by Rachel Caine
Then again, she had coffee, and she was smiling.
‘‘Sure,’’ Claire’s mom said, and tried a tentative smile in return. ‘‘Thank you, dear. So—did you say that man is a relative of yours?’’ She cast a look toward Bishop, who was exiting the kitchen and heading for the dining table in the living area. The handsome younger male vamp caught Claire’s look and winked, and she hastily focused back on Eve and her parents.
‘‘Nope,’’ Eve said, with fear-fueled cheer. ‘‘Distant relative of Michael’s. From Europe, you know. Cream?’’
‘‘Eggs are done,’’ Claire said, and turned down the burner. ‘‘Eve—’’
‘‘I hope we have enough plates,’’ Eve interrupted, more than a little frantic. ‘‘Jeez, I never thought I’d say this, but where’s the good china? Is there good china?’’
‘‘Meaning plates without chips in the edges? Yeah. Over there.’’ Shane pointed to a cabinet about four feet higher than Eve’s head. She gave him a stare. ‘‘Don’t look at me—I’m not reaching for it. Still wounded, you know.’’ He was. Claire had forgotten that, too, in the press of all the other stuff—he was doing better, but he’d been out of the hospital only a short while. Hardly enough time to really heal up from the stab wound that had nearly killed him.
That was another good reason not to make waves unless they absolutely had to—without Shane, their ability to fight back was seriously compromised.
Eve climbed up on the counter, found the plates, and handed them down to Claire. Once that was done, Claire took Shane’s place at the stove, stirring the lumpy stuff that was supposed to be gravy. It looked like something an alien would barf.
‘‘That girl,’’ Claire said to Shane.
‘‘What girl?’’
‘‘The—you know. Out there.’’
‘‘You mean the bloodsucker? Yeah, what about her?’’
‘‘She was staring at you.’’
‘‘What can I say? Irresistible.’’
‘‘Shane, it’s not funny. I just—you should be careful.’’
‘‘Always am.’’ Which was an absolute lie. Shane’s eyes fixed on hers, and she felt a burst of heat inside that crept up to burn in her cheeks. He smiled slowly. ‘‘Jealous?’’
‘‘Maybe.’’
‘‘No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse.’’ He took her hand and pressed his fingers gently against her wrist. ‘‘Yep, you’ve got one. It’s beating pretty fast, too.’’
‘‘I’m not kidding, Shane.’’
‘‘Neither am I.’’ He stepped closer, and they were barely a breath apart. ‘‘No vamp’s going to come between us. You believe me?’’
She nodded wordlessly. For the life of her, she couldn’t have forced out a single word just then. His eyes were dark, the color of rich brown velvet, with a thin rim of gold. She’d looked into his eyes a lot recently, but she’d never noticed just how beautiful they were.
Shane stepped back as the door opened again. Michael turned first toward them, offering up a mute apology, then faced Claire’s parents.
‘‘Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, Mr. Bishop would like for you to join him for dinner,’’ he said. ‘‘But if you have to go home—’’
If Michael was hoping they’d changed their minds, Claire could have told him that wasn’t going to happen. As long as her dad had the idea something funny was going on, he wasn’t about to do the sensible thing. Sure enough, he got to his feet, holding his coffee cup. ‘‘I could do with some breakfast. Never tasted Claire’s eggs before. Kathy? You coming?’’
Clueless, Claire thought in despair, but then again, she’d been just as bad when she’d first come to Morganville. She hadn’t taken the strong hints, or even the outright instructions, seriously. Maybe she’d gotten that from her parents, along with the fair skin and slightly curly hair. In their defense, though, Mr. Bishop was playing with their heads.
And they were scared for her.
She watched as her parents followed Michael into the other room, and then helped Eve get the eggs and bacon and biscuits onto serving dishes—nice ones at that. The lumpy gravy couldn’t be helped. They poured it into a gravy bowl and hoped for the best, then silently carried it out into the dining area, which was really a corner of the living room.
Claire was struck again, as she was at the oddest times, how the mood of the house could change at a moment’s notice. Not just the mood of the people in it—the house itself. Right now, it felt dark, cold, foreboding. Almost hostile. And yet all that dark emotion seemed directed at the intruding vampires.
The house was worried, and on guard. The solid Victorian furniture crouched hunched and deformed, nothing warm or welcoming about it. Even the lights seemed dimmed, and Claire could feel something, almost a presence—the way she’d been able to sometimes sense Michael when he’d been trapped in the house as a ghost. The fine hair on her arms stood on end, and her skin pebbled into gooseflesh.
Claire set the eggs and bacon down on the wooden table and backed away. Nobody had asked her, Eve, and Shane to take seats, although there were empty places at the table; she caught Eve’s eye and retreated back to the kitchen, grateful to escape. Michael stayed by the table, putting food on plates. Serving. There was a tight, pale set to his face and a cold fear in his eyes, and God, if Michael was panicking, there was definitely reason for a total freak-out.
As soon as the kitchen door closed again, Shane grabbed her and Eve and hustled them to the farthest corner of the room. ‘‘Right,’’ he whispered. ‘‘It’s official—this is getting way more than creepy. Did you feel that?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ Eve breathed. ‘‘Wow. I think if the house had teeth, it’d be chomping down right now. You have to admit, that’s cool.’’
‘‘Cool isn’t getting us anywhere. Claire?’’
‘‘What?’’ She stared at him blankly for a few long seconds, then said, ‘‘Oh. Right. Yeah. I’ll call Amelie again.’’ She dug the cell phone out of her pocket. It was new, and came with a few important numbers preloaded on it. One of them—the first on speed dial, in fact—was a contact number for Amelie, the Founder of Morganville.
The head vampire. Claire’s boss, sort of. In Morganville, the technical term was Patron, but Claire had known from the beginning that it was just a more polite word for owner.
It rang—again—to voice mail. Claire left another hurried, half-desperate message to ‘‘come to the house, please, we need your help,’’ and hung up. She looked mutely at Eve, who sighed and took the phone, then dialed another number.
‘‘Yeah, hi,’’ she said when she got someone on the line. ‘‘Let me talk to the boss.’’ A longish pause, and Eve looked like she was steeling herself for something really unpleasant. ‘‘Oliver. It’s Eve. Don’t bother to tell me how nice it is to hear from me, because it’s not, and this is business, so save the BS. Hold on.’’
Eve handed over the phone to Claire. Frowning, Claire mouthed, Are you sure? Eve made an emphatic thumb-and-little-finger phone gesture at her ear.
Claire reluctantly took the call.
‘‘Oliver?’’ she asked. On the other end of the line, she heard a low, lazy chuckle.
‘‘Well,’’ he said. The owner of Common Grounds, the local coffee shop, had a warm voice—the kind that had made her think he was just an all-around nice guy when she’d first met him. ‘‘If it isn’t little Claire. Eve didn’t want to hear it, but I’ll tell it to you—it’s nice that you turn to me in your moment of need. It is a moment of need, I assume? And not an invitation to socialize?’’
‘‘Someone’s here,’’ she said as softly as she could. ‘‘In the house.’’
The warmth drained out of Oliver’s voice, leaving a sharp annoyance. ‘‘Then call the police if you have a prowler. I’m not your security service. It’s Michael’s house. Michael can—’’
‘‘Michael can’t do anything about it, and I don’t think we should call the cops. This man, he says his name is Mr. Bishop. He wants to talk to Amel
ie, but I can’t get her on the—’’
Oliver cut her off. ‘‘Stay away from him,’’ he said, and his voice had grown edges. ‘‘Do nothing. Say nothing. Tell your friends the same, especially Michael, yes? This is far beyond any of you. I will find Amelie. Do as he says, whatever he says, until we arrive.’’
And Oliver hung up on her. Claire blinked at the dead phone, shrugged, and looked at her friends. ‘‘He says do what we’re doing,’’ she said. ‘‘Take orders and wait for help.’’
‘‘Fantastic advice,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Remind me to stock a handy vampire-killing kit under the sink for times like these.’’
‘‘We’ll be okay,’’ Eve said. ‘‘Claire’s got the bracelet. ’’ She grabbed Claire’s wrist and lifted it to show the delicate glitter of the ID bracelet circling it—a bracelet that had Amelie’s symbol on it, instead of a name. It identified her as property, someone who’d signed over life and limb and soul to a vampire in return for certain protections and considerations. She hadn’t wanted to do it, but it had seemed like the only way, at the time, to ensure the safety of her friends. Especially Shane, who was already on the bad side of the vamps.
She knew that the bracelet could bring its own brand of hazard, but at least it obligated Amelie (and maybe even Oliver) to come to her defense against other vampires.
In theory.
Claire slipped the phone into her pocket. Shane took her hands in his and rubbed lightly over her knuckles, a gentle, soothing kind of motion that made her feel at least a little safe, just for a moment.
‘‘We’ll get through this,’’ he said. When he tried to kiss her, though, he winced. She put a hand lightly on his stomach.
‘‘You’re hurting,’’ she said.
"Only when I bend over. When did you get so short, anyway?"
‘‘Five minutes ago.’’ She rolled her eyes, playing along, but she was worried. According to the rules of Morganville, he was off-limits to vampires during his convalescence; the hospital bracelet still around his wrist, glowing white plastic with a big red cross on it, ensured that any passing bloodsucker would know he wasn’t fair game.
If their visitors played by the rules. Which Mr. Bishop might not. He wasn’t a Morganville vampire. He was something else.
Something worse.
‘‘Shane, I’m serious. How bad is it?’’ she asked in a low whisper, just for Shane’s ears. He ruffled her short hair, then kissed it.
‘‘I’m cool,’’ he said. ‘‘Takes more than a punk with a switchblade to put a Collins down. Count on it.’’
Unspoken was the fact that they were up against a hell of a lot more than that, and he knew it.
‘‘Don’t do anything dumb,’’ she said. ‘‘Or I’ll kill you myself.’’
‘‘Ouch, girl. Whatever happened to unconditional love around here?’’
‘‘It got tired of visiting you in the hospital.’’ She held his eyes for a long few seconds. ‘‘Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t. We have to wait. We have to.’’
‘‘Yeah, all the vampires say so. Must be true.’’ She hated hearing him say the word quite that way, with so much loathing; when he said it, she always thought of Michael, of the way that he suffered when Shane’s hatred boiled out. Michael hadn’t wanted to be a vampire, and he was trying as best he could to live with it.
Shane wasn’t making that any easier.
‘‘Look.’’ Shane put his hands around her face and stared earnestly into her eyes. ‘‘What if you take Eve and get out of here? They’re not watching you. I’ll cover for you.’’
‘‘No. I’m not leaving my parents. I’m not leaving you.’’
And they didn’t have time to talk about it, because there was a tremendous crash from the living room. The kitchen door flew open, and Michael stumbled backward through it, held by the throat by the handsome young vamp who’d come in with Bishop. He slammed Michael up against the wall. Michael was fighting, but it didn’t seem to be doing him a lot of good.
The other vampire opened his mouth in a snarl, and his big, sharp vampire teeth flashed down like switchblades.
So did Michael’s, and Claire involuntarily backed up against Shane.
Shane yelled, ‘‘Hey! Let him go!’’
Michael choked out, ‘‘Don’t!’’ but of course Shane wasn’t listening, and Claire’s grip on his arm wasn’t going to stop him, either.
What did stop him was Eve, holding a big, nasty-looking knife. She gave Shane a wild warning look, then spun around and leveled the knife at the vampire holding Michael. ‘‘You! Let him go!’’
‘‘Not until this one apologizes,’’ the vampire said, and emphasized it by banging Michael against the wall again, hard enough that every piece of glass in the room rattled. No—it wasn’t the impact; it was a low-level vibration coming from the room itself. The walls, the floor . . . the house. Like a warning growl.
‘‘You’d better let him go,’’ Claire said. ‘‘Can’t you feel that?’’
The vampire frowned at her, and his pretty green eyes narrowed even as the pupils expanded. ‘‘What are you doing?’’
‘‘Nothing,’’ Eve said, and gestured with the knife.
‘‘You’re doing it. The house doesn’t like it when you play dirty with Michael. Now step away from him before something bad happens.’’
He thought they were bluffing—Claire could see it in his eyes—but he also didn’t see much of a reason to push his luck. He let Michael go, his full lips curling in contempt. ‘‘Put that away, silly girl,’’ he told Eve, and before any of them could even blink, he slapped it out of her hand—slapped it so hard it flew across the room and stuck in the wall. Eve grabbed her hand and cradled it close, backing away from him.
‘‘Apologize,’’ he told her. ‘‘Beg my forgiveness for threatening me.’’
‘‘Bite me!’’ she snapped.
The vampire’s eyes flared like hot crystal, and he lunged for Eve. Michael moved faster than Claire had ever seen him, just a confusing blur, and then the stranger was hurtling into the stove. He caught himself with both hands out, and she heard the sizzle as his palms hit the burners, followed by an enraged cry of pain.
This was going to get really bad, and there was nothing, nothing, they could do.
Shane grabbed Eve by the shoulder, Claire by the arm, and he hustled them into the corner by the breakfast table, where they had at least partial cover. But that left Michael on his own, fighting out of his weight class against something more like a wildcat than a man.
It didn’t take long, maybe a few seconds, before Michael’s strength failed. The stranger threw Michael to the kitchen floor and straddled him, fangs down and gleaming. The temperature in the kitchen plummeted to icy chill, cold enough that Claire could see her own breath as she panted in fear. That low-frequency rumble began again, jittering plates and glasses and pans.
Eve screamed and fought to get free of Shane’s hold, not that she could do anything, anything at all—
The back door shuddered and crashed open under a single, overpowering blow. Wood splinters flew across the room, and Claire heard the locks snap like ice breaking.
Oliver, the second-scariest vampire in town (the first, some days), stood at the back door, staring inside. He was a tall man, built like a runner, all wiry muscles and angles. Tonight, he’d dispensed with his usual nice-guy disguise; he was in black, and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His face looked like carved bone in the moonlight.
He slapped an open palm against the empty air of the doorway, and it smacked into a solid barrier. ‘‘Fools!’’ he shouted. ‘‘Let me in!’’
The stranger laughed, and yanked Michael up to a sitting position, fangs poised just over his neck. ‘‘Do it and I’ll drain him,’’ he said. ‘‘You know what that will do. He’s too young.’’
Claire didn’t know, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good. Maybe not even survivable.
‘‘Invite me in,’’
Oliver repeated, in a deadly soft voice. ‘‘Claire. Do it now.’’
She opened her mouth, but she was interrupted.
‘‘No need for that,’’ said a cool female voice. The cavalry had finally arrived.
Amelie moved Oliver aside and walked through the invisible barrier like it wasn’t there—which, to her, it wasn’t, as Amelie was technically the creator and owner of the house. She was without her usual attendants and bodyguards, but there was no mistaking that she, not Oliver, was in charge by the way she swept across the threshold.
As always, Claire thought of her as a queen. Amelie was wearing a perfectly tailored yellow silk suit, and her pale hair was piled in a glossy crown on top of her head and secured with gold and diamond pins. She wasn’t especially tall, but the aura she gave off was as powerful as an unexploded bomb. Her eyes were cold and very wide, and focused completely on the intruding vampire threatening Michael.
‘‘Leave the boy alone,’’ she said. Claire had never heard her use that tone, not ever, and she shuddered even though it wasn’t directed toward her. ‘‘I rarely kill our own, but if you test me, François, I’ll destroy you. I only give one warning.’’
The other vampire hesitated only for a second, then let go of Michael, who collapsed back full length on the floor. François rose to his feet in a single smooth, graceful motion, facing Amelie.
And then he bowed. Claire didn’t have a lot of experience with seeing men bow, but she didn’t think that one looked exactly respectful.
‘‘Mistress Amelie,’’ he said, and the vampire teeth folded back into his mouth, discreetly hidden. ‘‘We’ve been waiting for you.’’
‘‘And amusing yourself at my expense while you do,’’ she said. Claire didn’t think she’d blinked at all. ‘‘Come. I wish to talk with Master Bishop.’’
François smirked. ‘‘I’m sure he wishes to speak with you, as well,’’ he said. ‘‘This way.’’
She swept in front of him. ‘‘I know my own home, François—I don’t require a guide.’’ A quick glance over her shoulder, to where Oliver still stood silently at the door. ‘‘Come inside, Oliver. I will replace the Protections against you later, on behalf of our young friends.’’
