Carpe Corpus

surge of embarrassment, though, she felt an equally strong wave of delight. She hadn’t seen Michael—not on his own, away from Bishop—since that horrible day when everything had gone so wrong for all of them.

As she struggled into her robe, he stood up, holding out both hands in a very Michael-ish sort of attempt at calming her down. “Wait! I’m not who you think I am. I’m not here to hurt you, Claire. Please believe me—”

Oh. He thought she still believed he was Bishop’s little pet. “Yeah, you’re working for Amelie, not evil anymore, I get it. That doesn’t mean you can show up without warning when I’m in my nightgown!”

Michael gave her a smile of utter relief and lowered his hands. He looked a million miles tall to her just then, and when he opened his arms, she just about flew into his embrace. She came nearly up to his chin. He was a vampire, so there was no sense of warmth from his body, but there was comfort, real and strong. Michael was his own person. Always.

There was genuine love in him. She could feel it.

“Hey, kid,” he said, and hugged her with care, well aware of his strength. “You doing okay?”

“I’m okay, and man, I wish everybody would stop asking me,” she said, and pulled back to look at him. “What are you doing here?”

Michael’s face took on hard lines, and he sat down on the bed again. Claire climbed up next to him, feeling her happiness bleed away. She picked up a pillow and hugged it absently. She needed something to hold.

“Bishop sent me out to run one of his errands,” he said. “He still thinks I’m one of his good little soldiers. At least, I hope he does. This is probably his idea of a test.”

“Sent you out to do what?”

“You don’t want to know.” Clearly, something that Michael hated. His blue eyes were shadowed, and he didn’t seem to want to look at her directly.“Things are getting too dangerous for you to be in the middle of this. Promise me you won’t come back to Bishop. Not even if he uses that tattoo to call for you. Just stay away from him. Handcuff yourself to a railing if you have to, but don’t go back.”

“But—”

“Claire.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Trust me. Please. You have to stay here. Stay safe.”

She nodded mutely, suddenly more afraid than she’d been all night. “You know something. You heard something.”

“It’s not that simple,” Michael said. “It’s more of a feeling. Bishop’s getting bored, and when he gets bored with something . . . he breaks it.”

“You mean me?”

“I mean Morganville,” he said. “I mean everything. Everybody. You’re just an easy, obvious target.”

Claire swallowed hard. “But you . . . you’re okay, right?”

“Yeah.” He sighed and ran a hand through his curling blond hair. “I’d better be. Not much of a choice anymore. Don’t worry about me—if I need to get out, I will. I’m just trying to stay with it as long as I can.”

Claire hated the sadness in him, and the anger, and she wished she could say something to make him feel better. Anything.

Wait—there was something. “I saw Eve.”

That got an immediate response from him—his head jerked up, and his blue eyes widened. “How is she?” There was so much emotion behind the question it made Claire shiver.

“She’s good,” Claire said, which wasn’t exactly true. “She’s, uh, kind of pissed, actually. I had to tell her. About you being not really evil.”

Michael sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure that was a good idea.”

“It will be if you go see her tonight and tell her . . . well, whatever. Oh, but watch out. She’s gone all Buffy with the stakes and things.”

“Sounds like what she’d do, all right.” Michael was smiling now, happier than she’d seen him in months. “Maybe I’ll try to see her. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She wasn’t sure how much more to say, but she was tired of not telling the truth. “She really loves you, you know. She always has.”

He sat for a few seconds in silence, then shook his head. “I’d better let you rest,” he said. “Remember what I said. Stay here. Don’t go back to Bishop.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” She mock-saluted him. “Hey. I missed you, Fang Boy.”

“You’ve been hanging around Eve too much.”

“Not nearly enough. Not recently, anyway.” And she was sad about that.

“I know,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand. “We’ll fix it. Get some sleep.”

“Night,” she said, and watched him walk toward the door. “Hey. How’d you get in?”

He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. “I’m a vampire. I have secret powers,” he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, “Actually, your mom let me in.”

“Seriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?”

He shrugged. “Moms like me.”

He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door.

Claire got under the covers and, for the first time all night, felt like it was safe to sleep.

In the morning—not too early—Claire found cereal and juice waiting for her downstairs, along with a note from her mother that she’d gone shopping, and that she hoped Claire would stay home today. It was the same sort of note Mom left every day. At least, the “hope you stay home” part.

Claire intended to, this time. She intended to right up until she looked at her calendar, and realized what day it was, and that it was circled in red with multicolored exclamation points all around it.

“Oh, crap!” she muttered, and pawed through her backpack, hauling out textbooks, notebooks, her much-abused laptop, floods of colored markers, and assorted change. She found the purple notebook, the one she kept for important test dates.

Today was the final exam for her physics class. Fifty percent of her grade, and no makeup tests for anything less than life support.

It’s only a test. Michael said—

It wasn’t only a test; it was her most important final exam. And if she didn’t show up for it, she’d automatically fail a class she had no business not acing. Besides, Michael had said not to hang around Bishop—he hadn’t said anything about going to classes. That was normal life.

She needed normal right now.

After the cereal and juice, Claire packed her backpack and set out in the cool morning for Texas Prairie University. It was a short walk from pretty much anywhere in Morganville; from her parents’ house, the route took her down four residential blocks, then into Morganville’s so-called business district, about six square blocks of stores. Walking in daylight showed just how much Morganville had changed since Mr. Bishop had shown up: burned-out houses on every block, with few attempts to clear them away or rebuild. Abandoned houses, doors hanging open and windows broken. Once she got into the business district, half the stores were shut, either temporarily or permanently. Oliver’s coffee shop, Common Grounds, was shuttered and quiet, with a Closed sign in the dark window.

Everywhere, there was a feeling that the town was holding its breath, closing its eyes, trying to wish away its problems. The few people Claire saw trying to go about their normal lives seemed either jumpy and distracted, or as if they were putting on some false smile and happy face. It was creepy, and she felt a little bit relieved when she passed the gates of the university—open, like it was a regular sort of day—and fell in with the crowds of young people moving around the campus. TPU wasn’t a huge school, but it sprawled over a fairly large area, with lots of park spaces and quads. She usually would have made a stop at the University Center for a mocha, but there wasn’t time. Instead, she headed for the science building, navigating the crowds piling into Chem 101 and Intro to Geology. The physics classes were held toward the end of the hallway, and they were a lot less well attended. TPU wasn’t exactly MIT on the plains; most students just wanted to get their core courses and transfer out to better schools. Most of them never had a single clue about the true nature of Morganville, because they didn’t get off campus all that much—TPU prided itself on its student services.

Of course, there were also local students, destined to stay in Morganville their entire lives. Until a few months ago, she could have identified those people at a glance, because they’d be wearing identification bracelets