Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,83
that Jesse had probably practised the art of flirting for at least a few hundred years. Poor Myrnin.
He was definitely outclassed, and way out of practice, because he cleared his throat and turned his back on her – not the most graceful end to that conversation – and said, ‘Claire. With me.’
She automatically moved to follow him as he headed for the kitchen, but Shane didn’t let go of her; his strong grip pulled her to a halt, and Claire looked up at him, frowning.
‘I’ll be okay,’ she said. What she saw in his face was not jealousy, or worry, or anything like that; it was caution, pure and simple. This was all wildly strange, today. She understood exactly how he felt, wanting to slow it down and make things a little more understandable. ‘Let me talk to him and see if I can make sense of any of this.’
‘You’re talking to Myrnin,’ Shane said. ‘I think that might be a little too much to ask.’ But he let her go, and she followed her friend, her boss and her headache into the little kitchen area. She glanced over at Michael and Eve as she did so; he’d finished drinking from Eve’s wrist, and was using the leftover gauze from Jesse to put a neat bandage around the small wound. The look in his eyes as he watched Eve’s face was vulnerable, grateful and more than a little heartbreaking.
Anybody who believed vampires couldn’t feel things like living people did had never met Michael Glass.
They got as far from the others as it was possible to be, within the walls of Pete’s small apartment, and Claire tried to put at least a few feet between her and Myrnin. Ugh. Where had he been hanging out, the city dump? But it was clear that hygiene wasn’t his biggest issue at the moment, from the fiery intensity of his gaze on her. ‘You and Irene,’ Myrnin began. ‘What have you done?’
Claire was taken aback, because she hadn’t expected him to accuse her like that. ‘Nothing!’ she said, and crossed her arms over her chest. She knew it looked defensive, and she didn’t care. ‘You’re the one who told me to work with her, Myrnin, so don’t blame me if something’s gone wrong in all this. I just wanted to come to college!’
‘And it’s working out so well!’ he said. ‘I trusted Irene implicitly. She has been my agent here in the world for some time, and she has helped conceal our true nature from those who come looking.’
‘Like the government?’
Myrnin didn’t answer that. He couldn’t stand still, and now he stopped moving uneasily from one foot to another to move toward the counter and restlessly open and close the drawers. Claire caught a glimpse of random junk in one, forks and spoons in another. He wasn’t looking for anything, he just needed to fidget. ‘Irene has always had ties to the federal government,’ he said. ‘But that never concerned us directly, until recently.’
‘Just tell me what happened! What made you leave Morganville and come all the way out here in the first place? I know Oliver was already on the road – did you run into him, or did he find you?’
‘That is a great many questions in a row. Oh, look, he has peanut butter. Do you like peanut butter?’
‘Myrnin!’
‘But it’s crunchy …’ She stared at him with inarticulate frustration, and he put the jar back in the pantry and closed the door. There were some rubber bands dangling from the knob, so he picked a couple off and began playing with them. That was good. It would be less distracting, for both of them. ‘I left Morganville because I intercepted a communication that claimed to be able to prove, without any doubt, the existence of vampires in the world.’
‘Oh, God, Myrnin, did you find this on the Internet? Because you can’t believe everything that’s on there.’
‘I know that! And no, I did not believe it. Not at first. But this was no excitable fan of films posting to his friends; it was a doctor, who was preparing a scholarly paper. It was a Google alert, by the way.’ He seemed ridiculously pleased that he had figured out how to set one. ‘He was located in Boston. I felt there had to be some reason that such a revelation would be located so close to Irene, and I phoned her. She did not answer.’