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She smiled, and a dimple formed in her cheek. I wanted to kiss it, but there wasn't time. Especially not time for all the parts of her I wanted to kiss.
"You be careful," she told me. "I am marrying you, you know."
"I know." I gave in to temptation and kissed her nose. "Same here."
I waited to be sure that the house was tightly locked and Shane and Eve were safely in the big, black tank of a hearse before I took off running. My portion of Myrnin's list required things from his lab, and I was far better qualified to be in that part of town after dark - and Myrnin was prone to setting little traps for visitors, too. Better me than my friends.
The Day House next to the alley had all its lights ablaze, and I paused before I entered to look up at the second-floor corner window. The lace curtains parted, and the ancient, seamed face of Gramma Day looked out at me. She saluted me and raised a shotgun. I waved back.
We had an understanding, me and Gramma. I wondered if her granddaughter Lisa was back; if she was, she'd be heavily armed, too. The Days could tell things were changing, and not for the better.
Good. That meant they stood a good chance of not being victims.
I raced the rest of the way, dodging standing puddles of water - the rain had ceased, at least for a while - and trash cans as I went. The alley narrowed at the end, funneling directly to the shack that concealed Myrnin's lab entrance.
Someone had helpfully busted open the door, and I didn't even slow down as I jumped the stairs, landed flat-footed on the stone floor, and took a moment to look at the jumble that was in front of me.
Holy crap. Someone had definitely had a tantrum, or a fight. Knowing Myrnin, I'd put my money on the first thing.
I shoved books out of the way - there were a lot of books - and heard the crash of glass somewhere underneath the pile. I knew what I was looking for, but it was anybody's guess as to whether he'd have kept it where he'd had it the last time I'd visited. Myrnin liked to redecorate. Forcefully.
Bob the Spider was still doing fine, sitting in his web in the fish tank near Myrnin's battered leather armchair; he'd grown to almost the size of a tarantula by now. I wondered what Myrnin fed him, but that wasn't my concern, not today. I edged by the tank, while eight beady eyes watched me, and opened the chemical cabinet that Claire had insisted be installed for things that might actually sear flesh or cause horrible death.
Inside, the bottles were all intact, and neatly labeled in Claire's careful printing. I paused for a second to stare at that, because it felt as if she were right here, standing with me; but that was illusion, not fact. The real Claire was trapped in the house, just as I'd been once.
This was just . . . an afterimage. Wishful thinking.
I looked at the list and grabbed two bottles. Claire had left a shopping bag in the corner, and I started filling it up. The chemicals were only part of what Myrnin wanted; he also needed a piece of equipment that looked like some kind of defibrillator. He'd drawn a sketch in his sloppy, yet oddly accurate, hand, and I held it up as I stared at each steampunked-out machine in view.
There, on the fifth table, sat a match to what he'd drawn. I grabbed it up.
The last thing, though, wasn't in view, and I spent long, frustrating minutes opening cabinets and pulling out crap to try to find it. A black leather bag, like an old-fashioned doctor's kit.
It was nowhere.
"I'd ask if you were looking for something, but that seems pretty obvious," said a gravelly voice from behind me. I hadn't felt anybody approach, but I knew the voice, all right, and there was nobody to sense behind it.
Just a picture, flat and grayscale, of Shane's dad.
I tried not to show it too much around Shane, but I hated his father. Hated him, more than any human being or creature or whatever on the face of the planet. It wasn't from any one thing, although he'd done horrible stuff to me; I could get over that, bad as it was. No, it was what he'd put Shane through, day after day, all his life. It was bad enough when he was just a mean drunk, pushing his son to be a bully like him; it had gotten ten thousand times worse after Shane's sister and mother had died, and Frank's obsession with destroying the Morganville vampires had taken over whatever good he had left inside.
Shane had a big dark streak inside him, but honestly, I'd always been surprised that he had anything but the dark, after what he'd been through.
Because of his dad.
So, without turning around, I said, "Fuck off, Frank, before I find your jar and smash your brain like a boiled tomato."
"Aw, that's cute. Who grew up and got all butch? Doesn't suit you, Glass. You're the sensitive musician type, remember?" The bitter mockery in his voice was about as subtle as a rock to the head.
One thing about me - I am a musician, but I grew up in Morganville, and here, sensitive types don't last long unless they have steel underneath. So I was never the weak pushover Shane's dad had always assumed I was. Shane had known that, but his dad had always wanted him to make friends with real guys.
Honestly, smashing his brain would solve so many problems right now, for all of us, because the idea of Frank Collins continuing to throw his weight around when Claire was lying dead in our house . . . it really reeked of irony.
I turned around and said, "Black leather bag. Where is it?"
Collins had upgraded his image a little; he seemed younger, and he'd made himself look more badass at the same time. Sad. "Feel free to look around," he said.
"Myrnin needs it."
"You think that cuts any ice with me, Goldilocks? He didn't exactly ask me before he wired me into his Frankenmachine. I don't run his errands."
I kept opening cabinets and pulling drawers. The clock was ticking away on me, and I was well aware that I still had to get back to the house before the deadline with Shane and Eve. If Amelie's search team showed up here, I'd be screwed.
"Warmer," Frank said. "Oooh, nope, wrong, cooler."
"Shut up."
"Tell me one thing and I will."
"Or I could go pull your tubes - that'd work, too."
"What do you think would happen if I told Shane about you and Claire?"
I froze. It was like a two-by-four hitting me in the head, and for a few seconds I couldn't even organize a response . . . and then I had to fight back the red splash of rage that flooded over me.
I turned to look at him. Pretty sure my eyes were glowing a bright, angry crimson. "You f**king liar."
He laughed. "Oh, come on, Michael. She's a pretty girl; she's living in your house.... Are you telling me you never even thought about it? You think Shane would believe that, either? If I told him?"
It was a lie, a complete and total bullshit lie, but he was right about one thing: I had thought about it. Not after Shane had started falling for her, but before, a little. Just a little.
One thing about Frank, he'd always known how to see the cracks in your armor, and just where to hit. My friendship with Shane would always be strong, and it would always be fragile, too; he didn't trust vampires, but he trusted me, and all that noise in his head over that made it harder than it should have been.
Any hint about Claire and me . . . that would shatter it all over again.
"What do you want, Frank?" I slammed one drawer and opened another one. Damn, I was getting hungry, spurred on by all the anger he was pulling out of me. I had a sports bottle at home filled with type O that I'd chug down, but it was distracting, feeling that jittery need at a time like this. I wondered where Myrnin kept his snacks. Then again, knowing Myrnin's general whackitude, I wouldn't have tried anything out of his refrigerator anyway.
"I want you to stop Amelie," Frank said.
That made me turn around. All the bullying was gone now, all the crap, and this was the real Frank Collins. The one who still had a streak of - well, I wouldn't call it humanity, exactly - honor left in him.
"Stop her from doing what, exactly?"
"Destroying this town and everybody in it."
"Not the vampires," I said. "And she said she's handing over power to the humans."
Frank laughed, a tangle of electronic noise from the speakers across the room. "You really believe she'd ever do that? Even at the end? She's one of those who'd kill you to save you. Vampires get to leave. Humans get to die, all together, right in Founder's Square - just like scientists humanely get rid of lab animals when they're done with the experiment. And I'm the one who has to pull the pin."
Part of me insisted that he was lying, again, because that was Frank's deal. He lied. He bullied. He manipulated people to do what he wanted.
