Ghost Town (20 page)

Claire spent the rest of the afternoon humming around, ridiculously happy; when Eve came home and saw her, she put down her coffin-shaped purse and said, “You look mussed. If I wasn’t a total lady, I’d guess that you and Shane—”

“Excuse me? You’re a
lady
?”

“I bought a title on the Internet. I own one square inch of Scotland, you know. And you’re changing the subject.” Eve gave her a sharp grin and grabbed her hand. “Give, already. Deets.”

“I’m
not
telling you details.”

“Sure you are. We’re girls. It’s what we do!”

“If we were guys, that would be gross.”

“Wait, checking . . .” Eve held an invisible phone to her ear. “Nope. We’re still girls, and the referee says that makes it okay. So give it up, Danvers. You look starry-eyed. It must have been fantastic.”

Claire
might
have actually told her, at least up to the parts that made her blush, but just then, Michael came in the front door toting his guitar, tossed his keys into the tray on the hall table, and yelled, “Eve’s got dinner duty!”

“Hey!” Eve yelled back, and stomped her foot. “Your timing
sucks
, Michael!”

“Why, was there hot wild-girl action—”

“Shut
up
, you perv.”

“Can’t catch a break,” he said, and flopped down in the chair. “I was just speaking for Shane, since he’s off heroically chopping barbecue for money. Hey, you guys notice anything weird happening the last couple of days?”

Claire forgot all about the fun she’d just been having, and focused in on him with laser intensity. “Other than the vampire going nuts at the diner, you mean?”

“Yeah, I see your point, but I mean . . .
more
people acting weird. More than usual. Two of my guitar students didn’t show up. When I called one of them, he said he didn’t know what I was talking about, and he wasn’t learning the guitar. Which is definitely strange, because he’s already paid me for the whole month.”

Michael had noticed it. It
wasn’t
all in her head. Claire swallowed and glanced at Eve, who was frowning, too. “I guess,” Eve said slowly, and crossed her arms over her black and pink striped rugby shirt, with a skull where the logo should have been. “When I got to the coffee bar on campus, there was this girl wandering around, asking everybody if they’d seen her roommate. Trouble is, she doesn’t have a roommate. She hasn’t for, like, years. But she was describing her like she actually existed.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Michael nodded. “Weird shit. I met at least two other people today who thought it was a couple of years ago. What the hell, right?”

“Right,” Claire said softly. Her good feelings, intense though they’d been, were officially gone now. Whatever was happening in Morganville, it wasn’t in her head, and it was spreading.

She was going to have to go to Amelie if Myrnin didn’t want to believe it. They had to take the system offline, run a full diagnostic. There was just nothing else to do.

Amelie wouldn’t like it. Oliver
really
wouldn’t like it.

“It’s probably nothing big,” Eve said, and both Michael and Claire looked at her like they’d never seen her before. “I mean, it’s
Morganville
. Not like anybody here is ever far from the borders of Psychoville. I mean, I want to go nuts about twelve times a day.”

Michael stood up, facing Claire. “You know something about what’s going on, don’t you?” he asked, and she saw a flicker of vampire red in his blue eyes—just a spark, but enough to let her know he was serious. “Is it what you and Myrnin were working on? Is that it?”

“I don’t know,” Claire admitted. “But I’m going to find out.”

She just had no idea how to do that without Myrnin’s help.

When she got up, Claire checked the calendar and saw that there was another Elders’ Council meeting scheduled for noon. That was the best time, she thought; she could probably get in, and once she laid it all out, Richard would be on her side, and Hannah. Hannah probably had more info about the weirdness than anybody else. Amelie and Oliver would have to act.

Going to the Elders’ Council wasn’t something Claire took lightly. She took a shower, fixed her hair carefully, dressed in her best black shirt and pants, and added the delicate cross necklace that Shane had given her, back when they’d first started all this. She had his mother’s claddagh ring on, too. It made her feel stronger.

Downstairs, she turned on the TV while she ate her breakfast—eggs wrapped in a flour tortilla, with salsa. She tuned to the local Morganville station. Usually it was full of town propaganda about how great everything was, but not today; today, somebody had decided to put on some actual breaking news.

FAMILY OF FOUR KILLED IN MURDER/SUICIDE

Claire choked on her breakfast burrito. She didn’t know the names that flashed on the screen, but it was awful enough, anyway; the kids were fourteen and twelve. The dad had freaked out yesterday, gotten hospitalized in the crazy ward overnight, then been sent home.

That had been a mistake, and now there were dead people. Dead
kids
.

Claire called up the Morganville Police Department and asked to be put through to Chief Moses. Hannah wasn’t in the office, but the switchboard put the call through to her in her patrol car. She sounded stressed. “What is it, Claire? It’s a busy day.”

“I understand, but I need to get into the Elders’ Council today. Can I go with you?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I need to tell them about what I think is causing these problems around town.”

Hannah was quiet a moment, then said, “All right. I’ll come get you in half an hour. Stay there. Don’t go outside.”

Claire felt a stab of unease. “Why?”

“Things are getting worse. We lost a whole family last night, and there are plenty of other problems. Just stay where you are, all right? This is important.”

“I’ll be here.” Claire hung up and stared down at her blank cell phone screen as if it might contain the secrets of the universe. Then she went to the window and looked out.

At first, she couldn’t see anything odd at all, but then she saw flashing police lights three streets over. She could just make out struggling shapes.

One of them was
on fire
. Like a vampire who’d decided to stroll around in the daylight.

Claire stepped back from the window and ran into Michael, who was standing behind her. She whirled, slammed her hand into his chest, and pushed him back. “Hey!” she said sharply. “Creep much, Michael? Man, don’t do that!”

He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “What?” she demanded. Her heart was still pounding from the shock. She was waiting for him to say
boo
or laugh or shove her back, like they normally would.

He said, “What are you doing here?”

“Looking out the window?”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t just . . .” He hesitated, and seemed to waver a little, as if he’d gone dizzy. “Can’t just—”

“Michael?”

“Can’t just come in here and—”

“Michael! ”

He put a hand to his head, as if he hurt, and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he took a deep breath, looked at her, and said, “Oh, hey, you’re up. Is there any coffee?”

She just stared at him, trying to see any more signs that something was going wrong with him. She remembered the vampire at Marjo’s Diner—and how suddenly she’d flipped out on that poor waitress. Could it happen to Michael? Could she end up fighting him off any second? Not that she’d be
able
to fight him off. Michael was tall, strong, and very, very fast. She’d have a better chance of punching a speeding truck.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said. “Okay, I’ll make the coffee. What’s up with the window?”

She wordlessly pointed out to the flashing police car lights. They’d thrown a blanket over whoever was on fire. Michael looked, and then said, “What do you think? International spy ring? Meth lab? People who pissed off Oliver this week?”

He sounded so
normal
now. And he obviously didn’t even remember having that little . . . glitch. Claire cleared her throat and said, “I’ll make coffee.” It gave her an excuse to walk away from him, although he followed her into the kitchen. She got out the filters and the coffee and started loading the machine while Michael got down two mugs and put them on the table. “Hannah’s picking me up,” she said. “I’ll ask her about your international-spy-ring theory.”

“I’m betting on meth lab.”

Claire poured the water in and started up the machine, which hissed and gurgled and immediately reminded her of the gutted, reworked mechanical zombie of Ada under the basement of the lab. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah, why? Didn’t you?”

She had, but now she wanted to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over her head. “Did . . . ah, did you have any dreams?”

Now he was really looking at her as if she was a mental case. “Sure, I guess. Why do you want to talk about my dreams all of a sudden? What did
you
dream? Am I going to be embarrassed I asked?”

She’d been hoping maybe he’d casually say,
Yeah, I had this weird dream where I didn’t know you
, but instead, she’d made him think there was something wrong with her. Perfect. The coffee machine started filling the pot, to her relief. Michael was easily distracted with coffee. Sure enough, as soon as there was enough for a cup, he got up, took it off the burner, and poured half in his mug, half in hers. That was nice of him. “Claire?” he asked, as he slotted the glass carafe back in its spot. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“Not . . . specifically.”

“Why is Hannah picking you up?”

Oh,
that
. She was almost relieved. “I need to go to the Elders’ Council today, that’s all. Nothing dangerous, I promise.”

“You’re not trying to get that kid Kyle out of the cage, are you? Because that would be dangerous on a lot of fronts.”

Well, she might try to talk Amelie out of it, but she didn’t think Michael necessarily needed to know that. “I’m not going to do anything crazy,” she said, which was safe, because crazy these days was definitely open to interpretation. “I just want to talk to her about the machine. I don’t think it’s working right, Michael. And now people are—”

“Dying,” he said softly. “I saw the news. You think he killed his family because of whatever’s going wrong with the machine?”

“It’s like the vampire in the diner who went crazy. I think that man knew something was wrong, and he couldn’t deal with it.” Claire shuddered. “It must seem like a nightmare, and you can’t wake up. I tried to tell Myrnin, but he . . . he was weird about it. Weirder than usual, I mean.”

That made Michael pause in sipping his coffee. “He’s not doing anything he shouldn’t be doing, right?”

“Like what?”

“Like hitting on you.”

“Ew. No, of course not. He doesn’t see me that way.” Michael shook his head and went back to his coffee. “What? You think he does?”

“Sometimes he looks at you a little . . . oddly, that’s all. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he just wants you for your blood.”

“Again,
ew
! What’s with you this morning?”

“Not enough coffee.” The pot was filled now, so he got up and refilled his mug. She didn’t get a second free service, but, Claire reflected, maybe she didn’t need more coffee this morning. She was plenty jittery.

They got off of the subject of Myrnin, which was a relief, and onto things Michael liked to talk about, like the new songs he was writing. His demo CD was going to be out in the next two months, and he was supposed to see the packaging for it soon, too. That was cool.

He was telling her all about it when the doorbell rang. Hannah. Claire dumped out the rest of her coffee, told Michael she’d call if anything happened, and bounced.

Hannah was dressed in her cop uniform, looking serious and intimidating, even though she was lounging against a pillar on the porch with her arms folded. She turned her head as Claire came out and locked the door. She’d gathered up her braided hair, tied it, and put it up in a kind of bun; it looked cool, but then, Hannah always looked cool. It was something she just radiated, like body heat. “Morning, Claire.”

“Hey.” Claire nodded. “Do you want some coffee? We just made a pot.”

“I’ve got some in the car. Let’s go.” Hannah was already heading down the walk toward her cruiser, so Claire hurried after her, taking two steps for every one of Hannah’s longer legs. “Thanks for staying inside.”

Claire got in on the passenger side of the police car and put on her seat belt. As Hannah started the car, she said, “What was happening?”

“Where?”

“Over there.” Claire pointed in the approximate direction where she’d seen the other police cars. “Something happened.”

“Nothing you need to worry about right now.” That wasn’t like Hannah Moses at all. She was usually relaxed, calm, confident, and she was hardly ever evasive. Now she sounded tense.

Claire tried for humor. “Michael and I had a bet. He said meth lab. I say international spy ring.”

“Neither,” Hannah said, and pulled the car away from the curb. “What are you going to tell the council?”

“I . . . don’t want to talk about it yet.”

“You should,” Hannah said. “My lover woke up this morning and didn’t recognize me.”

Claire blinked. “Your . . . what?”

“Yes, get over it, Claire; women older than you have boy-friends. But he didn’t know who I was. He said he’d never met me.” Hannah was
crying
. Not a lot, just a shimmer of tears in her eyes, but it was chilling. Claire didn’t know what to say. “It lasted a while, and then he was fine. It’s been happening all over town, but only to some people. For some it’s worse than others, and it doesn’t seem to go away. You heard about the murders?” Claire nodded. “Do you know something about what’s causing it?”

“I—” Claire swallowed hard. “Maybe. Yeah. I think so.”

Hannah pressed harder on the gas. “Then let’s get you to the council, because I want this stopped. I never want to feel that again, and I never want to work another murder scene like the one I saw last night.”