Feast of Fools

Chapter Ten

Saturday dawned cooler and windier, with a breath of chill cutting like metal.
Shane and Claire drove in just before dawn, exhausted but peaceful. They'd danced until the restaurant closed down, then drove, then parked. It had been sweet and urgent and Claire had almost, almost wanted it to go further . . . at least into the backseat.
But Shane had held to his word, no matter how frustrating that was for both of them, and she supposed that was still a good thing.
Mostly, she just wanted to get his clothes off and dive into the bed with him and never, ever come out. But he kissed her at her bedroom door, and she knew from the look in his eyes that he wasn't trusting himself that far with her.
Not tonight. Not even with the whole world changing.
Claire fell asleep just before dawn and slept right through sunrise. Through lunch. She only woke up at all because the next-door neighbor started up his monster gas-powered lawn mower for the last trim of the season. It was like a gardening jet engine, and no matter how many pillows Claire piled on her head, it didn't help.
The house was eerily quiet. Claire put on her robe and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. She tapped on Eve's door on the way, but there was no answer. None at Shane's or Michael's, either. She took the fastest shower on record and went downstairs, only to find . . . nothing. No Michael, no Shane, no Eve. And no note. There was coffee in the pot, but it had long cooked down to sludge.
Claire sat down at the kitchen table and paged through numbers on her phone. No answer from Eve's cell, and Michael's rang to voice mail. So did Shane's.
"Hey," Claire said when his recorded voice told her to leave her message. "I'm - I just was hoping I'd see you. You know, this morning. But - look, can you give me a call, please? I want to talk to you. Please."
She felt so alone that tears prickled her eyes. The feast. It's today.
Everything was changing.
A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. "What do you want, Richard?"
Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He hadn't flashed any lights or howled any sirens, so she supposed it wasn't an emergency, exactly. But she knew him well enough to know he didn't pay social visits, at least not to the Glass House.
And not in uniform.
"Good question," Richard said. "I guess I want a nice girl who can cook, likes action movies, and looks good in short skirts. But I'll settle for you taking the chain off the door and letting me in."
"How do I know you're you?"
"What?"
"Ysandre. She - well, let's say I need to be sure it's really you."
"I had to uncuff you in a girl's bathroom at the university this week. How's that?"
She slid the chain loose and stepped back as he walked in. He looked tired - not as tired as she felt, but then she guessed that wasn't humanly possible, really. "What do you want?"
"I'm going to this thing tonight," he said. "I figured you'd be going too. I was thinking you might need a ride."
"I - I'm not going."
"No?" Richard looked puzzled by that. "Funny, I could have sworn you'd be Amelie's first choice to parade around at a thing like this. She's proud of you, you know."
Proud? Why on earth would she be proud? "What, like a pedigreed dog?" Claire asked bitterly. "Best in show?"
Richard held up his hands in surrender. "Whatever, it's none of my business. Where is your gang, anyway? "
"Why?"
"It's my business to know where the troublemakers are."
"We're not troublemakers!" Richard gave her a look. One she had to admit she deserved. "Your sister's going, you know."
"Yeah, I know. She's been preening around the house for days. Spent a fortune on that damn costume of hers. Dad's going to kill her if she gets anything on it. I think he's planning to return it."
Claire waved the fresh coffeepot inquiringly, and Richard nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. She slid a mug over to him, and watched as he sipped. He seemed - different today. Everything's changing. Richard seemed more vulnerable, too. He'd always been the steady one, the sane Morrell. Today, he looked barely older than Monica.
"I think something's going to happen," Claire said. "Don't you?"
Richard nodded slowly. There were lines of tension around his eyes, and bags under his eyes big enough to hold changes of clothes. "This Bishop, he's not like the others," he said. "I met him. I - saw something in him. It's not human, Claire. Not even a little bit. Whatever humanity he ever owned, he sold a long time ago."
"What are you going to do?"
Richard shrugged. "What the hell can I do? Stick with my family. Look out for the people of this town. Wish I was a million miles away." He was quiet for a few seconds, sipping coffee. "Thing is, I think we're going to be asked to promise him some kind of loyalty, and I don't think I can do that. I don't think I want to do that."
Claire swallowed. "Do you have a choice?"
"Probably not. But I'll do my best to keep people safe. That's all I know how to do." His eyes skimmed past hers, as if he didn't dare to really look too deeply. "The others are going, aren't they?"
She nodded.
"Did you know your parents are going?"
Claire gasped, covered her mouth with her hands, and shook her head. "No," she said. "No, they're not. They can't be."
"I saw the list," Richard said. "Sorry. I figured you were just on another page. I couldn't believe you were left off. That's good, though, that you can stay home. It's - I think it's going to be dangerous."
He drained the rest of his coffee and pushed the mug back toward her.
"I'll watch out for your friends and your parents," he said. "As much as I can. You know that, right?"
"You're nice," Claire said. She was surprised that she said it out loud, but she meant it. "You really are, you know."
Richard smiled at her, and even though she'd developed a partial immunity to hot guys smiling at her, thanks to Shane and Michael, some part of her still went Oooooooooh.
"I'm hiring you as my press agent," Richard said. "Lock up and stay inside, all right?"
She saw him to the door and dutifully turned all the dead bolts, since he was standing there waiting to hear it. He waved and got back in his police cruiser, and silently backed out of the drive to the street.
Which was, Claire realized, eerily deserted. Morganville was usually active in the afternoons, but here it was prime walking-around time, and she couldn't see a soul out there. Not walking, not driving, not weeding a garden. Even the next-door neighbor had powered down the mower and locked up tight.
It was like everyone just . . . knew.
Claire booted up her laptop and checked her e-mail, which was really more like checking her spam. Today, come-ons from sad Russian girls and Nigerian businessmen desperate to get rid of millions of tax-free dollars didn't amuse her all that much. Neither did random surfing or the I'm Feeling Lucky Google feature. She had hours to kill, and her whole body was aching with tension.
You could visit Myrnin. Myrnin's not going, either.
Oh, that was way too tempting. Myrnin was work. And work was a great distraction.
Richard told me to lock myself in. Yeah, but he hadn't said where, had he? Myrnin's lab was pretty safe. So was the prison where Myrnin was kept. And at least she'd have company.
"Nope," Claire said. "Can't do it. Too dangerous."
Except it was still daylight outside. So, not nearly as dangerous as it could be.
The sensible side of her threw up its hands in disgust. Whatever. Go on, get yourself killed. See if I care.
Claire grabbed a few things and shoved them in the backpack - textbooks, of course, but a couple of novels that she'd been meaning to take to Myrnin, since he was always interested in new things to read.
And a bread knife. Somehow, that seemed like a wise thing to pack, too. She put it in her history textbook, like the world's most dangerous bookmark.
And then, with one last glance around the house, she left.
I hope I come back, she thought, and turned to look at the house as she fastened the front gate. I hope we all come back.
She felt like the house was hoping that, too.
It was a long walk to Myrnin's lab, but she wasn't in any danger, except from dying of the creepies. She saw one or two cars, but they were full of frightened, anxious people heading to some safe haven - work, home, school. Nobody else was outside. Nobody else was walking.
Claire followed the twisting streets of Morganville into a run-down older area. At the end of the street sat a duplicate of the Glass House - the Day House, where a lovely old lady named Katherine Day still lived. Today, her battered rocking chair was empty, nodding in the breeze. Claire had been kind of hoping that Gramma Day, or her fiercer granddaughter, would be hanging out; they'd have invited her up to the porch for a lemonade, and tried to talk her out of what she was doing. But if they were home at all, they were inside with the curtains drawn.
Just like everybody else in town.
Claire turned down the dark alley next to the Day House. It was bordered with tall fences, and it got narrower the farther it went. She'd come here by accident the first time, and on purpose ever since, and it still struck her as a terrifying place, even in broad daylight.
Gramma Day had known about Myrnin. She'd called him a trap-door spider.
Gramma Day, in Claire's experience, had been right about a lot of things, and that was one of them. As sweet and kind and gentle as Myrnin could be, when he turned, he turned all the way.
Claire reached the end of the alley, which was a rickety shed barely large enough to qualify as one room. The door was locked with a new, shiny padlock. She dug in her pocket and found her keys.
Inside, the shack wasn't any better - nothing but a square of floor, and steps leading down. What little light there was spilled in through the grimy windows. Claire grabbed a flashlight from the corner - she always kept a supply there - and flicked it on as she descended the steps into Myrnin's lab.
She'd half expected to find Amelie here, or Oliver, or somebody else - but it was just as she'd left it. Deserted and quiet, with only a couple of dim electric lights burning. Claire pushed aside the bookcase that stood against the right-hand wall - it was rigged to move easily - and behind it was a door. It was locked, too, and she got the keys out of the drawer under the journal shelves.
As she was unlocking it, she could have sworn she heard a rustle from the shadows. Claire turned, and felt the stupid impulse to ask who it was; all that stopped her was pure shame, and a determination not to be as stupid as the girls in horror movies. There was nobody here. Not even Oliver.
Instead, she slipped the lock from the door, took a deep breath, and concentrated.
The physics of Myrnin's special doorways still eluded her, although she thought she was beginning to understand the breakthrough he'd made in quantum mechanics. . . . Of course, he didn't look at it scientifically; to him it was magic, or at least alchemy. You don't have to know how something works to use it, Claire reminded herself. It irritated her, but she was getting used to the fact that some things were going to be harder to figure out, and anything that had to do with Myrnin definitely fell into that category.
She swung open the door, which led to the prison on the other side of town. She'd looked it up on maps, measured the distance between Myrnin's hidden lab and the abandoned complex. It wasn't possible for there to be a door between the two, unless you seriously twisted the laws of physics as she understood them, but there it was.
And she stepped through and closed the door behind her. There was a hasp on this side of the door, too; she locked it up, just in case her imagination hadn't been running wild and someone was in the lab watching her. They'd have a hell of a time getting through, and with the nature of Myrnin's doorways, they probably wouldn't end up here if they ended up anywhere at all.
"Hi," Claire said to the cells as she passed them; she didn't think any of the vampires really understood her, but she always tried to be kind. They couldn't help what they were - whatever that was. Insane, certainly. Some of them less than others, and those were the ones who made her feel sad - the ones who seemed to understand where they were, and why.
Like Myrnin.
Claire stopped in at the refrigerator and picked up supplies of blood packs, which she tossed into the cells from a careful distance away. She saved two for Myrnin, whose cell was at the end of the hall.
He was sitting on the bed, spectacles perched at the end of his nose. He was reading a battered copy of Voltaire.
"Claire," he said, and put a faded silk ribbon between the pages to mark his place. He looked up, young and pretty and (today, at least) not entirely crazy. "I've had the oddest thing happen."
She pulled up her chair and settled in. "Which is?"
"I think I'm getting better."
"I don't think so," she said. "I wish that was true, but - "
He shoved a Tupperware container toward the bars of the cell. "Here."
Claire froze, eyeing the container doubtfully. "Umm . . . what is that?"
"Brain tissue."
"What?"
Myrnin adjusted his glasses and looked at her over their tops. "I said, brain tissue."
"Whose brain tissue?"
He looked around the cell, eyebrows raised. "I haven't a lot of volunteers in easy reach, you know."
Claire had a horrible thought. She couldn't actually bring herself to say it.
Myrnin gave her an evil smile.
"We are testing the serum, are we not? And so far, I am the only test subject?"
"That's brain tissue. How can you - ?" Claire shut her mouth, fast. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know."
"Truly, I think that's best. Please take it." He showed his teeth briefly in a very unsettling grin. "I'm giving you a piece of my mind."
"I so wish you hadn't said that." She shuddered, but she ventured close enough to the bars to fish out the container. Yes, that looked . . . gray. And biological. She checked to be sure that the top was firmly fastened, and stuck it in her backpack. "What makes you think you're getting better?"
Myrnin picked up half a dozen thick volumes and held them out on the palm of his hand. "I've read these in the past day and a half," he said. "Every word. I can answer any question you'd like about the contents."
"Not a good test. You already know those books."
He seemed surprised. "Yes, that's true. Very well. How would you propose to test me?"
"Read some of this," she said, and passed him a novel from her backpack. He glanced at the author's name and the title, flipped to page 1, and began. She watched his eyes flicker rapidly back and forth - faster than most humans could begin to comprehend words on a page. He was focused, and he seemed genuinely interested.
"Stop," she said five minutes later. Myrnin obligingly closed the book and handed it back to her. "Tell me about what you read."
"It's rather clever of you to make it a novel about vampires," Myrnin said. "Although I think their avoidance of mirrors is a bit ridiculous. The main characters seemed interesting. I think I'd like to finish it." And then he proceeded to recite, at length, the descriptions and histories of the characters as they'd been given in the first fifty pages . . . and the plot. Claire blinked and checked his facts.
All correct.
"See?" Myrnin took off his spectacles and stowed them in a pocket of the purple satin vest he was wearing over a white dress shirt. "I am better, Claire. Truly."
"Well, we really should wait to see - "
"No, I don't think so." He stood up, lithe and strong, and walked to the bars.
He took hold of them and heaved, and the lock -  the lock that was supposed to hold the strongest, craziest vampires - snapped loudly. He rolled the bars aside on their groove and stood in the open doorway, smiling at her.
"Are those for me?" He nodded at the blood bags lying on top of her backpack. She realized that she was clutching the book in white-knuckled fingers, barely breathing. I hope he didn't remove some part of his brain that stops him from attacking me. . . .
"Yes," she managed to say. She'd been intending to throw the blood to him, but somehow it didn't seem right. She picked up the first one and held it out.
Myrnin walked slowly toward her - deliberately slowly, making sure she got used to the idea - and took the plastic pack from her hand without so much as brushing her skin. He even turned away to bite into it, and although the sucking noises made her uncomfortable and a bit sick, when he turned around, there wasn't a speck of blood on him, or in the plastic packaging, either.
Claire held up the second one. He shook his head. "No need to stuff myself," he said. "One is plenty for now." Which was odd, too, because Myrnin was usually - how could she put it without making herself feel nauseous? - a hearty eater.
"I'll put it back," she said, but before she could move, Myrnin had taken it from her palm. She hadn't even seen him move this time.
"I'll do it." She shivered, listening and watching, but he was already gone into the shadows. She heard the creak of the massive refrigerator door open and close, and then suddenly he was back, strolling slowly out of the darkness. Arms crossed over his chest. He leaned against the wall across from her.
"So?" he asked. "Do I seem insane to you?"
She shook her head.
"You wouldn't tell me even if I was, would you, Claire?"
"Probably not. You might get angry."
"I might get angry if you lied," Myrnin said. "But I won't. I don't feel angry at all right now. Or hungry, or even anxious, and that never seemed to leave me the last few years. The drugs you gave me, Claire, I think they're taking hold. Do you know what that means?" He flashed across the empty space, and when she was able to focus on him again, he was kneeling next to her chair, one pale hand gently resting on her knee. "It means my people can be saved. All of them."
"What about mine?" Claire asked. "If yours get well, what happens to mine?"
Myrnin's face went carefully still and blank. "The fate of humans isn't really my area of responsibility," he said. "Amelie has worked hard to be sure Morganville is a place of balance, a place where our two kinds can live in relative harmony. I doubt she'd change all that based on the outcome of this experiment."
He could doubt it all he wanted, but Claire knew Amelie better. She'd do whatever was best for her own first, humans second. In fact, Claire wasn't altogether sure, but she suspected Morganville was the experiment - and an experiment would be ended when an outcome was achieved.
If this was the outcome - what happened to the lab rats?
Myrnin's dark eyes were glowing now with sincerity. "I'm not a monster, Claire. I wouldn't allow you to be hurt. You've done us a great service, and you'll be looked after."
"What about other people?" she asked.
"Which people? Ah, your friends, your family. Yes, of course, they'll be safeguarded, as well, whatever happens."
"No, Myrnin, I mean everybody else! The guy who makes hamburgers at the Burger Dog! The lady who runs the used-clothing store! Everybody!"
He blinked, clearly taken aback. "We can't care about everyone, Claire. It isn't in our natures. We can only care about those we know, or those we're connected with. I appreciate your altruism, but - "
"Don't talk to me about our natures! We're not the same!"
"Aren't we?" Myrnin patted her knee gently. "I'm a scientist. So are you. I have friends, people I care for and love. So do you. How are we different?"
"I don't suck my dinner out of a bag!"
Myrnin laughed. He showed no trace at all of fangs. "Oh, Claire, do you imagine that eating slaughtered and mutilated animals is any less disgusting? We both eat. We both enjoy the company of others. We both - "
"I don't dig brain tissue out of my skull! Oh, and I don't kill," she said. "You do. And you really don't mind it."
He sat back a little, staring into her face. The glow of sincerity took on a harder edge. "I think you'll find I do mind it," he said. "Or else I wouldn't put up with this from - "
"From a servant? Because that's what I am, right? Or worse - a slave? Property?"
"You're upset."
"Yes! Of course I'm - of course I'm upset." She fought to keep it together, but she couldn't; the misery just boiled out of her like steam under pressure. "I'm sitting here debating the future of the human race, and my friends and family are going to that party, and I can't protect them - "
"Hush, child," he said. "The feast. It's tonight, yes?"
"I don't even know what it is."
"Amelie's formal recognition of Bishop. Every vampire in Morganville who is able will be present, all there to swear their obedience, and every one of them will bring a token gift."
She sniffled, sat up, and wiped her face. "What kind of gift?"
Myrnin's dark eyes were steady on hers. "A token gift of blood," he said. "Specifically, a human. You're right to be worried for your friends, your family. He has the right to choose any human offered to him. The gesture is meant to be ceremonial - it's come down to us as a tradition from long ago - but it doesn't have to be."
And Claire understood. She understood why Amelie had forbidden her to come; she understood why Michael had deliberately asked Monica Morrell instead of Eve.
It was chess, and the pawns were people. The vampires were playing with what they could afford to lose.
"You - " Her voice didn't sound steady. She cleared her throat and tried again. "You said that he could choose any human."
Myrnin didn't blink. "Or all of them," he said. "If he so wishes."
"You know he'll do it. He'll kill someone."
"Most likely, yes."
"We have to stop this," she said. "Myrnin - why would she do this?"
"Amelie is not a brave woman. If the odds are against her, she will surrender; if the odds are near even, she will play for time and advantage. She knows she can't defeat Bishop on her own; not even she and Oliver combined can do it. She has to play the long game, Claire. She's played it all her life." Myrnin's dark eyes were glowing again, and he began to smile. "Amelie reckons her odds without me, of course. With me at her side, she can win."
"You want to go. To the feast."
Myrnin straightened his vest and brushed imaginary dust from his sleeves. "Of course. And I'm going with or without you. Now, are you going under those circumstances?"
"I - Amelie said - "
"Yes or no, Claire."
"Then . . . yes."
"We'll need costumes," he said. "Not to worry, I know just the place to get them."
"I look ridiculous," Claire said. She also looked completely obvious. "Can't we do something in, I don't know, black? Since we're supposed to be sneaky?"
"Stop talking," Myrnin commanded as he applied makeup to her face. He seemed to be enjoying himself a hell of a lot more than the situation called for, and she felt doubt once again that his cure was really a cure. There had been a good reason Amelie said he shouldn't be at the feast; there'd been a good reason, too, for leaving him out of her calculations for war or peace.
But Claire knew Amelie too well. If peace meant it had to come at the price of a few human deaths, even ones that were dear to Claire, she'd count it an acceptable cost.
Claire didn't.
"There," Myrnin said. "Close your eyes."
Claire did, and felt a soft brushing of powder over her face. When she opened her eyes, Myrnin stepped out of the way, and she saw some alien creature in the mirror reflecting back at her.
She did look ridiculous, but she had to admit she didn't look like Claire Danvers. Not at all. A white face that would have done Eve proud. Full red lips. Huge, black-rimmed eyes with funny little lines to draw attention to them.
A tight-fitting costume, top and tights, covered with red and black diamonds. A matador's hat. "What am I supposed to be?" she blurted. Myrnin looked disappointed in her.
"Harlequin," he said, and twirled like a crazy little girl. "I am Pierrot." Myrnin was dressed in white, and where her costume was tight, his was full, billowing around his body like choir robes with white pants beneath. He had an enormous white ruffle around his collar, and a white hat that looked like a traffic cone. The same manic makeup, which only made his dark eyes look wider and less sane. "Don't they teach anything in your schools?"
"Not about this."
"Pity. I suppose that's what comes of your main education flowing from Google." He fitted something over her head. "Your mask, madam." It was a simple domino mask, but it was patterned in the same red and black as her costume. "Can you do cartwheels? Backflips?"
She gave him a hopeless look. "I'm a science nerd, not a cheerleader."
"Pity about that, too." He put on his own mask, which was plain black. He'd painted his face to match hers - dead white, huge red lips. It was eerie. "Well, then, we have costumes. Now all we need is something to tip the scales in our favor, should things go badly. As I'm sure they will, knowing Bishop."
They were in the attic of the Glass House, surrounded by what looked like centuries of . . . stuff. Claire had never been up here; in fact, she hadn't known there was an entrance at all. Myrnin had taken her to the hidden Victorian room, and then pressed a few studs on the wall to pop loose yet another secret door, which led through a dusty, cramped hallway and opened out into a vast, dark storage space. He'd found the costumes packed in a trunk that looked old enough to have been carried through the Civil War. The dressing table, where Claire sat, was probably even older. The dust on it looked older.
Myrnin wandered off into the stacks of boxes and suitcases and discarded treasures, muttering in what sounded like a foreign language. He began rummaging around. Claire went back to staring at herself in the mirror. The makeup and costume made her look alien and cool, but her eyes were still Claire's eyes, and they were scared.
I can't believe we're going to do this, she thought.
Myrnin popped up like some terrifying full-sized jack-in-the-box next to her, carrying a suitcase the width of Rhode Island. He dropped it to the wooden floor, where it hit with a shuddering thud.
"Ta da!" He threw it open and struck a heroic pose.
Inside were weapons. Lots of weapons. Crossbows. Knives. Swords. Crosses, some with crudely pointed ends.
Myrnin fished around in the chaos and came up with a dirty-looking bottle that had probably once held perfume, back around the Middle Ages. "Holy water," he said. "True holy water, blessed by the pope himself. Very rare."
"What is this? Where did these things come from?"
"People who were unsuccessful in using them," he said. "I wouldn't recommend the vials of flammable liquid, the green ones. They do work, but you're as apt to kill your own allies as your enemies. Holy water will hurt, but it won't destroy. I would rather you were armed with nonfatal methods."
"Why?"
"Even if we win, Amelie will be forced to bring to trial any human who kills a vampire. You know how well that ends." Claire did, and she shuddered. Shane had nearly been killed for a murder he hadn't committed. "So if there's any killing to be done, let me or another vampire do it. We're better suited in any case." He folded cloth over his hand and picked up a medium-sized ornate cross with a pointed end, which he handed over with care. "Self-defense only. Now, for me . . ."
Myrnin picked up a wickedly sharp knife and eyed the edge critically, then slipped it back into its leather scabbard. It went under his tunic and against his side.
He closed the lid on the suitcase.
"That's all?" Claire asked, surprised. There had been an arsenal just waiting for him.
"It's all I need. Time to go," he said. "That is, if you're certain you want to do this."
"I'm sure." Claire looked down at herself, and the tight costume. "Um . . . where are my pockets?"