Feast of Fools (24 page)

Claire sat down at the kitchen table and paged through numbers on her phone. No answer from Eve's cell, and Michael's rang to voice mail. So did Shane's.

‘‘Hey,'' Claire said when his recorded voice told her to leave her message. ‘‘I'm—I just was hoping I'd see you. You know, this morning. But—look, can you give me a call, please? I want to talk to you. Please.''

She felt so alone that tears prickled her eyes.
The feast. It's today.

Everything was changing.

A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. ‘‘What do you want, Richard?''

Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn't flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn't an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn't pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.

And not in uniform.

‘‘Good question,'' Richard said. ‘‘I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I'll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in.''

‘‘How do I know you're you?''

‘‘What?''

‘‘Ysandre. She—well, let's say I need to be sure it's really you.''

‘‘I had to uncuff you in a girl's bathroom at the university this week. How's that?''

She slid the chain loose and stepped back as he walked in. He looked tired—not as tired as she felt, but then she guessed that wasn't humanly possible, really. ‘‘What do you want?''

‘‘I'm going to this thing tonight,'' he said. ‘‘I figured you'd be going too. I was thinking you might need a ride.''

‘‘I—I'm not going.''

‘‘No?'' Richard looked puzzled by that. ‘‘Funny, I could have sworn you'd be Amelie's first choice to parade around at a thing like this. She's proud of you, you know.''

Proud?
Why on earth would she be proud? ‘‘What, like a pedigreed dog?'' Claire asked bitterly. ‘‘Best in show?''

Richard held up his hands in surrender. ‘‘Whatever, it's none of my business. Where is your gang, anyway? ''

‘‘Why?''

‘‘It's my business to know where the troublemakers are.''

‘‘We're not troublemakers!'' Richard gave her a look. One she had to admit she deserved. ‘‘Your sister's going, you know.''

‘‘Yeah, I know. She's been preening around the house for days. Spent a fortune on that damn costume of hers. Dad's going to kill her if she gets anything on it. I think he's planning to return it.''

Claire waved the fresh coffeepot inquiringly, and Richard nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. She slid a mug over to him, and watched as he sipped. He seemed—different today.
Everything's changing.
Richard seemed more vulnerable, too. He'd always been the steady one, the sane Morrell. Today, he looked barely older than Monica.

‘‘I think something's going to happen,'' Claire said. ‘‘Don't you?''

Richard nodded slowly. There were lines of tension around his eyes, and bags under his eyes big enough to hold changes of clothes. ‘‘This Bishop, he's not like the others,'' he said. ‘‘I met him. I—saw something in him. It's not human, Claire. Not even a little bit. Whatever humanity he ever owned, he sold a long time ago.''

‘‘What are you going to do?''

Richard shrugged. ‘‘What the hell can I do? Stick with my family. Look out for the people of this town. Wish I was a million miles away.'' He was quiet for a few seconds, sipping coffee. ‘‘Thing is, I think we're going to be asked to promise him some kind of loyalty, and I don't think I can do that. I don't think I
want
to do that.''

Claire swallowed. ‘‘Do you have a choice?''

‘‘Probably not. But I'll do my best to keep people safe. That's all I know how to do.'' His eyes skimmed past hers, as if he didn't dare to really look too deeply. ‘‘The others are going, aren't they?''

She nodded.

‘‘Did you know your parents are going?''

Claire gasped, covered her mouth with her hands, and shook her head. ‘‘No,'' she said. ‘‘No, they're not. They can't be.''

‘‘I saw the list,'' Richard said. ‘‘Sorry. I figured you were just on another page. I couldn't believe you were left off. That's good, though, that you can stay home. It's—I think it's going to be dangerous.''

He drained the rest of his coffee and pushed the mug back toward her.

‘‘I'll watch out for your friends and your parents,'' he said. ‘‘As much as I can. You know that, right?''

‘‘You're nice,'' Claire said. She was surprised that she said it out loud, but she meant it. ‘‘You really are, you know.''

Richard smiled at her, and even though she'd developed a partial immunity to hot guys smiling at her, thanks to Shane and Michael, some part of her still went
Oooooooooh.

‘‘I'm hiring you as my press agent,'' Richard said. ‘‘Lock up and stay inside, all right?''

She saw him to the door and dutifully turned all the dead bolts, since he was standing there waiting to hear it. He waved and got back in his police cruiser, and silently backed out of the drive to the street.

Which was, Claire realized, eerily deserted. Morganville was usually active in the afternoons, but here it was prime walking-around time, and she couldn't see a soul out there. Not walking, not driving, not weeding a garden. Even the next-door neighbor had powered down the mower and locked up tight.

It was like everyone just . . . knew.

Claire booted up her laptop and checked her e-mail, which was really more like checking her spam. Today, come-ons from sad Russian girls and Nigerian businessmen desperate to get rid of millions of tax-free dollars didn't amuse her all that much. Neither did random surfing or the
I'm Feeling Lucky
Google feature. She had hours to kill, and her whole body was aching with tension.

Oh, that was way too tempting. Myrnin was work. And work was a great distraction.

Richard told me to lock myself in.
Yeah, but he hadn't said
where
, had he? Myrnin's lab was pretty safe. So was the prison where Myrnin was kept. And at least she'd have company.

‘‘Nope,'' Claire said. ‘‘Can't do it. Too dangerous.''

Except it was still daylight outside. So, not nearly as dangerous as it could be.

The sensible side of her threw up its hands in disgust.
Whatever. Go on, get yourself killed. See if I care.

Claire grabbed a few things and shoved them in the backpack—textbooks, of course, but a couple of novels that she'd been meaning to take to Myrnin, since he was always interested in new things to read.

And a bread knife. Somehow, that seemed like a wise thing to pack, too. She put it in her history textbook, like the world's most dangerous bookmark.

And then, with one last glance around the house, she left.

I hope I come back,
she thought, and turned to look at the house as she fastened the front gate.
I hope we all come back.

She felt like the house was hoping that, too.

It was a long walk to Myrnin's lab, but she wasn't in any danger, except from dying of the creepies. She saw one or two cars, but they were full of frightened, anxious people heading to some safe haven—work, home, school. Nobody else was outside. Nobody else was walking.

Claire followed the twisting streets of Morganville into a run-down older area. At the end of the street sat a duplicate of the Glass House—the Day House, where a lovely old lady named Katherine Day still lived. Today, her battered rocking chair was empty, nodding in the breeze. Claire had been kind of hoping that Gramma Day, or her fiercer granddaughter, would be hanging out; they'd have invited her up to the porch for a lemonade, and tried to talk her out of what she was doing. But if they were home at all, they were inside with the curtains drawn.

Just like everybody else in town.

Claire turned down the dark alley next to the Day House. It was bordered with tall fences, and it got narrower the farther it went. She'd come here by accident the first time, and on purpose ever since, and it still struck her as a terrifying place, even in broad daylight.

Gramma Day had known about Myrnin. She'd called him a trap-door spider.

Gramma Day, in Claire's experience, had been right about a lot of things, and that was one of them. As sweet and kind and gentle as Myrnin could be, when he turned, he turned all the way.

Claire reached the end of the alley, which was a rickety shed barely large enough to qualify as one room. The door was locked with a new, shiny padlock. She dug in her pocket and found her keys.

Inside, the shack wasn't any better—nothing but a square of floor, and steps leading down. What little light there was spilled in through the grimy windows. Claire grabbed a flashlight from the corner—she always kept a supply there—and flicked it on as she descended the steps into Myrnin's lab.

She'd half expected to find Amelie here, or Oliver, or somebody else—but it was just as she'd left it. Deserted and quiet, with only a couple of dim electric lights burning. Claire pushed aside the bookcase that stood against the right-hand wall—it was rigged to move easily—and behind it was a door. It was locked, too, and she got the keys out of the drawer under the journal shelves.

As she was unlocking it, she could have sworn she heard a rustle from the shadows. Claire turned, and felt the stupid impulse to ask who it was; all that stopped her was pure shame, and a determination not to be as stupid as the girls in horror movies. There was nobody here. Not even Oliver.

Instead, she slipped the lock from the door, took a deep breath, and concentrated.

The physics of Myrnin's special doorways still eluded her, although she thought she was beginning to understand the breakthrough he'd made in quantum mechanics. . . . Of course, he didn't look at it scientifically; to him it was magic, or at least alchemy.
You don't have to know how something works to use it,
Claire reminded herself. It irritated her, but she was getting used to the fact that some things were going to be harder to figure out, and anything that had to do with Myrnin definitely fell into that category.

She swung open the door, which led to the prison on the other side of town. She'd looked it up on maps, measured the distance between Myrnin's hidden lab and the abandoned complex. It wasn't possible for there to be a door between the two, unless you seriously twisted the laws of physics as she understood them, but there it was.

And she stepped through and closed the door behind her. There was a hasp on this side of the door, too; she locked it up, just in case her imagination hadn't been running wild and someone was in the lab watching her. They'd have a hell of a time getting through, and with the nature of Myrnin's doorways, they probably wouldn't end up here if they ended up anywhere at all.

‘‘Hi,'' Claire said to the cells as she passed them; she didn't think any of the vampires really understood her, but she always tried to be kind. They couldn't help what they were—whatever that was. Insane, certainly. Some of them less than others, and those were the ones who made her feel sad—the ones who seemed to understand where they were, and why.

Like Myrnin.

Claire stopped in at the refrigerator and picked up supplies of blood packs, which she tossed into the cells from a careful distance away. She saved two for Myrnin, whose cell was at the end of the hall.

He was sitting on the bed, spectacles perched at the end of his nose. He was reading a battered copy of Voltaire.

‘‘Claire,'' he said, and put a faded silk ribbon between the pages to mark his place. He looked up, young and pretty and (today, at least) not entirely crazy. ‘‘I've had the oddest thing happen.''

She pulled up her chair and settled in. ‘‘Which is?''

‘‘I think I'm getting better.''

"I don't think so,'' she said. ‘‘I wish that was true, but—"

He shoved a Tupperware container toward the bars of the cell. ‘‘Here.''

Claire froze, eyeing the container doubtfully. ‘‘Umm . . . what is that?''

‘‘Brain tissue.''

Myrnin adjusted his glasses and looked at her over their tops. ‘‘I said, brain tissue.''

‘‘Whose brain tissue?''

He looked around the cell, eyebrows raised. ‘‘I haven't a lot of volunteers in easy reach, you know.''

Claire had a horrible thought. She couldn't actually bring herself to say it.

Myrnin gave her an evil smile.

‘‘We are testing the serum, are we not? And so far, I am the only test subject?''

‘‘That's
brain tissue.
How can you—?'' Claire shut her mouth, fast. ‘‘Never mind. I don't think I want to know.''

‘‘Truly, I think that's best. Please take it.'' He showed his teeth briefly in a very unsettling grin. ‘‘I'm giving you a piece of my mind.''

‘‘I
so
wish you hadn't said that.'' She shuddered, but she ventured close enough to the bars to fish out the container. Yes, that looked . . . gray. And biological. She checked to be sure that the top was firmly fastened, and stuck it in her backpack. ‘‘What makes you think you're getting better?''