Rachel Caine: Kiss of Death

And she pulled free of Michael and got down on her hands and knees to clean up the rest.

And Michael got down there with her. Claire backed through the kitchen door with a load of stuff, and as it swung closed, she saw Michael lean over and kiss Eve. It looked sweet and hot and absolutely real.

“Well?” Shane asked. “World War Fifteen over out there, or what?”

“I think so,” she said, and hip-bumped him out of the way at the sink to dump her armload of plates. “You’re washing, right?”

“I’ll play you for it.”

“What?”

“Best high score wins?”

That was the same basic thing as doing it herself now and saving herself the humiliation, Claire thought. “No bet,” she said. “Wash, dish boy.”

He flicked suds at her. She shrieked and laughed and flipped more at him. They splashed water. It felt ... breathlessly good, when Shane finally captured her in his soapy hands, pulled her close to his wet T-shirt, and kissed her.

“And that’s World War Sixteen, ” he said. “Officially over.”

“I’m still not playing Dead Rising with you.”

“You’re no fun.”

She kissed him, long and sweet and slow, and whispered, “You sure?”

“Well, I’m certainly changing my mind,” Shane said, straight-faced, at least until he licked his lips. His pupils were large and dark and completely fixed on hers, and she felt as if gravity had reversed, as if she could fall up into his eyes and just keep on going.

“Dishes,” he reminded her. “Me dish boy. And I can’t believe I just said that, because that was lame.”

She kissed him again, lightly this time. “That’s for later,” she said. “By the way? You look really hot with suds all over you.”

The kitchen door opened, and Eve walked in, dumped a plateful of trash in the can, and practically danced her way over to the sink. She still had smeared mascara, and her tears weren’t even dry, but she was smiling, and there was a dreamy, distant look in her eyes.

“Hey,” Shane said. “How about you? Want to play Dead Rising?”

“Sure,” Eve said. “Fine. Absolutely.”

She wandered out. Shane blinked. “That was not what I expected.”

“She’s floating,” Claire said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. But she didn’t even insult me. That’s just wrong. It disturbs me.”

“I’m taking advantage of all this calm,” Claire said. “Study time.”

“Bring it downstairs,” Shane said. “I need a cheering section, because she is going to suck at zombie killing tonight. Just way too happy.”

Claire laughed, but she dashed upstairs and grabbed her book bag, which promptly ripped right down the seam, spilling about twenty pounds’ worth of texts, supplies, and junk all over the wooden floor. “Great,” she said with a sigh. “Just great.” She gathered up what she needed in an untidy armload and headed back downstairs.

She was halfway down the stairs when someone knocked at the front door. They all stopped what they were doing—Michael, in the act of picking up his guitar; Shane and Eve, taking seats on the couch with game controllers. “Expecting anybody else?” Shane asked Eve. “Is your distant cousin Jack the Ripper dropping in for coffee?”

“Screw you, Collins.”

“Finally, the world is back to normal. Still not up to the usual Rosser Olympic-level insult standards, there, sunshine. Never mind. I’ll get it.”

Michael didn’t say anything, but he put down the guitar and followed Shane to the end of the hall, watching. Claire descended the rest of the steps quickly, trying to keep her pile of stuff from tottering over, and dumped it on the dining table before hurrying over to Michael’s side.

Shane checked the peephole, stepped back, and said, “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Trouble?”

Michael crossed the distance in a flash, looked out, and bared his teeth— all his teeth, including the vampiry ones, which didn’t exactly bode well. Claire sucked in a deep breath. Damn stupid book bag, picking a bad time to break; usually, she’d have brought all the stuff down, but she’d left her antivamp supplies upstairs in the ruined bag’s pocket.

“It’s Morley,” Michael said. “I’d better go out and talk to him. Shane, stay here with them.”

“Word of advice—stop telling me to stay with the girls,” Shane said, “or I will seriously bust you in the mouth one of these days. Seriously. I could break one of those shiny fangs.”

“Today?”

“Ah ... probably not.”

“Then shut up.” Michael opened the door just wide enough to slide out, looked back, and said, “Lock it.”

Shane nodded, and as soon as the wood thumped closed, he shot all the bolts and glued his eye to the peephole.

Claire and Eve, by common silent decision, dashed to the living room window, which gave them an angled view of the porch—not perfect, but better than nothing.

“Oh no,” Eve whispered.

Michael was standing in a wash of moonlight, facing not just one vampire, but three. Morley—a ragged, rough vampire who rocked the homeless look, although Claire knew he actually did have a home—was standing there, with two of his crew. He had quite a number of them, disaffected vampire youth, although youth was a relative term when you talked about vampires. It was mostly a matter of status, not just age; the have-nots, or the ones feeling squeezed by those who had power over them.

They also had a human with them.

Jason.

And he wasn’t there voluntarily, as far as Claire could tell. One of the vampires had a hand around his arm in what looked like a friendly grip but was probably bone-crushing hard.

“Jase,” Eve whispered. “Oh God. I told you to be careful! ”

Shane left the door, came into the living room, and dragged a black canvas bag out from under a chair. He unzipped it and took out a small crossbow, cranked it back, and loaded it with an arrow. He tossed silver-coated stakes to Claire and Eve, then joined them at the window. “So,” he said, “your brother’s already said he was a vampire wannabe. Does he need rescuing, or is this his idea of a really great date?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Eve said, and gripped the stake so hard her whole hand turned paler than normal. “They wouldn’t turn him, anyway. They’ll just drain him.” It was a lot of work for a vampire to turn a human, and from what Claire had seen, they didn’t seem all that eager to go through it themselves. It hurt. And it took something out of them. The only one she’d ever seen take any real pleasure out if had been Mr. Bishop, Amelie’s vile, old vampire father. She’d seen him turn Shane’s father, and that had been—horrible. Really horrible.

This was why Shane, however he felt about Jason Rosser, was loading up a crossbow, and was more than prepared to use it.

“What’s Michael doing?”

“Talking sense,” Shane said. “It’s always his A game. For him, it usually works. Me, I’m usually Plan B, all the time.”

“B for brute force?” Eve said. “Yep, that’s you.”

Shane slotted the arrow in place and raised the window sash. He kicked out the screen on the other side and aimed the crossbow right at Morley.

Morley, who was dressed in clothes that seemed pieced together out of rags, except for one brand-new Hawaiian shirt in disgustingly bright shades of neon, looked straight at the window, smiled, and tipped his head just a little in acknowledgment.

“Just so we’re clear, bloodsucker,” Shane said.

“Can he hear you?”

“He hears every word. Hey, Morley? I will put this right between your ribs, you got me?”

Once again, Morley nodded, and the smile stayed in place.