Black Dawn tmv-12

by Rachel Caine

  She found goggles, gloves, and an extra lab coat three sizes too big—she had to fold the sleeves back—before laying out the chemicals she needed, and the tools. “It’ll take a while,” she said. “Try not to lick anything else.”

  “Cross my heart,” he said solemnly, and did so.

  “I don’t think that really works as a promise when your heart’s no longer beating.” That was snarkier than she probably needed to be, but it shut him up, for a while. She concentrated on her work. It was like being back at school again, with a chemistry problem laid out in front of her—something soothing and simple, steps to follow, and a stable and well-documented outcome. She liked science because it was neat. It followed rules.

  And it never broke her heart.

  Even with distilled water, it took almost three hours for the chemical reaction of iron wire, water, and electric current to create the thick green gel and scummy surface; she mixed it, then boiled it in water over a Bunsen burner until it was reduced to powder. The entire process produced only a couple of teaspoons of iron hydroxide. She’d lost track of what Myrnin was doing, but by the time she was finished, he took part of her output, mixed it into a glass of water, and drank it down.

  No reaction. She wasn’t sure whether she was happy or sad about that.

  “On to the next phase.” He picked up a sealed flask of murky liquid and set it on the counter in front of her. “Don’t spill any.”

  The water in the container was moving and swirling on its own. Claire put her hand out for it, then drew back, because it reacted to her. “Is that the draug?”

  “A sample,” he said. “You do not want to know what I had to do to get it, and I will not be doing it again, so please, small sample sizes, there’s a girl. Our goal is to come up with something that will immobilize them, or better yet, poison them without affecting a captive vampire.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous, having this here?”

  “Not really. It’s too small to form any kind of cohesive entity. If it tries to organize itself …” He handed her a small saltshaker, which she peered at with a frown. “Silver flakes. A shake or two will destroy the sample, but use it only in an emergency. Now. Work.”

  Claire shook her head, picked up a dropper, and began to experiment with the iron hydroxide.

  After another long few hours, they had an outcome. It wasn’t what they’d hoped—and it was just in time to report to Oliver, who swept in like the world’s most intimidating CEO. “Well?” he demanded. “What results have you?”

  “Science is not speedy,” Myrnin snapped back. “Perhaps you’re deluded by those ridiculous television shows where one waves a magic eyedropper and crimes are solved. But what we have discovered is that although they show promise, binding agents will not be enough. Not in the strength we currently have available.”

  “What the devil is a binding agent?”

  “Iron hydroxide, for one,” Claire said. “Basically, it binds chemically with contaminants in water and weighs them down. It does hurt the draug; it might eventually even kill them, but it’s not fast. There are other agents like it, though. We can work through each of them.”

  “How quickly?”

  “Not quickly enough,” Myrnin said. “And frankly, most are far more esoteric than we can manufacture here in our crude little lab. It was a fantastic idea. Just not as practical as I had hoped.”

  “Still, it’s more progress than the vampires have ever made before on their own,” Claire said. Her head hurt, and so did her back, and she was badly craving a sandwich. And Shane. “It’s something.”

  “I wouldn’t say vampires never made progress. I provided the shotguns,” Myrnin said.

  “Humans invented shotguns. And flamethrowers.”

  “Don’t try to claim you invented silver!”

  “We learned how to mine it, smelt it, and work it,” Claire said. “Sorry, but apart from you, Myrnin, vampires are not really big on the invent part of inventing. You just … steal.”

  “Adaptation is the key to survival,” he said. “I believe Darwin pointed that out, quite brilliantly. Still, we need more time, Oliver. Much more. And I have no other ideas as yet.”

  “I do,” Claire said. Myrnin turned to look at her, and she shrugged. “You didn’t ask. But I do.”

  “Such as?”

  “There are a lot of other uses for binding agents besides cleaning water. They are also used in cleaning up toxic spills, for instance. There are a lot that we might be able to find in Morganville, or make. But we’ll need a bigger selection of chemicals.”

  “Which we will find where, exactly? Morganville is not exactly a hotbed of scientific—” Myrnin stopped in midsentence as the light dawned. “Ah. Yes. Of course.”

  Oliver was not looking pleased. Or indulgent. “I have much to do. Can you provide us with a weapon we can use that is not toxic to vampires, or not? I need an answer. Now.”

  “Maybe,” Claire said. Oliver growled, and she saw how close he was to just letting go and being full-on vampire. Once, that would have scared her. Now it hardly raised her pulse rate at all. “I can’t tell you until we get the chemicals, make batches, and test them on vampires. Some may be toxic. Some probably won’t be. The question is, what’s effective on the draug? And that’s going to take time to figure out. Myrnin’s right. It’s not a magic wand.”

  “Then I have no use for it,” Oliver snapped. “We will proceed without your assistance. If what’s been reported is correct, we have cut off the draug’s major method of advancement. They are pinned in two spots: this end of town”—he slapped the map with a pale, strong hand—“and here, at the treatment plant.” Another hard slap. “It’s time to launch attacks. We’ll use the weapons we have if we must, but we can’t delay.”

  “Why not? Magnus already has all the vampires he can get for his blood gardens; if he draws unfortunate humans, they won’t last, and it’s the equivalent to animal blood for us. It can’t sustain him long. They can’t raise the call. They can’t reproduce now. Let them wait until we are ready,” Myrnin said. He sounded smug. Too smug, Claire thought, and Oliver must have thought so, too, because he reached out, grabbed the lapels of Myrnin’s lab coat, and dragged him very close.

  “I. Do not. Take orders. From you,” Oliver hissed. “You take orders from me, witch. And for as long as I find you useful, you’ll enjoy your privileged status. Once you’re a liability, we’ll revise the terms of your … employment. Are we understood?”

  “Amelie—”

  “Is dying,” Oliver said. His face looked hard as a bone knife. “Sentiment aside, we cannot leave a vacuum of power, and you know that. Without leadership, the vampires will battle each other in bloodline conflicts, run wild, attract attention. She has been a strong, fair leader. I hope I can be half as much.”

  “Which half?” Myrnin asked. “Not fair, surely.”

  Oliver’s fangs extended to their full, terrifying length, and he hissed like a cobra. Myrnin didn’t flinch. And didn’t fight.

  Oliver shoved him away. “Do as you like,” he said. “But don’t get in my way. Any of you.”

  He stalked out, throwing the door open and leaving it that way, and Claire pulled in a long, slightly shaky breath. Myrnin straightened the lapels on his lab coat with an irritated snap of fabric.

  And another figure stepped into the doorway.

  Shane. Carrying a glass of what looked like sweet, delicious, life-giving Coke, and a sandwich. Michael was with him, carrying another plate. On it was … a bag of type O, it looked like.

  “Hey,” Shane said. “Hope we’re not interrupting. He’s in a mood.”

  “You are a Greek god,” Claire said, and grabbed the Coke and sandwich. She hesitated then, mortified, and said, “Uh, these are for me?”

  “Thought you might be hungry,” he said. Michael silently handed the plate to Myrnin, who bit into the bag without even the pretense of politeness. “Okay, that’s disturbing.”

  “Sorry,” Myrnin mumbled
, and kept sucking. Claire turned her back. Funny; a year ago, seeing something like that would totally have put her off her meal, but nothing was going to separate her from a turkey sandwich now. She took a giant, delicious bite, chewed, and washed it down with tingling soda.

  So much better.

  “What’s the drama?” Shane asked, and pointed to the door. “With Lord High Cranky, I mean?” He sounded like his old self, Claire thought. Maybe a day of hanging around Michael had been really good for him. Maybe it was … all okay.

  “He wants faster action,” Claire said. “I said we need chemicals from the university lab.”

  “You never actually got that far,” Myrnin said, “but I did know what you meant. And you’re correct. They would have a far more elegant and extensive selection of things there. We shall go.”

  Shane said, “You’re kidding. You actually think she’s going anywhere with you. Ever.” He gave Myrnin a humorless little smile. “Much less me, of course. But I promise you, she is not going without me.” He watched as Claire crammed more sandwich into her mouth, moaning a little from the deliciousness of actual food, and then said, “So what exactly is it that you’re making with your chemicals again?”

  “Binding agents,” she said, but it came out sounding a little like a foreign language. Maybe Klingon. She swallowed and drank more soda. “Sorry. Binding agents.”

  “Which are …?”

  “Chemicals that bind to contaminants in water. Or chemicals that can change the composition of water itself—something that causes a reaction or a state change.”

  “From liquid to solid?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like … Jell-O,” Shane said. He sounded thoughtful. Claire blinked, suddenly taken by the idea of a dump truck full of gelatin being backed up to a pool. Some kind of world record in that, she was pretty sure. But not extremely useful.

  Myrnin slowly straightened up, put down the empty blood bag, and licked type O from his lips. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, you have something to say, Mr. Collins. Please tell me it isn’t about snack foods.”

  “Not exactly,” Shane said. “But I think I know exactly the chemicals you’re looking for. And you won’t find them at the university. But I know where you will find them.”

  “Where?”

  “Morganville High School.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EVE

  My brother, Jason, was out of prison, again, which I found out because I walked into a room off of the Armory and saw him holding a shotgun.

  It was like falling into a nightmare. I was younger, he was younger, it was four years ago, and he was facing me with my dad’s pistol and telling me that he was going to kill me. I still remember the way he said it. An eerily calm voice, and empty eyes.

  See, my brother’s not someone you should trust with a gun. Or a sharp knife. Or empty hands, and it terrified me, a bolt of utter and paralyzing fear, to see him armed like that. And loose.

  Jason’s my brother, and some of his screwed-up-ness is my fault, but he’s not the first guy I’d pick to hand any kind of weapon to, even in a crisis. Sure, he could fight. Sure, he could do damage. But he was the proverbial loose cannon, rolling around crushing everything in his path, friend or foe.

  And some nitwit vampire had him on reloading duty. He was taking empty cartridges, filling them up, and sealing them using a reloader press. Oh, and he was cooking silver into shot, too, or rather coating regular shot with the stuff. Probably not as effective as solid pellets, but I wasn’t surprised we were running short of precious metals to toss randomly at the enemy. The vampires stored surprising amounts of things that would hurt each other, but even their paranoia had limits, and we were bumping up against them.

  He cranked out another shell on the press, then slotted it home into the shotgun, snapped the breech shut, and put the weapon aside on a rack. Then he saw me, and stopped for a second.

  Neither of us said a word.

  My brother was a little shorter than me, not really muscular, kinda weedy and angular. He wore his hair longer than Shane’s, and most of it flopped down and hid his dark eyes. That was for the best. He had cold eyes, my brother. Really cold.

  There was a scar on his forehead, angling from left to right. It looked pretty fresh. There was also a bruise on his jaw.

  “Sis,” he said. It was a nothing kind of voice, waiting for me to make a move. I didn’t, because I didn’t dare; I’d walked in here alone, and as far as I knew nobody knew where I was. Not Michael, who was hanging out with Shane today; not Claire, who was locked in the lab with Myrnin. I was dreadfully and irrationally afraid that he would somehow know that, know I was alone and vulnerable.

  Deep down inside, he was a sociopath, and I’d helped make him into that by walking away from him when he needed me. By locking my doors and covering my ears and not doing what a big sister was supposed to do: protect him.

  So I couldn’t hate him. I could only fear what he’d become.

  “I didn’t know—” Didn’t know they let you out of jail. “They put you to work here.”

  “You know vamps. Practical,” he said, and shrugged. “No point in having prisoners if you can’t get some kind of value out of them. They don’t believe in rehab. It’s all racks and iron maidens with them.”

  He was only joking a little, and darkly. The vampires weren’t into torture these days, but they also weren’t forgiving. And Jason had tested their mercy, a lot. He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it. My brother had a lot of sins on his conscience. He’d helped me sometimes, but he’d quit trying to be a better person some time ago, and I’d quit trying to help him.

  So there was that between us, too.

  “How are you doing?” It was an inane question, really, and I almost winced when I heard how it sounded. He tossed his hair back and smiled. Not a sane sort of smile, but it might have been for effect. I hoped it was.

  “Peachy,” he said. “Solitary confinement with vampire supervision is really healthy. You know, exercise, good diet, self-improvement. It’s like a spa, but with teeth.”

  I glanced involuntarily at the guns, and when I moved my gaze back he was still smiling, but differently. It looked like someone had moved his lips and stuck them in that position, not that he found any real humor in things. “Ironic,” he said. “Yeah? Me and the gun duty? But somebody’s got to be making the shells, and vamps can’t handle the silver very well. I can do it twice as fast, without burns. Like I said, they’re practical.” He poured some more silver shot into a shell casing, and jammed it in the press. “So. I heard you two are getting married. I think my invitation got lost in the jailhouse mail.”

  He was different, yet again, from the last time I’d seen him. He’d been trying, for a while—trying to be a better guy, a real person. And he’d been winning at it, until … well, I didn’t really know what had happened. Drugs, probably. Jason was always looking for a new high, mostly to avoid facing his own crappy past. He’d blown past alcohol by eleven; by thirteen, he’d been dealing to classmates and staying high most of the time. It hadn’t made him nicer. By the time I’d turned eighteen he’d already gotten too comfortable with weapons. Shane had a scar to prove it. I was lucky I didn’t, since I’d been the one he was really after.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to come,” I said. “Or, you know, be out of jail.”

  “Surprise. And why wouldn’t I want to come? You need somebody to give you away, sis. I always wanted to do that.” There was that creepy, empty smile again. Something had broken inside my brother. It had always been cracked, deeply, but now it was just … shattered. And I didn’t know why, or what had happened to him, but whatever it was, it had left him feral and angry. “Guess that makes me a Glass by marriage. I always wanted a brother.”

  “Let’s not get all Cain and Abel about it,” I said. “You really don’t want to go there, Jase.”

  “Cain was the killer,” Jason said. “Which one of us gets to play the victim?”

/>   Oh, Jason. I felt a tiny shiver ladder up my spine. My sweet, kind, rocker boyfriend had swallowed more darkness than my brother, and even though he kept it pushed way, way down, it was there when he needed it. He didn’t let it rule him, but he could put it on a leash and make it work for him. It was pretty obvious to me, in that moment, who’d win that fight, whatever Jason might think. “Let it go,” I said. “Trust me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “That’ll happen soon. You pimped me out, and then you sold me out. Not exactly a rock-solid basis for trust.”

  “I thought—I thought we were getting over all that.”

  “Easy for you. You ended up getting exactly what you wanted. Freedom. A hottie boyfriend who has full vamp status. Oh, and even though you said you were never a fang-banger, you’ve got a bandage on your neck the size of Nebraska. Guess you’re coming to terms with a lot of things these days.” He lifted a pan full of silver-coated shot and dumped it into a tub half full of water; the shot sizzled and cooled, and he scooped it out with a strainer as he readied another empty cartridge casing.

  As he did, his shirt collar moved a little, and I saw red bite marks on his neck, over his jugular.

  Just like before, when he was little. When he hadn’t had a choice.

  I took an involuntary step forward, eyes fixed on the bite. “Jason,” I said. “Jase. Who did that to you?”

  He twitched the collar of his shirt back into place and kept working without a reply.

  “Jason!”

  “Why the hell do you care?” he asked sullenly, and pressed a cartridge closed. “Thought you were all into the recreational biting now. You want to hear all about my sex life? Kinky, sis.”

  “You’re letting someone bite you,” I said. “God, Jase, why would you do that?” Because I knew what he’d been through in his childhood. My parents had known and hadn’t stopped it—hadn’t even tried.

  I had, once. Just once. But I was scared out of my mind, and I failed him. And I still, always, owed him for that.