‘But what do they want?’ She was shivering now, shuddering, and she half expected Myrnin to notice, to ask if she was all right.

He didn’t. There was nothing in him right now that cared.

‘They want vampires dead,’ he said, and the slow, cruel smile on his face chilled her into ice. ‘The war has been coming for a while now. But they’ve chosen the wrong way to start it in earnest.’

Shane came back with Pete, and they all climbed into the van. In this vehicle they had Liz, Pete, Claire, Shane and Myrnin; Eve was the only human in the other van, mainly because Michael could probably protect only one of them at a time.

Myrnin was looking at Liz, and Pete. ‘Now, what shall we do with these two?’

Claire shuddered at the lack of feeling in his words, and quickly said, ‘They’re okay, Myrnin. They’ll be fine.’

‘They are not Morganville,’ he said. ‘And they are not fine.’ He put down the weapons, and before Claire could stop him, he grabbed Liz and pulled her close. Claire and Liz both screamed, and Pete lunged forward. Shane would have, but he’d just climbed into the driver’s seat. None of that mattered. Myrnin ignored Pete’s attempt to pull him off, just as he ignored Claire’s words that tumbled out begging him not to hurt her, and Liz’s struggles to pull free.

Then Liz stopped screaming. She went entirely still in Myrnin’s hands, staring into his eyes, and Claire swallowed and let go. She wanted a weapon – a silver one, preferably – but there was nothing in the van that could really hurt Myrnin.

Nothing but VLAD.

Pete had already thought of it, and he picked one of the two up – the damaged one. God only knew if it would work, but if it did, it would only make things worse. ‘Not that one!’ Claire yelped, and scrambled over to grab the other. ‘Put it down!’ Pete did, and Claire turned VLAD – the original version – on Myrnin. ‘Please. Please don’t make me do this. I don’t want to do this.’

‘Claire,’ Shane said softly. ‘Don’t.’

Because Myrnin’s head had turned toward her, and the look he gave her was bone-chilling. It wasn’t a human sort of expression. She remembered what they used to call him, in the bad old days; what his neighbour in Morganville, Gramma Day, still called him. Trap-door spider. This was the old, worst version of Myrnin, and the most powerful.

‘Put that down, or I’ll snap her head off like a daisy and beat you with it,’ he said. It was almost a purr. ‘I’m not intending to hurt her. But I’ll happily do it if you try to use that on me again. And I won’t stop with her. Do you really want to be trapped in this van with me in a murder-crazed state?’