Feast of Fools

And yet.

Michael wiped his lips with the back of his hand, looked down at the faint smear, and went back to the washbasin to rinse it off.

He stared into the mirror at himself for so long, Claire thought he’d forgotten she was there, and then he said, “Thanks.”

Claire tried to think of something not totally idiotic to say. “Pretty disgusting, isn’t it? When it’s cold?” That wasn’t it.

Luckily, Michael was relieved to have any kind of conversational lifeline, after that weird moment. “Yeah,” he said. “But it keeps the edge off. That’s what’s important.” He rinsed out the bottle carefully, then threw it away and took in a deep breath. “I’ll get dressed. Be there in a second.”

It was a dismissal, but a nice one, and Claire took it at face value this time, and went back to the living room.

Where Shane and Eve were standing together, heads cocked at identical angles, staring.

“What’s going on?” Claire whispered.

“Shhh,” both Shane and Eve hissed, eerily in unison.

Because Miranda was talking in a strange monotone voice, and she looked . . . dead. Unconscious. Only talking.

“I see the feast,” she was saying. “So much anger . . . so much lying. All dead, walking dead, falling down. It’s spreading. It’ll kill us all.”

Claire felt a hot snap of alarm. Walking dead, falling down. It’s spreading. Miranda had psychic episodes— Claire knew that. It was part of the reason Eve let her hang around from time to time. Sometimes her visions were fake, but a lot of the time, they were as serious as a heart attack, and Claire somehow knew this one was real.

She was talking about the disease infecting the vampires, and she was talking about it spreading to humans. No, that can’t happen. Can it? They hadn’t even really been able to pinpoint what the disease was, only what it did, and what it did was erode the vampires’ sanity, carving steadily until what was left was unable to function at all.

The first thing to go—for all the vampires of Morganville—had been the ability to reproduce. To create new vampires. Only Amelie still had the strength, and creating Michael had almost destroyed her.

It’s spreading. Claire thought of all the humans in Morganville, all the families, all the young people who’d been in the coffee shop tonight, and felt cold and unsteady.

It couldn’t be true.

“Feast,” Miranda said again. “You’re all fools, all fools—don’t let him trick you. It’s not just three—it’s more—”

“Who?” Eve sank down next to Miranda’s chair and put a hand on her shoulder. “Mir, who are you talking about?”

“Elder,” she said, and now there were tears leaking down Miranda’s pale cheeks. “Oh no. Oh no . . . they’re turning. They’re all so hungry, can’t stop them—”

Michael, who was coming down the steps, paused. He looked calm again, but worried. “What’s she talking about?”

“Shhh!” This time, all three of them shushed at the same time. Eve bent closer to Miranda. “Honey, are you talking about the vampires? What’s going to happen with the vampires?”

“Dying,” Miranda whispered. “So many dying. We think we’re safe but we’re not. They won’t listen— they won’t see us—” She restlessly turned the silver bracelet on her wrist and twisted in her chair. “He’s doing it. He’s making it happen.”

“Oliver?” Eve asked. Because Oliver was the only male vampire Elder on the town council.

But Miranda shook her head. She didn’t say another word, but she cried, cried so hard she shook herself out of her trance and clung to Eve like a thin little reed in the wind.

“Bishop,” Michael said. They all looked at him. “It’s not Oliver. She’s talking about Bishop. He’s going to try to destroy Morganville.”

Miranda ended up sleeping on the couch, and when Claire came downstairs the next morning, she found the girl huddled in a ball under mountains of blankets, still shivering but fast asleep. She looked even more frail. Her pale skin was translucent, and there were dark, exhausted circles around her eyes.

Claire felt sorry for her, but it was a distant kind of sorry—Miranda didn’t really invite a lot of devotion. She didn’t have any friends to speak of, or so Eve said; people tolerated her, but they didn’t exactly enjoy her company. That was hard on the kid, but Claire could understand it. Miranda was a mixture of denial and outright creepiness, and even in Morganville, she was going to have a hard time fitting in.

No wonder she defended the vampire who was feeding on her. He was probably the only one who really showed her any kind of affection.

Claire paused to tuck the blankets more firmly around the girl’s trembling frame before she went into the kitchen to make coffee and toast. As breakfasts went, it was lonely and basic, but the sun was barely up and none of the others were what you might call morning people.

There were times when signing up for early classes seemed like a really bad idea.

When the phone rang, Claire nearly jumped out of her skin. She leaped for the extension hanging on the wall by the kitchen door and got it before the second earsplitting jangle. “Hello?”

There was a pause on the other end, and then her mother said, “Claire?”

“Mom! Hi—what’s wrong?”

“Why should anything be wrong? Why can’t I just call because I wanted to talk to my daughter?” Oh, great. Now her mother sounded agitated and defensive. “I know it’s early, but I wanted to catch up with you before you went off to class for the day.”

Claire sighed and leaned against the wall, idly kicking at the linoleum floor. “Okay. How are you and Dad settling in? Getting all unpacked?”

“Just fine,” her mother said, in so false a tone that Claire went very, very still. “It’s just—an adjustment, that’s all. Such a small town and all.”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed quietly. “It’s an adjustment.” She had no idea what her mother and father knew about Morganville by now, but they had to be getting some kind of—what would they call it? Orientation? Morganville was nothing if not efficient about that, she suspected. “Have you—met some people?”

“We went to a nice getting-to-know-you party downtown,” Mom said. “Mr. Bishop and his daughter took us.”

Claire had to bite her lip to hold back a moan. Bishop? And Amelie? Oh God. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing, really. It was a cocktail party. Hors d’oeuvres and drinks, a little conversation. There was a presentation on the history of—of—” With shocking sudde

Claire could barely swallow around the lump in her throat. “Don’t cry, Mom. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay now.” She was lying, but she had to. The sound of her mother breaking apart was just too hard. “Look, you’ve met Amelie, right?”

Sniffles on the other end. “Yes, she seemed nice.”

Nice wasn’t how Claire would have put it. “Well, Amelie’s the most powerful person in Morganville, and she’s definitely on our side.” An exaggeration, but it was the best she could do to describe the situation in simple terms. “So there’s really nothing to be worried about, Mom. I work for Amelie. She has some responsibility for me, and for you, to make sure we’re safe. Okay?”

“Okay.” It was wan and muffled, but at least it was agreement. “I was just so worried about your father. He didn’t look well, not well at all. I wanted him to go to the hospital, but he said he was fine—”

Claire had a cold second of flashback to Miranda saying, Please don’t send me there. You don’t know what they’ll do. . . . She’d been talking about the hospital. “But he’s okay?”

“He seems all right today.” Claire’s mom blew her nose, and when she came back to the phone, she sounded clearer and stronger. “I’m sorry to lay this on you, honey. I just had no idea—it was so strange to think that you’d been here all this time and never said a word to us about—the situation.” Meaning, the vampires.