The Morganville Vampires Collection (The Morganville Vampires #1-4) (71 page)

‘Yeah, good plan, if it had been any other kids. You guys, you’re just trouble to the power of three. And I’m no maths whiz, but I’m betting that’s a lot.’ His eyes were cold and distant, and she had the distinct feeling he wasn’t really thinking about her at all. ‘Listen, I’ve got to make a stop. I’m running late as it is. You stay in the car, OK? Just stay in the car. Do
not
get out.’

She nodded. He turned some corners, into a residential area of Morganville she didn’t recognise. It was run-down and faded, with leaning fences that were marked with sun-bleached gang signs. The houses weren’t much better. Most of them just had sheets tacked up in the windows instead of real curtains.

He parked in front of one, got out, and said, ‘Windows up. Lock the doors.’

She followed his orders and watched him go up the narrow, cracked sidewalk to the front door. It opened on the second knock, but she couldn’t see who was inside, and Lowe closed the door behind him.

Claire frowned and waited, wondering what he was doing – cop stuff, she guessed, but in Morganville that could be anything, from running errands for vampires to dog-catching.

He didn’t come back. She checked her watch and found that more than ten minutes had passed. He’d ordered her to stay put, but for how long? She could have been home already if she’d been able to get the taxi, or even if she’d walked.

And it was getting hot in the car.

Ten more minutes, and she started to feel anxious. The neighbourhood seemed deserted – no people on the street, even in the bright sunlight. Even for Morganville, that didn’t seem…normal. She didn’t know this area, hadn’t been through it before, and she wondered what went on around here.

Before Claire could decide to do something really stupid, like investigating on her own, Detective Lowe came out of the house and, after rapping on the window for her to unlock the door, got back in the car. He looked, if possible, even more tired. Depressed, almost.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. The sheets tacked up
as curtains twitched in the window of the house, as if somebody was peering out at them. ‘Sir?’

‘Quit calling me sir,’ Lowe snapped, and put the car in gear. ‘And it’s none of your affair. Stay out of it.’

There was blood on his hand. His knuckles were scraped. Claire pulled in a fast breath, her eyes widening as she noticed, and he sent her a narrow glance as the car accelerated away down the deserted street.

‘Were you in a fight?’ she asked.

‘What did I just tell you?’ Detective Lowe had never been angry before, not with her, but she could tell he was being pushed pretty far. She nodded and turned face forward, trying to keep herself still. It wasn’t easy. She wanted to ask questions, a dozen of them. She wanted to ask him where Detective Hess had gone. She wanted to find out who lived in that house, and why Lowe had gone there. And whom he’d hit, to scrape up his knuckles like that.

And why he was so desperately angry that he’d snap at her.

Lowe didn’t enlighten her about any of it. He pulled the car to a stop with an abrupt jerk of brakes, and Claire blinked and realised that she was home. ‘You need another ride, call a taxi,’ Lowe said. ‘I’m on police business the rest of the day.’

She climbed out and tried to thank him, but he wasn’t listening. He was already flipping open his cell phone and dialling one-handed as he put the car in gear with the other. She barely got the door shut before he pulled away from the curb.

‘Bye,’ she said softly, to the empty air, and then shrugged and went inside.

Michael was sitting in the living room, playing guitar. He looked up and nodded at her when she came in. ‘Eve went to the hospital,’ he said. ‘She must have just missed you.’

Claire sighed and slumped down on the couch. ‘They won’t let her in. Visiting hours are over.’ She yawned and curled up, tucking her feet under her. She ached all over, and everything seemed too bright, and not quite right. ‘Michael?’

‘Yeah?’ He was working out a chord progression and was focused on the music; his response didn’t mean he was listening, really.

‘Shouldn’t you be asleep? I mean, don’t vampires —?’

He was listening after all. ‘Sleep during the day? Yeah, mostly. But I…couldn’t. I keep thinking…’ The chord progression turned minor, then wrong, and he grimaced. ‘I keep thinking that I should have fixed this crap with Shane by now. I don’t know if he’s going to get over it, not really. Not in the ways that
count. And I hate it. I can’t stop thinking… I don’t want him doing this stuff. Not without me watching his back.’

Claire leant her head against the battered black pillow on the corner of the couch. It smelt like spilt Coke, a little, but mostly it smelt like Shane, and she gladly turned her face into it and took a deep breath. It made it seem like he was here, at least for a second.

‘He wouldn’t hate you so bad if he didn’t love you, at least a little bit,’ she said. ‘We’ll be OK. We’re going to stay together, right? The four of us?’

Michael looked up, and for a second she wasn’t sure what he was going to say; but then he said, ‘Yeah. We’ll stay together. No matter what.’

It felt like a lie, and she wished he hadn’t said it.

She fell asleep, listening to him compose a new song, and dreamt about vibrating strings and doorways that led nowhere, and everywhere. Someone was watching her; she could feel it, and it wasn’t Michael. It wasn’t warm and kind; it wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe, and there was something wrong, wrong,
wrong
…

She nearly fell off the couch, she jerked so hard. Michael wasn’t there, and his guitar was in the case on the table. Claire squinted at the clock. It was nearly two o’clock, and she’d slept through lunch, but
it wasn’t hunger that had woken her up. She’d heard something.

It came again, a thumping knock on the front door. She yawned and pushed back the blanket that Michael had draped over her, and, still trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes, padded to the door.

She had to stand on tiptoes at the peephole to see out. Some guy, nobody that clicked any immediate recognition – not Jason, at least. That was good. Claire looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign Michael had heard. She had no idea where he’d gone.

She opened the door. The guy standing outside looked up and held out a padded mailer with stickers on it; she took it and read her own name on it. ‘Oh,’ she said, preoccupied. ‘Thanks.’

‘No problem, Claire,’ he said. ‘Be seeing you.’

There was something way too familiar about the way he said it. She jerked her head up, staring at him, but she still didn’t know him. He was just…normal. Average height, average weight, average everything. There was a silver bracelet on his wrist, so he was human, not vampire.

‘Do I know you?’ she asked. He tilted his head a little, but didn’t answer. He just turned and walked away down the sidewalk, towards the street. ‘Hey, wait! Who are you?’

He waved and kept walking. She went a couple of steps outside into the early-afternoon heat, frowning, but she’d left her shoes off, and the concrete was blazing hot. No way could she run after him in bare feet; she’d fry like bacon.

She retreated back into the cool darkness of the house and sighed in relief at the feeling of cool wood under her soles. She looked down at the envelope in her hand and suddenly wanted to drop it and step away. She didn’t know who this guy was, and it was really strange that he wouldn’t answer her. And strange, in Morganville, was rarely going to be a good thing.

She closed and locked the door, took a deep breath, and tore open the top of the envelope. No smell of blood or disgusting rotting things, which was a plus. She carefully squeezed the sides to open it up, and saw nothing in it but a note. She shook it out into her hand, and recognised the paper immediately – heavy, expensive paper, cream-coloured, embossed with the same logo that was on her gold bracelet.

It was a note from Amelie. Which meant the guy who’d dropped it off had to be somebody she trusted, at least that far.

‘Everything OK?’ Michael’s voice came from the end of the hall. Claire gasped, stuffed the paper back into the envelope, and turned to face him.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Just mail.’

‘Good stuff?’

‘Don’t know yet; I haven’t read it. Probably junk.’

‘Enjoy the fact that you don’t have electricity, water, cable, Internet, and garbage to pay for,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m going upstairs. Yell if you need anything. There’s stuff in the fridge if you’re hungry.’ A brief pause. ‘Don’t open the pitcher in the back on the top shelf.’

‘Michael,
tell
me you’re not putting blood in our refrigerator.’

‘I told you not to open it. So you’ll never know.’

‘You
suck
!’ Of course he did; he was a vampire. ‘I mean, not in a good way, either!’

‘Eat something! I’m sleeping.’ And she heard his door shut, so she was effectively alone.

Claire fumbled out the letter and unfolded it. A smell of faint, dusty roses came from the paper, as though it had been stored in a trunk with dried flowers. She wondered how old it was.

It was a short, simple note, but it made her whole body turn cold.

It read:

I am displeased with your progress in your
advanced studies. I suggest you spend additional
time learning all you can. Time is growing short.
I do not care how you arrange this, but you will be
expected to demonstrate within the next two days at
least a journeyman understanding of what you are
being taught. You cannot involve Michael. He is not
to be risked.

Nothing else. Claire stared at the perfect handwriting for a few seconds, then folded the note up and put it back in the envelope. She still felt tired and hungry, but more than anything else, now she felt scared.

Amelie wasn’t happy.

That wasn’t good.

Two days
. And Michael could go with her only in the evenings…

She couldn’t wait.

Claire checked in her backpack. The red crystal shaker was still inside, safely zipped into a pocket.

If she took Michael’s car – no, she couldn’t. She’d never be able to see through the tinting, even if she felt confident in her ability to drive it. And Detective Lowe wasn’t going to give her a ride. She could try Detective Hess, but Lowe’s attitude had made her gun-shy.

Still, she couldn’t just go out alone.

With a sigh, she called Eddie, the taxi driver.

‘What?’ he snapped. ‘Don’t I get a day off? What is it with you?’

‘Eddie, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I need a favour.’
Claire hastily checked her wallet. ‘Um, it’s a short trip, I’ll pay you double, OK? Please?’

‘Double? I don’t take cheques.’

‘I know that. Cash.’

‘I don’t wait. I pick up, I drop off, I leave.’

‘Eddie! Double! Do you want it or not?’

‘Keep your panties on. What’s the address?’

‘Michael Glass’s house.’

Eddie heaved a sigh so heavy it sounded like a temporary hurricane. ‘You again. OK, I come. But I swear, last time. No more Saturdays, yes?’

‘Yes! Yes, OK. Just this time.’

Eddie hung up on her. Claire bit her lip, slipped the note from Amelie into her bag, and hoped Michael had been serious about going to bed. Because if he’d eavesdropped on her, even by accident, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

It took five minutes for Eddie to arrive. She waited on the sidewalk, and jumped in the back of the battered old cab – barely yellow, after so much sun exposure – and handed Eddie all the cash she had. He counted it. Twice.

Then he grunted and flipped the handle on the taxi meter. ‘Address?’

‘Katherine Day’s house.’ One thing Claire had learnt about riding with Eddie – you didn’t need numbers, only names. He knew everybody, and he
knew where everybody lived. All the natives, anyway. The students, he just dropped on campus and forgot.

Eddie threw an arm over the back of his seat and frowned at her. He was a big guy, with a lot of wild dark hair, including a beard. She could barely see his eyes when he frowned, which was pretty much always. ‘The Day House. You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Told you I’m not staying, right?’

‘Eddie,
please
!’

‘Your funeral,’ he said, and hit the gas hard enough to press her back into the cushions.

Myrnin’s shack was easy enough to get into – the trick, after all, wasn’t getting in. It was getting out. Light slashed in thin ribbons through the darkness where the boards didn’t quite meet, but it wasn’t exactly easy to see, and she didn’t much like roaming around in Myrnin’s lair in the dark. Or even half dark. She found a flashlight on the shelf near the door and thumbed it on. A pure white circle of light brushed across the dusty floor and showed her the narrow steps at the back that led down.

She went very slowly. Very carefully. ‘Myrnin?’ She said it quietly, because he’d hear her; he’d told her that his ears were sensitive because of the silence and his lack of company.

He didn’t answer.

‘Myrnin?’ Claire could see the hard edge of light at the bottom of the steps. He had everything on, it
looked like – the light had a funny colour, a mixture of fluorescent bulbs and oil lamps, candles and incandescents. ‘Myrnin, it’s Claire. Where are you?’

She almost missed him, because he was so still. Myrnin was usually in motion of some kind – moving fast, like a hummingbird, from one bright attraction to the next. But what was standing in the centre of the room looked like Myrnin – only completely still. Vampires did breathe, a little; the blood they took from humans needed oxygen, Claire had figured out, although a lot less than in a normal person. But his chest was still, his eyes were open and staring, and he wasn’t moving at all. Not even to look at her. His attention was focused somewhere off to the side.

‘Myrnin?’ She put her bag down slowly. ‘It’s Claire. Can you hear me?’

His chest rose just a fraction, and he whispered, ‘Get out. Go.’

And tears slid out of his wide, staring eyes to run down his pale cheeks.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ She forgot about caution, and moved towards him. ‘Myrnin, please tell me what’s wrong!’

‘You,’ he said. ‘This is wrong.’

And then he just – collapsed. Dropped like his knees had given out, and the rest of him followed. It wasn’t a graceful fall, and it would have hurt a
normal human, maybe badly. Myrnin’s head hit the floor with a solid crack, and Claire crouched down next to him and put her hand on his chest – not sure what she was doing, what she was supposed to be feeling for. Not his pulse – vampires didn’t have one, at least not that humans could detect. She knew that from leaning against Michael.

‘I can’t do this,’ Myrnin said. His cold hand flashed out and grabbed hold of her arm, hard enough to bruise. ‘Why are you here? You weren’t supposed to come!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Claire tried to pull free, but she might as well have been pulling against a bridge cable. Myrnin could snap her bones, if he wanted. Or even if he got careless. ‘Myrnin, you’re hurting me. Please—’

‘
Why?
’ He shook her, and she could see the panic in his eyes. That made her take a deep breath and forget the ache where he was holding her. ‘You weren’t supposed to come back!’

‘Amelie sent me a note. She said I had only two days to learn—’

Myrnin groaned and let her go. He covered his eyes with his hands, dry-scrubbed his face, and said, ‘Help me up.’ Claire put a hand under his arm and managed to get him upright, leaning against a solid lab cabinet that seemed like it was bolted to the floor.
‘Let me see the note.’

She went back to the stairs, grabbed her backpack, and produced the note. Myrnin unfolded it in shaking hands and looked at it intently.

‘What? Is it a fake?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘She sent you to me.’ He dropped the note in his lap, as if it had got unbearably heavy, and rested his head against the hard surface of the lab cabinet. ‘She’s lost hope, then. She’s acting out of fear and panic. That isn’t like her.’

‘I don’t understand!’

‘That’s exactly the problem,’ Myrnin said. ‘You don’t. And you won’t, child. I explained this to her before – even the brightest human can’t learn this quickly. And you are so very young.’ He sounded tired and very sad. ‘Now we come to the last of it, Claire. Think it through: Amelie sent you to me, knowing that I do not believe you are the solution to my problems.
Why would she do that?
You know what I am, what I do, what I crave. Why would she put you in front of me if she didn’t want me to…to—’ He seemed to be begging her to understand, but he wasn’t making any sense. ‘You don’t know what she is capable of doing, child.
You don’t know!
’

There was so much fear in his voice, and in his face, that she felt a real sense of dread. ‘If she didn’t want you to teach me, why did she send me?’

‘The question is, why – after being so careful to provide you with escorts – would she send you to me
alone
?’

‘I—’ She stopped, remembering. ‘Sam said to ask you about the others. The other apprentices. He said I wasn’t the first—’

‘Samuel is quite intelligent,’ Myrnin said, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. ‘You glow, you glow like the finest lamp. So much possibility in you. Yes, there have been others Amelie sent to learn. Vampires and humans. I killed the first one almost by accident, you must understand, but the effect…You see, the more intelligent the mind, the longer my clarity lasts, or so we thought at first. The first bought me almost a year without attacks. The second…mere months, and so on, in ever-decreasing cycles as my disease grew worse.’

‘She sent me here to die,’ Claire said. ‘She wants you to kill me.’

‘Yes,’ Myrnin said. ‘Clever, isn’t she? She understands my desperation so well. And you do glow so brightly, Claire. The temptation is almost—’He shook his head violently, as if trying to throw something out of his mind. ‘Listen to me. She seeks to fend off the inevitable, but I can’t accept this trade. Your life is so fragile, just beginning; I can’t steal it away for half a day, or an hour. It’s no use.’

‘But… I thought you said I could learn—’

He sighed. ‘I wanted to believe, but it isn’t possible. Yes, I could teach you…but you’d be nothing more than a gifted mimic, a mechanic, not an engineer. There are things you cannot do, Claire, not for years at best. I’m sorry.’

Myrnin was saying that she was stupid, and Claire felt a hot, strange spark of anger. ‘Let go of my arm!’ she snapped, and he was surprised enough that some of the blankness in his dark eyes went away, replaced with concern. He slowly relaxed his fingers. ‘Explain it to me. You’re not all-knowing; maybe you forgot something.’

Myrnin smiled, but it was a shadow of his usual manic grin. ‘I assure you, I probably have,’ he agreed. ‘But Claire, attend: already, my muscles disobey me. Soon I won’t be able to walk, and then my voice will lock in my throat. And then blindness, and madness, and I will end my days locked in a black, dark place, screaming silently as I starve. If there were any shred of hope that I could avoid that fate, don’t you think I would seize it?’

He said it so…calmly. As if it had already happened. ‘No,’ Claire said. She couldn’t help it. ‘No, that isn’t going to happen.’ She’d somehow thought that he’d just…fade away. Without pain. But this kind of torture – he didn’t deserve it. Not even Oliver
deserved to have this creeping up on him. ‘How… Do you know what causes it?’

Myrnin smiled, but the smile looked bitter. ‘I thought I did, once. Amelie knows much of what I’ve forgot, but you may find your clues in the notebooks. I was cautious, of course, but if you look closely, you may find my theories. In any case, it no longer matters. I can feel myself slipping into the black. There’s no return.’

‘How do you
know
?’

‘I’ve seen it happen. It’s always the same. Amelie will lock me away because she’ll have no choice; she must try to keep the secret, and it will take me a very long time to die, because I am so very old.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Not now. All that matters is that you go home, child, and never come back. I can’t imagine I would have the unexpected strength of will to refuse such a lovely warm gift twice.’

It was stupid. She didn’t like Myrnin, she
couldn’t
. He was scary and strange and he’d tried to kill her not just once, but at least twice.

So why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

‘What if we use the crystals?’ she blurted. Myrnin’s eyes narrowed. ‘I learnt, when you had me take them. What if we use them now? Both of us? Would that help?’

He was already shaking his head. ‘Claire, it’s a fool’s quest. Even if we continue research on the cure, there’s not enough time—’

‘The cure to your disease!’ She felt a sudden surge of hope as she dug through her backpack and came up with the shaker of crystals. ‘Isn’t this what you’ve done so far?’

‘It is. Clever of you to discover that. But the point is, it’s taken years to develop it, and it’s at best only a temporary measure. Even a large dose will wear off in a few hours for either one of us, and the consequences for you…’

‘But if we can come up with a cure, a real cure?’

‘It’s naive to think that we could perfect such a thing in mere hours. No, I think you had better go. I have been quite noble today. You really should let me enjoy it while I can.’ He looked at the shaker in her hands, and for a second she thought she saw a spark of that quick interest that had driven him so hard in earlier meetings. ‘Perhaps…if I show you the research, you could carry that part of it onward. For the others.’

‘Sam said you were all sick. Even Amelie.’

Myrnin nodded. ‘As I am, so shall they all be. Every vampire who lives will suffer this in the next ten years, unless it is stopped.’

Ten years!
No. Not Michael.

She couldn’t stand by without trying to stop it, at least for him.

‘Amelie brought us to Morganville to buy us time, to find a way to ensure our survival. She believed…she believed that humans might hold the keys to this plague, and she also believed that we could no longer afford to live as we had, preying in the night or hiding. She thought that humans and vampires could live in cooperation, and find the solution to our illness together. That quickly became impossible, of course; she realised, after telling the first few vampires, that they would go mad knowing what was to come, that they would kill indiscriminately. So it became a secret, a terrible secret. She told them part of the truth, that she was seeking a cure to what makes us sterile. Never the rest.’

‘So…Morganville’s a kind of lab. She’s trying to find a cure, and protect all of you at the same time.’

‘Exactly so.’ Myrnin rubbed his hands over his face again. ‘I’m getting tired, Claire. Best give me the crystals.’

She poured out a few in his hand. He met her eyes. ‘More,’ he said. ‘The disease has advanced. I will need a large dose to stay with you, even for a while.’

She poured about a teaspoon out. Myrnin popped
it into his mouth, made a face at the bitterness, and swallowed. A shudder went through him, and she actually saw the weariness and confusion fade. ‘Excellent. That really was an amazing discovery. Too bad about the doctor; really, he was very bright.’ Oh dear. Myrnin was swinging towards the manic now, thanks to the drugs. That was dangerous. ‘You’re very bright. Perhaps you could read through the notes.’

‘I…I’m just
now
starting advanced biochemistry—’

‘Nonsense, your native ability is clear.’ He pointed towards the shaker of crystals in her hand. ‘Take it.’

‘No. It’s your medicine, not mine.’

‘And it will help you keep up with me, because we have very little time, Claire, very little.’ His eyes were bright and clear, like a bird’s, and with about as much affection. ‘There are two ways you can assist me. You can take the crystals, or you can help me extend this period of clarity in other ways.’

She sat back on her heels. ‘You said you wouldn’t.’

‘Indeed. But you see, the disease makes me a sentimental fool. If I am to find an heir to my knowledge,
and
find a cure for my people, then I can’t be burdened with such considerations.’ His gaze brushed over her, abstract and hungry. ‘You burn so very brightly, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘You said.’ She hated this. She hated that Myrnin could change like this, go from friend to enemy in the space of a minute. Which one was real? Or was any of it? Claire shook half a teaspoon of the crystals into her palm.

‘More,’ Myrnin said. She added a couple, and he reached out, took the shaker, and poured a heaping mound of it into her hand. ‘You have a great deal to learn, and you are operating from such a disadvantage. Better safe than sorry.’

She didn’t want to take it – well, she did, a little, because the strawberry smell of the crystals brought back flashes of the way the world had looked: diamond clear, uncomplicated,
simple
.

Hard not to want that.

Myrnin said, ‘Take it, or I will have to take you, Claire. We have no more moves on our chessboard.’

She poured the crystals onto her tongue and almost gagged from the bitterness. The strawberry flavour was overwhelmed by it, and the aftertaste was rotten and cold on her tongue, and she thought for a second she might throw up…

And then everything snapped into hot, sharp,
perfect
focus.

Myrnin no longer looked strange and pathetic; he was a burning pillar of energy barely contained by skin. She could see that he was sick, somehow; there
was a darkness in him, like rot at the heart of a tree. The room took on a fey glitter.
Neurotransmitters
, she thought. Her brain was rushing a million miles an hour, making her giddy and breathless.
My reaction
time must be ten times faster
.

Myrnin bounded up to his feet, grabbed her hand, and dragged her to the shelves, where he began frantically pulling down books. Notebooks, textbooks, scraps of handwritten paper. Two black-bound composition books, the same kind Claire used in lab class. Even a couple of the cheap blue books she used for essay tests. Everything was crammed with fine, perfect handwriting.

‘Read,’ he said. ‘Hurry.’

All she had to do was flip pages. Her eyes captured things, like cameras, and her brain was so fast and efficient that she translated and comprehended the text almost instantly. Nearly two hundred pages, and she paged through as fast as her fingers could go.