Feast of Fools

by Caine, Rachel

  ‘‘They don’t deliver,’’ Shane said, and then snapped his fingers. ‘‘Wait. Wait a minute. Yes, they do.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  He spun away and picked up the phone from the cradle on the wall, then put it back down. ‘‘Dead.’’

  Claire took out her cell phone. ‘‘I’ve got a signal.’’ She pitched it to him, and watched as he punched a number. ‘‘Who are you calling?’’

  ‘‘Pizza Hut.’’

  ‘‘Loser.’’

  He held up a finger. ‘‘Hey, Richard?’’ Not, Claire noticed, Dick. This situation had upgraded him to full-name status. ‘‘Listen, man, we’ve got a situation here at the Glass House.’’

  Claire could fill in the other half of the conversation from Richard Morrell almost verbatim. What do you think I have, with the town going crazy?

  ‘‘We’re out of blood,’’ Shane said. ‘‘Amelie’s wounded. You do the math, man. A little home delivery service from Morganville’s Finest wouldn’t hurt right now.’’

  Whatever Richard said, it wasn’t encouraging. ‘‘You’re kidding,’’ Shane said, in an entirely different tone. A worried one. ‘‘You’re not kidding. Oh my God.’’ A short pause. ‘‘Yeah, man, I get it. I get it. Okay, right. Take care.’’

  That, she thought, was definitely the most civil she’d ever heard Richard and Shane. It was almost friendly.

  Shane folded up the phone and threw it back to her, and his face was a study in self-control.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Donation Center’s burning,’’ he said. ‘‘How do you feel about blood drives?’’

  The Bloodmobile arrived in front of the house exactly fifteen minutes later—glossy, black, and intimidating. It came with a flanking guard of squad cars and police wearing protective vests who took up posts on either end of the street.

  Claire looked at the clock. It was nearly four a.m.— still hours until dawn, although the fires were making it hard to tell day from night. The Morganville Fire Department was outmatched. Whatever serial arsonists Bishop had employed were definitely doing their jobs.

  Claire wondered what Bishop was doing. Waiting, probably. He didn’t really have to do anything else. Morganville was coming apart, with strikes at the communications hubs, the Donation Center, and—as she heard by word of mouth from some of the others— the hospital. So far, the university seemed safe. There was a blood supply on campus, but it would be tough to get to in the chaos.

  Michael went out to meet the vampire driving the Bloodmobile. He came back shaking his head. ‘‘Nothing left,’’ he said. ‘‘He’d already dropped off the day’s collections at the Center. There’s nothing in storage. He says he’s heard the supplies at the hospital have been sabotaged, too.’’

  ‘‘Unless we go door-to-door and gather up bottles and bags, that’s all there is,’’ said the stern-looking vampire. ‘‘I told the Council there should be more backup supplies.’’

  ‘‘What about the university storage?’’

  ‘‘Enough for a couple of days,’’ the Bloodmobile driver said. ‘‘I don’t know of anything else.’’

  ‘‘I do,’’ Claire said, and swallowed painfully as they all looked at her. ‘‘But I need to get permission from Amelie to take you there.’’

  ‘‘Amelie’s not in any shape to give permission. What about Oliver?’’

  Claire shook her head. ‘‘It has to be Amelie. I’m sorry.’’

  The Bloodmobile driver looked tired and very frustrated. He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘‘Fine,’’ he said. ‘‘But before she can begin to give consent, she needs feeding. And I need donors.’’

  Eve, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet, stepped forward. ‘‘I’ll do it,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Me, too.’’ That was Monica Morrell. She stripped off her heavy Marie Antoinette wig and dropped it on the ground. Claire thought about what Richard Morrell had told her about the mayor wanting to return the costume for credit, and almost laughed. So much for that plan. ‘‘Gina! Jennifer! Get over here! And bring everybody you can!’’

  Monica, as imperious as a real French queen, put her ability to threaten and intimidate to good use for a change. Within ten minutes, they had a line of donors ready, and all four Bloodmobile stations were working.

  Claire slipped back inside. The vampires were all facing the windows, watching for surprises. Most of the humans were outside, giving blood.

  She faced the blank wall in the living room, next to the table. Got to do this fast.

  It faded into mist, and she stepped through and was gone almost before the portal opened.

  She stepped out into the prison, reached under her Harlequin top, and pulled out the sharpened cross that Myrnin had given her. Use it only in self-defense.

  She was ready to do that.

  Myrnin’s cell was empty, and the television was on and tuned to a game show. Claire checked the prison refrigerator. There was a good stockpile of blood there, if she could get it out where it was needed.

  Myrnin could be anywhere.

  No, she thought. Myrnin could be only in about twenty places in Morganville, at least if he was using the doorways.

  She went back to the portal wall and concentrated, formed the wormhole tunnel to the lab, and stepped through.

  And there he was.

  He was feverishly working, and every lamp and candle in the room burned at full capacity. He hadn’t stopped to change, though he’d lost the cone-head cap somewhere; as Claire watched, he got one of his full white sleeves too close to a candle and caught it on fire.

  ‘‘Cachiad!’’ he blurted, and ripped off his sleeve to throw it on the ground and stomp out the blaze. Irritated, he stripped off the whole billowy top and dumped it, too.

  He looked up, half-naked, wild, and saw Claire watching him.

  For a second neither of them moved, and then Myrnin said, ‘‘It’s not what you think.’’

  Claire stepped away from the door. She swung it shut and clicked the padlock shut. ‘‘If you didn’t want anybody coming after you, you should have locked up.’’

  ‘‘I don’t have time for this, and neither do you. Now, do you want to help me, or—’’

  ‘‘I’m done helping you!’’ she shouted. Her abused voice broke like shattered glass, and she heard the raw fury bleed out. ‘‘You ran! You left us all to die!’’

  Myrnin flinched. He looked away, down at what he’d been doing at the lab table, and she saw that he’d prepared a number of slides. ‘‘I had my reasons, ’’ he said. ‘‘It’s the long game, Claire. Amelie understands.’’

  ‘‘Amelie got staked in the heart,’’ she said.

  His head slowly rose. ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Bishop bought off her tribute, Jason. Jason staked her.’’

  ‘‘No.’’ It was a bare thread of sound. Myrnin shut his eyes. ‘‘No, that can’t be. She knew—I told her—’’

  ‘‘You left her to die!’’

  Myrnin’s legs failed. He slid down to his knees and buried his face in his hands, silent in his anguish.

  Claire gripped the cross, holding it at her side, and walked toward him. He didn’t move.

  ‘‘Is she alive?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know. Maybe.’’

  Myrnin nodded. ‘‘Then it is my fault. That shouldn’t have happened.’’

  ‘‘And the rest of it should have?’’

  ‘‘Long game,’’ Myrnin whispered. ‘‘You don’t understand.’’

  There was a chessboard, a familiar one, set up in the corner where Myrnin normally read. A game was frozen in midattack. Claire stared at it, and for a second she saw the specter of Amelie sitting with Myrnin, moving those pieces in white, cold fingers.

  ‘‘She knew,’’ she said. ‘‘She helped you. Didn’t she?’’

  Myrnin stood up, and Claire held up the cross between them. Myrnin didn’t so much as look at it. She pushed it closer. Maybe it was a proximity
thing?

  Myrnin closed his hand over hers, and took the cross away. He held it on the open palm of his hand.

  No sizzling. No reaction at all.

  "Crosses don’t work,’’ he said. ‘‘We all pretend they do, but they don’t."

  Her mouth was hanging open. ‘‘Why?’’ Great. Her last words were, as always, going to be questions.

  ‘‘Obviously, it keeps people from moving on to things that will hurt us.’’ Myrnin lifted his eyebrows, but the dark eyes below them were cautious and sad. ‘‘Claire. I wasn’t supposed to stay. I was to provide a distraction, get my sample, and leave.’’

  ‘‘Sample.’’

  He pointed toward the lab table, and what he’d been doing. Claire saw the silver gleam of the knife he’d carried to the feast—clean now, no trace of blood.

  But there was blood carefully mounted and fixed on glass slides, ranks of them.

  ‘‘Bishop’s blood?’’

  Myrnin nodded. ‘‘We’ve never been able to obtain a sample from any vampire beyond Morganville. As far as we knew, there weren’t any vampires beyond Morganville. Look.’’

  Claire didn’t trust him. He stepped back, far back, and indicated the microscope with an apologetic bow.

  ‘‘Mind if I hold this?’’ she asked, and grabbed the knife.

  ‘‘So long as you keep it pointed away from me,’’ he said. The weight of it eased her jitters a little, but it still took her several tries to look into the microscope long enough to focus, instead of checking his position.

  When she did, she immediately recognized the difference.

  Bishop’s blood cells were—for a vampire—healthy.

  She stepped back and stared at Myrnin. ‘‘He’s not infected.’’

  ‘‘It gets better,’’ Myrnin said, and nodded toward the ranks of slides. ‘‘Try number eight.’’

  She switched out the slides. ‘‘I don’t see any difference.’’

  ‘‘Exactly,’’ he said. ‘‘That is my blood, mixed with Bishop’s. Now check number seven—my blood, alone.’’

  It was a nightmare. Worse than Claire had ever seen it. Whatever the serum was doing to Myrnin, it was destroying him.

  She checked slide eight again.

  Slide seven.

  ‘‘He’s the cure,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Now you see,’’ Myrnin said, ‘‘why I was willing to risk everything and everyone to be sure.’’

  Myrnin’s health failed again after another hour— longer than Claire would have given him, based on what she saw under the slides. When he started tiring and mixing words, she unlocked the prison door and took him back to his cell.

  ‘‘Damn,’’ she sighed, remembering the broken door. ‘‘We need to move you.’’

  That took some time, although she grabbed only what Myrnin pointed out as essentials—clothes, blankets, the rug, his books. By the time she’d gotten everything put into the next cell, and replaced the ancient filthy bunk with the clean cot, Myrnin was in the corner of the room, curled into a ball. Rocking slowly back and forth.

  She approached him as carefully as she could. ‘‘It’s ready,’’ she said. ‘‘Come on. I’ll get you something to eat.’’

  Myrnin looked up, and she couldn’t tell if he’d understood her until he scrambled to his feet and waved her out of the way with a trembling hand.

  He closed the cell door and tested the lock, then slumped onto his bed.

  ‘‘Amelie,’’ he said. ‘‘Take care of Amelie.’’

  ‘‘We will,’’ Claire promised. She handed him a blood pack—not threw, handed. ‘‘I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.’’

  His nod was more of a convulsive tremble. His gaze was drawn to the blood, but he forced it back to her face. ‘‘Long game,’’ he said. ‘‘Use what Bishop wants. Let him think he’s winning. Play for time. Bring the doctor.’’

  ‘‘Dr. Mills?’’

  ‘‘Need help.’’

  ‘‘I’ll get him here somehow.’’ Claire didn’t want to leave Myrnin, but he was right. There were things to do. ‘‘Are you going to be okay?’’

  Myrnin’s smile was, once again, broken, but beautiful. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said softly. ‘‘Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for believing.’’

  She hadn’t, really. But she did now.

  As she turned away, she heard him whisper, ‘‘I’m so sorry, child. So very sorry I left you.’’

  She pretended not to hear.

  13

  The portals were more confusing now, because the power was out in Morganville. Most places were completely dark, and no matter how hard Claire concentrated, she couldn’t pull up three of the destinations at all.

  Which meant, she supposed, that they no longer existed.

  She focused on the surroundings of home, but again got darkness. She heard people talking, though, and caught a glimpse of candles being lit.

  Eve’s face caught by the glow.

  Home.

  She was getting ready to step through when something hit her from behind, silent and heavy. She lost control of the portal as she crashed forward, screaming. She heard Myrnin, far behind her, call out, ‘‘Claire? Claire, what’s wrong?’’

  She thought it was one of the inmates, until she felt a hand wind deep in her hair and lips brush her neck.

  She heard Bishop’s mocking laughter. ‘‘Thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘For leading me to my fool.’’

  He threw her through the portal.

  She hit the floor on the other side and rolled, then scrambled up and threw herself at the wall. It didn’t open for her. She battered at it with her fists.

  Nothing.

  Claire turned, because it didn’t feel like home. Darkness and utter silence.

  ‘‘Hello?’’ No answer. ‘‘Shane? Mom?’’

  She wasn’t at the Glass House. Bishop had screwed up her destination when he’d thrown her through the portal, and she had no idea where she was.

  Half-sobbing, Claire felt her way across the room. Her fingers brushed soft cloth, and she pulled. Curtain, she thought. She tugged, and caught a glimmer through a window.

  Orange light.

  Claire pulled back the curtains of the window, and looked out at Morganville, burning. It gave her enough light to see the inside of the room where she was standing. It was the same as the Glass House living room in shape, so it had to be a Founder House . . . one of the thirteen, then. But which one? Not Gramma Day’s; she’d been inside that one, and it had been crammed with furniture. This one was piled with boxes. . . .

  Claire’s gaze fell on the familiar outline of a couch. She walked to it and brushed her hand over the soft curve of the arm. There was a slightly stiffer patch near where it joined with the back, where she’d spilled a soda two years ago but hadn’t ever quite gotten the stickiness out.

  Some of the boxes in the corner were labeled CLAIRE.

  It was Mom and Dad’s new house.

  Claire mapped it in her head. This house was to the northwest, so if she went to the mirror of her own bedroom, she ought to be able to see toward the Glass House. She wasn’t sure what that would get her, except maybe a better idea of what her chances were to get back.

  But she needed to see it. To know her friends and family were okay.

  There was a house on fire that direction, but it was the same one that had been burning earlier. The Melville house. Claire couldn’t make anything out past the blaze except a few faintly lit windows.

  They were, she thought, still safe.

  A police car raced toward the fire, lights flashing, and Claire slapped her forehead in frustration. ‘‘Idiot,’’ she muttered. She’d lacked any pockets to put her phone, so she’d stowed it inside her hat.

  Thanks to the elastic band, the silly little matador cap was still on her head.

  Claire breathed a sigh of relief as she dug the phone from the hole in the lining, and dialed Richard Morrell.

  ‘‘I need a ride.’’

>   Richard was in the middle of a cell phone rant about how he wasn’t her taxi service, and how important it was to keep city services moving, when he screeched his patrol car to a halt at the curb just outside. Claire jumped down the steps of her parents’ house and raced for the car door as he threw it open.

  She made it, slammed the door, and locked it. Richard looked her up and down. He no longer seemed pressed and perfect; he was smoke-stained, tired, and rumpled, and he was the most lovely thing she’d seen.

  ‘‘What the hell are you supposed to be?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Harlequin.’’

  ‘‘Isn’t that a Batman villain?’’

  ‘‘I thought you were in a hurry.’’

  Richard slammed on the gas, and the car screeched away from the curb. ‘‘Strap in,’’ he said absently. She fastened her seat belt. ‘‘So. Nice night for you?’’

  ‘‘Peachy,’’ she said. ‘‘You?’’

  ‘‘Fantastic.’’ He jerked the wheel and nearly spun the car as he took a right-hand turn. ‘‘There are two of Amelie’s vampire buddies at the power station right now, refusing to turn on the lights. And three of them made us stand by while the Donation Center burned. You have any idea what’s going on?’’

  ‘‘The long game,’’ Claire said. He sent her a look. ‘‘Not really, no. But in chess you create openings to make your opponent move the wrong way.’’

  ‘‘Chess,’’ Richard said in disgust. ‘‘I’m talking about lives. Kid, you’re starting to scare me.’’

  ‘‘I’m scaring myself,’’ Claire said. She didn’t feel like a kid. She felt a million years old, and very tired. ‘‘Just get me home.’’

  Because she was going to have to tell Amelie that she’d just left Myrnin, alone, at Bishop’s mercy.

  Amelie was sitting up when Claire arrived, escorted in by Richard Morrell, who was instantly pounced on by his sister and father for hugs and information. She didn’t look good, but she looked alive.

  Sort of.

  Claire didn’t have any sympathy for her.

  ‘‘Myrnin,’’ Claire said. ‘‘You used him.’’

  Sam, sitting on the arm of Amelie’s chair, frowned at her. ‘‘Don’t. She’s very tired.’’