Nobody had said so, but it had seemed obvious from her conversation with the police that the decision the vampires were considering about the strangers had two outcomes: wiping their memories and dumping them out of town somewhere, or planting them somewhere deep, where no one would ever find the bodies. If they were still here, it was almost as if Amelie (or Oliver) had decided to toy with them, with no intention of letting them ever leave town alive.
Despite herself, Claire admired the ghost hunters' determination, a little. She recognized the curiosity, and the blind stubbornness; she had loads of that in her own character. She hated to see them punished for it.
But that, like so much in Morganville, was probably out of her hands.
Claire's adrenaline had finally stopped buzzing in her ears by the time she walked up the steps to the front door of the Glass House, and luckily, it seemed there was no emergency in progress. There was lunch being contemplated, and as she walked into the kitchen, Eve, Michael, and Shane were arguing the relative merits of hot dogs versus gril ing hamburgers outside.
"Hot dogs are faster," Michael pointed out. "Microwave."
"Ugh, that's disgusting. Also, we don't make mac and cheese in there, either. That's just wrong," Eve said, and poured herself a tal glass of Coke. "Hey, col ege girl. Drinky?"
"Yes." Claire col apsed into a chair at the kitchen table. Eve gave her a quick look that let her know she'd picked up on her tension, then got down another glass from the cabinet. "The Apocalypse must be near, because a guy is arguing against gril ing. That's just un-Texan, Michael."
"Vampire," he pointed out. "If I went out there, the only thing barbecuing would be me. And hot dogs are all-American. all-American trumps Texan."
"You're brainwashed by commercials about cars and basebal ," Eve shot back, and handed Claire a fizzing glass. "Hot dogs are made of pig butts and the parts nobody in his right mind would eat. Yes, I used to like them. Don't judge me, okay?"
Shane was clearly Team Gril ; he'd already gotten out the burger-flipping utensils and put them on the counter, and now he was digging sauces out of the fridge. "We're not even having this discussion," he said. "Eve's unemployed. The least she can do is help me gril burgers. And you two can chop veg-" He paused, looking straight at Claire. "What the hel happened?"
"Monica got creamed in the election?"
"We'l throw the party later. And?"
She really didn't want to say it. "I saw Jason. He was kind of...attacking people. So I stopped him. By the way, the silver pepper spray? Works great."
Eve had gone completely still . She stared at Claire for a moment, then said quietly, "Is he okay?"
"I didn't get him too badly. He's okay. Just less bitey for a while. Eve-he's not, ah-"
"Not wound too tight," Eve supplied, and lowered her gaze to fix on the bubbles in her Coke. "Yeah, copy that. He's always been off. You know that."
Off didn't really describe the feeling she'd had with Jason today. "I think it's worse than that," she said, as gently as she could. "He's really- vicious."
Michael stepped in, then. "It's not unexpected that would happen," he said. "Look, becoming a vampire-it's complicated, what it does to you, but it does kind of amplify whatever bad impulses you already had. It's tough to hang on to the good stuff, but easy as hel to bring the bad with you. I knew he'd be..." Michael shook his head. "Anyway. I'll let Oliver know. He's in charge of Jason."
"From what Oliver's doing now, he won't really care," Claire said. "He's gone a little power crazy. You might have noticed."
"Okay, so Jason Rosser is evil, and Oliver's power hungry. This is not breaking news that should keep us from gril ing burgers," Shane said.
"Can I get an amen?"
Eve and Michael chimed in, but Claire kept her head down. She was feeling pretty low. She'd spent a lot of energy this morning running down the portals and coming up empty, and then there had been the excitement of the rally, and Jason.... She was drained-not even hungry, actually, which was surprising.
She was also worried, really worried, about Myrnin. She'd thought that by now she'd have gotten some word from him. Bob was sitting upstairs in her room, contentedly spinning webs around flies that she'd caught for him, and she couldn't believe that even at his craziest, Myrnin would have left his pet to starve. He was careless of assistants, but never of his spider.
So...where was he? And if he couldn't communicate, how was she supposed to even begin to find him? It made her head hurt, and her stomach churn, and suddenly allshe wanted was to finish her cold, sweet soda and crawl upstairs to sleep.
"Hey," Michael said as he took out tomatoes, lettuce, onions and pickles from the refrigerator. "Hand me a knife, would you?"
She pulled one off the magnetic strip Shane had instal ed on the wal -easier access, he'd said, in case it came down to that kind of a fight.
Shane always thought ahead that way. She gave the blade to Michael without comment and watched as he chopped stuff up. He was neat, fast, and accurate. Vampire senses apparently made for great prep cooks. "Michael," she said as he finished slicing pickles into quarters, "do you know what bloodline Myrnin comes from?"
"I'm guessing you don't mean Welsh," he said. "Vampire bloodline?"
She nodded.
"No. Why?"
"Because I need to track him, and I remember Naomi could, you know, drink a sample of another vampire's bloodline to find him. She did it with Theo. Maybe-maybe you could do it to find Myrnin?"
"Maybe," Michael said, but he sounded doubtful. "I heard there's a blood record somewhere, but I have no idea where it is. Or if Myrnin's in it.
From what I heard, he's the only one still living out of his line. It's pretty ancient, and he didn't make any others who survived long, so there may not be a record."
"But could you ask? Maybe look around? I need to find him, Michael. I think-I think he's in trouble."
"Why?" He put down the knife and looked at her directly. "Did he say something?"
"Only that he didn't like the way things were going in town," she admitted. "And that he was planning to leave. But you know how he is. I don't think he really would have run away. Not like that. You saw the lab!"
He shrugged. "The lab's always a mess; you know that. It's impossible to tel whether there was a struggle, or he just didn't like the latest newspaper he read and decided to trash the place."
"He left Bob! And how did Pennyfeather get in? He didn't have authorization."
"You don't know that. And maybe he just forgot about Bob. It's not like he's an exciting pet."
"Bob's cool, and Myrnin loves him like any other pet. He'd never just abandon him to starve," Claire said. "But...I just have the feeling, okay? So would you? For me?"
Michael ruffled her hair. "Yeah, sure. For you. Here. Chop some onions."
"Hey!"
"Consider it prepayment."
Lunch cheered her up-as did Michael's promise-and Claire actually enjoyed the burgers, which Shane had cooked pretty much to perfection.
Eve and Shane got into it over the age-old mustard versus mayonnaise debate, but they had a nice time, even with that controversy devolving to tossing packets of condiment at each other. Even better, since it was Shane's turn to clean up.
After lunch, Claire went upstairs to her room while Michael and Shane settled in to try out a new first-person shooter game, and Eve shopped online; she stretched out on the bed and fel immediately, deeply asleep.
For a while she was too tired to dream, but finally she dreamed, and it was...odd.
At first, she didn't really understand. She was someplace dark and very, very quiet, except for the steady hiss of water dripping. She was cold and felt a gnawing, desperate hunger.
Then she heard a voice out of that dark whisper, "Claire?" It was as if she were torn out of her body and thrown violently up through the dark in a blur, and everything in her wanted to scream but she didn't actually have lungs or a body to use to do that, only a pure, condensed feeling of real terror....
And from a great height, she looked down into a very deep, narrow pit, and far below, a starkly pale face upturned to her in the moonlight.
The voice.
It had sounded like Myrnin's voice, but it couldn't have been; it couldn't. There was no sense to this dream, because what would Myrnin be doing at the bottom of a hole, and why wouldn't he just jump out?