Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(74)

“Would it be too much if I said, Bitch, please?”

“Probably.”

“Consider my manly silence an answer, then.”

The banter sounded normal, but underneath there was fear—fear from both of them. For each other, and maybe even about each other. After a second or two of silence, Shane said, “Hey, Mikey?”

“Yeah, man.”

“So you’re not a vampire.”

“I’d have let you know ahead of time, but it happened pretty fast.”

“I think that just saved your life,” Shane said, and leaned his head back against the seat. “They sent me to hunt Amelie down, but you’ve got her blood in you—had her blood in you. I can still kind of smell it, but it’s faded now.”

“You’d have killed me?”

“I’d have tried really hard not to, if that’s any help.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He looked tired, Claire thought, and her heart ached for him. “Can’t swear I wouldn’t have, though. It was hard enough holding off to let Claire go, and let Amelie escape.”

“She got out?” Claire leaned forward and put her hand against his face. He still felt feverishly hot. “I know that was hard for you. I saw how much it hurt you to let me go when I—”

“Yeah, about that . . . Next time you decide to take a bath in the Founder’s blood when you know there are hellhounds like me out to track her—”

“Wait, what?” Eve interrupted, and twisted, as much as she could, to look at Claire. “What did you do?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Claire asked, and smiled, just a little. “It gave her a chance to get away.”

And Shane smiled back. “Yes. Yes, it did.”

The car flashed by the billboard. Claire didn’t know how fast they were going, but she was willing to bet it was approaching the speed of sound from the wind buffeting they were taking. She’d had no idea Amanda’s beater of a vehicle could go this fast, and she was fairly sure it had never tried it before, because it was shimmying something awful.

She didn’t even see the police cruiser parked in the shadows beneath the sign until it came careening out onto the road behind them, trailing an airborne plume of dust. The flashers popped on, and the howl of a siren split the night.

“Hold on!” Michael said, and the car seemed to go even faster. It hardly mattered, though; the police cruiser was built for intercepts, and it was gaining on them. It was another two miles to the next intersection, but all of the roads out here were straight and boring, with nowhere to hide, no traffic to use for cover.

“You’re going to blow the engine on this thing!” Shane yelled over the roar of the wind. Claire felt like her hair was lashing her face raw. “Mike, you can’t outrun him!”

“Can’t outgun him, either!” Michael shot back. “And I’m not bulletproof anymore. Are you?”

“No, but they are,” Shane said, and pointed behind him at the unresponsive forms of Oliver and Ayesha. “Wake them up.”

“How?” Claire yelled back.

“Have you tried blood?”

Crap. She hadn’t even thought about that, but it made sense. They would be hungry, and maybe, just maybe, they needed a blood catalyst to fight their way out of their comas.

And maybe when they woke up, they wouldn’t stop at just a taste, either. It was risky, but they needed an advantage, fast, and it was the only thing Claire could think of at the moment. “Glove compartment,” she said. “I need something sharp.”

Shane was way ahead of her, pulling a knife from his belt. She hadn’t even known it was there, but of course he was armed. Wasn’t he always? “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t trust them, and use that knife if you have to.”

It was, of course, edged in silver plate. “What about you? Will you be okay? I mean, they’re vampires and you’re . . .”

“A friggin’ werewolf vampire hunter? Yeah, I know. I’m still primed to go after Amelie, not specifically targeted on these two right now, so it should be relatively okay. If it isn’t, I’ll deal with it. Eve has permission to whack me over the head or something.”

“Goody,” Eve said. “Always wanted your permission for that.”

She was not, Claire noticed, looking as bad as she had been, and the nausea seemed to be subsiding. Maybe whatever they’d spiked the blood with was finally starting to dissipate.

They were chattering because they were scared, and Claire knew it because she was scared, too. She was sweating, her heart was hammering, her mouth felt dry, and her tongue scraped like leather. The wind whipping into her face made it hard to focus, and she wished she had glasses to protect her eyes from the blowing, ever-present dust.

Just do it already.

She put the knife to the meaty part of the palm of her hand, below the thumb, and sliced. Fresh blood spurted out, and she gasped at the hot bite of pain, then turned to Oliver and pried his mouth open. Inside, it was dry and pale.

She squeezed blood into his mouth.

Nothing happened.

Dammit. “Come on,” she said under her breath, her words lost in the roar of the wind hammering through the car. “Come on, swallow, just swallow . . .” She milked more blood from the wound until there was a shallow pool of it in his mouth, then closed his jaw and tilted his head back.