Kiss of Death

Shane let go of her. “Claire, Eve—get to the back of the cell.” When they hesitated, he snapped, “Just go!”

They did it, not that there was anywhere in particular to go, or to hide. They sat together on one of the two small cots, close together, watching the jail door to see what would come through.

What came through wasn’t Oliver. It wasn’t even Michael.

It was Morley, the vampire from Morganville, in all his homeless-bum glory. He was dressed in layers of threadbare clothes, and he had a large, floppy black hat on his head over his straggly graying hair.

He looked at the bars on the jail cell door, sneered, and snapped the whole thing off its hinges with a heave. He tossed the iron aside as if it weighed next to nothing.

Morley stepped through the open space, surveyed the three of them, and swept off his hat in a low, mocking bow. He was good at the bowing thing. Claire supposed he’d probably had a lot of practice. He seemed old enough to have lived in a time when bowing well got you somewhere.

“Like lobsters in a tank,” he said. “I know we agreed you’d give up your blood to me, but really, this is just too easy.”

He smiled.

With fangs.

Claire got up and walked toward the bars. She didn’t like letting Morley—or any vampire—see she was afraid of him; from working with Myrnin in his crazy days—crazier?—she’d realized that showing fear was an invitation to them. One they found really hard to resist.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Because for a confusing few seconds, she thought that maybe Oliver had teamed up with Morley to rescue them. But that was flat-out impossible. The idea of Oliver and Morley ever being able to have a civilized conversation, much less actually work together, was completely ridiculous. “You’re not supposed to leave Morganville!”

“Ah, yes. Amelie’s rules.” He said that last word with a lot of relish, and there was a muddy red flare in his eyes to match. “Poor, dear Amelie is operating at a disadvantage these days. Rumors said she was unable to keep the boundaries of the town in quite the same condition they had been. I decided to test the theory, and behold. I am free.”

That was really, really not a good thing. Claire didn’t know a whole lot about Morley, but she knew he tended more to the bad-old-days model of vampire—take what you want, when you want, and don’t care about the consequences. The opposite of how Amelie—and even Oliver—ran things. To Morley, people were just blood bags that could talk—and sometimes outrun him, which only made it more exciting.

“They’ll come after you,” Claire said. “Amelie’s people. You know that.”

“And I look forward to seeing how that turns out for her.” Morley paced back and forth in front of the bars, humming a song Claire didn’t recognize. In the net of his wild hair, his eyes glittered with a kind of silvery light. They expressed not exactly hunger, but more like amusement. “You look cramped in there, my friends. Shall I get you out?”

“Actually, it’s pretty roomy,” Shane said. “I’m feeling better about it all the time.”

“Perhaps ...” Morley turned. “Ah, you’re playing the gentleman, I see. Of course, by all means. Ladies first.”

“No!” Shane lunged at the bars. Morley had his eyes fixed on Eve and Claire now, and Claire thought, with a sinking sensation, that putting on a brave face wasn’t going to get her very far—not with him. “Changed my mind. Sure. I’ll go first.”

Morley shook his finger gently in Shane’s direction, but without taking those shining eyes off the girls. “No, you had your chance. And I despise those who think themselves gentlemen in any case. You’re not making friends that way.”

“No!” Shane yelled, and slammed his hand into the bars, which rattled uneasily. “Over here, you ratty flea-bag! Come and get it!”

“Fleas suck blood,” Morley said mildly. “Quite the cousin of the vampire, those clever little creatures, so why should I find that insulting? You really must find more interesting ways to bait me, boy. Tell me my beard would better stuff a butcher’s cushion. Or that I have more hair than wit. Live up to your heritage, I beg you.”

Shane had no idea what to say to that. Claire cleared her throat. “Like ... you’re... an inhuman wretch, void and empty from any dram of mercy?” She hated Shakespeare. But she’d had to memorize lines back in high school for a production of The Merchant of Venice.

And it had finally paid off, from the surprise in Morley’s face. He actually took a step back.

“It speaks!” he said. “And in lilting, glorious words. Though I am not so partial to the Bard, myself. He was a pitiful man to drink with, always dashing off to scribble away in the dark. Writers. Such a boring lot.”

“What are you doing here? Because I know you didn’t come to get us,” Claire said. She advanced and wrapped her hands around the bars, as though she wasn’t at all afraid of him. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heartbeat, but she knew he could. “We’re not important enough.”

“Well, that’s certainly true. You’re entirely incidental. Actually, we’re in search of a town. Something small, remote, easily controllable. This seemed a good possibility, but it’s rather too large for our purposes.”

We. Morley hadn’t just slipped out of Morganville alone. Claire remembered the big, throbbing engine outside. Might be a big truck. Might be a bus. Either way, it would probably hold a lot of vampires—like the ones Morley had applied to be allowed to leave Morganville with in the first place.

Oh, this just got better and better.

“You can’t just move in here,” Claire said, trying to sound reasonable, as if that would do any good. She let go of the bars and backed away as Morley took a step toward her again. “People live here.”

“Indeed, I’m not pla

Eve, behind Claire, screamed, and then the sound went muffled, as if she’d covered her mouth.

Claire didn’t move. There didn’t seem to be much point. Shane was yelling something, and for some odd reason the place on her neck hurt, the place where Myrnin had bitten her, where there was still a nasty scar.

Morley stood there for a moment, hands on both sides of the doorway, and then stepped inside. He glided, like a tiger. And his eyes turned red, the irises lighting up the glittering color of blood.

“Get down!” somebody yelled from behind him, and Claire hit the floor, not daring to hesitate even for a second. There was a loud roar that it took her a second to identify as gunfire, and Morley staggered and went down to one knee.

The sheriff looked dazed, and there was blood on the side of his head, but he held his gun very steady. “Get down, mister,” he said. “Don’t make me shoot you again.”

Morley slowly toppled forward, face-forward, on the floor. The sheriff breathed a sigh of relief and gestured for Eve and Claire to come out. Claire did, jumping over Morley’s outstretched hand and expecting that any second, any second at all, he’d reach up and grab her, just like in the movies.

He didn’t. Eve hesitated for a few seconds, then jumped for it, clearing Morley by at least a couple of feet, straight up. The sheriff grabbed them and hustled them off to the side, then unlocked Shane’s cell. “Out,” he said. “Help me get him inside.”

“It won’t do any good to lock him up,” Shane said. “He already ripped off two of your doors. You want him to go for three?”

The sheriff had clearly been trying not to think about that. “What the hell are these people?” he snarled. “Some kind of damn monsters?”