Fade Out

And it had, written in the corner in red, A.

“That’s what I’m on,” she said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I got an A? Like, ever? My brother is going to fall over.”

Claire handed the paper back. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Monica’s good mood faded, replaced by her more-normal bitch face. “I guess I got my money’s worth, anyway.”

For some reason, Claire thought about Shane paying Eve to clean his room. “There’s a lot of that going around, trust me. Okay then. We’re good?”

“For now,” Monica said. “Stay available. I’ve got other classes I suck at.”

Claire bit her tongue before she could say, I don’t doubt it, and watched Monica and her swirl of hangers-on sweep away, laughing and talking as if they were in their own private shampoo commercial.

She’d almost forgotten about Kim, and when she caught sight of the cold gleam of the camera lens out of the corner of her eye she turned and said, “Cut it out, will you?”

“Not a chance,” Kim said cheerfully, camera still ru

“It’s digital!”

“That’s the point. Hey, so, tell me about you and Monica. Secret love affair? Mortal enemies? Are you each other’s evil twins? Come on, you can tell me; I won’t tell anybody!”

“Except everybody on Facebook?”

“Well, obviously, yeah. Come on, you’re wasting my minutes. Talk!”

“I have two words for you,” Claire said, “and the second one is off. Fill in the blank.”

Kim lowered the camera and switched it off, shaking her dark hair out of her face. “Wow. Who got up on the grumpy side of breakfast?”

“I don’t like being on camera.”

“Nobody does. That’s the whole point. I want to catch people as they really are. That guy, for instance, Mr. Football Dude? He’s a douche. I got him to talk long enough that you could actually see he was a douche. It’s fun. You should try it.”

“No thanks.” Claire didn’t think the powers that be in Morganville would take especially well to guerrilla film-making, and she wondered if anybody had told Oliver. He didn’t seem to like Kim’s little projects much.

Maybe it was time for a mocha.

“Hey,” Kim said, as Claire started to walk on. “About Shane.”

That pulled her to a full stop. “What about him?”

“I just wanted to know—so, are you guys serious or something?”

“Yeah, we’re serious.” Claire said it flatly, trying not to imagine what Shane might say to the same question. He didn’t like to commit. He was committed; he just didn’t like to go on the record. “You been filming anywhere else?”

“Sure, all over,” Kim said. “Why, you want to see?”

“No. Just curious. What are you pla

“You’ve seen Borat? Yeah, kind of like that—sort of a mockumentary.” Kim gave a one-shoulder shrug, focused on whatever was playing on the tiny screen of her camcorder. “Only with vampires.”

“You’re filming the vampires.”

“Well, not officially. It’s a hobby.”

It was a dangerous hobby, but Claire guessed Kim knew that. “Just don’t film me, okay?”

“Seriously? I’ll make you a star!”

“I don’t want to be a star.”

As she walked away, Kim said plaintively, “But everybody wants to be a star!”

8

The rest of the day passed quietly enough. Claire dropped in to see Eve at the coffee shop, but all Eve could talk about was the play, how cool it all was, how she was so going to rock as Blanche DuBois, and how she had this plan to wear a black skull-patterned slip instead of the white one that the costume people wanted . . . and when she wasn’t enthusing about the play, she was all about Kim. Kim, Kim, Kim.

“Cool necklace,” Claire said, out of desperation, and pointed at the one around Eve’s neck. It was cool—kind of a tribal dragon thing, full of angles and sinister curves. Eve touched it with her fingertips and smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “Michael got it for me. Not bad, right?”

“Not bad at all. Hey, did you clean Shane’s room?”

“Actually? I just vacuumed and dusted. He picked it up himself. Why, did he tell you it was all me? Boys lie.”

“About cleaning?”

Eve ate a bite of blueberry muffin and swallowed some coffee. “Why not? They think cleaning makes them look non-manly. Eek, sorry Claire Bear, gotta motor. Boss-man, he no like breaks. See you later?”

“Sure.” Claire slid out of her seat and picked up her book bag. “See you at home.”

“Oh, you should totally swing by rehearsal! Three o’clock at the auditorium. You know where it is?”

Claire knew, although she’d never been there—it was kind of a town civic center, and it was off Founder’s Square—aka, Vamptown. Like most humans in Morganville, she’d never been really interested in traveling there at night.

Three in the afternoon, though . . . that sounded reasonable. “I’ll try,” Claire said. “So—I know you were worried about Oliver. Is that going okay, having him in the play?”

“Oh, actually, yeah. He’s not bad! I almost believe he isn’t a controlling jerk. Most of the time.” Eve looked over her shoulder, made a scared face when the boss beckoned her, and waved good-bye.

Claire decided she couldn’t put it off any longer, and pulled out her cell phone. She’d written and uploaded a program that allowed her phone to track and display available portals; according to the theory she’d been reading up on in Myrnin’s lab recently, it wasn’t such a good thing for humans to force a portal open, the way vampires could without too much effort. Over time, things happened—to the human. And Claire decided she liked her normal arrangement of eyes, ears, and nose—she liked Picasso okay, but she didn’t want to become one of his paintings.

So she looked for a portal that was open—open meant that it was at a low level of availability, not active. The one open at the university just now was in the Administration Building.

She headed over there, blending in with all the other students, and as usual, the part of the Administration Building where the portal was located was empty. The chain-smoking dragon lady secretary at the front desk nodded her in without argument; apparently there’d been some kind of memo since Claire had begun doing this kind of thing—a convenient development.

Moving through the portal was a little like taking a microsecond-long ice bath; it felt like every cell in her body received a shock, woke up, screamed, and then went immediately back to normal. Not exactly pleasant, but . . . memorable. It didn’t usually feel that way, and Claire felt some distinct uneasiness. If the portal system went out of balance . . .

“Myrnin?” She stepped away from the portal door of the lab, shoving aside a box of books he’d left lying around, probably for her to shelve. No sign of him here just now. The lab still looked clean and moderately organized, which wasn’t like Myrnin at the best of times; she wondered if he’d gotten some kind of maid service. Who cleaned mad scientist lairs, anyway? The same people who did villain lairs and bat caves?

No Myrnin, but he’d left her a note, written in his spiky antique hand, that asked her to—wait for it—sort the box of books he’d left to trip her up. And to feed Bob the spider. Ugh. Why was she even surprised? Claire began unpacking, sorting, and shelving the books, which was surprisingly fun, in the hopes that the universe would end before she had to actually feed a spider.

She was in the middle of doing that when Ada’s two-dimensional ghost formed in front of her. Claire’s heart rate doubled, and she wondered if she ought to just make a dash for the portal . . . but Ada made no threatening moves. In fact, Ada was being polite—she rang Claire’s cell phone. She didn’t actually have to do that before using the speaker. It was her version of knocking.

Claire swallowed an acidic mouthful of fear, and peered at the fading spine of the heavy book in her hand. German. She wasn’t sure what it said. “Do you know German?”