Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine

steps leading up to street level, which were probably the absolute worst idea ever right now, and a second, an even more hidden dimensional portal in a small room off to the side. That was the one Amelie had used to get them in.
    But the problem was, Claire couldn’t get it to work. She had the memories clear in her head—the Glass House, the portal to the university, the hospital, even the museum they’d visited on the way here. But nothing worked.
    It just felt . . . dead, as if the whole system had been cut off.
    They were lucky to have made it this far.
    Amelie’s trapped, Claire realized. Back there. With Bishop. And she’s outnumbered.
    Claire double-checked the other door, too, the one she’d blocked.
    Nothing. It wasn’t just a malfunctioning portal; the whole network was down.
    “Well?” Hannah asked.
    Claire couldn’t worry about Amelie right now. She had a job to do—get Myrnin to safety. And that meant getting him to the only vampire she knew offhand who could help him: Oliver. “I think we’re walking,” she said.
    “The hell we are,” Hannah said. “I’m not hauling a dead vampire through the streets of Morganville. We’ll get ourselves killed by just about everybody. ”
    “We can’t leave him!”
    “We can’t take him, either!”
    Claire felt her jaw lock into stubborn position. “Well, fine, you go ahead. Because I’m not leaving him. I can’t.”
    She could tell that Hannah wanted to grab her by the hair and yank her out of there, but finally, the older woman nodded and stepped back. “Third option,” she said. “Call in the cavalry.”

5
    I t wasn’t quite the Third Armored Division, but after about a dozen phone calls, they did manage to get a ride.
    “I’m turning on the street—nobody in sight so far,” Eve’s voice said from the speaker of Claire’s cell phone. She’d been giving Claire a turn-by-turn description of her drive, and Claire had to admit, it sounded pretty frightening. “Yeah, I can see the Day House. You’re in the alley next to it?”
    “We’re on our way,” Claire said breathlessly. She was drenched with sweat, aching all over, from the effort of helping drag Myrnin out of the lab, up the steps, and down the narrow, seemingly endless dark alley. Next door, the Founder House belonging to Katherine Day and her granddaughter—a virtual copy of the house where Claire and her friends lived—was dark and closed, but Claire saw curtains moving at the upstairs windows.
    “That’s my great-aunt’s house, Great-Aunt Kathy,” Hannah panted. “Everybody calls her Gramma, though. Always have, as far back as I can remember.”
    Claire could see how Hannah was related to the Days; partly her features, but her attitude for sure. That was a family full of tough, smart, get-it-done women.
    Eve’s big, black car was idling at the end of the alley, and the back door kicked open as the two of them—three? Did Myrnin still count?—approached. Eve took a look at Myrnin, and the stake in his back, sent Claire a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look, and reached out to drag him inside, facedown, on the backseat. “Hurry!” she said, and slammed the back door on the way to the driver’s side. “Damn, he’d better not bleed all over the place. Claire, I thought you were supposed to—”
    “I know,” Claire said, and climbed into the middle of the big, front bench seat. Hannah crammed in on the outside. “Don’t remind me. I was supposed to keep him safe.”
    Eve put the car in gear and did a ponderous tank-heavy turn. “So, who staked him?”
    “I did.”
    Eve blinked. “Okay, that’s an interesting interpretation of safe. Weren’t you with Amelie?” Eve actually did a quick check of the backseat, as if she were afraid Amelie might have magically popped in back there, seated like a barbarian queen on top of Myrnin’s prone body.
    “Yeah. We were,” Hannah said.
    “Do I have to ask? No, wait, do I want to ask?”
    “We left her,” Claire said,