She didn't want to leave Eve, but he was right; it was important. Pete seemed rooted to the spot, staring at the completely unexpected second vampire in his living room; he seemed to be rethinking his whole life strategy, in that single moment.
'Go,' Eve whispered. 'I'm okay.' She stood on her own, somehow, and Claire squeezed her arm and rushed to the door to look through the peephole.
There was a streetlight conveniently situated outside that cast a harsh glow over the sidewalk, which seemed deserted except for Jesse's car, parked across the street. The peephole didn't offer much of a glimpse off to the sides, but Claire was pretty certain that everything was clear. She turned back and gave a thumbs-up sign to Shane, who nodded and looked down at Michael again with tense, desperately still silence.
Then the door behind Claire's back vibrated under a sudden, very strong volley of knocking. Too strong. Claire yelped and whipped around to stare out the peephole again, and saw a pallid face under a shock of wildly windblown black hair. No human being was naturally that pale.
She unlocked it and said, 'Get in, quick!' because it was Myrnin ... and behind him, Oliver.
The two vampires entered in a rush of displaced air, and Oliver quickly shut and locked the door again. He leant against it, seeming tired - weirdly - and Claire had a chance to think, Why is Oliver here? Because even though he'd been exiled from Morganville by Amelie, she didn't think he had any reason to be poking around this part of the country. Oliver looked ragged, too - and dressed down, in worn blue jeans grimy with oil, a faded, loose T-shirt with some kind of wolf design on it, and his long, salt-and-pepper curly hair worn in a loose, sloppy ponytail in back. It didn't seem to have had a wash recently. Neither did he.
And Myrnin ... well, at least he wasn't dressed any worse than he usually was, but he seemed very pale, and not any cleaner than Oliver. They'd both been travelling hard, she guessed, although vampires didn't really smell bad, unless they came in contact with things that did. From the general miasma around the two of them, they'd been around rotting garbage for a while.
Myrnin stared at her for a long few seconds, then scraped his disorderly hair back from his face, and said, 'They don't have you, then. But do they have it?'
'It? What does that mean?' Claire asked. He didn't answer her. He just hugged her, suddenly and violently, and before she could even make a surprised sound he was gone. It was like being hugged by a snowman, only less ... moist. And more unpleasantly fragrant.
Oliver said, 'We went to see Irene Anderson. Myrnin has a good relationship with her, even now. However, she was ... unhelpful. She had no idea where you had gone, only that you had taken the device with you from her laboratory.'
'I - wait, what? I didn't take anything!'
'Oh,' Myrnin said, and turned back toward her from where he stood next to Eve. 'Oh, that is such very, very bad news. Because if you didn't, someone did. Someone with laboratory access, since I personally reviewed the records.'
Myrnin sounded ... sane. Despite the tangled hair, the dirty homeless-style clothes, the smell of garbage and the whiff of things much worse. He looked taut, worried and paranoid, but not crazy.
So, things were very, very bad, then. Claire sometimes thought of him as only recreationally crazy; when things were life and death, her boss (and friend) seemed to make a concerted effort to view things with icy precision. He paid for it later, but she'd never been less than grateful to him for making the effort.
'You're saying someone broke into Dr Anderson's lab and took VLAD.'
His eyebrows rose. 'VLAD?'
'The - the device. Vampire Levelling Adjustment Device.' She realised, belatedly, that Oliver, who was decidedly not in her inner circle of people she trusted, was listening, but he refrained from comment. His attention was fixed on Michael, as if he actually cared.
Which, knowing Oliver, he actually might, though he'd no doubt deny it.
She was almost sure Myrnin would glower at her for naming her pet project after a famous vampire - Vlad Tepes, commonly thought to be the historical inspiration for Count Dracula - but he only shook his head in impatience. 'We must go, and quickly. We can't stay here,' Myrnin said. 'Oliver and I are being hunted.'
'By who?'
'Whom, my dear girl, whom, grammar really has descended to the lowest-'
'Myrnin!'
'I have no idea.' His tone was flat, and there were dangerous embers of red in his eyes. 'When I do, there will be reckoning for Michael.'
'He took a blow meant for me,' Oliver said. 'Stupid. I could likely have avoided it if he'd given me the chance.'
That made Eve spin around and level him with a white-hot glare. 'Likely? Likely? You ass**le, he saved your life!'
Normally, having a human use that tone with him would have made Oliver snarl, show fangs and 'teach her a lesson'... but he did none of that. He only looked away, and Eve glared a moment more before kneeling down at Michael's side and taking his limp, pallid hand in hers.
'He feels cold,' she told Jesse. 'Please, if you're going to do something-'
'I'm thinking,' Jesse snapped. 'Just quiet, all of you. I've only seen this twice before.'
'What happened?' Shane asked. 'The other two times?'
She didn't answer, which meant, Claire thought with a cold shiver, that the vampires who'd had those stakes in their hearts likely hadn't survived.
Jesse finally said, 'Right. There's no safe way to disarm it. Oliver, I need you.'
He didn't move until she turned her head, frowning at him, and then moved to Michael's side. 'Yes?'
'You're faster and stronger than I am,' Jesse said. She didn't say it as a compliment, just a simple statement of fact. 'I need you to pull that stake out, straight and as fast as you can. I will put my hand over the wound in case the silver triggers; I may be able to stop it from entering his bloodstream.'
'At the cost of your hand,' he pointed out.
'No other choice,' Jesse said. 'I'm old enough. I can survive. Daylighters haven't killed me yet.'
Claire held her breath as Oliver nodded, reached down, and took hold of the stake. He locked his gaze with Jesse's, and she counted down. Three, two, one.
On one, Oliver moved in a blur, faster than the human eye could catch, and Jesse's hand slapped in place, covering the still-open wound as the wooden stake pulled free. Or at least, that was what Claire presumed happened, because she didn't actually see it, only Jesse's hand on Michael's chest, and the stake moving at bullet speed to hit and shatter on the far brick wall.
It splattered liquid silver all over the wall.
Jesse didn't move, though she made a sound - a small one, in the back of her throat. And then Claire realised why.
Her hand was covered in silver. Dripping with it. And she couldn't move until Michael's wound healed, or he'd be poisoned, and at his young age, likely die quickly.
Her hand was burning. Sizzling. Claire clapped her hand over her mouth to hold in the nausea as she saw skin erode and tendons working beneath, and still Jesse sat very still, unmoving, pale as a marble statue.
'I think it's closed,' Jesse finally whispered, and just ... collapsed. Oliver moved, but - surprisingly, Claire thought - Myrnin was already there, grabbing her as she fell backward and easing her to the colourful area rug beneath.
Eve threw herself forward and frantically checked Michael's pale chest for any sign of damage. 'He's okay,' she said. 'Michael? Michael!'
He opened his blue eyes, blinked, and said, 'Eve?' His voice was shockingly faint, but he was alive.
Myrnin fumbled in the pockets of his oversized coat - there were a lot of pockets, some flapping loose - and brought out a small stoppered vial of powder. He supported Jesse's head and shoulders on his knees as he pulled the cork with his teeth and emptied the powder over her burning hand.
She cried out and arched up into the air, and he held on to her as she writhed and fought. 'Easy, dear lady, easy, it will stop, the pain will stop, it will halt the silver and heal your wound, though the scars may take some time - easy, Lady Grey, be easy ...'
Lady Grey? He knew Jesse - well, of course, he would, wouldn't he? Because she'd been sent by Amelie from Morganville in the first place. Still. Claire blinked, because she'd never seen Myrnin act quite so ... gentle. Or so formal. And Jesse let out a long, trembling breath and smiled up at him. Whatever he'd given her had worked. The damage was still pretty serious, but from the smile, and the way its wattage increased second by second, the pain was subsiding. Myrnin put his hand on her cheek in a small, comforting caress - something Claire couldn't remember him doing before. Not quite that way.
'Well,' Jesse said, with a lilt in her voice that hadn't been there before. 'It's a rare sweet day that brings you out of your cave, little spider.'