Midnight Alley

"But — I thought you said I could learn — "

He sighed. "I wanted to believe, but it isn't possible. Yes, I could teach you — but you'd be nothing more than a gifted mimic, a mechanic, not an engineer. There are things you ca

Myrnin was saying that she was stupid, and Claire felt a hot, strange spark of anger. "Let go of my arm!" she snapped, and he was surprised enough that some of the blankness in his dark eyes went away, replaced with concern. He slowly relaxed his fingers. "Explain it to me. You're not all-knowing, maybe you forgot something."

Myrnin smiled, but it was a shadow of his usual manic grin. "I assure you, I probably have," he agreed. "But Claire, attend: already, my muscles disobey me. Soon I won't be able to walk, and then my voice will lock in my throat. And then blindness, and madness, and I will end my days locked in a black, dark place screaming silently as I starve. If there was any shred of hope that I could avoid that fate, don't you think I would seize it?"

He said it so ... calmly. As if it had already happened. "No," Claire said. She couldn't help it. "No, that isn't going to happen."

Myrnin smiled, but it looked bitter. "I've seen it happen to others. It's always the same. Amelie will lock me away because she'll have no choice, and it will take me a very long time to die, because I am so very old." He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Not now. All that matters is that you go home, child, and never come back. I can't imagine I would have the unexpected strength of will to refuse such a lovely warm gift twice."

It was stupid. She didn't like Myrnin, she couldn't. He was scary and strange and he'd tried to kill him not just once, but at least twice.

So why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

"What if we use the crystals?" she blurted. Myrnin's eyes narrowed. "I learned, when you had me take them. What if we use them now? Both of us? Would that help?"

He was already shaking his head. "Claire, it's a fool's quest. What would I teach you? The machines that control the system? Or should we continue research on the cure? Not enough time — "

"The cure to your disease!" She felt a sudden surge of hope as she dug through her backpack and came up with the shaker of crystals. "Isn't this what you've done so far?"

"It is. Clever of you to discover that. But the point is, it's taken years to develop it, and it's at best only a temporary measure. Even a large dose will wear off in a few hours for either one of us, and the consequences for you ... "

"But if we can come up with a cure, a real cure?"

"It's naïve to think that we could perfect such a thing in mere hours. No, I think you had better go. I have been quite noble today. You really should let me enjoy it while I can." He looked at the shaker in her hands, and for a second she thought she saw a spark of that quick interest that had driven him so hard in earlier meetings. "Perhaps — if I show you the research, you could carry that part of it onward. For the others."

"Sam said you were all sick. Even Amelie."

Myrnin nodded. "As I am, so shall they all be. Every vampire who lives will suffer this in the next ten years, unless it is stopped."

###

"Amelie brought us to Morganville to buy us time, to find a way to ensure our survival. She believed — she believed that humans might hold the keys to this plague, and she also believed that we could no longer afford to live as we had, preying in the night or hiding. She thought that humans and vampires could live in cooperation, and find the solution to our illness together. Most thought her mad, but she was the only one of us left who could create young, and so she is, by default, the one we must obey."

"So — Morganville's a kind of lab. She's trying to find a cure, and protect all of you at the same time."

"Exactly so." Myrnin rubbed his hands over his face again. "I'm getting tired, Claire. Best give me the crystals."

She poured out a few in his hand. He met her eyes. "More," he said. "The disease has advanced. I will need a large dose to stay with you, even for a while."

She poured about a teaspoon out. Myrnin popped it in his mouth, made a face at the bitterness, and swallowed. A shudder went through him, and she actually saw the weariness and confusion fade. "Excellent. That really was an amazing discovery. Too bad about the doctor, really, he was very bright." Oh dear. Myrnin was swinging toward the manic now, thanks to the drugs. That was dangerous. "You're very bright. Perhaps you could read through the notes."

"I — I'm just now starting advanced biochemistry — "

"Nonsense, your native ability is clear." He pointed toward the shaker of crystals in her hand. "Take it."

"No. It's your medicine, not mine."

"And it will help you keep up with me, because we have very little time, Claire, very little." His eyes were bright and clear, like a bird's, and with about as much affection. "There are two ways you can assist me. You can take the crystals, or you can help me extend this period of clarity in other ways."

She sat back on her heels. "You said you wouldn't."

"Indeed. But you see, the disease makes me a sentimental fool. If I am to find an heir to my knowledge, and find a cure for my people, then I can't be burdened with such considerations." His gaze brushed over her, abstract and hungry. "You burn so very brightly, you know."

"Yeah," she muttered. "You said." She hated this. She hated that Myrnin could change like this, go from friend to enemy in the space of a minute. Which one was real? Or was any of it?

Claire shook half a teaspoon of the crystals into her palm.

"More," Myrnin said. She added a couple, and he reached out, took the shaker, and poured a heaping mound of it into her hand. "You have a great deal to learn, and you are operating from such a disadvantage. Better safe than sorry."

She didn't want to take it — well, she did, a little, because the strawberry smell of the crystals brought back flashes of the way the world had looked: diamond clear, uncomplicated, simple.

Hard not to want that.

Myrnin said, "Take it, or I will have to take you, Claire. We have no more moves on our chessboard."

She poured the crystals onto her tongue and almost gagged from the bitterness. The strawberry flavor was overwhelmed by it, and the aftertaste was rotten and cold on her tongue, and she thought for a second she might throw up ...

... and then everything snapped into hot, sharp, perfect focus.

Myrnin no longer looked strange and pathetic, he was a burning pillar of energy barely contained by skin. She could see that he was sick, somehow; there was a darkness in him, like rot at the heart of a tree. The room took on a fey glitter. Neurotransmitters, she thought. Her brain was rushing a million miles an hour, making her giddy and breathless. My reaction time must be ten times faster.

Myrnin bounded up to his feet, grabbed her hand, and dragged her to the shelves, where he began frantically pulling down books. Notebooks, textbooks, scraps of handwritten paper. Two black-bound composition books, the same kind Claire used in lab class. Even a couple of the cheap blue books she used for essay tests. Everything was crammed with fine, perfect handwriting.

"Read," he said. "Hurry."

All she had to do was flip pages. Her eyes captured things, like cameras, and her brain was so fast and efficient that she translated and comprehended the text almost instantly. Almost two hundred pages, and she paged through as fast as her fingers could go.