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half pulled, half dragged at a dead run through the night. It was all a confusing blur of shadows, dark buildings, pale faces, and the surly orange glow of flames in the distance.
    “What is it?” she screamed.
    “Patrols.” Hannah kept on firing behind them. She wasn’t firing wildly, not at all; it seemed like she took a second or two between every shot, choosing her target. Most of the shots seemed to hit, from the shouts and snarls and screams. “Amelie! We need an exit, now !”
    Amelie looked back at them, a pale flash of face in the dark, and nodded.
    They charged up the steps of another building on Founder’s Square. Claire didn’t have time to get more than a vague impression of it—some kind of official building, with columns in front and big stone lions snarling on the stairs—before their little party came to a halt at the top of the stairs, in front of a closed white door with no knob.
    Gérard started to throw himself against it. Amelie stopped him with an outstretched hand. “It will do no good,” she said. “It can’t be opened by force. Let me.”
    The other vampire, facing away and down the steps, said, “Don’t think we have time for sweet talk, ma’am. What you want us to do?” He had a drawling Texas accent, the first one Claire had heard from any vampire. She’d never heard him speak at all before.
    He winked at her, which was even more of a shock. Until that moment, he hadn’t even looked at her like a real person.
    “A moment,” Amelie murmured.
    The Texan nodded behind them. “Don’t think we’ve got one, ma’am.”
    There were shadows converging in the dark at the foot of the steps—the patrol that Hannah had been shooting at. There were at least twenty of them. In the lead was Ysandre, the beautiful vampire Claire hated maybe more than she hated any other vampire in the entire world. She was Bishop’s girl through and through—Amelie’s vampire sister, if they thought in those kinds of terms.
    Claire hated Ysandre for Shane’s sake. She was glad the vamp was here, and not attacking Shane’s Bloodmobile—one, because she wasn’t so sure Shane could resist the evil witch, and two, she wanted to stake Ysandre herself.
    Personally.
    “No,” Hannah said, when Claire took a step out from behind her. “Are you crazy? Get back!”
    Hannah fired over her shoulder. It was at the outer extreme of the paintball gun’s range, but the pellet hit one of the vampires—not Ysandre, Claire was disappointed to see—right in the chest. Silver dust puffed up in a lethal mist, and the close formation scattered. Ysandre might have had a few burns, but nothing that wouldn’t heal.
    The vampire Hannah had shot in the chest toppled over and hit the marble stairs, smoking and flailing.
    Amelie slammed her palm flat against the door and closed her eyes, and deep inside the barrier something groaned and shifted with a scrape of metal. “Inside,” Amelie murmured, still wicked controlled, and Claire spun and followed the three vampires across the threshold. Hannah backed in after, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut.
    “No locks,” she said.
    Amelie reached over and pushed Hannah’s gun hand into an at-rest position at her side. “None necessary. They won’t get in.” She sounded sure of it, but from the look Hannah continued to give the door—as if she wished she could weld it shut with the force of her stare—she wasn’t so certain. “This way. We’ll take the stairs.”
    It was a library, full of books. Some—on this floor—were new, or at least newish, with colorful spines and crisp titles that Claire could read even in the low light. She slowed down a little, blinking. “You guys have vampire stories in here?” None of the vampires answered. Amelie veered to the right, through the two-story-tall shelves, and headed for a set of sweeping marble steps at the end. The books got older, the paper more yellow. Claire caught sight of a sign that read FOLKLORE, CA.