Daylighters

Myrnin disappeared, just as Jesse had, and Claire was left standing alone in the dim, quiet room. She hadn’t seen him do it, but Myrnin had replaced the grate over the pipe they’d used to enter; she went over and tested it, but it didn’t budge, and she realized that he’d bent it into place. Nobody would realize it was anything but solid, not even on close inspection. It would take vampire strength to even begin to pry it loose.

Was that how Amelie had gotten out? Through the slime? Somehow Claire couldn’t imagine Her Immaculateness sliding through the ooze on her way out, or making her way across Morganville looking like a refugee from the Nickelodeon Awards. One thing vampires were big on was dignity.

She was deep in contemplation of the vent and its implications when she realized that she had a visitor. It wasn’t Myrnin. It wasn’t even Jesse.

It was Michael.

She flinched, because he was just right there, no warning, no sound. He wasn’t usually like that, so . . . vampiric. In the house, Michael always took special care to make sure they heard him coming, and she’d never bothered to wonder before if that took a lot of extra effort for him—if he felt as if he was forced to be embarrassingly clumsy around them, just to avoid scaring the crap out of them in the kitchen or the hallway.

Then in the next split second she realized that he certainly hadn’t bothered this time, and there was something in the way he was watching her—the utter stillness of his body and face—that made her feel deeply uneasy.

“Michael?” She almost blurted out you scared me, but that was blindingly obvious from the way she’d jumped and from the no doubt deafening sound of her racing heartbeat. Her pulse should have been slowing down after the first instant of alarm/recognition, but instead it continued drumming right on, as if her body knew something her mind didn’t.

She didn’t move. That took a lot of effort, actually, because those same instincts insisting to her that she was scared were also wanting her to take at least a couple of steps back. Large steps, at that.

Michael said, “I lied to Eve.”

As totally confusing openings went, that was a new one—both unexpected and ominous. “Um . . . okay. About what?”

“I said they were feeding us, but they like us weak. The weaker, the better. They do give us blood, but it’s soured, somehow. Drugged. It doesn’t really help,” Michael said. His soft, measured voice sounded oddly soothing to her, and she felt her heartbeat slowing down, finally. He was her friend, after all. One of her very best and sweetest friends. “I heard your voice. I knew you were here.”

“It’s good to see you,” she said. Her own voice sounded strange now, oddly calm and flat. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. “He brought Eve. He’s going to use her against me. I’m very hungry. And you shouldn’t be here, Claire. I don’t want you to be here, because . . .” A twitch of a smile, like a spasm of pain, came across his lips and then was immediately gone again. “You smell terrible, you know.”

“Sorry. It’s the slime.”

“But I still want you.”

She opened her mouth and realized she had nothing to say to that. Nothing at all. Because it was shocking and wrong and so very wrong and this was Michael saying it, and despite the fact that everything seemed weirdly okay, as if she was soaking in a soothing bath and everything was a dream . . . she understood two things: he didn’t mean it as sexually as it sounded, and also, it was so not okay.

He was closer to her now, and she didn’t see him move. He was just . . . closer. Watching her. She didn’t like that. Inside the calm cocoon, something in her twisted and pushed and tried to break free of the sticky, syrupy layers of calm she’d become wrapped in.

Please don’t do this.

He was too close now. She could have reached out and put her hand on his chest, and what was her hand doing rising like that, as if she had no real control over it, and why were his eyes turning so red . . .

“Michael.”

The voice was low and cold, and Claire felt the tone stab straight through that cocoon that wrapped her so tightly and rip it open. The air suddenly felt heavy on her skin, and too thick, and she couldn’t get her breath. Her pulse kick-started faster again, and she stumbled backward until her shoulders touched a wall.

Jesse was in the doorway. She looked wild and dangerous and angry, and when Michael took another step in Claire’s direction Jesse came at him, wrapped a fist in the fabric of his T-shirt, and threw the younger vampire ten feet toward the exit. When he tried to lunge for Claire again, Jesse caught him, steadied him, and held on when he tried to pull free. “Nope,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “You’re going to thank me later when you have a chance to think about it. Not your fault, kid. Believe me. But you’d take it hard if this went badly.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her,” he growled, and Claire saw his fangs then, down and sharp and glittering. “She’s my friend. I know what I’m doing. I’d only take a little.”

“Just a sip. Yeah, I know. But it doesn’t work. At times like these, the only thing to do is just say no.”

He didn’t like it, but he let Jesse turn him around and lead him away. She shut the door behind him as she pushed him.

Jesse looked frustrated and angry, and there was a flash of red in her eyes, like distant lightning on the edge of a storm. She began stalking the room with long, restless strides. As she walked, she gathered up her long red hair and twisted it into a rope at the back of her head, then ripped a piece of her shirt off to tie it in place. It wasn’t in the best repair, her shirt. Claire wondered how many times she’d cannibalized it for hair ties already.

“They’re dosing our blood,” Jesse told her. “I’m not certain what they’re using, but it seems to cut the effectiveness of our meals to almost nothing. We eat, but it doesn’t nourish, and the hunger . . . the hunger won’t stop. I’m not sure why they’re doing it, and it worries me. Why would they want ravenous vampires?”

It was a very good—and scary—question. “I don’t know.”

“Why in the world did you decide to throw yourself in the middle of all this?”

“Well,” Claire said, and tried a smile, “it was this or jail.”

“Were they actively trying to eat you in jail?”

“Myrnin has a job for me, and he seemed to think you could keep me safe,” she said. “Can you?”

Jesse let out an entirely humorless dry chuckle. “Depends on the circumstances,” she said. “But against most of my fellow vampires I have a better than average chance, yes. The only ones able to shut me down would be Amelie and Oliver, and neither one of them seem likely to come against me. Amelie’s vanished, and Oliver . . .”

“Fallon’s got him,” Claire guessed. “Downstairs. What is he doing to him?”

“Nothing Oliver can’t endure,” Jesse said. “He’s been through worse—I can almost guarantee it.”

“What about Eve? Fallon has Eve. He brought her—”

“I saw her through the door,” Jesse said. “Outside, still locked in his car. She seems . . . impaired?”

“Drugged,” Claire shot back, angry on Eve’s behalf. “She’s okay?”

“So far.” Jesse was grasping her hands behind her back as if she felt the need to be restrained, and Claire wondered just how hungry she actually was. Probably quite very hungry. Myrnin would have fed outside, but Jesse hadn’t had a chance, and that meant she was just as hungry as Michael—maybe even more. Oliver wouldn’t have fed, either—even if he’d had the chance, he’d have made sure others went first, because he was the ruler, even if a temporary one, of this very sad little kingdom. “It’s lucky that you have so little blood in you to go around, you know. That helps make you less . . . attractive.”

Finally, a use for being smaller than normal. “I thought you needed me. Myrnin said he needed human hands to help him disable your shock collars.”

“He’s dreaming,” Jesse said, and shook her head. “They’re fitted with sensors from those monitors modern courts force felons to wear under house arrest, but significantly modified. If you so much as try to open the case, it’ll stun a vampire into submission—and probably flash-fry a human brain.”

“Myrnin said he could handle the shocks.”

That made Jesse smile, but it was a sad sort of expression. “That’s because he’s mad as a hatter.”