She stopped dead in her tracks, and after a couple of steps on, he realized she'd been left behind and turned impatiently. "Claire, iguana time." Claire, we don't have time.
"Myrnin, you're not making sense. I - think the serum is wearing off."
"I feel acting." I feel fine.
"Can you hear yourself? What you're saying?"
He held up his hands. He couldn't tell that he was making word salad. Neurological complications, she thought, and wished she could talk to Dr. Mills. Of course, he did carve out part of his brain. That could have done some damage. Then again, he'd been talking fine right up until these last few moments.
Claire tried to keep her voice as calm as possible. "I think you need another shot. Please. I don't think we should wait to see how much worse you get, do you?"
Myrnin silently held out his arm and pulled up his sleeve. His exposed skin was alabaster pale, and as she took hold, it felt less like a human arm than soft leather over marble. Claire took out the small case she'd stuck in the waistband of her tights - the one Dr. Mills had given her, with the syringe and vials of medicine. She'd practiced giving injections with the needle on an orange, but this was different.
"I'll try not to hurt you," she said. Myrnin rolled his eyes.
Her hands trembled as she slipped the needle into the rubber stopper of the vial and filled up the syringe. She squirted a few drops of the liquid from the needle and took a deep breath.
She hoped Myrnin would let her do this without a fight.
He didn't seem inclined to act out, at least not yet; he stood passively as she positioned the needle over the cold blue of his vein.
"Ready?" she asked. She was really asking herself, not him. He seemed to know that, because he smiled.
"I trust you," he said.
She pushed, and the needle popped through his skin and slipped deep. There was a second of resistance against the surface of his vein, and then it was in.
She quickly pressed the plunger and yanked out the needle. A thin drop of blood marked where it had come out, and she wiped it away with her thumb, leaving a faint smear on his perfect skin.
She looked up and saw his pupils shrink to nothing, and a feeling of utter terror swept over her, freezing her in place. Myrnin's mouth was wide and red and smiling, and there was something about him that really, really wasn't at all right -
Then it was gone, as he blinked, and his pupils began to expand again to normal size. He shuddered and heaved a sigh.
"Unpleasant," he said. "Ah, there comes the warmth. Now, that's pleasant."
"It didn't hurt, though?"
"I don't like needles."
Which was funny enough to make her laugh. He frowned at her, but she kept giggling and had to cover her mouth with her hand as the laughter ratcheted higher and thinner, toward hysteria. Get it together, Claire.
"Better?" she asked him. Myrnin's arrogance was back, obvious in the look he sent her as she packed away the supplies.
"I wasn't bad," he said. "But I appreciate your concern."
The hallway ended up ahead in a pair of white swinging doors, and Myrnin took her hand and practically dragged her toward them. "Wait! Slow down!"
"Why?"
"Because I want to be sure you're - "
"Compos mentis? That's Latin, Claire. It means - "
"In your right mind, yes, I know."
"I'm not babbling nonsense. And I don't think I needed the shot in the first place." He sounded huffy about it. That was, Claire thought, the scariest part of it - Myrnin really couldn't tell when he was slipping away.
She hoped that was the scariest part, anyway. From the eagerness in Myrnin's face, she was afraid it might get a lot worse.
On the other side of the doors was the round foyer of the Elders' Council building, and it was packed. People stood talking, holding flutes of champagne or wine or something that was too red to be wine. All in costume, all masked.
"You were right," she said to Myrnin. "I think every vampire in town is here."
"And every one brought a little human friend," he said. "But I think you're the only one who was told the true reason."
Claire caught sight of Jennifer first, who was preening on the arm of Fran?ois, Bishop's protege. She was wearing a sixties costume of a tie-dyed halter top and tiny miniskirt, platform shoes, peace-sign jewelry. Her mask was an afterthought. Clearly, her whole costume's point was to show as much skin as possible without actually going nude. Good job, Claire thought. Fran?ois clearly approved. He was dressed as Zorro, all in black satin and leather, with a flat Spanish hat.
Near Jennifer was Monica, who'd gone as Marie Antoinette, from low-cut bodice to wide skirts. She'd tied a red ribbon around her throat, which made Claire feel a little queasy, and had a miniature guillotine in her hand. She was clinging to the arm of . . . Michael. Who looked, even with the mask, like he wished he was far, far away and anywhere but next to Monica. He was dressed as a priest, in a plain black cassock and white collar. No cross visible.
Claire followed Michael's eyeline across the room to a tall scarecrow - straight out of the scariest corn-field movie she could imagine - and a girl dressed as Sally from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas . . . Oliver, and Eve. Eve looked like the perfect Sally - wistful, sad, stitched together by nothing but hope.
And she was staring at Michael, too.
Oliver, on the other hand, was ignoring her to focus on everyone else. Looking around, Claire slowly picked out a few more she recognized. Her mother wasn't anywhere to be seen, but her father was dressed in a bear costume, looking intensely uncomfortable as he stood next to a middle-aged woman - vampire? - dressed as a witch.