Black Dawn

I’m in vampire central, Claire thought. She wasn’t used to being constantly surrounded by the nonbreathing sort of people; most of the time it was just her, Shane, Eve … and she never really thought of Michael as a vampire, much. Myrnin was familiar, but she never forgot how sharp his fangs were, either. She was with Theo, had just come from Oliver, and now there was Myrnin, and she was starting to feel a little like a hamburger at a dieters’ convention. Nobody was likely to snack on her, but absolutely everybody noticed she was edible.

Myrnin was, not surprisingly, dressed weirdly. Well, not weirdly for him, but Theo’s old-fashioned suit jacket and pants were positively wallpaper by comparison. Myrnin had dragged out the Hawaiian shirts again; today’s was neon yellow, with palm trees and surfboards. He was also wearing baggy knee-length shorts, which left his legs looking … pale. Very, very pale.

He’d actually matched the whole thing with sandals this time, instead of bunny slippers, which indicated a certain razor-sharp focus in his thinking, the coffee confusion notwithstanding. He set the cup and saucer down empty with a rattle as his gaze focused on Claire.

“How is Amelie?” he asked, moving from her to Theo. “Oh, and hello, glad you’re not dead, Doctor.”

“Likewise,” Theo said pleasantly. “But she is not well, my friend. As you no doubt already know.”

“You were up all night,” Claire said. “I saw the weapons room. How long did all that take you?”

Myrnin flipped a hand impatiently, pushing the whole question, and her concern, aside. “Weapons are simple,” he said. “I’ve set up a workshop for them, and I’ve put Amelie’s bully boys to work, as well as a few human … volunteers, from the prisons. We have more important concerns than that, if we are to save ourselves. Defense alone won’t work. We need to launch an offensive operation.”

Myrnin was talking like a soldier. Myrnin. Claire looked at him doubtfully. “Have you, ah, talked to Oliver?”

“Yes,” Myrnin said. “He thinks I am insane.”

That did not bode well, not at all. “Ah … okay. Let me … get back to you.”

He put his hand on her arm and said very seriously, “I am not exaggerating when I tell you that if we do not take a more aggressive and scientific approach to this problem, we lose the rest of the town, and we will all die. Do you understand me? We cannot hold here unless we plan our moves now, in detail.”

“And Oliver’s not giving you help, if things are that bad?”

“Oliver has his own concerns, and just now those revolve around Amelie. While I have no such constraints, dear as she may be to me. Gather your friends and I will show you why I have such concerns. Please.” He turned to Theo then. “And you, good doctor, could be quite the asset as well.”

But Theo was already shaking his head. “Quite impossible,” he said. “Naomi is very ill, and I must see to her immediately. Dragoon someone else, Myrnin.” He walked to one of the guards who had just entered the room—it was Billy Idol—and they exchanged words. Billy Idol pointed a spike-braceleted arm down one of the spoke hallways, and Theo left without a backward glance.

“Claire? Please.”

When Myrnin asked like that, with those dark, puppy-dog eyes pleading his case, she couldn’t really do much except nod. “I’ll find them,” she said, “and then you’re going to explain this. In detail. And you’d better not be wasting our time.”

“True, there is no time to waste,” he agreed, and picked up his cup and saucer again. “There is a shocking lack of tea in this array of choices, do you realize that? Also, the carafe of type O is quite empty.”

Claire gave him a wordless stare and headed for the door.

“But the AB is still warm. Lovely.”

Claire shuddered and reached for the knob of the door, but it twisted before she touched it, and opened to admit Shane. “Hey,” he said, and the warmth she felt at his brief smile was out of all proportion to the moment. “Where’s Theo? Naomi’s looking pretty bad.”

“He just headed that way,” she said.

His dark gaze stayed on hers. “And Amelie?”

“They wouldn’t let me see her,” Claire said. “Which I think we both know means she’s not doing all that well.”

He nodded slowly, his face settling into grim, hard-edged lines. “Oliver takes over, we’re long-term screwed, you know that. Maybe we win against the draug, but what happens then? He’s old-school vamp, with old-school ideas about how humans ought to behave.”

She couldn’t really dispute that, not at all, and it gave her a sick, rolling feeling in her stomach. She hoped that Shane couldn’t see where Oliver had hit her, because if he did, the human/vampire war wouldn’t even be that far off. But luckily, he didn’t see it—or if he did, he must have assumed it was due to all their running, jumping, and fighting the night before. Not unreasonably.

“Where are your friends?” Myrnin asked, as he sipped on whatever blood type was in his coffee cup. “Michael and Shreve.”

“Eve.”

“Yes, yes, that one.” He flipped a hand impatiently. “Get them.”

“Eve’s not here,” Shane said. When Claire sent him a startled look, he shrugged. “I asked. She took about a dozen vampires, got Oliver’s approval, and went out to set up weapons caches at different places around town. She’s not back yet.”

“Did Michael go with her?”

He didn’t say anything, but she knew all too well what that meant—even before Michael came walking in, looking rumpled, tired, and about as depressed as she’d ever seen him. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he walked over to the center table and tested the carafes.

“That’s AB,” Myrnin said helpfully. “It’s still warm. Oh, and there’s a hint of sweetness in it. High triglycerides. I think the donor needed a bit of medication.”

“Are you high?” Michael asked him, in a totally colorless voice.

Myrnin blinked, and looked at Claire for help. “He means, are you on drugs.”

“Well, obviously.”

“More than usual?”

“Oh. No, no, just the usual doses. And where is Shreve?”

“Eve,” they all said in unison, and exchanged a look. Well, Shane and Claire did, and Michael made a fast- aborted effort at it. Shane licked his lips and continued, “She’s out.”

“Of the building?” Michael asked, still in that same nothing voice.

“Yeah. She’s got escorts, though.” That sounded weak, even from Shane, and he clearly didn’t know where to take it from there. “I mean, I’m sure she’s okay and everything.”

Michael just nodded. He looked tight and grim, and he sipped his cup of blood as if he really didn’t want it at all. Myrnin looked from him to the others, eyebrows going up and down as if he was about to blurt out a question that none of them wanted to answer, and then shrugged. “Very well,” he said, “evidently there is some difficulty that I really don’t care about, and is no doubt quite dramatic. Does anyone else care for coffee?”

Claire glanced at the red-stained cups he and Theo had left, and shuddered. “No, thanks.”

Shane clearly decided a change of subject was in order. He turned his most harassed expression on Michael. “Bro,” he said, in an injured tone, “I had to go out with a flamethrower, and you weren’t there to see it.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen.”

“Dude, little busy for pics. You know, throwing flame.”

That earned a glance up, and a brief grin, and some of the tension leaked out of Michael’s body language … but not all. And the grin didn’t last. “Wish I’d been there,” he said, with a clear implication of anywhere but here. Which did not, again, bode well for the whole deal with Eve.

Myrnin rolled his eyes. “Oh, enough of this. Follow me.” He immediately set off at a rapid, though not vampire-quick, walk down yet another hallway, identical to all the others; Claire fell in with Shane, behind Michael.

“What the hell are we into now?” Shane asked her.

“Nothing good,” she replied. “But then, that kind of describes our day, right?”