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  Fall of Night

  ( The Morganville Vampires - 14 )

  Rachel Caine

  Thanks to its unique combination of human and vampire residents, Morganville, Texas, is a small college town with big-time problems. When student Claire Danvers gets the chance to experience life on the outside, she takes it. But Morganville isn't the only town with vampire trouble...

  Claire never thought she'd leave Morganville, but when she gets accepted into the graduate program at MIT, she can't pass up the opportunity. Saying good-bye to her friends is bittersweet, especially since things are still raw and unsettled between Claire and her boyfriend, Shane.

  Her new life at MIT is scary and exciting, but Morganville is never really far from Claire's mind. Enrolled in a special advanced study program with Professor Irene Anderson, a former Morganville native, Claire is able to work on her machine, which is designed to cancel the mental abilities of vampires.

  But when she begins testing her machine on live subjects, things quickly spiral out of control, and Claire starts to wonder whether leaving Morganville was the last mistake she'll ever make...

  Fall of Night

  (Book 14 in the Morganville Vampires series)

  A novel by Rachel Caine

  With all my best to my MIT alumni contacts, especially the lovely Sarah Vega, who introduced me to Jack Florey and helped me capture some of the unique flavour of the school. Errors are all hers. No, that’s wrong, I mean, all mine.

  This book couldn’t have been possible without the love, support and encouragement of many people, but especially Sarah Weiss, Janet Cadsawan and NiNi Burkart. Thanks, ladies. You rock. Always.

  INTRODUCTION

  Morganville, Texas isn’t like other towns. Oh, it’s small, dusty and ordinary, in most ways, but the thing is, there are these – well, let’s not be shy about it. Vampires. They own the town. They run it. And until recently, they were the unquestioned ruling class.

  But now Claire’s taken a sabbatical from the insular little world of Morganville, and a vacation from vampires, to pursue her dream of studying at a prestigious new school. Leaving town seems like a fresh start, but Claire knows by now that trouble follows her wherever she goes.

  Talk about a killer programme … she may wish for something as simple as the rules of Morganville.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The billboard at the edge of the border of Morganville hadn’t changed since Claire had first driven past it on the way into town at the tender age of sixteen. It seemed a lifetime ago, but here was the same old sign, faded and creaking in the dry desert wind. It had a 1950s-era couple (white, of course) next to a finned car as big as a boat, looking into the sunset. WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE. YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.

  Yet here she was. Leaving. Actually leaving.

  The weight of it felt suddenly unbearable, and the billboard dissolved into impressionistic swirls as tears formed hot in her eyes. She was finding it hard to catch her breath. I don’t have to go, she thought. I can turn around, go home, go back where it’s safe … because as crazy and dangerous as Morganville was, at least she’d learnt how to live in it. How to adapt, and survive, and even thrive. It had become, well, home. Comfortable.

  Out there … she wasn’t sure what she’d be any more, out there.

  It’s time to find out, the more adult part of her said. You have to see the world before you can give it up to be here. She supposed that was right. Didn’t the Amish send their kids out on rumspringa, to find out what life was like outside and make a real decision on whether or not to stay in their community? So, maybe she was on a kind of vampire rumspringa.

  Because that was what she was leaving, even though she definitely was not one of the plasma-challenged … a vampire community, with almost everything in some way related to them: to protecting them, making them money, giving them blood. In turn, at least theoretically, the vampires protected the town and the people in it. Didn’t always work, of course. But the surprising thing was that it did work, more often than not. And she thought, from the way things were settling down now, that it might work lots better this time around, now that the town’s founder Amelie was back in charge. And sane. Sane was a plus.

  ‘Troubled?’

  The voice made her gasp and turn, blinking away tears, because she’d actually forgotten that he was standing there. Not Shane. She’d left early, before her boyfriend was awake; she’d actually sneaked away before dawn, so that she could be off without goodbyes that she knew would rip her heart in pieces. Here she stood with her suitcases and her stuffed backpack, and Myrnin.

  Her vampire boss – if you could call being a mad scientist a profession – was standing next to the big black sedan he occasionally – very occasionally, thankfully – drove. (He was not a good driver. Understatement.) He wasn’t dressed crazily this morning, for a change. He’d left the Hawaiian shirts and floppy hats at home, and instead he looked as if he’d stepped out of an eighteenth-century drama – breeches that tucked into shiny black boots, a gold-coloured satin waistcoat, a coat over it that had tails. He’d even tied his normally wild shoulder-length hair back in a sleek black ponytail.

  Vampires, unlike humans, could stand perfectly still, and just now he looked like a carved statue … alabaster and ebony and gold.

  ‘No, I’m not troubled,’ she said, aware she’d hesitated way too long to answer him. She shivered a little. Here in the desert, at night, it was icy cold, though it would warm up nicely by midday. I won’t be here then, she realised. But Morganville would go on without her. That seemed … weird.

  ‘I am surprised you did not bring your friends to say goodbye,’ Myrnin offered. He sounded cautious, as if he was far from sure what the etiquette of this situation might be. ‘Surely it’s customary that they see you off on such a journey?’

  ‘I don’t care if it is,’ she said. A tumbleweed – a thorny, skeletal ball of nasty scratching branches – rolled toward her, and she sidestepped it. It ploughed into a tangle of its fellows that had piled up against the base of the billboard. ‘I don’t want them to cry. I don’t want to cry, either. I just – look, it’s hard enough, okay? Please don’t.’

  Myrnin’s shoulders lifted in a minute shrug. For the first time, as he turned his head away, she saw that he’d secured his ponytail with a big black bow. It fit what he was wearing, and it was weird that it didn’t look out of place on him. He looks like Mozart, she thought – or at least, how Mozart had been dressed in the paintings she’d seen.

  ‘It must have been easier when people dressed like that,’ she said. ‘Being a vampire. People made their faces white with powder, didn’t they? So you didn’t stand out so much.’

  ‘Not just their faces,’ he said. ‘They powdered their wigs, too. One could choke on the arsenic and talcum. I can’t imagine it was good for the lungs of living, but one does what one must for fashion. At least the women weren’t tottering around on five-inch heels, constantly in peril of breaking bones.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘What made it easier for vampires was that we lived by candlelight, lamplight – it makes everyone look healthier, even the sick. These harsh lights you favour now … well. Difficult. I heard that a few vampires have taken to those spray-tanning salons, to get the proper skin tones.’

  She almost laughed at that, at the image of a badass vampire like Oliver – ferocious and fearless – standing around in a Speedo to get himself painted. But Oliver had left Morganville, too … banished, now, from Amelie’s side, where he’d been ever since Claire had first come to town. That was probably the right thing to do, but Claire felt bad for him, a little. He’d betrayed the Founder, but he hadn’t meant it – and he hadn’t had a choice.

  If any vampire could survive in the
human world, though, it would be Oliver. He was clever, ruthless, and mostly without a conscience. Mostly.

  ‘You can still change your mind,’ Myrnin said. He stood perfectly still, except for the wind ruffling his clothes and the bow on his ponytail; he didn’t try to meet her eyes. ‘You know you don’t have to leave. No one wants you to go, truly.’

  ‘I know.’ That was all she’d been thinking about, for hours. She hadn’t slept, and her whole body ached with nervous tension. ‘You’re not the only one to tell me so.’ Shane, for instance. Though he’d been quiet about it, and gentle. It wasn’t that she was angry with him – God, no – but she needed, desperately, to make sure that he trusted her as much as she trusted him. She loved him, that was what made it so, so hard to do this. She needed him. But he’d screwed up, big time, in believing a big lie about her told by one of their enemies. He’d actually believed that she’d been sneaking around behind his back, with his best friend, Michael.

  She needed to think about how she felt about that disappointment on her own, but all she could really think right at this moment was how much she wanted to feel his warm, strong arms wrapped around her, his body shielding her from the cold. How much she wanted one more kiss, one more whisper, one more … everything.

  ‘The world out there isn’t like it is here,’ Myrnin said. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy for you here – and I’ve been a significant part of your challenges, as well. But Claire, I do know something of the world – I have been in it for hundreds of years, and although technology changes, people are little different, then or now. They are afraid, and they use that fear to excuse their own actions – whether it is theft or hatred, violence or murder. People bond themselves into families and groups for protection, and strangers … strangers are always at risk.’

  He was right. She’d come into Morganville a stranger, and she’d been at risk … until she’d found her group, her family, her place.

  Claire took in a deep breath. She kicked sand with her sneaker toe, and said, ‘Then I’ll find my group there, where I’m going. You know I can do it. I did it here.’

  ‘Here, you are exceptional,’ he said. ‘There, who knows? They might not value you as much as we do.’

  He’d put his finger on her greatest fear … the fear of not being the best. Of being just … average, like everybody else. She’d always worked so hard to excel, worked at it with a passion that was close to fear; going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the Holy Grail of that quest, but it also came with a double-edged risk. What if she wasn’t good enough? What if everybody else was faster, better, smarter, stronger? She couldn’t fail. She couldn’t. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, and forced a confident smile. ‘I can do this.’

  He sighed, then, and shrugged. ‘Yes. Yes, I imagine that you can,’ he said. ‘I wish it was otherwise. I’d rather you stayed here, safe.’

  ‘Safe!’ She burst out laughing, which made him give her a hurt look … but really, it was ridiculous. Nothing about Morganville, Texas was truly safe … it took a vampire to even suggest that. ‘I – never mind. Maybe being safe isn’t the best thing all the time. I need to be sure who I am out there, Myrnin. I need to be Claire, for a while, and find out who I am, deep down. Not part of something else that’s so much more – confident than I am.’ Or someone else. Because it wasn’t just Shane, it was Myrnin as well.

  He looked at her directly, then, with those warm dark eyes that seemed so human and yet, at the same time, were so very not. He’d seen so much – ages, generations, all kinds of horror and death, brilliance and beauty. And it showed. ‘I will miss you, Claire. You know that.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, and couldn’t look away. She wanted to, but Myrnin’s gaze held hers like a magnet. ‘I’ll miss you too.’

  He flew at her and embraced her, a sudden and awkward kind of thing; he was too strong, and too fast, and it drew a startled little squeak from her as her body remembered all too well how it felt to have fangs sinking into her neck … but then he was gone again, stepping away, turning toward the horizon where pink was painting the hills and scrub brush of the desert. The wind was cold, and picking up speed.

  ‘You should go,’ Claire said, and got control of her pounding heart, somehow. ‘My parents are on the way. They’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘A very poor escort I’d be to leave you out here in the dark, prey for anything,’ he said. ‘Highwaymen, and all that.’

  ‘Myrnin, there haven’t been highwaymen in at least a hundred years. Probably more.’

  ‘Robbers, then. Serial killers. The modern bogeyman under the bed, yes? Bad men skulking in the darkness have always been there, and always will.’ He flashed a smile at her, which was made unsettling by the extra-long eyeteeth, but he was still glancing uneasily at the horizon. Myrnin was old; he wouldn’t burst into flames with the rise of the sun, but he’d be uncomfortably scorched. ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.’

  ‘More than a little,’ she sighed, and caught sight of car headlights speeding over the crest of the far hill. Mom and Dad. She felt a little surge of excitement, but it was quickly overwhelmed with a huge wave of sadness and longing. It felt different from what she expected, leaving Morganville … leaving her friends behind. Leaving Shane. ‘They’re coming. You should go.’

  ‘Should I not see you off?’

  ‘In that get-up?’

  Myrnin looked down at himself, baffled. ‘It’s most elegant!’

  ‘When you were partying down with Beethoven, maybe, but today you look like you’re on your way to a fancy dress ball.’

  ‘So I ought to have worn the casual shirt with it, then?’

  Claire almost smiled at the idea of one of his loud Hawaiian shirts thrown on over breeches and boots. ‘God, no. You look great. Just not … period appropriate. So go on, I’ll be fine, okay?’

  He looked at the car, coming fast toward them, and finally nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Professor Anderson will be expecting you. Don’t forget, you can use the telephone to call me.’

  He seemed proud he’d remembered that – modern tech not being his strongest skill – and Claire struggled not to roll her eyes. ‘I won’t forget,’ she said. ‘You’d better get in your car. Sun’s coming up, I don’t want you to get burnt.’

  It was. She could see the hot gold edge of it just cresting the hill to the east, and the sky above had turned a dark indigo blue. In minutes, it’d be full daylight, and Myrnin needed to be under cover.

  He nodded to her, and gave her a formal, antique bow, which looked weirdly perfect in that outfit. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Not all dangers have a vampire’s fangs. Or a vampire’s predictability.’ He moved fast to the driver’s side of his car, opened the door, and then hesitated for one second more to say, ‘I will miss you very much, Claire.’

  He slammed the door and turned the engine on before she could say, ‘I’ll miss you too, Myrnin.’ And then he was gone, roaring back into Morganville’s town limits …

  … He rocketed past yet another car that was going way too fast out of Morganville. Claire’s ride was still a couple of miles away, heading in … this car was heading out, toward her.

  And she knew that car very well.

  The big black hearse skidded to a halt just at the border of the billboard. In fact, it fishtailed sideways as it stopped, and the passenger door flew open so hard Claire was surprised it didn’t break off … and then her boyfriend Shane was hurtling out of it, heading for her at a run.

  ‘No,’ he blurted, and threw his arms around her. ‘You don’t get to go like that.’

  She felt stiff for a moment, with shock and fear of the pain that was coming, but then the familiar lines and planes of his body made her relax against him. Two halves, fitting as if they’d been moulded that way, despite the fact he towered over her. And then she was kissing him, or he was kissing her, and it was wild and hot and desperate and agonising and heartbreaking, and when they finally broke with a gasp she
rested her forehead against his chest. She could feel him breathing too fast, hear his heartbeat pounding too loudly. I’m doing this to him, she thought. He’s hurting and it’s my fault.

  But she knew she wasn’t wrong about this. She loved Shane, loved him with so much certainty it was like sunrise, but she also knew that he had to see her differently – and she needed to see herself differently, if they were going to last. When he’d met her she’d been helpless, defenceless, and now she needed to prove she was not just his equal, but his independent equal.

  Whether he – or she – liked it or not.

  Over at the car, Michael had gotten out of the driver’s side and was leaning against the fender; he seemed content to wait, but he was also eyeing the horizon, where the sun was rising fast. In minutes, he’d be bathed in light, and at his very young vampire age, that was not good.

  Claire put her hand on Shane’s cheek, a silent promise, and then dashed over to Michael to throw her arms around him. In the thin dawn light, he looked human again – skin tinted pink, eyes the endless clear blue of a summer sky. He kissed her cheek and hugged her with careful strength. ‘You didn’t really think we’d let you get away with no goodbyes, did you?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He kissed her forehead, very gently. ‘Come back safe, and come back soon,’ he whispered to her. ‘We love you.’

  ‘Love you too, Michael,’ she said, and stepped back. ‘You’d better get inside.’

  He nodded and retreated to the car’s blacked-out back bench seats – vampire tinting was way better than anything on human cars, and it would keep him safe from the fierce Texas day – and then it was Eve’s turn.

  Michael’s wife hadn’t taken time to get properly dressed; she looked exactly as if she’d bounced out of bed in her cartoon bat pyjama bottoms and tank top, with her dyed-black hair in a messy scraped-together knot at the back of her head. She still had sleep wrinkles on her cheek, and without her Goth make-up, she looked ridiculously young. She was also wearing vampire bunny slippers. Myrnin had given them each a pair for Christmas, since they’d all found his so hilarious, and as Eve marched toward Claire, the rabbit slippers’ mouths flapped up and down, their red tongues flashing and plush teeth biting the ground.