by Rachel Caine
"Shane — " she whispered, and reached out, through the doorway. She could feel something there, like a slight pressure, and the hair on her arm shivered and prickled.
Shane put the game on pause, and slowly stood up. "Claire?" He was looking in the wrong place, he was looking up, at the staircase.
But he'd heard her. And that meant she could just step right through and she'd be safe.
She never got the chance.
Myrnin's hand landed on her shoulder, dragged her back, and as Shane started to turn toward them, Myrnin slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.
She didn't dare move. He was crazy, she could see it, there was nothing in him that recognized her at all. Amelie's warnings screamed through her head, and Sam's. She'd underestimated Myrnin, and that was what had gotten all the other would-be apprentices killed.
Myrnin was shaking, and his broken hands were crunched into fists. His blood was dripping on an open copy of an old chemistry textbook that lay by his feet.
"Who are you?" he whispered. The accent she'd noted the first time she'd met him was back, and strong. Really strong. "Child, what brings you here? Do you not understand your danger? Who is your Patron? Were you sent as a gift?"
She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them and looked right into his eyes and said, "You're Myrnin, and I'm Claire, I'm your friend. I'm your friend, okay? You should let me help you. You hurt yourself."
She pointed to his injured fingers. Myrnin looked down, and he seemed surprised, as if he hadn't felt it at all. Which maybe he hadn't.
He took two steps backward, ran into a lab table, and knocked over a stand that held empty glass test tubes. They fell and shattered on the dirty stone floor.
Myrnin staggered, then sank down to sit against the wall, his face covered by bloody hands, and began to rock back and forth. "It's wrong," he moaned. "There was something important, something I had to do. I can't remember what it was."
Claire watched him, still scared to death, and then sank down to a crouch across from him. "Myrnin," she said. "The door. The one I opened. Where does it go?"
"Door? Doorways. Moments in time, just moments, none of it stays, it flows like blood you know, just like blood. I tried to bottle it but it doesn't stay fresh. Time, I mean. Blood turns, and so does time. What's your name?"
"Claire, sir. My name's Claire."
He let his head fall back against the wall, and there were bloody tears running down his cheeks. "Don't trust me, Claire. Don't ever trust me." He bounced the back of his head off the wall with enough force to make Claire wince.
"I — no sir. I won't."
"How long have I been your friend?"
"Not that long."
"I don't have friends," he said hollowly. "You don't, you know, when you're as old as I am. You have competitors, and you have allies, but not friends, never. You're too young, far too young to understand that." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he looked mostly sane. Mostly. "Amelie wants you to learn from me, yes? So you are my student?"
This time, Claire just nodded. Whatever the fit was, it was leaving him, and he was empty and tired and sad again. He took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in the pocket of his coat.
"You won't be able do it," he said. "You can't possiby learn quickly enough. I nearly killed you tonight, and next time I won't be able to stop. The others — " He stopped, looked briefly sick, and cleared his throat. "I'm not — I wasn't always like this, Claire. Please understand. Unlike many of my kind, I never wanted to be a monster. I only wanted to learn, and this was a way to learn forever."
Claire bit her lip. "I want to learn, too," she said. "I —Amelie wants me to help you, and learn from you. Do you think I'm smart enough?"
"Oh, you're smart enough. Could you master the skills, given enough time? Perhaps. And you'll have no choice in the matter; she'll keep you coming until you learn, or I destroy you." Myrnin slowly lifted his head and looked at her. Rational again, and very steady. "Did I remind you not to trust me?"
"Yes sir."
"It's good advice, but just this once, ignore it and allow me to help you."
"Help — ?"
Myrnin stood up, in that eerie boneless way that he seemed to have, and rummaged around through the glass jars and beakers and test tubes until he found something that looked like red salt. He shook the container — it was about the size of a spice jar — and opened it to extract one red crystal. He touched it to his tongue, shut his eyes for a second, and smiled.
"Yes," he said. "I thought so." He recapped it and held it out to her. "Take it."
She did. It felt surprisingly heavy. "What is it?"
"I have no idea what to call it," he said. "But it'll work."
"What do I do with it?"
"Shake a small amount into your palm, like so — " He reached out for her hand. She pulled away, curling her fingers closed, and Myrnin looked briefly wounded. "No, you're right. You do it. I apologize." He handed her the shaker and made an encouraging gesture. She hesitantly turned the shaker upside down over her palm. A few red chunky crystals poured out. He wanted her to keep going, so she did, quick jerks of the container until there was maybe half a teaspoon of the stuff piled up.
Myrnin took the shaker back and set it back where he'd found it, and nodded at her. "Go on," he said. "Take it."
"Excuse me?"
He mimed popping it into his mouth.
"I — um — what is it, again?"
This time, Myrnin rolled his eyes in frustration. "Take it, Claire! We don't have much time. My periods of lucidity are shorter now. I can't guarantee I won't slip again. Soon. This will help."
"I don't understand, how is this stuff supposed to help?"
He didn't tell her again, he just pleaded silently with her, his whole expression open and hopeful, and she finally put her hand to her mouth and tentatively tasted one of the crystals.
It tasted like strawberry salt, with a bitter after-flavor. She felt an instant, tiny burst of ice-cold clarity, like a strobe light going off in a darkened room full of beautiful, glittering things.
"Yes," Myrnin breathed. "Now you see."
This time, she licked up more of the crystals. Four or five of them. The bitterness was stronger, barely offset by the strawberries, and the reaction was even faster. It was like she'd been asleep, and all of a sudden she was awake. Gloriously, dizzyingly awake. The world was so sharp she felt like even the dull battered wood of the table could cut her.
Myrnin picked up a book at random and opened it. He held it up in front of her, and it was like another burst of light in the darkness, brilliant and beautiful, oh, so pretty, the way the words curved themselves around each other and cut into her brain. It was painful and perfect, and she read as fast as she could. The essence of gold is the essence of Sun, and the essence of silver is the essence of Moon. You must work with each of these according to its properties, gold in the daylight, silver in the night ... It all made sense to her. Total sense. Alchemy was nothing but a poet's explanation of the way matter and energy interacted, the way different surfaces vibrated at different speeds, it was physics, nothing but physics, and she could understand how to use it now.
And then ... then it was like the bulbs all dimmed again.
"Go on, take it," Myrnin said. "The dose in your hand will last for an hour or so. In that time, I can teach you a great deal. Enough, perhaps, for us to understand where we should be going."
This time, Claire didn't hesitate licking up every last bit of the red crystals.
###
Myrnin was right, the crystals lasted for a little more than an hour. He took some as well, one at a time, carefully measuring them out and making them last until finally even a red crystal couldn't drive the growing confusion out of his eyes. He was getting anxious and confused, by the end. Claire started closing the books and stacking them up on the table — the two of them were sitting cross-legged on the floor, practically buried in volumes. M
yrnin had jumped her from one book to another, pulling out a paragraph here, a chapter there, a chart from physics and a page from something so old he had to teach her the language before she could understand.
I learned languages. I learned ... I learned so much. He'd shown her a diagram, and it hadn't been just a diagram, it had been three dimensional and as intricate as a snowflake. Morganville hadn't just happened, it had been planned. Planned around the vampires. Planned by the vampires, carried out by Myrnin and Amelie. The Founder Houses, they were part of it — thirteen bright hard nodes of power in the web, holding together a complex pattern of energy. It could move people from one place to another, via the doorways, although Claire didn't yet understand how to control them. But the web could do more. It could change memories. It could even keep people away, if Amelie wanted it to do that.
Myrnin had shown her the journals, too, with all his research conducted over the last seventy years into the vampire's sickness. It was chilling, the way his notes degenerated from meticulous to scrawls at the end, and sometimes into nonsense.
But isn't this a good thing? The question kept battering at her. Isn't it a good thing that the vampires will die out?
And what about Sam? What about Michael?
The influence of the crystals was dimming now, and Claire felt horribly tired. There was a steady ache in her muscles, a feverish throb that told her this stuff wasn't exactly kind to the human body. She could feel every heartbeat pounding through her head, and everything looked so dark. So ... so confusing.
She felt a breath of air stir against her cheek, and turned toward the stairs. Michael was descending, moving faster than she'd ever seen him, and he came to a fast halt when he saw her sitting beside Myrnin.
"He's supposed to be — "
"Locked up in a cage? Yeah, I know." Claire knew she sounded bitter. She didn't care. "He's sick, Michael. He's not an animal. And anyway, even if you lock him up, he'll get out."
Michael looked young to her, all of a sudden, although he was older than she was. And a vampire, on top of that. "Claire, get up and come to me. Please."
"Why? He's not going to hurt me."
"He can't help what he does. Look, Sam told me how many people he's killed — "
"He's a vamp, Michael. Of course he's — "
" — how many he's killed in the last two years. It's more than all the vampires in Morganville combined. You're not safe. Now get up and walk over here."
"He's right," Myrnin said. He was losing it, Claire could see that, but he was desperately hanging on to be the man who'd been with her for the last hour. The gentle, funny, sweet one, ablaze with excitement and passion for showing her his world. "It's time for you to go." He smiled, showing teeth — not vampire teeth. It was a very human kind of expression. "I do all right on my own, Claire, or at least there's rarely anyone for me to harm. Amelie will send someone to look after me. And I usually can't leave here, once I — forget things. It's too difficult for me to find the keys, and I can't remember how to use them once I have them. But I never forget how to kill. Your friend is right. You should go, please. Now. Continue your studies."
It was stupid, but she hated leaving him like this, with all the light going out in his eyes and the clouds of fear and confusion rolling in.
She didn't mean to do it, it just happened.
She hugged him.
It was like hugging a tree; he was so surprised, he was as stiff as a block of wood. She wasn't actually sure how long it had been, since anybody had touched him like this. For a second he resisted her, and then his arms went around her and she felt him heave a great sigh. Still not a hug, not really, but it was as close as he was likely to get.
"Go away, little bird," he whispered. "Hurry."
She backed away. His eyes were strange again, and she knew they were out of time. Someday, he won't come back. He'll just be the beast.
Michael was beside her. She hadn't heard him cross the room, but his hand closed around hers, and there was real compassion in his face. Not for Myrnin, though. For her.
"You heard him," Michael said. "Hurry."
She bumped into the table, and the small jar of red crystals shuddered a little, nearly tipping over. She grabbed it to put it back upright, and then thought, what if he loses this? He loses stuff all the time.
She was only keeping it safe, that was all. It helped him, right? So she ought to make sure he didn't knock it over or throw it away or something.
She slipped it into her pocket. She didn't think Myrnin saw, and she knew Michael didn't. Claire felt a hot burst of something — shame? Embarrassment? Excitement? I should put it back. But really, she'd never find it again if he moved it around. Myrnin wouldn't remember. He wouldn't even know it was gone.
She kept looking back, all the way up the stairs. By the time they were halfway out, Myrnin had already forgotten them, and he was restlessly flipping through a pile of books, muttering anxiously to himself.
Gone already.
He looked up at them and snarled, and she saw the hard glint of fangs.
She hurried to the door at the top of the stairs.
CHAPTER NINE
Michael wasn't talking to her, and that was bad. He wasn't sullen, like Shane got from time to time; he was just thoughtful. That made the drive uneasily quiet. It was fully dark out, not that she could see through the window tinting anyway.
The world didn't seem real to her anymore, and her head ached.
"This is the deal you made with Amelie," Michael said. "To work for him."
"No. I made the deal with Amelie, then she told me to work for him. Or learn from him."
"Is there a difference?"
Claire smiled. "Yeah. I don't get paid."
"Brilliant plan, genius. Is anybody paying you?"
Actually, she had no idea. The thought hadn't occurred to her, to ask Amelie for money. Was that normal, to get paid for a thing like this? She supposed it was, if she was supposed to risk her life with Myrnin on a regular basis. "I'll ask," she offered.
"No," Michael said grimly. "I'll ask. I want to talk to Amelie about this whole thing anyway."
"Don't get all older-brother on me, Michael. It's not safe. You may be one of them now, but you're not — "
" — one of them? Yeah, I know that. But you're way too young for this, Claire, and you don't know what you're doing. You didn't grow up in this town, you don't understand the risks."
"What, death? I understand that one pretty well already." She was feeling tired and achy, but also strangely annoyed with Michael's protectiveness. "Look, I'm fine, okay? Besides, I learned a lot today. She'll be happy, trust me."
"Amelie's mood isn't what bothers me," Michael said. "It's you. You're changing, Claire."
She looked straight at him. "Like you haven't?"
"Cheap shot."
"You made the choice."
"Yeah, I made the choice, and it was the only one I could make. Look, I'm sick of having to tiptoe around Shane. Don't make me do it with you, too." Ah, now Michael was annoyed too. Great.
"Tell you what? I'll stop nagging you about your life if you'll stay out of mine. You're not my brother, you're not my dad — "
"No," he interrupted. "I'm the guy who says if you get to stay in the house."
He wouldn't. He wouldn't. "Michael — "
"You made a deal with Amelie without talking to anyone, and then you covered it up. Look, the only reason you even came clean was because I saw the bracelet. If I hadn't you'd still be lying to us. That doesn't exactly make you the ideal housemate." Michael paused for a second. "And then there's Shane."
"How am I to blame for Shane?"
"You're not. But I can't deal with both of you, not now. So just straighten up, Claire. No more lying, and no more risk-taking, all right? I'll convince Amelie to let you out of these sessions with Myrnin. You're too young to be doing this, she ought to know that."
No more lying. No more risk-taking. Claire shifted and felt the bottle in
her pocket, and had a flash of that perfect clarity again. She wondered what Michael would have to say about her letting Myrnin give her the crystals. Probably nothing. He was talking about throwing her out of the house, right? So he probably didn't care at all.
The car slowed and turned, bumped down a rutted drive. Home.
Claire bolted before Michael could say anything else to her.
Shane was in the kitchen, pouring himself a beer. He toasted her silently, took a sip and nodded toward a pot on the stove. "Chili," he said. "Extra garlic."
Michael was closing the kitchen door, and he sighed. "When is this going to stop?"
"When you quit sucking blood?"
"Shane — "
"Don't get pissy. I made yours garlic-free." Shane looked at her again, and frowned a little. "You okay?"
"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Just — I don't know. Whatever." He slung an arm over her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. "Bad day, probably."
Let's see, she'd been threatened by Eve's brother, had her wrist cut, and then played keep-away with Myrnin for hours. Did that qualify as a bad day in Morganville? Probably not. No body count.
Not yet, anyway.
Michael pushed past them and through the door into the living room. Claire pulled free of Shane's arm and went to the stove to ladle herself a bowl of chili. It smelled hot and delicious. But mostly hot. She tasted a drop and nearly choked; was it usually this molten-lava wicked spicy? Everything felt raw to her right now. She supposed that was a side effect of the crystals.
"I thought I heard you," Shane said. "Weirdest thing, I heard your voice today. Right out of the air. I thought you — I kept thinking about Michael, how he used to be during the daytime ..."
When he was a ghost. "You thought I was — ?"
"I thought maybe something happened," he said. "I called your cell number, the new one."
