Bite Club

“Myrnin, this is serious. Amelie could kill him, if she gets her hands on him first, and it’s not his fault. It’s Gloriana. Shane wouldn’t do these things, say the things he’s said…not unless someone was manipulating him. I know him.”

“And Michael’s just trying to help him,” Eve put in. “You can’t let Michael get hurt, can you?”

“Dear girls, I can let anyone get hurt, because in my world, my safety and well-being come first,” he said. “I thought you knew that by now.”

“I was hoping that I was wrong,” Claire said. Her mind was racing, and all of a sudden, she knew just how to get Myrnin to help, after all. She made sure her voice sounded uncaring as she continued, “But, anyway, we don’t need you, Myrnin. We need Frank.”

“Frank,” Myrnin repeated, frowning. Over his shoulder, Claire saw Frank’s image flicker into black and white. He didn’t smile, and there was something in his computer-generated expression that made her nervous. “No, I shall not allow Frank to help you, either. This is very dangerous territory. Amelie and Oliver have their plans, and you shouldn’t get in the way. Not for your lives’ sake.”

“Look, I don’t care about the risk,” Claire said. “We’re finding Shane and Michael, and we’re going to get them out of there before they get hurt worse than they already have been. We have to do this now.”

“It’s too late.” Frank’s voice came from the speakers of her phone, Eve’s phone, the radios positioned around the room. It was toneless and dark, and Claire felt all her resolve and energy go cold in its wake. “I’m sorry, kids, but when that first Web site got hacked, they moved to a secondary location. I can see it, but I can’t track it. I don’t think they had time to do the full encryption, but they did enough. I do have one piece of information that could help, though….”

“Frank, be quiet,” Myrnin said. “I didn’t give you permission to—”

“Don’t make me say nasty things in front of the juveniles,” Frank said, “because I’m not your dog, crazy man. You plugged me in, Myrnin. You don’t get to shut me up now.”

“We’ll see about that. I can very easily shut you down, you know.”

“And sacrifice all the security protocols around the town, now? How do you think Amelie would feel about that? I’m guessing she wouldn’t be too thrilled, what with the risk of Bishop getting away undetected.” Frank’s image drifted closer to Myrnin and flickered unsteadily, as if he was having trouble keeping control of it. “He’s my son, Myrnin. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it does to me. And I’m going to help, no matter what you say. If you want to pull my plug, go for it. I always said I’d be better off dead.”

Myrnin’s lips parted, then closed. He made a frustrated gesture and stalked away, arms folded, back stiff. “Do what you wish,” he said. “My hands are clean.”

“Yeah? How long did it take you to wash off a thousand years of blood?” Frank returned his focus to Claire. “I got an open IP address during the switch over, just for a second, and it routed through a private computer right here in Morganville. Happens to be a guy I know. It was one of the names I gave Myrnin when we first started talking about this.”

“Who is it?”

“Harry Anderson, small-time thief and hacker, big-time idiot. If Harry had a motto, it would be ‘Anything for a buck.’ He’s good with computers, but bad with staying out of trouble. I pulled him out of the fire a couple of times when he almost got his head taken off. Literally. The good news is that Harry’s got the backbone of a bacteria. Go get him.”

“Awesome,” Eve said. “Lock and load. What’s the address?”

Myrnin sighed and buried his hands in his hair, tugging at it like a crazy man. “You’re actually going to do this foolish thing. Why can’t you just stay out of it? Amelie said—”

“Do you always do what Amelie says?” Claire asked, and grabbed her black canvas bag.

“Yes.” He thought about it. “Almost always. Or, well, occasionally, when it suits me. But the point is that it suits me this time.”

“I try to do what people say, if they have good reasons, but Amelie doesn’t have a good reason. I don’t intend to let her kill Shane just because she’s in a bad mood and has some ancient feud going with a bunch of other vampires.”

Myrnin shrugged. “All right. But don’t ask me for any help.”

Claire smiled. She knew what she was doing now; Myrnin was actually pretty easy, once you figured out how competitive he was with Frank. “I won’t. I don’t need it. Frank’s already given us what we want.”

That made him give her a strangely hurt look. “I would be useful, you know. I can scare people quite easily when I want to. It’s a valuable skill. Frank can’t do that.”

“We’re going to get what we need,” Eve said. “And we don’t need a vampire to make it happen, either.”

“But it would, in fact, make things easier.”

“I said we didn’t need you,” Claire said. “And you said you didn’t want to help. So you don’t have to come with us now.”

He pulled himself up with great dignity. “I never said I wanted to!”

“Doesn’t matter what you say. You’re not coming.”

“Why not? Provided I had any desire, which I don’t.”

Eve shook her head. “Where do you want me to start? You’re nuts, and you just told us you’re not interested in saving Shane and Michael. So why should we bother with you? What’s the point?”

Myrnin turned his back on her and looked at Claire. “And you don’t think you need me?”

Claire looked him over. He was reasonably action hero today, with a long, black velvet coat and a turquoise vest and some kind of dark red shirt beneath that. If you liked your action heroes from the late 1800s, at least. “If you go, you do exactly what we say. And no running off to tell Amelie.”

“I don’t like that last bit.”

“You don’t have to. Take it or leave it.”

He shrugged. “I’ll take it, then. Stay here. I will get my things.”

He left, heading for the room at the rear of the lab that doubled as his bedroom, supposing that Myrnin ever actually slept. “Things?” Eve said. “He has things?”

“Probably lots of them,” Claire said. “He invents them in his spare time.”

Sure enough, when Myrnin came back, he was carrying a bag just a little bit bigger than the ones Eve and Claire carried. His was also black, with a popular swoosh-y logo on the side. Just do it, Claire thought. Well, that made sense for Myrnin, mostly because he rarely thought things through, anyway, unless they were mechanical and mathematical.

“What’s in the bag?” Eve asked. “Your bunny slippers?”

Myrnin hefted it to his shoulder and said, “A projectile weapon that fires silver aero-dispersant cartridges, among other things.”

“I don’t understand what you just said.”

“Like tear gas, but with powdered silver,” Claire said. “Airborne. Right?”

“Exactly so. I have several things I’d like to try.” He seemed gruesomely enthusiastic about that, actually. “I so rarely have the chance to field-test anything. Amelie is so conservative about these things.”

“No kidding,” Eve said. “Holla.”

Myrnin’s eyes widened. He looked at Claire, who shrugged. “She agrees,” she said. Eve started for the stairs, and Myrnin moved to follow, but Claire held him back. “Wait. You’d better not be following us and reporting back to anybody else.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I am not a—what do you call it? Snark?”

“Narc. Or snitch.”

“I would tell you quite honestly if I intended to betray you to Amelie,” he said, and his luminous black eyes locked onto hers. “I’m not as fond of your friend Shane, but I will help you. For one thing, I don’t like it that Gloriana has such a hold on this town, or that Bishop is at large. These things can’t end well for anyone. I’d rather take them on now than risk Amelie coming to harm.”

It was the first time she’d heard Myrnin say anything about Amelie that she could interpret as friendship. Claire said, frowning, “Because you care about her?”

“Well, that, of course, but I can’t see Oliver supporting my research nearly as thoroughly. Can you? He