I booted up my laptop and checked my e-mail, which was really more like checking my spam. Today, come-ons from sad Russian girls and Nigerian businessmen desperate to get rid of millions of tax-free dollars didn't amuse me all that much. Neither did random surfing or the I'm Feeling Lucky Google feature. I had hours to kill, and my whole body was aching with tension.
You could visit Myrnin. Myrnin's not going, either.
Oh, that was way too tempting. Myrnin was work. And work was a great distraction.
Richard told me to lock myself in. Yeah, but he hadn't said where, had he? Myrnin's lab was pretty safe. So was the prison where Myrnin was kept. And at least I'd have company.
"Nope," I said. "Can't do it. Too dangerous."
Except it was still daylight outside. So, not nearly as dangerous as it could be.
The sensible side of me threw up its hands in disgust. Whatever. Go on, get yourself killed. See if I care.
I grabbed a few things and shoved them in the backpack - textbooks, of course, but a couple of novels that I'd been meaning to take to Myrnin, since he was always interested in new things to read.
And a bread knife. Somehow, that seemed like a wise thing to pack, too. I put it in my history textbook, like the world's most dangerous bookmark.
And then, with one last glance around the house, I left.
I hope I come back, I thought, and turned to look at the house as I fastened the front gate. I hope we all come back.
I felt like the house was hoping that, too.
It was a long walk to Myrnin's lab, but I wasn't in any danger, except from dying of the creepies. I saw one or two cars, but they were full of frightened, anxious people heading to some safe haven - work, home, school. Nobody else was outside. Nobody else was walking.
I followed the twisting streets of Morganville into a run-down older area. At the end of the street sat a duplicate of the Glass House - the Day House, where a lovely old lady named Katherine Day still lived. Today, her battered rocking chair was empty, nodding in the breeze. I had been kind of hoping that Gramma Day, or her fiercer granddaughter, would be hanging out; they'd have invited me up to the porch for a lemonade, and tried to talk me out of what I was doing. But if they were home at all, they were inside with the curtains drawn.
Just like everybody else in town.
I turned down the dark alley next to the Day House. It was bordered with tall fences, and it got narrower the farther it went. I'd come here by accident the first time, and on purpose ever since, and it still struck me as a terrifying place, even in broad daylight.
Gramma Day had known about Myrnin. She'd called him a trap-door spider.
Gramma Day, in my experience, had been right about a lot of things, and that was one of them. As sweet and kind and gentle as Myrnin could be, when he turned, he turned all the way.
I reached the end of the alley, which was a rickety shed barely large enough to qualify as one room. The door was locked with a new, shiny padlock. I dug in my pocket and found my keys.
Inside, the shack wasn't any better - nothing but a square of floor, and steps leading down. What little light there was spilled in through the grimy windows. I grabbed a flashlight from the corner - I always kept a supply there - and flicked it on as I descended the steps into Myrnin's lab.
I'd half expected to find Amelie here, or Oliver, or somebody else - but it was just as I'd left it. Deserted and quiet, with only a couple of dim electric lights burning. I pushed aside the bookcase that stood against the right-hand wall - it was rigged to move easily - and behind it was a door. It was locked, too, and I got the keys out of the drawer under the journal shelves.
As I was unlocking it, I could have sworn I heard a rustle from the shadows. I turned, and felt the stupid impulse to ask who it was; all that stopped me was pure shame, and a determination not to be as stupid as the girls in horror movies. There was nobody here. Not even Oliver.
Instead, I slipped the lock from the door, took a deep breath, and concentrated.
The physics of Myrnin's special doorways still eluded me, although I thought I was beginning to understand the breakthrough he'd made in quantum mechanics. . . . Of course, he didn't look at it scientifically; to him it was magic, or at least alchemy. You don't have to know how something works to use it, I reminded myself. It irritated me, but I was getting used to the fact that some things were going to be harder to figure out, and anything that had to do with Myrnin definitely fell into that category.
I swung open the door, which led to the prison on the other side of town. I'd looked it up on maps, measured the distance between Myrnin's hidden lab and the abandoned complex. It wasn't possible for there to be a door between the two, unless you seriously twisted the laws of physics as I understood them, but there it was.
And I stepped through and closed the door behind me. There was a hasp on this side of the door, too; I locked it up, just in case my imagination hadn't been running wild and someone was in the lab watching me. They'd have a hell of a time getting through, and with the nature of Myrnin's doorways, they probably wouldn't end up here if they ended up anywhere at all.
"Hi," I said to the cells as I passed them; I didn't think any of the vampires really understood me, but I always tried to be kind. They couldn't help what they were - whatever that was. Insane, certainly. Some of them less than others, and those were the ones who made me feel sad - the ones who seemed to understand where they were, and why.
Like Myrnin.
I stopped in at the refrigerator and picked up supplies of blood packs, which I tossed into the cells from a careful distance away. I saved two for Myrnin, whose cell was at the end of the hall.
He was sitting on the bed, spectacles perched at the end of his nose. He was reading a battered copy of Voltaire.
"Ana," he said, and put a faded silk ribbon between the pages to mark his place. He looked up, young and pretty and (today, at least) not entirely crazy. "I've had the oddest thing happen."
I pulled up my chair and settled in. "Which is?"
"I think I'm getting better."
"I don't think so," I said. "I wish that was true, but - "
He shoved a Tupperware container toward the bars of the cell. "Here."
I froze, eyeing the container doubtfully. "Umm . . . what is that?"
"Brain tissue."
"What?"
Myrnin adjusted his glasses and looked at me over their tops. "I said, brain tissue."
"Whose brain tissue?"
He looked around the cell, eyebrows raised. "I haven't a lot of volunteers in easy reach, you know."
I had a horrible thought. I couldn't actually bring myself to say it.
Myrnin gave me an evil smile.
"We are testing the serum, are we not? And so far, I am the only test subject?"
"That's brain tissue. How can you - ?" I shut my mouth, fast. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know."
"Truly, I think that's best. Please take it." He showed his teeth briefly in a very unsettling grin. "I'm giving you a piece of my mind."
"I so wish you hadn't said that." I shuddered, but I ventured close enough to the bars to fish out the container. Yes, that looked . . . gray. And biological. J checked to be sure that the top was firmly fastened, and stuck it in my backpack. "What makes you think you're getting better?"
Myrnin picked up half a dozen thick volumes and held them out on the palm of his hand. "I've read these in the past day and a half," he said. "Every word. I can answer any question you'd like about the contents."
"Not a good test. You already know those books."
He seemed surprised. "Yes, that's true. Very well. How would you propose to test me?"
"Read some of this," I said, and passed him a novel from my backpack. He glanced at the author's name and the title, flipped to page 1, and began. I watched his eyes flicker rapidly back and forth - faster than most humans could begin to comprehend words on a page. He was focused, and he seemed genuinely interested.
"Stop," I said five minutes later. Myrnin obligingly closed the book and handed it back to me. "Tell me about what you read."
"It's rather clever of you to make it a novel about vampires," Myrnin said. "Although I think their avoidance of mirrors is a bit ridiculous. The main characters seemed interesting. I think I'd like to finish it." And then he proceeded to recite, at length, the descriptions and histories of the characters as they'd been given in the first fifty pages . . . and the plot. I blinked and checked his facts.
All correct.
"See?" Myrnin took off his spectacles and stowed them in a pocket of the purple satin vest he was wearing over a white dress shirt. "I am better, Ana. Truly."
"Well, we really should wait to see - "
"No, I don't think so." He stood up, lithe and strong, and walked to the bars.
He took hold of them and heaved, and the lock - the lock that was supposed to hold the strongest, craziest vampires - snapped loudly. He rolled the bars aside on their groove and stood in the open doorway, smiling at me.
"Are those for me?" He nodded at the blood bags lying on top of my backpack. I realized that I was clutching the book in white-knuckled fingers, barely breathing. I hope he didn't remove some part of his brain that stops him from attacking me. . . .
"Yes," I managed to say. I'd been intending to throw the blood to him, but somehow it didn't seem right. I picked up the first one and held it out.
Myrnin walked slowly toward me - deliberately slowly, making sure I got used to the idea - and took the plastic pack from my hand without so much as brushing my skin. He even turned away to bite into it, and although the sucking noises made me uncomfortable and a bit sick, when he turned around, there wasn't a speck of blood on him, or in the plastic packaging, either.
I held up the second one. He shook his head. "No need to stuff myself," he said. "One is plenty for now." Which was odd, too, because Myrnin was usually - how could I put it without making myself feel nauseous? - a hearty eater.
"I'll put it back," I said, but before I could move, Myrnin had taken it from my palm. I hadn't even seen him move this time.
"I'll do it." I shivered, listening and watching, but he was already gone into the shadows. I heard the creak of the massive refrigerator door open and close, and then suddenly he was back, strolling slowly out of the darkness. Arms crossed over his chest. He leaned against the wall across from me.
"So?" he asked. "Do I seem insane to you?"
I shook my head.
"You wouldn't tell me even if I was, would you, Ana?"
"Probably not. You might get angry."
"I might get angry if you lied," Myrnin said. "But I won't. I don't feel angry at all right now. Or hungry, or even anxious, and that never seemed to leave me the last few years. The drugs you gave me, Ana, I think they're taking hold. Do you know what that means?" He flashed across the empty space, and when I was able to focus on him again, he was kneeling next to my chair, one pale hand gently resting on my knee. "It means my people can be saved. All of them."
"What about mine?" I asked. "If yours get well, what happens to mine?"
Myrnin's face went carefully still and blank. "The fate of humans isn't really my area of responsibility," he said. "Amelie has worked hard to be sure Morganville is a place of balance, a place where our two kinds can live in relative harmony. I doubt she'd change all that based on the outcome of this experiment."
He could doubt it all he wanted, but I knew Amelie better. She'd do whatever was best for her own first, humans second. In fact, I wasn't altogether sure, but I suspected Morganville was the experiment - and an experiment would be ended when an outcome was achieved.
If this was the outcome - what happened to the lab rats?
Myrnin's dark eyes were glowing now with sincerity. "I'm not a monster, Ana. I wouldn't allow you to be hurt. You've done us a great service, and you'll be looked after."
"What about other people?" I asked.
"Which people? Ah, your friends, your family. Yes, of course, they'll be safeguarded, as well, whatever happens."
"No, Myrnin, I mean everybody else! The guy who makes hamburgers at the Burger Dog! The lady who runs the used-clothing store! Everybody!"
He blinked, clearly taken aback. "We can't care about everyone, Ana. It isn't in our natures. We can only care about those we know, or those we're connected with. I appreciate your altruism, but - "
"Don't talk to me about our natures! We're not the same!"
"Aren't we?" Myrnin patted my knee gently. "I'm a scientist. So are you. I have friends, people I care for and love. So do you. How are we different?"
"I don't suck my dinner out of a bag!"
Myrnin laughed. He showed no trace at all of fangs. "Oh, Ana, do you imagine that eating slaughtered and mutilated animals is any less disgusting? We both eat. We both enjoy the company of others. We both - "
"I don't dig brain tissue out of my skull! Oh, and I don't kill," I said. "You do. And you really don't mind it."
He sat back a little, staring into my face. The glow of sincerity took on a harder edge. "I think you'll find I do mind it," he said. "Or else I wouldn't put up with this from - "
"From a servant? Because that's what I am, right? Or worse - a slave? Property?"
"You're upset."
"Yes! Of course I'm - of course I'm upset." I fought to keep it together, but I couldn't; the misery just boiled out of me like steam under pressure. "I'm sitting here debating the future of the human race, and my friends and family are going to that party, and I can't protect them - "
"Hush, child," he said. "The feast. It's tonight, yes?"
"I don't even know what it is."
"Amelie's formal recognition of Bishop. Every vampire in Morganville who is able will be present, all there to swear their obedience, and every one of them will bring a token gift."
I sniffled, sat up, and wiped my face. "What kind of gift?"
Myrnin's dark eyes were steady on mine. "A token gift of blood," he said. "Specifically, a human. You're right to be worried for your friends, your family. He has the right to choose any human offered to him. The gesture is meant to be ceremonial - it's come down to us as a tradition from long ago - but it doesn't have to be."
And I understood. I understood why Amelie had forbidden me to come; I understood why Michael had deliberately asked Monica Morrell instead of Eve.
It was chess, and the pawns were people. The vampires were playing with what they could afford to lose.
"You - " My voice didn't sound steady. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You said that he could choose any human."
Myrnin didn't blink. "Or all of them," he said. "If he so wishes."
"You know he'll do it. He'll kill someone."
"Most likely, yes."
"We have to stop this," I said. "Myrnin - why would she do this?"
"Amelie is not a brave woman. If the odds are against her, she will surrender; if the odds are near even, she will play for time and advantage. She knows she can't defeat Bishop on her own; not even she and Oliver combined can do it. She has to play the long game, Ana. She's played it all her life." Myrnin's dark eyes were glowing again, and he began to smile. "Amelie reckons her odds without me, of course. With me at her side, she can win."
"You want to go. To the feast."
Myrnin straightened his vest and brushed imaginary dust from his sleeves. "Of course. And I'm going with or without you. Now, are you going under those circumstances?"
"I - Amelie said - "
"Yes or no, Ana."
"Then . . . yes."
"We'll need costumes," he said. "Not to worry, I know just the place to get them."
"I look ridiculous," I said. I also looked completely obvious. "Can't we do something in, I don't know, black? Since we're supposed to be sneaky?"
"Stop talking," Myrnin commanded as he applied makeup to my face. He seemed to be enjoying himself a hell of a lot more than the situation called for, and I felt doubt once again that his cure was really a cure. There had been a good reason Amelie said he shouldn't be at the feast; there'd been a good reason, too, for leaving him out of her calculations for war or peace.
But I knew Amelie too well. If peace meant it had to come at the price of a few human deaths, even ones that were dear to me, she'd count it an acceptable cost.
I didn't.
"There," Myrnin said. "Close your eyes."
I did, and felt a soft brushing of powder over my face. When I opened my eyes, Myrnin stepped out of the way, and I saw some alien creature in the mirror reflecting back at me.
I did look ridiculous, but I had to admit I didn't look like Ana. Not at all. A white face that would have done Eve proud. Full red lips. Huge, black-rimmed eyes with funny little lines to draw attention to them.
A tight-fitting costume, top and tights, covered with red and black diamonds. A matador's hat. "What am I supposed to be?" I blurted. Myrnin looked disappointed in me.
"Harlequin," he said, and twirled like a crazy little girl. "I am Pierrot." Myrnin was dressed in white, and where my costume was tight, his was full, billowing around his body like choir robes with white pants beneath. He had an enormous white ruffle around his collar, and a white hat that looked like a traffic cone. The same manic makeup, which only made his dark eyes look wider and less sane. "Don't they teach anything in your schools?"
"Not about this."
"Pity. I suppose that's what comes of your main education flowing from Google." He fitted something over my head. "Your mask, madam." It was a simple domino mask, but it was patterned in the same red and black as my costume. "Can you do cartwheels? Backflips?"
I gave him a hopeless look. "I'm a science nerd, not a cheerleader."
"Pity about that, too." He put on his own mask, which was plain black. He'd painted his face to match mine - dead white, huge red lips. It was eerie. "Well, then, we have costumes. Now all we need is something to tip the scales in our favor, should things go badly. As I'm sure they will, knowing Bishop."