Feast of Fools

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 ru

“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.”