by Rachel Caine
“I—no, I—ah—” She was babbling like an idiot, and didn’t know what was wrong with her. The way he was looking at her made her feel naked. Not in a secretly cool, wow-I-think-he-likes-me way, but in a way that made her want to hide and cover herself. “I’m here with a friend.”
“A friend,” he said, and reached across to take her hand. She wanted to pull it back—she did—but somehow she couldn’t get control of herself. All she could do was watch as he turned her hand palm down, and brought it to his mouth to kiss. The warm, damp pressure of his lips on her fingers made her shiver all over.
Then he brushed his thumb across her wrist. “Where is your bracelet, little Claire? Good girls wear their bracelets. Don’t you have one?”
“I—” There was something sick and terrible happening in her head, something that made her tell the truth. “No. I don’t have one.” Because she knew now what Brandon was, and she was sorry she’d laughed at Eve, sorry she’d ever doubted any of it.
You’ll get yours, Monica had promised.
Well, here it was.
“I see.” Brandon’s eyes seemed to get even paler, until they were pure white with tiny black dots for pupils. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. “The only question is who will have you, then. And since I’m here first—”
He let go of her, both her hand and her mind, and she fell backward with a breathless little gasp. Somebody was standing behind her chair, a solid warmth, and Brandon was frowning and staring past her.
“You offend my hospitality,” Oliver said, and put his hand on Claire’s shoulder. “You ever bother my friend Claire in here again, Brandon, and I’ll have to revoke the privileges for everyone. Understand? I don’t think you want to be explaining that.”
Brandon looked furious. His eyes were blue again, but as Claire watched, he snarled at Oliver, and revealed fangs. Real, genuine fangs, like a snake’s, that snapped down into place from some hidden spot inside of his mouth, and then back up again, quick as a scorpion’s sting.
“None of that,” Oliver said calmly. “I’m not impressed. Off with you. Don’t make me have a conversation with Amelie about you.”
Brandon slid out of his chair and slouched away through the crowd, toward the exit. It was dark outside now, Claire noticed. He went out into the night and disappeared from sight.
Oliver still had his hand on her shoulder, and now he squeezed it gently. “That was unfortunate,” he said. “You need to be careful, Claire. Stay with Eve. Watch out for each other. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”
She nodded, gulping. Eve came hurrying out of the back, leather coat flapping around her ankles. Her smile died at the sight of Claire’s face. “What happened?”
“Brandon came in,” Oliver said. “Trolling. Claire happened to run into him.”
“Oh,” Eve said in a small voice. “Are you okay?”
“She’s fine. I spotted him before any permanent damage was done. Take her home, Eve. And keep a sharp eye out for that one; he doesn’t take being ordered off very well.”
Eve nodded and helped Claire to her feet, picked up the backpack, and got her outside. The big black Caddy was parked at the curb, and Eve unlocked it and thoroughly checked it over, backseat and trunk, before putting Claire inside of it. When Claire was fastening the seat belt, she noticed two things: first, Oliver was standing in the doorway of Common Grounds, watching them.
Second, Brandon was standing at the corner, in the very edge of the glow of the streetlamp. And he was watching them, too.
Eve saw, too. “Son of a bitch,” she said furiously, and shot him the finger. Which might not have been too smart, but it made Claire feel better. Eve cranked the engine and squealed out of her parking space, driving like she was breaking the record at a NASCAR race, and screeched to a halt in front of the house just a couple of minutes later. “Okay, you go first,” she said. “Run for the door, bang on it while you’re opening it. Go, Claire!”
Claire bailed out breathlessly and slammed the gate back, pounded up the paved walk and up the stairs as she was digging her key out of her pocket. Her hands were shaking, and she missed the keyhole on the first try. She kicked the door and yelled, “Shane! Michael!” as she tried again.
Behind her, she heard the car door slam, and Eve’s shoes clatter on the sidewalk…and stop.
“Now,” said Brandon’s low, cold voice, “let’s not be rude, Eve.”
Claire whirled, and saw Eve standing absolutely still ten steps from the porch, her back to the house. Hot wind whipped her leather coat behind her with a dry snapping sound.
Brandon was facing her, his eyes completely white in the pale starlight.
“Who’s your sweet little friend?” he asked.
“Leave her alone.” Eve’s voice was faint and shaking. “She’s just a kid.”
“You’re all just kids.” He shrugged. “Nobody asks the age of the cow that gave you hamburger.”
Claire, purely terrified now, concentrated, turned back to the door, and rammed the key into the lock…
…just as Shane whipped it open.
“Eve!” she gasped, and Shane pushed her out of the way, jumped down the steps, and got between Eve and Brandon.
“Inside,” Michael said. Claire hadn’t heard him, hadn’t seen him coming, but he was in the doorway, gesturing her in. As soon as she was over the threshold he grabbed her arm and pushed her out of sight behind him. She peeked around him to see what was happening.
Shane was talking, but whatever he was saying, she couldn’t hear it. Eve was backing up, slowly, and when the back of her heels touched the porch steps she whirled and ran up, diving into the doorway and Michael’s arms.
“Shane!” Michael shouted.
Brandon lunged at Shane. Shane dodged, yelled, and kicked the vampire with all his weight. Brandon flew backward into the fence, broke through, and rolled into the street.
Shane fell flat on the ground, scrambled up, and ran for the door. It was impossible for Brandon to move that fast, but the vampire seemed to flash from lying in the street to reaching for Shane’s back…
…and grabbed hold of Shane’s T-shirt, yanking him to a sudden stop. But Shane was reaching, too, for Michael’s hand, and Michael pulled him forward.
The shirt ripped, Shane stumbled in over the threshold, and Brandon tried to follow. He bounced off an invisible barrier, and for the second time Claire saw his fangs snap down, deadly sharp.
Michael didn’t even flinch. “Try it again, and we’ll come stake you in your sleep,” he said. “Count on it. Tell your friends.”
He slammed the door. Eve collapsed against the wall, panting and trembling; Claire couldn’t stop shaking, either. Shane looked flushed and more worried about the damage to his T-shirt than anything else.
Michael grabbed Eve by the shoulders. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he never—wow. That was close.”
“No kidding. Claire?”
She waved, unable to summon up a word.
“Where the hell did he come from?” Shane asked.
“He picked up Claire’s scent at the coffee shop,” Eve said. “I couldn’t shake him. Sorry.”
“Damn. That’s not good.”
“I know.”
Michael clicked the locks on the front door. “Check the back. Make sure we’re secure, Shane. Upstairs, too.”
“Check.” Shane moved off. “Dammit, this was my last Killers T-shirt. Somebody’s paying for this….”
“Sorry, Michael,” Eve said. “I tried, I really did.”
“I know. Had to happen sooner or later, with four of us here. You did okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m glad you and Shane were here.”
Michael started to say something, then stopped, looking at Claire. Eve didn’t seem to notice. She stripped off her leather coat and hung it on a peg by the door, and clumped off in the direction of the living room.
“We were just attacked,” Claire finally managed to s
ay. “By a vampire.”
“Yeah, I saw,” Michael said.
“No, you don’t understand. We were attacked. By a vampire. Do you know how impossible that is?”
Michael sighed. “Truthfully? No. I grew up here, and so did Eve and Shane. We’re just kind of used to it.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Absolutely.”
It hit her then that there was another impossible thing she’d nearly forgotten about, in the press of panic, and she started to blurt it out, then looked around to be sure Shane and Eve were nowhere in sight. “What about, you know? You?” She pointed at him.
“Me?” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Right. Upstairs.”
She expected him to take her to the secret room Shane had shown her, but he didn’t; instead, he took her to his own room, the big one on the corner. It was about twice the size of her own room, but didn’t have much more furniture; it did have a fireplace—empty this time of year—and a couple of chairs and a reading lamp. Michael settled in one. Claire took the other, feeling small and cold in the heavy leather seat. The wing chair was about twice her size.
“Right,” Michael said, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Let’s talk about this morning.” But having said that, he didn’t seem to know how to start. He fidgeted, staring at the carpet.
“You died,” Claire said. “You vanished.”
He seemed glad to have something to respond to. “Not exactly, but—yeah. Close enough. You know I used to be a musician?”
“You still are!”
“Musicians play someplace besides their own houses. You heard Shane at dinner. He’s pushing to find out why I’m not playing gigs. Truth is, I can’t. I can’t go outside of this house.”
She remembered him standing in the doorway, white-faced, watching Shane face off with Brandon. That hadn’t been caution; he wanted to be out there, fighting next to his friend. But he couldn’t.
“What happened?” she asked softly. She could tell it wasn’t going to be an easy story.
“Vampire,” he said. “Mostly they just feed, and eventually they kill you if they feed hard enough. Some of them like that kind of thing, not all of them. But—this one was different. He followed me back from a gig and tried—tried to make me—”
She felt her face burn, and dropped her gaze. “Oh. Oh God.”
“Not that,” he said. “Not exactly. He tried to make me a vampire. But he couldn’t. I guess he—killed me. Or nearly, anyway. But he couldn’t make me into what he was, and he was trying. It nearly killed us both. When I woke up later, it was daylight, he was gone, and I was a ghost. Wasn’t until night came that I realized I could make myself real again. But only at night.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing his hands together as if trying to wash off a stain. “I think the house keeps me alive.”
“The house?” she echoed.
“It’s old. And it has a kind of—” He shrugged. “A kind of power. I don’t know what it is, exactly. When my parents traded up to this house, they only lived here for a couple of months, then moved away to New York. Didn’t like the vibes. I liked it fine. I think it liked me, too. But anyway, I can’t leave it. I’ve tried.”
“Even during the day? When you’re not, you know, here?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Can’t go out any door, window, or crack. I’m trapped here.”
He looked oddly relieved to be telling her. If he hadn’t told Shane or Eve, he probably hadn’t told anybody. That felt odd, being the keeper of that secret, because it was a big one. Attacked by a vampire, left for dead, turned into a ghost, trapped in the house? How many secrets was that, anyway?
Something occurred to her. “You said—the vampire, did he…drink your blood?”
Michael nodded. He didn’t meet her eyes.
“And—you died?”
Another silent nod.
“What happened to your—you know—body?”
“I’m still kind of using it.” He gestured at himself. Claire, unable to stop herself, reached out and touched him. He felt real and warm and alive. “I don’t know how it works, Claire, I really don’t. Except I do think it’s the house, not me.”
She took a deep breath. “Do you drink blood?”
He looked up this time, surprised, lips parted. “No. Of course I don’t. I told you, he couldn’t—make me what he was.”
“You’re sure.”
“I eat Shane’s garlic chili. Does that sound like a vampire to you?”
She shrugged thoughtfully. “Until today, I thought I knew what a vampire was, all capes and fake Romanian accents and stuff. What about crosses? Do crosses work?”
“Sometimes. Don’t rely on them, though. The older ones aren’t stopped by things like that.”
“How about Brandon?” Since he was her main concern right now.
Michael’s lip curled. “Brandon’s a punk. You could melt him with a Super Soaker full of tap water, so long as you told him it was blessed. He’s dangerous, but so far as vampires go, he’s at the bottom of the food chain. It’s the ones who don’t go around flashing fangs and trying to grab you off the street you need to worry about. And yeah, wear a cross—but keep it under your clothes. You’ll have to make one if you don’t already have one—they don’t sell them anywhere in town. And if you can find things like holy water and Eucharist, keep them on hand, but the vampires in this town closed down most of the churches fifty years ago. There’s still a few operating underground. Be careful, though. Don’t believe everything you hear, and never, ever go by yourself.”
That was the longest speech she’d ever heard from Michael. It tumbled out in a flood, driven with intensity and frustration. He can’t do anything. He can’t do anything to help us when we go outside the door.
“Why did you let us move in?” she asked. “After—what happened to you?”
He smiled. It didn’t look quite right somehow. “I got lonely,” he said. “And since I can’t leave the house, there’s too much I can’t do. I needed somebody to help with groceries and stuff. And…being a ghost doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Shane—Shane was looking for a place to stay, and he said he’d pitch in for rent. It was perfect. Then Eve…we were friends back in high school. I couldn’t just let her wander around out there after her parents threw her out.”
Claire tried to remember what Eve had said. Nothing, really. “Why did they do that?”
“She wouldn’t take Protection from their Patron when she turned eighteen. Plus, she started dressing Goth when she was about your age. Said she was never going to kiss any vampire ass, no matter what.” Michael made a helpless gesture with his hands. “At eighteen, they threw her out. Had to, or it would have cost the whole family their Protection. So she’s on her own. She’s done okay—she’s safe here, and she’s safe at the coffee shop. It’s only the rest of the time she has to be careful.”
Claire couldn’t think of anything to say. She looked away from Michael, around the room. His bed was made. Oh my God, that’s his bed. She tried to imagine Michael sleeping there, and couldn’t. Although she could imagine some other things, and shouldn’t have because it made her feel hot and embarrassed.
“Claire,” he said quietly. She looked back at him. “Brandon’s too young to be out before dark, so you’re safe in the daytime, but don’t stay out after dark. Got it?”
She nodded.
“About the other thing…”
“I won’t tell,” she said. “I won’t, Michael. Not if you don’t want me to.”
He let out his breath in a long, slow sigh. “Thanks. I know it sounds stupid, but…I just don’t want them to know yet. I need to figure out how to tell them.”
“It’s your business,” Claire said. “And Michael? If you start, you know, getting this craving for red stuff…?”
“You’ll be the first to know,” he said. His eyes were steady and cool. “And I expect you to do whatever you have to do to stop me.”
She shivered and said yes
, okay, she’d stake him if she had to, but she didn’t mean it.
She hoped she didn’t, anyway.
Chapter 8
S hane’s turn for cooking dinner, and he came up with chili dogs—more chili, but at least he did a good job with it. Claire had two, watching in amazement as Michael and Shane downed four each, and Eve nibbled one. She smiled at Shane, and shot back barbs whenever he sent one sailing her way, but Claire noticed something else.
Eve couldn’t keep her eyes off of Michael. At first, Claire thought, She knows something, but then she saw the flush in Eve’s cheeks showing through the pale makeup, and the glitter in her eyes.
Oh. Well, she guessed Michael had looked pretty hot, grabbing her out of danger like that and dragging her out of harm’s way. And now that she thought about it, Eve had been making little glances his direction every time they’d been together.
Eve finally shoved her plate away and claimed dibs on the bathroom for a long, hot, soaking bubble bath. Which Claire wished she’d thought of first. She and Michael did the dishes while Shane practiced his zombie-fighting skills on Xbox.
“Eve likes you, you know,” she said casually as she was rinsing off the last plate. He nearly dropped the one he was drying.
“What?”
“She does.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“I don’t think you understand Eve, then.”
“Don’t you like her?”
“Of course I like her!”
“Enough to…?”
“I am not talking about this.” He put the plate into the drainer. “Jesus, Claire!”
“Oh, come on. You like her, don’t you?”
“Even if I did—” He stopped short, glancing toward the doorway and lowering his voice. “Even if I did, there are a few problems, don’t you think?”
“Everybody’s got problems,” she said. “Especially in this town. I’ve only been here six weeks, and I already know that.”
Whatever he thought about that, he dried his hands and walked out. She heard him talking to Shane, and when she went out the two of them were deep into the video game, elbowing each other and fighting for every point.
