Feast of Fools

Shane nodded stiffly. He glanced at Claire, then fixed his attention on the nurse who was waiting. He walked toward her with slow, deliberate calm.

“Can I go with him?” Claire asked, and Richard looked at her in surprise.

“Claire, they’re not going to hurt him. It’s just like blood donation anywhere else. They stick a needle in your arm and give you a squeezy ball. Orange juice and cookies at the end.”

“So I can donate?”

He looked to Rose for help.

“How old are you, child?”

“I’m not a child. I’m almost seventeen.”

“There’s no legal requirement for anyone under the age of eighteen to donate blood,” Rose said.

“But is there a law against it?”

She blinked, started to answer, and stopped herself. She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a small book that was titled Morganville Blood Donations: Regulations and Requirements. After flipping a few pages, she shrugged and looked at Richard. “I don’t think there is,” she said. “I’ve just never had anyone donate voluntarily at the DonationCenter. Oh, we take the Bloodmobile to the university from time to time, but—”

“Great,” Claire interrupted. “I’d like to donate a pint, please.”

Rose immediately became all business.

“Forms,” she said, and thumped down a clipboard and pen.

To say that Shane was surprised to see her was an understatement.

To say he was pleased would have been a lie.

As she took the couch next to his, Shane hissed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy?”

“I’m donating blood,” she said. “I don’t have to, but I don’t mind.” At least, she didn’t think she minded. She’d never actually done it before, and the sight of the red tube snaking out of Shane’s arm and down to the collection bag was a little bit terrifying. “It doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Dude, they’re sticking a big-ass needle in your vein—of course it hurts.” He looked pale, and she didn’t think it was all from the fact that he was on his second pint. “You can still say no. Just get up and tell them you changed your mind.”

The same friendly-looking nurse who’d called Shane to the back rolled up a wheeled stool and a cart. “He’s right,” she said. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I saw your paperwork. You’re a little young.” The nurse’s bright brown eyes focused beyond her, to Shane, and then back again. “Doing it for moral support?”

“Kind of,” Claire admitted. Her fingers felt ice-cold, and she shivered as the nurse took her hand. “I’ve never done this before.”

“You’re in luck. I have. Now, I’m going to stick your finger and run a quick test, and then we’ll get started. Okay?”

Claire nodded. Lying on the couch seemed to have effectively sapped away her will to move. The finger stick came as a sharp, bright flash, there and gone, and Claire lifted her head from the pillow to see the nurse using a tiny glass pipette to gather blood from her fingertip. It was about five seconds, and then the stick was bandaged up. The nurse did some things with items on her cart, nodded in satisfaction, and smiled at Claire. "O negative,” she said. “Excellent.”

Claire gave her a weak thumbs-up. The nurse took her arm and fastened the rubber tourniquet above the elbow. “Talk to your boyfriend,” she advised. “Don’t watch.”

Claire turned her head. Shane was staring at her with dark, intense eyes. He smiled slightly, just enough, and she returned it.

“So,” she asked, “come here often?”

He laughed quietly. She felt something hot slip into her arm, a jolt that faded to discomfort, and then tape being applied. A ball was pressed into her hand, and the tight pressure of the tourniquet snapped loose. “Squeeze,” the nurse said. “You’re good to go.”

Surprised, Claire glanced down. She had a thing in her arm, and a tube, and there was red ru

Her head fell back against the pillow, and she couldn’t hear for the dark buzzing inside her skull. She thought someone was calling her name, but for the moment that didn’t seem very important. She tried to breathe, slowly and steadily, and after what seemed like hours, the buzzing faded, and the world took on edges and bright colors again. There was a poster on the ceiling overhead, one of a kitten sitting in a tea-cup, looking adorable. She fixed on it and tried not to think about the blood that was draining out of her. This is what it’s like, she couldn’t help but realize. This must be what Michael felt when Oliver was draining his blood. This is what all those people feel when the vampires kill them.

It was only a little piece of death, hardly enough to matter.

The nurse slipped a warm blanket over her, smiled down, and said, “It’s okay. You’re not the first to pass out. That’s why the seats recline, honey.”

Claire hadn’t passed out, not really, but she wasn’t feeling her best, either. The nurse rolled her cart and stool around to Shane.

“Done,” she a

A warm hand covered hers, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that Shane was standing next to her, pale and hollow-eyed but upright.

“Shane,” the nurse said. “Go get some juice.”

“When she’s done,” he said.

The nurse must have realized there was no arguing about it, because she kicked her wheeled stool over to him. “Then at least sit down. I really don’t want to be picking you up off the floor.”

It probably took less time than it felt, but Claire was desperately glad when the nurse came back to remove the needle and apply bandages. She didn’t look at the blood bag. The nurse said something nice, and Claire tried to respond in kind but wasn’t absolutely sure what came out of her mouth. Shane led her to the next room, which was a sitting area with a plasma television tuned to a news cha

Claire rubbed her fingers over the purple stretch bandage around her elbow. “Is it always like that?”

“Like what?” Shane mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate chips. “Scary? Guess so. They try to make it nice, but I never forget whose mouth that blood ends up in.”

She felt a surge of nausea, and stopped peeling her orange. Suddenly, the thick pulpy smell was overwhelming. She chugged some water instead, which went down cool and heavy as mercury.

“They use it for the hospitals, though,” she said. “For accident victims and things like that.”

“Sure. Reusing the leftovers.” Shane crammed another cookie into his mouth. “I hate this shit. I swore I’d never do it, but here I am anyway. Tell me again why I stay in this town?”

“They’ll hunt you down if you leave?”

“Good reason.” He dusted crumbs from his fingers. She peeled the rest of her orange, broke loose a slice, and ate it with methodical determination—not hungry, no sir, but well aware she was still shaky. She ate three more slices, then passed Shane the rest.

“Wait,” she said. He paused in the act of biting into the orange. “You’ve never done this before, have you? I mean, you left town before you were eighteen, so you didn’t have to. And then you’ve ducked it since coming back. Right?”

“Damn straight.” He finished the orange and chugged the rest of his Coke.

“So you’ve never been inside the Bloodmobile.”

“I didn’t say that.” Shane got that grim look again. “I went with my mother once—didn’t have to donate, but she wanted me to get used to the idea. I was fifteen. They dragged in this guy—he was crazy, out of his head. Strapped him down and started draining him. They hustled the rest of us out of there, but when we left, he was still there. I watched. They drove away with him. Nobody ever saw him again.”