Midnight Alley E-Book

Rachel Caine

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Morganville Vampires
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Seitenzahl: 396

Beschreibung

Claire Danvers's college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it's giving night school a whole new meaning...

Leseprobe

Praise for the Morganville Vampires series

‘Ms Caine uses her dazzling storytelling skills to share the darkest chapter yet… Impossible to set down’

Darque Reviews

‘Filled with delicious twists that the audience will appreciatively sink their teeth into’

Genre Go Round Reviews

‘Keeps you on the edge of your seat; even in the background scenes you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always does’

Flames Rising

‘A fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page’

Flamingnet

‘A rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos… An electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale’

Midwest Book Review

‘A solid paranormal mystery and action plot line that will entertain adults as well as teenagers. The story line has several twists and turns that will keep readers of any age turning the pages’

LoveVampires

Praise for Rachel Caine’sWeather Warden series

‘You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again’

Jim Butcher

‘The Weather Warden series is fun reading…more engaging than most TV’

Booklist

‘A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris’

Romantic Times

‘Hugely entertaining’

SF Crowsnest

‘A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather’

Locus

‘An appealing heroine with a wry sense of humour that enlivens even the darkest encounters’

SF Site

 Midnight Alley

The Morganville Vampires BOOK THREE

RACHEL CAINE

For the people who got me through my own personalMorganville years: Elizabeth Sandlin, Andy Sealy,Mona Fluitt, Bruce Tinsley, Luis Hernandez,Gary Wiley, Scott Chase, Marsha McNeill, RachelScarbrough, and many more who made the daysbright. Also to the memory of sitting next to StevieRay Vaughn, hearing him make magic when fewpeople were even listening.

For the people who are getting me through theseMorganville years: Cat Conrad, Kelley Walters,Maria Stair, Katy Hendricks, Claire Wilkins andBaby Griff, Becky Rocha, Laurie Andrews and herlovely girls, PN Elrod, Jackie Leaf, Bill Leaf, JoanneMadge, Irene Ferris, Ter Matthies, the Alphas,ORAC, Douglas Joseph, Sharon Sams and her sonBoardman, Ann Jackson and her son Trey, andliterally too many LiveJournal and MySpace friendsto even attempt to list. Every one of them a special,undeserved gift.

And to Charles Armitage and Kevin Cleary, for

Contents

PraiseTitle PageDedicationCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAbout the AuthorBy the Same AuthorCopyright

CHAPTER ONE

The instant the phone rang at the Glass House, Claire knew with a psychic flash that it had to be her mother.

Well, it wasn’t so much a psychic flash as simple logic. She’d told Mom that she would call days ago, which she hadn’t, and now, of course, it could only be her mother calling at the most inopportune moment.

Hence: had to be a call from Mom.

‘Don’t,’ her boyfriend – she couldn’t believe she could actually call him that, boyfriend, not a boy friend – Shane murmured without taking his mouth off of hers. ‘Michael will get it.’ And he was giving her a very good argument in favour of ignoring the phone, too. But somewhere in the back of her mind that little voice just wouldn’t shut up.

She slid off of his lap with a regretful sigh, licked her damp, tingling lips, and dashed off in the direction of the kitchen door.

Michael was just rising from the kitchen table to head for the phone. She beat him to it, mouthing a silent apology, and said, ‘Hello?’

‘Claire! Oh my goodness, I’ve been worried sick, honey. We’ve been trying to call you on your cell for days, and—’

Crap. Claire rubbed her forehead in frustration. ‘Mom, I sent you guys an email, remember? My cell got lost; I’m still working on getting another one.’ Best not to mention how it had got lost. Best not to mention anything about how dangerous her life had become since she’d moved to Morganville, Texas.

‘Oh,’ Mom said, and then, more slowly, ‘Oh. Well, your father forgot to tell me about that. You know, he’s the one who checks the email. I don’t like computers.’

‘Yes, Mom, I know.’ Mom really wasn’t that bad, but she was notoriously nervous with computers, and for good reason; they had a tendency to short out around her.

Mom was still talking. ‘Is everything going all right? How are classes? Interesting?’

Claire opened the refrigerator door and retrieved a can of Coke, which she popped open and chugged to give herself time to think what, if anything, to tell her parents. Mom, there was a little trouble. See, myboyfriend’s dad came to town with some bikers andkilled people, and nearly killed us, too. Oh, and thevampires are angry about it. So to save my friends, Ihad to sign a contract, so now I’m basically the slaveof the most badass vampire in town.

Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well.

Besides, even if she said it, Mom wouldn’t understand it. Mom had been to Morganville, but she hadn’t really seen. People usually didn’t. And if they did, they either never left town or had their memories wiped on the way out.

And if by some chance they started to remember, bad things could happen to them. Terminally bad things.

So instead, Claire said, ‘Classes are great, Mom. I aced all my exams last week.’

‘Of course you did. Don’t you always?’

Yeah, but last week I had to take my exams whileworrying that somebody was going to stick a knifein my back. It could have had an effect on my GPA. Stupid to be proud of that…‘Everything’s fine here. I’ll let you know when I get the new cell phone, OK?’ Claire hesitated, then asked, ‘How are you? How’s Dad?’

‘Oh, we’re fine, honey. We miss you is all. But your father’s still not happy about your living in that place, off campus, with those older kids…’

Of all the things for Mom to remember, she had to remember that. And of course Claire couldn’t tell her why she was living off campus with eighteen-year-olds, especially when two of them were boys. Mom hadn’t got around to mentioning the boys yet, but it was just a matter of time.

‘Mom, I told you how mean the girls were to me in the dorm. It’s better here. They’re my friends. And really, they’re great.’

Mom didn’t sound too convinced. ‘You’re being careful, though. About those boys.’

Well, that hadn’t taken long. ‘Yes, I’m being careful about the boys.’ She was even being careful about Shane, though that was mostly because Shane never forgot that Claire was not quite seventeen, and he was not quite nineteen. Not a huge age difference, but legally? Huger than huge, if her parents got upset about it. Which they definitely would. ‘Everybody here says hello, by the way. Ah, Michael’s waving.’

Michael Glass, the second boy in the house, had settled down at the kitchen table and was reading a newspaper. He looked up and gave her a wide-eyed, no-you-don’t shake of his head. He’d had a bad enough time of it with her parents the last time, and now…well, things were even worse, if that was possible. At least when he’d met them, Michael had been half-normal: fully human by night, an incorporeal ghost by day, and trapped in the house twenty-four/seven.

For Morganville, that was half-normal.

In order to help get Shane out of trouble, Michael had made a terrible choice – he’d gained his freedom from the house and obtained physical form at the time, but now he was a vampire. Claire couldn’t tell if it bothered him. It had to, right? But he seemed so…normal.

Maybe a little too normal.

Claire listened to her mother’s voice, and then held out the phone to Michael. ‘She wants to talk to you,’ she said.

‘No! I’m not here!’ he stage-whispered, and made waving-off motions. Claire wiggled the phone insistently.

‘You’re the responsible one,’ she reminded him. ‘Just try not to talk about the—’ She mimed fangs in the neck.

Michael shot her a dirty look, took the phone, and turned on the charm. He had a lot of it, Claire knew; it wasn’t just parents who liked him, it was…well, everybody. Michael was smart, cute, hot, talented, respectful…nothing not to love, except the whole undead aspect. He assured her mother that everything was fine, that Claire was behaving herself – his eye roll made Claire snort cola up her nose – and that he was watching out for Mrs Danvers’s little girl. That last part was true, at least. Michael was taking his self-appointed older-brother duties way too seriously. He hardly let Claire out of his sight, except when privacy was required or Claire slipped off to class without an escort – which was as often as possible.

‘Yes ma’am,’ Michael said. He was starting to look a little strained. ‘No ma’am. I won’t let her do that. Yes. Yes.’

Claire had pity on him, and reclaimed the phone. ‘Mom, we’ve got to go. I love you both.’

Mom still sounded anxious. ‘Claire, are you sure you don’t want to come home? Maybe I was wrong about letting you go to MIT early. You could take the year off, study, and we’d love to have you back home again…’

Weird. Usually she calmed right down, especially when Michael talked to her. Claire had a bad flash of Shane telling her about his own mother, how her memories of Morganville had started to surface. How the vampires had come after her to kill her because the conditioning didn’t stick.

Her parents were in the same boat now. They’d been to town, but she still wasn’t sure just how much they really knew or understood about that visit – it could be enough to put them in mortal danger. She had to do everything she could to keep them safe. That meant not following her dreams to MIT, because if she left Morganville – assuming she could even get out of town – the vampires would follow her, and they’d either bring her back or kill her. And the rest of her family, too.

Besides, Claire had to stay now, because she’d signed a contract pledging herself directly to Amelie, the town’s Founder. The biggest, scariest vampire of them all, even if she rarely showed that side. At the time, she’d been Claire’s only real hope to keep herself and her friends alive.

So far signing the contract hadn’t meant a whole lot – no announcements in the local paper, and Amelie hadn’t shown up to collect on her soul or anything. So maybe it would just pass by…quietly.

Mom was still talking about MIT, and Claire didn’t want to think about it. She’d dreamt of going to a school like MIT or CalTech her whole life, and she’d been smart enough to do it. She’d even got early acceptance. It was drastically unfair that she was stuck in Morganville now, like a fly in a spider’s web, and for a few seconds she let herself feel bitter and angry about that.

Nice, the brutally honest part of her mocked. You’dsacrifice Shane’s life for what you want, because youknow that’s what would happen. Eventually, thevampires would find an excuse to kill him. You’re notany better than the vampires if you don’t do everythingyou can to prevent that.

The bitterness left, but regret wasn’t following bitterness any time soon. She hoped Shane never knew how she felt about it, deep down.

‘Mom, sorry, I’ve got to go; I have class. I love you… Tell Dad I love him, too, will you?’

Claire hung up on her mother’s protests, heaved a sigh, and glanced at Michael, who was looking a little sympathetic.

‘That’s not easy, talking to the folks,’ he offered. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t you ever talk to your parents?’ Claire asked, and slid into the chair at the small breakfast table across from him. Michael had a cup of something; she was afraid it was blood for a second, but then she smelt coffee. Hazelnut. Vampires could, and did, enjoy food; it just didn’t sustain them.

Michael looked suspiciously good this morning – a little colour in his face, an energy to his movements that hadn’t been there last night.

He’d had more than coffee this morning. How did that happen, exactly? Did he sneak off to the blood bank? Was there some kind of home delivery service?

Claire made a mental note to check into it. Quietly.

‘Yeah, I call my folks sometimes,’ Michael said. He folded the newspaper – the local rag, run by vampires – and picked up a smaller, rolled bundle of letter-sized pages secured by a rubber band. ‘They’re Morganville exiles, so they have a lot to forget. It’s better if I don’t keep in contact too much; it could make trouble. I mostly write. The mail and email get read before they’re sent; you know that, right? And most of the phone calls get monitored, especially long-distance.’

He stripped off the rubber band and unfolded the cheap pages of the second newspaper. Claire read the masthead upside down: The Fang Report. The logo was two stakes at right angles making up a cross. Wild.

‘What’s that?’

‘This?’ Michael rattled the paper and shrugged. ‘Captain Obvious.’

‘What?’

‘Captain Obvious. That’s his handle. He’s been doing these papers every week for about two years now. It’s an underground thing.’

Underground in Morganville had a lot of meanings. Claire raised her eyebrows. ‘So…Captain Obvious is a vampire?’

‘Not unless he’s got a serious self-image problem,’ Michael said. ‘Captain Obvious hates vampires. If somebody steps out of line, he documents it—’ Michael froze, reading the headline, and his mouth opened, then closed. His face set like stone, and his blue eyes looked stricken. 

Claire reached over and took the newspaper from his hands, turned it, and read.

NEW BLOODSUCKER IN TOWN

Michael Glass, once a rising musical star with toomuch talent for this twisted town, has fallen to theDark Side. Details are sketchy, but Glass, who’s beenkeeping to himself for the past year, has definitelyjoined the Fang Gang.

Nobody knows how or where it happened, andI doubt Glass will be talking, but we should all beworried. Does this mean more vamps, fewer humans?After all, he is the first newly risen undead ingenerations.

Beware, boys and girls: Glass may look like anangel, but he’s got a demon inside now. Memorise theface, kibbles. He’s the newest addition to the Better-Off-Dead club!

‘The Better-Off-Dead club?’ Claire repeated aloud, horrified. ‘He’s kidding, right?’ There was Michael’s picture, probably directly out of the Morganville High yearbook, inset as a graphic into a tombstone.

With crudely drawn-in fangs.

‘Captain Obvious never comes out and tells anyone to kill,’ Michael said. ‘He’s pretty careful about how he phrases things.’ Her friend was angry, Claire saw.

And scared. ‘He’s got our address listed. And all your names, too, though at least he points out none of you are vampires. Still. That’s not good.’ Michael was getting past the shock of seeing himself outed in the paper, and was getting worried. Claire was already there.

‘Well…why don’t the vampires do something about him? Stop him?’

‘They’ve tried. They’ve arrested three people in the last two years who said they were Captain Obvious. Turned out they didn’t know anything. The captain could teach the CIA a thing or two about running a secret operation.’

‘So he’s not that obvious,’ Claire said.

‘I think he means it in the ironic sense.’ Michael swallowed a quick gulp of coffee. ‘Claire, I don’t like this. Not like we didn’t have enough trouble without this kind of—’

Eve slammed in through the kitchen door, which hit the wall with a thunderous boom, startling both of them. She clomped across the kitchen floor and leant on the breakfast table. She wasn’t very Goth today; her hair was still matte-black, but it was worn back in a simple ponytail, and the plain knit shirt and black pants didn’t have a skull anywhere in view. No make-up, either. She almost looked…normal. Which was so wrong.

‘All right,’ she said, and slapped down a second copy of The Fang Report in front of Michael. ‘Please tell me you have a snappy comeback for this.’

‘I’ll make sure the three of you are safe.’

‘Oh, so not what I was looking for! Look, I’m not worried about us! We’re not the ones Photoshopped into tombstones!’ Eve looked at the picture again. ‘Although yes, better dead than that hairdo…God, was that your prom photo?’

Michael grabbed the paper back and put it facedown on the table. ‘Eve, nothing is going to happen. Captain Obvious just loves to talk. Nobody’s going to come after me.’

‘Right,’ a new voice said. It was Shane. He’d come in behind Eve, clearly wanting to watch the fireworks, and now he leant against the wall next to the stove and crossed his arms. ‘By all means, let’s keep on shovelling the bull,’ he said. ‘It’s trouble, and you know it.’ Claire waited for him to come over to the table and join the three of them, the way things used to be.

He didn’t. Shane hadn’t willingly stayed long in the same room with Michael since…the change. And he wouldn’t look at him, except in angles and side glances. He’d also taken to wearing one of Eve’s silver crosses, although just now it was hidden beneath the neck of the grey T-shirt he was wearing. Claire found her eyes fixing on its just-visible outline.

Eve ignored Shane; her big, dark eyes were fixed on Michael. ‘You know they’ll all be gunning for you now, right? All the would-be Buffys?’ Claire had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she had no idea how Eve had managed; it was contraband in Morganville, along with every other movie or book featuring vampires. Or vampire killing, more to the point. Internet downloads were strictly controlled, too, though no doubt there was a hot black market in those kinds of things that Eve had tapped into.

‘Like you?’ Michael said. He still hadn’t forgot the arsenal of stakes and crosses that Eve kept hidden in her room. In the old days, that had seemed like good sense, living in Morganville. Now, it seemed like a recipe for domestic violence.

Eve looked stricken. ‘I’d never—’

‘I know.’ He took her hand gently in his. ‘I know.’

She softened, but then she shook it off and went back to frowning at him. ‘Look, this is dangerous. They know you’re an easier target than those other guys, and they’re going to hate you even more, because you’re one of us. Our age.’

‘Maybe,’ Michael said. ‘Eve, come on, sit. Sit down.’

She did, but it was more like a collapse, and she didn’t stop jittering her heel up and down in agitation, or drumming her black-painted fingernails on the table. ‘This is bad,’ she said. ‘You know that, right? Nine point five on the ten point scale of make-me-yak.’

‘Compared to what?’ Shane asked. ‘We’re already living with the enemy. What does that score? Not to mention you probably get extra points for banging him—’

Michael stood up so fast his chair tipped and hit the floor with a clatter. Shane straightened, ready for trouble, fists clenched.

‘Shut up, Shane,’ Michael said, deathly quiet. ‘I mean it.’

Shane stared past him at Eve. ‘He’s going to bite you. He can’t help it, and once he starts, he won’t stop; he’ll kill you. But you know that, right? What is that, some freak-ass Goth idea of romantic suicide? You turning into a fang-banger?’

‘Butt out, Shane. What you know about Goth culture you got from old episodes of The Munsters and your Aryan Brotherhood dad.’ Great, now Eve was angry, too. That left Claire the only sane one in the room.

Michael made an effort to dial it back. ‘Come on, Shane. Leave her alone. You’re the one hurting her, not me.’

Shane’s gaze snapped to Michael and focused. Hard. ‘I don’t hurt girls. You say I do, and you’d better back it up, asshole.’

Shane pushed away from the wall, because Michael was taking steps in his direction. Claire watched, wide-eyed and frozen.

Eve got between them, hands outstretched to hold both of them back. ‘Come on, guys, you don’t want to do this.’

‘Kinda do,’ Shane said coolly.

‘Fine. Either hit each other or get a room,’ she snapped, and stepped out of the middle. ‘Just don’t pretend it’s all about protecting the itty-widdle girl, because it isn’t. It’s about the two of you. So get it together, or leave; I don’t care which.’

Shane stared at her for a second, eyes gone wide and oddly hurt, then looked at Claire. She didn’t move.

‘I’m out,’ he said. He turned and walked through the kitchen door. It swung shut behind him.

Eve let out a little gasp. ‘I didn’t think he’d go,’ she said, so unsteadily that for a second Claire thought she was going to cry. ‘What a freaking idiot.’

Claire reached over and took her hand. Eve squeezed, hard, and then leant back into Michael’s embrace. Vampire or not, the two of them seemed happy, and anyway, this was Michael. She just couldn’t understand Shane’s anger. It seemed to bubble up when she least expected it, for no reason at all.

‘I’d better…’ she ventured. Michael nodded.

Claire slipped out of her chair and went to find Shane. Not like it was difficult; he was slumped on the couch, staring at the PlayStation screen and working the controls on yet another zombie-killing adventure. ‘You taking his side?’ Shane asked, and splattered the head of an attacking undead monster.

‘No,’ Claire said and settled in carefully next to him, with enough open space between so he didn’t feel pressured. ‘Why are there sides, anyway?’

‘What?’

‘Michael’s your friend; he’s our housemate. Why do there have to be sides?’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Um, wait, I’ve got this one…because he’s a bloodsucking, night-crawling leech who used to be my friend?’

‘Shane—’

‘You think you know, but you don’t. He’s going to change. They all change. Maybe it’ll take time, I don’t know. Right now, he thinks he’s just human plus, but that’s not what it is. He’s human minus. And you’d better not forget it.’

She stared at him, a little bit stunned and a whole lot saddened. ‘Eve’s right. That sounds like your father talking.’

Shane flinched, paused the game, and threw the controller down. ‘Low, Claire.’ He wasn’t exactly his dad’s biggest fan at the best of times – he couldn’t be, with the number of cruel things his dad had done to him.

‘No, it’s just true. Look, it’s Michael. Can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? He hasn’t hurt anybody, has he? And you have to admit, having a vampire on our side, really on our side, couldn’t hurt. Not in Morganville.’

He just glared at the screen, jaw set. Claire was trying to think of another way to get through to him, but she was derailed by the ringing of the doorbell. Shane didn’t move. ‘I’ll get it,’ she sighed, and went down the hall to open the front door. It was safe enough – midmorning, sunny, and relatively mild. Summer was finally starting a slide towards fall, now that it had burnt all the green out of the Texas landscape.

Claire squinted against the brilliance. For a second she thought that there was something deeply wrong with her eyes.

Because her arch-enemy, Queen Bitch Monica Morrell, flanked by her ever-present harpies Gina and Jennifer, was standing on the doorstep. It was like seeing Barbie and her friends, blown up life-sized and dressed like Old Navy mannequins. Tanned, toned, and perfect, from lip gloss to toenail polish. Monica had on a forced, pleasant expression. Gina and Jennifer were trying, but they looked like they were smelling something rotten.

‘Hi!’ Monica said brightly. ‘Got plans today, Claire? I was thinking we could hang.’

That’s it, Claire thought. I’m dreaming. Only thisis a nightmare, right? Monica pretending to be myfriend? Definitely a nightmare.

‘I…what do you want?’ Claire asked, because her relationship with Monica, Gina, and Jennifer had started with being pushed down the stairs at the dorm, and hadn’t improved since. She was a crawling bug to the Cool Girls. At best. Or…a tool. Was thisabout Michael? Because his status had changed from ‘hermit musician’ to ‘hottie vampire’ in one night, and Monica was definitely a fang-banger, right? ‘You want to talk to Michael?’

Monica gave her an odd look. ‘Why would I want to do that? Can he go shopping in broad daylight?’

‘Oh.’ She had no idea what else to say to that.

‘I thought a little retail therapy, and then we all go study,’ Monica said. ‘We’re going to check out that new place, not Common Grounds. Common Grounds is so last century. Like I want to be under Oliver’s thumb all the time. Now that he’s taken over as Protector for our family, he’s been all hands-on, wanting to see my grades. Sucks, right?’

‘I—’

‘C’mon, save my life. I really need help with economics, and these two are boneheads.’ Monica dismissed her two closest friends with an offhand wave. ‘Seriously. Come with. Please? I could really use your brainpower. And I think we should get to know each other a little better, don’t you? Seeing as how things have changed?’

Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. The last two times she’d gone anywhere with Monica, she’d been flat on her back on the floor of a van, getting beaten and terrorised.

She managed to stammer, ‘I know this is going to sound rude, but…what the hell are you doing?’

Monica sighed and looked – how weird was this? – contrite. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I was a bitch to you, and I hurt you. And I’m sorry.’ Gina and Jennifer, her constant Greek chorus, nodded and repeated sorry in whispers. ‘Water under the bridge, all right? All is forgiven?’

Claire was, if anything, even more mystified. ‘Why are you doing this?’

Monica pursed her glossy lips, leant forward, and dropped her voice to a low, confidential tone. ‘Well… all right, yeah, it’s not like I had a head injury or something and woke up thinking you were cool. But you’re different now. I can help. I can introduce you around to all the people you really need to know.’

‘You’re kidding. I’m different how?’

Monica leant even closer. ‘You signed.’

So…this wasn’t about Michael. Claire had just become…popular. Because she’d become Amelie’s property.

And that was terrifying.

‘Oh,’ she managed, and then, more slowly, ‘Oh.’

‘Trust me,’ Monica said. ‘You need somebody in the know. Somebody to show you the ropes.’

If the only other person left on the planet was Jack the Ripper, Claire would have trusted him first. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I have plans. But…thank you. Maybe some other time.’

She shut the door on Monica’s surprised face, then locked it. She jumped when she turned to find Shane standing right behind her, staring at her as though he’d never seen her before.

‘Thank you?’ he mimicked. ‘You’re thanking that bitch? For what, Claire? For beating you? For trying to kill you? For killing my sister? Christ. First Michael, then you. I don’t know any of you anymore.’

In true Shane fashion, he just took off. She listened to the heavy tread of his footsteps cross the living room and then go up the stairs. Heard the familiar slam of his door.

‘Hey!’ she shouted after him. ‘I was just being polite!’

CHAPTER TWO

‘So,’ Eve said as she drove Claire to school, ‘what was up with the Monica thing? I mean, maybe you ought to watch your back with her. Even more than you already do.’

‘She sounded like she really kind of meant it. It took a lot for her to come eat crow like that.’

Eve shot her a look. One of those looks, doubly effective coming from a girl wearing rice-powder make-up and flawless eyeliner and black-cherry lips. ‘In Monica’s world, being friends means doing whatever Monica wants, when Monica wants to do it. Somehow, I can’t see you as one of her brain-dead back-up singers.’

‘No! That’s not…I didn’t say I was going to be her friend, just…you asked.’ Claire crossed her arms and settled back in the bucket seat of Eve’s ancient black Caddy, shooting for a stubborn look. ‘She’s not my friend, OK? You’re my friend.’

‘So when Monica starts bringing the in-crowd to hang at your study table, you’ll get up and leave? No way. You’re too nice. Before you know it, you’re tagging along with them, and then you start to actually feel sorry for them. You’ll tell me how Monica’s not bad, she’s just misunderstood, and before you know it you’re braiding each other’s hair and giggling over boy bands.’

Claire made a retching sound. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Please. You like everybody. You even like me. You like Shane, and let’s face it, Shane’s kind of an idiot, at least right now.’ Eve’s eyes narrowed as she thought about that. ‘And about Shane, I swear, if he doesn’t snap out of it, I’m going to punch him in the face. Well, punch him in the face and then run like hell.’

Claire played that out in her head and nearly laughed. Eve’s best possible punch wouldn’t do more than surprise Shane, she figured, but she could just picture the wounded look of confusion on his face. What the hell did I do?

‘I’m not popular,’ she declared. ‘Monica’s not my friend, and I’m not hanging with her, ever, end of story.’

‘Swear?’

Claire held up her hand. ‘Swear.’

‘Huh.’ Eve didn’t sound convinced. ‘Whatev.’

‘Look, if we’re friends, how about buying me a mocha?’

‘Mooch.’

‘You’re the one with the job.’

Mid-afternoon, and it was raining, which was kind of a rarity – a cold, early-fall rain that came down in glittering sheets. Claire, like about ninety per cent of the other students, hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, so she sloshed along miserably along the Quadrangle, past the empty benches and rain-soaked message boards, towards her chem lab. She loved Chem Lab. She hated rain. She hated being soaked to the skin and frankly, living in this part of Texas made it usually not that much of a risk. There was no room in her backpack for anything frivolous, like a raincoat. She worried her books were getting soggy, but the backpack was supposed to be waterproof…

‘You look cold,’ said a voice from behind her, and then the rain cut off, and she heard the hollow thump of raindrops hitting the thin skin of an umbrella.

Claire looked up, blinked water out of her eyes, and saw she was walking under a golf umbrella big enough for four or five of her…or one of her, plus the guy holding the umbrella. Because he was huge. Also cute, in that big-boned football player kind of way. He would have made Shane look small. Well proportioned, though, so the height (had to be at least six feet five, Claire thought) and weight just seemed right on him. He had chocolate brown skin and gorgeous brown eyes, and he seemed…kind of nice.

‘I’m Jerome,’ he said. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ she said back, still amazed that somebody who was clearly somebody would stop to hang an umbrella over her head. ‘Thanks. Um, I’m Claire. Hi.’

She juggled her dripping backpack to her other hand and offered him her right. He took it and shook. His was about three times as large, big enough (she bet) to cup most of an entire football.

He was wearing a TPU athletic department T-shirt. No mystery about his major.

‘Where’re you heading, Claire?’

‘Chem Lab,’ she said, and pointed at the building, which was about a football field-length away, on the other side of the Quad. He nodded and steered that direction. ‘Look, it’s nice of you, but you don’t have to—’

‘It’s no problem.’ He smiled at her. He had dimples. ‘I hear the Science Building is nice this time of year. And anything for a friend.’

‘But I’m not—’

Jerome nodded to a group of girls standing huddled together under the awning of the Language Arts Building. Pretty girls. In the centre of them was Monica Morrell, and she blew Jerome a flirty sort of kiss.

‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘That friend.’ Her estimate of Jerome fell by several dozen notches, hit bottom, and started digging for China. ‘Look, I appreciate it, but I’m not sugar. I won’t melt.’

She veered away and walked fast. Jerome took about two long strides and put the umbrella over her again without comment. She glared at him.

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘I can play this game all day.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But I don’t need favours from Monica.’

‘Girl, it’s an umbrella, not a Lamborghini,’ he pointed out. Way too reasonably. ‘I’m not even lending it to you. It’s not really that much of a favour.’

She kept her mouth shut, head down, and walked fast. Jerome stopped at the foot of the Science Building’s stairs, and she bounded up and darted under the concrete porch, which was already choked with other students hiding from the rain. She looked back down. Jerome smiled and waved, and a bronze or copper bracelet caught her eye.

He was Protected. Probably a native of Morganville.

‘I’m not her friend. That was not my fault,’ she complained, defending herself to an Eve who wasn’t even there.

And then she sneezed, sniffled, and dragged her soggy butt to class.

The rain kept up all day and all night, but the next day dawned bright and shiny, with a pale silver sun not quite as fierce as Claire expected. Kind of nice, actually. She’d already showered by the time Eve stumbled into the bathroom, looking more like the walking dead than most vampires. Eve mumbled something and ignored Claire as she started up the shower again. Claire finished at the sink and hurried downstairs. She found Michael at the coffeepot, emptying the filter of cold grounds. Deeply weird that he was more of a morning person as a vampire. Maybe he was just enjoying having a morning again, instead of becoming a floaty ghost at dawn.

‘Eve’s up. You’d better make it so dark the spoon melts.’

Michael shot her a half smile, still almost lethal enough to stop a girl’s heart. Luckily he knew just how much current to use on his charm. ‘That bad, huh?’

She thought about it for a second as she took down a bowl and the box of Rice Krispies, and found the milk behind the bottles of beer – contraband, from Shane – in the fridge. ‘You’ve seen that movie where the zombies eat people’s brains?’

‘Night of the Living Dead?’

‘The zombies would run if they got a look at her.’

Michael spooned extra coffee into the fresh filter. He looked good, she thought. Strong, tall, confident. He had on a nice blue shirt and some not-so-ratty blue jeans, and he was wearing shoes. Running shoes, sure, but shoes. Claire stared at his feet. ‘You’re going out,’ she said.

‘Got a job,’ Michael said. ‘Working at JT’s Music over on Third Street, ten to close. Mostly I’ll be demo-ing guitars and selling them, but JT said he’d let me do some private lessons if I wanted.’

That was so…normal. Really normal. And he sounded happy, too. Claire bit her lip and tried to organise the explosion of questions in her brain.

‘Ah…what about the sun?’ she asked. Because that seemed to be the first hurdle.

‘They issued me a car,’ Michael said. ‘It’s in the garage. Fully sunproofed. And there’s underground parking at JT’s. There is most places.’

‘Issued…who issued you a car?’ He shot her a you’re not stupid look. ‘The town? Amelie?’

He didn’t answer directly as he slid the filter compartment shut and turned on the brew switch. The machine began wheezing and trickling into the pot. ‘They tell me it’s standard procedure,’ he said. ‘For new vampires.’

‘Not that there have been any for fifty years, right?’

He shrugged. It was obvious that she was making him uncomfortable with the questions, but Claire couldn’t help herself. ‘Did you ever find out why…why there haven’t been any in so long?’

‘I don’t think it’s a great idea to be too curious right now.’

She understood that – and understood he meant it for her as well – but she couldn’t stop asking questions, somehow. ‘Michael…did they get you the job, too?’

‘No. I know JT. I got the job all by myself. They offered—’ He stopped, clearly thinking he’d already said too much.

Claire finished it out, guessing. ‘They offered you some kind of job in the vampire community. Right? Or—’ Oh God. ‘Or they offered to make you a Protector?’

‘Not right off the bat,’ he said, still staring at the coffee-maker. ‘You have to work up to that. So they say.’

Michael. Owning people. Skimming off their wages like some Mafia don. She tried not to let him see how sick that idea made her feel, that he’d ever really consider doing it.

His eyes suddenly cut towards her, as if he’d read her mind. ‘I didn’t do it. I found the job at JT’s, Claire,’ Michael said, and suddenly moved towards her. She flinched, and he took a deep breath and held out his hand in clear apology. ‘Sorry. I forget sometimes…it’s hard, OK, learning how to move around people when I can go so much faster. But I wouldn’t hurt you, Claire. No way.’

‘Shane thinks—’

Light caught and flared in Michael’s eyes, eerie and frightening, and then he blinked and it was gone. He obviously made a real effort to keep his voice quiet.

‘Shane’s wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m not changing, Claire. I’m still your friend. I’ll look after you. All of you. Even Shane.’

She didn’t answer him. Truthfully, as much as she liked him – and it verged on love – she felt something different about him today. Something complicated and agitated and strange.

Was he…hungry? He was staring at her. No, he was staring at the thin skin of her neck, wasn’t he? Claire put her hand to it, involuntary but irresistible, and Michael got a very slight pink flush in his pale cheeks and looked away.

‘I wouldn’t,’ he said, in a far different tone than before. It almost sounded scared to her. ‘I wouldn’t, Claire. You have to believe me. But…this is hard. It’s so hard.’

She did believe him, mostly because she could hear all the heartbreak and sorrow in his voice. She took a breath, stepped forward, and hugged him. He was tall; the top of her head only brushed his chin. His arms felt strong and comforting, and she told herself that he wasn’t warm because it was chilly in the kitchen. It wasn’t really true, but that helped.

‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ he murmured. ‘But I’ve got to admit, I want to. I spent all my life hating vampires, and now…now look at me.’

‘You had to,’ Claire said. ‘You didn’t have a choice.’

She felt his sigh go through both of them. ‘Not true,’ he said. ‘Shane’s right… I did have a choice. But this is the choice I made, and now I have to live with it.’

He let go when she stepped back. Neither of them knew what to say, so Claire busied herself by opening kitchen cabinets to get down the four mismatched cups they used in the morning. Michael’s was plain chunky stoneware, oversized, like a diner cup on steroids. Eve’s was a petite black thing with a yawning cartoon vampire on it. Shane’s had a happy face with a bloody bullet hole in the centre of its forehead. Claire had taken one with Goofy and Mickey on it.

‘How’s school?’ Michael asked. Neutral subjects. He didn’t want to talk it out; he wanted to keep it inside. She wasn’t too surprised. Michael had always been too self-contained for his own good, as far as she could tell.

‘Too easy,’ she sighed, and poured coffee.

They were sitting down and sipping from their mugs when the kitchen door opened, and Shane – wearing pyjama bottoms and a ratty old faded T-shirt came into the kitchen. He avoided Michael, picked up his cup off the counter, and filled it to the brim. He left without a word.

Michael watched him go, face set and hard.

Claire felt the need to apologise. ‘He’s just—’

‘I know,’ Michael said. ‘Believe me. I know exactly how Shane is. Doesn’t mean I have to like it right now.’

I really need to stop being the Glass GoodwillAmbassador, Claire thought, but she knew she’d keep on doing it. Somebody had to, after all. So after she’d finished her coffee, she went to talk to Shane.

Shane’s door was unlocked and slightly open. Claire pushed it and stepped inside, then stopped short. All her carefully prepared speeches flew right out of her head, because Shane was getting dressed.

The sight of him short-circuited her thought processes and completely grounded her better judgement. He’d already hauled on his blue jeans, and his back was to her. No shirt yet. She was spellbound by the ripples of muscles on his back, the gorgeous smoothness of his skin, the way his shaggy hair brushed the tops of his shoulders and begged to be smoothed back…

The sound of his zipper being pulled up snapped her back to sanity. She stepped hastily back, out into the hall, and pulled the door almost shut, then knocked.

‘What?’ It wasn’t a friendly response.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

She heard something halfway between a grunt and a sigh, and opened the door to find him dragging a dark grey, form-fitting shirt over his head. It looked very good on him. Not as good as the no-shirt thing, but she was trying hard not to think about that. It had made her warm and fluttery inside.

‘Is that a new shirt?’ she asked, desperate to get her mind off the vivid mental pictures that kept bubbling up. That got another indefinite grunt. ‘It looks nice.’

Shane gave her an ironic look. ‘We’re talking clothes now? Wait, let me get my Fashion forDummies book.’

‘I…never mind. About Michael—’

‘Stop.’ Shane stepped forward and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I know, you don’t want me ripping him, but I can’t help it. Give me some time, OK? I need to figure some things out.’

Claire tipped her head back, and this time he found her lips. It was, she thought, supposed to be a fast and sweet little kiss, but somehow it slowed down, got warmer and deeper. His lips were damp and soft as silk, and that was such a contrast to the hard lines of his body pressed against her, the strength of his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her even closer. She heard him growl low in his throat, a wild and hungry sound that made her go weak and faint.

He broke the kiss and leant against her, breathing hard. ‘Good morning to you, too. Man, I just can’t stay mad when you do that.’

‘Do what?’ she asked innocently. She didn’t feel innocent. She also didn’t feel sixteen-nearly-seventeen, not at all. Shane always made her feel older. Much older. Ready for anything. It was a good thing Shane wasn’t as dumb as her hormones seemed to be.

‘Unless you want to stay home and cut class, we don’t really have time to talk about it,’ he said, and waggled his eyebrows. ‘So. Wanna cut class and make out?’

She socked him on the arm. ‘No.’

‘You are such a strange girl. Ow,’ he said, in the way that meant he hadn’t felt it at all. ‘You riding with Eve?’

‘When she passes the snarling cannibal phase, yeah. Another two cups of coffee, probably.’

‘You sure you don’t want a bodyguard?’ He meant it. Shane didn’t have a job – she wasn’t really sure he could get one, after what his dad had been up to in Morganville recently. Probably better he kept it low profile for a while. The fewer vampires – and vampire loyalists – he came in contact with right now, the better. He was still thought of as an unindicted coconspirator to his dad’s revenge rampage, and even though the mayor had officially signed his pardon, nobody had much liked it.

Accidents happened.

‘I don’t need a bodyguard,’ Claire said. ‘Nobody’s out to get me. Even Monica’s got all friends-making with me.’

That earned her a too-sharp look, which didn’t go well with his reddened, kissable lips. ‘Yeah. Why is that?’

She shrugged and avoided his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

He tipped her chin up with one finger. ‘So, are we at the lying part of the relationship already? Usually that comes after the exciting, hot and sexy honeymoon period.’

She stuck out her tongue at him, and he leant forward and – to her horror – licked it. ‘Ewwww!’

‘Then don’t stick it out.’ Shane smiled. ‘If you’re going to hang out in my room and tempt me, there’s a penalty. One item of clothing per minute comes off.’

‘Perv.’

He pointed to himself. ‘Male and eighteen. What’s your point?’

‘You are so—’

‘Say, you got any pleated miniskirts and knee socks? I really get off on—’

She squealed and dodged his grabby hands, then checked her watch. ‘Oh, crap – I really do have to go. I’m sorry. Look, you’ll be…you’re OK, right?’

The smile disappeared, leaving only a trace in his dark, secretive eyes. ‘Yeah,’ Shane said. ‘I’ll be OK. Watch your back, Claire.’

‘You too.’ Claire started for the door, but she heard his footsteps behind her and turned; he moved her back to the wall, tipped up her chin, and kissed her so thoroughly that she felt her head fill with light and her knees turn to rubber.

When she could breathe again, and he pulled back to give her just an inch or so of space between their lips, she gasped, ‘Was that a goodbye?’

‘That was a come-home-soon,’ he said, and pushed off from the wall. ‘Seriously, Claire. Watch yourself. I worry.’

‘I know,’ she said, and smiled. Her knees were still weak, and the chorusing light in her head just didn’t seem to be fading. ‘Best kiss so far, by the way.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘You’re keeping score?’

‘Hey, you raised the bar. I don’t grade on a curve.’

She left him, reluctantly, to grab her backpack and see if Eve was in the mood to eat brains, or to give her a ride to school.