Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(6)
But it didn’t feel right. On the few occasions that she’d seen Amelie, the Founder hadn’t seemed right, either. Her body language, her smile, the way she looked at people…all were different. And darker.
“Hey,” her housemate Eve Rosser—no, it was Eve Glass now, after the wedding—said. “You going to open those or what?” She walked up beside Claire, set a glass down on the kitchen counter, and poured herself a tall glass of milk. Her ruby wedding ring winked at Claire as if inviting her to share a secret joke. “Because the last time I saw something looking that official, it was inviting me to a party. And you know how much I love those.”
“You almost got killed at that party,” Claire said absently. She passed over Eve’s envelope and picked up her own.
“I almost get killed at most parties. Hence, you can tell that’s how much I love them,” Eve said, and ripped open the paper in a wide, tearing swath. Claire—who was by nature more of a neat gently-slice-the-thing-open kind of person—winced. “Huh. Another envelope inside the envelope. They do love to waste paper. Haven’t they ever heard of tree-hugging?”
As Eve extracted the second layer, Claire had a chance to do the usual wardrobe scan of her best friend…and wasn’t disappointed. Eve had suddenly taken a liking to aqua blue, and she’d added streaks of it in her black hair, which was worn today in cute, shiny ponytails on the sides of her head. Her Goth white face was brightened by aqua eye shadow and—where did she find this stuff?—matching lipstick, and she had on a tight black shirt with embossed crosses. The short, poufy skirt continued the blue theme. Then black tights with blue hearts. Then, combat boots.
So, a typical Wednesday, really.
Eve pulled the inner envelope free, opened the flap, and extracted a folded sheet of thick paper. Something fell out to bounce on the counter, and Claire caught it.
It was a card. A plastic card, like a credit card, but this one had the Founder’s symbol screened on the back, and it had Eve’s picture in the upper right corner—taken when she’d been without the full Goth war paint, which Eve would despise. It had Eve’s name, address, phone number…and a box at the bottom that read Blood Type: O Neg. Across from it was a box saying Protector: Glass, Michael.
“What the…?” Oh, Claire thought, even before she’d finished the question. This must have been what the vampire cop was asking her for. The identification card.
Eve plucked the card from her fingers, stared at it with a completely blank expression, and then turned her attention to the letter that had come with it. “‘Dear Mrs. Michael Glass,’” she read. “Seriously? Mrs. Michael? Like I don’t even have a name of my own? And what the hell is this about his being my Protector? I never agreed to that!”
“And?” Claire reached for the letter, but Eve hip-checked her and continued reading.
“‘I have enclosed your new Morganville Resident Identification Card, which all human residents are now required to carry at all times so that, in the unlikely case of any emergency, we may quickly contact your loved ones and Protector, and provide necessary medical information.’” Eve looked up and met Claire’s eyes squarely. “I call bullshit. Human residents. With blood type listed? It’s like a shopping list for vamps.”
Claire nodded. “What else?”
Eve turned her attention back to the paper. “‘Failure to carry and provide this card upon request will result in fines of—’ Oh, screw this!” Eve wadded up the paper, dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it with her boots, which were certainly made for stomping. “I am not carrying around a Drink Me card, and they can’t ask for my papers. What is this, Naziland?” She picked up the card and tried to bend it in half, but it was too flexible. “Where did you put the scissors…?”
Claire rescued the card and looked at it again. She turned it over, held it under the strongest light available—the window—and frowned. “Better not,” she said. “I think this is chipped.”
“Chipped? Can I eat it?”
“Microchipped. It’s got some kind of tech in it, anyway. I’d have to take a look to see what kind, but it’s pretty safe to say they’d know if you went all paper dolls with it.”
“Oh great, so it’s not just a Drink Me card; it’s a tracking device, like those ear things they put on lions on Animal Planet? Yeah, there’s no way that can go wrong—like, say, vampires being issued receivers so they can just shop online for who they want to target tonight.”
Eve was right about that, Claire thought. She really didn’t feel good about this. On the surface, it was just an ID card, perfectly normal—she already carried a student ID and a driver’s license—but it felt like something else. Something more sinister.
Eve stopped rummaging in drawers and just stared at her. “Hey. We each got one. Four envelopes.”
“I thought they were only for human residents,” Claire said. “So what’s in Michael’s?” Because Michael Glass was definitely not human these days. He’d been bitten well before Claire had met him, but the full-on vampire thing had been slow-building; she saw it more and more now, but deep down she thought he was still the same strong, sweet, no-nonsense guy she’d met when she’d first arrived on the Glass House doorstep. He was definitely still strong. It was the sweetness that was in some danger of fading away, over time.