Fade Out

“You’re seriously going to take that as a win,” Kim said. “When he totally cheated for you.”

“Yes,” Shane said. “I seriously am.” He canceled the game, put the controller down, and rose to stretch and yawn. “Damn. It’s late. Don’t you have someplace to go or something?”

Kim looked actually hurt for a second, and Claire felt a twinge of—something. Maybe pity. She hoped not.

“Sure,” she said. “Joh

“What, you’re going?” Eve called from the top of the stairs, and jumped down past Claire in her eagerness to get to the bottom. “You can’t! Kim, we need to run lines and stuff!”

“No, Shane’s right. It’s really late. How about tomorrow? I can meet you at Common Grounds—how about three? You’re working until about then, right?”

“Yeah,” Eve said. She still sounded disappointed.

“Sure, that’s okay. Hey—you want to go out tomorrow night? Maybe catch a movie? Um—Claire, you want to go, too?”

Great. She was officially an also-invited. “No thanks,” she said. “I’ve got plans.”

“Seriously? What?”

Claire looked at Shane, and he took one for the team. “Di

“Awwww, really? That’s so sweet!” Eve leveled a finger at him. “Do not take her to the chili dog place.”

“A real restaurant. With tablecloths. Hey, I’m not a complete idiot.”

Kim stared at Shane, and in that moment, Claire realized this wasn’t just an act. . . . Kim really did like Shane—a lot.

She recognized pain when she saw it.

“So,” Eve said, and turned to Kim. “Movies, right? Something scary?”

Kim got herself together before Eve could see the same thing Claire had noticed. “Sure,” she said. “What ev. You pick. No girly movies.”

Eve looked deeply offended. “Me? Girly movies? Bite your tongue off. No, seriously. Right now.”

Kim laughed, and Eve walked her to the door. Claire said to Shane, “A

He raised his eyebrows. “Depends on how you count things,” he said. “Yeah. It’s got to be some kind of a

Michael said, “Speak for yourself, man.” He picked up the controller and restarted the game. “I can’t believe you almost let her win.”

“Man, I almost let you win sometimes,” Shane said, and dropped into his spot on the other end of the couch. “Game on.”

7

The next day, Claire sat through classes without any real sense of accomplishment, took a quiz—which she aced—and dropped in on Myrnin’s lab around noon. It looked neat and clean again, which was two miracles in a row as far as she was concerned. She went to the bookshelves and started looking over journals, trying to find the most recent ones, although those would be the most difficult to figure out, given that most of his notes would have been taken when he was sick, and mostly crazy.

But she was curious.

She was struggling through last summer’s book when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragon’s head on it.

And on his lapel was a button that said, IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK A TEACHER.

It was typical Myrnin, really. She was surprised the bu

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” he said, and draped his hat, coat, and cane on a nearby coat rack. “And I assume it isn’t just a random occurrence, like gravity.”

“Gravity isn’t random.”

“So you say.” He came to the opposite side of the table and looked at the book, then turned his head weirdly sideways to read the title. “Ah. Some of my best work. If only I could figure out what it actually meant.”

“I was trying to figure out if you ever met a girl named Kim. Kim—” What the hell was her last name? Had anybody even told her? “Kim, something. Kind of Goth?”

“Oh, her,” Myrnin said. He didn’t sound too impressed, which made Claire just a little happy. “Yes, Kimberlie’s known to us. She asked permission to film some of us, for the archives—a sort of permanent record of our histories. As you know, we do value that sort of thing. Many have agreed. She’s been named our video historian, I believe.”

“You haven’t done it, though?”

“I write my own history. I see no reason to entrust it to a human with a video camera. Paper and ink, girl. Paper and ink will always survive, when electronic storage becomes random impulses lost to the ages.”

“But the vampires do know her.”

“Yes. She’s a bit of a pet for the older ones. Besides me, of course. I don’t like pets. They bite—ah! I almost forgot! Time to feed Bob.” And Myrnin bustled off to another part of the lab, where presumably he’d stashed Bob the spider.

Or possibly Bob the auto mechanic—Claire wouldn’t put anything past him. He seemed slightly manic today, from the glitter in his eyes. It made her nervous.

She was about to close the book, when she saw, in his spiky black handwriting, something about her: New girl. Claire something. Small and fragile. No doubt they believe that will make me protective of her. It only makes me think how easy it is to destroy her. . . .

She shuddered, and decided she didn’t really want to read the rest.

She left Myrnin making little weird kissy faces to Bob the spider as he shook a container of flies into Bob’s plastic case, and went to the archives.

Since the first time she’d seen the Vampire Archives—which had been on the run, in a time of war, and it had been a place they’d hit up for weapons—she’d been fascinated by the idea. The vampires were packrats, no doubt about it; they loved things—historical things. Also—apparently—junk, because there were entire vaults of stuff that nobody had gotten around to categorizing yet, and probably never would. But the upper floors were amazing. The library was meticulous, and there was an entire section that contained every known book, magazine, and pamphlet with anything about vampires in it, cross-referenced by accuracy.

Dracula scored only about a six, apparently.

Apart from that, the vampires had donated, bought, or stolen six floors of historical texts, in a wide variety of languages. There were even ancient scrolls that looked too delicate to properly handle, and a few wax tablets that Amelie had told her dated from Roman times.

The audiovisual area was new, but it contained everything from samples of the flickers made for pe

Claire found the digital video interviews on the computer kiosk, listed by the vampire’s name and date of—birth? Making? What did they call it? Anyway, the date they got fanged.

The newest one was Michael Glass.

Claire brought up the player and blinked as Michael fidgeted in front of the camera. He wasn’t comfortable. This wasn’t being onstage for him, obviously. He messed with the clip-on microphone until Kim’s off-screen voice told him to cut it out, and then he sat, looking like he wished he’d never agreed to any of this, until the questions started. The first ones were obvious—name, current age, age at death, original birthplace.

Then Kim asked, “How did you become a vampire?” Michael thought about his answer for a few seconds before he said, “Total stupidity.”

“Yeah? Tell me.”

“I grew up in Morganville. I knew the rules. I knew how dangerous things were, but when you grow up with Protection, I think you get careless. I’d just turned eighteen. My parents had already left town, my mom was sick and needed cancer treatments, so I was on my own. I wanted to sell the house and get on with my life.”