by Rachel Caine
“Let go,” Claire said.
And Myrnin did, loosening his hands just enough to let her step back. His eyes were wild and desperate, and his fangs stayed down like glittering exclamation points.
Claire held out the blood bag.
After a second’s hesitation, Myrnin grabbed it,brought it to his mouth, and bit down so hard, blood squirted over his face, the way a really juicy tomato would.
Claire shuddered. “I’ll get you a towel.”
She went to the small bathroom—so well hidden, it had taken her forever to find it—and turned on the rusty tap to moisten a towel marked PROPERTY OF MORGANVILLE; it was probably hospital supply, or from a prison. She splashed some water on her face, too, and looked at herself in the mirror for a few seconds. A stranger looked back at her—someone who didn’t look that frightened. Someone who had just faced down a vampire intent on feeding.
Someone who could handle that kind of thing, and still be his friend.
The towel was soaked through. Claire squeezed to wring out the excess warm water, then went back to help her boss get cleaned up.
She knew he’d say how sorry he was, and he did—first thing, as she sponged the splatter off his face. Tomato juice, she told herself when what she was doing hit home. It’s just tomato juice. You’ve cleaned up after exploded catsup bottles; this is nothing.
“Claire,” Myrnin whispered. She glanced into his face, then away as she tried to scrub the worst of the stain off his vest. He seemed tired, and he was sitting in his big leather wing chair. “It came on me so suddenly. I couldn’t—you understand? I never meant it.”
“Is this what happened to Ada when she was alive?” Claire asked. There was blood on his long white hands, too. She gave him the warm towel, and he wiped his fingers on it, then found a clean spot and scrubbed his face again, although she’d gotten the blood off already. He held the warm towel there, covering up whatever his expression was doing. When he lowered it, he was completely in control of himself. “Ada and I were complicated,” he said. “This situation is nothing like that one. For one thing, Ada was then a vampire.”
“Well, things have changed,” Claire said. Myrnin meticulously folded the towel and handed it back to her. “You know she’s going to kill you? You get it now?”
“I’m not yet prepared to make any such claim.” He looked down at his vest and sighed. “Oh dear. That’s never coming out.”
“The stain?”
“The hole.” He continued to stare at the hole her bone stake had made, and said, “You really would have killed me, wouldn’t you?”
“I—wish I could tell you it was a bluff. But I would have. I can’t bluff with you.”
“You’re correct. If you do, I’ll know, and you’ll be dead. I’m a predator. Weakness is . . . seductive.” He cleared his throat. “Mutually assured destruction was good enough for the United States and the Soviet Union; I believe it will be good enough for us. I’d have preferred it not to come to that, but it’s hardly your fault—” He broke off, because as he looked up, his gaze fell on the motionless corpse lying on the table in the middle of the lab. “Oh dear. What is that?”
“That would be Bob. Remember Bob? That’s what Ada did to him.”
“Impossible,” Myrnin said, and rose out of his chair to stalk to the table and lean over alarmingly close, poking at the spider’s body with curious fingers. “No, quite impossible.”
“Excuse me? I was here! He grew, just like in a monster movie!”
“Oh, I can see that. Clearly, that isn’t impossible. No, what I meant was your identification of him as Bob.”
“What?”
“This isn’t Bob,” Myrnin said.
Claire rolled her eyes. “He came out of Bob’s cage.”
“Ah, that explains it. I found a companion for Bob. I thought it was likely they’d try to eat each other, but they seemed content enough. So this must have been Edgar. Or possibly Charlotte.”
“Edgar,” Claire repeated. “Or Charlotte. Right.”
Myrnin left the dead spider and went to Bob’s container. He rooted around in it for a few seconds, then triumphantly held out his palm toward Claire.
Bob—presumably—sat crouched there, looking as confused and frightened as a spider could.
“So it was only Edgar,” Myrnin said. “Not the same thing at all.”
“Was Edgar always the size of a dog?”
“Oh, of course not, he—oh, I see your point. Regardless of which spider it is, there are some mysteries to be solved.” Myrnin carefully nudged Bob off his palm, back into the container, and then rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Yes, there’s definitely work to be done. Ada must have made tremendous strides recently in her research, for her to be able to create this kind of effect. I must know how, and what went wrong.”
“Myrnin. Ada made a spider grow into a monster and tried to kill me with it. This isn’t about how she did it. It’s why.”
“Why is for other people. I am much more concerned with the method, and I’m surprised, Claire; I thought you would be the same. Well, not surprised, perhaps. Disappointed.” He carefully uncurled one of the spider’s long legs. Claire shuddered. “I’ll need a corkboard. A large one. And some very large pins.”
Claire and Michael exchanged a look. He’d been standing there, a fascinated but disgusted observer to all this, and now he just shook his head. “If all he wants is for you to fetch and carry, maybe you should just leave him to it.”
“She’s my assistant; it’s her job to fetch and carry,” Myrnin snapped, and then looked sorry. “But—perhaps you’ve done enough for one day.”
Claire ticked them off on her fingers. “Survived spider attack. Rescued you. Got you blood. Cleaned up blood leftovers.”
“I shall therefore fetch my own corkboard. Claire?” She turned and looked at him as she and Michael headed for the exit. Myrnin looked back in control again, and except for the bloodstain on his vest, you’d never have known he’d been anything less.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “I shall consider what you said. About Ada.”
She nodded, and escaped.
Michael, as it turned out, was headed for the rehearsal of the play Eve was in, and Claire belatedly remembered that she’d been invited, too. His car was parked at the end of the alley, on the cul-de-sac, and he had an umbrella with him to block the sun. It looked kind of funny, but at least it was a giant golf umbrella, very manly. It had a duck carved into the handle.
Michael even opened the passenger door for her, like a gentleman, but instead of getting in, she reached for the umbrella. “You’re the one who combusts,” she said. “You get in first.” He gave her a funny look as she walked him to the driver’s side, and shaded him as he sat. “What?”
“I was thinking how different you are,” he said. “You really stood up to Myrnin in there. I’m not sure a lot of vampires could have done that. Including me.”
“I’m not different. I’m the same Claire as ever.” She grinned, though. “Okay, fewer bruises than when you first met me.”
He smiled and closed the car door; she folded the umbrella and got in on the shotgun side. She was careful to open the door only enough to get in; the angle of the sun was cutting uncomfortably close to reaching Michael’s side of the car. Inside, the tinting cut the light almost completely. It was like being in a cave, again, only she hoped this one didn’t house giant mutated spiders and—what had Michael called them? Things.
“Some people come to Morganville and collapse,” Michael said as he put the car in motion. “I’ve seen it a dozen times. But there are a few who come here and just—bloom. You’re one of those.”
Claire didn’t feel especially bloomy. “So you’re saying I thrive on chaos.”
“No. I’m saying you thrive on challenge. But do me a favor, okay?”
“Considering you came running and jumped into a cave to help me out? Yes.”
He shot her a smile so sweet it melted her heart. �
�Don’t ever let him get that close to you again. I like Myrnin, but he can’t be trusted. You know that.”
“I know.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You die, I have to call your parents and explain why. I really don’t want to do that. I’ve already got the whole vampire thing against me.”
That took up the entirety of the short drive to the rehearsal hall, which of course had underground parking, being in the vampire part of town. It also had security, Claire was interested to note—a vampire on duty in a blacked-out security booth whom she thought she remembered as being from Amelie’s personal security detail. Hard to tell when they all wore dark suits and looked like the Secret Service, only with fangs. Michael showed ID and got a pass to put in his windshield, and within five minutes, they were heading up a sweeping flight of stairs into the Civic Center’s main auditorium.
There they found the director having a total YouTube moment.
“What do you mean, not here?” he bellowed, and slammed a clipboard to the stage floor. He had an accent—German, maybe—and he was a neat little man, older, with thinning gray hair and a very sharp face. “How can she not be here? Is she not in this play? Who is responsible for the call sheet?”
One of the other people standing in a group around the director onstage waved her hand. She had a clipboard, a microphone headset, and a tense, worried expression. Claire didn’t recognize her. “Sir, I tried calling her cell phone six times. It went to voice mail.”
“You are the assistant director! Find her! I don’t want to hear about this voice mail nonsense!” He dismissed her with a flip of his hand and glared at the rest of the group. “Well? We must shift the schedule, then, until she gets here, yes? Script!”
He held out his hand; some quick thinker slapped a bundle of paper into his hand. He flipped pages. “No, no, no—ah! Yes, we will do that. Is our Stanley here?”
A big, tattooed guy shouldered through the crowd. “Here,” he said. That, Claire guessed, was Rad, the one Eve and Kim were going gaga over. He looked—big. And tough. She didn’t see the appeal; for one thing, he wasn’t anything like Shane, who was almost as big, and probably just as tough. Shane wore it like part of his body. This guy made a production out of it.
“Good, we’ll do the bar scene. We have Mitch? Yes? And all the others?”
Claire stopped listening and glanced at Michael. “Where’s Eve? They’re missing a her.”
“I don’t know.” He looked at the crowd of people rushing around the stage, resetting the scenery, going over lines, arguing with one another. “I don’t see her anywhere.”
“You don’t think—”
Michael was already walking down the aisle, heading for the stage.
“I guess you do think.” Claire hurried after him.
Michael put himself directly in front of the frazzled-looking assistant director, who had a cell phone to one ear, and a finger jammed in the other. She turned a shoulder toward him, clearly indicating she was busy, but he grabbed it and swung her around to face him. Her eyes widened in shock. Michael took the phone from her hand and checked the number. “It’s not Eve’s,” he told Claire, and she saw the intense relief that flooded over his face. “Sorry, Heather.”
“It’s okay, it’s still voice mail.” Heather, the assistant director, looked even more worried. She was biting her lip, gnawing on it actually, and darting her eyes toward the livid director, who was stomping around the stage throwing pages of the script to the floor. “Eve’s in the dressing room. Man, I am so fired.”
Michael zipped off, ruffling their hair with the speed of his passage, leaving Claire standing with Heather. After a hesitation, she stuck out her hand. “Hi,” she said. “Claire Danvers.”
“Oh, that’s you? Funny. I thought you’d be—”
“Taller?”
“Older.”
“So who’s missing?”
Heather held up a finger to silence her, tapped the device strapped to her belt, and spoke into her headset mike. “What’s the problem? Well, tell him that the director wants it that way, so just do it, okay? I don’t care if it looks good. And quit complaining.” She clicked it to OFF and wiped sweat from her forehead. “I don’t know what’s worse, having a crew who’s a bunch of newbies, or having a crew who’s been doing this kind of thing since they still used gas in footlights.”
Claire blinked. “You’ve got vampires on the crew.”
“Of course. Also in the cast, and of course, Mein Herr, there.” Heather jerked her chin at the director, who was lecturing some poor sap trying to position a potted plant. “He’s kind of a perfectionist. He imported the costumes from vintage shops. You tell me, who worries about authentic fabrics when you’ve just cast two Goth girls as the leads?”
Heather wasn’t so much talking to her as at her, Claire decided, so she just shrugged. “So, who’s missing?”
“Oh. Our second female lead. Kimberlie Magness.”
Kim. Claire felt a slow roll of irritation. “Does she usually show up on time?” Because that would be a surprise.
Heather raised her eyebrows. “In this production, everybody shows up on time. According to Mein Herr, to be early is to be on time, and to be on time is to be late. She’s never been late.”
Still. Kim. Probably nothing at all.
“Where is my Stella?” the director bellowed suddenly, and the sound bounced around the stage and also out of Heather’s earpiece. She winced and turned down the volume. “Stella!” He drew it out, Brando-style.
And in the wings of the stage, Eve stepped out from behind the curtains, tightly holding Michael’s hand. She was dressed in tight black jeans, a black baby-doll shirt with a pentagram on it, and lots of chains and spikes as accessories.
From the director’s sudden silence, and Heather’s intake of breath, Claire figured that wasn’t what Eve was supposed to be wearing. “Oh no,” Heather whispered. “This isn’t happening.”
“What?”
“He insists on rehearsal in costume. Something about getting inside the characters. She’s supposed to be in her slip.”
The director stomped to Eve, stopping inches away from her. He looked her up and down, and said coldly, “What do you think you are doing?”
“I have to go,” she said. Her knuckles were white where she gripped Michael’s hand, but she stared the director right in the eyes. “I’m sorry, but I have to.”
“No one leaves my rehearsals except in a body bag,” he said. “Is that how you’d prefer it?”
“Is that really how you want this to go?” Michael asked quietly. “Because somebody could leave in a body bag, but it won’t be her.”
The director showed teeth in a grimace—it actually looked painful for him to smile. “Are you threatening me, boy?”
“Yes,” Michael said, completely still. “I know I’m new at this. I know I’m not a thousand years old with a pile of bodies behind me. But I’m telling you that she has to go, and you’re going to let her.”
“Or?”
Michael’s eyes took on a shine—not red, but almost white. It was eerie. “Let’s not find out. You can spare her for the day.”
The director hissed, very softly, and held the stare for so long, Claire thought things were about to go very, very wrong . . . and then a mild-looking man in a retro bowling shirt stepped up and said, “Is there a problem? Because I am responsible for these two in Amelie’s absence.”
And Claire blinked, and realized it was Oliver. Not really Oliver, because he looked . . . different—not just the clothes, but his whole body language. She’d seen him do that before, but not quite this dramatically. His accent was different, too—more of a flat Midwest kind of sound, nothing exotic about it at all.
The director threw him a look, then blinked and seemed to reconsider his position. “I suppose not,” he finally said. “I can’t have this kind of disruption, you know. This is serious business.”
“I know,” Oliver s
aid. “But a day won’t matter. Let the girl go.”
“We’re going to find Kim,” Eve said. “So really, we’re still on company business, right?”
The director’s face tensed again, on the verge of an outburst, but he swallowed his words and finally said, “You may tell Miss Magness that she may have one rehearsal as a grace period. If she is late one second to any other time I call, she will be mine.” He didn’t mean fired. He meant lunch.
Claire swallowed. Heather didn’t seem surprised. She made a note on her clipboard, shook her head, and then cocked her head again as a burst of words came out of her headphone. “Dammit,” she sighed. “Are you kidding me? Great. No, I don’t care how you do it; just make it happen.” She clicked off and looked at Claire. “Wish me luck.”
“Um, luck?”
Heather mounted the stairs to the stage and approached the director to whisper something to him. He shouted in fury and stomped away, waving his arms.
Michael and Eve took the chance to escape down to where Claire waited.
Oliver followed them.
“Nice shirt,” Claire said, straight-faced.
He glanced down at it, dismissed it, and said, “Now tell me what’s going on. Immediately.”
“Kim’s missing,” Eve said. “I tried to find her before the rehearsal; we were supposed to get together—anyway, she didn’t show. I was really worried. I was almost late, and I couldn’t find her. She’s not answering her phone, either.”
“Kim,” Oliver said. “Valerie owns her contract. Her unreliability is very much Valerie’s problem.” He didn’t sound overly bothered about it. Claire guessed Kim hadn’t made friends there, either.
“We need you to call the police. Tell them to look for her.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Kim has a Protector, who is responsible for her,” he repeated. “I will not order town resources to be spent chasing down someone who is, in all likelihood, a victim of her own folly in one way or another.”
“Wait a minute. According to the Morganville rules, she’s got rights,” Claire said. “Whether she’s got a vampire Protector or not, she’s still a resident. You can’t just abandon her!”