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And she opened her eyes and said, "Ow."
As first words went, it was weak, whispery, and not very inspiring, but Eve shrieked and clapped her hands over her mouth, and Shane lunged up as if someone had pushed him straight off the floor.
And Myrnin stepped back, staggered, and fell.
Shane hesitated, glancing at him, then completed his rush to grab Claire and pull her into his arms. "Ow," she repeated, and blinked. "Shane." Her whole vocabulary had been reduced to single words. "Eve."
Eve blew her frantic kisses, then went to lean over Myrnin, who was lying on the floor with his eyes wide-open. "Hey," she said. "Uh - are you okay?" She prodded him tentatively with a fingertip, and he did one of those vampire-quick grabs to get hold of her arm. Eve tried to pull back, but Claire knew that wasn't likely to happen.
"Eve," Claire whispered. Shane was holding her as if she might break, and also as if he never intended to let go, but she pushed weakly at his shoulder and jerked her chin toward the action. "Eve!"
Shane sighed and let her go. "Don't you move," he ordered, and turned to face the two of them. Eve was crouched down now, trying to pry his cold fingers off her skin. "Come on, man. Let her go."
Myrnin opened his mouth, and his fangs came out. Shane moved fast, planted his knee on the vampire's chest, and helped Eve in her frantic struggle to get herself free. Together, they were able to pry enough fingers loose to let her break the hold, and she stumbled backward, rubbing what was sure to be a monster bruise.
"Go get him blood. I think Michael's got some stashed in the fridge," Shane said. Myrnin was trying to grab him, too, but Shane batted it away, careful to keep his center of gravity over Myrnin's to hold him in place. Claire realized that her boss's eyes had gone red. Very dark red. "Better make it two pints."
Eve ran for the kitchen and came back with two sports bottles, both labeled with Michael's name. "Here." She passed over the first one, and Shane aimed the straw at Myrnin's open mouth and squeezed a fine red spray into it.
Myrnin froze, swallowed, opened his mouth again. Shane stuck the flexible straw in. "Drink up," he said. "I'm not letting you go until you can form actual words."
It didn't take long for Myrnin to drain the first bottle, and go through half the second, but by then his eyes had faded to a muddy brown, and he looked more - himself. "Sorry," he managed to say, and Shane grunted noncommittally. His expression changed as he took another pull on the straw. "Ugh. Is this AB? I hate AB! Don't you have anything else?"
"Shut up and take it," Shane said. "We're not the freaking dispensary." He hesitated, then shifted his weight and stood up, giving Myrnin room to get up on his own. "And thank you. For her."
"It was her choice," Myrnin said. He looked past Shane as he climbed up, and caught Claire's gaze. She got a flash again of sadness and longing, disappointment, pride . . . all complicated, all blazing through a mind she could only distantly understand. "She's made it." He sighed, and his shoulders rounded. "I'm tired. And there's so much to do. I'm sorry; I can't stay. As it is, Amelie's men will be searching. They may well come here looking. If they do, don't lie; tell them you don't know where I'm going, because it's the truth. I don't honestly know myself."
"Wait," Claire said. She couldn't really move, not yet; her body was still aching and struggling to come to terms with being alive again. She supposed that Myrnin's blood had done that much - repaired things, made it all work again in preparation for turning her vamp. There was a needle in her arm, and even as she realized that, Myrnin flipped a switch on the machine sitting on the table, hissing and chugging away, and the gears that had been spinning slowed, then stopped.
He slid the needle out of her arm. Claire felt a rush of heat, then cold, then sick nausea, but she almost immediately felt better. Her heartbeat steadied down from its frantic pounding.
"Wait," she said again, more strongly. Myrnin didn't pause as he coiled up tubing, and shoved things into a black leather bag. "Myrnin. Thank you. Thank you for letting me go." Because it had been as much his will as hers, she realized - he'd let her make the choice, once he knew she wanted it. Not all vampires would have done that. Or could have.
He nodded sharply, long hair veiling his face. He picked up the sports bottle, drained it, made a sound of disgust deep in his throat, and said, "Tastes like raspberries. I hate raspberries. Disgusting things." He snapped his bag shut. "Keep her still and quiet for a bit. The healing's done, but her body's in shock. She'll be cold. Get her water now, food in an hour, but not too much of either." He managed to turn and smile, but there was something broken about it. "I must be off."
"And you must be leaving," Eve said. It was trying to be a joke, but didn't quite make it. "Sorry. Is there anything we can do to - ?"
"No," he said. "Stay here. Whatever happens, you must not go out again, even in daylight."
"Wait. Michael's not back, and he's supposed to be. Can you look for him? Please?"
Myrnin stared at Eve for a few long seconds, then took her hands in his and gravely said, "If he hasn't returned to you, you must accept that he never will. What's out there now is death to vampires as much as to humans - more so, because we're the real targets. Michael took a terrible risk. He knew that."
Past tense. Myrnin was talking about Michael in past tense. Claire felt Shane sink down beside her, and his warm arm went around her to hold her close. He spread the afghan over them both.
"He can't be gone," Claire said. "Not now. Not when I - " Not when I came back.
Eve looked blankly terrified as she held Myrnin's gaze. "Please," she said again. "He can't be gone. Please bring him back!"
He kissed her hands, first one, then the other, and stepped away. "We are all trying to do our best," he said. "And I will not forget him."
That, Claire thought, was very far from a promise.
Eve looked shattered, but she didn't cry. She stood and watched as Myrnin walked to the blank wall of the living room, opened up a portal, and stepped through. Claire expected him to look back.
But he didn't.
"Eve," Claire said. Her voice sounded stronger, and her friend turned her head, just a little, in her direction. "Please. Come sit."
Eve did, at last, curling up on the couch on Claire's other side and putting her arms around her. The three of them stayed under the blanket, huddling close, as the chill settled inside the house, and rain pounded the windows.
"Something's strange," Eve said. "Things feel different. Not you, but - this. The house."
She was right, Claire realized. She didn't have the sense of the house's emotions, or anxieties; it didn't respond when she reached out to it.
It was just bricks and mortar and wood now.
Myrnin had broken the Glass House to set her free.
The first hint that something strange was going on with her was after she'd consumed the food and water that Myrnin had directed, and risen off the couch under her own power. Shane was hovering around her, obviously worried she was going to drop at any moment, but she felt . . . good. Steady. Even better than that, really.
"Seriously, you should sit," he said to her. "An hour ago you were - "
"Dead," Claire said, and rubbed the back of her neck. Something clicked in there, but not in a bad way. More like a relieving-tension way. She shook her head experimentally. Everything held together. "I know. And I'm so sorry, Shane. I know how hard it was for you. I saw." He knew she was talking about the gun, about that desperate moment as he sat with his back to her door, when it seemed like he had nothing left. "Don't you ever do that again. Promise me."
"I won't," he said, and put his arms around her. He felt so good to her, so real and warm and perfect, as if they were made to fit together. "Don't you ever leave me again, though."
She kissed the soft, warm skin beneath his ear and whispered, "You have to make the same promise, you know."
"I do," he whispered back, and hugged her hard enough to drive her newly recovered breath away. "What are we going to do about Michael?"
"I don't know." She was miserably aware that for Myrnin, and probably for all the rest of the vampires, if you were missing now, you were presumed dead; that meant Naomi, Oliver, Michael, and all the rest wouldn't be coming back even if they were still alive - not if rescue was left up to Amelie. "It's worse than that. I can't be sure but I think - I think Amelie's not really planning to set us all free when the vampires leave."
