Kiss of Death (8 page)

Now he was just as trapped, only instead of the house, his boundaries were the town limits. He’d felt, for the last few hours, as if he could break free, be someone else.

Oliver had just taken that away from him.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. He shut the computer, unplugged it, and stood up. He didn’t meet her eyes again.

“Be ready at six,” he said. “Tell Shane. I’ll tell Eve.”

She nodded. He kept his head down as he walked toward the kitchen door. When he got there, he stopped for a few seconds without turning back to look at her. “Thanks,” he said. “Sucks, you know?”

“I know.”

Michael laughed bitterly. “Shane would have said,
And so do you.
”

“I’m not Shane.”

“Yeah.” He still didn’t turn around. “I’m glad you’re happy with him. He’s a good guy, you know.”

“Michael—”

He was already gone by the time she said his name, just the swinging door left behind. There was no sense chasing him. He wanted to brood in private.

She called Shane to tell him what time they were leaving, but not about Oliver. Frankly, she didn’t want to have that grief just yet. She went on to class. After her early ones, she had a two-hour break, which meant she had things to do, so she could leave town with a clear conscience.

And besides, she’d been looking forward to this since she’d first thought of it.

First step—she walked the few blocks from campus to Common Grounds, Oliver’s coffee shop, and ordered up a mocha. He was behind the bar—a tall older man, with hippie hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt under his coffee-stained apron. When he was serving customers, you’d never know he was a vampire, much less one of the meanest she’d ever met.

Mocha in hand, Claire texted Monica’s cell.
Meet me at Common Grounds ASAP.

She got back an immediate
Btr B good.

Oh, it would be.

Claire sipped and waited, and Monica eventually rolled up in her hot red convertible; no Gina and Jennifer this time. Monica seemed to be getting out more and more without her backup singers, which was interesting. Claire supposed even they were getting tired of providing constant on-demand validation.

Monica blew in the front door of the shop in a dress that was too short for her, but showed off her long tanned legs; the swirl of wind
almost
made it illegal. She shoved her expensive sunglasses up on top of her glossy black hair and scanned the room. The sneer that twisted her full lips was probably mostly reflex.

After putting in her coffee order, Monica slipped into a chair across from Claire. “Well?” she said, and dropped her tiny purse on the table. “Like I said, this had better be good.”

When Oliver brought over Monica’s coffee, Claire said, “Would you mind staying for a minute?”

“What?”

“As a moderator.” Oliver was a broker of deals in Morganville. Common Grounds was a key place where humans and vampires could meet, mingle in safety, and reach all kinds of agreements that Oliver would witness and enforce.

Pretty rarely between humans, though.

Oliver shrugged and sat down between the two girls. “All right. Make it quick.”

Monica already looked thunderously angry, so Claire spoke first. “Monica made a deal with me for test answers. I want you to witness me handing them over.”

Oliver’s eyebrows twitched up, and the look on his face was bitterly amused. “You’re asking me to witness a schoolyard transaction for cheating. How ... quaint.”

Claire didn’t wait. She pushed over a thumb drive toward Monica. “There’s an electronic file on there,” she said. “It’s password protected. If you can figure out the password, you can have the answers.”

Monica’s mouth dropped open.
“What?”

“You said I had to give them to you. I did. That’s what I wanted Oliver to see. Now you have them, so we’re done. No comebacks. Right?”

“You put them under a
password?”

“One you can guess,” Claire said. “If you did the homework. Or can read fast.”

“You little
bitch.”
Monica’s hand flashed out—not for the thumb drive, but for Claire’s arm. She crushed it to the table, her nails digging in deep enough to draw blood. “I told you, I’ll fry your ass.”

“With you, I know that’s not an empty threat,” Claire said. “Alyssa Collins is proof of that.”

Monica went very still, and something flickered across her eyes—shock? Maybe even regret and guilt. “I’m not taking this thing. You give me the answers without the password.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “Did you specify how she had to give you the answers?”

“No,” Claire said. “She just said I had to. I did. Hey, this is the nicest way I could have done it. I could have given it to her in Latin or something.”

“Let go of her,” Oliver said mildly. When Monica didn’t, his tone turned icy. “Let.
Go.”

She pulled her hand back and folded her arms over her chest, glaring at Claire, her jaw set hard. “This isn’t over.”

“It is,” Oliver said. “Not her fault you made a poor definition of what it was you wanted from her. She satisfied all requirements. She’s even given you a reasonable chance of discovering the password. Take it and walk away, Monica.”

“This isn’t over,” Monica repeated, ignoring him. When she reached for the thumb drive, Oliver’s pale, strong hand slapped down over it, and over her fingers, holding her in place. Monica yelped. It must have hurt.

“Look at me,” he said. Monica blinked and focused on his face, and Claire saw her pupils widen. Her lips parted a little. “Monica Morrell, you are my responsibility. You owe me respect, and you owe me obedience. And you will leave Claire Danvers alone. If you have cause to attack her, you will tell me first.
I
will decide whether or not you can take action. And you do not have my permission. Not for this.” He let go. Monica yanked her hand back and cradled it against her chest. “Now, take your business and your coffee elsewhere. Both of you.”

Monica reached out and snatched up the small memory stick. As she did, Claire said, “The thumb drive cost me ten bucks.” Monica’s glare reached nuclear levels, but since Oliver was still sitting there, she dug in her tiny purse, found a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and flung it over the table to Claire. She smoothed it out, smiled, and put it in her pocket.

“If you’re quite finished,” Oliver said. “Leave. Monica, go first. I won’t have you doing anything messy. I’m not your maid.”

Monica sent him a look that was definitely
not
a glare; it was much more scared than angry. She picked up her purse, the coffee, and stalked to the door. She didn’t look back as she piled into her convertible and burned rubber pulling out.

“One of these days,” Oliver said, still looking toward the street, “you’re going to be too clever for your own good, Claire. You do realize that.”

She did, actually. But sometimes, it was just impossible to do anything else.

“I guess you’re coming with us tonight?”

Oliver turned his head to look at her this time, and there was something so cold and distant in his eyes that she shivered. “Did you hear me when I told you to leave? I don’t like being used to settle your problems.”

She swallowed, picked up her stuff, and left.

The afternoon was spent with Myrnin at his freaky mad-scientist lab, which was actually much nicer after the renovations he’d done: new equipment; computers; nice bookcases; decent lighting instead of crazy turn-of-last-century things that emitted sparks when you tried to turn them off or on.

Still, no matter how nice the decor, Myrnin was never less than half crazy. He was under pressure from Amelie, Claire knew; with the death—could computers die?—of Ada, the town’s master computer; he was struggling to figure out a way to make a replacement, but
without
putting a human brain into it, which Claire strongly discouraged, seeing how well that had worked out with Ada, and the fact that Claire herself was almost certainly the next candidate.

“Computers,” Myrnin said, then shoved the laptop she’d put out for him aside and glared at it as if it had personally insulted him. “The technology is entirely idiotic. Who built this? Baboons?”

“It works fine,” Claire said, and took command of the computer to bring up the interface she’d designed. “All you have to do is explain to me how Ada was connected into the portal and security systems, and I can build some kind of connector. You can run it right from this screen. See?” She’d even gotten an art student at the school to design the interface in a steampunky kind of way, which she thought would make him feel more at home. Myrnin continued to frown at it, but in a less aggressive way. “Try it. Just touch the screen.”

He reached out with one fingertip and pressed the screen over the icon of the shield. The security screen came up, all rusted iron and ornamental gears. He made a humming sound in the back of his throat and pressed again. “And this would control the programming.”

“Yeah, it’s GUI—a graphic user interface.”

“And this program would be able to detect vampires and humans, and treat them differently?”

“Yeah. We just use heat-sensing technology. Vampires have a lower body temperature. It’s easy to tell the difference.”

“Can it be cheated?”

Claire shrugged. “Anything can be cheated. But it’s pretty good.”

“And the memory alteration?”

That was a problem—a big problem. “I don’t think you can actually do that with a computer. I mean, isn’t that some kind of vampire mind thing?” Because Ada had, in fact, been a vampire. And the machine that Myrnin had built to keep her brain alive had somehow allowed her to broadcast that vampire power on a wide field. Claire didn’t really understand it, but she knew it worked—
had
worked.

“That’s a rather large failure. What’s this?” Myrnin tapped an icon that had a radar screen icon. Nothing happened.

“That’s an early-warning system, to monitor approaches to town. In case.”

“In case what?”

“In case someone like Mr. Bishop decides to visit again.”

Myrnin smiled and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “There is no one like Mr. Bishop,” he said. “Thank the most holy. And this is excellent work, Claire, but it doesn’t solve our fundamental problem. The difference engine needs programming to allow for removal of dangerous memories. I know of no other way to achieve what we need than to interface it with a biological database.”

“A brain.”

“Well, if you want to be technical.”

Claire sighed. “I am
not
getting you a brain, because I am not that kind of lab assistant, Dr. Frankenstein. Can we go through the map again?”

The map was a giant flowchart that stretched the length of the lab, on giant notepads. She had painstakingly mapped out every single
if, then,
and
and/or
that Myrnin had been able to describe.

It was huge. Really huge. And she wasn’t at all sure it could be done, period—except that he had done it, once, to Ada.

She just wanted to take the icky brain part out of the equation.

“It’s so much easier,” Myrnin insisted as they walked the row of pages. “The brain is capable of processing a staggering number of calculations per second,
and
is capable of incorporating variables and factors that a mere computer cannot. It’s the finest example of a calculating machine ever developed. We’re fools not to use it.”

“Well, you’re not putting my brain into a machine. Ever.”

“I wouldn’t.” Myrnin picked a piece of lint from his shiny vest. “Unless it was the only answer, of course. Or, of course, unless you weren’t using it anymore.”

“Never.
Promise.”

He shrugged. “I promise.” But not in any way that mattered, Claire thought. Myrnin’s promises were kind of—flexible. “You’re leaving town the rest of the week?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving tonight. You’ll be okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He clasped his hands behind him and paced back and forth, staring at the charts. He was wearing shorts today, and flip-flops, of course—like some homeless surfer from the waist down, some Edwardian lord from the waist up. It was strange, and ridiculously Myrnin. “I’m not an infant, Claire. I don’t need you to take care of me. Believe me.”

She didn’t, really. Yes, he was old. Yes, he was a vampire. Yes, he was crazy/smart—but the crazy part was always as strong as, or stronger than, the smart part. Even now.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” she asked him. He turned and looked at her, and looked utterly innocent.

“Why in the world would I do that?” he asked. “Have a good time, Claire. The work will still be here when you return.”

She shut down the laptop and closed the lid, packing it up to put it away. As she did, he finally nodded at the machine. “That’s not bad,” he said. “As a start.”

“Thanks.” She was a little surprised. Myrnin didn’t often give out random compliments. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Certainly. Why wouldn’t I be?”

There was just something off about his mood. From visiting her parents to the way he was restlessly prowling the lab—he just wasn’t his usual, unsettlingly manic self. He was a
different
manic self.

“I wish I were going with you,” he finally said. “There. I’ve said it. You may mock me at your will.”

“Really? But—we’re just going for Michael, really.” That wasn’t true. It was a chance to get out of Morganville, experience life out in the real world. And she knew it would be amazing to feel free again, even for a little while. “Couldn’t you go if you wanted?”

He sat down in his leather wing chair, put on his spectacles, and opened a book from a pile next to it. “Could I?” he asked. “If Amelie didn’t wish me to leave? Not very likely.”

She’d never considered that Myrnin, of all people, could be just as trapped in Morganville as everybody else. He seemed so ... in control, somehow, at the same time he was wildly
out
of control. But she could see that of everyone in town, Amelie would trust Myrnin the least in terms of actually exiting the town limits. He had too much knowledge, too much insanity brewing around in that head of his.