Bitter Blood

And as she did so, she had the blurred impression of someone standing a few feet away on the other side, of people scrambling and exclaiming, of Counter Guy yelling “Hey!” Then she zeroed in not on the figure standing before her, but on what the tall, dark figure was holding.

It was a crossbow with a silver bolt.

And before Claire could take a breath or react, the crossbow was raised and fired.

Claire felt a burning brush against her cheek as the bolt zipped past, and she clapped a hand to the bleeding scrape as she turned to see what had happened.

The arrow had slammed home in Oliver’s chest, but it was up and to the right of his heart. Claire stared at it with a feeling of unreality; the silver glint, the slowly spreading crimson circle around the shaft, the bright red feather fletching, and Oliver, pinned in place with surprise as much as pain.

Then he staggered back against his desk. Claire didn’t think; she just acted, reaching out for the crossbow bolt.

He swatted her hand away with impatient fury, hard enough that he could have broken bones, and said through gritted teeth, “You can’t pull it out from the front, fool. Take it through my back!”

He said it as if he had no doubt at all that she’d obey, and for a fraction of a second, Claire was tempted to obey him; that might have been her natural tendency to want to help, or it could have been Oliver exerting his will.

She paused, though, and looked through the still-open doorway.

The attacker was calmly loading up another bolt in the bow. She didn’t—and couldn’t—recognize the person; it was just a blank figure in some kind of black opaque mask, a zipped-up black hooded jacket, and plain, well-worn blue jeans. Black boots. Gloves. Nothing to betray any personal identification at all, not even gender.

The figure looked up and saw her standing there, and she felt a chill, unmistakable and indefinable. Then it pointed to her and jerked a thumb at the door. You. Out.

“Claire!” Oliver snapped. His voice sounded ragged now, and full of fury. “Pull the bolt out!”

“Did you have Pennyfeather try to kill Eve?”

The wound around the silver was starting to smoke and blacken, and it must have hurt a whole lot, even if not immediately fatal, because he tried to snarl at her, but it came out as more of a moan. He collapsed down to a sitting position on the floor, leaning one shoulder against the desk. She almost caved in, almost, because he really looked bad just then…vulnerable and damaged.

But then his eyes flickered bright red in fury, and he said in a poisonous hiss, “I’ll have him kill you if you don’t do as I say, girl. You’re a pet, not a person.”

“Funny,” she said, “seeing as I’m the only thing standing between you and a guy with a crossbow.” Literally. The masked figure was still standing behind her, ready to fire. She was just in the way. “Did you?”

“No!” he roared, and convulsed over on his side. The poison was working on him, and working fast.

Claire turned to face the would-be assassin, who was pointing the crossbow now at her. Directly.

Move, the figure gestured once again, impatiently. Claire shook her head.

“Can’t.” She didn’t try to explain, and she wasn’t sure she actually could; there was not a reason in the world why she shouldn’t walk away from Oliver and leave him to whatever fate was bringing. Clearly the rest of the coffeehouse population had fled, including the students; Counter Guy’s red hair and tats had left the building, too. It was just her, standing between Oliver and death.

She guessed that she was doing it because it didn’t matter that it was Oliver, after all. She’d have done it for anyone. Even Monica. She hated bullies. She hated anyone being kicked when he or she was down, and Oliver was most definitely down.

Whoever the figure holding the crossbow was, he or she considered taking her out to get to Oliver. She could see that, even if she couldn’t see a face, and she knew that in this moment she was in as much danger as she’d ever been in Morganville. She was utterly at the mercy of whatever this person decided. No one could, or would, help.

She smelled the acrid tang of burning flesh behind her. Oliver was bad, and getting rapidly worse.

The masked head nodded, just a little, as if in acknowledgment of what she hadn’t said. The figure lowered the crossbow, stowed it in a black canvas bag, and backed away toward the front of the store. She lost sight of it in the glare of daylight silhouetting the form, though she had the impression that the attacker had stripped off the mask before running out into the street.

Claire didn’t try to follow. She stood there for a few seconds, then turned and looked at Oliver.

“If I do this for you,” she said, “you’re going to owe me. And I’m going to collect.”

He was beyond making a bitter comeback. He just nodded, as if he couldn’t summon up the strength to do more, and managed to roll a little farther over onto his stomach. The sharp, barbed end of the bolt was sticking out of his chest about three inches below his shoulder blade. The edges were wicked, like razors. That might actually be a good thing; it wouldn’t have done quite as much damage that way.

But she needed to get it out before the silver poisoning got much worse—either that, or leave it in for good —which she could just hear Shane saying was still a perfectly valid option.

With gritted teeth, she wrapped the loose fabric of her shirt around the razor-sharp arrowhead, grabbed the shaft just below that, and pulled, hard and fast. She almost stopped when Oliver convulsed again, and his mouth opened wide in a silent scream—silent because he couldn’t draw in breath to fuel it—but she didn’t dare quit. Better it was painful now than deadly later.

It seemed to take forever, but it must have been just a few seconds before she yanked it completely free. She dropped the arrow to the floor with a ringing clang and tried not to think about the blood staining her shirt where she’d pulled it out of his body. Or whose blood it might have been, because it wasn’t really Oliver’s blood, was it? It was borrowed, or stolen, from others.

She stood up, breathing heavily and trying not to feel nauseated by what she’d just done—not just the blood, or the pain she’d caused, but the fact that she’d just saved Oliver’s life. Shane would have been so angry with her, she realized; he’d have walked away and called it karma. Or justice, at least.

But right now, that wasn’t the smart play. If Amelie was out to get them—if she really had sent Pennyfeather, and Oliver hadn’t—then she needed Oliver on their side.

For now.

Oliver rolled over on his back, eyes tightly shut. The wound in his chest was still smoking, and clearly he was in pain, but he’d heal. Vampires always healed.

“You’d better not have lied to me,” she said. “And remember, if you come after Eve, you come after all of us. That’s going to be a lot more dangerous for you than some random dude with a mask and a crossbow.”

He didn’t move, and didn’t speak, but his eyes flicked open and studied her with odd intensity. She couldn’t really decide what he was feeling, but she did decide that she really, truly didn’t care.

She shut the office door on her way out.

TEN CLAIRE

“Well?” Shane demanded. “Who was it?” Claire was on the phone with him as she headed home. Wherever he was, it was machine-shop noisy, metal grinding and whining, and he had to shout to make himself heard. “Who tried to hit Oliver?”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon, Claire. Take a guess.”

“No, really, I don’t. Whoever it was had a mask and jacket and gloves and everything. Kind of tall, maybe a little on the skinny side. Good with a crossbow, though. Seriously good.” She remembered the cut on her cheek and touched it with tentative fingers. It didn’t really hurt, and the bleeding had stopped, but there was a definite slice. For the first time, she actually wondered how bad it looked, and whether it might leave a scar. “Um, anyway, I didn’t get a look at him without the mask. It wasn’t you, was it?” That last was teasing. She knew better; Shane wouldn’t have fired with her in the way, not unless he had no choice. This was someone who wasn’t quite as…involved.