by Rachel Caine
“Always,” she said, and proved it.
Going into Myrnin’s lab was a very weird and awkward thing; she’d normally felt okay around him, even when he was strange or psycho … on some deep, fundamental level, there had been some trust.
Not now. Not at this moment.
He looked up as she entered, and the hopeful look on his face smoothed out as he read her expression. “Ah,” he said, in a neutral tone. “Good. Thank you for giving me your time.” That was way too polite for him, normally; it was as awkward as a schoolboy trying to remember his manners. “How is Shane?”
She skipped right over that, because the fact that he even said Shane’s name made her angry. “Michael gave me this,” she said, and showed him the vial full of liquid. “It’s from one of the holding pools at the treatment plant. The draug were avoiding the water.”
Myrnin focused in on the vial, and as what she’d said filtered through whatever he had going on in his head, he snatched the chain away from her to hold it up to a bright, shadeless incandescent bulb. “Interesting,” he said. “Thoughtful of him to retrieve us a sample.”
“Dangerous,” she said. “He’s lucky he didn’t get killed out there.”
“Aren’t we all.” Myrnin grabbed a test tube and carefully poured the contents of the vial in it. It was a meager amount, but he seemed happy enough. “Excellent. Excellent. A good start to our inquisition today.” He paused, then picked up a slender glass pipette and drew off a sample of the water to add to a slide, which he covered with a second glass plate and put under a microscope. “I’ve been thinking about binding agents. Alchemically speaking, our goal was transforming an object from one state to another—lead to gold, obviously, but many different—”
“We don’t have time for alchemy,” Claire said flatly. “Alchemy doesn’t work, Myrnin.”
“Ah, yes, but I read—wait, I have it here somewhere—ah!” He shoved books around and came up with a piece of paper that looked as if it had been printed off a computer. “Alchemists believed it was possible to change the essential nature of a thing, and look, we were right. According to the Journal of Physical Chemistry, a very high-voltage charge conducted through water can actually bring about a phase transition, freezing diffusional motion and forming a single, stable crystal that—”
“I read it,” Claire said. It freaked her out that he’d read it. Off the computer, not paper? Myrnin wasn’t exactly the surf-the-Internet type. “It’s interesting, but it takes a lot of power, and it doesn’t last; plus, it’s not a permanent phase change. As soon as you remove the current, water reverts to its liquid state.” But it was impressive that he’d found that, she thought; she’d considered it herself, because the idea of turning water into a solid was … exactly what they needed, actually. Just not with so much crazy power consumption.
“But it’s a start, is it not?” Myrnin said. He bent over the microscope and clucked his tongue. “I am honestly mystified by how you humans get anything done with the primitive equipment at hand. This is useless.” He took the slide off and, before she could stop him, removed the glass top and licked the sample.
She fought the urge to gag. He didn’t seem at all bothered. He stood quite still, closing his eyes, and then said, “Hmmm. A bit salty, bitter aftertaste … iron … hydroxide.” He smiled then, and looked at her as if he was quite proud of himself. “Definitely iron hydroxide. That is a binding agent, is it not?”
“You are insane,” she said. “You can’t go around … licking things that come out of a water treatment plant. That’s just … unsanitary.”
“Life is unsanitary,” he said. “Death more so, as it turns out. I don’t believe that iron hydroxide has any effect upon me, but of course I should try larger doses. If it in fact has an effect upon the draug, that is quite an advance ….” He turned and rummaged around in drawers. “Bother. You can create iron hydroxide, can’t you? Make some. I think we have all we need in supplies.”
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.