Bitter Blood (10 page)

“I’ll pitch in.”

Chico’s Tacos was a relative newcomer to town, opened by a Morganville resident who’d taken a liking to something he’d tasted out of town in El Paso: delicious rolled tacos, soaked and floating in hot sauce, then topped with shredded cheese. Messy, yeah. Unhealthy, probably. But in taco terms, it was crack. Extra orders were mandatory.

Michael handled drive-through duties, forking over cash and receiving all of the goodies to hand off to Claire. It was still new for them to count
five
housemates; Miranda was only half-time, in that during the day she was insubstantial, but at night she was very much flesh and blood, able to walk around, talk, do chores, eat dinner…. It made very little sense to Claire, but the Glass House (like all the remaining Founder Houses original to the town) was capable of doing things that her science couldn’t explain, no matter how far out of shape she stretched the boundaries.

When Michael had been killed within its walls, drained by Oliver, the house had preserved him—saved him, literally, like a file, only as a ghost. The Glass home was more powerful at night than during the day, so at night it could create a real flesh-and-blood form he could use to have half a life…but when dawn came, it melted away. It wasn’t
real
, exactly, though Michael had said he could feel, eat, drink, do everything as if it were real, between dusk and dawn.

But to make that half-life truly permanent, he’d had to make a deal with Amelie and become fully vampire.

Miranda seemed to have inherited the same pluses and minuses. And she had no wish to become a vampire. In life, Miranda had been a lost little girl, cursed with a psychic gift that was as much creepy as it was informative; she’d been shunned all her life by most of the town, and even Eve—her best friend, maybe—hadn’t been able to handle her some of the time.

Ghost-Miranda was blooming into a happy young lady, now that she no longer had the psychic powers and was able to have real friends. So Miranda got tacos, too.

“What are we going to tell Shane about what happened? Or Eve?” Claire asked as the familiar crunch of the car’s wheels on gravel signaled they’d arrived home.

Michael parked, killed the engine, and spent a moment in thought before he said, “We’re going to tell them everything. Anything else wouldn’t be fair. And it could put them in a lot of danger if they think Amelie’s still somehow got our backs.”

It would upset Eve, and it would anger Shane, but he was right; keeping them in the dark was a sure path to disaster. You could protect people from harm, but not from
knowing.

“Well,” Claire said, “at least we have tacos. Everything goes better with tacos.”

And the tacos did help. Even Shane, who met them at the door and glared at the cooler in Michael’s hand, brightened up at the sight of the grease-stained paper bags Claire held. “You really know the way to a man’s heart,” he said, and grabbed them out of her hands.

“Between the ribs and angle up?” she said, and gave him a sweet, fast kiss when he looked shocked. “Hey, it’s your joke. Don’t blame me if I remember it.”

“And you look like such a nice girl.”

“Fine, if you’re not into it, I’ll just take those tacos back….”

It devolved into keep-away with taco bags, which Shane of course would have won by virtue of sheer size and agility, except that Miranda sneaked up behind him and stole a couple by surprise, which sent him yelling in pursuit as she dashed off through the kitchen and into the living room. And then Eve was into it, and Claire had to fight to hang on to the two bags she had left.

In the end, it all somehow made it to the dining table. Eve broke out thick paper plates and forks and spoons, and Michael and Shane organized the drinks while Claire and Miranda put little taco boats at each of their place settings. It was all really warm and sweet and
home
, and Claire made sure as they were eating that Miranda got a couple of extra tacos that normally Shane would have grabbed as they passed. He pouted, but in a cute way.

It was when they were finishing up that Shane said, faux-casually, “So I guess everything went okay today?”

Miranda licked the last of the hot sauce out of the bottom of the paper boat and raised her eyebrows. “What happened today? I never get to know anything.” She was still physically a frail little thing, and Claire supposed that the girl’s delicate, breakable look would never change now; ghosts didn’t age, and no matter how many tacos she ate or Coca-Colas she guzzled, she’d never grow an inch or gain a pound. That was something a lot of girls dreamed 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.”

Claire hip-bumped her and grinned. “We’re not enough for you?”

She got a smile in response, but it wasn’t a very certain one. “Sure,” Miranda said softly, and walked away.

Oh dear.

That, Claire thought, might be a problem.

The blood bank in Morganville had odd hours—for instance, they’d instituted twenty-four-hour donations, which meant that Claire was able to shove Shane out of bed and into pants, shoes, and shirt at four a.m., and drag him, half asleep, into the place to drain a pint of blood before he was too awake to protest. She gave a second pint, just to make things even, and took him home to pile back into bed. He refused to go to his own, which was just pure stubbornness, and curled his warm, strong body next to her under the covers for another two hours until she had to rise to go to school. It might have been more sexy, except that he fell asleep within about five minutes, and she held out for only a few ticks more.

Seven a.m. came way too early, but Claire dragged herself yawning through the morning routine: shower, dress, sleepwalk to Common Grounds for a mocha. That was where she picked up the news that Mayor Hannah Moses was “stepping down for personal reasons” and that a write-in election would be held over the weekend.

The college students were, of course, oblivious to what that meant, but there was a stack of the flyers about it near the register, and Claire grabbed one. The press release was boring and dry, and there was a write-in form right on the bottom of the flyer, with instructions to drop it off at City Hall in the appropriate ballot box.

Claire stuffed the flyer in her backpack, grabbed her coffee, and headed out for class. Luckily, she had a different schedule of professors today, ones she actually liked, and sailed through the morning high on caffeine and challenging discussions on condensed-matter physics, which was the study of exactly how atoms combined and recombined to make liquids, solids, and states that, theoretically, hadn’t been seen. Except she
had
seen them. Myrnin had invented them, and he used them as transportation hubs around the town. He called them doors, whereas Claire called them portals, but it boiled down to one thing: traveling from
here
to
there
and skipping the in-between.