Bitter Blood (12 page)

“I think I can make it work,” Claire said. “We could put up signs asking people to write you in on the ballot. You’ve got people who owe you favors, right? And the vamps would like it. They think you’re easy to control.”

“Hey!”

“I said they
think
you are. But you wouldn’t be here working with Shane if you were all that easy, would you?” Claire cocked her head. “Missed a spot.”

“Would you just get to the point?”

“Morganville needs a new Captain Obvious,” she said. “And Morganville needs a new mayor the vamps would approve. You could be both.”

“What, like a secret identity?” Monica laughed, but it was a dry, bitter sound. “You’re such an idiot.”

“Shane is already teaching you how to fight,” Claire pointed out. “You already know how to target people you don’t like. Why not do it for the sake of the town for a change? Captain Obvious has always been kind of a bully, just a bully on the side of the humans.”

Monica had nothing to say to that. She simply frowned as she rinsed the last of the soap from her right leg, did the left, and then cleared the conditioner out of her hair. When she shut off the water, Claire threw her the towel. Monica dried off and wrapped up, and finally shrugged. “It’d never work,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Claire said, “but you owe me. And you’re going to run for office.”

Monica studied herself in the mirror, then smiled as she met Claire’s eyes. “Well,” she said, “I
would
make an awesome mayor. I’m very photogenic.”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed, straight-faced. “Because that’s what really counts.”

Shane didn’t take it well.

“Monica,” he kept saying, all the way home. “Wait, let’s back up. We’re going to campaign for Monica. For mayor.”

“Yes,” Claire said. “I’m sorry, why is this so hard to understand?”

“Did you trip in the shower and hit your head or something?
Monica Morrell.
I’m pretty sure we still hate her. Let me check my notes—yep, still hate her.”

“Well,” Claire said, “you’re taking money to teach her to fight, so you sort of don’t
hate
hate her anymore. And I’m not sure I do, either. She’s just sort of annoyingly pathetic now that she doesn’t have her position and her posse.”

“And you want to turn around and give her back, let’s see, a position, with a title and a salary, and the power to make the life of everybody in this town a living hell? She’s not that sad a case.”

“Shane, I’m serious about this. We need to get someone on the Elders’ Council the vampires can’t control, and someone who’s human, and someone people might vote for. She’s a Morrell. She’d get the sympathy vote because of her brother.”

He scrubbed his face with both hands as she unlocked the front door of the Glass House. “
Such
a bad idea,” he said. “In so, so many ways. Tell me we’re not actually helping her.”

“Well, I did kind of promise to make signs.”

She expected him to kick about that, too, but instead, he got a slow, evil smile on his face and said, “Oh please. Allow me.”

“Shane—”

“Trust me.”

She didn’t.

And sure enough, two hours later, she heard Eve’s outraged scream coming from downstairs. She rushed into the living room and saw Shane holding…a poster. It was a vivid neon blue thing that read, in block letters,
WHY VOTE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
?
VOTE MORRELL
!, and it had the saintliest picture of Monica that she’d ever, ever seen beneath it. Honestly, it couldn’t have looked more angelic if Shane had Photoshopped a halo on it.

It also had one of those bright yellow callout stars in the corner that read
ENDORSED BY CAPTAIN OBVIOUS
!
HUMAN APPROVED
!, plus a copy of the write-in ballot with Monica’s name written boldly in marker.

It was simultaneously the funniest thing Claire had ever seen, and the most appalling.

Eve couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. She just stared…first at the poster, then at Shane, then back to the poster, as if she couldn’t imagine a world in which this had happened. Finally, she said, “I really, really hope this is a joke. If it isn’t, Monica’s going to kill you. And then she’ll wrap you in that poster and bury you.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Shane asked, and looked down at the paper. “I know, blue wasn’t my first choice, but I figured hot pink would be overkill.”

“Okay, I need a recap. Why exactly are you making a poster to elect Monica for mayor? Did I miss a step, or wake up in Opposite World, or…?”

“It’s Claire’s plan,” he said. “I’m just the graphic designer. She’s the campaign manager.”

Eve collapsed on the couch and put her face in her hands. “You’re insane. You’ve gone insane. Too much stress. I knew one of us would break someday….”

“Monica’s perfect,” Claire said. “Eve, really, she is. Think about it. And hey, if you want, you could be Captain Obvious.”

“Me,” Eve repeated, and gave a dry, strangled laugh. “Yeah, sure. Sure.”

“Hey,” Shane said. He propped the poster in the corner, and—unexpectedly, at least to Claire—dropped to one knee in front of Eve. He took her hands and dragged them down so he could see her face. “Look at me. You’re the original rebel around here, Eve. Hell, you were a malcontent before I was. Before Michael. Before Claire. Most of these Captain Obvious wannabes half assed it because in their hearts they were regular guys, pissed off at not having everything they wanted when they wanted it. That isn’t rebellion; it’s just selfishness. But you’re not like that. If you wanted to be Captain Obvious, you’d be real.”

He meant it. No mocking, no digs, no friendly banter; he sincerely meant that, and Eve took in a deep, ragged breath as she stared back. She shook her head, once. “I can’t, Shane.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You could be. But only if you really want to.” He said it without drama, without even any special emphasis, just stating a simple fact. “C’mon. Pizza’s getting cold.”

“Michael’s going to kill you both,” Eve said, and followed him as he stood up and walked to the table, where Claire remembered what she was doing and set down plates. “Kill you so very, very dead.”

But she was wrong, because when Michael showed up—about fifteen minutes later, coming out of the kitchen in that silent
vampire-stealthy way he sometimes did, when he forgot his company manners—he took a long look at the poster, cocked his head, and said, “Wrong picture.”

Shane cast Eve a look of evil triumph. “Well, I would’ve used her senior yearbook pic, but she looked like a Spice Girls reject. Anything else?”

“There is no Captain Obvious.”

“That’s your objection?” Eve said, dropping her half-eaten pizza back to the plate. “Out of everything on the poster, including—oh, I don’t know, Monica?—that’s your problem with it?”

“He spelled her name right. I actually like the ‘lesser of two evils’ motto; it really captures the spirit.” Michael had brought his own pizza, and one of his opaque sports bottles. Pizza and blood, a combo only a vampire could love; trying not to think about it much, Claire added some crushed red pepper to her slice. “And to be fair, I did object to the picture first. That one makes her look way too sweet.”

“I think that was intentional,” Claire said. “Everybody knows—”

“There’s a new Captain Obvious,” Shane interrupted.

“Yeah?” Michael took a giant bite of crust and cheese and meat, then mumbled, “Who?”

Shane silently pointed to Eve, who swatted his hand away. So did Claire. And Michael choked, coughed, grabbed his sports bottle and swigged.

Eve said, “I’m so very not. Ever.”

“No,” Michael said, and coughed again, so violently Claire wondered if vampires could actually choke to death. Probably not. They didn’t really need to breathe, after all; they’d just have to stop talking until they could clear their throats. “Hell no. Not you.”

And that, Claire thought, was his first mistake, because Eve, instead of being relieved that he was supporting her general objection, looked at him with a sudden frown. “No?
Por qué,
Miguelito?”

“Because, well…” Michael stumbled over putting it into words. “I mean, Captain Obvious…”

“Is what, always a guy? That’s what you’re going with?”

“No, not—it’s just that you—uh…” Michael leaned back and looked at Shane. “Help me out.”

Shane held up both hands in silent surrender. “On your own.”

“Look, being Captain Obvious makes you a target, and I don’t want you to be—”

Eve interrupted him again, rising her chin in challenge. “Don’t want me to be in charge? Out front? Taking risks? Have you
seen
the tombstone flyers people keep leaving us?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I’m scared, because I love you. And it’s going to be dangerous. You know that without my telling you.”

“She knows,” Claire said, “but you shouldn’t tell her she
can’t
.”

Michael was starting to get really concerned. Eve reached over and took his hand.

“Relax,” she said, and held his gaze. “I know I
could
do it. But I won’t. I know it would put you in a bad position, for one thing. Props for not saying that, by the way.”

“It wouldn’t matter what happened to me,” he said, and brushed the hair back from her face with gentle fingers. “You know that.”

“Okay, you’re making me lose my pizza,” Shane said, and pitched a napkin at him, and a paper war began, flying on all sides until Claire waved the last surviving unthrown one in a sign of surrender.

So it was all okay, then. For now.

One thing about pizza was that it made for an easy cleanup,
again—paper plates and paper boxes, and some glasses dumped in the dishwasher. Miranda had stayed in her room, watching movies; she was still fascinated with their having so many of them, and it was shocking how many of the classics, such as
Star Wars
, she’d never seen before. Claire left Michael to cleaning up, since it was his turn, and considered joining Shane on the couch (he and Eve were bickering over which video game to play, because she was heartily sick of shooting zombies and he never was) but the lure of study was just too much.

That made her weird. She was aware of that.

After an hour or so, she became aware of a faint tapping, and for a moment she thought it was at the door of her bedroom (and that it might, miraculously, be Shane choosing her over zombies), but no, the sound was at her window, the one facing the big tree at the back of the house. It was full dark now, with stars set like diamonds in the dark blue velvety sky; here in the high desert it was so clear, she could even see the faint, cloudy swirls of galaxies. The sky seemed close enough to touch.

So was Myrnin, standing balanced on a tree limb that was far too slender for his weight. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was floating in midair, but not even vampires could accomplish that. No, he was just being incredibly graceful, and ignoring laws of physics that were inevitably going to protest.

“Open,” Myrnin said. “Hurry up, girl. Open the window. This branch won’t”—he stopped as there was a sharp crack, and the branch sagged under his feet—“hold me for long!” He finished his sentence in a rush as she jerked up the window sash.

He lunged forward through the opening just as the branch broke free and crashed through the leaves to the ground below. Claire got out of his way. Vampires were nimble. He didn’t need help, and just now, she wasn’t feeling especially like helping him, anyway.

Myrnin hit the floor, rolled, and came with fluid grace back to a standing position. He struck a pose. “I suppose you are wondering what brings me here like this, in secret.”

“Not really. But I see you found your shoes, thank God,” Claire said. Glancing down at the bright white patent leather loafers on his feet, he shrugged.

“I think they belonged to a pastor, perhaps. All I could locate,” he said. “No idea what’s carried the rest of my shoes away. Perhaps Bob has developed a taste for footwear, which would be most interesting. Albeit alarming.”

“Bob the Spider.”

“Yes.”

“That’s…not too likely. Please tell me you washed them.”

“The shoes?”

“Your feet. Do you know what kind of diseases are all over alleys?”

He gazed at her with perfect stillness for a second, then said, “I saw the campaign poster on the porch outside. I’m not sure whether to applaud you for your initiative or box your ears.
Monica Morrell?
Really?”

“I know it seems weird.”

“Weird? It seems
insane
, and believe me, when I am telling you that, it’s worth taking seriously, dear girl. I expected you to put forth a real candidate.”

“Can you think of anybody who could really do the job? If Hannah Moses couldn’t manage it, nobody else has a shot, anyway,” Claire said. “Monica will get the votes, just because, well, her brother died in office. And her father. And she’s a Morrell. People mostly just vote for what’s familiar, even if it’s wrong.”

Myrnin gazed at her, and he just looked…miserable. Defeated, really. “Unfortunately, I cannot refute your logic. Then
we’re finished,” he said. “The grand experiment is done, and all hope is lost. I suppose I must make preparations to go away, then.”

“What?”

“Claire, attend: if this madness proceeds unchecked, there is only one way for this to end, and that is in blood, fire, and fury. Amelie and Oliver have formed what psychologists would call a
folie à deux
, and their indulgences will lead to cruelty, and cruelty will lead to slaughter, and worst of all, slaughter will lead to the discovery of vampires in this modern age. I’ve seen it before, and I won’t be caught up in the inevitable aftermath. Best to flee now, before the pitchforks and torches and scientists come calling. That is, if the two of them don’t have a bitter and blackened falling-out first, and destroy the town in their rage.”

“Myrnin!”

“I mean it,” he said. “There is a reason that I’ve tried to keep Amelie and Oliver apart. Opposites do not merely attract. A chemist of your skill should know that quite often, they violently explode. Go while you still can, Claire, and take all your friends. In a matter of weeks, it would not be a fit place for you to call home anyway.” He seemed almost sad now. “I have liked this home. Very much. It grieves me to leave it behind, and I fear I will never find a place that is as tolerant of my…eccentricities.”