Bite Club

Silence. She thought that it was going to go on forever, that she’d have to get up and leave him here to whatever would happen next, but then Jason said, “I didn’t kill him. But I know what happened.”

Progress. “Okay. So, what happened?”

“All I did was get the killer into the dorm and show him where to find the guy. Your friend. Doug.”

“Get who into the dorm?”

His answer caught her by surprise, but suddenly, the overwhelming vampire response in the middle of the night all made sense, because he said, “I didn’t know who he was at first. I mean, he was filthy and skinny and all kinds of crazy.”

“Who?”

“That old guy, the one who gave Amelie so much trouble. Mr. Bishop.”

Bishop is out. And he was starving. And he was massively pissed off.

And, Claire realized with an icy, horrible, sickening shock, she had just seen him out on the street, going after Myrnin. That was why he’d seemed familiar. The terrifying night stalker out there was the boogeyman.

No wonder the vampires were panicking.

Once he started talking, Jason had a lot to say. He’d been approached by a guy he knew, somebody on the not-so-legal side of Morganville society, who paid him cash to find out details about a TPU student…Doug. Jason delivered the info, but then was told that to get the rest of his money, he’d have to escort a visitor to Doug’s dorm room. That sounded simple enough, until Jason arrived at the tunnel where he’d been told to meet his contact, and discovered that it wasn’t just any old vamp waiting for him—it was Bishop. Amelie’s vampire father. And the meanest, coldest vampire Claire had ever met. He made that creepy bald guy from the old movie Nosferatu look sweet—and a little handsome, even. There was something so icy and wrong about Bishop that it made her shiver to remember him…and she’d thought, honestly, that he’d been executed.

Turns out that if he had, that hadn’t gone as planned, either.

“I didn’t know it would happen,” Jason said, looking down. He’d put his arms around his knees and drew them in, and he looked thinner and younger than Claire in that moment. A scared little boy. “I was standing there when Doug opened the door, and Bishop just—waved his hand. Or that’s what it looked like. Next thing I know, Doug is on his back, on the bed, throat cut, and he’s bleeding out. Bishop takes something out of his backpack and he says, Did you think you could threaten me? And I book the hell out of there. I didn’t care who saw me. I just cared about getting away before he decided to get rid of the loose ends. The look on his face—I thought he might kill everybody in the whole dorm.” Jason swallowed. “He was having fun. And he was starving.”

Claire thought about the two students on the floor conducting their stereo wars, not even aware of death passing by. Lucky. So lucky. “What did he take?”

“Search me. Looked like a vial of something, and some papers. But it’s not like I wanted to know. I was mostly just getting the hell out. Believe me, I wished I hadn’t seen anything and didn’t know anything.” Jason rested his forehead against his knees. “I don’t know where Bishop is. I don’t know what he’s doing. And, trust me, I don’t work for him. It was just supposed to be an introduction, a friend-of-a-friend kind of a thing. I figured he was scoring drugs or something. Once I realized who he was, I should have just gotten the hell out, but I was too scared to run. I knew if I didn’t get him where he wanted to go, he’d —”

Claire could only imagine what Bishop would have done if disappointed, and it wasn’t good, that was certain. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “You didn’t have a choice.” Jason was lucky to be alive at all.

“And I don’t have a choice now, either,” he said. “Claire, if they think they can torture some info out of me about where Bishop’s new hideout is, they can’t. I’d give it up if I had it, in a heartbeat, because, damn, does that thing scare me. But I just don’t know anything.”

She believed him. She glanced up, looking for the cameras, and found a tiny glass eye in the far corner of the ceiling. She stared up at it for a few seconds, wondering who was watching this. Amelie, almost certainly. And probably Myrnin, if he wasn’t still lurking on the other side of the door.

“I’m going to try to get you out of here, Jason,” she said. “I don’t know if I can do anything for you with the police, though.”

He shrugged, falling into that silence again. His eyes still looked dead, but now she realized that it wasn’t indifference.

It was fear.

She got up and walked toward the door, waiting. The lock disengaged and the door popped open.

“Claire?” Jason said suddenly. She looked back. “If I don’t see you again, thanks for trying. Nobody ever tried before. Not even Eve. I mean, she’s my sister and I love her, but…I think she always knew I was a lost cause.”

That was the saddest thing she’d ever heard. Claire tried for a smile, but she didn’t think it was authentic. And Jason didn’t smile back.

“You’ll see me again,” she said. “I promise.”

She hoped she wasn’t lying, as the door clicked shut behind her and locked with a thick, chunky sound of metal. The hallway was deserted, both directions, just straight lines and scratches on the walls and a sense of despair as thick as the white paint.

And then the vampire from the front desk—John, the one who’d called her the apprentice vampire hunter— appeared in the corridor. Claire stopped dead in her tracks, tense and ready for anything. He stared at her for a second, then beckoned.

She stayed where she was.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I was told to get you out. You want to stay, I can make that happen, girl. I got plenty of open cells.”

“I’m waiting for Myrnin.”

“You’ll be waiting a while,” he said. “He’s up with the boss lady. You come with me or get in a cell. Your choice.”

If Amelie was watching the closed-circuit feeds, she’d see Claire in the hallway and witness whatever might happen. Hopefully John knew that, too. That, and only that, made Claire nod and move toward the other vampire.

He didn’t touch her. He opened and closed gates, and finally they were in the last section, barred at one end, thick steel door at the other.

And, Claire realized, there were no cameras right in this particular section.

Oh, God.

John stopped and turned toward her. “I don’t forget what you did,” he said. He tapped the skin below his clouded, blind eye, eerily silver. “This is on you. You hurt me so bad, it’s never going to heal.”

Well, she’d done this to herself, trapped with a vamp who really didn’t like her, knowing she was responsible for his current not-so-great looks. “You were trying to kill me when I did that,” she said. “So it’s on you. If it helps, it makes you look way scarier than before.”

He bared fangs, and the look on his face made her feel painfully aware of the blood running under her skin and the terror that seemed to be growing spikes in her stomach. “You want to say that again?” he said. “How it was my fault you threw liquid nitrogen in my face?”

“Maybe it’s shared responsibility,” she said. “But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. Now open the door.”

“Once I’m done,” he said. “Eye for an eye. That’s what the Bible says.”

“I’m thinking you don’t live by the commandments too much.”

“Oh, I do. I pay special attention to the parts I agree with, same as everybody else. Now, if you stand still, it won’t take long.” He grinned evilly. “Not saying it won’t hurt, of course. What’d be the point if it didn’t hurt?”

She took a giant step back. Useless. Close quarters, no place to run, no weapons. Hand to hand with a much bigger, stronger, vampire-type dude, she had zero chance, and she knew it.

But she wasn’t going to beg. Even if the screaming voice in her head wanted her to.

Should have left that I-know-who-killed-me note.

And then the door next to her popped open with a harsh buzzing sound. She didn’t hesitate. As the vampire