Feast of Fools

No—not Michael; it was Vampire Michael. Fangs completely down, eyes completely crimson.

Michael was angry. Also, terrifying.

He dropped through the hole in a fall of moonlight, took hold of Jason’s gun hand, and yanked him away from Claire like a toy. A breakable one. Jason screamed. The gun went off, and Claire flinched and covered her head, trying to pull into a ball in the corner. The car shook as Michael threw Jason out, straight up through the opening in the roof. Jason screamed the whole way up, and the whole way down. He hit the ground with a sickening thud and rolled.

Michael launched himself up out of the car, landed lightly on his feet in the wash of headlights, and walked to where Jason was crawling to get away. Jason rolled over. He still had the gun.

He shot Michael six times, point-blank. Claire flinched with every loud crack.

Michael didn’t.

He reached Jason, took the gun, ripped it in half, and threw the two pieces into the trash can leaning at the side of the house. Jason looked shocked, then resigned, as Michael reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his leather jacket.

Shane reached through the ragged sunroof, opened the car door, and grabbed Claire. He pulled her out and to her feet. “You okay?” He sounded deeply shaken, and he kept ru

“Stop him,” she whispered, looking past him at Michael. “Don’t let him do that.”

Because Michael was going to bite Jason, and once he did, there’d be no going back. Shane sent her a look, one that probably meant he thought she was crazy, but she forced herself to stay still and calm, even if her insides were quivering in terror.

“Shane,” she said, and tried her best to cha

She saw the reality of what was happening dawn on Shane, and he nodded and turned toward Michael, who didn’t look as if he was in any mood to be talked off the murder ledge.

But Shane didn’t have to try, because Michael looked up and saw Eve standing in the doorway, hands pressed to her mouth, dark eyes wide in horror, staring at her boyfriend threatening to suck blood out of her little brother.

Michael let go. Jason collapsed back to the ground, whimpering, and tried to crawl away.

Michael put his foot on Jason’s back, holding him in place. “No,” he said. His voice sounded low and very, very dangerous. “I don’t think so. Attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder of a vampire? You’re done, man. It’s all over but the screaming.”

“You asshole!” Jason yelled. “I’m working for Oliver! You can’t touch me!”

He ski

Michael responded by pressing his foot harder into Jason’s back. “Then you and I are going to have a talk with Oliver about how he sends his little worm to my house to shoot me,” he said. “I think you’re not going to like that very much. Because I’m pretty sure that Oliver didn’t ask you to do that kind of thing.”

“Michael,” Shane said. It was a warning, and as Claire turned, she saw why—another car was arriving, a police car with lights flashing. It pulled to a stop in the driveway, blocking in Jason’s half-peeled car, and Richard Morrell got out of the driver’s side carrying a shotgun. Detectives Joe Hess and Travis Lowe were with him, and each of them held a drawn gun.

She’d never seen the three of them looking so grim, but she was glad to see them. At least this meant somebody would be putting a stop to Jason and his craziness at last. Michael was right: it wasn’t going to be a good ending for him, but—

Richard Morrell put the shotgun to his shoulder. He was aiming at Michael. The other two men took up shooting stances.

Claire gasped.

“Out of the way,” Detective Hess ordered Shane, with a jerk of his head. Shane didn’t argue. He held up his hands and backed away. Michael turned and saw the cops aiming at him, and frowned.

“Let him go, Michael,” Travis Lowe said. “Let’s do this easy.”

“What’s going on?”

“One thing at a time. Let the kid up.”

Michael removed his foot. Jason scrambled to a standing position and tried to run; Richard Morrell sighed, handed his shotgun to Joe Hess, and took off after him. As fast as Jason was, Richard was faster. He took him down in a flying tackle before he was halfway to the fence. He rolled Jason onto his back and handcuffed him with brutal efficiency, yanked him upright, and marched him back to where the other two policemen held Michael at gunpoint.

“What’s going on?” Michael repeated. “He tries to kidnap Claire, and you come after me? Why?”

“Let’s just say we’re saving you from yourself,” Detective Hess said. “You okay? You calm?”

Michael nodded. Hess lowered his gun, and so did Travis Lowe. Richard Morrell put Jason in the backseat of the police car.

“We got a tip,” Hess continued, “that you’d gone berserk and were trying to kill your friends. But since I see they’re all standing here alive and well, I’m guessing little Jason is the real problem.”

Richard came back, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. Clearly, he didn’t like touching Jason, either. “Did he break in?”

“No,” Shane said. “He pulled a gun on us and grabbed Claire at the back door. He was trying to drive away with her. Michael stopped him.”

Michael, Claire realized as her heartbeat started to slow, had also been shot six times in the chest at point-blank range. His loose white shirt had the blackened ragged holes to prove it, each one rimmed with a thin outline of red. She remembered Myrnin swiping the knife carelessly down his arm, laying open veins and arteries and muscles just to get a blood sample.

She couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t look like there was a mark on Michael’s chest under the shirt, and he wasn’t moving like a man with bullets buried inside. Not even one in shock.

Wow.

“What did he want?” Detective Hess asked. “Did he say?”

“He said he wanted to talk to me,” Claire said. That much was true, but she didn’t want to drag Oliver into this. It was enough of a mess already. “I think he really did want to. He just knew he wouldn’t be able to do it here. I don’t—I don’t think he really meant to hurt me.” This time.

Shane was looking at her like she’d grown a second head, one with serious brain damage. “It’s Jason. Of course he meant to hurt you! Wasn’t the gun pointed at your head a clue?”

He was right, of course, but—she’d seen the look in Jason’s eyes, and it hadn’t been the predatory glee she’d seen before when he was playing his little sadistic games. This had been flat-out desperation. She couldn’t explain it, but she believed Jason.

This time.

Shane was still watching her with a frown. So was Michael. “Are you all right?” Shane asked, and folded his arms around her. The warm weight of his body pressed against hers, and she realized just how cold she felt. She was shivering, and her knees felt weak underneath her. I could collapse, she realized. And he’d catch me.

But she stayed on her own two feet, pulled back, and looked him in the eyes.

“I’m fine,” she said. She kissed him. “Everything’s fine.”

Chapter 9

Eve hadn’t said a word, but she’d allowed Michael to take her back inside once the cops had pulled away; she’d taken only one look at her brother as he’d been hauled off in handcuffs, but that had been enough. On top of the shock of her father’s death, and the trouble with Michael, Eve didn’t seem to have any emotion left to spare.

Through common consent, none of them went to bed. They didn’t eat. The four of them crammed onto the couch, grateful for the warmth and the company, and put on a movie. A scary one, as it turned out, but Claire was glad to focus on someone else’s problems for a change. Being hunted by a city full of zombies might have seemed like a relief in some ways—at least you knew whom to run from, and whom to run toward. She lay with her head on Shane’s chest, listening more to him breathe than to the characters babbling at one another. His hand kept a slow, steady rhythm on her hair, stroking all her tension and fear away.