed it couldn’t really hurt.

“Okay, ” Eve said, and sat Miranda down in a chair at the end. “Shane, Michael, Claire–sit down. ”

“This is bullshit, ” Shane said.

“Just–please. Just do it, okay? ” Eve looked stressed. Scared. Whatever she and Miranda had been doing upstairs with those tarot cards had really made her nervous. “Just do it for me. ”

Michael slid into the chair at the other end, as far from Miranda as he could get. Claire sat next to him, and Shane grabbed a seat on the other side, leaving Eve and Claire the closest to Miranda, who was shaking like she was about to have a fit.

“Hold hands, ” Eve said, and grabbed Miranda’s left, then Shane’s right. She glared at Claire until Claire followed suit, taking Miranda’s other hand and Michael’s. That left Shane and Michael, who looked at each other and shrugged.

“Whatever, ” Michael said, and took Shane’s hand.

“Oh, God, guys, homophobic much? This isn’t about you being manly men, it’s about–”

“He’s dead! I see him! ”

Claire flinched as Miranda practically screamed it out. All around the table, they froze. Even Shane. And then fought the insane urge to giggle–well, Claire did, and she could see Shane’s shoulders shaking. Eve bit her lip, but there were tears in her eyes.

“Somebody died in this house! I see him. I see his body lying on the floor…, ” Miranda moaned, and thrashed around in her chair, twisting and turning. “It’s not over. It’s never over. This house–this house won’t let it be over. ”

Claire, unable to stop herself, looked at Michael, who was staring at Miranda with cold, slitted eyes. His hand was gripping Claire’s tightly. When she started to say something, he squeezed it even more. Right. Shutting up, she was.

Miranda wasn’t. “There’s a ghost in this house! An unquiet spirit! ”

“Unquiet spirit? ” Shane said under his breath. “Is that politically correct for pissed off? You know, like Undead American or something? ”

Miranda opened her eyes and frowned at him. “Somebody already died, ” she proclaimed. “Right here. Right in this room. His spirit haunts this place, and it’s strong. ”

They all just looked at one another. Michael and Claire avoided more eye contact, but Claire felt her breath get short and her heart race faster. She was talking about Michael! She knew! How was that even possible?

“Is it dangerous? ” Eve asked breathlessly. Claire nearly choked.

“I–I can’t tell. It’s murky. ”

Shane said, “Right. Dead man walking, can’t tell if he’s dangerous because, wow, murky. Anything else? ” And again, Claire had to choke back a hysterical giggle.

There was a bitter, unpleasant twist to Miranda’s face now. “Fire, ” she said. “I see fire. I see someone screaming in the fire. ”

Shane yanked his hands away from Eve and Michael, slammed his chair back, and said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m outta here. Feel free to get your psychic jollies somewhere else. ”

“No, wait! ” Eve said, and grabbed for him. “Shane, wait, she saw it in the cards, too–”

He pulled free. “She sees whatever you want! And she gets off on the attention, in case you didn’t notice! And she’s a fang banger! ”

“Shane, please! At least listen! ”

“I’ve heard enough. Let me know when you want to move on to table rapping or Ouija boards–those are a lot more fun. We could get some ten‑ year‑ olds to show us the ropes. ”

“Shane, wait! Where are you going? ”

“Bed, ” he said, and went up the stairs. “Night. ”

Claire was still holding Michael’s hand, and Miranda’s. She let go of both, pushed her chair back, and went up after him. She heard his door slam before she made it to the top, and raced down the hall to bang her fist on the wood. There was no answer, no sound of movement inside.

Then she noticed that the picture on the wall hallway was crooked, and moved it to stare at the button underneath. Would he?

Of course he would.

She hesitated for a second, then pressed it. The panel across the hallway clicked open, letting out a breath of cold air, and she quickly slipped inside, latched it back, and went up the stairs.

Shane was lying on the couch, feet on the curved polished‑ wood armrest, one arm flung over his eyes.

“Go away, ” he said. Claire eased herself down on the couch next to him, because his voice didn’t sound, well, right. It was quiet and a little bit choked. His hand was shaking. “I mean it, Claire, go. ”

“The first time you met me, I was crying, ” she said. “You don’t have to be ashamed. ”

“I’m not crying, ” he said, and moved his arm. He wasn’t. His eyes were hot and dry and furious. “I can’t stand that she pretends to know. She was Lyssa’s friend. If she knew, if she really knew, she should have tried harder. ”

Claire bit her lip. “Do you mean she–? ” She couldn’t even say it. Do you mean she tried to tell you? And he couldn’t admit it if she had. If he admitted that much…maybe his sister didn’t have to be dead.

No, Claire couldn’t say that. And he couldn’t hear it.

Instead, she just reached out and took his hand. He looked down at their clasped fingers, sighed, and closed his eyes. “I’m drunk and I’m pissed off, ” he said. “Not the best company right now. Man, your parents would kill us all if they knew about any of this. ”

She didn’t say anything, because that was absolutely true. And something she didn’t want to think about. She just wanted to sit here, in this silent room where time had frozen still, and be with him.

“Claire? ” His voice was quieter. A little smeared with sleep. “Don’t do that again. ”

“Do what? ”

“Go out like you did tonight. Not at night. ”

“I won’t if you won’t. ”

He smiled, but didn’t open his eyes. “No dates? What is this, the Big Brother house? Anyway, I didn’t come back to Morganville to hide. ”

She was instantly curious. “Why did you come back? ”

“Michael. I told you. He called, I came. It’s what he’d do for me. ” Shane’s smile faded. He was probably remembering Michael not answering the phone, not coming to the hospital. Not having his back.

“It’s more than that, ” she said. “Or else you’d have just taken off by now. ”

“Maybe, ” Shane sighed. “Leave it, Claire. You don’t have to dig into every secret around here, okay? It’s not safe. ”

She thought about Michael. About the way he’d looked at Miranda across the sé ance table. “No, ” she agreed. “It’s not. ”

They talked for hours, about pretty much nothing–certainly not about vampires, or sisters dying in fires, or Miranda’s visions, obviously. Shane delved into what Claire had always thought were the Boy Classics: debates about whether Superman could take Batman (“Classic Batman or Badass Batman? ”), movies they liked, movies they hated. Claire tried him on books. He was light on the classics, but who wasn’t? (She wasn’t, but she was a freak of nature. ) He liked scary stories. They had that in common, too.

Time just didn’t seem to pass at all in that little room. The talk seemed to keep going, spinning out of them on its own, gradually getting slower as the minutes and hours slipped away. She got cold and sleepy, and dragged an afghan off the arm of a nearby chair, spread it around her shoulders, and promptly dropped off to sleep sitting on the floor with her back against the settee, where Shane was lying.

She woke up with a start when the settee creaked, and she realized that Shane was getting up. He blinked, yawned, rubbed at his hair (which did very funny things when he did) and checked his watch.

“Oh, God, it’s early, ” he groaned. “Hell. Well, at least I can grab the bathroom first. ”

Claire jumped to her feet. “What time is it? ”

“Nine, ” he said, and yawned again. She reached over him, pushed the hidden button, dashed past him to the door, barely remembering to shed the afghan on the way. “Hey! Dibs on the bathroom! I mean it! ”

She wasn’t worried about the bathroom so much as being caught. After all, she’d spent the entire night with a boy. A boy who’d been drinking. Most of that was against the house rules, she figured, and Michael would have freaked out if he’d known. Maybe…maybe Michael was too distracted from what Miranda had been spilling to worry about it, though, because she had to admit, Miranda had known exactly what she was talking about.

Just not by name, really.

Well, Michael was back to incorporeal in the light of day, so at least she didn’t have to worry about running into him…but she did need to decide what to do about school. This was already the worst academic week of her life, and she had the feeling it wasn’t going to get any better unless she acted quickly. Shane had made a deal with the devil; it only made sense to take advantage of it, until she could find a way to cancel it. Monica and her girls wouldn’t be after her–not in a lethal way. So there was no reason not to get her butt in the library.

She grabbed her clothes and jumped in the bathroom just as Shane, still yawning, stumbled out of the hidden room.

“But I called dibs! ” he said, and knocked on the door. “Dibs! Damn girls don’t understand the rules…. ”

“Sorry, but I need to get ready! ” She cranked up the shower and skinned out of her old clothes in record time. The jeans really needed washing, and she was down to her last clean pair of underwear, too.

Claire was in and out of the shower fast, trusting that the waterproof bandage they’d put on her back would hold (it did). In under five minutes she was fluffing her wet hair and sliding past Shane in a breathless rush to grab her backpack and stuff it with books.

“Where the hell are you going? ” he asked from the doorway. He didn’t sound sleepy now. She zipped the bag shut, hefted it on the shoulder that wasn’t aching and complaining, and turned toward him without answering. He was leaning on the doorframe, arms folded, head cocked. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. What’ve you got, some kind of death wish? You really want to get knocked down another flight of stairs or something? ”

“You made the deal. They won’t come after me. ”

“Don’t be dense. Leave that to the experts. You really think they don’t have ways around it? ”

She walked up to him, staring up into his face. He looked enormously tall. And he was big, and in her way.

And she didn’t care.

“You made a deal, ” she said, “and I’m going to the library. Please get out of the way. ”

“Please? Damn, girl, you need to learn how to get mad or–”

She shoved him. It was dumb, and he had the muscle to stay right where he was, but surprise was on her side, and she got him to stumble a couple of steps back. She was already out the door and heading out, shoes in hand. She wasn’t about to stop and give him another chance to keep her nice and safe.

“Hey! ” He caught up, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. “I thought you said you wouldn’t–”

“At night, ” she said, and turned to go down the stairs. He let go…and she slipped. For a scary second she was off‑ balance, teetering on the edge of the stairs, and then Shane’s warm hands closed around her shoulders and pulled her back to balance.

He held her there for a few seconds. She didn’t turn around, because if she did, and he was right there, well, she didn’t know…

She didn’t know what would happen.

“See you, ” she gulped, and went down the stairs as fast as she dared, on shaking legs.

The heat of the morning was like a toaster oven, only without any yummy food smells; there were a couple of people out on the street. One lady was pushing a baby stroller, and for a second, while Claire was sitting down to put on her battered running shoes, she considered that with a kind of wonder. Having babies in a town like this. What were people thinking? But she guessed they did it anywhere, no matter how horrible it was. And there was a bracelet around the woman’s slender wrist.

The baby was safe, at least until it turned eighteen.

Claire glanced down at her own bare wrist, shivered, and put it out of her mind as she set off for campus.

Now that she was looking, just about every person she passed had something around his or her wrist–bracelets for the women, watchbands for the men. She couldn’t tell what the symbols were. She needed to find some kind of alphabet; maybe somebody had done research and put it somewhere safe…somewhere the vampires wouldn’t look.

She’d always felt safest at the library, anyway. She went straight there, watching over her shoulder for Monica, Gina, Jennifer, or anybody who looked remotely interested in her. Nobody did.

TPU’s library was huge. And dusty. Even the librarians at the front looked like they might have picked up a cobweb or two since her last visit. More proof–if she’d needed it–that TPU was first, and only, a party school.

She checked the map for the shelves, and saw that the Dewey decimal system reigned in Morganville–which was weird, because she’d thought all the universities were on the Library of Congress system. She traced through the listings, looking for references, and found them in the basement.

Great.

As she started to walk away, though, she cocked her head and looked at the list again. There was something strange about it. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it….

There wasn’t a fourth floor. Not on the list, anyway, and Mr. Dewey’s system jumped straight from the third floor to the fifth. Maybe it was offices, she thought. Or storage. Or shipping. Or…coffins.

It was definitely weird, though.

She started to take the stairs down to the basement, then stopped and tilted her head back. The stairs were old‑ school, with massive wooden railings, turning in precise L‑ shaped angles all the way up.

What the hell, she thought. It was only a couple of flights of stairs. She could always pretend she’d gotten lost.

She couldn’t hear anything or anybody once she’d left the first floor. It was silent as–she hated to think it–the grave. She tried to go quietly on the stairs, and quit gripping the banister when she realized that she was leaving sweaty, betraying handprints behind. She passed the second‑ floor wooden door, and then the third. Nobody visible through the clear glass window.

The fourth floor didn’t even have a door. Claire stopped, puzzled, and touched the wall. Nope, no door, no secrets she could see. Just a blank wall. Was it possible there was no fourth floor?

She went up to the fifth floor, made her way through the silent, dusty stacks to the other set of stairs, and went down. On this side, there was a door, but it was locked, and there weren’t any windows.

Definitely not offices, she guessed.

But coffins weren’t out of the question. Dammit, she resented being scared in a library! Books weren’t supposed to be scary. They were supposed to…help.

If she were some kick‑ ass superhero chick, she’d probably be able to pick the lock with a fingernail clipping or something. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a superhero, and she bit her fingernails.

No, she wasn’t a superhero, but she was something else. She was…resourceful.

Standing there, staring at the lock, she began to smile.

“Applied science, ” she said, and ran down the stairs to the first floor.

She had a stop to make in chem lab.

Her TA was in his office. “Well, ” he said, “if you really want to shatter a lock, you need something good, like liquid helium. But liquid helium isn’t all that portable. ”

“What about Freon? ” Claire asked.

“No, you can’t get your hands on the stuff without a license. What you can buy is a different formulation, doesn’t get as cold but it’s more environmentally friendly. But it probably wouldn’t do the job. ”

“Liquid nitrogen? ”

“Same problem as helium. Too bulky. ”

Claire sighed. “Too bad. It was a cool idea. ”

The TA smiled. “Yes, it was. You know, I have a portable liquid‑ nitrogen tank I keep for school demonstrations, but they’re hard to get. Pretty expensive. Not the kind of thing you’d find lying around. Sorry. ” He wandered off, intent on some postgrad experiment of his own, and he promptly forgot all about her. She bit her lip, stared at his back for a while, and then slowly…very slowly, moved back to the door that led to the supply room. It was unlocked so that the TA could easily move in and out if he needed to. Red and yellow signs on it warned that she was going to get cancer, suffocate, or die other horrible deaths if she opened the door…but she did it anyway.

It squeaked. The TA had to have heard it, and she froze like a mouse in front of an oncoming bird. Guilty.

He didn’t turn around. In fact, he deliberately kept his back to her.

She let out a shaky breath, eased into the room, and looked around. The place was neatly kept, all its chemicals labeled and stored with the safety information for each hanging below it. He stored in alphabetical order. She found the LIQUID NITROGEN sign and saw a bulky, very obvious tank…and a small one next to it, like a giant thermos, with a shoulder strap. She grabbed it, then read the sign. USE PROTECTIVE GLOVES, the sign said. The gloves were right there, too. She shoved a pair in her backpack, slung the canister over her shoulder, and got the hell out of there.

The librarians didn’t even give her a second look. She waved and smiled and went into the stacks, all the way to the back stairs.

The door was just as she’d left it. She fumbled on the gloves, opened the top of the canister, and found that there was a kind of steel pipette that fit into a nozzle. She made sure it was in place, then opened the valve, held her breath, and began pouring supercooled liquid into the lock. She wasn’t sure how much to use–too much was better than not enough, she guessed–and kept pouring until the outside of the lock was completely frosted. Then she cranked the valve shut, and–reminding herself to keep the gloves on –yanked on the doorknob.

Crack! It sounded like a gunshot. She jumped, looked around, and realized the knob had moved in her hand.

She’d opened the door.

Nothing to do now but go inside…but somehow, that didn’t seem like such a great idea, now that she was actually able to do it.

Because…coffins. Or worse.

Claire sucked in a steadying breath, opened the door, and carefully looked around the edge.

It looked like a storeroom. Files. Stacks of cartons and wooden crates. No one in sight. Great, she thought. Maybe I did just break into the file room. That would be disappointing. Still, she stuffed the gloves in her backpack, just in case.

The cartons looked new, but the contents–when she unwrapped the string tying one closed–appeared old. Crumbling books, badly preserved. Ancient letters and papers in languages she couldn’t read, some of which looked like ancestors of English. She tried the next box. More of the same. The room was vast, and it was full of this kind of stuff.

The book, she thought. They’re looking for the book. Every old book they find comes here and gets examined. Now that she looked, she saw that the crates had small red X marks on them–meaning they’d been gone through? Initials, too. Somebody was being held accountable.

Which meant…somebody was working here.

She had just enough time to form the thought when two people walked out of the maze of boxes ahead of her. They weren’t hurrying, and they weren’t alarmed. Vampires. She didn’t know how she knew–they weren’t exactly dressed for the part–but the way they moved, loose and sure, screamed predator to her fragile‑ prey brain.

“Well, ” said the short blond girl, “we don’t get many visitors here. ” Except for the pallor of her face and the glitter in her eyes, she looked like a hundred other girls out on the Quad. She was wearing pink. It seemed wrong for a vampire to be wearing pink.

“Did you take a wrong turn, honey? ” The man was taller, darker, and he looked really odd…really dead. It was because of his skin tone, she realized. He was black. Being a vampire bleached him, not to white, but to the color of ashes. He had on a TPU purple T‑ shirt, gray sweatpants, and running shoes. If he’d been human, she’d have thought he was old–old enough to be a professor, at least.

They split up, coming at her from two different sides.

“Whose little one are you? ” purred the pink girl, and before Claire could engage her brain to run, the girl had taken her left hand, examining her bare wrist. Then examining her right one. “Oh, my, you really are lost, sweetie. John, what should we do? ”

“Well, ” John said, and put a friendly hand on Claire’s shoulder. It felt colder than the liquid‑ nitrogen bottle hanging across her back. “We could sit down and have a nice cup of coffee. Tell you all about what we do in here. That’s what you want to know, right? Children like you are just so darn curious. ” He was steering her forward, and Claire knew–just knew–that any attempt to pull free would result in pain. Probably broken bones.

Pink Girl still had hold of her other wrist, too. Her cool fingers were pressed against Claire’s pulse point.

I need to get out of this. Fast.

“I know what you do here, ” she said. “You’re looking for the book. But I thought vampires couldn’t read it. ”

John stopped and looked at his companion, who raised pale eyebrows back at him. “Angela? ” he asked.

“We can’t, ” she said. “We’re just here as…observers. And you seem very knowledgeable, for a free‑ range child. Under eighteen, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be under someone’s Protection? Your family’s? ”

She seemed honestly concerned. That was weird. “I’m a student, ” Claire said. “Advanced placement. ”

“Ah, ” Angela said, and looked kind of regretful. “Well, then, I guess you’re on your own. Too bad, really. ”

“Because you’re going to kill me? ” Claire heard herself say it in a kind of dreamlike state, and remembered what Eve had told her. Don’t look in their eyes. Too late. Angela’s were a soft turquoise, very pretty. Claire felt a deliciously warm edge‑ of‑ sleep sensation wash over her.

“Probably, ” Angela admitted. “But first you should have some tea. ”

“Coffee, ” John said. “I still like the caffeine. ”

“It spoils the taste! ”

“Gives it that zip. ” John smacked his lips.

“Why don’t you let me look through boxes? ” Claire asked, desperately bringing herself back from the edge of whatever that was. The vampires were leading her through a maze of boxes and crates, all marked with red X s and initials. “You’ve got to let humans do it, right? If you can’t read the book? ”

“What makes you think you could read it, little one? ” Angela asked. She had a buttery sort of accent, not quite California, not quite Midwest, not quite anything. Old. It sounded old. “Are you a scholar of languages, as well? ”

“N‑ no, but I know what the symbol is that you’re looking for. I can recognize it. ”

Angela reached down and drew her fingernails lightly over the skin of Claire’s inner arm, looking thoughtful.

“No, I don’t have the tattoo. But I’ve seen it. ” She was absolutely shaking all over, terrified in a distant sort of way, but her brain was racing, looking for escape. “I can recognize it. You can’t, can you? You can’t even draw it. ”

Angela’s fingernails dug in just a bit, in warning. “Don’t be smart, little girl. We’re not the kind of people you should mock. ”

“I’m not mocking. You can’t see it. That’s why you haven’t found it. It’s not just that you can’t read it–right? ”

Angela and John exchanged looks again, silent and meaningful. Claire swallowed hard, tried to think of anything that might be a good argument for keeping her unbitten (Maybe if I don’t drink any tea or coffee? ) and spared a thought for just how pissed off Shane was going to be if she went and got herself killed. On campus. In the middle of the day.

The vampires turned a corner of boxes, and there, in an open space, was a door that didn’t lead out onto any stairwell she’d seen, an elevator with a DOWN button, a battered school‑ issue desk and chair, and…

“Professor Wilson? ” she blurted. He looked up, blinking behind his glasses. He was her Classics of English Literature professor (Tuesdays and Thursdays at two) and although he was boring, he seemed to know his stuff. He was a faded‑ looking man, all grays–thin gray hair, faded gray eyes–with a tendency to dress in colors that bleached him out even more. Today it was a white shirt and gray jacket.

“Ah. You’re”–he snapped his fingers two or three times–“in my Intro to Shakespeare–”

“Classics of English Lit. ”

“Right, exactly. They change the title occasionally, just to fool the students into taking it again. Neuberg, isn’t it? ” Fright in his eyes. “You weren’t assigned here to help me, were you? ”

“I–” Light dawned. Maybe letting mistaken impressions lie was a good idea right now. “Yes. I was. By…Miss Samson. ” Miss Samson was the dragon lady of the English department; everyone knew that. Nobody questioned her. As excuses went, this one was thinner than paper, but it was all she had. “I was looking for you. ”

“And the door was open? ” John asked, looking down at her. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Professor Wilson, who wasn’t likely to hypnotize her into not lying.

“Yes, ” she said firmly. “It was open. ” The only good thing about the canister on her back was that at least it looked like something a college student might carry around, with soup or coffee or something in it. And it didn’t exactly look like something to break locks. By now, the liquid nitrogen in the lock would have sublimated into the air, and all evidence was gone.

She hoped.

“Well then, ” Wilson said, and frowned at her, “better sit down and get to work, Neuberg. We have a lot to do. You know what you’re looking for? ”

“Yes, sir. ” John let go of her shoulder. After a reluctant second, Angela released her, too, and Claire went to the desk, dragged up a wooden chair, and carefully placed her backpack and canister on the floor.

“Coffee? ” John asked hopefully.

“No, thank you, ” she said politely, and pulled the first stacked volume toward her.

It was interesting work, which was weird, and the vampires became less and less frightening the more she was in their company. Angela was a fidgeter, always tapping her foot or restlessly braiding her hair or straightening stacks of books. The vampires seemed assigned only as observers; as Professor Wilson and Claire finished each mountain of books, they took them away, boxed them, and brought new volumes to check.

“Where do these come from? ” Claire wondered out loud, and sneezed as she opened the cover of something called Land Register of Atascosa County, which was filled with antique, neat handwriting. Names, dates, measurements. Nothing like what they were looking for.

“Everywhere, ” Professor Wilson said, and closed the book he’d flipped through. “Secondhand stores. Antique shops. Book dealers. They have a network around the world, and everything comes here for inspection. If it isn’t what they’re looking for, it goes out again. They even make a profit on it, I’m told. ” He cleared his throat and held up the book he’d been looking at. “John? This one is a first‑ edition Lewis Carroll. I believe you should put it aside. ”

John obligingly took it and set it in a pile that Claire thought was probably “rare and valuable. ”

“How long have you been doing this, Professor? ” she asked. He looked tired.

“Seven years, ” he said. “Four hours a day. Someone will come in to relieve us soon. ”

Us, meaning that she’d get to walk out. Well, that was nice. She’d been hoping that she might at least slip a note out with the professor, something along the lines of IF YOU FIND MY BODY, I WAS KILLED BY MISS PINK IN THE LIBRARY, but that sounded too much like something out of that board game her parents liked so much.

“No talking in class, ” John said, and laughed. When he did, his fangs came down. His were longer than Brandon’s, and looked scarier, somehow. Claire gulped and focused on the book in front of her. The cover said Native Grains of the New World. A whole book about grain. Wow. She wondered how Professor Wilson had stayed sane all these years. Corn is a member of the grass family and is native to the American continents…. She flipped pages. More about corn. She didn’t know you could write so much about one plant.

Beside her, Professor Wilson swore softly under his breath, and she looked up, startled. His face had gone pale, except for two red spots high in his cheeks. He quickly faked a smile and held up a finger striped with red. “Paper cut, ” he said. His voice sounded high and tight, and Claire followed his stare to see Angela and John moving closer, watching the professor’s finger with eerie concentration. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all. ” He groped in his pocket, came out with a handkerchief, and wrapped it around his bloodied finger. In trying to attend to that, he knocked the book he’d been reviewing to the floor. Claire automatically bent to pick it up, but Wilson’s foot hooked around it and scooted it out of her reach. He bent over and in the darkness under the desk…switched books.

Claire watched, openmouthed. What the hell was he doing? Before she could do anything stupid that might give him away, there was a ding from the elevator across the room, then the rumble of opening doors.

“Ah, ” Wilson said with evident relief. “Time to go, then. ” He reached down, picked up the hidden book, and slipped it into his leather satchel with such skill Claire wasn’t absolutely sure she’d seen it. “Come along, Neuberg. ”

“Not her, ” John said, smiling cheerfully. “She gets to stay after class. ”

“But–” Claire bit her lip and made desperate eye contact with the professor, who frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sir, can’t I go with you? Please? ”

“Yes, of course, ” he said. “Come along, I said. Mr. Hargrove, if you don’t like it, please take it up with management. I have a class. ”

He might have pulled it off, too, if Angela hadn’t been so sharp‑ eyed, or suspicious; she stopped him halfway to the elevator, opened up his portfolio, and took out the book he’d stashed away. She leafed through it silently, then handed it to John, who did the same.

Both of them looked at the professor with calm, cool, oddly pleased eyes.

“Well, ” Angela said, “I don’t know, but I think this may be a violation of the rules, Professor. Taking books from the library without checking them out first. Shame, shame. ”

She deliberately opened the first page and read, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” and then flipped carefully through, stopping at random spots, to read lines of text. It all sounded right to Claire. She flinched when Angela pushed the book at her. “Read, ” the vampire said.

“Um…where? ”

“Anywhere. ”

Claire recited a few lines in a faltering voice from page 229.

“A Tale of Two Cities, ” John said. “Let me guess, Professor…a first edition? ”

“Mint condition, ” Angela said, and plucked it out of Claire’s trembling hands. “I think the professor has a nice retirement plan, composed of screwing us out of our rightful profits. ”

“Huh, ” John said. “He didn’t look quite so dumb as that. Got all those degrees and stuff. ”

“That’s just paper smarts. You never can tell about what’s really in their heads until you open them up. ” The two of them were talking like he wasn’t even there.

Professor Wilson’s pale skin had a sweaty gleam on it now. “A moment of weakness, ” he said. “I really do apologize. It won’t ever happen again, I swear that to you. ”

“Apology accepted, ” Angela said, and lunged forward, planted her hand on his chest, and knocked him flat to the floor. “And by the way, I believe you. ”

She grabbed his wrist, raised it to her mouth, and paused to strip off his gold wristwatch band and toss it on the floor. As it rolled, Claire’s stricken eyes caught sight of the symbol on the watch face. A triangle. Delta?

Her shock broke at the sound of the professor’s scream. Grown men shouldn’t scream like that. It just wasn’t right. Fright made her angry, and she dropped her book bag, took the canister off her shoulder, and yanked off the top.

Then she threw liquid nitrogen all over Angela’s back. When John turned on her, snarling, she splashed what was left at his face, aiming for his eyes. Wilson rolled to his feet as Angela collapsed, shrieking and thrashing; John reached out for him, but she’d managed to hurt him, too–he missed. Wilson grabbed his satchel and she got her book bag; they ran for the elevator. A very surprised professor–someone she didn’t recognize–was standing there, openmouthed; Wilson yelled at him to stand aside, leaped into the cage, and pressed the DOWN button so frantically Claire was afraid it would snap or stick or something.

The doors rolled shut, and the elevator began to fall. Claire tried to get her breathing under control, but it was no good; she was about to hyperventilate. Still, she was doing better than the professor. He looked awful; his face was as gray as his hair, and he was breathing in shallow, hard gasps.

“Oh dear, ” he said weakly. “That wasn’t good. ”

And then he slowly collapsed down the wall of the elevator until he was in a sitting position, legs splayed loosely.

“Professor? ” Claire lunged forward and hovered over him.

“Heart, ” he panted, and then made a choking sound. She loosened his tie. That didn’t seem to help. “Listen. My house. Bookshelf. Black cover. Go. ”

“Professor, relax, it’s okay–”

“No. Can’t let them have it. Bookshelf. Black–”

His eyes got very wide, and his back arched, and she heard him make an awful noise, and then…

Then he just died. Nothing dramatic about it, no big speeches, no music swelling to tell her how to feel about it. He was just…gone, and even though she pressed her shaking fingers to his neck, she knew she wouldn’t feel anything, because there was something different about him. He was like a rubber doll, not a person.

The elevator doors opened. Claire gasped, grabbed her books and the empty silver canister, and sprinted down the blank cinder‑ block hallway to the end, where a fire door opened into bright afternoon sunlight.

She stood there for a few long seconds, just shaking and gasping and crying, and then tried to think where to go. Angela and John thought her name was Neuberg, which was good–she supposed not so good for Neuberg, if one existed–but they’d find out who she was eventually. She needed to be home before that happened.

Bookshelf. Black cover.

Professor Wilson had been in that room for seven years, sorting through books. Probably slipping out those he thought might be worth something on the black market.

What if…?

No. It couldn’t be.

Except…what if it was? What if a year ago, or five years ago, Professor Wilson had found that book the vampires were so intent on having, and decided to hang on to it for a rainy day? After all, she’d been basically planning to do the same thing, only for her it was already stormy weather.

She needed his address.

It wasn’t far to the Communication Arts Building, and she ran as much of the way as she could before the pain in her still‑ bruised ankle and still‑ raw back made her slow down. Two flights of steps brought her to the offices, and she passed up Professor Wilson’s closed and locked office to stop next to the cluttered desk out in the open between the corridors. The nameplate read VIVIAN SAMSON, but everyone just called her Dragon Lady, and the woman sitting behind it had earned the name. She was old, fat, and legendarily bad‑ tempered. There was no smoking in all university buildings, but the Dragon Lady had an overflowing ashtray on the corner of her desk and a glowing cigarette hanging out of the corner of her red‑ painted lips. Beehive hair, straight out of old movies. She had a computer, but it wasn’t turned on, and as far as Claire could tell from the two‑ inch‑ long bright red nails, the Dragon Lady didn’t type, either.

She ignored Claire and kept on reading the magazine open in front of her.

“Um–excuse me? ” Claire asked. She felt sticky with sweat from the run in the heat, and still kind of sick from what had happened at the library. The Dragon Lady turned a page in her magazine. “I just need–”

“I’m on break. ” The red‑ clawed hand took the cigarette out of the red‑ painted mouth for a trip to the ashtray to shed some excess. “Not even supposed to be here today. Damn grad students. Come back in half an hour. ”

“But–”

“No buts. I’m on break. Shoo. ”

“But Professor Wilson sent me to get something from his house, but he didn’t give me the address. Please –”

She slapped the magazine closed. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m going to wring his neck when he gets back here. Here. ” She grabbed a card from the holder on her desk and pitched it at Claire, glaring. “If you’re some nutcase, it’s not my problem. You tell His Highness that if he wants to roll around with undergrads, he can damn well remember to tell them his own damn address from now on. Got it? ”

“Got it, ” Claire said in a very small voice. Roll around with… She wasn’t going to think about that. Not at all. “Thank you. ”

The Dragon Lady puffed a cloud of smoke out of both nostrils and raised eyebrows plucked into more of a suggestion than an actual form. “You’re a polite one. Go on, get out of here before I remember I’m supposed to be off today. ”

Claire escaped, clutching the card in her sweaty fingers.