by Rachel Caine
As she struggled into her robe, he stood up, holding out both hands in a very Michael-ish sort of attempt at calming her down. “Wait! I’m not who you think I am. I’m not here to hurt you, Claire. Please believe me—”
Oh. He thought she still believed he was Bishop’s little pet. “Yeah, you’re working for Amelie, not evil anymore, I get it. That doesn’t mean you can show up without warning when I’m in my nightgown!”
Michael gave her a smile of utter relief and lowered his hands. He looked a million miles tall to her just then, and when he opened his arms, she just about flew into his embrace. She came nearly up to his chin. He was a vampire, so there was no sense of warmth from his body, but there was comfort, real and strong. Michael was his own person. Always.
There was genuine love in him. She could feel it.
“Hey, kid,” he said, and hugged her with care, well aware of his strength. “You doing okay?”
“I’m okay, and man, I wish everybody would stop asking me,” she said, and pulled back to look at him. “What are you doing here?”
Michael’s face took on hard lines, and he sat down on the bed again. Claire climbed up next to him, feeling her happiness bleed away. She picked up a pillow and hugged it absently. She needed something to hold.
“Bishop sent me out to run one of his errands,” he said. “He still thinks I’m one of his good little soldiers. At least, I hope he does. This is probably his idea of a test.”
“Sent you out to do what?”
“You don’t want to know.” Clearly, something that Michael hated. His blue eyes were shadowed, and he didn’t seem to want to look at her directly.“Things are getting too dangerous for you to be in the middle of this. Promise me you won’t come back to Bishop. Not even if he uses that tattoo to call for you. Just stay away from him. Handcuff yourself to a railing if you have to, but don’t go back.”
“But—”
“Claire.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Trust me. Please. You have to stay here. Stay safe.”
She nodded mutely, suddenly more afraid than she’d been all night. “You know something. You heard something.”
“It’s not that simple,” Michael said. “It’s more of a feeling. Bishop’s getting bored, and when he gets bored with something . . . he breaks it.”
“You mean me?”
“I mean Morganville,” he said. “I mean everything. Everybody. You’re just an easy, obvious target.”
Claire swallowed hard. “But you . . . you’re okay, right?”
“Yeah.” He sighed and ran a hand through his curling blond hair. “I’d better be. Not much of a choice anymore. Don’t worry about me—if I need to get out, I will. I’m just trying to stay with it as long as I can.”
Claire hated the sadness in him, and the anger, and she wished she could say something to make him feel better. Anything.
Wait—there was something. “I saw Eve.”
That got an immediate response from him—his head jerked up, and his blue eyes widened. “How is she?” There was so much emotion behind the question it made Claire shiver.
“She’s good,” Claire said, which wasn’t exactly true. “She’s, uh, kind of pissed, actually. I had to tell her. About you being not really evil.”
Michael sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure that was a good idea.”
“It will be if you go see her tonight and tell her . . . well, whatever. Oh, but watch out. She’s gone all Buffy with the stakes and things.”
“Sounds like what she’d do, all right.” Michael was smiling now, happier than she’d seen him in months. “Maybe I’ll try to see her. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She wasn’t sure how much more to say, but she was tired of not telling the truth. “She really loves you, you know. She always has.”
He sat for a few seconds in silence, then shook his head. “I’d better let you rest,” he said. “Remember what I said. Stay here. Don’t go back to Bishop.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” She mock-saluted him. “Hey. I missed you, Fang Boy.”
“You’ve been hanging around Eve too much.”
“Not nearly enough. Not recently, anyway.” And she was sad about that.
“I know,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand. “We’ll fix it. Get some sleep.”
“Night,” she said, and watched him walk toward the door. “Hey. How’d you get in?”
He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. “I’m a vampire. I have secret powers,” he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, “Actually, your mom let me in.”
“Seriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?”
He shrugged. “Moms like me.”
He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door.
Claire got under the covers and, for the first time all night, felt like it was safe to sleep.
In the morning—not too early—Claire found cereal and juice waiting for her downstairs, along with a note from her mother that she’d gone shopping, and that she hoped Claire would stay home today. It was the same sort of note Mom left every day. At least, the “hope you stay home” part.
Claire intended to, this time. She intended to right up until she looked at her calendar, and realized what day it was, and that it was circled in red with multicolored exclamation points all around it.
“Oh, crap!” she muttered, and pawed through her backpack, hauling out textbooks, notebooks, her much-abused laptop, floods of colored markers, and assorted change. She found the purple notebook, the one she kept for important test dates.
Today was the final exam for her physics class. Fifty percent of her grade, and no makeup tests for anything less than life support.
It’s only a test. Michael said—
It wasn’t only a test; it was her most important final exam. And if she didn’t show up for it, she’d automatically fail a class she had no business not acing. Besides, Michael had said not to hang around Bishop—he hadn’t said anything about going to classes. That was normal life.
She needed normal right now.
After the cereal and juice, Claire packed her backpack and set out in the cool morning for Texas Prairie University. It was a short walk from pretty much anywhere in Morganville; from her parents’ house, the route took her down four residential blocks, then into Morganville’s so-called business district, about six square blocks of stores. Walking in daylight showed just how much Morganville had changed since Mr. Bishop had shown up: burned-out houses on every block, with few attempts to clear them away or rebuild. Abandoned houses, doors hanging open and windows broken. Once she got into the business district, half the stores were shut, either temporarily or permanently. Oliver’s coffee shop, Common Grounds, was shuttered and quiet, with a Closed sign in the dark window.
Everywhere, there was a feeling that the town was holding its breath, closing its eyes, trying to wish away its problems. The few people Claire saw trying to go about their normal lives seemed either jumpy and distracted, or as if they were putting on some false smile and happy face. It was creepy, and she felt a little bit relieved when she passed the gates of the university—open, like it was a regular sort of day—and fell in with the crowds of young people moving around the campus. TPU wasn’t a huge school, but it sprawled over a fairly large area, with lots of park spaces and quads. She usually would have made a stop at the University Center for a mocha, but there wasn’t time. Instead, she headed for the science building, navigating the crowds piling into Chem 101 and Intro to Geology. The physics classes were held toward the end of the hallway, and they were a lot less well attended. TPU wasn’t exactly MIT on the plains; most students just wanted to get their core courses and transfer out to better schools. Most of them never had a single clue about the true nature of Morganville, because they didn’t get off campus all that much—TPU prided itself on its student services.
Of course, there were also loc
al students, destined to stay in Morganville their entire lives. Until a few months ago, she could have identified those people at a glance, because they’d be wearing identification bracelets with odd symbols on them to identify the vampire they owed their allegiance to—their Protector. Only that system had mostly broken down after Bishop’s arrival. The vampires were no longer Protectors; most were out-and-out predators. No more blood banks, at least for those loyal to Bishop; they were all about hunting.
Hunting people.
So far, Bishop had seen the wisdom of keeping his hunting parties out of the TPU campus; after all, the kids here helped fund the town and keep the economy running. Most of them stayed on campus, where they had everything they needed except for the occasional trip to a store or a bar, so they didn’t know much—and couldn’t care less—about Morganville. Morganville didn’t offer much in the way of entertainment, when you came right down to it. Even the shops were boring.
If he started allowing his vampires to hunt students, it would get very, very bad. Claire couldn’t even imagine how the fragile system Morganville was built on could survive an exposure like that—the press would show up. The government. Not even Amelie could keep control under those kinds of conditions, and Bishop wouldn’t even bother to try.
Looking around, all Claire could think about was how precarious it was—and how oblivious everybody was to the tipping point.
Claire slid into her usual seat in her physics class, two minutes early. There were only about ten other people attending now; they’d started out with about twenty, but plenty had dropped out, and of those who were left, she thought she was the only one with a solid A. As in most of her classes, nobody made eye contact. Unless you had friends when you came to TPU, you weren’t likely to make them casually.
Claire’s professor didn’t put in an appearance, but his teaching assistant did, a twenty-two-year-old Morganville native named Sanaj, who handed out sealed tests but told the students not to open them yet. Claire tapped her pen impatiently on the test, waiting for time. She expected this to be over fast—after all, she’d mastered most of the basics of this class in the first two weeks. If she was fast enough, she might be able to grab a coffee, say hello to Eve, and get the scoop on whether Michael had dropped in for a visit. She was dying to hear all about it.
The door at the bottom of the lecture hall opened, and in strolled Monica Morrell.
Claire hadn’t seen her archenemy much lately, but that had mostly been good luck on her part. Monica had been highly visible—first at her dad’s funeral, then taking her role as Morganville’s First Sister as a blanket excuse for any kind of crazy behavior she wanted to try. Most people in town looked worn, tired, and worried, including Monica’s own brother, the mayor; not Monica, though. She looked like she was deeply enjoying herself these days. She’d gone through a bad patch for a while, after losing her status as Oliver’s best girl, but disgrace was something that never seemed to stick, not to her.
Monica walked slowly. She was the center of attention and loving every minute of it. She’d gone off blond again; Claire thought the new color suited her better anyway, but she doubted it would last. Monica changed her hair the way she changed her makeup—according to mood and trend.
Currently, though, she’d let her hair grow out, long and lustrous, and it was a dark, bouncy brown. Her makeup was—of course—perfect, on a perfect face flawed only by the nasty arrogance that showed in her smile. Claire was wearing blue jeans and a camp shirt over a red tee; Monica was dressed in a flirty little dress, something more suited to Hollywood than Morganville, and some impressively tall shoes in magenta that Claire was sure had come mail-order—no store in town would have carried those. In short, she looked glossy, perfect, and utterly in command of herself and everything around her.
Behind her trailed her perpetual wingmen, Gina and Jennifer. They looked good, but never as good as Monica. That was how the whole thing worked: the backup singers never took center stage.
Sanaj paused at the top of the terraced classroom in handing out the last couple of tests to look down at Monica and her groupies. “Miss?” he asked. “Can I help you?”
“Doubt it.” Monica sniffed. “I’m not here for you.” Her eyes focused on Claire, and she smiled. She made a little come-here motion.
Claire calmly sent her back a middle finger. Monica pouted, an effect greatly enhanced by her shiny pink lip gloss. “Don’t be that way, Claire,” she said. “It’d be a shame if something happened to these nice people.”
The TA looked honestly shocked and offended. “Excuse me; are you threatening my students?”
Monica rolled her eyes. “Look, idiot, just sit down and shut up. This doesn’t concern you. If you think it does, I’ll call up my new friend. Maybe you know him?” She pulled out a tiny bejeweled phone and held it at eye level, ready to dial. “Mr. Bishop?”
Sanaj handed out the last two tests in silence and looked at Claire apologetically. “Perhaps you should talk with your friend outside,” he said. “So as not to disturb the other students.”
“But I’m taking the test!”
Monica began to slowly dial a number. Sanaj grew pale, watching her—he was clearly one of those who knew the score. “No,” he said, and grabbed Claire’s test from her desk. “I’m sorry. You can take the test once you’re finished with them. Please go.”
“But—”
“Go now!”
The other students had their heads down, though they were shooting Claire looks that were sympathetic, scared, or angry. Nobody tried to stand up for her.
Claire put her pen down, looked Sanaj in the eyes, and said, “Save my test. I’m coming back.”
He nodded and turned away.
She walked down to meet Monica on the stage.
“Well, that was easy,” Monica said, and flipped her phone closed. “Hey, loser. How goes the war? Oh, yeah, you lost.”
“What do you want?” Claire was determined to get it over with, fast. She wasn’t interested in fighting, or spar-ring, or even sarcasming. Monica smiled at her and put her phone in her tiny little purse.
“Walk with me,” she said. “Let’s find out.”
Claire resisted making an Eve-style joke about Monica’s gaudy shoes, and silently followed Monica out of the classroom. Gina and Jennifer brought up the rear guard.
Outside, the hallway was mostly deserted, except for a few students hurrying late to classes. Monica led the way around the corner to a break area with well-used chairs and study tables. She took a seat, showing off her perfectly waxed legs.
She looked like a queen on a throne. Instead of standing in front of her like some criminal waiting to be judged, Claire moved to a chair off to the side and flopped down. Monica’s smile curdled. “Fine,” Claire said. “You’ve got me. What now? The beatings will continue until my attitude improves?”
“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.”
