Rachel Caine: Bite Club

“Okay,” Claire finally said. “I admit, he has significant ninja qualities.”

“Booyah. I will summon the ninja. Oh, and take a lunch break while we burgle.”

“You’re going, too?”

“Am I not ninja enough? Are you saying that I lack ninja?”

“No, I was just thinking you’re a little, uh, recognizable, maybe?”

Eve batted her thick eyelashes. “Why, thank you, sweetie. That’s the nicest insult I’ve had today, not counting the jock who said he’d date me but he had a restraining order out for necrophilia. I promise, I’ll dowdy up for the occasion. It’ll take me five minutes.” She took her cell out of her pocket and texted as she spoke. “Promise me you won’t leave without me.”

“I promise.”

“Want me to organize Shane into this posse, too?”

“He’s at work.” Claire sighed. She would have gladly had Shane added to the mix at this point, but he was already on fragile ground at work, considering he’d ditched twice this month—once for a legitimate sick day, but the other had been just plain boredom. “Next time we commit crime, we’ll make sure to include him.”

Eve held up one fist while she kept typing with one thumb, and Claire tapped it. Eve finished with a flurry of keystrokes, snapped the phone shut, and drained her coffee. “Right. Mikey’s on the way. I’ll be anti-Eve in five. Enjoy your mocha.”

Claire did, drinking fast. It was a good thing she did, because in just about five minutes, Michael was walking through the big UC open hall outside the coffee area, a guitar case slung over his back. He should have drawn attention—Michael was just plain gorgeous, and girls looked —but he was walking with his shoulders slumped, hands in his pants pockets, looking down, and the whole aura just projected Don’t look at me so strongly that Claire couldn’t see a single person other than herself actually taking notice of him.

He slid onto a seat next to her, leaning the guitar case against the table. “So, now we’re going to be actual criminals,” he said.

“And, see, you brought a guitar.”

He gave her a look . “I was on my way to practice.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“Sounds like I didn’t have much of a choice. This guy has vampire blood?”

“I guess so. Larkin was using it for some experiment. I suppose it was authorized.”

“Larkin? Had to be. He wouldn’t dare do it on the side.” Michael nudged her empty mocha cup with a fingertip. “Where’s Eve?”

“Right here, Ninja with Fangs.” Eve leaned over behind him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him right over the cool blue veins. “Claire said I had to go in disguise as a regular person.”

And she had. Eve had scrubbed off every trace of her Goth persona and tied her black hair back in a tight ponytail. She’d changed into a plain black hoodie—one without skulls or symbols, so Claire could only figure she’d raided someone else’s locker for it. The only thing left to indicate she wasn’t like every other college-age girl on campus were the thick-soled boots she was wearing. Still, those weren’t all that noticeable. She’d even thrown on an old pair of blue jeans.

“Wow. We really are stealthy now,” Claire said, and shut her computer. “Can we store stuff in the back?”

“Sure, my locker has an actual lock.”

Claire raised her eyebrows and tugged the cord of the black hoodie. “And you keep this in it?”

“I didn’t say that the locks couldn’t be picked. But actually my good buddy Edie never locks hers, anyway. Come on, let’s get the storage taken care of.”

In the end, they left Michael’s guitar, Claire’s backpack (with laptop), and pretty much everything else behind, as Eve set up the lunch break sign on the counter and locked up the register. In a surprisingly short time, they were headed out again. Michael had brought a leather hat, which looked kind of sloppy-cool and shaded his face and neck. He kept his hands in his pockets.

“You’re not as sensitive anymore,” Claire said. “To the sun, I mean.” Because when Michael had first been venturing out, he’d had to drape himself in a blanket to keep from burning.

“Well, it’s cloudy,” he pointed out. It was; there were ominous dark masses in the sky, and the sun had disappeared behind the curtain. “And I’ve got on two layers. But, yeah, it’s better now than it was.” He said it as if he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, which was strange. Claire supposed that becoming more stable meant he also felt more like a vampire. “I’ll be okay unless the sun comes out full strength again.”

Which, Claire could tell, it wouldn’t. Rain was coming, the kind of torrential desert rain that would drown the streets and create flash floods out in the arroyos outside of town, and would be completely gone tomorrow. There were already flashes of hidden lightning inside the clouds.

Luckily, they weren’t far from Stinky Doug’s dorm. It housed both male and female students, which was lucky, because it meant the three of them were even less noticeable, and there weren’t any sign-ins required. Once they’d made it to the stairwell, Michael took off the hat, stuffed it in his jacket, and ran up the steps with so much ease that Claire, puffing a little in his wake, wondered if maybe this vampire thing might not be okay after all. Eight flights of stairs wasn’t her thing.

At the top, she and Eve caught their breath and joined up with Michael as he stepped out to check the hallway. He motioned for them to follow, so it must have been clear. Claire was surprised to see that this dorm hall was pretty much like her old one, the one she’d first lived in when she’d moved to Morganville—dingy, battered, smelling like old beer and desperation. Doors were closed all along the hall, except for a couple at the end that blasted music she didn’t recognize at top volume in some kind of stereo war.

Stinky Doug’s room was the third on the left. Michael paused in front of it, leaned forward and listened, then nodded. He jiggled the knob. Locked.

That was why it was good to have a vampire along, because a simple twist of his wrist, and that lock problem? Solved. Michael pushed open the door and disappeared inside, and Eve and Claire followed, shutting the door behind them.

And Claire choked, because Stinky Doug’s personal aroma was nothing compared to the state of his dorm room. Her eyes watered. She couldn’t stand to take a full breath, because she was deeply afraid she was going to vomit. Not that it would make the stench any worse.

“Eww,” Eve said, pitifully, holding her nose shut. “Oh, my God! What died?”

Michael turned on the lights. For a couple of seconds, they stared in silence, and then Eve said, in a very small, muffled voice, “It was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”

Because Doug was lying on the bed, eyes open and staring, and he was definitely, completely dead. Not for long, Claire guessed, because blood still dripped from the wound in his neck.

It wasn’t a vampire bite. There was a huge pool of blood soaked into the mattress beneath Doug, staining his T-shirt crimson.

Michael had gone very, very pale—marble white, in fact. He leaned over the body, maybe checking for signs of life, and shook his head. As Claire and Eve stood rooted to the spot in shock, he ransacked Doug’s backpack, then patted down the dead man’s pockets, pulling out keys, a cell phone, breath mints (it made Claire suddenly sad that he carried those when he was so generally unpleasant to the senses), a wallet, some change.

No vials of blood.

“We have to go,” Michael said. “Now. Right now.”

“Was it—Was it the vamps?” Eve asked. “Can you tell?”