Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(116)

Michael twisted, hard, and broke something metallic inside the door with a harsh snap. The knob slid out, and he reached into the hole and manipulated things until there was a click and the door yawned open, letting loose a flood of what seemed like a five-hundred-watt spotlight . . . but it was just one bulb, not even remotely bright. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I shut the door behind us. Without the lock, it wasn’t going to do much good, but I followed Michael’s lead and reached into the empty hole where the knob had been to push on metal until the tongue slipped back in place. It’d slow them down, at least.

When I turned to look, I saw we were in a plain metal room. The one bulb was on a swinging chain hanging in the middle of the open space. There was a miniature viewing stand of seats that would hold maybe twenty people, if they were really friendly, and then there was the cage. It was the size of something you’d use for a lion or tiger act, big enough to move around in; it held a cot with a blanket and a pillow, and some kind of pot under the bed I assumed was their version of a portable toilet. Apart from that, it was just iron bars coated with silver, and a single stoutly built wooden chair that was bolted to the floor at the center of the cage.

There were stains on the floor around it, and a few soaked into the wood. Dark stains. I told myself it was chocolate, and left it at that. I was too busy staring at the vampire in the cage.

Because he was just a kid.

I mean, a kid. Maybe twelve, thirteen years old at the most—a thin boy with long legs that he had tented up as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling of the room. He must have heard us coming, but he hadn’t moved, not an inch. From the still way he lay, I’d have thought he was regular dead, but he was the special kind. The kind that could still get up and kill us.

“Hey,” Michael said softly. “You need out of there?”

That made the kid sit up, with a sudden fluidity that made me glad there were bars between him and me; Michael didn’t move like that. Most vampires in Morganville didn’t, because they were trying to fit in, be less alarming to the people they farmed for money and blood. (To their credit, most of the blood donations are voluntary, through the blood bank. It’s sort of like the Mafia, but with fangs.)

Seeing a vampire move like the pure predators they are . . . that was a bit scary. So was the emptiness in this kid’s eyes, the utter lack of interest or emotion. He could have been the lion the cage was meant for, only at least a lion would have more of an opinion.

“Open it,” the kid said, and rattled the door. It was extra sturdy; he couldn’t hold it for more than a second before the silver began to burn him. He was wearing only a ratty, dirty pair of khaki shorts that was two sizes too large for him—no shirt, and his thin chest was as pale as ivory. Veins showed blue underneath the skin, like one of those see-through anatomy dolls. “Open it.” He didn’t even sound angry, or hopeful, or desperate. The words were just as emotionless as his eyes. Most vampires were faking it, to some extent or other, but this kid—I had the eerie idea that he might never have been human at all.

Michael was considering him thoughtfully, although he was putting on the leather gloves he’d brought along in the event of silver. Unlike with the kid, I could read emotion in my honey’s expressions . . . and he looked just as startled and worried about what we were facing as me. “In a second,” he said. “What’s your name?”

The kid blinked, a slow movement like he’d learned it from observation, not nature. “Jeremy,” he said. “My name is Jeremy.”

“Okay, Jeremy,” Michael said, in a soft, calming voice, the way you’d speak to a particularly dangerous-looking wild dog. “Are you hurt?” He got a headshake. “Hungry?”

That got a flat stare for a second, and then Jeremy turned it on me. “Let me have her, and I’ll be fine.”

“Uh, no, creepy kid, really not happening,” I said. “I’m not your lunch.”

Jeremy didn’t even bother to blink this time. Honestly, the kid was scarier than anything I’d seen out there in the carnival.

“Jeremy,” Michael said. He sounded colder now, with an edge; it got the kid’s attention in a flash. “I’m here to get you out, but you so much as look at her again, much less touch her, and I’ll walk away and leave you to rot. Understood?”

Jeremy tilted his head a little to the side, considering Michael, and then said, “If that’s what you want, then I won’t touch her.”

“Swear,” I said. “Pinkie swear.”

He shrugged. “I swear.” I didn’t hear any particular meaning in it, which wasn’t good, but we didn’t have a wealth of choices. Amelie’s instructions were to bring the weird kid back with us, not leave him here. Michael was doing his best.

“Go watch the door,” Michael said to me, and I nodded and backed off to stand next to it. That not-so-coincidentally put a lot of space between me and Jeremy, with Michael in the middle between us. I watched as Michael put gloved hands on the bars, got a firm grip, and applied pressure. He was strong, but the bars just groaned and held. Jeremy watched with interest but no emotion as Michael panted, shook off the strain, and tried again. I winced when I saw the pain on his face; the stuff was burning him even through the gloves.

“Michael,” I said. “Did you see any tools out there?” Because this crew didn’t seem like the type to be neat about putting things away. He took a step back from the cage, stripped off his gloves, and I saw that beneath them his hands were swollen and pink with burns. Ouch. Very high silver content.