Fade Out

“How’s that going for you?”

Michael didn’t smile. “Not like I’d hoped. I got careless. I met a guy who wanted to buy the house, somebody new in town. It never occurred to me he was a vampire. He—didn’t come across that way. But the second he crossed the threshold, I knew. I just knew.”

He shook his head. Kim cleared her throat. “Can I ask who . . . ?”

“Oliver,” Michael said. “He killed me his first day in town.”

“Wow. That sucks completely. But you didn’t become a vampire then, right?”

“No. I died. Sort of. I remember dying, and then . . . then it was the next night, and I couldn’t remember anything in between. I was fine. No holes in the neck, nothing. I figured maybe I’d dreamed it, but then—then I tried to leave the house.”

“What happened?”

“I started to drift away. Like smoke. I got back inside before it was too late, but I realized after a few more tries that I couldn’t leave. Didn’t matter which door, or how I did it. I just—stopped being me.” Michael’s eyes looked haunted now, and Claire saw a shiver run through him. “That was bad enough, but then morning came.”

“And what happened?”

“I died,” Michael said. “All over again. And it hurt.”

Claire turned it off. There was something wrong about hearing this, seeing him let down his guard so completely. Michael had always tried to make it all okay, somehow. She hadn’t known how much it had freaked him out. And, she found, she didn’t really want to know how it had felt when he’d been made a real vampire by Amelie, in order to be able to live outside of the house.

She knew too much already.

There were about twenty other video interviews in the folder, but there was one that made Claire hesitate, then double-click the icon.

The camera zoomed in, steadied focus, and then the lights came up. “Please give us your name, the date you became a vampire, your birthplace, and your death age.” It was Kim’s voice, but this time she sounded nervous, not at all the smart-ass Claire knew. “Please.”

Oliver leaned back in his chair, looking like he’d smelled something nasty, and said, “Oliver. I will keep my family name to myself, if you please. I was made vampire in 1658. I was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, England, in 1599. So as you see, I was not a young man when I was turned.”

“Was it your choice?”

Oliver stared at Kim, off camera, for so long that even Claire felt nervous. Then he said, “Yes. I was dying. It was my one chance to retain the power I’d attained. The thieving trick of it was that once I’d made my devil’s bargain, I couldn’t hold the power I sought to keep. So I gained new life, and lost my old one.”

“Who made you?”

“Bishop.”

“Ah—do you want to say anything about Bishop—”

“No.” Oliver suddenly stood up, fire in his eyes, and stripped the microphone off in a hail of static. “I’ll do no more of this prying. Past is past. Let it die.”

Kim, very quietly, said, “But you killed him. Didn’t you? You and Amelie?”

Oliver’s eyes turned red. “You know nothing about it, little girl with your foolish toys. And pray to God you never will.”

Oliver knocked the camera over, and Kim yelped, and that was it.

Fade to black.

“Enjoying yourself?” Oliver’s voice said, and for a second Claire thought it was on the computer screen, then realized that it came from behind her. She turned her head, slowly, to find him standing near the door of the small room, leaning against the wall. He was wearing a T-shirt with the Common Grounds logo on it, and cargo pants, and he didn’t look like a five-hundred-year-old vampire. He even had a peace-sign earring in one ear.

“I—wanted to know about the historical interview project, that’s all. Sorry.” Claire shut down the kiosk and stood up. “Are you going to try to kill me again?”

“Why? Do you want to be prepared?” He cocked his head at her.

“I’d like to see it coming.”

That got her a thin smile. “Not all of us have that luxury. But no. I have been schooled by my mistress. I won’t raise a finger to you, little Claire. Not even if you ask me to.”

Claire edged slowly toward the door. He smiled wider, and his gaze followed her all the way . . . but he let her go.

When she looked back, he was at the kiosk, clicking the mouse. She heard his interview start, and heard his nonrecorded voice murmur a curse. The recording cut off.

Then the entire kiosk was ripped out and smashed on the floor with enough force to shatter a window three feet ahead of her.

Somebody wasn’t happy with how he looked on camera.

Claire broke into a run, dodged around another row of books, turned left at the German books to make for the exit—

And tripped over Kim, who was sitting on the floor of the library, staring down at the screen of her cell phone as if it held the secrets of the universe.

“Hey!” Kim protested, and Claire pitched headlong to the carpet. She caught herself on the way down, kicked free of Kim’s legs, and crawled backward. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Claire said, and got up to dust herself off. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Research,” Kim said.

“In German?”

“I didn’t say I was looking at the books, dummy. But I could read German. It’s possible.”

“Do you?”

Kim gri

“Oh. Oliver. He just found the interview you did with him.”

Kim’s grin left the building. “He killed my computer, right? He just went all Hulk Smash on it.”

“He wasn’t happy.”

“No,” Oliver said, and rounded the corner of the aisle. There were flickers of red in his eyes, and his bone-pale hands were curled into fists. “No, Oliver isn’t happy at all. You told me you’d destroyed the interview.”

“I lied,” Kim said. “Dude, I don’t work for you. I was given a job to do by the council, with a grant and everything. I’m doing it. And now you owe me for a new computer. I’m thinking maybe a laptop.”

She looked way too calm. Oliver noticed it, too. “That wasn’t the only copy.”

“Digital age. It’s a sad, sad world, and it’s just full of downloadable copies.”

“You’re going to bring them all to me.”

“Duh, no,” Kim said, and closed up her phone. “I’m pretty sure I’m not. And I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to just get over it, because this is Amelie’s pet project. We didn’t even get that far, anyway. It’s not like you told me you collect Precious Moments figures or something embarrassing. Get over it.” She checked the big, clunky watch on her wrist, and rolled to her feet. “Whoops, time to go. I have rehearsal in half an hour. And hey, so do you, Mitch. No hard feelings, okay?”

Oliver said nothing. Kim shrugged and headed for the exit.

“I don’t like her,” Claire offered.

“At last, we have something in common,” Oliver said. “But she is right about one thing: I have to get to rehearsal.”

That sounded very—normal. More normal than most things Oliver said. Claire felt some of her tension slip away. “So how’s that going? The play thing?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t done a play in a hundred years, and the idea of Eve and Kim being our leading ladies doesn’t fill me with confidence.” That just dripped with sarcasm, and Claire winced a little.

“A hundred years. What was the last thing you performed?”

“Hamlet.”

Of course.

How rehearsal went Claire didn’t know; she headed for Common Grounds, where she was set to meet up with (ugh) Monica. At least it was profitable.

“Money up front,” she said, as she slid into the seat across from the mayor’s favorite—and only—sister. Monica had done something cute with her hair, and it framed her face in feathered curves. For once, she was alone; no sign of Gina and Je