Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(73)

Shane was still twenty feet away, but that was close enough to see Bishop’s lips part in a smile like the edges of a knife wound. Bishop was, frighteningly, even more horrible than he remembered—stringy white hair clinging to his scalp like it hadn’t been washed, ever; gray, dirty clothes; a face so white and sharp it hardly looked human at all.

“If it isn’t the Collins boy,” Bishop said. His voice sounded rusty. “I would have thought your father’s example had taught you to mind your manners. No matter. I won’t waste my time on turning you into one of my own. I’ll just settle for having you dead at my feet.”

“Nice fantasy,” Shane said, and kept walking. His heart was thumping so fast and hard it hurt. “Never happen, sucker. Come on. Show me what you got, you lame old—”

He didn’t have time to finish the insult, because Bishop dropped the girl’s wrist and flew at him in a blur. Shane took a running step—not back, but toward him—and threw himself flat on the concrete in a slide as Bishop’s leap carried the vampire over him. Shane twisted and rolled to his feet as Bishop landed, ten feet too far, and twirled the stake again. He was breathless, and his whole body was screaming at him to run, dammit, but he covered it with a wolfish grin and a come on gesture as he twirled the stake. When Bishop let out a low, unsettling growl and lowered his fangs, Shane started backing away. Strategically. Keeping Bishop’s back to the red-haired girl . . .

. . . who was caught up by another running blur, which didn’t slow down as it whipped through the air toward a gap in the back wall. Bishop’s private entrance, most likely. Go, Mikey, Shane thought, and then he didn’t have time for thinking because he had the world’s oldest, meanest vampire on his ass, and Bishop meant business.

Shane tried to keep away, and he dodged a swipe of Bishop’s sharp fingernails that would have gutted him; his feet felt clumsy, even fueled by adrenaline and terror. Bishop was fast, very fast, faster than Michael, maybe. Human agility wasn’t enough.

As Bishop’s hand closed on Shane’s arm and yanked him forward, Shane figured he was pretty much already dead. It was only a matter of how it would happen . . . drained and left some dry corpse, or ripped apart in a bloody spree. On the whole, Shane thought maybe the ripping thing was better, but then, he’d never actually had time to give it much thought. His arm would break first, and then . . . then . . .

Then, suddenly, a silver shower of dust exploded around Bishop like fireworks, glittering dully in the fluorescent lights, and Shane blinked and coughed as it hit him, too. About one second later, Bishop’s grip on his arm loosened, and the red-rimmed eyes widened, and Bishop’s mouth split open in a scream.

His hair caught fire around his head in a weird flaming halo. Shane pulled his arm free and stumbled backward, his brain just catching up with what he was seeing.

Bishop, on fire where the fine silvery powder had hit him. As Bishop whirled to see who’d thrown it, Shane saw Michael standing ten feet behind him, arm still extended from the throw. There were burn marks on his palm.

Now, Shane thought, and as Bishop started to lurch toward his best friend, Shane brought up the stake and lunged, fast. He didn’t let himself think about it, or try to direct what he was doing. Sometimes, his body just knew these things.

Sometimes, it was better if the mind stayed out of its way.

The stake hit Bishop in the back on the left side, punched in through the still-burning skin, and slammed straight into Bishop’s heart.

Shane fell backward, slapping out the flames that had caught on the sleeves of his jacket, as Bishop screamed and danced madly in place, trying to reach the stake that had pierced his heart . . . and then slowly toppled to his knees, then forward onto his face.

He was too old to die quickly. In fact, Shane wasn’t sure even silver would do it—but he hoped. Man, he really, really hoped.

Shane stayed where he was, lying propped on his elbows and watching the vampire, but nothing happened. Bishop didn’t pop up, snarling; the silver burned him, but not really very much. It was like a slow, reluctant sizzle around the stake.

Bishop blinked, very slowly.

Not dead. Not yet.

Michael came to Shane’s side and offered him a hand.

“We should cut his head off,” Shane said, not taking the hand. Michael didn’t pull it back.

“Not ours to do,” he said. “But promise me something.”

“What?”

Michael’s face looked so pale, so strange in the greenish glare of the lights. “Promise me you’ll do it for me if I become like him.”

Shane hesitated, then reached up and took his hand, and let Michael pull him up to his feet. “You won’t,” he said, and didn’t let go. “You won’t, bro. I won’t let you.”

He let go. They tapped fists, and nodded. It was a bargain.

There was a sound of engines outside, and squealing brakes, and in under five seconds the place was swarming with guys in stark black suits and ties and sunglasses, all with vamp-pale faces and weapons. They surrounded Shane and Michael, and the inert—but not dead—corpse of Bishop.

Nobody said anything.

The newcomers parted ranks, and a woman dressed in white walked through like she owned the place, which technically she probably did. She was carrying the little red-haired girl, who had her chubby arms around the woman’s long, elegant neck. The Ice Queen, which was Shane’s private nickname for her.