The Morganville Vampires Collection (The Morganville Vampires #1-4) by Rachel Caine Page A

‘Hello, sir.’
    ‘Sir?’ Oliver had a deep voice, and an even deeper laugh. ‘Claire, you’ve got to learn about me. I’m not a sir . Believe me.’
    ‘That’s true.’ Eve nodded wisely. ‘He’s a dude . You’ll like him. Hey, want a coffee? My treat?’
    ‘I – uh—’
    ‘Don’t touch the stuff, right?’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘One non-coffee drink, coming up. How about hot cocoa? Chai? Tea?’
    ‘Tea, I guess.’
    Eve went back behind the counter and did some stuff, and within a couple of minutes, a big white cup and saucer appeared in front of Claire, with a tea bag steeping in the steaming water. ‘On the house. Well, actually, on me, because, yikes, boss is right here.’
    Oliver, who was working on some complicated machine that Claire guessed was something that made cappuccino, shook his head and grinned to himself. Claire watched him curiously. He looked a little bit like a distant cousin she’d met from France; the same kind of hook nose, anyway. She wondered if he’d been a professor at the university, or just a perpetual student. Either looked possible.
    ‘I heard you had some trouble,’ Oliver said, stillconcentrating on unscrewing parts on the machine. ‘Girls in the dorm.’
    ‘Yeah,’ she admitted, and felt her cheeks burn. ‘Everything’s OK, though.’
    ‘I’m sure it is. Listen, though: if you have trouble like that, you come here and tell me about it. I’ll make sure it stops.’ He said it with absolute assurance. She blinked, and his dark eyes moved to rest on hers for a few seconds. ‘I’m not without influence around here. Eve tells me that you’re very gifted. We can’t have some bad apples driving you off.’
    ‘Um…thanks?’ She didn’t mean to make it a question; it just came out that way. ‘Thanks. I will.’
    Oliver nodded and went back to his work dissecting the coffeemaker. Claire found a seat not far away. Eve slipped out from behind the counter and pulled up a chair next to her, leaning forward, all restless energy. ‘Isn’t he great ?’ she asked. ‘He means it, you know. He’s got some kind of pipeline to—’ She made a V sign with her fingers. V, for vampires . ‘They listen to him. He’s good to have on your side.’
    Claire nodded, dunking the tea bag and watching the dark stains spread through the water. ‘You talk about me to everybody?’
    Eve looked stricken. ‘No! Of course I don’t! I just – well, I was worried. I thought maybe Oliver knew something that… Claire, you said it yourself – theytried to kill you. Somebody ought to be doing something about that.’
    ‘Him?’
    ‘Why not him?’ Eve jittered her leg, tapping the thick heel on her black Mary Janes. Her hose had green and black horizontal stripes. ‘I mean, I get that you’re all about being self-sufficient, but come on. A little help never hurts.’
    She wasn’t wrong. Claire sighed, took the tea bag out, and sipped the hot drink. Not bad, even on a blazing-hot day.
    ‘Stay,’ Eve said. ‘Study. It’s a really good place for that. I’ll drive you home, OK?’
    Claire nodded, suddenly grateful; there were too many places to get lost on the way home, if Monica had noticed her after all. She didn’t like the idea of walking three blocks between the student streets, where things were bright and busy, and the colourless hush of the rest of the town, where the Glass House lived. She put the tea to one side and unpacked books. Eve went back to take orders from three chattering girls wearing sorority T-shirts. They were rude to her, and giggled behind her back. Eve didn’t seem to notice – or if she did, she didn’t care.
    Oliver did. He put down the tools he was using, as Eve bustled around getting drinks, and stared steadily at the girls. One by one, they went quiet. It wasn’tanything he did, exactly, just the steadiness of the way he watched them.
    When Eve took their money, each one of the girls meekly thanked her and took her change.
    They didn’t