“But you don’t believe that.”

“I think the draug are more than capable of strategy,” Myrnin said, “and strategically, they are in a defensive mode at this point. We’ve hurt them; they have not overwhelmed us as quickly as they’d hoped, and they can’t attack us directly at Founder’s Square. So they’re hiding until they regain their numbers, and I believe they will conceal themselves here, at the treatment plant. It is a natural stronghold for them—they can infest this maze of iron and water like a horde of starving cockroaches, and they’ll be just as hard to anticipate and to kill in such close quarters.”

“Wow,” Shane said. “You really know how to drum up team spirit. Did you print up Team Total Fail jerseys, too?”

Myrnin gave him an entirely crazy smile. “Would you be surprised if I had?” He threw another large sheet of paper out over the map. It was a blueprint. “There are two phases to this operation, if there is to be one. The pools are a direct attack, but there is something else that is entirely necessary before that can occur: we must stop them from easily traveling through the pipes in Morganville. Right now, they have easy access through those pipes into homes, businesses, all of the abandoned structures. The university. We cannot allow them to have such easy mobility.”

“Okay, it isn’t manly to admit it, but I don’t speak blueprint,” Shane said. “So what are we talking about exactly?”

“We need to shut off the water system,” Myrnin said. “There are emergency cutoff valves that will stop the flow of water in the pipes throughout Morganville, trapping the draug where they are if they’ve infested them, and stranding those at the treatment plant there, unable to retreat.”

“It’s still raining,” Shane pointed out.

“True, but in this desert it can’t last forever. The only reason they attempted it was that it was the only way they could reach Morganville at all. Amelie chose this town specifically for its isolation, dry climate, and lack of standing water. It’s served us well, until now.”

Myrnin, Claire thought, was sounding remarkably together, but he also looked tired. She could see the bruised skin under his eyes, and the slight tremor in his hands. Even bipolar vampires needed sleep from time to time, and he was well past his recommended safe dosage of stress.

Michael was staring at the blueprints as if he really understood what he was seeing. He was even nodding. “Right,” he said. “So it looks like there’s a main control room here”—he tapped the plans, then traced a line—“and physical shutoffs here, for emergencies. What are our chances that the draug haven’t already figured out this is a point of danger for them?”

“Zero,” Myrnin said cheerfully, “since Magnus is remarkably intelligent about such things. The draug in general are poor and limited in their reasoning skills, but their master is another matter altogether.”

“Why can’t we go after him?” Michael said. “What happens if we kill Magnus?”