Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(51)

Jesse was talking as Myrnin came sliding the rest of the way out of the pipe. “You brought her here? I have to ask, did you just crave a snack, or do you have some clever plan to save her life? Because you know the mood in here.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I also know her life wasn’t worth a dried fig out there in Morganville. Better here where her allies might be able to protect her than out there, dodging enemies all alone.”

“As if she doesn’t have any enemies here?”

He shrugged. “None that matter. Oliver is not unfond of the girl, and there are many who have some graceful experience of her. She might have a few who’d be happy to feast, but not so many we can’t stop them.”

“We?” Jesse crossed her arms and stared at him, her head cocked. “Assuming a lot, aren’t we, dear madman?”

“A fair amount,” he admitted. “But needs must, from time to time, assume things. And I believe that I can count on you, my lady.” He gave her a very elegant bow that was only a little spoiled by the slime that covered him. Jesse, for her part, didn’t laugh. Much. She responded with a curtsy only a little spoiled by the fact that she was wearing blue jeans and a tight T-shirt instead of fancy court clothes.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll play along and help keep fangs out of our little friend. Bad news: Fallon’s here. He blew in like a bad wind a few moments ago. I think he’s discovered that Amelie made it out alive.”

“Then he’s not pleased.”

“Oh, no,” Jesse said, with a broad, tight smile. “We’ve all been summoned to the bottom floor for questioning. You’ll need to clean yourself off before they discover how it is you’re getting out, though I think you’ve ruined all the extra clothes by now.”

He shrugged that off with magnificent indifference. “I’ll find something.”

“I’m quite sure you will,” she agreed. “Let me scrounge something for you. I might do a better job of matching colors, at least.”

He gave her a wry slice of a smile, and between one blink and the next, Jesse was just . . . gone. It was her and Myrnin, alone in a room that was, Claire realized, sort of a bedroom. There were two camp beds in it, at least, each with a neatly folded thin blanket on it. Nothing else in the room, though—no personal effects of any kind. It could have been anybody’s room, or no one’s.

“Jesse will be back in a moment,” Myrnin said. “She’s right. If they’ve ordered us below, then I need to clean up quickly. If anyone comes to bite you while I’m gone—well, try not to attract attention. Die quietly.”

“I can defend myself, you know.”

“With your bare hands, against hungry, bored, angry vampires? Claire. You know I think well of you, but that is really not your best problem-solving work.” He shook his head as if very disappointed with her lack of vision. “At least the offal you’re covered in will disguise the scent of your blood for now. Just stay quiet and still, and you ought to be fine. Besides, I doubt anyone’s hungry enough to bite you while you’re quite so . . . filthy.”

She was pretty sure there was something insulting in there, but it was also comforting.

Myrnin disappeared, just as Jesse had, and Claire was left standing alone in the dim, quiet room. She hadn’t seen him do it, but Myrnin had replaced the grate over the pipe they’d used to enter; she went over and tested it, but it didn’t budge, and she realized that he’d bent it into place. Nobody would realize it was anything but solid, not even on close inspection. It would take vampire strength to even begin to pry it loose.

Was that how Amelie had gotten out? Through the slime? Somehow Claire couldn’t imagine Her Immaculateness sliding through the ooze on her way out, or making her way across Morganville looking like a refugee from the Nickelodeon Awards. One thing vampires were big on was dignity.

She was deep in contemplation of the vent and its implications when she realized that she had a visitor. It wasn’t Myrnin. It wasn’t even Jesse.

It was Michael.

She flinched, because he was just right there, no warning, no sound. He wasn’t usually like that, so . . . vampiric. In the house, Michael always took special care to make sure they heard him coming, and she’d never bothered to wonder before if that took a lot of extra effort for him—if he felt as if he was forced to be embarrassingly clumsy around them, just to avoid scaring the crap out of them in the kitchen or the hallway.

Then in the next split second she realized that he certainly hadn’t bothered this time, and there was something in the way he was watching her—the utter stillness of his body and face—that made her feel deeply uneasy.

“Michael?” She almost blurted out you scared me, but that was blindingly obvious from the way she’d jumped and from the no doubt deafening sound of her racing heartbeat. Her pulse should have been slowing down after the first instant of alarm/recognition, but instead it continued drumming right on, as if her body knew something her mind didn’t.

She didn’t move. That took a lot of effort, actually, because those same instincts insisting to her that she was scared were also wanting her to take at least a couple of steps back. Large steps, at that.

Michael said, “I lied to Eve.”

As totally confusing openings went, that was a new one—both unexpected and ominous. “Um . . . okay. About what?”