‘Excuse me,’ Eve said to him. ‘Do you have any, ah, plasma? In bags?’
Pete gave her a blank look, and finally just turned around and walked to the armchair. He sat down, put his head in his hands and checked out of the current reality.
‘Guess that’s a no,’ Eve said. ‘All right. Sorry, you guys, but he needs to feed, and I’m going to volunteer a vein. So if you’re squeamish, turn around.’
Claire did, not so much because she was faint at the sight of blood, but because it seemed uncomfortably intimate to her. Shane turned, too, and took a look around the room. Oliver was examining the remains of the wooden stake, though he was being very careful not to touch any of the remaining silver leaking out of it. Myrnin and Jesse seemed to be very cosy. ‘Well,’ Shane said, ‘at least we’re not alone on the run any more. Apparently, the cops may be the least of our worries right now.’ He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she willingly went. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ she said, and shivered. ‘That was sudden. And intense.’
‘I think Pete’s having a migraine. And I’m not sure the silver’s coming out of his rug, either.’
Jesse had climbed to her feet before he’d finished the sentence, and she walked to the small bathroom and came back in a moment with a thick roll of gauze bandage. She carried it to Myrnin and held it out with her eyebrows raised. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked him.
He bowed a little, took the gauze, and held her hand steady as he wrapped the bandages. He was good at it, Claire realised; he’d definitely had lots of practice at treating injuries, and for this one, it didn’t matter whether it was a vampire or human. The bandages were all the same. He ripped one end of the gauze in two, wrapped it snugly, and tied it off; that, Claire was sure, came from experience in eras where such things as sticky tape had yet to be invented. Once he was done, he smoothed the bandages down, and his hand lingered on hers.
Jesse gave him a slow, bright smile, and Myrnin’s pale cheeks reddened, just a touch. He let go. ‘All better,’ he said. ‘My lady.’
‘My lord,’ she said, and did a pretty fair curtsy, considering she was wearing blue jeans and a low-cut black knit shirt. Her dark red braid swung forward over her shoulder in a thick rope, and as she looked up through her eyelashes at him, Claire thought that Jesse had probably practised the art of flirting for at least a few hundred years. Poor Myrnin.
He was definitely outclassed, and
way
out of practice, because he cleared his throat and turned his back on her – not the most graceful end to that conversation – and said, ‘Claire. With me.’
She automatically moved to follow him as he headed for the kitchen, but Shane didn’t let go of her; his strong grip pulled her to a halt, and Claire looked up at him, frowning.
‘I’ll be okay,’ she said. What she saw in his face was not jealousy, or worry, or anything like that; it was caution, pure and simple. This was all wildly strange, today. She understood exactly how he felt, wanting to slow it down and make things a little more understandable. ‘Let me talk to him and see if I can make sense of any of this.’
‘You’re talking to Myrnin,’ Shane said. ‘I think that might be a little too much to ask.’ But he let her go, and she followed her friend, her boss and her headache into the little kitchen area. She glanced over at Michael and Eve as she did so; he’d finished drinking from Eve’s wrist, and was using the leftover gauze from Jesse to put a neat bandage around the small wound. The look in his eyes as he watched Eve’s face was vulnerable, grateful and more than a little heartbreaking.
Anybody who believed vampires couldn’t feel things like living people did had never met Michael Glass.
They got as far from the others as it was possible to be, within the walls of Pete’s small apartment, and Claire tried to put at least a few feet between her and Myrnin. Ugh. Where had he been hanging out, the city dump? But it was clear that hygiene wasn’t his biggest issue at the moment, from the fiery intensity of his gaze on her. ‘You and Irene,’ Myrnin began. ‘What have you done?’
Claire was taken aback, because she hadn’t expected him to accuse her like that. ‘Nothing!’ she said, and crossed her arms over her chest. She knew it looked defensive, and she didn’t care. ‘
You’re
the one who told me to work with her, Myrnin, so don’t blame me if something’s gone wrong in all this.
I
just wanted to come to college!’
‘And it’s working out so well!’ he said. ‘I trusted Irene implicitly. She has been my agent here in the world for some time, and she has helped conceal our true nature from those who come looking.’
‘Like the government?’
Myrnin didn’t answer that. He couldn’t stand still, and now he stopped moving uneasily from one foot to another to move toward the counter and restlessly open and close the drawers. Claire caught a glimpse of random junk in one, forks and spoons in another. He wasn’t looking for anything, he just needed to fidget. ‘Irene has always had ties to the federal government,’ he said. ‘But that never concerned us directly, until recently.’
‘Just tell me
what happened
! What made you leave Morganville and come all the way out here in the first place? I know Oliver was already on the road – did you run into him, or did he find you?’
‘That is a great many questions in a row. Oh, look, he has peanut butter. Do you like peanut butter?’
‘
Myrnin!
’
‘But it’s crunchy …’ She stared at him with inarticulate frustration, and he put the jar back in the pantry and closed the door. There were some rubber bands dangling from the knob, so he picked a couple off and began playing with them. That was good. It would be less distracting, for both of them. ‘I left Morganville because I intercepted a communication that claimed to be able to prove, without any doubt, the existence of vampires in the world.’
‘Oh, God, Myrnin, did you find this on the Internet? Because you can’t believe everything that’s on there.’
‘I know that! And no, I did
not
believe it. Not at first. But this was no excitable fan of films posting to his friends; it was a doctor, who was preparing a scholarly paper. It was a Google alert, by the way.’ He seemed ridiculously pleased that he had figured out how to set one. ‘He was located in Boston. I felt there had to be some reason that such a revelation would be located so close to Irene, and I phoned her. She did not answer.’
‘People do that sometimes. It doesn’t mean—’
‘I sent you here, Claire. I sent you to Irene, for safety. And I was afraid … I was afraid that she might have betrayed us. Perhaps even accidentally. If word of vampires was out, and taken seriously, then it would only be a matter of time before word of Morganville would be circulated as well. We control these kinds of events; we must, or be wiped from the earth. Normally Oliver would have dispatched agents to see to it, but Oliver was, ah, indisposed …’
‘Exiled, you mean.’
‘Yes, yes, but I couldn’t wait for Amelie to decide who best was ready to deal with this crisis. I know Irene, and I had a good sense of where to locate Oliver. I thought the two of us together could easily handle things.’
‘And how did that go?’
He snapped one of the rubber bands in a convulsive movement, and dropped it to the floor. The second one was tougher, but he was pulling on it way too hard. ‘Not … very well,’ he admitted. ‘I still haven’t been able to locate this doctor that Google found so easily. The human world is much more confusing than I recall. And Oliver was not terribly cooperative. Then Amelie tried to recall me to Morganville. It’s all been very stressful.’
Claire sighed and resisted the almost impossibly attractive impulse to shake him. ‘Tell me what happened
today
.’
He blinked at her and restlessly snapped the rubber band around his wrist. ‘Oliver and I attempted to track down this doctor at his offices, but he was not there. Oliver got into a dispute with someone who called us homeless bums and attempted to spit upon us. I managed to prevent him from doing anything too foolish, but it wasn’t a very good few moments for our tormentor, I’m afraid. And then we went to the doctor’s home, but again, he wasn’t there. I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. I’m not generally used to putting out so much effort.’ He went to the faucet and turned the taps on and off. Claire had a faint hope that he might use the opportunity to wash up, but evidently it didn’t occur to him. ‘Michael found us just as we were trying to see Irene; we were again barred entrance to the university because of our clothing and general dishevelment, and he promised to help us get a motel room where we could wash. Eve said she would secure us new things to wear.’
That
would have been interesting. Claire would have paid money to see what Eve would have bought for Oliver, much less Myrnin. It would have, at the very least, been crazy amazing.
‘I’m guessing things didn’t get that far,’ Claire said, ‘since you’re still stinky and wearing rags.’
Myrnin looked down at himself and sighed. ‘My apologies. Life can be harsh. Yes, we were followed as we left the university by men in some sort of large vehicle. When we stopped at the motel and obtained our room key, we were attacked without warning. Michael managed to put himself in the way when the one with the stake came for Oliver, who was busy fighting another; we did not immediately know that the stake was anything but wood. But Oliver had seen something like it before, and stopped me before I tried to pull it out. I remembered that Lady Grey was here, watching over Irene, and I begged her help. And she brought us here.’
‘And did they follow you?’
‘No.’ Myrnin seemed very certain of it, and Claire wondered why for a moment, until she knew. They wouldn’t have left anybody behind capable of following. ‘But we didn’t think it wise to wait for the police to arrive. Jesse thought this would be the safest place. I did not expect to find
you
here.’
‘It’s been an eventful morning for us, too,’ Claire said. ‘My friend’s been abducted, and the police think Shane and I might have had something to do with it.’
‘Really? Did you?’
‘No! Why would I?’
Myrnin shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it had to be asked. This friend of yours, does she have any knowledge of vampires?’
‘Not a bit. She doesn’t believe in them. Not even in that “maybe it’s real” way that a lot of college kids seem to have.’
‘Hmmm. Then her vanishing might have nothing to do with us, and therefore, it’s of no concern.’
‘Excuse me?
No concern?
She’s my friend!’
That seemed to surprise Myrnin, who frowned at her and stopped stretching the rubber band as if she’d captured his full attention, at least for a moment. ‘We stand in danger, Claire. Very real danger. Irene says that your device has disappeared from her lab; someone with real credibility in the world intends to produce evidence of vampirism, perhaps including actual captured specimens. These are things that we can’t allow, for our own health and survival. We must locate these people, stop them and erase all knowledge of this event; when these things happen, they are cancers, and must be cut out. You understand?’
‘I understand that there’s more going on here than just what you’re into,’ she said. ‘Dr Anderson’s been dealing with some scary spy people, who have – probably not coincidentally – been in my house when they thought I wasn’t there, looking for something that might have been VLAD. And then my friend gets taken by men in a van? Sounds as if they’ve gone to the next level, to me. Maybe it’s connected to your doctor’s publication plans.’
‘If it is, if there is governmental involvement in all this, it’s grave, Claire, grave indeed.’
‘So, not like a cancer then.’
‘No, still very much like one. But I will need a much larger scalpel.’ She hoped he didn’t mean it literally; with Myrnin, you could never exactly be certain. ‘None of that matters just now. We must leave this place, and find Irene. She is exactly the thing that our enemies, if enemies they intend to be, will need – a human with deep knowledge of all things vampire. One with ties to the community, and credibility. We can take no chance that she falls into the wrong hands.’
Myrnin’s logic was often fuzzy, but this time it seemed right on the mark. Dr Anderson
was
vulnerable; if so many pieces were moving on the board, she needed to be made safe before anything else happened.
Before Liz’s rescue
, part of Claire mourned, but she knew she couldn’t help Liz, not immediately.
It occurred to her, then, to ask Myrnin the all-important question. ‘What’s the name of the doctor? The one who has the proof about vampires?’
‘A Dr Patrick Davis,’ he said. ‘I doubt you’d know anything of him.’
‘Well,’ Claire said, ‘you’d be wrong about that.’
And she began to see how all the disparate pieces of this fit together, to make a not-at-all pretty picture.
Oliver moved toward them, and gave Myrnin an impatient frown. ‘If you’re done gossiping with your little friend, we need to leave this place,’ Oliver said. ‘Now. Apparently that idiot boy Shane’s gotten himself in trouble with the police. They’ll surely track him sooner or later, as they’re not the complete fools one might wish.’
‘Perhaps we should leave Shane behind, then,’ Myrnin said casually. ‘It
would
simplify our troubles considerably.’
‘No!’ Claire said sharply. ‘Leave him, and you leave me. And I don’t think Eve and Michael will be too happy with that, either. You’re welcome to take it up with them.’
Myrnin looked as if he might be inclined to try, but Oliver shut him down decisively. ‘We leave no one behind. And Shane knows as much, if not more, about Morganville than anyone else; we don’t dare leave him behind. He’d be a gold mine of information.’
‘He’d never talk,’ Claire said.
‘Everyone talks,’ Oliver said. ‘The question is, do they tell the truth when they do? I don’t trust the boy’s lineage. There are glimmers of his father in him, still, and I’m not certain he wouldn’t glory a little in bringing Morganville down, once and for all, in his family’s memory. So he comes with us, and there’s no more on the subject.’