"Leave her alone." Eve's voice was faint and shaking. "She's just a kid."
"You're all just kids." He shrugged. "Nobody asks the age of the cow that gave you hamburger."
Claire, purely terrified now, concentrated, turned back to the door, and rammed the key into the lock...
...just as Shane whipped it open.
"Eve!" she gasped, and Shane pushed her out of the way, jumped down the steps, and got between Eve and Brandon.
"Inside," Michael said. Claire hadn't heard him, hadn't seen him coming, but he was in the doorway, gesturing her in. As soon as she was over the threshold he grabbed her arm and pushed her out of sight behind him. She peeked around him to see what was happening.
Shane was talking, but whatever he was saying, she couldn't hear it. Eve was backing up, slowly, and when the back of her heels touched the porch steps she whirled and ran up, diving into the doorway and Michael's arms.
"Shane!" Michael shouted.
Brandon lunged at Shane. Shane dodged, yelled, and kicked the vampire with all his weight. Brandon flew backward into the fence, broke through, and rolled into the street.
Shane fell flat on the ground, scrambled up, and ran for the door. It was impossible for Brandon to move that fast, but the vampire seemed to flash from lying in the street to reaching for Shane's back...
...and grabbed hold of Shane's T-shirt, yanking him to a sudden stop. But Shane was reaching, too, for Michael's hand, and Michael pulled him forward.
The shirt ripped, Shane stumbled in over the threshold, and Brandon tried to follow. He bounced off an invisible barrier, and for the second time Claire saw his fangs snap down, deadly sharp.
Michael didn't even flinch. "Try it again, and we'll come stake you in your sleep," he said. "Count on it.
Tell your friends."
He slammed the door. Eve collapsed against the wall, panting and trembling; Claire couldn't stop shaking, either. Shane looked flushed and more worried about the damage to his T-shirt than anything else.
Michael grabbed Eve by the shoulders. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, he never - wow. That was close."
"No kidding. Claire?"
She waved, unable to summon up a word.
"Where the hell did he come from?" Shane asked.
"He picked up Claire's scent at the coffee shop," Eve said. "I couldn't shake him. Sorry."
"Damn. That's not good."
"I know."
Michael clicked the locks on the front door. "Check the back. Make sure we're secure, Shane. Upstairs, too."
"Check." Shane moved off. "Dammit, this was my last Killers T-shirt. Somebody's paying for this...."
"Sorry, Michael," Eve said. "I tried, I really did."
"I know. Had to happen sooner or later, with four of us here. You did okay. Don't worry about it."
"I'm glad you and Shane were here."
Michael started to say something, then stopped, looking at Claire. Eve didn't seem to notice. She stripped off her leather coat and hung it on a peg by the door, and clumped off in the direction of the living room.
"We were just attacked," Claire finally managed to say. "By a vampire."
"Yeah, I saw," Michael said.
"No, you don't understand. We were attacked. By a vampire. Do you know how impossible that is?"
Michael sighed. "Truthfully? No. I grew up here, and so did Eve and Shane. We're just kind of used to it."
"That's crazy!"
"Absolutely."
It hit her then that there was another impossible thing she'd nearly forgotten about, in the press of panic, and she started to blurt it out, then looked around to be sure Shane and Eve were nowhere in sight.
"What about, you know? You?" She pointed at him.
"Me?" He raised his eyebrows. "Oh. Right. Upstairs."
She expected him to take her to the secret room Shane had shown her, but he didn't; instead, he took her to his own room, the big one on the corner. It was about twice the size of her own room, but didn't have much more furniture; it did have a fireplace - empty this time of year - and a couple of chairs and a reading lamp. Michael settled in one. Claire took the other, feeling small and cold in the heavy leather seat. The wing chair was about twice her size.
"Right," Michael said, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Let's talk about this morning." But having said that, he didn't seem to know how to start. He fidgeted, staring at the carpet.
"You died," Claire said. "You vanished."
He seemed glad to have something to respond to. "Not exactly, but - yeah. Close enough. You know I used to be a musician?"
"You still are!"
"Musicians play someplace besides their own houses. You heard Shane at dinner. He's pushing to find out why I'm not playing gigs. Truth is, I can't. I can't go outside of this house."
She remembered him standing in the doorway, white-faced, watching Shane face off with Brandon. That hadn't been caution; he wanted to be out there, fighting next to his friend. But he couldn't.
"What happened?" she asked softly. She could tell it wasn't going to be an easy story.
"Vampire," he said. "Mostly they just feed, and eventually they kill you if they feed hard enough. Some of them like that kind of thing, not all of them. But - this one was different. He followed me back from a gig and tried - tried to make me - "
She felt her face burn, and dropped her gaze. "Oh. Oh God."
"Not that," he said. "Not exactly. He tried to make me a vampire. But he couldn't. I guess he - killed me. Or nearly, anyway. But he couldn't make me into what he was, and he was trying. It nearly killed us both. When I woke up later, it was daylight, he was gone, and I was a ghost. Wasn't until night came that I realized I could make myself real again. But only at night." He shook his head slowly, rubbing his hands together as if trying to wash off a stain. "I think the house keeps me alive."
"The house?" she echoed.
"It's old. And it has a kind of - " He shrugged. "A kind of power. I don't know what it is, exactly. When my parents traded up to this house, they only lived here for a couple of months, then moved away to New York. Didn't like the vibes. I liked it fine. I think it liked me, too. But anyway, I can't leave it. I've tried."
"Even during the day? When you're not, you know, here?"
"Doesn't matter," he said. "Can't go out any door, window, or crack. I'm trapped here."
He looked oddly relieved to be telling her. If he hadn't told Shane or Eve, he probably hadn't told anybody. That felt odd, being the keeper of that secret, because it was a big one. Attacked by a vampire, left for dead, turned into a ghost, trapped in the house? How many secrets was that, anyway?