Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

And Eve answered so quickly it was as if she’d been sitting there waiting. Her image came on the screen, face turned pale blue by the computer’s reflected glow, and the sight of her was enough to make Claire feel a rush of tears. ‘Hey,’ Claire managed to choke out. ‘Thought I’d check in and see how it was going.’

‘Claire Bear!’ Eve bounced up and down in her chair, twisted around, and yelled, ‘Michael! Get your undead ass in here, guess who’s calling?’

‘I don’t have to guess, and you don’t have to yell,’ Michael said. Claire hadn’t seen him approach, but all of a sudden he was there, leaning over Eve’s shoulder to give her a light, sweet kiss. ‘Hey, Claire, how’s your new place? Are you settling in?’

‘Not so much, and it’s—’ She couldn’t think how to describe it, so she picked up the computer and panned it around. ‘It’s like that.’

‘Yow,’ Eve said. ‘Who picked that paint, a drunk colour-blind frat boy? Because a drunk colour-blind sorority girl would have better sense.’

‘I know.’ Claire sighed. ‘This whole thing … it’s – a lot to take in. I started meeting with my new professor. I like her, I guess. But it looks like it’s going to be complicated.’

‘Oh, we are so not going to waste time talking about dusty professors and boring classes, unless they’re sexy, sexy classes. Let’s get to the important info. Do you hate it enough to come running back here to us yet? And yes, I’m actually kind of hoping that will happen, sorry, but we miss you loads, Claire.’ Eve, always quick to cry, had a glimmer of tears in her eyes. ‘It’s not the same around here with you gone.’

‘She’s right,’ Michael said. He would have probably gone on, but Eve put her hand up in front of his mouth.

‘Sorry, just need to clarify … what was that you said?’

‘That you were right.’

‘Ah. I thought you said that. Just wanted to be sure. Although I think you left out the word always , there, and I know you meant to add it in,’ Eve said. ‘Just trying to be helpful.’

He managed to hold back his sigh, but only just, and leant forward into the camera. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘could you please tell my lady here that she doesn’t have to harass me all the time?’

‘Sorry, I do have to. It’s part of the marriage vows. Didn’t you read the fine print? To have and to harass.’

‘Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you need glasses.’

Eve smacked him, which meant exactly nothing to a vampire; he did her the courtesy of making it seem like he actually noticed. When she tried it again, he caught her hand, held it, and kissed it. Well, that was hotly romantic, and Claire felt the temperature notch up a couple of degrees between them. ‘Um, you guys, get a room.’

‘Got one,’ Eve said, and smiled so serenely she looked like the Mona Lisa. ‘Got several, and trust me, we’re working on breaking them allllllll in …’

Claire put her hands over her ears. ‘La la la, can’t hear you!’ Then she took her hands down and said, ‘Wait a second, my bedroom?’

‘Couldn’t exactly use Shane’s, could we? It smells like sweat socks and Mentos in there. Besides, if he found out about it, that would be a whole lot more strange conversations around the dinner table than anybody really needs.’ Eve waved it away. ‘Okay, enough about our luscious sex life, about which you don’t want to hear anyway. Amelie invited us to be on the new Morganville City Council. Takes the place of the old vampire-themed one, and it has to be more than fifty per cent humans. I guess they figured including me and Michael would send a message about how seriously she was taking this whole new let’s-be-nice-to-each-other thing.’

‘So how’s that going?’

‘So far? Pretty well. Since she came out with her new plans, everybody’s been quiet. The vamps don’t love it, but so far they’re playing by the rules even if they’re gritting their teeth while they do it.’

‘And Captain Obvious?’

‘Silent so far. I get the sense that he’s giving this the chance to work out.’ Michael automatically referred to Captain Obvious as he , even though the latest incarnation of the pro-human resistance leader was, in fact, female. And their friend. ‘Let’s hope everybody can keep it together this time.’

‘Let’s hope,’ Claire said. ‘And like Shane always says, pray all you want, but keep the shotguns loaded.’

It was, in fact, a favourite saying of Shane’s, and they all smiled at it … but then Michael and Eve’s smiles faded, and they exchanged a look.

A look Claire didn’t like. ‘What?’ she asked. Neither of them answered. ‘Where’s Shane?’

‘Working,’ Michael said, before Eve could answer. ‘Sorry. He’s a little hard to get hold of right now or I’d link him in. He misses you, though.’

‘Yeah, I can tell, he’s been really texting me all the time.’

Eve’s eyes got round. ‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘Well, in his defence, his hands are really big,’ Eve said. ‘He’s never been that good at it.’

‘I hope you’re just talking about texting,’ Michael said.

‘Well, you can hope,’ Eve said calmly, and Michael choked back a laugh. Eve sobered, then, and said, ‘Seriously, Michael’s right. Shane doesn’t do anything but miss you. All the time. But he promised you he wouldn’t bug you, and he isn’t. He’s just … giving you space. Takes a lot of strength.’ Michael put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him and smiled. ‘If it was Michael telling me to wait, I couldn’t do it. I’m just not that strong. Or that patient.’

‘You forgave Shane awfully fast,’ Claire said. ‘Both of you.’

Michael shrugged. ‘I lied to him, and he’s hardwired to trust me, from all the time we’ve spent together growing up. So I don’t blame him for believing me. I hear I was pretty convincing.’ He looked grim about that, and she knew it still hurt like a raw open wound inside him. He’d been controlled by another vampire, made to push away those who loved him, like Eve and Shane and Claire. He’d done it in one bold move, just by kissing Claire and telling them all he’d been doing it for a while.

They’d believed him. For a while.

But they hadn’t believed Claire.

‘I still owe you,’ he told her quietly. ‘Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Better not,’ she said, but she smiled as she said it. ‘I’m not still mad, Michael.’

‘I know. But it doesn’t matter whether you are, or aren’t. I still owe you.’

She left it at that, because he wasn’t going to yield, and moved the conversation on to other things. Eve had been invited to join an exclusive Morganville club of the wealthiest ladies in town, all of whom were snobs; she’d turned it down (although she had considered joining just to cause them grief). Then she’d accepted an invite from the vampires to join some kind of tea association. ‘I figure that if the living dead have any kind of blue-haired old ladies, it would be the tea association,’ Eve said. ‘They’re too polite to be rude to me to my face. So, that’ll be fun. I’ll just pretend not to understand when they’re all subtle about their dissing.’

‘And she’s going to be on her best behaviour,’ Michael said. Eve mouthed silently, not likely , and Claire covered her smile with her hand. ‘Listen, I know it’s late, so you get to bed. Anything you want me to tell Shane …?’

‘Are you really going to tell him all the sexy romantic things I want to say?’

‘Not hardly.’

‘Then just tell him to call me when he can,’ she said. ‘Or text. If he can get his big fingers on the tiny little keys.’