Rachel Caine: Midnight Alley

The third floor was whisper-quiet. Claire started down the hallway, and the silence sank deeper. She couldn't even hear sounds from outside the windows, although she could clearly see people out there walking and talking, and cars tooling around the street below. Room 317 was at the end of the hall. All of the glossy wooden doors were firmly closed.

She knocked on 317, and thought she heard someone say "Come in," so she turned the knob and stepped inside ...

... into darkness. Complete, velvety darkness that disoriented her immediately. The knob slipped out of her hand and the door clicked shut, and she couldn't find it again. Her hand moved over what felt like featureless, smooth wall.

A light bloomed behind her, and she turned to see the flare of a match, and a candle wick catching fire. In the glow, Amelie's face shone like perfect ivory.

The elder vampire looked exactly the same as before: cool, queenly, pale, with her white-blonde hair twisted back in an elegant updo that must have required servants to achieve. She was wearing a white silk suit, and her skin was flawless. If she wore makeup, Claire couldn't tell. Her eyes were eerie in the near-dark ... luminous and not quite human, and very beautiful.

"My apologies for the dramatics," Amelie said, and smiled at her. It was a very nice smile, cool and polite. Claire's mother had always loved the Hitchcock movie Rear Window, and Claire was struck by the thought that if Grace Kelly had ended up a vampire, this was how she'd have looked. Icy and perfect. "Don't bother looking for the door. It's gone."

Claire's heartbeat speeded up, and she knew Amelie could tell, though the vampire didn't comment on it; she just shook out the match and dropped it in a silver dish on the table next to the candle. Claire's eyes adjusted gradually to the dimness. She was standing in a fairly small room, some kind of library crammed with books. Crammed was a generous way to put it — they were double-stacked on the shelves, leaning in towers on the top of the bookcases, filling the corners in untidy ziggurats. So many books that the whole room smelled like ancient paper. There wasn't any wall space, except the way Claire had come in, that wasn't blocked up by packed, groaning shelves.

"Hi," Claire said awkwardly. She hadn't seen Amelie since signing the Protection papers and putting them, as instructed, in the mailbox outside. She'd expected some kind of visit, but ... nothing. "Um — what should I call you?"

Amelie's delicate brows rose, pale on pale. "I know that the concept of manners has declined, but I should think you would know at least some polite form of address that would be appropriate."

"Ma'am," Claire stammered. Amelie nodded.

"That will do." She lit another candle. The light strengthened, flickering but casting a warm and welcome glow. Claire spotted another door in the shadows, small and fitted with an antique-style doorknob. There was a big skeleton key in the massive lock.

Nobody else in the room, just her and Amelie.

"I have called you to discuss your studies," Amelie said, and sat down in a chair on the other side of the table. There wasn't any seat on Claire's side, so she stood there, awkwardly. She put her backpack down and folded her hands.

"Yes ma'am," she said. "Aren't my grades okay?" Because usually a 4.0 GPA was okay by most standards.

Amelie dismissed it with a wave. "I did not say classes, I said studies. No doubt you are finding the local college beneath your abilities. You are said to be quite exceptional."

Claire didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything. She wished she had a chair. She wished she could say something nice and get back to class and never, ever see Amelie again, because as superficially polite and kind as the old vampire was, there was something ice-cold about her. Something unsettlingly not human.

"I would like you to study privately with a friend of mine," Amelie said. "For credit, of course." She looked around, smiling very slightly. "This is his library. Mine is far more orderly."

Claire's throat felt tight and uncomfortable. "A ... uh ... vampire friend?"

"Is that an issue?" Amelie folded her white hands together on the table. The candlelight flickered in her eyes.

"N-no ma'am." Yes. God, she couldn't imagine what Shane was going to say.

"I believe you will find him most interesting, Claire. He is indeed one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered in my long life, and he has learned so much through his lifetime that he could never teach it all. Still, he has much to pass along. I have been seeking the right pupil, one who can quickly grasp the discoveries he has made."

"Oh," Claire whispered faintly. So ... an old vampire. Her experience wasn't so good with the older ones. Like Amelie, they were cold and strange, and most of them were cruel, too. Like Oliver. Oh God, she wasn't talking about Oliver, was she ...? "Who — ?"

Amelie looked down. Just for an instant, and then she met Claire's eyes and smiled. "You have not met," she said. "Not formally, at any rate. His name is Myrnin. He is one of my oldest friends and allies. Understand, Claire, that your actions since you came to Morganville, including your agreement with me, has won my trust. I would not grant this honor to any but those I found worthy."

Flattery. Claire recognized it, and knew the slight warmth in Amelie's voice was probably calculated, but it still worked. "Myrnin," she repeated.

"It is an old name," Amelie agreed, in response to the question in Claire's tone. "Old and forgotten, now. But once he was a great scholar, known and revered. His works should not be forgotten as well."

There was something strange in that, but Claire was too nervous to figure out what Amelie could be trying to say. Or not say. She was working hard to swallow a lump in her throat, but it was about the size of a poisoned apple and seemed to be growing larger. She could only nod.

Amelie smiled. It looked kind of artificial, like an expression she'd practiced in a mirror rather than learned as a child. Smiling was something her face just didn't naturally do, Claire decided. And sure enough, the smile was gone in seconds, without a trace.

"If you're ready ...?"

Claire cast an involuntary, helpless look at the blank wall behind her. There wasn't a door, and that meant there was no way to retreat. So she didn't really have a choice.

Amelie wasn't waiting for her answer, anyway. The ice queen stood up and walked — oh so very undead Grace Kelly — to another small, low doorway with the key in the lock. She turned the key, withdrew it, and looked down at it for a moment before holding it out to Claire. "Keep it," she said. "Leave your book bag here, please. I shouldn't want you to forget it. You will leave through the same door that brought you."

Claire's fingers closed around the key, registering rough, cold, heavy metal. She shoved it in the pocket of her blue jeans as Amelie swung open the door, and leaned her backpack against a convenient bookcase.

"Myrnin?" Amelie's voice was low and gentle. "Myrnin, I've brought the girl I told you about. Her name is Claire."

Claire knew that tone of voice. You used it with old, sick people, people who didn't really understand what was happening anymore. People you didn't think were really going to be around for long. Coming from Amelie, it was really odd, because she could hear the love in that low voice. Could vampires love? Well, sure, she guessed; Michael could, right? So why not Amelie, too?

Claire stepped out from behind Amelie at the vampire's imperative gesture, and anxiously scanned the room. It was big, full of the weirdest mixture of equipment and junk she'd ever seen. A brand new widescreen laptop computer with a shimmying belly dancer as a screen saver. An abacus. A chemistry set that looked straight out of some old Sherlock Holmes movie. More books, carelessly piled around as trip hazards, leaning in columns on every table. Lamps — some electric, some oil. Candles. Bottles and jars and shadows and angles and ...