Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(29)
Then he came up out of the rocker like someone had set it on fire. “You got the extinguishers?” he asked, setting the shotgun aside.
“In the car. What was all that about?”
“I have no idea, but I’m getting the strong idea that we’re just not wanted around here anymore, Claire. And I don’t know why, because we’re just so charming.”
“Well, you are,” she said, and kissed him lightly. “Come on, help me get it all inside.”
He carried an armload of the extinguishers, while she snagged the last couple and the box. They dumped the lot in the front parlor, raising a faint cloud of dust from the old cushions of the couch, and Claire waved it away, coughing.
“What—” Shane’s attention was riveted on the box she’d put down, and before she could even begin to answer, he was ripping into it, looking as thrilled as if it were magically Christmas. “Do you know what these are? Do you?”
“Some kind of weird grenades,” she said. “Don’t get too excited. I don’t think they explode or anything.”
“These are excellent. You arm them and throw them into the fire. If it isn’t too big, it’ll explode into a powder that puts the fire right out.” He grabbed her and kissed her. “You brought me grenades. You are officially the best girlfriend ever.”
“I’m the most worried girlfriend ever,” she said. “Because this is getting a little too crazy. The cops? Really? And you decided to clean the shotgun to, what, intimidate them?”
“C’mon, this is rural Texas. Shotguns are as normal as garden gnomes. Besides, that gun oil really stinks up the house.”
“So do your shoes, but I don’t see you leaving them outside.”
“Did Eve text you that joke? Because it sounded like her.”
“She’s been tutoring me,” Claire said, and stood back from him a little, because being so close to him made it harder to be logical. He had that effect on her. “Do we need to put anything in the pantry room?” The pantry room was a hidden room just off the kitchen, behind shelves of ancient canned goods. It was basically just a dirt room, windowless, that had almost certainly been used for visiting vampires from time to time, or for even less savory things, but it was safe enough for storage.
“Now that you mention it, I have a bag full of stuff that might do well in there,” he agreed. “You know, my sparkly unicorn collection. They’d probably jail me on general principles for that.”
“I’m serious!”
“Me, too. I would never joke about sparkly unicorns.” He held up a hand to stop her from getting irritated. “Okay, yes, I will hide all the stuff that needs hiding. Give me fifteen minutes, and then I’ll head out to grab the stuff from Rad. Though, damn, grenades. Not sure we need much more than that. They might even make good offensive weapons.”
“But they only blow out powder, right?”
“If I throw it at somebody and yell ‘Grenade!’ I’m willing to bet they’d duck anyway. At the very least, it would be hilarious.”
“Until they shot you.”
“Well. Yeah. That might not be as funny.”
One more kiss, and Shane was off. It took him less than fifteen minutes to gather things into a giant duffel bag, which he dragged downstairs and into the kitchen. She heard him stashing it in the dirt pantry room, and went to double-check that he hadn’t left any telltale traces on the floor, but he’d swept up neatly, and if she hadn’t known about the secret room she’d never have guessed it was there.
Another minute and Shane was gone to get the fire retardant stuff from Rad. He sternly told her to lock up behind him—as if she ever forgot, in Morganville. The Beast roared off down the street, and a profound silence settled over the Glass House. It was rare that she was alone in the place; there was almost always someone else to talk to, or at least to be aware of in another room. But it seemed calm, quiet and peaceful.
“We’ll take care of you,” Claire said to the house, her face tilted up to the ceiling. She patted the wall. “Don’t worry. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
The air around her immediately warmed, as if she’d stepped into a patch of bright sunlight. It was the Glass House’s equivalent of a hug, and she smiled and picked up the first two fire extinguishers to carry them upstairs. She stationed one in Michael and Eve’s room and one in her own—opposite ends of the hall, and they could cover most anything from there. The rest were distributed downstairs, where she thought any kind of arson would probably start. Their enemies had once tried to burn the place down with well-placed Molotov cocktails, and now she made sure that no window was more than a few steps from a fire extinguisher.
Then she set the grenades out, scattering them around to be sure they were all within easy reach.
She was setting out the last few when she heard the crisp sound of a knock—loud, authoritative, nothing tentative about it. Definitely not Shane, and she wasn’t expecting any visitors.
Claire slipped one of the extinguisher grenades in her jacket pocket and went downstairs to check the peephole in the door.
Officer Kentworth was back. Officer Halling was with him, and so was a plainclothes man that Claire recognized as Detective Simonds. From everything she’d heard about him, he was a nice enough guy—and a good investigator. She wasn’t sure whether that last part was a good thing just now.