Glass Houses

Chapter 15

C laire didn’t even see Michael move; he was that quick. Until that moment she’d thought he was just a normal guy, really…okay, one who disappeared into mist during the day. But nobody moved that fast. Nobody human.

And nobody was that strong, either. Michael grabbed Oliver by the shoulders, lifted him into the air, and launched him headfirst down the hall to crash into the far wall. Claire dived out of the way. So did Shane, and Eve, although Eve was diving toward Oliver, not away. Shane got hold of her ankle and dragged her backward, kicking and screaming.

Michael went after Oliver. As the vampire was rolling to his feet, Michael smashed into him. Oliver was strong, and fast, but in this house Michael was unstoppable, and he was really, really angry.

“You fool!” Oliver screamed at him. “Do you understand what I said? Claire has the book! ”

“I don’t care!”

“You have to care! If you don’t give it over, they’ll rip all of you apart to get it! I’m trying to save you!”

Michael slammed his fist into his face two or three times, quicker than Claire could blink. Oliver went down again, scrabbling at the floor, then rolled over and stared furiously through tangled graying hair up at them. Vampires bled, after all, but it didn’t quite look right—not red enough, and too thick. It trickled from the corners of Oliver’s mouth as he snarled, fangs down, and tried to drag Michael close enough to bite. Michael hit him so hard that one of the fangs broke off and skittered away across the floor like an ivory dagger. Oliver shouted in surprise and pain and rolled, trying to protect himself.

“Eve!” Michael yelled, and dragged him by one foot down the hallway toward the door. “Revoke the invitation! Do it!” Oliver was fighting him wildly now, ripping long raw scratches in the wooden floor with his fingernails, snarling and twisting to get free. “Eve!”

Shane lunged for Eve, pulled her to her feet, and shook her hard. That didn’t work. She just stared right past him, her face still and dead.

Claire moved him out of the way and slapped Eve hard.

Eve yelped, clapped a hand to her wounded cheek, and blinked. “Hey! What the hell…?” And then she looked past Claire to the furious battle going on in the hallway, lips parted in amazement.

“Eve!” Michael yelled again. “The invitation! You have to withdraw it now!”

“But I didn’t—” Eve didn’t waste time arguing. “Hey! Oliver! Get the hell out of our house!”

Oliver went still. Completely still, like a dead man. Michael picked him up by an arm and a leg, and threw him out into the dark. Claire heard the vampire hit the pavement outside and curse as he rolled back to his feet and came back at the door.

He bounced off a solid cushion of air in the doorway.

“You’re not welcome,” Michael grated. He had a cut on his face, bleeding a thick thread down the side of his neck, and he was breathing hard. “And by the way? Eve quits.”

He slammed the door in Oliver’s snarling face, and collapsed against it, shaking. He didn’t look all-powerful anymore. He looked terrified. “Michael?” Eve asked, breathless. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” he said, and got it together. “Eve, stay away from the door. He got to you once; maybe he can do it again. Claire! You, too. Stay away from the door.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down the hall—which was a mess, wow, the floor all ripped up, the walls scraped and scratched—and shoved her down to a sitting position on the couch. “Claire.”

“Um…yes?” Things were moving too fast. She didn’t know what he was waiting to hear.

“The book?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well—see, there was this floor in the library where they were going through books, and Professor Wilson was stealing things, and—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “Do you have the book?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me you didn’t bring it here.”

She blinked. “Well—yes.”

Michael fell into the armchair, leaned forward, and buried his face in his hands. “Sweet baby Jesus, do you not pay any attention to what goes on in this town? You really have the book?”

“I…guess so.” She got up and started to retrieve it, but he raised his head and grabbed her wrist as she moved by him.

“No,” he said. “Leave it, wherever it is. The less we know, the better. We need to figure out what we’re going to do, because Oliver wasn’t kidding around. He wouldn’t have come here if he hadn’t intended to kill us all for that book. As it was, he took a big chance. He knows how powerful the Protection is on this house.”

“That how come you could beat him?” Shane asked. “Because you know, I’m your best friend, but you’re just not that badass, man.”

“Thanks, asshole. Yeah. I’m part of the house, and that means I can use what the house has. It’s strong. Really strong.”

“Good to know. So what’s the plan?”

Michael took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Wait for daylight,” he said. “Eve. You ever see Oliver outside in the sun?”

“Um…” She thought hard. “No. Mostly he stays in his office, or in the bar area, away from the windows. But I didn’t think vampires could be awake during the day!”

Claire thought about the church Monica had chased her into, and the elegant, ancient woman sitting in the pews. “I think they can,” she said. “If they’re old. He must be really old.”

“I don’t care how old he is—he’s not tanning,” Shane said. “We wait for dawn, and then we get Claire and the book out of here.”

“She can’t go home. They’ll go there first,” Eve said. Claire went cold.

“But—my parents! What about my parents?”

Nobody answered her for a second or two, and then Shane came and sat down next to her. “You think they’ll listen? If we tell them the truth?”

“What, about Morganville? About vampires?” She laughed, and it sounded hysterical. “Are you kidding? They’d never believe it!”

“Besides,” Eve said, and sat down on her other side to take her hand, “even if you convinced them, they’d forget all about it once they were out of town. It’s hard to be paranoid when you don’t remember they’re out to get you.”

“Ouch,” Shane agreed. “Okay, then. Running’s out—for one thing, we can’t throw Claire’s parents to the vampire wolves…right?”

Michael and Eve nodded.

“And besides, same problem for Claire. Even if we got her out of town, she’d forget why she was running. They’d catch her.”

More nods.

“So what do we do?”

“Trade the book,” Claire said. They all looked at her. “What? I was going to, anyway. In exchange for some things.”

“Like what?” Michael asked, amazed.

“Like—Brandon not holding Shane to his deal. And Monica and her freaks backing off of me. And…Protection for all the dorms on campus, so that the students are safe.” She blushed, because they were all staring at her like they’d never seen her before. “That’s how Oliver knew I had the book. I messed up. I was trying to make a deal, but I thought he was just, you know, a good guy who could help. I didn’t know he was one of the vampires.”

“Oh, he’s not one of them,” Michael said. “He is them.”

Shane frowned. “How do you know that, man?”

“Because in a way I’m one of them,” Michael replied. “And something in me wants to do what he says.”

“But—not a big part, right?” Eve ventured.

“No. But he’s definitely in charge.”