Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine Page A

miserable. “Bishop set a trap. She was fighting when we had to go.”
    “What about the other guys? I thought you went with a whole entourage!”
    “We left most of them. . . .” Her brain caught up with her, and she looked at Hannah, who looked back with the same thought in her expression. “Oh, crap. The other guys. They were in Myrnin’s lab, but not when we came back. . . .”
    “Gone,” Hannah said. “Taken out.”
    “Super. So, we’re winning, then.” Eve’s tone was wicked cynical, but her dark eyes looked scared. “I talked to Michael. He’s okay. They’re at the university. Things are quiet there so far.”
    “And Shane?” Claire realized, with a pure bolt of guilt, that she hadn’t called him. If he’d called her, she wouldn’t have known; she’d turned off the ringer, afraid of the noise when creeping around on a rescue mission.
    But as she dug out her phone, she saw that she hadn’t missed any calls after all.
    “Yeah, he’s okay,” Eve said, and steered the car at semihigh speed around a corner. The town was dark, very dark, with a few houses lit up by lanterns or candles or flashlights. Most people were waiting in the dark, scared to death. “They had some vamps try to board the bus, probably looking for a snack, but it wasn’t even a real fight. So far they’re cruising without too much trouble. He’s fine, Claire.” She reached over and took Claire’s hand to squeeze it. “You, not so much. You look awful.”
    “Thanks. I think I earned it.”
    Eve took back her hand to haul the big wheel of the car around for a turn. Headlights swept over a group on the sidewalk—unnaturally pale. Unnaturally still. “Oh, crap, we’ve got bogeys. Hang on, I’m going to floor it.”
    That was, Claire thought, a pretty fantastic idea, because the vampires on the curb were now in the street, and following. There was a kind of manic glee to how they pursued the car, but not even a vamp could keep up with Eve’s driving for long; they fell back into the dark, one by one. The last one was the fastest, and he nearly caught hold of the back bumper before he stumbled and was left behind in a black cloud of exhaust.
    “Damn freaks,” Eve said, trying to sound tough but not quite making it. “Hey, Hannah. How’s business?”
    “Right now?” Hannah laughed softly. “Not so fantastic, but I’m not bothered about it. Let’s see if we can make it to the morning. Then I’ll worry about making ends meet at the shop.”
    “Oh, we’ll make it,” Eve said, with a confidence Claire personally didn’t feel. “Look, it’s already four a.m. Another couple of hours, and we’re fine.”
    Claire didn’t say, In a couple of hours, we could all be dead , but she was thinking it. What about Amelie? What were they going to do to rescue her?
    If she’s even still alive.
    Claire’s head hurt, her eyes felt grainy from lack of sleep, and she just wanted to curl up in a warm bed, pull the pillow over her head, and not be so responsible.
    Fat chance.
    She wasn’t paying attention to where Eve was going, and anyway, it was so dark and strange outside she wasn’t sure she’d recognize things, anyway. Eve pulled to a halt at the curb, in front of a row of plate glass windows lit by candles and lanterns inside.
    Just like that, they were at Common Grounds.
    Eve jumped out of the driver’s side, opened the back door, and grabbed Myrnin under the arms, all the while muttering, “Ick, ick, ick!” Claire slid out to join her, and Hannah grabbed Myrnin’s feet when they hit the pavement, and the three of them carried him into the coffee shop.
    Claire found herself shoved immediately out of the way by two vampires: Oliver and some woman she didn’t know. Oliver looked grim, but then, that wasn’t new, either. “Put him down,” Oliver said. “No, not there, idiots, over there, on the sofa. You. Off.” That last was directed at the frightened humans who were seated on the indicated couch, and they