Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,106
given up Myrnin, was pretty amazing, because we’d gone from being on the deadly end of the deal to negotiating for favours, and I didn’t think Dr Anderson had even realised she was being played as thoroughly and masterfully as she’d once played Claire. It was impressive. And a little scary. That funky weapon wasn’t pointed at me any more, even vaguely; it was aimed down at the ground. That didn’t mean it couldn’t come right back up again, if I did something stupid, but by focusing my anger on Claire, I’d won some breathing space from the real target. I’d put Claire and Anderson on the same side, and now they were just working out details.
I just hoped Claire wasn’t buying into what I was selling. I couldn’t really tell now. She still looked pallid, shocked, and fragile and I wanted to take her in my arms so bad it hurt … but that wasn’t what would help either of us right now.
‘You’ll have to sell it to Eve, not me,’ I said. ‘But you back off Michael and I might be able to live with the rest of it. Maybe.’
‘There’s no maybe, Shane. Maybe earns you prison. So I suggest you think hard about your next answer, yes?’
I let the moment drag out, and then finally nodded. I was trying not to look at Myrnin, because he was curled in a fetal ball on the floor, whispering to himself, and if I’d ever thought he’d looked crazy before, well, I’d been wrong. He looked wrecked now, and I wasn’t sure any of those pieces were going back together again. Myrnin had been breakable, and now he looked shattered.
Claire had a dull, hard look in her eyes, one I recognised; she was trying to keep everything inside, to just get through to the next moment without feeling the pain. I knew that look because I’d just about invented it.
‘So what do you want me to say?’ I asked, and looked at her directly. ‘Claire, tell me what you want me to say. You know I’ll do anything for you. I always have.’
She pulled in a sharp, shaking breath, and said, ‘Just say you’ll back me up when I have to talk to Amelie. Tell her you never saw any of them, or any of … this. Tell her that as far as you know, everything’s normal here.’
‘What about Jesse? Amelie sent her to watch your boss, here. She’s going to be suspicious when Jesse goes missing too.’
‘Jesse will be handled,’ Anderson said. ‘She has pressure points, and I know how to apply them. She’ll do what I tell her when it counts, and she’s got little love for Amelie anyway.’
I knew all of a sudden exactly what that pressure point was … Myrnin. Jesse had a special little sparkle when she talked to him; she was fine with Oliver, but extra fine with Count Crackula. Dr Anderson would keep Jesse in line by threatening more damage to Myrnin. And it was all okay, because hell, they were just vamps, right? Didn’t matter if they got hurt. Lab rats.
I could feel the ghost of my dad nodding in agreement with that, and it made me feel sick, deep down. ‘Thought you and Jesse had some kind of friendship going,’ I said.
‘We did, once,’ Dr Anderson said. ‘And you of all people should understand that you can’t rely on a vampire for sentimentality. They just don’t have the wiring in their heads to really feel the way we do. It’s counterfeit, a mask they wear to draw their prey in and keep them close. They’re predators, pure and simple. They’re just extremely good at it.’
There were sounds in the hallway, and I heard some kind of vehicles pulling up in the parking lot. The fun was over now; Claire had made her play, I’d supported it, and now … now we’d see if Dr Anderson really believed us.
Patrick Douche Bag Davis appeared in the doorway. ‘We’ve got secured vehicles outside,’ he said. ‘We can manacle the vampires with silver, they won’t go anywhere. What about these two? Are they prisoners?’
I felt the weight of Anderson’s stare on me. I was hanging over the fire pit, for sure; she wasn’t kidding about getting Liz to blab that I was the one who’d kidnapped her, and that put me in federal prison, doing long time. I was used to Morganville’s jail cells, but this was something else.