Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(25)

“Jenna didn’t leave town?” Claire felt oddly surprised by that; she’d thought that Jenna would have moved on after realizing the danger that Morganville constantly represented. She didn’t have to stay. “Why would she do that?”

“She kind of started dating this guy,” Miranda said. “Rad, the mechanic. And I think she liked it here. She bought a house and everything.”

“Then could you please go to Jenna and see if she’ll take you to City Hall? But be careful. Don’t get caught, whatever you do.” Miranda, after all, could turn invisible . . . but Jenna couldn’t. The plan had the added safety of Jenna driving, so there would be a quick escape handy in case something went wrong. And from Claire’s experience with Morganville, things did go wrong. Frequently.

Miranda nodded. She’d gone, in those few moments, from a scared girl to a bravely confident young woman. It made Claire sad that she would never see Miranda truly grow up, that the girl was stuck at the age she was now, unable to move either forward into death or backward into human form. But at least she was conscious and—at least mostly—alive, even if her life came with strings and restrictions. And for the first time in her life, Miranda seemed . . . happy. Stressed, at the moment, but happy to be wanted, worthwhile, and part of the Glass House gang.

Putting her at risk should have been a harder decision, and Claire felt guilty about it, but she also knew it had to be done. Claire had been in danger regularly, from the first day she set foot inside these walls; it was part of what it meant to live here. Part of being with people who cared enough to take risks.

“Can you get to Jenna’s on your own?” Claire asked.

“I think so.”

“Okay, then go. We’re going to start making sure the house is safe while you’re gone.”

“Good,” Miranda said, “because I love the house. I love you guys, too.” She looked directly at Claire when she said it, and Claire hugged her, hard. The girl felt cool and bony, but very real.

“Be safe,” she said. “Come back soon. I’ll call Jenna to let her know you’re on your way.”

Eve hugged the girl, too. Shane didn’t, but Miranda was shy around him, and always had been. She just nodded, and he nodded back in that laconic tough-guy way, and then she was just . . . gone. Dissolved into the air.

Unsettling, no matter how many times they’d seen it happen.

Claire picked up the house phone—it still worked, even though she didn’t imagine any of them had bothered with bills for a while now—and dialed Jenna’s cell, which they’d scrawled on the wall next to the phone in grease marker. It was a messy version of a contact list, but it worked in a pinch. She filled the other woman in when she picked up, and Jenna seemed happy to help out.

She hung up the phone and turned to the other two. “Well?” she asked. “What now?”

“Land mines in the flower beds?” Shane asked. “Also, we could replace that picket fence with razor wire. Maybe electrified.”

“Be serious.”

“Why do you think I’m not?”

Claire rolled her eyes and looked at Eve. “How about you?”

“What’s the easiest way to bring down a house like this?” Eve asked. It was a surprisingly practical question—and a chilling one when Claire thought more about it.

“Fire,” she said. It had been tried before. The Glass House was old wood, and however alive it had become, however self-aware, it couldn’t control how flammable it was. Not for long, anyway. The old wooden structure, the bones of it, was its weakest link. “If they don’t want to have a whole construction crew out here to demo the place, they’ll just set it on fire. Arson.”

Eve nodded. “We can spray fire retardant on the house. Don’t know where we’d get it, though.”

“Rad has some,” Shane said, in a much more serious tone than before. When they looked at him, he shrugged. “Dude likes to set himself on fire. He’s training to be a stuntman since he gave up his mixed martial arts dreams.”

“I knew that guy was insane,” Eve said. “Okay, then, we hijack Rad’s stash. What else do we need?”

“Fire extinguishers,” Claire said. “That should help with the whole arson risk. I’m not sure how we defend against a bulldozer, though, if they decide to knock the whole house down.” She held up a finger as Shane opened his mouth. “Do not say flamethrowers, or anything to do with dynamite.” He closed it without speaking.

“We need to know what exactly they’re planning to do,” Eve said, and took in a deep breath. “I’ll go to the Daylight Foundation.”

“How do you plan on finding anything out there? With the power of your awesomeness?” Shane asked. “I’m not making light of your awesomeness. But it lacks the stopping power of, say, a .357.”

“Not all of us need weapons,” Eve said. “Some of us have charm.”

It was the way she said it that made Claire’s skin go tight and prickly, and she leveled a stare at her best friend. “No,” she said. “You’re not even.”

“Not even what?”

“Going to run off with some crazy plan to—what? Make Fallon tell you what he’s going to do with the Glass House?”