Morganville Vampires 11: Last Breath (6 page)

“You have a visitor,” Claire said. She spat the words out flat and hard, straight at Michael, and she thought he must have been able to hear how fast her heart was beating. Maybe her face was red. It should have been; she felt hot all over. “It’s
Naomi
.”

If she’d had any doubts at all about it, the sight of his face when she said the name erased them. That was the most shocked, caught-red-handed expression she’d ever seen, and God, in that moment she
hated
him.

Shane looked over at his best friend, but by the time he did, Michael had managed to wipe away all guilt from his expression and just look curious. “Oh,” he said, and stood up, leaning his guitar against the arm of the chair. It seemed to her to be not just careful, but
too
careful, as if he was afraid to be seen rushing. As if he felt he had to slow down and make sure he didn’t make mistakes. “Of course. Thanks, Claire.”

She glared at him, and avoided him as he went past her toward the kitchen. She headed straight for the steps, prepared to run all the way up, but Shane’s voice stopped her. “Hey,” he said, keeping it low. “What the hell?”

“
You
go ask. You’re always telling me not to try to analyze,” she said, and went up, wondering if she should tell Eve, wondering if that would lead to the ultimate Glass House apocalypse. She didn’t, only because she heard the shower running. Eve tended to shower when she got unhappy. There wouldn’t be any hot water for anybody else, not for a while.

Claire passed up the bathroom, closed and locked her door, put her headphones on, and blocked out the world with the loudest, saddest music she could stand.

If the knowledge hurt her, how awful was it going to be for Eve?

C
laire expected a blowup—daily—of the Michael/Eve relationship; Eve didn’t mention Naomi, and neither did Michael, and the tension kept spinning up inside of Claire like twisting rubber bands.

Shane hadn’t said much about Naomi’s visit, either, though Claire could tell it troubled him. When Claire had tried to talk about it, he’d gone back to his old refrain.
Ask Michael.
Yeah, right, like she was going to get in his face and ask, when she already
knew
.

He also said
stay out of it
. And that was probably good advice. But Claire couldn’t just see this all heading for the cliff and not at least
try
to turn the wheel. It might be wrong, it might be messy and crazy and a very bad idea, but she had to do it.

So she took Eve out for an ice-cream soda at Marjo’s Diner, which Eve happily accepted, because there were no better ice-cream sodas available in the known universe, and Eve never turned down something ice-cream based. It was, Claire thought, a good thing Eve ran on so much nervous energy, with all that sugar craving.

As she spooned up the deliciousness, Eve couldn’t put down her cell. She was scrolling through her to-do list, shaking her head. “You would not
believe
how much there is,” she told Claire. “I mean, I’ve been doing this for weeks, and this list never gets smaller! It’s insane. And I’ve only got a couple of days left. Oh! I need to get my appointment to get a waxing done.”

“I really did not need to know that,” Claire sighed. Eve threw her a wink and slurped up dessert. “Uh—I have something I need to tell you.”

Eve’s eyes widened, and she put both spoon and cell down. “It’s Shane, isn’t it? It’s always Shane getting himself into some kind of crazy trouble. What vampire did he—”

“No, it’s not Shane.” Although Claire honestly couldn’t blame her for jumping to that conclusion; Shane was trouble-prone, no doubt about that. “It’s about Michael.”

Eve smiled, but it looked manic and wrong. She was wearing an absolutely incredible shade of magenta lipstick, and her eye shadow matched. In the tired mid-last-century Formica and rusty chrome of the diner, she looked like a deadly, exotic flower, something imported from a place that had never seen day. Beautiful, but intimidating. And strange. “Well, at least I know
Michael’s
not in jail. On the other hand, Shane just loves the gray bar hotel. Maybe it’s the food or something.” But there was a flash of desperation in her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about Michael. Not at all.

Claire felt like something was pressing on her chest, driving all the breath out of her. “I’m not kidding,” she said. “You need to hear this, Eve. About Michael.” It hurt, saying this, physically
hurt
, and she felt tears tingle in her eyes. She blinked them away, fast. “I think he’s seeing another girl.”

Eve had picked up her spoon, and now she sat there, perfectly still, staring. She cocked her glossy black-haired head slowly over to the side, as if trying to puzzle out what Claire had just said. “Another girl,” she said. “What do you mean, another girl?”

“A vampire,” Claire said. “Naomi. She came to the house. I saw her. I talked to her. She asked for Michael.”

Eve flinched, as if Claire had reached across the table and slapped her, and then said, “But … I’m sure she’s just …”

“Just a friend?” Claire said when Eve couldn’t finish. She felt like her heart was breaking. She could see the panic and horror in Eve’s face, and the awkward way Eve put the spoon down. She clenched her hands together and started twisting her engagement ring…. “Maybe. I guess that’s possible, but you should talk to him, Eve. You should ask. I don’t think he wanted you to know about it. He hasn’t told you, has he?”

Eve shook her head and looked down at her ice-cream soda, which was slowly melting. “He must have forgotten to mention it,” she said, but there wasn’t any conviction in her voice. “She came to the
house
?”

“A couple of days ago—remember when I went with Shane to give blood? She showed up after you went upstairs. I answered the door.”

This time, it was
definitely
a flinch, and Eve glanced up. Her eyes were wide, and stricken. “He—he came upstairs later. We made up. He was—” She twisted the ring again, restlessly. “He was so sorry about upsetting me.”

“Oh,” Claire said softly. “And he didn’t mention her.”

“No. Not at
all
,” Eve admitted. She suddenly flung her hand out across the table, and Claire grabbed it and held on, as if she were pulling Eve back from a cliff. “Oh God. I know Gloriana got inside his head, but I thought—I thought with her gone …”

“I know. But, Eve, I
know
he loves you. I just don’t know—”

“If he loves me enough?” Eve laughed, shakily, and picked up a napkin to dab carefully at her eyes, making black blots of wet mascara on the paper. “Yeah, join the club. Well, what do you think?”

“It’s not really what I think—it’s what
you
do.”

Eve sniffled and wiped at her nose. “This is ruining my makeup; you know that.”

“You can blame me if you want.”

“No. No, I don’t.” Eve sighed and looked up, trying for a smile but failing pretty badly. “I’ve known he wasn’t totally—comfortable with this, you know? That he kept worrying, and thinking, and worrying … and I was just hoping that he’d stop, that it was cold feet, which is pretty stupid because he’s a vampire and, you know, cold in general, but—I thought he’d get over it. It’s just gotten worse.”

“And he’s not telling you about this girl.”

“Apparently. Yeah.” This time, Eve burst out in tears, and covered her face with the napkin. She had to use both hands, and Claire sat helplessly, wishing she could do
something
, while Eve bawled like a little girl. She finally got up and slid over to Eve’s side of the booth and put her arms around her.

If the makeup had been extreme before, it was ultra-Goth now, with the dripping lines of mascara and smears. Eve started wiping it off, going through more and more napkins.

Marjo stopped by, took a look at the two of them, shook her head, and grabbed the desserts. She took them away and brought back a stack of napkins and a glass of water. “Wash that off,” she said. “You look like a sad clown. Bad for my business.”

For Marjo, that was all kinds of concerned and sensitive. Plus, she brought fresh cups of ice cream, for nothing.

Eve scrubbed most of her makeup off, leaving herself looking tender and raw and very young, and sucked down a deep breath and said, “I’m okay now. Here, eat your ice cream. There’ll never be a better time, trust me.”

The two of them ate, but Claire wondered if Eve really tasted hers at all. She kept hiccuping back sobs. “What are you going to do?” she asked Eve, finally, and her best friend shrugged without meeting her eyes.

“Well, pretending everything’s just peachy hasn’t really been the greatest idea,” she said. “I could go full-on drama queen and scream and cry and throw things at him, I guess. I would have, a year ago. But now … now I think I’ll just go … talk to him. I mean, I don’t want to do that. It’s going to hurt. But maybe it’s the best thing for us both if we get it out in the open and …”

She kept talking, and Claire was listening,
really
, but the door to the diner opened behind Eve, and a man walked in, and an unnatural, weird feeling came over Claire, as if a wave of mist had washed over her. She blinked and focused on him, trying to figure out why she’d had that reaction—was it cold outside? Raining? No, it was same as it had been, winter-warm and sunny and dry.

Weird.

The newcomer wasn’t so much to really notice … medium height, medium build, light blond hair. He was turned partly away from her, and from this angle there was nothing at all to distinguish him from a million other guys.

Then he turned to look their way, and for a second Claire saw …
something
. A flicker, an image, a vision. It was too short for her to really even process it, and she could easily have just imagined it, because there wasn’t anything abnormal about this guy at all. He had even, regular features and eyes that at this distance looked kind of blue.

He stuck his hands in his coat pockets and walked past them to the counter, and then, without a word, went back outside, where he walked around the corner and vanished.

Claire turned to watch him go.

“Hey,” Eve said. “Are you with me? Because I’m kind of in the middle of a crisis, here.” She sounded annoyed, and Claire didn’t blame her. She had no idea why she’d been so distracted. There wasn’t any reason, none at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—thought I knew him, I guess.” That wasn’t it, but he’d felt somehow
wrong
. As if he didn’t belong here.

“Who?” Eve twisted around. “I didn’t see anybody.”

Claire looked out into the parking lot. Nothing stood out there—no out-of-state plates on the cars, for certain. “Nobody, I guess. Maybe he’s just passing through,” she said.

“Wish I was,” Eve sighed. “Anywhere else is better right now, including lava pits. Are you ready to go?”

“I—Yeah, I guess so.” Claire dug cash from her pocket and paid for both of them, over Eve’s half hearted protests; Claire got a paycheck (allowance?) from the Founder’s Office for her work with Myrnin, and her bank account had grown to impressive four-digit numbers recently. She didn’t quite know what to do with all the money, but spending it on a heartsick best friend seemed like a good option. “Home?”

“Is there a second choice?”

“Well, we could go work on your shopping list?”

“That seems pretty dumb, considering.”

Claire had to agree with that.

As they walked out of the diner, she glanced back, and saw the anonymous man was now back in the diner. He was sitting at a table, hands folded, and he was watching them as they walked to Eve’s big black hearse.

The feeling of misty chill came over her again, and Claire shivered.

 

 

Shane was standing outside, in the yard, leaning against the single, ragged, winter-stripped tree, when Eve pulled up at the curb. He had his hands in his jeans pockets, and his brown hair ruffled in the breeze as if invisible hands combed through it. He was staring at the front door, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d ignite it into flames by the sheer focused power of that stare.

Claire jumped out and ran to him, already anxious, with Eve right behind. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

Shane jerked his chin at the house. “He’s in there,” he said. “With
her
.”

“Who?” Eve asked, but it sounded as if she already knew.

“Did you tell her?” Shane asked Claire. She nodded. “The blonde. Naomi. She showed up; he told me to leave. I left.”

Eve took a deep breath and walked up the steps—not running, not crying. She looked very calm and self-possessed.

Claire and Shane exchanged a look, and Shane said, “This can’t be good,” and they ran after her, into the house.

They found her almost immediately, standing in the front parlor of the house, the one none of them ever used; it was a stuffy sort of room, with furniture left over from the days of black-and-white television, if not older. But that was where Michael was, sitting on the stiff sofa, with a china cup of something that probably wasn’t tea sitting in front of him.