10 minutes later, Claire wandered into the lab. Myrnin, not looking up from whatever he was setting fire to, said:
"Good morning, Claire. Do you have any reason to come?" Claire frowned and pointed out,
"You texted me 15 minutes ago, summoning me." Myrnin turned away from his steampunked Bunsen burner to look at her, still holing a flaming splint loose in one hand.
"Did I?" He pouted slightly in consideration, perplexed for a moment, then concluded,
"You're late." Claire rolled her eyes, then noticed a flare of orange, then a gentle but steady flow of smoke.
"Uh- Myrnin?"
"Yes, Claire?"
"You're setting the tablecloth on fire." He noticed and began frantically patting at it with a handkerchief then stared at the mess.
"Bother. I liked that tablecloth," he muttered, frowning at the smouldering fabric. There was an awkward moment of silence, which Myrnin broke by asking,
"So why did I contact you?" Claire wondered if he was ok, then replied,
"It was something about Bob."
"Ah." Myrnin nodded, bustling off to collect a glass tank from the back of the room. Inside it, Claire saw when he returned, was Bob. Still big, still black, still hairy. But according to Myrnin's anxious expression, something was different. He pushed the tank under her nose, and whispered,
"Can't you feel it?" Claire gave him an exasperated face. Myrnin, face lit by a nearby candle, said in a hushed, awed voice,
"Bob is a vampire!" Claire barely suppressed a snort of laughter. Myrnin looked a bit irritated:
"He is, look at this." Myrnin picked up a glass pipette of blood, and dropped a little bit in the tank with Bob. Nothing happened, and then… Bob sprang forward into the blood, and there was an audible slurping sound. A second later, it was gone. Claire recoiled.
"Hell, that's creepy," she whispered and stared at Myrnin. "What did you do to Bob?" she demanded, and his dark eyes stared back, lit up with something between amazement and shock. And the candle, obviously. He put on his Benjamin Franklin glasses and corrected,
"I did nothing it. It was Bob who did it." Claire sighed, trying to be patient.
"Did what, Myrnin?"
"He ate the crystals." Claire was quiet for a moment. That made a bit of sense, but how come it hadn't made her a vampire when she'd…
"Did he have anything else, Myrnin?" she asked urgently, and he added,
"Oh, he also had some of my blood. I gave him some as a snack." Claire resisted the urge to face-palm. She raised her head as she thought of something.
"Does he, you know, reproduce?" She saw the baffled expression on his pale face and quickly reworded it. "I mean, in the vampire way." She pressed the tips of two fingers until Myrnin nodded.
"I'm not quite sure yet. I haven't had an opportunity to find out yet." Which, Claire decided, might be a good thing.