"You know I've been trying to trace the origins of the disease?"
"The origins are not as important as developing an effective and consistent palliative treatment, not to mention mass producing the cure," Myrnin said. "As I've told you before. Loudly."
Dr. Mills looked at Claire for support, and she cleared her throat. "I think we can do both," she said. "I mean, it's important to know where something came from, too."
"That's the thing," Dr. Mills said. "It didn't seem to come from anywhere. There weren't any other vampire diseases; everything I tested within the medium of their blood went down without a fight, from colds and flu to cancer. Granted, I can't get my hands on some of the top-level contagious viruses, but I don't see anything in common between this disease and any other, except one."
Myrnin forgot his objections and came closer. "Which one?"
"Alzheimer's disease. It's a progressive degenerative disease of - "
Myrnin gestured sharply. "I know what it is. You said it had things in common."
"The progress of the disease is similar, yes, but here's the thing: Bishop's blood contains antibodies. It's the only blood that contains antibodies. That means that there is a cure, and Bishop took it, because he contracted the disease and recovered."
Myrnin turned slowly and raised his eyebrows at Claire. It was a mild expression, but the look in his eyes was fierce. "Interpret, please."
"Bishop might have done this on purpose," she said. "Right, Dr. Mills? He might have developed this disease and deliberately spread it - used the cure only for himself. But why would he do that?"
"I have no idea."
Myrnin stalked away, moving in jerky, agitated strides; when a lab stool got in his way, he picked it up and smashed it into junk against the wall without so much as pausing. "Because he wants control," he said. "And revenge. It's perfect. He can once again decide who lives, who dies - he had that power once, until we took it from him. We thought he was destroyed. We were sure."
"You and Amelie," Claire said. There was a long, ugly history behind all this - she didn't understand it and didn't really want to, but she knew that at some point, maybe hundreds of years ago, Amelie had tried to kill Mr. Bishop once and for all. "But you failed. And this is his way of hitting you back. Hitting you all back at once."
Myrnin stopped, facing a blank corner for a moment without replying. Then he slowly walked back toward them and took a seat on one of the lab stools that hadn't been destroyed, flipping back the tails of his frock coat as he sat. "So it is deliberate, this bane."
"Apparently," Claire said. "And now he's got you where he wants you."
Myrnin smiled. "Not quite." He gestured around the lab. "We do have weapons."
Most of the granite-topped tables had metal pans spread with drying reddish crystals. Claire nodded toward them with a frown. "I thought we were going with the liquid version of that stuff?" That stuff being the maintenance drug that she and Myrnin had developed - or at least refined to the point of being useful - that acted to keep the vampire disease's worst effects at bay. It wasn't a cure; it helped, but it had diminishing returns, at best.
"We were," Dr. Mills said. "But it takes longer to distill the liquid form than it does to manufacture the crystals, and we need to medicate more and more of the vampires - so here we are. Two prongs of attack."
"What about the cure?" He didn't look happy, and Claire's heart shrank down to a small, tight knot in her chest. "What's wrong?"
"Unfortunately, the sample of Bishop's blood we had degraded quickly," he said. "I was able to culture a small amount of serum out of it, but I'm going to need more of the base to really develop enough to matter."
"How much more of his blood do you need?"
"Pints," he said apologetically. "I know. Believe me, I know what you're thinking."
Claire was thinking of exactly how stupidly suicidal it would be to try to get drops of Bishop's blood, never mind pints. Myrnin had managed it once, but she doubted even he could pull it off twice without being staked and sunbathed to death. But she wasn't willing to give up, either. "We'd have to drug him," she said.
Myrnin looked up from fiddling with glassware on the table. "How? He's not one of those partial to human food and drink. And I doubt any of us could get close enough to give him a shot large enough to matter."
Claire pulled in a deep breath as it occurred to her in a cold and blinding flash. "We have to drug him through what it is he does drink."
"From everything I've heard about Bishop, he doesn't drink from blood bags," Dr. Mills said. "He only feeds from live victims."
Claire nodded. "I know." She felt sick saying it, so sick she almost couldn't speak at all. "But it's the only way to get to him - if you really want to end this."
The two men looked at her - one older than her, the other infinitely older - and for just a moment, they had the same expression on their faces: as if they'd never seen her before.
Myrnin said thoughtfully, "It's an idea. I'll have to give it some thought. The problem is that loading blood with sufficient poison to affect Bishop will certainly kill a human subject."
Poison. She'd been thinking of some kind of knockout drug - but that wouldn't work, she realized. Doses big enough to affect a vampire would be poison to humans in their bloodstream. "Does he always drink from humans?"
Myrnin flinched. She knew why; she knew Myrnin had drained a couple of vampire assistants he'd had, which was strictly against the rules. He'd done it accidentally, kind of, when he was crazy. "Not . . . always," he said, very quietly. "There are times - but he'd have to be greatly angered."
"Yeah, like that's a trick," Claire said. "Would it kill a vampire to put that amount of poison in his bloodstream?"
"The drugs would not necessarily kill a vampire," Myrnin said. "Bishop draining him certainly would."
The silence stretched. Myrnin looked down at his dirty feet in those ridiculous flip-flops. In the other room, Claire heard a child singing her ABCs, and then a woman's quiet voice hushing her.
"Myrnin," Claire said. "It doesn't have to be you."
Myrnin raised his head and fixed his gaze on hers.
"Of course it doesn't," he said. "But it will have to be someone you know. Someone you might perhaps like. Of all the people in Morganville, Claire, I never expected you to turn so cold to that possibility."
She shivered deep inside from the disappointment in his voice, and fisted her hands in the folds of Shane's oversize sweatshirt. "I'm not cold," she said. "I'm desperate. And so are you."
"Yes," Myrnin said. "That's unfortunately quite true."
He turned away, clasped his hands behind his back, and began to pace the far end of the room, turn after turn, head down.
Dr. Mills cleared his throat. "If you have some time, I need help bottling the serum I do have. There's enough for maybe twenty vampires - thirty if I stretch it. No more."
"Okay," Claire said, and followed him to the other side of the room, where a beaker and tiny bottles waited. She poured and handed him bottles to place the needle-permeable caps on with a metal crimper. The serum was milky and slightly pink. "How long does it take to work?"
"About forty-eight hours, according to my tests," he said. "I need to give it to Myrnin; he's the worst case we have who isn't already confined in a cell."
"He won't let you," Claire said. "He thinks he needs to be crazy so that Bishop can't sense that he's still working for Amelie."
Dr. Mills frowned at her. "Is that true?"
"I think he needs to be crazy," she said. "Just probably not for the reason he says."
Myrnin refused the shot. Of course. But he took pocketfuls of the medicine and disposable syringes, and escorted Claire back out of the lab. She heard the lock snap shut behind them.
"Are Dr. Mills and his family safe in there?" she asked. Myrnin didn't answer. "Are they?"
"As safe as anyone is in Morganville," he said, which really wasn't an answer. He stopped and leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. "Claire. I'm afraid. . . ."