Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(23)
“Be right back,” she said, and went to the area of the wall outside his room where the secret door was concealed. She knew how to open it, and after a couple of false starts, she got the paneling to move. It creaked, of course. That was almost certainly required. “Miranda? Mir, are you there?”
A light shone at the top of the steep, narrow steps leading up. As the door swung shut behind her, Claire ascended, and as she got to the top she came out into a room she hardly recognized. The Victorian furniture was still in place, and all the stained-glass heavy lamps, but the walls had been covered over with posters—movies, bands, games (and most of it Claire wouldn’t be ashamed to have on her own walls). The old rugs had been rolled up and put away, and the floor was a shining, polished brown now. There was a brand-new table on the far side of the room, with a flat-screen TV hooked up to a game console. And an antique chest that Claire thought must have been dragged out of storage in the attic; it was open, and clothes spilled out of it, mostly dark in color and old in style.
Miranda was on the couch, hands folded on her stomach as she stared up at the ceiling. She was a small, thin girl, dressed in black that echoed Eve’s clothing choices. And to be honest, she looked more dead than alive.
Claire frowned and stopped where she was. “Miranda? Are you okay?”
“Go away,” Miranda said.
That wasn’t normal. “You’re not okay.”
Miranda cracked one eye to stare at her. “I’m bored. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Um . . . I’m not sure. There are a lot of things that could fit that definition.”
“Here! In Morganville!” Miranda sat up and swung her legs down to glare full force. “They rounded up the vampires and put them in a prison. Did you know? Where have you been? Everybody took off and left me and I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t even know if I was supposed to do anything at all!”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said. She sat down next to Miranda and put her arm around the girl; Mir felt solid, warm, alive, and well. She wasn’t, of course, but she could seem eerily real within the Glass House. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to abandon you. It’s just—things happened.”
“They happened here, too. It’s like people just—went crazy, you know? First the vampires just . . . I don’t know, it was like they just surrendered, and then Morganville changed. It wasn’t safe out there anymore for me. These people, these Daylight people, they—they scare me.” Miranda shivered harder, and Claire rubbed her arm in a futile attempt to make her feel better. “I’m scared to leave the house. It all feels so wrong out there. It’s so quiet.”
“Well, we’re back,” Claire said. “And trust me, it’s not going to be quiet much longer. Have you been up here the whole time?”
“Mostly,” Miranda said. “The Daylighters tried to come inside while you were gone. I kept them out, and then Father Joe from the church came to warn me. He told me to stay off the streets. They were hunting down anything that wasn’t strictly, completely human—that’s where the vampires went. I can vanish, but he was worried they might still be able to get to me.” She shook her head. “Claire, when they were in the house—I heard one of them say that if they wanted to really cleanse the town, they needed to destroy all the Founder Houses. There was an argument, but it sounded like he was winning when they left. Do you think they’d do that? Try to destroy us?”
If the Daylighters really wanted to get rid of all of the non-human, supernatural elements of Morganville, then they were going to have to go after the Founder Houses. Claire was a little surprised she hadn’t already thought about it. The house could defend against most intruders, but it couldn’t defend itself against fire, or wrecking crews. And that made her feel frantic, deep down inside. No, you won’t, she thought fiercely. You won’t destroy our home.
“When did Father Joe come to see you?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.” Miranda, it was true, didn’t pay much attention to days and nights, and certainly not if she’d been hiding out here in Amelie’s safe room with no windows or clocks. “A few days, maybe?”
“When did they come into the house to search it?” Claire asked. “Please, think!”
“Yesterday,” Miranda said. “Yesterday early. I felt the sun coming up.” As ghosts did. Their lives were tied to sunrises and sunsets.
“Why didn’t you come down and tell us?”
Miranda looked away, and her voice got very small. “Because you left me,” she said. “You all left me here. Alone.”
It was hard to remember sometimes how young she was, until she said something like that. “You were sulking.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Mir.”
Her shoulders rose and fell, just a little. “Maybe.”
“Miranda, if the Daylighters decide to tear the house down . . .”
“I go with it,” Miranda said, and met Claire’s eyes again. “You think I don’t know that? But the vampires aren’t here to help you do anything now. How are you going to stop them?”
“I don’t know yet, but we will,” Claire said. She heard the strength in her voice, and it surprised her. “We will, and that means you, too. No more sulking. We’re going to need your help.”