Then Myrnin rose up pale behind the shooter, and sank his fangs into the man’s neck.
Claire watched, horrified, because in that moment her gentle, sweet, goofy boss became Vampire, with a capital V. She remembered moments like this, when all his humanity stripped away, but this time it seemed even more frightening—mainly because he was angry. Really, really angry.
He drained the man dry, and snapped his neck when he was done, simply out of sheer fury . . . and then he tossed him over the railing, to smack like a rag doll onto the tile floor.
That made everyone stop what they were doing for an instant—even the other Daylighters who were still fighting.
Myrnin, Claire realized, was still getting shocks from the collar. He was just . . . ignoring them. Hannah realized it, too, and she didn’t like it; she unsnapped the fastener on her sidearm as Myrnin leaped over the balcony’s edge and landed catlike beside the body of his victim.
“You can stop that now,” he said to Hannah. His voice was uneven and ragged, and his eyes were burning red, but she still shook her head.
“I can’t,” she said. “The others are starving. If I release them, they’ll rip us apart. We’ve got blood. We’re bringing it in. Myrnin, back off. Don’t make me have to hurt you.”
He laughed, in a tense and wildly crazy way that made Claire get a very bad feeling in her stomach. “Hurt me?” he asked. “How would you do that? By taking away everything I love? Everything I honor? You’re too late, Hannah. Far too late. Fallon already did that.”
Claire’s terrible feeling suddenly condensed into a heavy, sickening weight. “He took Jesse,” she said. “Fallon took Jesse.”
“Because he knew it would hurt me,” Myrnin said. “Fallon likes to pretend his crusade is to save us, but in the end it’s about me. He wants to see me suffer, for turning him vampire so long ago. For abandoning him once I did. It is my fault, you know. All my fault. But Lady Grey shouldn’t pay the price.”
“We have to save her,” Claire said, and turned to Hannah. “We have to.”
“Never thought I’d say that, but, yeah, she’s our friend, too,” Shane agreed. He dumped the armload of blood bags on the floor next to the fountain, and Claire added her own to the pile.
“Then the faster we get the blood in, the faster you can go find her,” Hannah said. “Help move it.”
Myrnin, despite the shock collar still crackling around his neck, despite the intense sunlight outside, helped them carry the rest of the blood into the atrium, running back and forth, until the pile of bags was waist-high, and the trunk and backseat of the cruiser were empty.
Claire remembered, despite the frantic pace, that they still had a problem—a big one. “The hellhounds,” she said. “Fallon could activate them at any time. If Hannah turns against us—”
“I’ve been working on adapting Fallon’s filthy cure to the purpose,” Myrnin said. “During my time outside this prison. I have a small supply made up in my lab. It’s hidden in the back by my armchair, behind a pile of books. Enough for three more doses, if you’re careful. Oh, and while you’re there, do feed Bob. He’s been hunting on his own lately, but he does enjoy being shown a little kindness.”
And that, Claire thought, was Myrnin in a nutshell. He was capable of wild mood swings that went from murder to concern for a spider in under five minutes. In the end, loving Myrnin, really loving him, would be like living with an unexploded bomb—sooner or later it was bound to go off, and for someone fragile and human, it would be fatal.
It didn’t make her love him any less, but she knew better than to think that she could fix him . . . or survive him, if she let him get too close.
“Mrs. Grant,” Hannah said, “get your folks out of here. Take the prisoners with you. I’m going to release them.”
Mrs. Grant nodded and gave quick instructions. Each team of four took one of the guards and escorted them out. Most looked relieved to be going, honestly.
“We’re going to wait the rest of this out in Blacke,” Mrs. Grant said. “Morganville’s your town, not ours. We said we’d help free the vampires, and we have. Now it’s up to you.” She looked at Claire and Shane, and for a moment she looked as if she was going to reverse that, or at least regret it. She came to Shane and gave him a hug, then embraced Claire. “You two, you take care. I’ve gotten fond of you.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Grant,” Shane said. “You’ve done enough. You’re right. This is Morganville business now.”
Then they were headed out, back to their bus. Knowing Mrs. Grant and Morley, Claire was pretty sure that Blacke would already be prepared for an all-out war with the Daylighters, just in case. Armed to the teeth.
She and Shane looked at Hannah, who nodded and backed up toward the doorway. “You two, get in the car,” she said. “Once I hit the releases for their collars, they’ll be shaking it off and getting up fast.”
Myrnin didn’t follow them. He stood where he was, staring blindly at the pile of blood bags. Claire didn’t think he was really seeing them, though. “Find her,” he said. “Find Jesse. I’ll lead the rest of them once they’re fed. Leave Fallon to me.”
“Myrnin—Fallon’s a zealot. He played on people’s fears. He made them believe that killing all of you was the only way to stay safe. Don’t prove him right,” Claire said. “Please. Don’t prove him right.”
She didn’t know if he heard her, or understood; he didn’t give even the slightest indication. But there wasn’t time. Hannah was hustling them out the door, and Claire saw her thumb come off the button. “In the car,” she ordered, and practically shoved them inside.
They were already driving away when the first vampires, collars off their necks and drained blood bags in their hands, appeared in the doorway of the Bitter Creek Mall.
Myrnin’s lab was located in a cul-de-sac at the end of a small, run-down neighborhood. It was next door to a Founder House—the Day House, built along the same plan as the Glass House.
Only the Day House wasn’t there anymore. There was a pile of old timbers, and some construction equipment.
Fallon was making good on his threat to destroy the Founder Houses.
Claire swallowed hard. “What happened to them? Gramma Day?”
“Moved,” Hannah said. “She was grateful to be going, in the end. The Day family never were too comfortable with that house, though they stayed in it for the better part of a hundred years. But she’s fine. Got a brand-new place over on the other side of town, where the new development is going in.”
“And Lisa—did she join the Daylighters?” Claire wouldn’t have been at all surprised by that from the Day granddaughter, who’d been totally anti-vamp for as long as she’d known her . . . but Gramma Day, ancient as she was, had a broader view of things.
“Lisa did. Gramma declined,” Hannah said. “Gramma said it reminded her of all those speeches out of Germany in the war. I don’t think she was so far off.”
Claire didn’t, either. The image of those banners around Founder’s Square still gave her a chill.
She led the way to the entrance to Myrnin’s lab. It was locked up by an iron grate and a shiny new padlock, but Hannah had the keys. “Fallon had it secured,” she explained. “I have no idea how Myrnin would have gotten into it.”
Myrnin always had his ways, but Claire didn’t explain that; she didn’t think Hannah needed any more nightmares. As they descended the steps, the lights came up, responding to motion, revealing . . . a wreck. Well, even more of a wreck than it normally was. The equipment was mostly shattered, the books ripped apart, the furniture broken. Either Myrnin had thrown an epic tantrum—which frankly wasn’t all that unlikely—or Fallon’s goons had been in here making damn sure nothing useful would be coming out of the lab again.