Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(63)

“What did you mean?” Shane asked. “Murder it out?”

Rad wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Get all that chrome off it,” he said. “Black it out. Black the wheels. Deep tint. Make it a badass mother—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Shane interrupted. “How much?”

Rad shrugged. “It’s already mostly there. Three hundred.”

“Don’t have it,” Shane said. “Never mind, I guess.”

“Yeah? What you got?”

“One hundred.”

Rad laughed. “For a hundred, I could maybe black out the wheels. Do the chrome. Not the tint.”

“Okay,” Shane said. “When?”

“You got a couple of hours?”

Shane did.

He handed over the keys and walked home, checked on Claire—she was up and walking, though with a pretty significant limp—and made chili dogs for the two of them while she talked about the new weird shit that Myrnin was making her do. It was fascinating, whatever it was. He just liked listening to her talk.

“What?” Claire asked him, stopping in midstream to watch his face. He paused, a chili dog halfway to his mouth. “You’re smiling.”

“I am? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I’m eating. Which does make me happy.”

“That wasn’t a chili dog smile. That was some other kind of smile. An I’ve-got-a-secret smile.”

Damn. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He didn’t want to tell her. He wanted to show her. He was trying not to smile, but dammit, his lips just wouldn’t stop with the curving. “Maybe I just like hearing you talk.” Which was true, but she wouldn’t believe that. Sure enough, she rolled her eyes, let it go, and went back to her Myrnin monologue.

He ate his lunch in silence, smiling the whole time.

? ? ?

Two hours later, he was back at Doug’s Garage, and the Charger was parked outside. If it had been sweet before, it was incredible now. There was a kind of gravity to it, a darkness that just sucked in everything around it, and Rad had been dead-on about murdering it out—the Charger went from a car to something like the Car. In a crowd, it would be the only car.

Huh.

Rad had said he couldn’t do the tinting, not for a hundred, but not only were the chrome and wheels blacked out; the windows sported a new, heavy tint, black as midnight.

Rad emerged from the door in the side of the garage, the one that said OFFICE, and gestured at Shane. He was carrying a big wrench in one hand, and he was half-covered in grease. Shane walked over, digging out a hundred dollars from his very thin bankroll.

He froze, because inside the office sat a vampire.

“Shane Collins,” the vampire said, and stood up to extend a hand. “My name is Grantham Vance. Good to finally meet you.” He smiled, no fangs in evidence, which didn’t make him one bit less a vamp. “You’re getting to be quite a legend in Morganville, you know.”

Vance was medium tall, medium broad, with skin that had probably been dark olive when he was alive. It was now sort of a sickly almost-gray, which made his big dark eyes glow even brighter. He had brown hair cut into a kind of Roman style, something antique and weird.

He wore a Western plaid shirt, with pearl snap buttons, a pair of blue jeans, and cowboy boots. Lizard.

In short, he just looked completely . . . wrong.

Shane didn’t answer him. He looked at Rad. “What’s going on?”

Rad looked uncomfortable. “Mr. Vance, he sort of owns the place,” Rad said. “He dropped in, you know, to look around. He saw your car.”

“Beautiful machine,” Vance said. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for it.” He reached in his pocket and peeled off hundreds. Ten of them.

Shane swallowed and said, “It’s not for sale.”

“No?” Vance peeled off another three. “Really?”

“I just got it!”

“Of course.” More hundreds. Shane had lost count. “I’ve always wanted a car like that. Oh, and I had Rad put on the vampire-quality tinting, so really, it’s of no use to you now, is it? You can’t even see to drive.” Vance lost his smile, and what was left really wasn’t good. Not good at all. “Take the money, Collins.”

Rad shifted uncomfortably. He was still holding the wrench in one hand, and he was too big a guy to fight, even unarmed. “Just do it,” he said. “Sorry, man. I didn’t know this would happen. Walk away.”

That would have been the smart thing to do. Take the money. Leave the car. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten used to having it yet.

“No,” Shane said. “Take the tint off.”

Rad looked deeply worried now. “Don’t play that way. Just let him have it.”

“I’m not playing. That’s my car. I’ve got the title to prove it. It’s not for sale. Take the tint off.”

Vance stopped counting money. Shane tried not to imagine how much there was in his hand. “Really.”

“Yeah, really,” Shane said.

Vance shook his head. “Stupid, boy. Very stupid. I’d give you the cash to buy any car you liked.”

“I like this one.”

“So do I. And my wishes rule, in Morganville.” Their eyes met, and locked, and Shane felt himself getting dizzy. He braced himself against the wall and held on, somehow, until the vampire looked away first. “You really are a fool,” Vance said. “Mr. Radovic.”