by Rachel Caine
A couple of tense minutes passed, as she stared through the hole; nothing seemed to be happening. She couldn’t hear Michael, or Shane, or anything else.
And then she heard screaming behind her, in the hall. Vampires, she thought, and quickly opened the door to look.
Someone fell against the wood, knocking her backward. It was François. Claire tried to shut the door, but a bloodstained white hand wormed through the opening and grabbed the edge, shoving it wider.
François didn’t look even remotely human anymore, but he did look absolutely desperate, willing to do anything to survive, and very, very angry.
Claire backed up, slowly, until she was standing with her back against the far wall. There wasn’t much in here to help her—a desk, some pens and pencils in a cup.
François laughed, and then he growled. “You think you’re winning,” he said. “You’re not.”
“I think you’re the one who has to worry,” Michael said from the hole in the wall. He stepped through, carrying Mayor Morrell in his arms. Shane and Eve were with him, supporting Richard’s sagging body between them. Mrs. Morrell brought up the rear. “Back off. I won’t come after you if you run.”
François’ eyes turned ruby, and he threw himself at Michael, who was burdened with the mayor.
Claire grabbed a pencil from the cup and plunged it into François’ back.
He whirled, looking stunned . . . and then he slowly collapsed to the carpet.
“That won’t kill him,” Michael said.
“I don’t care,” Eve said. “Because that was fierce.”
Claire grabbed the vampire’s arms and dragged him out of the way, careful not to dislodge the pencil; she wasn’t really sure how deep it had gone, and if it slipped out of his heart, they were all in big trouble. Michael edged around him and opened the door to check the corridor. “Clear,” he said. “For the moment. Come on.”
Their little refugee group hurried into the rainy hall, squishing through soggy carpet. There were people hiding in the offices, or just pressed against the walls and hoping not to be noticed. “Come on,” Eve said to them. “Get up. We’re getting out of here before this whole thing comes down!”
The fighting in the stairwell was still going on—snarling, screams, bangs, and thuds. Claire didn’t dare look over the railing. Michael led them down to the locked second-floor entrance. He pulled hard on it, and the knob popped off—but the door stayed locked.
“Hey, Mike?” Shane had edged to the end of the landing to look over the railing. “Can’t go that way.”
“I know!”
“Also, time is—”
“I know, Shane!” Michael started kicking the door, but it was reinforced, stronger than the other doors Claire had seen. It bent, but didn’t open.
And then it did open . . . from the inside.
There, in his fancy but battered black velvet, stood Myrnin.
“In,” he said. “This way. Hurry.”
The falling sensation warned Claire that the door was a portal, but she didn’t have time to tell anybody else, so when they stepped through into Myrnin’s lab, it was probably kind of a shock. Michael didn’t pause; he pushed a bunch of broken glassware from a lab table and put Mr. Morrell down on it, then touched pale fingers to the man’s throat. When he found nothing, he started CPR again. Eve hurried over to breathe for him.
Myrnin didn’t move as the refugees streamed in past him. He was standing with his arms folded, a frown grooved between his brows. “Who are all these people?” he asked. “I am not an innkeeper, you know.”
“Shut up,” Claire said. She didn’t have any patience with Myrnin right now. “Is he okay?” She was talking to Shane, who was easing Richard onto a threadbare rug near the far wall.
“You mean, except for the big piece of metal in him? Look, I don’t know. He’s breathing, at least.”
The rest of the refugees clustered together, filtering slowly through the portal. Most of them had no idea what had just happened, which was good. If they’d been part of Frank’s group, intending to take over Morganville, that ambition was long gone. Now they were just people, and they were just scared.
“Up the stairs,” Claire told them. “You can get out that way.”
Most of them rushed for the exit. She hoped they’d make it home, or at least to some kind of safe place.
She hoped they had homes to go back to.
Myrnin glared at her. “You do realize that this was a secret laboratory, don’t you? And now half of Morganville knows where it is?”
“Hey, I didn’t open the door; you did.” She reached over and put her hand on his arm, looking up into his face. “Thank you. You saved our lives.”
He blinked slowly. “Did I?”
“I know why you weren’t fighting,” Claire said. “The drugs kept you from having to. But . . . Michael?”
Myrnin followed her gaze to where Eve and Michael remained bent over the mayor’s still form. “Amelie let him go,” he said. “For now. She could claim him again at any time, but I think she knew you needed help.” He uncrossed his arms and walked over to Michael to touch his shoulder. “It’s no use,” he said. “I can smell death on him. So can you, if you try. You won’t bring him back.”
“No!” Mrs. Morrell screamed, and threw herself over her husband’s body. “No, you have to try!”
“They did,” Myrnin said, and retreated to lean against a convenient wall. “Which is more than I would have.” He nodded toward Richard. “He might live, but to remove that metal will require a chirurgeon.”
“You mean, a doctor?” Claire asked.
“Yes, of course, a doctor,” Myrnin snapped, and his eyes flared red. “I know you want me to feel some sympathy for them, but that is not who I am. I care only about those I know, and even then, not all that deeply. Strangers get nothing from me.” He was slipping, and the anger was coming back. Next it would be confusion. Claire silently dug in her pockets. She’d put a single glass vial in, and miraculously, it was still unbroken.
He slapped it out of her hand impatiently. “I don’t need it!”
Claire watched it clatter to the floor, heart in her mouth, and said, “You do. You know you do. Please, Myrnin. I don’t need your crap right now. Just take your medicine.”
She didn’t think he would, not at first, but then he snorted, bent down, and picked up the vial. He broke the cap off and dumped the liquid into his mouth. “There,” he said. “Satisfied?” He shattered the glass in his fingers, and the red glow in his eyes intensified. “Are you, little Claire? Do you enjoy giving me orders?”
“Myrnin.”
His hand went around her throat, choking off whatever she was going to say.
She didn’t move.
His hand didn’t tighten.
The red glow slowly faded away, replaced by a look of shame. He let go of her and backed away a full step, head down.
“I don’t know where to get a doctor,” Claire said, as if nothing had happened. “The hospital, maybe, or—”
“No,” Myrnin murmured. “I will bring help. Don’t let anyone go through my things. And watch Michael, in case.”
She nodded. Myrnin opened the portal doorway in the wall and stepped through it, heading—where? She had no idea. Amelie had, Claire thought, shut down all the nodes. But if that was true, how had they gotten here?
Myrnin could open and close them at will. But he was probably the only one who could.
Michael and Eve moved away from Mayor Morrell’s body, as his wife stood over him and cried.
“What can we do?” Shane asked. He sounded miserable. In all the confusion, he’d missed her confrontation with Myrnin. She was dimly glad about that.
“Nothing,” Michael said. “Nothing but wait.”
When the portal opened again, Myrnin stepped through, then helped someone else over the step.
It was Theo Goldman, carrying an antique doctor’s bag. He looked around the lab, nodding to Claire in particular, and
then moved to where Richard was lying on the carpet, with his head in his mother’s lap. “Move back, please,” he told her, and knelt down to open his bag. “Myrnin. Take her in the other room. A mother shouldn’t see this.”
He was setting out instruments, unrolling them in a clean white towel. As Claire watched, Myrnin led Mrs. Morrell away and seated her in a chair in the corner, where he normally sat to read. She seemed dazed now, probably in shock. The chair was intact. It was just about the only thing in the lab that was—the scientific instruments were smashed, lab tables overturned, candles and lamps broken.
Books were piled in the corners and burned, reduced to scraps of leather and curling black ash. The whole place smelled sharply of chemicals and fire.
“What can we do?” Michael asked, crouching down on Richard’s other side. Theo took out several pairs of latex gloves and passed one set to Michael. He donned one himself.
“You can act as my nurse, my friend,” he said. “I would have brought my wife—she has many years of training in this—but I don’t want to leave my children on their own. They’re already very frightened.”
“But they’re safe?” Eve asked. “Nobody’s bothered you?”
“No one has so much as knocked on the door,” he said. “It’s a very good hiding place. Thank you.”
“I think you’re paying us back,” Eve said. “Please. Can you save him?”
“It’s in God’s hands, not mine.” Still, Theo’s eyes were bright as he looked at the twisted metal plate embedded in Richard’s side. “It’s good that he’s unconscious, but he might wake during the procedure. There is chloroform in the bag. It’s Michael, yes? Michael, please put some on a cloth and be ready when I tell you to cover his mouth and nose.”
Claire’s nerve failed around the time that Theo took hold of the piece of steel, and she turned away. Eve already had, to take a blanket to Mrs. Morrell and put it around her shoulders.
“Where’s my daughter?” the mayor’s wife asked. “Monica should be here. I don’t want her out there alone.”
Eve raised her eyebrows at Claire, clearly wondering where Monica was.
“The last time I saw her, she was at school,” Claire said. “But that was before I got the call to come home, so I don’t know. Maybe she’s in shelter in the dorm?” She checked her cell phone. No bars. Reception was usually spotty down here in the lab, but she could usually see something, even if it was only a flicker. “I think the cell towers are down.”
“Yeah, likely,” Eve agreed. She reached over to tuck the blanket around Mrs. Morrell, who leaned her head back and closed her eyes, as if the strength was just leaking right out of her. “You think this is the right thing to do? I mean, do we even know this guy or anything?”
Claire didn’t, really, but she still wanted to like Theo, in much the same way as she liked Myrnin—against her better sense. “I think he’s okay. And it’s not like anybody’s making house calls right now.”
The operation—and it was an operation, with suturing and everything—took a couple of hours before Theo sat back, stripped off the gloves, and sighed in quiet satisfaction. “There,” he said. Claire and Eve got up to walk over as Michael rose to his feet. Shane had been hanging on the edges, watching in what Claire thought looked like queasy fascination. “His pulse is steady. He’s lost some blood, but I believe he will be all right, provided no infection sets in. Still, this century has those wonderful antibiotics, yes? So that is not so bad.” Theo was almost beaming. “I must say, I haven’t used my surgical skills in years. It’s very exciting. Although it makes me hungry.”
Claire was pretty sure Richard wouldn’t want to know that. She knew she wouldn’t have, in his place.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Morrell said. She got up from the chair, folded the blanket and put it aside, then walked over to shake Theo’s hand with simple, dignified gratitude. “I’ll see that my husband compensates you for your kindness.”
They all exchanged looks. Michael started to speak, but Theo shook his head. “That’s quite all right, dear lady. I am delighted to help. I recently lost a son myself. I know the weight of grief.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Morrell said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, sir.” She said it as if she didn’t know her husband was lying across the room, dead.
Tears sparkled in his eyes, Claire saw, but then he blinked them away and smiled. He patted her hand gently. “You are very generous to an old man,” he said. “We have always liked living in Morganville, you know. The people are so kind.”
Shane said, “Some of those same people killed your son.”
Theo looked at him with calm, unflinching eyes. “And without forgiveness, there is never any peace. I tell you this from the distance of many centuries. My son gave his life. I won’t reply to his gift with anger, not even for those who took him from me. Those same poor, sad people will wake up tomorrow grieving their own losses, I think, if they survive at all. How can hating them heal me?”
Myrnin, who hadn’t spoken at all, murmured, “You shame me, Theo.”
“I don’t mean to do so,” he said, and shrugged. “Well. I should get back to my family now. I wish you all well.”
Myrnin got up from his chair and walked with Theo to the portal. They all watched him go. Mrs. Morrell was staring after him with a bright, odd look in her eyes.
“How very strange,” she said. “I wish Mr. Morrell had been available to meet him.”
She spoke as if he were in a meeting downtown instead of under a sheet on the other side of the room. Claire shuddered.
“Come on, let’s go see Richard,” Eve said, and led her away.
Shane let out his breath in a slow hiss. “I wish it were as simple as Theo thinks it is, to stop hating.” He swallowed, watching Mrs. Morrell. “I wish I could, I really do.”
“At least you want to,” Michael said. “It’s a start.”
They stayed the night in the lab, mainly because the storm continued outside until the wee hours of the morning—rain, mostly, with some hail. There didn’t seem to be much point running out in it. Claire kept checking her phone, Eve found a portable radio buried in piles of junk at the back of the room, and they checked for news at regular intervals.
Around three a.m. they got some. It was on the radio’s emergency alert frequency.
All Morganville residents and surrounding areas: we remain under severe thunderstorm warnings, with high winds and possible flooding, until seven a.m. today. Rescue efforts are under way at City Hall, which was partially destroyed by a tornado that also leveled several warehouses and abandoned buildings, as well as one building in Founder’s Square. There are numerous reports of injuries coming in. Please remain calm. Emergency teams are working their way through town now, looking for anyone who may be in need of assistance. Stay where you are. Please do not attempt to go out into the streets at this time.
It started to repeat. Eve frowned and looked up at Myrnin, who had listened as well. “What aren’t they saying?” she asked.
“If I had to guess, their urgent desire that people stay within shelter would tell me there are other things to worry about.” His dark eyes grew distant for a moment, then snapped back into focus. “Ibid nothing.”
“What?” Eve seemed to think she’d misheard.
“Ibid nothing carlo. I don’t justice.”
Myrnin was making word salad again—a precursor to the drugs wearing off—more quickly than Claire had expected, actually, and that was worrying.
Eve sent Claire a look of alarm. “Okay, I didn’t really understand that at all—”
Claire put a hand on her arm to silence her. “Why don’t you go see Mrs. Morrell? You too, Shane.”
He didn’t like it, but he went. As he did, he jerked his head at Michael, who rose from where he was sitting with Richard and strolled over.
Casually.
“Myrnin,” Claire said. “You need to listen to me, okay? I think your drugs are wearing off again.”
“I’m fine
.” His excitement level was rising; she could see it—a very light flush in his face, his eyes starting to glitter. “You worry over notebook.”
There was no point in trying to explain the signs; he never could identify them. “We should check on the prison,” she said. “See if everything’s still okay there.”
Myrnin smiled. “You’re trying to trick me.” His eyes were getting darker, endlessly dark, and that smile had edges to it. “Oh, little girl, you don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like, having all these guests here, and all this”—he breathed in deeply—“all this blood.” His eyes focused on her throat, with its ragged bite mark hidden under a bandage Theo had given her. “I know it’s there. Your mark. Tell me, did François—”
“Stop. Stop it.” Claire dug her fingers into her palms. Myrnin took a step toward her, and she forced herself not to flinch. She knew him, knew what he was trying to do. “You won’t hurt me. You need me.”
“Do I?” He breathed deeply again. “Yes, I do. Bright, so bright. I can feel your energy. I know how it will feel when I . . .” He blinked, and horror sheeted across his face, fast as lightning. “What was I saying? Claire? What did I just say?”
She couldn’t repeat it. “Nothing. Don’t worry. But I think we’d better get you to the cell, okay? Please?”
He looked devastated. This was the worst part of it, she thought, the mood swings. He’d tried so hard, and he’d helped, he really had—but he wasn’t going to be able to hold together much longer. She was seeing him fall apart in slow motion.
Again.
Michael steered him toward the portal. “Let’s go,” he said. “Claire, can you do this?”
“If he doesn’t fight me,” she said nervously. She remembered one afternoon when his paranoia had taken over, and every time she’d tried to establish the portal, he’d snapped the connection, sure something was waiting on the other side to destroy him. “I wish we had a tranquilizer.”
“Well, you don’t,” Myrnin said. “And I don’t like being stuck with your needles, you know that. I’ll behave myself.” He laughed softly. “Mostly.”
