“Jesus, Jason.” Eve sighed. “Do you wantto end up in the landfill, or what?” She touched Michael on the arm, and he glanced back at her and took her hand. “Can you tell if he lies to us?”
“Uh, no. Drinking blood doesn’t make me a lie detector.”
Sam spoke up somberly. “I can.” He shrugged when Michael gave him an odd look. “It’s just a skill. You pick it up, over time. People can’t control their bodies the way vampires can. I can usually tell when they’re lying.”
“No offense, but you’ve been wrong plenty of times, Sam. Like, deciding that you could trust this little weasel as far as you can throw him,” Michael said, then caught a devastating pleading look from Eve. “All right. Go ahead. Ask him whatever you want.”
Eve took in a deep breath, looked her brother in the eyes, and said, “Please tell me the truth. Did you kill those girls?”
Because that had been Jason’s rep. Murdered girls, dumped all over town, a string of killings that had begun right after Jason had gotten out of jail, just about the time Claire had moved to Morganville. One body had been put here in their own house, in an attempt to implicate Shane and Michael.
Jason blinked, as if he somehow hadn’t really expected her to ask. “The truth?”
“Of course, the truth, idiot.”
“I’ve done bad things,” he said. “I’ve hurt people. I need help.”
Eve’s face fell. “You really did do it.”
“It wasn’t my fault, Eve.”
“Never is, is it? I really thought—”
“He’s lying,” Michael said. He sounded as surprised as Claire felt. “Right, Sam?” Sam nodded. “My God. You really didn’t do it, did you?”
Jason looked away from them. “Might as well have.”
“What the hell does thatmean?” Eve snapped. “Either you did, or you didn’t!”
“No,” her brother said. “Either I did, I didn’t, or I was there when it happened and didn’t stop it. Figure it out.”
“Then who—”
“I’m not saying. People think I’m a killer; they leave me the fuck alone. They think I’m just some sad-ass ride-along clown. They’ll kill me quick.” Jason looked up now, right at Eve, and for the first time, Claire thought he looked sincere. “I never killed anybody. Not on my own, anyway. Well, I came close with you, Collins.”
“But you won’t tell us who did kill them?”
He shook his head.
“Are you afraid?” Eve asked, very gently.
Silence.
“You know what?” Shane said. “Don’t care. Street him before we wake up with our throats cut by him orhis imaginary playmate.”
And they might have, except that the doorbell rang. Michael flashed to the window and looked out. “Crap. Our ride’s here. We don’t have time for this.”
“Michael,” Eve said. “Please. Let him stay, at least for now. Please.”
“All right. Get him upstairs and lock him in. Sam, can you stay with him?
“No,” Sam said. “I have to go back to Amelie.”
“We have to leave. Claire, can you shut down the portal that leads here?”
“I can try, sure.”
As Sam hustled Jason up the stairs to the second floor, Claire touched the bare wall at the back of the living room, and felt the slightly pliable surface of the portal lying on top of it. It was invisible, but definitely active.
“Ada,” she whispered, and felt the surface ripple.
Her phone rang. Claire answered it. No incoming caller ID had appeared on the display, just random numbers and letters. She answered.
“What?” the computer snapped. “I’m busy, you know. I can’t just be at your constant beck and call.”
“Shut down the portal to the Glass House.”
“Oh, bother. Do it yourself.”
“I don’t know how!”
“I hardly have time to school you,” Ada said primly. God, she reminded Claire of Myrnin—not in a good way. “Very well. I shall do it for you this one time. But you’ll have to turn it on again yourself. And stop calling me!”
The phone clicked off, and under Claire’s fingers, the surface turned cold and still, like glass.
Blocked. Quantum stasis, she thought, fascinated, and wondered how that worked, for about the millionth time. She wanted to take Ada apart and figure it out. Yeah, if you live long enough.It had taken Myrnin three hundred years to put Ada together; it might take her that long just to figure out the basic principles he’d used.
Michael came back into the living room, leading two other vampires—Ysandre, that smug little witch, and her occasional partner François, an equally nasty reject from some Eurotrash vampire melodrama.
They were walking clichés, but they were also deadly. Claire couldn’t even look at François without remembering how he’d ripped the cross off of her neck and bitten her. She still had the scars—faint, but they’d always be there. And she couldn’t forget how that had felt, either.
A hot flood of emotion came over her when she saw him smirking at her—hate, fear, loathing, and fury. She knew he could feel it coming off of her in sick waves.
She also knew he enjoyed it.
François gave her an elaborate bow and blew her a kiss. “ Chérie,” he said. “The exquisite taste of you still lingers in my mouth.”
Shane’s hands closed into fists. François saw that, too. Claire touched Shane’s arm; his muscles were tensed and hard. “Don’t let him bait you,” she whispered. “I was a snack. Not a date.”
François closed his eyes and made a point of sniffing the air. “Ah, but you smell so different now,” he said, with elaborate disappointment. “Rich and complex, not simple and pure anymore. Still, I was the first to taste your blood, wasn’t I, little Claire? And you never forget your first.”
“ Don’t!” she hissed to Shane, and dug her fingernails in as deep as she could. It was all she could do. If Shane decided to go for him, she knew how it would end.
Luckily, so did Shane. He slowly relaxed, and Claire saw Michael’s tension ease as well. “We talking, or are we walking?” Shane asked. “I thought we had someplace to be.”
Claire felt a sunburst of pride in him, and a longing that came with it—she wanted all of this to just stop; she wanted to go back to the night, the silence, the touch of his skin and the sound of his whispers. That was real. That was important.
It was a reason to live through all this.
She took Shane’s hand and squeezed it. He sent her a look. “What?”
She whispered, “You’re just full of awesome; did you know that?”
François made a face. “Full of something. In the car, fools.”
Founder’s Square at twilight was full of people—rock-concert full. Claire didn’t even know this many people lived in Morganville. “Did they grab the students, too?” she asked Michael.
“Bishop’s not quite that stupid. It’s residents only. University gates were closed. The place is under lock-down.”
“What, again? Even the stoners are going to figure out something’s going on.” Claire certainly would have, and she knew most of the students weren’t that gullible. Then again, knowing and wanting to push the status quo were two very different things. “You think they’ll stay on campus?”
“I think if they don’t, the problem’s going to solve itself,” Michael said somberly. “Amelie will try to protect them, but we’ve got a much bigger issue tonight.”
Technically, that challenge was saving Morganville, and everybody in it.
There were no chairs down on the grassy area, but Bishop’s vampires were out and about, and they were separating people at the entrances to the park and sending them to special holding areas. Or, Claire, thought, pens.Like sorting cattle. “What are they doing?”
“Dividing people according to their Protectors,” François said. “What else?”