Rachel Caine - Bite Club

I really, really did.

When I got out of the van, we were at some falling-down old warehouse, another crappy piece of Morganville ancient history that nobody cared about. I saw fading letters on the outside. It must have been some kind of carpet mill. Big brick building, not many windows, and what windows had been there were broken out three stories up by some local kids with good arms. Not a lot of time for sightseeing, but I recognized the area; you don’t grow up in this stupid town without prowling around the places your parents don’t want you to go. Me and Lyss had poked through some of these abandoned warehouses when she was about twelve and I was stupider than usual. We’d gotten away with it, but looking back on it now, I couldn’t believe we’d ever taken that chance.

Now that she was gone, it made me cold to think all the risks I’d let her take. If I could make things right again, make that fire stop, get her out of the house before all the smoke and the flames…then I’d never let her take another risk again. I’d protect her. That’s what a big brother is supposed to do: protect.

But no, I’d been a jackass to her, and I’d fallen asleep on the couch, and by the time I woke up, the house was burning and I couldn’t get her out. I don’t know if she woke up. I hoped not. I hoped she never knew, never felt the kind of screaming fear that I did while trying to get to her.

Shake it off, Collins. Lyss was gone. My mom and dad were gone. I had to focus on getting myself through the next two hours or so without joining them. If I did this right, I’d make a lot of money: enough to buy my way out of town, get lost, make a new life. Forget Claire.

That was what I had to do. Forget. Forget everything.

It was easier when Gloriana prowled over and took my arm. She was a vamp, yeah, but she didn’t feel like one; I didn’t hate her and I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to please her, in all kinds of ways—not that she wanted anything from me except to put up a good fight. She went for the fanged boys. Like Michael.

Just another reason to hate him. Like I needed more.

“Are you ready?” she asked me. “Are you going to be my knight in shining armor, Shane, protecting me from all the big, bad men?” She said it with a smile, but I had the feeling she didn’t mean it. She seemed to be making fun of me, but I couldn’t get too upset about it. There was something about her…something that deep down I knew I hated but still couldn’t resist. “Because we have a lot riding on you tonight. We need you to make us a lot of money, very quickly, and we’re going to take that money and pay off some debts. Old debts, to someone we’d rather not owe, if you know what I mean. Then there will be new owners for Immortal Battles, and Vassily and I will be safe. And we can all be out of Morganville forever.”

She was telling me things that I knew she didn’t intend for me to understand, and on some level I did understand…and I knew that something was very wrong. But it was too late for any of that, for caution or thinking or resistance.

I hated her kind, but I’d do anything for Gloriana, and she knew it.

“Now,” she said, and patted my hand the same way she would have patted a dog on the head. “You’re not going to have a problem with your warm-up match, are you?”

“Who am I fighting?”

“Your old friend. Michael.”

Michael. I turned that over in my sluggishly working brain, and I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t quite get it to come out of my mouth. Instead, I said, and I meant it, “Sure, no problem.” Michael and I had fought before. Hell, I’d put him down on the ground a couple of times, even though he was vamp-fast. I could take him.

“I only ask because it would be inconvenient if you had…second thoughts. We’re going to do this live, not on tape, you see. More excitement that way. More money. There will be a live audience as well as one online.”

Didn’t matter to me who was watching or why. “I fight vampires,” I said. “That’s what I’m supposed to do. Doesn’t matter who they are or who they used to be. Right?”

“Right,” she said, and laughed. I tried not to notice the flash of fangs in her mouth. “I love a man who knows what he wants, Shane. Oh, and remember…this fight doesn’t stop until one of you gets carried out. No mercy.”

“No mercy,” I said. I felt weirdly hollow inside, empty where I’d been full of all kinds of stuff before. There was only the hate now, glowing and radiating inside of me, and it was starting to feel like something toxic. Something that was eating me up inside, spawning cancers like black clouds.

But it didn’t matter. None of that mattered when she opened the door and I saw the cage in the middle of the bleachers, and the people getting in their seats.

“That’s yours,” Glory whispered to me. “That’s all yours, Shane. Because you’re going to win tonight, and we’re all going to be free.”

I looked at her, suddenly sure she was lying…but there was something oddly open and honest in her blue eyes.

“You mean it?” I asked. “Free?”

“Free,” she repeated. “I promise you. After tonight, you’ll never have to fight again.”

Then she led me down a hall and sat me in a chair, and Vassily showed up doing his stupid Dracula impression, with cameras that leered at me with empty eyes. And then it was all over and the countdown was up.

Time to fight.

“Paying customers,” Myrnin said. He nodded to the people getting out of cars and walking toward the far door, the safe door, of the warehouse. There were all types—what passed for white-collar in Morganville, moms, college kids, tough guys. A cross section of crazy. There were vampires, too, working the door…Claire recognized one of them, and said so. “Yes,” Myrnin agreed. “He was with Bishop before. One of those Amelie said has been missing. Now we know where he’s been. No doubt Vassily hired many of Bishop’s former employees to staff his little venture.”

“But what does he want ?” Eve asked. She was watching the parade of people forking over cash with a baffled and faintly sickened expression. “All this for money?”

“Millions of dollars, which to a vampire means safety and stability,” Myrnin said. “And independence. Our friends who broke away from Amelie to form their little colony in Blacke aren’t the only ones who want out of Morganville; Bishop’s friends and sympathizers fear Amelie. Outside of this town, they could be their own little petty kings and queens.” The way he said it, he seemed bitter and distant, as if he’d considered it before. Or done it before. “In any case, never think money is any less a good motive than passion. You’d be surprised what people will do for money that they wouldn’t do for love.”

“We have to get in,” Eve said.

“No doubt,” Myrnin agreed. “But they will know you immediately. Claire is less recognizable, and hardly anyone knows my face. I suggest you stay here and—”

Eve gave him a withering look and said, “Pass me your hat.”

“Pardon?”

“Your hat . And your coat.”

Myrnin gave her a doubtful look and handed them over. She shook them out, sniffed them, made a face, and then put it on. On Eve, the coat looked even bigger and more ill-fitting than it had on Myrnin, and the hat practically swallowed her head. All that Claire could see of her was a white flash of face.

Just like a vamp.

“Huh,” Myrnin said, and cocked his head with great interest. “For someone so singular, you can disappear quite effectively.”