'Exiled, you mean.'
'Yes, yes, but I couldn't wait for Amelie to decide who best was ready to deal with this crisis. I know Irene, and I had a good sense of where to locate Oliver. I thought the two of us together could easily handle things.'
'And how did that go?'
He snapped one of the rubber bands in a convulsive movement, and dropped it to the floor. The second one was tougher, but he was pulling on it way too hard. 'Not ... very well,' he admitted. 'I still haven't been able to locate this doctor that Google found so easily. The human world is much more confusing than I recall. And Oliver was not terribly cooperative. Then Amelie tried to recall me to Morganville. It's all been very stressful.'
Claire sighed and resisted the almost impossibly attractive impulse to shake him. 'Tell me what happened today.'
He blinked at her and restlessly snapped the rubber band around his wrist. 'Oliver and I attempted to track down this doctor at his offices, but he was not there. Oliver got into a dispute with someone who called us homeless bums and attempted to spit upon us. I managed to prevent him from doing anything too foolish, but it wasn't a very good few moments for our tormentor, I'm afraid. And then we went to the doctor's home, but again, he wasn't there. I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. I'm not generally used to putting out so much effort.' He went to the faucet and turned the taps on and off. Claire had a faint hope that he might use the opportunity to wash up, but evidently it didn't occur to him. 'Michael found us just as we were trying to see Irene; we were again barred entrance to the university because of our clothing and general dishevelment, and he promised to help us get a motel room where we could wash. Eve said she would secure us new things to wear.'
That would have been interesting. Claire would have paid money to see what Eve would have bought for Oliver, much less Myrnin. It would have, at the very least, been crazy amazing.
'I'm guessing things didn't get that far,' Claire said, 'since you're still stinky and wearing rags.'
Myrnin looked down at himself and sighed. 'My apologies. Life can be harsh. Yes, we were followed as we left the university by men in some sort of large vehicle. When we stopped at the motel and obtained our room key, we were attacked without warning. Michael managed to put himself in the way when the one with the stake came for Oliver, who was busy fighting another; we did not immediately know that the stake was anything but wood. But Oliver had seen something like it before, and stopped me before I tried to pull it out. I remembered that Lady Grey was here, watching over Irene, and I begged her help. And she brought us here.'
'And did they follow you?'
'No.' Myrnin seemed very certain of it, and Claire wondered why for a moment, until she knew. They wouldn't have left anybody behind capable of following. 'But we didn't think it wise to wait for the police to arrive. Jesse thought this would be the safest place. I did not expect to find you here.'
'It's been an eventful morning for us, too,' Claire said. 'My friend's been abducted, and the police think Shane and I might have had something to do with it.'
'Really? Did you?'
'No! Why would I?'
Myrnin shrugged. 'I don't know, but it had to be asked. This friend of yours, does she have any knowledge of vampires?'
'Not a bit. She doesn't believe in them. Not even in that "maybe it's real" way that a lot of college kids seem to have.'
'Hmmm. Then her vanishing might have nothing to do with us, and therefore, it's of no concern.'
'Excuse me? No concern? She's my friend!'
That seemed to surprise Myrnin, who frowned at her and stopped stretching the rubber band as if she'd captured his full attention, at least for a moment. 'We stand in danger, Claire. Very real danger. Irene says that your device has disappeared from her lab; someone with real credibility in the world intends to produce evidence of vampirism, perhaps including actual captured specimens. These are things that we can't allow, for our own health and survival. We must locate these people, stop them and erase all knowledge of this event; when these things happen, they are cancers, and must be cut out. You understand?'
'I understand that there's more going on here than just what you're into,' she said. 'Dr Anderson's been dealing with some scary spy people, who have - probably not coincidentally - been in my house when they thought I wasn't there, looking for something that might have been VLAD. And then my friend gets taken by men in a van? Sounds as if they've gone to the next level, to me. Maybe it's connected to your doctor's publication plans.'
'If it is, if there is governmental involvement in all this, it's grave, Claire, grave indeed.'
'So, not like a cancer then.'
'No, still very much like one. But I will need a much larger scalpel.' She hoped he didn't mean it literally; with Myrnin, you could never exactly be certain. 'None of that matters just now. We must leave this place, and find Irene. She is exactly the thing that our enemies, if enemies they intend to be, will need - a human with deep knowledge of all things vampire. One with ties to the community, and credibility. We can take no chance that she falls into the wrong hands.'
Myrnin's logic was often fuzzy, but this time it seemed right on the mark. Dr Anderson was vulnerable; if so many pieces were moving on the board, she needed to be made safe before anything else happened. Before Liz's rescue, part of Claire mourned, but she knew she couldn't help Liz, not immediately.
It occurred to her, then, to ask Myrnin the all-important question. 'What's the name of the doctor? The one who has the proof about vampires?'
'A Dr Patrick Davis,' he said. 'I doubt you'd know anything of him.'
'Well,' Claire said, 'you'd be wrong about that.'
And she began to see how all the disparate pieces of this fit together, to make a not-at-all pretty picture.
Oliver moved toward them, and gave Myrnin an impatient frown. 'If you're done gossiping with your little friend, we need to leave this place,' Oliver said. 'Now. Apparently that idiot boy Shane's gotten himself in trouble with the police. They'll surely track him sooner or later, as they're not the complete fools one might wish.'
'Perhaps we should leave Shane behind, then,' Myrnin said casually. 'It would simplify our troubles considerably.'
'No!' Claire said sharply. 'Leave him, and you leave me. And I don't think Eve and Michael will be too happy with that, either. You're welcome to take it up with them.'
Myrnin looked as if he might be inclined to try, but Oliver shut him down decisively. 'We leave no one behind. And Shane knows as much, if not more, about Morganville than anyone else; we don't dare leave him behind. He'd be a gold mine of information.'
'He'd never talk,' Claire said.
'Everyone talks,' Oliver said. 'The question is, do they tell the truth when they do? I don't trust the boy's lineage. There are glimmers of his father in him, still, and I'm not certain he wouldn't glory a little in bringing Morganville down, once and for all, in his family's memory. So he comes with us, and there's no more on the subject.'
All of a sudden - and Claire had to confess to herself that she'd forgotten all about him - Pete stood up. It was such a sudden move that it drew all their attention to him. He looked pale, tense, and grim, and he said, 'Jesse, I know I said I was down with all this vampire crazy shit, but this is next level. What am I supposed to do, just ... roll with it?'
'Yes,' Jesse said. She sounded gentle about it, but firm. 'I'm sorry, Pete, but you do. I don't want to see you hurt.'
'You think you could hurt me?'
'I think I wouldn't have to,' she said. 'And again, I'm sorry. Come with us. Staying here means that we leave you vulnerable to the people hunting us, and you've already seen the lengths to which they will go. Claire's friend, and the attempt on Michael's life ... their questions to you will not be gentle. If you come along, I will look after you.'
Pete grinned, all of a sudden. It was a bleak sort of amusement, but at least it had some kind of relationship to humour. 'Not used to getting that from a girl, you know.'
'I'm not a girl,' Jesse said, and canted one eyebrow high. 'Am I?'
'Hardly,' Myrnin said. He seemed embarrassed, in the next instant, and strode decisively for the front door. 'Onward.'
Claire paused next to Eve and Michael, and exchanged a quick, warm hug with Eve, and one with Michael too. 'Are you feeling okay?' she asked him. Michael gave her a nod. 'Good enough to keep up?'
'I'm fine,' he said, which was probably as much of an overstatement as the kind of thing Shane was prone to say. 'Shane, dude, who kicked your ass for you?'
'Your grandma,' Shane said. 'Come on.'
Claire had actually forgotten all about her cell phone until it rang - and then she panicked, because if the police were on the lookout for her, a cell phone was as good as a neon sign saying HERE I AM, COME ARREST ME. She grabbed for it and checked the screen, and then answered when the number registered as unknown. 'Hello?'