"Oh," Eve said softly. "Oh." Her eyes were shining now, and Michael's smile was one of the most lovely things Claire had ever seen. Free of all the burden she'd seen in him over the past few weeks. Free of the guilt. And now, there was something completely right in it. "You idiot. You could have told me."
"Yeah, I know." He stood up and went to her, and took her hand. "I love you. I didn't want to think that - that I could lose you over this. Over not being able to get Amelie to agree."
"Idiot," Eve repeated, but she didn't mean it. She stood up and melted into his arms, and it looked like they never intended to let go of each other, ever again. "So it's all good."
Naomi was smiling at the two of them, but now a shadow seemed to come over her face. "I hope that is true. I do worry that if the human population continues to agitate, Amelie will take the side of Oliver's cause, and not mine. But I cannot help that. Perhaps you can ... ?"
"I'm not exactly Miss Popularity out there," Eve said. "But luckily, I've got someone everybody respects on my team . . . everybody on both sides of the blood line."
And she looked at Claire and raised her eyebrows.
"Oh, wait a minute," Claire said. Shane put his arms around her from behind. Even if she wanted to escape, he wasn't going to let her. "How exactly am I supposed to convince people it's all okay?"
"Facebook?" Shane said, straight-faced.
"Flyers on phone poles," Eve said.
"Invite them to the party," Michael said.
Claire blinked and looked at him, head cocked. "What did you say?"
"Invite them to the party. It's like if you're having a gigantic house party - invite your neighbors over, and they're not as likely to blow the whistle on you. Well, invite the humans in Morganville and give them the chance to really get to know the vampires. Show them it can work."
"Dude," Shane said seriously, "that just cannot end well."
"No, it could work," Naomi said. "There are precedents. And you were planning to invite both humans and vampires in any case, were you not?"
Eve nodded, still looking a little uncertain. "But - look, there are some bad feelings around here. Human pride, and all that stuff. I'm not sure it's a good idea to put vamps, humans, and alcohol all in the same place."
"Well," Naomi said cheerfully, "what's the worst that can happen?"
They were silent, considering that, because there were just so
They were silent, considering that, because there were just so many possibilities.
But in the end, it was a better idea than Facebook.
"What's this?" The man on the other side of the counter at the camera store scowled at her mistrustfully, but he took the paper that Claire handed him. It was a nice, colorful poster, advertising the engagement party being held outside at Founder's Square.
"Could you maybe put it up in the window of your store?" she asked, and gave him her best, most confident smile. "It's going to be a great party. I know your customers would like to be there. It's free!"
He stared at her. Claire didn't know him; he was an older man, graying at the temples, and he had a square, stubborn kind of face. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows, and she saw a fresh stake tattoo on the inside of his right forearm. "You're that girl," he said, and she was almost sure he'd continue, The vampires' pet. She'd heard that a few times today. "The one the Collins kid is dating."
Oh. Right. Shane had antivampire street cred. "That's right," she said. "I'm Shane's girlfriend."
"Frank said you were all right."
Great, now she had Shane's dad as an endorsement.... Well, anything that would help, she'd take it. "That was nice of him." She managed not to make it sound like an indictment on the whole Frank Collins issue. Water under the bridge, and all that stuff. "Would you mind putting it up for me?"
"You know this ain't going to end well, right?" He rattled the paper at her. "Glass and the human girl. I'm sorry the kid got turned, but he's one of them now. No coming back over that line."
She was tired of the argument. "Thanks for your time," she said. "I appreciate you thinking about it."
He grunted. "I guess I'll put it up. Don't expect me to show up, though."
"Free drinks?"
That actually earned her a smile. A small one. "Well, you drive a hard bargain, kid. Be careful out there."
"You, too."
She walked out, and Shane fell in step beside her. He had a handful of flyers, but fewer than there had been. "So, was that fun?" he asked. "Kind of an antivamp stronghold, there. Captain Obvious used to be a good friend of the manager." Captain Obvious had once been a figurehead of the antivampire underground, but he was now permanently underground, in the six-feet-under sense. Nobody had yet stepped forward to take up his masked identity, as far as Claire knew - not that she would have been in on the antivampire memo chain. "He give you any trouble?"
"Not once I pointed out there would be free booze."
"Too easy," Shane said. "How are you planning to keep the frat boys out?"
That, Claire had realized early on, was going to be a problem. . . . The Texas Prairie University campus was its own little world, a microcosm inside Morganville's strange alternate reality. And on campus, few people really knew about the vampire world outside. Keeping the frat boys on campus, instead of searching for a free drunk, was a challenge, and one that required absolute attention. There had been too many near misses already. "I talked to Chief Moses," she said. "She said the police would be checking IDs. No town resident card, you don't get into the square at all. That should keep the aspiring partyers out."
"You hope. So, who else we have left?"
They'd covered almost all of their particular sector of Morganville; Michael had taken the more vampire-centric neighborhoods this morning, and Eve had braved it with him, trying to show the vampires she could be well behaved and perfectly acceptable. By common consent, they'd all decided that Claire and Shane had the reputations to win over unwilling humans, or at least get them to listen.
They'd been about seventy percent successful, which was better than Claire had expected, but it had been a long day, and her feet hurt. "We should hit it tomorrow," she said. "I need to lay down."
He raised his eyebrows at her, and she swatted his shoulder. "Rest," she said.
"Well, we could rest together. I swear, I'll be good." He gave her a charming, intensely hot smile. "You can take that any way you want."
So many levels to that, she got dizzy trying to sort them out. But it warmed her, and made the walk home less of a trial . . . at least, until her cell phone rang. The ringtone was a dead giveaway, emphasis on dead . . . creepy organ music. She didn't even have to glance at the image of fanged bunny slippers on the screen to know who was calling. She just sighed, thumbed it on, and held it to her ear.
"Claire! I need you here immediately. Something's wrong with Bob." Myrnin, her mad-scientist, blood-addicted boss, sounded actually shaken. "I can't get him to eat his insects, and I used his favorites. He just sits there."
"Bob," she repeated, looking at Shane in wide-eyed disbelief. "Bob the spider."
"Just because he's a spider doesn't mean he deserves any less concern! Claire, you have a way with him. He likes you."
Just what she needed. Bob the spider liked her. "You do realize that he's a year old, at least. And spiders don't live that long."
"You think he's dead?" Myrnin sounded horrified. So wrong.
"Is he curled up?"
"No. He's just quiet."
"Well, maybe he's not hungry."
"Will you come?" Myrnin asked. He sounded calmer now, but also oddly needy. "It's been very lonely here these past few days. I'd like your company, at least for a little while." When she hesitated, he used the pity card. "Please, Claire."
"Fine," she sighed. "I'm bringing Shane."
After a second of silence, he said, flatly, "Goody," and hung up.
"You're kidding," Shane said. "Do you think I want to visit Crazy McTeeth in his lair of insanity?"
"No," Claire said, "but I'm pretty sure you won't like it if I go alone when I just kind of promised to be with you. So . . . ?"