Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(111)

“Have you tried it?” I asked him. “You should. It’s really—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, once I’d started it. “—fierce,” I finally said. An Eve word. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it meant in the way she used it, but it seemed right.

Evidently, Oliver didn’t really understand the usage, either, because he gave me a long stare, one that could have melted concrete. “Our major difficulty seems to be in convincing the elders to use it,” he said. “Most of them are not familiar with the concept of identification cards, much less credit cards, and machines confuse them.”

“I’ll bet,” Eve put in. “Not much call for Cokes among the fang gang, I guess.”

“Well, I like Coke,” I said. Amelie smiled, very slightly.

“As do I, Michael. But I fear we’re in the minority.” There was something guarded in her eyes, a little worried. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Great,” I said, probably too quickly. “I feel great.”

Oliver exchanged a fast glance with her, and gave an almost invisible shrug. “Then we should be going,” he said. “Matters to discuss.”

It was dismissal, and I was happy to grab Eve’s hand and walk on while the other two headed the other way. Oliver always bothered me; partly it was his eviler-than-thou attitude, and partly it was that I could never quite shake the memory of how I’d met him . . . how he’d come across as a nice, genuine guy, and turned on me. That had been before anyone in Morganville had known who he was, or how dangerous he could be.

And he’d killed me. Part of the way, anyway; he hadn’t left me much choice in becoming what I was now. Maybe he thought of that as a fair trade.

I still didn’t.

A tremor of adrenaline surged through me—hunting instinct. It took me a second to realize that there was a complicated mixture of things happening inside of me: hatred boiling up for Oliver, well beyond what I normally felt; hunger, although I shouldn’t have been hungry at all; and last, most unsettlingly, I felt the steady, seductive pulse beat of Eve’s blood through our clasped hands.

It was a moment that made me shiver and go abruptly very still, eyes shut, as I tried to master all of those warring, violent impulses. I heard Eve asking me something, but I shut her out. I shut everything out, concentrating on staying me, staying Michael, staying human, at least for now.

And finally, I fumbled in my pocket and popped open the aluminum can of O negative, and the taste was metal and meat, soothing the beast that was trying to claw its way free inside. I couldn’t let it out, not here, not with Eve.

The taste of the blood silenced it for a moment, and then it roared back, shockingly stronger than ever.

I dropped the can and heard it clatter on the pavement. Eve’s warm hands were around my face, and her voice was in my ears, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

When I opened my eyes, all I saw was red, with vague smeared shapes of anything that wasn’t prey. Eve, on the other hand, glowed a bright silver.

Eve was a target, and I couldn’t resist her. I couldn’t. I had to satisfy this hunger, fast.

I gasped and pushed her backward, and before she could do more than call my name in alarm, I spun and ran through the dark, red night.

? ? ?

I didn’t know where I was headed, but as I ran, one thing took over, guiding me more by instinct than by design. When I saw the shining, warm targets of human beings out there in the dark, I avoided them; it was hard, maybe the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I managed.

I stopped in the shadows, not feeling tired at all, or winded, only anxious and more jittery than ever. The run hadn’t burned it off; if anything, it had made things worse.

I was standing in front of the Morganville Blood Bank. This was the entrance in the front, the donation part, and it was closed for the night. Blessedly, there weren’t any people around for me to be a danger to, at least right now.

I turned and ran down the side alley, effortlessly jumping over barriers of empty boxes and trash cans, and came around the back. Unlike the front, this part of the building was hopping with activity—human shapes coming and going, but they didn’t have that silvery glow I’d become so familiar with. All vampires, this side, and none of them were paying attention to me until I got close, shoved a few aside, and made it to the waiting room.

The vending machine stood there in the center of the room. A few people were doubtfully studying it, trying to make up their minds whether to try it, but I shoved them out of the way, too. I swiped my card; when it didn’t immediately work, I swiped it again and randomly punched buttons when they lit up. It took forever for the mechanism to work, and the can to be delivered.

Working the tiny pop top seemed impossible. I punched my fingers through the side and lifted it, bathing in the gush of liquid. It no longer tasted like metal. Warm from the can, it tasted like life. All the life I could handle.

“Michael,” someone said, and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned and punched him, hard enough to break a human’s neck, but it didn’t do much except make the other vampire step back. I grabbed my card again and swiped it, but it was slippery in my fingers, damp with the red residue from the can, which had gotten all over me. I wiped it on my jeans and tried it again. The lights flashed. Nothing happened. “Michael, it won’t work again. You used all today’s credits.”