Bite Club Page 0,13

need to understand who in this town might be willing to kill for a sample of vampire blood."

Frank's laugh was dry and scratchy and full of contempt. "You want me to print out a phone directory? Between the people who want to figure out how to kill you faster, the ones who want to protect you because they have money riding on it, and the ones who just dig the whole undead look, it could be anybody."

"A list of anyone who is known to be making antivampire weapons, then," Myrnin said with icy precision. "And anyone who might possibly be researching how to use vampire blood as a drug."

"That ship sailed last century," Frank said. "Everybody knows it makes a crap drug. No real high to it. Makes you stronger for a while, but it's got no bump, and the fall's worse than steroids. They tried combining it with other stuff, but there's nothing you can add it to that vampire blood won't break down in a hurry."

Silence. Myrnin was surprised, Claire realized; he hadn't known humans had even thought about any of this. And it bothered him. If it botheredMyrnin , it would make the other vampires crazy. "How far back does this go?"

"It was already old news when I was in high school." Frank shrugged. "People kept on trying, but nothing ever worked. So I think you can write off the drug angle. Now, the killing-your-kind-better motive...that I can believe. It would have been at the top of my Christmas list."

Frank was still identifying vampires asyou , notus , which was interesting. He'd been a vampire a relatively short time, and Claire knew he'd been forced into it; it wasn't something he would ever have

chosen for himself. He took a special delight in seeing the vamps one-upped.

"Then I'll need a list of those people," Myrnin said. "We'll need to interview them."

"No."

The word came out flat and final. And it rang on the cold stone of the lab's walls and floors, until Myrnin repeated it very softly. "No?"

"No. I was one of them, and I'm not going to put their names on a piece of paper for you and yours to go out and hunt down."

"Maybe your son knows," Myrnin said. He said it in a very offhand way, and without looking at Claire. He was staring at Frank's flickering image. "Maybe I should ask him instead. Forcefully."

Frank's image shifted, and Claire could actuallyfeel the menace coming off it now, like an icy wind. "Maybe you shouldn't even think about going there."

"Oh, I do," Myrnin said, and raised his eyebrows. "I think about it quite a lot." There was something fey coming out in him in response to Frank's defiance; it was something Claire hardly ever saw. Maybe it was a guy thing.

She picked up the first pointy thing that came to hand--a pair of scissors--and jammed them against Myrnin's back, notinto his back, stabby-wise, but enough to make an impression.

"Ow," he said absently, and looked over his shoulder at her. "What?"

"Leave Shane out of it," she said very quietly. That was all. No explanations, no threats.

Myrnin turned very slowly to face her. That strange, uncomfortable light in his eyes was still glittering, but as he stared at her, it faded, like someone turned down a dimmer switch. "All right," he said. "Since you ask so nicely."

"I wasn't asking."

"I'm aware of that. The sharp point in my back did make it clear." He caught her wrist in one of those lightning-quick vampire motions and took the scissors away from her. He put them in the pocket of his lab coat. "Wouldn't want you hurting yourself."

"No," Claire said. "You think that's your job."

A quick flash of a smile, not a very nice one, and Myrnin turned back to Frank. "All right, my unpleasant friend, we'll have done with threats, both yours and mine. Please, for the sake of young Claire here, will you be so kind as to provide me with a few places where I might look for a murderer?"

"The mirror's a great place to start," Frank said. "But if you're talking humans, I can give you maybe two names. We'd be better off if they were off the streets, anyway."

"Detente," Myrnin said. "How lovely."

Chapter Three

THREE

Claire wasn't needed for the actual investigation. Myrnin wanted to do it himself...a fact that left her a little bit worried, not so much for him as for the people he was out to question (not very nice people, granted, if Frank Collins