Dead Girls' Dance

“Is that so?’” A new voice, from behind the cops, and they parted ranks to admit two strangers. Detectives, it looked like, in sport jackets and slacks. One was a woman, frost pale, with eyes like mirrors. The other one was a tall man with gray close-cropped hair.

They were wearing gold badges on their belts. So. Detectives.

Vampire detectives.

Eve had gone very still, hands folded in her lap. She looked carefully friendly. “Yes, ma’am,’” she said. “That’s what happened.’”

“And you have no idea who these mysterious intruders might have been,’” said the male vamp. He looked—scary. Cold and hard and scary. “Never saw them before.’”

“We didn’t see them at all, sir.’”

“Because you were—locked in your room.’” He smiled, and flashed fang. Clear warning. “I can smell fear. You give it off like the stench of your sweat. Delicious.’”

Claire fought back an urge to whimper. The human cops had backed up a step; one or two looked uncomfortable, but they weren’t about to interfere with whatever was about to happen. Which—was nothing, right? There were rules and stuff. And they were the victims!

Then again, she didn’t suppose the vamps cared all that much for victims.

“Leave them alone,’” Shane said.

“It speaks!’” the woman said, and laughed. She sank down into a crouch, elegant and perfectly balanced, and tried to peer into Shane’s face. “A knight-errant, defending the helpless. Charming.’” She had an old-world accent, sort of like blurred German. “Do you not trust us, little knight? Are we not your friends?’”

“That depends,’” Shane said, and looked right at her. “You take your orders from Oliver, or the Founder? Because if you touch us—any of us—you have to take it up with her. You know who I mean.’”

She lost her amused expression.

Her partner made a noise, halfway between a bark of laughter and a growl. “Careful, Gretchen, he snaps. Just like a half-grown puppy. Boy, you don’t know what you’re saying. The Founder’s mark is on the house, yes, but I see no bands on your wrists. Don’t be stupid and make bold claims you can’t back up.’”

“Bite me, Dracula,’” Shane snapped.

Gretchen laughed. “A wolf pup,’” she said. “Oh, I like him, Hans. May I have him, since he’s a stray?’”

One of the uniformed cops cleared his throat. “Ma’am? Sorry, but I can’t allow that. You want to file the paperwork, I’ll see what I can do, but—’”

Gretchen made a frustrated noise and came back to her feet. “Paperwork. Fah. In the old days we would have run him down like a deer for insolence.’”

“In the old days, Gretchen, we were starving,’” Hans said. “Remember? The winters in Bavaria? Let him howl.’” He shrugged and gave Eve and Claire a smile that looked a little less terrifying than before. “Sorry. Gretchen gets carried away. Now, you’re sure none of you knew these intruders? Morganville’s not that big a town. We’re all pretty close-knit, especially the human community.’”

“Strangers,’” Eve said. “I think they might have been strangers. Maybe just…passing through.’”

“Passing through,’” Hans repeated. “We don’t get a lot of casual visitors. Even biker gangs.’” He studied them each in turn, and while his eyes were on her Claire felt as if she were being x-rayed. Surely he couldn’t really see her thoughts, right? Hans finished with his gaze on Shane, fixed and dark. “Your name.’”

“Shane,’” he said. “Shane Collins.’”

“You left Morganville with your family a few years ago, yes? What brought you back?’”

“My friend Michael needed a roommate.’” Shane’s eyes flickered, and Claire realized that he’d just made a mistake. A big one.

“Michael Glass. Ah, yes, the mysterious Michael. Never around when anyone comes calling during the day, but always present at night. Tell me, is Michael a vampire?’”

“Wouldn’t you know?’” Shane shot back. “Last I heard, nobody had made a new vampire in fifty years or more.’”

“True.’” Hans nodded. “Yet it’s curious, isn’t it? That your friend seems so hard to keep around?’”

They knew. They knew something, anyway; Claire supposed Oliver would have no reason to keep secrets, especially Michael’s secrets. He’d probably blabbed it to all of his minions that Michael was a ghost, caught between worlds—not quite vampire, not quite human, not quite anything.

“It’s night,’” Gretchen pointed out. “So where is he? Your friend?’”

Shane swallowed, and it was hard to miss the wave of misery that went through him. “He’s around.’”

“Around where, exactly?’”

Claire exchanged a look of dread with Eve. Shane still thought Michael was dead, buried in the backyard…and Michael had been pretty firm on the idea that Shane shouldn’t know….

“I don’t know,’” Shane said. The tips of his ears were turning red.

Hans the Detective smiled slowly. “You don’t know much, son. And yet you look like you’re not completely stupid, so how exactly does that work? Did you hide in the room with the girls?’” He leaned on the last word, and his vampire partner laughed.

Shane got up. There was something insane in his eyes, and Claire felt her heart stop beating because this was bad, very bad, and Shane was going to do something horribly unwise, and there was no way they could stop him….

“You’re looking for me?’”

They all turned.

Michael was standing at the top of the stairs. He was pulling on a plain black T-shirt with blue jeans, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His feet, Claire saw, were bare as usual.

Shane sat down. Fast and hard. Michael took his time coming down the stairs, making sure they were all focused on him instead of Shane, to give Shane time to get through what he was feeling—which was, Claire thought, a lot to pack into less than thirty seconds. Relief, of course, which brought a sheen of tears to his eyes. And then, predictably, he got pissed, because, well, he was a guy, he was Shane, and that was how he handled being scared.

So, really, by the time Michael padded down the last step to the wooden floor and crossed over to the couch through the circle of police, things were pretty much just as they’d been, except that Shane wasn’t about to push the button on his nuclear temper.

“Hey,’” Michael said to him. Shane moved over on the couch to make room. Guy room, which left plenty of empty space. “What’s up?’”

Shane looked at him like he might be crazy, not just nearly dead part-time. “Cops, man.’”

“Yeah, man, I can see that. How come?’”

“You’re telling me you actually slept through all that? Dude, you need to see a doctor or something. Maybe you have a disease.’”

“Hey, I need the sleep. Lisa, you know.’” Michael gri

“You weren’t aware of intruders in your home?’” asked Gretchen, who’d been watching the exchange—and the correspondingly shrinking chance of bloodshed—with disappointment. “The others described it as quite loud.’”

“He can sleep through World War Three,’” Shane said. “I told you, it’s some kind of sickness or something.’”

“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was,’” Hans said. “Wasn’t he in his room?’”

Shane shrugged. “I’m not his keeper.’”

“Ah,’” Gretchen said, and smiled. “That is where you are wrong, little knight. You are all your brothers’ keepers here in Morganville, and you can all suffer for their crimes. Which you should know and remember.’”

Hans looked bored now. “Sergeant,’” he said, and the most senior uniformed cop stepped out of the ranks. “I leave this in your hands. If you find anything out of the ordinary, let us know.’”

Just like that, the vamps were gone. They moved fast, and silently; they didn’t seem to want to blend in much, Claire thought, and tried not to tremble. She sank down on the couch beside Shane, nearly crawling into his lap. Eve crowded in between the two boys.