Shane lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, just a brief brush of his lips against her skin, but it steadied her. Then he said to Myrnin, "How fast do you want to go? And where, exactly?"
"Founder's Square," Myrnin said. "And quickly. Quickly."
Shane couldn't go quite as fast as Myrnin wanted, but that was good; as it was, Claire felt she was hurtling uncontrollably down a dark tunnel, like something flung out of a slingshot. It was a deeply unsettling feeling. As short a drive as it was, she was relieved when Shane hit the brakes and slid to a stop at the Founder's Square guard post, manned by a uniformed cop. He was starting to explain when Myrnin rolled down his window and snapped, "Call Amelie and tell her I'm coming. Tell her to be waiting."
"Sir!" the cop said, and practically saluted. Not because Myrnin was so commanding, generally, but right now, he sounded very focused.
He was actually very scared, Claire thought. And that raised her personal terror scale all the way up into the red zone. "Myrnin, what's in the envelope?" she asked.
He didn't answer, but then, she didn't really expect him to. "There, take a left," Myrnin said, leaning over the seat to point.
"Get your hands out of my face, man," Shane said, but he followed the directions, and steered the car down the ramp into the parking garage beneath Founder's Square. It was crowded today, and as he looked for a parking space, Myrnin growled in impatience, opened his door in the back, and bailed.
"Hey!" Claire called. Shane found a parking spot and pulled in. They got out at the same time, and caught up with Myrnin as he punched the elevator's call button for about the hundredth time in thirty seconds. "Chill out, Myrnin; you're going to break it. Listen - it's coming."
He was practically vibrating with tension, and she couldn't understand why. She'd seen him in many bad situations, and even in the worst, even with Bishop, he hadn't been this freaked. When the elevator doors parted, he shoved his way in and jammed the floor button just as frantically as he had the one outside. Claire finally put herself physically between him and the control panel, out of a very real fear he was going to shove his finger through the button and short out the electronics altogether.
Myrnin took in a breath - unusual, except when he was talking - and slumped against the back wall. He pulled off his hat and wiped his forehead with a trembling hand, as if he were sweating, though Claire was pretty sure he couldn't, physically. "It was only a matter of time," he said, but it was in a whisper, and Claire didn't think he meant for her to hear. "Inevitable."
"Myrnin, what the hell is going on?" She looked at Shane, and saw that he was watching her boss with a worried frown, too. He knew this was freaky, too. "What's in the envelope?"
"A word," he said. "Just a word."
"Must be a hell of a word," Shane said.
"It's a short one," Myrnin said. He was watching the lights climb on the elevator display, and finally, the car lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. "I'll take it to her. You two - go home. Now."
"Wait!" The elevator doors started to close after him, and Claire slapped a hand in place to stop them. "Myrnin, what's the word?"
He turned to look at her, and that look - that look chilled her, all the way down.
"Run," he said. "It says run. Now go home." And he moved, vampire speed, down the hallway.
She let go of the rubber bumper and stepped back, leaning against Shane. He put his arms around her, and reached past to push the button for the ground floor as the doors rumbled shut.
"What the hell does it mean?" she asked him. He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out.
"I don't know," he said. "But Myrnin does. And it's bad, whatever it is."
They held hands on the walk back home. It was colder now, the sun covered over with scudding dark clouds, and there was a mass on the horizon that had to be a storm. The wind felt damp, edged with ice, as if Morganville had been magically transported to a much colder, wetter place. The humidity felt incredibly high; ten percent was the norm for this area of the desert, and on a really bad day it might rise to forty. But this felt like ocean waves against her skin. Even the air seemed heavy, more like mist than the light, clean stuff she was used to here. Despite the chill, she felt as if she was sweating. As if the whole world was sweating, and it was all over her skin.
Morganville residents were still out on the streets, doing their daily business; some were casting anxious looks at the sky and hurrying up about it, wanting to get home before the rain arrived. Claire was starting to wish she'd brought an umbrella, but really, who needed one in this town? It rained two days a year, if that, and never for long - or if it did rain hard, the wind was so fierce an umbrella was useless. But this storm . . . this one looked nasty, with that green edge to the clouds that tokened real trouble.
As they passed Oliver's coffee shop, Common Grounds, Shane said, "Hey, are you cold? I'm freezing. Let's get something."
That sounded good, actually. Normal. And maybe - Claire knew he was thinking this as well - maybe Oliver would be there, and would have some kind of clue as to what was going on.
You knew things were bad when you were actually looking forward to seeing Oliver.
But . . . no Oliver behind the counter. Instead, Eve was there, just fastening on her tie-dyed apron over her black outfit. She looked tired, but she put on a bright smile for the two of them. It was made about five thousand watts brighter by the shade of lipstick she'd used, which was a shocking bright blue, to match the stripes in her skirt. "Hey, rooms," she said. "How'd the flyers go?"
Flyers? God, Claire had forgotten all about that. "Uh . . . okay," she said. "We got them up in a lot of places, anyway."
"That's good, because my morning? Not so fabulous." Without asking, Eve started a mocha for Claire, and a plain tall coffee for Shane. "In celebration of the fact that my occasional part-time boss just tore out of here like his ass was on fire, coffee's on the house."
"He just left? We didn't see him," Claire said. Eve jerked a thumb at the back, which had a trapdoor tunnel exit.
"He took the shady street. What crawled up his ass? Because I know Bishop's no longer the big, bad boogeyman. Did Amelie break a nail or need a pipe fixed or something?"