Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(22)

If I’d had the machine finished, I could have used it. Canceled out her power. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe it would have even canceled out Oliver’s influence on Amelie, made her go back to the old Founder, the one Claire sorely missed.

And maybe it would have only made things worse.

It humbled her to think how much danger Michael had put himself in, for her. And it showed just how much danger there was for all of them. Hannah had been right after all. There wasn’t any point in trying.

In the car, finally, Claire felt safe enough to broach the subject she’d been frantically turning over in her mind during the long walk. “What’s happened to Amelie? She wasn’t like this. Could the draug have, I don’t know, infected her? Done something to her?”

“Maybe,” Michael said. He coughed, and it was a wet sound. Claire cringed. “Maybe it’s got something to do with Oliver; he has the ability to influence people. She always kept him at a distance before. Now it’s as though they’re channeling Sid and Nancy.”

“Who?”

Michael groaned. “It’s sad how much you don’t know about music, Claire. Sid Vicious? The Sex Pistols?”

“Oh, him.”

“You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”

She smiled a little. “Not the least little bit.”

“Remind me to play you some songs later. But anyway, if Myrnin said things were spinning out of control, he’s not wrong. Amelie doesn’t use that power she just pulled out on me, not unless things are really critical. Never just for her own personal amusement.” He shuddered, and finally said, in a quiet voice, “She could have killed me, Claire. At least the part of me that isn’t pure vampire. She could have made me into—I don’t know, her meat puppet or something. She’s got power like nobody else.”

Claire swallowed, suddenly and sharply uneasy again. “But she didn’t do it.”

“This time,” he said. “What if she decides that’s the only way to make me obey the way she wants? I don’t want to live like that, if she crushes everything in me that’s me. Promise me, you and Shane, you’ll…take care of it. If it happens.”

“It won’t.”

“Promise.”

“God, Michael!”

He was silent for a second, then said, “I’ll ask Shane.” Because they both knew Shane would understand that request, probably far too well.

And that he’d say yes.

“It’s not going to happen,” Claire said. “No way in hell, Michael. We won’t let it happen.”

He didn’t tell her that it probably wouldn’t be a thing she could control, but she already knew it anyway. She just felt better, and more in control, for saying it.

The drive to the blood bank was quiet, and Claire faced toward the blacked-out passenger window. In the aftermath of all the adrenaline, she felt numb, and exhausted, and—weirdly enough—really hungry. Michael went inside the back of the blood bank, through the vamps-only entrance, and came back with a small handheld cooler, which he handed her. She put it on the floor between her feet. “Blood supply’s running low,” he said. “They’ll be sending out the Bloodmobile to collect tomorrow. Is Shane paid up?”

“Is he ever?” Claire rolled her eyes. “I’ll get him in voluntarily in the morning. I’ll donate, too.” Claire, by Amelie’s decree, had historically been free of the responsibility of giving blood, which was the tax humans paid in Morganville from age eighteen up; she’d been underage before, but even now that she was legal, she didn’t have to contribute. She still did, mainly because the hospitals, not the vampires, were the ones that ran short in an emergency.

Shane had pointedly not been excluded from the tax rolls. Probably because of how much trouble he’d historically been in, in Morganville.

Michael sighed. “Do you mind if I…?”

Claire opened the cooler and took out one of the blood bags. It was slightly warm, and heavy, and she tried to pretend it was a bag of colored water, one of those prop things they used in television shows.

But she still looked away when he bit into it.

It took only about a minute for him to drain it dry, and he looked around for a place to put the empty, then let her take it and return it to the cooler. “Sorry,” he said. His apology sounded genuine. “I know that’s probably not what you needed to see right now.”

“All eating is gross,” Claire said, “but we all have to do it. Anyway, I’m starving. Is Chico’s still open?”

“You know if I get you Chico’s, I have to get it for the house, right?”

“I’ll pitch in.”

Chico’s Tacos was a relative newcomer to town, opened by a Morganville resident who’d taken a liking to something he’d tasted out of town in El Paso: delicious rolled tacos, soaked and floating in hot sauce, then topped with shredded cheese. Messy, yeah. Unhealthy, probably. But in taco terms, it was crack. Extra orders were mandatory.

Michael handled drive-through duties, forking over cash and receiving all of the goodies to hand off to Claire. It was still new for them to count five housemates; Miranda was only half-time, in that during the day she was insubstantial, but at night she was very much flesh and blood, able to walk around, talk, do chores, eat dinner…. It made very little sense to Claire, but the Glass House (like all the remaining Founder Houses original to the town) was capable of doing things that her science couldn’t explain, no matter how far out of shape she stretched the boundaries.