Midnight Bites (32 page)

“You may go,” he said to Hannah, and glided down the rest of the steps. “This is mine to do.”

“Hell if I will,” she said, and tightened her grip on Matt's arm. He was still sobbing messily. “This has nothing to do with you, Oliver. Or the vampires. It's a human crime, and that makes it totally my jurisdiction.”

He set foot on the cellar's floor, never taking his eyes from her, and kept relentlessly coming on. “Are you really going to make this so difficult, Chief Moses?”

She pulled her gun and pointed it at his chest. “I believe I am.”

He stopped. Red glowed in his eyes, and she had to suppress that very natural human panic that bloomed inside, that need to fight, to run, to
act
. She had to act calm if she couldn't be calm. She had to remain in charge.

Oliver slowly cocked his head to one side, then shifted his attention to Matt Ramson. An expression of revulsion narrowed his eyes and compressed his lips. “A mewling coward,” he said. “With rotting blood. Keep him, and I wish you joy of it. But you, Ramson: Listen closely. If your sister dies, I'll pay you a visit again. Prison bars won't protect you. Neither will our brave Chief Moses.”

“Back off,” she ordered, and got that eerie stare again. “Last warning, Oliver. Leave this family alone.” She shook Matt roughly. “Stop crying and revoke his invitation if you want to protect your wife and kids.”

He gulped in enough air to mumble the right words, and Oliver was forced back, as if blown by a wind. He stumbled over the stairs, but went on his own from that point. The look he threw back at her was viciously unfriendly. He hung on to the doorframe long enough to call down, “I'll be seeing you, Hannah.”

And then the wind caught him again, to buffet him down the hall. She heard the front door open and slam.

“Keep them safe,” Matt said. “Please, keep my family safe.”

“I am,” Hannah said. “I'm just sorry it has to be from you. Upstairs.”

•   •   •

Booking Matt Ramson filled up hours, but she made sure he was safely behind bars, and that her best guys were watching out for any vampire bullshit, just in case. She hated the next part, which would be the toughest, but it was also her job. Serve, protect . . . inform the relatives.

When she arrived at Morganville General, though, she was surprised to see Monica Morrell walking down the hall toward her, clearly leaving Lindsay Ramson's room. Monica hadn't even dressed up for the occasion; she was almost plain in a hoodie, jeans, and flat shoes, with her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. No makeup.

“What?” she snapped when she saw Hannah's eyebrows rising. “It's a look.”

“It is,” Hannah agreed. “And it looks pretty good on you, Monica.”

“Oh, please.”

“You here to visit Lindsay?”

Monica shrugged just enough to make it clear she didn't care enough to put effort into her disinterest. “Figured I should. Seeing as I saved her life and all.”

“That was nice of you.”

“Well, you know, I'm not a bitch twenty-four/seven.”

News to me,
Hannah thought, but she kept it to herself. “Any change?”

Monica gave her a blank, disbelieving look. “You don't know?”

“Know what?”

“She woke up half an hour ago and told her parents her stupid brother Matt was the one who hit her in the head. Imagine that? I saved her life, and now I solved your crime. Damn, I'm good!” Monica gave her a wide, superior smile, lifted her chin, and did a runway walk past her and toward the elevators . . . which, of course, opened before she pressed the button. Life just worked that way for Monica. It seemed, sometimes, like God had a terrible sense of humor.

Hannah went to the door of Lindsay Ramson's room. The girl was sitting up, awake—bleary, but talking. She sounded good. More than good. Her parents were holding her hands, and for a moment, there was a sense of peace in Hannah's soul.

Lindsay's father saw her then, and stood up to say, “Chief Moses—”

She nodded. “I know,” she said, and saw the relief ease the tension out of his face. “I'm sorry. I've got Matt in custody. We can talk about all that later. For now, I'm just happy you're doing better, Lindsay.”

Lindsay smiled. She still looked pale, and in pain, but brave. Brave, and strong. “Is it true that Monica saved my life?”

“She called nine-one-one, so I suppose she helped. I'd say the doctors saved your life, and you saved it, too, by hanging on so tight.”

“Bad enough my brother tried to kill me, but now I owe Monica?
God hates me.” Lindsay moved her head a little, and winced. She reached for the button by her side, pressed it, and the painkillers did their work. “It's not Matt's fault, exactly. He tried to do something good, but he got scared. I shouldn't have pushed him. Mom, I'm sorry. . . .”

“No,” her mother said firmly, and patted her arm. “No, honey. You don't be sorry. Matt will be all right. You'll be all right. It's a miracle.”

Lindsay smiled and closed her eyes, and drifted off to a drugged sleep. Hannah left them, and on the way out of the hospital, she hesitated, then entered the chapel where she'd originally talked with Matt. It was empty, so she went up front, sat on the pew, and said a prayer of thanks.

“Miracles don't often happen here,” said a voice next to her, and Hannah controlled the urge to flinch. It was a quiet, calm voice, not warm but oddly reassuring.

“Founder,” Hannah said, and turned to look. Amelie had taken a seat next to her on the pew without a sound or a whisper of disturbed air. She wore a cold white suit, and her hair was done up in its customary crownlike swirl. Beautiful and icy. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“I think you mean that ironically,” Amelie said. She continued looking straight ahead, at the nondenominational stained glass behind the altar. “Oliver was investigating reports that someone was tainting the blood supply. The attack on the girl was incidental, but significant, because her blood was contaminated. I am sorry I withheld the information from you. It might have speeded your investigation.”

“Might have,” Hannah said. “Next time, tell me.”

“I will.” Amelie was quiet for a moment. “Do you think it was? A miracle?” Almost wistful, the way she asked it.

“I've got no idea. Why?”

“Because I would like to still believe in them. Miracles and signs. An age of wonder and promise, where all things were possible.”

“All things still are possible,” Hannah said. “Good things and bad. But maybe we've got a clearer idea that we're the ones causing them.”

Amelie nodded. “Good work today, Chief,” she said. “I'm pleased.”

“I didn't do it for you.”

“That,” Amelie said as she stood up, and her guard seemed to materialize out of nowhere to stand at her back, “is why I'm pleased.”

Hannah watched them leave, and then looked back at the altar.

An age of miracles.

Maybe it was, after
all.

It occurred to me, post–
Bite Club
, that Shane might need some counseling for his anger issues. It's common knowledge he has them, but they made an epic appearance in that book, and surely if he didn't seek some help, someone would seek it for him . . . leading to this Amelie-mandated counseling session with Dr. Theo Goldman, who is the closest thing the Morganville vampires have to a mental health professional.

I didn't do right by Dr. Goldman and his family when I introduced them, and I apologize for that; my first attempts were clumsy and awkward and painfully badly drawn, and I hope that their characterizations improved in later books. But this portrait of Theo is, I think, somewhat more flattering, if not where I'd like to take the character someday.

But mostly, it's Shane being Shane, and maybe growing a little bit from his experiences. Baby steps, Shane. Baby steps.

“W
hat do you think makes you the angriest?” my newly appointed shrink, Dr. Theo Goldman, asked. He was puttering around at his desk, straightening papers, adjusting the angle of his pen, not apparently paying much attention to the answer.

I wasn't fooled. The fact was, Theo Goldman was listening carefully to everything . . . words, pauses, the way I took a breath. Vampire senses were a bitch that way. Goldman was probably listening to my heart rate, too.

And why did I come here, again? Well, I hadn't really been given much of a choice.

I shifted uncomfortably on the couch, then stopped and held very still, as if that was going to somehow help me out. Goldman looked up briefly and smiled at me. He wasn't a bad guy, for a vamp: kind of rumpled, a little antique looking, and he never seemed like he was tempted to rip my throat out for a snack. Claire trusted him, and if my girl said that, she'd probably put a lot of thought into it.

“The angriest,” I repeated, stalling for time. My throat felt dry and tight, and I thought about asking for some water, but it seemed like that might be weird. “You want that list alphabetically?”

“I mean in all your life, the angriest,” Goldman said. “The first thing that comes to your mind.”

“There's a lot to choose from.”

“I'm sure something stands out.”

“Not really. I—”

“Go!”

The sudden, sharp tone of voice hit me like a needle, and I blurted out, “Claire!” I immediately felt sick. I hadn't meant to go there, not at all, but it just . . . came out.

In the silence that followed, Theo Goldman sat back in his chair and looked at me with calm, unreadable eyes. “Go on,” he finally said. “What about Claire?”

What the hell had I just said? It wasn't true, not at all. I didn't mean it. I stared hard at my shoes, which were battered old work boots, the better to kick some vampire in the teeth with. In Morganville, Texas, you went with either the running shoes or the teeth-kicking shoes. I wasn't much of a runner.

“Nothing,” I said. “It just came out, that's all. Claire's the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm not angry at her. I don't even know why I said that.” That was good, that was calm and straightforward, and I checked my watch. God, had it only been fifteen minutes in here, in this nice paneled office, sitting on this comfy Softer Side of Sears couch? “Look, this is great and everything, but I really should be—”

“Why, then, did Claire come to your mind, with all of the terrible things I know you have experienced?” he asked. “You have another thirty minutes, by the way. We have plenty of time. Relax, Mr. Collins. I promise you, I'm here to help.”

“Help. Yeah, vampires are known for all their awesome counseling skills.”

“Does the fact that I am a vampire bother you?”

“Of course it bothers me! I grew up in Morganville—it's kind of a big deal to sit down and play nice with one of you.”

Goldman's smile was sad, and ghostly. “You do realize that just as all men are not the same, all vampires are not the same? The worst murderers I have ever met in my long life were breathing men who killed not for sustenance, but for sport. Or worse, for beliefs.”

“Don't suppose we can just agree I'm screwed up and call it a day?”

He looked at me with such level, kind intensity that I felt uncomfortable, and then he said, “There are a surprising number of people who care about what happens to you. The fact that you are here, instead of behind bars, would seem to tell you that, I'd think. Yes?”

I shrugged. I knew it looked like I was the typical surly teen, but I didn't much care what a vamp thought of me. So I kept insisting to myself, anyway. I'd gotten myself in it deep this time—deeper than it looked. Before, they'd let me slide because I was a messed-up kid, and then because I'd managed to end up on the right side (by their definition) of the problem, even against my own dad.

But this time I didn't have any defense. I'd voluntarily gotten involved in the illegal fight club at the gym; I'd let myself get drugged up and stuck in cages to duke it out with vampires. For money. On the Internet.

It was that last part that was the biggest violation of all—breaching the wall of secrecy about Morganville. Sure, nobody on the Internet would take it seriously; it was all tricks, special effects, and besides, to the average visitor who wanted to come poke around, it was just another boring, roll-up-the-sidewalks-at-dusk town in America.

That didn't change the fact that I'd risked the anonymity—the safety—of the vampires. I was lucky I hadn't been quietly walled up somewhere, or buried in a nice, deep grave somewhere in the dark. The only reason I hadn't been killed outright was that my girlfriend had some pull with the vamps, and she'd fought for me. Hard.

She was the reason I was sitting here, instead of taking up a slab in the local mortuary. So why had I said her name when he'd asked me about being angry?

I hadn't answered, even though the silence stretched thin, so Dr. Goldman leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen against his lips a moment, then said, “Why do you feel you need to fight, Shane?”

I laughed out loud. It sounded wild and uncontrollable, even to me. “You're not serious with that question, right?”

“I don't mean fight when your life is in danger; that is a reasonable and logical response to preserve one's safety. According to the records I've reviewed, though, you seem to seek out physical confrontation, rather than wait for it to come to you. It started in school, it seems. . . . Although you were never classified as a bully, you seemed to take special care to seek out those who were picking on others and—how would you say it?—teach them a lesson. You cast yourself as the defender of the weak and abused. Why is that?”

“Somebody's got to do it.”

“Your father, Frank Collins—”

“Don't,” I interrupted him flatly. “Just stay the hell off the topic, okay? No discussions about my freaking obvious daddy issues, or my mother, or Alyssa dying, any of that crap. I'm over it.”

He raised an eyebrow, just enough to tell me what he thought about that. “Then shall we discuss Claire?”

“No,” I said, but my heart wasn't in it. Weirdly.

He must have sensed it, because he said, in that gentle and quiet tone, “Why don't you tell me about her?”

“Why should I? You already know her.”

“I want to know how you see her.”

“She's beautiful,” I said, and I meant it. “She doesn't know it, but she is. And she's so—” Fragile. Vulnerable. “—stubborn. She just doesn't know when to give up.”

“You seem to have that in common.”

We had a lot in common, weird as that might seem; she was from a sheltered, protected place, a family who loved her, a dad who would never betray her, but somehow that had given her an unshakable belief that she could survive anything. I had that, too, but it came from the opposite direction; I knew what it felt like to lose everything, everyone, and understand that it was just me against the darkness.

But it was more than that. Complicated, what I felt for her.

And I didn't want to look too closely at it. “I try to look after her,” I said. That was meant to be a blowoff, but Goldman seemed to find it more interesting than I'd intended.

“Does she need looking after, do you think?”

“Doesn't everybody?”

“And your job, the job of all boyfriends, is to protect her,” he said. It almost sounded like my own voice, in my own head. “Is that what you believe?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. No-brainer.

“What do you think Claire would say if she heard that?”

I couldn't stop myself from smiling, a little. “She'd smack me,” I said. “She doesn't think she needs a bodyguard—she's always telling me that.” The smile faded too fast, because a cascade of images burned through my brain, uncontrollable and violent: Claire smiling at me. Claire smiling at Myrnin. Myrnin turning crazy on us, as he always did. And Claire just . . . accepting that. Again.

The scars on her neck, pale and small but obvious to me.

“And yet, you're angry at her,” Goldman said.

“Bite me,” I snapped. The pressure was doing my head in, and I had to get up, move, stalk the room. My fist wanted to punch something; the wild energy in me didn't have any way out except through flesh and bone and pain. “You need to stop pushing me, man. I mean it. I don't want to be paying for repairs around here.”

Goldman was unruffled. He sat comfortably and watched me as I paced the room. If he was scared I'd take it out on him, he didn't look it. “Are you angry because I made an observation, or because of what I am?”

“Both,” I said. “Hell, I don't know. Look, can we just get this over with? Call it an hour and let me out of here.”

“You can leave anytime you like, Shane. I'm not stopping you. But your treatment is mandated by the Founder. If you decide not to follow through on your commitments, she is within her rights to rescind your parole and put you behind bars.”

“Wouldn't be the first time.”

“I know,” he said. There was a world of kindness in those two words, and it derailed the anger train from the tracks. I didn't want to punch him, but I didn't want to answer him, either. He was right; I couldn't just walk out of here, not without consequences. . . . Jail didn't scare me so much, but there was something that did: losing Claire. Going to jail meant not seeing her, and right now, she was the only light in the world shining in the dark where I lived.

Even if sometimes I hated what I saw reflected in that light.

I had my hand on the doorknob of the office. The place wasn't locked; I could just turn my wrist, and step over the threshold, and live with all that meant.

I turned my wrist and pulled the door open. The outer office beyond the door was a little cooler, and I closed my eyes as the soft breeze passed over my face.

One step. That was all it would take. One step.

I slowly closed the door and leaned my back against it. “I'm not a coward,” I said.

“I think that is beyond dispute,” he replied. “But physical courage is one thing. Emotional courage to look inside yourself, that is another, and many don't possess that kind of will. Do you?”

“Not me. My friends all have it. I don't,” I said. I was thinking about Michael, hanging on quietly, alone, ghostly in a house that had been his family's home. Grimly trying to survive as half a vampire, hiding the truth from us, never letting me see his fear or his fury. Eve, always full of acid and fun, with all the fragile terror beneath; she never let Morganville win, even though every day she woke up knowing it could be her last. Claire, sure and steady and calm, somehow coming into our little fraternity of screwups and making us whole, each in our own way. Without her, I'd never have had the courage to defy my dad and side with Michael, even though I wanted to do it.

Claire was all courage, to the core. Just not the kind of courage that hit things.

“I think you are stronger than you know,” Goldman said, and leaned forward now, watching me intently as I sat back down on the couch. “And much smarter than anyone gives you credit. I will make you this deal. We can sit for the rest of the hour in silence, if you wish, and I will say that you are progressing with your therapy. Or you can speak. It's your choice. I won't ask you again.”

It was a long ten minutes before I finally said, pushing the words out against an overwhelming weight, “It was how she looked at him.”

“At who?”

“At her boss. Crazy-ass Myrnin. I saw her looking at him, and he was looking at her, and it was—” I shook my head. “Nothing, it was nothing.” No, that wasn't true—I was lying out loud. Worse, I was trying to lie to myself. “She likes him. Maybe even loves him, in a crazy-uncle kind of way.”

“You think she doesn't love you?”

“That's not the point. She can't love him.”

“Because he is a vampire?”

“Yes!”

“You said before that she loves him like an uncle. Do you believe it is more than that?”

“Not from her,” I said. “From him . . . yeah, maybe.”

“How did it make you feel, knowing that?”

What a shrink question. “Lost,” I said. That surprised me, but it was true. “I felt lost. And angry.”

“At Claire.”

I didn't answer that one, because it was too scary. I could not be angry at Claire; I just couldn't. It wasn't her fault, any of this; she was a loving person, and that was part of why I loved her, too.

So why did it hurt so much to think that she might smile at Myrnin, love him even a little bit?

Because he's a vampire. No, because you want her to be all yours.

“Have you considered,” Goldman said, “that the reason the vampire Gloriana found it so easy to release that anger inside you to make you fight is that you so rarely confront it?”

“What the hell does that mean—is it shrink code for yell and break stuff and act like a douche bag? Because I've already done all that.” More often than I liked to admit, even to myself. “I'm all about confrontation.”

“Yes,” he said, and smiled. It made him look kindly and twinkly and likable, which sucked, because vampires weren't supposed to look that way. “You most certainly have that behavior down. But what about talking honestly with Claire? Have you done that?”

Had I? I talked to her, sure—every day. And sometimes we talked about how we felt, but it was surface stuff, even if it was true. “No,” I said. The pressure inside me lightened up, weirdly enough. I no longer
wanted to punch something to get rid of it. “I mean, she knows I don't like the guy. . . .”

“Have you told her, explicitly, how you see her relationship with Myrnin, and how it makes you feel?”