Chapter 11: Nefarious martyr

Myrnin's POV

I paced and paced my curious place with the purposeful intent of a mouse. Oh, where was my cheese to feed my sweet Claire? Feed her up, feed her up, save her from this treachery. Amelie was lost, and Michael in the wind, and Oliver left scratching his chin. I found myself confused in the battlements of my mind and yearned for Claire to awake. There was no joy in watching the answer to a perfect machine die. All hope for my mind and all hope for my turbulent town rested on the shoulders of Claire, my Claire. Of course, I admitted, it was blood she required, and not cheese.

Was it true she was mine to have and to hold?

I found myself watching her body once more, from my hallowed place by my bedroom door. Frank, for once, was not behind me to mock as I watched her chest rise and fall. The action would have been comforting had the sweet one not bettered herself with vampirism. I recalled her expression of storms and rage, of fangs and intense gaze, as she violently threw herself at the Glass boy. It was a memory that encouraged a smile to sketch itself across my face. I grinned at Claire's body.

If nothing would come from this but pain and almost-death, I would have eaten a shoe. Eating shoes, assuredly, was something I had long since retired from. I pulled myself away from the bedroom. There were puppet strings to pull.

"Machine!" I yelled into my laboratory.

"What now?"

I turned to find my machine, Frank or whoever, leaning against the doorframe into my bedroom. His voice never ceased to irritate me, but saving the brutes brain had seemed important to Claire. I, of course, would much rather Claire herself as my machine. For some reason, she had not yet volunteered for the honour. Perhaps her vampire self would reconsider. The thought of having Claire forever, in whatever form, excited me. I pictured her face at the wonders I could show her, teach her. Some far off educational constituency would never need be a goal for her, although I was warmed to the idea of one day seeing her working with my old assistant, Irene Anderson. Irene had always been a bright human, smarter than most and older than Claire, but always seemed to feel the need to fix my creations further than necessary, further than even Claire would think necessary. The need to do something returned to me, and the sour look on Frank's face informed me that I had been rudely silent for some time. It would have been rude had it been Amelie or Claire whom I had called, but this was Frank. I cared little for Frank, and what I did was purely from a creator's nostalgia.

"That's no way to speak to your saviour!" I snapped. "Now, machine, I need you to go to Oliver in my guise once again. Off you go."

Frank remained where he stood, his nostrils flared.

"Why the hell am I gonna do that?" He demanded. I sighed. Humans. They needed everything in simpleton terminology just to fulfil basic intellectual capacity. My hands waved erratically and flung the lace trim of my sleeves pleasantly in the air. It was all so frustrating.

"DO AS I SAY." The words erupted from me, and I placed the strange sense of emotion overwhelming me to lack of blood and the fact I had misplaced Bob the day before. Frank flinched, and triumph welcomed me. Such responses were uncharacteristic of a swine such as Frank. The possibility of controlling him with fear had always seemed to implausible before. I smiled at him, teeth bared. Frank coughed unnecessarily.

"Alright, fang. I'll do it. But this is the last time, got it?" Frank returned to an incorporeal and his image flickered. No amount of time nor practise, I knew, would ready me for the sight of seeing one's self without the aid of photography or reflective methodology. The black hair, so unruly, so stylish, had charmed many a royal from princes to countesses; the sleek stature was a little thinner than most found attractive, but it was most efficient in tight spaces, which I baffling often found myself in. Frank grunted as the form took to flesh and bone, and a second Myrnin of perfect proportion came to alive. Oh, it was positively, Shelleyan!

"No, dolly-mop, I have not 'got it' at all," I stepped towards Frank and found the situation of calling the very image of oneself a dolly-mop one of iridescent disassociation. A wave of nausea overcame me and I eyed the fridge in the far corner. Perhaps it was time to feed, indeed. Shaking my head to rid myself of the familiar hunger, I smacked Frank on one bone shoulder, "You must find out Oliver's plans for Amelie, and soon."

"Or else I will kill your son," I added after brief hesitation. Threats as such were not new between the machine and I, yet had never become manifest, because of Claire. I nearly did, once, succumb to the want to rid the world of Seamus… Shane. Claire held me back and the worrisome outcome of estrangement from her meant the boy was untouchable then. But now… Claire would thank me for getting rid of the rude boy who shunned and shame her. Michael Glass would go after that, whether Amelie allowed it or not. Finding Amelie, and a cure to the poison, was priority, I reminded myself.

Frank looked me in the eye and silently understood. His fear was clear, but well hidden. How such a monster of a human was able to care for others more than I was forever a mystery. I stared back, glad for a reason for a show of superiority. I had gone through the very same struggle with Bob the spider. Eventually, Frank nodded and walked to the wooden door. He opened a portal and left, yelling something about jam and turnips at whoever was in Oliver's hide out. Fool. I would have gone myself, if it was more prominent to me than protecting Claire, which it was not.

I watched the portal door shut, only to see it open minutes later. Frank, still disguised as Myrnin the brave and noble, came into the laboratory with a smug grin. I straightened from my lean against one of the new work tables, awaiting his verdict as he shut and locked the portal door.

"He doesn't have a clue," Frank snarled, "He doesn't know where in this dirt town she is and he doesn't know who took her." He began to change back into his Frank form. I tapped my foot. Of course the vermin would enjoy this threat to the Founder.

"He did poison her, did he not?"

Frank shrugged. I slapped his own shoulder this time.

"Do not touch me." He snapped.

"Oh, pish. It is quite obvious his letter to her was poisoned – I deduced as much immediately! – but why he did it is beyond me. Somehow he's managed to worm his slimy hands into Amelie's affections. What kind of dunce poisons someone and loses her? Oliver would not, though I do not care to admit it, he is far too tactical to resort to poison.

Therefore, there is another player in my game! Oh, yes. Someone inconsistent, and cowardly, and sly…."

It was entirely possible I had done the poisoning myself and had merely forgotten the details, of course. Frank remained silent and stared at me in a muted amusement. He was no doubt thinking the same thing. I dismissed the idea at that. If Frank thought it true, it was a foolhardy notion. No. Someone else. None of the human factions, they were too weak. Someone with access to Oliver or Amelie's offices, and to a potent poison, no doubt some past toxin saved for future use. There were many possibilities: the old virus, powdered sunlight, Bishop's poison, the Shane boy's chilli, the Draug paralytic – Obvious. The paralytic explained the physical state of Claire, and Amelie's collapse. Drat. Frank vanished off somewhere.

I ran across the room, dodging tables and equipment, and began searching for the bottle of the forsaken sample. Why did Claire endlessly try to mess up my possessions? It was a madness of organisation everywhere I looked and not one piece of furniture was out of place or broken. Despicable. I searched my bookshelf and found a line-up of small jars there and, at the end, there it was. Yes. Now all was necessary was to find a way to counteract this version of the virus. It would not take long. I set to work and used the freedom of isolation to utilise new techniques and styles of research even Frank would have found fascinating. Once the sample's test tube was under ample heat, I went to the fridge and devoured a few blood bags, taking out extras for Claire.

In the meantime, an IV drip of blood would do in an attempt to replenish Claire's system. Carrying the necessary supplies in a precarious bundle, I made my way into my bedroom and to her side, marvelling at the sound of her being quiet for once.

I did not much like it.