"But . . . not right now, right?" Because the last thing Claire wanted to do was get a broom and a dump truck to pick up all that broken glass when the fate of Morganville was riding on their staying focused.
"Of course not." He leaped up and - to her shock - walked across the broken glass. In flip-flops. Not even pausing when the glass got ankle-deep. Claire looked down at her own shoes - high-top sneakers - and sighed. Then she very carefully followed him, shoving a path through the glass as she went while Myrnin heedlessly crunched his way through.
"You're hurting yourself!" she called.
"Good," he shot back. "Life is pain, child. Ah! Excellent." He crouched down, brushed a clear spot on the floor, and picked up something that looked like a mouse skeleton. He examined it curiously for a few seconds, then tossed it over his shoulder. Claire ducked as it sailed past. "They didn't find it."
"Find what?"
"The entrance," he said. "To the machine."
"What machine?"
Myrnin smiled his best, looniest smile at her, and punched his fist down into the bare floor, which buckled and groaned. He punched again, and again - and an entire six-foot section of the floor just collapsed into a big black hole. "I covered it over," he said. "Clever, yes? It used to be a trapdoor, but that seemed just a bit too easy."
Claire realized her mouth was gaping open. "We could have fallen right through that," she said.
"Don't be overly dramatic. I calculated your weight. You were perfectly safe, so long as you weren't carrying anything too heavy." Myrnin waved at her to join him, but before she got halfway there, he jumped down into the hole and disappeared.
"Perfect." She sighed. When she finally reached the edge, she peered down, but it was pitch-black . . . and then there was the sound of a scratch, and a flame came to life, glowing on Myrnin's face a dozen feet down. He lit an oil lamp and set it aside. "Where are the stairs?"
"There aren't any," he said. "Jump."
"I can't!"
"I'll catch you. Jump."
That was a level of trust she really never wanted to have with Myrnin, but . . . there was no sign of mania in him, and he watched her with steady concentration.
"If you don't catch me, I'm totally killing you. You know that, right?"
He raised a skeptical eyebrow, but didn't dispute that. "Jump!"
She did, squealing as she fell - and then she landed in his strong, cold arms, and at close range, his eyes were wide and dark and almost - almost - human.
"See?" he murmured. "Not so bad as all that, was it?"
"Yeah, it was great. You can put me down now."
"What? Oh. Yes." He let her slide to the ground, and picked up the oil lamp. "This way."
"Where are we?" Because it looked like wide, industrial tunnels, obviously pretty old. Original construction, probably.
"Catacombs," he said. "Or drainage tunnels? I forget how we originally planned it. Doesn't matter; it's all been sealed off for ages. Mind the dead man, my dear."
She looked down and saw that she was standing not on some random sticks, but on bones. Bones in a tattered, ancient shirt and trousers. And there was a white skull staring at her from nearby, too. Claire screamed and jumped aside. "What the hell, Myrnin?"
"Unwanted visitor," he said. "It happens. Oh, don't worry; I didn't kill him. I didn't have to - there are plenty of safeguards in place. Now come on, stop acting like you've never seen a dead man before. I told you, this is important."
"Who was he?"
"What does it matter? He's dust, child. And we are not, as yet, although at this rate we certainly may be before we get where we're going. Come on!"
She didn't want to, but she wanted to stay inside the circle of the lamplight. Dark places in Morganville really were full of things that could eat you. She joined Myrnin, breathless, as he marched down an endlessly long tunnel that seemed to appear ten feet ahead and disappear ten feet behind them.
And suddenly, the roof disappeared, and there was a cave. A big one.
"Hold this," Myrnin said, and passed her the lamp. She juggled it, careful to avoid hot glass and metal, and Myrnin opened a rusty cabinet on the wall of the tunnel and pulled down an enormous lever.