Rachel Caine - Carpe Corpus

“She didn’t just save him, she saved him,” Claire said. “Like a computer saving a crashed file.”

“I suppose, if you want to put it in mundane terms.” Myrnin yawned. “I told her to let him go. She ignored me. She does that.”

“Frequently,” Ada’s disembodied voice said. “And with great satisfaction. So. You are the girl from the Glass House. Myrnin’s new pet.”

“I . . .” Claire wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she settled for a quick shrug. “I guess.”

“You’ve done well,” Ada said. “You work the portals without much understanding of how they function or how to create them, but I suppose that most modern children couldn’t begin to construct the toys with which they play.”

Claire’s cell phone suddenly rang, its cheerful electronic tone startling in the silence. She jumped, flailed, and fished it out of her pocket, only to have it immediately go dark.

“Did you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?” Ada asked, but there was a dark, amused edge to the words. “Oh, do forgive. I’ve got little enough to occupy me down here in the dungeon . In my box. ”

“Ada.” Myrnin sighed. “I brought her here so you could explain to her how to maintain your functions, not to have her listen to your endlessly inventive complaints.”

Ada said nothing. Nothing at all. In the silence, Claire heard the steady whir and click of gears turning, and the hiss of steam—but Ada stayed quiet.

“She’s pouting,” Myrnin said, and heaved himself up to a sitting position. “Don’t worry, my dear. You can trust Claire. Here, let me introduce you properly.”

Myrnin’s idea of a proper introduction was to grab Claire by the arm and haul her over in front of the machine. Before she could yell at him to let go, he slipped back a metal cover and pushed her hand down on a metal plate . . . and something pierced her palm, lightning fast, like a snakebite. Claire tried to snatch her hand back, but something—some force —held it in place.

She could feel blood trickling out of the hot, aching wound. “Let go!” she yelled, and kicked the machine in fury. “Hey! Hey! ”

Ada giggled. It was a weirdly metallic sound; up close, she really didn’t sound human at all, more like parts grinding together inside.

The force holding Claire’s hand in place suddenly let go, and she stumbled back, clutching her burning hand to her chest and trying—without much success—to stop herself from gasping for breath. She was afraid to look, but she forced herself to open her left hand.

There was a small puncture wound in the middle of her palm, a red circle about the size of a pencil point; there was a whiter circle all around it, like a target. As Claire watched, the white faded.

Blood trickled out of the hole in her skin in fat red drops. Claire looked at Myrnin, who was standing a few feet away; he was gazing at her hand with fascination.

Ewwwwww.

Claire made a fist, willing the bleeding to stop. “What the hell was that ?”

“That?” Myrnin didn’t seem to be able to take his gaze off of her fist. “Oh, it’s simple enough. Ada needed to know who you were. She’ll know you now, and she’ll follow your orders.”

Ada made a sound suspiciously like a strangled cough.

“That doesn’t explain why she bit me !” Claire said.

Myrnin blinked. “Blood is the fuel that drives the engine, my dear. As with us all. Ada requires regular infusions of blood to operate.”

“You never heard of plugging her in ? My God, Myrnin, you made a vampire computer?”

“I . . .” He seemed honestly unsure how to answer that, and finally gave up. “She requires about a pint of blood each month—not refrigerated blood; it should be warmed to at least room temperature, preferably to body temperature, of course. I generally feed her close to the beginning of the month, though she can, in a pinch, go weeks without nourishment. Oh, and do feed her at night. Blood is less effective when offered under the influence of the sun. We do work according to hermetic rules here, you know.”

“You’re insane,” Claire said. She backed up against a wall and stood there staring at him. “Seriously. Insane. ”

He didn’t pay any attention to her at all. “You also need to recalibrate her once on each solstice day, winter and summer, to accommodate the shifting influences of sun and moon. You do remember the hermetic symbology I taught you, don’t you? Well, the formula is quite simple. I’ve noted it down for you, here.” Myrnin patted his jacket pockets, and finally came up with a much-scratched-out, torn scrap of grimy paper, which he offered to Claire.

She didn’t take it. “This is crazy , ” she said again, as if it was really important that he understand it. Myrnin slowly raised his eyebrows. “You built a vampire computer. Out of wood. And glass. You’re not . . . This isn’t . . .”

He patted her gently on the shoulder. “This is Morganville, dear Claire. You should know by now that it would not be what you expect.” With a sudden burst of energy, Myrnin took Claire’s unwilling hand, slapped the paper into it, and bounced to his feet. “Ada!”

“What?” The computer sounded surly. Hurt. She’s not even real, Claire told herself. Yeah. She’s not real, and she drinks blood. She just drank mine .

“You will accept all commands from Claire Danvers as my own. Do you understand me?”

“All too clearly.” Ada sighed. “Very well. I shall record her essence for future reference.”

Myrnin turned back to Claire and folded her hand over the scrap of paper. His fingernails were filthy and sharp, and she shuddered at how cold his touch was. “Please,” he said. “You must keep this safe. It’s the only record of the sequence. I made it to remind myself, in case . . . when I forgot. If you get the sequence wrong, you could risk killing her. Or worse.”

Claire shuddered. “What could be worse than her being here at all?”

“Turning her against us,” Myrnin said. “And believe me, dear, you wouldn’t want that to happen.”

By the time they made their way out of Ada’s cavern, it was night—full, dark night.

Which was a problem.

“We can’t walk,” she told Myrnin, for about the eleven hundredth time. “It’s not safe out there. You really don’t get it!”

“Of course I get it,” he said. “There are vampires a-roaming the dark. Very frightening. I’m quaking in my beach sandals. Come on; buck up, girl. I’ll protect you.” And then he leered like a total freak show, which made Claire feel not so much reassured. She didn’t trust him. He was starting to get that jittery, manic edge she dreaded, and he kept insisting that he couldn’t take the serum yet—or even the maintenance drug, the red crystals that Claire kept in a bottle in her backpack.

Past a certain point, Myrnin was crazy enough that he thought he was normal. That was when things got really, really dangerous around him.

“We could take the portal,” Claire said. Myrnin, halfway up the stairs, didn’t so much as pause.

“No, we can’t,” he said. “Not from this node. I’ve shut it down. I don’t want anyone else coming here anymore. They’ll ruin my work.”

Claire took a look around at the wreckage—the smashed glass, the shredded books, the broken furniture. In her view, there wasn’t anything left for vandals to destroy, and even if there was, sealing up the portal wouldn’t stop them; it would only inconvenience her (and Myrnin) from getting here.

Only . . . maybe that was what he intended. “What about the entrance to the cave?” she asked. He snapped his fingers as if he’d forgotten all about it.