by Rachel Caine
Michael was pretty much the king of that, Claire thought. He’d gone from a serious musician with his whole focus on making a name for himself, to a part-time ghost trapped in a house, to a part-time ghost trapped in a house forced to take in roommates to make the bills. And now he was trying to save their lives, and he still couldn’t escape himself.
Michael was just so…responsible. Claire couldn’t even imagine how someone got that way. Maturity, she guessed, but that was a lot like a road through fog to her. She had no idea how she was supposed to get there. Then again, she supposed nobody really did know, and you just stumbled through it.
They waited.
After about five minutes there was a wail of sirens in the distance—very faint, because the room was well soundproofed. That meant the sirens were close. Maybe even by the house already. Claire rose and pressed the button concealed in the lion’s-head arm of the couch, and the sirens immediately increased in volume as the secret door opened. She hurried down the steps and peered out. No one in the hallway, but from downstairs she heard angry shouting, and then the sound of a door banging open. Motorcycle engines roaring, tires squealing.
“They’re going,’” she yelled up, and pelted out into the hallway, down the stairs, breathless to find Shane.
Shane was up against the wall, and his father was holding him by the throat. Outside, police sirens suddenly cut off.
“Traitor,’” Shane’s dad said. He had a knife in his hand. “You’re a traitor. You’re dead to me.’”
Claire skidded to a stop, found her voice, and said, “Sir, you’d better get out of here unless you want to end up talking to the vampires.’”
Shane’s father turned his face toward her, and his expression was twisted with fury. “You little bitch,’” he said. “Turning my son against me.’”
“No—’” Shane grabbed at his father’s hand, trying to pry it free. “Don’t—’”
Claire backed up. For a second, neither Shane nor his dad moved, and then Shane’s father let him go, and raced for the kitchen door. Shane dropped to his knees, choking, and Claire went to him…
…just as the front door banged open, splintering around the lock, and the police charged in.
“Oh man,’” Shane whispered, “that sucks. We just fixed that door.’”
Claire clung to him, terrified, as the police swarmed through the house.
3
Shane wasn’t talking to the cops. Not about his dad, and not about anything. He just sat like a lump, eyes down, and refused to answer any questions from the human patrol officers; Claire didn’t know what to say—or, more importantly, what not to—and stammered out a lot of “I don’t know’” and “I was in my room’” sort of answers. Eve—more self-possessed than Claire had ever seen her—stepped in to say that she’d heard the intruders downstairs breaking things, and she’d pulled Claire into her room and locked the door for protection. It sounded good. Claire supported it with a lot of nodding.
“Is that so?’” A new voice, from behind the cops, and they parted ranks to admit two strangers. Detectives, it looked like, in sport jackets and slacks. One was a woman, frost pale, with eyes like mirrors. The other one was a tall man with gray close-cropped hair.
They were wearing gold badges on their belts. So. Detectives.
Vampire detectives.
Eve had gone very still, hands folded in her lap. She looked carefully friendly. “Yes, ma’am,’” she said. “That’s what happened.’”
“And you have no idea who these mysterious intruders might have been,’” said the male vamp. He looked—scary. Cold and hard and scary. “Never saw them before.’”
“We didn’t see them at all, sir.’”
“Because you were—locked in your room.’” He smiled, and flashed fang. Clear warning. “I can smell fear. You give it off like the stench of your sweat. Delicious.’”
Claire fought back an urge to whimper. The human cops had backed up a step; one or two looked uncomfortable, but they weren’t about to interfere with whatever was about to happen. Which—was nothing, right? There were rules and stuff. And they were the victims!
Then again, she didn’t suppose the vamps cared all that much for victims.
“Leave them alone,’” Shane said.
“It speaks!’” the woman said, and laughed. She sank down into a crouch, elegant and perfectly balanced, and tried to peer into Shane’s face. “A knight-errant, defending the helpless. Charming.’” She had an old-world accent, sort of like blurred German. “Do you not trust us, little knight? Are we not your friends?’”
“That depends,’” Shane said, and looked right at her. “You take your orders from Oliver, or the Founder? Because if you touch us—any of us—you have to take it up with her. You know who I mean.’”
She lost her amused expression.
Her partner made a noise, halfway between a bark of laughter and a growl. “Careful, Gretchen, he snaps. Just like a half-grown puppy. Boy, you don’t know what you’re saying. The Founder’s mark is on the house, yes, but I see no bands on your wrists. Don’t be stupid and make bold claims you can’t back up.’”
“Bite me, Dracula,’” Shane snapped.
Gretchen laughed. “A wolf pup,’” she said. “Oh, I like him, Hans. May I have him, since he’s a stray?’”
One of the uniformed cops cleared his throat. “Ma’am? Sorry, but I can’t allow that. You want to file the paperwork, I’ll see what I can do, but—’”
Gretchen made a frustrated noise and came back to her feet. “Paperwork. Fah. In the old days we would have run him down like a deer for insolence.’”
“In the old days, Gretchen, we were starving,’” Hans said. “Remember? The winters in Bavaria? Let him howl.’” He shrugged and gave Eve and Claire a smile that looked a little less terrifying than before. “Sorry. Gretchen gets carried away. Now, you’re sure none of you knew these intruders? Morganville’s not that big a town. We’re all pretty close-knit, especially the human community.’”
“Strangers,’” Eve said. “I think they might have been strangers. Maybe just…passing through.’”
“Passing through,’” Hans repeated. “We don’t get a lot of casual visitors. Even biker gangs.’” He studied them each in turn, and while his eyes were on her Claire felt as if she were being x-rayed. Surely he couldn’t really see her thoughts, right? Hans finished with his gaze on Shane, fixed and dark. “Your name.’”
“Shane,’” he said. “Shane Collins.’”
“You left Morganville with your family a few years ago, yes? What brought you back?’”
“My friend Michael needed a roommate.’” Shane’s eyes flickered, and Claire realized that he’d just made a mistake. A big one.
“Michael Glass. Ah, yes, the mysterious Michael. Never around when anyone comes calling during the day, but always present at night. Tell me, is Michael a vampire?’”
“Wouldn’t you know?’” Shane shot back. “Last I heard, nobody had made a new vampire in fifty years or more.’”
“True.’” Hans nodded. “Yet it’s curious, isn’t it? That your friend seems so hard to keep around?’”
They knew. They knew something, anyway; Claire supposed Oliver would have no reason to keep secrets, especially Michael’s secrets. He’d probably blabbed it to all of his minions that Michael was a ghost, caught between worlds—not quite vampire, not quite human, not quite anything.
“It’s night,’” Gretchen pointed out. “So where is he? Your friend?’”
Shane swallowed, and it was hard to miss the wave of misery that went through him. “He’s around.’”
“Around where, exactly?’”
Claire exchanged a look of dread with Eve. Shane still thought Michael was dead, buried in the backyard…and Michael had been pretty firm on the idea that Shane shouldn’t know….
“I don’t know,’” Shane said. The tips of his ears were turning red.
Hans the Detective smiled slow
ly. “You don’t know much, son. And yet you look like you’re not completely stupid, so how exactly does that work? Did you hide in the room with the girls?’” He leaned on the last word, and his vampire partner laughed.
Shane got up. There was something insane in his eyes, and Claire felt her heart stop beating because this was bad, very bad, and Shane was going to do something horribly unwise, and there was no way they could stop him….
“You’re looking for me?’”
They all turned.
Michael was standing at the top of the stairs. He was pulling on a plain black T-shirt with blue jeans, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His feet, Claire saw, were bare as usual.
Shane sat down. Fast and hard. Michael took his time coming down the stairs, making sure they were all focused on him instead of Shane, to give Shane time to get through what he was feeling—which was, Claire thought, a lot to pack into less than thirty seconds. Relief, of course, which brought a sheen of tears to his eyes. And then, predictably, he got pissed, because, well, he was a guy, he was Shane, and that was how he handled being scared.
So, really, by the time Michael padded down the last step to the wooden floor and crossed over to the couch through the circle of police, things were pretty much just as they’d been, except that Shane wasn’t about to push the button on his nuclear temper.
“Hey,’” Michael said to him. Shane moved over on the couch to make room. Guy room, which left plenty of empty space. “What’s up?’”
Shane looked at him like he might be crazy, not just nearly dead part-time. “Cops, man.’”
“Yeah, man, I can see that. How come?’”
“You’re telling me you actually slept through all that? Dude, you need to see a doctor or something. Maybe you have a disease.’”
“Hey, I need the sleep. Lisa, you know.’” Michael grinned. They were good at this, Claire realized—good at playing normal, even if there wasn’t a normal thing in the world about their situation. “So what happened?’”
“You weren’t aware of intruders in your home?’” asked Gretchen, who’d been watching the exchange—and the correspondingly shrinking chance of bloodshed—with disappointment. “The others described it as quite loud.’”
“He can sleep through World War Three,’” Shane said. “I told you, it’s some kind of sickness or something.’”
“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was,’” Hans said. “Wasn’t he in his room?’”
Shane shrugged. “I’m not his keeper.’”
“Ah,’” Gretchen said, and smiled. “That is where you are wrong, little knight. You are all your brothers’ keepers here in Morganville, and you can all suffer for their crimes. Which you should know and remember.’”
Hans looked bored now. “Sergeant,’” he said, and the most senior uniformed cop stepped out of the ranks. “I leave this in your hands. If you find anything out of the ordinary, let us know.’”
Just like that, the vamps were gone. They moved fast, and silently; they didn’t seem to want to blend in much, Claire thought, and tried not to tremble. She sank down on the couch beside Shane, nearly crawling into his lap. Eve crowded in between the two boys.
“Right.’” The sergeant didn’t look happy with having the whole thing dumped in his lap again, but he also looked resigned. Couldn’t be the easiest thing, Claire thought, having vamps for bosses. They didn’t seem to have a long attention span. “Glass, right? Occupation?’”
“Musician, sir,’” Michael said.
“Play around town, do you?’”
“I’m rehearsing for some upcoming gigs.’”
The cop nodded and flipped pages in a black leather book. He ran a thick finger down a list, frowned, and said, “You’re behind on your donations, Glass. About a month.’”
Michael threw a lightning-fast glance at Shane. “Sorry, sir. I’ll get out there tomorrow.’”
“Better, or you know what happens.’” The cop ran down the roster. “You. Collins. You still unemployed?’” He gave him a stare. A long one. Shane shrugged, looking—Claire thought—as dumb as possible. “Try harder.’”
“Common Grounds,’” Eve volunteered before he could start in on her. “Eve Rosser, sir, thank you.’” She was vibrating all over—she was so nervous—which was funny; when she’d been on her own, she’d been cool and calm. She had hold of both Michael’s and Shane’s hands. “Although, um, I’m thinking of making a change.’”
The cop seemed bored now. “Yeah, okay. You, the kid. Name?’”
“Claire,’” she said faintly. “Um…Danvers. I’m a student.’”
He looked at her again, and kept looking. “Shouldn’t you be in the dorm?’”
“I have permission to live off campus.’” She didn’t say from whom, because it was primarily herself.
He watched her for another few seconds, then shrugged. “You live off campus, you follow the town rules. Your friends here’ll tell you what they are. Watch on campus about how much you pass along—we got enough problems without panicking students. And we’re real good at finding blabbermouths.’”
She nodded.
That wasn’t the end of it, but it was the end of her discussions with them; the police poked around a little, took some pictures, and left the house a few minutes later without another word to any of them.
For a good ten seconds after the police closed the front door—or closed it as much as was possible with a busted lock—there was silence, and then Shane turned to Michael and said, “You fucking bastard.’” Claire swallowed hard at the tight fury in his voice.
“You want to take this outside?’” Michael asked. He sounded neutral, almost calm. His eyes were anything but.
“What, you can leave the house now?’”
“No, I meant another room, Shane.’”
“Hey,’” Eve said, “don’t—’”
“Shut up, Eve!’” Shane snapped.
Michael came off the couch like somebody had pushed him; he reached down, grabbed Shane by the T-shirt, and yanked him upright. “Don’t,’” he said, and gave him one hard shake. “Your father’s an asshole. It’s not a disease. You don’t have to catch it.’”
Shane grabbed him in a hug. Michael rocked back a little from the impact, but he closed his eyes and hung on for a moment, then slapped Shane’s back. And of course Shane slapped his back, too, and they stepped way apart. Manly. Claire rolled her eyes.
“I thought you were dead,’” Shane said. His eyes looked suspiciously bright and wet. “I saw you die, man.’”
“I die all the time. It doesn’t really take.’” Michael gave him a half smile that looked more grim than amused. “I figured it was better to let your dad think he’d taken me out. Maybe he wouldn’t be so hard on the rest of you.’” His gaze swept over the bruises on Shane’s face. “Brilliant plan. I’m sorry, man. Once I was dead, I couldn’t do much until night came around again.’”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Claire felt a shiver. “Do you remember…you know, what they did to you?’”
Michael glanced at her. “Yeah,’” he said. “I remember.’”
“Oh hell.’” Shane collapsed back on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “God, man, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’”
“Not your fault.’”
“I called him.’”
“You called him because it looked like we were all pulling an Alamo. You didn’t know—’”
“I know my dad,’” Shane said grimly. “Michael, I want you to know, I wasn’t—I didn’t come here to do his dirty work. Not…not after the first week or so.’”
Michael didn’t answer him. Maybe there was no answer to that, Claire thought. She scooted closer to Shane and stroked his ragged, shoulder-length fine hair. “Hey,’” she said. “It’s okay. We’re all okay.’”
“No, we’re not.’” Shane’s voice was muffled by his hands. “We’re totally screwed. Right, Mike?’”
“Prett
y much,’” Michael sighed. “Yeah.’”
“The cops will find them,’” Eve said in an undertone to Claire as both girls stood in the kitchen making pasta. Pasta, apparently, was a new thing that Eve wanted to try. She frowned down at the package of spaghetti, then at the not-yet-bubbling pot of water. “Shane’s dad and his merry band of assholes, I mean.’”
“Yeah,’” Claire agreed, not because she thought they would, but because, well, it seemed like the thing to say. “Want me to warm up the sauce?’”
“Do we do that? I mean, it’s in a jar, right? Can’t you just dump it over the pasta?’”
“Well, you can, but it tastes better if you warm it up.’”
“Oh.’” Eve sighed. “This is complicated. No wonder I never cook.’”
“You make breakfast!’”
“I make two things: bacon and eggs. And sometimes sandwiches. I hate cooking. Cooking reminds me of my mother.’” Eve took another pot from the rack and banged it down onto the massive stove. “Here.’”
Claire struggled with the top on the spaghetti sauce jar, and finally got it to release with a pop. “You think they’re going to stay mad at each other?’” she asked.
“Michael and Shane?’”
“Mmm-hmmm.’” The sauce plopped into the pot, chunky and wet and vaguely nauseating. Claire considered the second jar, decided that if two of the four of them were boys, more was better. She got it opened and in the pot, as well, then turned on the burner and set it to simmer.
“Who knows?’” Eve shrugged. “Boys are idiots. You’d think Shane could just say, ‘Oh man, I’m glad you’re alive,’ but no. It’s either guilt or amateur night at the Drama Queen Theater.’” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Boys. I’d turn gay if they weren’t so sexy.’”
Claire tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it, and after a second Eve smiled and chuckled, too. The water started boiling. In went the pasta.
“Um…Eve…can I ask…?’”
“About what?’” Eve was still frowning at the pasta like she suspected it was going to do something clever, like try to escape from the pot.