AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm not running," Flora said. "It's Captain Obvious the people want."
"And Captain Obvious they wil not get," Amelie replied with perfect calm. "One cannot elect a man too cowardly to show his face. You, Mrs. Ramos, have courage enough for both, quite clearly. And so you are my nominee. What say you? We have enough residents here to win you the day, simply by voice. Yes or no?"
"I can't-" It wasn't a refusal, though; it was a confused and reluctant argument. "I'm not a politician."
"Neither is Captain Obvious, else he would not have run away at the first sign of trouble," Amelie said coolly, and got a ripple of chuckles from a few in the crowd. "I come to stand before the people of Morganville as the Founder. Unafraid. Can he say as much? You stand before them as well.
And I say you wil uphold their trust. I ask you for nothing but honorable service. Willyou accept?"
Claire didn't hear the answer, because the roar that went up from the crowd was deafening.
There really wasn't any question of refusing.
Amelie had outmaneuvered Captain Obvious and Oliver, and she had regained the equilibrium of Morganville, at least temporarily-al in a mere thirty seconds.
Claire shook her head in wonder, and went home to tel Shane that, despite their hard work-and glitter-Monica was off the ballot.
He'd be so disappointed.
Claire wasn't the first one to get the news to the Glass House, even though she cal ed as she jogged away from City Hal . Eve answered on the first ring and said, "Are you at the riot?"
"It's not really a riot. More of a rally."
"Because the underground talk is that it's a riot. Are they beating people with signs? Is there pepper spray involved? Details!"
"Not that I saw," she said. "I really thought I had breaking news, but you beat me to it."
"Not so much, sugar pie. Is it true that they almost got Flora Ramos? Man, I wish they had. It would have just destroyed whatever high ground Amelie had left. I mean, Flora Ramos-everybody knows about her kids...."
"They didn't take her in," Claire said, and talked fast, in case Eve was refreshing the Web page. "Amelie declared her mayor."
"Wait-declared? How is that fair? Wow, Monica is going to be pissed that she didn't even get to properly lose.... Okay, that's an upside, actually."
"She wouldn't have gotten much of a vote. There was about half the town rallying out there-you know, the half that breathes? And they weren't carrying any 'Monica Morrel ' signs. Everybody was Team Obvious out there."
There was a rustle on the other end, and then a confused blur of voices arguing. "Hey!" Eve came into focus again. "Hel no, Shane, cal her yourself. I got her first.... Oh, all right. Shane says to tellyou he worked hard on those signs, and they were way better than Captain Obvious's signs." Eve covered up the speaker, but Claire still heard her muffled exchange with him. "Really? You had to try to steal my phone to say that? Loser!" Shane's comeback was indistinct, but probably insulting. Eve frostily ignored it and said, "You were saying, Claire?"
"No matter how great they were, allour posters got torn down or..."
"Or? Claire? Hel l oooooooo?"
"Gotta go," Claire said hastily, and hung up, because Monica's red convertible was pulled in at the curb up ahead, and she was standing there, staring at one of her posters that hadn't been pulled down. Claire could see the blank expression on her face, which made her curious, and she hurried over to stand at an angle where she could see the poster.
She covered her mouth to hide an appal ed gasp, because someone had gotten downright artistic on Monica's poster-more than one person, obviously, from the ink-color variations and styles. One had written, in bold Sharpie, Burn in Hell, which was really the nicest thing anyone had said.
The additions to her half-drunk duckface picture were interesting, too, and mostly p**n ographic.
Not that Monica didn't deserve it. She did. This was nothing but retribution, but from the look on the girl's face, she hadn't seen it coming, not at all.
"They hate me," Monica said. Her voice was quiet and a little hushed, and her eyes were wide. There were spots of high color on her cheekbones under the spray tan. "Jesus, they really do hate me."
"Um...sorry. But what did you expect?"
"Respect," Monica said. "Fear. But they're not afraid of me. Not anymore." She reached out, took hold of the poster, and yanked it down. It ripped in the middle, and she tore the second half down with even more vicious fury. The cardboard was tough, but she managed to reduce it to vivid neon scraps and toss it defiantly to the sidewalk in a shattered heap. "Their mistake! And yours, bitch! I know you and Shane set this up. You always wanted to see me humiliated!" She advanced on Claire, fists clenched. Claire stood her ground calmly, and Monica stopped coming when she realized she wasn't going to make her back down, but rage still boiled through her whole body. At the slightest opportunity, the least little sign of weakness, she'd pounce.
"We thought you might pul it off," Claire said. "It's not our fault you have more baggage than an airport at Christmas. Maybe instead of getting even, you ought to be thinking how to improve what people think about you."
"I think you have about ten seconds to get out of my face!"
Claire shrugged. "Enjoy your outcast life, then. You'l get used to it. The rest of us do just fine."
"Bitch!" Monica yel ed at her back, but it was just words, and it was a sign of just how much things had changed between the two of them that Monica didn't dare attack her with anything else, not even when her back was turned. "I'l get you for this-I swear!"
Claire just waved and kept walking, though the area right between her shoulder blades kept itching until she heard Monica's car door slam and heard the roar of the engine. Even then, she stayed ready to jump out of the way should the Mustang mysteriously jump the curb, but once it had flashed past her, burning rubber in a thin, bitter mist on the still air, she relaxed. A little.
But only for a moment.
It was a sunny morning, quiet; the sun hung warm in a cloudless sky the color of faded denim, and a couple of big hawks kited overhead, circling for prey. It wasn't the time or place that she would have expected to sense a threat, and yet...
Yet something was wrong. She could just...feel it.
It took her a few seconds of quick analysis to figure out that what had tripped her alarm switch was the dusty col ege bookstore she had just passed. Instead of opening up, someone had been sliding the curtains closed in the window...and now a hand reached through the curtain and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED. That wasn't right. It was a regular workday, and the store wouldn't have been open for very long. Well, he could have just wanted to grab breakfast. Or an early lunch.
She couldn't be sure, because it happened very quickly, but she could have sworn that the hand flipping the sign had taken on a vivid red sunburn even in that brief exposure to the sun.
Vampire.
Claire slowly backed up, staring at the store. She thought back to what was happening while she'd been talking to-wel , been taking abuse from-Monica. Had someone gone inside the place? Yes, one person; she'd seen him out of the corner of her eye. And, now that she thought of it, that person had been Professor Carlyle, he of the utterly unearned B on her physics paper, so obviously not a creature of the night, even if he was evil.
Someone had been in the store already, like a spider waiting in a web.
Not my problem, Claire told herself, but something deep down argued with her. Maybe she'd spent too much time around Shane, who was always throwing himself gleefully into one fight after another. Maybe she was just still angry at Amelie and Oliver's arrogant attitude toward the mostly defenseless human population of Morganville. Whatever.
She slipped her backpack off her shoulder, tugged free a silver stake, and tried the door, and despite the sign, it was still unlocked. She was committed then-the vampire would have heard her anyway, however distracted he might have been. So she charged inside, let the door bang shut behind her, and landed solidly on her feet, ready for the fight.
Good thing she was, because the vampire came at her fast out of the shadows, a white distorted face and a red snarl, and she struck out and got flesh, but not his heart. He screamed and darted off, clearly not prepared for a fight with someone who could hurt him, and in the brief respite Claire glanced around the shop. The lights were on, which was helpful. Typical col ege bookstore, with loads of shelves crammed with dog-eared, highlighted-over textbooks; the whole place had a run-down, cheap look to it that probably was exactly what the average TPU student liked about it -that, and the low, low prices. (Claire had tried it out once, but the book she'd bought at pennies on the dol ar also had significant issues, such as missing about a dozen crucial pages in the middle.)
