Midnight Alley

Which, for all Claire knew, might be true, but she was sure that wasn't why Michael had cut out on them. Shane steered them up to the counter and snagged a sealed bottled water for Claire and two sealed beers, which he opened himself. Not taking any chances, Claire thought, and cracked the top on the bottle to take several gulps of the cool, sweet water. She hadn't realized how hot it was until then, but she could feel sweat sticking her flocked mesh shirt to her exposed skin.

Somebody grabbed her ass. Claire yelped and jumped, turned and saw a drunk-off-his-butt frat boy leaning in next to her. "Oh baby, me like!" he yelled in her ear. "You, me, outside, okay?" He did a drunken pantomime of what he was thinking of doing outside, and she felt a hot roll of embarrassed shame.

"Get lost," she said, and shoved him off. His buddies tossed him back toward her, and this time, he crashed into her off balance and pushed her up against the bar. He took advantage of it, too, hands all over her, hips grinding her right into the counter.

Shane grabbed him by the collar of his TPU golf shirt, spun him around, and punched him right in the face.

Great, Claire thought in shaken disgust. That's always the answer around here. Punch somebody. Then again, she didn't think reasoned discourse was going to be big tonight.

And of course, the guy's friends piled on. Eve grabbed Claire's hand and pulled her out of the way; a tight circle formed around the combat, with people whooping and clapping. "We have to stop him!" Claire yelled. Eve patted her on the shoulder.

"This is Shane's idea of a good time," she said. "Trust me. You do not want to try to stop him right now. Let him do his thing. He'll be fine."

Claire hated it. She hated seeing Shane get hit, and she didn't much like the way his eyes lit up when he was knee-deep in conflict, either. Stupid to be upset by it, she guessed, considering this was part of why she was so attracted to Shane in the first place — the way he would unhesitatingly throw himself into things, especially when it came to protecting others.

Eve was practically reading her mind. "Let him be who he is," she said. "I know it's hard, because in general, guys are clueless and you just want to fix it, but just — let him be. You don't want him trying to change you, right?"

Right. She didn't, although he was changing her, whether he knew it or not. Not in bad ways, she thought. Just ... change. A year ago she'd have been paralyzed with terror at the idea of coming to a party like this, and even more terrified to imagine being groped by a stranger like that.

Now, she was mostly just a

Eve whirled. "Hey! I know my ass is fine, but look, don't touch!" An eruption of drunken laughter. She took Claire's hand. "We need a wall behind us. Less chance of getting the stealth feel-up."

"But — " She gave up as somebody else patted her rear. "Yeah. Okay."

That put them half a room away from Shane, who was now somehow at the center of a knot of maybe ten guys, all whaling away at each other (mostly without co

"Acquired taste," Eve said, laughing at her expression. "Shane buys like a college boy. If it's cheap and the ad has a girl in a bikini, it must be great."

"That's disgusting," Claire said, and took another long drink of water to wash her tongue clean. Even the water tasted bitter, after that.

"Well, in fairness, beer is mostly about the buzz, not the taste," Eve said. "You want taste and buzz, you get something like rum and coke, or White Russians." She seemed to remember, suddenly, how old Claire was. "Not that I'm going to let you have any of that, by the way. We promised your parents." She managed to look almost righteous when she said it, and she took Shane's beer out of Claire's hand. "I'll keep this." Eve raised her normally soft voice to a parade-ground bellow. "Yo, Shane! Quit screwing around or I'm drinking this!"

A ripple of laughter through the room. The fight was mostly over, anyway, and Shane shoved away the last stumbling frat boy who'd tried to take a swing at him, wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and left the field of battle. He looked rumpled and flushed and a little bit savage, and Claire felt something in her just growl in response.

She stared at him, wide-eyed. I'm not ready for this.

Parts of her clearly were.

"Have a drink, Galahad," Eve said, and handed him his bottle. They clinked glass. "Our hero. Here. Fix your hair." She picked at it with her black-manicured nails, twitching it this way and that, until it had that glamour-boy carefully careless look again. "God, you're hot. Get felt up yet?"

"Couple of times," he said, and smiled at Claire. "Don't hurt them. They just couldn't help themselves."

Eve snorted and looked around. "Where's Michael?"

"Probably a line at the bathroom," Shane shrugged, which was probably true, but Claire didn't think that was the reason. Shane did that thing where he looked at Eve too long, and didn't blink. She thought she could tell when he was lying, and that definitely was a flashing neon sign. "Ladies? Let's wander."

It wasn't so much wander as wriggle, like salmon heading upstream. What Claire could see of the house was amazing — fine art on the walls, gorgeous old furniture (mostly being splashed with drinks or shoved against the walls to make room for dancing), big, expensive Turkish rugs (Claire hoped they were dry cleanable), and huge plasma TVs that were all playing the same music cha

Somebody tried to pass her something — a shot glass with a hit of something clear. She shook her head and passed it right back. Not that she wasn't tempted, but after what had almost happened to her at the last party, she wasn't going to be stupid.

Well, not any stupider than she already was to come here in the first place.

The drinks and drugs kept coming. Liquid E, poppers, shots, even something that she was almost sure was a crack pipe. Morganville liked its drugs, but she guessed that made sense. There was a hell of a lot to escape from around here.

She kept on dancing. Shane and Eve didn't take anything either — not that Claire saw, anyway. Shane was looking less into the party and more worried all the time.

Michael didn't come back. Two songs later — two long songs — Eve finally got Shane to look for him, and the three of them moved out through the bottom floor, checking out the rooms (all packed) and not finding Michael anywhere. In the hall bathroom a line of people was waiting for the toilet, but no sign of a tall, blond vampire.

When they went up the big, sweeping steps toward the second floor, Claire couldn't help but think about Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett. Her mom loved that movie. She'd always thought it was boring, but that scene stayed with her, and she could almost see it in this house. But instead of Scarlett, Monica Morrell was still standing at the top of the steps, surrounded by her protective circle of toadies. Gina and Je