Shane looked back at her with an intense, warm focus that made her suddenly feel like the only person in the world. She watched him walk toward her with a diffuse glow of pleasure. Michael was hot, no denying that, but Shane just ... melted her. It was everything about him-his strength, his intensity, the off-center smile, the hunger in his eyes. There was something rare and fragile at the center of all that armor, and she felt lucky and privileged that he allowed her to see it.
"You doing all right?" Shane asked her, and she looked up at him. His dark gaze had turned serious, and it saw ... too much. She couldn't hide how scared she was, not from him, but he was the last one to think it was a sign of weakness. He smiled a little and rested his forehead against hers for a second. "Yeah. You're doing just fine, tough girl."
She shoved the fear back, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Damn right." She ran her fingers through her tangled shoulder-length auburn hair-unlike Michael's, hers had suffered from a night on the hard pillows-and looked down at her T-shirt and jeans. At least they didn't wrinkle much ... or if they did, it didn't much matter. They were clean, even if they weren't her own. It turned out there was a storehouse of clothing in the Elders' Council building basement, neatly packed in boxes, labeled with sizes. Some of it dated back to the Victorian age ... hoop skirts and corsets and hats stowed carefully away in scented paper and cedar chests.
Claire wasn't sure she really wanted to know where all that clothing had come from, but she had her sinking suspicions. Sure, the older clothes looked like things the vampires themselves might have saved, but there were a lot of newer, more current styles that didn't seem to fit that explanation. Claire couldn't see Amelie, for instance, wearing a Train concert shirt, so she was trying hard not to think about whether they'd been scavenged from ... other sources. Victim-y sources.
"Did you have nightmares, too?" she asked Shane. His arm tightened around her, just for a moment.
"Nothing I can't handle. I'm kind of an expert at this whole bad dreams thing, anyway," he said. And oh God, he really was. Claire knew only a little of how many bad things he'd seen, but even that was enough to spark a lifetime's worth of therapy. "Still, yesterday was dire, and that's not a word I bust out, generally. Maybe it'll look better this morning."
"Is it morning?" Claire peered at her watch.
"That depends on your definition. It's after noon, so I guess technically not really. We slept for about five hours, I suppose. Or you did. Eve bounced about an hour ago, and I got up because ..." He shook his head. "Hell. This place creeps me out. I can't sleep too well here."
"It creeps you out more than what's happening out there?"
"Valid point," he said. Because the world out there-Morganville, anyway-was no longer the semi-safe place it had been just a few days ago. Sure, there had been vampires in charge of the town. Sure, they'd been predatory and kind of evil-a cross between old-school royalty and the Mafia-but at least they'd lived by rules. It hadn't been so much about ethics and morals as about practicality .... If they wanted to have a thriving blood supply, they couldn't just randomly kill people all the time.
Though the hunting licenses were alarming.
But now ... now the vampires were in the food chain. They'd always been careful about human threats, but that wasn't the issue, not anymore. The real vampire enemy had finally shown its incredibly disturbing face: the draug. All that Claire knew about them was that they lived in water and they could call vampires (and humans) with their singing, right to their deaths. For humans, it was fairly quick ... but not for vampires. Vampires trapped at the bottom of that cold pool could live and live and live until the draug had drained every bit of energy from them.
Live, and know it was happening. Eaten alive.
The draug were the one thing vampires feared, really and truly. Humans they treated with casual contempt, but their response to the draug had been immediate mass evacuation, except for the few who'd chosen to stay and try to save the vampires already being consumed.
They'd all tried-vampires and humans, working together. Even the rebellious human townies, who hated vamps, had taken a drive-by run at the draug. It had been a heart-stopping military operation of a battle, the most intense experience of Claire's life, and she still couldn't quite believe she'd survived it ... or that anyone had.
Even with all that effort, they'd saved only three vampires from the mildewed, abandoned pool-Michael, the elegant (and probably deadly) Naomi, and the very definitely deadly Oliver. Then things had gone from terrible to awful, and they'd had to leave everyone else.
Except Amelie. They'd saved Amelie, the Founder of Morganville ... sort of. And Claire was trying not to think about that, either.
"Hey," Shane said, and nudged her. "Coffee, remember? Eve'll be all sad, emo Goth face if you don't drink some."
Again, Shane was the practical one, and Claire had to smile because he was completely right. No one needed sad, emo Goth Eve today. Especially Eve. "I could kill for a cup of coffee. If there's, you know, cream. And sugar."
"Yes and yes."
"And chocolate?"
"Don't push it."
Michael had, by this time, gotten up and joined them. He still looked pale-paler than usual-and there was something a little wild in his eyes, as if he was afraid that he was still in the pool. Drowning.
Claire took his hand. As always, it felt a little cooler than room temperature, but not cold ... living flesh, but running on a much lower setting. Almost as tall as Shane, he looked down at her and smiled the rock-star smile that made all the girls melt in their shoes. She, however, was immune. Almost. She only melted a little, secretly. "What?" he asked her, and she shook her head.
"Nothing," she said. "You're not alone, Michael. We won't let that happen again. I promise."
The smile disappeared, and he studied her with a strange kind of intensity, almost as if he was seeing her for the first time. Or seeing something new in her. "I know," he said. "Hey, remember when I almost didn't let you into the house that first day you came?"
She'd shown up on his doorstep desperate, bruised, scared, and way too young to be facing Morganville. He'd been right to have his doubts. "Yep."
"Well, I was dead wrong," he said. "Maybe I never said that out loud before, but I mean it, Claire. All that's happened since ... We wouldn't have made it. Not me, not Shane, not Eve. Not without you."
"It's not me," Claire said, startled. "It's not! It's us, that's all. We're just better together. We ... take care of each other."
He nodded again, but didn't have a chance to reply because Shane reached in, took Claire's hand from Michael's, and said-not seriously, thank God-"Stop vamping up my girl, man. She needs coffee."
"Don't we all," Michael said, and smacked Shane on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "Vamping up your girl? Dude. That's low."
"Digging for China," Shane agreed, straight-faced. "Come on."
Claire could follow the smell of brewing caffeine all the way to Eve like a trail of dropped coffee beans. It gave the sterile, funereal, windowless Elders' Council building a weirdly homey feel, despite the chilly marble walls and the thick, muffling carpets.
The hallway opened into a wider circular area-the hub in the wheel-that held a huge round table in the center, which was normally adorned by an equally large fresh floral arrangement ... adding to the funeral home vibe. But that had been pushed to the side, and a giant, shiny coffee dispenser had been put in its place, along with neat little bowls of sugar, spoons, napkins, cups, and saucers. Even cream and milk pitchers.
It was surreal to Claire, as if she'd stepped out of a nightmare and into a fancy hotel without any transition. And there, emerging from another door that must have led to some sort of kitchen, came Eve, with a tray in her hands, which she slid onto the other side of the big table.
Claire stared, because although it was Eve, it didn't really look like her. No Goth makeup. Her hair was down, loose around her face and falling in soft black waves; even without her rice-powder coverage, her skin was creamy pale, but it looked movie-star beautiful. Natural-look Eve was stunning, even wearing borrowed clothes ... though she'd found a retro fifties black pouf-skirted dress that really suited her perfectly.
She had a red scarf tied jauntily around her neck to hide the bites and bruises that Michael-starving and crazy from being dragged out of the pool-had inflicted on her.