SHANE

At least the lights in the lab were on; that was something. I hadn't thought to ask Claire if I needed a flashlight-I mean, there was a lot going on, and no time for leisurely Q&A-but when I squeezed through that icy/hot darkness that Claire cal ed a portal, and I cal ed wrong, it was decently lit up on the other side.

Myrnin's lab was, as usual, a wreck, but I thought it was worse than before...probably because there were two vampires fighting the hel out of each other, and at the speed they were moving, it was hard to be sure which one was my friend. allI got was impressions as they shoved each other up and down the crowded aisles made tricky with spil ed and slaughtered books. Claire would hate that-al the mutilated pages.

I was more worried about the blood, because there were smears of it here and there, and it looked like someone was getting the worst of the fight.

And my guess that it was Michael was confirmed when suddenly the fight ended. It went from speed of light to ful stop in one cold second, and Michael was on the floor with the creepy, androgynous Pennyfeather kneeling on his chest, eyes red and claws dripping the same color.

Oh, holy crap. It wasn't Myrnin. In a straight-out fight, Michael could have probably taken Claire's boss, but Pennyfeather was something else-something worse.

Pennyfeather drew back for a blow that would probably have decapitated Michael, except that I leaped forward and planted a boot in his side, slammed him off-balance, and shot him with my newest, sweetest toy. It had been made to tranquilize big game animals, like lions and tigers, and I figured it would do just fine for vampires. Especially if, instead of using sedatives, the darts were filled up with silver in suspension.

And it worked. Pennyfeather thought he had me; he rolled up and focused his rage right in my face, and yeah, that was scary, but I saw the first flicker as it passed over his face. Confusion. Then pain. Then shock.

"What-?" he said, and then he col apsed to his knees. He grabbed the dart I'd buried in his neck and yanked it out. I saw a wisp of smoke curl out from the blackened hole in his skin. "What did you-"

"You tried to kil my girlfriend and my best friend," I said. "Suck it, fangboy."

There wasn't enough silver in the dart to kil him, but it was more than enough to make him deeply unhappy for a long time-and, most important, stuck right there, unable to move.

Just the way I wanted him.

I held out a hand to Michael, who hadn't moved from where he'd landed, and he took it and managed to stand. His leg was broken, and I winced when I saw how not-straight it was, but he just shook his head, hopped on one foot, and kicked out, hard. The bones slid back together. He managed not to scream. I would have. A lot. But he did clamp his hand on my shoulder and hold on with brutal strength.

"You good?" I asked, which was a weird thing to say, admittedly; he'd just reset a broken leg, vampire-style, which was gross and cool at the same time.

"Nothing that can't heal," he said. "Damn, he's fast. I mean, really fast. I was expecting Myrnin gone wild. Not him."

"Want to go kick him a few more times?"

"With a broken leg?"

"Okay, fair point." I made sure he could stand on his own, then went back to my dropped bag. It was ful of interesting things. I sorted through, slowly, because I knew Pennyfeather was still conscious and watching me. "Hmmm. So, should I go with something fast, like the silver stake through the heart? It's a classic, I'll admit, but I was hoping for something he'd really appreciate. One thing I know about this jackhole is that he really likes his quality pain."

"He's not getting out of here again," Michael agreed. "But you don't have to go allMarquis de Sade on him, either. Just kil him. Or let me."

"You're not a kil er," I told him. "Fangs aside, I know you, man. You've got a nice-guy streak a mile wide. Now me..." I pulled out a big silver- coated knife, suitable for skinning deer, presuming I ever hunted any vampire deer, and held it up so it caught the light. "Me, I'm more of a 'Welcome to the dark side' kind of person."

Michael's leg was fixed well enough that he hobbled over to me and took the knife away. I let him, of course. "You're not a stone-cold murderer," he said. "And Pennyfeather's just lying there waiting for it. You'l kil somebody in self-defense, or defending someone else, but not like this."

"And you wil ? Give me my knife."

"Are you going to use it, or just pose for pictures? Because you know we can't leave him alive." Those last words were said quietly, in a voice that was a whole lot darker than the Michael Glass I'd known most of my life, the one who'd always had my back and been ready to kick ass if necessary.

But neither one of us killed. Not in the sense of cold-blooded murdering.

"He tried to kil Claire," I said. "I guess-"

"He tried to kil Eve, too," Michael said, "and wife trumps girlfriend just a little. So it's my job." His blue eyes looked dark now, almost like a night-sky color, and I would have actually felt better if he'd been vamping out in some way. But he wasn't. It was just regular Michael, talking about murder, with my knife in his hand.

I didn't know what to say to that. I stood up slowly, watching his face, and he nodded.

"Guess I'll get it done."

"Dude-"

Ignoring me, he limped over to Pennyfeather, who was still lying prone on the floor where the tranquilizer had taken him out. I had to admit, that one had worked way better than I'd expected.

Which raised the important question of why it had worked better than expected-because nothing ever did. In fact, I was always surprised when any of the things I invented worked at all. And Pennyfeather was one hard-to-kil fanger.

Al of a sudden, I had a black, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Michael-"

"I've got this," he said. He looked pale but determined. "He tried to kil Eve, and Claire, and if we let him go, he's going to do worse. You know that."

"Watch-"

Out, I was going to say, but I didn't get the chance, because Pennyfeather wasn't allthat tranquilized after all. He wasn't fully healed, though, and that was allthat saved Michael from having his arm ripped off as the other vamp came up off the floor, grabbed his wrist, and yanked hard enough to break the knife free. It clattered to the stone floor and bounced, and I scrambled after it as Michael punched Pennyfeather in the face a couple of times to try to break his grip, without success. Pennyfeather's eyes had gone ful -on red, and his fangs were down; he was trying to pul Michael down into biting range, and managed to score a long red scrape down his forearm before Michael wrenched backward. I grabbed the knife and headed back, and Pennyfeather knew the rules had changed; maybe it was the look on my face, and the fact that however much I might hesitate at knifing a helpless enemy, I wasn't even going to hesitate when he was a threat to my friend.

He shoved Michael hard into a table behind him, but Mike was ready for it; he bounced forward again, directly into Pennyfeather, and body-slammed him flat into the floor.

"Shane!" he yel ed. "Hurry up. I can't hold him!"

I was hurrying, and that was a mistake, because one of Myrnin's stupid always-scattered books slid under my foot and threw me off-balance, and during the second or two it took me to grab my balance again, Pennyfeather heaved Michael off him and almost levitated up to a standing position. He was by no means well ; he was swaying in place, but somehow that made him seem more menacing, more inhuman, like some sinister demonic puppet with glowing eyes.

Instead of coming for me, he leaped backward, up onto a table, where he sent glass crashing and flying to the ground, and ful -on hissed at us. He was still woozy, and maybe he really would come down for good from the silver, but not yet. Obviously.

Attacking a vampire who had the higher ground wasn't smart, and I slowed my rush and stood shoulder to shoulder with Michael. If he decided to come at us from up there, we'd be fighting for our lives in earnest, and although the knife would help, it wasn't enough. Not nearly.

"You know," I said to Michael, "my girlfriend took him down with a broken tree branch."

"Too bad she isn't here," he said. "Watch-"

He was probably going to say out, but Pennyfeather did something neither of us was ready for: he backflipped off the table to the floor, and ran, zigzagging through the land mines of Myrnin's lab, off into the shadows.

"Dammit," I said. "What the hel do we do now? We can't leave him here, not if the portals still work. He could show up in our house. And where the hel is Myrnin?"

"I don't know," Michael said, "but definitely not here. We have to get him. Once and for all."

"We may not have much time." I pointed toward the black doorway, which was still shimmering. Maybe Claire was holding it open for us, but it was starting to get an uneven look to it. I looked toward the stairs, where the other, non-magical exit was, and for a long moment couldn't figure out why I was seeing a wal . "Um, Mikey?"

"What?"

"Where's the regular door out of here?"

He turned and looked, too, and saw exactly what I did: a rough-poured mass of concrete that filled and blocked the stairs that led up and out.

"What the-?" He didn't waste time on it, though, just turned back to the portal. "That's our way out. Our only way."

"Like I said, time's ticking, man." I was watching the portal nervously, because it seemed to be vibrating, rippling like silk in a strong wind. Not good, or at least I assumed it wasn't good. "Either we go now or we're stuck here, and my odds aren't so good with two hungry vampires and no blood bank."

"He's not going to be easy to catch with what we've got here. We need something else!"

I looked around. There was surely no shortage of crap here that could be dangerous, but it was alla hopeless jumble...and as I opened up the first drawer I came to, Pennyfeather glided out of the shadows about twenty feet away, and pounced.

I almost got the knife in place, but he slapped it away, and it took everything I had-and Michael leaping on the other vamp's back-to wrench free of his grip before he could start ripping pieces off me. I grabbed blindly and wrapped my hand around a heavy, solid piece of-wel , something.

It looked a little like a fancy camera, only really cumbersome. I didn't try to do anything clever with it, just whacked it into the side of Pennyfeather's albino head as hard as I could. It was substantial enough that it didn't even bend, and he weaved as if I'd done some damage, which I followed up with a kick that doubled him over.

And we still couldn't get him, because he dodged free of Michael and circled around, and Michael stalked after him, intent and focused and with his eyes glowing with vampire power. He was more concerned for me, and I appreciated that, but I got the distinct feeling that Pennyfeather wouldn't mind adding Michael's death to his scorecard, either.

I guess in trying to swing the thing I was holding at the attacking vampire again, I hit some kind of a switch, because I felt a heavy surge of energy crawl up my arm, and then I must have accidentally turned it on Michael, because he flinched as if something had hit him...

And then he just went maniac. He moved in a blur at Pennyfeather, screaming in fury, and Pennyfeather went down hard. Next thing I knew, Michael was holding him on the floor, punching him with vicious fury like I'd never known he was capable of feeling before. It was...scary. I stared down at the machine humming in my hands and quickly, clumsily felt around for an off button. I pressed something that seemed switchlike, and the hum died.

Michael stopped, breathing hard, staring down at Pennyfeather with eyes that glowed so red they seemed to be swimming with hel fire. Pennyfeather wasn't moving.

"Jesus," I whispered, and put the weapon-because that was what it was, some kind of weapon-down fast on the nearest available table space. "Michael?"

"I-" His voice sounded rusty and strange, and he looked up at me with those fury-filled eyes, and I almost wished he hadn't. "Give me the knife."

"Um...dude..."

"Knife."

I shook my head and put it away. "It's not because I don't want him dead. It's because I don't trust what you're going to do with it right now."

"He tried to kil Eve." There was a kind of terrible eagerness to the way he said it that made me want to shudder.

"Okay, man, it's great you got in touch with your inner serial kil er and all, but no way." I was serious. I wanted Pennyfeather dead; that was no problem at all. What I earnestly didn't want was for Michael to wake up from this-whatever it was-and have the memory of what he was about to do. Besides, in the event he suddenly took an unhealthy interest in me, I wanted to be the one holding the knife.

It took another few seconds, but finally the glow faded out of his eyes to a more-normal bloody color-I hated that I could say it was normal-and he sat back, shaking allover. "What the hel was that? I just-"

"Went allevil superhero? Yeah. I don't know. One of Myrnin's fun little gadgets, I guess." I poked at it, frowning, and it slid on top of a pile of books and nearly toppled to the floor until I grabbed it and settled it in place again.

Michael was still holding out his hand to me, and I realized he was still waiting for the knife. Calmly, now. Our eyes met and held, and I said, "Are you sure, man?"

"No," he said. "But it's got to be done."

I handed it to him. Pennyfeather's eyes were shut, and he looked lifeless already, stunned unconscious by Michael's furious attack. Lying there silent, he seemed a lot...smal er. And with that androgynous bone structure, he could have just as easily been a strong-featured woman as a man, and that made the whole thing even more unsettling. I wasn't sure I could have done it at all, honestly.

And just to make matters worse right then, the portal shimmered, shivered, and belched out Claire. My girlfriend was still running on adrenaline; it was obvious in her too-wide brown eyes, the color burning in her cheeks. She had a longbow in her hand that was almost as tal as she was, and an arrow nocked and ready to pul . The arrow had a barbed silver tip.

She skidded to a halt, but she didn't drop her guard. "Is Pennyfeather-" She spotted Michael kneeling over the fal en vamp, and the knife, and she sucked her breath in hard.

"Has to be done," I said. She bit her lip, but she didn't try to argue. "Look, we need to get out of here. Myrnin did something crazy and filled in the exit, so we're now relying on the goodwil of my Frankendad keeping this portal thing open, and I'm not feeling good about the plan."

"Feel worse," she said. "Frank's starving. I don't know if he can even keep this up at all. We need to get out of here, now."

"Not if we leave Pennyfeather behind and he has a way out that leads through our house."

Eve burst through just then, having apparently stopped to load up a rapid-fire crossbow that she held with frightening competence. She checked the corners for threats, too, before letting her guard down and starting to head toward Michael.

"Wait," I said, and got in her way. "Just-give him a minute."

She took a step back and considered me silently a second, then said, "I'm the one Pennyfeather came after. It's my job, right?"

"No!" Claire and I both said at the same time, but Claire went on, earnestly. "Eve, it's not kil ing him in a fight. It's-murder."

"So?" Eve said. Her eyes had gone flint-hard. "How many murders has he committed? You don't think he has it coming?"

"I don't think that's something any of us should decide!"

"Oh, honey," Eve said, and smiled just a little. "You really aren't from Morganville yet." She looked at me. "What's your objection, Collins?"

I shrugged. "Michael can handle him if he wakes up. You can't. Logistics."

Claire seemed shocked, but hey, Eve was right; Morganville kids understood this better. It might seem cruel and harsh, but when it came down to living and dying, we knew which side we wanted to end up on. Having Pennyfeather continue to stalk us was not an option.

Eve nodded. She walked over to Michael and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her and took in a deep, steadying breath.

"He can't," Claire said. "He can't, Shane-"

I stepped in, and she dropped the bow and arrow with a clatter as I wrapped my arms around her and turned her back to what was going to happen. "Hush," I said, and nodded to Michael over her shoulder. "It'l be fast."

"Stop."

The voice seemed to come from everywhere, allaround us, from hidden speakers and the tiny little one on my phone, too. It was scratchy and pale, and sounded exhausted, but it was alltoo familiar.

"Frank," I said. Facing down my dad was something I'd done a lot over the past few years, but it always seemed to have a new sting in the tail, every time. I wondered what it would be today. I swal owed what felt like a mouthful of acid, and said, "Just leave us alone, okay?"

"You don't need his blood on your conscience," Frank said. "Trust me, kids, you don't. Let me do it."

"You? Dad, hate to break it to you, but downstairs there's a computer, and in the middle of it there's a brain floating in a jar with wires running into it, and that's you. As in, you're not doing jack to Pennyfeather, however badass you think you are."

"I only have to do one thing, Son," he said. "I just have to die. I'm dying anyway; the nutrient tanks are dry, and there's nothing left for me. If you leave him here, I'll hold the portals shut until I'm gone. He's not going anywhere."

I turned and looked at Michael and Eve, and they seemed just as surprised as I was. And a little bit relieved. "Wel ," Eve said, "maybe it's the best-"

"Think about what you're saying," Michael said. "Because if I put this in his chest right now, he's finished. If we walk away, what if your dad screws up and lets him out?"

"Worse," Claire said, "what if he doesn't? You don't want Pennyfeather's death on your conscience, but you have no problem with leaving him here to starve? How would that be, Michael? Fun? Easy?"

He looked away. He knew, and I knew, that vampires didn't go easy from starvation; they lived a long, long time. And suffered. "Maybe he deserves it."

"Maybe," I agreed. "But if he does, he damn sure deserves the knife, too. And I don't want to wake up thinking of him down here screaming, do you?"

Pennyfeather took the decision out of our hands, because he opened his eyes, and snarled, and lunged up, claws outstretched.

And Michael acted completely out of reflex, defending himself and Eve. Quick and smooth and deadly accurate.

Pennyfeather hit the floor hard, and the silver began eating through his skin. His eyes stayed open. I didn't know if he was still alive, but I hoped not; either way, it didn't take long.

Frank's voice came back, weaker this time. "Time to leave," he said. "You need to go, now."

Michael left the knife in Pennyfeather's chest, took Eve in his arms, and led her to the portal. It rippled as they passed through without pausing.

That left just Claire and me staring at each other.

"Hey, Dad," I said to Frank. My voice sounded unexpectedly husky, and I cleared it. "Maybe this is wrong, but I think you tried to help me when the draug had me in their tanks. They were kil ing me and making me dream while they did it, only someone-someone kept trying to make me wake up. Was that you?"

Nothing. Silence. I listened to the distant drip of water for a while.

"Wel , if it was, thanks, I guess. It made me fight."

That summed up me and my dad perfectly. He made me fight, whether I wanted to or not, and whether it was for a cause I believed in or not.

He'd made me tough, and strong, and a survivor, and yeah, that was worthwhile, especially now that I had things to really fight for. Claire had quoted a writer named Hemingway to me, not so long ago: The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some people are strong at the broken places. I

don't think my dad ever read Hemingway, but he'd have liked him.

I spent another couple of seconds waiting for-I don't know, something-and then I turned to go.

And a grainy, shadowy, two-dimensional figure formed in front of me.

My father had chosen a younger version of himself than the age he'd been when he'd died, but it was still him-him from the last of the good times of my childhood. Relatively speaking. We stared at each other for a moment, and then his lips moved. I could just barely hear the scratchy words hissing out of an ancient speaker on the side of the machine across the room.

"I knew this day would come, Shane. That's why I sent you back here. To be here when everything went bad."

"The vampires," I said. It was always about the vampires with him. He blamed them for everything-for my sister's probably accidental death, for my mom's probable suicide, for his own drinking and bitterness and anger. And yeah, okay, maybe he was right, because Morganville was a toxic place. "They're out of control."

"Always were," he whispered. "Always wil be. Stop it. No matter what it costs. Burn the town around them if you've got to."

That was my dad. Always kil -'em-al -let-God-sort-'em-out. If a few innocents got caught in the inferno, well , col ateral damage.

"Claire, go," I said. She was crying, I realized, silent tears that ran in silver drops down her cheeks. I couldn't sometimes fathom allof the goodness inside of her, because who cried for my dad, for a brain in a jar who'd hardly ever been good for anybody?

Claire did. She was probably crying for Pennyfeather, too.

"Go," I said again, gently, and kissed her on the lips. "I'm right behind you."

She picked up her bow and arrow and-after a hesitation, grabbed the bulky machine thing that had affected Michael so strongly. Before I could wonder about that, she headed for the portal, but she paused there, looking back. "Come on," she said. "We go together."

I headed for the exit, walking right through Frank's image. It felt like a curtain of pins and needles, but I was used to pain, especially where it came to my dad.

He re-formed ahead of me, blocking the way to Claire. I kept walking, and he kept backing up, traveling smoothly as the ghost he was. "Son," he said, "I want to tellyou one thing. Just one."

"So do it."

"I'm proud of you," he said.

I came to a sudden and complete halt, staring at him-at the man I'd never really known, because he'd never let me know him; he'd treated me like a useful tool and potential enemy my whole life.

"You're different," he said. "You're better than I ever was. And I'm proud of you for being so strong. That's all. I just needed to tellyou, before the end."

He dissolved in electronic smoke. Gone.

"Dad?" I turned on my heel, my voice echoing through the cool, silent lab. "Dad?"

Nothing. Just...silence. That told me he had no further energy to spare, and we were out of time. The lights flickered, warning me of the same thing.

Claire suddenly said, "Oh no-Bob!"

"Bob?" I stared at her blankly, and she pointed across the lab.

Oh. The spider. I shook my head and jogged over to pick up the tank-which, except for the glass content, was light-and made damn sure the lid was on it tightly before carrying it to the portal. Claire waited anxiously as the lights continued to flicker, faster and faster.

I paused on the edge of the portal as she stepped through. I wanted to say something profound, but I'm not that guy, so I just said, awkwardly, "Okay, Dad. See you."

"See you." His voice sighed, and there was something wistful in his electronic voice.

I stepped through the portal into the cool, familiar air of the Glass House, and felt the thing snap shut-utterly shut-behind me. There was an almost physical sensation of disconnection, of the whole system just...dying.

I put my hand on the blank wal and concentrated, for a moment, on just breathing. You've lost him before, I told myself. He wasn't really there anyway.

But it had felt real to me when he'd said he was proud. Maybe I'd always craved that, needed it. Maybe he'd known it.

But despite the surge of sadness, there was something good about leaving him this time-something that felt final, and complete.

Maybe this was what allthose TV psych doctors meant when they talked about closure.

I put Bob's tank down on the dining room table, to Eve's muttered distress, and Claire quickly dumped the heavy, clunky machine on the coffee table, along with her bow and arrow. I noticed vaguely that it was pointed in my direction, but at the moment, that didn't mean anything-and neither did the prickly feeling that raced through me.

"You're all right?" Claire said, and stepped closer with an expression of pure concern. She looked...I can't explain it, exactly, but allof a sudden I felt a bolt of heat go through me like fire out of heaven, and, man, did I want her in allkinds of ways-right and wrong. She'd grown over the past year-filled out in curves that begged to be held and stroked, and this definitely wasn't the time, but allof a sudden I was considering not minding what was appropriate behavior.

"Fine," I said through a suddenly dry throat. "I mean, I wil be, anyway."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I wish we could've done something."

"That's why I love you," I said, and reached over to brush her hair back from her face. "Because you care so much." Her gaze came up and hit mine, and more heat exploded through me like a bomb. I saw the shock wave of it in her eyes. Oh.

I really could not explain what was going on in my head and ricocheting around my body, but it was...good. Great, in fact. I fitted my hand around Claire's cheek and bent to kiss her. Her lips tasted like cherries and salt, sweet and tart together, and I growled somewhere deep and leaned in, pul ing her close. She was mine, mine, and that was allthat mattered. Myrnin had gone, vanished, and he wasn't any threat now. Some traitorous little whisper told me I could have asked Frank about him, about what had happened, but I hadn't wanted to know. He was gone.

And I had Claire, body and soul, and man, did I want her, right now. In so many ways.

"Hey," Michael said from somewhere behind me. "That's really sweet and all, but we just kil ed a guy and your dad-are you sure you want to be doing this now?"

He was dead right about that, but I couldn't take my hands away from her-or my lips. I'd somehow worked my thumbs under the tight knit of her shirt and found skin beneath, and I didn't want to let that go. The sensation of her fine, soft flesh, even that much of it, made me feel as if my head were on fire.

And then Claire gasped, coughed, and fought her way free of me. I instinctively reached for her and got air, and stumbled after...and as soon as I did, I sucked in a sharp, cold breath of air and felt something like sanity start to come back.

Oh. Oh. The machine. It lay on the coffee table, glowing a faint green, and the business end was pointed toward where Claire and I had been standing. It had gotten turned on when she'd dumped it there, I supposed.

And then, ha ha not funny, it had turned me on.

Claire, blushing a furious and gorgeous shade of red, circled around the table and flipped some kind of switch on the back. The glowing died, and so did the humming, and I felt...not normal, but less crazed. "Sorry," she said, and bit her lip. They were still damp and swol en from our kissing, and I shook myself out of focusing on them with a real effort. "It's-kind of an experiment."

"Myrnin's making a lust ray," I said. Of course he was, because...why not? I had to admit, I'd probably see some value in that myself. Hel . I just had. "Wait a second. I accidentally pointed that at Michael, and it made him-"

"Angry," Michael said. "Hyper-angry. Ready to kill."

"No, no, it's not-" Claire swal owed and visibly tried to calm herself. "It's not a lust ray. It just magnifies what you're feeling. And it's not Myrnin's.

It's mine. I was just-experimenting."

"I know I'm not a scientific peer review or anything, but I have to say I think it works. If that's what you were going for, anyway." I skipped over the whole issue of why it had decided to focus on that particular impulse in me. She'd take it as a compliment, hopefully, but I wasn't too sure about that.

My track record of guessing what might offend girls wasn't exactly perfect. "What were you thinking of using it for? Because the way it sent Michael into rage overdrive..."

The blush just wasn't getting any less red, or-even without the ray-any less interesting. "The idea is that once I can exactly amplify a feeling, I can also cancel it out," she said. "It was supposed to just work with vampires, not humans. I don't know why-why it worked on you, Shane. I'm so sorry."

"Wel "-I shrugged-"I'm not, particularly. That was a little bit fun."

"I hate to admit it, but it was when it was pointed at me, too," Michael said. "Kind of like it took away allthe inhibitions."

"A drunk gun," I said. "Awesome."

"Not," Claire said, and frowned. "It's dangerous." She picked it up and stuck it in her backpack, engaging some kind of safety switch I hadn't noticed before. "I'l find someplace to keep it where it won't hurt anybody until I can destroy it. It was probably a dumb idea, anyway."

Eve disappeared into the kitchen, ever practical, and came out with a blood bag that she tossed to Michael, who snatched it out of the air and bit into it with a frightening level of enthusiasm. He drained it in about, oh, ten seconds or less, the same way a human would chug water after a really aggressive workout. And it had about the same effect; he got a little weak-kneed and had to brace himself on a wal , but after the shock passed, he seemed almost immediately better. His eyes faded back to simple blue, and his skin coloring went from dead-guy pale to more like ivory. Wounds started shutting faster, too.

"Thanks," he said to Eve. She raised a cocky eyebrow.

"You'l make it up to me later," she said, and winked. That got a really different kind of smile from Michael, and I found something else to look at, fast. Now I was the one feeling like an intruder on something personal, like I guessed Mikey had earlier, what with allthe passionate groping and tongues.

Funny how just the way they smiled at each other could be intimate. Or maybe I was just turning into a girl, living with two of them in the house.

That was frightening. Not that I don't like girls. I just preferred to be plain old insensitive me.

"One down," I said. "But Frank gave me a warning. This town's really going to go crazy. We need to be ready."

"Always," Eve said, and high-fived me.

But I wondered if we really, truly were.