Carpe Corpus Page 0,6

half hug, and guided her back out the door.

I'm not giving up. She thought it, but she didn't say it, because she knew he wouldn't approve.

"Go home," he said, and nodded to the man whose appointment Claire had taken. "Mr. Golder? Come on in. This is about your taxes, right?"

"Getting too damn expensive to live in this town," Mr. Golder growled. "I ain't got that much blood to give, you know."

Claire hoisted her backpack and went out to try something else that might get her in to see Shane.

Of course, it was something a lot more dangerous.

She tried to talk herself out of it, but in the end, Claire went to the last place she wanted to go - to Founder's Square, the vampire part of town. In broad daylight, it seemed deserted; regular people didn't venture here anymore, not even when the sun was blazing overhead, although it was a public park. There were some police patrolling on foot, and sometimes she could believe there were shapes flitting through the shadows under the trees, or in the dark spaces of the large, spacious buildings that faced the parklike square.

Those weren't people, though. Not technically.

Claire trudged down the white, smooth sidewalks, head down, feeling the sun beat on her. She watched the grimy, round tips of her red lace-up sneakers. It was almost hypnotic after a while.

She came to a stop as the tips of her shoes bumped into the first of a wide expanse of marble stairs. She looked up - and up - at the largest building on the square: big columns, lots of steps, one of those imposing Greek temple styles. This was the vampire equivalent of City Hall, and inside . . .

"Just go on already," she muttered to herself, and hitched her backpack to a more comfortable position as she climbed the steps.

Claire felt two things as the edge of the roof's shadow fell over her - relief, from getting out of the sun, and claustrophobia. Her footsteps slowed, and for a second she wanted to turn around and take Richard's advice - just go home. Stay with her parents. Be safe.

Pretend everything was normal, like her mom did.

The big, shiny wooden doors ahead of her swung open, and a vampire stood there, well out of the direct glare of sunlight, watching her with the nastiest smile she'd ever seen. Ysandre, Bishop's token sex-kitten vamp, was beautiful, and she knew it. She posed like a Victoria's Secret model, as if at any moment an unexpected photo shoot might begin.

Just now, she was wearing a skintight pair of low-rise blue jeans, a tight black crop top that showed acres of alabaster skin, and a pair of black low-heeled sandals. Skank-vamp casual day wear. She smoothed waves of shiny hair back from her face and continued to beam an evil smile from lips painted with Hooker Red #5.

"Well," she said low in her throat, sweet as grits and poisoned molasses, "look what the cat dragged in. Come on, little Claire. Y'all are letting all the dark out."

Claire had hoped that Ysandre was dead, once and for all; she'd thought that was pretty much inevitable, since the last time she'd seen her Ysandre had been in Amelie's hands, and Amelie hadn't been in a forgiving kind of mood.

But here she was, without a mark on her. Something had gone really wrong for Ysandre to still be alive, but Claire had no real way of finding out what. Ysandre might tell her, but it would probably be a lie.

Claire, lacking any other real choice, came inside. She stayed as far away from the skank as she could, careful not to meet the Vampire Stare of Doom. She wasn't sure that Ysandre had the authority to hurt her, but it didn't seem smart to take chances.

"You come to talk to Mr. Bishop?" Ysandre asked. "Or just to moon around after that wretched boy of yours?"

"Bishop," Claire said. "Not that it's any of your business, unless you're just a glorified secretary with fangs."

Ysandre hissed out a laugh as she locked the doors behind them. "Well, you're growing a pair, Bite-size. Fine, you skip off and see our lord and master. Maybe I'll see him later, too, and tell him you'd be better at your job if you didn't talk so much. Or at all."

It was hard to turn her back on Ysandre, but Claire did it. She heard the vampire's hissing chuckle, and the skin on the back of her neck