Feast of Fools

Jason nodded back. “Didn’t expect any.”

He didn’t say thanks. She kept walking.

When she looked back, the doorway was empty. She caught a glimpse of a black jacket turning the corner at the end of the block. Damn, he moves fast, she thought, and that gave her another kind of chill. What if Jason had gotten his wish? What if someone had made him a full-fledged vampire, as hard as that seemed?

She decided she’d ask Amelie, first chance she got.

The morning classes came and went. It wasn’t like any of them were especially difficult, even the high-level physics courses she’d tested herself into. She’d traded out some of her lame core classes for a mythology course, or rather Amelie had insisted on it—that was a fairly cool thing, and she found herself looking forward to it. No discussions of vampires just now, unfortunately. It was all about zombies, voodoo, and popular media on the subject. They were going to watch Night of the Living Dead next week. Claire didn’t know nearly as much about zombies as most of the other students; except for the first-person-shooter game that Shane liked to play, she couldn’t remember ever really paying attention to the idea.

Of course, since moving to Morganville, she wasn’t ruling anything out as unlikely.

After mythology, which turned out to be a wealth of information about voodoo, if she ever needed that, Claire had a break before lab sessions began. She took herself off to the UniversityCenter. It was a sprawling building, home to a large study area with long tables and groupings of chairs, and it featured a bookstore, a cafeteria that served fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches and salads, and a pretty decent coffee bar.

There wasn’t a line today. Claire paid for her mocha and moved around to the barista side, where Eve was working. Eve looked great today, and not just because of the care she’d taken with her outfit and makeup; she kind of radiated satisfaction.

Oh. Right.

Eve gave her an absolutely stu

“Sure. You?”

“Not bad. It’s even been kind of slow and steady today, after the morning rush.” That smile had a secret.

“So? How was your night?” Claire prodded. The secret wanted to be shared, and besides, she was kind of . . . curious.

“Fantastic,” Eve sighed. “I just—yeah. Since I was fourteen, I’ve had a crush on that boy, you know? And he never knew I existed. I went to every one of his concerts, from the time he first started playing, up to the last time he headlined at Common Grounds. I never thought—I just never thought it’d work out.”

“And how was . . . ?” Claire raised her eyebrows and left the question open to anything Eve wanted to make it mean.

Eve’s smile got wicked. “Fantastic.”

They shared muffled squeals. Eve did a little happy-dance behind the counter, dumped shots in a drink, and twirled. Claire had never seen her look so full-stop happy.

Reality came back, and she remembered why she’d come in the first place. She had the strong suspicion she was about to blow all that happiness sky-high.

Eve’s smile was fading, like someone had turned down her dimmer switch. “Claire, you’re wearing the worried face. What’s wrong?”

“I . . .” Claire hesitated, then plunged in. “I saw Jason. This morning.”

Eve’s dark eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. She waited.

“He wanted me to tell you that he’s going to call. It’s something about your dad, he says. He says not to hang up.”

“My dad,” Eve repeated. “You’re sure.”

“That’s what he said. I told him, no promises.” Claire sipped her mocha, which was perfect, and watched Eve’s expression. Not too easy to read, right now. “He didn’t try to hurt me.”

“Broad daylight, on a main street? Yeah, well, he’s bug-out crazy, but he’s not stupid.” Eve seemed very far away, suddenly. And all her happy glow was gone. “I haven’t talked to either one of my parents since my eighteenth birthday.”

“Why not?”

“They tried to sell me to Brandon,” she said flatly. “Like a piece of meat on the hoof. I don’t know why Jason’s suddenly all nostalgic about the fam; it’s not like there were good times to remember.”

“But they’re still your parents.”

“Yeah, unfortunately. Look, here’s the story of the Rosser clan: we’re the original nuclear family. As in, nuclear bomb. Toxic even when it doesn’t explode.” Eve shook her head. “Whatever Dad’s damage is, I don’t care. And I don’t know why Jason would, either.”

Another student had paid for coffee, and Eve cast him an absent, empty smile and started pulling espresso shots with mechanical precision. “It’s nothing, ” she said. “And I’m hanging up on him when he calls. If he calls. And even if it’s something, I don’t give a damn anyway.”

Claire just nodded. She had no idea what to say. Eve was clearly upset, a lot more upset than she’d expected her to be. She waved good-bye and took herself off to a nearby study table, and began plowing through a book she’d borrowed from the library. Somebody’s PhD paper, which read like the guy had never bothered to attend a single English Composition class.

Good equations, though. She was heavily involved in them when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?” She didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, and not her parents.

“Claire Danvers?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“My name’s Dr. Robert Mills. I’m the one who treated your friend Shane in the hospital.”

She felt a piercing sensation of alarm. “Nothing’s wrong with—”

“No, nothing like that,” he broke in hastily. “Look, you were the one who had the red crystals, right? The ones that nearly killed the mayor’s daughter?”

Claire’s momentary relief burned away like flash paper. “I guess,” she said. “I gave them to the doctor.”

“Well, here’s the thing: I’ve been looking at those crystals. Where’d you get them?”

“I—found them.” Technically true.

“Where?”

“In a lab.”

“I need you to show me this lab, Claire.”

“I don’t think I can do that, I’m sorry.”

“Look, I understand that you’re probably protecting someone—someone important. But if it helps, I already have approval from the Council to work on these crystals, and I really need more information about them—who developed them, how, the ingredients. I think I can help.”

Amelie was on the Elders’ Council. But she hadn’t said anything about working with the doctor. “Let me find out what I can tell you,” Claire said. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you back.”

“Soon,” he said. “I’ve been told the goal is to increase the effectiveness of the drug by at least fifty percent within the next couple of months.”

Claire blinked, surprised. “Do you know what it does?”

Dr. Mills—who sounded pleasant and normal— laughed. “Do I really know? Probably not. This is Morganville—we invented the concept of the secret around here. But I have a pretty decent idea that whatever it is, it’s not designed for human consumption. ”

That was as much as Claire wanted to talk about on the phone, no matter how friendly he seemed. After a quick excuse, she hung up and called Amelie. She intended to leave a message, and that, she thought, would probably be the end of it.

Amelie picked up the call. Claire stammered, took a deep breath, and told her about Dr. Mills and his request.

“I should have told you last evening. I have decided to concede to your request to have additional resources on this project,” Amelie said. “Dr. Mills is a trusted expert, a longtime resident of the town, and he won’t make the kind of value judgments others might. He’s also capable of keeping our secrets, and that is imperative. You understand why.”

Claire did, all too well. The crystals were a drug that helped vampires ward off the effects of a degenerative disease—a disease they all had, one that was robbing them of their ability to reproduce. Amelie was the strongest, but she was sick, too, and the worst cases were insane and locked away in cells beneath Morganville.