by Rachel Caine
Shane, Michael, and Claire just looked at one another for a few seconds, and then Shane made a loopy gesture at his temple and whistled.
Michael nodded. “She didn’t use to be that bad,” he said.
“I guess it’s this Charles guy she was talking about,” Shane said grimly. “Should have known that if anybody would hook up with a bloodsucker for troo wuv”—Shane made it sound ridiculous—“it’d be some ditz like Miranda. I should have made her walk home. She’d probably get off on another bite.”
“She’s a kid, Shane,” Michael said. “But the sooner we get her out of here, the better I’ll feel. She gets Eve a little—nervous.”
Eve? But Eve didn’t really believe all that crap, did she? Claire had become convinced that it was just costuming, that underneath, Eve was just a normal girl after all, all the Goth stuff just posturing. But did she really believe in visions and crystals and tarot cards? Magic was just science misunderstood, she reminded herself. Or, on the other hand, just crazy talk.
The two boys looked at Claire. “What?” she asked. “Oh, by the way, I’m fine, thanks for asking. Got chased by some vampires. Business as usual.”
“Told you not to go,” Shane said, and shrugged. “So, who’s going to get Miranda to leave?”
They kept looking at her, and Claire finally understood that somehow, it had become her job. Probably because she was new, and didn’t know Miranda, and she was a girl. Michael was too polite to ask her to go. Shane—she couldn’t tell what Shane felt about Miranda, except that he wanted her the hell out of the house.
“Fine,” Claire said. “I’ll go.”
“That girl’s smart,” Shane said without smiling, to Michael, as she started up the steps.
“Yep,” Michael agreed. “I like that about her.”
The bedroom doors were all closed except for Eve’s, which was casting a flickering light out onto the polished wood floor. Claire smelled the bright flare of matches. They were lighting candles.
Oh, she really didn’t want to do this. Maybe if she just kept walking, went to her room, and locked the door…?
She took a deep breath and looked around the doorway with a smile that felt totally forced. Eve was lighting the candles—and boy, she had a lot of them, sitting basically everywhere. Big tall black ones, purple ones, blue ones. Nothing in the pastel family. Her bed was black satin, and there was a pirate flag—skull and crossbones—hanging above it like a billowing headboard. Little Christmas lights strung everywhere—no, not Christmas lights after all. Halloween pumpkins and ghosts and skulls. Cheery and strange.
“Hey,” Eve said, not looking up from the black pillar candle she was lighting. “Come on in, Claire. I guess you haven’t really met Miranda exactly.”
Not unless screaming and fleeing counted. “Hi,” she said awkwardly. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Miranda didn’t seem to notice or care, and her hands were up and in the air, petting some invisible cat or something. Weird. The longer that Claire was around the girl, the younger she looked—younger than Eve, for sure. Maybe even younger than Claire herself. Maybe it was all make-believe for her…except the bite. That was deadly serious stuff.
“Um…Eve? Can I talk to you for a sec?” Claire asked. Eve nodded, opened a black-painted dresser, and took out a black lacquer box. When opened, it had a bloodred interior. There was a black silk package inside, which, as Eve unwrapped it, proved to be a deck of cards.
Tarot cards.
Eve held them between her two palms for a few seconds, then cut the deck several times and handed it to Miranda. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and went out into the hall with Claire, closing the door behind her. Before Claire could say anything, Eve held up her hand. She wouldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. “The guys sent you up?” At Claire’s nod, she muttered, “Pansies, both of them. Fine. They want her out, right?”
“Um…yeah. I guess.” Claire rocked uncomfortably back and forth. “She is a little…weird.”
“Miranda’s—yeah, she’s weird. But she’s also kind of gifted,” Eve said. “She sees things. Knows things. Shane ought to get that. She told him about the fire before—” Eve shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. If she came all the way over here in the dark, something’s wrong. I should try to find out what.”
“Well…can’t you just, you know, ask her?”
“Miranda’s a psychic,” she said. “It’s not that simple—she can’t just blurt it out. You have to work with her.”
“But—she can’t really see the future, right? You don’t believe that?” Because if you do, Claire thought, you’re crazier than I thought you were when I first met you.
Eve finally met her eyes. Angry. “Yes. Yes, I do believe that, and for a smart kid you’re pretty dumb if you don’t understand that science isn’t perfect. Things happen. Things that physics and math and crap that gets measured in a lab can’t explain. People aren’t just laws and rules, Claire. They’re…sparks. Sparks of something beautiful and huge. And some of the sparks glow brighter, like Miranda.” Eve looked away again, obviously uncomfortable now. But not half as uncomfortable as Claire felt, because this was…wow. Space cadet city. “You guys just leave us alone for a little while. It’ll be fine.”
She went back into the room and shut the door. It wasn’t quite a slam. Claire swallowed hard, feeling hot all over and wishing she hadn’t let the boys push her into that, and slowly went back down the stairs. Michael and Shane were sitting on the couch and playing a video game with open beers on the table in front of them. Elbowing each other as their on-screen cars raced around turns.
“Not exactly legal,” she said, and sat down on the steps. “The beer. Nobody here’s twenty-one.”
Michael and Shane clicked bottles. Honestly, it was juvenile. “Here’s to crime,” Shane said, and tipped his up. “Hey, it was a birthday present. Two six-packs. We’re only one down, so give us a break. Morganville’s got the highest alcoholics per capita of any place in the world, I’ll bet.”
Michael put the game on pause. “Is she leaving yet?”
“No.”
“If she starts trying to tell me I’m going to meet a tall dark stranger, I’m leaving,” Shane said. “I mean, the kid’s a head case, and I don’t want to be mean, but jeez. She really believes this stuff. And she’s got Eve half-convinced, too.”
There was no half about it, but Claire wasn’t going to say that. She just sat there, trying not to think too hard about anything…about her plans to get Shane free of his agreement, which had seemed really good back in the coffee shop and not so solid now. About the dull-knife scrape of pain in her back. About the desperation in Eve’s eyes. Eve was scared. And Claire didn’t know how to help that, because she was scared half to death herself.
“She was looking at the secret room,” Claire said. “When she was standing down here. She was staring right at it.”
Michael and Shane looked at her. Two sets of eyes, both guilty and startled. And one by one, they shrugged and went for the beer. “Coincidence,” Michael said.
“Total coincidence,” Shane agreed.
“Eve said that Miranda had some kind of vision about you, Shane, when—”
“Not that again! Look, she said she had a vision of the house on fire, but she didn’t say that until later, and even if she did, fat lot of good it did.” Shane’s jaw was tight. A muscle fluttered in it. He punched a button to release the game from pause, and road noise poured out of the television speakers, closing out any chance of conversation on the subject.
Claire sighed. “I’m going to bed.”
But she didn’t. She was tired, and aching, and jittery…but her brain was way too busy picking over things. She finally nudged Shane over on the couch and sat next to him as he and Michael played, and played, and played….
“Claire. Wake up.” She blinked and realized that her head was on Shane’s shoulder, and Michael was nowhere to be seen. Her first thought was, Oh my God, am I drooling? Her second was that sh
e hadn’t realized she was so close to him, snuggled in.
Her third was that although Michael’s part of the couch was empty, Shane hadn’t moved away. And he was watching her with warm, friendly eyes.
Oh. Oh, wow, that was nice.
Embarrassment flooded in a second later and made her pull away. Shane cleared his throat and scooted over. “You should probably get some sleep,” he said. “You’re beat.”
“Yeah,” she said. “What time is it?”
“Three a.m. Michael’s making a snack. You want anything?”
“Um…no. Thanks.” She slid off the couch and then stood there like an idiot, unwilling to leave because he was still smiling and…she liked it. “Who won?”
“Which game?”
“Oh. I guess I was asleep for a while.”
“Don’t worry. We didn’t let the zombies get you.” This time, his smile was positively wicked. Claire felt it like a hot blanket all over her skin. “If you want to stay up, you can help me kick his ass.”
There were not one but three empty beer bottles on the table in front of Shane. And three where Michael had been, too. No wonder Shane was still smiling at her, looking so friendly. “That depends,” she said. “Can I have a beer?”
“Hell no.”
“Because I’m sixteen? Come on, Shane.”
“Drinking kills brain cells, dumbass. And besides. If I give you one, that’s one less for me.” Shane tapped his forehead. “I can do the math.”
She needed a beer, to stay down here next to him, because she was afraid she was going to do or say something stupid, and at least if there was alcohol involved, it wouldn’t be her fault, would it? But just as she opened her mouth to try to convince him, Michael came out of the kitchen with a bag of neon-colored cheese puffs. Shane grabbed a handful and stuffed his mouth. “Claire wants a beer,” he mumbled through orange goo.
“Claire needs to go to bed,” Michael said, and flopped down. “Scoot over, man. I don’t like you that much.”
“Dick. That’s not what you said last night.”
“Bite me.”
“I want another beer.”
“You’re cut off. It was my birthday present, not yours.”
“Oh, that’s low. You really are a dick, and just for that, I’m totally thrashing you.”
“Promises, promises.” Michael glanced at Claire. “You’re still here. No beer. I’m not corrupting a minor.”
“But you’re a minor,” she pointed out. “At least for beer.”
“Yeah, and by the way? How much does it suck that I’m an adult if I kill somebody, and not if I want a beer?” Shane jumped in. “They’re all dicks.”
“Man, seriously, you are one cheap drunk. Three beers? My junior high girlfriend could hold her liquor better.”
“Your junior high girlfriend—” Shane brought himself up short without finishing that sentence, and flushed bright red. Must have been good, whatever it was. “Claire, get the hell out of here. You’re making me nervous.”
“Dick!” she flung at him, and went up the stairs before he could nail her with the pillow he grabbed. It plunked into the wall behind her and slithered down to the bottom of the stairs. She was laughing, but she stopped when a shadow suddenly blocked access to the hallway at the top.
Eve. And Miranda, looking weirder than ever.
“Miranda’s leaving!” Claire called down. Which wasn’t such a great idea, because Eve looked upset, and Shane was drunk, and letting some vampire-crazy maybe-psychic kid walk home by herself was…bad, at best.
“Miranda’s not leaving,” Eve said, and clunked down the stairs, with Miranda drifting like a black-and-white ghost behind her. “Miranda’s going to do aséance.”
Below, in the living room, she heard Michael say, in outright horror, “Oh, shit.”
12
Eve was so intense about it that not even Shane, three beers down, was able to exactly say no. Michael didn’t say anything, just watched Miranda with eyes that were way too clear for somebody who’d had the same amount to drink as Shane. As Eve cleared stuff off the dining room table and set up a single black candle in the center, Claire wrung her hands nervously, trying to get Michael’s attention. When she did, she mouthed, What do we do?
He shrugged. Nothing, she guessed. Well, nobody but Eve believed in it, anyway. She supposed it couldn’t really hurt.
“Okay,” Eve said, and sat Miranda down in a chair at the end. “Shane, Michael, Claire—sit down.”
“This is bullshit,” Shane said.
“Just—please. Just do it, okay?” Eve looked stressed. Scared. Whatever she and Miranda had been doing upstairs with those tarot cards had really made her nervous. “Just do it for me.”
Michael slid into the chair at the other end, as far from Miranda as he could get. Claire sat next to him, and Shane grabbed a seat on the other side, leaving Eve and Claire the closest to Miranda, who was shaking like she was about to have a fit.
“Hold hands,” Eve said, and grabbed Miranda’s left, then Shane’s right. She glared at Claire until Claire followed suit, taking Miranda’s other hand and Michael’s. That left Shane and Michael, who looked at each other and shrugged.
“Whatever,” Michael said, and took Shane’s hand.
“Oh, God, guys, homophobic much? This isn’t about you being manly men, it’s about—”
“He’s dead! I see him!”
Claire flinched as Miranda practically screamed it out. All around the table, they froze. Even Shane. And then fought the insane urge to giggle—well, Claire did, and she could see Shane’s shoulders shaking. Eve bit her lip, but there were tears in her eyes.
“Somebody died in this house! I see him. I see his body lying on the floor…,” Miranda moaned, and thrashed around in her chair, twisting and turning. “It’s not over. It’s never over. This house—this house won’t let it be over.”
Claire, unable to stop herself, looked at Michael, who was staring at Miranda with cold, slitted eyes. His hand was gripping Claire’s tightly. When she started to say something, he squeezed it even more. Right. Shutting up, she was.
Miranda wasn’t. “There’s a ghost in this house! An unquiet spirit!”
“Unquiet spirit?” Shane said under his breath. “Is that politically correct for pissed off? You know, like Undead American or something?”
Miranda opened her eyes and frowned at him. “Somebody already died,” she proclaimed. “Right here. Right in this room. His spirit haunts this place, and it’s strong.”
They all just looked at one another. Michael and Claire avoided more eye contact, but Claire felt her breath get short and her heart race faster. She was talking about Michael! She knew! How was that even possible?
“Is it dangerous?” Eve asked breathlessly. Claire nearly choked.
“I—I can’t tell. It’s murky.”
Shane said, “Right. Dead man walking, can’t tell if he’s dangerous because, wow, murky. Anything else?” And again, Claire had to choke back a hysterical giggle.
There was a bitter, unpleasant twist to Miranda’s face now. “Fire,” she said. “I see fire. I see someone screaming in the fire.”
Shane yanked his hands away from Eve and Michael, slammed his chair back, and said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m outta here. Feel free to get your psychic jollies somewhere else.”
“No, wait!” Eve said, and grabbed for him. “Shane, wait, she saw it in the cards, too—”
He pulled free. “She sees whatever you want! And she gets off on the attention, in case you didn’t notice! And she’s a fang banger!”
“Shane, please! At least listen!”
“I’ve heard enough. Let me know when you want to move on to table rapping or Ouija boards—those are a lot more fun. We could get some ten-year-olds to show us the ropes.”
“Shane, wait! Where are you going?”
“Bed,” he said, and went up the stairs. “Night.”
Claire was still holding Michael’s hand, and Mir
anda’s. She let go of both, pushed her chair back, and went up after him. She heard his door slam before she made it to the top, and raced down the hall to bang her fist on the wood. There was no answer, no sound of movement inside.
Then she noticed that the picture on the wall hallway was crooked, and moved it to stare at the button underneath. Would he?
Of course he would.
She hesitated for a second, then pressed it. The panel across the hallway clicked open, letting out a breath of cold air, and she quickly slipped inside, latched it back, and went up the stairs.
Shane was lying on the couch, feet on the curved polished-wood armrest, one arm flung over his eyes.
“Go away,” he said. Claire eased herself down on the couch next to him, because his voice didn’t sound, well, right. It was quiet and a little bit choked. His hand was shaking. “I mean it, Claire, go.”
“The first time you met me, I was crying,” she said. “You don’t have to be ashamed.”
“I’m not crying,” he said, and moved his arm. He wasn’t. His eyes were hot and dry and furious. “I can’t stand that she pretends to know. She was Lyssa’s friend. If she knew, if she really knew, she should have tried harder.”
Claire bit her lip. “Do you mean she—?” She couldn’t even say it. Do you mean she tried to tell you? And he couldn’t admit it if she had. If he admitted that much…maybe his sister didn’t have to be dead.
No, Claire couldn’t say that. And he couldn’t hear it.
Instead, she just reached out and took his hand. He looked down at their clasped fingers, sighed, and closed his eyes. “I’m drunk and I’m pissed off,” he said. “Not the best company right now. Man, your parents would kill us all if they knew about any of this.”
She didn’t say anything, because that was absolutely true. And something she didn’t want to think about. She just wanted to sit here, in this silent room where time had frozen still, and be with him.
“Claire?” His voice was quieter. A little smeared with sleep. “Don’t do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Go out like you did tonight. Not at night.”