“Ladies,” Shane said, and slammed the car door. “Let’s have the champagne inside, okay? And talk about who pulled the wires in the engine, and how we’re planning to back Michael up with no wheels?”

He had a point. Claire covered their retreat with the Super Soaker, feeling kind of like a neon-gunned Rambo, and Eve slammed and locked the door, then put her back to the wood and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

The second Claire put the water gun down, Shane wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, really tender and sweet and a little bit desperate. Hot.

“Hey,” Eve said. “Michael, remember? What are we doing for transpo, cabbing it?”

There was exactly one taxicab in Morganville, and he didn’t work at night, so that wasn’t much of an option. They didn’t even bother to discuss it. “Well,” Claire said, very reluctantly, “there’s another way. But you won’t like it.”

“I’ll like it less than getting molested by a vampire in a flasher raincoat who smells like graveyards? Try me.”

“I could open a portal,” Claire said. “But I’ve never been to the radio station, so I can’t risk doing it blind. I have to go someplace close that I know. What’s around it?”

“Hang on a second,” Shane said, and dropped the weapons bag to the wood floor with a thump. “What about Ada? You said she was out for blood, right?”

“I said you wouldn’t like the idea.”

“So just to recap—Ada wants to kill you, and you’re going to walk through a portal she controls?”

“Well—”

“No, Claire. Next.”

“But—”

“Not happening.”

She sighed. “What if I get Myrnin to open it for us? He’s better at it. I don’t think she dares mess with him directly.”

“And tell Myrnin what’s happening? Bad idea. The dude is half crazy all the time.”

“So what’s your bright idea?” Claire asked. Shane spread his hands out. “That’s what I thought.”

She pulled her cell phone out and checked the screen. Her battery was getting low; she hadn’t had a chance to charge it up recently, although that was Morganville Survival 101. She picked up the old-fashioned landline phone on the hall table and dialed Myrnin’s lab.

It rang, and rang, and rang, and finally, Myrnin picked up. “What?” he snapped. “I was in the middle of dinner.”

Claire was afraid to ask who that was. “I need help,” she said.

“Claire, you are my assistant. Not the other way around. Perhaps it would be helpful if I prepared an organizational chart you could keep on your person. Possibly tattooed on your arm.”

He was in a mood. Claire bit her lip. “Please,” she said. “It’s a little favor.”

“Oh, all right. What?”