Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

‘Now then,’ Patrick said, and deposited the cold glass of water in front of Liz, patted her shoulder, and walked over to his own chair in a triangle between the two of them. ‘What were we talking about? Ah, yes—’

‘The chicken looks delicious,’ Claire said. ‘How did you cook it?’ That elicited a nervous flood of cooking info from Liz; Rachael Ray would have been proud, because Liz seemed to have memorised the entire recipe, start to finish, and it had a lot of steps. Same for the stuffing. Dr Davis’s smile grew fixed and grim, but he waited out the tidal surge of information. His gaze mostly held on Liz, but Claire felt it when he shifted to her.

She didn’t like it.

The business of serving out the chicken and vegetables took most of the time, and then when Dr Davis tried to reframe his question, Claire jumped up to get the bread from the oven and passed that around, too. Liz nervously chattered on, clearly scared to death that Dr Davis would think he wasn’t wanted (and he wasn’t, on Claire’s part), which had the nice side effect of blocking his attempts at boxing Claire into conversation again.

For a while, he gave up, preferring to trade idle chatter with Elizabeth – none of it invited or required any participation from Claire, so she ate dinner with single-minded focus. The chicken really was good. She really needed to learn how to make that.

By the time her plate was empty, the other two at the table were only half finished, and Claire drained the rest of her Coke and rose to take her plate to the sink. ‘Thanks, Liz,’ she said. ‘I really have to go study.’

‘Oh,’ Liz said. ‘Really? Well, if you have to.’ It was the token protest, with an undercurrent of please go away and leave us alone now . Which was a relief, and Claire headed for the kitchen door.

She didn’t quite get there before Dr Davis said, ‘I understand that you’re studying with Dr Irene Anderson. She has quite the reputation as – let’s say, an eccentric, even at MIT. How do you find working with her?’

It would have been rude to keep on walking, but she opened the door and stood in the threshold as she answered. ‘Fine. Look, I really have to—’

‘I’m very intrigued by Dr Anderson’s research.’

‘You know her?’

‘Quite well, actually. She has a great interest in cryptobiology – projecting the abilities and vulnerabilities of imaginary creatures. Such as, say, werewolves, zombies, vampires. We debate the subject often. It’s a lively discussion topic. What would you say the primary vulnerability is for a vampire, say?’

Claire smiled thinly back at him. ‘Sorry, I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t have time for that kind of thing. I have way too many real-world things to worry about right now.’ She intended it as a total shutdown and dismissal, but he didn’t take the hint. Of course.

‘Well, hypothetically – you’re a very smart young lady, Claire. Hypothetically, do you think that vampires could be controlled and put to good use as, say, soldiers? Or secret agents? I suppose they’d be great at all sorts of dangerous occupations that humans would hesitate to do. Provided one could totally ensure their compliance.’

‘I suppose.’ She really didn’t like where this was going. ‘Liz, thanks for dinner.’

‘It was lovely to meet you,’ Dr Davis said. ‘Miss Danvers.’

‘Sure,’ she said flatly, and let the door swing shut behind her.

She went up the stairs to her room and locked the door, put on her headphones, and tried to block out the world. If he came knocking, she’d ignore him. And she’d damn sure be telling Dr Anderson about this. And maybe Amelie, too.

An hour later, she stripped off her headphones, yawned, and pressed her ear to the door to see if the coast was clear to go to the bathroom. It was. The kitchen was silent, and the bathroom was empty. After her visit, though, she heard sounds coming from Liz’s room on the second floor, and she went up the stairs, fast.

Dr Davis was definitely taking advantage of more than just the chicken dinner. And from the sound of it, Liz was enjoying every minute of it.

Ugh .

Claire put the headphones back on and turned the music way up, just to be sure she didn’t hear any part of that. It didn’t really help. And it made her fidgety, angry, worried, frustrated … in all kinds of ways, actually.

Shane hadn’t called. Why hadn’t he called? She checked her phone, and yes, the battery was still good. Everything was fine.

She angrily stripped the headphones off and, driven by a mix of emotions she really didn’t want to examine too closely, selected his number and pressed call.

And this time, he answered. ‘Claire?’

He sounded … he sounded close. And out of breath. As if she might be able to reach out and touch him, just … collapse in his arms and let all this go away for a while. Make everything right again. And she wanted it, wanted it so so much. So much that for a long, shaky moment she couldn’t even make her voice work right.

‘Claire …?’ His voice was softer now, almost a whisper. ‘God, please talk to me.’

‘I’m here,’ she whispered back. Somehow she didn’t want to raise the level of her voice; it sounded intimate this way. Close. Personal. ‘I called you. You didn’t answer.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. Please – it doesn’t mean that I don’t care, I just—’ He moved, and she heard his breath catch. And she heard that his voice wasn’t quite right, either. ‘I just couldn’t call you back.’

She sat up straighter, because all her alarm bells were ringing now. ‘Shane, are you all right? What happened? Are you hurt?’ Because he was. She could hear it, especially when he tried to laugh.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not, don’t even try to tell me that. What happened?’

‘Got my ass kicked,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly breaking news. Except oddly enough it had nothing to do with vampires, can you believe it? Well, it did, because a vampire saved me from getting stomped to death. So there’s that. It’s a fun story. I’ll tell it to you sometime.’

She wanted to cry, it hurt her so much not to be with him. To not take care of him when he needed her. ‘You don’t sound good. How badly are you hurt?’

‘Cuts, bruises, a pretty nice concussion that rang my bell. Nothing broken, which is a miracle. I’ve had worse. Hell, Claire, you’ve had worse. Don’t worry, I’m all right. I really am.’ His voice lowered again, into that low purring whisper. ‘Are you? Okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she whispered back. ‘I miss you. I miss Eve and Michael. I miss home. Is that bad? It’s probably bad. You’re going to think I’m whining like a little kid.’

‘No. I—’ She had the weird feeling that he was about to confess something too, but then … then he sighed. ‘I think you’re amazing. And I think it’s good that you’re doing this. It’s your dream, Claire. I wouldn’t want to stand in your way.’

‘Do you think you did? You didn’t. I was standing in my way. And … I’m not so sure that this is my dream after all. It’s turning out to be … kind of a nightmare.’ A particularly loud moan came up through the floorboards, and Claire buried her head under her pillow with the phone cradled close to her ear. ‘I really hate living with Elizabeth. And she’s getting it on with a skanky professor right now.’

‘Right now?’

‘One floor down. It’s gross. I can’t even tell you how gross it is. There are no words.’

‘Okay, then listen to my voice,’ he said. She closed her eyes, and fell into the sound of his breathing. ‘You don’t have to listen to anything else, just talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your life.’