Morganville - 10 - Bite Club (24 page)

It's a temporary boost, but it breaks down fast."

"Oh, God," Eve said. "That's bad. That's damn bad, isn't it?"

Michael didn't deny that at all. "Click on the link for upcoming bouts."

Claire did. In three days, Shane was scheduled to fight again, this time a vampire named......

"Jester," Michael murmured. "He's fighting Jester. And Jester will murder him." He didn't mean it figuratively. "We have to get to Shane and get him out of this. He can't survive that, not even with the help of whatever they're giving him. The human body's not made for it."

"We have to get him out of it before Amelie finds out," Claire said, "because she'll kill everybody involved, no questions asked. This is a high-security risk for the town.

She won't hesitate."

Eve dropped down onto Claire's bed and buried her head in her hands. "And how are we supposed to do that, exactly? Shane's all grrr now. He's not going to listen to us.

And he's got an entourage of his very own tough guys who'd gladly beat the crap out of us for breathing his air."

"What are we going to do, then? Just let him die? For money?" Claire stood up and glared at the Web site again in utter fury. Her hands ached, and she didn't know why until she realized she was clenching them into tight fists. That made her think about Shane fighting, and that made her even angrier. There was a red-hot pressure inside her head that felt like it might blow her apart. "We can't tell Amelie. We can't go to Shane. Then what?"

Her cell phone rang. She looked at the screen and it said nothing at all again. Her breath hissed out in a sound of pure, enraged frustration, and she answered it in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. "If you're calling to tell me how hot it is to see my boyfriend get beaten up, I'm going to come over there and -- "

"It's Frank," said the weird mechanical voice on the other end. That hit her like a bucket of ice-cold water, making her flinch and shiver at the same time.Oh, God, he could hear her. Frank could hear any of them, anytime, if they had their cell phones on them and he cared to listen. The ultimate eavesdropper, and she'd forgotten all about it. "Get here. Now."

"The lab," she said.

"No, Candy land! Of course the lab! And you'd better come prepared to explain to me what the hell is happening to my son, Claire." He hung up on her. She'd just been hung up on by a disembodied brain in a jar. Fantastic. She hadn't even had time to say, Don't tell Myrnin, but she didn't think Frank would, anyway. He'd have picked up on how dangerous this was for Shane, and if Myrnin knew, well...Myrnin wasn't Shane's biggest fan at the best of times. Claire didn't think he'd rat Shane out just because of that, but he was, ultimately, Amelie's friend first. And Amelie would want to know.

This was so dangerous. God, everywhere she turned there was risk. To Shane and to Morganville. Even to the vampires, though she didn't care quite as much about that, because the vamps could always take care of themselves...and would.

"Who was it?" Michael's face was carefully blank, but she saw the glitter in his eyes.

He was waiting to see how much she was going to lie.

She sighed and told the truth. "Frank Collins," she said.

"Frank's dead."

"Yes," she said. "And...I have some things you'd better know before we go any further."

"Oh, this should be good," Eve said, in a "not really" voice. "Somebody make popcorn."

Claire told them about it on the drive to Myrnin's lab. It was darkest night now, and only vampires went out by choice; they took Michael's shiny, town-provided Vamp mobile, with highly tinted windows, because Claire wasn't absolutely sure that they'd be back home before dawn, and, besides, it provided her and Eve with some extra protection from snack-inclined vampires. Just in case.

"So, wait," Michael said. "Back up. Myrnin chopped Frank's brain out and put it in a jar to hook up to his machine, after Amelie told him he was officially not supposed to be working on that machine. Is that about right?"

"Amelie was mad at him," Claire said. "But Myrnin was going to do it, anyway, and I think she knew it. It was just...timing. And whose brain he was going to get to use.

Considering that he was thinking about using mine..."

"Yeah, I get it; it's a solid win." Michael shook his head, bemused. "Remind me to have myself cremated if I ever get killed around here. Can't trust anybody these days.

But I have to say, if I had to pick somebody to trap in a jar for eternity, I'd vote Frank Collins every chance I got. He didn't deserve to live, but he did deserve to suffer.

He's suffering, right?"

"Well...I guess." Claire hadn't seen much evidence of suffering, actually, but Michael seemed pretty happy about the whole idea. "The point is that Frank is connected to a lot of sensors, cameras, cell phone networks, Internet feeds.... I'm guessing that the site we looked at was encrypted, though, because he didn't start yelling about things until we started talking about them. He couldn't see it."

"Somebody knew enough to take precautions," Michael agreed. "Somebody on Team Vampire."

"Like Vassily," Eve said. "Or Gloriana, that bitch."

"She's not that bad."

"Michael, you're going to want to stop defending her now before I have to cut you somewhere you'll feel it."

"Ouch."

"Fiancee," Eve said, pointing one black fingernail at her chest. "Do not defend her to me. She tried to drag you off to her lair. I'll bet she has a lair. And a boudoir in her lair."

Michael gave up. Claire thought she saw him smiling, but if he did, he made it vanish pretty fast. "Who's Frank likely to tell? Myrnin?"

"Maybe," Claire said. "And Myrnin will blab to Amelie, and then -- "

"And then the vampires involved get a slap on the wrist, and the humans involved get dead, and we redefine snafu in our time," Eve said. Michael made a left turn. Claire had no idea where they were; it was featureless blackness out the windows. Michael was the only one who had the super eyesight to make anything out. "We should have taken the portal."

"And what happens if Frank decides to lock down the portals to keep us from leaving?" Michael said. "I like having my own transportation."

He had a point. Claire didn't trust the portal system, which Amelie and Oliver -- and sometimes Myrnin -- used to skulk around the town. Sure, it was all magically amazing until it stopped working.

She'd seen it stop working mid transit. The results hadn't been pretty.

Michael braked. "We're here."

"Maybe you guys should -- "

"Go in with you," Eve said. "Because we're not dumping you off on the curb like an abandoned puppy, Claire. You know that's not happening."

She did know, and she was grateful. Very grateful.

Michael, though, had one more question, as they were walking down the alley toward the lab, lit eerily by the bobbing flare of the little flashlight Eve kept in her bag for emergencies. "Does Shane know? About his dad being kind of alive?"

"No," Claire admitted. "I didn't want to tell him. I thought, Maybe later. It was too soon. He'd just come to terms with losing him. I couldn't stand to see him hurt all over again."

"I probably would have done the same thing," Michael said.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me. Just because I'd have done it doesn't mean it was right."

That was not exactly comforting. Claire thought about it all the way inside the leaning, dry-rotted shack that stood at the end of the narrowing alley, and down the unlit steps that led to Myrnin's lab.

She was prepared for Myrnin to be there, but he wasn't. She found the light controls and brought up the glow on the wall sconces. The lab looked its usual disorderly self, half cool steam punk junk shop, half dump. She still hadn't broken him of the habit of leaving stacks of books everywhere, including blocking the paths between the lab tables. He'd just gotten in a new shipment, she saw. More alchemy books.

The top one, designed in garish black and yellow and white, was titled Alchemy for Idiots . He'd probably picked that one out just for her.

"Myrnin?" She called out, but not very loudly. No sign of him. When she raised her eyebrows at Michael, he shook his head. Not here, then.

That was confirmed by the flickering black-and-white ghost dressed in motorcycle leathers that appeared at the far end of the lab and came toward them at a brisk walk, passing through everything in his way...stacks of books, lab tables, and Eve, who wasn't looking the right way at that moment. She squawked and jumped back as Frank Collins's arm thrust its way through her stomach. "Hey!"

He smiled. With Frank's craggy, scarred face, it was a gruesome sight, especially in horror-movie black-and-white. "Don't stand in the way if you don't want to get hurt,"

he said, and dropped his arm back to his side. "I see you brought your friends, Claire."

"I didn't have a choice. They needed to know about you."

"In your opinion."

"Yes. In my opinion." Claire stared at him, and he stared back, and finally Frank shrugged.

"Fine by me, but keep my son out of it. By the way, Myrnin's not home."

"Where is he?"

"Hunting," Frank said.

Claire stiffened. "Myrnin doesn't hunt. He has regular blood deliveries."

Frank just looked at her, then at Michael. "You. Best friend. What the hell's going on with my son?"

Michael exchanged a quick glance with the others, then said, "Probably easier if I show you. Got a computer? One with Internet?"

"Yeah, over there." Frank pointed, and Claire led the way to the laptop that she kept in the corner, the one that she'd set up for Myrnin but he never seemed to use. "I was monitoring your keystrokes, but I couldn't see the Web site. Somebody's gone to some trouble to blind me."

Claire pulled up the Immortal Battles site. "Can you see it now?"

"No." Frank's insubstantial, flickering ghost leaned forward, frowning. "Just a blank screen. White noise."

"Try this," Eve said. She took out her cell phone and turned on the camera, then focused it on the screen. "Can you see it now?"

He wasn't looking at her cell phone screen, but he grunted in acknowledgment. "That works," he said.

"I can see your cell in real time, so I can watch it through your camera. Good thinking. All right. Show me."

He didn't have any comment until Claire loaded up the video of Shane's first fight.

As he watched the boy get thrown into the fence and then turn it around on the vampire, he did the thing Claire most dreaded.

He smiled in genuine pride.

"Hey!" she said sharply. "Your son is being hurt. I know you're an abusive asshole, but could you maybe focus on the fact that he could have been killed? Maybe?"

Frank lost the smile, but the pride remained. "He won," he said. "My son won a bare knuckles fight with a vampire. You, Glass. You want to tell me how unlikely that is?"

"Pretty damn unlikely," Michael said. "But Claire's got a point."

"I trained my son to survive in Morganville. I'm not apologizing for that."

"You beat the hell out of him," Michael said, and behind his soft tone there was steely anger. "I remember how many times he came to my house to stay the night because he couldn't face going home to you. How many times he had bruises from your training. My parents didn't do that to me to train me to survive."

"Yeah," Frank said. "And look how you turned out, Glass, with all the blood drinking. No offense."

"Lots taken," Michael said. "And by the way, you wound up with fangs, too. So screw you and your self-justification for being Worst Parent of Our Lifetime, Drunken Ass Division."

"I'd kick your disrespectful butt if I still had legs, but I'll let it go. For now," Frank said. "So my son's tangled up with this. I'll admit, it's risky, but it's right up his alley."

"He's doing it for money," Claire said.

"Good for him. I'd have done the same thing myself if it had been around in my day.

Good training and cash, plus the chance to pound some bloodsucker in the face."

"It's illegal!"

Frank shrugged. "Maybe. But who cares?"

"Frank, it's run by vampires. They're getting rich off your son's blood!" Michael said. Frank raised his eyebrows.

"You think that's a news flash? That's how it's been from the beginning, Glass.

Humans get boned; vampires get rich. It's their whole lifestyle."

Claire shook her head. "Maybe, but I guarantee you that Ameliedoesn't know about this particular little project, and she's going to care big-time. Anything that puts Morganville on the radar is a bad thing, right?"

"Eh," Frank said. "They're playing it for the cheap seats, all opera capes and bad Transylvanian accents.

Nobody out there's going to take it seriously. They're watching it for the fighting.

They don't believe for a second there are actual vampires involved. Not much of a risk."

"Maybe not, but what happens when somebody takes it seriously and sends somebody to check it out? It would make a hell of a60 Minutes story," Michael said.

"One guy already tried to extort them for money. He's dead."

"Wait," Claire said as Frank opened his mouth to reply. Not that he needed to have a mouth to talk; it was just theater. His voice was coming out of her phone. He waited while she thought for a second.

"Michael. Bishop killed Stinky Doug. That's what Jason told me."

"And -- Oh." Eve's eyes grew very wide. "Wait. You saw Jason? Where?"

Dammit, again she was saying things she shouldn't have been. Too late to call that back, anyway. "He's been arrested," Claire said. "Again. Sorry."

"And you were going to tell me that my brother was in jail when, exactly?"

"When they said I could. I'm sorry, Eve, but that's not the point. Jason accused Bishop."

"Wait, the Bishop? Evil old man who is supposed to be dead -- that Bishop?"

This was a house of cards, and it was all crashing down around her. Claire decided she couldn't care about that, not now. Better to try to get it all out in the open.

"Bishop broke out," she said. "And the next thing anybody knew, he grabbed Jason and had him take him to Stinky Doug. Then he killed him. Jason didn't know why."