Feast of Fools

In the morning, it was ... the morning. For a precious few seconds when Claire woke up, nothing was wrong, nothing at all. Her body hummed with energy, and the birds were singing outside, and the sun burned in warm stripes across her bed.

She squinted at the alarm clock. Seven thirty. Time to get up if she intended to make it to her first class and still have any margin for coffee.

It wasn't until she was in the shower, and the hot water was pounding sense back into her head, that she realized that all was not well. Her parents were in town. Her parents were on the radar screen of the monsters.

And her parents wanted her to move back in with them.

That put an end to her good mood, and by the time she padded down the steps, dragging her textbook-loaded backpack and carrying her shoes, she was frowning. The house was a mess. Nobody had done the chores, including her. The kitchen was still a wreck, with breakfast congealing in the pans. She muttered to herself as the coffee brewed, dumped filthy dishes and pans in the sink to soak in hot water, and left a snarky note for her housemates. Especially Shane, who'd slacked even more than was normal.

Then she put on her shoes and walked to school.

Morganville looked just like any other dusty, sleepy town in the daylight: people out driving to work, jogging, pushing strollers, walking dogs. College students with backpacks as she got closer to the campus. The casual visitor never knew, at least during the daytime, that this place was so vastly screwed up.

Claire supposed that was the point.

She spotted some trucks delivering to local businesses; did those drivers know? Did they just come and go without incident? Was there some off-limits rule for the vamps about whom they could hunt and whom they couldn't? There would have to be. Having the state police descend on Morganville wouldn't be helpful for the vamps. . . .

"Hey."

Claire blinked. A car was idling next to her, barely keeping pace as she walked. A red convertible, harsh and shiny as fresh blood in the sun. In it, three girls with identically false smiles.

The driver was Monica Morrell, the daughter of the town's mayor. Claire's worst human enemy from day one of her tenure in Morganville. Monica had mostly recovered from her recent brush with death by drugs, or at least she looked that way - glossy as the car, and just as hard. Her blond hair was shiny and casually styled, her makeup perfect, and if she looked just a shade more pale than usual, it was hard to tell.

"Hey," Claire said, and made sure to drift farther over on the sidewalk, out of easy grabbing range. "How are you feeling, Monica?"

"Me? Great. Couldn't be better," Monica said brightly. There was something way darker in her eyes than in her tone. "You tried to kill me, freak."

Claire stopped dead in her tracks. "No," she said. "I didn't do that."

"You gave me that drug. It almost killed me."

"You took it from me!" The red crystals, the ones that she'd stolen from Myrnin. The ones that, however briefly, had seemed like a good idea. Not so much once she'd seen their effect on Monica, and her own face in the mirror after taking them. They hadn't hurt her, but their effect on Monica had been shocking.

"Don't give me that. You nearly killed me," Monica said. "I'd file charges, but with you being the Founder's pet and all, that won't do any good. So we'll just have to find some other way to make sure you pay. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, bitch - this isn't done. It isn't even started. It is on."

She gave Claire a cold, hard smile, and accelerated away with a screech of rubber on pavement.

Claire shifted her backpack nervously and looked around. Nobody had paid attention, of course. It didn't pay, in Morganville, to get into anybody else's business.

She was on her own out here. Eve worked on campus, but Claire didn't want to drag her friends into this. They had enough problems already, and Monica was all her own.

Like it or not.

But as she passed the recessed doorway of a boarded-up shop, she sensed someone watching her.

She tried to dismiss it as imagination, but there really was someone watching her. She couldn't make him out for a few seconds, and then she did, with another unpleasant shock. Heroin-addict-skinny, pale, stringy hair. Wearing black. Eve's brother.

"Jason," she said, and involuntarily looked around for help. Nobody there, nobody she could turn to. Not even a passing police car - and the police definitely wanted to talk to Jason, after his run-in with Shane.

It hit her again: He'd stabbed her boyfriend. Tried to kill him. The cops said it was self-defense, but she knew better.

Jason took his hands out of his coat pockets and held them up. "Don't scream," he said. "Unless you really feel like it. I'm not going to hurt you. Not in broad daylight on a busy street, anyway."

He sounded . . . different. Odder than usual, and that was a pretty high standard of odd.

"What do you want?" She clutched the strap of her backpack in a white-knuckled fist. In an emergency, it would make a respectable blunt object. She might knock him down with it, or at least trip him. It was only about a block to Common Grounds - Oliver owed her Protection once she was inside the building, even from human enemies.

"Stop freaking, genius. I'm not here to hurt you." He put his hands back in his jacket pockets. "How's Shane?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because - " He frowned and shrugged. "Look, that was self-defense, okay?"

"You baited him. You threatened me and Eve. You wanted him to come after you."

"Yeah, well, granted, I was tweaking, but the guy took a home-run swing at my head, in case you missed it."

Uncomfortably, that was true. "What about the other people you've killed? Were those all self-defense, too?"

"Who says I've killed people?"

"You did. Remember? You left a dead girl in our basement for Shane to find. You tried to put him in prison."

Jason didn't say a word to that. He just stared at her, and in the shadows his dark eyes were like holes in his still, pale face. He looked . . . dead. Deader than most vampires.

"I need to talk to my sister," he said.

"Eve doesn't want to talk to you, you psycho. Leave us alone!"

"It's about our dad," he said, and even though Claire was walking away, leaving him and all his psycho problems behind, she slowed to look back. "I need to talk to Eve. Tell her I'll call. Tell her not to hang up."

Claire nodded, once. She didn't hate him any less, but there was something different about him right now - something that asked for a truce, but didn't get down on its knees and beg for it, either. "No promises, " she said.

Jason nodded back. "Didn't expect any."

He didn't say thanks. She kept walking.

When she looked back, the doorway was empty. She caught a glimpse of a black jacket turning the corner at the end of the block. Damn, he moves fast, she thought, and that gave her another kind of chill. What if Jason had gotten his wish? What if someone had made him a full-fledged vampire, as hard as that seemed?

She decided she'd ask Amelie, first chance she got.

The morning classes came and went. It wasn't like any of them were especially difficult, even the high-level physics courses she'd tested herself into. She'd traded out some of her lame core classes for a mythology course, or rather Amelie had insisted on it - that was a fairly cool thing, and she found herself looking forward to it. No discussions of vampires just now, unfortunately. It was all about zombies, voodoo, and popular media on the subject. They were going to watch Night of the Living Dead next week. Claire didn't know nearly as much about zombies as most of the other students; except for the first-person-shooter game that Shane liked to play, she couldn't remember ever really paying attention to the idea.

Of course, since moving to Morganville, she wasn't ruling anything out as unlikely.

After mythology, which turned out to be a wealth of information about voodoo, if she ever needed that, Claire had a break before lab sessions began. She took herself off to the University Center. It was a sprawling building, home to a large study area with long tables and groupings of chairs, and it featured a bookstore, a cafeteria that served fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches and salads, and a pretty decent coffee bar.

There wasn't a line today. Claire paid for her mocha and moved around to the barista side, where Eve was working. Eve looked great today, and not just because of the care she'd taken with her outfit and makeup; she kind of radiated satisfaction.

Oh. Right.

Eve gave her an absolutely stunning smile and handed over her drink. "Hey, bookworm. Doing okay?"

"Sure. You?"

"Not bad. It's even been kind of slow and steady today, after the morning rush." That smile had a secret.

"So? How was your night?" Claire prodded. The secret wanted to be shared, and besides, she was kind of . . . curious.

"Fantastic," Eve sighed. "I just - yeah. Since I was fourteen, I've had a crush on that boy, you know? And he never knew I existed. I went to every one of his concerts, from the time he first started playing, up to the last time he headlined at Common Grounds. I never thought - I just never thought it'd work out."

"And how was . . . ?" Claire raised her eyebrows and left the question open to anything Eve wanted to make it mean.

Eve's smile got wicked. "Fantastic."

They shared muffled squeals. Eve did a little happy-dance behind the counter, dumped shots in a drink, and twirled. Claire had never seen her look so full-stop happy.

Reality came back, and she remembered why she'd come in the first place. She had the strong suspicion she was about to blow all that happiness sky-high.

Eve's smile was fading, like someone had turned down her dimmer switch. "Claire, you're wearing the worried face. What's wrong?"

"I . . ." Claire hesitated, then plunged in. "I saw Jason. This morning."

Eve's dark eyes widened, but she didn't say anything. She waited.

"He wanted me to tell you that he's going to call. It's something about your dad, he says. He says not to hang up."

"My dad," Eve repeated. "You're sure."

"That's what he said. I told him, no promises." Claire sipped her mocha, which was perfect, and watched Eve's expression. Not too easy to read, right now. "He didn't try to hurt me."

"Broad daylight, on a main street? Yeah, well, he's bug-out crazy, but he's not stupid." Eve seemed very far away, suddenly. And all her happy glow was gone. "I haven't talked to either one of my parents since my eighteenth birthday."

"Why not?"

"They tried to sell me to Brandon," she said flatly. "Like a piece of meat on the hoof. I don't know why Jason's suddenly all nostalgic about the fam; it's not like there were good times to remember."

"But they're still your parents."

"Yeah, unfortunately. Look, here's the story of the Rosser clan: we're the original nuclear family. As in, nuclear bomb. Toxic even when it doesn't explode." Eve shook her head. "Whatever Dad's damage is, I don't care. And I don't know why Jason would, either."

Another student had paid for coffee, and Eve cast him an absent, empty smile and started pulling espresso shots with mechanical precision. "It's nothing, " she said. "And I'm hanging up on him when he calls. If he calls. And even if it's something, I don't give a damn anyway."

Claire just nodded. She had no idea what to say. Eve was clearly upset, a lot more upset than she'd expected her to be. She waved good-bye and took herself off to a nearby study table, and began plowing through a book she'd borrowed from the library. Somebody's PhD paper, which read like the guy had never bothered to attend a single English Composition class.

Good equations, though. She was heavily involved in them when her cell phone rang.

"Hello?" She didn't recognize the number, but it was local, and not her parents.

"Claire Danvers?"

"Yes, who's this?"

"My name's Dr. Robert Mills. I'm the one who treated your friend Shane in the hospital."

She felt a piercing sensation of alarm. "Nothing's wrong with - "

"No, nothing like that," he broke in hastily. "Look, you were the one who had the red crystals, right? The ones that nearly killed the mayor's daughter?"

Claire's momentary relief burned away like flash paper. "I guess," she said. "I gave them to the doctor."

"Well, here's the thing: I've been looking at those crystals. Where'd you get them?"

"I - found them." Technically true.

"Where?"

"In a lab."

"I need you to show me this lab, Claire."

"I don't think I can do that, I'm sorry."

"Look, I understand that you're probably protecting someone - someone important. But if it helps, I already have approval from the Council to work on these crystals, and I really need more information about them - who developed them, how, the ingredients. I think I can help."

Amelie was on the Elders' Council. But she hadn't said anything about working with the doctor. "Let me find out what I can tell you," Claire said. "I'm sorry. I'll call you back."

"Soon," he said. "I've been told the goal is to increase the effectiveness of the drug by at least fifty percent within the next couple of months."

Claire blinked, surprised. "Do you know what it does?"

Dr. Mills - who sounded pleasant and normal -  laughed. "Do I really know? Probably not. This is Morganville - we invented the concept of the secret around here. But I have a pretty decent idea that whatever it is, it's not designed for human consumption. "

That was as much as Claire wanted to talk about on the phone, no matter how friendly he seemed. After a quick excuse, she hung up and called Amelie. She intended to leave a message, and that, she thought, would probably be the end of it.

Amelie picked up the call. Claire stammered, took a deep breath, and told her about Dr. Mills and his request.

"I should have told you last evening. I have decided to concede to your request to have additional resources on this project," Amelie said. "Dr. Mills is a trusted expert, a longtime resident of the town, and he won't make the kind of value judgments others might. He's also capable of keeping our secrets, and that is imperative. You understand why."

Claire did, all too well. The crystals were a drug that helped vampires ward off the effects of a degenerative disease - a disease they all had, one that was robbing them of their ability to reproduce. Amelie was the strongest, but she was sick, too, and the worst cases were insane and locked away in cells beneath Morganville.

And so far, few of the vampires knew about the illness. Once they did, there might be nothing to stop them from lashing out, blaming others. Innocent humans, probably.

Just as bad would be the effect on the human population. Once they knew the vampires weren't invincible, how many of them would really cooperate? Amelie had long ago figured that this could destroy Morganville, and Claire was pretty sure she was right.

"But - he wants to see Myrnin's lab," Claire said. Myrnin, her mentor and sometimes even her friend, had slipped off the edge of sanity, and he was in one of the cells. Lucid sometimes, and other times . . . dangerously not. "Should I take him there?"

"No. Tell him that you'll bring what he needs to the hospital. I don't want any human other than yourself in that lab, Claire. There are secrets that must be kept, and I rely on you to see to it. Restrict his research only to refining and enhancing the formula you've already created." What Amelie meant, in that queen-cool way, was that if Claire spilled the beans, she'd end up dead. Or worse.

"Yes," Claire said faintly. "I understand. About my parents - "

"They are safe enough," Amelie said. That wasn't the same thing as saying they were safe. "You will not see Mr. Bishop for the time being. If you happen to see his two associates, be polite, but don't fear; they are well in hand."

Maybe by Amelie's standards. Claire was a little bit more worried. "Okay," she said doubtfully. "If anything happens - "

"Discuss it with Oliver," Amelie said. "Curiously, I find the differences between us lessened dramatically once my sire paid a visit. Nothing like a common enemy to unite squabbling neighbors." She paused for a moment, and then said, almost awkwardly, "You and your friends? You are well?"

We're doing small talk now? Claire shivered. "Yeah, we're fine. Thank you."

"Good." Amelie hung up. Claire mouthed a silent Oooo-kay, and pocketed the phone.

As she was leaving, she saw Eve at the barista station, staring blankly at the levers as she worked. The happy glow hadn't returned. In fact, she looked grim. And scared.

Dammit. Why did I ruin her day like that? I should have just blown him off, the little psycho.

Claire checked her watch, snagged her backpack, and jogged off to her lab class.

When she met Dr. Mills later that afternoon, she did it at the hospital, in his office. He was a medium sort of guy - medium tall, medium age, medium coloring. He had a nice smile, which seemed to promise that everything would be okay, and despite the fact that Claire knew it was total fiction, she smiled back.

"Have a seat, Claire," he said, and indicated one of the blue club chairs in front of his desk. Behind him were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves - medical references in matching bindings, with some newer off-brand volumes thrown in for variety. Dr. Mills had stacks of magazines and photocopied articles on one corner of the desk, and a teetering set of patient files on the other. A framed photo faced away from Claire, so she couldn't see if he had a family. He had a wedding ring, though.

Dr. Mills didn't speak immediately; he leaned back in his leather chair, steepled his fingers, and looked at her for a while. She fought against the urge to squirm, but couldn't keep her fingers from restlessly picking at the fabric of her jeans.

"I knew you were young," he said finally, "but I admit, I'm even more surprised now. You're sixteen?"

"Seventeen in a few weeks," Claire said. She was getting resigned to having this conversation with every single adult in Morganville. She ought to just record it and play it back every time she met somebody new.

"Well, from the notes that Amelie has provided to me, you have a very solid grasp of what you're doing. I don't think I'll be so much directing your research as helping you execute your experiments. Where I see opportunities to add some value, I will. Obviously, the labs here at the hospital have much more sophisticated equipment than I imagine you have - wherever you developed your initial crystals." He flipped through the large folder open in the center of his desk, and Claire saw photocopies of her own neat handwriting. Her notes, which she'd provided to Amelie. "I took the liberty of making up a set of crystals based on your formula, using the facilities in our labs. I found that if you accelerate the drying process with heat, you can increase the strength of the dosage by about twenty percent. And I also created a stronger liquid version that can be delivered directly into the body by injection."

She blinked. "Injection." She tried to imagine getting close enough to Myrnin to stick a needle in his arm, especially when he was in one of his bad swings.

"It can be delivered through a dart," he said. "Like an animal tranquilizer, although I wouldn't use that analogy to anyone else. Wouldn't be respectful."

She managed a smile. "That'd be - very helpful. I didn't try the heating process for drying the crystals. That's interesting."

"No reason you should have. I tried it because I didn't have an unlimited time to dry them - our lab's busy, and I didn't want anyone questioning what I was doing. I've asked Amelie to provide us with some secured laboratory space at the university. More convenient for you, and safer for me. I can have equipment moved there as we need it, or requisition it through the Council." Dr. Mills cocked his head and looked at her again, brown eyes bright and challenging. Like Myrnin's, only not half as crazy. "About my request to tour the lab where you made the crystals . . ."

"Sorry, I can't."

"Perhaps if you checked with Amelie - "

"I did."

He sighed. "Then when can I examine our patient?"

"You don't."

"Claire, this will not work if I can't take baseline readings on the patient and determine what the measurable improvements are as we change the formula!"

She did see that, actually, but the thought of putting nice Dr. Mills in grabbing distance of Myrnin made her shiver. "I'll check," she promised, and got to her feet. "I'm sorry, it's getting late. I need to - "

Dr. Mills glanced at his office window. Outside the blinds, the sky was darkening from faded denim to indigo. "Of course. I understand. Here's a sample of the new batch of crystals. But before you give it to him, see if you can get baseline information - most importantly, a blood sample."

"A blood sample," she repeated. He opened a drawer and handed her a small, sealed kit. It had a syringe, gauze pads, alcohol wipes, and a couple of vacuum tubes. "You're not serious."

"I'm not saying it might not be difficult, but if you won't let me go with you to do it . . ."

She could do a lot of things, but she was pretty sure she couldn't hold Myrnin down and stick a needle in his vein. Not while he was . . . altered.

She took the kit and put it in her backpack. "Anything else?"

Dr. Mills passed her a gun - a dart gun. He opened the back to show her the fluffy end of the tube. "It's preloaded with one dose," he said. "I only made up a few - it takes some time to distill. Here are two extra, if you need them." As she stowed the gun in her backpack, he said, "It's untested. So be careful. I think it will be stronger and longer lasting, but I'm not sure about the side effects."

"And the crystals?"

He passed them over, too. They looked a little finer than the ones she'd developed - more like raw sugar. Those went into the backpack, as well.

"Claire," he said, as she hoisted the burden, "have you heard any rumors about a new vampire in town?"

She froze. Her gold bracelet, the one with Amelie's symbol etched on it, caught the light and glittered -  not that she needed the reminder.

"Just Michael," she said. "But that's not news."

"I heard there were strangers."

Claire shrugged. "Guess you heard wrong."

She left before she had to lie any more. She couldn't stop herself from glancing back at him. He nodded and smiled a good-bye.

She felt bad, but there was only so much truth she was prepared to give, even to somebody who came recommended by Amelie.

"Did you bring the hamburger?"

Claire didn't even have time to drop her backpack on the hallway floor at home before Eve had buzzed in on her like a dark, caffeine-fueled Tinkerbell, brandishing a wooden spoon.

"Uh - what?"

"Hamburger. I sent you a text."

Oops. Claire dug her phone out and saw that, sure enough, there was a flashing message icon. "I didn't get it. Sorry."

"Crap." Eve turned away and marched back down the hall, Doc Martens boots clomping with fine disregard for the safety of the wood floor. "Michael! Guess what? You're running errands!"

Michael was playing guitar - something fast and complicated. He stopped periodically, which was unusual for him, and he ignored Eve, which wasn't normal, either. As Claire rounded the corner, she saw him standing up at the dinner table, leaning over to jot down music on a lined page.

Turned out that he wasn't ignoring Eve so much as not obeying. "I'm busy," he said, frowned at the paper, and played the same phrase again, then again. Shook his head in frustration and erased notes on the paper. "You and Shane go."

"I'm cooking!" Eve rolled her eyes. "Creative people. They think the world stops when they think."

"I'll go," Claire said. The chance to be alone with Shane, even on something as boring as a trip to the all-night grocery, was too good to miss. "Better if I do, anyway. I've got the free pass." She held up the bracelet.

Michael pulled himself away from the music in his head long enough to give her a look. He tapped his pencil in a fast, complicated rhythm on the table. "Thirty minutes," he said. "There and back. No excuses. If you guys are late, I'm coming after you, and I'm going to be pissed off."

"Thanks, Dad." She wished she hadn't said it - not so much because of the grimace on Michael's face, but because it made her think of her actual dad. And that the clock was running on how long he'd allow her to continue her current living arrangements.

Shane came out of the kitchen sucking on his fingertip. "What's going on?"

"You have not been sticking your dirty fingers in my sauce," Eve said, and pointed her wooden spoon at him.

He quickly took the finger out of his mouth. "First off, they're not dirty. I licked them first. And second -  did I hear something about the store? Claire?"

"Yeah, I'm ready."

He grabbed Eve's keys from the hall table. "Then let's roll."

Shane was a good driver, and he knew Morganville like the back of his hand - of course, Morganville was just about that big, too, and there was only one all-night grocery store, the Food King, locally owned and operated. The parking lot was lit up like a football stadium. There were fifteen or so cars already there, evenly split between human vehicles and vamp-mobiles. Shane parked directly under a blazing set of lights and turned off the car.

"Wait," he said as Claire reached for the door handle. "It takes us about five minutes to get here, five minutes to get the stuff, five minutes back home. That gives us fifteen whole extra minutes."

She felt her heart stammer, and race a little faster. Shane was looking at her with fierce intensity.

"So what do you want to do?" she asked, trying to sound casual about it.

"I want to talk," he said, which was not what she expected. Not at all. "I can't talk about this back at the house. I never know who could be listening."

"Meaning Michael?"

Shane shrugged. "It's just never exactly private."

He wasn't wrong, but she still felt horribly disappointed. "Sure," she said, and knew she sounded stiff and wounded. "Go ahead. Talk."

His eyes widened. "You thought - "

"Just talk, Shane."

He cleared his throat. "I've been doing some research on Bishop."

The idea of Shane and research didn't seem to want to fall into the same sentence. "Where?"

"The town library," he shrugged. "Special collections. I know Janice, the librarian - she was a friend of my mom's. She let me into the back to take a look at some of the older stuff, the things they don't put out for public reading."

"The vampire collection."

He nodded. "Anyway, the only thing I could find out was a reference to a Bishop - maybe not the same one - who killed a whole lot of people about five hundred years ago."

"Doesn't sound too unusual . . ."

"Except that he wasn't killing humans," Shane said. "From the way the thing was written, Bishop was killing off his enemies in the vampire community. Making himself the ruler of the world. And then something happened, and he dropped out of sight."

"Wow. No wonder Amelie and Oliver were freaked."

"If he's been underground all this time, and has a rep for taking out anyone who stands in his way, human or vampire - yeah. I'd be freaked, too. Anyway, I thought you should know. It could be important."

"Thanks."

He nodded, gaze fixed on hers.

"Anything else?" she prompted.

"Yeah."

He leaned forward and kissed her. His weight settled toward her, leaning her back against the door, and she felt all the strength and breath go out of her body, replaced with a quivering, golden vibration. Oh. Shane's lips were warm and damp, soft but demanding, and she heard herself make a sound like a whimper in response. His hands knew just where to hold her - one at the back of her head, one at the small of her back, pulling her closer. Fitting their bodies together.

It felt so good, it was like swimming in sunlight. Her fingers tangled in his soft, shaggy hair and traced down his back, and for a wild second she imagined what it would be like, right here, right now, in Eve's big car. It seemed to go on forever, a dreamy eternity of heat. . . .

His hands slipped down her shoulders, traced her collarbone, then moved lower. She heard herself make a sound that was more a whine than anything else, a naked plea, as the heat of his touch reached the top edge of her bra, slid past the edge and down. . . .

Shane broke the kiss with a gasp, leaning his cheek against hers. The sound of his breath in her ear made her shiver again. So close. God, we're so close. . . .

"We'd - better go inside," he said. It sounded like he was fighting hard to sound normal, but he was missing by a mile, and when he sat back, all she could see was the hot focus in his eyes, and his damp, reddened, totally kissable lips. She wondered what he was seeing in her, and realized with a shock that it was probably the same thing.

Shared hunger.

"Yeah," she said. She didn't sound normal, either. She wasn't sure she could walk, in fact; her whole body felt like it had melted, especially around the knees. She took in a couple of deep breaths, then stopped when Shane's eyes focused on the rise and fall of her chest. "We should - go shop."

Shane checked his watch. "No, we should get the hamburger, throw money at the cashier, and break every speed limit back to the house if we don't want Michael calling out the SWAT team."

That sobered them up, enough to get them out of the car and into the store, but they held hands the whole way.

Inside, the place looked too bright, and yet somehow too cold. Aisles of colorful packages. There were a few shoppers pushing carts, and some of them, Claire knew, had to be vampires, but she couldn't necessarily tell which ones, at a glance. Many of them had perfected their human disguises. Was it the twenty-something girl with the red hair and the long shopping list? Or the elderly lady with her little fluffy dog riding in the child seat of the cart? Not the dad with the two small children and the harassed look - she was sure of that one.

Claire didn't really have time to gawk. Shane let go of her hand and pointed off down one aisle; she split off toward the meat section. Choosing hamburger was mainly a decision about poundage, and Eve hadn't said how much to get. Claire settled for two packages, and headed for the aisle where Shane had disappeared. The snack aisle, what a shock.

The song on the store's speakers changed to an annoying and slightly creepy song from the 1970s, something about seasons in the sun, and she was thinking about how ironic that was when she rounded the endcap display and found Shane backed up against the shelves, with a woman pressed right up against him.

It was the female vamp Bishop had brought to town. She was wearing a tight-fitting pair of blue jeans, a formfitting maroon knit shirt, and a black leather jacket. Black ankle boots, with buckles. Feminine, but dangerous. Her dark hair flowed over her shoulders in luxurious, glossy waves, and her skin was the color of fine porcelain, just a tiny hit of blush in her cheeks.

Her eyes were fixed on Shane's. He was crushing a bag of chips in one hand, but he'd clearly forgotten all about it.

The vampire leaned forward and took in a deep breath from around Shane's neck. Shane closed his eyes and didn't move.

"Mmmmm," she said in that slow, sweet voice. "You smell like desire. I can feel it curling off your skin. Poor little thing, all frustrated and wanting. I could help you with that."

Shane didn't open his eyes. "Get away from me."

The vampire's hand shot out to slam hard against the shelves next to Shane's head. The entire structure rocked unsteadily, but didn't quite go over. "Don't be rude, Shane Collins. Yes, I know who you are. You've been looking us up, so I did a little reading all on my own. You've got daddy problems, don't you? I understand. I have those, too. I could tell you all about it, if you come with me. It'd be nice to have a strong man to tell my troubles to."

As quickly as it had come, her anger was gone, and she was back to the vampire sex kitten she'd been back at the Glass House, running her pale fingers down Shane's collarbone, over his chest. . . .

"I said go away," Shane said, and opened his eyes to stare at her face. "Not interested, leech."

"My name's Ysandre, honey. Not leech, bitch, or bloodsucker. And if you want to survive my visit to this cesspool of a town, you'll learn to call me by my name, Shane." Her pale lips curled into a smile. "Or if you want other people to survive it. Now, let's be friends."

She leaned forward and brushed her lips lightly against Shane's, and Claire saw him shudder and go completely still. Ysandre laughed, reached past him, and plucked a bag of baked chips from the rack.

"Mmmm," she said. "Salty. Tell your girlfriend I like the taste of her lip gloss."

She walked away. Shane and Claire stayed frozen where they were until she was out of sight, and then Claire rushed to him. When she put her hand on him, he flinched, just a little.

"Don't touch me," he said. His voice was hoarse, and the vein in his throat was beating very, very fast. "I don't want - "

"Shane - it's me, it's Claire - "

He reached out for her then, like a drowning man clutching a life raft, and his strength shocked her as he pulled her in. His head bent, and she felt the weight of it resting on her shoulder. The feverish, damp heat of his forehead against her neck.

She felt the shudder go through him, just one, just enough to tell her how horribly wrong he felt.

"God," she whispered, and gently stroked his hair. It was wet underneath, matted with sweat. "What did she do to you?"

He shook his head without raising it from her shoulder. He couldn't, or wouldn't, say it. His chest rose and fell, taking in breaths that felt like gasps but were too deep for that, and after what seemed like a full minute, Shane's body began to relax, uncoiling from that awful tension.

When he pulled back, she expected to get a look at his expression, but he turned away so fast it was just a blur - wounded dark eyes in a stark, pale mask. He looked down at the chips he was holding, and dropped them on the floor as he walked away.

Claire quickly put them back on the shelf and followed. He kept going, right past the registers. She shelled out cash to the impatient cashier for the hamburger, grabbed the plastic bag, and hurried out into the lamplit darkness after her boyfriend.

He was already unlocking the car and getting in. She was still at least a dozen feet away when he started the car with a roar, and she saw the flare of brake lights as he shifted into gear.

For a heart-stopping second Claire thought he was going to peel out and drive away, leaving her there in the dark, but he waited. She opened the passenger door and got in. Shane didn't move.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He didn't so much as look at her.

He put the car in gear and burned rubber on the way out of the lot.