"Still, worrisome," Myrnin said, and marked the map where Shane pointed. "That is far out of the area that Oliver predicted they would occupy. Could you hear the singing?"
"Naomi had that noise cancellation device, but Theo-" Claire's throat closed up on the words, but she forced them out anyway. "Theo had needles in his ears. To keep himself from hearing."
Myrnin's eyebrows climbed again, and he tapped the marker against his lips. "An interesting tactic. Perhaps one we should think about as emergency equipment to be issued to all personnel."
"Ugh. No. Human eardrums don't grow back, Myrnin."
"Oh, right. Well, just the vampires, then." He scribbled a note on a random piece of paper-actually, over the printing in a book-and went on. "Oliver believes the draug are consolidating their position here, in the occupied areas, but I think he is very wrong. Look at the blue marks."
For a few seconds they didn't seem to make any sense; it was Michael who said quietly, "Bodies of water."
"Fountains," Myrnin said, and tapped a couple of spots. "I've sent operatives to shut off any flow to or from them, and poison them; Oliver discounts them strategically, and he's likely correct. But our biggest issue is obviously here."
That was a large blue dot. Very large.
"What the hell is that?" Shane asked, frowning. "Morganville High?"
"No, that's taken care of," Myrnin said, and tapped another dot. "The pool there has been drained and filled in. No, this is a far different sort of problem altogether."
"That's the water treatment plant," Michael said. "Out on the edge of town."
"There are exposed pools of water there, and inflow and outflow controls for the pipes in the city. If I were Magnus, I would move my headquarters immediately to that as the most strategic point. No doubt he has already done so, or is in the process."
"You're kidding. He's hiding in sewage?" Shane asked.
"Not sewage, no, though that gets treated through this operation as well. What is in those exposed pools is commonly known as gray water-the water from baths, showers, sinks, washing machines, and such. It needs treatment to be clean for drinking again, but it doesn't contain sewage. By preference, this is where we will find the draug. Not in the sewage tanks. Even the draug have some standards." Myrnin shook his head slowly. "The difficulty is that there are two necessary tasks to be performed. First, of course, we must attack the draug directly in those pools, if they exist there-and Oliver does not believe they do. He says he has sent operatives and they have reported it clear."
"But you don't believe that."
"I think the draug are more than capable of strategy," Myrnin said, "and strategically, they are in a defensive mode at this point. We've hurt them; they have not overwhelmed us as quickly as they'd hoped, and they can't attack us directly at Founder's Square. So they're hiding until they regain their numbers, and I believe they will conceal themselves here, at the treatment plant. It is a natural stronghold for them-they can infest this maze of iron and water like a horde of starving cockroaches, and they'll be just as hard to anticipate and to kill in such close quarters."
"Wow," Shane said. "You really know how to drum up team spirit. Did you print up Team Total Fail jerseys, too?"
Myrnin gave him an entirely crazy smile. "Would you be surprised if I had?" He threw another large sheet of paper out over the map. It was a blueprint. "There are two phases to this operation, if there is to be one. The pools are a direct attack, but there is something else that is entirely necessary before that can occur: we must stop them from easily traveling through the pipes in Morganville. Right now, they have easy access through those pipes into homes, businesses, all of the abandoned structures. The university. We cannot allow them to have such easy mobility."
"Okay, it isn't manly to admit it, but I don't speak blueprint," Shane said. "So what are we talking about exactly?"
"We need to shut off the water system," Myrnin said. "There are emergency cutoff valves that will stop the flow of water in the pipes throughout Morganville, trapping the draug where they are if they've infested them, and stranding those at the treatment plant there, unable to retreat."
"It's still raining," Shane pointed out.
"True, but in this desert it can't last forever. The only reason they attempted it was that it was the only way they could reach Morganville at all. Amelie chose this town specifically for its isolation, dry climate, and lack of standing water. It's served us well, until now."
Myrnin, Claire thought, was sounding remarkably together, but he also looked tired. She could see the bruised skin under his eyes, and the slight tremor in his hands. Even bipolar vampires needed sleep from time to time, and he was well past his recommended safe dosage of stress.
Michael was staring at the blueprints as if he really understood what he was seeing. He was even nodding. "Right," he said. "So it looks like there's a main control room here"-he tapped the plans, then traced a line-"and physical shutoffs here, for emergencies. What are our chances that the draug haven't already figured out this is a point of danger for them?"
"Zero," Myrnin said cheerfully, "since Magnus is remarkably intelligent about such things. The draug in general are poor and limited in their reasoning skills, but their master is another matter altogether."
"Why can't we go after him?" Michael said. "What happens if we kill Magnus?"
"That would, of course, be ideal, if we could find him. However, Magnus in particular has developed excellent chameleon skills, and fashioned his draug to exactly resemble himself, so it is a fool's game to target him. He can hide himself in plain sight, and if that fails, he can surround himself with copies. It would take someone with the ability to see through his ..." He blinked, and turned toward Claire. "See through his glamour."
She felt suddenly exposed and uncomfortable, as if he'd turned a spotlight on her and asked her to dance. "Why are you looking at me?"
"You're the only one who noticed him originally," Myrnin said. "When no one else took note of his presence at all. Even vampires. Now, the question is, can you distinguish him from his vassals?"
"I don't ..." She thought back on it, on the draug in the Civic Pool building. There had been a lot of them, but when she'd seen Magnus she'd known, deep down, that it was him. He had more ... well, just more density, she supposed. "Maybe. I don't know if I can do it all the time or anything. He might not know-" Wait, he did know. There had been a reason for Magnus to follow her home in the rain from the store, to invade their home, the Glass House, to kill her. He must have been tracking down and dealing with what he perceived to be a genuine threat.