Bitter Blood

“Or, you know, scorpions,” Claire said cheerfully. “And tarantulas. We have those. Oh, and black widows and brown recluse spiders—they love it out here. You’ll find them all over the place. If you get bitten, just be sure to, you know, call 911. They can most always save you.”

“Most always,” Shane echoed.

They walked on, leaving the three visitors—no longer quite so eager to delve in—debating the risks. As they did, Shane pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Texting Michael,” he said. “He needs to get to somebody in the vamp hierarchy and get these idiots off the street before this becomes really, really public and a big PR problem….” He paused and looked up. “Oh hell. Twice in one day? Who did I piss off upstairs to make that happen?”

He meant that Monica Morrell had just crossed their path, again. She was standing against the side of a big, trashy-looking van, tongue wrestling her current boy admirer, just around the corner from where Shane’s home had once been. Like most of Monica’s boyfriends, her current beau was a big side of beef, sporty, with an IQ of about room temperature, and she was climbing him like ivy up a tree.

“Excuse me, Dan,” Shane said as they got closer. “I think you got something on you—oh, hey, Monica. Didn’t see you there.”

She broke off the kiss to glare at him. “Freak.”

“Any particular reason you’re hanging out here, exactly? Not your usual territory. I don’t see any stores within credit-card distance.”

Her boyfriend—Dan, apparently—looked like a varsity football jock; he had the muscles, the bulk, and the jarhead hairstyle. Monica tended to attract the big-but-dumb ones, and this one, from the questioning look he sent toward them, seemed to run to type. “She said this was the right place,” he said, “to set up the—”

“Shut up,” Monica said.

“Set up the what?” Shane asked. “Would you maybe be planning to mess with our ghost-hunting friends?”

“Aren’t you?” she shot back. “Yeah. We’ve got this thing in the van, totally guaranteed to screw up their— what is it?”

“Screw up their shit,” Dan said, earnestly. “You know, their monitoring shit. It’s going to play Black Sabbath backward and really freak ’em out. I read it on the Internet.”

“Jesus, Dan,” Shane said. He almost sounded impressed. “You are just…landmark stupid, aren’t you? Has Guinness called yet about that world record?”

Dan growled and came at him, and that was of course a mistake; Shane balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, avoided his rush, dodged back toward the van, and as Dan lined up to rush him again, sidestepped like a matador and sent Dan crashing like a bullet headfirst into the metal.

Dan didn’t go down, but he definitely thought about it. He leaned heavily on the metal and stared blankly into the distance for a minute. His forehead had a vivid red mark on it, and Shane said, “You probably ought to get some ice on that, man.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Yeah, thanks, bro.” He didn’t dare come after Shane again, so he turned on Monica with a glare. “Well? Brilliant plan, Mayor. What else you got?”

“Oh, Dan, don’t be like that—”

“Play your own stupid pranks for a change.”

Monica gave him a searing glare of disappointment, and he shrugged and got in the van. In seconds, it fired up and drove away in a belch of smoke.

Leaving Monica behind. She shot Claire a look of fury mixed with outrage. “I was trying to help get those jackasses out of town. Being proactive and all mayorlike! What the hell were you two doing? Auditioning for starring roles in their stupid show?”

They’d attracted attention, of course. It wasn’t from surrounding houses, since no one bothered to look outside at mysterious fighting in the streets for entirely sensible reasons, but from the team from After Death that had come charging over with cameras, microphones, and gadgets. Angel immediately fixed his model’s smile straight on Monica. “Are these two bothering you, lovely lady?”

“Please,” Claire muttered, but it was too late; Monica was batting her eyes and putting on her best wounded-butterfly act as she crowded up next to her newly arrived knight in shining leather shoes.

“Oh yes,” she breathed. “Did you see? He beat up my boyfriend!”

“Call the police,” Angel ordered Tyler, who was still recording, but Tyler was distracted by Jenna, who was whacking her electronic meter device in obvious irritation.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s technology, not a drum!” he said, and took it from her. “What? What’s wrong with it?”

“I had a strong signal!” she said. “It was there, I swear it was, but it just vanished about thirty seconds ago. I think they scared it off.”

“You were reading something wrong.”

“I saw it! It was maxed out in that vacant lot—I’m telling you….”

“Oh—um, that was my boyfriend,” Monica said, and brought the overlapping chaos to a dead halt. “He had the van that just took off? He was broadcasting a signal to make you think it was some kind of ghost. He thought it was kind of funny.”

Angel was looking at Monica with a heartbroken expression. “Why would you do that?”

“It was Dan, not—”

“Why do teenagers do anything?” Jenna snapped. She stepped into Monica’s space, looking for the world as if she was feeling just as strong an impulse to slap the girl as Claire was. “Get lost, before I call the cops.”

“It’s not against the law!”

“You’re right. Get lost before I do something that is against the law, like putting my fist in your face.”

“Hey!” Monica stepped into Jenna’s space now, cheeks flushing a bright, hectic pink. “Do you know who I am?”

“Last year’s high school queen bee who’s no longer relevant but still thinks she is?” Jenna shot back, and Claire’s eyes widened at the accuracy of the thrust. So did Monica’s. “Look, sweetie, I’ve seen a dozen one-stoplight towns just like this, and there’s always somebody just like you who thinks you’re…well, somebody.”

Monica opened her mouth to reply, but didn’t. She was remembering that she was, in fact, nobody, at least by her own standards; she was just another bully now, with nothing to back it up. She didn’t even have her best friends to enable her. Even her Cro-Magnon boyfriend had bailed on her at the first sign of trouble.

And it hurt. In that moment, though she shouldn’t have, Claire felt a little twinge of sympathy.

“I’m running for mayor!” Monica rallied enough to snap back. “So careful what you say, because my first official act would be running you three out of town on a rail!”

Jenna shrugged and glared at Angel, who was still looking gravely disappointed, and said, “Come on, let’s retake that last bit over in the vacant lot. We can still save some of the footage.” She set out at a rapid pace around the corner, heading for the vacant lot. After a hesitation, Tyler followed her.

Angel shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, but you see how it is. We have work to do.” This time, there was no hand kissing, and not much flirting, either.

“Wait,” Monica said as he started to walk off. “You’re just going to leave me here? Alone? With them?”

Angel flashed her a perfect smile but kept walking. “I’m sure they’ll see you get home safe.”

“Oh yeah,” Shane said. “On my to-do list, right after discovering Atlantis. Enjoy your walk, Princess Mayor.” He put his arm around Claire and tipped her chin up to look into her eyes. “You okay? Not hurt?”

“No,” she said. “You?”

“The only way Dan can actually hurt me is to try to have a conversation. He may be on the college football team, but trust me, he’s just barely junior varsity on street fighting.”

Monica looked from the departing television people back to the two of them, then at the empty street. Looking for some kind of third option, Claire thought. “You could just go it alone,” Claire said, with a little too much sweetness. “I’m sure you’ll be safe. After all, everybody knows who you are.”

“Thanks to our posters,” Shane put in.