Then they
locked it.
Claire rushed to the peephole and stared out. In the glow of the streetlights, she saw two completely normal-looking guys in dark shirts and pants heading down the steps. Athletic, mid-twenties to early thirties. Short haircuts. They could have been Jehovah’s Witnesses or CIA, she had no idea.
But either way, they were able to enter and leave the house without leaving a mark.
Dr Anderson had been right to move the device to safekeeping, because Claire was almost sure that whoever these guys were, they were looking for evidence that the little student from Morganville was something else again.
And she knew, somehow, that it would mean a lot of trouble if they found out the truth.
The phone was still on, and the operator’s voice buzzing like a bee. Claire held it up to her ear and said, ‘Sorry, false alarm – it was my roommate. We’re okay here.’
There was more to it, because the operator was worried Claire was under duress, and the police still showed up to check, but Claire assured them it was all okay.
It wasn’t though.
It really wasn’t.
And then Liz came home, too drunk to make it up the steps on her own, and vomited all over the bathroom, and Claire had to clean it up and put her to bed and deal with the pitiful hangover that came later … but all the time, what she was really thinking was,
who’s after me? Why?
And, from time to time,
why hasn’t Shane called?
Claire saw me.
For a split second, all I could think was
there she
is
, and I froze, because I’d wanted so badly to catch another glimpse of her … and then reality set in, because she was across the room from me, in Florey’s, and she was staring right at me.
I didn’t think about what I was going to do, I just did it: I moved, fast, and blocked her view with a bunch of noisy, clamouring patrons bellied up to the bar. Then I dumped the load of glasses on the ledge where the bartenders could easily grab them, and yelled in Jesse’s ear, ‘My girlfriend Claire is in the bar. Don’t let on that I’m here, okay? I’m not supposed to be in Cambridge!’
She sent me a wide-eyed, disbelieving glance, but she hardly had time to argue; she was popping the top on a beer with one hand (without a bottle opener, she had some kind of crazy thumb technique that was much faster) and mixing a rum and Coke with the other. The two other servers behind the bar were equally busy. They’d go through the load of glasses I’d delivered in about an hour, and I already had two industrial-sized dishwashers running and was doing the overflow by hand. It was definitely the busiest day Florey’s had seen since I’d arrived.
I grabbed the tub with the dirty glasses in it, hoisted it on my left shoulder, and used it to mask myself as I headed back into the kitchen. My arm – the one that had been bitten and healed up – twinged when I did that, but there was nothing wrong with it that a little exercise wouldn’t cure. It still burned, from time to time. And yeah, it worried me. I’d been bitten by a devil dog, after all. There could be side effects. But I wasn’t running a fever, or feeling sick or anything like that, and I knew that going to a traditional doctor wasn’t going to reveal anything.
The last thing I wanted to be was at the mercy of the vampires, even their resident doc, who was a pretty good guy as bloodsuckers went. I shuddered at the thought.
Once I made it to the back, I dumped the bin on the counter and drew fresh hot water, and tried not to think about what the hell
Claire
, of all people, was doing at a bar on game night. She must have been with someone. Who? Friends, maybe. Yeah, it had to be friends. This wasn’t her kind of scene, and I knew that. She wasn’t just here on her own, and she wasn’t here to make new drunk friends, either.
Then why did every bone in my body demand I walk out, take off the apron, grab her and march her out of there? She wasn’t in any danger, except of being trampled in the crowd. Nobody would hurt her. Pete ran a tight ship, and anybody who got out of line answered to him. Nobody was eager to do that.
Why was she here?
She couldn’t be looking for me. She couldn’t.
I washed up ten glasses, then dried my hands, took out my new phone, dialled, and propped the thing up on the counter away from the dishwater, on speaker. It took three rings, but Michael finally answered. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘No time to talk, but did you tell Claire where I was?’
‘What? No, man. You made me promise. I won’t tell her. That’s your business.’
‘Eve? Would Eve tell her?’
‘No. She wants to, but she won’t.’
‘Crap. Well, Claire’s here.’
‘Here, where?’
‘In the bar. Where I’m working. Oh, and living. In the room upstairs. The job kinda comes with room and board. So it isn’t like I can permanently duck her if she catches on.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘Hell no, I didn’t talk to her! I’m washing dishes in the back!’ That, and I was scared she’d hate me for following her. Scared she’d think I’d broken my promise, although I really hadn’t – I was keeping away. Just … within reach, if she needed me. ‘Look, just – I don’t know if she saw me or not, but if she asks to talk to me, just tell her I’m at work. It won’t be a lie.’
‘You’re sliding over the line from best friend to friend who asks me to cover up for him,’ Michael said. ‘Just flashing the warning sign, man. Asking somebody to lie to your girlfriend is never a good step in a relationship.’
‘I know. I just – look, I’m going to tell her, but I want her to have the time she wants, that’s all. I’m trying to stay out of her way—’ I was interrupted by a yell from the bar area; they were out of beer mugs, again. I yelled back that they were coming, and sure enough, Luis, the other dishwasher, picked up the slack and took them out. ‘Look, I’ve gotta go. We good?’
‘We’re good,’ Michael agreed. ‘Watch your back.’
‘I hear ya. My worst problem right now is dishpan hands.’
‘I’ll send you some lotion and nail polish. Want me to buy you a mani-pedi, too?’
‘Mother—’ He hung up on me before I could get the rest of it out, which was probably for the best. I shook my head and scrubbed glasses – damn, I hated lipstick, at least in this context – for another twenty minutes or so before Jesse suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped and almost dropped a martini glass, which would have come out of my not-so-great pay, but she caught it on the way down. She had great reflexes.
Too great.
‘Your girlfriend is Claire Danvers?’ she asked me, and set the martini glass in the clean tray.
‘Yeah. Is she still here?’
‘No, I never saw her in there, but I got a message she’d be waiting in the back. Do you want to talk to her?’
Yes
. I wanted to talk to her so badly it made my stomach churn. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Just don’t tell her I’m here, okay? It’s complicated.’ Dammit, my arm twinged again, and the muscles burned and contracted. I rubbed it, frowning, and wondered if I’d been overworking the recovery just a little.
‘Copy that, friend. All right, she asked for me, so I’m going. Keep up the good work.’ She winked at me, and yeah, she was hotter than just about any girl who’d ever winked at me, at least in a theoretical sense. But I’d had plenty of experience around hot vampire chicks, and it had never ended well for me. So I sent back a non-committal nod, and tried not to watch her ass as she headed for the door. I was the only one managing to resist, looked like. She drew male attention the way pitcher plants draw bugs … and the outcome would be the same.
You could drown in that honey.
Jesse was gone her full fifteen for her break, and when she came back in she gave me a quick thumbs up. ‘She’s okay,’ she told me. ‘Heading home. So, although you haven’t said so, I’m guessing you’re also from her hometown.’
I nodded without committing to anything; I didn’t know if Jesse actually knew where Claire was from, after all. But she must have, because she glanced around the kitchen to be sure Luis was neck-deep in his own work before turning back to me with her eyes flaring a brief, bloody red. Her lips parted just enough to show me the tips of her fangs, sliding smoothly down, sharp enough to pierce steel.
In response, I showed her my left wrist, which was covered by a thick silver chain bracelet. It looked like fashion, but it was also a weapon, and a good one. Then I pulled down the neck of my T-shirt to show her the matching necklace.
She laughed softly, and the glow and fangs were immediately banished. ‘I’m just messing with you,’ she said, and gave me a quirky, in-on-the-joke smile. ‘You’re a cool one, Shane.’
‘As long as I don’t have to be a cold one.’
‘I knew I liked you. You’ve got’ – she licked her lips, not at all suggestively. Okay, maybe a little. Or a lot – ‘spice.’
‘It’s my body spray, it’s real manly. Don’t take it as an invitation. I’ve got nothing for you, Jesse.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short, handsome, but in any case, you’re not my preferred flavour of snack. And I’m not one of those who go in uninvited, if you take my meaning.’
‘I get it. You like to think you’re a
nice
vampire.’
The smile vanished, and what was left in its place was just … dangerous. ‘Let’s not call each other names. Someone might get hurt. What are you doing here? Hunting? Because if that’s your thing, we can work it out somewhere else. I have to earn a living here.’
‘Just pulling down a pay cheque, same as you,’ I said. ‘Look, I really didn’t expect to run into any vam—very nice ladies such as yourself in a city like this. My understanding was they were all concentrated back home, where the Founder kept an eye on them.’
‘She does love to keep her hand on us,’ Jesse agreed. ‘I left town thirty years ago, and I did some travelling – finding others and bringing them home. When Professor Anderson came here, I was assigned by the Founder to watch over her.’
‘Or just watch her?’
She shrugged. ‘They’re not mutually exclusive, as it turns out.’
That was uncomfortably close to what I was doing with Claire, so I decided to let that part go. ‘You’re assigned here, then. Officially.’
‘Yes.’ She cut her gaze around one more time, and checked her watch. ‘And because you understand the score, we never had this conversation, or I’ll have to get in contact back home and ask what they want me to do about you and your adorably blabby mouth. Clear?’
‘Clear,’ I said. ‘If I find out you’re hunting here, though, I’m not going to be happy.’
‘Well, wouldn’t want that, now, would we?’
‘No, we wouldn’t,’ I said, ‘since I’m Frank Collins’s boy.’
That caused her to pause and reassess me, carefully. Then the smile came back, tempered a little. ‘I met your father once, when he was about your age. I liked him,’ she said. ‘He was always direct. And I see you’re just like him.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not. But enough that you know where I’m coming from, and I don’t deal in bullshit. If anything happens to Claire because of you, this will be a real different conversation.’
‘I have no interest in seeing anything happen to her,’ Jesse said. ‘I like the world out here the way it is. I’ve got no nostalgia for pitchforks and torches, and so I have a willing mate to provide for my needs, and if I get peckish for a little different fare, there are always people willing to make a donation. You just have to know where to go, and when to stop.’
It sounded good, but I was still wary. She was suitably wary of me, too; I saw it in her last look at me as she went through the door to the bar area. Well, that was out in the open, at least. Now I would have to watch my back around her, and Pete too, if Pete was in on Jesse’s secret. I had to assume he was.
Then one of the other bartenders bawled out that he was running low on shot glasses, and I had to get back to work.
The glamorous life.
Closing time was when all the patrons went home, or staggered out the door, anyway, but it wasn’t the end of shift for the rest of us. The battle-weary troops in the kitchen cleaned up there, then bussed tables and loaded the rest of the glasses into the dishwashers before heading out. The bartenders tallied their registers, deposited the take with the manager, and counted out their tips, yawning and bleary-eyed. Pete and his other two bouncers helped with the trash pickup and general straightening, and by the time we were done it was after three in the morning, the streets were cold and empty, and I took out the trash to the dumpster before heading upstairs to bed. Hated the accommodations, but damn, the commute was great.
The mattress was cold and lumpy, and the whole place (and me) smelt like industrial soap and beer, an uneasy and toxic mixture. Mick, the manager of Florey’s, let me know that if a brew went missing out of the cooler from time to time, well, that was probably just breakage, but if it got too extensive he’d have to start checking.
The beer I took upstairs was the first one I’d snagged. It was a dark brew, imported, and it tasted much better than the rough, cheap whiz that Michael and I had started out drinking back in Morganville when we were stealing it from my dad’s fridge. When my dad had a fridge. And a house. And a family.
I’m living just like my dad
, I thought, and took a swig of the beer. It burned a little going down – hoppy and malty and dark, like my mood.
I’ve got nothing but a backpack and some stashed weapons and a bad attitude. And I keep running into vampires. Must be the Collins luck.
That brought up way too many things I’d bolted down over the last few years.
The Collins luck
. Yeah, we were a lucky tribe, all right. My sister burnt with the house. My mother died in a bathtub of blood, maybe at the hands of the vamps, maybe not. My dad had gotten turned into a vampire, plugged into a computer, and died back in Morganville, or at least I hoped he had. You never could tell, with those bastards.
I had no family left. Well, except for Michael and Eve, who had adopted me and all my traumas … and Claire, who I’d thought was going to be my home, forever. Only she had made it really clear that home had boundaries, and I’d crossed them, and now I was outside looking in. It hurt. It hurt really deeply, in a self-pitying, angry kind of way. I knew I was guilty, and it was my own damn fault, but that didn’t stop some little-boy part of me from blaming her for freezing me out. She was supposed to forgive me, right?
The way your mom forgave your dad when he hit her? Is that what you want?
God, I hated that damn voice of reason, the one that kept the selfish little angry boy in check most of the time.