Read Online Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine - Free Book Online
Authors: Rachel Caine
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but remember the cold, damp feeling of his hands around her neck, and a violent shiver seized her, as if her whole body wanted to throw off that memory. Deep, calming breaths, and then she nodded at Naomi. “I’m okay,” she said. “I know what to listen for now.”
“The point is
not
to listen,” Naomi said, but she let go of the wheel. “I assume you may have read a classical text or two, in your education, or is that no longer done?”
Claire was a little bit ashamed to think that it wasn’t, but she only said, “One or two.”
“You remember Odysseus, lashed to the mast of his ship, screaming to be released while his men rowed on, with wax blocking their ears?”
She did. It had been one of the stories her dad liked, one he’d read to her and they’d discussed when she was still just a girl. All of the great Greek myths, especially the ones about Odysseus. She’d always liked him. He was clever and dangerous, and he didn’t have any special godlike powers, either. Just his mind, and his will.
Listening to the sirens’ singing had been his own test.
“Odysseus was rarely a fool,” Naomi said, “but he was a fool then. That was the draug, singing to him, though the Greeks had a different name for them. He wanted to hear their song, and he did; he was lucky to avoid madness.”
Shane slid the back window open and stuck his head in. “Ladies, I’m sure this a fascinating conversation about shoes or whatever, but could we maybe not sit out here like a big old piece of bait? And by
we
I mean mainly
me
.”
He was right; this probably wasn’t the best time to be holding a review of the classics. Claire cleared her throat and put the truck back into gear to ease it straight down the road, in the direction Naomi pointed.
It was odd to realize, looking at her, that Naomi wasn’t much older than Claire herself; she must have been frozen at the age of eighteen or nineteen. Of course, at the time
she’d
been alive, eighteen or nineteen was old enough to rule kingdoms and have multiple children, so Naomi had been considered an adult long before she’d become a vampire. It all felt very new to Claire, still.
Naomi suddenly pointed to the right. The street name sign flashed briefly in the truck’s headlights but Claire didn’t really see it; everything in Morganville looked strange to her, shrouded by the falling rain and the lack of lights, and life. This was a residential street, and it looked completely deserted. Not even a candle flickering in a window, much less anyone in view outside.
Naomi’s hand clenched into a fist, and Claire drifted the truck to the curb and stopped—gently this time, careful of throwing Shane around in the back. He opened the back window again and watched as the vampire pointed straight at one of the houses in the middle of the block. It was just like a hundred other houses in Morganville—plain wooden frame, built probably in the 1940s, small by modern standards. Its pale paint (no telling what color it had originally been, since the sun faded everything to a uniform gray) peeled liberally from the boards, and some of the trim was rotted and falling off. There was a rusted bicycle lying in the weed-tangled yard and a metal swing set that listed so far to the right any child that sat on it would probably be killed in the collapse.
Typical.
The name on the mailbox, written in messy black paint, was SUMMERS , but there was nothing in the box itself when Shane snapped it open. He shrugged and closed it, then unshipped the flexible hose of the flamethrower from behind him.
Claire mouthed,
It’s a wooden house!
She had to try three times before comprehension dawned on him. He looked disappointed, but he put the flammable fun away and got out his silver-loaded shotgun instead. Claire had hers hanging heavy in the crook of her arm, pointed so that if anything happened it would fire into the ground (and probably her foot, but that was better than the alternatives).
Hunters
“The point is
not
to listen,” Naomi said, but she let go of the wheel. “I assume you may have read a classical text or two, in your education, or is that no longer done?”
Claire was a little bit ashamed to think that it wasn’t, but she only said, “One or two.”
“You remember Odysseus, lashed to the mast of his ship, screaming to be released while his men rowed on, with wax blocking their ears?”
She did. It had been one of the stories her dad liked, one he’d read to her and they’d discussed when she was still just a girl. All of the great Greek myths, especially the ones about Odysseus. She’d always liked him. He was clever and dangerous, and he didn’t have any special godlike powers, either. Just his mind, and his will.
Listening to the sirens’ singing had been his own test.
“Odysseus was rarely a fool,” Naomi said, “but he was a fool then. That was the draug, singing to him, though the Greeks had a different name for them. He wanted to hear their song, and he did; he was lucky to avoid madness.”
Shane slid the back window open and stuck his head in. “Ladies, I’m sure this a fascinating conversation about shoes or whatever, but could we maybe not sit out here like a big old piece of bait? And by
we
I mean mainly
me
.”
He was right; this probably wasn’t the best time to be holding a review of the classics. Claire cleared her throat and put the truck back into gear to ease it straight down the road, in the direction Naomi pointed.
It was odd to realize, looking at her, that Naomi wasn’t much older than Claire herself; she must have been frozen at the age of eighteen or nineteen. Of course, at the time
she’d
been alive, eighteen or nineteen was old enough to rule kingdoms and have multiple children, so Naomi had been considered an adult long before she’d become a vampire. It all felt very new to Claire, still.
Naomi suddenly pointed to the right. The street name sign flashed briefly in the truck’s headlights but Claire didn’t really see it; everything in Morganville looked strange to her, shrouded by the falling rain and the lack of lights, and life. This was a residential street, and it looked completely deserted. Not even a candle flickering in a window, much less anyone in view outside.
Naomi’s hand clenched into a fist, and Claire drifted the truck to the curb and stopped—gently this time, careful of throwing Shane around in the back. He opened the back window again and watched as the vampire pointed straight at one of the houses in the middle of the block. It was just like a hundred other houses in Morganville—plain wooden frame, built probably in the 1940s, small by modern standards. Its pale paint (no telling what color it had originally been, since the sun faded everything to a uniform gray) peeled liberally from the boards, and some of the trim was rotted and falling off. There was a rusted bicycle lying in the weed-tangled yard and a metal swing set that listed so far to the right any child that sat on it would probably be killed in the collapse.
Typical.
The name on the mailbox, written in messy black paint, was SUMMERS , but there was nothing in the box itself when Shane snapped it open. He shrugged and closed it, then unshipped the flexible hose of the flamethrower from behind him.
Claire mouthed,
It’s a wooden house!
She had to try three times before comprehension dawned on him. He looked disappointed, but he put the flammable fun away and got out his silver-loaded shotgun instead. Claire had hers hanging heavy in the crook of her arm, pointed so that if anything happened it would fire into the ground (and probably her foot, but that was better than the alternatives).
Hunters
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