Kiss of Death (29 page)

Morley took in a huge gasp of air and let it out in a frustrated shout. He held up his hands and stared at the holes punched through them until the flesh and bone started to knit itself again.

He rolled over on his back, staring up at nothing, and said, “I was going to say you aren’t a killer. And I still stand by that statement, because evidently I’m not dead. Only very upset.”

“Here.” Claire handed him a cup of blood. “You’re right. I’m not a killer. I hope you’re not, either.”

Morley sat up and sipped, eyes narrowed and fixed on her. “Of course I’m a killer, girl,” he said. “Don’t be stupid. It’s my nature. We’re predators, no matter what Amelie likes to pretend in her little artificial hothouse of Morganville. We kill to survive.”

“But you don’t have to,” Claire pointed out. “Right now, you’re drinking blood someone gave you. So it doesn’t have to be kill-or-be-killed. It can be different. All you have to do is decide to be something else.”

He smiled, but not with fangs this time. “You think it’s so simple?”

“No.” She got up, dusting her knees. “But I know you’re not as simple as you like people to think you are.”

Morley’s eyebrows went up. “You know nothing of me.”

“I know you’re smart, people follow you, and you can make something good happen for the people who trust you. People like Patience and Jacob, who’ve got good instincts. Don’t betray them.”

“I wouldn’t—” He stopped, and looked away. “It doesn’t matter. I promised to get them all out. They’re out. What they do now is up to them.”

“No, it’s not,” Oliver said. He was standing near them, leaning on a stack of old tires as he sipped from his own plastic cup. “You made yourself responsible for them when you left Morganville, Morley. Like it or not, you’re now the patriarch of the Blacke vampires. The question is, what are you going to do with them?”

“Do?” Morley looked almost panicked. “Nothing!”

“Not an answer. I suggest you devote some thought to it.” Oliver smiled, eyes unfocused as he drank with evident pleasure. “Blacke could be an ideal location, you know. Remote, isolated, little traffic in or out. The humans remaining have a vested interest in keeping your secrets, since their own have been turned. It could be the start of something quite ... interesting.”

Morley laughed. “You’re trying to make me
Amelie.
”

“Goodness, no. You’d look terrible in a skirt.”

Claire shook her head and left them arguing. Dawn was rolling over the town’s sky in waves of gold, pink, and soft oranges; it was beautiful, and it felt ... new, somehow. The destruction was still there; Hiram’s statue was still facedown in the weeds; there were still a dozen feral vampires hiding out somewhere in the shadows.

But it felt as if the town had just come alive again. Maybe that was because across the square, the Blacke library doors were wide-open, and people were coming outside into the cool morning air.

Coming across the square to see those they’d thought they’d lost forever.

Shane was sitting on the curb next to the old, cracked gas pumps, eating a candy bar. Claire plopped down next to him. “Half?” she asked.

“And now I
know
you’re my girlfriend, since you’re not afraid to demand community property,” he said, and pulled off the uneaten half to hand it over. “Look. We’re alive.”

“And we have chocolate.”

“It’s not just a miracle; it’s a miracle with chocolate. Best kind.”

Eve emerged from the garage doorway and settled down next to Claire, leaning her chin on her fists. “I am so tired, I could throw up,” she said. “What’s for breakfast ? Please don’t say blood.”

Claire separated her half of the candy bar into two pieces and gave Eve one. “Snickers,” she said. “Breakfast of—”

“Champions?” Eve mumbled around a mouthful of sticky goodness.

“Not unless it’s competitive eating,” Shane said. “So, Morley’s staying? He’s becoming King of Blacke?”

“I think it’s more like Undead Mayor, but yeah. Probably.”

“So can we ditch Oliver now?”

“Don’t think so,” Claire said. “He says we leave soon.”

“How are we planning to do that, exactly?”

“No idea—”

She heard the engine first as a faint buzz, like a stray but persistent mosquito; then it built into a roar.

A big, black hearse slewed around the corner from the highway and skidded to a stop in front of the garage.

The window rolled down, and Jason Rosser looked out. He grinned. “Anybody need a ride? I figured I’d head back to Durram and grab yours, sis. Since it’s officially legal and all. Oh, and I got your cell phones, too.”

“Bro, you rock.” Eve lunged up to her feet and ran possessive hands over the paint job. “Okay, creep, out of my driver’s seat. Now.”

Jason held the door open for her. As she started to get in, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, hard, even with the door between them. He looked surprised.

And so relieved, it hurt Claire a little to see it.

“Come on,” Eve said. “We have to lightproof the back.”

“Give me a sec,” Jason said. “I need a bathroom.”

“There’s one in the library,” Shane said. “Hey, how’d you get out of town?”

“I stole a tractor,” Jason said.

“What?”

“A tractor. It took me all night to get to Durram. Wasn’t sure if I’d ever make it, either. I ran out of gas two miles from where they’d towed the car.”

“Huh.” Claire could tell Shane was grudgingly impressed. “So you walked?”

“No, I flew on angel wings.”

“Ass.”

“How’d you get it out of impound?”

“Trade secret,” Jason said. “But it involves not actually asking. Same with the phones. Speaking of which ...” He dug in the pocket of his hoodie and came up with them, which he handed over to Shane. They didn’t tap fists or high-five or anything, but Shane nodded, and Jason nodded back.

“No signal,” Claire said, checking hers. “Man, the Morganville provider network sucks.”

“It works when Amelie wants it to work,” Shane said. “Apparently, she doesn’t want it working right now.”

“Michael needs to call the guy in Dallas. You know, let him know we’re on the way.”

“Let him know we got trapped in a vampire town and fought off a vampire zombie army, you mean?”

“I was thinking maybe car problems.”

“Boring, but effective,” Shane said. “I’ll go see if we can make it work. Maybe cell phone wastage doesn’t apply to vampires.”

As they were talking, Jason walked across to the library, head down, looking like a thin stick in blue jeans. Claire wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for Eve’s brother.

Not much of one, but ... maybe.

“I
t’s you,” Eve said, and gave the wig a final tug on Claire’s head, setting it just right. All of a sudden, it looked right-not just some random collection of plastic threads stuck on top of her scalp, but ... hair. Pretend hair, sure, but, it looked ...

Claire couldn’t decide how it looked. She cocked her head first one way, then the other. Tried a pose.

“Is it cool? I think it’s cool. Maybe?” The girl looking back at her wasn’t just a mousy, skinny girl anymore. The new, improved Claire Danvers was taller, a little more filled out, and she was wearing a new hot pink shirt layered over black, a pair of low-rise jeans with skulls on the pockets, and pink and white hair. She was
rocking
the streaked wig. It flowed down over her shoulders in careless waves, and made her look mysterious and fragile and smoky, and Claire just knew she had never been smoky or mysterious in her entire life.

“That is absolutely so you,” Eve said with a happy sigh, and jumped around in hoppy circles in her new patent leather black shoes with red skull imprints. “You have got to get it. And wear it. Trust me, Shane will go nuts. You look so
dangerous
!”

“Shane’s already nuts.” Claire laughed. “Did you see him in the T-shirt aisle? I thought he was going to cry. So many sarcastic sayings; so few days of the week to wear them. And I’m not sure I really feel comfortable looking, y’know,
dangerous.
”

Eve gave her a long, serious look. “You are, you know. Dangerous.”

“Am not.”

“It’s not the hair. You just—you’re something else, Claire. It’s like when all the rest of us don’t know where to go, you ... just go. You’re not afraid.”

“That is so not true,” Claire said with a sigh. “I’m scared all the time. Down to my bones. I’m lucky I don’t run away like a little screaming girl.”

Eve smiled. “That’s my job. You’re the heroic one.”

“Not!”

“Oh, just shut up and get the wig already,” Eve said.

“No.”

“Get it get it get it!”

“Okay! Jeez, you’re scaring the other freaks!”

They both broke into manic giggles, because it was true; a couple of very Gothy Goths were edging away, casting them both odd, apprehensive little looks. Being from Morganville gave you an attitude, Claire guessed. And that wasn’t a bad thing, especially when you were in a scary-big city like Dallas, where everything seemed to move ten times faster than she was used to, including the traffic. She didn’t know how Eve had managed to get them to the hotel, or get Michael to his studio appointment after dark, but she had, and it was
fabulous.

The hotel rooms had free soaps and shampoos and
robes.
It was amazing. And they were all modern, with flat-screen, high-definition TVs, and beds so soft that sleeping on them was like sleeping on angel wings.

It was so not like the life she was used to living, which was, she supposed, what made it extra special cool.

“I am a rock star,” Claire said to her reflection. Her reflection seemed to agree, although it still made her laugh inside to think it. She remembered Morley’s surprise when she’d actually shot him, and Oliver’s laughter, his genuine approval.

Maybe she was, a little
tiny
bit.

She flipped the hair over her shoulders and thought about makeup. “What do you think about heavy eyeliner?” Claire asked, which was totally redundant, because Eve never went anywhere without heavy eyeliner. It was her number one fashion tool.

Instantly, Eve whipped out her Mac tools and began doing Claire’s eyes for her. When she checked again, Claire looked ...
really
mysterious. Her face had taken on depth, shadows, secrets.

Wow. It was amazing what a little change could do.

And a little sleep, Claire thought. She felt better than she had in
months,
knowing there was nobody lurking around the corner to kidnap her, munch her neck, or otherwise present a serious danger.

“You look absolutely fantastic,” Eve said. “Drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Not literally, hopefully.”

“The idea is to knock
other
people dead, sweetie. I didn’t think I really had to explain that part.”

Shane rounded the corner of the aisle with a double armload of T-shirts, every one of them bound to offend
someone
in Morganville, and skidded to a stop at the sight of the two of them. His mouth opened and closed. Eve stepped away, but Shane didn’t notice; his eyes were fixed on Claire, and he looked as if he’d been hit in the forehead with a two-by-four.

“How do I look?” she asked, which was a completely ridiculous question, given how he was staring at her.

He dropped the T-shirts and kissed her, long and sweet and hard, and she felt a fierce kind of joy blow into a storm inside, wild and crazy and
free.

The Gothy McGoth twins, in their leather and spikes and dyed hair, sniffed and walked off, clearly offended by the sight of so much happiness in one place.

When Shane let her up for air, Claire said, “Maybe we should actually buy the stuff before we celebrate?”

“Why wait?”

And he kissed her again.

Dallas was
amazing.
All the lights, the dizzying buildings, the crazy amounts of traffic, the noise, the people. After a long morning of shopping, Claire was dog-tired, too tired and dazed to even properly admire how awesome their hotel was, with all the glass and marble and fancy furniture. Michael wasn’t due to be in the studio until eight p.m., so she fell into bed and slept in her clothes, for a long time. When she woke up, Eve was just finishing her makeup—back to Goth Girl Gone Wild—and checking her lace skull-patterned minidress in the mirror. Her legs looked taller than Claire’s entire body.

“Wow,” Claire mumbled, and sat up. The mirror showed her just how horrible her bed head could be. “Ack.”

“The shower is amazing,” Eve said, and turned to the side, smoothing down her dress. “Is it too much?”

“For Morganville? Yeah. For Dallas? No idea. But you look fantastic.”

Eve smiled, that secret little smile, and her eyes glittered brightly.

She was thinking about Michael, obviously.