them. He’d arrested Shane once— though that wasn’t exactly a

small club of people.

Hannah gave them both brisk nods, and like the most intimi-

dating doormen ever, the cops opened the entrance and stood

aside to let them go in.

It smelled abandoned.

That was the first thing Claire noticed— the musty reek of old

carpet, dust, mold— the aroma of a place that humans had long

ago rejected. A faint undertone of rot, too.

And quiet. So very, very quiet. The sound of their footsteps

echoed around an open atrium floored with cracked, dirty ceramic

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dark ages when the place was built, but just looked dated and

clumsy now. A dry three- tiered fountain sat lifeless in the corner.

The light coming in was dim at best; the skylights, Claire found as she looked up, were filthy, and the plastic had aged to a dull,

opaque yellow. It gave all of them a sickly pallor.

“Cozy,” Shane said. “Going for the homeless heroin addict

market with this place, are you?”

“We worked with what we had,” Hannah said. She sounded

just a touch defensive. “We’re getting it cleaned and made more

livable, but they don’t seem to care all that much about the decor.”

They being the vampires, Claire realized, because despite the hush, they were most definitely not alone. Silent figures loomed in the shadows like abandoned mannequins. Even when the figures

moved, it was more like ghosts walking— silent and eerie. So many

vampires. But none of them came out into the open tiled square of

the atrium.

Eve took in a sudden sharp breath. “Jesus!” she gasped, and

Claire knew she’d spotted them, too. There was something deeply

unsettling about the way they were being watched. Like prey.

Like enemies.

“Stay where you are,” Hannah said, as Eve took a step out

toward them. “They know the rules; they stay out of the atrium

unless we specifically call their names.”

“Or what?” Shane asked tightly. He didn’t like this any more

than Claire did. “What kind of punishments have you been dish-

ing out?”

Hannah didn’t answer that— didn’t want to, Claire thought.

But she had her hand on what Claire had originally thought was

some kind of radio on her belt— a black box with buttons along

the top and a flickering green light.

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Maybe it wasn’t a radio after all.

“Michael Glass,” Hannah said. She didn’t raise her voice, but

then, in a mall full of vampires, she really didn’t need to do that.

“We’re here for Michael Glass. Michael, step forward, please.”

It was as if somehow the shadows parted around her, but Claire

knew that wasn’t the case; Amelie had simply moved forward with-

out seeming to move at all, and suddenly she was standing at the