"I know," Claire said, and swallowed. Shane's arm pressed against hers, a deliberate kind of thing, and she knew if his hands weren't full, he'd have put his arms around her. "Michael won't let them hurt us."
"Weren't you listening?" Eve joined them at the stove, whispering fiercely. She scowled at the frying bacon. "He can't stop them. Best he can do is get himself really hurt in the process. So maybe you ought to call Amelie again and tell her to get her all-powerful ass over here now."
"Yeah, good idea, piss off the only vampire who can help. Look, if they were going to kill us, I don't think they'd ask for eggs first," Shane said. "Not to mention biscuits. If you ask for biscuits, clearly, you think you're some kind of a guest."
He had a point. It didn't really stop the trembling in Claire's hands, though.
"Claire, honey?" Her mom's voice, again. Claire jumped and nearly flipped a spatula full of eggs out onto the stove top. "Those people. What are they really doing here?"
"Mr. Bishop - he's, uh, waiting for his daughter to come pick him up." That wasn't a lie. Not at all.
Claire's father got up from the table and went to the coffeepot, which had wheezed itself full; he poured two mugs and took them back to the table. "Have some coffee, Kathy. You look tired," he said, and there was a gentle note in his voice that made Claire look at him sharply. Her dad wasn't the most emotional of guys, but he looked worried now, almost as worried as Mom.
Dad drained his coffee like it was water after a hot afternoon of lawn mowing. Mom listlessly creamed and sugared, then sipped. Neither of them spoke again.
Michael slipped out the kitchen door, taking mugs of coffee out to the others. When he came back, he closed the door and leaned against it for a minute. He looked bone white, strained, worse than he had in the months since he'd been transformed fully into a vampire. Claire tried to imagine what they'd said to him to make him look like that, and couldn't even begin to guess. Something bad. No, something horrible.
"Michael," Eve said tensely. She nodded toward Claire's parents. "More coffee?"
He nodded and moved away from the door to pick up the coffeepot, but he never made it to the breakfast table. The kitchen door opened again, and Mr. Bishop and his entourage entered the room.
Tall and haughty as nineteenth-century royalty, the three vampires surveyed the kitchen. The other two vampires were pretty, young, and frightening, but Mr. Bishop was the one in charge; there was no mistaking it. When his gaze fell on her, Claire flinched and turned back to the sizzling eggs.
The female vampire strolled over and dipped her finger in the gravy Shane was stirring, then lifted the finger slowly to her lips to suck it clean. She stared at Shane the whole time. And Shane, Claire realized with a helpless, unpleasant shock, stared right back.
"We'll sit for the meal now," Bishop said to Michael. "You will have the pleasure of serving us, Michael. And if your little friends decide to try to poison me, I'll have your guts out, and believe me, a vampire can suffer a very, very long time when I want him to."
Michael swallowed and nodded once. Claire sent an involuntary look toward her folks, who could not possibly have missed that.
And they hadn't. "Excuse me?" Claire's father asked, and began to rise out of his chair. "Are you threatening these kids?"
Bishop turned those cold eyes toward them, and Claire desperately thought about whether a hot iron skillet with a panful of frying eggs might be a useful weapon against a vampire. Her dad froze, halfway up.
She felt a wave of something go through the room, and her parents' eyes went blank and vague. Her dad sank down again heavily in his chair.
"No more questions," Bishop said to them. "I tire of your chatter."
Claire felt a surge of utter black fury. She wanted to leap on that evil old man and claw his eyes out. The only thing holding her back, in those two long seconds, was the fact that if she tried, they'd all end up dead.
Even Michael.
"Coffee?" Eve broke the silence with a desperate, brittle brightness in her tone. She grabbed the coffeepot from Michael and bore down on Claire's mom and dad like the avenging dark angel of caffeine. Claire wondered what her parents made of Eve, with her rice-powder makeup and black lipstick and raccoon eyeliner, and her dyed-black hair teased into fierce spikes.
Then again, she had coffee, and she was smiling.
"Sure," Claire's mom said, and tried a tentative smile in return. "Thank you, dear. So - did you say that man is a relative of yours?" She cast a look toward Bishop, who was exiting the kitchen and heading for the dining table in the living area. The handsome younger male vamp caught Claire's look and winked, and she hastily focused back on Eve and her parents.
"Nope," Eve said, with fear-fueled cheer. "Distant relative of Michael's. From Europe, you know. Cream?"
"Eggs are done," Claire said, and turned down the burner. "Eve - "
"I hope we have enough plates," Eve interrupted, more than a little frantic. "Jeez, I never thought I'd say this, but where's the good china? Is there good china?"
"Meaning plates without chips in the edges? Yeah. Over there." Shane pointed to a cabinet about four feet higher than Eve's head. She gave him a stare. "Don't look at me - I'm not reaching for it. Still wounded, you know." He was. Claire had forgotten that, too, in the press of all the other stuff - he was doing better, but he'd been out of the hospital only a short while. Hardly enough time to really heal up from the stab wound that had nearly killed him.
That was another good reason not to make waves unless they absolutely had to - without Shane, their ability to fight back was seriously compromised.