by Rachel Caine
‘Holla,’ said a warm, smoky voice on the other end. There was a rustle of cloth, and then the lazy tone went away as Jesse said, ‘Claire?’
‘Somebody took my roommate,’ Claire said. ‘Was it you?’
‘I – what?’
‘You’re a vampire. Did you take her?’
‘Hell no, I didn’t take her.’ Jesse’s voice had gone tight now, and Claire could almost picture her standing up and pacing in that fluid, predatory way vampires had. ‘What do you mean, someone took her?’
‘I mean she’s gone, the door’s hanging open, and I think there’s blood in her room,’ Claire said. She was starting to shake now, a delayed reaction that meant it was hard to hold on to the phone. She gripped it tighter. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Dammit. No, don’t do that, not yet. Stay there.’ There was a murmured voice off the phone, and Claire suddenly realised that Jesse might have a visitor, a personal kind of visitor. ‘Tell me exactly what happened, Claire.’
‘I went out for a pizza. My roommate was here by herself, as far as I know, but when I came back the door was open and there’s blood in her room. She was hurt. And she’s not here.’
‘Is there a sign of a break-in?’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It was unlocked, and—’ In a flash, she remembered the black-clothed men entering the house the other night. Unlocking the doors. ‘Oh, God. Did Dr Anderson tell you about the men who broke in the other night?’
‘Yes. Claire, is there any possibility they might have mistaken your roommate for you?’
She honestly hadn’t thought about it until Jesse said it, but her stomach knotted up, and she let out a trembling breath. ‘Maybe.’
‘Okay. Here’s the deal: stay right where you are. Don’t touch anything, don’t shut the door, don’t try to solve the mystery yourself. I need to see it just as it is. I’m three minutes out. I’ll alert Irene.’
She hung up, and Claire hesitated a few seconds before sitting down on the steps. She shivered. The house felt cold and empty, and she hated leaving the front door open like that; she half expected to see the creepy face of Derrick, Liz’s stalker, peering in.
No Derrick, though. That was strange. Wasn’t he almost always hanging around waiting for Liz to come and go? And he’d been up on the steps before, Claire had seen him. Could this be Derrick, finally working up his courage to hurt Liz? But would she have ever let him in? Claire’s instincts said no, but maybe there had been some kind of faked emergency, or Derrick had used some other way to gain entrance … Claire’s mind was whirling, and her finger hovered over the emergency call button on her phone while the seconds crawled by with torturous intensity. If she’s more than three minutes, I’ll call the cops, she promised herself. And what if it really had been Jesse, after all? And Jesse was just coming by to clean up the mess and make Claire herself disappear, too?
She was on the verge of pressing the 911 button when suddenly, there was a shape standing in the doorway. Not coming in – just waiting. Oh, God, Claire thought in alarm, and bolted to her feet … and then realised it was Jesse. She had on a hoodie that she’d pulled up over her head, and a baseball cap under the hood that shaded her pale face, and she had her hands in her pockets; it was a normal look for a town like this, nothing that would get a second glance. A lot less obvious a sun-cover than the extravagant leather coats and big hats that Morganville vampires seemed to favour.
A second later, though Jesse didn’t speak, Claire realised what she was waiting for, and said, ‘Come in.’
Jesse didn’t reply, just stepped into the entry hall. She glided with the eerie, silent speed that Claire was accustomed to, but never okay with, and she pushed the hood back, took off the hat, and looked around the entry hall with methodical calm. Her eyes – a muddy, dim red now – swept over Claire, but didn’t pause. She made a fast walking circuit of the limited area, then crossed to the stairs and knelt down to put her face close to one of the steps. Then she came up a few stairs and did it again. Jesse worked her way quickly up to the second-floor landing, examined the blood there, and then went into Liz’s room.
It was all accomplished in eerie silence. Jesse didn’t speak to Claire, or acknowledge her in any way, until she finally stepped out of her friend’s room and looked up the stairs at her. The expression on the vampire woman’s face was blank – blank enough that Claire wasn’t sure if she ought to wait, or run.
Then Jesse said the thing that Claire least expected to hear. ‘It isn’t your roommate’s blood.’
‘What? But – it has to be!’ Unless Liz had fought back, maybe cut one of the intruders … she supposed that could happen, but the idea of Liz actually scoring a hit was pretty far out there. ‘Can you tell whose it is?’
‘Not easily. If I’d already tasted that blood, I’d know it, but from what’s smeared around in here, I’d have to say that it’s a male in his late twenties who drinks too much Red Bull.’ Jesse shrugged when Claire stared silently at her. ‘It has a certain smell to it. So does coffee and strong liquor. But I can definitely tell you that it wasn’t a girl your age who was hurt here. You said the door was open. Maybe she fought with someone, hurt him, and ran for it. That would explain the open door, if he took off in pursuit.’
‘Can you – can you track them?’
‘Not them. Just him. And only if he keeps bleeding. What the hell, we can give it a try, I guess.’ Jesse pushed her cap back on and flipped up the black hood. ‘Come on. We’ve got as good a chance of solving this as the police right now, and I don’t really want the cops involved in anything if it traces back to me, or to Irene.’
‘But – what if Liz—’
‘Trust me,’ Jesse said.
Claire hated it when vampires said that, and she was just about to say so, when someone else darkened the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. Tall, broadly built, and she instantly thought Derrick, and felt a surge of fury.
It wasn’t Derrick.
Shane was standing there on the doorstep, staring up at her. His face was set and pale, and his whole body said that he was braced for a painful impact, but he just nodded to her and said, ‘So, I’ve got no doubt that we’re going to talk about this later, and that will be hard, but for right now, you’re going to need my help.’
Jesse frowned at him. ‘Shane?’
Claire somehow descended a whole flight of stairs without even realising she’d done it. All of a sudden she was on the landing outside of Liz’s door, and her hand was hurting from the strength with which she was clutching the railing. Her knees were trembling, but the rest of her felt … numb. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘You know him?’
‘Yeah, of course I do. He’s the dishwasher at Florey’s.’
Claire’s mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t sort out the whirl of words flying around in her mind. I wasn’t wrong. I did see him there.
That meant that Shane had been here for days. Maybe longer.
Long enough that he’d lied to her about it, and so had Michael. So had Eve.
‘Oh, we’re going to talk,’ she said then, and the chill in her voice surprised her. ‘But for right now, you’d better tell me what you think you know about this.’
‘Outside,’ Shane said. ‘We need to get moving. Now.’
‘Why?’ Jesse asked.
‘Because the people who took Claire’s friend might come back.’
CHAPTER NINE
SHANE
Of all the ways I wanted to come face-to-face with Claire again … this wasn’t the one I’d preferred. I knew that there was a slim chance we might accidentally meet, but this wasn’t any accident; I was showing up on purpose on her doorstep, and there was no way to pretend that I hadn’t been here, hadn’t been interfering in her life, hadn’t been keeping eyes on her.
Because I was about to confess all that.
Jesse’s anti-sun disguise was pretty good; once her oversized sunglasses were on and her hands were in her pockets, most of her pale skin was prot
ected from accidental sun exposure. It helped that today was cloudy and a little rainy. Claire locked the house’s front door and followed Jesse into the street, where I was waiting for them under a tree (that was polite of me, I thought, look at me being all vampire-sensitive). I nodded to both of them and led the way at a brisk walk a couple of blocks, then turned the corner. There was a café there with an awning. I sat down at one of the fragile-looking tables, and Claire and Jesse took seats on the other side of me. Jesse didn’t look pleased.
Claire – actually, I was too scared to look at her directly to tell what she might be feeling. She hadn’t jumped into my arms and declared her eternal love, so I was going to assume that I was in trouble. Big trouble.
Didn’t matter right now, given the situation.
Jesse’s gaze flicked from me to Claire, then back again, and I saw her making the connections. ‘Shane, just to be sure I’ve got this all right: you followed her from Morganville, but didn’t tell her about it. And you, Claire, you didn’t know he was here.’
‘That’s right,’ Claire said. I didn’t say anything, but then again, I didn’t have to; just being here was silent agreement. ‘I didn’t know he was coming.’
‘That’s on me. I didn’t want you to know.’
I could tell that she checked herself right then, and because I knew her, I also knew that she was thinking that our personal relationship issues weren’t the worst thing happening today. ‘Then tell me what happened today.’
‘Okay, here’s the truth,’ I said. ‘I pass by the house every once in a while – it’s kind of on the way to work, okay? And last time I was by here, I saw this big guy trying to jimmy your front door. I warned him off and asked the cops to step up patrols.’
‘The attempted break-in card,’ Claire said. ‘Was it Derrick who was trying to break in?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, he introduced himself. He’s a real douche bag.’
‘He’s Liz’s stalker.’
‘Well, that fits. He had the vibe.’
‘So it was Derrick who went in to get her.’
‘No,’ I said, and leant forward to lower my voice. ‘It was four guys in a very slick military manoeuvre – one in a delivery van with a sliding door that blocked the view of the front, and three who went inside. They had master keys, because they opened it up fast and went in quietly. Then, about a minute later, they came out with a girl with a black hood over her face – like some kind of CIA rendition from the movies. She wasn’t protesting too much; I think she was too scared. I was going to move, because I honestly thought it might be you, Claire, until I saw her getting into the van; she didn’t move like you, and she was as tall as Eve, so I thought it must be your friend. One of the men went back inside, and then all of a sudden, Derrick showed up. I don’t think he knew what was going on – he was across the street in his usual spot, holding up the lamp post. All he knew was that the door was open, so he bolted inside; he didn’t even know they’d taken the girl out.’
‘Liz,’ Claire said softly. ‘Her name is Liz.’
‘I know. Sorry. I would have done something, except I’m not in the best shape right now.’
She paused, biting her lip, studying my face. ‘God, Shane. You weren’t kidding, were you? You really got beat up.’
I had, and I felt it. The aches and pains were bad enough, but half my face was throbbing, and I knew the bruising was going to darken into a spectacular tie-dye pattern. Plus, my damn arm hurt as if I’d cracked a bone, though I knew I hadn’t, or at least the X-rays hadn’t showed it. The skin itched something crazy, as if I’d fallen into a bunch of poison ivy. Not too likely, even if we were Ivy League-adjacent.
I really didn’t want to look at Claire directly, because despite the apparent concern in her words, her voice had a fragile, hard tone I didn’t like. I don’t know what would have been worse, seeing pity from her, or seeing … something else. Instead, I stared at a discoloured spot on the table and scraped at it with my thumbnail as I continued my story. ‘Derrick and the other guy came stumbling out less than a minute later, and Derrick looked hurt. They tossed him in the van too, and took off.
‘Do you know where they took them?’
‘Not a clue,’ I said, ‘but I got a picture of the van and the plate, plus at least one of the guys.’ I dug out my phone and passed it to Jesse, who navigated the menus with an impressive amount of ease, considering she was an ancient bloodsucker; I’d already worked out that she had to be pretty old, because she wasn’t particularly worried about the sun. Even with the hoodie and hat, most vampires would have been scared, but Jesse seemed cool and calm and not the least bit flammable. ‘Maybe you’ve got some contacts who can use that?’
‘Likely,’ Jesse said. ‘All right, Claire, you obviously can’t go back home. Whether this was some separate event related to your friend – and I’m going to have her background and family checked – or whether this had to do with you and your work with Dr Anderson, it’s not safe for you there, and it’s our fault you stayed as long as you did in a difficult situation. When you reported the first event to Irene, I should have insisted you get out of that house immediately, but she was convinced that they were only looking for the device, and since it had been moved …’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What event are we talking about?’ Because it seemed to me that I’d missed something important. Something Claire should have told me.
It was probably wrong for me to be upset about that, considering how much I’d kept from her, though. Didn’t stop me.
When she didn’t immediately start talking, though, Jesse spilt it for her. ‘Two spy types let themselves into the house the other night,’ she said. ‘While Claire was there. She hid, and they searched the place. Nobody got hurt.’
I felt my jaw go tight, and I tried really hard not to clench my teeth too much. ‘Until now, you mean. Unless you don’t count humans getting abducted as hurt.’
‘Down, boy. I’m not your enemy. Claire called me to help.’ Jesse flashed a brief, biting smile at me. ‘After she asked me if I had gone munchies on her friend, of course. But that’s a sensible and sane question, for someone who’s lived where you’ve lived. I would have asked it, too, in your shoes. Relax.’ She moved her fingers on his phone’s keypad, lightning fast, and then handed it back. ‘I’ve forwarded the pictures on to a friend who can do the footwork. Quick thinking, getting the shot. And not rushing in. You’d have ended up taken just like Derrick, I think. No offence, but it’s likely these are men trained in quick, quiet abduction. It’s not like fighting vampires.’
‘Nothing here is like fighting vampires,’ I said. ‘It’s more like fighting smoke. I think I like it when I had an actual enemy to face.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, you have some. We just haven’t seen them yet,’ Jesse said. ‘But we will. And when we do …’ She showed fang, just for a moment; anybody who happened to catch a glimpse would have doubted their sanity, especially since the teeth disappeared in a flash. ‘When we do, we’ll settle this Morganville style.’
‘What’ll we do about Liz, and Derrick?’ Claire asked. ‘They don’t have anything to do with this, if it’s about me and Professor Anderson and vampires. They’re just caught in the middle.’
‘You know what generally happens to people in the middle, Claire?’ Jesse asked, as she got to her feet. ‘Crossfire.’ She speared me with a long look, and I threw it right back at her. ‘Shane, get her someplace safe. I’m holding you responsible. I have your phone number now, and I’ll be in touch when I have something. Until then, lay low.’
‘What about the police?’ Claire asked. ‘Shouldn’t I call them?’
‘Call them if you like,’ Jesse said, ‘but when you do, they’re going to ask you to explain why you dumped a fresh pizza on the floor inside the house, found blood in your housemate’s room, and didn’t call 911 immediately. They’ll match the store receipt to your route and the time you were seen entering the house. And the first person they’ll detain is you
. You had the keys. There was no forced entry. And in the police’s experience, generally the person who lives in the house is the first person to suspect.’
It was all pretty damn logical. Brutally logical. Claire swallowed hard and nodded. ‘No police then.’
‘Smart girl.’
I watched Jesse as she walked away, hood up, hands in her pockets. She didn’t even hurry. Yeah, that was some scary confidence, considering she was essentially vulnerable out here, alone. ‘Sorry,’ I said. Not to Jesse, but to Claire. I was still trying not to look her in the eye. ‘I’d rather talk about all this someplace safer. Can we go?’
‘I’d rather talk about it here,’ she said, ‘because at least if I’m here, I can order coffee, and I probably won’t scream in frustration out loud. Think of it as a public buffer zone.’
Oh, great. I winced, but I asked the question. ‘So, do you feel like screaming? Specifically, at me?’
‘A little bit,’ she said. ‘But God, this doesn’t matter right now, does it? What about Liz? What’s going to happen to her? I mean, even Derrick doesn’t deserve … Jesse didn’t mean it about crossfires, did she?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Claire, this is not a good place to stay. Jesse said to keep you safe, and in my opinion an open table on the sidewalk isn’t exactly the textbook definition of secure …’
‘Do you have an apartment?’
‘I’ve got a room at Florey’s. It’s not spacious. Or clean. But it’s cheap, and the work’s solid. It’ll do until things settle down, if you’re, ah, not too picky.’
‘Well, it couldn’t be much worse than where I was living,’ Claire sighed. ‘All my stuff is back there, though. All my clothes, anyway. I’ve got my computer and books, and that’s what’s important. Hey … did you know Jesse was …’ Claire gave the universal Morganville sign for teeth in the neck, and I smiled, just a little. Carefully. Not just because it hurt like a son of a bitch.