Midnight Alley

Michael wasn't talking to her, and that was bad. He wasn't sullen, like Shane got from time to time; he was just thoughtful. That made the drive uneasily quiet. It was fully dark out, not that she could see through the window tinting anyway.

The world didn't seem real to her anymore, and her head ached.

"This is the deal you made with Amelie," Michael said. "To work for him."

"No. I made the deal with Amelie, then she told me to work for him. Or learn from him."

"Is there a difference?"

Claire smiled. "Yeah. I don't get paid."

"Brilliant plan, genius. Is anybody paying you?"

Actually, she had no idea. The thought hadn't occurred to her, to ask Amelie for money. Was that normal, to get paid for a thing like this? She supposed it was, if she was supposed to risk her life with Myrnin on a regular basis. "I'll ask," she offered.

"No," Michael said grimly. "I'll ask. I want to talk to Amelie about this whole thing anyway."

"Don't get all older-brother on me, Michael. It's not safe. You may be one of them now, but you're not -- "

" -- one of them? Yeah, I know that. But you're way too young for this, Claire, and you don't know what you're doing. You didn't grow up in this town, you don't understand the risks."

"What, death? I understand that one pretty well already." She was feeling tired and achy, but also strangely annoyed with Michael's protectiveness. "Look, I'm fine, okay? Besides, I learned a lot today. She'll be happy, trust me."

"Amelie's mood isn't what bothers me," Michael said. "It's you. You're changing, Claire."

She looked straight at him. "Like you haven't?"

"Cheap shot."

"You made the choice."

"Yeah, I made the choice, and it was the only one I could make. Look, I'm sick of having to tiptoe around Shane. Don't make me do it with you, too." Ah, now Michael was annoyed too. Great.

"Tell you what? I'll stop nagging you about your life if you'll stay out of mine. You're not my brother, you're not my dad -- "

"No," he interrupted. "I'm the guy who says if you get to stay in the house."

He wouldn't. He wouldn't. "Michael -- "

"You made a deal with Amelie without talking to anyone, and then you covered it up. Look, the only reason you even came clean was because I saw the bracelet. If I hadn't you'd still be lying to us. That doesn't exactly make you the ideal housemate." Michael paused for a second. "And then there's Shane."

"How am I to blame for Shane?"

"You're not. But I can't deal with both of you, not now. So just straighten up, Claire. No more lying, and no more risk-taking, all right? I'll convince Amelie to let you out of these sessions with Myrnin. You're too young to be doing this, she ought to know that."

No more lying. No more risk-taking. Claire shifted and felt the bottle in her pocket, and had a flash of that perfect clarity again. She wondered what Michael would have to say about her letting Myrnin give her the crystals. Probably nothing. He was talking about throwing her out of the house, right? So he probably didn't care at all.

The car slowed and turned, bumped down a rutted drive. Home.

Claire bolted before Michael could say anything else to her.

Shane was in the kitchen, pouring himself a beer. He toasted her silently, took a sip and nodded toward a pot on the stove. "Chili," he said. "Extra garlic."

Michael was closing the kitchen door, and he sighed. "When is this going to stop?"

"When you quit sucking blood?"

"Shane -- "

"Don't get pissy. I made yours garlic-free." Shane looked at her again, and frowned a little. "You okay?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just -- I don't know. Whatever." He slung an arm over her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. "Bad day, probably."

Let's see, she'd been threatened by Eve's brother, had her wrist cut, and then played keep-away with Myrnin for hours. Did that qualify as a bad day in Morganville? Probably not. No body count.

Not yet, anyway.

Michael pushed past them and through the door into the living room. Claire pulled free of Shane's arm and went to the stove to ladle herself a bowl of chili. It smelled hot and delicious. But mostly hot. She tasted a drop and nearly choked; was it usually this molten-lava wicked spicy? Everything felt raw to her right now. She supposed that was a side effect of the crystals.

"I thought I heard you," Shane said. "Weirdest thing, I heard your voice today. Right out of the air. I thought you -- I kept thinking about Michael, how he used to be during the daytime ..."

When he was a ghost. "You thought I was -- ?"

"I thought maybe something happened," he said. "I called your cell number, the new one."

She'd left it in her backpack. Claire reached down and unzipped the pocket, then checked the phone. Three calls, all from Shane. With voicemails. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't hear it. Guess I need to turn the ringer up."

He looked at her very steadily, and she felt the cold spot in the center of her, the place that had chilled while she'd been with Myrnin, slowly warm. "You worry me," he said, and put his hand on her cheek. "You know that, right?"

She nodded, and hugged him. Unlike Myrnin, he was warm and solid and his body just molded right into hers, perfect and sweet. When he kissed her she tasted beer and chili, but only for a second. After that, it was pure Shane, and she forgot all about Myrnin, and any kind of physics except friction. Shane backed up her against the stove. She felt the low heat of the burner at her back, but she was too preoccupied to worry much about bursting into flames from outside sources. Shane just had that effect on her.

"I missed you," he whispered, brushing her damp lips with his. "Want to go upstairs?"

"What about my chili?"

"Get it to go."

There were good things about the way she felt tonight, she decided; her nerves might be raw, but that only made his touch all the sweeter. She would have felt awkward, usually, and uncertain, and scared, but it seemed like the afternoon that had started with Jason and ended with Myrnin's snarl had burned all that out of her.

"Not hungry," she said breathlessly. "Come on."

She felt as wild and free as a little kid, running up the steps with Shane in hot pursuit, and when he grabbed her around the waist and spun her around into his room and kicked the door shut, she squealed in delight. And wiggled to fit herself against his warm, hard body as she kissed him again, breathless and flying.

He kissed like their lives depended on it. Like it was an Olympic event and he intended to earn a medal. Somewhere in the back of her head she was chattering to herself, warning that this was going to go too far, that she was just making things worse for both of them, but she couldn't help it. Before long they were stretched out together on Shane's bed, and his big, warm hands were teasing under the hem of her shirt, stroking the fluttering skin of her stomach and stealing her breath. She lost it all when he spread his fingers out, pressing his palm flat against her, and she felt an almost irresistible impulse to feel those hands all over. Everywhere. Her heart was hammering hard enough to make her dizzy, and it was all just so ...

Perfect.

She reached down and pulled up her shirt. Slowly, feeling the cool air slip over tender skin.

Up, to the bottom line of her bra. Then up.

Shane stopped.

"I want to," she whispered against his mouth. "Please, Shane. I want to." She sat up and reached for the clasp on her bra, and unhooked it. "Please."

He pulled back from her and sat up, head down. When he looked up he licked his lips, and his eyes were wide and dark and she could fall into them, fall forever.

"I know," he said. "Me too. But I made promises, and I'm going to keep them. Especially the one to your parents, because your dad said he'd hunt me down like a dog." Shane gave her a wild, bitter smile. "Sucks to be me."

"But -- " She felt her bra slipping, and quickly grabbed to hold it in place. She felt ridiculous now, and wounded.

He sighed. "Don't, Claire. It's not like I'm a saint or anything, I'm not, and trust me, for you, a saint would buy a condom and go to confession. But it's not about that. It's about keeping my word, and around here, my word is all I've got."

She wanted him with a red fury that was all out of character for her, but somehow, the way he said it, the way he looked her straight in the eyes, she felt all that fall away and the fury turn into something pure, hot and silver.

"Besides," Shane said, "I'm all out of condoms, and I hate confession."

He put his arms around her and hooked her bra with an ease that showed he had plenty of practice.

She threw a pillow at him.

Somebody was rummaging around outside the house.

Claire woke up with a start, instantly tense, as she heard the distant rattle of metal. She rolled out of bed and peeked out of the blinds. Her bedroom window looked out on the back, a glorious corner vantage point, and she had a clear view of the fence, and the trash cans on the other side.

Somebody was definitely out there, a black shape in the moonlight. Claire could see him moving around, but couldn't tell what he was doing. She reached for her cell phone and dialed 911, and told the operator she needed either Joe Hess or Travis Lowe. Detective Lowe picked up the call, sounding wide awake even at three in the morning, and Claire described what she was seeing in a whisper, as if whoever was across the yard might hear her.

"It's probably Jason," she said. She heard the scratch of pen on paper on the other end of the phone.

"Why Jason? Can you see his face?"

"No," she admitted, "but Jason told me -- he practically admitted it. About the dead girl. I think it's Jason, honest."

"Did he threaten you, Claire?"

The cut on her wrist was still throbbing. "I guess you could say so," she said. "I was going to tell you about it, but I --I had things to do."

"More important that keeping us in the loop? Never mind. What happened?"

"Shouldn't I tell you when you get here?"

"Patrol car's already en route. Where did you see him today?"

"At the university," she said, and told the story. He didn't interrupt her, just let her talk, and she could hear him continuing to take notes.

When she paused for breath, Lowe said, "You know that was stupid, right? Look, next time you see him, you start screaming bloody murder. And put me and Hess on speed dial. Jason's nobody to play around with."

"But -- we were in public. He wouldn't have -- "

"Ask Eve about why he ended up in jail in the first place, Claire. Next time, don't hesitate. This isn't about you being strong, this about you living through the day, all right? Trust me."

She swallowed hard. "I do."

"Is he still there?"

"I don't know. I can't see him. He might've gone."

"The patrol car ought to be there in just a couple of seconds, they're doing a silent approach. You see them yet?"

"No, but my room faces the alley." Something moved in the yard, and she felt a lurch of pure adrenaline. "I think -- I think he's in the yard now. Coming to the house. To the back."

"Go wake up Michael and Shane. Make sure Eve's okay. Go now, Claire."

She wasn't dressed, but she supposed it didn't really matter; the oversized t-shirt she was wearing came to her knees anyway. She unlocked her door and swung it open, and yelled in shock.

Tried to, anyway. She couldn't quite get the sound out, because Oliver's hand clapped over her mouth, spun her around, and dragged her backward over the threshold. She screamed, but it was barely a buzz in her throat. Her bare heels scraped on the wood as she tried to get her feet under her, but he had her helpless and off balance. She dropped the phone.

She could hear Lowe's voice distantly whispering her name, but it was blotted out by Oliver's soft voice in her ear as he bent close and said, "I only want to talk. Don't make me hurt you, girl. You know I will if you force me."

She went still, breathing hard. Had he been out there in the yard? How had he gotten up here so fast? Didn't the protections on the house keep him out, anyway?

No. They only work against uninvited humans now, because Michael's --Michael's a vampire. Oliver had some way in and out. Easy access. God.

"Good girl. Stay quiet," Oliver whispered. He looked up and down the hall, moved the painting next to the doorway, and pressed the hidden switch. The secret doorway across from Eve's room opened with a soft sigh, and he dragged her inside, then shut it. No knob on the inside. The release switch was up a flight of stairs, and he'd never let her get there if she tried to run. When he let her go, Claire stayed where she was.

He let his voice return to normal levels. Not afraid of being overheard, not here. "I thought it was time we had a talk. You signed an agreement with Amelie. That hurts me, Claire. I thought we had a special friendship, and after all, I did offer first." Oliver smiled at her, that cold and oddly kind smile that had suckered her in the first few times she'd met him. "You turned me down. So why, I wonder, did you decide that Amelie would be a better choice?"

He might know about Myrnin, but not what Myrnin did. Amelie had been pretty specific: he could never know that.

"She smells better," Claire said. "And she made me cookies." Somehow, after the day she'd had, Oliver just didn't seem all that terrifying anymore.

Until he bared his fangs, and his eyes went a strange, wide black. "No games," he said. "The room's soundproofed. Amelie used to play with her victims here, you know. It's a killing jar, and you're inside. So perhaps you should be more polite, if you intend to see morning."

Claire held up her left wrist. The golden bracelet glinted in the light. "Bite it, Oliver. You can't touch me. You can't touch anybody in this house. I don't know how you got in, but -- "

He grabbed her right wrist and ripped away the bandage cover the cut Jason had made. It broke open, and a red trickle ran from it down the interior of her arm.

Oliver licked it off.

"Okay, that's just gross," Claire said faintly. "Let go. Let go!"

"You belong to Amelie," he said, and let her go. "I can taste it. Smell it on you. You're right, I can't touch you, not anymore. But the others, you're wrong about them. While they're in the house they're safe, but not out there, not in my town. Not for long."

"I made a deal!"

"Did you? Did you see in writing that your friends would be protected from all attacks? Because I very much doubt that, little Claire. We've been writing agreements for thousands of years, and you're only sixteen years old. You have no idea what kind of deal you've made." Oliver actually sounded a little sorry for her, and that was scary. He folded his arms and leaned against the door. He was in his usual good-guy disguise tonight: a tie-dyed tee shirt, battered cargo pants, his graying, curling hair pulled back in a ponytail. He'd probably just closed up Common Grounds, she figured. He smelled like coffee. She wondered what Oliver wore on his days off, if he wasn't trying to intimidate. Pajamas? Fuzzy slippers? One thing she'd figured out about the vampires in Morganville, they were never exactly what they seemed to be, even the bad ones.

"Fine," she said, and backed away from him until her heels hit the first step. She sat down. "You tell me what I've done."

"You've upset the balance of power in the town, and that's a terrible thing, little Claire. You see, Amelie intended to be queen of this little kingdom. She thought I was safely dead when she did so. When I came here a year ago, many people decided that they'd rather listen to me than to her. Not all, of course, and not even a majority. But she's won no real friends during her long existence, and it isn't only the humans who are trapped here, you know. It's the vampires as well."

This was a new idea to her. "What are you talking about?"

"We can't leave," he said. "Not without her permission. As I said, she fancies herself the cold white queen, and most are content to let her. Not all. I was working to come to some -- arrangements with her, to let a number of us leave Morganville and set up a community outside of her influence. Things had been static here for fifty years, you see, since she made the last vampire. Now Amelie feels the need to protect her position. She's blocked me. She won't allow me to make a move without her permission." He lowered his chin and stared at her, and it chilled her deep inside. "I don't like to be controlled. I tend to get -- unhappy."

"Why are you talking to me? What can I do?"

"You, little stupid child, are her pet. When you want something, she indulges you. I want to know why."

Amelie hadn't exactly indulged her the last time they'd talked, although the cell phone sitting abandoned in her room might argue otherwise. "I don't know!"

"She thinks you have something she needs, or she'd hardly bother. She's seen whole cities die without shedding a tear or lifting a finger. It's not altruism."

Myrnin. It's about Myrnin. If I wasn't learning from him ... She couldn't say that, didn't even dare to really think it through. Oliver was unnerving, and sometimes he seemed downright psychic. "Maybe she's lonely."

He laughed, a harsh bark of sound with no amusement in it. "She certainly deserves to be." He took a step forward. "Tell me why she needs you, Claire. Tell me what she's hiding, and I'll make a deal, a perfectly straightforward one: I'll give your friends my direct Protection. No one will hurt them."

She didn't say anything this time, she just looked back at him. She didn't dare not look at him; even when she was watching him she had the eerie feeling that somehow he was creeping up behind her, ready to do something awful to her when she least expected it.

Oliver made a sound of deep frustration. "You stupid, stupid girl." He shoved past her, going up the stairs so lightly the wood hardly even creaked. After a second, the hidden, knobless door sighed open. Claire got up, steadied herself for a second, and then stepped out into the hallway. Nobody else had heard a thing, apparently. It was quiet as the grave.

Oliver's hands closed around her shoulders, and he moved her out of his way by simply picking her up and putting her down, as if she weighed nothing. He didn't let go once he'd done it, he stepped up behind her, bent down, and whispered, "Not a sound, Claire. If you wake your friends and they come against me, I'll destroy you all. Understand?"

She nodded.

She felt the cold pressure of his hands go away, but not his presence, and she was surprised when she looked back and saw that he was gone.

As if he'd never been there at all.

She pressed the button behind the painting, and the hidden door sealed itself. Then she picked up her phone from the floor of her bedroom. The call had ended; Travis Lowe was probably on his way over, burning sirens all the way.

She sat down to wait for the panic to start.

There just had to be something out there in the alley, given the response. It wasn't just a couple of cops, some yellow tape, and a writeup in Captain Obvious's underground newspaper; it looked, from Claire's window, like a full-blown CSI-style investigation, with people in white jumpsuits collecting evidence and everything. There was a big blocky van with heavily tinted windows that she guessed housed vampire detectives or forensics people or something, with the emblem of the Morganville police on the side, and she guessed the majority of people roaming around in Michael's back yard this morning were, in fact, the undead.

Crime-solving undead. That was new.

She wasn't sure what she was feeling anymore. Light-headed, disconnected, looped. Last night had felt like a dream, and it had passed in a blur from the time she and Shane had come upstairs until she'd heard the rattle of trash cans in the alley.

Someone was ringing the doorbell downstairs. She didn't move away from the window -- couldn't seem to convince herself to move at all, in fact. It was probably the cops. Travis Lowe had, as she'd thought, already come racing to the rescue, but on finding her unfanged and still alive, he'd called in the full-on police assault. So those were probably the detectives, Gretchen and Hans, or maybe Richard Morrell coming to take her statement.

Claire looked down at herself. I should probably get dressed. Her wrist was a mess, smeared with slow-leaking blood, and she pressed her t-shirt against it before she could think about what she was doing. Great, now she wasn't only undressed, she was undressed in bloody nightclothes.

It took ten minutes to shower, change, and bandage up her arm, and then she padded down the stairs in bare feet to face the music.

Her housemates were all standing in the living room, and they all looked at her with identical expressions, blank enough that she came to a stop on the steps. "What?" Claire asked. "What'd I do now?"

Michael stepped aside so Claire could see who was sitting cross-legged in the chair, flipping through a bubble-gum pink edition of Teen People.

Monica Morrell.

She was dressed in a pink tight-fitting top with diamonds that spelled out BITCH/PRINCESS, and white short-shorts that even Daisy Duke would have thrown out as too trashy. Her tan was deep and dark, and she was lazily dangling a pink flip-flop with a yellow flower on top from her perfectly manicured toes.

"Hey, Claire!" she said, and stood up. "I thought we could grab some breakfast."

"I -- what?"

"Break ... fast," Monica said, drawing out the word. "Most important meal of the day? Do you even have parents?"

Claire felt ridiculously off balance. "I don't understand. Why are you here?"

Shane leaned against the wall, glaring at Monica. He had a serious bed-head thing going on, and Claire wanted to run her hands through his thick, soft hair and return it to its usual shaggy mess. "What a good question. The second best one being, who let her inside? And we're going to have to throw out that chair. The smell's never coming out."

"I let her in," Michael said quietly, and that got him a stare from Shane. "Lay off the daggers. It was better to let her in than have her pitch a fit on the porch with all the cops around. We've already got enough trouble."

"What's this we, paleface? I mean that in the vampire sense, not -- "

"Shut up, man."

Claire rubbed her forehead, feeling her headache blooming back to hot, throbbing life. She ignored Michael and Shane with an effort and focused on Monica, who had a malicious smile curving her lips. "You're enjoying this," Claire said. Monica shrugged.

"Of course. They're jackasses to me most of the time, it's nice to see them take it out on each other for a change. Not that I care." Monica arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow. "So? I know you like coffee. I've seen you drinking it."

Eve stepped in between them, and for a second Claire thought her friend honestly looked ... dangerous. "You're not taking Claire anywhere. And you're sure not taking her anywhere near that son of a bitch," she said.

"Which son of a bitch would that be, exactly? Because hey, she lives here. It's not like she's choosy about who she hangs out with."

Eve bunched up a fist, and for a second Claire thought she was going to haul off and slug Monica right in her perfect, pouty mouth. But Eve checked herself. Barely.

"You so need to leave our house," Eve said. "Now. Before something bad happens that I won't really regret."

Monica gave her a look that said just how unimpressed she was with the threat. "I'm sorry, were you talking? Because I think I dropped off. Claire? I'm not here to banter with the mentally challenged. I'm just trying to be friendly. If you don't want to go, just say so."

Claire felt ridiculously like laughing, it was so weird. Why was this happening to her?

"What do you really want?" she asked, and Monica's lovely, crazy eyes widened. Just a little.

"I want to talk to you without the Losers Club hanging over my shoulder. I figured we could have breakfast, but if you're allergic to caffeine and pastry ..."

"Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of my friends," Claire said. That brought both of Monica's eyebrows up.

"Ooooo...kay. Your funeral," she said, and glanced at Shane. "So where was your boyfriend last night after midnight?"

"Who? Shane?" What time had she left his room, anyway? Late. But ... not after midnight.

"None of your damn business where I was," Shane said to Monica. "Eve told you to get out. The next step is I throw your skanky ass and see if you bounce when you hit the porch. I don't care whose pet you are, you don't come here and -- "

"Shane," Monica interrupted with elaborate calm, "shut the hell up. I saw you, idiot."

Claire waited for Shane to give her a biting comeback, but he just sat there. Watching her. His eyes had gone very dark.

"They don't know, do they?" Monica continued, and tapped her rolled-up copy of Teen People against her hip. "Wow. Shocker. Bad boy keeps secrets. That never happens."

"Shut up, Monica."

"Or you'll what? Kill me?" She smiled. "There wouldn't even be DNA left when they got done with you, Shane. And the rest of you, too. And your families."

"What's she talking about?" Eve asked. "Shane?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing," Monica mocked. "Deny everything. That's a brilliant plan. Then again, it's what I'd expect from someone like you."

Michael was frowning at Shane now, and Claire couldn't resist, either. Shane's dark eyes darted to each of them in turn, Claire last.

"The cops aren't going to find any bodies out there in the alley. And they're not going to find one anywhere else in your house," Monica said, "because Shane moved a body last night, out the back door."

Shane still wasn't saying anything. Claire covered her mouth with her hand. "No," she said. "You're lying."

Monica folded her arms. "Why exactly would I do that? All it takes is for him to deny it. Ask him. Go on." She was staring right at Shane.

Shane's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. For a frozen second or two, nobody moved, and then Michael said, "Christ, Shane, what the hell?"

"Shut up!" Shane snapped. "I had to! I thought I heard something down in the basement last night, when I was getting some water in the kitchen. So I went to check it out. And -- " He stopped, and Claire saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, hard. "She was dead down there. At the bottom of the stairs, like somebody had just ... thrown her. For a second I thought it was -- " He glanced at Eve, then away. "I just thought it was you. I thought you'd tripped and fallen down the stairs or something. But when I got down there, it wasn't you. And she was dead, not just knocked out."

Eve sank down on the arm of the sofa, looking as stunned as Claire felt. "Who? Who was it?"

"I didn't recognize her. Some college girl, I guess, she didn't look local and she wasn't wearing a bracelet." Shane took in an audible deep breath. "Look, we've been in enough trouble as it is. I had to get rid of her. So I wrapped her up in one of the blankets out of the boxes down there and carried her out. I put her in the trunk of your car -- "

"You what?" Michael snapped.

" -- and I drove her to the church. I left her there, inside. I didn't want to just -- dump her. I thought -- " Shane shook his head. "I thought it was the right thing to do."

Monica sighed. She was checking out her fingernails with exaggerated boredom. "Yeah, yeah, touching. The point is, when I saw you, you were hauling a dead chick into the trunk of his car. And I just can't wait to tell my brother. You know my brother, right? The cop?"

Unbelievable. "What do you want?" Claire practically yelled it at her.

"I told you. Breakfast." Monica gave her a sunny movie-star smile. "Please. If you say yes, I just could forget all about what I saw. Especially since I was, you know, out after curfew and doing things I really don't want my daddy to know about anyway. Think of it as mutually assured destruction."

It sounded like a deal, but it wasn't, not really. Monica had all the cards, and they had none. None at all.

"There's no body in the alley," Claire said. "The police aren't going to find anything. You're sure?"

"Don't think so, but wouldn't that suck for you if they did?" Monica shrugged, puckered her lips, and blew Shane a mocking kiss. "You've got guts, Shane. No brains, but a whole lot of guts. You thought it out, right? Now that Michael's one of the chosen undead, humans can't get in this house without an invitation. So you have to either blame it on a vampire, or face up that one of you killed her. Either way, it's not going to be pretty, and somebody's going down." She held up her hand. "I vote for Shane. Anybody else?"

"Leave him alone!" Claire said sharply. "You want to go out, fine. We'll go. -- No, don't you even start!" Eve hadn't even had a chance to do more than open her mouth, and now she shut it, fast. "You guys work it out between the three of you. I won't be long. Believe me, I probably won't be able to keep anything down, whatever I manage to eat."

Monica nodded, as if she'd known it would happen all along, and did a runway model's walk down the hall toward the front door. From the back, her shorts were barely legal.

And however much they hated her, Shane and Michael were watching her go.

"Guys," Claire muttered, and grabbed her backpack.

Claire hadn't been inside of Common Grounds in a while, but it hadn't changed. It was bohemian, warm, packed to the gills with college types grabbing their morning venti-whatever, and if Claire hadn't known better -- known very well -- she'd never have believed that the nice, smiling hippie type behind the counter was a vampire.

Oliver locked gazes with her and nodded slightly. His face stayed pleasant. "Nice to see you back," he said. "What'll it be?"

Much as she hated to admit it, he made the best drinks in town. Better than Eve, actually. "White mocha," she said. "With whip." She managed to hold back from adding anything more, because she didn't like being nice to him. God, he'd been licking blood off her wrist two hours ago! The least she could do was not say please and thank you.

"No charge," he said, and waved away the five dollar bill she dug out of her jeans pocket. "A welcome-back present, Claire. Ah, Monica. Your usual?"

"Half-caff no foam double pump latte, with pink sugar," she said. "In a real cup, not that foam stuff."

"A simple yes would suffice," he said. As Monica started to turn away, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. He did it in such a way that nobody but Claire would notice, but it was unmistakably threatening. "She doesn't pay. You do, Monica. You may think of yourself as a princess, but trust me. I've met them, and you don't qualify." He grinned just a little, but there was no humor in his eyes. "Well, perhaps met isn't quite the right word."

"Eaten?" Claire supplied acidly. His smiled turned darker.

"Oh, the charm and elegance of the younger generation. It does warm my heart." Oliver let go of Monica's arm and stepped away to make the drinks. Monica backed away, looking flushed. She threw a dirty look at Claire -- yeah, like it's my fault, Claire thought --and stalked to the table in the corner. The one the deceased vampire Brandon had once staked out -- pun intended -- as his own. There were two young college girls sitting there, with books and papers piled up. Monica folded her arms and took up a belligerent pose.

"You're in my chair," she said. "Move."

The two girls -- shorter and pudgier than Monica -- stared up with saucer-huge eyes. One of them stammered, "Which one of us?"

"Both," Monica snapped. "I like my space. Get out."

They gathered up papers and books and hurried away, nearly dumping coffee all over Claire in their haste to go. "Did you have to do that?" Claire asked.

"No. It was just fun." Monica sat, crossed her smooth tanned legs, and patted the table. "Come on, Claire. Have a seat. We have so much to talk about."

She didn't want to, but it was stupid to stand there, looking obvious. So she sat, dumped her backpack on the floor next to her feet, and concentrated the scarred wood of the table top. She could see Monica's flip flop living up to its name as the other girl casually jiggled her foot. It reminded her ridiculously of Myrnin, and the dirty flip flops he wore.

"That's better." Monica sounded way too pleased with herself. Not cool. "So. Tell me all about it."

"About what?"

"Whatever Amelie's got you doing," Monica said. "Your super secret stuff. I mean, she picked you for a reason, and it's not for your charm and good looks, right? Obviously. It's for your brains, right? You don't have any family here, you've got nothing anybody wants other than that."

Monica was smarter than she looked. "Amelie's not asking me to do anything," Claire lied. "Maybe she will later, I don't know. But she hasn't yet." She nervously twisted the gold bracelet circling her left wrist. It was starting to remind her of those bands biologists put on endangered species.

And lab animals.

Monica's eyes were half-closed when Claire risked a glance upward. "Huh," she said. "Really. Well, that's disappointing. I really thought you'd have something good I could use. Oh well. Then let's talk about making a deal."

"A deal?" First Jason, now Monica. How had Claire stepped into the role of negotiator?

"I want to negotiate with Amelie for Protection. You can give me an introduction. And a recommendation."

Claire nearly laughed. "Ask her yourself!"

"I would, but she won't let me near her. She doesn't like me."

"I'm shocked," Claire muttered under her breath.

Monica gave her a long look, one strangely missing the usual hip, ironic, contemptuous features. It looked almost ... earnest. "Since Brandon died, Oliver took over his contracts. The thing is, he's not keeping most of them. He's trading them for favors with other vampires. If I don't make a better deal, there's no telling what could happen to me." Monica pointed at Claire's bracelet. "Might as well start at the top."

Claire drummed her short fingernails on the table, glaring at the bar where it seemed like Oliver was taking forever to deliver their drinks. It occurred to her to wonder if it was really safe to drink something prepared by a vampire who'd been threatening her just a couple of hours before, but honestly, if Oliver wanted to get her, it wasn't like it would be hard for him.

And she really wanted the white mocha.

"Oliver's your Patron now?"

"For now. Until he finds something he wants more than holding onto my contract, anyway."

"Is he behind you asking about why Amelie signed me up?"

"Do I look like I run somebody else's errands?"

Claire glanced back again at the bar. "Maybe."

Monica went quiet. It wasn't the comfortable kind of silence, and Claire was glad when Oliver called out their orders. She jumped up to get hers, hesitated, and then picked up Monica's as well. She managed to do it without making eye contact with Oliver. He was just a dark shape at the corner of her eye, and she turned her back on him as soon as she could.

Monica had gotten up, and she looked honestly surprised when Claire handed her the drink. "What?" Claire asked. "It's called being polite, they probably didn't teach you that at home. Doesn't mean I like you or anything."

Monica seemed to have to think hard about what to say to that, and finally came up with a simple "Thanks." Which, Claire had to admit, might have been the nicest thing Monica had ever managed to say to her. Claire gave her a nod and sat down again. Peace in our time, she thought wryly. And promptly blew it by asking again, "Did Oliver put you up to it?"

Monica didn't even glance his direction. "No." But somehow, Claire didn't believe her.

"Do you have to do everything he says?" she asked, as if Monica hadn't just lied. And Monica lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. No other answer. "So you don't really want to talk to me, do you? You've just been told to do it."

"Not exactly." Monica smiled slightly, and very bitterly. "Check it out: you're a star. Everybody wants to know about you, vampires and humans. They're looking into your history, your family's history. If you farted in grade school, somebody in Morganville knows it now."

Claire almost choked on her first mouthful of white mocha. "What?"

"The Founder isn't what you might call accessible. And most of the vamps don't understand her any better than we do. They're always looking for clues about who she is, what she's doing here, with this town. This isn't normal, you know. The way they live here." Monica's gaze flicked to Oliver, then away. "He's old enough to know more than most, but he still needs inside information. And the word is, you could be the way to get it."

Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm nobody. And if she cared about me at all -- which she doesn't -- she'd never let anybody know it. I mean, look how she treats -- " She stopped herself cold, heart suddenly hammering fast. She'd almost said Myrnin, and that would have been bad. " -- Sam," she finished lamely. Which was also true, but Monica had to have noticed her stumble.

Which Monica emphasized by waiting for a full ten seconds of silence before she continued. "Whatever. The point is, you're sort of famous, and by hanging with you, I get seen by the right people doing the right thing. Which is all I care about. You're right, I don't care if we're BFFs. We're not going to trade clothes and get matching tattoos. I've got friends. I need allies." She sipped her complicated drink, her eyes steady on Claire. "Oliver wants what you know, yeah. And this -- " She tapped her own bracelet. " -- This says that I do what he says, or else."

"Or else what?"

Monica looked down. "You've met him. Best case, it means he hurts me. Bad. Worst case ... he trades me down."

"That's worse?"

"Yeah. That means I get handed to the bottom-of-the-barrel vamps, the ones too lame to get the good earners and the pretty people. That means I'm a loser." She looked down and fidgeted with her ceramic coffee cup, frowning at it. "Sounds shallow, maybe, but around here, it's survival. If Oliver blackballs me, I can't get anything but the freaks and the skanks, the ones who get their fix the hard way. They'll kill me, if I'm lucky. If not, I end up some strung-out junkie fang-banger."

She said it with such dry, matter-of-fact intensity that Claire could tell she'd spent a lot of time thinking about it. It was a long way to fall, from the darling daughter of the mayor to some addict trying to please a kinky freak for protection.

"You could be neutral," Claire blurted. She felt oddly sympathetic, even after everything Monica had done. She had been born here, after all. Not like she'd ever had a real choice in what she was going to be, or do. "Some people are, right? They're left alone?"

Monica sneered, and the second of two of humanity Claire had imagined she'd seen in that pretty face vanished. "They're left alone until they're not. Look, officially, they're untouchable because they've done favors, big favors, and their Patrons let them out of contracts. By big favors, I mean the kind they were lucky to live through, get it? I'm not interested in that kind of hero crap."

Claire shrugged. "Then go without a contract."

"Yeah, right. That works. I'm really looking forward to a future as second assistant fry wrangler at the Dairy Queen, and decomposing in some ditch before I'm thirty." Monica rested her elbows on the table, coffee cup cradled in both hands. "I thought about leaving. I actually went to Austin for a semester, you know? But --it wasn't the same."

"Meaning you flunked out of school."

That earned Claire a filthy look. "Shut up, bitch, I'm only here because I need to be, and you're only here because you have to be. Let's not get too touchy-feely."

Claire swallowed a mouthful of sweet, rich mocha. If it was poisoned, she'd die happy, at least. "Fine by me. Look, I can't help you get to Amelie. I don't even know how to get to her myself. And even if I did, I don't think she'd take your contract."

"Then just shut up and smile. If I don't get anything else out of this wasted morning, at least Oliver can see that I tried."

"How long do I have to do this?"

Monica checked her watch. "Ten minutes. Suck it up that long, and I won't call my brother about your boyfriend's little indiscretion."

"How can I be sure?"

Monica slapped both hands to her cheeks and looked over-dramatically horrified. "Oh no! You don't trust me! I'm crushed." She dropped the act as suddenly as she'd taken it on. "I don't care if Shane has opened his own corpse taxi service, I only care about what I can get out of it."

"Maybe you want revenge," Claire said.

Monica smiled. "If I'd wanted that, I'd have already turned him in. Besides, I hear it's best served cold."

Claire pulled out a book. "All right. Ten minutes. I need to study anyway." Monica sat back and began a running, acidly accurate monologue on the outfits of the girls standing in line for coffee, which Claire tried earnestly not to find funny. Which she was able to do, until Monica pointed out a girl wearing a truly horrible polka-dot-leggings-under-shorts ensemble. "And somewhere in heaven, Versace sheds a single, perfect tear."

Claire couldn't control a snort of laughter, and hated herself for it. Monica cocked an eyebrow.

"See?" she said. "I'm so good I can even charm a hard-case like you. It's a waste of my talent, but I need to keep myself sharp." She finished her coffee, and picked up her little pink purse with the Teen People magazine sticking out of it. "Gotta fly, loser. Tell your boyfriend as far as I'm concerned, we're even. Well, okay, I'm a little bit more than even, and that's the way I like it. Consider this his restraining order: if I see him within fifty feet of me, I'll not only tell my brother about Shane's midnight adventure, I'll get some football types to pay his kneecaps a visit."

She walked out, hips swaying dangerously. People got out of her way, and they watched her go. Fear and attraction, in just about equal measure.

Claire sighed. She supposed people always did like that sort of girl, and always would. And secretly? She envied Monica's confidence. Maybe just a little, traitorous bit.