“Except the part where you drag me into potentially deadly trouble? Yes. Stay put. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Be careful,” she said. She had no idea why she did; it wasn’t as if Michael had anything much to be scared of, especially in Morganville. But it was something her mother always said, and it made her feel better to express a little concern for her friends.
“No exploring on your own, Dora,” he said.
She felt lonely and exposed, even here with all the lights burning brightly, once his voice was gone from the call. She considered calling Shane, but honestly, what good would it do? He’d come running, but he needed his job, and Michael was already on the way.
Ten minutes.
Claire decided to get the Bob thing over with. Bob’s terrarium sat on Myrnin’s rolltop desk, amid stacks of books and some pens—quills, fountains, and rollerballs. Bob looked bigger than she remembered. And blacker. And hairier. Claire shuddered, looking in at him; all eight of his beady eyes looked back. He stayed very still.
There was a small bottle on the table that contained insects—live ones. Claire made a retching sound and tried not to look too hard; she just opened the top of the terrarium and tipped the contents of the jar into the cage.
Bob leaped on her hand.
Claire shrieked, and the bottle went flying to shatter against the wall. Bob didn’t budge when she violently shook her hand, trying to get rid of him; he clung to her like Velcro, and he felt different, somehow—heavier. Yes, he was larger. Claire batted at him with her right hand, and his fangs glittered as he lunged for her, skittering up her left arm.
She grabbed a book in her right hand.
Bob leaped from her arm, headed to her face.
She smacked him out of the air with the book, and he landed on his back, all eight legs wriggling in the air. Before she could slam the book down on top of him, Bob flipped himself over and skittered underneath the table.
It was nother imagination. Bob was getting bigger. In the space of just a few seconds, he’d gone from the size of a walnut to her palm, and now he was almost as big as the book she’d used to smash him out of the air.
“Ada!” she screamed. “Ada, I need you!”
Her cell phone came on, and gave an unearthly screeching noise . . . and then a soft, ghostly laugh.
Something knocked over a pile of papers at the edge of the table, and Claire saw a long black leg waving in the air. She backed away, fast.
When Bob climbed up on top of the table, he was the size of a small dog. His fangs were clearly visible, and if she’d thought he was ugly at small size, he was terrifying now.
“Hi—Bob—,” Claire said. Her voice was shaking, and sounded very small. “Nice Bob. Heel?”
Bob bounced off the table, landed lightly on the floor, and skittered toward her, racing incredibly fast. Claire screamed and ran, knocking over anything she could behind her to slow him down. Not that it did, but when she looked back as she reached the stairs, Bob had stopped chasing her.
He was sitting on a table in the center of the lab, trembling. She could actually see him shaking, as if he were having some kind of a fit . . . and then he rolled over on his back, and his legs curled in, and . . .
And he was dead.
“Bother,” Ada said. Claire jumped in reaction, bit back a curse, and saw Ada glide out of a solid wall to her left. Ada’s image went right up to Bob’s motionless body, leaning over him, and shook her head. “So disappointing. I truly thought he’d be able to sustain the change.”
“Change?” Claire swallowed hard. “Ada, what are you doing? What did you do to Bob?”
“Unfortunately, I believe I exploded his organs. So fragile, living things. I forget sometimes.”
“You did this. Made him grow.”
“It was an experiment.” Ada’s image slowly revolved toward Claire, and her smile was small and cold and terrifying. “We’re both scientists, are we not?”
“You call that science?”
“Don’t you?” Her hands folded primly at her waist, Ada was the image of one of those schoolteachers from the old days. “All science requires sacrifice. And you didn’t even like Bob.”
Well, that was true. “Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I want to see it die horribly!”
“Really? I find that . . . not very interesting at all, actually. Sentimentality has no place in science.”
Just like that, poof, Ada was pixels and vapor, gone. Claire ventured slowly forward, to where Bob the Giant Spider was curled up on the table. She half expected him to suddenly flip upright in true horror-movie style, but he stayed still.
Claire wasn’t falling for it. No way. She backed up to the steps that led out of the lab, and sat down on the cold stone, wrapping her arms around her for warmth.
Minutes ticked by.
The dead spider didn’t move, which meant that either he wasn’t faking it, or he was really, really good at it.
“Claire?”
She shrieked and jumped, and Michael, standing about a foot behind her, jumped backward, as well. Being a vampire, he somehow made it look cool. She, not so much. “God, don’t dothat! Warn me!”
“I did!” He sounded wounded. “I said your name.”
“Say it from across the room next time.”
But Michael wasn’t looking at her anymore; he was staring past her, at the dead spider. “What the hell is that?”
“Bob,” she said. “I’ll tell you later. Come on.”
“Where?”
“Ada’s cave.”
Which was why she’d called him, because, of course, there were no stairs. Vampires didn’t need them. They could jump twelve feet onto solid stone and not even feel a twinge; Claire figured she was sure to have a broken bone, at the very least. She wasn’t a superhero, a magical vampire slayer, or even a particularly coordinated athlete. Michael was her way in—and, hopefully, out.
Of course, having a friend with her going down into the dark, that was a plus, too.
Luckily, Michael didn’t seem too bothered at being asked to stand in for a ladder; he looked down into the darkness for a few moments, craning to see every detail of what, to Claire, was pitch-blackness. “Looks clear,” he said. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“She won’t say where Myrnin is. Well, he’s not up here, and the carpet was rolled back. He must have gone down there.”
“And there’s a reason why we can’t just wait for him to come back?”
“Yeah. Ada’s tried to kill me twice now, and who knows what she’s tried to do to him. There’s something wrong with her, Michael.”
“Then maybe we should call somebody for help.”
Claire laughed a little wildly. “Like who, Amelie? You saw her at the cemetery. You really think we should rely on her right now?”
Whether Claire had a point or not, Michael must have realized that debating wasn’t getting anything done. He shrugged and said, “Fine. If you get me killed, I’m haunting you.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
He winked at her, and stepped off the edge, dropping soundlessly into the dark. Claire rushed forward, grabbing up the flashlight along the way, and shone its glow down into the trapdoor. A dozen feet below, Michael’s pale face looked up. His blue eyes looked supernatu rally bright as his pupils contracted in the glare.
“Right,” he said. “Jump.”
She’d been through this with Myrnin, but it still never felt exactly comfortable>. Still, it was Michael, and if any vampire was trustworthy . . .
She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and plummeted, straight into his cool, strong arms. Michael let her slide down, already looking past her into the dark. “There are things down here,” he said.
“Vampires.”
“Not—sure I’d call them vampires. Thingsis pretty accurate.” Michael sounded a little nervous. “They’re just—watching us.”