by Rachel Caine
Praise for the Morganville Vampires series
‘A first-class storyteller’
Charlaine Harris, author of the True Blood series
‘Thrilling, sexy, and funny! These books are addictive.
One of my very favourite vampire series’
Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series
‘We’d suggest dumping Stephenie Meyer’s vapid Twilight books and replacing them with these’
SFX Magazine
‘Ms Caine uses her dazzling storytelling skills to share the darkest chapter yet … An engrossing read that once begun is impossible to set down’
Darque Reviews
‘A fast-paced, page-turning read packed with wonderful characters and surprising plot twists. Rachel Caine is an engaging writer; readers will be completely absorbed in this chilling story, unable to put it down until the last page’
Flamingnet
‘If you love to read about characters with whom you can get deeply involved, Rachel Caine is so far a one hundred per cent sure bet to satisfy that need’
The Eternal Night
‘A rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos … An electrifying, enthralling coming-of-age supernatural tale’
Midwest Book Review
‘A solid paranormal mystery and action plot line that will entertain adults as well as teenagers. The story line has several twists and turns that will keep readers of any age turning the pages’
LoveVampires
Praise for Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series
‘Murder, mayhem, magic, meteorology – and a fun read. You’ll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again’
Jim Butcher
‘The Weather Warden series is fun reading … more engaging than most TV’
Booklist
‘A fast-paced thrill ride [that] brings new meaning to stormy weather’
Locus
‘An appealing heroine, with a wry sense of humour that enlivens even the darkest encounters’
SF Site
‘Fans of fun, fast-paced urban fantasy will enjoy the ride’
SFRevu
‘Caine has cleverly combined the wisecracks, sexiness, and fashion savvy of chick lit with gritty action-movie violence and the cutting-edge magic of urban fantasy’
Romantic Times
‘A neat, stylish, and very witty addition to the genre, all wrapped up in a narrative voice to die for. Hugely entertaining’
SFcrowsnest
‘Caine’s prose crackles with energy, as does her fierce and loveable heroine’
Publishers Weekly
‘As swift, sassy and sexy as Laurell K. Hamilton! …
With chick lit dialogue and rocket-propelled pacing, Rachel Caine takes the Weather Wardens to places the Weather Channel never imagined!’
Mary Jo Putney
Fall of Night
The Morganville Vampires
BOOK FOURTEEN
RACHEL CAINE
With all my best to my MIT alumni contacts, especially the lovely Sarah Vega, who introduced me to Jack Florey and helped me capture some of the unique flavour of the school. Errors are all hers. No, that’s wrong, I mean, all mine.
This book couldn’t have been possible without the love, support and encouragement of many people, but especially Sarah Weiss, Janet Cadsawan and NiNi Burkart. Thanks, ladies. You rock. Always.
Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRACK LIST
About the Author
Available from ALLISON & BUSBY
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
Morganville, Texas isn’t like other towns. Oh, it’s small, dusty and ordinary, in most ways, but the thing is, there are these – well, let’s not be shy about it. Vampires. They own the town. They run it. And until recently, they were the unquestioned ruling class.
But now Claire’s taken a sabbatical from the insular little world of Morganville, and a vacation from vampires, to pursue her dream of studying at a prestigious new school. Leaving town seems like a fresh start, but Claire knows by now that trouble follows her wherever she goes.
Talk about a killer programme … she may wish for something as simple as the rules of Morganville.
CHAPTER ONE
The billboard at the edge of the border of Morganville hadn’t changed since Claire had first driven past it on the way into town at the tender age of sixteen. It seemed a lifetime ago, but here was the same old sign, faded and creaking in the dry desert wind. It had a 1950s-era couple (white, of course) next to a finned car as big as a boat, looking into the sunset. WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE. YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.
Yet here she was. Leaving. Actually leaving.
The weight of it felt suddenly unbearable, and the billboard dissolved into impressionistic swirls as tears formed hot in her eyes. She was finding it hard to catch her breath. I don’t have to go, she thought. I can turn around, go home, go back where it’s safe … because as crazy and dangerous as Morganville was, at least she’d learnt how to live in it. How to adapt, and survive, and even thrive. It had become, well, home. Comfortable.
Out there … she wasn’t sure what she’d be any more, out there.
It’s time to find out, the more adult part of her said. You have to see the world before you can give it up to be here. She supposed that was right. Didn’t the Amish send their kids out on rumspringa, to find out what life was like outside and make a real decision on whether or not to stay in their community? So, maybe she was on a kind of vampire rumspringa.
Because that was what she was leaving, even though she definitely was not one of the plasma-challenged … a vampire community, with almost everything in some way related to them: to protecting them, making them money, giving them blood. In turn, at least theoretically, the vampires protected the town and the people in it. Didn’t always work, of course. But the surprising thing was that it did work, more often than not. And she thought, from the way things were settling down now, that it might work lots better this time around, now that the town’s founder Amelie was back in charge. And sane. Sane was a plus.
‘Troubled?’
The voice made her gasp and turn, blinking away tears, because she’d actually forgotten that he was standing there. Not Shane. She’d left early, before her boyfriend was awake; she’d actually sneaked away before dawn, so that she could be off without goodbyes that she knew would rip her heart in pieces. Here she stood with her suitcases and her stuffed backpack, and Myrnin.
Her vampire boss – if you could call being a mad scientist a profession – was standing next to the big black sedan he occasionally – very occasionally, thankfully – drove. (He was not a good driver. Understatement.) He wasn’t dressed crazily this morning, for a change. He’d left the Hawaiian shirts and floppy hats at home, and instead he looked as if he’d stepped out of an eighteenth-century drama – breeches that tucked into shiny black boots, a gold-coloured satin waistcoat, a coat over it that had tails. He’d even tied his normally wild shoulder-length hair back in a sleek black ponytail.
Vampires, unlike humans, could stand perfectly still, and ju
st now he looked like a carved statue … alabaster and ebony and gold.
‘No, I’m not troubled,’ she said, aware she’d hesitated way too long to answer him. She shivered a little. Here in the desert, at night, it was icy cold, though it would warm up nicely by midday. I won’t be here then, she realised. But Morganville would go on without her. That seemed … weird.
‘I am surprised you did not bring your friends to say goodbye,’ Myrnin offered. He sounded cautious, as if he was far from sure what the etiquette of this situation might be. ‘Surely it’s customary that they see you off on such a journey?’
‘I don’t care if it is,’ she said. A tumbleweed – a thorny, skeletal ball of nasty scratching branches – rolled toward her, and she sidestepped it. It ploughed into a tangle of its fellows that had piled up against the base of the billboard. ‘I don’t want them to cry. I don’t want to cry, either. I just – look, it’s hard enough, okay? Please don’t.’
Myrnin’s shoulders lifted in a minute shrug. For the first time, as he turned his head away, she saw that he’d secured his ponytail with a big black bow. It fit what he was wearing, and it was weird that it didn’t look out of place on him. He looks like Mozart, she thought – or at least, how Mozart had been dressed in the paintings she’d seen.
‘It must have been easier when people dressed like that,’ she said. ‘Being a vampire. People made their faces white with powder, didn’t they? So you didn’t stand out so much.’
‘Not just their faces,’ he said. ‘They powdered their wigs, too. One could choke on the arsenic and talcum. I can’t imagine it was good for the lungs of living, but one does what one must for fashion. At least the women weren’t tottering around on five-inch heels, constantly in peril of breaking bones.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘What made it easier for vampires was that we lived by candlelight, lamplight – it makes everyone look healthier, even the sick. These harsh lights you favour now … well. Difficult. I heard that a few vampires have taken to those spray-tanning salons, to get the proper skin tones.’
She almost laughed at that, at the image of a badass vampire like Oliver – ferocious and fearless – standing around in a Speedo to get himself painted. But Oliver had left Morganville, too … banished, now, from Amelie’s side, where he’d been ever since Claire had first come to town. That was probably the right thing to do, but Claire felt bad for him, a little. He’d betrayed the Founder, but he hadn’t meant it – and he hadn’t had a choice.
If any vampire could survive in the human world, though, it would be Oliver. He was clever, ruthless, and mostly without a conscience. Mostly.
‘You can still change your mind,’ Myrnin said. He stood perfectly still, except for the wind ruffling his clothes and the bow on his ponytail; he didn’t try to meet her eyes. ‘You know you don’t have to leave. No one wants you to go, truly.’
‘I know.’ That was all she’d been thinking about, for hours. She hadn’t slept, and her whole body ached with nervous tension. ‘You’re not the only one to tell me so.’ Shane, for instance. Though he’d been quiet about it, and gentle. It wasn’t that she was angry with him – God, no – but she needed, desperately, to make sure that he trusted her as much as she trusted him. She loved him, that was what made it so, so hard to do this. She needed him. But he’d screwed up, big time, in believing a big lie about her told by one of their enemies. He’d actually believed that she’d been sneaking around behind his back, with his best friend, Michael.
She needed to think about how she felt about that disappointment on her own, but all she could really think right at this moment was how much she wanted to feel his warm, strong arms wrapped around her, his body shielding her from the cold. How much she wanted one more kiss, one more whisper, one more … everything.
‘The world out there isn’t like it is here,’ Myrnin said. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy for you here – and I’ve been a significant part of your challenges, as well. But Claire, I do know something of the world – I have been in it for hundreds of years, and although technology changes, people are little different, then or now. They are afraid, and they use that fear to excuse their own actions – whether it is theft or hatred, violence or murder. People bond themselves into families and groups for protection, and strangers … strangers are always at risk.’
He was right. She’d come into Morganville a stranger, and she’d been at risk … until she’d found her group, her family, her place.
Claire took in a deep breath. She kicked sand with her sneaker toe, and said, ‘Then I’ll find my group there, where I’m going. You know I can do it. I did it here.’
‘Here, you are exceptional,’ he said. ‘There, who knows? They might not value you as much as we do.’
He’d put his finger on her greatest fear … the fear of not being the best. Of being just … average, like everybody else. She’d always worked so hard to excel, worked at it with a passion that was close to fear; going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the Holy Grail of that quest, but it also came with a double-edged risk. What if she wasn’t good enough? What if everybody else was faster, better, smarter, stronger? She couldn’t fail. She couldn’t. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, and forced a confident smile. ‘I can do this.’
He sighed, then, and shrugged. ‘Yes. Yes, I imagine that you can,’ he said. ‘I wish it was otherwise. I’d rather you stayed here, safe.’
‘Safe!’ She burst out laughing, which made him give her a hurt look … but really, it was ridiculous. Nothing about Morganville, Texas was truly safe … it took a vampire to even suggest that. ‘I – never mind. Maybe being safe isn’t the best thing all the time. I need to be sure who I am out there, Myrnin. I need to be Claire, for a while, and find out who I am, deep down. Not part of something else that’s so much more – confident than I am.’ Or someone else. Because it wasn’t just Shane, it was Myrnin as well.
He looked at her directly, then, with those warm dark eyes that seemed so human and yet, at the same time, were so very not. He’d seen so much – ages, generations, all kinds of horror and death, brilliance and beauty. And it showed. ‘I will miss you, Claire. You know that.’
‘I know,’ she said, and couldn’t look away. She wanted to, but Myrnin’s gaze held hers like a magnet. ‘I’ll miss you too.’
He flew at her and embraced her, a sudden and awkward kind of thing; he was too strong, and too fast, and it drew a startled little squeak from her as her body remembered all too well how it felt to have fangs sinking into her neck … but then he was gone again, stepping away, turning toward the horizon where pink was painting the hills and scrub brush of the desert. The wind was cold, and picking up speed.
‘You should go,’ Claire said, and got control of her pounding heart, somehow. ‘My parents are on the way. They’ll be here any minute.’
‘A very poor escort I’d be to leave you out here in the dark, prey for anything,’ he said. ‘Highwaymen, and all that.’
‘Myrnin, there haven’t been highwaymen in at least a hundred years. Probably more.’
‘Robbers, then. Serial killers. The modern bogeyman under the bed, yes? Bad men skulking in the darkness have always been there, and always will.’ He flashed a smile at her, which was made unsettling by the extra-long eyeteeth, but he was still glancing uneasily at the horizon. Myrnin was old; he wouldn’t burst into flames with the rise of the sun, but he’d be uncomfortably scorched. ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.’
‘More than a little,’ she sighed, and caught sight of car headlights speeding over the crest of the far hill. Mom and Dad. She felt a little surge of excitement, but it was quickly overwhelmed with a huge wave of sadness and longing. It felt different from what she expected, leaving Morganville … leaving her friends behind. Leaving Shane. ‘They’re coming. You should go.’
‘Should I not see you off?’
‘In that get-up?’
Myrnin looked down at himself, baffled. ‘It’s most elegant!’
> ‘When you were partying down with Beethoven, maybe, but today you look like you’re on your way to a fancy dress ball.’
‘So I ought to have worn the casual shirt with it, then?’
Claire almost smiled at the idea of one of his loud Hawaiian shirts thrown on over breeches and boots. ‘God, no. You look great. Just not … period appropriate. So go on, I’ll be fine, okay?’
He looked at the car, coming fast toward them, and finally nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Professor Anderson will be expecting you. Don’t forget, you can use the telephone to call me.’
He seemed proud he’d remembered that – modern tech not being his strongest skill – and Claire struggled not to roll her eyes. ‘I won’t forget,’ she said. ‘You’d better get in your car. Sun’s coming up, I don’t want you to get burnt.’
It was. She could see the hot gold edge of it just cresting the hill to the east, and the sky above had turned a dark indigo blue. In minutes, it’d be full daylight, and Myrnin needed to be under cover.
He nodded to her, and gave her a formal, antique bow, which looked weirdly perfect in that outfit. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Not all dangers have a vampire’s fangs. Or a vampire’s predictability.’ He moved fast to the driver’s side of his car, opened the door, and then hesitated for one second more to say, ‘I will miss you very much, Claire.’
