Claire was glad that Eve gave her space for the rest of her visit. She'd actually come to Common Grounds for only one reason: Monica Morrell. She found her sitting in a window seat with a book of all things. The sight was odd enough, and to add more juice to it she was pointing things out of the book in a fierce manner with her head pressed tightly to Theodore. He flinched as she stabbed at one of the pages. Claire's heart was pounding through her ears. She couldn't approach them without missing something vital, so instead she wiggled into a cramped spot by a rack of magazines. She grabbed one spilling gossip about celebrities, who Claire thought only had enough talent for a YouTube partnership. Claire could just barely hear Monica's voice over the humming of other students.
"What part of it don't you get? Seriously, you're supposed to be smart I can't teach you myself." She sounded annoyed and rash, whereas Theodore's voice came out a lot more timidly. "I have it. I just don't understand what part you're talking about now. You can't rush things like this they—they take time."
"Yeah but how much time do we really have, freak? None at all! If I'm going to get what I deserve, for once, you need to unstupify yourself faster."
Claire could almost see Theodore flinching, he did that a lot. "If you could just give me more of her notes, I could do it. We were successful once but…"
"Yeah, you murdered a cat." Monica cut in. Theodore was silent for a few seconds before he found his voice again. "Yes, I guess I did. I feel like I have the wrong notes, that's all. Maybe these are old?"
"They aren't old! We tore that hell hole apart. Look at me."
Claire couldn't believe what she was hearing, and tried to squirm a little from behind the rack of magazines so that she could get a better look at the two. Behind a sheet of her hair she could make out Monica whispering something into Theodore's ear. She was running a nail down the back of his neck, and he gave a violent shudder.
Claire heard him mumble. "Yes," and saw his fingers grip the edges of the book like it was about to run away. Monica pulled back smiling and licked her lips. "We'll be immortal and free. Don't fail me now."
Immortal and free? What was Monica doing, exactly? Claire's heart was beating wildly. This had a lot more to do with the portals than she'd thought. Could he really pull it off? Well, he had her notes. She hadn't made any new ones; the idea had struck her going on fifty hours without rest, so the thought of writing all of the corrections she'd needed down didn't really cross her mind. Did that mean he wouldn't be able to complete it? She was very doubtful, but the thought made her nervous either way. She didn't like all of the determination she heard in Monica's voice. What did she mean by immortal? It seemed like she had made a deal with the devil, or in this case, a vampire. What vampire would promise her immortality though? What vampire could do that in the first place?
Amelie
So did that mean Frank had been conning with Monica for all of this time? Honestly, Claire's head wasn't right for this kind of work. She just wanted to punch Frank in the face, to slap some sense into him. He wasn't helping humans; he was going to destroy them. Did he really think that vampires would back down so easily? This could actually be the beginning of a war none of them were prepared to fight.
And now Monica of all people was right in the middle of it. Her and Theodore dipped into a conversation too low for Claire to hear. She felt time slipping away. She couldn't up and leave and risk any one of them spotting her. Frank wouldn't take that lightly at all. She was already hoping he didn't have some sort of surveillance going on. Myrnin had come to the conclusion that for the next few days Frank would be too busy reining as Amelie to focus on what she was doing. He'd left her in the hands of Myrnin, and for all that he knew Myrnin was just as oblivious as the rest of the town.
The day seemed a lot more dragged out than usual and it was gradually growing colder and colder in Morganville. Claire was happy to be back in the lab after her long walk, but she wasn't happy with what she saw. The entire machine she'd built had been ripped apart. Some pieces were thrown into the trash, and others were simply in tiny piles of ash in the middle of the floor. Anger flared through her. By "dismantle the machine" did he mean destroy it? That was so not cool. She threw her backpack across the room until it slammed into one of Myrnin's favorite places to cram things. She half expected him to come running in with a pot and a pan humming to his own super hero mantra with the way he'd been acting lately. It was normal, she guessed. After having lived for so many hundreds of years without much excitement since the civil war you clung to just about anything.
Since he didn't come storming out, however, throwing things suddenly seemed a little juvenile, so she retrieved her backpack and then went in search of him, growing eerily aware of how quiet it was. After rattling around the whole place and coming up empty, restlessness began to build in her stomach, so she went to work on figuring out how to build a new machine. Somehow it all made her feel better. Working towards something rather than sitting around and worrying over it for hours on end gave her a sense of accomplishment. She followed the basic steps that she had before but worked around the whole use of anyone's DNA deal. Hours passed without a peep from Myrnin. Her eyes felt heavy and her ankle was starting to throb when the door flung open nosily and the sound of someone descending the stairs echoed across the room. Something inside of Claire told her to hide, so she ducked underneath one of the tables. She was doing a bunch of hiding today, she thought.
Midnight dark black boots stomped across the room and stopped near the portal portion of the machine. The boots were squeaky clean. In fact, they didn't even look worn at all. It was strange that of all things that was all Claire could really focus on. It made her feel like there was a pair of eyes throwing needles at her back. She could almost immediately tell that it was a vampire just by their deliberate movements. The vampire acted like a solider under an order and all of that spelled trouble for Claire.
The vampire began to lift up the torn apart machine. Bits and screws fell from it and the vampire cursed underneath his breath. One of the screws rolled under the table near Claire.
Well, crap. She had two options. She could either jump out and catch the vampire off guard, or she could wait for him to possibly find her. She didn't like that last one. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as an aid and she readied herself to spring.
The vampire suddenly turned sharply towards the door and placed the machine back down on the table. Claire could see his leg muscles tensing and then the lab door swung open once more. Papers flew as a strong gust of wind assaulted the room carrying Myrnin's theatrical laugh. "I don't believe that belongs to you," He said in that silky tone of his. The vampire visibly tried to control itself. "Amelie's orders, It belongs to her."
Claire was starting to sweat out of nervousness, and also because it was becoming really hard to breathe down there. Myrnin's shoes came into view. He was wearing actual shoes for once, but his were a much more tattered version of the other vampire's boots. They looked incredibly out of place. "I can't allow you to take that while it's incomplete. There would be no use for it then and surely Amelie is not so impetuously inept." Myrnin was using his innocent voice, but Claire knew it was to no avail. Most vampires in Morganville followed Amelie's orders no matter who came at their expense. He wouldn't kill Myrnin but he would fight him to get the task done. Great, Claire was going to have to do something stupid today. She'd almost gone the whole day without messing anything up. If the other vampire tried to take on Myrnin she could already see herself lunging out to help. Oh well, one little mess up wouldn't hurt. I mean come on; she'd been good all day.
The other vampire's voice was deep and husky. It was an unfamiliar voice she couldn't really place. "I do not question Amelie's orders and neither should you. " The vampire was turning back towards the machine and Claire saw Myrnin take a wandering step closer.
"Not even when logic can be questioned as well?"
The vampire stopped and his whole entire body went frigid. Myrnin was starting to push buttons. "I must say that I agree with you. If Amelie had given me orders I wouldn't have questioned them either, but then again, there wasn't another party to have me question it in the first place."
If she could see into the other vampire's mind she would probably see him indentifying Myrnin as the town crazy like everyone else did, and therefore his opinions were pushed aside most of the time.
"I'm going to need you to step away. If you aren't going to help me you should move out of my way. If you don't want to move out of my way, I will have to remove you."
Myrnin chuckled and then let it out in a squeal. "Remove me? That is not a very respectful thing to say to me in my own Lab, boy. Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?" His voice had turned into tiny droplets of ice struggling not to fall and break open into a million shards of glass. She really didn't like the direction of things. Was there even anything underneath there she could use to stake the guy?
Her eyes scanned the darkness. There was a bunch of boxes, a ton of dust, some lint balls floating around, and a wire that snaked off somewhere else.
"It doesn't matter who I'm speaking to. You aren't the one who I answer to."
"Oh, but I am the most frightening. You have no idea what crosses my mind on a daily basis. Just in this short time I have thought of several ways to make your two hundred years on this earth nothing but a shadow."
Jeez, when did Myrnin become such a bad ass? Meanwhile, Claire was having a little trouble breathing. The dust had become too much, so she held a hand over her mouth and nose breathing in the limited amount of air from her sweaty palms. She was actually starting to feel light headed.
"I don't want this to end in a fight but I will," The vampire turned his back on Myrnin. "Get out of my way." And with that, he lifted up the machine once more. Myrnin's pale white flesh shot across the room, slamming the machine back down onto the table. The vampire hissed and in a blur swiped for Myrnin's neck. Myrnin was quicker and dodged his blow as gracefully as a ballerina. He leaned against the table and picked at his finger nail. "Do you really want to do this, boy?" Claire could almost hear the smile in his voice. Oh but the dust, it was everywhere, and she couldn't breathe. Her throat itched and her nose was beginning to tickle from the inside.
She clamped both hands around her face like a muzzle and closed her eyes awaiting her hopefully silent sneeze. Except that it wasn't silent at all. It was like a giant explosion through her fingers with an aftershock that made her head fly back into one of the bony table legs. "Ouch!" She cursed and then realized what she'd just done. She didn't have enough time to inspect the other vampire's reaction, because in only a few short seconds there was a loud booming crash that sounded from across the room. She looked out to see that both Myrnin and the other vampire had disappeared, but she could hear their scuffle bouncing off the walls.
Okay, so she was going to do two stupid things today. She crawled from underneath the table and actually gasped in the fresh air. A quick survey of her surrounding space clarified the sinking feeling in her stomach that she hadn't been smart enough to leave her backpack within easier reach. It was lying near the stairs only a few feet away, but a few feet could mean life or death.
Myrnin suddenly went flying across the room. He landed into the wall where the book case used to stand, and bounced right back up like he was simply enjoying a breezy afternoon on a trampoline. He frowned flabbergasted at Claire. "What on earth are you doing?" He said right before the other vampire strolled into the room with eyes that were glowing red. He took sight of Claire and in almost an instant was standing in front of her with a twisted grin on his face.
Claire screamed and ducked, which was a really good reflex on her part because Myrnin decided to attack the vampire from behind. The vampire elbowed Myrnin in the face. It made his head jerk awkwardly and he tried to shake it off but failed. He had that fair away look in his eyes like he was seeing stars. He still kept his grip around the other vampire's neck tight, but the other vampire took advantage of Myrnin's clumsiness and used both of his hands and the tip of his toes to launch both him and Myrnin six feet into the air. Myrnin slammed into the ceiling with a loud crunch. Claire felt a scream bubbling up inside of her throat. He seemed to fall back down in slow motion. She honestly couldn't believe what she was seeing.
It was pauses like that, that got people killed. She snapped out of it and ran towards her backpack. The vampire got there before her. His fingers closed around her throat blocking her air supply. Now, how many times had she been in this position? She was getting a little better at it, because her vision didn't start to slip away as quickly as it had done in the past. He threw her across the room and her head slammed into something rock hard. She tasted blood on her tongue and tried not to cough up a lung as she tried to suck in as much oxygen as she could.
The vampire hovered over her, grabbing her up by her shirt. He held her up in mid air, fangs extending. His eyes shined with that terrifying red rage that stirred in all vampires. Her body was just shutting down altogether. She didn't even have any energy to scream anymore. Her throat was raw and colors swarmed her vision. She tried to blink them away but even her blinks were too slow. It happened like one of those projected slideshows. First his fangs were extending,
and then he was extending towards her neck.