"Get your hands out of my face, man," Shane said, but he followed the directions, and steered the car down the ramp into the parking garage beneath Founder's Square. It was crowded today, and as he looked for a parking space, Myrnin growled in impatience, opened his door in the back, and bailed.
"Hey!" Claire called. Shane found a parking spot and pulled in. They got out at the same time, and caught up with Myrnin as he punched the elevator's call button for about the hundredth time in thirty seconds. "Chill out, Myrnin; you're going to break it. Listen - it's coming."
He was practically vibrating with tension, and she couldn't understand why. She'd seen him in many bad situations, and even in the worst, even with Bishop, he hadn't been this freaked. When the elevator doors parted, he shoved his way in and jammed the floor button just as frantically as he had the one outside. Claire finally put herself physically between him and the control panel, out of a very real fear he was going to shove his finger through the button and short out the electronics altogether.
Myrnin took in a breath - unusual, except when he was talking - and slumped against the back wall. He pulled off his hat and wiped his forehead with a trembling hand, as if he were sweating, though Claire was pretty sure he couldn't, physically. "It was only a matter of time," he said, but it was in a whisper, and Claire didn't think he meant for her to hear. "Inevitable."
"Myrnin, what the hell is going on?" She looked at Shane, and saw that he was watching her boss with a worried frown, too. He knew this was freaky, too. "What's in the envelope?"
"A word," he said. "Just a word."
"Must be a hell of a word," Shane said.
"It's a short one," Myrnin said. He was watching the lights climb on the elevator display, and finally, the car lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. "I'll take it to her. You two - go home. Now."
"Wait!" The elevator doors started to close after him, and Claire slapped a hand in place to stop them. "Myrnin, what's the word?"
He turned to look at her, and that look - that look chilled her, all the way down.
"Run," he said. "It says run. Now go home." And he moved, vampire speed, down the hallway.
She let go of the rubber bumper and stepped back, leaning against Shane. He put his arms around her, and reached past to push the button for the ground floor as the doors rumbled shut.
"What the hell does it mean?" she asked him. He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out.
"I don't know," he said. "But Myrnin does. And it's bad, whatever it is."
They held hands on the walk back home. It was colder now, the sun covered over with scudding dark clouds, and there was a mass on the horizon that had to be a storm. The wind felt damp, edged with ice, as if Morganville had been magically transported to a much colder, wetter place. The humidity felt incredibly high; ten percent was the norm for this area of the desert, and on a really bad day it might rise to forty. But this felt like ocean waves against her skin. Even the air seemed heavy, more like mist than the light, clean stuff she was used to here. Despite the chill, she felt as if she was sweating. As if the whole world was sweating, and it was all over her skin.
Morganville residents were still out on the streets, doing their daily business; some were casting anxious looks at the sky and hurrying up about it, wanting to get home before the rain arrived. Claire was starting to wish she'd brought an umbrella, but really, who needed one in this town? It rained two days a year, if that, and never for long - or if it did rain hard, the wind was so fierce an umbrella was useless. But this storm . . . this one looked nasty, with that green edge to the clouds that tokened real trouble.
As they passed Oliver's coffee shop, Common Grounds, Shane said, "Hey, are you cold? I'm freezing. Let's get something."
That sounded good, actually. Normal. And maybe - Claire knew he was thinking this as well - maybe Oliver would be there, and would have some kind of clue as to what was going on.
You knew things were bad when you were actually looking forward to seeing Oliver.
But . . . no Oliver behind the counter. Instead, Eve was there, just fastening on her tie-dyed apron over her black outfit. She looked tired, but she put on a bright smile for the two of them. It was made about five thousand watts brighter by the shade of lipstick she'd used, which was a shocking bright blue, to match the stripes in her skirt. "Hey, rooms," she said. "How'd the flyers go?"
Flyers? God, Claire had forgotten all about that. "Uh . . . okay," she said. "We got them up in a lot of places, anyway."
"That's good, because my morning? Not so fabulous." Without asking, Eve started a mocha for Claire, and a plain tall coffee for Shane. "In celebration of the fact that my occasional part-time boss just tore out of here like his ass was on fire, coffee's on the house."
"He just left? We didn't see him," Claire said. Eve jerked a thumb at the back, which had a trapdoor tunnel exit.
"He took the shady street. What crawled up his ass? Because I know Bishop's no longer the big, bad boogeyman. Did Amelie break a nail or need a pipe fixed or something?"
"Wish we knew," Claire said. "I was going to ask. Because he's not the only one freaking today."
"No?" Eve cocked a black eyebrow at a wicked, inquisitive angle. "Spill."
"Myrnin," Shane said, and reached over to grab the cup she shoved over toward him. "Not that the guy's stable any time, but today he's extra-crispy crazy."
Eve leaned over, resting her elbows on the counter, as the milk hissed and steamed in its pitcher, heating to the proper temperature. "You think it's because of us? Me, and Michael?"
"Look, I know that you two getting engaged is somehow worse than him turning you - and no, don't ask me to explain that; it's just popular theory - but I don't think it's creating quite this level of drama," Claire said. "And Myrnin doesn't have any opinion, anyway. He's happy you're having a party, and he doesn't care what it's for. He wouldn't be getting all grand mal about it."
"Shit," Eve said. She retrieved the milk and began expertly blending Claire's mocha. "I was kind of hoping it was just about us, because at least that would be stupid. Now I'm scared it's actually smart to be worried."
"You and me both," Shane said. "And when the two of us agree, something is definitely wrong."
Things were busy at the counter, so Eve couldn't talk longer; Claire and Shane took their drinks to an empty table and sat, savoring the warm beverages and watching the clouds flow by overhead through the big plate glass window. Wind whipped the scalloped fringe on the red awning, and Claire could feel the glass of the window humming slightly in the gusts.
"Run," she said. "What do you think that means, Shane?"
He shrugged. "Who the hell knows? Maybe it's a message from an immortal bill collector, and she forgot to pay her rent for the last two hundred years or something. Maybe someone's reminding her that exercise is important."
"You don't really think that."
"No." He took a long sip of coffee, eyes hooded and dark. "No, I guess I don't. But we can't figure this out without more intel, Claire. And whatever it is, it doesn't look like the end of the world."
"Yet," she said softly. "Yet."
She caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, something that made her cringe and recoil and go weirdly dizzy inside, as if what she was looking at was so deeply wrong it made her physically ill. It was outside the window, just passing . . . but when she looked, she saw nothing out of the ordinary at all.
Just a man, walking.
She knew him, she realized, or at least recognized him; it was that guy, the one she'd seen come into Marjo's Diner. Mr. Average. He wasn't hurrying like the other people on the street; he was walking calmly, hands in the pockets of his coat.
Smiling.
It shouldn't have looked so odd, but it made the hackles rise on the back of her neck.
"What?" Shane was watching her, and he stared out the window, too, trying to see what was alarming her. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she said, finally. The man had passed out of sight. "Absolutely nothing."
Which was the weirdest thing of all, she thought.
Chapter Four
AMELIE
I had heard many insane things during my lifetime, and more than half of them had come from Myrnin - friend, servant, occasional enemy, chaos personified on the best of his very numerous days. Today, when he burst into my office, disregarding the warnings of my assistant, I was in no mood to tolerate him.