Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

And that was the moment when Dr Irene Anderson stepped out from the closed doorway behind them, aimed with the VLAD weapon that she was holding, and shot Oliver with it.

The effect was immediate, and drastic. Oliver flung Dr Davis away from him, cried out, clapped his hands to his head, and sank down against the wall, shaking. Weeping . He got to his hands and knees, tried to rise, and she shot him again, and this time … this time Oliver didn’t get up.

Claire, open-mouthed, stared at her professor, and didn’t know what to do. What to say. Maybe she misunderstood, maybe …

She hadn’t.

Dr Anderson turned toward her, and the look in her eyes was flat, cool and very scary. ‘That’s three of them out of commission,’ she said. ‘But I know Oliver didn’t come here alone. Where is Myrnin?’

Claire involuntarily glanced aside at the place Dr Davis had been standing, but the area behind him was vacant now. Myrnin was nowhere to be seen. ‘You played me,’ she said. ‘You played me all along. You agreed to take me on as a student not because Myrnin asked you, but because you found out I had something you could use. Something your crazy friends wanted. He trusted you, but you—’

‘I got the hell out of Morganville, Claire, just as you did, so please don’t pretend that there is some higher moral ground on which you’re standing. The vampires used me just as they used you; they found a young, impressionable and bright girl and fed her to the monster. You and I survived that. Not everyone did.’

Everything Dr Anderson was saying was true, but – but it didn’t describe Myrnin, not really. It wasn’t his fault. He tried, tried hard, to be a good person, a real person, not just a soulless monster sucking blood out of people.

But when he failed, he failed spectacularly, like a doomed meteor plunging to Earth.

Claire suddenly realised that a shadow off to the side, about six feet away from Shane, wasn’t empty any more. Myrnin had managed to make his way there. He didn’t have the weapon any more; his hands were empty, and he stood very quietly, utterly immobile. Waiting for a chance to strike.

But any second, Dr Anderson might notice him. So Claire kept talking. ‘That doesn’t give you the right to—’

‘To do what?’ the woman snapped, eyes blazing. She took a step forward, then another, and Shane instinctively shoved Claire back as he got in the way. It also put Anderson closer to Myrnin, and Claire expected him to lunge for her … but he didn’t. He was waiting for her guard to drop completely. ‘To do exactly what you were planning to do – develop a weapon that would allow humans the chance to really defend themselves from a vampire attack? To create a nonlethal solution to the problem you know exists? Because you are the one who put us in this position, Claire. You solved the problem of the disease that was destroying them; you helped them defeat the only things that they feared. You put the top predators back on top, and you were right to think we needed a way to stop them.’ Dr Anderson touched VLAD’s casing with a light, almost reverent hand. ‘I’m just the one who pointed it at them first.’

All that sounded right, but at the same time, wrong, all wrong, but the passion of Anderson’s words robbed Claire of the ability to argue … until Shane did it for them.

‘Bullshit,’ he said, with a strange, tight little smile. ‘Man, you sound just like my father. He was really good at this, too; good at justifying all the lying, stealing, beating and killing he needed to do. Oh, it’s all for a higher cause, kid. Don’t you sweat the details. We’re fighting monsters, we have to get our hands dirty. But you used Claire to get the weapon here, and then you used her to get Myrnin coming to the rescue when he heard there was trouble. Then you used Liz, because you knew Claire would come for her, and we’d all help. You weren’t picky about who got hurt. Still aren’t. So don’t preach at us like you’re some kind of saint. You’re just another sinner.’

Claire nodded. ‘You could have taken Myrnin when you talked to him about the missing gun – which was never missing in the first place. But you waited.’

‘Of course I waited. I wanted them all. We need to have as large a sample size as possible to conduct our tests, document results and present it all to the agency that Dr Davis and I work for. And no, Claire, it is not the government that I’m working with. Sorry to disappoint you. But those who employ me are well funded, and they do have the best interests of humanity at heart.’ Dr Anderson’s eyes turned colder, and she aimed the device straight at Shane’s chest. ‘I know Myrnin is here, somewhere. You probably have a good idea how to find him; you seem to have him on a leash. This won’t kill your boyfriend, but it’ll damage him for hours, maybe days. Maybe even permanently. I’ve set it on its highest intensity. Want to see what it does to a human? I imagine it won’t be too pretty.’

She had reinforcements coming. Dr Davis was missing, and he’d be coming back with plenty of help. Oliver was helpless. So was Jesse, somewhere, and Michael and Eve wouldn’t have anywhere to go that was safe, either. They’d had strength in numbers, but that strength was gone, all gone. Shane couldn’t take her before Anderson took the shot, and Claire was sick with horror at the thought that something she’d built, something she’d intended to be a positive thing, could do so much damage to those she loved.

She shut her eyes for a long second, and then opened them and said, ‘You don’t have to do that. Maybe you’re right after all. I’ve seen how much harm vampires can do. I’ve seen how much death there’s been. I’m not naive, Dr Anderson; I designed that thing for a reason.’

‘Then help me ,’ Anderson said. ‘Don’t make me hurt you or Shane. Tell me what I need to know.’

It was the moment of truth, and Claire didn’t hesitate. She pointed at the corner where Myrnin was hidden in shadow. ‘He’s right there. I’m sorry, Myrnin. I’m sorry!’

That last part came out in a wail, because he was moving out fast, but not fast enough.

Irene Anderson was quick on the trigger, and VLAD’s blast caught him no more than three feet from his hiding place. Claire watched, feeling suddenly cold and numbed, as Myrnin cried out, pitched forward to the floor, rolled on his side, and stared up at her with a tormented, dark expression. Not angry. Just … disappointed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, as Anderson shot him again, and all that was Myrnin just … vanished out of those eyes.

Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this. It wasn’t Claire selling out Myrnin , of all people. Oliver maybe; we both had enough cause to do that. But without any kind of warning, without so much as a hesitation, she’d given him up, knowing that Anderson was going to shoot.

I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same, but I never claimed to like the guy so much. We had a cheerful sort of loathing going on; he’d save my life out of sheer duty, and I’d do the same for him, but neither of us would shed any tears over a tragic accident.

But Claire … I knew she had this thing with Myrnin. Not love, maybe; not in the sense of the romantic kind of love, anyway. But whatever her feelings were, they ran deep, and so did her loyalty. For her to stick it to him like that … it shook me. It made me wonder in that instant, if I really knew her at all.

I’d been thinking we could still salvage all this – let Myrnin take Anderson, grab Oliver, get the hell out before Dr Davis’s armed cavalry returned. But Claire … Claire changed all that. Claire gave up – she gave up on the whole idea of winning. And I never saw it coming.