Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,82

blame him. Jesse was … kind of a stunner.

Michael was trying to sit up on the sofa, something Shane and Eve were trying to prevent; Claire joined them, and when it became clear that ‘no’ was not a viable option, she helped prop him upright. ‘Hey,’ she said to him, ‘weren’t you supposed to stop trouble, and not be so much in the middle of it?’

‘Best laid plans,’ Michael said, and coughed. It had an alarmingly wet sound. Eve grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the coffee table, and when he stopped coughing and took them away from his mouth, they were soaked in fresh, red blood. But he seemed to be feeling better. ‘I think that might have been about as close as I could have come to dead.’

‘Just about,’ Shane agreed. ‘You ever heard of someone putting a silver injector inside a stake before?’

‘Never,’ Michael said, ‘but it seems like a damn great idea, except when it’s in my chest.’

‘Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking.’ Shane squeezed his shoulder and crouched down to eye level. ‘You good, bro?’

‘I’m good. And it’s good to see you’ve kept up the tradition of getting the holy shit beat out of you, even when you’re in a nice, civilised place.’

‘It was not my fault.’

Michael just shook his head. He still looked very pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He was holding Eve’s hand, and he tugged on it, bringing her down to whisper in her ear. She nodded and turned to Pete – who was still standing exactly where he’d been, looking utterly overtaken by what had crashed in on them. As well he might, Claire thought. He’d been worried about sexed-up sheets, and suddenly there were wounded vampires and a big splash of silver dripping down his brick wall. Even for someone who’d known Jesse, this sudden onslaught of the undead might be a little tough to handle.

‘Excuse me,’ Eve said to him. ‘Do you have any, ah, plasma? In bags?’

Pete gave her a blank look, and finally just turned around and walked to the armchair. He sat down, put his head in his hands and checked out of the current reality.

‘Guess that’s a no,’ Eve said. ‘All right. Sorry, you guys, but he needs to feed, and I’m going to volunteer a vein. So if you’re squeamish, turn around.’

Claire did, not so much because she was faint at the sight of blood, but because it seemed uncomfortably intimate to her. Shane turned, too, and took a look around the room. Oliver was examining the remains of the wooden stake, though he was being very careful not to touch any of the remaining silver leaking out of it. Myrnin and Jesse seemed to be very cosy. ‘Well,’ Shane said, ‘at least we’re not alone on the run any more. Apparently, the cops may be the least of our worries right now.’ He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she willingly went. ‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ she said, and shivered. ‘That was sudden. And intense.’

‘I think Pete’s having a migraine. And I’m not sure the silver’s coming out of his rug, either.’

Jesse had climbed to her feet before he’d finished the sentence, and she walked to the small bathroom and came back in a moment with a thick roll of gauze bandage. She carried it to Myrnin and held it out with her eyebrows raised. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked him.

He bowed a little, took the gauze, and held her hand steady as he wrapped the bandages. He was good at it, Claire realised; he’d definitely had lots of practice at treating injuries, and for this one, it didn’t matter whether it was a vampire or human. The bandages were all the same. He ripped one end of the gauze in two, wrapped it snugly, and tied it off; that, Claire was sure, came from experience in eras where such things as sticky tape had yet to be invented. Once he was done, he smoothed the bandages down, and his hand lingered on hers.

Jesse gave him a slow, bright smile, and Myrnin’s pale cheeks reddened, just a touch. He let go. ‘All better,’ he said. ‘My lady.’

‘My lord,’ she said, and did a pretty fair curtsy, considering she was wearing blue jeans and a low-cut black knit shirt. Her dark red braid swung forward over her shoulder in a thick rope, and as she looked up through her eyelashes at him, Claire thought