"What's he talking about?" Claire turned to Sam. "Nothing." He shook his head. "Don't listen to him."
Myrnin looked up and bared his teeth. His eyes were fierce, but they were sane. Mostly sane, anyway. "They won't tell you the truth, little morsel, but I will. We're dying. Seventy years ago -- "
Sam moved Claire out of his way, and for the first time since she'd met him, Sam actually looked threatening. "Myrnin, shut up!"
"No," Myrnin sighed. "It's time for talking. I've been shut up enough." He looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed and full of tears. "Oh, little girl, do you understand? My race is dying. My race is dying and I don't know how to stop it."
Claire's mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't find anything to say. Sam turned toward her, fury still radiating off him like heat. "Ignore him," he said. "He doesn't know what he's saying. We should go, before he remembers what he was about to do. Or forgets what he shouldn't."
Claire cast a look back over her shoulder at Myrnin, who was holding a broken glass pipe in his hands, trying to fit the two pieces back together. When it wouldn't go, he dropped it and covered his face with both hands. She could see his shoulders shaking. "Can't -- shouldn't somebody help him?"
"There's no help," Sam said in a voice flat with anger. "There's no cure. And you're not coming back here again if I can do anything about it."
Chapter Six
Claire kept her silence for about half the ride home, and Sam didn't offer anything either. The pressure of questions finally was too much for her. "He was telling the truth, wasn't he?" she asked. "There's some kind of disease. Amelie tried to make me think that not making more vampires was her choice, but that's not really true, is it? You can't. She's the only one who isn't sick."
Sam's face went tight and still in the glow of the dashboard lights. Sitting in the car was like traveling through space; the dark-tinted windows refused even starlight, so it was just the two of them in their own pocket universe. He had the radio on, and it was playing classical music, something light and sweet.
"No," he said. "She's sick, too. We all are. Myrnin's been searching for the cause -- and the cure -- for seventy years now, but it's too late now. He's too far gone, and the chance that anyone else could help him through it is too small. I can't let her sacrifice you like this, Claire. I told you that he's had five assistants. I don't want you to become another statistic."
"What if he doesn't find the cure?" Claire asked. "How long --?"
"Claire, you need to forget you ever heard any of this. I mean it. There are a lot of secrets in Morganville, but this one could kill you. Say nothing, understand? Not to your friends, and not to Amelie. Do you understand?"
His intensity was even more terrifying than Myrnin's, because it was so controlled. She nodded.
It didn't stop the questions from swirling in her brain.
Sam let her out at the curb and watched her until she was inside the house -- it was full dark, and there were plenty of hunting vampires out on a clear, cool night like this. Nobody would hurt her --probably -- but Sam wasn't in the mood to take chances.
Claire shut the door and locked it, leaned against the wood for a long few seconds, and tried to get her head together. She knew her friends would bombard her with questions -- where had she been, was she crazy being out alone in the dark -- but she couldn't answer them, not without violating some order from either Amelie or Sam.
They're dying. It seemed impossible; the vampires seemed so strong, so frightening. But she'd seen it. She'd seen the way Myrnin was decaying, and how afraid Sam was. Even Amelie, perfect icy Amelie, was doomed.
Wasn't that a good thing? And if it was, why did she feel so sick?
Claire took a few more deep breaths, willed her mind to shut up for a while, and pushed off to walk down the hall.
She didn't get far. There was stuff piled everywhere. It took her a second, but she recognized it with a shock of horror. "Oh no," she whispered. "Shane's stuff." It was blocking the hallway. Claire shoved a path through the boxes and suitcases piled there. Oh, crap. There was the Playstation, unplugged and looking mournful, in a heap with its game controllers.
"Hey? Hey guys? What's going on?" Claire called, edged around the barricades. "Anybody here?"
"Claire?" Michael's shadow appeared at the end of the hall. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I -- got held up late at the lab," she said. Which wasn't a lie. "What's happening?"
"Shane says he's moving out," Michael said. He looked deeply angry, but it was covering up hurt, too. "Glad you're here. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. Eve's not having much luck."
Claire heard the indistinct buzz of voices upstairs. Eve's voice, high and strident. Shane's rumbling low. There was about a sixty second delay, and then Shane came down the stairs carrying a box. His face was pale but determined, and although he hesitated for a second when he saw Claire was back, he kept coming down.
"Seriously, dumbass, what the hell are you doing?" Eve demanded from the top of the stairs. She darted around and got into his path, forcing him to back up and try to get around her. "Yo, village idiot! Talking to you!"
"You want to live here with him, fine," Shane said tightly. "I'm going. I've had enough."
"You're moving at night? Do you have a head wound?"
He faked Eve to the right and moved past her to the left.
And ran into Claire, who didn't move. She didn't say anything, and after a few seconds of silence he said, "I'm sorry. Got to do it. I told you."