Fade Out (17 page)

“Do not tell Claire about that club,” Eve said, and took off her metallic sunglasses. Behind them, her mascara was smeared, and her eyes were red—not vampire red, but more like an overdose of tears. “Besides, it’s not like I just randomly decided to go there. It’s where Kim liked to hang out.”

“What kind of club?” Claire whispered to Shane.

“Leather,” he whispered back. “She’s right; you really don’t want to know.”

“Kim hasn’t been there in a couple of days,” Eve said. “But we found a few vampires who did interviews with her recently, for her history project.”

From the expression on Shane’s face, there was more to the story. Claire said, doubtfully, “And they just told you? Just like that?”

“I had to make some deals to get the details.” Eve avoided making eye contact on that. She shed her black leather jacket, the one with all the buckles, and snagged a corner of Claire’s leftover half sandwich. “Hmm, this is good; did you put honey on it?”

“You did what?” Making any kind of deal with any kind of vampire in Morganville was crazy. Making deals with the kind of vampires hanging out in a leather bar was . . . suicidal. Claire rounded on Shane. “You let her do that?”

“Seriously, you can’t even think about blaming me when she gets like this. I’m the bodyguard. Unless you wanted me to tie her up and gag her . . .”

“They’d probably have gotten into it there,” Eve said. “Look, I can get out of the deals. Amelie’s our get-out-of-deals-free card. But I needed to find Kim, and to do that, we needed information. Unless you waved your magic techno-wand and . . . ?”

Claire had to shake her head.

“Okay then, quit looking at me like I broke house training or something.” Eve, Claire realized, was really uncomfortable about this. She’d probably had to force herself to talk to these vamps, and the last thing she needed was the postgame analysis on what she’d done wrong.

Claire cleared her throat. “What did you get?”

“I found four vamps that Kim either talked to on camera, or set up interviews with in the next week or so, which means she wasn’t planning on leaving town just yet. And a couple of human guys who, ah, visited Kim at her place.”

“Hookups,” Shane confirmed. “Which is Kim’s style. Although I can’t say much for her taste. It’s kind of gone downhill.”

“So, wait—what does that tell us that we didn’t already know? And what did you promise these vamps, anyway?”

“Things,” Eve said, without adding any details. Shane looked away. “Not important right now. The point is, two of the vamps she interviewed she filmed at Common Grounds, but the other vamps said she took them to a kind of studio.”

“A studio,” Claire repeated. “That sounds promising.”

“Thought so. It wasn’t knee-deep in crap, so it couldn’t have been her apartment, right?”

“Did they tell you where?”

“No,” Shane said, leaning over Eve’s shoulder. “They wanted more for that little gem. And I told them to stuff it sideways.”

Claire blinked. Vampires. Leather bar. “And they just thought that was okay?”

“Honestly? Not so much. They mostly decided we’d make good chew toys.”

“Shane!” Claire looked at him with pleading eyes. “You didn’t—”

“Fight? Didn’t have to,” he said. Before he could explain, the front door opened and closed, and Claire heard the locks clicking shut again. Eve stiffened and looked down, burying her black-painted fingernails in her palms as she made fists.

Michael looked—like he’d been through a rough night in a bad bar, Claire guessed. Mussed, clothes torn at the seams. Something dark on his shirt that could have been blood.

“Are you okay?” Claire came to her feet, staring at him. He wasn’t bruised or anything, but he looked tired. There was a little flush of red in his eyes, and his hands were shaking.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just need—something to drink. Be right back.”

He disappeared into the kitchen. The silence in the room was sharp and uncomfortable, and Claire looked at Eve, who folded her arms across her chest.

“I didn’t ask him to come rescue us,” she said, and looked down. “I didn’t want him to come at all.”

Michael came back carrying a black sports bottle. They all knew what he had in it, but nobody mentioned it as he sipped through the built-in straw.

“I had my reasons for going,” Michael said. And didn’t look at Eve. And Eve didn’t look at him. “Thanks for getting her out of there when you did, Shane.”

Shane nodded. “No problem. What happened?”

That was a question Michael wasn’t going to answer, evidently, because he just shrugged. “Fight.” One hell of one, from the state of his clothes and his hunger for blood. “It was worth it. One of them told me where Kim took him to interview, and it wasn’t any of the places you already had.”

Eve slowly raised her head, and her eyes narrowed. “You followed us. You thought we couldn’t handle it.”

“I knew where you were going. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“No, you were not right! Michael—”

He put the bottle down, stepped forward, and caught her hands in his. Eve started to try to pull free, but he held on, willing her to look at him. It seemed really personal, somehow.

“I’m a vampire,” he said. “I’m never going to be anything else. You need to decide if you’re okay with that, Eve. I am.”

“What if I’m not?” Her voice sounded really small and wounded. “What if I just want you to be Michael, not—not Vampire Michael of the Clan, or whatever?”

“I can’t,” he said. “Because I’m not just Michael anymore. I haven’t been since before you moved in. You just didn’t know it.”

He let go of her hands, uncapped the sports bottle, and drank the blood down in long, thirsty gulps, making sure she was watching. His eyes turned ruby red, and he licked the drops from his lips. He put the empty bottle down, watching her.

She crossed her arms and turned away from him, and Michael closed his eyes in pain. When he opened them again, they were just human, and sad.

Claire wondered if she’d actually just witnessed a breakup. She hoped not.

Shane cleared his throat. “So. You turned up at a place where Kim goes, right? Let’s talk about that. Please.”

Michael walked over to the chair, where his guitar lay across the seat. He picked it up and cradled it in his arms, still watching Eve. After a few seconds, he began to softly play a series of chords. It was an aching kind of sound, gentle and full of emotion, and Claire saw Eve’s shoulders tense and shake as she suppressed tears.

“Kim used to work at KVVV,” Michael said. “She was an intern there before it shut down. The vampire said she interviewed him in a booth there at the old studios at the edge of town, by the transmission tower.”

Claire couldn’t help feeling a little spike of excitement. “That’s it. That’s got to be it, right? You said it was shut down?”

“Yeah, Amelie shut it down a few years back after—there was an incident,” Michael said. “The town council decided we didn’t need another radio station. It’s been locked up since then.”

“We need to go look!” Claire bounced to her feet, but Shane caught her shoulder and guided her back into the chair.

“Cool it. Not at night, we don’t. The last thing we need to do is go poking around an abandoned building in the middle of the night in a town full of vampires.”

“But what if she decides to close up shop? Cut her losses, take her goodies, and try to leave?” Eve said. “She could get killed. We have to warn her.”

“Warn her?” Claire felt short of breath, ready to burst out into wild laughter. “Eve, don’t you get it? She rigged our house. She was watching us. Watching everything, every private thing—”

“No,” Eve said. “No, she wouldn’t do that. You’re wrong.”

“I found cameras in the bedrooms!”

Eve’s mouth opened and closed, and Claire didn’t think she’d ever seen her look quite so devastated. She slumped down on the couch and covered her rice-powder-pale face with both hands.

Shane was staring at Claire with a frozen expression. “Which bedrooms?”

“Yours,” she said softly. “And Michael’s.”

For a second Shane didn’t move, and then he reached out, picked up the nearest thing—a DVD case—and hurled it across the room so hard that it dented the wall. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “That little—”

Michael’s face had gone completely still, and he wasn’t playing anymore. He held the guitar as if he’d forgotten he had it. “She was recording us. Her own little Big Brother reality show, with vampires.”

Eve said nothing. Claire couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking, but she looked utterly miserable.

“We have to go,” Eve finally said. “We need to find where she keeps the recordings, and wipe them out. Every little bit. This can’t happen. She can’t do this.”

“I just hope she hasn’t already done it,” Claire said. “She’s been putting this together for almost a month. She’s got to be almost done by now. If we’re right about her having some kind of sponsor outside of town . . .”

“Then we really have to go. Now. Tonight.”

“No,” Michael said. “Not at night.”

“She’s going to get away with it!”

“That’s a chance we’re going to have to take,” Michael said. “Shane’s right. No charging off into the dark. It has to wait until morning.” He started playing again. His head was down, as if he were concentrating on his music, but Claire didn’t think he was. There was something a little wrong with the way he said it, the way he wouldn’t look at them. “How about more of those sandwiches?”

Eve raised her head and stared at him, tears smearing her mascara into clown makeup. “Unbelievable,” she said. “You know what’s on those recordings. You know, Michael. You’d let her take that and sell it?”

“We need to be smart about this. If we go running off without a plan—”

“Screw your plans!” she shouted, and jumped off the couch, then pounded up the stairs, chains jingling. “Screw you, too!”

Michael looked at Claire, then Shane.

“She’s not wrong,” Shane said. “Sorry, man.”

Michael had lied to them, and Claire caught him at it.

She was on her way to the bathroom with her tank top and pajama bottoms over one arm, thinking about curling up warm in Shane’s arms, when she heard Michael talking in his room. The door was open a crack. Shane and Eve were still downstairs, cleaning up the kitchen.

He was on his cell phone. “No,” he was saying. “No, I’m sure. I just need to go check it out, tonight. Make sure nobody is using the facility without—”

Claire pushed the door open, and Michael twisted around to look at her. So busted. He froze for a second, then said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Oliver. You’re telling him everything, aren’t you?”

“Claire—”

“We asked you. We asked you if you were with us, and you said you were. You promised.”

“Claire, please.”

“No.” She stepped back when he stretched out a hand. “Eve was right. You’re not Michael anymore. You’re Vampire Michael. It’s really us and them, and you’re with them.”

“Claire.”

“What?”

“That wasn’t Oliver.”

“Then who was it?”

“Detective Hess. He was going to meet me at the station and check it out, tonight. Eve was right. We really can’t wait, not even for morning.” Michael’s expression took on a dangerous edge. “Kim crossed the line. She tricked her way in here, and she screwed us over. I can forgive a lot of things, Claire, but I can’t forgive her for this.”

“So you were going to leave us behind.”

His eyes flared hot. “Because I care about you. Yes. Do you know how close Eve came to getting herself killed tonight? And Shane? No more. I’m not risking you guys, not for this. Not for her.”

“Hey! You’re not our father! You can’t just decide we need protecting—we’re all in this together!”

“No,” he said. “We’re not. Some of us get hurt a lot easier than others, and I love you guys. I’m not going to lose you. Not like this.”

He stripped off his ripped shirt and pulled on another one, grabbed his keys from the table, and very gently picked Claire up and moved her when she tried to block his path. “Don’t,” he said. “Claire, I mean it. Don’t tell them where I went. Let me handle this.”

She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t want to lie to him.

Michael stared at her for a few long seconds, long enough that she was almost sure he could read her mind, and then he shoved his keys in his pocket and moved off down the stairs.

She sat down on his bed, staring up at the vent where she’d found the camera. Claire didn’t actually know what she was going to do until she heard Michael’s new replacement car starting up outside, and then she stood, walked down to the kitchen, and interrupted an intense conversation between Shane and Eve at the sink to say, “Michael’s gone to get Kim, and we need to go, right now.”

They both stopped and looked over their shoulders at her. Eve had her arms elbow-deep in soapy water. Shane held a dish towel and a plate.

“Right now,” Claire repeated. “Please.”

Eve yanked the plug on the sink, grabbed the towel from Shane’s hands, and wiped her hands and arms. She three-pointed the towel onto the counter. “I’ll drive,” she said, and ran to grab her keys. Shane stayed where he was, still holding the plate in one hand, watching Claire. He opened his mouth.

“Don’t you dare tell me I can’t go,” she said. “Don’t even, Shane. I’m on those videos, too. You know I am.”

He put the plate down. “Michael went alone?”

“Mr. Vampire Superhero doesn’t need backup.” Well, that wasn’t quite fair. “He’s meeting Detective Hess there. But still.”

The kitchen door swung open, and Eve blazed back in, vivid in black and white, a mime on a mission. She tossed her keys in a nervous jingle of metal and said, “Weapons.”

Nobody argued that it would only be Kim they were going up against. Shane grabbed a black nylon bag from under the counter—in other towns, people might keep emergency supplies of food and water, maybe a medical kit, but in Morganville, their emergency readiness kit consisted of stakes and silver-coated knives. “Got it,” he said, and tossed it over one shoulder. “Claire—”

“Don’t even!”

He grinned and tossed her a second bag. “Silver nitrate and water in a Super Soaker,” he told her. “My own invention. Ought to be good at twenty feet, kind of like wasp spray.”