Daylighters (The Morganville Vampires #15)(48)

Claire really doubted that, but she also thought it was a very bad thing for her that he might try it.

Michael was in there, too, under weaknesses. Fallon had written, Threats to Michael Glass may prove effective, as he is the only relative of Samuel Glass left in Morganville, and her attachment to Samuel is well known.

Definitely ominous.

Myrnin’s folder would have been interesting reading, in the historical section, but she skipped it and went straight for the strengths and weaknesses section. She was in it again, but she’d expected that. Apparently Fallon thought threatening her would get Myrnin in line.

He was probably right on that. Probably.

She didn’t even appear on Oliver’s lists. The only one who did was Amelie . . . as a weakness. Under strengths there wasn’t a person’s name at all. Only one word.

Ruthless.

Michael’s folder had a red stamp on the front page that said CURE.

Claire stared at it, frowning. The stamp had the Daylighters symbol beneath it, and she didn’t entirely understand what it meant, but it didn’t look good, she thought.

She wanted to take all of the folders, but there were too many, and they were too heavy. She just ripped out Fallon’s notes on each person and made a sheaf of paper that she stuck into Eve’s coffin purse. Then she slammed the drawer shut and started to get up.

Something caught her eye as she did . . . another folder, lying in the tray on top of the desk. This one also had a CURE stamp on the outside. She pulled it over and found that it belonged to a vampire she knew a little: Mr. Ransom. Ransom was an old, ghostly man who ran the local funeral home.

There were, she realized, little boxes under the CURE stamp. She hadn’t noticed them before. One said VOLUNTARY. The other said INVOLUNTARY.

The INVOLUNTARY box was checked on Ransom’s.

She opened it, and found the history again, and the strengths and weaknesses analysis page . . . in Ransom’s case, not very informative. He was too much of a loner, hardly interacting with even other vampires, much less humans.

But there was another page, a new one. There was a photo of Mr. Ransom.

He looked . . . dead.

It was a very clinical kind of picture, taken from above; Ransom’s body was lying on a steel table mostly covered by a thin white sheet. No wounds. He looked old and withered and pathetic, and she couldn’t imagine anything that would have kept a vampire lying there like that, being photographed, except a stake in the heart . . . but there was no stake in Ransom’s heart. No wound at all.

He just looked dead.

She flipped the page. It was a medical report, tersely worded.

Subject Ransom received the Cure in the appropriately measured dose as established in Protocol H, as determined by age, height, and weight. After a brief period of lucidity, his mental state rapidly declined, and he lapsed into a comatose state. He roused from this upon three occasions and indicated significant pain and distress. Recordings were made of his vocalizations, but the language was not familiar to any of the observers.

After the third period of partial lucidity, Subject Ransom experienced a rapid mental and physical decline, as has been previously documented in the trials; this decline fell within the boundaries of the approximately 73% failure rate. He evidenced a brief period of reversion to True Human before experiencing a fatal ischemic event. Time of death: 1348 hours.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Mr. Ransom was dead. Because of their so-called cure.

It couldn’t be called a cure if there was a seventy-three percent failure rate, could it?

She opened the drawer and checked Michael’s file again. The box was marked for an involuntary cure.

What had happened to Mr. Ransom— they meant to do it to Michael, too.

Claire ripped the information out of Ransom’s folder and added it to her stash, then quickly made her way back to the storage closet and out through the window. No sign of Fallon and Eve, but she saw a car’s taillights disappearing around the corner.

Claire ran for Eve’s hearse, digging the keys out of the purse.

She’d rarely driven the thing, but it couldn’t be much tougher than Shane’s beast of a muscle car; this was more of an ocean liner, with all the problems of maneuvering it around corners. Claire started the engine and did a super-wide turn in the nearly empty parking lot, heading for the street. She was just pausing to check directions when a voice way too close to her ear said, “So where are we going, then?”

Myrnin. She got a grip on herself after the first, uncontrollable flail of shock, and turned to glare at him. He was leaning over her seat, cheek almost pressing hers, and his eyes reflected red in the dashboard lights.

“Would you please sit back?” she said, once she had control of her voice again—though it stayed up in the higher registers. “You just scared ten years off of me.”

“Only ten? I’m losing my touch.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“Hiding,” he said. “You might have noticed that Fallon’s got his very own vampire-hunting pack of human hounds. Unfortunately, they had my scent for a while. I think I’ve thrown them off, but I thought it wise to go to ground for a while. You know that I’m clever as a fox.”

“Crazy like one, too,” she said. “Where’s Jenna?”

“Gone home,” he said. “She took me to my laboratory, but I found it in less than salutary condition. I got what I need, however.” He patted lumps under his shirt absently. “I do hope you’re going my way.”