I wanted Magnus. I wanted the bastard who’d started this, who owned it, who had killed Claire and nearly killed me along with her, even though I’d gotten her back.

Magnus, of course, didn’t risk himself.

Myrnin figured this out, because that was what Myrnin did; like Claire, he was a sideways thinker, and while the rest of us Joe Average idiots blasted away at the draug in front of us, he stepped away toward the edge of the pool and crouched down. He had a beaker in his hand, glittering and full to the brim with deadly silver and he set it down to pry the cap loose.

“He’s in the water!” Myrnin shouted. “Keep them busy—”

But he didn’t have time to finish whatever he was going to say, because Magnus reached up out of the water, grabbed him, and dragged him down.

I dropped my shotgun and ran for the beaker, pried the top off, and emptied it into the water.

The silver inside sluiced out into the water in a spreading, toxic stream. Myrnin had hold of something that had to be Magnus, the master draug, the first draug, and he was pulling him relentlessly toward the silver.

And into it.

I couldn’t see Myrnin at all now, because the water went from murky to black, swirling with vivid veins of silver. And then boiling.

The vampires were just standing there, even Oliver, staring down into the water. Nobody was moving. Captain Obvious wasn’t going to go racing to the rescue, either.

I’m not going to lie; I could have saved Myrnin. I was probably the only one who could have, who might have survived diving into that boiling, raging pool where the draug were dying.

But I didn’t try.

I left him there to die.

Just like he left you. Remember? Left you to be eaten. You need to wake up. NOW.

Nobody had left me behind. I was fine. I was just fine.

It’s you in there. You’re being consumed, Shane. Eaten. Can’t you feel it?

I did, for an agonizing second of utter horror. Felt it stripping me bare. Felt the invasion.

And then the calm settled over me, and it was all okay.

Everything was okay.

Always.

The clock ran faster after that.

The time between the pool and Claire’s eighteenth birthday was a gauzy blur; I didn’t remember much, but nothing much happened to remember, either. Amelie got better. Vampires came back. Morganville got rebuilt. Nothing ever changes, really—that’s how Morganville is. It just … exists.

I was just happy. We were all … happy. Claire cried over Myrnin, but she was happy he had saved us, happy he had died a hero.

The hero of Morganville.

The martyr.

You’re no martyr. You’re a fighter. So fight. NOW. Stop this!

Everything was fine.

One year to the day from their not-so-successful engagement party, Michael and Eve finally tied the knot, in the church with Father Joe presiding. Amelie gave her blessing, and I had to wear a tuxedo and a tie. Eve wore bloodred. Of course she did. Claire was the one who looked like a bride, really; she was wearing some other color, but I didn’t really notice except to see the light in her eyes and the smile on her lips as Michael and Eve kissed under the flower arch. Eve threw the bouquet, and as usual, her throwing arm sucked, especially backward, because somehow she managed to throw it to me. I tossed it back. On the second try she hit Monica Morrell, Bitch Queen, which was so not going to happen; no man in his right mind would go there.