by Rachel Caine
Richard Morrell, Monica’s brother, was the mayor of the town—young for it, but one of the most responsible people Claire had ever met. He’d gotten Monica’s normal share of it, apparently. And Monica was right—closeted with Amelie all night? That didn’t sound good at all.
“I can ask,” Claire said. “But they probably won’t tell me anything more than what you know.”
“I just want to know if he’s okay.” Monica looked almost . . . well, human. “Richard’s all I’ve got. You know?”
Claire nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out, but I’m sure he’s okay. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks.” Monica said it grudgingly, but she did say it. That was more than a little amazing. Claire didn’t want to spoil it by saying anything else, so she drank her coffee in silence, and so did Monica, and after a while, it almost felt . . . comfortable.
Compared to the other times when they’d tried to kill each other, anyway.
Claire’s next stop was the TPU science building, where she found Professor Howard waiting with her test. She took it in twenty minutes, not needing the hour he’d allotted; it was an easy A, she knew that, and so did he as soon as he glanced over her answers. She got a nod of approval from him, and a stern warning not to miss any other tests.
Sadly, she wasn’t sure she could accommodate him on that. Not in Morganville.
After the test, she sat on the steps in the chilly sunlight and dialed Oliver’s phone. Not surprisingly, it went to his voice mail, which sharply ordered her to leave a message. “Monica Morrell’s worried about her brother,” she said. “She’s worried enough to talk to me, and that means she’s probably tried everybody else in town. I assume you don’t want the buzz, so go calm her down. Please.” The please was an afterthought, and half hearted; she was still angry at him, and furious at Myrnin. And Amelie. She was truly furious at Amelie.
She’d given so much to the vampires, given so much to keep things stable around here, and this was how they paid her back? By trying to take away Shane?
The longer she considered it, the angrier it made her. And the more frightened. Because what it meant opened up a terrifying gulf in front of her.... She’d always thought that at a certain level she could trust Myrnin, and Amelie. (She’d never deluded herself about Oliver.) But if she couldn’t . . . if deep down, they saw her as disposable . . . what chance did any human really have in Morganville?
None.
That was what Shane had been trying to tell her all along. We don’t mean anything to them except as a life-support system, Claire thought. Individually, we’re nothing. Servants. No, cattle with opposable thumbs, occasionally useful.
She clutched her phone hard, stood up, and went down the steps, two at a time. Burning in her stomach was a mixture of nerves, nausea, and a new sense of purpose.
She went straight to the camera store that she and Shane had visited; the engagement party flyer wasn’t posted, but Claire hadn’t really expected it to be. The man behind the counter—the same one—straightened as she entered and put both hands on the glass top. “What do you want?” he asked. The indigo dye of the stake tattoo showed against the pale skin of his forearm, peeking out from under his rolled-up shirtsleeve.
Claire pulled off her cap and gloves, jammed them in a pocket, and said, “I don’t know.” That was honest. She’d come here on impulse, but now that she was facing him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask. “What’s the deal with the tattoos?”
He rolled down his sleeves, staring at her with cold suspicion. “Chicks dig them,” he said. “I don’t do tats. This is a camera store. You might want to check down the street.”
“Captain Obvious used to be your friend.”
He didn’t answer that at all. He was frowning now, and she was wondering if she’d made a terrible, impulsive mistake.
“I just—” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “Shane may be in danger. Real danger. From the top. Can you protect him?”
“Sorry?” His eyebrows rose. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just run a—”
“Camera store, yeah, I heard you. Listen. I need to know—can you, I don’t know, watch out for him? Please?”
“You think I’m going to fall for your innocent act? You’ve been in the vampires’ corner since day one around here. No chance, sweetheart. And if you keep poking around here, you’re going to get hurt.”
“It’s not for me,” she said. “It’s for Shane. And I think you know he’s never been in the vampires’ corner. So please. Just—help him if you see he’s in trouble. That’s all I’m asking.”
“What about you?” he asked, and gave her an evil little smile. “What if you’re in trouble?”
Claire shrugged and put her gloves and hat back on. “I guess I’m on my own. Right?”
He was still watching her, trying to figure her out, as she walked out into the weak winter sun. There were still pools of dirty water at the edges of the uneven parking lot, and the ground remained soaked.
When she looked back, the camera shop owner nodded, once.
She put her hands in her pockets and walked home.
Home was chaos, and for a moment, Claire was truly worried that something awful had happened; Eve was stomping around the house slamming things around, and Shane was saying, in a thin and raspy voice, “It’s not a big deal, man; calm down.”
“I’m not your man and I will not calm down!” Eve yelled, and gave a piercing, full-throated shriek of frustration.
Claire dumped her stuff in the hall and raced into the living room, expecting to see . . . Well, she didn’t know what she expected to see, except disaster in some form.
What she saw was a cake sitting on the dining table that was . . . well, a disaster. In cake form.
The two-tiered dessert itself was uneven and leaning, the icing was messy, the red flowers had melted into the white and left unsettling bloodlike stains, and, worst of all, as Claire got closer, she realized that the writing on top said MICHAEL & EVA in a big, lopsided, amateurish outline of a heart with an arrow through it.
Eva. Not Eve.
Eve kicked the sofa with her Doc Martens boots and burst into tears, and really, Claire didn’t blame her a bit. Shane was looking helpless as he stood there watching her, not sure what to do.
So he did, of course, the wrong thing, and said, “Look, it’s just a cake. I’m sure it’s still delicious.”
Eve glared at him. Claire walked over and put her arms around her friend, and sent Shane an irritated look.
“What did I do?” he croaked. His throat was turning a spectacular sunset purple now, with hints of blue. “Cake! It’s cake! Delicious cake!”
“Honey, it’s okay, really,” Claire said. “We can—fix it.”
“We can’t,” Eve managed to gasp out between sobs. “I shouldn’t have made the trim red—it’s all runny. . . .”
It did look a little bit slaughterrific, actually, but Claire put on a brave face. “So we scrape it all off, get some store-bought icing, and put it on,” she said. “Can’t be any worse, right? And we decorate it ourselves. It’ll be fun!”
“It’s horrible!” Eve cried, and buried her face in Claire’s puffy coat. “It looks like Dracula’s wedding cake!”
“Which should be a plus, shouldn’t it?” Shane asked. “I mean, thematically?”
“Really not helping, Shane!” Claire said.
“I am helping! I even carried it in!”
“Yeah, good job.” Claire sighed and shook her head. “Go upstairs or something. We’ll find a way to fix this. Eve—just calm down and relax, okay? Breathe. I’ll get the frosting and be back in a little while.”
She got Eve to sit on the couch. She’d stopped sobbing, which was good, but she was staring at the cake with a dead-eyed, horrified look. The sooner the icing was scraped and the whole cake redone, the better.
Shane said, “Want me to go with?”
Her first impulse was to say no . . . but he’d survived t
he morning running around with Eve, and Eve was more consumed with party planning than watching his back. Besides, it was still broad daylight. The safest he’d be, even from Amelie.
He gave her puppy-dog eyes and said, “Please?”
She could never resist the puppy-dog eyes, and he knew it. “All right,” she said. “But wear a scarf. Your throat makes you look like a zombie.”
“I hear zombies are hot right now,” Shane said, straight-faced. “They’ve got their own TV show and everything. Okay. Scarf.”
She supervised, making sure the scarf was looped high enough to cover up the worst of the bruising. “Just tell anyone who asks that you got a wicked new tattoo and you’re still healing up,” she said. She stopped and brushed her fingertips lightly over the discolored skin. “Does it hurt?”
He bent his head and lightly kissed her forehead. “Only when I laugh.”
“I’ll try not to be funny.”
“Epic fail, beautiful.” She tingled all over when he called her beautiful. He didn’t do it often, but when he did, he said it in this tone that was . . . just so incredibly intimate. “You know I need to watch your back, right?”
“I’m buying icing, Shane. I’m not going on safari. Besides, you’re the one with the target on his back, not me.”
“Then you can protect me.” He kissed her on the nose, lightly.
The idea of her—small, not-very-physical Claire—protecting big, strong, very physical Shane . . . Well, that was just funny, somehow, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
But he kept looking at her, very warm and very serious, and after her giggles faded, he said, “I mean it, Claire. I trust you.”
She put her hand on his cheek and, without speaking, led him out the door.
At the grocery store, the first thing Claire noticed was that there was some kind of a crisis . . . not a we’re-out-of-milk crisis, but something bigger. Management-style. As she and Shane walked in the door, they were almost knocked down by a very agitated man with that store-manager look about him. He was on his cell phone. His tie was pulled askew, and there were sweat stains under his arms. He was saying, “Yes, I know you need payment for deliveries, and I’m trying to reach our owner—I’ve been trying for days! . . . No, I don’t have another number. Look, I’m sure nothing’s wrong. I’m going over there myself to see. If you can just go ahead and make the scheduled delivery . . .” His voice faded out as he kept walking, heading for the office. Claire exchanged a look with Shane, who shrugged, and then they went in search of cake supplies.
Claire could tell that the shelves were badly in need of restocking. . . . Not that there was ever a huge selection in the store, but when the cake mixes were down to one or two boxes, and entirely out in most of the really good flavors . . . well, that didn’t bode well. No wonder the manager was freaking out.
Like in most businesses in town, Claire suspected the owner was a vampire.... They liked to keep a tight grip on the purse strings of their investments, too. So why was the manager having so much trouble getting money for his store? Not like vamps went broke, not in Morganville.
“Did he say he couldn’t get in touch with the owner?” Shane asked her, very quietly. “Because that’s weird.”
“Very,” she agreed. “You think he might have been part of Bishop’s, ah, support group?” Bishop, Amelie’s father, had gathered up a nice little cadre of backstabbing traitors to help him on his most recent bid for power; Amelie and Oliver had responded by basically making most of those people disappear. And Bishop had done his share of damage, too.... He’d grabbed some of Amelie’s supporters, and they hadn’t survived the experience.
Civil war among the vampires: not pretty.
“Possible,” Shane said. His voice sounded rougher than before, like he was starting to really hurt. “But that should have been taken care of weeks ago. Amelie doesn’t let things go like that.”
He was right. This sounded recent, and pretty dire. Amelie certainly wouldn’t want one of the town’s main grocery stores to crater; she’d fund it first. So this had to be something happening under her radar.
Claire shook her head and checked the frosting. There was enough white available, and she found some red candy flowers, too. The red decorator writing stuff looked doubtful, though Claire grabbed some of that. “Done,” she said, and turned around.
Shane was gone.
“Shane?” She clutched the stuff to her chest, suddenly feeling very cold, and turned in a circle. He wasn’t at either end of the aisle. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Claire hurried up toward the registers, hoping to catch sight of him.
Nothing. Her heart sped up, painfully fast. She started walking, fast, pacing past aisle after aisle. There were a dozen or so shoppers, but no sign of her boyfriend.
And then, off to the side, she saw a flash of a blue scarf. She backed up, stared, and saw that Shane was standing close to the office door, head down, listening. He looked up and saw her, and her heartbeat slowly began to ease up. Sweet relief flooded through her. God. She’d thought . . . Well, she’d thought someone had taken him right behind her back. Which was ridiculous, now that she thought about it—he wasn’t some defenseless kid; he was a big guy, and he’d make noise, at the very least.
No, of course he’d gone off on his own. Jackass.
She got in line to pay for her stuff, and he came to join her by the time she reached the register. “Jerk,” she told him, without the usual lighter edge of humor. “You scared me to death!”
He helped her put her armload of supplies on the belt and nodded at the bored, overweight girl running things over the scanner. “Hey, Bettina.”
“Hey, Shane.” Bettina sighed.
“So, lot of drama today.”
“Haven’t had a delivery in two weeks,” she said. “I’ll be lucky if we’re not closed by tomorrow. It’s supposed to be payday. No sign of checks, either. This sucks.”
“Hang in there,” Shane said. He smiled at her, and she smiled back wearily. It occurred to Claire, with a bit of surprise, that he knew the girl, probably from his old neighborhood or school or something. “How’s your brother?”
“Same jerkwad as he ever was, only now he’s old enough to drink, all legal,” she said. “Pretty much sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
Bettina’s eyes finally focused on Shane’s throat, and the scarf. “Hey, is that a bruise? What happened?”
“Tattoo,” he said, straight-faced. “It’s hard-core.”
She looked impressed. “I guess it must be.”
Bettina silently bagged the groceries and handed them over, and Claire thanked her—sincerely, because it was obvious Bettina and everybody else at the Food King was going to have a pretty miserable time today—and walked with Shane back out into the cold.
“So, superspy, what did you learn hanging around the office door?” she asked him. Shane was hunched over, hands in his pockets, looking thoughtful.
“The manager called the cops,” he said. “Filed a missing persons report. On a vampire.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s how desperate he is.” Shane raised his eyebrows. “He gave them an address, if you’re interested.”
“That is not a good idea. We’re supposed to stay quiet, remember?”
“We’re not talking. We’re just looking.”
“You’re going to get us killed,” Claire said. “Well, yourself, anyway. Which will kill me, too, Shane. Please, let’s go home, just this once! No poking around, no Scooby-Dooing, no taking crazy risks. I’m scared, and I think the less we have to do with whatever’s going on, the better.”
He shot a look over at her, a smile playing hide-and-seek with his lips. “Who are you, and what did you do with Claire?”
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.” He sucked in a deep breath, as if playing for time, and after a moment, he said, “Claire, Myrnin’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he’s got no reason to come after
me. I could tell it wasn’t his idea. He actually apologized to me before he choked the crap out of me. So . . . who gives Myrnin orders?”
“Shane—”
“C’mon. Help me out.”
Claire sighed, and her breath puffed white in the fierce, cold wind that stung her skin. “Only one person.”
“Yeah. Her. And then Oliver comes racing to stop him. Again, who gives Oliver orders, when he bothers to listen?”
“Amelie.”
“And you think that by keeping our heads down, we’re really going to get out of this? You want to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny while we’re at it?”
Claire jumped over a broken part of the sidewalk, which Shane’s longer legs carried him effortlessly over. “Hey, you’re the one who says the Easter Bunny is actually evil.”
“Granted, but you’re avoiding the point.”
“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “And I’m angry, Shane. I’m really angry. After everything we’ve done, everything we’ve risked, we’re expendable. And it hurts. Believe me.”
He stopped and looked at her for a moment, then put his arms around her. The street was empty except for a few passing cars, and it felt like they were all alone, against the world. That wasn’t true, but in that moment, Claire was feeling particularly vulnerable.
Shane kissed her on the top of the head and said, “Welcome to Morganville. We grew up knowing that. You’re just now realizing it.”
She hid her face in the warm, rough weave of his jacket. Her voice came out muffled. “How do you stand it?”
“We get mean,” Shane said. “And we get cynical. And we stick together. Always. Because first, last, and always, we rely on each other.”
They stood there together, holding each other, until finally the wind got so cold Claire shivered even in his embrace.
Shane put his arm around her and walked her the rest of the way home. She forced herself to forget all they’d seen and said, and throw herself into salvaging Eve’s engagement cake. It was actually fun, and three tubs of frosting later, they’d made it look, if not professional, presentable. The cakes were level, and the decoration was even; the red flowers looked sweet and just a bit in-your-face. Claire had decided to make the most of the amateurish clumsiness of the squeeze decorator stuff, so there was a funny lopsided heart with a childish arrow through it, and the initials MG and ER.