by Rachel Caine
“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m kind of an expert at this whole bad dreams thing, anyway,” he said. And oh God, he really was. Claire knew only a little of how many bad things he’d seen, but even that was enough to spark a lifetime’s worth of therapy. “Still, yesterday was dire, and that’s not a word I bust out, generally. Maybe it’ll look better this morning.”
“Is it morning?” Claire peered at her watch.
“That depends on your definition. It’s after noon, so I guess technically not really. We slept for about five hours, I suppose. Or you did. Eve bounced about an hour ago, and I got up because …” He shook his head. “Hell. This place creeps me out. I can’t sleep too well here.”
“It creeps you out more than what’s happening out there?”
“Valid point,” he said. Because the world out there—Morganville, anyway—was no longer the semi-safe place it had been just a few days ago. Sure, there had been vampires in charge of the town. Sure, they’d been predatory and kind of evil—a cross between old-school royalty and the Mafia—but at least they’d lived by rules. It hadn’t been so much about ethics and morals as about practicality …. If they wanted to have a thriving blood supply, they couldn’t just randomly kill people all the time.
Though the hunting licenses were alarming.
But now … now the vampires were in the food chain. They’d always been careful about human threats, but that wasn’t the issue, not anymore. The real vampire enemy had finally shown its incredibly disturbing face: the draug. All that Claire knew about them was that they lived in water and they could call vampires (and humans) with their singing, right to their deaths. For humans, it was fairly quick … but not for vampires. Vampires trapped at the bottom of that cold pool could live and live and live until the draug had drained every bit of energy from them.
Live, and know it was happening. Eaten alive.
The draug were the one thing vampires feared, really and truly. Humans they treated with casual contempt, but their response to the draug had been immediate mass evacuation, except for the few who’d chosen to stay and try to save the vampires already being consumed.
They’d all tried—vampires and humans, working together. Even the rebellious human townies, who hated vamps, had taken a drive-by run at the draug. It had been a heart-stopping military operation of a battle, the most intense experience of Claire’s life, and she still couldn’t quite believe she’d survived it … or that anyone had.
Even with all that effort, they’d saved only three vampires from the mildewed, abandoned pool—Michael, the elegant (and probably deadly) Naomi, and the very definitely deadly Oliver. Then things had gone from terrible to awful, and they’d had to leave everyone else.
Except Amelie. They’d saved Amelie, the Founder of Morganville … sort of. And Claire was trying not to think about that, either.
“Hey,” Shane said, and nudged her. “Coffee, remember? Eve’ll be all sad, emo Goth face if you don’t drink some.”
Again, Shane was the practical one, and Claire had to smile because he was completely right. No one needed sad, emo Goth Eve today. Especially Eve. “I could kill for a cup of coffee. If there’s, you know, cream. And sugar.”
“Yes and yes.”
“And chocolate?”
“Don’t push it.”
Michael had, by this time, gotten up and joined them. He still looked pale—paler than usual—and there was something a little wild in his eyes, as if he was afraid that he was still in the pool. Drowning.
Claire took his hand. As always, it felt a little cooler than room temperature, but not cold … living flesh, but running on a much lower setting. Almost as tall as Shane, he looked down at her and smiled the rock-star smile that made all the girls melt in their shoes. She, however, was immune. Almost. She only melted a little, secretly. “What?” he asked her, and she shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said. “You’re not alone, Michael. We won’t let that happen again. I promise.”
The smile disappeared, and he studied her with a strange kind of intensity, almost as if he was seeing her for the first time. Or seeing something new in her. “I know,” he said. “Hey, remember when I almost didn’t let you into the house that first day you came?”
She’d shown up on his doorstep desperate, bruised, scared, and way too young to be facing Morganville. He’d been right to have his doubts. “Yep.”
“Well, I was dead wrong,” he said. “Maybe I never said that out loud before, but I mean it, Claire. All that’s happened since … We wouldn’t have made it. Not me, not Shane, not Eve. Not without you.”
“It’s not me,” Claire said, startled. “It’s not! It’s us, that’s all. We’re just better together. We … take care of each other.”
He nodded again, but didn’t have a chance to reply because Shane reached in, took Claire’s hand from Michael’s, and said—not seriously, thank God—“Stop vamping up my girl, man. She needs coffee.”
“Don’t we all,” Michael said, and smacked Shane on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. “Vamping up your girl? Dude. That’s low.”
“Digging for China,” Shane agreed, straight-faced. “Come on.”
Claire could follow the smell of brewing caffeine all the way to Eve like a trail of dropped coffee beans. It gave the sterile, funereal, windowless Elders’ Council building a weirdly homey feel, despite the chilly marble walls and the thick, muffling carpets.
The hallway opened into a wider circular area—the hub in the wheel—that held a huge round table in the center, which was normally adorned by an equally large fresh floral arrangement … adding to the funeral home vibe. But that had been pushed to the side, and a giant, shiny coffee dispenser had been put in its place, along with neat little bowls of sugar, spoons, napkins, cups, and saucers. Even cream and milk pitchers.
It was surreal to Claire, as if she’d stepped out of a nightmare and into a fancy hotel without any transition. And there, emerging from another door that must have led to some sort of kitchen, came Eve, with a tray in her hands, which she slid onto the other side of the big table.
Claire stared, because although it was Eve, it didn’t really look like her. No Goth makeup. Her hair was down, loose around her face and falling in soft black waves; even without her rice-powder coverage, her skin was creamy pale, but it looked movie-star beautiful. Natural-look Eve was stunning, even wearing borrowed clothes … though she’d found a retro fifties black pouf-skirted dress that really suited her perfectly.
She had a red scarf tied jauntily around her neck to hide the bites and bruises that Michael—starving and crazy from being dragged out of the pool—had inflicted on her.
She, and this setup, all looked a little too perfect. Shane and Michael exchanged a look, and Claire knew they were communicating the same thought.
Eve gave them a bright smile and said, “Good morning, campers! Coffee?”
“Hey,” Michael said, in such a soft and tentative voice that Claire felt her stomach clench. “You should be resting.” He reached for her, and Eve flinched. Flinched. Like he’d tried to hit her. His hand dropped to his side, and Claire couldn’t look at his face. “Eve—”
She spoke in a rush, running right over the moment. “We have hot coffee, all the good stuff—sorry I couldn’t get mocha up and running, but this place has a serious espresso deficiency … oh, and the croissants are hot out of the oven, have one.”
“You baked?” Shane’s eyebrows threatened to levitate right off his face.
“They were in one of those pop-open rolls, moron. Even I can bake those.” Eve’s smile wasn’t so much bright, Claire thought, as it was totally breakable. “I don’t think anybody ever used the kitchen in here, but at least it was stocked up. There’s even fresh butter and milk. Wonder who thought of that?”
“Eve,” Michael said again, and finally she looked directly at him. She didn’t say anything at all, only picked up a cup, filled it with hot, dark coffee, and handed it to him. He too
k it as he stared at her, then sipped—not as if he really wanted it, but as if it was something he was doing to please her. “Eve, can we just—”
“No, we can’t,” she said. “Not right now.” And then she turned and walked back to the kitchen, stiff-armed the door, and let it swing shut behind her.
The three of them stood there, only the sound of the door creaking on its hinges breaking the silence, until Shane cleared his throat, reached for a cup, and poured. “So,” he said. “Aside from the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that we’re not going to talk about, does anyone around here have half a plan on how we’re going to live through the day?”
“Don’t ask me,” Michael said. “I just got up.” The words sounded normal, but not the tone. It was as odd as Eve’s had been, and just as strained. He put his coffee back down on the table, hesitated, then took a croissant and walked away, back toward the room where they’d been. Shane started to follow, but Claire grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” she said. “Nothing we can do about this, is there? Let him alone to think.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know. So does she. But she got hurt, and he did it, and that’s going to take time, all right?” She held Shane’s gaze this time, and he was the first one to look away. He’d hurt her before—more emotionally than anything else. And he hadn’t been in his right head-place, either. But sometimes explanations just didn’t matter as much as time. It was a hard lesson to learn, for both of them; it was going to be even harder for Michael and Eve.
God, sometimes growing up sucked.
“Okay, so it’s down to us, then. We still need a plan,” he said. He drank coffee, and she fixed hers up and gulped down a hot, bitter, wonderful mouthful. Next was the croissant, still steaming inside from the oven, and it was heaven in bread form, melting in her mouth. “No, strike that. We need SEAL Team Six, but I’ll settle for a half-ass plan right now.”
She swallowed. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He did exactly what any boy—no, man—his age would do: he showed her a mouthful of mashed croissant, which was gross, then drank more coffee and showed her again. Gone.
“That is disgusting, and I will never kiss you again.”
“Yes, you will,” he said, and proved it by pressing his lips to hers. She wanted to squirm away, just to prove the point, but God, she loved kissing him, loved that his mouth was so warm and sweet and bitter with coffee … loved being so close to him now, teetering on the edge of the end of … everything. “See?”
“It wasn’t bad,” she said, and kissed him again. “But you really need to work on your technique.”
“Liar. My technique is awesome. Want me to prove it?” Before she could protest, his lips touched hers, and he was right about the proof. She slipped her hands under the loose hem of his shirt, fingers gliding lightly over the tensing muscles of his stomach, up to the hard, flat planes of his chest. His skin was like warm velvet, but underneath, he was iron, and it took her breath away.
Or so she thought. But when he skinned her Train T-shirt up and fitted his strong hands around her waist, pulling her to him even closer, she gasped against his mouth, moaned a little, and just … melted.
The hot, golden moment was sliced cleanly by a cold voice saying, “I can bear a great many things, but this is not one of them. Not now.”
Claire jumped back from Shane, guilty as a shoplifter. It was, unmistakably, Oliver’s voice, and it was coming from behind her. She hated round rooms. Too many ways people could come at you, especially sneaky, cranky vampires. She turned and faced him as he stalked toward them—no, toward the coffee, since he brushed them aside and filled a cup. She’d never seen him drinking it, but of course, he would; he owned the local coffee shop, Common Grounds. Or at least he had when there was still a Morganville that was alive and kicking.
Common Grounds, like everything else in town, was closed.
Oliver had always taken pains to present himself as human … maybe because he, of all the vampires, seemed the furthest from it. He was cold, unfeeling, acerbic, and sarcastic, and that was on a good day. It clashed with his friendly-aging-hippie vibe of tie-dyed shirts and jeans that he wore at the coffee shop, but he’d dispensed with all that now. He’d donned clothing that suited him, in a sinister and scary way—black pants, a black coat that must have been about a hundred years old, and a white shirt with a ruby pin where a tie would usually have gone. Except for a top hat, he could have stepped out of the turn of the last century. These, Claire felt, were his own clothes. No hand-me-downs for Oliver.
“I guess it’s pretty useless to say good morning,” Shane said.
“Especially as it’s neither morning nor good, yes,” Oliver replied, just shy of a snap. “Don’t try to banter with me, Collins. I am far from in the mood.” Claire could make out the red mottling on his pale skin, like Michael’s, a souvenir of his time spent in that drowning pool. She wondered how he’d slept, if he’d slept. “As to plans, yes, I have one, and yes, it is under way.”
“Mind if we ask—?”
“Yes, of course I mind,” Oliver said, and this time it was a snap. There was a gleam of red in his eyes. He looked tired, Claire thought, and there was a flicker of something almost human in him. “If you wish to be of use, go find Theo Goldman and bring him to me. Now.”
“Theo?” Claire was startled, because she’d heard that Theo had gone missing, like many other vampires in Morganville … and she’d assumed he’d been in the pool. A casualty, when Amelie had resorted to throwing silver into it to kill the draug and their trapped victims with them. “Is he here?”
“If he was here, I wouldn’t ask you to find him, would I?”
Shane was doing that thing now, his posture getting stiff with challenge; he didn’t like it when Oliver treated her—or any of them—like idiots. But especially her. The last thing any of them needed today was to fight each other. They were working together—more or less—and that was how it had to be to survive this. So Claire put a hand on Shane’s arm to hold him back and said, in a very reasonable tone, “Do you have any idea where to look for him?”
Oliver’s hand trembled, just slightly, but enough to make the cup rattle lightly on the saucer. He, like Michael, still felt weak. That should have made Claire feel reassured, because he was usually so intimidating, but instead it made her feel extra vulnerable. “No,” he said. “I do not. But I require his presence, so you will find him.” He let a second pass and then added, without looking at either of them, “For the sake of the Founder.”
For Amelie. And there was a very slight change in his tone when he said it, something that almost seemed … softer.
“She’s worse,” Claire said. Oliver turned and walked away without responding, so she looked at Shane. “She’s getting worse, right?”
“Probably. Who knows with him?” But Shane had the same thought she did; she knew it. If Amelie died, they were at Oliver’s mercy. Not a good thing at all. He was a general, and when he fought wars, he liked them bloody—on both sides. “Maybe we should have left town when we had the chance. Just picked up and run for it.”
“And left Michael behind? And Eve? She wouldn’t have left him. You know that.”
He didn’t answer. She knew that Shane wasn’t someone who ran away, but he couldn’t help thinking about it—Morganville’s version of living a rich fantasy life. After a moment, he shrugged and said, “Too late now anyway. Where do you think we should start, if we’re supposed to track down Goldman?”
“No use looking at the hospital. It’s closed,” Claire said. “They moved all the patients out in ambulances and buses. And there are way too many places he could be. It’s not that big a town, but big enough to hide one vampire. He sent his family away, you know.” Theo, unlike most vamps Claire knew, actually had a family, and cared about them; it was very like him to be sure they were clear of the trouble, then stay behind himself.
“Can’t go close to the hospital any
way,” Shane said. “The whole area’s a no-go zone; the singing starts when you come anywhere close.”
The singing of the draug was not just eerie; it was deeply dangerous. It got hold of you, made you forget … and made you vulnerable to them. Claire nodded. “We’d better stay away from any water, too.”
“Toilets? Please say you don’t mean toilets, because this is rapidly turning into no fun at all. I mean, I like peeing on a wall as much as the next drunken redneck, but—”
“Chemical toilets,” she said. “Amelie had them brought over from some construction company. And please tell me you don’t pee on walls.”
“Moi?” He put his hand over his heart and did his best wounded-innocent look. “You must be thinking of some other uncouth jackass. Which makes me jealous, by the way.”
She would have played along with that, but the idea of the tap water made her suddenly realize that she was drinking the coffee in the cup in her hand, and she resisted a sudden violent urge to gag. “Uh, the coffee …?”
“Made with the finest bottled water,” Eve said. She was back, and she’d brought cookies this time. “And these are sliced off a roll, so don’t think I’ve gone all Martha Stewart, Shane. The vamps stocked up on bottled water some time ago. I’m guessing it’s their version of survivalist training, if they’ve been worried about the draug for so long. All those plastic containers may be bad for the environment, but they’re really good for us right now. So … you’re looking for Theo?”
“So says Oliver,” Shane said, and stuffed a whole cookie in his mouth.
“Trust me, I work for Mr. Scary Guy in Charge, and you do not want to disappoint the man, even if you’re just pulling espresso shots. Especially not now. Besides, having Theo here would be a nice antidote to all this”—Eve gestured at the marble, carpet, dim lighting—“gloom. Theo’s cheerful, at least.”
He was, mostly. Although Claire thought that like all vampires she’d ever met—except Michael, and his grandfather Sam—Theo was essentially concerned about his own survival first. Once you accepted that was how vamps saw the world, it was a whole lot easier to understand what they would do, and why. Morganville, for instance. It was pragmatic, having this isolated town, which they controlled for their own safety. They were cruel sometimes, but they saw it as self-defense …. Let the humans get the upper hand, and the vampires feared they’d be killed, sooner or later. Claire didn’t agree with it, but she understood it.