Bite Club

She’d first met him in the library at Texas Prairie University, and he’d tried to kill her. Not a very nice vampire at all, in her experience.

“It’s the apprentice vampire hunter,” he said. “Good. I was getting hungry. Thanks for bringing me lunch.”

“She’s with me, John,” Myrnin said, and waggled his finger. “No snacking. And, besides, you’d have to ask Amelie’s permission first. Which you wouldn’t get, you know. You’re on probation for your last, ah, incident concerning a Morganville resident with a pulse.”

The vampire shrugged and looked disappointed. “Fine. What do you want?”

“None of your business, John. Just do your job and be quiet,” Myrnin said, and pulled her along. “This way.”

They passed through a very thick steel door, one that slammed shut with a finality that made Claire shiver, and then through a series of barred gates that looked thick enough to discourage even vampires. Some were warped. Some even had fingerprints pressed into the metal where vamps had tried to bend it. Unsuccessfully, it looked like.

They all locked behind her, cutting off any possibility of retreat. Yeah, that note she didn’t leave was looking more important all the time. Claire furtively eased her cell phone from her pants pocket and checked the reception.

Zero bars. Of course. She couldn’t even text for help.

Myrnin glanced back at her as they walked down the long, featureless hallway. Well, featureless was wrong—it was meant to be featureless, but, in fact, it had all kinds of scratches, gouges, and chunks torn out of it. Probably by people and vampires struggling to get free. Definitely not design features, because one of the gouges held a spark of red that, as Claire looked closer, became a torn-off, red-painted fingernail tip.

“Are you all right?” he asked her. She nodded, determined not to show him how unnerved she felt. “It’s just down here.”

He paused in front of just another doorway, one without a knob. It had a keypad next to it, and Myrnin entered some numbers and pressed his thumb to a glass plate. The door popped open with a hiss of air, as if it had been pressurized inside.

No sound at all, other than that.

Myrnin swung it open and stepped inside first—in case, Claire guessed, Jason was waiting with some blunt object, or, knowing Jason, a sharp one. But he needn’t have bothered, because Jason was sitting braced against the wall, knees up, on the small, narrow prison bed. He was dressed in glaring white hospital scrubs, stenciled with the word prisoner on the front and, she supposed, the back.

He looked up at them, expressionless. Beneath the tangled mop of dark hair, his face was still and set, his eyes as blank as stones.

“Hey, Jason,” Claire said. She sounded nervous. Well, she was. “Is it okay if I sit down?” The only place to sit was on the bed. Jason didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no, either, so she sank down on the end farthest from him. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged. It was just a very, very small movement of his shoulders, hardly anything at all. His dead- looking eyes moved quickly toward Myrnin, then back to her.

Jason was dangerous; she knew that. She’s seen him hurt Shane; she’d seen him do worse than that, too. If I get up and leave, nobody would blame me, she thought. Not even Eve.

But the thought of Eve, crying and miserable, made Claire find the last, fraying threads of resolve and hang on tight. She looked at Myrnin, who was standing in the corner, near the door. “Would you mind waiting out there?” she asked him.

“Outside of this room.”

“Yes.”

“You’re quite certain.”

She wasn’t, but she nodded, anyway. It’s a sad day when Myrnin is the safe choice, she thought. Apparently, he thought so, too, because he gave her a long, troubled look before pressing his thumb to a glass plate inside the room and opening the door.

After it had closed behind him, Claire looked back at Jason. “Better?”

For a second, she thought she saw a ghost of a bitter little smile, but it was gone before she could be sure. “You think they’re not watching?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure they are. Sorry.”

He shrugged again. “Doesn’t matter. Why are you here?”

“Myrnin brought me.”

“He thought I’d talk to you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Jason slowly shook his head. “Got nothing to say.”

“Jason—this is serious. This isn’t just something that’s going to land you in jail for a while. This is murder. In Texas. They don’t fool around in this state, never mind in this town.”

This time, she didn’t even get a shrug. Just a blank stare.

“They want to know who put you up to it. Who hired you to steal the blood back from Doug?”

“Who’s Doug?”

“The guy you killed,” she said, staring him straight in the eyes. “My friend.”

That made him flinch, just a little. Barely a shiver, but there. “Sorry,” he said. He didn’t sound particularly sorry, though. “You’ve got the wrong guy. Didn’t do it.”

“They’re pretty sure you did.”

“They’re always sure, but that doesn’t mean they know. You think they care who actually did it? Their idea of justice is to haul in the usual dickheads and throw somebody to the wolves. Doesn’t matter who it is.”

“You’re saying you’re not guilty.”

“I’m the usual dickhead. Claire, you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who’s going down for it.” He shrugged again. “Whatever.”

“Whatever? Jason, it’s murder! I know you’re…not perfect—”

He laughed. It was a dry, papery sound, no amusement behind it at all.

“—but I know you’ve never killed anyone.”

“Oh yeah? You know that. You’re sure.”

Well…maybe sure wasn’t the right word. “I’m sure you’d tell me if you did it.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not afraid,” she said. “You’re not afraid to freak me out. You’d rather freak me out. But you won’t lie about it.”

“Oh, I lie.”

“I know. But you don’t lie to me. Not anymore.” She leaned forward. The smell of the cell—industrial cleaners, sweat, fear—made her throat ache, or maybe that was just her general tension. “Not since you tried to save my life.”

He looked away, and that was a victory, Claire thought. They’d never talked about it, never had the chance, but here, he was a captive audience.

“You knew I was going to die down there in the tunnels. And you went to get the cops, even though you knew it would get you arrested. You tried to save my life when you could have just run.”

“I didn’t save your life, though. They didn’t believe me. So all I got for it was jail. No good deed goes unpunished, right?”

“It still means something to me that you tried. That’s why you’ll tell me the truth, Jason. You care enough about what I think that you’ll try again.”

He gave her a look, one she couldn’t interpret. “You think a lot of yourself.”

“No,” Claire said softly. “Not really. I think you know that, too.”