The dim afternoon suddenly exploded in orange light behind them, and Claire looked in the rearview mirror to see her boyfriend spraying the entire street with an intense stream of pure, concentrated flame. Where it touched the draug, they evaporated. She could hear the grating, metallic screaming even through the hearing protection of Naomi’s noise cancellation. They sure weren’t singing anymore.

As she put the truck in gear and popped the clutch, Shane lurched forward and nearly fell out of the open bed of the truck—right into the draug.

But Theo grabbed him by the shoulder and held him in place as Harold crouched in the corner of the truck’s bed, looking scared out of his mind.

Claire sighed in relief, and hit the gas pedal hard. In less than thirty seconds, the rain had lessened again to a gentle patter on the roof, and Shane shut off the flamethrower’s little ignition burner.

Naomi kept watch out her window, shotgun ready, all the way back to the warm, welcoming lights of Founder’s Square.

CHAPTER FOUR

CLAIRE

Eve’s coffee and breakfast and cookies were still out on the table when Claire, Theo, and Harold passed through the big round hall. Well, some of it was still there; it looked as if her cooking had been popular this morning. Claire didn’t see Eve, which was odd; she would have expected her to still be working off her nervous caffeinated high. Probably still baking. Or, more worrying, maybe she really had gone out with vampires to put together caches of weapons around town.

Please be made up, she thought to both Michael and Eve. I don’t like it when things are bad.

But she had a sinking feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better between those two.

“Harold,” Theo said, and opened up a door. “You’ll be safe here. I will be back soon.”

Harold made urgent signs to him—deaf, which was probably the only reason he’d survived out there in draug-held Morganville. Theo smiled and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No one will bother you here. You have my word.”

Harold didn’t seem convinced, but he went into the room and Theo shut the door behind him.

“So … is he a friend of yours?” Claire asked.

“A patient,” Theo said. “And now we must go to another of my patients: Amelie.”

All the doors leading out of this room looked alike to Claire, and she hesitated, wondering which one led to the Founder of Morganville, but Theo didn’t. He made straight for one of them, opened it, and hurried through; she sped to catch up before the door closed again.

They were in one of the building’s endless, identical carpeted hallways, with the tasteful (and probably outrageously expensive) art on the walls. At the end of the hall was a set of double doors, guarded by two vampires. Amelie’s bodyguards.

“Theo Goldman,” Theo said as he approached. “I’m expected.”