But he wasn't. They weren't talking about Eve or the engagement party at all.
Michael was saying, ". . . over it, man. If you want us to get back where we were, you have to let that crap go."
There was a short silence, and then Shane said, "I hurt Claire. Hell, man, I hurt you. I wanted to kill every damn vampire in the entire world, including you, single-handed." He paused for a second, and then said, very softly, "I was like my dad, only on steroids, and it felt right. I'm not sure that's ever going away, Mike. That's my problem. If deep down I'm an abusive, violent ass like my old man, how exactly do I pretend I don't know that?"
"You're not him." Michael kept playing, a slow and soothing tune, and his voice was quiet and deep. "Never were, never will be. You just hang on to that." He paused a second, and Claire almost heard a smile in his voice. "You still want to kill me?"
"Sometimes, yeah." Shane, on the other hand, sounded completely serious. "I love you, man, but . . . it takes time for all that stuff to go away. I don't want to feel it."
"I know, shithead."
"If you break Eve's heart, I will kill you."
Michael stopped playing. "It's complicated."
"No, it's not. Stop screwing around and commit."
"Oh, so now you're giving me relationship advice? You can't commit to a cell phone contract, let alone - "
"I'm committed," Shane interrupted. "To her. You know I am."
"Yeah," Michael said. "Yeah, I know that. And you know if you screw it up with Claire, I'll rip your throat out and drink you like a juice box, so you've got some incentive."
Shane laughed. "You know what? I do that, you've got permission. And you know how I feel about that whole drinking-me stuff."
It was a nice moment - one of the best she'd heard between them for a while - and then it all fell apart because there was a knock at the back door, and Claire went to answer it, and standing on the steps was a vampire. Female, wearing a hooded black jacket and gloves, very chic but also very sun-blocking. Claire couldn't really make her out beneath the giant dark glasses and the smothering garments, so she said, "Can I help you?"
"It's Claire, isn't it? Hello. You probably don't remember me," the woman said. She smiled, a little tentatively. "My name is Naomi. I met you the day that you freed us from confinement in the cells below town."
For a few seconds Claire didn't know what she was talking about, because that had happened a long time ago. Once she did remember, she blinked and involuntarily stepped back.
When she'd first come to Morganville, the vampires had been hiding a secret: they were sick, and getting sicker. That illness led first to forgetfulness, then to acting out, then to mindless violence . . . and finally to a motionless catatonia. The onset varied from one vampire to another; some were dangerously uncontrollable in weeks, and others were watching themselves slip slowly, day by day, year by year, toward the inevitable.
Naomi had been in the cells - one of the violent ones, confined for everybody's safety. When the cure had been distributed, those vampires had gotten better, and returned to normal - for Morganville - lives. She'd thanked Claire, back then, and seemed nice enough, if disturbingly Vampire with a Capital V.
Naomi took silence as an invitation, and stepped over the threshold into the kitchen, sighing with relief. "Thank you," she said. "I fear I don't brave the sun as much as I ought to. Even at my age, one needs to build up a tolerance, but I'm not good at forcing myself to do unpleasant things." She pulled off the glam glasses and pushed back her hood, and the face finally clicked into place for Claire. Lustrous, long blond hair, pretty, young. She looked a little like the much-loathed Gloriana, whom Claire and Shane had just been mutually hating, but Naomi was a very different person, and a very different kind of vampire - at least, from Claire's memory of her.
She smiled politely at Claire and held out a slender hand. Claire took it and shook. Naomi's felt cool and strong.
"Uh . . . it's nice to see you," Claire said, which was kind of a lie, because it was unsettling to see any vampire show up at your back door. "What can I do for you?"
"May we sit?" Naomi indicated the kitchen table with a very elegant gesture, and Claire couldn't shake the idea that this girl - not much older physically than she herself was now - had grown up in a time when elegance and perfect manners were survival tools, especially for girls. Especially for royal girls.
"Sure," Claire said, instantly marking herself as part of the unwashed rabble, definitely not throne-worthy, but she tried to sit down with at least a little bit of grace. "Can I get you any - well, anything?" They had a little extra type A in the refrigerator, not that it was Claire's to offer, but she didn't think Michael would mind. Then again, she felt weird about offering blood as if it were a cup of tea. There were limits to being social.
"I thank you, it is most generous of you, but no, I am not hungry," Naomi said. The way she sat, straight-backed and yet somehow perfectly at ease, made Claire feel sweaty and round-shouldered. "I am very pleased to see you again. I am told you are doing very well in your studies." Her polite smile deepened a little, bringing out charming little dimples. "And that sounds as if I'm your terribly ancient maiden aunt. I am sorry. This is awkward, is it not?"
"A little bit," Claire said, and couldn't help but smile back. Naomi felt like a real person to her - someone who had lived a real life, and still remembered what it was like to have human feelings. "Things are going okay; thanks for asking. And you - how's your sister?" She scrambled to remember the name, some kind of flower. . . . " Violet?"
"I am gratified you remember. Violet is fine. She's taken up the opportunities Morganville presents with an alarming amount of enthusiasm. She's painting now." Naomi rolled her eyes. "She's not very good, but she's very determined. It always irked her when we were children that she was forbidden to do anything but ladylike watercolors. Every time I see her these days, she looks as if she's fallen face-first onto a paint palette."
"When we met before, you said - I think you said you were Amelie's sisters?" Meaning sisters to the town's vampire Founder, Amelie the all-powerful. Claire, looking at Naomi, could believe it; there was something about the way she held her head, the posture, even the glossy, pale hair.
So she was a little surprised when Naomi shook her head. "Oh, no, we are not sisters in the sense that we were born in the same family," she said. "Sisters in our second birth, if you will. We are both of the same generation turned by Bishop, and there are not so many of us left, so by tradition we look on each other as family. Violet is my true sister of my mortal life. Amelie is our sister of immortal life. I know it's a bit confusing."
"Oh." Claire wasn't very clear about the vampire concept of family.... Apparently they traced it through who had made them vampires in the first place, so Bishop had a lot of kids, some of whom were what Claire considered good - like Amelie - and most of whom were definitely not. It mattered, but Claire wasn't really sure how much, or how it ranked against a human family relationship. Not enough to keep them from occasionally killing one another, but then, the same could be said for natural-born siblings. "I just wondered."
"At the time I met you, I wasn't used to speaking with mortals. It had been a very long time, and we were still . . . not as well as we could have been. But we're much better now." Naomi showed a full smile, and it was just a tiny bit unsettling. My, what big teeth you have, Claire thought. Not that Naomi had done anything wrong, not at all. She didn't even show a hint of fang. "So of course, I first want to apologize for any possible discomfort I might have caused you during our initial meeting. None was intended, believe me."