by Rachel Caine
“Do we need to be afraid now?” she asked. “Because I’d like a head start before the official terror alert goes up.”
“Nope. We’re clear,” Shane said. He sounded tired, and a little strange. “Claire’s got a free pass. Nobody’s going to come after her. Including Monica and her sock puppets.”
“But—what? Why?” Claire asked. Eve evidently didn’t have to ask. She just looked grim and angry.
“We did a trade,” Shane said. “Vampires are all about the one-up.”
“You’re such an idiot!” Eve hissed.
“I did what I had to do! I couldn’t ask Michael. He wasn’t—” Shane bit off whatever he was about to say, violently, and got the anger in his voice under tight control. “He wasn’t around. Again. I had to do something. Claire wasn’t kidding. They’ll kill her, or at least, they’ll hurt her so bad she’ll wish they’d finish it up. I can’t let that happen.”
There was, Claire thought, a silent not again at the end of that. She wanted to turn and look at him, but it hurt too much to try. She tried to meet his eyes in the mirror instead.
“Shane,” she said. “What did you promise?”
“Nothing I can’t afford to lose.”
“Shane!”
But Shane didn’t answer. Neither did Eve, although she parted her lips a couple of times, then shut them without making a sound. The rest of the drive was done in silence, and once they’d pulled in at the curb, Eve got out and hurried up the walk to unlock the door. Claire opened the passenger door and started to get out, but again, Shane was there ahead of her, helping her up. Man, he was…strong. And he had big, warm hands. She shivered, and he immediately asked, “Cold?” but it wasn’t that. Not that at all.
“Shane, what did you promise?” she blurted, and grabbed his forearm. Not that he couldn’t have pulled free, but…he didn’t. He just looked down at her. They were standing really close together, close enough she felt every nerve in her body fizz like a shaken can of Coke. “You didn’t—do something—”
“Stupid?” he asked. He looked down at her hand, and after a second, he touched it with his own. Just for a second, and then yanked away from her like she’d burned him. She’d been right; he could break free without even thinking about it. “Yeah. That’s what I’m good at. The stupid stuff. Probably for the best; having two big brains in the house might get kinda crowded.” When she tried to say something, he motioned her toward the house. “Unless you want to hang a This Vein for Rent sign around your neck, move already!”
She moved. The front door was open, and Shane followed behind her, close behind, until she was going up the steps.
She didn’t hear his footsteps anymore, and turned to look. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching the street.
There was a vampire standing at the corner, under the glow of a streetlight. Brandon. Just standing there, arms folded, he was leaning against the lamppost like he had all the time in the world.
He blew them a kiss, turned, and walked away.
Shane shot him the finger and practically shoved Claire across the threshold. “Don’t you ever stop out there!”
“You said I got a free pass!”
“It doesn’t come with a written guarantee!”
“What did you promise him?” she yelled.
Shane slammed the door, hard, and started to push past her to go down the hall, but just as he got there, Michael stepped into his path. And Michael looked pissed.
“Answer her,” he said. “What the hell did you do, Shane?”
“Oh, now you care? Where the hell were you, man? I called! I came and looked for you. Hell, I even picked the lock to your room!”
Michael’s blue eyes flickered from Shane to Claire and back. “I had things to do.”
“Dude, today you had things to do? Whatever, man. You weren’t around, and I had to make the call. So I made it.”
“Shane.” Michael reached out and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him to a stop. “It sounds like she deserves an answer. We all do.” Behind him, Eve stepped around the corner, arms folded.
Shane let out a short, harsh laugh. “Ganging up on me with the girls? Low blow, man. Low blow. What happened to male bonding?”
“Eve says you talked to Brandon.”
Claire watched the fight go out of Shane’s shoulders. “Yeah. I did. I had to. I mean—look, they threw acid on her and the damn cops wouldn’t even—I had to go to the source. You taught me that.”
“You made a deal with Brandon,” Michael said, and Claire heard the sick tremor in his voice. “Oh, dammit to hell, Shane. You didn’t.”
Shane shrugged. He wasn’t meeting Michael’s eyes. “Dude, it’s done. Don’t make a thing out of it. It’s only twice. And he can’t drain me or anything.”
“Shit!” Michael turned and slammed his hand hard into the wooden doorframe. “You don’t even know her, man! You can’t make a crusade out of this!”
“I’m not!”
“She’s not Alyssa!” Michael yelled, and that was the loudest shout she’d ever heard in her life. Claire flinched and stepped back, and saw Eve do the same behind him.
Shane didn’t move. It was like he couldn’t. He just stood there, head down.
And then he took a deep breath, raised his head, and met Michael’s furious eyes.
“I know she’s not Alyssa,” he said, and his tone was still, quiet, and completely cold. “You need to back the hell off, Michael, and you need to stop thinking I’m the screwed-up kid you knew back then. I know what I’m doing, and you’re not my dad.”
“I’m the closest thing you have to family around here!” Michael came off of the yelling, but Claire could hear the anger bubbling in his voice. “And I’m not letting you play the hero. Not now.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d step up and watch my back!”
Shane shoved past him this time, pounded up the stairs, and slammed the door to his room. Michael stood there, staring after him until Claire took a step forward. She froze when he looked at her, afraid he’d be angrier at her than he had been at Shane. After all, it had been her fault….
“Come sit down,” Michael said. “I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do. Sit. Eve, hold her down if you have to.” He took her hand for a second, squeezed it, and stood aside for her to move to the couch. She sank onto it with a sigh of relief and rested her forehead on her hands. God, what a miserable day. It had started out so—and Shane—but—
“You understand what Shane did, right?” Eve asked, plopping next to her. “How he, you know, made the deal?”
“No.” She felt hot, and miserable, and she definitely didn’t want food. But Michael wasn’t exactly in the mood to take no for an answer. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Shane traded two sessions to Brandon in exchange for him leaving you alone.”
“He—what?” Claire looked up, mortally confused. Was Shane gay? She hadn’t even thought about the possibility….
“Sessions. You know, bites.” Eve mimed fangs. “The agreement is that Brandon can fang him—twice. He just can’t, you know, kill him. It’s not about food, it’s pleasure. And power.” Eve smoothed her pleated skirt and frowned down at her short, black fingernails. “Michael’s right to be angry about it. Not killing somebody is a hell of a long way from not hurting them. And Brandon’s got a lot of experience at making deals. Shane doesn’t.”
Somehow, she’d known that—from the way Shane had acted, the way Brandon had been watching them, the way Michael had been so angry. It wasn’t just that Shane had told Brandon to back off, or made some dumbass promise. Shane had traded his life for hers—or at least, he was risking it.
Claire gasped, and fear prickled her skin so hard it was like rolling in needles. “But if he gets bitten, is he—won’t he—?”
“Turn into a vampire?” Eve shook her head. “It can’t work that way, or Morganville’d be the Undead Metr
oplex by now for sure. All my life, I’ve never seen or heard of anybody turned into a vampire from a bite. The suckers around here are really old. Not that Shane wouldn’t look completely hot with a nice set of fangs, but…” She fiddled with the pleats on her skirt. “Shit. This is stupid. Why not me? I mean, not that I exactly want to—not anymore—but…it’s worse for guys.”
“Worse? Why?”
Eve shrugged, but Claire could see she was avoiding the question. “Shane’s definitely not going to be able to handle it. Boy can’t even let somebody else have the last corn dog, and he doesn’t even like corn dogs. He’s a total control freak.” She fidgeted for a few more seconds, then added, softly, “And I’m afraid for him.”
As Michael came back into the room, Eve jumped up and ran around moving things, stacking things, until Michael gave her a none-too-subtle signal to leave. Which she did, making some excuse Claire didn’t hear, and clattered upstairs to her room.
Michael handed Claire a bowl. “Chili. Sorry. It’s what we’ve got.”
She nodded and took a spoonful, because she’d always pretty much done what she was told…and the second the chili hit her tongue, she realized that she was starving. She swallowed it almost without chewing, and was scooping up the next bite before she knew what she was doing. Shane needed to go into the chili business.
Michael slipped into the leather armchair to the left and picked up the guitar he’d laid aside. He started tuning it as if the whole scene with Shane hadn’t even happened. She ate, stealing glances at him as he bent over the instrument, drawing soft, resonant notes. “You’re not mad?” she finally asked, or mumbled.
“Mad?” He didn’t raise his curly blond head. “Mad is what you get when somebody flips you the finger on the freeway, Claire. No. I’m scared. And I’m trying to think what to do about it.”
She stopped chewing for a few seconds, then realized that choking on her food wasn’t likely to make things any better.
“Shane’s hotheaded,” Michael said. “He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t think. I should have thought for him, before I brought you in here.”
Claire swallowed. The food had suddenly gone a little sour in her mouth, so she put the spoon down. “Me?”
Michael’s fingers stilled on the guitar strings. “You know about his sister, right?”
Alyssa. That was the name Michael had thrown out. The one that had hurt Shane. “She’s dead.”
“Shane’s not a complicated guy. If he cares about somebody, he fights for them. Simple. Lyssa—Lyssa was a sweet kid. And he had that whole big-brother thing working. He’d have died for her.” Michael slowly shook his head. “Nearly did. Anyway, the point is that Lyssa would have been your age by now, and here you are getting hurt by the same bitches who killed his sister, trying to get him. So yeah. He’d do anything—anything—not to have to live through that again. You may not be Lyssa, but he likes you, and more than that, he hates Monica Morrell. So much he—” Michael couldn’t seem to say it. He stared off into space for a few seconds, then went on. “Making deals with the vampires in this town will keep you alive on the outside, but it eats you on the inside. I watched it happen to my folks, before they got out of here. Eve’s parents, too. Her sisters. If Shane goes through with this, it’ll kill him.”
Claire stood up. “He’s not going through with it,” she said. “I’m not letting him.”
“How exactly are you going to stop him? Hell, I can’t stop him, and he listens to me. Mostly.”
“Look, Eve said—Eve said vampires own this town. Is that true? Really?”
“Yes. They’ve been here as long as anybody can remember. If you live here, you learn to live with them. If you can’t, then you go.”
“They don’t just run around biting people, though.”
“That would be rude,” he said gravely. “They don’t need to. Everybody in town—everybody who’s a resident—pays taxes. Blood tax. Two pints a month, down at the hospital.”
She stared. “I didn’t have to!”
“College kids don’t. They get taxed a different way.” He looked grim, and with a sick, twisting sense of horror she realized what he was going to say right before he made it real. “Vamps have a deal with the school. They get to take two percent a year, right off the top. Used to be more, but I think they got worried. Couple of close calls with the media. There’s nothing TV stations like more than a pretty young college girl gone missing. Claire, what are you thinking?”
She took a deep breath. “If the vamps have this all planned out, then they’ve got, you know, structure. Right? They can’t all just be running their own shows. Not if there are a lot of them. There’s got to be somebody in charge.”
“True. Brandon’s got a boss. And his boss probably has a boss.”
“So all we have to do is make a deal with his boss,” she said. “For something other than Shane getting bit.”
“All?”
“They have to want something. Something more than what they already have. We just need to find out what it is.”
There was a creak on the stairs. Michael turned to look, and so did Claire. Eve was standing there.
“Didn’t hear you coming,” Michael said. She shrugged and padded down the steps; she’d taken off her shoes. Even her black-and-white hose had little skulls on the toes.
“I know what they want,” she said. “Not that we’re going to be able to find it.”
Michael looked at her for a long time. Eve didn’t look away; she walked right up to him, and Claire suddenly felt like she was in the middle of something personal. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, or how she was smiling at him, but it made Claire fidget and closely examine a stack of books on the end table.
“I don’t want you in this,” Michael said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach out and take Eve’s hand.
“Shane’s in it. Claire’s in it. Hey, even you’re in it.” Eve shrugged. “You know how much I hate being left out. Besides, if there’s a way to stick it to Brandon, I’m all for it. That guy needs a poke in the eye with a nice, sharp stake.”
They were still holding hands. Claire cleared her throat, and Michael let go first. “What is it? What do they want?”
Eve grinned. “Oh, you’re gonna love this,” she said. “They want a book. And I can’t think of anybody who’d have a better shot at finding it than you, book girl.”
There were a lot of rules to Morganville Claire hadn’t even thought about. The blood donation, that was one—and she was starting to wonder how Michael was getting away with not paying his taxes. He couldn’t, right? If he couldn’t leave the house?
She sat down cross-legged on the floor with a ledger notebook, turned to a fresh sheet of paper, and made a heading that read Pluses for Vampires. Under that column, she wrote down blood donation, Protection, favors, deals.
“Oh, put down curfew,” Eve said.
“There’s a curfew?”
“Well, yeah, of course. Except for the school. They don’t care if the students roam around all night, because, you know—” Eve mimed fangs in the neck. Claire swallowed and nodded. “But for locals? Oh yeah.”
“How is that a plus for them?”
“They don’t have to worry about who’s safe to bite and who’s not. If you’re out running around, you’re lunch.”
She wrote down curfew. Then she turned the page and wrote down Minuses for Vampires.
“What are they afraid of?” she asked.
“I don’t think we were done with the pluses,” Michael said. He sat down on the floor next to the two girls—well, closer to Eve, Claire noticed. “Probably a lot you didn’t write down.”
“Oh, let the girl feel better about it,” Eve said. “It’s not all gloomy. Obviously, they don’t like daytime—”
Claire wrote it down.
“And garlic…silver…um, holy water—”
“You sure about those?” Michael asked. “I always thought they pretended on a lot of that, just i
n case.”
“Why would they do that?”
Claire answered without looking up. “Because it makes it easier to hide what really can hurt them. I’m writing it down anyway, but it may not be right.”
“Fire is for real,” Michael said. “I saw a vampire die once, when I was just a kid. One of those revenge deals.”
Eve pulled in a deep breath. “Oh, yeah. I remember hearing about it. Tom Sullivan.”
Claire asked, wide-eyed, “The vampire was named—?”
“Not the vampire,” Michael said. “The guy who killed him. Tommy Sullivan. He was kind of a screwup, drank a lot, which isn’t too unusual around here. He had a kid. She died. He blamed the vampires, so he doused one with gas and set him on fire, sitting right in the middle of the restaurant.”
“You saw that?” Claire asked. “How old were you?”
“You grow up fast in Morganville. The point is, there was a trial the next night. Not much chance for Tommy. He was dead before morning. But…fire works. Just don’t get caught.”
Claire wrote down fire. “What about stakes?”
“You’ve seen Brandon,” Eve said. “You want to try to get close enough to stake him? Yeah, me neither.”
“But do they work?”
“Guess so. You have to fill out a form when you buy wood.”
Claire wrote it down. “Crosses?”
“Definitely.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re evil, soulless, bloodsucking fiends?”
“So was my sixth-grade gym teacher, but he wasn’t afraid of a cross.”
“Funny,” Eve said, in the way that meant not. “Because there are hardly any churches, and so far as I know, crosses are impossible to come by unless you make ’em yourself. Also, all these guys grew up—isn’t that weird, thinking of them growing up?—when religion wasn’t just something you did on Sundays. It was something you were, every minute, every day, and God was always up for a little recreational smiting of the wicked.”
