“What’s wrong with it?” Shane asked, and looked down at the paper. “I know, blue wasn’t my first choice, but I figured hot pink would be overkill.”
“Okay, I need a recap. Why exactly are you making a poster to elect Monica for mayor? Did I miss a step, or wake up in Opposite World, or…?”
“It’s Claire’s plan,” he said. “I’m just the graphic designer. She’s the campaign manager.”
Eve collapsed on the couch and put her face in her hands. “You’re insane. You’ve gone insane. Too much stress. I knew one of us would break someday….”
“Monica’s perfect,” Claire said. “Eve, really, she is. Think about it. And hey, if you want, you could be Captain Obvious.”
“Me,” Eve repeated, and gave a dry, strangled laugh. “Yeah, sure. Sure.”
“Hey,” Shane said. He propped the poster in the corner, and—unexpectedly, at least to Claire—dropped to one knee in front of Eve. He took her hands and dragged them down so he could see her face. “Look at me. You’re the original rebel around here, Eve. Hell, you were a malcontent before I was. Before Michael. Before Claire. Most of these Captain Obvious wannabes half assed it because in their hearts they were regular guys, pissed off at not having everything they wanted when they wanted it. That isn’t rebellion; it’s just selfishness. But you’re not like that. If you wanted to be Captain Obvious, you’d be real.”
He meant it. No mocking, no digs, no friendly banter; he sincerely meant that, and Eve took in a deep, ragged breath as she stared back. She shook her head, once. “I can’t, Shane.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You could be. But only if you really want to.” He said it without drama, without even any special emphasis, just stating a simple fact. “C’mon. Pizza’s getting cold.”
“Michael’s going to kill you both,” Eve said, and followed him as he stood up and walked to the table, where Claire remembered what she was doing and set down plates. “Kill you so very, very dead.”
But she was wrong, because when Michael showed up—about fifteen minutes later, coming out of the kitchen in that silent vampire-stealthy way he sometimes did, when he forgot his company manners—he took a long look at the poster, cocked his head, and said, “Wrong picture.”
Shane cast Eve a look of evil triumph. “Well, I would’ve used her senior yearbook pic, but she looked like a Spice Girls reject. Anything else?”
“There is no Captain Obvious.”
“That’s your objection?” Eve said, dropping her half-eaten pizza back to the plate. “Out of everything on the poster, including—oh, I don’t know, Monica?—that’s your problem with it?”
“He spelled her name right. I actually like the ‘lesser of two evils’ motto; it really captures the spirit.” Michael had brought his own pizza, and one of his opaque sports bottles. Pizza and blood, a combo only a vampire could love; trying not to think about it much, Claire added some crushed red pepper to her slice. “And to be fair, I did object to the picture first. That one makes her look way too sweet.”
“I think that was intentional,” Claire said. “Everybody knows—”
“There’s a new Captain Obvious,” Shane interrupted.
“Yeah?” Michael took a giant bite of crust and cheese and meat, then mumbled, “Who?”
Shane silently pointed to Eve, who swatted his hand away. So did Claire. And Michael choked, coughed, grabbed his sports bottle and swigged.
Eve said, “I’m so very not. Ever.”
“No,” Michael said, and coughed again, so violently Claire wondered if vampires could actually choke to death. Probably not. They didn’t really need to breathe, after all; they’d just have to stop talking until they could clear their throats. “Hell no. Not you.”
And that, Claire thought, was his first mistake, because Eve, instead of being relieved that he was supporting her general objection, looked at him with a sudden frown. “No? Por qué, Miguelito?”
“Because, well…” Michael stumbled over putting it into words. “I mean, Captain Obvious…”
“Is what, always a guy? That’s what you’re going with?”
“No, not—it’s just that you—uh…” Michael leaned back and looked at Shane. “Help me out.”
Shane held up both hands in silent surrender. “On your own.”
“Look, being Captain Obvious makes you a target, and I don’t want you to be—”
Eve interrupted him again, rising her chin in challenge. “Don’t want me to be in charge? Out front? Taking risks? Have you seen the tombstone flyers people keep leaving us?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m scared, because I love you. And it’s going to be dangerous. You know that without my telling you.”
“She knows,” Claire said, “but you shouldn’t tell her she can’t.”
Michael was starting to get really concerned. Eve reached over and took his hand.
“Relax,” she said, and held his gaze. “I know I could do it. But I won’t. I know it would put you in a bad position, for one thing. Props for not saying that, by the way.”
“It wouldn’t matter what happened to me,” he said, and brushed the hair back from her face with gentle fingers. “You know that.”
“Okay, you’re making me lose my pizza,” Shane said, and pitched a napkin at him, and a paper war began, flying on all sides until Claire waved the last surviving unthrown one in a sign of surrender.
So it was all okay, then. For now.
One thing about pizza was that it made for an easy cleanup, again—paper plates and paper boxes, and some glasses dumped in the dishwasher. Miranda had stayed in her room, watching movies; she was still fascinated with their having so many of them, and it was shocking how many of the classics, such as Star Wars, she’d never seen before. Claire left Michael to cleaning up, since it was his turn, and considered joining Shane on the couch (he and Eve were bickering over which video game to play, because she was heartily sick of shooting zombies and he never was) but the lure of study was just too much.
That made her weird. She was aware of that.
After an hour or so, she became aware of a faint tapping, and for a moment she thought it was at the door of her bedroom (and that it might, miraculously, be Shane choosing her over zombies), but no, the sound was at her window, the one facing the big tree at the back of the house. It was full dark now, with stars set like diamonds in the dark blue velvety sky; here in the high desert it was so clear, she could even see the faint, cloudy swirls of galaxies. The sky seemed close enough to touch.
So was Myrnin, standing balanced on a tree limb that was far too slender for his weight. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was floating in midair, but not even vampires could accomplish that. No, he was just being incredibly graceful, and ignoring laws of physics that were inevitably going to protest.
“Open,” Myrnin said. “Hurry up, girl. Open the window. This branch won’t”—he stopped as there was a sharp crack, and the branch sagged under his feet—“hold me for long!” He finished his sentence in a rush as she jerked up the window sash.
He lunged forward through the opening just as the branch broke free and crashed through the leaves to the ground below. Claire got out of his way. Vampires were nimble. He didn’t need help, and just now, she wasn’t feeling especially like helping him, anyway.
Myrnin hit the floor, rolled, and came with fluid grace back to a standing position. He struck a pose. “I suppose you are wondering what brings me here like this, in secret.”
“Not really. But I see you found your shoes, thank God,” Claire said. Glancing down at the bright white patent leather loafers on his feet, he shrugged.
“I think they belonged to a pastor, perhaps. All I could locate,” he said. “No idea what’s carried the rest of my shoes away. Perhaps Bob has developed a taste for footwear, which would be most interesting. Albeit alarming.”
“Bob the Spider.”
“Yes.”
“That’s…not too likely. Please tell me you washed them.”