The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine

Author:Rachel Caine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2005-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

13

The portals were more confusing now, because the power was out in Morganville. Most places were completely dark, and no matter how hard Claire concentrated, she couldn’t pull up three of the destinations at all.

Which meant, she supposed, that they no longer existed.

She focused on the surroundings of home, but again got darkness. She heard people talking, though, and caught a glimpse of candles being lit.

Eve’s face caught by the glow.

Home.

She was getting ready to step through when something hit her from behind, silent and heavy. She lost control of the portal as she crashed forward, screaming. She heard Myrnin, far behind her, call out, ‘‘Claire? Claire, what’s wrong?’’

She thought it was one of the inmates, until she felt a hand wind deep in her hair and lips brush her neck.

She heard Bishop’s mocking laughter. ‘‘Thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘For leading me to my fool.’’

He threw her through the portal.

She hit the floor on the other side and rolled, then scrambled up and threw herself at the wall. It didn’t open for her. She battered at it with her fists.

Nothing.

Claire turned, because it didn’t feel like home. Darkness and utter silence.

‘‘Hello?’’ No answer. ‘‘Shane? Mom?’’

She wasn’t at the Glass House. Bishop had screwed up her destination when he’d thrown her through the portal, and she had no idea where she was.

Half-sobbing, Claire felt her way across the room. Her fingers brushed soft cloth, and she pulled. Curtain, she thought. She tugged, and caught a glimmer through a window.

Orange light.

Claire pulled back the curtains of the window, and looked out at Morganville, burning. It gave her enough light to see the inside of the room where she was standing. It was the same as the Glass House living room in shape, so it had to be a Founder House . . . one of the thirteen, then. But which one? Not Gramma Day’s; she’d been inside that one, and it had been crammed with furniture. This one was piled with boxes. . . .

Claire’s gaze fell on the familiar outline of a couch. She walked to it and brushed her hand over the soft curve of the arm. There was a slightly stiffer patch near where it joined with the back, where she’d spilled a soda two years ago but hadn’t ever quite gotten the stickiness out.

Some of the boxes in the corner were labeled CLAIRE.

It was Mom and Dad’s new house.

Claire mapped it in her head. This house was to the northwest, so if she went to the mirror of her own bedroom, she ought to be able to see toward the Glass House. She wasn’t sure what that would get her, except maybe a better idea of what her chances were to get back.

But she needed to see it. To know her friends and family were okay.

There was a house on fire that direction, but it was the same one that had been burning earlier. The Melville house. Claire couldn’t make anything out past the blaze except a few faintly lit windows.

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