Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(40)
Channing evidently lost interest, since Shane wasn’t being horrified anymore. The dog sniffed the carpet, then trotted off to munch miniature crumbs of food from a tiny pink bowl that was decorated with a jeweled crown.
“What do you want from me?” Monica asked them. “Because you know I’m not going to get myself arrested or anything. Not for the two of you, for God’s sake. That would just be epically pathetic.”
“First of all, we need a ride,” Shane said. “To our house. Can you manage that, Princess Picky?”
She shot him the finger and finished her bourbon, and Claire winced. That was two shots of bourbon that she’d witnessed, and from the way Monica was moving—not quite wobbling on her high heels, but definitely fluid—there was no way she was sober. “I’ll drive,” she said.
“Oh hell you will not,” Monica said, and snatched up the keys—on a pink jeweled ring, of course—from the coffee table. Which was white, with pink curlicues. “Nobody drives my car but me.”
“Maybe you ought to not try to drive with the gun in the other hand,” Shane said. Monica looked down at her right fingers, still curled around the purse gun, and seemed faintly surprised. She shrugged and put it down next to the bourbon. Claire had a sudden, sadly hilarious vision of Monica in thirty years—bloated, saggy, drunk, and armed, sitting in this still-pink apartment.
While Monica was drunkenly focused on putting the gun down, Claire plucked the keys from her fingers. Shane was up and moving at the same time, and as Monica fumbled to pick up the weapon again, he slid it out of her reach. She tried to punch him, but he ducked and weaved gracefully, avoiding her as easily as breathing. “You’re not driving,” Claire said. “But thanks for the car, and you can come with us, because I don’t want you calling the cops on us for grand theft auto.”
Monica pouted. It was pretty obvious turning them in had immediately bounced to the top of her to-do list. “Give me back my gun.”
“Obviously that’s a no,” Shane said.
“It’s an heirloom!” He gave her a look. “Fine,” she said. “But this isn’t over.”
“It never is, with you,” he said. “Just don’t make trouble and we’ll all get along fine.”
Claire sincerely doubted that, but she opened Monica’s apartment door and checked outside. There was no sign of the police cruiser; it had moved on to new territory. “Hurry,” she said, and led the way. Shane kept Monica ahead of him, with one hand gripping her upper arm tightly—half to keep her steady on those heels and half to ensure she wasn’t going to bolt and raise hell. But she kept quiet and got into the passenger seat as Claire took the driver’s side. “What?” she demanded, when Shane stood there in the doorway, frowning at her. “Seriously? You are not getting shotgun in my car, loser.”
“At least I can get a choke hold on you easier from back here,” he said as he got in the back. “Silver linings.”
“Touch me and die. And don’t scratch it,” Monica said, and leveled a stiff index finger at Claire. Behind it, her eyes were bright with bourbon and malice. “I’ll cut you twice for every dent.”
After having driven Shane’s beast of a car, this was a piece of cake, really—automatic transmission, smooth steering, posh leather interior. Claire had been ready to hate Monica’s car, but it felt . . . well, it felt great. Maybe being rich wasn’t so bad, if you could avoid being a bitch along with it.
She made Monica scream a little by steering way too close to a rusty trash can, but she missed it by inches and swung out of the parking lot onto the main road. It was risky, riding around in this open car (Monica, of course, had a convertible), but they didn’t have time to put the top up, and anyone who knew Monica would know she never put it up anyway unless it was raining.
Which it so rarely did, in Morganville.
In fact, the night was clear and cool and full of stars—so many stars glittering overhead in the cold black sky that it seemed oddly unreal. The moon was only half full, but it still shed a fiercely focused light, giving edges sharp corners and shadows their own density. It tingled on Claire’s exposed skin like that menthol rub her mom had always put on her when she’d coughed. The difference was that Morganville smelled not medicinal but dusty, with a curious note of raw lumber.
It smelled to her like sunburns felt, and she had a strange moment of thinking that the sunlight the Daylighters worshipped so hard would dry them into parched husks, to be blown away by the constant desert winds.
It wasn’t a long drive to the Glass House, but anxiety continued to beat in her chest like an animal trying to claw free. She expected to see Eve’s hearse pulled up in front, or on the side, but instead she saw a couple of beat-up pickups lining the street in front of the house—never a good sign. She whipped the wheel hard and sent Monica’s convertible squealing in a sharp right, up the house’s gravel driveway. Monica yelped at the sound of the rocks thrown by the tires hitting the undercarriage with glassy pings. “Hey!” she said, and glared as Claire hit the brakes hard, bringing them to a sliding stop. “Where did you learn to drive, freak?”
“Myrnin’s school of demolition driving,” Shane said, which wasn’t true, but it was funny, and Claire didn’t correct him. “Right, thanks for the ride, let’s not do it again, thanks for not making me kill you.”