Bite Club Page 0,30

I know you've never killed anyone."

"Oh yeah? You know that. You're sure."

Well...maybesure wasn't the right word. "I'm sure you'd tell me if you did it."

"Why?"

"Because you're not afraid," she said. "You're not afraid to freak me out. You'drather freak me out. But you won't lie about it."

"Oh, I lie."

"I know. But you don't lie to me. Not anymore." She leaned forward. The smell of the cell--industrial cleaners, sweat, fear--made her throat ache, or maybe that was just her general tension. "Not since you tried to save my life."

He looked away, and that was a victory, Claire thought. They'd never talked about it, never had the chance, but here, he was a captive audience.

"You knew I was going to die down there in the tunnels. And you went to get the cops, even though you knew it would get you arrested. You tried to save my life when you could have just run."

"Ididn't save your life, though. They didn't believe me. So all I got for it was jail. No good deed goes unpunished, right?"

"It still means something to me that you tried. That's why you'll tell me the truth, Jason. You care enough about what I think that you'll try again."

He gave her a look, one she couldn't interpret. "You think a lot of yourself."

"No," Claire said softly. "Not really. I think you know that, too."

Silence. She thought that it was going to go on forever, that she'd have to get up and leave him here to whatever would happen next, but then Jason said, "I didn't kill him. But I know what happened."

Progress."Okay. So, what happened?"

"All I did was get the killer into the dorm and show him where to find the guy. Your friend. Doug."

"Getwho into the dorm?"

His answer caught her by surprise, but suddenly, the overwhelming vampire response in the middle of the night all made sense, because he said, "I didn't know who he was at first. I mean, he was filthy and skinny and all kinds of crazy."

"Who?"

"That old guy, the one who gave Amelie so much trouble. Mr. Bishop."

Bishop is out.And he was starving. And he was massively pissed off.

And, Claire realized with an icy, horrible, sickening shock, she had just seen him out on the street, going after Myrnin.That was why he'd seemed familiar. The terrifying night stalker out therewas the boogeyman.

No wonder the vampires were panicking.

Once he started talking, Jason had a lot to say. He'd been approached by a guy he knew, somebody on the not-so-legal side of Morganville society, who paid him cash to find out details about a TPU student...Doug. Jason delivered the info, but then was told that to get the rest of his money, he'd have to escort a visitor to Doug's dorm room. That sounded simple enough, until Jason arrived at the tunnel where he'd been told to meet his contact, and discovered that it wasn't just any old vamp waiting for him--it was Bishop. Amelie's vampire father. And the meanest, coldest vampire Claire had ever met. He made that creepy bald guy from the old movieNosferatu look sweet--and a little handsome, even. There was something so icy and wrong about Bishop that it made her shiver to remember him...and she'd thought, honestly, that he'd been executed.

Turns out that if he had,that hadn't gone as planned, either.

"I didn't know it would happen," Jason said, looking down. He'd put his arms around his knees and drew them in, and he looked thinner and younger than Claire in that moment. A scared little boy. "I was standing there when Doug opened the door, and Bishop just--waved his hand. Or that's what it looked like. Next thing I know, Doug is on his back, on the bed, throat cut, and he's bleeding out. Bishop takes something out of his backpack and he says,Did you think you could threaten me? And I book the hell out of there. I didn't care who saw me. I just cared about getting away before he decided to get rid of the loose ends. The look on his face--I thought he might kill everybody in the whole dorm." Jason swallowed. "He was having fun. And he was starving."

Claire thought about the two students on the floor conducting their stereo wars, not even aware of death passing by. Lucky. So lucky. "What did he take?"

"Search me. Looked like a vial of something, and some papers. But it's not like Iwanted to know. I was mostly just getting the hell out. Believe me, I wished I