Bitter Blood

of, Claire thought. Of course, those girls probably never thought about having to live their eternity trapped inside one house, living half a life, not even being able to shop or see a movie that wasn’t brought in, or go out to eat…or date.

Miranda was never, ever going to date. That was probably the saddest thing of all. She probably hadn’t ever even been kissed. Not once. And what was worse, she was living in a house with two couples.

Yeah. Living hell, Claire decided, and she elbowed Shane and gave Miranda the last taco. It seemed the least she could do.

Then she realized that Michael hadn’t even started answering the question. Somehow, Claire had expected him to take the lead on it, but since he hadn’t, suddenly everyone was staring at her, waiting.

Claire cleared her throat, took a drink of water, and said, “I guess I’ll just get it over with. Hannah can’t help about getting rid of the ID cards, or the hunting licenses. She’s being thrown out of office. Oliver’s a jerk. Amelie’s turned into a Vampire with a capital V, and she nearly killed Michael to prove how badass she is now. Does that cover it, Michael?”

“Pretty much,” he said.

That…didn’t go over as well as she’d hoped. For a second, nobody said a word, and then everyone was trying to talk at once. Michael tried to put some kind of polish on what she’d said, but there was no changing the truth of it. Eve was sharply demanding to know what was meant by nearly killed. Shane was cursing and saying that he’d known it would be like this.

Even Miranda was timidly asking something that was lost in the general chaos.

“One at a time,” Claire finally yelled, and that surprised them enough that they all fell silent. Surprisingly, it was Miranda who plunged ahead first.

“Are you feeling all right?” she asked Michael, and there was an edge of anxiety in her voice that surprised Claire…and then, didn’t. After all, Miranda had never been kissed, and Michael couldn’t help being a girl magnet. Claire felt a little relieved, really, because at least the girl didn’t moon about Shane. Not that Shane would have noticed, or cared, but still.

Eve, on the other hand, seemed to ignore Miranda altogether; her gaze focused wholly on Michael’s face. Her dark eyes were huge, and she’d gripped his left hand tightly with her right.

“I’m okay,” he said, not to Miranda, but to Eve, and brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. “Claire might have been exaggerating a little.”

“Not much,” Claire muttered, but she ate a bite of taco and didn’t object any louder.

“She’s right, though,” Michael continued. “Definitely, there’s something wrong with Amelie and how she’s handling things. It’s not the Founder we’ve known; this is more the way Bishop acted. Maybe it’s something to do with her near miss with the draug.”

“Or maybe it’s just that Oliver’s in her pocket all the time,” Shane said. “I’m saying pocket because there’s a deceased minor present, but by pocket I mean pants.”

Claire smacked him under the table on the side of the leg, hard, but she didn’t disagree with the substance— just the presentation. “Oliver’s a bad boyfriend,” she agreed. “And she’s listening to him way too much. That’s why he’s getting rid of Hannah; he doesn’t want any disagreements on the Elders’ Council. He just wants some rubber- stamping human body sitting at the table, to keep people in line by pretending they still have a voice.”

“Can we go back to the issue of Michael nearly being killed?” Eve said. “Because I’m really not okay with that. What happened?”

“I didn’t agree with Amelie on something.” Michael shrugged. “It’s not the first time, right? Eve, seriously, don’t fuss.”

Eve gazed at him a moment longer, then shifted her attention to Shane. “You buying this no-big-deal crap?”

“Nope.”

“Then what are we going to do about it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Kill ’em all; feed their carcasses to chickens? Hell, Eve, what can we do? We got by this long because we’re lucky and we’ve had the right vampires on our side. Now the same vamps are on the other side of the line. What’ve we got going for us?”

“Well, we’re all smart, strong, and fashion forward,” Eve said. “Except for you.”

He saluted her with a fork full of dripping taco and shoveled it into his mouth. “You forgot handsome,” he said. “Plus thoughtful, kind, brave…”

“Shane, the closest you ever got to the Boy Scouts was when that whole troop of them beat you up in fourth grade,” Eve shot back.

“Be fair—they were Brownies, and those girls were soccer-trained. Mean kickers.” Shane took a sip of his drink and changed the subject. “We don’t have a lot of things counting up in our favor right now, do we? No offense, Mike. You know I love you and Eve, but you two getting married hasn’t made life around here any easier; most people avoid us, the pro-human side hates us, the pro-vampire side hates us, too. Now we don’t have the Ice Queen on our side, either. Strategically, I guess our whole position boils down to this sucks.”

“We’ve got Myrnin,” Claire said. “He doesn’t like how things are heading, either. He’ll help.”

“Oh yeah, because Myrnin’s always reliable,” Eve said. “Yes, Shane, I said it for you.”

“Thanks for reading my mind.”

“Thanks for making it so simple.”

Shane threw a napkin at her, she deflected it into Miranda’s lap, and Miranda threw it to Michael, who didn’t even look up as he snatched the wadded-up paper out of the air and lobbed it to Claire.

Who missed, of course.

“Loser does the dishes,” Michael said. “New rule.”

“Awesome,” Shane agreed, and then got less cheerful about it. “Wait—it’s all paper plates and stuff.”

“Hey, you could have lost if you’d thought about it.”

Miranda was the one who spoiled the moment by asking, in a very worried voice, “What are you going to do about stopping Amelie? I mean, if she’s really dangerous now?”

Eve put her arm around the girl and hugged her. “Claire will have an awesome plan, and we’ll all make it work. You’ll see.”

Yeah, Claire thought gloomily, as she gathered up the trash. No pressure.

She was mostly done when she found Miranda standing next to her, handing her stuff. Eve, Michael, and Shane had all moved off, and the younger girl gave her a quick, crooked smile. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I like to help. Is it okay?”

“Sure,” Claire said. “Thanks.”

“I wanted to ask you something, actually. I heard Shane say something about those people who came to town. Those people with the TV show.”

“Oh, right. Angel and Jenna.” And Tyler, who did all the work. “What about them?”

“You don’t think they’ll, ah, find anything, do you? What if they do? What if they get the word out on Morganville?”

“It won’t happen,” Claire said. “Even if they do find anything—which I really doubt—I don’t think they’d be able to get it out of town. Why? Are you worried about their finding out about you?”

“Not—not really.” Miranda looked oddly embarrassed. “I just—they must have met other ghosts before. I just wondered if maybe I could talk to them about it. About what’s normal.”

“I’m not sure there’s any such thing as normal, when it comes to ghosts, especially around here,” Claire said doubtfully. “Mir, you’re not thinking of trying to get them over here, are you?”

“Well, at night, they wouldn’t see anything weird….”

“No. No, definitely no. What if Myrnin comes popping in through a portal in the wall, or some random vamp decides to drop in for a visit? How do we explain that? And Michael? They’d notice something strange about him, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh,” Miranda said. “Right. I hadn’t thought about that. Okay, then. I just—I just wish I could make more friends.”