“Walk,” I said. “For starters.” I let her fill in what might come after, and she smiled in a way that told me it wasn’t a tough guess at all.
Later, it occurred to me that I felt jittery, and it was getting worse.
We were strolling out in Founder’s Square, which is vampire territory; Eve could come and go from here with or without me, because she had a Founder’s Pin and was pretty much as untouchable as a human got, in terms of being hunted—by vampires who obeyed the rules, anyway. But it was nice to walk with her. At night, Morganville is kind of magical—bright clouds of stars overhead in a pitch-black sky, cool breezes, and at least in this part of town, everybody is on their best behavior.
Vampires liked to walk, and jog, along the dark paths. We were regularly passed by others. Most nodded. A few stopped to say hello. Some—the most progressive—even said hello to Eve, as if she was a real person to them.
I had a wild impulse to jog, to run, but Eve couldn’t keep up if I did, even in her practical boots. Holding that urge back was taking all my concentration, so while she talked, I just mostly pretended to listen. She was telling some story about Shane and Claire, I guessed; our two human housemates had gotten themselves into trouble again, but this time it was minor, and funny. I was glad. I didn’t feel much like charging to anybody’s rescue right now.
Up ahead, I saw another couple approaching us on the path. The woman was unmistakably the Founder of Morganville, Amelie; only Amelie could dress that way and get away with it. She was wearing a white jacket and skirt, and high heels. If she’d stood still, she’d have looked like a marble statue; her skin was only a few shades off from the clothes, and her hair was the same pale color. Beautiful, but icy and eerie.
Walking next to her, hands clasped behind his back, was Oliver. He looked much older than her, but I didn’t think he was; she’d died young, he’d died at late middle age, but they were both ancient. He had his long, graying hair tied back, and was wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants. He was scowling, but then, he usually was.
Weird, seeing the two of them together like this. They were usually polite enemies, sometimes right at each other’s throat (literally). Not tonight, though. Not here.
Amelie glowed in the moonlight, ghost-bright, and when she smiled, she didn’t look cold at all. She inclined her head to us. “Michael. Eve. Thank you for doing the little demonstration today. It was much appreciated.”
“Ma’am,” I said, and returned the salute. Eve waved. We would have kept on walking, but Amelie stopped, and Oliver was a solid block in front of us, so we stopped as well. I said, “Hope you’re enjoying the walk. It’s a nice night.”
Lame, but it was all I had for small talk. I was aching to keep moving. I couldn’t keep still, in fact, and I drummed my fingers against the side of my leg in a nervous rhythm. I saw Oliver notice it. His scowl deepened.
“It’s turned quite cool,” Amelie said. Like Oliver, she was zeroing in on my trembling fingers. “I heard you sampled the new product today.”
“Yeah, it’s great,” I said. “I got another one to go.” The can was heavy in my pocket, and I’d been thinking about it the entire evening. I’d found myself actually wrapping my hand around it inside my pocket, but I’d managed to stop myself from pulling the tab. So far. “Very convenient. You ought to think about selling them in six-packs.”
“Well, the modern age seems to demand convenience.” Amelie shrugged. “But we’ll see how the single-can sales go. So many wanted access to the blood bank at odd hours that automation seemed the most logical solution. You don’t mind the taste of the preservatives?”
“No, it’s good stuff,” I said. I remembered that I hadn’t liked it at first, but now, for some reason, it seemed like that memory was wrong—as if it had actually been delicious, but I hadn’t been ready for it. “It tastes better than the bagged stuff.” I almost said and better than from the vein, but Eve was right there, and that would embarrass her on two levels, not just one. First, that I was telling people she was letting me bite her, and second, that somehow her blood wasn’t good enough. I was able to stop in time, barely. “Has anybody else tried it?”
“Really, Glass, do you think we put it out for public consumption without testing?” Oliver snapped. “It’s been tried, analyzed, and tested to death. I cannot imagine a more boring process. Two years, from concept to actual delivery. Half the vampires in Morganville have been involved in taste tests.”
“Have you tried it?” I asked him. “You should. It’s really—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, once I’d started it. “Fierce,” I finally said. An Eve word. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it really meant in the way she used it, but it seemed right.
Evidently, Oliver didn’t really understand the usage either, because he gave me a long stare, one that could have melted concrete. “Our major difficulty seems to be in convincing the elders to use it,” he said. “Most of them are not familiar with the concept of identification cards, much less credit cards, and machines confuse them.”
“I’ll bet,” Eve put in. “Not much call for Cokes among the fang gang, I guess.”
“Well, I like Coke,” I said.
Amelie smiled, very slightly.
“As do I, Michael. But I fear we’re in the minority.” There was something guarded in her eyes, a little worried. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Great,” I said, probably too quickly. “I feel great.”
Oliver exchanged a fast glance with her, and gave an almost invisible shrug. “Then we should be going,” he said. “Matters to discuss.”
It was a dismissal, and I was happy to grab Eve’s hand and walk on while the other two headed the other way. Oliver always bothered me; partly it was his eviler-than-thou attitude, and partly it was that I could never quite shake the memory of how I’d met him . . . how he’d come across as a nice, genuine guy, and turned on me. That had been before anyone in Morganville knew who he was, or how dangerous he could be.
And he’d killed me. Part of the way, anyway; he hadn’t left me much choice in becoming what I was now. Maybe he thought of that as a fair trade.
I still didn’t.
A tremor of adrenaline surged through me . . . hunting instinct. It took me a second to realize that there was a complicated mixture of things happening inside of me: hatred boiling up for Oliver, well beyond what I normally felt; hunger, although I shouldn’t have been hungry at all; and last, most unsettlingly, through our clasped hands I felt the steady, seductive pulse of Eve’s blood.
It was a moment that made me shiver and go abruptly very still, eyes shut, as I tried to master all of those warring, violent impulses. I heard Eve asking me something, but I shut her out. I shut everything out, concentrating on staying me, staying Michael, staying human, at least for now.
And finally, I fumbled in my pocket and popped open the aluminum can of O negative, and the taste was metal and meat, soothing the beast that was trying to claw its way free inside. I couldn’t let it out, not here, not with Eve.