Carpe Corpus Page 0,11
her. He was just as trapped as she was.
Myrnin stopped only when there were two closed doors, and about a mile of hallway, between them and Mr. Bishop.
"Let go of me!" Claire spat, and tried to yank free. Myrnin looked down at her arm, where his pale fingers were still wrapped around it, and raised his eyebrows as if he couldn't quite figure out what his hand was doing. Claire yanked again. "Myrnin, let go!"
He did, and stepped back. She thought he looked disappointed for a flicker of a second, and then his loony smile was firmly in place. "Will you be a good little girl, then?" She glared at him. "Ah. Probably not. All right, then, on your head be it, Claire, and let's do our best to keep your head attached to the rest of you. Come. I'll take you to your boy, since evidently our mutual benefactor is in a giving sort of mood."
He turned, and the skirts of his frock coat flared. He was wearing flip-flops again, and his feet were dirty, though he didn't smell too bad in general. The layers of cheap metallic beads clicked and rattled as he walked, and the slap of his shoes made him just about the noisiest vampire Claire had ever heard.
"Are you taking your medicine?" she asked. Myrnin sent her a glance over his shoulder, and once again, she didn't know what that look meant at all. "Is that a no?"
"I thought you hated me," he said. "If you do, you shouldn't really care, should you?"
He had a point. Claire shut up and hurried along as he walked down a long, curved hallway to a big wooden door. There was a vampire guard on the door, a man who'd probably been Asian in his regular life, but was now the color of old ivory. He wore his hair long, braided in the back, and he wasn't much taller than Claire.
Myrnin exchanged some Chinese-sounding words with the other vampire - who, like Michael, sported Bishop's fang marks in his neck - and the vampire unlocked the door and swung it open.
This was as far as Claire had ever been able to get before. She felt a wave of heat race through her, and then she shivered. Now that she was here, actually walking through the door, she felt faintly sick with anticipation. If they've hurt him . . . And it had been so long. What if he didn't even want to see her at all?
Another locked door, another guard, and then they were inside a plain stone hallway with barred cells on the left side. No windows. No light except for blazing fluorescent fixtures far overhead. The first cell was empty. The second held two humans, but neither one was Shane. Claire tried not to look too closely. She was afraid she might know them.
The third cell had two small cots, one on each side of the tiny room, and a toilet and sink in the middle. Nothing else. It was almost painfully neat. There was an old man with straggly gray hair asleep on one of the beds, and it took Claire a few seconds to realize that he was Frank Collins, Shane's dad. She was used to seeing him awake, and it surprised her to see him so . . . fragile. So helpless and old.
Shane was sitting cross-legged on the other bed. He looked up from the book he was reading, and jerked his head to get the hair out of his eyes. The guarded, closed look on his face reminded Claire of his father, but it shattered when Shane saw her.
He dropped the book, surged to his feet, and was at the bars in about one second flat. His hands curled around the iron, and his eyes glittered wildly until he squeezed them shut.
When he opened them again, he'd gotten himself under control. Mostly.
"Hey," Shane said, as calmly as if they'd just run into each other in the hallway at the Glass House, their strange little minifraternity. As if whole months hadn't gone by since they'd been parted. "Imagine seeing you around here. Happy birthday to you, and all."
Claire felt tears burn in her eyes, but she blinked them back and put on a brave smile. "Thanks," she said. "What'd you get me?"
"Um . . . a shiny diamond." Shane looked around and shrugged. "Must have left it somewhere. You know how it is, out all night partying, you get baked and forget where