Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(28)

“Again with the girl love.”

“I want you to run for mayor.”

Monica jerked, yelped, and blood trickled down her leg. She hissed, rinsed it off, and glared at Claire. “Not funny.”

“Not meant to be,” Claire said. “I’m really serious. People like familiar names, and there’s no name for mayor more familiar than Morrell. Your grandfather was the mayor, your dad, your brother….”

“Look, much as I’d like to be thought of as political royalty, that’s not how it works. People have to actually like you to vote for you. I’m not stupid enough to believe they do.” But she was listening while she soaped her leg again and shaved. Claire had known she would, because there was nothing Monica craved more than power and popular acceptance—and those things came standard with the plaque on the mayor’s door.

“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.”