Carpe Corpus

Claire went straight for the statue.

When Bishop emerged from the library, there was no sign of Michael. He paused on the steps, and he must have realized that two of the three of them were obvious decoys—but which two? Claire was betting that he’d assume she’d switched books with Shane.

She guessed right. Bishop jumped off of the stairs to the grass, and headed at a run after Shane. That gave Claire precious time to reach the stone rim of the fountain, climb over, and get to the eternal flame of knowledge —which was just a gas jet, really.

That was all she needed.

Claire pulled the book from her pocket and held it over the flame. Yes. Finally.

“Hey!” she distantly heard Eve shouting. “Hey, Bishop! Tag!” When she looked up, Eve was jumping up and down, waving her leather-bound book like a demented Goth cheerleader.

Bishop ignored her.

Shane zigzagged, doing the best broken field running Claire had seen outside of a football field, but Bishop was faster and more agile, and he cut him off and bowled Shane over.

Claire looked at the book in her hand.

It wasn’t burning. She frantically turned it, trying the side with the gilded pages. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she yelped, and kept trying.

It wouldn’t even scorch.

Bishop took the book from Shane, examined it, and flung it away in disgust. He headed straight for Claire. Eve saw him coming, and got to Claire first, leaping over the rim of the fountain and skidding to a halt. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, panting. “Burn the damn thing already!”

“Trying!” Claire gritted out, and out of desperation, grabbed a handful of paper in the middle of the book and twisted.

The pages ripped out. When she held them out over the flames, they immediately caught like flash paper.

“Yes!” Eve cheered and jumped up and down, pumping her fists. “Go!”

Claire tore loose more pages and flung them into the fire.

Bishop landed flat-footed in front of her, red-eyed and growling, and backhanded Eve as she tried to get between him and Claire.

Claire ripped more pages and burned them. She’d done about half the book.

“You evil little beast,” Bishop said, and held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

She ripped pages and backed away, dodging around the other side of the brazier. Most of the paper made it to the fire. What didn’t drifted lazily around her feet in the breeze. Sparks drifted on the wind and landed on her clothes.

Bishop lunged for her as she tore more pages free. She thrust the handful into the fire a second before he hit her, driving her back against his bronze statue. She landed hard enough to make the metal ring, not to mention her ears.

Bishop reached out to take the ragged remains of his book.

A shadow flashed by them, barely visible in the moonlight, and then Claire felt the statue shake as something leaped on top.

Myrnin, sitting on the shoulders of Bishop’s statue, reached down and plucked the book from Claire’s hand an instant before Bishop grabbed it. “Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “Don’t be rude, old man. This was never yours in the first place.” He ripped loose a page, balled it up, and pitched it neatly into the brazier, where it burst into flame and was consumed. “Leave the girl alone. You’re finished now.”

Bishop grabbed Claire and pulled her against his chest, claws out and at her throat. “Give me the book or I kill her!”

“Oh, go ahead, then,” Myrnin said, and ripped loose the last handful of pages. He studied the writing on them and smiled. “I remember this. Good times. Ah, well.” He flung them toward the fire. Bishop desperately grabbed at one of the fluttering leaves and managed to pluck it out of the air before it caught fire. “Oh, dear. Now you have a memoir of my secret relationship with Queen Elizabeth. The first one. I hope it does you a lot of good, Bishop. If you’re seeking spells and magic, you won’t find it on that page. Now, this one . . .” Myrnin produced, by sleight of hand, another sheet, neatly folded. “This one could easily give you rule of Morganville. Maybe even the entire human world. I promised Amelie I would never let it fall into evil hands, but then again, it’s in mine already, isn’t it? So that might already be a moot point.” He lost his smile. “Let the girl go, and you shall have it.”

“Myrnin, don’t,” she whispered.

“I’m not doing it for you,” he said. He quickly folded the paper into a toy airplane and sailed it toward Bishop, who snatched it out of the air with a greedy cry.

Myrnin’s eyes flickered bright red. “Oh dear,” he said. “I might have given you the wrong page. Ardentia verba!”

The page burst into purple fire, and it traveled from the page through Bishop’s skin, over his hand, onto his clothes. The paper was ash in seconds. Bishop staggered back, engulfed in fire.

Myrnin reached down and grabbed Claire. He pulled her up and settled her safely on the metal arm of Bishop’s statue—the one holding the open book.

“The goal of the wise,” Myrnin said softly, “is good works. Here endeth your lesson, old man.”

Claire swallowed. She couldn’t stand to watch him burn, and shut her eyes. “I thought . . . I thought we needed his blood for the cure,” she said. She didn’t want to save him. She just hated to see anyone suffer.

“Why, you’re right—we do.” Myrnin snapped his fingers, and the purple fire went out. Bishop toppled to the stone floor of the empty fountain, too weak to escape.

Myrnin jumped down from the statue, pinned Bishop to the ground, and bit him. He didn’t drain him—not quite—and rose, wiping blood from his lips. “I’ve got all his blood I need,” he said. “Now I have something for you, Bishop. Don’t worry—I won’t kill you. I won’t even allow you to die.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another syringe, this one filled with blood. He injected Bishop with it, straight into the heart. “My blood,” Myrnin said. “Before you cured me. Now I hope you can enjoy a long, slow decline into madness, just like mine. I wish you the joy of it.”

Bishop didn’t move. He blinked up at the moon, the cold stars, and finally closed his eyes.

Not dead, though.

Claire wasn’t sure that was a great idea.

“Hey,” Eve said, and sat up, holding her head. “Ow. What is that smell—Oh. Is he—”

“No,” Michael said, and stepped over the rim to help Eve to her feet. “He’s alive.” He looked up at Claire and smiled, and it was a full-on Michael Glass special smile, one that turned on the sun and made the stars dance. “We’re all alive.”

“Relatively speaking,” Myrnin said. “Ah. Your white knight has arrived. A bit dinged, but intact.”

Shane. He was more than a little dinged, but Claire knew he’d be okay with that. They’d all given up hope of coming out of this alive, at some point; she could see in his smile, like Michael’s, the joy of being wrong.

“Wish I had a camera,” Shane said, staring up at her. “Is this some kind of college thing? Like flagpole sitting or something?”

“Shut up,” she said, and jumped.

He caught her.

The kiss was worth the fall.

Two days passed in a blur. Claire spent most of it sleeping; she’d never felt so exhausted, or so glad to simply be alive.

On the third day, when she came down for dinner, she found the others sharing a massive platter of chili dogs and looking somber. Shane stood up when he saw her, which made her heart turn cartwheels, and he pulled out her chair. Eve and Michael shared an amused look.

“So cute,” Eve said. When Shane glared, she smiled. “No, really. It is. Dude, chill.”

There was something forced about it, and Claire didn’t know why; she didn’t get the sense that she’d walked in on an argument or anything like that. “What’s going on?” she asked as she loaded her plate with a couple of hot dogs. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. She’d just gotten used to the idea of not being marked for death.