Midnight Bites

by Rachel Caine

  She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Michael, don’t you pay attention? Out there”—meaning, anywhere except Morganville—“it’s just a big joke. Maybe they thought it was for a movie or a TV show or a new energy drink. But they don’t think about it like we do.”

  I knew that, even though, like Eve, I’d been born and raised in Morganville. We’d both been out of town exactly once in our lives, and we’d done it together. Still, it was really tough to realize that for the rest of the world, our biggest problems were just . . . stories.

  As hard as Morganville was, as full of weirdness and danger, Out There hadn’t been a walk in the park, either. Though I wished I’d been able to go to a really big concert. That would have been cool.

  I was still turning the can around, stalling. Eve grabbed it from me, popped the top, and handed it back. “Bottoms up,” she said. “Oh, come on, just give it a try. Once.”

  I owed her that much, because the black choker around her neck was covering up a healing bite mark. Vampire bites healed quickly, and usually without scarring, but for the awkward three-day period, she’d be wearing scarves and high necks.

  It was typical Eve that she was also wearing a tight black T-shirt that read, in black-on-black Gothic-style lettering, GOOD GIRLS DON’T. AWESOME GIRLS DO.

  She saw me looking at her, and our eyes locked and held. Hers were very dark, almost black, though if you really got close and looked, you could see flecks of lighter brown and gold and green. And I liked getting close to her, drawn into her warmth, her laughter, the smooth hot stretch of her skin. . . .

  She winked. She mostly knew what I was thinking, at moments like these, but then, as she’d once told me, smugly, most guys really aren’t that complicated.

  I smiled back, and saw her pupils widen. She liked it when I smiled. I liked that she liked it.

  Without even thinking about it, I raised the can to my lips and took a big gulp.

  Not bad. I could taste the aluminum, but the blood tasted fresh, just a bitter streak that was probably from the preservatives. Once I started drinking, instincts kicked in, and I felt the fangs snap down in my mouth. It felt a little like popping your knuckles. I swallowed, and swallowed, and all of a sudden the can was light and empty, and I felt a little shaky. I don’t usually drink that much blood at one time, and I’m more of a sipper.

  I crushed the can into a ball—vampire strength—and tossed it across the room into a trash can, basketball-style. It sailed neatly through the narrow circle.

  “Show-off,” Eve said.

  I felt great. I mean, great. My fangs were still down, and when I smiled, they were visible, gleaming and very sharp.

  Eve’s smile faltered, just a little. “Really. Showing off now.”

  I closed my eyes, got control, and felt the fangs slowly fold up against the roof of my mouth.

  “Better,” she said, and linked arms with me. “Now that you’re all plasmaed up, can we go?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and we got two steps toward the door before I turned back, got the card out of my pocket, and slid it through the machine’s reader again. Eve stared, blinking in confusion. I chose another O negative (“This Blood’s for You!”) and slipped the warm can into the pocket of my jacket. “For later,” I said.

  “Okay.” Eve sounded doubtful, but she got over it. She turned back to the crowd of vamps watching us. “Next?”

  Nobody was rushing to swipe their cards, although one or two had them out and were contemplating it. One guy scowled and said, “Whatever happened to organic food?” and went to the counter to get a fresh-drawn bag.

  Well, I’d done what Amelie had asked me to do, so if it didn’t work, they couldn’t blame it on me.

  But I did feel great. Surprisingly, the canned stuff was better than the bagged stuff. Almost better than when Eve had let me have a taste, straight from the tap, if that’s not too sick.

  I felt them watching us. Eve and I weren’t the most popular team-up in town; humans and vampires didn’t mix, not like that. We were predator and prey, and the lines were pretty strictly drawn. In vampire circles, I was looked at as either pitiful or perverted. I could imagine what it was like on Eve’s side. Morganville’s not full of vampire wannabes—more a town full of Buffys in the making.

  Our relationship wasn’t easy, but it was real, and I was going to hang on to it for as long as I possibly could.

  “What do you want to do?” Eve asked, as we stepped outside into the cool Morganville early evening.

  “Walk,” I said. “For starters.” I let her fill in what might come after, and she smiled in a way that told me it wasn’t a tough guess at all.

  • • •

  Later, it occurred to me that I felt jittery, and it was getting worse.

  We were strolling out in Founder’s Square, which is vampire territory; Eve could come and go from here with or without me, because she had a Founder’s Pin and was pretty much as untouchable as a human got, in terms of being hunted—by vampires who obeyed the rules, anyway. But it was nice to walk with her. At night, Morganville is kind of magical—bright clouds of stars overhead in a pitch-black sky, cool breezes, and, at least in this part of town, everybody is on their best behavior.

  Vampires liked to walk, and jog, along the dark paths. We were regularly passed by others. Most nodded. A few stopped to say hello. Some—the most progressive—even said hello to Eve, as if she was a real person to them.

  I had a wild impulse to jog, to run, but Eve couldn’t keep up if I did, even in her practical boots. Holding that urge back was taking all my concentration, so while she talked, I just mostly pretended to listen. She was telling some story about Shane and Claire, I guessed; our two human housemates had gotten themselves into trouble again, but this time it was minor, and funny. I was glad. I didn’t feel much like charging to anybody’s rescue right now.

  Up ahead, I saw another couple approaching us on the path. The woman was unmistakably the Founder of Morganville, Amelie; only Amelie could dress that way and get away with it. She was wearing a white jacket and skirt, and high heels. If she’d stood still, she’d have looked like a marble statue; her skin was only a few shades off from the clothes, and her hair was the same pale color. Beautiful, but icy and eerie.

  Walking next to her, hands clasped behind his back, was Oliver. He looked much older than her, but I didn’t think he was; she’d died young, and he’d died at late middle age, but they were both ancient. He had his long, graying hair tied back, and was wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants. He was scowling, but then, he usually was.

  Weird, seeing the two of them together like this. They were usually polite enemies, sometimes right at each other’s throats (literally). Not tonight, though. Not here.

  Amelie glowed in the moonlight, ghost-bright, and when she smiled, she didn’t look cold at all. She inclined her head to us. “Michael. Eve. Thank you for doing the little demonstration today. It was much appreciated.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, and returned the salute. Eve waved. We would have kept on walking, but Amelie stopped, and Oliver was a solid block in front of us, so we stopped as well. I said, “Hope you’re enjoying the walk. It’s a nice night.”

  Lame, but it was all I had for small talk. I was aching to keep moving. I couldn’t keep still, in fact, and I drummed my fingers against the side of my leg in a nervous rhythm. I saw Oliver notice it. His scowl deepened.

  “It’s turned quite cool,” Amelie said. Like Oliver, she was zeroing in on my trembling fingers. “I heard you sampled the new product today.”

  “Yeah, it’s great,” I said. “I got another one to go.” The can was heavy in my pocket, and I’d been thinking about it the entire evening. I’d found myself actually wrapping my hand around it inside my pocket, but I’d managed to stop myself from pulling the tab. So far. “Very convenient. You ought to think about selling them in six-packs.�
��

  “Well, the modern age seems to demand convenience.” Amelie shrugged. “But we’ll see how the single-can sales go. So many wanted access at odd hours to the blood bank that automation seemed the most logical solution. You don’t mind the taste of the preservatives?”

  “No, it’s good stuff,” I said. I remembered that I hadn’t liked it at first, but now, for some reason, it seemed like that memory was wrong—as if it had actually been delicious but I hadn’t been ready for it. “It tastes better than the bagged stuff.” I almost said and better than from the vein, but Eve was right there, and that would embarrass her on two levels, not just one. First, that I was telling people she was letting me bite her, and second, that somehow her blood wasn’t good enough. I was able to stop in time, barely. “Has anybody else tried it?”

  “Really, Glass, do you think we put it out for public consumption without testing?” Oliver snapped. “It’s been tried, analyzed, and tested to death. I cannot imagine a more boring process. Two years, from concept to actual delivery. Half the vampires in Morganville have been involved in taste tests.”

  “Have you tried it?” I asked him. “You should. It’s really—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, once I’d started it. “—fierce,” I finally said. An Eve word. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it meant in the way she used it, but it seemed right.

  Evidently, Oliver didn’t really understand the usage, either, because he gave me a long stare, one that could have melted concrete. “Our major difficulty seems to be in convincing the elders to use it,” he said. “Most of them are not familiar with the concept of identification cards, much less credit cards, and machines confuse them.”

  “I’ll bet,” Eve put in. “Not much call for Cokes among the fang gang, I guess.”

  “Well, I like Coke,” I said. Amelie smiled, very slightly.

  “As do I, Michael. But I fear we’re in the minority.” There was something guarded in her eyes, a little worried. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Great,” I said, probably too quickly. “I feel great.”

  Oliver exchanged a fast glance with her, and gave an almost invisible shrug. “Then we should be going,” he said. “Matters to discuss.”

  It was dismissal, and I was happy to grab Eve’s hand and walk on while the other two headed the other way. Oliver always bothered me; partly it was his eviler-than-thou attitude, and partly it was that I could never quite shake the memory of how I’d met him . . . how he’d come across as a nice, genuine guy, and turned on me. That had been before anyone in Morganville had known who he was, or how dangerous he could be.

  And he’d killed me. Part of the way, anyway; he hadn’t left me much choice in becoming what I was now. Maybe he thought of that as a fair trade.

  I still didn’t.

  A tremor of adrenaline surged through me—hunting instinct. It took me a second to realize that there was a complicated mixture of things happening inside of me: hatred boiling up for Oliver, well beyond what I normally felt; hunger, although I shouldn’t have been hungry at all; and last, most unsettlingly, I felt the steady, seductive pulse beat of Eve’s blood through our clasped hands.

  It was a moment that made me shiver and go abruptly very still, eyes shut, as I tried to master all of those warring, violent impulses. I heard Eve asking me something, but I shut her out. I shut everything out, concentrating on staying me, staying Michael, staying human, at least for now.

  And finally, I fumbled in my pocket and popped open the aluminum can of O negative, and the taste was metal and meat, soothing the beast that was trying to claw its way free inside. I couldn’t let it out, not here, not with Eve.

  The taste of the blood silenced it for a moment, and then it roared back, shockingly stronger than ever.

  I dropped the can and heard it clatter on the pavement. Eve’s warm hands were around my face, and her voice was in my ears, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  When I opened my eyes, all I saw was red, with vague smeared shapes of anything that wasn’t prey. Eve, on the other hand, glowed a bright silver.

  Eve was a target, and I couldn’t resist her. I couldn’t. I had to satisfy this hunger, fast.

  I gasped and pushed her backward, and before she could do more than call my name in alarm, I spun and ran through the dark, red night.

  • • •

  I didn’t know where I was headed, but as I ran, one thing took over, guiding me more by instinct than by design. When I saw the shining, warm targets of human beings out there in the dark, I avoided them; it was hard, maybe the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I managed.

  I stopped in the shadows, not feeling tired at all, or winded, only anxious and more jittery than ever. The run hadn’t burned it off; if anything, it had made things worse.

  I was standing in front of the Morganville Blood Bank. This was the entrance in the front, the donation part, and it was closed for the night. Blessedly, there weren’t any people around for me to be a danger to, at least right now.

  I turned and ran down the side alley, effortlessly jumping over barriers of empty boxes and trash cans, and came around the back. Unlike the front, this part of the building was hopping with activity—human shapes coming and going, but they didn’t have that silvery glow I’d become so familiar with. All vampires, this side, and none of them were paying attention to me until I got close, shoved a few aside, and made it to the waiting room.

  The vending machine stood there in the center of the room. A few people were doubtfully studying it, trying to make up their minds whether to try it, but I shoved them out of the way, too. I swiped my card; when it didn’t immediately work, I swiped it again and randomly punched buttons when they lit up. It took forever for the mechanism to work, and the can to be delivered.

  Working the tiny pop top seemed impossible. I punched my fingers through the side and lifted it, bathing in the gush of liquid. It no longer tasted like metal. Warm from the can, it tasted like life. All the life I could handle.

  “Michael,” someone said, and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned and punched him, hard enough to break a human’s neck, but it didn’t do much except make the other vampire step back. I grabbed my card again and swiped it, but it was slippery in my fingers, damp with the red residue from the can, which had gotten all over me. I wiped it on my jeans and tried it again. The lights flashed. Nothing happened. “Michael, it won’t work again. You used all today’s credits.”

  No. That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t, because the rush hadn’t lasted, hadn’t lasted at all this time, and I felt bottomlessly empty. I needed more. I had to have more.

  I shoved the other vampire back and slammed both hands into the plastic covering of the vending machine. It held, somehow, although cracks formed in the plastic. I hit it again, and again, until the plastic was coming apart. I shoved my hand through, heedless of the cuts, and grabbed one of the warm cans.

  That was when someone behind hit me with an electric shock, like a Taser, only probably five times as strong, and the next thing I knew, I was limp on the floor, with the unopened can of AB negative rolling on the carpet beside me.

  I tried to grab for it, but my hands weren’t working. I was still reaching for it, fumbling for the fix, when they picked me up and towed me out of the waiting area, into a steel holding cell somewhere in the back.

  • • •

  Days passed. They took me off the canned stuff and put me on bags again, and finally, the frenzy passed. I won’t lie—it was awful. But what was worse was slowly realizing how bad I’d been. How close I’d been to becoming . . . a thing. A senseless monster.

  I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted them to let me out, actually.

  Music was the only thing that helped; after they got me stabilized, the woman who delivered the blood also delivered my guitar. I didn’t feel myself until I was sitting down with the guitar cradl
ed in my lap. The strings felt warm, and when I picked out the first notes, that was good; that felt right. That felt like me, again.

  I don’t know how long I played; the notes spilled out of me in a frantic rush, no song I knew or had written before. It wasn’t a nice melody, not at first; it was jagged and bloody and full of fury, and then it slowly changed tempo and key, became something soothing that made me relax, very slowly, until I was just a guy, playing a guitar for the thrill of the notes ringing in the air.

  From the doorway, a voice said, “You really do have a gift.” I hadn’t even heard him unlock it.

  I didn’t look up. I knew who it was; that voice was unmistakable. “Once, maybe. You took that away from me,” I said. “I was going somewhere with it. Now I’m going nowhere.”

  Oliver, uninvited, sat down in a wooden chair only a few feet away from me. I didn’t like seeing him here, in my space. This was my personal retreat, and it reminded me of how it had felt when he’d turned on me in my house, in my house, and . . .

  . . . and everything had changed.

  He was looking at me very steadily, and I couldn’t read his expression. He’d had hundreds of years to perfect a poker face, and he was using it now.

  I kept on playing. “Why are you here?”

  “Because you are Amelie’s responsibility, and it follows that you’re also mine, as I’m her second-in-command.”

  “Did you take the machine out?”

  Oliver shook his head. “No, but we changed the parameters. The testing was done on older vampires, ones who’d had centuries to stabilize their needs. You are entirely different, and we’d forgotten that. Very young, not even a full year old yet. We didn’t anticipate that the formula would trigger such a violent response. In the future, you’ll only receive the unprocessed raw materials.”

  “So it’s because I’m young.”