by Rachel Caine
“Cut the crap,” Monica said. “I’m not in the mood. What did you do to my brother?”
“Your . . .” Claire sat up slowly. “Richard? What happened to Richard?”
“Like you don’t know? Please. He’s missing. He disappeared right after he talked to you—went out the door and never came back. I know it’s something you said to him. Tell me what you talked about.” Her eyes narrowed at Claire’s silence. “Don’t make me say please.”
Claire tried to stand up. Gina, positioned behind her, pushed down on her shoulders and held her in the chair.
Jennifer moved in from the side and took out a folding knife.
“Tell me,” Monica said, “or I promise you, this is going to get ugly. And so will you.”
Claire felt a nasty, cold burst of fear. Sure, she could scream the place down, but this was Morganville. She wasn’t sure anybody would come. And besides, Monica—who’d had a brief, shining period as the town pariah—had turned back into her usual glossy, predatory self again. Bishop had interviewed her and found her amusing. Claire figured he thought lots of nasty, stinging things were amusing, too. But he’d given her his official seal of approval and sent her out with a new sense of entitlement, which Monica had promptly translated into a mandate to hurt everyone who’d kicked her when she was down.
Some of those people were no longer around at all, which put Claire among the lucky ones.
“I went to Richard to ask him for a favor,” Claire said as calmly as she could. “He tried to help, but he couldn’t. So I left. The end. As far as I know, he was having a normal day; I didn’t see anything or anybody weird hanging around. That’s all I know.”
“What kind of favor did you ask him for?” Monica asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw the glitter of the knife as it turned in Jennifer’s fingers. “Let me guess. Loser boyfriend rescue favor?”
Claire didn’t answer. There really wasn’t any good way to go with that. Monica smiled, but it wasn’t a comforting kind of smile.
“So my brother turned you down when you wanted him to use his influence to spring your skanky boyfriend, and you made him disappear,” she said. “Nice. I guess you figure the next mayor might be a bigger idiot and let you have what you want.”
Claire took a deep breath. “Why would I think that? Since apparently running Morganville is a family business, and you’d be next in line. Oh, I see your point. You’re definitely the bigger idiot.”
“Ooh, she is just begging for it,” Gina said, and pressed cruelly hard down on Claire’s shoulders. “Cut her, Jen. Give her something to think about.”
“I’m serious! Why would I think a new mayor would help me any more than Richard? Look, I like your brother. I like him a lot more than I like you. Why would I do anything to hurt him? Am I likely to get anybody more likely to help me?”
Monica didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. Jennifer took her silence for encouragement, and put the edge of the knife on Claire’s cheek.
It felt hot. Claire stopped breathing.
“You’re sure,” Monica said. “You don’t know what happened to my brother.”
Now she could breathe, because Monica hadn’t nodded a go-ahead on the cutting. “No. But maybe I could find out. If you don’t piss me off.”
The pressure of the knife went away. Claire kept watching Monica, which was where the real threat was coming from.
“Why would you help me?” Monica asked, which was a pretty reasonable question.
“Not helping you. I’m looking to help Richard. I like Richard.”
Monica nodded. “You do that. I’m going to give you a day. If I don’t hear from Richard, or he doesn’t show up alive and well, then you’re the next one who disappears. And I promise you, they’ll never find the body.”
“If I had a nickel for every time somebody said that to me around this town . . .” Claire said, and Monica’s lips quirked into something that was almost a smile. “Come on; you know it’s true. Morganville. Come for the education, stay for the terrifying drama.”
“Try being born here,” Monica said.
“I know. Not easy.” Claire looked up at Gina, who was still holding her down; Gina exchanged looks with Monica, then shrugged and let go. Claire flexed her shoulders. She’d probably have aches later, if not bruises. “How’s your mom holding up?”
“She’s . . . not, exactly. It’s been hard.” Monica actually thawed a little. Not that they would ever like each other, Claire thought; Monica was a bully, and a bitch, and she would always feel entitled to more than anyone around her. But there were moments when Monica was just a girl only a little older than Claire—someone who’d already lost her dad, was losing her mom, and was afraid of losing her brother.
Then she surprised Claire by asking, “Your parents okay?”
“I don’t know if okay is the right word for it, but they’re safe. For now, anyway.” Claire picked up her backpack. “Mind if I go finish my test now?”
Monica raised one eyebrow. “You want to take the test? Seriously? I was giving you an excuse, you know. They’d let you make it up. You could probably just buy the answers.” She said that as if she really couldn’t imagine wanting to take any test, ever.
“I like tests,” Claire said. “If I didn’t, why would I still be in Morganville?”
Monica smiled this time. “Wow. Good point. It is kind of pass/fail.”
Test turned in (and still ahead of everyone else), Claire headed for the University Center. Specifically, she headed for the coffee bar, which was where Eve put in her slave-wage hours pulling espresso shots for the college crowd. There was more of a line than usual; with Common Grounds being “closed for renovations” (according to the sign), more students were settling for the local fare than usual. Behind the hissing machines, Eve worked with silent concentration, barely looking up as she delivered each order, but when she said, “Mocha,” and slid it across, Claire touched her on the hand.
“Hey,” she said.
Eve looked up, startled, and blinked for a second, as if she had trouble remembering who Claire was, and why she was standing in front of her interrupting the flow of work.
Then she yelled, “Tim! Taking five!”
“No, you’re not!” Tim, who was working the register, yelled back. “Do not take that apron off. Eve!”
Too late. Eve’s apron hit the counter, and she ducked under the barrier to join Claire on the other side. Tim sighed and motioned one of the other register clerks to cover the espresso station as they walked away.
“One of these days, he’s going to fire you for that,” Claire said.
“Not today. Too busy. And he’ll forget by tomorrow. Tim’s kind of like a goldfish. Three-second memory.” Eve looked relaxed. In fact, despite the fact that she was typically Gothed up in red and black, with clown-white makeup and bloodred lipstick, Eve looked almost . . . content. “Thanks.”
Claire sipped the mocha, which was actually pretty good. “For what?”
“You know what.”
“Don’t, actually.”
Eve’s smile turned wicked around the edges. “Michael came by.”
“Oh?” Claire dumped her backpack on a deserted table. “Tell.”
“You’re too young.”
“Seventeen as of yesterday.”
“Oh? Oh. Um . . . sorry.” Eve looked deeply ashamed. “I . . . Happy birthday. Man, I can’t believe I forgot that. Well, in my defense, I was kinda pissed at you.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. It’s okay. But you owe me a cake.”
“I do?” Eve flopped into the chair across from her. “Okay. It’ll probably suck, though.”
Claire found herself smiling. “I hope so. Anyway. What happened with Michael?”
“Oh, you know. The usual.” Eve traced a black fingernail in some carving on the tabletop—apparently Martin + Mary = HOT, or at least it had once. “We talked. He played guitar for me. It felt . . . normal for a change.”
“And?”
“Like I’m going to tell you.”
Claire stared at her.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. God, don’t nag, okay?” Eve scooted her chair closer. “So. We kissed for a while—did I mention what an awesome kisser he is? I did, right?—and . . .”
“And?”
“And I’m not going to end up on Blood Bank Row because I told you dirty little stories about me and Michael, Miss Barely Seventeen. So just, you know, imagine.” Eve winked. “You can be really vivid if you want.”
“You suck.” Claire sighed.
Eve opened her mouth, then closed it again without saying a single word. Before either of them could think what to say next, a shadow fell across the table.
Claire had never seen him before, but he had the typical cool-boy-on-campus look . . . a loose black T-shirt over a nice expanse of shoulders, comfortable jeans, the usual pack full of books. Dark hair, kind of an emo cut, and expressive dark eyes beneath his bangs.
“Hi,” he said, and shuffled from one foot to the other. “Umm, do you mind if I . . . ?” He pointed to the remaining chair at the table. Claire looked around. All the other tables were full.
“Knock yourself out,” Eve said, and pushed his chair out with her foot. “Hope you’re not allergic to girl talk.”
“Not likely. I have four sisters,” he said. “Hey. I’m Dean. Dean Simms.” When he extended his hand for Eve to shake, Claire automatically checked his wrist. Not a Morganville native; there was no bracelet, and no sign that there had ever been one. Even those who’d gladly ditched the symbols of Protection still had the tan lines.
“Eve Rosser.” From the wattage of Eve’s smile, she liked what she saw across the table. “This is Claire Danvers.”
“Hey.” He gravely shook hands with Claire, too; she thought it was a kind of forced, formal thing for him. He seemed a little nervous. “Sorry to bust in on you. I just need a place to go over my notes before my test.” He dug around in his backpack and came up with a battered spiral notebook, which had an elaborate ink-pen drawing of some kind of car doodled all over the front. He saw Claire looking at it, and a faint pink blush worked up over his cheeks. “Core classes. You get bored, right?”
“Right,” she said. She’d skipped core classes—tested out of them—but she understood. She’d gotten so bored that she’d read the entire Shakespeare library of plays, and that had been her freshman year in high school. But she’d never been a doodler. “Nice drawing.”
“Thanks.” He flipped open the notebook, past pages of tight, neat handwriting.
“What class?” Eve asked. “Your test.”
“Um, history. World History 101.”
Claire had easily bypassed that one. “Seems like you’ve got all the notes you need.”
He smiled. It was awkward and nervous, and he quickly looked down at his pages again. “Yeah, I scribble a lot when I’m in class. It’s supposed to help with memory, right?”
“Does it?” Eve asked.
“I’ll tell you after the test, I guess.” He focused on his notes, looking even more uncomfortable. Claire looked at Eve, who gave a tiny little whatever shrug.
“So,” she said. “Plans for today?”
“Apart from . . .” Nothing Claire could say in front of an innocent bystander. “Well, not really. Did you know that Richard Morrell’s gone missing? Monica asked me to find him.”
“Back up. What?”
“Monica asked me to—”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Now you’re doing favors for the Morrell family? Girlfriend, there’s nice, and then there’s utterly dumb. You don’t need to do Monica any favors. What has she ever done for you?”
“That’s why it’s called a favor,” Claire pointed out. “Not an evening of the score. It’s something you do before they owe you one.”
“You’re just asking for it. Stay out of trouble, okay? Just keep your head down. I know that’s what Michael told you. If Shane was here, that’s what he’d say, too.”
Dean was doing a very good imitation of studying, but the tips of his ears had been turning pink, and now, he looked up and stage-whispered, “Yeah, about that. I kind of know Shane.”
Which brought the conversation to a quick halt. Dean looked around and lowered his voice even more. “I also know his dad.”
“Oh God, please. Tell me you’re not one of Frank Collins’s lame-ass vampire hunters.” Eve sighed. “Because if you are, dude, way to go low-profile. Buy some life insurance today, and please, make me the beneficiary.”
“Not exactly a vampire hunter, but . . . I do work for Frank Collins, sort of.”
Eve looked at Claire. “I think we found a good choice to replace Captain Obvious.” Captain Obvious had been part of the secret vampire-hating underground when Claire had first arrived in Morganville; he’d ended up being a little too obvious toward the end. Obviously dead.
“Because he’d be dead before he got his first sentence out when he came face-to-face with a vampire?” Claire asked, deadpan.
“I was thinking just put him in a custom T-shirt that says, ‘Hello, my name is Dean and I’m here to kill you, evil bloodsucking creatures of the night.’ With an arrow pointing at his neck that says, ‘Bite here.’ ”
Dean was flipping his attention back and forth between them in obvious consternation. “Okay, let me start over. I’ve been trying to find out where Shane and his father are. Do you have any idea?”
“Friend,” Eve said, and pointed toward her skull-graphic-covered self. “Girlfriend.” The black fingernail turned toward Claire. “Housemates.” The finger gestured to include them both. “So yeah, we know. How exactly do you know Shane?”
“I . . . I met him when he and his mom and dad were on the run. Did he tell you about that?”
Both girls nodded. Shane’s sister had been killed in a house fire; the Collins family had done the forbidden in response—they’d packed up and fled Morganville . . . with some kind of vampire help, because that was the only way to get past the barriers if you were wearing a Protection mark. Out in the world, though, things hadn’t gone well. Shane’s parents had each gone crazy in their own special way: his dad had become a cold, hard, vampire-hunting drunk, and his mom had turned into a depressed, possibly suicidal drunk, leaving Shane to make his way as best he could.
“I was there,” Dean said. “When Mrs. Collins died. I mean, I was in the motel court. I saw Shane after he found her. Man, he was totally fucked-up.”
“You were there?” Claire repeated.
“My brother was running with his dad by then, so yeah. I was around. Me and Shane kind of hit it off, because we were both getting dragged around without any say in what was happening.”
“Wait a minute. Shane never said anything about coming back to Morganville with a friend,” Eve said.
“Yeah, he wouldn’t, because he doesn’t know I’m here. Mr. Collins—Shane’s dad—sent me after him. I was supposed to stay to keep an eye on Shane, kind of watch his back.” Dean shook his head. “Except nothing was the way he said it would be. I didn’t know where to hide, so I enrolled at TPU because it gave me an excuse to hang around. Then I kind of lost track of everybody a few weeks ago.” He looked at them hopefully. “So? What do I do now?”
Claire and Eve stared at him in silence for a moment, and then Eve said, very seriously, “Look. We know Frank Collins—know, hate, whatever. And you need to give up on that evil old loser. You seem like kind of a sweet kid. Pack it in and go away. Get out while you still can.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Dean said. “It was supposed to be easy. I mean, the good guys were supposed to win, you know? The vampires were supposed to die.”
“And then what, you guys take over and run the town?” Claire sighed. “Not likely. And I’ve met Mr. Collins. Not a good idea to give him the keys to the city, either.”
Dean looked at her like he thought she was crazy, and that it really was a pity. “At least he’s not a vampire
.”
“They’re not all bad,” Claire said.
For a split second, she thought she saw an altogether different Dean watching her—same guy, same emo haircut, but his eyes were weird. Not vampire weird. Odd weird.
Then he blinked, and it was gone, and she thought it was just her imagination. If you couldn’t be paranoid in Morganville, though, where could you?
“Well, that’s new to me,” Dean said. He smiled, and it was a real smile. A warm one, not at all nervous. “I just always thought the whole bloodsucking thing made being bad a lock.”
“What you know about vampires could fit into a mosquito’s ass,” Eve said, irritated. “All you know is what you grew up seeing on TV. You ever actually meet one?”
Dean didn’t answer that, but the tips of his ears grew red and his smile disappeared as he faced Eve directly. “Yeah, well, I’m not some collaborator who’s willing to apologize for what these monsters do. Maybe that’s the point. Anyway—it wasn’t really my choice. I just came because Frank asked, and I didn’t have anyplace else to go. My brother was running with Frank, and he was all I had.”
Eve’s eyes remained watchful. “So where’s Big Scary Bro now?”
“Dead,” Dean said softly. “He got killed in the fighting. I’m all alone.”
Claire stared down at the table, suddenly not interested at all in her mocha, no matter how delicious. The truth was that some of those guys—the foot soldiers, the ones who’d come along to Morganville with Frank Collins as his shock troops—well, some of those guys hadn’t fared well, either in the fight or in jail. She didn’t know who they were, not by name. Up until this moment, they’d just been labeled in her head as Frank Collins’s minions. But they all had names, friends, lives. They all had families. Claire wouldn’t know Dean’s brother from any of his fellow muscle-bound biker dudes, but that didn’t mean Dean didn’t mourn him.
That led Claire to a terrifyingly real waking nightmare—Bishop summoning her, telling her that he’d decided to let Shane go. Shane lying there, not moving . . .
“Hey, Claire?” Eve snapped her fingers under Claire’s nose, and Claire jerked so hard she slopped coffee onto the table. “Damn, girl. You space so hard, you ought to look into a career at NASA. So. We agree that Mr. Dean here is a terrible excuse for a vampire hunter, is in a whole lot of trouble if he doesn’t keep his head down, and he should head for the hills if he knows what’s good for him?”
