Well, you really made a mess of things, he said. And as a consequence, Amelie has been very clear about my responsibilities. No more Mr. Nice Vampire, Claire. You must work, and work constantly, until we get the last security measure of Morganville running properly again. I can provide you with food and drink, but no rest periods. Personally, I think thats excessively cruel, but no one asked me for my opinion, only for my strict cooperation, which I will provide. How many hours have you been awake so far?
Um . . . Claires brain didnt seem to be working so well. About eighteen, I guess.
Unacceptable. Youll make no significant progress before you collapse or go insane. No one said I couldnt let you rest before you start work. Ill get your dinner, and then off to bed with you. Ill wake you at a reasonable hour. Myrnins expression softened, and he looked genuinely sad. Im sorry for this, Claire. But shes trying to walk a razors edge, do you see? Cruel enough to satisfy Oliver and his growing number of supporters, but providing you with an opportunity to redeem yourself and do good for our community. And should you fail, I think she is providing me an opportunity to He must have been about to say something that he shouldnt have, because he stopped, looked away, and shrugged. With an opportunity as well. In any case. Dinner. Do you prefer hamburgers or hot dogs?
Hot dogs made her think of Shane, and that made her want to cry. She knew how he was taking the news; hed be going crazy, and probably trying to do something stupid that Michael and Eve were trying to stop. Hamburger, she said. I guess.
And french fries? And cola? Young people still like those things, I assume?
She nodded, miserable already. Myrnin reached out and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. Chin up, little one, he said. I have faith in you. Well, in us, actually. Ill be back in five minutes. His hand tightened on her, and she looked up into his face. I dont have to tell you what the consequences are if you try to flee while Im gone, do I? I dont have to put you in a cage to be sure?
No, she said. Ill stay.
Good. Because if you do manage to escape, Amelie has issued orders that your friends and your parents are to be immediately arrested, to join that unfortunate stupid boy in his doom. Do you understand?
Claires eyes flooded with hot, angry tears. I understand, she said. I wont run.
I didnt expect you would. But I had to tell you.
She hated him a little bit just then, but he patted her on the shoulder, grabbed his flamboyant hat and cloak, and was up the steps and gone in a vampire flash.
Claire sank down on the dark medieval chair and put her head in her hands. She hadnt realized how tired she was, but her muscles ached, and she could feel a fuzziness in her thoughts that told her she was getting close to the end of her energy. Myrnin had been kind, as much as he could be. Rest would help her get through at least another day, maybe two.
Forty-eight hours, max, before shed start losing focus, making mistakes, failing.
She couldnt fail. She couldnt.
The tears came then, even though she didnt really want them. She didnt know how long she cried, lost in a bleak fog of misery, until the smell of french fries made its way into her nose. She sat up, wiping her eyes, and saw Myrnin standing in front of her in that ridiculous pimp hat. Hed left the cloak somewhere.
He held out a paper bag stained with grease, and a gigantic paper cup with a lid and a straw. She took it and sipped the soda first. Pure, sweet, cold Coke. Somehow, it made her feel a little better.
Follow me, Myrnin said. Eat, then rest.
She got up and followed him through the lab, through one of the doors at the back that was normally kept closed with a gigantic, ancient padlock dangling above the knob. He searched through his pockets and came up with a clumsy-looking iron key, which he used on the lock, and then swung the door open with a flourish. He swept off his hat and bowed, which was so ridiculous Claire almost laughed.
Inside was a little room with a little table, and a very plain cot with clean white sheets. There were lamps, and in the dim light Claire made out tapestries on the walls. Hed put some colorful rugs on the floor, too. It looked oddly . . . nice.
Is this your bedroom? she asked, and turned to look at him. Myrnin straightened and jammed the big red floppy hat back on his head. The feathers waved back and forth.
Dont get any ideas, he said. Im far too young and innocent for that kind of thinking.
He backed out, closed the door, and she heard the lock snap shut. Panic kicked in immediately; no matter how nice it was, this was a prison. Myrnin held the key, and she didnt trust Myrnin to remember tomorrow that she was still here. Claire dumped the food and drink on the table and rushed to the door, banging on the wood. Hey! she yelled. I said I wouldnt run! I promised!
She didnt think hed answer, but he did. Its for your own good, Claire, he said. Eat, rest, and Ill see you in the morning.
No matter how much she shouted after that, he didnt answer.
Claire finally ran out of fury, although the fear seemed there to stay. She went back to the table, sat down, and took out the burger and fries. She didnt really feel hungry until the first bite, and then she was ravenous and ate everything, even the pickles. She was getting sleepy even before finishing the Coke, and had time to wonder what exactly Myrnin had done to her drink, then stumble to the bed, before she collapsed and fell into a deep, dark sleep.
SIX
The next day started with breakfast, provided by Myrnin again. He set it on the table while she was still lying on the bed, blinking at the lights. Claire said, You drugged me.
Well, only a little, he said. He was wearing a violent-looking Hawaiian shirt, all pinks and yellows and neon greens, a pair of checked pants that had probably been ugly when checks were in style, and flip-flops. Did you sleep?
Dont drug me again.
It wouldnt be appropriate in any case. You wont be able to sleep, you know. Not until were finished.
Dont remind me. She got up, stretched, and wished she had fresh clothes. These were wrinkled, and starting to smell funky. Not that Myrnin would notice, probably. Whats for breakfast?
Doughnuts, he said cheerfully. I like doughnuts. And coffee.
Claire was doubtful about the coffee, but hed provided some cream and sugar, and the chocolate-covered doughnut helped wash the taste away anyway. She drank it all, with plenty of sugary bites to help; she was pretty sure shed need all the caffeine she could get.
Breakfast didnt last nearly long enough.
She couldnt have said what made her aware that something had changed; shed developed a kind of sixth sense for these things, being around Myrnin for a while. Maybe it was just that hed fallen silent for what seemed like too long. She looked up and saw him standing in the doorway of the room, watching her with big, liquidly dark eyes that seemed . . . wistful? She wasnt quite sure. He could have moods about the oddest things.
He smiled, just a little, and it seemed very sad. You reminded me of someone just then.
Who?
It wouldnt make you feel better to know that.
She could guess anyway. Ada, she said. You had that thinking-about-Ada look.
I dont know what you mean.
You look like you miss her, Claire said. You do, dont you?
His smile faded, as if he didnt have the strength to hold it anymore. Ada was my friend and colleague for a very long time, he said. And there was . . . a great deal of respect between us. Yes, I miss her. Ive missed her every moment that shes been gone, strange as that may seem to you.
He pushed away from the doorframe, as if he was about to leave. She couldnt stand to see him walk off with that lost expression, so Claire asked, How did you meet her?
That brought him, and the smile, back. It seemed less wistful this time. I heard of her first. She was brilliant, you know. Brilliant and charming and well before her time. She understood the concept of computing machines from the very beginning, but not only thatshe was a student of a great many things, including people. That was how we met. She spotted me in a crowd one night in London, and the next thing I knew she was demanding to know what I was. She could tell, you see. It fascinated her. No surprise, because her father and his friends were the original Gothic crowd, you know. Claire must have looked blank, because he sighed. Really, child. Lord Byron? Percy Shelley? Mary Shelley? John Polidori?
Um . . . Frankenstein?
That would be Marys work, yes. Dr. Polidori became famous for a similarly dark work of fiction . . . about a vampire. So Ada was much more perceptive than one would have thought. And terribly persistent. Before long, we were . . . He stopped himself, looked sharply at her, and said, Close friends.
Im not five.
Very well, then; call it what you like. We became intimate, and well leave this discussion there, I think. He cleared his throat, looked away, and said, Thank you.
She was gathering up her grease-stained doughnut bag, and stopped to stare at him. What for?
For making me think of that, he said softly. I do miss her. I really do. He seemed a little surprised about it, then shook out of it with visible effort. Enough. Let me show you what Ive accomplished while you were out getting yourself in so much trouble.
I didnt
Claire. He gave her a long, reproachful look, and put his finger to his lips. Silence while I am speaking. We dont have time for you to quibble.
He did have a point, sort of. She nodded, and he led her over to the nearest lab table, which held undefined lumps of things under a gray canvas. Myrnin whipped the canvas off like a magician unveiling a trick, complete with, Ta-da!
It looked worse than it had when shed last been here. It looked like a completely insane, random collection of parts, cobbled together without any sense of reason. Wires went everywhere, looping into snarls, and hed used so many colors of wire that the whole thing had a strange rainbow look to it that made even less sense.
There really wasnt much to say, except, What is it?
Oh, Claire, its my latest attempt to bring up the barriers around the town; what do you think it is? Look, I added vacuum pumps here, and here, and a new gear assembly, and
Myrnin, stop. Just . . . stop. She closed her eyes for a second, thinking, Im going to die, and finally forced herself to look at him again. Lets start from the beginning. Wheres the input?
You mean the point at which energy enters the system?
Yes.
Here. He touched something in the middle of the device, which made even less sense. It looked like a funnel made of bright, shiny brass. In fact, it looked almost like a horn.
And then where does the . . . ah, energy go?
Isnt it obvious? No? I weep for the state of public schools. He traced two wires, one that split off into a tangle of tubes, and one that went into what looked like a clock, only there were no numbers on the dial. It draws power during the daytime hours, but its at its most powerful at night, under the influence of the moon, which is why Ive made certain parts of it from elements that resonate with the lunar cycle. I tried to balance the effects of the different elements, day and night, to achieve a perfect oscillation. Its obvious.
If you were insane.
Claire sighed. We need to start over, she said. Just start from scratch and build it again. One thing at a time, and you explain to me what it does, okay?
Theres no need to start over. Ive been perfectly
Myrnin, Claire interrupted. No time to quibble, remember? Its going to take all day to tear this thing apart, but I need to understand what youre doing. Really.
He considered it, looking at her for the longest time, and then grudgingly nodded. Very well, he said. Lets begin.
Autopsying Myrnins mad-scientist machine was weirder than anything Claire had ever done in Morganville, and that was definitely a new record. Some of the parts were slippery, and felt almost . . . alive. Some were ice-cold. Some were hotso hot she burned her fingers on them. Asking why didnt seem to do any good; Myrnin didnt have explanations that she could follow, since they drifted out of science and off into alchemy. But she methodically broke down the machine, labeled each part with a number, and made a diagram as she did of where each thing fit.
For a device that was supposed to establish a kind of detection field around the town limits, and then a second stage that would physically disable vehicles that werent already cleared for exit, and then a third stage that selectively wiped memories, it was . . .
Incomprehensible, really. She could see pieces of what Myrnin was doing; the detection-field part was simple enough. She could even follow the purely mechanical part of how the machine broadcast a shutoff of a vehicles electrical systemwhich led into the more complicated problem of how to rewire peoples brains. But it was all just so . . . weird.
It took hours, but all of a sudden as she was drawing the plug-in for a vacuum pump that felt as if it was radiating cold, although she didnt know how, Claire saw . . . something. It was like a flash of intuition, one of those moments that came to her sometimes when she thought about higher-order physics problems. Not calculation, exactly, not logic. Instinct.
She saw what he was doing, and for that one second, it was beautiful.
Crazy, but in a beautiful kind of way. Like everything Myrnin did, it twisted the basic rules of physics, bent them and reshaped them until they became . . . something else. Hes a genius, she thought. Shed always known that, but this . . . this was something else. Something beyond all his usual tinkering and weirdness.
Its going to work, she said. Her voice sounded odd. She carefully set the vacuum pump in its place on the meticulously labeled canvas sheet.
Myrnin, who was sitting in his armchair with his feet comfortably on a hassock, looked up. He was reading a book through tiny little square spectacles that might have once belonged to Benjamin Franklin. Well, of course its going to work, he said. What did you expect? I do know what Im doing.