'Aren't they hurt by the sun?' Claire asked. 'Once we started tracking them, we could keep up only for a while, and then they lost us.' 'So,' Hess said, 'any word on where the vampires are heading when they take off?' Tall, thin Joe Hess had his left arm in a sling-broken, apparently, from the brace on it-and both he and his rounder, heavier partner had cuts and bruises to prove they'd been in a fight or two. Claire felt exhausted, but they looked a whole lot worse. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were also present, and they were gratefully scarfing down food and drink. Claire had hesitantly taken a chair, at Richard's nod. She was just a pair of hands, getting ordered around, but at the end of it there was a plate full of sandwiches and a big jug of iced tea, and everybody was seated around the kitchen table, except for Gramma, who'd gone off into the other room to rest. I'm making you some lunch.' And she tapped her cane right past him, into the kitchen, and clucked and fretted over the state of the kitchen while Claire stood by, caught between giggles and horror. 'My fool daughter's off her head,' Gramma said. 'Ma'am?' Richard Morrell came out of the kitchen, looking very much younger than Claire had ever seen him. Nobody bothered me.' Nobody would dare, Claire thought.

As Claire locked the door behind her, she asked, 'How did you get here?'

'I don't want any part of that.'Ĭlaire quickly moved aside to let her in, and the old lady shuffled inside. 'I ain't staying with my daughter,' she said. The old woman, straightbacked and proud, leaned on her cane and stared at Claire from age faded eyes. Claire was trying to figure out what to do to feed everybody, when there was another knock at the door. Richard Morrell arrived, along with a few others, and set up shop in the kitchen. Claire and Hannah ended up at the Glass House, which seemed like the best place to gather-central to most things, and close to City Hall in an emergency. Tracking those who did leave wasn't much good, either. Three hours later, they didn't know much more, except that nothing they tried to do to keep the vampires from leaving seemed to work, apart from tranquilizing them and locking them up in sturdy cells.

Lord of misrule novel