“No,” Oliver said. He had turned his head, and was staring out at the desert whipping by beyond the window. “But it’s possible, just possible, that Fallon’s plan might backfire. Most of us older vampires have vast experience in managing our hunger; the poison he put in our blood supplies made us restless and peckish, to be sure, but not uncontrollably so. It’s the younger fledglings who have . . . difficulty. He might have lost enough touch with his vampire roots to think he can drive us so easily into marauding.”
“I thought you were all just waiting for the chance,” Shane said.
“Did you?” Oliver shrugged. “I’m not saying a hunt isn’t something we crave, but to a man, we hate to be manipulated. And this is our town, as much as any human’s. Our home, and our neighbors and perhaps even our friends. You fall into the trap of thinking as Fallon does, that there are only heroes and villains, monsters and victims, and nothing between. We all stand in that space, crossing the line to one side, then the other. Even you.”
That was unusually chatty for Oliver, and strangely lyrical, too. They all sat in silence for a while, until Michael cleared his throat and said, “I’m making the turn up ahead. Should take us straight to Blacke.”
“Hope that diner’s open,” Shane said. “Because now you made me think about French fries.”
Claire’s stomach rumbled again, right on cue, but she was watching Oliver. Watching the calm strength with which he cradled Ayesha, still locked in her coma. He hadn’t asked for blood for her, or more for himself, though she could see from the color of his skin and the shine in his eyes that he needed it.
He was teaching them all something about vampires, simply by being who he was. Maybe bad things, maybe good. But that had been his point.
That nothing, absolutely nothing, was all that straightforward.
Blacke kept its town purposefully dark; it didn’t want casual travelers looking for gas stations, or all-night diners. In fact, if Claire hadn’t known that the town had a population of at least five hundred, she’d have been fooled into thinking it was a ghost town. Only a few cars in sight; and the lights were off inside businesses locked up tight for the evening. It was a tiny little one-stoplight place anyway.
The hulking courthouse was just as Claire remembered it, though the damage to the iron fence had been fixed and the statue of Mr. Blacke, the town’s most eminent (or at least richest dead) citizen, had been restored, except it still leaned a little bit. They’d knocked him down with the school bus, hadn’t they? It seemed like such a long time ago. She swore that Morganville years were worse than dog years. The people of Blacke had boarded up the courthouse windows, though, and a faded red CONDEMNED sign creaked in the night wind. The only light in the place came from the glow from the clock tower, permanently frozen at three a.m. Claire checked her watch to be sure, but her instincts were right; the time was just past midnight.
The witching hour.
“We’re being watched,” Oliver said as Michael eased the car to a halt. “Although I expect it is thoroughly unnecessary to say it. Even a breather ought to be able to feel it.”
“Is that some bigoted term you guys use for us?” Shane asked.
“In the same way you use bloodsucker, leech, parasite? Yes. Although considerably more flattering.”
“He’s right,” Eve said, and Claire saw her shoulders bunch together as she shivered, even though she was warmly wrapped up now. “They’re watching us.”
Oliver stepped out and raised his voice. “Enough of this, Morley. You’ve had your gawk. There is serious work ahead.”
“Is there?”
Claire heard the lazy voice drifting down from far above. From the clock tower. She tilted her head back and spotted the shadow then, standing just under the glare of the light on the dials of the clock. Morley himself. He walked to the roof’s edge and stepped off, as if the four-story drop were nothing—and it might have been, for vampires. He hardly even flexed his knees on landing, and as he rose, Claire saw he’d managed to find clothes that suited him in Blacke—a dramatic full-length leather duster in faded brown, a long red scarf that trailed in the wind, a flat-brimmed hat. His eyes gleamed crimson in the darkness.
“Do tell me all about your crisis, Oliver. You built yourself a kingdom of cats and now the rats have gotten the upper hand—is that right? They’ve put all you sleek little mousers in a cage and fed you on scraps. Soon they’ll put you down and celebrate and then it will be the kingdom of the rats. Rats and cats, cheese and please may I have a bite.” Morley paused, leaned an elbow on the hood of the car, and gave Oliver a long scan from head to toe. “I knew you were old, dear boy, but really, the Romans?”
“It’s been a long day. I’m not in the mood for your idiocy.”
“And yet you’re in the mood for my assistance. Interesting. Well, then, come along. Mrs. Grant is waiting.”
Morley didn’t wait for any of them to agree; he simply set off down the street. The snap of his coat in the wind was the only sound he made as he walked down the deserted road and took the sidewalk to the right.
They all exchanged a look. Oliver shook his head in disgust, reached in, and picked up the limp body of Ayesha. He held her as easily as a pillow. “Well?” he barked. “Morley may be a theatrical posturer, but he’s a decent grasp of tactics. And I might point out that we’re standing targets here for his followers. They have a kill shot on each of us.”
Eve blinked. “Um . . . how do you know that?”
“Tactics,” Oliver said, and walked away down the road in the direction Morley had gone.
Claire shrugged when Shane raised his eyebrows at her. “Right,” he said. “Guess we’re going, then.”
Michael looked up at the silent, dark windows around them and yelled, “You can keep the car!”
Then he linked his arm with Eve’s and led the way in Oliver’s wake.
“Oh, no, not the old library,” Shane said, in a pretty good approximation of Oliver’s voice and phrasing. “How very tiresome of him to take us there.”
Claire elbowed him. “You must be feeling better.”
“Seems like it, doesn’t it?”
That, she thought with a sudden rush of disquiet, was not an answer. It was an evasion. “Are you feeling better?”
“If by better you mean much more aware than I ought to be of the fact that there are freaking vampires all over the place, then yes, much better. But I’m dealing with it.”
“If you can’t, will you let me know?”
“Sure thing. I’ll let out a howl.”
“Not funny.”
“Well, in my defense, it wasn’t really meant to be. I mean, I might literally howl.”
“Shane.” She pulled him to a stop, and when their eyes met, he dropped some of his smart-ass shield. “We’re going to get through this. I promise you that.”
He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips—warm, sweet, gentle, all the things she loved about him. All the things she knew were inside him, buried sometimes by the tough-guy attitude and smack talk. “I think you can get through anything,” he said. “Hey, I’m happy sticking with you. As long as you don’t cover yourself in Queen Vampire blood again—I may be a freak, but there are limits.”
“Be serious.”
“I’m trying. It’s not what I do best.”
He was making her laugh, and that wasn’t what she wanted right now. Not what she needed. “Shane, when we get out of this—and we will get out of it—I want you to know that I’m . . . I’m ready.”
He raised his eyebrows, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Of course. “That’s good, because I’m a guy, Claire. I’m pretty much always—”